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invariable. The whole progrefs of plants, from the feed 
to the root, and from thence to the feed again ; the me¬ 
thod of animal nutrition, digeftion, fecretion, and all other 
branches of vital economy ; are not left to chance, or the 
•will of the creature itfelf, but are performed in a wondrous 
involuntary manner, and guided by unerring rules laid 
down by the great Creator. 
This then is the general fignification of law, a rule of 
ACTION DICTATED BY SOME SUPERIOR BEING: and, ill 
thole creatures that have neither the power to think nor 
to wili, fuch laws mult be invariably obeyed, fo long as 
the creature itfelf fublifts ; for its exigence depends on 
that obedience. But law, in its more confined fenfe, 
and in which it is our prefent bufinel's to confider it, 
denotes the rule, not of adtion in general, but of human 
action or conaufl: that is, the precepts by which man, 
the nobielt of all fublunary beings, a creature endowed 
with both reafon and free will, is commanded to make 
ufe of thole faculties in the general regulation of his beha¬ 
viour. And this perhaps is the only fenfe in which the 
word Law can be flridlly ufed ; for, in all cafes where it 
is not applied to human conduft, it may be confidered as 
a metaphor; and in every fuch inftance a more appro¬ 
priate term may be found. When it is ufed to exprefs 
the operations of the Deity, or Creator, it comprehends 
ideas very different from thofe which are included in its 
fignification when it is applied to man or his other crea¬ 
tures. The volitions of the Almighty are his laws; he 
had only to will, yuvsaQco xca sywro ; but, when we 
apply the word law to motion, matter, or the works of 
nature or of art, we (hall find in every cafe, that, with 
equal or greater propriety and perlpicuity, we might have 
uled the words quality, property, or peculiarity ; as for in¬ 
ftance, that it is the properly or quality of all matter to move 
in a Itraight line or to gravitate, as it is to be folid or ex¬ 
tended; and, when we fay that it is the law of a feries, 
that fuch term is the fquare or fquare-root of the preced¬ 
ing term, we mean nothing more than that fuch is its 
property, or peculiarity. The word law, in this fenfe, is 
therefore ufed in thofe cafes only which are fandtioned by 
ufage; for it would be thought a harfh exprelfion to fay 
that it is the law, that fnow fhould be white, or that fire 
Ihould burn ; and, when law is applied to any other ob- 
jedt than man, it ceafes to contain two of its effential in¬ 
gredients, viz. difobcditnce and punijhment. 
Of LAW in GENERAL. 
Man, confidered as a creature, mult neceffarily be fub- 
jedt to the laws of his Creator, for he is entirely a depen¬ 
dent being. A being, independent of any other, had no 
rule to purfue but fuch as he prefcribes to himfelf; but a 
flare of dependence will inevitably oblige the inferior to 
take the will of him on whom he depends as the rule of 
his conduct; not indeed in every particular, but in all 
thofe points wherein his dependence conlills. This prin¬ 
ciple therefore has more or lefs extent and effect, in pro¬ 
portion as the fuperiority of the one and the dependence 
of the other is greater or lefs, abfolute or limited. And 
conlequently, as man depends abfolutely upon his Maker 
for every thing, it is necelfary that he fhould in all points 
conform to his Maker’s will. 
This will of his Maker is called the law of nature. 
For as God, when he created matter, and endued it with 
a principle of mobility, eftablifhed certain rules for the 
perpetual diredtion of that motion ; fo, when he created 
man, and endued him with free will to conduct himfelf 
in all parts of life, he laid down certain immutable laws 
of human nature, whereby that free will is in fome de¬ 
gree regulated and rellrained, and gave him alfo the fa¬ 
culty of reafon to dificover the purport of thofe laws. 
