in this kind are exceeding many, which may be given. Neither is it out of the vegetable or growing nature of plants, that some trees, as the female of the palmitto, will not bear any fruit, except the male grow in sight. But this they do by that law, which the infinite and unsearchable wisdom of God had in all eternity provided for them, and for every nature created. In man this law is double, corrupt and incorrupt; corrupt, where the reason of man hath made itself subject, and a vassal to passions and affections brutal; and incorrupt, where time and custom hath bred in men a new nature, which also, as is aforesaid, is a kind of law. For it was not by the law of nature incorrupt, which St. Augustine calleth the law of reason, but by a nature blinded and corrupted, that the Germans did anciently allow of theft, and that other nations were by law constrained to become idolaters; that by the laws of Lycurgus it was permitted to men to use one another's wife, and to the women to choose them others besides their husbands, to beget them with child; which law in those parts hath lasted long, and is not forgotten to this day.

1

Them Scythians, and the people of both Indies, hold it lawful to bury with them the best beloved wives; as also they have many other customs remembered by G. Valentia, against nature and right reason.

And I know not from what authority it is, that these laws some men avow to be natural, except it be of this corrupt nature; as, among others, to pay guile with guile; to become faithless among the faithless; to provide for ourselves by another man's destruction; that injury is not done to him that is willing; to destroy those whom we fear, and the like. For taking the definition of natural laws either out of n St. Augustine or Aquinas, (the one calling it the impression of divine light; the other, the dictate, or sentence, of practick reason,) the same can teach us or incline us to no other thing, than to the exercise of justice and uprightness; Supra, §. 4. ex loco ad Rom. vii.

23.

Theod. 1. 9. de curandis affect. Græcorum.

m Acosta.

n Nemo jure naturæ cum alterius detrimento locupletior fieri debet.

and not to offer or perform any thing towards others, save that which we would be content should be offered or performed towards ourselves. For such is the law of nature to the mind, as the eye is to the body; and that which according to David sheweth us good, that is, the observation of those things which lead us thereby to our last end, which is eternal life; though of themselves not sufficient without faith and grace.

Now, that which is truly and properly the law of nature, where the corruption is not taken for the law, is, as aforesaid, the impression of God's divine light in men, and a participation of the law increated and eternal. For without any law written, the right reason and understanding, which God hath given us, are abilities within ourselves, sufficient to give us knowledge of the good and evil, which by our gratitude to God, and distribution of right to men, or by the contrary, we prepare and purchase for ourselves. For when the Gentiles, saith St. Paul, which have not the law, do by nature those things contained in the law, they having not the law, are a law unto themselves. Now, to love God, by whom we are, and to do the same right unto all men which we desire should be done unto us, is an effect of the purest reason; in whose highest turrets, the quiet of conscience hath made her restingplace and habitation: In arce altissima rationis quies habitat. Therefore the Gentiles, saith St. Paul, which shew the effects of the law written in their hearts, have their consciences for witnesses of those effects; and the reprobate their thoughts to accuse them.

And it is most true, that whosoever is not a law unto himself, (while he hopeth to abuse the world by the advantage of hypocrisy,) worketh nothing else but the betraying of his own soul by crafty unrighteousness, purchasing eternal perdition. For it helpeth us not, to hide our corrupt hearts from the world's eye, seeing from him who is an infinite eye we cannot hide them; some garlands we may gather in this May-game of the world; sed flos ille, dum loquimur, arescit; "those flowers wither while we discourse

• Psalm iv.

P Rom. ii. 14.

1 Rom. ii. 15.

" of their colours," or are ingathering them. That we should therefore inhabit and dwell within ourselves, and become fearful witnesses of our secretest evils, did that reverend philosopher Pythagoras teach in this golden precept: Nil turpe committas, neque coram aliis, neque tecum, maxime omnium verere teipsum; "Commit nothing foul or dis"honest,” saith he, " neither to be known to others, nor to "thine own heart, but above all men reverence thine own "conscience." And this may be a precept of nature and right reason; by which law, men, and all creatures and bodies, are inclined to those operations which are answerable to their own form, as fire to give heat. Now, as the reasonable mind is the form of man, so is he aptly moved to those things which his proper form presenteth unto him, to wit, to that which right reason offereth; and the acts of right reason are the acts of virtue; and in the breach of the rules of this reason is man least excusable, as being a reasonable creature. For all else, both sensitive, growing, and inanimate, obey the law which God imposed on them at their first creation.

