to the preservation of society, and visibly beneficial to all with whom
the virtuous man has to do; it is no wonder that every one should not
only allow, but recommend and magnify those rules to others, from whose
observance of them he is sure to reap advantage to himself. He may, out
of interest as well as conviction, cry up that for sacred, which, if
once trampled on and profaned, he himself cannot be safe nor secure.
This, though it takes nothing from the moral and eternal obligation
which these rules evidently have, yet it shows that the outward
acknowledgment men pay to them in their words proves not that they are
innate principles: nay, it proves not so much as that men assent to
them inwardly in their own minds, as the inviolable rules of their own
practice; since we find that self-interest, and the conveniences of this
life, make many men own an outward profession and approbation of them,
whose actions sufficiently prove that they very little consider the
Lawgiver that prescribed these rules; nor the hell that he has ordained
for the punishment of those that transgress them.


7. Men's actions convince us, that the Rule of Virtue is not their
internal Principle.

For, if we will not in civility allow too much sincerity to the
professions of most men, but think their actions to be the interpreters
of their thoughts, we shall find that they have no such internal
veneration for these rules, nor so full a persuasion of their certainty
and obligation. The great principle of morality, 'To do as one would be
done to,' is more commended than practised. But the breach of this rule
cannot be a greater vice, than to teach others, that it is no moral
rule, nor obligatory, would be thought madness, and contrary to that
interest men sacrifice to, when they break it themselves. Perhaps