y other Occasion, blush to ask any
rational Man, _viz_. If they do not perceive an intrinsic Beauty and
Excellence in Virtue, as opposed to Vice; independent of all
_positive_ or arbitrary Appointment, tho' of the _Deity_ itself; and
whether, besides the Commands of God, (which to be sure are of high
Importance, and ought ever to be urged with great Strength and
Energy) they do not also _press_ upon their Hearers, the Practice of
Virtue, and endeavour to recommend, and inforce it on the Mind, from
its _own_ native Charms? But to make this Matter, still, if
possible, more evident; let us suppose the present excellent Order
of Things inverted, and that God, of his own mere Pleasure, had
given Mankind quite contrary Laws, and commanded _Rebellion, Murder,
Ingratitude_, and all Manner of Intemperance and Debauchery, instead
of their _opposite virtues;_ would the same Fitness, Beauty, and
Propriety, appear to these Gentlemen, as there now does, in
_Virtue?_ If not, from whence the Difference arises, let them
answer.

As God is an infinite Mind or Spirit, perfectly acquainted, at every
Instant of Time, with whatever _hath been, is_, or _shall be;_ and
all Things _possible to be;_ 'tis evident, that all possible
Relations of Persons and Things are fully known to him; and that all
_moral_ and _divine_ Obligations, arising from the Relation we stand
in to God, and to each other, did, in their own Nature, _previous_
to actual Law or Commandment, exist; because the one was in Time,
and the other Eternal; one commenced only (at best) with the _Being_
and _Beginning_ of Creatures, the other was from all Eternity,
_co-existent_ with the _Divine Wisdom_ itself; and such an inseparable
Concomitant therewith, that, in regard to the _Divine Being_,
himself, it was absolutely impossible, but that, on his creating
such a Rank of Beings as we are, _moral_ and _religious_ Obligations
must have been _invariably_ and _unalterably_ the same; and if, as
these Men teach, God's having commanded the Practice of Virtue, be
its peculiar Sanction, and that _alone_ which distinguishes it from
Vice or Evil; then, by the same or as good an Argument, his
commanding Light in the Beginning, is all the Reason we have for
esteeming Light and Darkness different, (as they really are) the one
being the actual Pretence of a real Body, and the other a mere Name,
to signify its Absence; not that Vice is therefore a mere Name, to
signify the Absence of Virtue, for