of all Moral Duties be laid in the Law of Nature yet the practice of every Duty with respect to acceptance with God since the fall is regulated by that great positive Law of the New Covenant which enjoyns the tendring of all things through the Messiah Now the manner of performance being an essential ingredient into the determination of the Moral quality of an action and the New Covenant determining this as the manner in which every Moral action ought to be performed it naturally follows that Faith in Jesus Christ is become an ingredient into and a part of every Moral Duty § 14. Having intimated the introduction of a remedying-Remedying-Law and the subordination of the Original Law thereunto That which we are next to address to is the unfolding our impotency and inability for the performance of the Duties and Conditions of this Law of Grace We here suppose that the New Covenant hath its terms and conditions as well as the Old Every Covenant of God made with us as with parties Covenanting doth by vertue of the Nature of the thing require some performance or other of us antecedently to our having an interest in and benefit by the promises of that stipulation We take likewise for granted that Repentance towards God and Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ Act. 20.21 are the terms and conditions of the New Covenant The state and condition of Weakness Alienation and Enmity that we are in to these great Duties of the Gospel is what I intend a little farther to treat First then The terms of the Gospel together with the foundations on which they bear were not discernable by Natural Light They take their alone Rise in the soveraign will and pleasure of God nor is there any medium by which we can know the free determinations of the Divine Will but his own Declaration These things have no foundation in the imagination of any Creature They are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things not possible to be found out by sense or reason It is only Faith on the Word of God that gives 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 evidence and convincing demonstration of them and that begets an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or confidence and full assurance concerning them Heb. 11.1 Hence it is that the Gospel is so often stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a mystery see Math. 13.11 Rom. 16.25 Eph. 1.9 6.19 1 Cor. 4.1 c. Some take the word to be of a Hebrew Original and to be equivalent to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a secret or a thing hidden others derive it from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nicto clausos oculos habeo Whencesoever we fetch it the unsearchableness and hiddenness of the Gospel is intended in it The New Covenant both in the Doctrines and Duties of it lies in a higher Region than humane Reason in its most daring flight can mount to The matters and concerns of it are omni ingenio altiora out of the reach of Reason to discern till brought nigh by the Revelation of them in the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The world by all their Natural and Metaphysical Wisdom knew not God viz. as reconciling Sinners to himself by Christ till by the Gospel and the Preaching of it he made it known 1 Cor. 1.21 How should it come under the Apprehensions of men when it lay out of the reach of the Angelical Understanding Eph. 3.10 Unto Principalities and Powers in Heavenly places is made known by the Church the manifold Wisdom of God Had it not been for God's revealing it to the Church the Angels themselves had abode in everlasting ignorance of it There are no footsteps of it in the whole Creation nor evidence of it in the works of Providence The Placability of God through Christ is no part of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of that which maybe known of God by the things that are made Alas How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard Rom. 10.14 That sin is pardonable we can only learn it there where we are taught how it is actually pardoned Before we can be sure of the Reconcileableness of God or the remissableness of Sin upon Faith and Repentance We must first be perswaded of one of these three 1. Either that God both can will forgive Sin without any satisfaction But this according to the Amyraldians themselves contradicts that idea of Righteousness Holiness and Justice which we have of God Or 2. That the Sinner himself can make satisfaction but that is repugnant to Natural light as much if not more than the former Or 3. That God hath found out a way of satisfying himself and that either by the death of his Son or by some other means not the first for as much as there is not one Iota of the incarnation death satisfaction c. of Christ in the whole book of Creation and Providence neither the second because notwithstanding the advantages which we through the enjoyments of the Scripture have beyond the Heathen of knowing what could have been and what could not have been we are yet so far from any clear certain grounds of believing the possibility of Salvation in any other way that we are furnished with very momentous arguments to the contrary Besides if I should not not be counted Young Raw Petulant c. I would ask the Disciples of Amyrald whether the works of God do naturally and by a vertue intrinsecal to them declare this Placability of God and Pardonableness of Sin on Faith and Repentance or whether they do it by vertue of a Divine Institution If they affirm the last pray how come the Heathens without a Revelation acquainted with that Institution Where and by whom had God told the world so much If they assert the first which alone carries probability in it Then 1. Adam from his own and his Wifes not being instantly destroyed upon the commission of Sin had sufficient assurance of the Placability of God and pardonableness of Sin previously unto and abstracting from all promulgation of the Covenant of Grace 2. How is it that seeing there are in the Government of the World as manifest instances of God's severity as his Lenity that forgetting all thoughts of the Wrath and Anger of God they should only possess a perswasion of his Mercy and Kindness 3. Suppose that God had preserved the Creation in Being without transacting with Sinners in a Covenant of Grace which I think implies no Contradiction pray what then of the Placableness and Compassion of God could it have taught us In a word all the Notices which the Heathen have or at any time had of the Reconcileableness of God they had it by Tradition from the Church nor do they resolve themselves into any other Original Shall I add in the last place that I never understood the consistency of the Amyraldian Hypothesis either with the Wisdom or Goodness of God A Reconcileableness on terms which according to those we are dealing
Commandments of God with a performance of the superadded Duties which respect the Mediator is the qualification required in every one that would escape legal Wrath. And if it were not thus the most wicked might lay claim to Pardon and Salvation as well as the most Holy And the Gospel in stead of being an engagement to duty were an indulgence to sin Christ is the Author of Salvation to none but to them who thus obey him Heb. 5.9 And that we may not here deceive our selves and think that we are sincere when we are not I will only mention two things leaving the prosecution of them to practical discourses 1. That to live in the constant allowed neglect of any duty or prosecution of any sin is inconsistent with sincerity 1 Joh. 3.6 10. Rom. 6.12 14 20. 2. There are some sins which the very falling into argues the heart never to have been upright with God 1 Joh. 5.16 17 18. Secondly Improvement in all habits of Grace and degrees of Holiness with endeavours after a most exact strictness are likewise required of us Be ye perfect as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect see 2 Pet. 1.5 6 7 8. 2 Pet. 3.18 2 Cor. 7.1 And though damnation be not denounced here in case of faileur yet hereupon we miss much comfortable communion with God are liable to the withdrawments of the sense of his love and are exposed to what paternal castigations he thinks fit in his Wisdom to inflict Psal. 89.31 32 33. Thirdly There is provision made in the New Covenant for the promotion of our strength and growth if we be not wanting to our selves There is a fulness of Grace in Christ out of which we have ascertainment of supply providing we attend unto the means appointed for the Communication of it An unshaken Faith in the power of God and in the assistance of the Spirit a watching unto prayer with diligence and constancy Meditation of the ugliness of every sin and amiableness of Universal Righteousness c. are exceeding useful hereunto Here mainly lies a Believers Province and the attainment is not onely possible but easie if sloth negligence love of ease indulgence to the flesh superficialness in Duty unbelief of the promises do not preclude and bar us But then we are only to blame our selves not to slander the provisions of the Gospel Fourthly In the vertue of Gods furnishing us with a principle of Grace the heart is immediatly imbued with a sincere Love to God and becomes habitually inclined to walk in his Laws Obedience is connatural to the New principle And though through remains of indwelling sin and the souls hearkning to temptations we be not so uniform in our Obedience nor at all times alike disposed to Holy exercises yet partly from the struglings and workings of the vital seed it self and partly through the supplies ministred by the Spirit according to our exigences we are so far secured that we shall not disannul the Covenant see 1 Joh. 3.9 Jer. 32.42 1 Cor. 10.13 1 Pet. 1.5 So that now upon the whole Christs yoke is an easie yoke Math. 11.30 nor are his Commandments grievous 1 Joh. 5.3 CHAP. III. 1 The Question reassumed Two Great Instruments of Duty The measure regulating it and the principle in the strength of which it is performed The first of these discoursed in this chap. 2. All that Relates to Religion belongs either to Faith or Obedience so far as Natural Light is defective in being the measure of that so far is it defective in being the measure of this 3. All Obedience refers either to Worship or Manners Natural Light not the measure of Religious Worship 4. An inquiry into the Original of Sacrifices not derived from the Light of Nature nor taken up by Humane Agreement their foundation on a divine Institution justified at length 5. Manners either Regulated by Moral Laws or by Positive Natural Light no Rule of positive Duties 6. As it's subjective in Man not a sufficient Rule of Moral ones 7. Considered as objective in the Decalogue only an adequate Rule of Moral performances not of Instituted Religion § 1. I Cannot think that I have digressed from the subject which I have undertaken while I have been discoursing Principles which have so great an influence as well upon the due Understanding as the right deciding of it These being then proposed and confirmed in the former Chapter We are now not only at leisure but somewhat better prepared for the prosecuting the assertion at first delivered viz. That Morality doth not comprehend the whole of practical Religion nor do'th all the Obedience we owe to God consist in Moral Vertue For the clearer stating and determining of this it must be observed that there are two great Instruments of Duty the measure Regulating it which we call Law and the Principle in the strength of which it is to be performed which we call Power That directs and instructs us about it this adapts and qualifies us to the performance of it By the first we are furnished with the means of knowing it and by the second with strength to discharge it Both these were at first concreated with subjective in our Natures There resided in us Originally not only an ability of mind of discerning the whole of our Duty which the Law of Creation exacted of us but a sufficient power to fulfil it Whether since the Fall we abide qualified as to either of these is yet farther to be debated The first we shall Discuss in this Chapter having designed the following for the examination of the other We have already demonstrated the Law of Creation commonly called the Law of Nature to be the alone Rule and measure of Moral Vertue This is granted by a late Author The practice of Vertue saith he consists in living suitably to the Dictates of Reason and Nature Eccl. Polit. p. 68. Now the Law of Nature may be considered either as 't is Subjective in man or as 't is Objective in the Decalogue As 't is Subjective in man 't is vulgarly stiled Right Reason The Light of Nature The Philosophers who were the primitive Authors of the Term Vertue knew no other Rule by which it was to be regulated but Reason This they made the alone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of vertues Mediocrity The Mediocrity of Vertue saith Aristotle is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Right Reason dictates Eth. lib. 3 cap. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vertue is a Habit measured by right Reason idem Eth. lib. 4. cap. 3. Other testimonies to this purpose we have elsewhere produced viz. cap. 1. Now I affirm that the Law of Nature is no sufficient Measure of Religion and consequently that all Religion consists not in the meer practice of Vertue but that there is something beyond the bounds of Moral Vertue besides Chimera's and flying Dragons Eccl. Pol. p. 69. def and continuat p. 338 339. ibid. p. 315. And that the Christian Institution is not a
had never assumed the Sacerdotal Office which they did by their offering Sacrifices these two being Relates But I find I have been already too prolix upon this head and they who can withstand the force of the fore-going Arguments are not like to be influenced by any thing I am further able to subjoyne § 5. We have already shewn that the whole of Obedience which we owe to God belongs either to Worship or Manners We have also declared the insufficiency of Natural Light for the Regulating of Worship Our next task is to demonstrate the defectiveness of it as to the conduct of Manners Manners are either such Duties as in themselves are acceptable and good or such as derive all their goodness from a Command with respect to the first revealed Laws are only declarative of the goodness of the Duty The Absolute Bonity of it having an antecedent foundation in the Nature of God the Nature of man and the Relation that man stands in to God But with reference to the second supernatural Law is constitutive of the goodness of the Duty There being nothing in the thing it self previous to the Command rendring it so And here though obedience be a Moral Duty yet the Law prescribing it is not properly Moral Law For the Morality of Obedience ariseth not from the Nature of the Command but from the Relation we stand in to God and the Dependence we have on him whereas the Morality of Law hath its Reason in the Nature of God and the congruity or incongruity of things enjoyned or forbidden to it That there are acts of Obedience distinct from Natural Duties which yet are not properly acts of Worship might be demonstrated by innumerable instances Of this kind there are several Duties founded in personal commands whereby none were obliged but onely they to whom they were immediatly given Such was the Duty of Abrahams leaving his Fathers House being built on a precept wherein he only was concerned The like may be said of the Obligation laid on the young man in the Gospel of selling all that he had c. Of this sort also there are several Duties arising from Divine Laws which concerned only a particular Nation and yet emerged not from Laws properly Ritual Of which number we may reckon the Obligations proceeding from the Judicials given to the Jews at least where the Reason of them was not Natural Equity By these Laws they came under Obligations that the rest of man-kind were not concerned in Yea they became bound to some things which setting aside the positive Law of God could not have been lawfully done and which at this day no Nation or Person can practice with Innocency viz. The Marrying the Widow of a Brother dead without Issue Such Laws Gods Dominion over all men as his Creatures authoriseth him to make and that as a proof of his own absolute Prerogative and for tryal of his Creatures obedience Nor did God ever leave man since he first Created him singly to the Law of Nature for the payment of that Homage he owes him but even to Adam in Innocency he thought fit to give a positive Law a Law which for the matter of it had no foundation at all in Mans Nature further than that he was obliged by his Nature to do whatsoever God enjoyned him Now these Laws having their foundation in Institution not in Nature The Reason of them being not so much the Holiness of God as his Soveraignty Natural Light can no ways be suppos'd a due measure of them nor able to instruct about them All that Obedience that resolves into the Will of God must suppose Revelation in that nothing else can discover its Obligation to man-kind saith a late Author Def. continuat p. 427. How consistently to himself in other places where he tells that all Religion consists in nothing else but the practice of Vertue and that the practice of Vertue consists in living suitably to the dictates of Reason and Nature I leave to himself to declare That there are positive Laws of God now in being and that in the vertue of them we are under Obligation to several Duties I shall God willing evince when I come to shew the insufficiency of the Law of Nature as it's Objective in the Decalogue as to being the measure of the whole Obedience we owe to God § 6. That there are Natural Laws as well as positive and that the latter are but accessions to the former we have else-where demonstrated Now these Laws being stiled Natural non respectu Objecti not because of their object many of the Duties we are under the Sanction of by them referring immediatly to God but respectu principii medii per quod cognoscimus because communicated to our Nature and cognoscible by Natural Light If the Light of Nature alone be of significancy in any thing 't is here And indeed the Writings of Heathen Philosophers such as Aristotle Plato Epictetus Seneca Plutarch Cicero Hierocles Plotinus c. The Laws of Pagan Common-wealths especially the Republicks of Greece and Rome the vertuous actions of persons not enlightned by Revelation of all ranks and qualities such as Socrates Aristides Phâ—cion Cato and many others not easie to be recounted shew that men left to the meer conduct of Natural Light can attain a better insight into the Duties of Nature than of Religion and know more of Vertue than of Piety For as both Amyrald and Sir Charles Wolseley besides others observe Cicero wrote to better purpose in his books de officiis than he did in those de Naturâ Deorum Yea even the Platonists the great Refiners of Religious Ceremonies who in stead of obscene and barbarous usages introduced civil and modest Rites discoursed much better of Vertue than Divinity Their Sentiments for the conduct of conservation being for the most part Rational and Generous whereas their Theological Notions are either obscure uncertain or romantick If we be then able to prove that Natural Light or the Law of Nature as it is subjective in man since the Fall is no sufficient measure of Moral Duties or of those Duties we are under the Sanction of by the Law of Creation we shall get one step farther in our design namely that Natural Light is a very inadaequate measure of Religion In confirmation of this I might in the first place take notice how the great pretenders to the conduct of Reason prevaricated in all those prime Laws of Nature which Relate to the Unity of the God-head Though not onely the Being but the Unity of the Divine Nature be witnessed to by every mans Reason and we need onely exercise our faculties against Polytheism as well as Atheism Yet the Universality of man-kind setting aside those who had the benefit of a supernatural Revelation not onely sunk into the belief and adoration of a plurality of Gods but into the worshipping those for Gods whom to acknowledg for such is more irrational than to believe that
