Selected quad for the lemma: reason_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
reason_n	law_n	nature_n	positive_a	3,197	5	10.6866	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62472	A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor and Alderman of London, at Guild-Hall chappel by George Thorp ...	Thorp, George, 1637 or 8-1719.	1677 (1677)	Wing T1072; ESTC R1866	17,046	44

〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Of which what farther evidence can be expected than the experience of the even Infant Age where the knowledg of other Laws never yet came amidst the little transactions of which how oft do we hear such like complaints and expostulations with each other when aggrieved This I would or this I would not have done to you implying their native sence of a like obligation on the other Again this will readily descend to each single Case and may be easily accommodated to every emergence thereof which other Precepts must infinitely and endlesly multiply in their attempts towards However involved with difficulties or full of various windings and turnings this question is soon ask'd and almost as soon answer'd What we should desire and expect to be done unto us rebus sic stantibus that if not always absolutely yet is most likely to be our present Duty to others if not what we are strictly bound to yet is usually what is most safe and innocent if no other command bind it upon us yet our own choice generally does and convicts us of guilt in the Breach This proves the most faithful and impartial Monitor a voice still sounding in our Ears flee we never so fast from it This is the way walk in it Every man may soon and is very ready to put himself in his Neighbours circumstances and is as quick in determining what he would have done unto him you need not doubt his choice or that he should take up short of his due less we cannot ascribe more we may add to him And because we are so sagacious in finding and improving every hint that makes for our own interest therefore we are here most advantagiously directed to put our selves into his Case which if any thing is like to give us the fairest and fullest prospect of his due and the most pathetick motive not in the least to detract from it Neither lies there any exception against so suitable a Precept according to which we are made our own Judges and our own Law-givers our own Accusers or our own Compurgators can you desire more kind and indulgent ones Can you complain of that Burden which you impose on your self and think that a grievance with which your own happiness is so twisted Must your will be a Law to others and ought it not to be so first to your self What you have already judged best when to be done to you is it quite contrary when to be done by you and the case in nothing else altered So that whatever suspition or prejudice may lie against any other none sure can against our own voice and determination which this only ties us up to Wherefore no Precept can be conceiv'd prest with fewer incumbrances darkned with less intricacy open to larger use readier to present application more obvious to all apprehensions fitter to supply all other defects and losses and more safely to interpret most other injunctions than this of my Text. Summa omnium quae docet lex Prophetae quos si aut non vacat aut per inscitiam non potest evolvere habet domi regulam c. as Erasmus in his Paraphrase Which brings me to the Fourth and Last particular and part of my Text the Divine Authority and Sanction of this Rule exprest in the last words This is the Law and the Prophets I have hitherto considered it as the dictate of uncorrupt Nature and unbyast Reason by its own innate light and so have purposely omitted other confirmation thereof But if any thing seem still wanting to compleat the farther establishment of it for a Law and to raise a more Religious Veneration to its Observance that is abundantly supplied by this last clause this is not only to act agreeably to the most improved Reason but also Divine Revelation nor meerly to follow the Laws of Nature but of God over and above being strengthened by this his double Sanction which twofold Cord sure is not easily broken to its own intrinsick loveliness it hath all the positive enforcements and authority of an immediate Heavenly injunction This is the Law c. In which words our Saviour seems to go farther yet It is not only a single Command however solemnly Enacted in the Law confirmed and renewed by the succeeding Prophets but as it were the sum and recapitulation of the whole As if all together reduc'd into one short Epitome and Breviate running through every Precept and almost as oft repeated as there are any Instructions given So that go through the intire Scripture at least that part of it which concerns our deportment towards each other wheresoever you pitch on whatsoever you sit you cannot but meet the true purport and design of this though not in the same terms yet in sence So that if all the Offices and single Duties of Humane Life scattered in the Sacred Volumes may be included in one common direction it can hardly be done in fewer words and more comprehensive of all than this Also it 's not only the Law and the Prophets but the Gospel too where our Lord most expresly enjoins it here and in St. Luke vi 31. and some Copys added it to the Apostolick Cannons Acts xv 29. His Precepts also are more nearly suited and accommodated thereto where there seems any difference being more covertly and by consequence delivered of old Wherefore some Copys Read it in my Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so or to this effect are the Law and Prophets others as we 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is the Law c. Here I shall 1. mark out some general Commands of each Testament which seem of the same import with this 2. The Universal extent ascribed to such Commands 3. How far involved in other more particular and remote 4. The relation it may stand in to and the influence it hath upon even the Duties of the First Table which we owe most immediately to God himself to give it so great a Character as in the close of my Text. In order to the first may be observed indeed that it is no where in express terms in the Old Testament or the Canonical Books that which comes nearest is in the Apocryphal Tobit v. 15. Do that to no man which thou hatest where the negative part of it is somwhat the same But the positive sence is in many places as Levit. xix 18. Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self oft referred to in the New Testament Now no consequence can be more direct and natural than that if we love him as our selves we shall do to him what we would have done to our selves that only in the strictness of the Letter determining the inward Principle and Disposition of the mind this the outward suitable Expression thereof and Action To the same purpose may be Interpreted those many places concerning not only their Just but Charitable Humane and Friendly deportment towards all especially the Poor the Widow

