Exercitations concerning the name, original, nature, use, and continuance of a day of sacred…

This (Right) arse not to day nor yesterday, but was in force ever of old, nor doth any man know from whence it arose. For all Nations from beyond the Records of the Original of Things, had consented into Practices directly contrary to the Light of Nature; as is now acknowledged. And hence were all the Disputes of old, about the Nature, Bounds and Ends of Good and Evil, Duty and Vice, Honest and Filthy, Just and Unjust, that could never be determined. This Plato observing affirms in his Phaedo, that if any one name either Silver or Iron presently all men agree, what it is that is intended; but if they speak of that which is just and good, presently we are at variance with others, and among our selves. So great uncertainty is there in humane Reason, under its best natural improvements, in its Judgement what doth or doth not belong to the Principles and Condition of our Nature; so far is it from being comprehensive of the whole Law thereof.

This (Right) ar se not to day nor yesterday, but was in force ever of old, nor doth any man know from whence it arose. For all Nations from beyond the Records of the Original of Things, had consented into Practices directly contrary to the Light of Nature; as is now acknowledged. And hence were all the Disputes of old, about the Nature, Bounds and Ends of Good and Evil, Duty and Vice, Honest and Filthy, Just and Unjust, that could never be determined. This Plato observing affirms in his Phaedo, that if any one name either Silver or Iron presently all men agree, what it is that is intended; but if they speak of that which is just and good, presently we are at variance with others, and among our selves. So great uncertainty is there in humane Reason, under its best natural improvements, in its Judgement what doth or doth not belong to the Principles and Condition of our Nature; so far is it from being comprehensive of the whole Law thereof.

§. 14 When therefore we plead any thing to belong unto, or to proceed from the Law of Nature, it is no impeachment of our Assertion, to say, that it doth not appear so to the common Reason of mankind, or that right Reason hath not found it out or discovered it, provided it contain nothing repugnant thereunto. For it will never be universally agreed, what doth so appear to the common Reason of all, nor what is, hath been, or may be discovered thereby. And although it should be true, which some say, that Moral and Natural Duties depend on, and have their formal Reason from the Nature of God and Man, yet it doth not thence follow, that we do, or may, by the sole Light of Nature, know what doth so arise, with the due bounds and just consequences of it. But there is, as we shall see something yet farther required, in and unto the Law of Nature, which is the adequate Rule of all such Duties. I shall not therefore endeavour to prove that the mere Dictates of Reason do evince a Sacred Hebdomadal Rest; as knowing that the Law of Nature unto which we say it doth belong, doth not absolutely consist in them; nor did they ever since the Fall steadily and universally, as acted in men possessed of Reason, either comprehend or express, all that belongs thereunto.