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as are legends of saints ridiculously and weakly invented, furnished out for ideas, not for actions of common life, with dreams and false propositions; for the scrupulous and fearful will easily be troubled, if they find themselves fall short of those fine images of virtue which some men describe, that they might make a fine picture, but like nobody. Such also are the books of mystical theology, which have in them the most high, the most troublesome, and the most mysterious nothings in the world, and little better than the effluxes of a religious madness.

9. Let the scrupulous man endeavour to reduce his body into a fair temper, and enkindle in his mind a great love and high opinions of God and God's mercy, and by proper arts produce joy in God, and rejoicings in the Spirit; let him pursue the purgative way of religion, fight against and extirpate all vicious habits and evil customs, do the actions of virtue frequently and constantly, but without noise and outcries, without affectation and singularity. That religion is best which is incorporated with the actions and common traverses of our life; and as there will be some foolish actions, so there will be matter for repentance; let this humble us, but not amaze us and distract us.

10. Let all persons who are or use to be thus troubled with flies, and impertinences of reason and conscience, be carefully and wisely instructed in those practical propositions which are the general lines of life, which are the axioms of Christian philosophy, which like the rules of law have great influence in many virtues, and have great effect towards perfection. For the more severe the rules are, the more apt they are to be the matter of scruple, when they are not understood in their just measures. Such as are, It is the part of a good mind to acknowledge a fault where there is none: Not to go forward is to go backward:He that loves danger shall perish in danger: - Hold that which is certain, and let go that which is uncertain. There are many more, of which I am to give accounts in the next book, and from thence the scrupulous may derive assistances.

Concerning the matter of scruples, I on purpose decline the considering of it here, because either every thing, or

nothing of it, is to be handled. A scruple may arise in the doing of every duty, in the remembrance of every action; and to stop one gap, when the evil may enter in at five hundred, I did suppose not to be worth my labour. I, therefore, reserve every thing to its own place, being content here to give the measures and rules of conscience in its several kinds and differing affections, that is, in all its proper capacities which can relate to action.

OF THE

RULE OF CONSCIENCE,

VIZ.

THE LAWS DIVINE,

AND

ALL COLLATERAL OBLIGATIONS.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

OF THE LAW OF NATURE IN GENERAL.

RULE I.

The Law of Nature is the universal Law of the World, or the Law of Mankind, concerning common Necessities to which we are inclined by Nature, invited by Consent, prompted by Reason, but is bound upon us only by the Command of God.

Εστω σοι πρὸ ὀφθαλμῶν γινώσκειν τι νόμος, φυσικὸς, καὶ τι τὰ τῆς DEUTEgúσews, said the Apostolical Constitution;"" Be careful to understand what is the law natural, and what is superinduced upon it." The counsel, abating the authority and reverence of them that said it, is of great reasonableness. For all men talk of the law of nature, and all agree that there is such a material law which some way or other is of the highest obligation; but because there are no digests or tables of this

a Constit. Apost. lib. i. c. 6.

law, men have not only differed about the number of them, and the instances themselves, but about the manner of drawing them forth, and making the observation: whereas if the law of nature were such a thing as it is supposed generally, these differences would be as strange and impossible, as that men should disagree about what is black or what is yellow,— or that they should dispute concerning rules to signify when they desire, or when they hope, or when they love. The purpose of the present intendment will not suffer me to make large disputes about it, but to observe all that is to be drawn from it in order to conscience and its obligation.

The Law of Nature.

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'Jus naturæ,' and 'lex naturæ,' are usually confounded by divines and lawyers, but to very ill purposes, and to the confusion and indistinction of all the notices of them. "The right of nature, or 'jus naturæ,' is no law, and the law of nature is no natural right." The right of nature is a perfect and universal liberty to do whatsoever can secure me or please me. For the appetites that are prime, original, and natural, do design us towards their satisfaction,—and were a continual torment, and in vain, if they were not in order to their rest, contentedness, and perfection. Whatsoever we naturally desire, naturally we are permitted to. For natures are equal, and the capacities are the same, and the desires alike; and it were a contradiction to say, that naturally we are restrained from any thing to which we naturally tend. Therefore, to save my own life, I can kill another, or twenty, or a hundred, or take from his hands to please myself, if it happens in my circumstances and power; and so for eating, and drinking, and pleasures. If I can desire, I may possess or enjoy it this is the right of nature. Jus naturæ,' by 'jus,' or 'right,' understanding not a collated or legal right, positive or determined, but a negative right, that is, such a right as every man hath without a law, and such as that by which the stones in the streets are mine or yours; by a right that is negative, because they are nullius in bonis,' they are appropriate to no man,' and may be mine; that is, I may take them up and carry them to my bed of turf, where

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b Valla Elegant. lib. iv. c. 48.

6

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the natural, wild, or untutored man does sit. But this is not the law of nature, nor passes any obligation at all.

And indeed nature herself makes not a law:

Nec natura potest justo secernere iniquum:

e

66

and this opinion Carneades did express, but rudely, and was for it noted by Lactantius. He said there was no law of nature. But the Christians, who for many ages have followed the school of Aristotle, have been tender in suffering such expressions, and have been great promoters of Aristotle's doctrine concerning the rò quoixò, the natural law.' But indeed Aristotle himself in this was various and indetermined. For in his Ethics he affirms, that some think the natural law to be τὸ μὲν φύσει, ἀκίνητον καὶ πανταχοῦ τὴν αὐτὴν ἔχει δύναμιν· ὥσπερ τὸ πῦρ καὶ ἐνθάδε καὶ ἐν Πέρσαις καίει, unalterable, and of the same force every where, as fire burns here and in Persia :" and yet he himself makes it mutable, and that is not the same among all nations; for so he in his Rhetorics d says, ἐστὶ γὰρ, ὃ μαντεύονται τι πάντες, φύσει κοινὸν δίκαιον καὶ ἄδικον, καν μηδεμία κοινωνία πρὸς ἀλλήλους ᾖ, μηδὲ συνθήκη,—that " some do divine" (not demonstrate) "that some things are just or unjust by nature, without any covenant or society;" intimating, that without a covenant or contract, tacit or explicit, there can be no law and if it depends upon contract, it must be variable as necessity and contingency together; and so he affirms, that there is nothing so naturally just but it is variable; and although the right hand is in most men the strongest, yet in some the left hand is. Τὸ διανεμητικὸν δίκαιον τῶν κοινῶν ἀεὶ κατ ̓ ἀναλογίαν ἐστὶ τὴν εἰρημένην — Distributive justice is by proportion ;" and, therefore, it is variable; and in general he affirms of all justice, τὸ δὲ δίκαιον ἀνάλογον, "justice is in proportion and relation."

For justice is ἀλλότριον ἀγαθὸν, that is, πρὸς ἕτερον, a relative excellence, and, therefore, must suppose society, and a paction or covenant. For "a man cannot be unjust to himself," or to his own goods, which are absolutely in his power: oùn kotiv àdınía gòs aùróv and, therefore,

e Lib. v. c. 7. Wilkinson, p. 209.

• Ethic. lib. v. c. 4. Wilkinson, p. 193. VOL. XII.

a Lib. i. c. 14. Howell, p. 60.

Ethic. lib. v.

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