University of Virginia Library

7. Laws.

The laws that men generally refer their actions to, to judge of their rectitude or obliquity, seem to me to be these three:--1. The divine law. 2. The civil law. 3. The law of opinion or reputation, if I may so call it. By the relation they bear to the first of these, men judge whether their actions are sins or duties; by the second, whether they be criminal or innocent; and by the third, whether they be virtues or vices.