Excerpt from Theological Institutes: Or, a View of the Evidences, Doctrines, Morals, and Institutions of Christianity The Theological System of the Holy Scriptures being the subject of our inquiries, it is essential to our undertaking to establish their Divine Authority. But before the direct evidence which the case admits is adduced, our attention may be profitably engaged by several considerations, which afford presumptive evidence in favor of the Revelations of the Old and New Testaments. These are of so much weight that they ought not, in fairness, to be overlooked; nor can their force be easily resisted by the impartial inquirer. The moral agency of man is a principle on which much depends in such an investigation; and, from its bearing upon the question at issue, requires our first notice. He is a moral agent who is capable of performing moral actions; and an action is rendered moral by two circumstances, - that it is voluntary, and that it has respect to some rule which determines it to be good or evil. "Moral good and evil," says Locke, "is the conformity or disagreement of our voluntary actions to some law, whereby good or evil is drawn upon us from the will or power of the law-maker." The terms found in all languages, and the laws which have been enacted in all states with accompanying penalties, as well as the praise or dispraise which men in all ages have expressed respecting the conduct of each other, sufficiently show, that man has always been considered as an agent actually performing, or capable of performing moral actions, for as such he has been treated. No one ever thought of making laws to regulate the conduct of the inferior animals, or of holding them up to public censure or approbation. The rules by which the moral quality of actions has been determined are, however, not those only which have been embodied in the legislation of civil communities. Many actions would be judged good or evil, were all civil codes abolished; and others are daily condemned or approved in the judgment of mankind, which are not of a kind to be recognized by public laws. Of the moral nature of human actions there must have been a perception in the minds of men, previous to the enactment of laws. Upon this common perception all law is founded, and claims the consent and support of society, for in all human legislative codes there is an express or tacit appeal to principles previously acknowledged, as reasons for their enactment. This distinction in the moral quality of actions previous to the establishment of civil regulations, and independent of them, may in part be traced to its having been observed that certain actions are injurious to society, and that to abstain from them is essential to its well-being. Murder and theft may be given as instances. It has also been perceived that such actions result from certain affections of the mind; and the indulgence or restraint of such affections has therefore been also regarded as a moral act. Anger, revenge, and cupidity have been deemed evils as the sources of injuries of various kinds; and humanity, self-government, and integrity, have been ranked among the virtues; and thus both certain actions, and the principles from which they spring, have, from their effect upon society, been determined to be good or evil. But it has likewise been observed by every man, that individual happiness, as truly as social order and interests, is materially affected by particular acts, and by those feelings of the heart which give rise to them; as, for instance, by anger, malice, envy, impatience, cupidity, etc.; and that whatever civilized men in all places and in all ages have agreed to call vice, is inimical to health of body, or to peace of mind, or to both. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com