A Treatise of the Laws of Nature. Richard Cumberland

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СКАЧАТЬ such Men that ought to be his Subjects and Servants, Upright, Honest, Sincere, and Faithful, that are not dutifully affected and dispos’d towards Him and his Service: So God cannot repute any Man Upright in Heart, Honest, Sincere, and Faithful, that is not dutifully, uprightly, sincerely, and faithfully affected and dispos’d towards him and his Service. Therefore we ought to consider who they are, that may be denominated simply, and without addition, the faithful Friends of God and Holiness; for all others are such, that are devoid of this intire Integrity and Faithfulness, (which alone is constitutive of the truly Righteous,) notwithstanding a partial, or limited, Integrity and Faithfulness which they have. They are so far from being dutifully and rightly Affected, that they are the Disaffected; so far from being faithful Friends to God and Righteousness, that they are Enemies (usually deadly Enemies, and such as may be called faithful Enemies,) their Mind, Will, and Meaning is in excusably amiss, because they are not, simply, and without addition, The faithful Friends of God and Righteousness, and the faithful Enemies of Sin and Wickedness.

      Many are loyal and faithful to a secular Master, or Sovereign, that are not God’s faithful Servants. Robbers (some of them) will be faithful to those of their own Gang. Many Men, of Civil-social Virtue only, will be faithful in matters of ordinary Justice, and, in some particular affair, faithful Messengers, Servants, Soldiers. If we suppose Abimelech an evil Man, as some will have him; yet, as to the business of Abraham’s Wife (Gen. 20. 6.) there was no Iniquity, no Pravity in his Mind, Will, or Meaning; he meant no Wrong to Abraham, whose Wife she was (to him altogether unknown,) and, therefore, in that particular affair, he was “Upright, Right, and without Iniquity.”

      There is a Faithfulness in Judaism, as well as in Christianity; for when any one will change his Religion, and become a Proselyte of Justice, the Jews require, “that he do it, not for the Vanity of the World,” (any secular Advantage,) “but out of Love, and from the whole Heart.” Such a Faithfulness and Integrity in adhering to their God, in opposition to Idols and false Gods, was requir’d of the Jews, in the antient times of their Commonwealth, as the Condition of their temporal Blessings. A Faithfulness to their Institution, as it was carnal Judaism, those Jews had, who thought, they did God good Service in killing Christians, Joh. 16. 2. And thus the Apostle, when he outrageously persecuted the Christians, was Faithful to his Institution, he never wilfully violated the Rules of Well-doing according to carnal Judaism, and, therefore, had the carnal Judaical Man’s good Conscience, as he professeth, Acts 26. 9. “I have lived in all good Conscience before God until this Day.”

      There is a Faithfulness in Paganism, as well as in Judaism. For Numa consecrated a Temple to Faithfulness. Regulus is a known Instance of Faithfulness. Pyrrhus said of Fabritius, that it was harder to turn him out of the way of Justice, than the Sun out of his Course.³⁰⁰ Papinianus, the Lawyer, being commanded to defend the wicked Fact of the Emperor Caracalla, who had barbarously killed his Brother Geta, he chose rather to dye than to do it.³⁰¹ In China, there is a Temple of Chastity, erected in commemoration of five Virgins, who, being taken by Thieves, took away their own Lives, to avoid being ravish’d.³⁰² Several of the Heathens were sofar faithful and uprightly dispos’d, that, in several particular Actions, neither Shame, Torment, Exile, or Death, could prevail with them to violate the Dictates of their Minds; and several of them were true and faithful Worshippers of false Gods; they were Faithful to their Institution of Heathenism, and these may be said, to have The Heathen Man’s good Conscience.

