Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	law_n	moral_a	precept_n	2,880	5	9.5945	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28812	The royal law, or, The golden rule of justice and charity a sermon at the anniversary meeting of the gentlemen, inhabitants of London, and others, born within the county of Worcester, at St. Lawrence Church, Nov. 29. 1683.	Boraston, George, b. ca. 1634.	1684 (1684)	Wing B3748; ESTC R9969	13,784	26

The ROYAL LAW OR THE GOLDEN RULE OF Justice and Charity A SERMON AT THE ANNIVERSARY MEETING OF THE Gentlemen Inhabitants of London and Others Born within the County of Worcester at St. Lawrence Church Nov. 29. 1683. By George Boraston M. A. Rector of Hever in Kent LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's-Head in St. Paul's Church-yard 1684. To my Worthy Friends the STEWARDS for the present Year John Jolliffe Francis Wright Thomas Twittey Thomas Clifford John Harris Richard Boraston John Cooper Thomas Thornbury John Butler William Bacon William Jefferyes Walter Bowyer Gentlemen THIS Sermon Preach'd at your Feast is now at your request made Publick and presented as an acknowledgment of your undeserved Respects to me and your kind Apprehensions of the Discourse it self It was not any opinion of the performance to the weaknesses of which I am not a little conscious that hath made me comply with your desires to Print what I then Delivered but an earnest desire and hope of Contributing in some measure to your Love Veneration and Practice of the Duties therein recommended which so nearly concern the Vitals and Honour of Religion and all the great Interests of Mankind which great ends if these Papers shall any ways promote either in you or others as you will have no cause to repent in desiring so neither shall I in consenting to the Publication of them especially since thereby I have the opportunity of Publishing to the World how much I am Gentlemen Your Humble Servant and Affectionate Countryman George Boraston MATTH 7.12 Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that Men should do unto you do ye even so to them for this is the Law and the Prophets TO the performance of all those Duties we owe to God or Man we have no surer Guides than those natural notions interwoven in our make and constitution and revealed Religion designed by infinite Goodness and Wisdom to assist us against those Weaknesses and to repair those Ruins we have contracted by our vitious Education our Evil customs our Corrupt inclinations our Imperfect and false reasonings Between these two there 's so fair and necessary a correspondence that it is to all considering Men no slender support of their Faith in things revealed that they are so agreeable to the common notices implanted in them by Nature And yet in this unhappy age we have a sort of Men Christians I may not call them who are as fond of Sacrificing Christianity to their Lusts as ever the Primitive Christians were Zealous to Sacrifice their Lusts to the Laws of Christianity and their Lives for the Testimony of its Truth and Excellency Men who desire to be known by the name of Deists which is but a disguise for an Atheist since by it they well enough secure the effects of Atheism even when they are ashamed to own the principles of it Hence it is they not only Quarrel and Affront but Burlesque and make Sport with the Holy Scriptures and if they durst speak out would call the Gospel a contrivance and our Lord an Impostor What else means that cried up assertion that the Scriptures have no Authority but what the Civil Power gives them What else the revival of late of that long since baffled attempt Philostr life of Apollon by which Apollonius Tyanaeus that Impostor and Magician is made a Corrival if not an Overmatch to our Saviour both in Miracles and Sanctity of Life And what is the drift and secret tendency and design of all this But under the great respects they would seem to pay to the Law of Nature to undermine and justle all revealed Religion out of the World and to set these two in direct opposition and contradiction the one to the other that so they may thereby evacuate the Christian Law and gain the greater Liberty and Scope in gratifying their Lusts to which they imagine that to be a severer Enemy and to lay greater restraints on them than the Law of Nature does But by this as well as other reasons it is evident that it is not any strength of reason or conviction of their understandings but a kindness to their beloved Lusts that prevails over their minds and influences their Faith and makes them believe those things which are contradicted by common sense and plain demonstration For our Blessed Lord never designed to cancel the Laws of Nature but every where supposes and owns them and superstructs Christianity on that Basis and Foundation He intends not to divest Men either of the principles or passions belonging to Human Nature by converting them to Christianity or to deprive them of such helps as either right reason affords them or former Revelation had furnished them with but to improve and heighten both The Law and the Prophets were given by God as a fuller and plainer description and delineation of these natural