if abstracted from other considerations one includes as much perfection as the other for what dare not some men assert Why in our own behalf are we so constantly determined in our choice to the one so fearful of and ready to fly from the other needing neither force of Argument or length of Meditation to secure our preference An immediate Conviction that they are as opposite in their own Natural tendency as our thoughts and that we can as soon cease to desire what is good as such as not think it to be placed in those things which this Rule directs us in to all Now if what I wish to my self or would have others do to me be better than the opposite or else why do I choose it then by the same reason it is better to all and at least when my own prejudice or interest comes not between I have no pretence of objection that involves not a contradiction and accuse my self of the breach of all the Laws of Conscience Reason and Equity if I do not what I cannot but judg and do so every day really best and most eligible 3. In other Cases where my thus dealing may seem to restrain those benefits which otherwise I could wish to my self yet is it most reasonable and equal that the conveniencies of Humane Life should be distributed by such measures while no axiom upon which Mathematical demonstration is built can plead clearer evidence than the Foundation of this If there it must be received as undeniably and immutably true Si aequalia aequalibus addas tota sunt aequalia Si ab aequalibus aequalia demas quae remanent erunt aequalia The same is this at least on the one side changing but things into persons paria paribus conveniunt like things agree to like persons So that whatever is fit for or due to me must be by the same reason for and to another in the same circumstances All men naturally as such are equal stand upon even terms and level ground and if Society Compact and the consequences thereof have made any difference in the conditions of men that alters not the Case here because the present Precept puts or supposes us intirely in the same state or capacity ere it determine or equalize our mutual dues and obligations So that as sure as there is any such thing as right or wrong reasonable or unreasonable equal or unequal and those must be as certain and evident as any other Relation whatever of agreeable or disagreeable beneficial or hurtful true or false straight or crooked c. which all Self-Love must derive from the supposed difference of and subsist by So unavoidably must the better part be involved in this direction But that I may begin and end with same persons here who too oft before make violent attempts upon those fixt boundaries and so are like to be little moved by such Topicks I add in the Fourth and Last place in their own way of reasoning There is no other possible Foundation of Society and so of Peace and Self-preservation involved therein than the supposed observance of this Law For if you love your self so does every one beside and may do as much and therefore can never be supposed to agree in any thing which provides not equally for his concerns as yours and puts him not in a like capacity of enjoying what he desires I appeal to the most partial whether all persons are like to meet in what only takes care for one or whether any other Rule or misapplication of this give so large as well as so equal a provision for more yea for all so that it has not only as much of abstracted reason but of private interest and safety as it 's possible for any general one to have wherein alone the concerns of the community are most nearly united and does not only follow that order in which God and Nature have plac'd us But the other fancied Originals of Society fall in pieces without it Diog. Laert. ● 5. p. 313. Compare Aristotle de moribus l. 9. c. 4. p. 148. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dion Cassius ● 52. p. 492. 493. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Whence Aristotle in his Life by Laertius is made to give it as a Rule of Friendship which would most difficultly be reduc'd to any other and Mecaenas in that famous Oration of his to Augustus in Dion Cassius one of the Monuments of Antiquity of greatest name left us from the common Deluge concerning the undertaking and management of the Roman Empire gives it him as the great and compleatest Rule of Government which challenges an eminency of all most transcendent So govern others as you would be governed your self But our Blessed Lord more wisely and charitably prescribes it as an universal Law to all while he supposes or makes them mutually cordial Friends and intirely concerned for each others good and welfare as their peculiar care and trust 3. What may yet farther commend this Rule is its plain easiness and suitableness to present use while Laws if otherwise never so rational and useful if withall obscure perplext and over-numerous may prove a snare rather than a support make more Controversies than they decide lose much of their strength and force by being spun out into nice and subtle disputes and fall short of their aim by not reaching the greater part of them whom they designed to direct who either have not leisure sufficient to attend or capacities to understand them or ready sagacity to apply them in opportunities of Action In contradistinction to which and such like inconveniencies here is a Law always at hand which every man carries about in his own breast legible to him that knows no Letters open and obvious to the most rude and ignorant which the worst memory cannot forget the suddenest surprize prevent nor the most wilful blindness conceal to come at which we are not forced to search Ancient Records or dark Repositories to revolve and ruminate upon old dark sentences or new finer glosses not to rove about the world to examine the various Customs and Constitutions of Countries not to soar as high as Heaven or dive as low as Hell in quest of our Duty after all other pains return into your self and look into your own heart where you may oft find it sooner and read it clearer than any where beside The Gentiles says St. Paul Rom. ii 14 15. Having not the Law do by nature the things contained in the Law these having not the Law are a Law unto themselves and shew the work of the Law written in their hearts their Conscience in the mean time accusing or excusing one another Where can we discern more lively Characters and a fairer Transcript of this non scriptae sed natae legis Tom. 2. p. 545 orat pro T. Annio Milone Tom. 2. edit Savil. p. 165. as the Orator stiles it than in this Maxim whence St. Chrysostom on my Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