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

§. 30(3.) What all men are taught by the Works of Creation themselves, their Order, Harmony, and mutual Respect to each other, with reference unto their Duty towards God, and among themselves, is of the Law of Nature, although there be not an absolute distinct notion of it inbred in the mind discoverable. It is enough that the mind of man is so disposed, as to be ready and fit to receive the Discovery & Revelation of it. For the very Creation it self, is a Law unto us, and speaks out that Duty that God requireth of us towards himself. For ⟨p. 163⟩he hath not only so ordered all the works of it, that they should be meet to instruct us, or contain an Instructive Power towards Rational Creatures made in that state and condition, wherein man was created, which was before described, which hath in it the first notion of a Law; but it was the Will of God that we should learn our Duty thereby, which gives it its complement, as a Law obliging unto Obedience. And it is not only thus in general with respect unto the whole work of Creation in it self; but the ordering and disposal of the Parts of it, is alike directive and Instructive to the Nature of man, and hath the force of a Law Morally and everlastingly obligatory. Thus the preeminence of the Man above the Woman which is Moral, ensues upon the Order of the Creation, in that the Man was first made, and the Woman for the Man, as the Apostle argues, 1 Tim. 2. 12, 13. And all Nations ought to be obliged hereby, though many of them through their Apostasy from Natural Light, knew not that either Man or Woman was created, but it may be, supposed them to have grown out of the Earth like Mushrooms; and yet an Effect of the secret Original impression hereof, influenced their minds and practices. So the Creation of one Man and one Woman gave the Natural Law of Marriage; whence Polygamy and Fornication became transgressions of the Law of Nature. It will be hard to prove, that about these and the like things, there is a clear and undoubted Principle of Directive Light in the mind of man, separate from the consideration of the Order of Creation. But therein a Law, and that Moral, is given unto us, not to be referred unto any other ⟨p. 164⟩Head of Laws, but that of Nature.