Notions and Duties which he hath Written and Engraven on our Hearts which our Lord was so far from effacing or blotting out that his design was to fill up and compleatly finish that ruder draught and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so to furnish us with a perfect Picture of Virtue in its full proportion in its lively Colours in its goodly and beautiful lineaments that so it might have that effect upon our minds which Plato affirm'd Virtue drawn to the life would have if it could be seen to wit that it would kindle and enflame our affections and ravish our Hearts with its loveliness This our Lord affirms of himself toward the beginning of this best of Sermons St. Matth. Chap. 5.17 Think not that I am come to destroy the Law and the Prophets I am not come to destroy but to fulfil that is by adding other instances by explaining it more fully and intelligibly in many things and in more things rescuing it from those corruptions which the false glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees had mixt with it 'T were easy to instance several Precepts in this Sermon in which he directs his hearers and in them all Men what to do as Men and as Christians by advancing Moral and Political Virtues into Spiritual Graces Of all which my Text may justly challenge the precedency being the abbreviature of the Law of Nature the Scope and Design of the Law and the Prophets the most comprehensive Rule not only comprizing all those Duties that are useful for the conduct and happiness of Human Society but also sufficiently directing us to those Duties which we owe to God himself For when we consider his goodness towards us and his kind usage of us sparing us even when we deserve punishment and treating us with the affections and indearments of a most indulgent Parent so that we our selves cannot desire or wish that he should do to us any otherwise then he has done his beneficence to us and the good things he hath prepared for us exceeding not only our greatest hopes but even the conceptions of our Hearts I say when we consider

this we cannot but manifestly perceive our Obligations to the greatest Veneration Gratitude and Thanksgiving imaginable to so Gracious a Lord to so obliging and adorable a Benefactor in as much as we our selves do justly and reasonably expect some proportionable returns of those even of those inconsiderable benefits we have conferred on others However I shall not treat of the words in this utmost extent and latitude but shall consider them as they are an absolute rule of our actions and dealings enjoyning Charity and Justice towards all Men in all conditions and relations A lesson we are sent to learn no further and from no other Tutor than our own breasts our own regular and well-governed desires what we are willing other Men should do or not do to us are a sufficient direction and admonition what we in the like cases ought to do or not do to them A Law written in such legible Characters that none can plead Ignorance and of so easy a dispatch that the pleasure that attends the performance is a powerful invitation to indear and a sufficient reward to encourage our obedience Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that Men should do unto you do ye even so to them for this is the Law and the Prophets In Discoursing of this Rule I shall observe three things 1. The Law or Rule it self with some of its due proportions and measures 2. The Authority and Sanctions of this Law 3. Some Irregularities and deflections from this Rule by which the purposes and proper uses of it are perverted 1. The Royal Law or Golden Rule to be observed in all our Intercourses and Commerce All things whatsoever ye would that Men should do unto you do ye even so to them A Law which is deduced from that common natural inclination implanted in every one by God himself from whence it is that every Man doth naturally seek his own preservation and welfare That then which is naturally and sufficiently grounded in every Man is laid there as a pattern for the exercise of Charity and Justice towards all other Men For by this Native Law we are obliged to deal with others as if we had exchanged Persons and Circumstances with them and they were in ours But then it must be remembred that this self-love which is the measure of our actings towards others must be regular and well-grounded in its self not measured by the disordered appetites of every distempered mind of every Vitiated and Exorbitant Will which if once admitted would soon introduce all the disorders and mischiefs in the World is the Original of all those Sins which make the times Perillous overturns all Governments Sacred and Civil throws all ranks and degrees of Men into Disorder and Confusion as St. Paul observed long ago in his Epistle to Tim. 1 Epist 3 1-5 The love then we owe to our selves which is the measure of our actings to others must be regular and duly bounded by rectified reason common good and to tend to an object really good To give some plain instances of what we would or would not have done to us for the negative is included in the affirmative Do we abhor to be imposed upon with Lyes Mental Reservations and Equivocations And