unless a contrary reason arises, and that God cannot be served by obedience in that instance: but when the case is not only otherwise, but contrary to what it was before, let the design of God be so observed, as that the letter be obeyed in that analogy and proportion. It is a natural law, that we should not deceive our neighbour; because his interest and right is equal to any man's else: but if God hath commanded me to kill him, and I cannot, by force, get him into my hand, I may deceive him whom God hath commanded me to kill; if, without such a snare, I cannot obey the command of God. But this is but seldom practicable, because the reasons, in all natural laws, are so fixed and twisted with the accidents of every man's life, that they cannot alter but by miracle, or by an express command of God; and therefore we must, in the use of this rule, wholly attend upon the express voice of God. 3. It hence also will follow, that, if an angel from heaven, or any prophet, or dreamer of dreams, any teacher and pretendedly illuminate person, shall teach or persuade to any act against any natural law, that is, against any thing which is so reasonable and necessary that it is bound upon our natures by the Spirit of God and the light of our reason,—he is not to be heard; for until God changes his own establishments, and turns the order of things into new methods and dispositions, the natural obligations are sacred and inviolable. 4. From the former discourses it will follow, that the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament are the light of our eyes, and the entire guide of our conscience, in all our great lines of duty; because there our blessed Lord hath perfectly registered all the natural and essential obligations of men to God, and to one another; and that in these things no man can or ought to be prejudiced; in these things no man is to have a fear, but to act with confidence and diligence, and that concerning the event of these things no man is to have any jealousies; because since all the precepts of Christ are perfective of our nature, they are instruments of all that felicity of which we can be capable, and by these we shall receive all the good we can hope for: and that, since God hath, by his holy Son, declared this will of his to be lasting, and never more to be changed by any succeeding lawgiver, we must rest here, and know that no power less than God can change any thing of this, and that, by this law, we shall stand or fall in the eternal scrutiny. RULE X. The Law of Nature cannot be dispensed with by any human Power. THE reason is, 1. Because nature and her laws have both the same author, and are relative to each other, and these as necessary to the support and improvement of human nature, as nourishment to the support of human bodies: and as no man can create new appetites, or make hay or stones to be our nourishment: so neither can he make, that our nature should be maintained in its well-being without these laws. 2. The laws of nature, being bound upon us by the law of God, cannot be dispensed withal, unless by a power equal or the same, or superior to that which made the sanction: but that cannot be at all; therefore neither can they be dispensed with at all, unless it be by God himself. 3. Natural laws are all the dictates of natural reason; and he that dispenses with the law must have power to alter the reason, which because it can never be done but by superinducing something upon nature greater than her own natural need, and none can do this but God, therefore none but he can dispense. But because wise mena have publicly said it, "Per jus gentium et civile aliquid detrahitur de jure naturali ;—By the law of nations and the civil laws, something may be diminished from the law of nature," it is to be considered what truth they could signify by those words: for unless by some instances of case they had seen it lawful, it is not to be supposed it could have been, by so wise persons, made sacred. But the following measures are its limit. 1. Whatsoever is forbidden by the natural law, cannot be a L. Manumissiones, et L. Jur. civile, ff. de justitia et jure et in sect. jus autem. Instit. de Jure Natur. Gentium et Civili. permitted by the civil; because where the highest power hath interposed, there the inferior and subordinate hath no authority; for all it hath being from the superior, it cannot be supposed it can prejudice that from whence it hath all its being; for if it could be otherwise, then either the inferior must be above the supreme, or the supreme must submit itself to what is under it. 2. Whatsoever is commanded by the law of nature, cannot be forbidden by the civil law for God, who is here the lawgiver, is to be heard; and he sets up no authority against himself, nor gives any man leave to disobey him. These rely upon the same reasons, and are described above. 