that essentially belonged to them â— Interrogas quid petam ex virtute ipsamâ— nihil enim est melius ipsa pretium sui estâ— Senec. de vit beat vid. etiam de Clement cap. 1. Epist. 113. But first it is 〈◊〉 palpable contradiction that any action or habit should be Morally beautiful otherwise than as it respects God whose Nature and Will is the measure of all its Moral pulchritude and therefore it ought to be referred to the honor of its Model Yea not onely the Will of God but his Nature requires that what-ever derives from him either as its idea or source should be ultimately resolved and terminated in him as its Center Secondly It is most false that either Habit or Act can be Rationally chosen or finally rested in for it self But either some benefit to our selves and friends or the honor and glory of some other must be proposed and intended by them For as all Habits are desired in reference to actions and operations so if in every action we design not an end in order to the attainment of which we so act we declare our selves brutish and irrational Though Brutus was as far tinctur'd with a persuasion that Vertue was its own End and Reward as any man else whatsoever yet it is most certain that he reckoned upon the accruement of something else by it whereof judging himself disappointed he proclaim'd Vertue to be but an empty Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I shall shut up this with a sentence or two of Austin Virtutes cum ad seipsas referuntur nec propter aliud expetuntur inflatae ac superbae sunt When Vertues are sought onely for themselves they degenerate into Pride and become Idols and the prosecution of them is Idolatry Proinde virtutes quas sibi videtur habere homo nisi ad Deum retulerit etiam ipsa vitia sunt potius quam virtutes Therefore the Vertues which a man thinks he hath if they be not referred to God they are Vices rather than Vertues de Civit. Dei lib. 9. cap. 25. vide Jansen de Stat. Natur laps lib. 4. cap. 11 12 13. It appears then from the whole of what we have said that the Law of Creation or of Reason as it is subjective in Man is so far from being the Rule of Religion in its utmost latitude that it is not a sufficient measure of Moral Vertue § 7. We come next to consider the Law of Nature or Right Reason as 't is Objective in the Decalogue which we have declared to be a transcript of the Law of Creation chap. 2. § 4. and have also demonstrated its perfection and sufficiency for the Regulating the Duties we are under by the said Law chap. 2. § 13. We cannot without very unbecoming thoughâ—s of the Wisdome of the Legislator but judge it a compleat Measure of all Moral Offices and performances seeing God designed it for a Law of Morality For as Plato says it belongs to a Law-giver not only to have an eye to a few things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but to have an Universal respect to all and to every Vertue de legib 10. Nor can this be denyed of the supreme Rector presupposing him supernaturally to reveal a Law of Manners without reflexion both on his Nature and Government We will allow the Orator to complain latius patere officiorum quam Juris Regulam That there is more belongs to our Duty than ever was enacted by any Civil Law but we dare not entertain the like thoughts of the Divine Law especially when it was given by God for this very end that we might be illuminated and conducted by it in the offices of Morality It is no part of my concern at present to enquire whether the Decalogue comprehend any more in it than a transcript of the Original Law or whether besides its being a Collection of Natural Laws there may not be some positive precepts as well as arbitrary appendices added to it It is enough to me that it contains an Epitome of the Dictates of Right Reason and that 't is a compendious Draught and Model of the Law of Nature nor will I at this time interest my self in that Controversie whether there by any thing else required in it yea or not I withal readily grant that Obedience to all the Duties of Instituted Religion is bound upon the Soul by the Law of the Ten Commandments seeing that obligeth us to obey God in all the declared Instances of his Will As there is nothing in positive Religion repugnant to any principle of Nature so these very duties which do immediately fundate in Gods Will do challenge our obedience in the Vertue of a Natural Law I crave also to have it observed That the Decalogue may be considered either as it is a meer Draught and Delineation of the Law of Creation or as having annexed to it a Remedial Law to which in its most exacting Rigor it was made subservient Though the Law of the Ten Commandments for the matter and substance of it be one and the same with the Law of Creation being in this respect only Renovatio antiquae Legis not Latio novae and still Natural with reference to the things enacted though positive as to the manner of the promulgation Yet as given by Moses there is a Law of Grace couched in it which no wise appertain'd to it as communicated at first with our Natures Hence the Lord in the very Preface of the Decalogue treats with them as their God Exod. 20.1 i. e. as their everlasting Benefactor which in the Vertue of the Covenant of Works and in Reference to the meer Law of Creation he neither was nor could be since the first ingress of sin In this sense David takes the Law in most of his Encomiums of it And in this acceptation I acknowledge the Law to be the measure of all the main Duties which we owe to God either in the way of Natural or Instituted Religion It is true there are some Duties of peculiar New-Testament institution but those as they are in themselves of a subordinate Nature to the great demands of the Law of Faith being chiefly stipulations of our performing the conditions of it So both the constituting practising of them had been unsuitable to the Old Testament oeconomie The like may be said concerning those obligations which we are manumitted and set free from which the Mosaick Church were under the Sanction of That which I undertake the Justification of is this that the Decalogue as it is a meer transcript of the Law of nature or right Reason is not the measure of the whole of Religion nor as it is Christian of the most momentous parts of it Nor can the contrary be affirmed without renouncing of the Gospel which I am afrai'd too many as being weary of it are ready to doe For First if the Decalogue as it is a meer new Edition of the Original Law of nature be the sole and only Measure
the same Mint that the former term did and we are beholding to the schools of the Philosophers for it Aristotles books 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gave the principal rise to this word Quintilian denies that there is any Latine word by which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 can be expressed lib. 6. cap. 3. But Tully renders them by mores manners Lib de fato and Orat. de lege Agrariâ ad Quirites The Schoolmen brought this exotick phrase as they did many other first into Divinity And it must be acknowledged of most of them that they seem to have traded more in the writings of the philosophers than in the sacred Scriptures and to have taken their measures of the notions and apprehensions of things rather from Aristotle than the Bible You may see this laid open at length both as to matter of fact and the mischievous consequences which have ensued thereupon by that great and incomparable man Dr. Owen De natur ort c. verae Theolog. lib. 1. digress lib. 6. a pag. 509. ad p. 521. However it being now universally taken up and having harboured it self both in the minds and discourses of men it would be in vain for us to contend against it we shall sufficiently approve our selves if we can manifest the just acceptation of it Moral as it relates to vertue is capable at most but of a threefold signification First to denote the conformity of our minds and actions to the whole law of God regulating our practical obedience But this description whether we take our measure from vertue to which it is an adjunct and of which it is predicated or from law which first claiming the Denomination of Moral doth afterwards impart it to certain habits of the mind and its operations is much too large If we determine of the meaning of it by vertue Then for as much as in all true affirmative propositions there must be an identity betwixt the subject and the predicate Moral must relate onely to an observation of these things and a practice of those duties which vertue refer's to namely an observance of what Reason without any superadded declaration can conduct us in and natural endowments and self acquirements inable us to the performance of Nor could the first Authors of this Term mean any more by it being at once strangers to all external Revelation Subjective grace Or if we should choose to decide the import of Moral as it refers to Vertue by taking our measure of its signification from Law as that to which the stile of Moral primarily belongs and by analogy only to habits and operations we shall still find that the foresaid signification of Moral is too wide for according to this method of proceed Moral as referred to vertue can be of no larger extent than Moral as referred to law is Seeing then it were against ordinary sense and the custome of mankind to stile every law of practical obedience moral it is no less irrational to stile the conformity of our minds and actions to those laws by the name of Moral Vertues A Second signification put upon Moral as it hath reference to Vertue is to intimate thereby the observation of the precepts of the Second table of the decalogue and this is the common acceptation of it among practical Divines whereof I judg this to be the reason either because the Philosophers in their writings vulgarly called Ethicks and Morals do principally treat of the duties which men owe to themselves and one another which are likewise the subject of the Second Table or because they discourse of those only with any consistency to reason and commeâ—â—dableness while in the mean time in what soever we owe immediately to God the imaginations are vain and their sentiment dark and ludicrous But this acceptatioâ— of Moral Vertues I take to be as much toâ— narrow as the former was wide nor dâ— any that handle these matters accurately so straiten and restrain them For whether we state the meaning of Moral by its Habitude to Vertue or to that Law which is so denominated We must admit it a greater latitude of signification than meerly to imply Second-Table duties If we judg of its import by its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Vertue we must then allow it the same largeness of sence whâ—ch we allow that namely to declare whatsoever is required of us by the Law of Nature in the Light of Reason and I suppose it will be readily acknowledged that there are some duties which we owe immediately to God and which respect him alone as their object that can be demonstrated by principles drawn from Nature and the foundations and grounds of them discovered in the Light of Reason and by consequence Moral Vertues ought not to be confined to the observation of the precepts of the Second Table Or if we determine the sense of Moral by its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Relation to that law which is so called and with respect to conformity to which the Habit 's and Operations of our minds are afterwards denominated Moral it will with the same evidence follow that the Duties of Morality consist not alone in obeying the commandments of the Second Table forasmuch as the Precepts of the First constitute a part of the Moral Law as well as these of the Second do There is a Third sence which Moral as it belongs to vertue is capable of namely to declare those habits and operations of the mind required by the law of creation And this sence of Moral will prove either stricter or larger according as we take the measure of the term from vertue or from law If we define the meaning of it by its habitude to vertue it will then signify only those duties that we are under the obligation of by the law of creation which we are able to discover by the light of Reason But if we determine the sence of it by that law which is commonly called moral it will then express all those duties either to God or Man which we are obliged to by the rule of creation whether there reside in man in his lapsed state an ability of discerning them by Reason yea or not Now this being the most comprehensive notion of moral vertues or duties of morality that any one who have treated those things with exactness have pitched on and being the largest sence which in any propriety of Speech the Term can be used in I shall be willing to admit this as the true notion and idea of it Morality then consistâ— in an observance of the precepts of the law of our creation that by the alone strength and improvement of our natural abilities whether the particular duties we are under the sanction of by the foresaid law be discoverable by and in the light of Reason yea or not § 5. Besides these moral vertues whereof we have been discoursing and whose nature we have fixed and stated There is frequent
is elevated adapted and brought into a disposedness of living to and acting for Him Now this Habitual Grace is twofold Gratia sani hominis and Gratia aegroti the Grace of innocency and the Grace of Recovery The first is stiled by Austin nâ—â—turae sanitas animae sanitas adjutorium robâ—â—ris naturalis The Health of the soul thâ— concreated aid communicated at first to and with our Nature the Second he callâ— Gratia medicinalis medicinale salvatori auxilium Medicinal Grace the Souls cure These two differ no less than health anâ— Physick do This acceptation of Grace iâ— frequent in the Scripture Joh. 1.14 The Word was made flesh and dwelt amonâ— us full of Grace and truth ibid. v. 16. Oâ— his fulness have all we received and Gracâ— for Grace Eph. 4 7. Unto every one of uâ— is given Grace according to the measure oâ— the gift of Christ c. This is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Divine Nature whereof we are madâ— partakers 2 Pet. 1.4 The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Image of his Son to which we are preâ—destinated to be conformed Rom. 8.29 The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Image of him that created us Col. 3.10 Thirdly It is used Passively to intimatâ— those actual supplies of ability and strength which from time to time are ministreâ— unto us This Austin calls adjutorium actioâ—nis in contradistinction from the formeâ— which he calls adjutorium possibilitatis This is the import of it 2. Cor. 12.9 â—nd he said unto me my Grace is sufficient 〈◊〉 thee for my strength is made perfect in â—â—akness And Heb. 4.16 Let us thereâ—â—re come boldly unto the throne of Grace 〈◊〉 we may obtain mercy and find Grace to 〈◊〉 in time of need Through this it is 〈◊〉 we are not at any time tempted beyond â—hat we are enabled to encounter and unâ—â—rgo 1 Cor. 10.13 And according 〈◊〉 the proportion of assistance afforded us 〈◊〉 this kind we are more or less vigorous 〈◊〉 duty victorious over temptations enâ—â—rged in our communion with God Fourthly it is made use of to express â—ose acts and operations of ours which proâ—eed both from habitual and actual Grace Col. 4.6 Let your Speech be always 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with Grace i. e. Gracious pious â—uch as may appear to be from Grace Col. â— 16 Singing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with Grace in â—our heart i. e. after the manner of pious persons Eph. 4.29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but that which is good to the use of edifying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it may Minister Grace unto the Hearers i. e. some spiritual advantage And I suppose the Apostle in his using 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for Contribution intended not only to declare the freeness of the donation but to intimate the Principle whence 〈◊〉 relieving of others should flow 1 Cor. 1â—3 Whomsoever yee shall approve by 〈◊〉 letters them will I send to bring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 your Liberality to Jerusalem 2 Cor. â—6 7. We desire Titus that as he had begâ—â— so he would also finish in you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same Grace also Therefore as ye 〈◊〉 bound in every thing in faith in utterancâ— and knowledg and in all diligence and 〈◊〉 your love to us see that ye abound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this Grace also Nor is it aâ— exception of any import that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 occuâ— in other Authors expressive only of benevâ—â—lence without relation to a vital reneweâ— principle whence in order to an acceptatioâ— with God it ought to proceed as in thaâ— of Aristole 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is charity wheâ— he that hath relieveth him that wants Rheâ— lib. 2. cap. 9. For alas How should they look farther than the Substance of thâ—â— action who as they did not throughly understand the corruption of Nature so they knew nothing aright of the renovation of it But their use of a word or phrase is no ground for the circumscribing and confining the Holy Ghost in the application of them These are all the acceptations of Grace â—hich have any affinity to the present â—ubject I know not whether all this will â—ot be called Gawdy Metaphors childish â—llegories Spiritual Divinity a prating of â—â—rases empty schemes of Speech But â—esides that all these acceptations and disâ—â—nctions have been received by Fathers â—choolmen and Divines of all ages and â—erswasions we have found them also â—arranted by the Holy text so that to imâ—each any one of them is not only to arâ—aign Divines of all sorts but to remonâ—trate to the Scripture it self The Terms â—hen being thus open'd and explain'd The Question to be debated is Whether Moral Vertue be all one with Grace Whether Morality and Holiness be Universally the same thing Or whether the whole of that Obedience which we owe to God be nothing else but the practice of Moral Duties Now the negative is that whereof we undertake the defence and justification in the following Chapters CHAP. II. Several things premised in order to 〈◊〉 decision and the determination of 〈◊〉 question 1. All Moral actions receive thâ— denomination of Good or Bad from their câ—â—â—formity or difformity to some Rule 2. 〈◊〉 alone Rule of Morality is Law 3. Man oâ—â—â—ginally created under the Sanction oâ— Law 4. The nature of that Law with 〈◊〉 manner of its promulgation 5. Man endâ—â—ed at first with strength and ability for 〈◊〉 observance of all the Precepts of it 6. Sâ—â—posing an observation of all the duties mâ—â—â—kind was obliged to by the said Law 〈◊〉 he could have lay'd no claim to immortaâ—â— and â—ife without a superadded stipulatâ—â—â— from God 7. The Law of Creation beiâ—â— ratified into a Covenant God took 〈◊〉 therein to secure his own Glory what evâ—â— should be the event on mans part 8. 〈◊〉 through the fall forfeiting all title to Liâ—â— abode nevertheless under the obligation 〈◊〉 the Law of his Creation 9. Every Law 〈◊〉 Nature is of an unchangeable obligatiâ—â— 10. A twofold mischief with refereâ—â—â—â— to that Law arrested mankind through 〈◊〉 fall 11. Some knowledg of moral Dutiâ—â— and an ability to perform the substance of â—hem still retained 12. The introduction of a remedial Law with the relations and duties which thence emerge 13. The subordination which the Law of Creation is put in to the Law of Grace 14. Our inâ—â—ptitude to the Duties required in the remedial Law and the Nature of it 15. Grace communicated to us to relieve us against this impotency 16. where ever it is wrought it is not onely attended with but it is the principle of all moral Vertue 17. Through the renovation and assistance of Divine Grace such an observation of the commands of God is possible as according to the Law of Faith doth entitle us to Life § 1. HAving in the former Chapter sufficiently explained the terms belonging to the question under consideration we now proceed to make a neerer approach to