are not we equally obliged or can we without great partiality to our selves not acknowledge our obligations never to hide the true sense of our minds under any covert of reserve and ambiguous meanings Is it by us reputed dishonesty in others when they perform not their promises those more solemn securities of Mens intentions when they lawfully may or can And should not we be ever most punctual in performing our own Do we stick to charge such with Treachery as well as Injustice who in trusts committed to them act not with the same fidelity they would do for themselves And should it not oblige us in all trusts deposited to be so Faithful and Just as never to abuse the confidence reposed in us Would we have others take no advantage of our ignorance or necessity so as to impose upon us either false Wares or cheat us with fallacious weights and ballances It certainly obliges us that all fraud and deceit all unjust weights and measures should in our commerce be abominable to us as the Lord saith they are to him Do we in all our Straits the common lot of Humanity being liable to such portions of sorrow not only desire but lay claim to the compassions and assistances of others And should not this draw forth our bowels towards others and move us to pour Wine and Oyl into their Wounds to allay their Sorrows to clear up their doubts to remove their burdens to Minister as we are able to the necessities of all who stand in need Do we upon all occasions desire to be treated with sweetness and affability that every petty provocation should not raise and break forth in storms and rage against us much less settle in rancor and malice but rather that every one would be easy and forward to accommodation and all good offices And should not we go and do likewise Are we tender of our reputation Are we desirous others should be fair and candid Interpreters of our words and actions And doth it not concern us to be so far from making havock of our Neighbours reputation that we should not so much as hearken to or take up a reproach against it But should be always ready rather to conceal a real fault than be forward in divulging those that are supposed only and by the most charitable construction and fairest Apologies endeavour rather to render a great one less then by sly insinuations perverse reporting and malicious suggestions to make a small one great These are some of the greater strokes and lines measures and proportions of this excellent Law whereby most of the cases that occur may with ease be determined if our wills are not more deeply concerned than our understandings which Rule is not more useful in it self then Venerable and Sacred in its Authority which is my next consideration 2. The Authority and Sanctions of this Law being 1. A Law of Nature 2. A Law of Moses and the Prophets 3. A Law of the great Prophet and Lawgiver himself 1. A Law of Nature a Law taken out of the Notices and Records of Nature and most agreeable to it providing sufficiently for the necessities and equally advancing the happiness of Mankind without which we were not capable of receiving any Good or avoiding Evil but all private entercourse and publick Societies must sink into Ruin and Confusion A Law of such prime Evidence that none can overlook it of such apparent equity that none can dispute it visible not only to Philosophers and Wise-Men but even to little Children whom Nature it self has taught in all the petty injuries and unkind usages which are offered to them to rebuke the offender with such like words as these You would not be willing I should serve you so you would not

willingly be served so your self This is their ready and almost only protection and defence to which on all occasions they have recourse This seems to be one of the first Efforts and Sallies that their reason makes and the only Rule to direct and guide their conversation with one another and to secure themselves from wrong So open and obvious is the equity of this Rule that it seems to lye uppermost in the principles of Human Reason But then although this is a Law of such apparent evidence of such undoubted certainty yet because of the shortness of Human Reason and the uncertainty of its deductions and that what seems evident to some to others seems inconsequent and that the highest pretenders even in Mathematical and sensible demonstration are sometimes miserably mistaken of which Mr. Hobs himself is a most shameful instance it would not be amiss if we had some infallible Guide to secure us even from the possibility of being mistaken This therefore is my next particular proposed for the sacredness of its Authority and Sanction it being not the Law of nature only but 2. The Law and the Prophets This Law is not only recommended to us by right Reason but establisht also by Divine Authority so that there is no possibility either of doubting its Truth and Equity or escaping from its Obligation For who is there that dares question the reasonableness of that Duty to which Nature it self prompts him and the God of Nature directs him What Chains can hold what Fetters can secure that Man who can break from two such powerful ingagements who will not submit to two such mighty inducements