The Next Thing Is By Gentle Degrees

For It Will Be Very Difficult To Persuade Men Of Sense That He Who With Dry Eyes And Satisfaction Of Mind Can Deliver His Brother To The Executioner To Be Burnt Alive, Does Sincerely And Heartily Concern Himself To Save That Brother From The Flames Of Hell In The World To Come.

I Attribute The Little I Know To My Not Having Been Ashamed To Ask For Information, And To My Rule Of Conversing With All Descriptions Of Men On Those Topics That Form Their Own Peculiar Professions And Pursuits.

Thus The Law Of Nature Stands As An Eternal Rule To All Men, Legislators As Well As Others. The Rules That They Make For Other Mens Actions, Must, As Well As Their Own And Other Mens Actions, Be Conformable To The Law Of Nature, I.e. To The Will Of God, Of Which That Is A Declaration, And The Fundamental Law Of Nature Being The Preservation Of Mankind, No Human Sanction Can Be Good, Or Valid Against It.

And Because It May Be Too Great A Temptation To Human Frailty, Apt To Grasp At Power, For The Same Persons, Who Have The Power Of Making Laws, To Have Also In Their Hands The Power To Execute Them, Whereby They May Exempt Themselves From Obedience To The Laws They Make, And Suit The Law, Both In Its Making, And Execution, To Their Own Private Advantage.

To Love Truth For Truth's Sake Is The Principal Part Of Human Perfection In This World, And The Seed-plot Of All Other Virtues.