2. To employ all the faculties which he had given them, particularly their understanding and liberty, he gave them a law, a compleat model of all truth, so far as is intelligible to a finite being, and of all good, so far as angelic minds were capable of embracing it. It was also the design of their beneficent governor herein, to make way for a continual increase of their happiness: seeing every instance of obedience to that law, would both add to the perfection of their nature, and intitle them to an higher reward, which the righteous judge would give in its season. 3. *In like manner, when God in his appointed time, had created a new order of intelligent beings, when he had raised man from the dust of the earth, breathed into him the breath of life, and caused him to become a living soul, endued with power to chuse good or evil: he gave to this free, intelligent creature, the same law as to his first-born children: not wrote indeed upon tables of stone, or any corruptible substance, but engraven on his heart by the finger of God, wrote in the inmost spirit both of men and of angels: to the intent it might never be far off, never hard to be understood; but always at hand, and always shining with clear light, even as the sun in the midst of heaven. 4. Such was the original of the law of God. With regard to man, it was co-eval with his nature. But with regard to the elder sons of God, it shone in its full splendor, _or ever the mountains were brought forth, on the earth and the round world were made_. But it was not long before man rebelled against God, and by breaking this glorious law, well nigh effaced it out of his heart; _the eyes of his understanding_ being _darkened_, in the same measure as his soul was _alienated from the life of_ God. And yet God did not despise the work of his own hands: but being reconciled to man thro’ the Son of his love, he in some measure re-inscribed the law, on the heart of his dark, sinful creature. _He_ again _shewed thee, O man what is good_ (altho’ not as in the beginning) _even to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy_ God. 5. And this he shewed not only to our first parents, but likewise to all their posterity, by _that true light which enlightens every man that cometh into the world_. But notwithstanding this light, all flesh had in process of time _corrupted their way before him_: till he chose out of mankind a peculiar people, to whom he gave a more perfect knowledge of his law. And the heads of this, because they were slow of understanding, he wrote on two tables of stone; which he commanded the fathers to teach their children, thro’ all succeeding generations.