Confidering the Creator only as a being of infinite 
power, he was able unqueftionably to have prefcribed 
whatever laws lie pleafed to iiis creature man, however un- 
juft or fevere. But. as he is alfo a Being of infinite wif- 
dom, he has laid down only fuch laws as were founded 
in thofe relations of jufiice, that exifled in the nature of 
things antecedent to any pofitive precept. Thefe are the 
eternal immutable laws of good and evil, to which the 
Creator himfelf in all his difpenfations conforms ; and 
which he has enabled human reafon to difcover, fo far as 
they are necelfary for the condudt of human adtions. Such, 
among others, are thefe principles : That we fhould live 
honourably, fhould hurt nobody, and fhould render to every one 
his due-, to which three general precepts Juftinian has re¬ 
duced the whole dodtrine of law. 
But, if the difcovery of thele firfi: principles of the law 
of nature depended only upon the due exertion of right 
reafon, and could not otherwile be obtained than by a 
chain of metaphyfical difquifitions, mankind would have 
wanted fome inducement to have quickened their inqui¬ 
ries, and the greater part of the world would have relted 
content in mental indolence, and ignorance its infepara- 
ble companion. As therefore the Creator is a being, not 
only of infinite power and wifdom, but alfo of infinite 
goodnefs, he has been pleafed fo to contrive the conftitu- 
tion and frame of humanity, that we fhould want no other 
prompter to inquire afterand purfue the rule of right, but 
oniy our own felf-love, that univerfal principle of ac¬ 
tion. For he has fo intimately connedted, fo infeparably 
interwoven, the laws of internal juftice with the liappinefs 
of each individual, that the latter cannot be attained but 
by obfervingthe former; and, if the former be punctually 
obeyed, it cannot but induce the latter. In confequence 
of which mutual connexion of juftice and human felicity, 
he has not perplexed the law of nature with a multitude 
of abftradled rules and precepts, referring merely to the 
fitnefs or unfitnefs of things, as fome have vainly furmif- 
ed ; but has gracioufly reduced the rule of obedience to 
this one paternal precept, “ that man fhould purfue his 
own happinefs.” This is the foundation of what we call 
ethics, or natural law. For the feveral articles into 
which it is branched in our fyftems amount to no more 
than demonftrating, that this or that adtion tends to man’s 
real happinefs, and therefore very juftly concluding, that 
the performance of it is a part of the law of nature ; or, 
on the other hand, that this or that adtion is deftrudtive 
of man’s real happinefs, and therefore that the law of na¬ 
ture forbids it. 
This law of nature, being coeval with mankind, and 
dictated by God himfelf, is of courfe fuperior in obliga¬ 
tion to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all 
countries, and at all times : no human laws are of any va¬ 
lidity, if contrary to this ; and fuch of them as are valid 
derive all their force, and all their authority, mediately or 
immediately, from this original. 
But, in order to apply this to the particular exigencies 
of each individual, it is ftill necelfary to have recourfe to 
reafon : whofe office it is to difcover, as was before ob- 
ferved, what the law of nature directs in every circum- 
ftanceof life, by confidering what method will tend the molt' 
effectually to our own fubltantial happinefs. And, if our 
reafon were always, as in our firft anceftor before his tranf- 
greffion, clear and perfedt, unruffled by paffion, unclouded 
by prejudice, unimpaired by difeafe or intemperance, the 
talk would be plealant and eafy; we fhould need no other 
guide but this. But every man now finds the contrary 
in his own experience; that his reafon is corrupt, and his 
underftanding full ot ignorance and error. 
This has given manifold occafion for the benign inter- 
pofition of Divine Providence ; which, in compaffion to 
the frailty, the imperfection, and the blindnefs, of human 
reafon, hath been pleafed, at fun dry times and in divers 
manners, to difcover and enforce its laws by an immedi¬ 
ate and diredt revelation. The dodtrines thus delivered, 
we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to 
be found only in the Holy Scriptures. Thefe precepts, 
when revealed, are found upon comparifon to be really a 
part of the original law of nature, as they tend in all their 
confequences to man’s felicity. But we are not from 
thence to conclude, that the knowledge of thefe truths 
was 
