Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	moral_a	nature_n	positive_a	4,914	5	10.3383	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45473	A vindication of Dr. Hammonds addresse &c. from the exceptions of Eutactus Philodemius, in two particulars concerning [brace] the power supposed in the Jew over his owne freedom, the no-power over a mans own life ; together with a briefe reply to Mr. Iohn Goodwins Gbeisodikai, as far as concernes Dr. Hammond.	Hammond, Henry, 1605-1660.	1649 (1649)	Wing H615; ESTC R35984	37,214	48

A VINDICATION OF Dr. HAMMONDS Addresse c. From the Exceptions of EVTACTVS PHILODEMIVS IN TWO PARTICULARS Concerning The Power supposed in the Jew over his owne Freedome The No-power over a mans own life TOGETHER WITH A BRIEFE REPLY TO Mr IOHN GOODWINS {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as far as concernes Dr. HAMMOND LONDON Printed for R. Royston at the Angel in Ivie-lane 1649. A VINDICATION OF Dr. HAMMONDS Addresse c. 1. THe late Author of the Originall and end of Civill Power under the name of Eutactus Philodemius hath thought fit to question two things set downe by Doctor Hammond in his Addresse to the Generall and Counsell of War The first is this Affirmation That the Jew under Gods own Government might wholly give up himselfe and his Freedome to his Masters will the power of life being onely exempted and by having his eare bored might of a free-man become a slave for ever 2. The second is this Question Whether ever any man was by God or Nature invested with power over his owne Life i. e. to take away his owne life or to kill himself 3. This Affirmation and this Question he willingly acknowledges and is content that the Question shall be interpreted a down-right Negation That never any man was by God or Nature invested with power over his owne life or power to kill himselfe And having thus confest the citation as farre as concernes him it remaines that I proceed to justifie both parts of it And to that end I shall think my selfe sufficiently fortified by two advantages which that Authour hath been pleased to allow me in this matter 4. First that it is not any opinion of Doctor Hammond but the plaine words of Scripture which are under his name thus opposed by this Authour in both places The former is in terminis Exodus 21. at the beginning If the servant shall plainly say I love my Master c. I will not goe out free Then his Master shall bring him to the Judges c. And his Master shall bore his eare thorow with an awle and he shall serve him for ever And againe Deut. 15.16 And it shall be if he i. e. the servant set free at the Sabbatick year say unto thee I will not goe away from thee c. Then thou shalt take an awle and thrust it thorow his ear unto the door and he shall be thy servant for ever and also to thy hand-maide thou shalt doe likewise 5. That a plaine place of Scripture should be thus mistaken for an Assertion of Doctor Hammond I am not permitted to suspect because that Author hath to his mention of the Doctors Name added the testimony of Gen. 21. which though it be a mistake I suppose of the Printer for Ex. 21. will yet be a competent testimony of that Authors opinion that Doctor Hammond had Moses on his side and consequently that both were to be involv'd by him in the same condemnation 6. The same I suppose I may assume of the other Negation questioned by him that 't is in Doctor Hammond but the repeating of the 6. Commandement thou shalt not kill according to the latitude wherein all Jewish and Christian Writers have interpreted it to the prohibition of self-murder as hath been shewed by him at large in another place 7. Having mentioned this first advantage against this Author sufficient certainly to secure Doctor Hammond from his blame and to make any Apologie for him unnecessary and well-nigh scandalous the Word of God being able to plead its owne cause without the assistance of any humane Advocate I have yet the benefit of a second kindnesse allowed me by this unknowne adversary which though Scripture were not of Authority with him would encourage the Doctor not to fear the falling under his displeasure That is the unreconcileablenesse of those two opinions the one with the other which he is pleased to confront to Doctor Hammond viz. that it should be unlawfull for a Jew to give up his Freedome and that servitude should be as he calls it an unnaturall servitude and yet that it should be put in his power by God and Nature for that is to affirme it lawfull and agreeable to Nature to take away his own Life or to kill himselfe For it being by Job mentioned as an Aphorisme of common Nature that a man will for his life give all he hath and in the accounts and practises of all men that of Liberty being part of that all It will consequently be unreasonable and impossible for him that hath once affirmed the parting with ones freedome to be an unnaturall servitude to deny the killing of himself to be an unnaturall murther And therefore having so faire advantages before me not onely the Scripture in terminis on my side but this Adversary by so easie a consequence become my Second also I am not unwillingly perswaded to tender a brief reply to those reasons which seeme to have drawn this Author into this casuall dispute and to endeavour the preventing of those Errours to which a Philodemius or popular disputer may in such an Age of Licentiousnesse betray others 8. To the case of the Jewish Servant giving up his freedome to his Master which was by the Doctor mentioned out of Moses the Authour hath framed three Answers 9. The first That it cannot be affirmed upon good and pregnant grounds that from nature the Jew had any such power but that God onely permitted it to be so and the Jew by this unnaturall servitude to his master was a fit type of that slavery that man should be in unto Sin to obey it in the lusts thereof for his servants we are whom we obey 10. To this I Answer That the affirmation of Moses in the Scripture That this was permitted by God to the Jewes is to me a good and pregnant ground that the Jew had this power under Gods own Government which is all that he affirmes to be affirmed by Doctor Hammond in that place and therefore the putting in those other words Of the Jewes not having it from Nature seemes to be on purpose designed to take off from the clearnesse and the pregnancy of the probation and so onely to darken but not to invalidate the argument 11. But then secondly I adde that Gods permitting any thing to any man is a pregnant argument that from Nature that man hath that power If by Power we mean a morall power or power of doing it without Sin And if by Gods permission we understand his Approbation as of a lawfull fact For thus it is certaine that God never so permits as to approve or not prohibite any thing which by the Law of Nature may not be done without sinne For the Law of Nature being the Law of God as truly as any positive Law of his promulgating and God in all his Lawes being constant to himselfe so farre as never to prohibit and permit the same thing at the same time

