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ry he ought to say, it is by no means charits, unless voluntary. For love is the most delightful union of our will with the thing beloved; which cannot be so much as conceived, without the plainest contradiction, to be any other than voluntary. If therefore, by the superadded law, love is rendered involuntary, and forced, the whole nature of love is made void, and the divine law set up, which destroys love. 6. In fine, the law of nature itself was not without a threatening, and that of eternal death. I shall conclude this subject in the most accurate words of Chrysostom.* "When God formed man at first, he gave him a natural law. And what then is this natural law? He rectified our conscience, and made us have the knowledge of good and evil, without any other teaching than our own.'

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VII. We must, moreover, observe, that this natural law is the same in substance with that expressed in the decalogue, being, what the apostle calls, the commandment which is unto life ; that is, that law, by the performance of which, life could formerly be obtained. And surely the decalogue contains such precepts, which if a man do, he shall live in them.‡ But those precepts are undoubtedly the law proposed to Adam, upon which the covenant of works was built. Add to this, what the apostle says, that that law, which still continues to be the rule of our actions and whose righteousness ought to be fulfilled in us, was made weak through the flesh, that is, through sin, and that it was become impossible for it to bring us to life. The same law therefore was in force before the entrance of sin, and, if duly observed, had the power of giving life. Besides, God, in the second creation, inscribes the same law on the heart, which, in the first creation he had engraved on the mind. For what is regeneration, but the restitution of the same image of God, after which man was at first formed? In short, the law of nature could be noth

* Ex homilia xii. † Rom. vii. 10. Lev. xviii. 4. § Rom.

viii. 3, 4.

ing but a precept of conformity to God, and of perfect love; which is the same in the decalogue,

VIII. This law is deduced by infallible consequence from the very nature of God and man: which thus explain and prove. I presuppose, as a self-evident truth, and clear from the very meaning of the words, that the great God has a sovereign and incontroulable power and dominion over all his creatures. This authority is founded primarily and radically, not on creation, nor on any contract entered into with the crea ture, nor on the sin of the creature, as some less solidly maintain; but on the majesty, supremacy, sovereignty, and éminence of God, which are his essential attributes, and would have been in God, though no creatures had actually existed, though they are now conceived by us with a certain respect to creatures at least possible. From this majesty of the divine nature, the prophet Jeremiah infers the duty of the creature. For as much as there is none like unto thee, O Lord, thou art great, and thy name is great in might. Who would not fear thee, O King of nations? for to thee doth it appertain.* For if God is the first, the supreme, the supereminent, it necessarily follows, that all creatures do in every respect depend on that first superme, and supereminent God, for existence, power, and operation. This is of the essence of creatures, which, if not entirely dependent, can by no means be conceived without the most evident contradiction. But the more degrees of being there are in any creature, the more degrees of dependence on the supreme Being are to be assigned to it. In the rational creature, besides a metaphysical and physical entity, which it has in common with all the other creatures; there is a certain more perfect degree of entity, namely, rationality. As, therefore, in quality of a being, it depends on God, as the Supreme Being; so also, as rational it depends on God as the supreme reason, which it is bound to express, and be comformable to. And as God, as long as he wills any creature to exist, neces * Jer. x. 6, 7.

sarily wills it to be dependent on his real providence ; (otherwise he would renounce his own supremacy, by transferring it to the creature ;) so likewise, if he wills any rational creature to exist, he necessarily wills it to be dependent on his moral providence ; otherwise he would deny himself to be the supreme reason, to whose pattern and idea every dependent reason ought to conform. And thus a rational creature would be to itself the prime reason, that is, really God; which is an evident contradiction.