The earth performeth her office, according to the law of God in nature; for it bringeth forth the bud of the herb which seedeth seed, &c. and the beast which liveth thereon. He gave a law to the seas, and commanded them to keep their bounds, which they obey. He made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunders. He caused the sun to move, and to give light, and to serve for signs and for seasons. Were these as rebellious as man, for whose sake they were created, or did they once break the law of their natures and forms, the whole world would then perish, and all return to the first chaos, darkness and confusion.

By this natural law, or law of human reason, did Cain perceive his own wickedness and offence, in the murder of Abel; for he not only feared the displeasure of God, but the revenge of men; it being written in his reason, that whatsoever he performed towards others, the same by others

might be done unto him again. And that this judgment of well and evil doing was put into our natures by God and his eternal law, before the law written, Moses, in the person of God, witnesseth, Gen. iv. 7. If thou do well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou do not well, sin lieth at thy door.

The schoolmen are large also in this question of the natural law, the same being opened amply by Reinerius, Antoninus, and Valentia. But it is not my purpose to write a volume of this subject.

But this law which Thomas Aquinas calleth an act of reason taken properly, and not a habit, as it is an evident natural judgment of practick reason; they divide into indemonstrable, or needing no demonstration; (as that good is to be followed, and evil eschewed ;) and demonstrable, which is evidently proved out of higher and more universal propositions. Again, as it answereth the natural appetite, prescribing things to be desired as good, or to be avoided as evil; (as of the first, to desire to live, and to satisfy hunger, &c. and of the second, to eschew pains, sorrow, and death;) in this consideration they divide it, according to the divers kinds of appetites that are in us. t For in every man there are three sorts of appetites, which answer the three degrees of natural law. The first is, to be that which we are; in which is comprehended the desire both to live, and to preserve our being and life, also the desire of issue, with care to provide for them; for the father after his death lives in his children; and therefore the desire of life comprehends the desire of children. And to these appetites are referred the first indemonstrable laws of nature, for the most part. For it needs no proof, that all creatures should desire to be, to live, and to be defended, and to live in their issue when they cannot in themselves. And as man is a being, ens or res; so he doth desire good and shun evil. For it is common to all things, to desire things agreeable to their own natures, which is, to desire their own good. And so is good defined by u Aristotle to be that

which all desire. Which definition Basil, upon the 44th Psalm, approveth: Recte quidem bonum definierunt, quod omnia expetunt; "Rightly have some men defined good "or goodness, to be that which all things desire.”

The second kind of appetite is of those things which appertain to us, as we have sense. Whence, by the law of nature, we desire the delights of every sense; but with such moderation as may neither glut us with satiety, nor hurt us with excess. For as sense itself is for the preservation of life and being; so is it meet, even by the law of nature, that the sensitive appetite should not carry us to the destruction either of our life or being. And although (seeing both these kinds of appetites are in beasts) we may well say, that nature hath given divers laws unto them; in which sense the civilians define natural right, or jus naturale, to be the same which nature hath taught all living creatures; yet the schoolmen admit not, that the instincts of beasts can be properly called a law, but only a jus, or right, which is the matter and aim of every law. For so they distinguish it, where Ulpian affirmeth, that jus naturale is that which nature hath taught all living creatures. In this place, saith Valentia, jus is not to be taken for a law, but for the matter of the law. And yet where Ulpian also distinguisheth the right belonging to living creatures in general, from the right belonging to men; calling the one jus naturæ, the other jus gentium; the divines understand the law of nature more largely, that is, for all evident dictates, precepts, or biddings of divine reason, both in beasts and men; and restrain the law of nations to a kind of human right.

The third appetite is of those things which appertain properly to man, as he is a living creature reasonable; as well with relation to God, and to our neighbour, as for ourselves; and the laws of this appetite are the commandments of our religion.

Now although there are many other branches and divisions of this law of nature, answering the division of matter which it prescribeth, and as manifold as the moral actions are which it commandeth or forbiddeth; yet is the law of