〈◊〉 previous Images of the moral Beauty â—nd congruity or deformity and inconâ—â—uity of things in the Soul The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the rudimental Princiâ—les of the Rational Nature There are 〈◊〉 well indubitable maximes of Reason â—elating to Moral Practice as there are â—elating to Science and these not only stand â—pproved by the universal assent of manâ—ind but they demonstrate themselves 〈◊〉 their agreeableness to the Rational Faculty It is not more certain that one â—nd the same thing cannot at once be and â—ot be That if equals be substracted from equals what remains will be equal c. Than that of whomsoever we hold our Beings Him we ought to love and 〈◊〉 That God being Veracious is to be belâ—â—â—ved That we are to do by others as 〈◊〉 would be done by our selves c. And 〈◊〉 deny these is in effect to deny Man to 〈◊〉 Rational for as much as the faculty 〈◊〉 call Reason exists in us necessarily 〈◊〉 these Opinions Now these Deterâ—â—â—nations being the natural Issues of 〈◊〉 Souls in their rational exercise in coâ—â—paring Acts with their objects come to 〈◊〉 called ingraft-Notions and universal Câ—â—â—racters wrought into the essential Coâ—â—position of our Nature And besidâ— what we have already said to demonstraâ—â— that some things being compared 〈◊〉 the Holy Nature of God and the relâ—â—tion that we stand in to him are intriâ—â—secally Good and other things intrinsâ—â—cally Evil It is inconsistent with the peâ—â—fections of the Divine Being particâ—â—larly with his Sanctity Veracity anâ— Goodness to prepossess us with such conâ—ceptions of things as are not to bâ— found in the Nature of the things themâ—selves In a word the Effluvia of the ranâ—kest and worst-scented Body do not strikâ— more harshly upon the olfactory-Orgaâ— nor carry a greater incongruity to thâ— Nerves of that Sensatory than what we call moral Evil doth to the intellectual â—aculty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There are some things â—hich all men think or wherein all Men agree and that is common Right or Inâ—ustice by Nature although Men be not â—ombined into Societies nor under any Covenants one to an other Arist. Rhet. â—ib 1. c. 14. Paul tells us that there are some â—hings which are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—ust and honest in all Mens esteem Rom. 12.17 The Third is this There being some â—hings so differenced in themselves with â—espect to the nature of God and our dependance on Him as hath been said and man being created capable of knowing what is so It is impossible that God should allow us to pursue what is contrary to his nature and the Relation we stand in to him or to neglect what is agreeable to it and the dependance we have on him God having made man with faculties necessarily judging so and so He is in truth the Author of those judgments by having created the faculties which necessarily make them Now what-ever judgment God makes a man with must needs be a Law from Goâ— given to man nor can he ever depart froâ— it without gainsaying and so offendiâ—â— Him that was the Author of it Whatevâ—â— judgment God makes a man with concerâ—â—ing either himself or other things it 〈◊〉 Gods judgment and whatsoever is his judgâ—ment is a law to man nor can he negleâ—â— or oppose it without sin being in his exiâ—stence made with a necessary subjection tâ— God Such and such dictates being the nâ—â—tural operations of our minds the Being 〈◊〉 essential Constitution of which in right reâ—â—soning we owe to God we cannot but esteeâ— them the voice of God within us and conseâ—quently his law to us saith Sr. Ch. Wolseley oâ— Scripture belief p. 32 33. And accorâ—dingly these dictates of right Reason witâ— the Superadded act of conscience are stileâ— by the Apostle the Law written in the heart◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For when the Gentiles whicâ— have not the Law viz. in writing as the Iews had do by Nature natural light or the dictates of right Reason the things contained in the Law those things which the Moral Law of Moses enjoyned these having not a Law a written Law or a Law â—ade known to them by Revelation are a â—aw to themselves have the Law of naâ—â—re congenite with them Which shew the â—ork of the Law that which the Law inâ—â—â—ucts about and obligeth to Written in â—â—eir Hearts Rom. 2.14 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—ational Beings do in the light and through â—he conduct of Reason chuse and pursue â—â—ose very things which the law of God the Divine Law enjoyns saith Hierocles 〈◊〉 vers 29. Pythag. Sponte sua sine lege â—â—dem rectumque colebant as the Poet â—â—ith Hierocles in vers 63. 64 Pyâ—hag assigns this as the cause why men â—o not escape the entanglements of lust â—nd passion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because they attend not â—o those common notions of Good and Evil which the Creator hath ingrafted in rational Beings for their conduct and Government It is of this Law that Austin speaks lib. 2. confess cap. 4. Lex Scripta in cordibus hominum quam ne ipsa delet iniquitas A Law written in our hearts which sin it self cannot expunge The Fourth and last is this that God for the securing the honour of his own wisdome and sanctity the maâ—â—â—taining his rectorship and the preserviâ—â— the dependance of his creature upon hiâ— annexed to this natural Law in case of meâ— failure a penalty The constituting of the â—â—â—ness of punishment on supposition of traâ—â—â—gression doth so necessarily belong 〈◊〉 Laws that without it they are but luâ—â—crous things Tacite permittitur quod 〈◊〉 ultione prohibetur what is forbidden witâ—â—out a Sanction is silently and implicitely aâ—â—lowed Tertul. Where there is no penalâ—â— denounced against disobedience Goverâ—â—ment is but an empty notion The fear 〈◊〉 punishment is the great medium of Moâ—â— Government coaction and force wouâ—â— overthrow obedience and leave neitheâ— room for Vertue nor Vice in the worlâ— The means of swaying us must be accomâ—modated to the nature of our Beings noâ— are rational Creatures to be otherwise inâ—fluenced than by fear and hope Thâ—â— Ruler governs at the courtesie of his Subâ—jects who permits them to rebel with imâ—punity Not only the Poets placed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the throne with Jupiter for the punishment of disobedience but the Moralist makes Justice to wait on God to avenge him on those that Transgress his Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—lutarch As every law then must have penalty annexed to it so had this of which â—e are treating 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Their conscience also bearing â—itness and their thoughts in the mean â—hile accusing or else excusing one another saith the Apostle Rom. 2.15 of those â—ho were under no other law than the law of Nature Conscience is properly nothing else but the soul reflectâ—ng on it self and actions and judging of both according to Law Now where there is no Law there â—an be no guilt
things in Brute creatures to which theâ—â— are directed by instinct may conduceâ— instruct men what becomes us that are Raâ—tional particularly Parents may learn thâ— obligation they are under to their childreâ— and the care they ought to take for theâ—â— education and subsistence in the worlâ— from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Natural Affection whiâ—â— we find in Brute Animals to their young yet this is no certain much less sufficieâ—â— Indication of Natural Laws For Bruâ— creatures being under no Law at all it 〈◊〉 unreasonable and ridiculous to judg of 〈◊〉 is a Law of Nature and what is not 〈◊〉 them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They devour one another because they havâ— no right nor law amongst them says Hesiod Beasts may do hurt but they cannoâ— sin They may exercise cruelty in pursuing the satisfaction of their appetites but they cannot be injurious And therefore when God commands that the beaâ—â— which hath killed a man should be put to death Exod. 21.28 It is to shew the horridness of the fact of murther not the â—â—ligation of the beast to Law nor is it â—â—tended as a punishment to it but to deâ—â—re Gods detestation of the like in us â—here are many things generally practised 〈◊〉 the Brute Animals the imitation of â—hich would be abominable in men That which in us would be incest is not so in them For I suppose there are few of Diogenes and Chrysippus mind who from the example of Cocks Treadding their own â—ames in fer the Lawfulness of the like copâ—lations in Men. The Poet hath determined much better in this case then the above-named Philosophers Coeunt amimalia nullo Caetera delicto nec habetur turpe Iuvencae Ferre patrem tergo fit equo sua filia conjunx Ovid. Others judg of the Law of Nature by the consent and harmony of Mankind what men universally agree in is accounted by some if not the only at least the best medium of arriving at a sure knowledg of the law of nature In re consensio omnium gentium jus natura putanda est The consent of all nations in any thing is to be thought the Law of Nature Cicero 1. Tusculan But neither is this a sure indicatâ—â—â— of Natural Laws nor shall a Person 〈◊〉 attain to satisfaction in this method of pâ—â—â—ceed For the Laws and customs of 〈◊〉 have been so different and opposâ— that what hath been accounted vâ—ce one nation hath been held for vertue â—â—nother The Athenians punished theft 〈◊〉 the Egyptians Lacedemonians alloweâ— When God forbade the Iews the imitatâ— of the customs of their neighbouring Nâ—â—tions He reckon's up vile and abominaâ—â— lusts as their national customs Deut. â—â— 30 31.14.1 2.18.10 11. There 〈◊〉 been vices not only countenanced but 〈◊〉 commended by Laws in the wisest and bâ— policyed Commonwealths of the Worlâ— In the Third Place the dictates of rigâ—â— Reason are contended for by others to 〈◊〉 the Law of Nature Lex est ratio insitaâ— Naturâ quae jubet ea quae facienda sunt prâ—â—hibet que contraria Law is natural Reasâ—â— commanding what ought to be done 〈◊〉 forbidding the contrary Cicer. de Legiâ— lib. 1. But I cannot acquiesce in this account either For right Reason is ratheâ— the instrument of discerning the Law of Nâ—â—ture than the Law of Nature it self The Law of Nature is not so much a Law which 〈◊〉 nature prescribes unto us as a law â—â—scribed unto our nature It is the table which this law was originally written and exercising of which in its rational funcâ—â—â—s we came to understand it Law â—he will of the Rector signified but this 〈◊〉 knowing and perceiving of it and â—his our Reason was originally 〈◊〉 But Alas Reason is now so 〈◊〉 by sin and misled by prejudice 〈◊〉 and self-interest that it frequently 〈◊〉 Evil Good and Good Evil. Hence men pretend to right Reason in 〈◊〉 contradictory Nor do we in any 〈◊〉 find the great improvers of 〈◊〉 at greater variance one with another 〈◊〉 about what is just and what is unjust 〈◊〉 man determining as humour 〈◊〉 lust or profit swaye's him but 〈◊〉 of this chap. 3. Though there be 〈◊〉 evident congruity betwixt some acts 〈◊〉 their objects that if we exercise our 〈◊〉 in comparing the one with the 〈◊〉 it is impossible but that we should discern it yet there are others wherein we arrive at the knowledg of that proporâ—â—â—n only be deduction and long haranâ—â—â—es of argumentation By the Law of 〈◊〉 then we understand the whole Law given by God at first unto our Natures Whereof our Reasons exercising themselves in the consideration of the Nature of God our own Nature the relation we were created in to him the habitude we stood in to our Fellow-Creatures and the Divine method and order in the production of all was a sufficient Instrumental conveyance while we abode in the state of Integrity It is true since the fall it is otherwise many Dictates of the Law of Nature being grown inevident obscure subject to controversie not easy if at all to be defined without the advantage and assistance of Scripture-light There are various degrees of evidence in those things which relate and appertain to the Law of Nature in some the Moral congruity betwixt the Act and the Object is manifest apparent in other it lye's more remote and out of view So that now the only sure universal perfect System of natural Law is the Decalogue of Moses This is a true draught of what by the Law of Creation we were under the Sanction of A transcript and written impression of the whole Originall Law not at all differing in its nature from what was imposed on man in innocency but distinguished only in the the manner of its Promulgation that which was formerly internal and subjective being now external and objective But though we affirm that never any since the fall did so act his Reason as to comprehend Universally the Law of Nature with the bounds and consequences of it yet we also readily grant that our Reason at first was a sufficient Instrument of conveying the knowledg of the whole Law of Nature to us Seeing then that no man can justly come under obligation by a Law unless it be sufficiently promulgated promulgation being an essential qualification of a Law for Law can have influence upon none that do not know it Leges quae constringunt hominum vitas intelligi ab omnibus debent Those Laws which have influence upon mens lives ought to be understood by all say Civilians We shall in the next place therefore endeavour to lay open the several fountains in which the whole Law of Nature was at first fully understood Now there were Five ways which our Rational Faculties exercising themselves in should before that sin had darkned the mind and disordered the creation have attained to a full and perfect knowledg of the Law of Creation by The First was by considering the nature of God and the habitude we
them For as Plutarch say's there are some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 distempers infirmities of soul which do Unman us 2 Our obligation as to the exercise and discharge of some Natural duties is by the Law of Nature only bound upon us on supposition of some fundamenta or relations and circumstances that we are brought into Now though the thing be alway's a duty in it self and the Law requiring it unalterable yet antecedently to my entring into that Relation or those circumstances it was not my actual Duty For example the Law commanding a Husband to love and cherish his Wife or a Father to provide for his Children is immutable and invariable though in order to my being under the sanction of it as to the actual discharge of these duties it is needful that I have a Wife and a Child Si creditor quod ei debeo acceptum ferat jam solvere non tencor non quia jus Naturae desierit praecipere solvendum quod debeo sed quia quod debeb am deberi desiit If a Creditor should forgive me what I owe and am justly indebted to him I stand no longer under Obligation to payment not because the Law of Nature ceaseth to command me to pay my just debt but because that which was a debt is no longer so Grot. de jure belli pacis lib. 1. cap. 1. § 10. By what hath been said 't is easie to discover how weak and impertinent the Ecclesiastical Politician is in all the instances he brings of Natural Laws alterable as circumstances do require or as the Magistrate thinks fit It is well if upon every times changing our condition or upon every humour of the Magistrates altering the civil penalty of a moral crime the Law of Nature must change also Yea according to the rate that any Laws of Nature are alterable I will undertake to prove that they are all so We readily grant that a man by putting himself into new circumstances or new relations is thereon obliged to performance of many duties which as so circumstantiated he was not bound unto before but we altogether deny that therefore the Laws of Nature suffer the least alteration and the Reason is because they did never bind to such duties but on supposition of such Relations and Circumstances In a word the whole Law of Nature bearing upon the Nature of God and the Nature of Man while these are unchangeable it is unchangeable It is strange that we should envy the Pope to dispense with a Natural Law if the Magistrate at pleasure may § 10. That mankind notwithstanding the fall abode still under the obligation of the Law of Creation and that every Precept of the Law of nature is of an unchangeable unalterable obligation hath been already unfolded and made Good The evils which overtook us through the lapse in reference to that Law come next to be disclosed and manifested And besides what befel us in relation to it as it was ratified into a Covenant whereof I shall not now treat there were two mischiefs arrested us in reference to it under the reduplication of its being a Law namely Darkness and Ignorance that we do neither clearly nor fully discern it and Weakness and Enmity whence we neither can nor care to keep it First Darkness and Ignorance and these are grown upon us two ways 1 From an Eclipse of primigenial light in the mind it self The Soul at first was a lucid orb embellished with all the Rayes of light created 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in knowledg Col. 3.10 in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 true holiness Eph. 4.24 that is in sanctitate voluntatis veritatem â—mplectentis Cocc 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Holy with Wisdome Plat. in theat But Alas an Universal darkness hath arrested us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The eye of the Soul is drowned or immersed in the barbarick gulf of Ignorance Plat. de Repub. lib. 7. The concreated beams of light are lost and vanished There remain none of those Radii Solis or lucida tela diei What the Poet says of dyed Wool Nec amissos colores Lana refert medicata fuco is applicable to the Soul deprived of the Image of God and tinctur'd with Sin and Lust. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is none that understandeth Rom. 3.11 We are born 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without Understanding Rom. 1.31 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 blind 2 Pet. 1.9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 darkned or benighted in our minds Eph. 4.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 darkness Joh. 1.5 Our light is not only too dim to preserve us from the mistakes of Error and Ignorance but abuseth us with false representations The Minde is now like an Icterical Organ which imagineth all the objects of sight tinctur'd with false colours 2. This Ignorance of the Law of Nature may be partly ascribed to that disorder and confusion which have invaded the Creation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Creature is subjected to Vanity Rom. 8.20 An 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or disorder hath overspread the Universe through the Curse inflicted upon the Creation for mans sin objective mediums are become in a great measure both dark and fallacious They have lost much of that fulgor by which the glory of God's Wisdome and Goodness and our duty to Him our selves and others was at first visible The present calamitous scene of things not only with reference to Brute Animals but inanimate Beings doth strangely impose upon our easie and distorted minds Secondly Weakness and pravity hath arrested us in all our faculties so that we are neither able nor careful to observe and perform what we know Impotency and corruption cleave to our very Natures by the loss of that Rectitude which was concreated with us and impressed upon our faculties the subordination and subjection of the appetite to Reason is in a great measure lost likewise so that the animal life doth now sway us our passion doth both baffle our Judgment and enslave our Wills we are at once not onely weak but corrupt Impotent and averse to Good and propense and disposed to evil As darkness doth naturally ensue on the withdrawment of light or as lameness doth necessarily attend the interruption of the Loco-Motive-faculty so doth inability and aversation to good and positive inclination and adaptedness to evil ensue on the loss of that Rectitude which disposed us to live to God Ungodly and without strength is the just and due Character of every one of the Posterity of Adam But more of this chapt 4. § 11. Notwithstanding the Ignorance Darkness Weakness Corruption c. that man was thus sunk into yet retaining still his Faculties he retain'd likewise some knowledg of the Duties he was obliged to by the Law of Nature and in the vertue of his abiding still endowed with Intellective and Elective powers he continued likewise able for the performance of the substance of these duties and that in his own strength A promptitude readiness and facility of
