In order to confute so odious a doctrine it was necessary to prove, that antecedent to all law or positive institution, the mind was na|turally indowed with a faculty by which it distinguished in certain actions and affections the qualities of right, laudable and virtuous, and in others those of wrong, blameable and vitious.
Law, it was justly observed by Dr. Cud|worth * 1.1, could not be the original source of those distinctions; since upon the supposi|tion of such a law, it must either be right to obey it, and wrong to disobey it, or indiffe|rent whether we obeyed it, or disobeyed it. That law which it was indifferent whether we obeyed or disobeyed, could not, it was evident, be the source of those distinctions; neither could that which it was right to obey and wrong to disobey, since even this 〈◊〉〈◊〉 supposed the antecedent notions or ideas of right and wrong, and that obedience to the law was conformable to the idea of right, and disobedience to that of wrong.
Since the mind, therefore, had a notion 〈◊〉〈◊〉 those distinctions antecedent to all law, 〈◊〉〈◊〉 seemed necessarily to follow, that it deriv••••
