Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sin_n	apostle_n	law_n	transgression_n	5,619	5	10.4785	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52414	The charge of schism continued being a justification of the author of Christian blessedness for his charging the separatists with schism, not withstanding the toleration : in a letter to a city-friend.	Norris, John, 1657-1711.	1691 (1691)	Wing N1245; ESTC R40651	37,244	145

promulgated To this I answer First That the Fate of the present Cause is not concern'd in the issue of this Question our Laws being sufficiently promulgated But suppose it were concern'd it need fear no danger from it For the Question proceeds upon a contradictory Supposition It supposes the Law to be promulgated and not promulgated at the same time For if the Sanction be necessary as a Sign then it must make the first discovery of the Law which till then must not be supposed to be known And yet it must too and that before the Sanction can pretend to be a Sign For the Sanction cannot pretend to that Office till 't is known and it cannot be known till after the Law is known For to know the Sanction is to know that such a Penalty is by the Law annexed to such an Action which presupposes the Law to be known And how then can the Sanction be necessary as a Sign where the Law is not promulgated The very Supposition implies a Contradiction Whence I further conclude That 't is impossible that a Sanction should ever be necessary as a Sign to the Obligation of the Law which as it receiv'd not its Obligation from it so it may and will oblige without it since from what has been discours'd it clearly appears that it is no way necessary to the Obligation of the Law either as a Cause or as a Condition I say to the Obligation of it For I do not deny but that a Sanction is very necessary to the Inforcement and better Success of the Law and that therefore 't is very expedient that all Laws should have their Sanctions partly that by them the greatness of the Obligation may be rated and estimated it being the general Prudence of Law-givers to annex greater Penalties to more concerning and important Precepts and partly that by them Men might be the more easily and securely contain'd within the Limits of their Duty which without some Penal Restraint every little appearance of Interest would tempt them to transgress And yet even this is only an Accidental Necessity introduc'd by the badness of the World For were Men as they shou'd be Wise and Good which till the Millennium I despair to see they would discern and be satisfy'd of the Reason and Equity of the Law and that alone would be a sufficient motive to Order and Obedience But when they are either so stupid as not to see the good end of the Law or so profligate as not to regard it then comes in this Expedient of the Sanction arming the Laws with Penalties whereby they may be inabled to revenge themselves upon those unconsidering disingenuous Persons that do them violence And indeed considering the great and general Bruitishness and Degeneracy of Men how very alienated they are not only from the Life of God but even from that of Natural Reason too 't is very fit it should always be thus and that all Laws as well as those of Mount Sinai should have their Thundrings and Lightnings to awake and alarm the Passions of such Men who having lost their Reasons have now nothing else to be taken hold by But this I say only proves a Sanction necessary to the better Inforcement and not to the Obligation of the Law To which if any one shall yet think it necessary I shall only further press him with one sensible Absurdity which perhaps may signifie more with some Apprehensions than an abstracter way of reasoning It is this That upon this Supposition it would follow that if God himself shou'd impose any Command upon a Creature without annexing a Penalty in case of Disobedience he would not be able with all his Authority and Divine Supremacy to oblige that Creature And will any Man can any Man have the Impudence or Impiety to say so Suppose that when God gave that Command to Adam concerning the not eating of the Tree of Knowledge he had not added that other Clause which was the Sanction of the Law In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die Will any Man presume to say that Adam would not have been obliged by that Divine Command but might have tasted of the forbidden Fruit without Sin He must have but very little reverence for the Majesty of God and as little sense of the sacredness of his Authority who would adventure to say so And yet thus he must say if it be true what is contended for by some that the Sanction is necessary to the Obligation of the Law For whatever is necessary to the Law as such is necessary to every Law whether Human or Divine He therefore that holds the necessity of the Sanction to the Obligation of the Law must say if he will be consistent with himself that the Command of the Great God would not have obliged Adam in case there had not been a Penalty annex'd to it If he does not say so I should smile at his Inconsistency and if he does I should tremble for his Impudence and Irreverence But from a Supposition to descend to a Matter of Fact what will such a one say to the Tenth Commandment to which as the Author of the Christian Blessedness has rightly observ'd there was no Sanction annex'd Will he say that this Precept stood as a Cypher in the Decalogue without passing any Obligation upon the Jews This indeed wou'd make much to the honour of the Divine Wisdom and represent God as a very notable Law-giver to Usher in a Law with so great Solemnity and afterwards write it with his own fingers upon Tables of Stone when it could signifie nothing but only the filling up of a Number And yet this as absurd as it is he must say that will make the Sanction necessary to the Obligation of the Law If this be true then the Tenth Commandment did not oblige But it seems the great Apostle was of another Judgment when he said I had not known Sin but by the Law For I had not known Lust except the Law had said Thou shalt not Covet It seems then that Lust was a Sin and that by vertue of the Tenth Commandment which is here alledged by the Apostle to prove it so which therefore did oblige since without Obligation as well as where there is no Law there can be no Transgression If it be said that although the Tenth Commandment had no Temporal Sanction or Civil Penalty annex'd to it like the other Nine yet it had an Eternal Sanction namely the Rewards and Punishments of a future Life and that 't was by vertue of that Sanction that it became Obligatory I answer that this could not be any Sanction to the Jews to whom it was not plainly reveal'd though it be now to us Christians who have a full and express Revelation of it A Sanction not Publish'd is no Sanction as much as a Law not published is no Law that is to any real Effect or Purpose of Government Indeed of the two Publication seems