To whom can we imagin that that Man will hearken who is Deaf to Natures kindly Voyce and to that of Almighty Power 'T is true this Law in terminis occurs not either in the Law or in the Prophets but there we may find others of the same import of like equivalence with it and in it are contained all the several Duties concerning the Justice and Charitableness of our deportment towards others which are scattered up and down and are more largely insisted on in the Law and the Prophets This is the Fountain from whence they all flow and from whence they may without Tort or Violence be fairly deduced the Center in which they meet and to which they may with congruity be referred This Rule contains in it the reason and the equity upon which the numerous and more particular instances of our Duty to others therein prescribed is founded This like an universal Soul does permeate and run through them all giving Life and Vigor Force and Authority to them The shortness of humane Life and the difficulty and tediousness of Learning and the intricacy of Knowledge and the multiplicity of particular Cases Exceptions and Restrictions has in all Arts and Sciences recommended the usefulness of short Aphorisms of compendious Axioms of little Summaries and comprehensive Abridgments in which are contained the Substance Pith and Marrow of things and which are as so many Pole-Stars to direct us in all our doubts as so many Clues to guide and extricate us in the Labyrinths of Knowledge in the variety and Meanders of Human Affairs Accordingly our good Lord our gracious Lawgiver in Condescension to our infirmity in Compassion to our Weakness has in this Art of Godly living this Art of Arts Epitomized our Duty and comprised in one easy and plain Rule all those numerous and sometimes difficult precepts which are diffused and are more largely commented upon in the Law and the Prophets that so neither their intricacy might perplex and puzzle our minds or their numbers burden and oppress our memories and both discourage our indeavours and abate our industry Would we know what the Law and the Prophets in the several Periods of the World have delivered would we behold it with one view and cast of the Eye It is briefly comprehended in this saying To this in all emergent difficulties in all doubtful perplexities in new and unforeseen cases when other means of resolution are dubious and intricate or unsatisfactory or quite fail us we may have recourse with the greatest Ease Security and Safety For if we will but consult and interrogate our selves what it is we desire that others should do to us in the like case we cannot miss of sufficient information to direct our practice Lastly As this is the First so it is the only Precept to which our Lord has vouchsafed so high an Honour has given so great a Character that it is the Law and the Prophets For that of loveing our Neighbour as our Selves and the like to which this high Character is also assigned is not different from it but of the same purport and equivalence with it Only this before us seems by far to have the preeminence of that For Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy Self not only looks more imperative and commanding without any reason annexed or implied in it to invite our love but also by requiring it in so high a degree and at first sight in so seemingly impossible a measure that it seems rather to deter us and to render the Duty unpracticable Whereas this by carrying such apparent equity in its fore-head by making our selves Judges in the case and appealing to the natural sentiments of our minds does recommend it self to our practice and does ingage our hearts with the choicest endearments But then Thirdly Lest any may imagine that this comprehensive rule that contains in it the Law and the Prophets concerns those only that lived under that dispensation and that the men in the Text are of that narrow extent and signification that our Neighbour was under the Law our Lord adopts this into his own Religion and makes the Precept as Catholick as his Church Nay the truth is it is of a much wider extent and we have the warrant of his own exposition in the Parable of the Samaritan to extend it in a sort to all men whatever with whom we have any thing to do or who live within the compass and reach of our Charity Accordingly his blessed Apostles do press this Duty on us in this unlimited and universal extent exhorting us as we have opportunity to do good to all men to distribute liberally to be Patient and Gentle to abound in love to make Supplications Intercessions and Thanksgiving for all Men. To which consideration we may add that this command of Love and Charity one towards another is that command which our blessed Lord did select and choose out above all the rest every where thereto expressing a dear affection a singular regard claiming in it a special Interest a peculiar Propriety recommending and pressing the practice of it to his Disciples with an extraordinary concern with urgent importunity with unusual Zeal exemplifying and outdoing the command in the whole tenor and course of his life having loved us not only beyond all former example but also beyond all imagination