acting in reference to these is what we commonly call Moral Vertue And in many of them did some of the Heathen excel It were to be wished that as to Graveness of deportment Amiableness of Conversation Moderation in the pursuit and use of the Creatures Acquiescence in the dispose they were brought into Candor Fidelity Justice c. We who pretend our selves Christians did but equal them And as appears by what Paul asserts of himself The Pharisees were eminent in many of the instances of Morality Hence what he expresseth Phil. 3.5 by being in reference to the Law a Pharisee he stiles v. 6. Being touching the Righteousness of the Law blameless And now I must either contradict the Apostle or take the liberty of differing from a late Author who not onely assumes a confidence wherein none have preceded him of divesting them from all title to Moral Righteousness but attaques withal and that in a very pert and clamorous manner the Wisdom Honesty and Conscience of a Learned man for but presuming to say that the Pharisees were a People Morally Righteous See def continuat p. 350 351. Go thy way saies he for a woful guesser no man living beside thy self could ever have had the ill fortune to pitch upon the Scribes and Pharisees for Moral Philosophers c. This I dare say that on what-ever evidence the Pharisees are condemned in their claim to Moral Righteousness there is the same reason why the Philosophers should be cast also Did the Pharisees paraphrase the Law as regarding only the external act without deriving the Sanction of it to the mind intention and disposition The Heathen Moralists were no less guilty herein than they which made Tertullian say of their Moral Philosophy non exscindit vitia sed abscondit it cutteth not off but covereth vice◠lib. 3. cap. 25. See Rom. 7.7 I bad not known Lust except the Law had said thou shalt not Covet Were the Pharisees defective in the true end of obedience designing instead of Gods glory ostentation and applause The best of the Philosophers were herein also criminal which made Austin say that cupiditas laudis humanae was that quae ad facta compulit miranda Romanos Pride had as much leavened the Spirit and way of the Philosopher as of the Pharisee What-ever grosser vices they abandoned Pride was congenial to them Hence Antisthenes seeing a Vessel wherein Plato's Vomit lay said I see Plato 's bile here but I see not his Pride meaning that his Pride stuck closer to him than to be vomited up Curius though he supped upon roots yet Ambition was his sauce Diogenes in censuring Plato's Pride by trampling on his Carpets discovered his own Did the Pharisees pretend to communion with God Did not the Philosophers the same What else was the meaning of Socrates's Demons Did not the most eminent of them neglect the conduct and guidance of sober reason and addict themselves to Magick and Divination Witness as well Pythagoras as those of the new Academy But to wave the further prosecution of this An ability notwithstanding the fall of discerning some considerable part of our duty and of performing it as to the substance and material part thereof was never gain-sai'd by any who understood whereof he spake and what he affirmed This we also acknowledg to be in it self desireable praise-worthy of wonderful advantage to humane societies and that which seldome misseth its reward in this World However it is always thus far useful to its Authors quod minus puniantur in die judicii that I may use a saying of Augustines lib. 4. contra Julian cap. 3. § 12. Man having brought himself into the condition of weakness and corruption already declared and having by sin lost all title to life in the vertue of the Covenant first made with him yet still continuing under obligation to all the duties of the Law of Nature and obnoxious to the Wrath and Curse of God upon the least faileur God might here have left him and have glorified himself in the same way and method upon the posterity of Adam as he hath done upon the Angels that sinned No property of his nature no word of promise bound him to the contrary The terms of the first Covenant being violated all was devolved upon the Soveraignty of God again If an end was not to have been put to obedience by the immediate destruction and perishing of the Creature yet at the least an end was put to God's acceptance of any Moral service from the seed of Adam and they lay under an utter incapacity of performing any such service as might with respect to the nature and quality of it be accepted with Him Matters being thus God out of his Soveraign pleasure and infinite free Grace proposed a remedying-Remedying-Law treating with us upon New terms and giving us a New standing in a Covenant-Grace And herein he engaged his Veracity providing we complyed with the overtures now made us for the pardoning of our sins the delivering us from Wrath to come and the stating us at last in the happy enjoyment of himself Now in the vertue of this transaction there arose New Relations betwixt God and us with new duties thereon So that henceforth the Law of Creation was but one part of the Rule of that obedience we owed to God the condition of the New Covenant making up the other part of it Whoever then shall now state the whole of Religion in Moral duties bids a plain defiance to the Gospel either by telling us that there is no Remedial Law at all or that the terms of it are universally the same with the terms of the Old Covenant Of this complexion are several expressions in a late Author viz. That Religion for the substance of it is the same Now as it was in the state of Innocence For as then the whole duty of man consisted in the practice of all those Moral Vertues that arose from his Natural Relation to God so all that is superinduced upon us since the fall is but helps and contrivances to supply our Natural defects and recover our decayed powers and restore us to a better ability to discharge those duties we stand engaged to by the Law of our Nature and the design of our Creation So that the Christian Institution is not for the substance of it any new Religion but onely a more perfect digest of the eternal Rules of Nature and Right Reason All its additions to the Eternal and Unchangeable Laws of Nature are but onely means and instruments to discover their Obligation Def. Continuat p. 315. That there are Duties to which we stand obliged by the Law of Faith which we were not under the direct immediate Sanction of by the Law of Creation yea the repugnancy of them to our Original state and the habitude we were at first placed in to God shall be afterwards God willing demonstrated cap. 3. § 13. The Relation and habitude of the Original Law to the
Moral Rectitude and Obedience Though the Gospel strengthen the Duties of Morality by new Motives and improve them upon New Principles yet it no where gives us any New Precepts of Moral Goodness It is true Christ once and again particularly in the fifth of Matthew vindicates the Moral Law from the corrupt glosses and flesh-pleasing expositions of the Scribes and Pharisees who had restrained and perverted it from and besides the meaning of the Law and the intent of the Law-giver But he no where superinduceth any New Moral Duty that was not designed in the Sanction of it at first He hath retrived the old Rules of Nature from the evil customs of the World and rebuk'd the false expositions put upon the Decalogue by those who both then and for a considerable time before sat in Moses's Chair But he hath no where made new additions to them by putting his last hand as some men take upon them to say to an imperfect draught And indeed to affirm that the Decalogue was an imperfect and defective edition of the Natural Law is to assert that which no way accords with the design of God's Wisdom and Goodness in giving it For God's intendment in giving the Law of the Ten Commandments being to relieve us against the Darkness of Moral Good and Evil which had seized us by the Fall we must suppose it a sufficient draught of the Original Law of Morality otherwise we must conclude it not proportionable and adequate to the end it was given for which to assert is no less than an impeachment of the divine Sapience Faithfulness and Goodness Nor doth the bringing up such a report upon the Moral Law accord with that account which the Scripture every where gives of it The Law of the Lord is perfect Psal. 19.7 Not onely essentially perfect in respect of its purity and holiness but integrally in respect of its plenitude and fulness As it is in nothing superfluous which it ought not to have neither is it deficient in any thing that it ought to have Thy Commandment is exceeding broad Psal. 119.96 This it could not be if it were not a perfect measure of all Moral Duties Shall I add that the institution of New Moral precepts seems not at all consonant to the design that Christ came upon The Holy Ghost entirely allots the giving of the Law to Moses telling us that the work errand and business of Christ was of another Nature The Law came by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ Joh. 1.17 Christ's work was to bring into further light the Law of Faith and to redeem us from the Curse of the Moral Law not to augment the number of Natural Duties This may suffice to perstringe among others a late Author whose words are that the Decalogue was never intended for a perfect System of the Moral Law That â—e cannot imagine that by thou shalt not make to thy self any Graven Image is meant Thou shalt not institute Symbolical ceremonies or that by thou shalt not Murther alms and fraternal Correption are enjoyned c. Def. Continuat p. 312. It is likely that he and those of his persuasion would take it ill if I should tell them with whose Heifer they here Plow Therefore I shall irritate no man onely recommend those who desire farther confirmation in this matter to such who have debated the Socinian Controversies Now with respect to Christs having made the Moral Law of the Family of the Christian Religion in the place already assigned it a threefold subordination of that to this is easie to be manifested 1. That it is upon the alone score of the Law of Grace that God will accept any service at the hands of Sinners For though the Law as to the Obligation of it remain still in force and for the substance of it will do so to all Eternity yet that God will accept the service of Sinners is to be wholly attributed to God's transaction with them in the Covenant of Grace by Jesus Christ. 2. It is in the alone vertue of the Law of Faith and God's Mercy and Faithfulness therein displayed and declared that an ability is ministred to us of performing any part of Moral Obedience so as to be accepted with the Lord and afforded ground of expecting a reward thereupon This Grace comes not by Moses The Law as such administers no strength for the performance of what it requires this comes alone by Jesus Christ out of whose fulness we receive Grace for Grace Joh. 1.16 17. 3. Though the Original Law continue both to claym perfect Obedience and to threaten Death in case of the least faileur yet because of the introduction of the Law of grace over it the penalty shall not be executed provided we be sincere Christians flie to the hope set before us Heb. 6.18 Rom. 8.1 Not-withstanding both our manifest faileurs in that Obedience which the Law exacts and its severe denunciation of wrath upon the least sin yet our condition is not left hopeless providing we fulfil the terms of the Law of Grace Secondly The Original Law is brought into subserviency to the Law of Grace in this That though in it self and abstractedly considered it be only shapen to drive us from God and to fill us with thoughts of fear and flight and accordingly that was the effect of it upon Adam as soon as he had sinned yet through the introduction of the Remedying-Law it is become a blessed means in the hand of the Spirit to conduct us to Christ and God through him Hence it is stiled our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Schoolmaster to bring us to Christ Gal. 3.24 And Christ is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The end of the Law for Righteousness c. Rom. 10.4 The scope and drift of the Law He to whom the Law guides and conducts Thus the word is used likewise elsewhere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now the end i. e. finis intentionis the scope of the Commandment is Charity 2 Tim. 1.5 And not as Moses who put a vail over his face that the Children could not stedfastly look 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the end of that which is abolished To that which God aym'd at in and by the Mosaick Ceremonies 2 Cor. 3.13 That Righteousness which the Law becoming weak through the flesh cannot confer upon us Rom. 8.3 It conducts and leads us to Christ for the obtaining of This is a blessed subserviency that all that is frightful and perplexing in the Original Law whether the amazing strictness of its precepts or the severe dreadfulness of its denunciations is made contributory and influential to bring us to Christ and to God by him Thirdly Herein also is the Original Law subjected and made subservient to the Law of Grace That Faith in the Messiah is constituted an ingredient in every Moral act in order to its acceptance with God 't is this which mainly gives every action its Moral specification Though the foundation
of Religion then the New Covenant is nothing but a repetition of the Old Yea there is no such thing as a New Covenant with respect to the Terms of it onely it is so called with respect to the manner of its Promulgation For where the Terms and conditions vary not neither do the Covenants vary 'T is their differing in their Demands that gives them the Denomination of distinct Covenants To assert a coincidency as to the whole preceptive part betwixt the two Covenants is in effect to bid us disclaim a great part of the Bible What tendency some expressions of a late Author have this way I shall refer to the judgment of others As in the State of Innocence the whole Duty of man consisted in the practice of all those Moral Vertues that arose from his Natural Relation to God and man so all that is superinduced upon us since the fall is nothing but helps and contrivances to supply our Natural defects and restore us to better ability to discharge those duties we stand engaged to by the Law of our Nature and the design of our Creation c. def contin p. 315 316. The supposition of sin does not bring in any New Religion but only makes new circumstances and names of old things and requires new helps and advantages to improve our Powers and to encourage our Endeavours And thus is the Law of Grace nothing but a Restitution of the Law of Nature ibid. p. 324. Secondly there are several duties incumbent now upon us which also constitute the chief part of our Christian Obedience that the Decalogue as ' its a transcript of the Law of right Reason or of Nature is perfectly a stranger to For proof of this I shall only insist on Repentance towards God and Faith towards Jesus Christ. I suppose it will be granted by most that Repentance in all the parts and branches of it viz. conviction of sin Contrition for it and conversion to God from it are Duties we are all under the obligation of I said by most because of some expressions in a late Author which I can hardly reconcile with the account which the Scripture gives us of Repentance or with that modesty which we ought to exercise in the things of God The Fathers first preachers of the Christian Faith did not fill peoples heads with scruples about the due degrees of Godly sorrow and the certain symptoms of a through-Humiliation def contin p. 306 307. And a little after They says he meaning the Noncomformists examine the truth and reality of mens conversion by their orderly passage through all the stages of conviction And unless a man be able to give an account of having observed and experienced in himself all their imaginary Rules Methods of Regeneration i. e. conviction and contrition c. they immediately call into question his being a Child of God and affright him with sad stories of having miscarried of Grace and the New-Creature And he is lost and undone for ever unless he begin all the work of conversion anew and he must as it were re-enter into the Womb again pass through all the scenes workings of conviction in which state of formation all new converts must continue the appointed time and when the days are accomplished they may then proceed to the next operation of the Spirit i. e. to get a longing panting and