IX. In vain therefore do frantic enthusiasts insist, that the utmost pitch of holiness consists in being without law; thereby wresting the saying of the apostle, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient.* For certainly that passage does not destroy our assertion, by which we have evinced, that the human nature cannot be without the divine law; but highly confirms it. For since the ungodly are here described as lawless, who would fain live as without law, and disobedient, who will not be in subjection; it follows, that the acknowledging the divine law, and the subjection of the understanding and will to it, is the character of the righteous and godly. In the law of God, since the entrance of sin, two things are to be considered. 1. The rule and direction to obedience. 2. The pow er of bridling and restraining by terror and fear; and lastly, of justly condemning. When therefore the apostle teaches, that the law was not made for a righteous man, he does not understand it of the primary and principal work of the law, which is essential to it, but of that other accidental work, which was added to it on account of and since the entrance of sin, and from which the righteous are freed by Christ.

X. Nor does that follow only from the nature of God and man, that some law is to be prescribed by God to man in common, but also such a law as may be not only the rule and guide of human actions, but of human nature itself considered as rational. For

Tim. i. 9.

since God himself is in his nature infinitely holy, and manifests this his holiness in all his works, it hence follows, that to man, who ought to be conformed to the likeness of the divine holiness, there should be presribed a law, requiring not only the righteousness of his works, but the holiness of his nature itself; so that the righteousness of his works is no other than the expression of his outward righteousness. Indeed the apostle calls that piety and holiness, which he recom. mends, and which undoubtedly the law enjoins, the image of God. Now, an image should resemble its original. Seeing therefore God is holy in his nature, on that very account it follows, that men ought to be

so too.

XI. A certain author has therefore said with more subtilty than truth, "That the law obliges the person only to active righteousness, but not the nature itself to intrinsic rectitude;" and consequently, " that original righteousness is approved indeed, but not com manded by the law: and on the contrary also, that original unrighteousness is condemned, but not forbidden by the law of nature." For the law approves nothing which it did not command; condemns nothing which it did not forbid. The law is TORAH the doctrine of right and wrong. What it teaches to be evil that it forbids; what to be good, it commands. And therefore it is justly called the law of nature, not only because it can be known by nature as a teacher, but also because it is the rule of nature itself.

XII. In fine, we are to observe concerning this law of nature, that at least its principal and most universal precepts are founded, not in the mere arbitrary good will and pleasure of God, but in his unspotted divine nature. For if it is necessary, that God should therefore prescribe a law to man, because he is the original holiness: it is no less necessary, that he should prescribe a law, which shall be the copy of that original. So that the difference between good and evil, ought to be derived, not from any positive law,

* Eph. iv. 24. Col. iii. 10.

and arbitrary constitution of the divine will, but from: the most holy nature of God itself. Which I thus prove.

XIII. Let us take the summary of the first table: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, &c Should this command be said to be founded in the arbitrary good pleasure of the divine will, and not in the very nature of God, it may with equal propriety be said, that God might absolve us from the necessity of loving himself. That this is a thing impossible, appears hence: It is natural to God to be the chief good. It is included in the idea of a God, that he is the very best. It is natural to the chief good, that he cannot without blame but love what is proposed worthy of the highest love. Whoever, therefore, shall affirm, that the necessity of loving God flows not from the very nature of God, advances the following contradiction: God is in his nature the chief good, and yet in his nature is not supremely amiable. Or this other God is worthy of the highest love; and yet it is possible, that he who does not love him, does nothing unworthy of God. These things involve a most palpable contradiction.

XIV. But to proceed: If the command to love God is founded, not in his nature, but in his arbitrary good pleasure, he might have enjoined the, hatred of himself. For, in things in their own nature indifferent, he who has the right of commanding, has also that of forbidding, and of requiring the contrary. Now, this assertion, that God can command the hatred of himself, besides being horrible to the ear, labours under a manifest contradiction. Which will clearly appear to every body, from a proper explication of the terms, God the chief good, supremely amiable, are terms equivalent; at least, the last is an explication of the preceding. To hate any thing, is not to esteem it as the chief good, nay not so much as good, and therefore so far from loving it, to be averse from it. Would it not therefore be a manifest VOL. I

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