It was the privilege of Adam innocent, to have these notions also
firm and untainted, to carry his monitor in his bosom, his law in his
heart, and to have such a conscience as might be its own casuist;
and certainly those actions must needs be regular where there is an
identity between the rule and the faculty. His own mind taught him a
due dependence upon God, and chalked out to him the just proportions
and measures of behavior to his fellow creatures. He had no catechism
but the creation, needed no study but reflection, read no book but the
volume of the world, and that too, not for the rules to work by,
but for the objects to work upon. Reason was his tutor, and first
principles his _magna moralia_. The decalogue of Moses was but a
transcript, not an original. All the laws of nations, and wise decrees
of states, the statutes of Solon, and the twelve tables, were but
a paraphrase upon this standing rectitude of nature, this fruitful
principle of justice, that was ready to run out and enlarge itself
into suitable demonstrations upon all emergent objects and occasions.
And this much for the image of God, as it shone in man's
understanding.
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