breathing frame of soul upon which follows the proper season of delivery and they may then break loose from the Enclosures of the Spirit of Bondage and creep out from those dark Retirements wherein the Law detain'd them into the light of the Gospel and the liberty of the Spirit of Adoption p. 309 310. However I can justifie the forementioned steps and degrees of Repentance both by Scripture and Reason Now this the Moral Law as 't is a meer summary of the Law of Nature neither know's nor allow's I confess the Law of Creation obliging us to love God with all our Heart Soul and Strength and in all things to approve our selves perfect before him doth by consequence in case of the least faileur oblige us to sorrow And thus men wholly strangers to the renueing grace of the Covenant may repent witness among others Judas as to the act of betraying Christ. But to encourage us thereunto by any promise of acceptance without which no man will ever be found in the due practice of it Heb. 11.6 Or administer help for the performance of it this it neither doth promiseth nor can do or promise For being once violated it know's no other language but the thundring of wrath against the transgressour Now one and the same Covenant can not be capable of two such contrary clauses as denouncing an inevitable curse on whosoever shall not observe the Law in all points and promising mercy to those that repent of the transgressions which the do commit They like may be said of Faith This is the great condition of the Gospel Gal. 3.22 Act. 13.29 Rom. 10.9 One of the principal Duties we are now obliged to 1 Joh. 3.23 Joh. 6.29 Now this as 't is the condition of Gospel-pardon the Law is utterly unacquainted with know's nothing at all of it It is true there is a general Faith terminating on the Existence Authority and Veracity of God which comes under the Sanction of the Law of Creation But Faith as respecting a Mediator and Gods treating with us through him the Law is both ignorant of and at enmity with Gal. 3.12 The Law is not of Faith Rom. 9.32 33. Israel which followed after the Law of Righteousness hath not attained to the Law of Righteousness wherefore because they sought it not by Faith but as it were by the Works of the Law I know not whether it be upon this account because Faith comes not smoothly enough within the compass of being a Moral Vertue that a late Author is pleas'd to scoff at Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ not only by stiling it in mockage the dear darling Article of the Religion of Sinners Def. Contin p. 322. but by representing what the Scripture every-where ascribes to it in such terms of Drollery Scorn and Contempt that I tremble to transcribe them They make says he a grievous noise of the LORD CHRIST tell fine Romances of the secret amours betwixt the believing Soul and the LORD CHRIST and prodigious stories of the miraculous feats of FAITH in the LORD CHRIST Reproof to the Rehears Transpros p. 69. See also Def. Contin p. 135· 140. But while men believe their Bibles they are not to be jeered out of their Duty and Happiness And this is all I shall discourse of the first Instrument of Morality viz. the measure of it and I hope it appears by what hath been offered that the Law of Creation which is the Alon◠Rule of Moral Vertue whether we take it subjectively as it is in Man since the Fall or objectively as it is in the Decalogue
any other way than by the efficiency of the divine Spirit upon ours Def. Contin p. 334. I Answer 1. 'T is not unusual with some men both virtually and formally to contradict themselves And the Author whom we are replying upon seems to be endowed with a particular faculty that way as might be justified in many instances 2 'T is known that both the Pelagians and Socinians profess themselves the Friends and Patrons of Grace and yet those who are acquainted with the mistery of their Principles know that saving the Revelation of God in the Scripture they meant no more by Grace but Nature and the Humane Faculties Fronte placent quae fine latent We readily grant that the Arguments proposed in the Scripture may in a certain sense be stiled Grace but what affinity hath this to the inward ingraft principle that we are inquiring after It were too plain a defiance of the Gospel to renounce all inward Grace in express Terms and yet as some who seem to extoll grace exceedingly explain it no less is intended See this proved by Mr. Trueman in his Discourse of Natural and Moral Impotency a pag. 60. ad pag. 69. and in his other discourse concerning the Rectifying of some prevailing Opinions a pag. 244. ad pag. 259. § 4. Having declared the Apprehensions of the Philosophers and Others concerning the Principle of Moral Vertue namely that both Habits and Acts proceed from the strength and improvement of our Natural Abilities Before we come to inquire how far Natural Abilities seconded with the assistance not only of Philosophy but of Revelation may carry men in Practical Obedience There are several things of great import both for the vindicating the Divine Goodness and Justice and the convincing us of our Guilt notwithstanding any Impotency which we labour naturally under which I design a little to unfold as well as to propose First then Notwithstanding any Congenite Original impotency that men labour under They might do more in the discharge and performance of the Duties of practical obedience were it not for contracted Evil Habits and customs Custom in any thing is commonly stiled another Nature and not much amiss the power and efficacy of it being so great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Custome is an ascititious Nature say both Aristot. and Galen Tanta est corruptela malae consuetudinis ut ab ea tanquam igniculi extinguantur a Naturâ dati exorianturque contraria vitia so great is the infection of evil custom that the seeds of vertue communicated to us by Nature are choaked by it and vices contrary thereunto begotten Cicer. A Habit in any thing is as Galen calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a lasting and hardly dissolvable disposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Long use and exercise becomes at last Nature Evenus in Aristot. Consuetude in sin doth so corroborate men in it that a vicious person cannot do well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even if he would which I suppose is no more but that he cannot obtain of himself to do it Arist. ad Nicomach lib. 3. Through an inveterate inclination of Will men become so addicted to Evil and so averse and disaffected to Good that no Arguments to the contrary weigh with them They grow so alienated by impure Habits that all Vertue becomes distastful and wickedness grows a pleasure Much of our Impotency to good is derived upon us by a familiarity with sin Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the Leopard his spots then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do Evil Jer. 13.23 Secondly They that have the Gospel are thereby brought into a considerable capacity of doing more than they that want it can Nor do I mean this only extensively that they are instructed about those duties whereof these are wholly Ignorant For in that case God will proceed with men according to the measure of light that every one hath and as Austin says of those with whom the knowledg of Christ and the Gospel never arrived veniam habebunt propter infidelitatem damnabuntur verâ— propter peccata contra naturam and a greater than Austin tells us That as many as sinned without Law shall also perish without Law c. as many as have sinned in the Law shall be judged by the Law Rom. 2.12 But I understand it with relation to those very Duties which the Heathen had some light concerning and various helps for the performance of For with respect to these We unto whom the Light of the glorious Gospel is come have advantages infinitely beyond them who never enjoy'd that vouchsafement The Declaration of our Duty is more clear as well as full The Religion of Nature and precepts of Moral goodness are unfolded with more perspicuity and plenitude in the Scriptures than in any or all the writings of the Philosophers Moral Vertues were never so established by the Light of Reason as they are by the Laws of the Gospel Here is no crooked line no impure mixture nor Vice obtruded for vertue In a word 't is only the Bible that gives us a compleat systeme of the Laws of Nature and therefore we who live under the dispensation of the Gospel have an advantage even of Moral Obedience ministred unto us that the Pagan world never had Our Obedience is also endeared to us by nobler promises than the Pagan Philosophers were ever made acquainted with and thâ—se promises are attended with all the motives of credibility 'T is likewise enforc'd under severer penalties than either Virgil or Homer in their Romantick description of Tartarus ever dream'd of Nor is there in all the Ethicks of the Grecians and Romans such an inducement and incentive to practical Obedience as the incarnation of the Son of God is nor such a matchless pattern of Universal Vertue as the life of the ever blessed Jesus sets before us So that upon the whole we who have the light of the Scripture are more inexcusable in our faileurs and criminal in our miscarriages than those who lived under the conduct of meer Reason were capable of being Thirdly How great soever the inability derived to and entayl'd upon us by the Fall be yet no man ever did what he might have done We complain of weakness but who acts the power he is imbued with We palliate our disobedience by pretences of Impotency but where is the man that ever exerted to the utmost the strength he had We put fallacies upon our Souls by seeming to bewayle our want of strength when in the mean time we neglect to exercise the Ability we are endowed with Though we cannot acceptably perform obedience save from a renewed principle yet may we not be found in the discharge of the Material part of Duties Though we cannot act holily as Saints yet we may act Rationally as Men. Though we be meerly passive in the reception of the first Grace yet may we not be found in an exercise of means prescribed by God in order to it We may read the
interpreters Vertuous viz. Ruth 3.11 Prov. 12.4 Prov. 31.10 and once Vertuously namely Prov. 21.29 but indeed the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath no such signification as that we now use to express by Vertue it properly signifies Courageous strenuous industrious diligent strength valour activity of body and mind c. And accordingly the Septuagint in none of the preceding places nor elsewhere translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Prov. 12.4 The 70 render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jun. Tremâ—l Mercer Piscator strenua Pagnin fortis industrious diligent sirenuous Prov. 31.10 who can find a Vertuous Woman The 70. translate it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Munster Pagnin fortem Jun. Tremel Piscator Mercer Castalio strenuam Prov. 31.29 Many Daughters have done Vertuously The 70. turn it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have gotten Wealth So Munster Pagnin paraverunt sibi opes Jun. Trem. Mercer Piscator gesserunt se strenue have done or approved themselves industriously Ruth 3.11 The 70. translate it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a woman of courage activity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vertue is very rarely met with in the N. T. I do not say that it occurs not at all there in so affirming Valla mistook nor do I say that it occurs but thrice for in so alledging Laurentius was overseen But I think I may affirm that it is to be found but four times in the whole New Testament viz. Phil. 4.8 1 Pet. 2.9 2 Pet. 1.3 and 2 Pet. 1.5 In any of which places I much question whether it ought to be interpreted in the sence vulgarly received 1 Pet. 2.9 we render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Praises and Dr. Hammond paraphraseth the place thus That you may set forth and illustrate Christs powerful and gracious Workings who hath wrought so glorious and blessed a Change in you 2 Pet. 1.5 it plainly signifies a peculiar disposition of mind distinct from Faith Patience Temperance c. and so cannot bear the sence commonly there put upon it D. Hammond rendreth it by Courage Fortitude Man-hood and that agreeably enough to the derivation commonly given of the word from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mars Bellum War In a word the foresaid Annotator acknowledgeth that it no where in the N. T. signifieth probity of mind or what we now understand by vertue unless it be Phil. 4.8 where I think the context if narrowly viewed will lead us to render it rather as the Syriack hath done by any work Glorious or Honourable c. However it must be Acknowledged though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vertue may possibly be used in the Scripture in the sence vulgarly put upon it that originally we are indebted to the School's of the Philosophers for it and ought therefore to address our selves to them for the sence and meaning of it If in this matter then we consult the Philosophers we shall find 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vertue used in a twofold signification First to signifie a habit or facility of working or acting conformably to the Law of Right Reason The alone moral measure of humane actions known or acknowledged by the Philosophers was Reason Hence Aristotle having stated the form and essence of Vertue in a mediocrity he explain's Mediocrity to be that which Right Reason teacheth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eth. lib. 6. cap. 1. and lib. 2. cap. 6. he defines 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mediocrity to be that which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 circumscribed by Reason They knew no other measure of moral Good and Evil but Reason and this they stiled the common Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the common law is right Reason Laert. in Zenon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Law is Right Reason commanding such things as ought to be done and forbidding such things as ought not to be done was the definition that the Stoicks gave of Law To which agrees the description given by Tully that it is recta à numine Deorum tracta ratio imperans honesta prohibens contraria Right Reason derived to us from God enjoyning things honest and forbidding things dishonest Philipp 12. lib. 1. de Legib. lib. 1. de nat Deor. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To obey Reason and to obey God is all one saith Hierocles on the Pythagorean golden Verses ver 29. This they called the Royal Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Right Reason is the Royal law Plato in his Minos This they likewise stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Law of being Plato ibid. Where I suppose by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of being He means the Law of Nature the Law common to all men For so Aristotle defines that which he calls common Law in contradistinction from the Law which he calls private 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Common Law is that which is according to Nature Retor lib. 1. cap. 14. Nor is there any thing more common than to express their obedience to the Law of Reason by their following the conduct of Nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to live agreeable to Nature Epict. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If we observe Nature as our rule ordering our conversation according to right Reason and agreeably to our Nature we shall perform what in all things becomes us Hierocles on the golden Verses of the Pythagoreans ver 13. To which accords that of Seneca propositum nostrum est secundum naturam vivere our purpose and designe is to live according to Nature Epist 5. and beata est ergo vita conveniens naturae suae A happy life is such as is agreeable to Nature Senec. de vitâ beata cap. 3. idem est beate vivere secundum naturam it is all one to live happily and to live according to Nature idem ibid. cap. 8. haec duri immota Catonis Secta fuit servare modum finemque tenere Naturamque sequi saith Lucan In all which places and many more which might be produced nothing is meant by nature but the law of reason for as Juvenal saith Nunquam aliud Natura aliud sapientia dicit Nature doth not teach one thing and Right Reason another Sat. 14. Now any habit promptitude or facility of acting conformably to this law of right Reason they called it Vertue Thus the Pythagoreans defined Vertue to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a habit of which ought to be done or of what Reason conducts and leads us to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vertue is nothing else but a habit of decency Theag. lib. de Virtut Aristotle describes it to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A readiness of acting according to right Reason Eth. lib. 6. cap. 13. And more fully that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. An elective habit consisting in mediocrity in things relating to us defined by reason c. Eth. lib. 2. cap. 6. This is acknowledged by our late Author Eccl. polit p. 68. The practice of vertue saith he consists in living sutably to the dictates of Reason and nature And def
