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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	humane_a	law_n	positive_a	2,470	5	10.9031	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94272	A treatise of the schism of England. Wherein particularly Mr. Hales and Mr. Hobbs are modestly accosted. / By Philip Scot. Permissu superiorum.	Scot, Philip.	1650 (1650)	Wing S942; Thomason E1395_1; ESTC R2593	51,556	285

true that they made the division from the Catholick Church but did it rightly and worthily for the intollerable errors and damnable doctrins which then infected the whole Church and therefore they followed the command of the voice of God Apoc. 18. Go out of her my people that ye be not made partakers of her sins The damnable doctrins are by themselves reduced cheifly to Idolatry the other differences they conceive may be more easily swallowed and indeed this were a capital one if true and it were no less strange that the Church of Rome which reduced this Island and most part of the two worlds from Idolatry should it self knowingly teach or practise it and no less strange that these few men after so many yeers should see these gross abominations which such an infinity of learned men in so long time nor yet can finde or judge to be so Idolatry according to Divines is taken for a religions worship due to God and given to any creature In this all Christians agree The Church of Rome in the holy Sacrament of Eucharist giveth indeed Divine worship out of infallible supposition that under those Elements is the body and blood of Christ accompanied with his Divinity they do not give it to the accidents no not to the body and blood of Christ properly and precisely but to the Divinity so precise they are in the Divine worship whence it is clear that they do not direct their worship to a creature but to God and though they cannot but involve in their adoration his presence under the Accidents of bread and wine yet do not formally terminate their act to this presentiallity of Christ in the Sacrament which is but a relative a very extrinsecal accident and consequently not capable to terminate a divine worship whence we see the proper object is Christ who certainly is existent and therefore in this they are not mistaken even in all sectaries opinions and therefore there can be no Idolatry even though Christ had not that new ubication under the Elements of bread and wine that being the accessory not the principal which they aim at for they adaequately direct their action to Christ present not to the presence it self abstracting from Christ so that their mistake would be in a circumstance not in a substance and therefore even admitting that impossible supposition yet there would be no Idolatry The other particle is their worship of Images which in no wayes can be called Idolatry First because they do not at all teach Divine worship to be due to them as is clear in the Councel of Trent and as all knowing Protestants will confess Secondly many great Schoolmen do not hold any worship at all to be precisely directed to them it is suffient reverently to retain them and by them to be raised up in devotion to the thing represented by them as by a picture of Christ to be called upon to remember Christ c. As they think it is deducible out of the Councel of Trent Out of which it is evident that the Church of Rome is injuriously defamed of Idoltary And here I wonder much at Mr. Hobbs in his book De Cive who otherwise singularly deserving in moral and socratical Philosophy would so easily preoipitate his judgement in points of this nature He saith in his Chapter 15. n. 18. That if the Common-wealth should command to worship God under a picture that the people were-bound to do it In his Annotations upon the same place he calls himself in question for antilogies in this particular for in n. 14. He had taught that to worship God by a picture or any Image were to limit God to a certain terme which were against the law of nature touching Gods worship which surely destroys the first position To the answer of this he saith the offence would be in the commanders not in the obeyers by reason they worship him thus upon compulsion He adds that if God should specially forbid to be worshiped by the use of an image that then such a command could not be obeyed as it is in the decalogue were expresly Idolatry is prohibited Afterwards in the 16. Chapter n. 10. treating of the ten Commandments he saith that to worship God by an Image is against the law of nature as he said in the 15. c. n. 14. These seem to be strangely inconsistent propositions First the power which he saith n. 17. in the 5. Chap. To be transferred to Magistracy from the people in determining Gods worship he confesseth that it ought to be according to reason He confesseth also in his Annotation cited that to worship God under an Image were against reason because Idolatry not onely because now God hath forbidden it as he saith but in it self namely because as he said before it were to prescribe a term to his infinity and consequently to make God to be finite Whence it followes first that though Idolatry is against the light of reason and therefore intrinsecally wicked yet knowingly I might do it if commanded by a Magistrate so that an inferior power namely a power derived from my self can command me that which is absolutely prohibited by the highest power as is that of nature and I am bound to obey it with neglect of the other though supreme yet the Magistrate cannot command it but against reason and therefore such a command cannot be obligatory because in his 5. Chapter and n. 17. reason is the limit of that power Are not these inconsistences Again he saith that moral compulsion for a command is no more would render an act of Idolatry lawful because it would exempt it from Idolatry This is destructive of all religion and truly of reason in all Schools of Philosophy where Aristotle in his Ethicks and all others teach that we must lose our lives for vertue it self Again he saith that if God make a positive law to the contrary as he supposeth he hath that then I may not obey the former command of a Magistrate how this is reconcilable to his former tenet that worshiping God by Images is against the law of nature and yet onely unlawful if commanded by Magistracy because in the Decalogue or positive law it is again forbidden I know not for surely this law is inferior to that of nature according to all men and reason it self being the law of nature is drawn from the very nature of the thing it self That God hath forbidden Idolatry I doubt not in his first Commandment but whether to worship God by the use of Images is there forbidden Or whether it be Idolatry would deserve Mr. Hobbs his greater diligence to prove it For surely to say that it were a confinement of his Infinity would be as far from a proof as it is from truth clear in the light of reason and evidently against Scripture where we are taught to glorifie God in and by his creatures according to the 18. Psalm Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei c. The heavens speak

