A27004:454
The reasons of the Christian religion the first part, of godliness, proving by natural…
The reasons of the Christian religion the first part, of godliness, proving by natural evidence the being of God ... : the second part, of Christianity, proving by evidence supernatural and natural, the certain truth of the Christian belief ... / by Richard Baxter ... ; also an appendix defending the soul's immortality against the Somatists or Epicureans and other pseudo-philosophers.
London: printed by R. White for Fran. Titon, 1667
Part 1 › Chapter 10: Of GOD's particular Laws as known in Nature.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
1§. 6. These fundamenta are some of them unalterable (while we have a being,) and some of them alterable: And therefore some Laws of Nature are alterable, and some unalterable accordingly.
- 1Communis lex nunquam immutatur, cum secundum naturam sit: jus verò scriptum saepius. Aristot. 1. Rhet. ad Theod. c 4.
As for instance, Man is made a Rational free Agent; and God is unchangeably his Rightful Governor, of infinite Power,1 Wisdom and Goodness: Therefore the nature of God and Man (in via) thus compared are the fundamentum from whence constantly resulteth our indispensable duty to love him, trust him, fear him, and obey him: But if our being, or reason, or free-will, which are our essential Capacities cease, our obligations cease cessante fundamento. God hath made Man a sociable Creature; and while he is in society, the Law of Nature obligeth him to many things, which he hath no obligation to, when the society is dissolved: As when a Parent, Child, Wife, or Neighbour dieth, all our duties to them cease. Nature by the position of many circumstances, hath made Incest ordinarily a thing producing manifold evils, and a sin against God: And yet Nature so placed the children of Adam, in other circumstances, that the said Nature made that their duty (to marry one another) which in others would have been an unnatural thing: Nature forbiddeth Parents to murder their children: ⟨p. 73⟩But when God the absolute Lord of life, would that way try Abraham's obedience, when he was sure that he had a supernatural command, even Nature obliged him to obey it. Nature forbiddeth men to rob each other of their proper goods. But when the Owner of all things, had given the Israelites the Egyptians goods, and changed the propriety, the fundamentum of their former natural obligation ceased. Changes in natura rerum, which are the foundation of our obligation, may make changes in the obligations, which before were natural. But so far as Nature, that Nature which foundeth duty is the same, the duty remaineth still the same: The contrary would be a plain contradiction.