the matter it self And that what is afterwards to be offered may be the more clearly apprehended and the lines measures principles of Vertue and Grace the more duly stated I shall in this Chapter propose and endeavour to establish several conclusions which as they are of considerable import in themselves so of no less influence to the enlightninâ— of what we have undertaken First then All moral actions become Good â— Bad from their agreeableness or disagreeableâ—ness to some Rule which is as their measâ—â—â— and standard to which being commensurâ—â—â— they appear either equal or unequal As in mâ—â—terial and sensible things we judg of theâ—â— streightness crookedness by their agreeâ—ment or disagreement to a material rulâ— which is the measure of their Rectitude anâ— Obliquity so in things Moral we judg wheâ—ther a thing or action be Good or Evil bâ— their agreement or disagreement to somâ— moral Rule For an Action then to bâ— good or bad it imports two things thâ— entity of the Action the Rule to whicâ— it is commensurate They greatly misâ—take who state the moraâ—lity of an action As Compton doth de bonitate malitiâ humanorum actuum Disp. 89. Sect. 1. N. 4. formally to consist in its being spontaneous voluntary and free for though no action can be Moral that is not free yeâ— its morality doth not lie formally in its freeâ—dom Hence those very Philosophers who made Vertue and Vice to be thingâ— only Arbitrary founded alone in the imaginations of men did nevertheless acknowledg man to be a free agent and that â—iberty is inseparable from every Humane â—ction Freedom intrinsecally belongs to eâ—ery action as it is an human action whereâ—s morality is but partly intrinsecal namely â—s it imports and includes the entity of the â—ction and partly extrinsecal viz. as it deâ—otes the measure by which it is regulated § 2. The second thing we premise is That â—he immediate and formal Rule of Moral â—ood or evil is Law or the constitution of the Rector as to what shall be due I â—â—ant that the fundamental measure of â—ctions unchangeably Good or Evil is 〈◊〉 Divine Nature and of things and â—ctions indifferent and variable the Diâ—â—ne Will But the formal and immeâ—â—ate Rule of both is Law No action 〈◊〉 otherwise Good or Bad than as it is â—â—ther enjoyned or forbidden It is imâ—ossible to conceive any action or omisâ—â—on to be a duty abstracting from obâ—â—gation and it is as impossible to conâ—â—ive obligation secluding Law This â—â—nd's abundantly confirmed by that of â—he Apostle John 1 Epist. chap. 3. ver ◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sin is the transgresâ—â—on of the Law An illegality or deviation â—â—om law To which accords that of Paul Rom. 4 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where no Law is there is no transgressioâ— It is a great mistake which yet I find toâ— many guilty of to make either the objecâ— or circumstance of an aâ—ction In hoc hallucinantur Iâ—sâ—ite fâ—re omnes vid. Vâ—sâ— diâ—p 57. Compt. dist 84. Sect. 2. de act Ham. the rule of its Moâ—rality or to constituâ—â— them the measure whâ— we judg an action gooâ— or evil An action is â—ot otherwise Gooâ— or Evil with respect to its circumstances then as cloathed with them it is either prâ—â—hibited or enjoyned It is true the cirâ—cumstances of an action conduce and coâ—â—tribute towards the discerning and defiâ—â—ing when it is forbidden when commanâ—ded when allowed and when disallowed But still the Law permitting and enjoyâ—ning the action in such cases and circumâ—stances disapproving and prohibiting it iâ— other is the proper and immediat Rule oâ— its morality § 3. The Third premise it this that maâ— being created a rational creature was uâ—â—der the Sanction of a law It is a contraâ—diction for man to be such a creature as hâ— is and not to be obliged to love fear anâ— obey God All creatures according tâ— their respective and several natures anâ— necessarily subject to him that made them â—t is impossible that whatever owes its enâ—â—re being to God should not also be in â— suitable subjection to him Man then â—eing a Rational creature must owe God â— rational subjection and on supposition â—hat his being is of such a Species and kind â— necessarily follow 's from the constituâ—â—on of his nature and his Habitude to God as his Maker that he should be acâ—ordingly bound to love reverence and â—â—rve him that made him so this being 〈◊〉 only Reasonable subjection But forâ—â—much as not only Pyrrho Epicurus c. â—f old but Hobbs and some other wild â—theistically disposed persons of late have â—anaged an opposition to all natural Laws â—ontending that all things are in themâ—elves indifferent that Moral Good and Evil result only from mens voluntary reâ—training and limiting of themselves and â—ow that antecedently to the constitutions â—ppointments and custom's of Societies â—here is neither Vertue nor Vice Turpiâ—ude nor Honesty justice nor injustice That there are no laws of Right and Wrong previous to the laws of the Commonwealth but that all men are at liberty to do as they please I say matters standing thus I shall discourse this head a little 〈◊〉 amply That there have been some who eithâ—â— through a supine negligence in not exâ—â—â—cising their faculties or through have defiled and darkned their Reasons by coâ—â—verse with sin have lost the sence 〈◊〉 distinction of Good and evil as well 〈◊〉 memoir's of ancient times as the sad â—â—â—perience of our own do evidently 〈◊〉 Diogenes Laertius in the life of Pyrrho 〈◊〉 us that he denyed any thing to be just unjust 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by nature But that all this were so only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by positive law 〈◊〉 Custom Nec Natura potest justo secernere 〈◊〉 quum There is no difference betwixt what 〈◊〉 call good and what evil by nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Forasmuch as there are different lawes 〈◊〉 different places it thence follows that theâ—◠〈◊〉 nothing in it self honest or dishonest but that according to occasion the same thing may be sometimes the one and sometimes â—he other In Fragmentis Pythagoreorum â—nter opuscula edita a D. Theoph. Gale Seâ—eca as well as others chargeth the same â—pon Epicurus and saith that therein he will dissent from him Ubi dicit nihil esse â—ustum naturâ where Epicurus affirmeth â—hat by nature or natural law there is noâ—hing just and honest And this indeed â—ecessarily follows from Epicurus his disâ—harging God from the Government of the World For if there be no Government â—here is no law and if no law there is neither moral Good nor Evil As Good and Evil are relatives to law so is law the â—elative of Government and all these â—tand and fall together With those already produced doth Mr. Hobbs fully agree Ubi nulla Respublica nihil injustum where there is no Common-wealth there is
not that which prevails â—â—mongst pâ—rsons debauched Mich. Epâ—â— ad Nicomachia For as Andronicus infâ—â—â—meth us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The 〈◊〉 of Nature is unchangeable among such 〈◊〉 are of a sound and healthful Mind 〈◊〉 doth it make any thing to the contrarâ— that men of Distempered and depraved â—â—â—dâ—rstandings think otherwise for he dotâ— not mistake who call's Honey sweet thougâ— sick and diseased Persons be not of 〈◊〉 judgment The Second is this that there be no Law of Nature constituting what is Good and what is Evil anâ—tecedently to Pacts and Agreements aâ—mongst Men then all humane Laws signifie in Effect just nothing For if there be no antecedent obligation binding to obey the just Laws and constitutions of the Commonwealth then may they at any time be broken without Sin and Rebellion will be as lawful as obedience â—or needs any one to continue longer â—oyal that he hopes to mend his conâ—â—â—ion by turning Rebel Nor doth it â—ffice to plead Promises Pacts and Coâ—enants to the contrary For if it be not 〈◊〉 it self a duty to keep ones Word and â—o perform what a man hath promised â—hen are promises but Wâ—ths to be broken at pleasure and serve for nothing â—ut to impose on the easiness of good-natured men According to this Hypothesis we are discoursing against no Man is bound to be honest if he can once hope to promote his interest by being otherwise and we may be either True or False Just or Unjust as we find it most for our turns All Humane Laws suppose the Law of Nature And seeing Revelation extends not to every place where Humane Laws are in force that Civil Laws do at all oblige must be resolved into Natural Law Obligation of Conscience with respect to the Laws of Men is a conclusion deduced from two Premises whereof the First is the Law of Nature enjoyning Subjection and Obedience to Magistrates in whatsoever they justly command The Second is the Law of Man under the Character of Just from both of which results the obligatâ—â—â— of Conscience to such a Law In a 〈◊〉 if there be no Natural Law then 〈◊〉 ever hath either Wit enough to 〈◊〉 Humane Laws or Power and Strength â—â—nough to despise them is innocent 〈◊〉 do men deserve punishment for beâ—â—wicked only it is their unhappiness 〈◊〉 they are weak and cannot protect theâ—â—selves in their Villanies The Third 〈◊〉 this supposing all things originally 〈◊〉 in themselves indifferent as there can no sin in disobeying the justest Laâ— of the Common-Wealth so no 〈◊〉 can offend by despising and transgrâ—â—sing the Laws of God Yea precluding â—â—â—tural Law it is not possible for God to 〈◊〉 an obligation upon us by any positive Laâ— and that upon two accouts First in 〈◊〉 after the clearest Revelation and promâ—â—â—gation of it I am still at liberty to belieâ—â— whether it be a law from God or not Uâ—â—less it be in it self good and a duty to belieâ—â— God because of his Veraâ—ity whensoevâ—â— he declares himself it will be still a maâ—â—ter of courtesy to believe it to be a 〈◊〉 from God notwithstanding that it come aâ—â—compained with all the evidences and mâ—â—tives of credibility that a Divine declarâ—â—tion is capable of being attended with Seâ—ondly because supposing we should be 〈◊〉 courteous as to believe God to be the Author of such and such Laws that it is with all his will command that upon our Allegiance to our maker and the greatest â—enalty that angry God can inflict or finite creatures undergo that we be found in the practice and pursuit of such and such things I say supposing all this it still remains a matter of liberty and indifferency whether we will obey him or not For if there be not any thing that is Good in it self nor any thing that is in it self bad then it is not an evil to despise the Authority of God nor is any man obliged to obey him further then he himself pleaseth and judgeth for his interest the Authority of God being according to the principles we are dealing with a meer precarious thing The Fourth and last that I shall name is this If all things be in themselves adâ—aphorous and good and evil be only regulated by customs and civil constitutions Then if men please they may invert the whole moral frame of things and make what the world hath hitherto thought Vertues to be adjudged Vices and Vices to come into the place of Vertues Yea a man may be bound to 〈◊〉 his opinion of Truth Honestly Verâ—â— Justice c. both according as he chanâ—â—eth his Country and according as the 〈◊〉 Laws of the Nation where he lives 〈◊〉 alter So that what is Truth to day 〈◊〉 be Falshood to morrow and what he â—â—â—tertain's as Religion in one place he 〈◊〉 detest as Irreligion in an other Nor it more lawfull to worship Christ in Enâ—â—land than it is to worship Mahomet in 〈◊〉 Levant Nor do the idolatrous heathâ— adore a stock or a stone upon weaker reâ—â—sons or worse motives than we do the Goâ— that made the World For as Tully saiâ— well Si populorum jussiâ— si Principâ—â— decretis si sententiis judicum jura coâ—â—stituerentur jus est latrocinari jus adulteerari si haec suffragis aut scitis multitudinis probarentur If justice be regulated bâ— the Sanctions of the People the decrees oâ— Princes or the opinions of judges then it is lawfull to rob to commit adultery whenâ—soever these things come to be established by the acts and ordinances of the civil power de Legib lib. 1. This inference is so natural and clear that the Authors of the Hypothesis we are examining have granted no less The Scripture of the new Testament is there only Law where the civil power hath made it so saith Hobbs Leviath cap. 24. The Magistrate can only define what is Scripâ—ure and what is not saith the same Author â—n the same Book That the Scripture obligeth any man is to be ascribed to the Authorty of the civil power nor are we bound to obey the laws of Christ if they be repugnant to the Laws of the Land idem ibid. All which a man of any Reason as well as Conscience must have an abhorrency for And indeed these things pursued to their true issues will be found so far from befriending any Religion that they are shapen to overthrow all Religion And this for the third prâ—mise that man was created at first under the Sanction of a Law § 4. The Fourth thing we are to declare is the nature of this Law that man was created under the obligation of and the manner of its Promulgation Learned men do wonderfully differ and some of them strangely prevaricate in stating the Measure of natural Law and in defining what Laws are natural Some would have that only to be a natural Law quod Natura docuit omnia ainimantia which beasts are taught by instinct Iustinian lib. 1. Institut But though the consideration of 〈◊〉
call men to account for what was never in their power to do He cannot expostulate with men for their sins if he created them destitute of the means and power of obedience In such a case we might be pitied but could not be blamed In a word this were to charge our sins upon God in a degree beyond what the asserters of fate and destiny ever did I may usurp therefore what the Philosopher say's in the like case 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to ascribe our wickedness to necessity is to justifie our selves and to condemn God Salâ—â—st de diis mundo cap. 9. An ability then of answering the Law of Creation man must at first have been endow'd with What this was and the nature of it is next to be declared God then having created man He not only made him a Rational Creature furnished with a soul of an immaterial and immortal nature which was his essential perfection and did perfect him in genere Physico as he was such a particular being in the universe which may be stiled the Natural Image of God in man Being in its spiritual immortal nature a representation of the Divine nature and is accordingly alluded to under that notion by the Holy Ghost Gen. 9.6 But besides He impressed a Rectitude on the soul of man perfecting him in Genere Morali as he stood in Relation to God as his Rector and Governour and was under such and such Laws Lo this only have I found that God made man upright Eccles. 7.29 i. e. endowed with divine Wisdome to understand his duty and with perfect ability to perform the same And this is principally intended Gen. 1.26 Where God saye's Let us make man in our Image after our own likeness For the likeness of man to God consists chiefly in purity Be ye Holy as I am holy 1 Pet. 1.15 And be ye perfect even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect Mat. 5.48 A moral resemblance can in both these places only be understood And that this is the primary proper intendment of that phrase our being created in the Image of God The Apostle Paul in more than one place doth confirm Put ye on the new man which after God is created in Righteousness and true Holiness Eph. 4.24 with Col. 3.10 And this we may call the Moral Image of God in man not only because it consists in Moral perfections answerable to what we conceive in God under that notion but especially because it adapts and qualifies us for the observance of the Law of Morality appointed us as the Rule of our living to Him Now this Moral Image though it was no part of our essence nor belonged inseparably to our faculties nor did our being Rational creatures consist in it yet it was not only concreated with Humane nature consentaneous to it and perfective of it but was in the state of Creation naturally due considering the end man was made for and the duties which were required of Him Had God sent man out of his hand without this Divine impressed Image Si hoc adjutorium vel Angelo vel homini cum primùm facti sunt Dâ—fuisset quoniam non talis natura facta erat â—t sine Divino adjutorio posseâ— manere si vellet non uti que suâ culpâ cecidissent Adjutorium quippe defuissâ—t sine quâ— manere non possent Aug. de corr et Grat. cap. 11. he had not had that goodness which 't is necessary every work of God should have which the Holy Ghost tells us that every work of God had And God saw every thing that he had made and behold it was very Good Gen. 1.31 That is every Creature was not only furnished with such perfections as might Render it a Being of such a species and kind in the creation but besides was endowed with whatever might qualify and adapt it to the ends that it was made for In this superadded rectitude image I mean superadded with respect to our essence but Natural as well as connate with to the respect State and Law we were made in and under conâ—isted our ability of living to God in an observance of the Law of Creation commonly stiled the Law of Nature Nor could man even in the State of innocency have so lived to God in the single strength of his Rational faculties as to be accepted with him Natural Grace I stile it so not with respect to the kind but the dueness was as necessary in order to our observing the Law of Creation then as Supernatural is to the obeying the Law of faith now This I would have due heed given to forasmuch as there will be considerable occasion to improve it afterwards § 6. Though man was created under the Sanction and in the knowledg of a Law and every way qualified and adapted for the keeping of it had he not been wanting to himself Yet if we consider him precisely as under the Law of Creation without any farther stipulation from God he was the meer object of Gods Dominion made at his will and for his pleasure and annihilable by the same will to which he owed his subsistence I readily grant that Gods Dominion which is nothing else but a right of disposing his Creatures according to his own pleasure in way's becoming Holiness Justice Goodness did no way Warrant him to damn them without the intervention of sin For this were to inflict a torment on them outweighing the Good of existence which he had given them If God should create a Creature only to make it miserable in stead of bestowing a benefit on it He would do it the greatest injury he possibly could Though bare existence be a term of perfection yet when it is over-ballanced with an extream and infinite misery it becomes an unhappiness and can be no longer eligible While we are then asserting the Soveraignty of God we would not affront his Justice and Goodness Now to reduce an innocent Creature into a worse estate than that out of which it was taken we cannot but esteem it inconsistent both with the Justice and Goodness which essentially belong to the supreme Being Nor can we once admit into our thoughts that he whose ways are weight and measure can inflict on any an extream and endless torment without the consideration of an antecedent crime There is nothing more repugnant to the notions of justice and equity than to damn a harmless Creature meerly out of will and pleasure The Savage allowances in the Heathen Worship have been alway's reckoned a just impeachment of the Deity of those they adored and shall we admit a worse Barbarity to be an appendage of the Dominion of the Holy Jehovah God forbid Nor do I in the second place deny but that tranquillity and serenity of mind would have necessarily accompanied Rectitude and Obedience Light is not more inseparable from a Sun-beam than pleasure and peace of Soul is from a state of purity and uprightness The obedient Soul â—asts