my designe His proof is because every man in his private worship before the City was made was to be guided by his private reason which therfore he might submit to the publick reason of the Common-wealth If this be true in point of reason as Mr. Hobbs much contendeth in order to the civil Magistrate how much more will this be concluded in respect of spiritual Magistracy to whom this power is conveyed not from the people but from God as Christianity teacheth Mr. Hobbs goeth far beyond this for he will have each one to be obedient to his Civil Church even in things clearly unlawful as he tells us in his 15. Chap. num 18. and elsewhere frequently Thus they condemn Christian obedience in things most congtuous to Christian reason and yet authorise their own tribunals contrary to faith and reason Mr. Hobbs saith n. 17. That except the power of determining Gods worship were in the law of nature translated to the City or Magistracy that there would be infinite sects divisions and consequently confusions in it and therefore he saith consequently enough that every man must submit to it The antecedent I understand not for the law of nature is a law declared according even to him n. 3. Pertacita rectae rationis dictamina by the secret suggestions of right reason in which he differs not from Cicero Lex naturae est ipsa ratio summa insita in natura quae jubét ea quae faeienda sunt prohibetque contraria c. It is not so much declared by reason as it is reason it self in the highest acception seated in nature and it is therefore called Lex naturae because nature signifieth a certain common vertue which impels all men to a general prosecution of good avoydance of evil whence they cannot will any thing under the pure notion of evil In brief the Law or light of nature radically is a power in the soul universally commanding the pursuit of good and declination of evil answerable to the first principles of reason And therefore speaking rigidly the soul in her creation is not so purely tabula rasa a bare table according to Aristotle and his followers Plato and his whole school she is enriched with universal principles which are called primae Conceptiones unresistable principles which have no other proofs then the true apprehension of the terms or extremes united and therefore are primò verae as Aristotle declares these are the first truths in which men cannot differ in use of reason for otherwise if they should fail in these it were in vain to expect any subsequent discourses in superstructures but as their discourses would enlarge so would their errors out of these nature frames her commands universally which is the Law of nature taken formally Whence it follows that in this matter of greatest concernment to humane nature Namely the worship of God there needs no translation of power from each particular person to the City or whole body of men because it is as intimately connatural to each as to all to know what the law of nature dictates by the constant and secret suggestions of reason what is to be done and what is to be avoided as Cicero tells us whence principally comes that we call Synderesis or check of Conscience else it is not a law of nature but some superstructure improperly called natures law which inseperably is infused into the soul to all who have a soul not hindred in her opperations But herein many erre who confound the hypotheses with the principles whence they are deducted that is remoter conclusions with the first which are immediate and serve as principles to all others The Law or light of natures therefore immediately dictates that God is to be worshiped and none can be ignorant of it that know the signification of the terms neither can they be ignorant that Gods worship must be performed in the best manner Thus far Cicero his Summa ratio pure reason convinceth men cannot disagree in this for as Cicoro notes non opinione sed natura constitutum est jus This depends not on opinion which is always ambiguous but is a law as constant and evident as the law of nature But because our natural knowledge of God is deducted only from his creatures for the objects of our understanding in this present condition of conjunction of the soul with the body are onely material or sensible natures deduced from our senses hence our reason cannot reach to know the manner of Gods worship because that onely is best which is pleasing to him note converse that is pleasing to him which we judge to be the best though out of this mistake each nation proceeding or rather standing as we say in their own light differed from each other and every one from truth in determining Gods worship To say therefore as Mr. Hobbs often inculcateth that every particular man must submit to the whole body for determination of this seems to be as impertinent a doctrin as to oblige every blind man to have an inquest of blind men to determine what colour any things were of to whose blind judgment every man should submit though as Aristotle tells us Caeaus non judicat de coloribus The thing were wholy out of their Sphere The determination therefore of the manner of divine worship can onely be had from God because none can know his will but himself For as Mr. Hobbs rightly teacheth n. 14. c. 15. Gods will is not to be thought similis nostrae like to ours but it is to be supposed to have onely some Analogy with ours quod condipere non possumus which our understand can not reach to Which is also Aristotle's Averroes and the best Philosophers doctrin Whence it follows that none can know what man nor of worship inmost agreeable conse quently what is best These wholy transcend our sphere and therefore Christian Divivines most reasonably hold it necessary to have supernaturally revealed truthes communicated to man-kinde to direct them in Gods worship and surely it were as high and pecoaminous presumption in any to offer to determinate this as the building of Babels Tower of which nothing could be expected but eternal confusion Whence it follows that never any worship pleased God which was not inspired by himself no not in the state of nature Mr. Hobbs must therefore retract his injuriously traslated power to his Common-wealth and teach his Disciples to seek this knowledge from God even under the law of nature As now Catholicks observe in all worship exhibited to the Divinity especially directed in all these supernaturals by the Church from which they receive Gods orders Aristotle indeed acknowledgeth the force of an argument drawn from authority to be very estimable even in schools and therefore we may adhere to so great authority as the Church even in reason But those who cannot overcome their own tenuous reasons by overpoising them with so great authority as the Church certainly must either be mad that