15. By the law of nature, then, I intend, not a law which our nature gives unto all our actions, but a law given unto our nature, as a rule and measure unto our moral actions. It is “lex natura naturantis,” and not “nature naturate.” It respects the efficient cause of nature, and not the effects of it. And this respect alone can give it the nature of a law,—that is, an obliging force and . power; for this must be always from the act of a superior, seeing “par in parem jus non habet,’—“ equals have no right one over another.” This law, therefore, is that rule which God hath given unto human nature, in all the individual partakers of it, for all its moral actions, in the state and condition wherein it was by him created and placed, with respect unto his own government of it and judgment concerning it; which rule is made known in them and to them by their inward constitution and outward condition wherein they were placed of God. And the very heathens acknowledged that the common law of mankind was God’s prescription unto them. So Tully, lib. ii. de Legib. cap. iv., “ Hance video sapientissimorum fuisse sententiam, legem neque hominum ingeniis excogitatam, nec scitum aliquod esse populorum, sed zeternum quiddam, quod univer- sum mundum regeret, imperandi prohibendique sapientia. Ita prin- cipem legem illam et ultimam, mentem esse dicebant, omnia ratione aut cogentis, aut vetantis Dei.” Take this law, therefore, actively, and it is the will of God commanding; take it passively, and it is the conscience of man complying with it; take it instrumentally, and it is the inbred notions of our minds, with other documents from the
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works of God, proposed unto us. The supreme original of it, as of all authority, law, and obligation, is the will of God, constituting, appointing, and ordering the nature of things; the means of its re- velation, is the effect of the will, wisdom, and power of God, creating man and all other things wherein he is concerned, in their order, place, and condition; and the observation of it, as far as individual persons are therein concerned, is committed to the care of the con- science of every man, which naturally is the mind’s acting itself towards God as the author of this law.
16. These things being premised, we shall consider what light is given unto this sacred duty from the law of our creation. The first end of any law is to instruct, direct, and guide them in their duty unto whom it is given. A law which is not in its own nature in- structive and directive, is no way meet to be prescribed unto rational creatures. What hath an influence upon any creature of any other kind, if it be internal, is «nstinct, and not properly a law; if it be external, it is force and compulsion. The law of creation, therefore, comprised every thing whereby God instructed man, in the creation of himself and of the universe, unto his works or obedience, and his rest or reward. And whatever tended unto that end belonged unto that law. It is, then, as hath been proved, unduly confined unto the ingrafted notions of his mind concerning God and his duty towards him, though they are a principal part thereof. Whatever was designed to give improvement unto those notions and his natu- ral light, to excite or direct them,—I mean in the works of nature, not superadded positive institutions,—doth also belong thereunto. Wherefore the whole instruction that God intended to give unto man by the works of creation, with their order and end, is, as was said, included herein. What he might learn from them, or what God taught him by them, was no less his duty than what his own inbred light directed him unto, Rom. i. 18-20. Thus the framing of the world in siw days, in six days of work, was intended to be in- structive unto man, as well as the consideration of the things mate- rially that were made. God could have immediately produced all out of nothing, év dréuw, év pirH 696aAwod,—in the shortest measure of time conceivable; but he not only made all things for himself, or his glory, but disposed also the order of their production unto the same end. And herein consisted part of that covenant instruction which he gave unto man in that condition wherein he was made, that through him he might have glory ascribed unto him on the
unt of his works themselves, as also of the order and manner of their creation; for it is vain to imagine that the world was made in six days, and those closed with a day of rest, without an especial respect unto the obedience of rational creatures, seemg absolutely
344 : OF THE CAUSES OF THE SABBATH. [ EXERC. II.
with respect unto God himself neither of them was necessary. And what he intended to teach them thereby, it was their duty to inquire and know. Hereby, then, man in general was taught obedience and working before he entered into rest; for being created in the image of God, he was to conform himself unto God. As God wrought before he rested, so was he to work before his rest, his con- dition rendering that working in him obedience, as it was in God an effect of sovereignty. And by the rest of God, or his satisfaction and complacency in what he had made and done, he was instructed to seek rest with God, or to enter into that rest of God, by his com- pliance with the ends intended.