which exist. But since we are enquiring after a rule of human actions, carrying with it an external obligation (§9) and made known or promulgated to all mankind by right reason (§11); and since external obligation consists in the will of some being, whose authority we acknowledge (§9), there being no other whose authority we are obliged more strictly to acknowledge than the infinitely perfect and blessed God (§10); and seeing he alone can promulgate any thing to us by right reason, of which he is the author, it follows, by necessary consequence, that the will of God must be the rule of human actions, and the principle or source of all natural obligation, and of all virtue.*<42>
SECTION LXIII
The will of God is a right, certain, and constant rule.
That this rule is right cannot be doubted, since an infinitely perfect Being cannot will what is not perfectly good and right: it must be a certain rule, since reason discovers it to all men; and it must be unvariable, because the will of God can no more change, or be changed, than God himself, or right reason, by which it is discoverable. Finally, it must be obligatory, since God hath the justest claim and title to our obedience; and men have no reason or right to decline his authority, and cannot indeed if they would. Hence at the same time it is evident, that every will of God is not the rule of human actions, but his obligatory will only.*
SECTION LXIV
This rule may be called a law with regard to mankind.
Since therefore the obligatory will of God, which we have shewn to be the only rule of human actions, is his will with respect to the actions of his rational creatures, as to acting or forbearing to act (§63); it is evident, that this rule, considered with relation to man, may properly be called a divine law, because it is the will of the supreme Being, commanding or forbidding certain actions with rewards and penalties (§9). But because there are other laws of <43> God to mankind which are made known by revelation, and are therefore called positive, those which are known to man by natural reason, are justly denominated natural; and according as they either command, prohibit, or permit, they are with good reason divided into affirmative, negative, or permissive.
SECTION LXV
The explication of the divine justice may be deduced from the divine will.
Now since this divine will, or divine natural law, is the source and principle of all justice (§63), it follows that every action, not only human, but divine, which is conformable to this divine will, is just; and therefore it is objected, without any reason, against this doctrine, that there could not be any such thing as divine justice, were there no other principle or source of the law besides the divine will.*<44>
SECTION LXVI
The difference between the rule of divine and the rule of human justice, in what does it consist?
Herein chiefly lies the difference between divine and human justice, that with regard to the former there is no law or co-action; whereas the latter includes in it a respect to a law, and external obligation or co-action (§65 & §64). Wherefore the divine will, as it is a rule of action to men, carries with it a commination of some evil or punishment to transgressors; tho’ that punishment be not, as in human laws, defined and ascertained, but be, for the greater part, indefinite, and reserved to God himself, to be inflicted according to his wisdom and justice.*<45>
SECTION LXVII
That we may apply this rule, there must be some principle or criterion by which it may be known or ascertained.
But since it cannot be doubted that there is no other rule of human actions but the will or law of God (§63), it is to be enquired how we may come to the certain knowledge of this law. But since it is universally acknowledged to be promulgated to all men by right reason (§11), and since right reason is our faculty of reasoning, by which we deduce truths from other truths by a chain of consequences (§15), it is obvious that there must be some truth or proposition, from which what is agreeable to the will of God, and therefore just, may be ascertained by necessary consequence. There must then be some universal principle of science with regard to the law of nature.*
SECTION LXVIII
This principle must be true, evident, and adequate.
Every principle of science must be true, evident, and adequate; wherefore the principle of science, with respect to natural law, must be true; lest being false or fictitious, the conclusions inferred from it be such likewise: it must be evident, and that not only in this sense, that it is intelligible to the literate; but universally, to the unlearned as well as the learned, all being equally under obligation to <46> conform themselves to the law of nature. In fine, it must be adequate, or of such an extent, as to include in it all the duties of men and citizens, not Christians only, but those also who have not the benefit of divine revelation.†
SECTION LXIX
Whence this principle is not to be found in the sanctity of God.
Therefore we must not expect to find this principle of the law of nature in the conformity of our actions to the sanctity of God: for tho’ the proposition should be granted to be true, yet it is not evident enough, nor of such a nature, as that all the duties of men and citizens can be inferred and proved from it.*
SECTION LXX
Nor in the justice and injustice of actions considered in themselves.
Nor is this a sufficient principle, “that what is in its own nature just is to be done, and what is in its own nature unjust is not to be done.” For tho’ we have already admitted, that certain actions are <47> in their own nature good, and others evil, and that man is therefore obliged to perform the one, and to avoid the other, by an intrinsic obligation (§8); yet an action antecedently to, or independently of a law, is not just (§7); not to add that this principle is not evident enough, nor that all human offices are not deducible from it.†
SECTION LXXI
Nor in the consent of all nations.
None, I think, will rashly go into the opinion of those learned men, who held the consent of all nations, or of all the more civilized nations, to be the principle of natural law. For it is not true, that what all nations agree in, is also conformable to the divine will;* nor is this universal consent evident to all, since it must be collected from various testimonies of authors, antient and modern; nor is it sufficiently adequate to point out all duties.*.<48>
SECTION LXXII
Nor in the seven precepts of Noah.
But as those who endeavour to establish the law of nature and nations from the consent of nations, not only lay down a false, unevident, and unadequate principle; but likewise go out of the question into one of another kind, while they derive the law of nature not from nature itself, but from the traditions or opinions of nations: so the opinion of those who have attempted to deduce the law of nature and nations from the precepts given to Noah, labours under the same defects, as hath been sufficiently proved (§16).
SECTION LXXIII
Nor in the right of all to all things, or in the study of external peace.
What shall we then say of the whole philosophy of Hobbes1 in his books de
