Abernathy - Houston-Packer Collection BX9178.A33 S4 1748 v.4

70 Of Natural, Moral, and Civil Liberty. S E x M, and of their approved obedience and con - III. demned difobedience to it, for which they °"°°`P°''' accufed and excufed themfelves and one an- other. Enjoying thefe advantages, they might and ought to have preferved their moral liberty. And befides, providence frequently raifed up eminent inftrudors even in the heathen world, who, by great dili- gence, made very remarkable improvements in the knowledge of morality itfelf, and taught noble fentiments upon the fubjeä of liberty and virtue; not to fpeak of the ex- traordinary prophets whom God fent to teach one nation of the earth, from whence very confiderable lights were carried into heathenifh darknefs. But the fulleft mani- fellation of the divine wifdom and grace was referved to the d fßenfation of the 'any; of time, when God having railed up his Son, fent him to biefs men, in turning them away from their iniquities, to redeem them from their vain converfation, which they had received by tradition from their fathers, and fo make them free indeed, by removing their ignorance, diflipating their errors and pre- indices, railing them from their death in trefpaf es and fins, and forming their hearts to the love, and their lives to the practice of virtue. To

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