Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

1. We cannot suppose God a Creator, without supposing a Sovereign Dominion in him. No Creature can be made without some Law in its Nature; if it had not Law, it would be Created to no purpose, to no regular end; it would be utterly unbecoming an infinite Wisdom, to create a lawless Creature, a Creature wholly vain; much less can a rational Creature be made without a Law; if it had no Law, it were not rational: For the very notion of a rational Creature implies reason to be a Law to it, and implies an acting by rule.^* If you could suppose rational Creatures without a Law, you might suppose, that they might blaspheme their Creator, and Murder their fellow Creatures, and commit the most abominable villainies destructive to humane Society without sin; for where there is no Law, there is no transgression,. But those things are accounted sins by all mankind, and sins against the supreme being: So that a Dominion and the exercise of it is so fast linked to God, so entirely in him, so intrinsic in his Nature, that it cannot be imagined that a rational Creature, can be made by him without a stamp and mark of that Dominion in his very nature, and frame; 'tis so inseparable from God in his very act of Creation.

1. We cannot suppose God a Creator, without supposing a Soveraign Dominion in him. No Creature can be made without some Law in its Nature; if it had not Law, it would be Created to no purpose, to no regular end; it would be utterly unbecoming an infinite Wisdom, to create a lawless Creature, a Creature wholly vain; much less can a rational Creature be made without a Law; if it had no Law, it were not rational: For the very notion of a rational Creature implies reason to be a Law to it, and implies an acting by rule.^* If you could suppose rational Creatures without a Law, you might suppose, that they might blaspheme their Creator, and Murder their fellow Creatures, and commit the most abominable villanies destructive to humane Society without sin; for where there is no Law, there is no transgression,. But those things are accounted sins by all mankind, and sins against the supream being: So that a Dominion and the exercise of it is so fast linkt to God, so intirely in him, so intrinsick in his Nature, that it cannot be imagined that a rational Creature, can be made by him without a stamp and mark of that Dominion in his very nature, and frame; 'tis so inseparable from God in his very act of Creation.