Doubtless before the Fall, Innocence was given to Man for a Covering, and he not only knew not that he was naked, but he really was not naked, though he was not clothed; he knew not how to blush at being naked much less why.
The same Innocence is the Protection of Virtue to this Day in the untaught Savages in many Parts of the now known World, where Nakedness is no Offence on one side, no Snare, no Incentive on the other; but Custom being the Judge of Decency to them, takes away all Sense of Indecency in going uncovered, whether in whole, or in Part. See Mr. Milton upon that Head:
In Naked Majesty
So pass'd they Naked on, nor shunn'd the Sight
Of God or Angel, for they thought no Ill.
Milton, Par, fol. 95.
Now the same Custom in these Northern Parts having concurr'd with the Necessity of the Climate on one Hand, and the Laws of Religion on the other, to cloath and cover the Body; the Breach of that Custom would be a Breach of Decency, and a Breach of the Laws both of God and Man.
Hence Modesty succeeds, whether as a Virtue in it self, or as an Appendix to Virtue, we will not dispute; but where the Rules of Decency are broken, a Sense of Shame comes in, with as much Force as if all the Laws of God and Man were broken at once.
It may be true, that if Man had continued in a State of unspotted Innocence, unshaken Virtue had been Part of it; that as his Soul
