Page:The Hardships of the English Laws in Relation to Wives. Bodleian copy.pdf/69

 Thus far I have poken of the jutice and Mercy of God's Sentence, give me Leave now to conider the Widom of it.

Moral Virtues are in their very Nature the Objects of our Undertandings; they are o many divine Truths, which whoever perceives cannot but perceive their Excellence; but yet this Perception of Truth or the bare Knowledge of our Duty is not ufficient to make us act agreeable to it: The Will whoe Province it is to obey and execute the Dictates of Reaon, is continually rebelling againt and uurping Authority over it; it not only tops us in the Puruit of Truth, makes us wink hard and hut our Eyes againt the Light, but even where it cannot thus hoodwink our Undertanding, it frequently exerts its Tyranny the more, and makes us act in Contradiction to it. It is this Malignity in the Will of Man that occaions all the Evils and Diorders of the moral World; omewhat therefore beides the bare Excellence of Virtue was really wanting to correct and abate its Virulence; and to this End are directed God's Poitive Commands. The Beauty and Excellence of Virtue influenced even our firt Parents no longer than while they obeyed God's poitive Command, and had no irregular Paions, Prejudices, or evil bits,