"That
virtue joined with piety is the best worship of God," can be an innate
principle, when the name or sound virtue, is so hard to be understood;
liable to so much uncertainty in its signification; and the thing it
stands for so much contended about and difficult to be known. And
therefore this cannot be but a very uncertain rule of human
practice, and serve but very little to the conduct of our lives, and
is therefore very unfit to be assigned as an innate practical
principle.
18. Of little use if they were innate. For let us consider this
proposition as to its meaning, (for it is the sense, and not sound,
that is and must be the principle or common notion,) viz. "Virtue is
the best worship of God," i.e. is most acceptable to him; which, if
virtue be taken, as most commonly it is, for those actions which,
according to the different opinions of several countries, are
accounted laudable, will be a proposition so far from being certain,
that it will not be true. If virtue be taken for actions conformable
to God's will, or to the rule prescribed by God- which is the true and
only measure of virtue when virtue is used to signify what is in its
own nature right and good- then this proposition, "That virtue is
the best worship of God," will be most true and certain, but of very
little use in human life: since it will amount to no more but this,
viz.
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