state of integrity to reward them provided that they persevered in their dependance on him by obedience to the Law of their Creation This doth abundantly testifie that He was under no antecedent obligation to it For the very Nature of a Covenant and Covenanting supposeth the thing Covenanted about to be free and in his power to do or forbear that makes the Covenant Where there is an Eternal and natural necessity a Covenant is not only superfluous but absurd What-ever accrueth to us either from intrinsick Equity or Essential Goodness we neither need nor do derive it from Graunt and Agreement Now that there was such a Covenant no man that hath read either his Bible and believes it or a System of Divinity though but a Dutch one can deny However see Heb. 8. from the sixt verse to the end and Heb. 12.24 All essentials to the constitution of a Covenant occur in that transaction as might be with ease evinced if we did but suspect that it came into question Now all this as it declares the wonderful condescension of God that He should humble himself to set bounds to his own Dominion and come to terms of agreement with a puff of precarious breath and a little enliven'd dust So it enhanceth the guilt of the first transgression being as well against Love as Soveraignty an act not only of Rebellion but Ingratitude § 7. Seventhly God having ratified the Law of Creation into a Covenant by annexing a Reward to the observance and keeping of it He took special care therein for the preserving and securing his own Glory what-ever should be the Event on Mans Part. Though he trusteth us with the mannage of our own happiness yet he would not trust us with the mannage of his Glory In case we should make an invasion on his Honour by transgressing the Law of our Creation and violating the terms prescribed us He did not leave himself to the necessity of retrieving it but provided for it in his first transaction with mankind Though the felicity of the Creature depend necessarily on its obedience yet the Glory of God doth not God having then in the Covenant of Works provided for the exaltation of the Glory of his Faithfulness and Goodness in the rewarding of man had he persevered in obedience to the Law appointed him He likewise in the same Covenant by constituting a penalty proportionable in his Justice to the demerit of sin took care for the securing of his Glory in the exaltation of his Holiness Righteousness Rectorship c. in the punishment of man supposing him to transgress the terms prescribed him However things should fall out no prejudice was to ensue thereon to God's Glory Had he therefore left us to stand or fall accordingly as we should demean our selves in reference to the tenor of that Transaction Though misery would have fallen out to be our Lot yet no dâ—triment would have arisen thereby to the honour of Gods Perfections of Government On the one hand then as man supposing his perseverance in integrity had groâ—nd afforded him of expecting good things from God on the account of his Fidelity and Righteousness his promise making life a debt though even in that case God did not become properly a debtor to us but what he was of that kind was to his own Veracity Which made one say Reddit debita nihil debens donat debita nihil pendens So on the other hand being once fallen the whole of our recovery can have had its rise in nothing but in the free and meer mercy of God For had he left us in our forlorn state He had lost no more honour by us than he doth by the Angels who kept not their first Habitation § 8. Man falling and thereupon forfeiting all that title to life which he had settled on him by the Covenant we have been discoursing of abode nevertheless still under the obligation of the Law of Creation For that resulting from the Nature of God and the Nature of man and the relation that man stood in to God as hiâ— Creator c. so long as those continue the Sanction of that Law must continue What-ever obligation ariseth upon us from our Nature must be as perpetual as our Nature is Now though the Lapse hath deprived us of the Rectitude of our Natures yet it hath taken nothing from us that is essential to our constitution as men Though we be transformed into Beasts and Demons in a Moral sense yet not in a Physical Though we have lost our Souls legally in that they are obnoxious to under the wrath of God yet we are not brought forth deprived of them nor of any thing essentially belonging to them Such a loss would render us unfit for Moral Government nor should we be so any longer men or that species of the Creation which supposing that we are at all we necessarily must be What we have said in proof of a Natural Law § 3. is all applicable to that we have now in hand so that all farther confirmation of it might have been here superseded But having met with a late Book of one Mr. George Bull stiled Harmonia Apostolica and therein with some principles altogether inconsistent with the proposition we have now asserted it will not be amiss to prosecute it a little farther Now the doctrines in the foresaid Author subversive of what we have been affirming are mainly two First That there is no Law of God now requiring perfect obedience or that any man is bound to live free from sin and his reason is quod justitiae Divinae repugnet ut quisquam ad plane impossibilia sub periculo presertim aeternae mortis teneatur Because it is repugnant to the Righteousness of God that any man should be obliged to that which is impossible And that a spotless sinless life is so to every one in the circumstances we now stand Dissertat posteâ— cap. 7. p. 105 106. 2. That there is no Law now in being threatning future death but the Law of Faith That the promises and threatnings of the Law of Moses were only Temporal and Earthly p. 210. If either of these be true that which I have affirmed must needs be false A refutation of these is so far then from being superfluous that it is a necessary service to the design which I have in hand First then If there be no Law now in Being threatning future death but the Law of Faith then of all men in the world the condition of the Heathen is the most eligible And the enjoyment of the Gospel is so far from being a priviledg that it is a snare For seeing where no Law is there is no transgression Rom. 4.15 Then for as much as the Gentiles are not under the obligation of the Law of Faith it naturally follows that what-ever courses they pursue or what-ever sins they are found in the practice of yet eternal Death they are not obnoxious to Instead therefore of pittying and
bewailing the condition of the Gentiles for their want of the Gospel we ought rather to lament their case that have it being brought only thereby under a hazard of Damnation which antecedently they were free from Secondly If there be no Law threatning Eternal Death but the Law of Faith then is there no such thing as forgiveness and remission of sin in the world The Reason is plain because all pardon supposeth guilt nor can any properly be discharged from that to which he is not obnoxious Now the Gospel denounceth damnation only against final Impenitency and Unbelief As on the one hand therefore these are neither pardoned nor pardonable so on the other hand if there be no Law threatning eternal death besides the Gospel then is there no other sin that we either need or are capable of having forgiven And by consequence there is no such thing as remission of sin in the World Thirdly If there be no Law threatning eternal Death but the Law of Faith then Christ never dyed to free any from wrath to come For it is non-sence to say that he hath freed us from the Curse of the Gospel yea it is a Repugnancy unless you will introduce another Gospel to relieve against the terms of this nor will that serve the turn unless you likewise find another Mediator to out-merit this If Christ then have at all delivered us from wrath to come it must be that of the Law and if so there must be a Law besides the Gospel that denounceth future wrath vid. Gal. 3.13 Fourthly To say that there is no Law now in Being requiring perfect Obedience and that no man is bound to live wholly free from Sin is in plain English to affirm a contradiction For There being nothing that is sin but what is forbid or what we are under obligation against all sin being a transgression of some Law 1 Joh. 3 4. To say that no man is bound to live free from sin is to tell us that he is not obliged to that that he is obliged to See Mr. Truman his endeavour to rectifie some prevailing opinions c. pag. 4. 14. I know well enough that some of these Consequences are things which the foresaid Author doth plainly detest but they are naturally the issue and birth of his Assertions For I would not fasten an odious inference upon any mans discourse if the cohaesion were not necessary and clear I reckon it an Unmanly as well as an Unchristian thing to wring conclusions out of others premises Nor would I drive the doctrine of any farther than it is apt to go and with the greatest Gentleness may be led § 9. That we are still under the Sanction of the Law of Creation hath been already demonstrated That which come's next to be declared is How that every Law of nature is of an Unchangeable obligation A late Author tell 's us that there are Rules of Moral Good and Evil which are alterable according to the accidents changes and conditions of humane life Eccles. polit p. 83. And accordingly a power is pleaded to belong to the Magistrate over the consciences of men in the essential duties of Morality Eccles. polit 68. And it is affirmed that He hath power to make that a particular of the Divine Law that God hath not made so ibid. p. 80. And from the power of the Magistrate over the consciences of men in Moral vertues which our Author tell 's 〈◊〉 are the most weighty essential parts of Religion the like power is challenged as appertaining to him over our consciences in reference to Divine Worship Eccles. polit p. 67 77 78 def continuat p. 356 357 358 371. c. I shall not at present meddle with his Consequence nor indeed can I without a digression Though I think it easy upon the Grounds that he states the Alterableness of Natural Laws to evidence the impertinency and incoherence of it For if either the matters of worship be already stated by God or if God should have precluded the magistrate by a declaration of his will as to medling in this matter and bequeathed that trust into other hands his Consequence falls to the ground But it is the Antecedent that I am to deal with and it is some comfort to me that there are men of equal learning with the foresaid Author who have been of a perswasion widely different from his Grotius a person of some account in his day and who will continue so while Learning is had in reputation judged otherwise in this matter Est autem jus naturale adeo immutabile ut ne a Deo quidem mutari queat De jure Belli Pacis lib. 1. cap. 1. § 10 Natural Right or Law is so unchangeable that it cannot be altered by God himself And that it may appear that he mean's those Rules of Good and Evil which have reference to contracts and positive Laws and in some sence depend upon them He adds a little after fit tamen interdum ut in his actibus de quibus jâ—s Naturae aliquid câ—nstituit imagâ— quaedam mutationis fallat incautos cum reverà non jus naturae mutetur quod immutabile est sed res de qua jâ—s naturae constituit quaeque mutationem recipit It comes to pass sometimes that a kind of resemblance and shadow of change in those acts which the Law of nature hath determined and unalterably fixed imposeth upon unwary men While indeed the Law it self is not at all altered as being immutable but the things which the Law regulates and about which it determines undergo an alteration ibid. It was of this Law that Philo gives us this character Lex corrumpi nescia quippe ab immortali naturâ— insculpta in immortali intellectu A Law neither subject to decay nor abrogation being engraven by the Immortal God into an immortal soul. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in men or not distracted there remains an immoveable unalterable Law which we call the Law of Nature Andron 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nothing determined by Nature can be any wayes altered Arist. lib. 2. Eth. Hence he stiles the Laws of Nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 immoveable and immutable For the further demonstration of this we desire it may be observed that Law is nothing else but the will of the Rector constituting our duty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hierocl made known to us by sufficient promulgation Now in order to the obtaining a signification of the Rector's will enacting what he exacts of us 1 a Rational faculty and a free use of it is necessary that being the only instrument by which we discern what the will of the Soveraign is Hence meer ideots children and men totally deprived of the use and benefit of Reason are under the actual Sanction of no law Not that there is any cessation abrogation or alteration of Law thereon but because through the incapacity of the subject it was never the Rector's will in those circumstances to oblige
Law of Faith is that which bespeaks our next enquiry The present existence of neither of them can be called into question for without the overthrowing the Nature of God the Nature of Man and the Decalogue of Moses we cannot suspect the Being and Obligation of the first Nor can the existence of the second fall under debate without disclaiming the Gospel not only in all the conditions of it but our hopes by it A consistency betwixt them must also be granted it being unbecoming and repugnant to the Wisdom of God to keep in establishment two several Laws whereof the one is wholly subversive of the other nor can Subjects in justice and equity be at one and the same time obliged to Laws which neither in their demands nor designs are consistent one with another The Apostle hath long agoe determined this Do we then make voyd the Law through Faith God forbid yea we establish the Law Rom. 3.31 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 make voyd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies inutilem inanem ignavam omnibus viribus destitutam reddere to render idle fruitless destitute of all binding power to evacuate the obligation of a thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death Heb. 2.15 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we establish legem statuimus vulg stabilimus i. e. firmam efficacem reddimus Bez. We fix and settle it in its Sanction and force Think not that I am come to destroy the Law saith Christ I am not come to destroy but to fulfil Mat. 5.17 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to dissolve the obligation of the Law to abolish and abrogate it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to overthrow the Democratie or popular Government Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 leges tollere to evacuate or cancel Laws often in Greek Authors So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being put in opposition to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to maintain the obligation of the Law consistent then they are Yet coordinate they can not be their terms being not only different but opposite It is true each of them in their own kind sense and way requires perfect obedience For no Law can remit what it self exacts but then it is only perfect obedience to its own demands And with respect to its own terms the Gospel is as strict as the Law As the one denounceth Eternal death to all those who transgress its terms so doth the other to all those who violate its He that â—ailes in Repentance from dead works Faith towards Jesus Christ and sincere obedience to the Moral Law is left as remediless by the Covenant of grace as he that fails in obedience to the Law of Creation is brought and left under the curse by the Covenant of Works Only the terms of the one are not so severe and strict as the terms of the other The Remedying Law being purposely introduced for the pardoning our trespasses against the Original Law The Law threatens death absolutely repent or not repent The Gospel threatens that the legal curse shall be executed except we repent And herein they are not only so distinct and different but distant and opposite in their demands the one to the other that whoever pleads on a personal fulfilling the terms of the one is not at all capable of pleading on the terms of the other The Subject of justification by the Original Law must be one perfectly innocent The man that doth these things shall live by them Rom 10.5 Whereas the Subject of justification by the Remedying Law must be supposed a sinner and a criminal They that be whole need not a Physician but they that are sick I am not come to call the Righteous but sinners to repentance Mat. 9.12.13 The Original Law both as it was first Subjective in our natures and as it is now Objective in the Decalogue to our natures requires perfect obedience Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine Heart and with all thy Soul and with all thy Strength Deut. 6.5 Moses describeth the Righteousness which is of the Law that the man which doth those things shall live by them Rom. 10.5 And accordingly in case of the least faileur it denounceth eternal death Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the Law to do them Gal. 3.10 Nor can sincere obedience give any title to life by the Law of Creation all the Right that it states us in to happiness is by the Law of Faith The obedience which gives a claim to life by the Original Law must be perfect and perpetual as well as sincere Seeing then none of the sons of Adam even in their best state doth good and sinneth not Eccl. 7.20 1 Kings 8.46 But in many things we offend all Jam. 3.2 And if we should say that we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us 1 John 1.8 It Naturally follow 's that by the Deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified in God's sight Rom. 3.20 But that as many as are under the works of the Law are under the curse Gal. 3.10 The Papists do here grosly erre by affirming that Mankind is still able perfectly to keep the Original Law But in order to this they are necessitated to hold that some sins are in their own Nature venial and that they are not contra sed praeter legem against but besides the Law Bellarmin lib. 4. de justif cap. 14. The whole of which as it is false so it is absurd and non-sensical For if they be against no Law they are not at all sins but acts in themselves indifferent and Lawful And if they be violations of any Law of God i. e. if they be at all sins they demerit eternal death That being the penalty annexed by God to the breach of every command Rom. 6.23 Gal. 3.10 Deut 27.26 Rom. 2.9 Besides did we remain able to fulfil observe the Law of Creation perfectly there could be no place nor room for the Law of Grace For as the Apostle saith if there had been a Law given which could have given life verily Righteousness should have been by the Law Gal. 3.21 It being then impossible that they should be Coordinate it remains that the one lye in a subordination to the other And seeing that the Gospel in all its super-structions supposeth the Original Law still in Being though not Universally to the same ends that it first served and for as much as the Law of Faith is provided and introduced of God to minister relief against the Law of Nature it likewise appears that the Original Law is now brought into a subserviency and subordination to the Remedial-Law How and wherein this is shall be farther laid open First then Our Lord Jesus hath in the Gospel adapted the Decalogue which is a compleat transcript of the Natural Law to be the alone measure of
