Selected quad for the lemma: nation_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nation_n	law_n	nature_n	positive_a	2,085	5	11.0131	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30114	Man in paradise, or, A philosophical discourse vindicating the soul's prerogative in discerning the truths of Christian religion with the eye of reason	Bunworth, Richard.	1656 (1656)	Wing B5475; ESTC R176545	21,633	105

finde it to be nothing else but a Systeme of rational precepts commanding or forbidding upon such proportionable penalties or rewards as are agreeable to the dictate of Nature or the Law of Reason Here we have an Eye for an Eye and a Tooth for a Tooth c. Double restitution is injoyned for Theft and Murther is forbidden upon penalty of Death And in like manner for Trespasses committed we finde in the Law such rational proceedings as honest and understanding men would contrive for the due administration of a Common-wealth as for example If men strive together and one smite another with a stone or with his fist and he die not but keepeth his bed if he rise again walk abroad upon his staff then shall he that smote him be quit onely he shall pay for the loss of his time and shall cause him to be thorowly healed Exod. 21.18 19. If a man shall cause a field or vineyard to be eaten and shall put in his beast and shall feed in another man's field of the best of his own field and of the best of his own vineyard shall he make restitution Exod. 22 6. Who can be so ignorant as not to understan● this to be reason If we look into other Precepts of the Law which do not concern any private controversie betwixt man and man nor are related to the happiness of any particular Common-wealth but onely to the beatitude of mankind in general we may observe the like rationality as for example Thou shalt not see thy Brother's Ox nor his Sheep go astray and hide thy self from them thou shalt in any case bring them again unto thy Brother and if thy Brother be not nigh unto thee or if thou know him not then thou shalt bring it unto thine own house and it shall be with thee until thy Brother seek after it and thou shalt restore it to him again In like manner thou shalt do with his Ass c. Deut 22.1 2. Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him for ye were strangers in the Land of Egypt Ye shall not afflict any widow or fatherless childe Exod. 22.21 22. Such-like Sentences of Humanity and Charity are so sweetly intermix'd with the other precepts of Equity thorowout the whole Law that the Law of Nature and the Moral Law seem both to intimate the same thing and both to be summed up in this rational Precept Quod tibi non vis fieri alteri ne feceris Do not thou unto another that which thou wouldst not have another do unto thee As concerning those Meats which are forbidden in the Law to be eaten they are also such most of them as even Nature would admonish all people to refrain of which sort are Eagles Ravens Kites Hawks Owls Bats Cuckows c. and on the contrary those Meats which are tolerated are for certain Physical Reasons the wholesomest food and also by natural instinct are suggested unto mankinde as esculent of which sort are the Ox the Sheep the Goat the Hart the Ro-Buck the Fallow Deer the Wilde Goat c. Some may object That if the Moral Law be the same in effect with the Law of Nature the said Moral Law must necessarily have been observed by other Nations before it was given by Moses unto the Children of Israel To which I answer affirmatively for it is not hard to prove by Scripture that almost every punctillo of the same Law though not as positive but as natural was observed before it was given unto Jacob's Posterity Murther was punishable by the Egyptian Laws as may appear by the second of Exodus where we read that Moses looked this way and that way and when he saw that there was no man he slew an Egyptian which was smiting an Hebrew one of his Brethren and so soon as he had done it expecting nothing but death if he had been found out he hid himself in the sand for his own safety and afterwards when Pharaoh heard of it he fled from Pharaoh out of Egypt into the Land of Midian because Pharaoh sought after him being the chief Magistrate to punish such-like offenders Adultery was also accounted an offence as hainous before the Law as it was afterwards which is manifest by the story of Abraham and Abimelech in the twentieth of Genesis where we read That Abraham supposing that the fear of God was not in the Land of Gerar denied his Wife because he knew that Adultery was so odious even in those places where the fear of God was not that they would rather slay him and then take his Wife then take his Wife he being alive they would rather do Murther then commit Adultery Another example we have in Gen. 39. of Joseph who would by no means sin against God in committing Adultery with Potiphar's Wife although there was no Moral or Positive Law to make Adultery a sin but onely the Law of Nature or the Rule of right Reason How severely simple Fornication was punished before the Law by Jacob's two Sons Simeon and Levi we may read in the 22 of Genesis That Theft was made a Crime by the Law of Nature may be collected out of Gen. 44. from the passage of Joseph and his Brethren concerning the Cup which was put into Benjamin's sack c. Add to all these Jacob's vow of the tenth of all he had unto God and his obedience to his Father and Mother which is in the 28 of Genesis By all which it is evident that the same Law which was afterwards given by Moses unto the Israelites had been anciently practised both by the Hebrews and the Egyptians which was at first written in the Heart of Man and was connatural unto him but by degrees being obliterated in process of time almost wholly defaced it was afterwards engraven upon Tables of Stone whereby it did change its property being before the Law of Nature which did sweetly incline and was more arbitrary but afterwards it became a positive or Moral Law strictly commanding and leaving without excuse Thus much shall suffice to have spoken concerning the Precepts of Holy Writ I come now in the last place to demonstrate the rationality of Miracles A Miracle is an effect produced out of the ordinary course of Nature From the notion we have of a Miracle or from its definition we may collect that it is not in the power of any Creature to perform a Miracle for the course of Nature is a Decree gone out from God which Decree it is impossible that any should have power to alter but he that made i● so that the exhibition of a Miracle is a rati●nal demonstration that he that performs the same i● sent of God and hath hi● power from above From the observa●ion of the act we come to the knowledge ●f the agent We say That to produce such or ●uch an effect immediately to turn Water into Wine or the like is an action not natural but supernatural wherefore the agent cannot possibly be