      Yet, in the unsound Profession of Christianity, in carnal Judaism, and in Heathenism, there are no such Persons as the Upright, the Sincere and Faithful; and, consequently, there is no such thing as the Uprightness of the Upright, the Sincerity of the Sincere, the Faithfulness of the Faithful. For, in these Regions, all are the Wicked and the Ungodly; whereas, if any of them were the Upright and the Faithful, these must necessarily be the Righteous, and in the State of justified Persons. Wherefore the Natural and Heathen Man’s Uprightness, Sincerity, and Faithfulness, is of the same Nature and Character with the rest of his Virtue, it is of a spurious and degenerate Kind, (as being on this side Holiness and Godliness,) not the intire Integrity, not the right Kind of Uprightness, not the holy and godly Kind of Sincerity, 2 Cor. 1. 12.) but a faithless Kind of Faithfulness. And this is what is meant by “a natural and moral Integrity.”³⁰³ Which sort of Integrity is competible to Rebel-Sinners, to such as are revolted from God and his Kingdom, and from true Righteousness and Holiness, in whom it is necessarily complicated with the most heinous Disloyalty and Unfaithfulness; from which none can be excus’d, who are not, as his Liege-Subjects and Servants, loyally affected unto God and unsinning Righteousness towards him: The Ignorance of the Jews and Gentiles did not excuse them, because they might have known better, and would have known better, if they had been, so far as they might have been, the faithful Friends of God and Righteousness, and the faithful Enemies of Sin and Wickedness. With this Limitation the Philosopher’s Rule ought to be propos’d, which otherwise is not, universally, a safe Rule of Practice. “That which appeareth to thee” (as a faithful Adherent to God and Righteousness) “to be the best, let that be to thee a Law inviolable.”³⁰⁴

      It is, however, to be observ’d, that some, who are not properly and formally the Upright and Faithful, are such in aptness of Disposition, and in an initial degree; being such as mean well towards God and Righteousness, who are out of the State and Life of true and saving Religion, but with abatement of sense. These are they, that are denominated “Christ’s Sheep,” Joh. 10. 4, 10. those that “are of the Truth,” Joh. 18. 37. and Luk. 8. 15. those that have “an honest and good Heart”; which is a degree of that Integrity, which constituteth the Faithful and Upright in Heart, simply so called. The Phrase denoteth an honest and good Heart, in respect of the Word of true and saving Religion, and the receiving thereof, (an honest and good Heart so far;) by receiving which Honestly, Sincerely, and Faithfully (that is, without Vice, or Crime, as to Mind, Will, or Meaning) the Receiver becomes one of the Faithful and Upright in Heart, in a plenary Sense, whereas at first he is only so initially, and by way of preparatory Disposition. The Faithful and Upright, in a plenary sense, are Religionists of several Degrees. For many holy and good Men, under the Mosaical Oeconomy, were the faithful Lovers of God and of Righteousness; yet were very imperfect Religionists, agreeably to that Oeconomy. Our Saviour’s Disciples, while he was on Earth, that betray a great deal of Ignorance, Weakness, and many Imperfections at every turn, were the faithful and sincere Lovers of God and of Righteousness, but so as to be Religionists of a very mean Rank. And it seemeth reasonable to suppose, touching Cornelius, a Gentile, and a Proselyte, (and such like,) that God, from the Beginning of the World, having made Provision in Christ, that his and Christ’s Religionists should be in the State of Remission of Sins, Cornelius was imperfectly in this Divine Condition, before Conversion to Christianity: But, after the Gospel-settlement was made, his Conversion to Christianity was necessary, both for the continuance of what he had, and the completion of what he wanted.

      3. The Scripture looketh upon Mankind, antecedently to the State and Life of true and saving Religion, not as alive, but as dead, or in the State of the Dead. So in the Oriental Philosophy they call’d those Men dead, “that are fallen from their Dogmata, are become Aliens from the discipline of Truth and Virtue, whence the Soul hath her Life, and have subjected their Mind to the Animal Passions.”³⁰⁵ As, when any one was ejected out of the Pythagoreans Society, they set up an empty Coffin in his Place, to signify, that he ought to be look’d upon as Dead. And the Platonists say, “That the Death of a rational Substance is, to be devoid of God and of Mind.” The Mahometans use the same way of speaking. The Hebrews also use this Symbolical way of expressing the Condition of the Wicked.³⁰⁶ Our Saviour also useth the same Mode of Expression, СКАЧАТЬ