3. That which the law of nature hath permitted, and no more, may be made up into a civil law, or it may be forbidden, according to that rule in the law, "Quod licitum est ex superveniente causa, mutatur; - That which is only lawful by a supervening cause, may be changed." For rights are before laws in time and nature, and are only such licenses as are left when there are no laws. Commands and prohibitions of nature not being the matter of civil laws, unless it be by way of corroboration, there can no laws be made in a natural matter, unless there be restraints or continued permissions of their first rights. For that which, in morality, we call "indifferent,”—in nature we call " a right;" that is, something that is permitted me to do or to use as I see cause for, is a thing upon which no restraint is made; that is, there is no law concerning it: but, therefore, the civil law may restrain it, because the liberty and its use may do mischief, and there is no law hinders it to be disposed by For if I may, by my private power or interest, use any of it, or deny myself the use of it, much more may the civil power do it. I might not do it myself, if any law of God had forbidden me; but if no law of God hath forbidden, what can hinder but that the civil power may order it? such are natural liberty, community, powers of revenge, of taking any thing, of killing any man that injures me. men. 4. That which is confirmed by the law of nature, may, by the civil power, be altered and dispensed with: which happens in two cases. 1. When the obligation supposes a foregoing act of the will, and is arbitrary in one of the terms of relation. Titius owes a thousand pounds to Caius, and by the essential or natural laws of justice is bound to pay him; but because this supposes a private right in Caius, upon whom there is no restraint but he may use it, or let it alone; therefore Caius, being at his liberty, may refuse to use his power of demanding the money of Titius, and forgive it him; and if he do, Titius, although bound by the natural law to pay him, is, by the private power of Caius, dispensed with. Because in obligations, as in arguments, if there be one leg that can fail, the conclusion is infirm. If one part can be loosed, the continuity of the whole is dissolved. 2. The other case is like this, when the obligation is upon a condition, if the condition of itself fails or be annulled by any just power or interest, the obligation which was introduced by the law of nature, can be rescinded or dispensed with; for nature binds and looses according to the capacity of the things. It passes a temporal band upon temporal reasons and necessities, and an eternal band upon that whose reason can never fail, and where the necessity is indeterminable. And if a natural law could bind longer than that reason lasts for which it did bind, then a natural law could be unreasonable, which is a contradiction. But then if the law does not bind in this case, beyond the condition, then it is but improperly to be called a dispensation, when it is relaxed; but it is usual to call it so, and it is well enough; for it means this great direction to conscience, that though the law of God be eternal, yet its obligation may cease in the foregoing cases: for even judges are said to dispense by interpreting the law, and applying that interpretation to particulars. 5. The civil law can extrinsically change the natural law. For things may be altered or cease by an intrinsic or by an extrinsic cause. A father ceases to be a father when he dies, and he ceases to be a father if all his children die; this alteration is by an extrinsical cause; but to all effects and purposes it is the same as to the present case. Now, though nature cannot die, as species do not perish, yet nature may change as individuals may die; that is, if the matter of the law be subtracted, or so changed that it is to be governed with another portion of reason, that the law also must cease as to that particular. For as in the body of man there is great variety of accidents and mutability of matter, but all that variety is governed by the various flexures of the same reason, which remains unchanged in all the complications and twistings about the accidents, and is the same though working otherwise; so it is in the laws of nature; whose reason and obligation remain unchanged, even when it is made to comply with changing instances; but then it cannot but be said to change, even as eternity itself hath successive parts by its co-existence with variety of times. Tribonianus swears fealty to Tarquinius Priscus, king of the Romans, and to his heirs for ever; by the laws of nature he is now obliged, but if he and his son Sextus be deposed and murdered, and a new government established in another form or in another time, the law of nature cannot bind him to that which is not, and therefore he is disobliged. The sum is this; when natural and prime laws are in prime and natural instances whose matter is unchangeable, there the law of nature cannot be prejudiced by any but by the Lord of nature: and the reason of this is no other but the necessity and constitution of nature: God hath made it so, and it is so to be served, so to be provided for, and the law is a portion of the eternal law, an image of the Divine wisdom, as the soul is the image of the Divine nature. But when the natural laws are in a matter that can be prejudiced, and do presuppose contract, cession, condition, particular states, or any act of will, whose cause is not perpetual, the law binds by the condition of the matter; and the eternal law goes from its own matter as the immortal soul does from the body. Thus we say, that God's gifts are without repentance, and his love never fails, and his promises are for ever, and yet God takes away his gifts, and does repent of his loving-kindnesses, and takes away his love, and will not give what he had promised; but it is not because he changes in himself, but the correlative of his actions and promises are changed. So that now, upon this account, the whole question and practice about the pope's power in dispensing in the natural law, will appear to be a horrible folly, without any pretence of reason; and the thing, by its chiefest patrons, seems not at all to be understood. For since the rules of nature are VOL. XII. T |