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., "That God is pleased with the doing of
what he commands;"--which a man may certainly know to be true, without knowing what it is that God doth
command; and so be as far from any rule or principle of his actions as he was before. And I think very few will
take a proposition which amounts to no more than this, viz., "That God is pleased with the doing of what he
himself commands," for an innate moral principle written on the minds of all men, (however true and certain it
may be,) since it teaches so little. Whosoever does so will have reason to think hundreds of propositions innate
principles; since there are many which have as good a title as this to be received for such, which nobody yet ever
put into that rank of innate principles.
