A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

XXINTRODUCTION.bility of the mind ; not from its habits, but from itsconstruction.Another argument on the same side is derived fromthe circumstance, that the same actions have beenregarded as virtuous or vicious in all ages. The detailsof history are but little more than an account ofmutations. Perpetual mutations have taken placein governments and literature. Similar alterationsare observable in the history of the various systems ofreligion that have prevailed at different periods : theobjects of worship, and the modes by which they havebeen adored, have all in their turn disappeared, andgiven place to new deities and new rites. Amid thisby which almost every thing hasperpetual alterationbeen attended, it is remarkable that the general principlesof morality have been permanently acknowledged.The same actions which were deemed viciousor virtuous thousands of years ago, continue in thesame estimation. Generosity, gratitude, fidelity, integrity,justice, and kindness, have had a universal andperpetual empire over the veneration of mankind.Their opposite vices have never ascended from theirdegradation. They have been recommended or condemned,notas the result of the adjudicature of theirtendencies on the social happiness of man, but asexciting emotions of pleasure or disgust. This identityof the virtues and vices in all ages, can only beascribed to the fixed laws, by which they are recognizedas such, implanted in the human heart." Cast your eyes," says Rousseau, " over all the nationsof the world, and all the histories of the nations.Amid so many inhuman and absurd superstitions, amidthat prodigious diversity of opinions and characters.