13. If men can be ignorant of what is innate, certainty is not described by innate principles.
From what has been
said, I think we may safely conclude, that whatever practical rule is in any place generally and with allowance
broken, cannot be supposed innate; it being impossible that men should, without shame or fear, confidently and
serenely, break a rule which they could not but evidently know that God had set up, and would certainly punish
the breach of, (which they must, if it were innate,) to a degree to make it a very ill bargain to the transgressor.
Without such a knowledge as this, a man can never be certain that anything is his duty. Ignorance or doubt of the
law, hopes to escape the knowledge or power of the law-maker, or the like, may make men give way to a present
appetite; but let any one see the fault, and the rod by it, and with the transgression, a fire ready to punish it; a
pleasure tempting, and the hand of the Almighty visibly held up and prepared to take vengeance, (for this must be
the case where any duty is imprinted on the mind,) and then tell me whether it be possible for people with such a
prospect, such a certain knowledge as this, wantonly, and without scruple, to offend against a law which they
carry about them in indelible characters, and that stares them in the face whilst they are breaking it? Whether men,
at the same time that they feel in themselves the imprinted edicts of an Omnipotent Law-maker, can, with
assurance and gaiety, slight and trample underfoot his most sacred injunctions? And lastly, whether it be possible
that whilst a man thus openly bids defiance to this innate law and supreme Lawgiver, all the bystanders, yea, even
the governors and rulers of the people, full of the same sense both of the law and Law-maker, should silently
connive, without testifying their dislike or laying the least blame on it? Principles of actions indeed there are
lodged in men's appetites; but these are so far from being innate moral principles, that if they were left to their full
swing they would carry men to the overturning of all morality. Moral laws are set as a curb and restraint to these
exorbitant desires, which they cannot be but by rewards and punishments that will overbalance the satisfaction
any one shall propose to himself in the breach of the law. If, therefore, anything be imprinted on the minds of all
men as a law, all men must have a certain and unavoidable knowledge that certain and unavoidable punishment
will attend the breach of it. For if men can be ignorant or doubtful of what is innate, innate principles are insisted
on, and urged to no purpose; truth and certainty (the things pretended) are not at all secured by them; but men are
in the same uncertain floating estate with as without them. An evident indubitable knowledge of unavoidable
punishment, great enough to make the transgression very uneligible, must accompany an innate law; unless with
an innate law they can suppose an innate Gospel too. I would not here be mistaken, as if, because I deny an innate
law, I thought there were none but positive laws. There is a great deal of difference between an innate law, and a
law of nature; between something imprinted on our minds in their very original, and something that we, being
ignorant of, may attain to the knowledge of, by the use and due application of our natural faculties. And I think
they equally forsake the truth who, running into contrary extremes, either affirm an innate law, or deny that there
is a law knowable by the light of nature, i.e., without the help of positive revelation.
