A supplement to The Morning-exercise at Cripple-Gate, or, Several more cases of conscience practically…

Man being made by God a rational creature it governed in a way suitable to the nature of such a creature, that is, by a Law, and not merely by Physical motion, nor natural necessity, or objects proposed to his sense only,¹ as brutes and inanimate creatures are, if we consider the nature of man, we shall discern a necessity and an aptitude in him to be governed by a Law: a necessity, because in his first estate, mutable, in his fallen estate, corrupt; an aptitude, because he is rational, acting for some end, to be attained by such means as are conducible to the same, and both end and means to be discerned by reason: whereas brutes that neither know the end, sub ratione finis, nor the means, sub ratione mediorum, are not capable of moral Government. But it is suitable to the nature of man, being an understanding and voluntary agent to be ruled by a Law constituting his [debitum officii, praemii, & poenae] duty unto God, his reward, if he be obedient, his punishment, if he walk contrary to that Law prescribing his duty to him. Such a Law God hath made for the government of men; else no man could be guilty of sin, because there would be no such thing as sin, for where there is no Law there is no transgression; else there would be no such thing as virtue and vice, and no such difference of men as good and bad; else there would be no need of repentance for any man, no need of reproofs and exhortations; else there would be no rewards and punishments; to be short, there would be no Religion in the world.

Man being made by God a rational creature it governed in a way suitable to the nature of such a creature, that is, by a Law, and not meerly by Physical motion, nor natural necessity, or objects proposed to his sense only,