to the same men It is most certaine that what God thus permits Nature permits also i. e. Leaves it lawfull to be done or possible without Sinne 12. But if by Permission this Author meanes no more then dispensation or grant of present Impunity such as in the Jewish Common-wealth was for the hardnesse of their hearts allowed in the businesse of divorce or for the multiplying of them in polygamy then it will sure rest upon him to prove and not only as he saith to suppose that God thus and thus only permitted it to be so But this I shall suppose impossible to be proved though it cannot lie upon me to demonstrate the Negative nor shall I so much fear the probablenesse of his unprov'd groundlesse supposition as to endeavour it For indeed what degree of likenesse is there betwixt those divorces and polygamies which were such inordinate Liberties and this other of divesting himselfe of Liberty Only the same that is betwixt two Contraries 13. I shall not need further to insist on this both for the plaine words of Scripture and because it is the acknowledgment of this very Author page 18. That this may lawfully be done for the obtaining of a greater good which being compared with Rom. 3. ver. 8. makes up a demonstration that a man hath this power i. e. that he may lawfully doe it For 't is not the intuition of the greatest morall good much lesse of the greatest advantage to my self or any other that may make that lawfull which in it self is unlawfull or which by nature man hath not power to doe 14. And therefore when he addes That in this the Jew was a fit type of mans slavery to sinne as t' will be easily granted that he was as type signifies Image or Embleme so sure it will not prove that this servitude of the Jew was an unnaturall servitude any more then any other parts of the Judaicall Law which either in the intention of the Law-giver or by the wit of Man can be made an Image of any present state or condition of men can by that one Argument be proved to be unnaturall For sure all types are not by that one evidence of their being types demonstrated to be sinfull especially when they are instituted or permitted by God and by that appeare to be agreeable to his will in Opposition to or Variation from which all sinne or Obliquity consists Or if this charge must fall singly on this Type but not on all others as sure the Passeover which was a Type was not yet unnaturall and so of the rest then must this charge be proved by some other medium then by this onely that it is a Type and till that be produced I must think this way of discourse which first supposes this giving up of the Jewes Liberty to be a Type and then concludes it unnaturall for being such to be the proving of quidlibet ex quolibet the same with his which first supposes a live man to be a Picture and then sends him a challenge for being such Certainly such reasoning is too very loose and light to set any good Character on that cause that wants such supporters 15. His second answer is yet a little more strange and such as could not yet easily have been foreseene or expected That his having his ear bored was a punishment for his contempt of that Liberty c. T is sufficiently known that this boring of the ear was the ceremony of receiving a Servant among the Jewes and therefore when David saith of Christ But mine eare hast thou opened 't is acknowledg'd that thereby was denoted his taking on him the forme of a servant This boring of the ear with an awle was no very painfull thing sure not so much as Circumcision and yet 't would be a little strange that when a Proselite was received among the Jewes with Circumcision that should be deemed a punishment on him for his not continuing a Gentile or that his Conversion to Judaisme of which this was the Ceremony should be thereupon counted an unnaturall Sinne The answering such Arguments as these would require a more chearfull and pleasant humour then the times or occasion of these debates will well permit 16. The last Answer lookes a little more demurely That his giving himselfe up to be a slave for ever did referre to and terminate in the year of Jubilee c. and that he did not make himself irrecoverably a slave c. That this was to terminate in the year of Jubilee is said without farther proof then onely of this untestified affirmation in a Parenthesis that that was the year of his freedome from that servitude which the corruption of his own will had brought upon him which is the proving a thing by a bare repeating of it in other words and onely throwing a little durt upon it For how doth it appear that it is a piece of Corruption for a man that loves his Master as the Text saith and is better pleased with his service then with his former liberty thus to choose that which he likes best Or how comes the casting off Liberty to be a corruption of the will when casting off yokes and servitude is made capable of so good a Character Had the words of Saint Paul speaking of servants If thou canst be free use it rather been brought to back this bare Assertion there had been some tolerable excuse for such a begging of the question as this But those words extend not to a command that every man should be obliged to be free that can but onely to a permission that if he will rather use it i. e. preferre this Liberty he most lawfully and commendably may But this Authour hath not thought fit to make this Interpretation or account of that place necessary to be given him As for the truth of his Affirmation that this Bondman with his ear bored was released at the year of Jubilee 't is that which as it doth not well consist with the words of Moses He shall serve him for ever Exod. 21.6 and Deut. 15.17 so it is not proved by any other place or made probable that for ever is not an absolute for ever One place in Leviticus there is Chap. 25.41 which saith that the poor Brother that is sold to be a bond servant shall be free at the year of Jubilee and proportionably the servant spoken of by me in Exodus and Deuteronomy is to be set free from that servitude to which he was sold i. e. the forced and constrein'd not purely voluntarily servitude in the seventh or sabbatick year and so by the same reason in the Jubilee which is the great Sabbatick made up of seven times seven in the place of Leviticus 17. But this Author must mark that this person thus set free is not the Jew of whom Doctor Hammond spake but the other that hath made the voluntary surrender of his Liberty he that when the Sabbatick yeare comes or consequently the