30. (3.) What all men are taught by the works of creation them- selves, 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 dis-
* covery and revelation of it. For the very creation itself is a law
unto us, and speaks out that duty that God requireth of us towards himself; for 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 ereated, 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 obe- dience. And it is not only thus in general, with respect unto the whole work of creation in itself, 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 pre-eminence 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 Cor. xi, 8, 9, 1 Tim. ii. 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 VOL. XIX. 23
354 OF THE CAUSES OF THE SABBATH. [ EXERC. III.
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 prin- ciple of directive light in the mind of man, separate from the con- sideration of the order of creation; but therem a law, and that moral, is given unto us, not to be referred unto any other head of laws but that of nature. And here, as was before pleaded, the crea- tion of the world in six days, with the rest of God on the seventh, and that declared, gives unto all men an everlasting law of separat- ing one day in seven unto a sacred rest; for he that was made in the image of God was made to imitate him and conform himself unto him, God in this order of things saying as it were unto him, ‘What I have done, in your station do ye likewise’ Especially was this made effectual by his innate apprehension that his happi- ness consisted in entering into the rest of God, the pledge whereof it was his unquestionable duty to embrace.
31. (4. In this state of things, a direction by a revelation, in the way of a precept, for the due and just exercise of the principles, rules, and documents before mentioned, is so far from impeaching the morality of any command or duty, as that it completes the law of it, with the addition of a formal obligatory power and efficacy. The light and law of creation, so far as it was innate, or concreated with the faculties of our souls, and completing our state of dependence on God, hath only the general nature of a principle, inclining unto actions suitable unto it, and directing us therein. The documents also that were originally given unto that light from without, by the other works and order of the creation, had only in their own nature the force of an instruction. The will of God, and an act of sove- reignty therein, formally constituted them a law. But now, man being made to live unto God, and under his conduct and guidance in all things, that he might come to the enjoyment of him, no pre- judice ariseth unto, nor alteration is made in the dictates of, the law of creation, by the superadding any positive commands for the -per- formance of the duties that it doth require, and regulating of them, as to the especial manner’and ends of their performance. And where such a positive law is interposed or superadded, it is the highest folly to imagine that the whole obligation unto the duty depends on that command, as though the authority of the law of nature were superseded thereby, or that the whole command about it were now grown positive and arbitrary; for although the same law cannot be moral and positive in the same respect, yet the same duty may be required by a law moral and a law positive, It is thus
SECT. 81, 32. ] OF THE CAUSES OF THE SABBATH. 355