credere deinde reddere illiâ— majestatem suam reddere Bonitatem sine quâ nulla majestas est Sen. Epist. 95. Non tantum stoliditate monstrositate simulachrorum sed sacrificiis homicidiorum coronatione virilium pâ—dendorum mercede stuprorum sectione membrorum abscissione genitalium festis impurorum â—bscaenorumque ludâ—rum Deos venerabantur Aug. lib. 7. de civit Dei cap. 27. as may sufficiently instruct us that some Media of Worship taken up by divers are Unbecoming Rational Creatures to perform towards a Being of that Nature and Perfections that God is The Obscene Rites and Lascivious Ceremonies of the Heathen in their Worshipping of Bacchus Pan Flora Cybele c. the Salvage Sacrifices to Moloch Saturn c. are justly therefore charged as repugnant to Natural Light Reason being derived from God as well as Scripture whatever is found contradictory to the true principles of that is as unsuitable to tender to God as that which is expresly forbid by this But that which I affirm is that the Law of Nature as it is subjective in man can give no certain directions about the Worship of God Nor can Reason define what outward mediums of worship God will be pleased with All who have believed the Existence of a God have supposed a declared Rule necessary for the manner of serving him No one ever judged that it was left to the arbitrary determinations of Humane discretion how God should be worshipped Plato tells us that all Divine worship must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 regulated by the Will and Pleasure of God and that in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Laws concerning Divine matters must be fetcht from the Delphick Oracle Plat. de Leg. That Nation or People cannot be assigned where any worship was admitted but what was founded on some pretence to Revelation Greeks Romans Barbarians have all of them attributed the Origine of their mysteries to their Gods It is true they were all of them mistaken but yet their Belief was founded on Reason viz. that none can conceive aright of God much less serve him as is meet unless he be instructed and directed by God himself If they referred the invention of Arts and Sciences and all things admirable to the Deity and celebrated their Legislators as receiving their Laws for the regulation of civil Society by some inspirations as indeed they did hence they believed Zaleucus the Locrian to have derived his from Minerva Lycurgus the Lacedemonian his from Apollo Minos the Cretian his from Jupiter and Numa his from Aegeria We have much more cause to suppose they should believe the immediate interposure of God in the communication of Laws for the regulation of Religious performances It 's an observable expression that I meet with in Jamblichus to this purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is not easie to know what God will be pleased with unless we be either immediatly instructed by God our selves or taught by some person whom God hath conversed with or arrive at the knowledg of it by some Divine means or other de vitâ Pythag. cap. 28. This their recourse to Oracles for the Regulation of their whole Sacra doth confirm beyond all possibility of reply And indeed where there is not some declaration from God warranting what we perform to him in Worship none of our services can be entitled Obedience for Obedience is the Relative of Command Hence â—hough we have cause to believe that God was pleased with the substance of the Moral performances of the Heathen as being grounded upon a Law communicated with and ingrafted in their Natures yet as to what concerns their Worship being destitute of all command authâ—â—izing either the Matter or the Manner of it it was odious and abominable to him Nor upon any other account are some parts of it liable to detestation being performed no question out of a good intention and divers of their Rites not materially Evil. The insufficiency of Natural Light for the Regulation of Worship might be farther confirmed by these three considerations 1. The great disagreement both as to Matter and Manner of Worship which we meet with among the highest pretenders to the conduct of Reason It is hard to be imagined into what diversity of opinions and practices men left to the conduct of Natural Light fell about the right way of Worshipping God The most Universal medium of honour by which the Pagan world made their approach to the Deity was Sacrifice Imprimis Venerare Deos atque annua magna Sacra refer Cereri laetis operatus in herbis Imprimis First i. e. praecipuè ante omnia dâ— operam sacrificiis chiefly and above all things be sure to offer sacrifices Servius in loc Thence the Philosopher accounts all other Religious performances null if they were not attended with Sacrifices 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sallust 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cap. 16. And yet on the other hand some of the greatest improvers of Reason that ever the World had seem to have been no friends to Sacrifices in the Worship of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We do not honour God by offering any thing to him but by being fit to receive from him Hierocl in Carm. Aur. Pythag. in vers 1. and 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is not decent to Worship the Gods with the cost of Sacrifices We only honour them by being Vertuous and Religious our selves Arist. Rhetor. Vis Deos propitiare Bonus esto satis illos coluit quisquis imitatus est Wouldest thou appease and reconcile the Gods be Vertuous He honours them enough that inmitates them Senec. Ep. 95. And when the serving of God by Sacrifices had universally obtained in the World yet their disagreement was not at an end but there still remained endless differences about the things they were to offer and the manner of offering them In the first Ages Vid Porphyr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lib. 2. only inanimate things were offered but in after-ages Animals were the principal things which they Sacrificed to their Deities And according to the difference of their imaginary Gods they made their approaches by Sacrificing Animals of different Species They offered Oxen to Apollo Mars Mercury Hercules c. Barren Cows to Proserpina young Heifers to Minerva Swine to Ceres Goats to Bacchus Deer to Diana concerning which Arnobius says excellently Quae est enim causa ut ille tauris Deus haedis alius honoretur aut ovibus hic lactantibus porculis alter intonsis agnis hic virginibus bubulis ille sterilibus vacculis hic albentibus ille atris alter faeminci generis alter vero animantibus masculinis lib. 7. advers gent The like diversity might be easily demonstrated as to all their other chief media of Worship The Antient Nations used no Images yea some abhorr'd them whereas latter Nations especially the Grecians abounded in them The issues of Right Reason are Uniform and therefore seeing the pretenders to the conduct of it have
Vice The Doctrines of an Immortality and Future Estate are so necessarily presupposed to the practice of Vertue that he who iâ— not assured of the former will scarcely be ever found in an exercise of the latter Eradicate once out of the minds of men the belief of a future existence a judgment to come and the perswasion of rewards and punishments and the issue will be that which both the Prophet and Apostle mentions Let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall die Isa. 22.13 1 Cor. 15.32 It will be hard to find any that will avoid fleshly gratifications who disbelieve an existence after death I cannot better express the result of such an opinion than in the words of some of themselves Vivamus mâ—a Lesbia atque amemus Nobis cum semel occidit brevis hâ—ra Nox est perpetua una dormienda Catul. Indulge genio carpamus dulcia Cinis Manes fabula fies Pers. If we enquire then into the opinions of those who have given the best attendance to Reason for the direction of manners We find some in the total disbelief of a future state such were Epicurus Pliny Strâ—bo and both the most and the chiefest of their Poets who I am sure had a greater influence upon the minds and lives of the vulgar than the Philosophers had Others speak ambiguously and doubtfully of it Aristotle by what we can collect from his writings was hugely uncertain about it Socrates if we may believe Plato knew not how to be confident of it Nor could Cicero get any farther but that he judged it the more probable opinion And they who seem to be most positive concerning it describe the Rewards and Punishments of that future state under such silly and wilde Notions as could have no great influence upon mens lives Their Infernal Regions were not very likely to disengage men from the pleasures of Animal life nor their Elysiaâ— Fields to prevaile with them to a course of mortification And indeed though every mans Reason may tell him that there is some future condition abiding us beyond this world yet such a knowledge as may indubitate us concerning it and give us such an acquaintance with the Nature and quality of the Rewards and Punishments of it as may make us contemn the pleasures of life chuse Vertue when we see it encompassed with the greatest calamities avoid evil when we find prosperity attending it Reason could never have helpt us to But for this we are obliged to the Gospel in which Life and Immortality are brought to light 2 Tim. 1.10 I shall in the fourth place endeavour to shew the insufficiency of Natural Light as to the being the measure of the whole obedience we owe to God according to the Law of Creation By demonstrating its defectiveness in conducting the Heathen world in things oâ— the strictest and plainest Morality This we shall do by producing a few examples wherein their most renowned Legislators and famousest Philosophers have transgressed not only in the practick but mistook in the Theory of the most obvious Duties of Moral Good and Evil. The Lacedemonians as I intimated before not only allowed but commended Theft The Cyprians permitted young women to prostitute their bodies for the raising themselves portions The Cretians made a Law to countenance Sodomie nor doth Aristotle mentioning it discommend it The Romans gave husbands liberty to kill their wives upon very frivolous occasions And allowed Creditors not only to slay their Debtors but to Torment them to death when they could not pay them The Persians authorised Fathers to marry their own Daughters and Mothers their Sons Both the Egyptians and the Athenians made it lawful for Brothers to match with their Sisters The Laws of the Bâ—rbiscae commanded the Sons to knock their Fathers on the head when they came to Dotage Hardly any Nation but allowed Robbery out of their own territories to be lawful Among some of the Indians their Princes are not permitted the conjugal embraces of their wifes till their Priests have deflowred them Plato was for establishing a community of women in his Commonwealth Both Socrates and Cato could make a trade of their wifes chastity and let them out for gain and profit Aristotle and Cicero besides several others recommend Revenge not only as just and lawful but as generous and noble The Stoicks overthrew true patience which consist's in an humble acquiescence in the will of God by stating it in an unpracticable Apathie For Patience lies not in confronting calamities and sinister accidents by a wilful stupidity but in deeply sensing them yet bearing them with a due Reverence and submission to the Soveraignty and wisdome of God who sends and order's them The Foundations on which their indifferency as to all forreign contingencies and seeming bravery under the most importunate evils bore viz. that they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not within the confines of our power and that murmure at them would be unprofitable are too weak for the structure of true patience to be raised on For it is not enough that we do not repine because it will not availe us but we are to forbear murmuring because it is unlawful Nor is it sufficient to justifie submission because the things are beyond our power to alter but we ought to acquiesce in them because they are the effects of a righteous providence and carry in them a design of Love and Grace if we do not defeat them Humility one of the most excellent and useful vertues hath not so much as a Room in all the Ethicks of the Philosophers yea pride is recommended amongst their chiefest vertues The consideration of the infinite perfections of the first Being and our dependence on him both as to life and all the benefits of it should make us contract and shrink into nothing whensoever we compare our selves with God Much more should the consideration of sin and guilt familiarize us to self-abasement and prostration But alas As man in general never more esteem'd himself than since he was miserable So they that have least to be proud of are most conceited Of all men the Philosophers abounded in self-esteem and boasting and that not only to a degree of immodesty but impudence As if it had not been enough for the Beggarly Stoick to vaunt himself the only Rich Man and that he alone was noble he did not only vie perfection with God but preferr'd himself before him The Indian Brachmans vouched themselves for Gods Yea the very Academicks who professed they knew nothing and the Cynicks who made it a great part of their business to deride the pride of others abounded in self-esteem To this Pride which universally possest them I judge two things to have contributed exceedingly 1 An apprehension they were imbued with that the soul is a portion of the Deity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a peice clipt of from God as Philâ— Platonising stiles it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Anâ—toninus call's it lib. 5. § 27.
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Divine particle idem lib. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a part of God Epict. Divinae particulae aurâ— Horat. Serm. lib. 2. And it was no question with respect to this that Cicero both iâ— his Tusculan questions and in his Book de Somn. Scip. saith Deum scito te esse Know thy self to be a God A Second thing that contributed to it were the wicked and ridiculous stories which went concerning the Gods whom they did adore and indeed who would not prefer himself before a Letcherous Jupiter a Thievish Mercury a Drunken Bacchus or a Bloody Mars c. The Natural issue of worshipping such Gods was either to grow vile in imitation of them or to slight and detest them as practising that which every man should be asham'd of Shall I add in the next place that the Authority of Princes stood upon very unsafe terms if the Obedience of Subjects were to be Regulated by the opinions of Philosophers There is noâ— an assassination of any man in power but what may be justified by examples commended in the most renowned Pagan writers What Cicero who was no puny either in learning or Morality plead's in justification of Brutus and Cassius for killing Cesar may serve to Authorise the Murther of any Magistrate if the Actors can but perswade themselves to call him Tyrant Had we nothing to conduct us in our Obedience and Loyalty but the sentiments of Philosophers no Prince could be secure either of his life or dignity The last Instance wherein the Philosophers miserably prevaricated in a Matter of plain Morality that I shal mention is their allowing an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men inflicting violent hands on themselves Holding our lives of God we are accountable to him for them nor can any be their own executioners without offending both against the Commonwealth of which we are members and invading the jurisdiction which belongs to God who only hath power to dispose of us I acknowledg that some of them were better illuminated in this matter than others Hence that of Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Soul is in the body as Souldiers in a garrison from whence they may not withdraw or fly without his order and direction that plac'd them there in Phaedon Vetat Dominans in nobis Deus injussu hinâ— nos suo discedere Cicer. Tuscul. lib. 1. Therefore Aristotle sayth well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To chuse death to avoid penury or Love or any thing that is calamitous iâ— not the part of a stout man but of a coward Eth. lib. 3. cap. 7. But the Stoicks who of all the Philosophers were the most renowned Moralists held it not only lawful but an act of the highest fortitude to redeem themselves from the miserie of life by flying to death for shelter Si necessitates ultimâ— inciderint exibit è vitâ molestus sibi esse desinet If miseries encompass thee fly to death for Sanctuary Sen. â—p 17. Sapiens vivit quantum debet non quantum potest si multa occurrant molesta tranquillitatem turbantia se emittit nec hoc tantum in necessitate ultimâ facit sed cum primum illi ceperit suspecta esse fortuna Nihil existimat suâ referre ficiat finem an accipiat idem Epist. 70. vid. Epist. 58.91.98 M. Antonin lib. 5. § 29. ac Epictet lib. 1. cap. 29. lib. 2. cap. 16. Nor were their practices dissonant from their sentiments witness Democritus Zeno Cleanthes Cato Brutus Cassius c. who all dipt their hands in their own blood acting therein both repugnantly to the instinct of self-preservation all men are by Nature imbued with and below that true fortitude which all of them celebrated as a prime Vertue For the Epigrammatists censure of Fannius doth perstringe them all alike Hostem cum fugeret se Fannius ipse peremit Hic rogo non furor est ne moriare mori Mart. By these few instances we may easily perceive what a miserable condition the World had been in even in reference to the most obvious duties of Morality had mankind been left to the sole conduct of Natural Light and by consequence that Humane Reason is not an adaequate Rule of Moral Vertue In further confirmation of the defectiveness of Natural Light for the Regulatioâ— of Moral Obedience I shall in the fift and last place observe that all who were under the conduct of meer Reason mistook in the End of Obedience which is as much under the Sanction of Law as the substance of Duty is For as Augustin sayes well Noveris itaque non officiis sed finibus 〈◊〉 vitiis discernendas esse virtutes Virtues 〈◊〉 not so much distinguisht from Vices by thâ— entity of the act as by the scope and intention of the agent advers Julian lib. 4. cap 13. What Forms are in Natural Philosophy that the End is in Moral A Respecâ— to God specifies every Vertue and Dutyâ— and wherever he is left out as the End thâ— Act is torn from its Moral Form Wâ— might call it Fortitude and Patience in Câ—â—tiliâ—e that he could endure cold hunger and much watchfulness to overthrow his Country were not the End necessary to the Moral denomination of every action The first cause is the ultimate end of every Being of and through whom we are to him we ought to be and act Seeing God is our Creator Proprietor Governour and Happiness all our actions ought to be directed to the glorifying of him Now where are any among the Heathen Moralists or among those that acted under the conduct of meer Reason who proposed as the end of their Actions the glory of God Their opinions about the Finis ultimus hominis with reference to which Varro tells us there were 288 Sects of Philosophers do abundantly evidence their faileur in this particular Some made Vertue subservient onely to their own praise applause and glory What the Poet says of Brutus's killing his own Sons when they intended to overthrow the liberty of their Country Vicit amor patriae laudumque immensa cupido Is the most that can be pleaded as the aim of a great many of them Others pursued Vertue in order to pleasure and onely admired it on that account Now supposing the pleasures they proposed to themselves were not so gross and sensual as is generally conceived though I know not how to acquit the School of Epicurus in this matter notwithstanding all the Apologies that are made for them yet their opinion is sufficiently culpable in that they confounded the intention and scope of the Agent with the consequent of the actioâ— and made the Reward annexed by God 〈◊〉 Vertue to intercept the Glory which in 〈◊〉 their thoughts and deeds they should havâ— endeavoured to bring to Him Those who spake most magnificently of Vertue held it desirable onely for it self affirming that the actions and offices of Vertue were to be pursued meerly for the beauty and honesty