A41521:80
A discourse of the true nature of the Gospel demonstrating that it is no…
A discourse of the true nature of the Gospel demonstrating that it is no new law, but a pure doctrine of grace : in answer to the Reverend Mr. Lorimer's Apology / by Tho. Goodwin ...
London: printed by J. Darby, 1695
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Innumerable Examples might be given, but a few may suffice to show how little stress is to be laid upon the uncertain sound of a Word, which in all these Languages is so variously used; and to direct us, that wherever we find the Gospel named a Law, in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, or in the Greek of the New, or in the Greek and Latin Fathers, or Protestant Divines, we must not, unless we would suffer our selves to be easily imposed on by an ambiguous Phrase, presently imagine it to mean a new Rule of Duty enacted with a Sanction.
Innumerable Examples might be given, but a few may suffice to shew how little stress is to be laid upon the uncertain sound of a Word, which in all these Languages is so variously us'd; and to direct us, that wherever we find the Gospel nam'd a Law, in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, or in the Greek of the New, or in the Greek and Latin Fathers, or Protestant Divines, we must not, unless we would suffer our selves to be easily impos'd on by an ambiguous Phrase, presently imagine it to mean a new Rule of Duty enacted with a Sanction.
I shall only add, that Cicero when he defines a Law in the general Notion of it, as comprehending the Law of Nature, as well as others, makes no mention of a Sanction, but describes it only to be thea highest Reason implanted in Nature, which commands what is to be done, and forbids the contrary.
- aLex est ratio summa infita in naturâ, quae jubet ea quae facienda sunt, prohibetque contraria. Cicero de Leg. lib 1. pag. 312. Tom. 4. oper. Edit. in Fol. R. S. 1538.
Thus also the Roman Lawyers, of whose vast Volumes lost by the Injuries of Time we have a Breviate in the Pandects, define a Law, without mentioning a Sanction;