more necessary to the Sanction than to the Law For oftentimes the natural and inward Reasonableness of the thing may in a great measure supply the place of an Express Law as it did for a long time before there was any Express Law given but now Punishment is a more Arbitrary thing and that depends more upon the Will of the Governor and therefore unless there be an Express Declaration of it as there will be no certain ground of expecting it so there will be little or no influence derived upon Men from it Which makes it absolutely necessary that the Sanction should be expressly declared and published otherwise it will neither have the Nature nor the Effect of a Sanction It may indeed be the secret intent and purpose of the Law-giver to inflict such a Punishment for such an Offence and perhaps in some Cases this may be justly done without declaring before-hand that he will do so and this may be said to be the Sanction of the Law-giver but unless this be openly and plainly declared it can be no Sanction of the Law nor can it be a Sanction to those that are to be govern'd by it If God in his first solemn intercourse with Adam after the Precept given him had reserv'd that other Clause to himself In the day that thou eatest thou shalt die or had communicated this his Will and Purpose to an Angel or to any other Being but not to Adam himself could this have been said to have been in any respect a Sanction to Adam No certainly because not manifested to him whose concern it was Nor for the same reason could the other be said to be a Sanction to the Jews It must therefore either be said that the Tenth Commandment did not oblige the Jews which I think would be an intolerable Assertion and withal expressly against the sense of the Apostle declaring Lust to have been a Sin by virtue of that Commandment or that it obliged them without any Sanction and consequently that the Sanction is not necessary to the Obligation of the Law Which is the thing that I plead for If it be said that though the Sanction be not necessary to the Obligation of the Law in general nor consequently to the Obligation of all Laws yet it must be necessary to the Obligation of Human Laws because Human Laws do not oblige under Sin and therefore must oblige only under Penalty and that therefore such Laws without a Sanction will not oblige I answer first That this Objection proves a great deal too much for upon this Supposition the Law would not oblige to Action even with a Sanction for it would not so oblige at all But we suppose here the Law to have such an Obligation and say that the Sanction is not necessary to it and consequently that the removal of the Sanction does not remove the Obligation Our present Argument therefore is not concerned in this Objection We are here enquiring what Alteration the Toleration has made in the state of things by removing the Sanction of the Law whether it has thereby removed the Obligation too We say it has not but that if the Law had any Obligation before it has so still because the Sanction is not necessary to it But whether it had or no belongs not to our present Consideration which is only concerning the Effects of the Toleration but to the Absolute Merits of the Cause But however since it happens to come in my way this I say further That it is not at all necessary that Human Laws should be purely Penal because they are Human and consequently that 't is not necessary that all Human Laws should be so For when-ever they are purely Penal 't is acknowledged that they oblige to Punishment otherwise they would oblige to nothing which is the same as not to oblige at all and consequently would be no Laws But how come they to oblige to Punishment but only by the Will and Intention of the Law-giver invested with competent Authority And if by that he could oblige to Punishment then by the same had he so pleased he might have obliged to Action For this is a most unquestionable Rule That he who can oblige to Punishment can also if he pleases oblige to Action nay much rather it being a much greater thing to oblige to Suffer than to oblige to Do. Human Laws therefore are not necessarily to be supposed purely Penal as they are Human nor consequently ought all Human Laws to be so esteem'd 'T is not from the different Authority of the Law but from the different Intention of the Law-giver that any Law becomes purely Penal 'T is therefore by meer Accident that Human Laws are any of them purely Penal and not from the Specifick Nature of the Laws themselves which for any thing that is in their proper Natures may oblige in Conscience as well as any other Laws And that they do so oblige unless where t is otherwise express'd or insinuated in the Form of the Law is most certain the Law of God requiring us to obey the Laws of Men where they are not contrary to the Law of God But I need prosecute this no further since the Excellent Bishop Sanderson has given the World sufficient Satisfaction in this Point in those judicious Discourses of his de Legum Humanarum Obligatione in Conscientia If it be further urg'd which I think is the last Reserve of this Objection That the Removal of the Law does involve the Removal of the Sanction and why then will it not hold as much the other way that the removal of the Sanction should remove the Law To this I answer That there is a great Disparity in the Case The Sanction is made purely for the sake of the Law whom it is to guard and defend and so serves to it as the Means does to the End and consequently if the Law be abolish'd or suspended c. the Sanction must needs fall in proportion with it But now the Law is not made for the sake of the Sanction but for the good of those who are to be govern'd by it And therefore though the removal of the Law removes the Sanction yet it does not therefore follow that the removal of the Sanction should in like manner carry with it the removal of the Law To which after all I might add That 't is impossible that the whole Sanction of Human Laws should ever be removed For since the Law of God requires Obedience to the Laws of Men where-ever it may be lawfully paid and threatens those with the Punishments of another Life who are disobedient to publick Order and Government in this though the Human Sanction should be taken away yet the Divine Sanction would still remain and as long as that does remain the whole Sanction cannot be said to be removed This I might say for a Reserve and I do not see what Answer can be made to it but I think my Cause is otherwise so well