By which words, and the rest of that section, it is plain that I brought that passage of St.Paul, not to prove that the general measure of what men called virtue and vice throughout the world was the reputation and fashion of each particular society within itself; but to show that, though it were so, yet, for reasons I there give, men, in that way of denominating their actions, did not for the most part much stray from the Law of Nature; which is that standing and unalterable rule by which they ought to judge of the moral rectitude and gravity of their actions, and accordingly denominate them virtues or vices.

Had Mr.Lowde considered this, he would have found it little to his purpose to have quoted this passage in a sense I used it not; and would I imagine have spared the application he subjoins to it, as not very necessary.

But I hope this Second Edition will give him satisfaction on the point, and that this matter is now so expressed as to show him there was no cause for scruple.
Though I am forced to differ from him in these apprehensions he has expressed, in the latter end of his preface, concerning what I had said about virtue and vice, yet we are better agreed than he thinks in what he says in his third chapter (p.

78) concerning "natural inscription and innate notions." I shall not deny him the privilege he claims (p.

52), to state the question as he pleases, especially when he states it so as to leave nothing in it contrary to what I have said.