Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

1. In the Supremacy of it. The sole power of making Laws doth originally reside in him. James 4.12. There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save, and to destroy. By his own Law he Judges of the eternal States of Men, and no Law of man is obligatory, but as it is agreeable to the Laws of this supreme Lawgiver, and pursuant to his righteous rules for the Government of the World. The power that the Potentates of the World have to makes Laws, is but derivative from God. If their dominion be from him, as it is: For by him Kings Reign. Prov. 8.15. Their Legislative power which is a prime flower of their Sovereignty, is derived from him also. And the Apostle resolves it into this original, when he orders us, to be subject to the higher powers not only for wrath but for Conscience sake. Rom. 13.5. Conscience in its operations solely respects God: And therefore when it is exercised as the principle of Obedience to the Laws of Men, 'tis not with a respect to them singly considered, but as the Majesty of God appears in their station and in their decrees. This power of giving Laws was acknowledged by the Heathen, to be solely in God by way of original: And therefore the greatest Lawgivers among the Heathen pretended their Laws to be received from some Deity, or supernatural power by special Revelation; now whither they did this seriously, acknowledging themselves this part of the dominion of God: (For it is certain, that what soever just orders were issued out by Princes in the World, was by the secret influence of God upon their Spirits. Prov. 8.15. By me Princes Decree Justice, by the secret conduct of Divine Wisdom) or whither they pretended it only as a public Engine, to enforce upon people the observance of their Decrees, and gain a greater credit to their Edicts, yet this will result from it, that the people in general entertained this common notion, that God was the great Lawgiver of the World. The first founders of their Societies could never else have so absolutely gained upon them by such a pretence. These was always a Revelation of a Law from the mouth of God in every age: The exhortation of Eliphaz to Job, Job 22.22. Of receiving a Law from the mouth of God at the time before the Moral Law was published, had been a vain exhortation, had there been no revelation of the mind of God in all Ages.