A Treatise of the Laws of Nature. Richard Cumberland

impure, and unholy. The Carnal Mind is no keeper of the Law of God; they, that are in the Flesh, cannot please God. Ye are married to another” (saith the Apostle) “to have your Fruit unto Holiness, and to bring forth Fruit unto God. We are created in Christ unto good Works.” The genuine kind of Virtues are, “The Fruits of the Holy Spirit, a corrupt Tree cannot bring forth good Fruit, of Thorns Men do not gather Figs, nor of a Bramble-Bush gather they Grapes. When ye were the Servants of Sin, ye were free from Righteousness,” the Practice whereof is “a Walking, not after the Flesh, but after the Spirit. Every one that doth Righteousness, is born of God.” The true and genuine Kind of Virtue, Goodness, and Righteousness, is that which is of the Kingdom of God, of the Divine Image, and the New-Man that is renewed in Knowledge, (which is inconsistent with a State of Atheous Ignorance,) which is of a new Creature, a new and divine Birth unto Righteousness, of the new Covenant and Dispensation of Things, of the true Vine, and of a Divine Charity, which is the Essence, and Summary, of the truly Divine Moral Virtue, and the genuine kind of good Works. “Though I bestow all my Goods to feed the Poor, and give my Body to be burn’d, and have not Charity, it profiteth nothing.” The Natural Man’s Kind of Virtue, Goodness, and Righteousness, therefore is, according to these Notices of Scripture, on this side that, which is the true and genuine Kind of Virtue, Goodness, and Righteousness; nor can the true Virtues, Goodness, and Justice, exist without being truly Virtuous, Just, and Good, as to God, which is true Piety, Sanctity; nor can that be the true Kind of Virtue, Goodness, and Justice, which cannot constitute Men of the truly Good and Virtuous Kind, God’s Kind of Virtuous, Good, and Just Men, whose Judgment is according to Truth. But, as there is a secular and mundan Kind of Wisdom and Prudence, in itself laudable, ornamental and useful, (such is the common Jurisprudence,) yet originally it is Base and Vile, being but Earth-born, not Divine, and Heaven-born; objectively it is Base and Vile, not being conversant about Divine Things; of Kind and Quality, it is also Base and Vile, being of Kind common, Graceless, and Unholy; and effectively it is not Wisdom, for it cannot constitute any Man truly Wise, nor Wise as to the main, but it continueth him where it found him, in the State of Atheous Ignorance, Error and Folly: So there is a secular and mundan Kind of Virtue and Goodness, which, in its own Nature, is Laudable, Ornamental, and Useful at a great rate; yet Originally, Objectively, and also of Kind and Quality, it is but Base and Vile, and effectively it is not Virtue, Justice, and Goodness; for it cannot constitute any Man Virtuous, Just, and Good; not Virtuous, Just, and Good, as to the main, but it continues him where it found him, in the State of reigning Sin and Unrighteousness. His Works are not “wrought in God,” as our Saviour says, Joh. 3. 21. by which he certainly means Theism of Religion and Condition. The Heathens are not truly Holy and Religious towards God in any thing, but are Atheous, Graceless, and Unholy, not only in their indifferent Actions, and their Evil-doings (materially such,) but in their Religious Actions, in their Virtue, Goodness, and Well-doing (materially such;) these are not of Kind, and for the main, the truly good and holy Kind of Virtues, Duties, and good Works. Their manner of doing what is materially Good, partakes not of the truly Good and Holy in the main Principle, Motive, End, and formal Object. They are not right in those grand Ingredients, which are essential to every one of the truly good Actions; for they live not to the true God, as his Servants, in the Exercise of all Divine Virtues; they, therefore, so sin in practicing their Virtue, as to be inconsistent with Sanctity; and, therefore, they are Wicked and Ungodly in all their Virtuous Practice, and Well-doing.

      With this account of the Virtues and good Works of the Gentiles, the general Sense of Christians agreeth. “It is a plain and granted Truth among all that are truly Pious, that without true Piety, that is, the true Worship of the true God, no Man can have the true” (kind of) “Virtue.”²⁶⁹ The Pagan Theologers themselves say, that Piety is μή τηρ τών ἀρετών, the Mother of the Virtues;²⁷⁰ their Virtues, therefore, could not be of the holy and godly Kind, if their Religion and Piety was of a contrary Kind and Family. Warm have been the Disputes among Christians, “Whether all the Actions of Infidels be Sins, or not?” But the greater Number seem to be of Opinion, That all the Works of the Unregenerate have the Nature of Sins (as the Church of England determineth) and are not good Works (wanting some Essentials thereto) but Sins in the sight of God, altho’ they be materially Good.

      It is not reasonable to attempt a Reconcilement of all the jarring Accounts of the Pagans Virtues and good Works, for none can reconcile Contradictions; but the most of them may commodiously be reconcil’d, by considering their Ethical and Political Virtue, (which may be call’d the Human Moral, or Human-Social Virtue,) and representing the true Character thereof. This sort of Virtue (which separate from the true Divine-Moral Virtue is manifestly competible to Heathen Mankind) is an Atheous and unholy Kind of Virtue, and, therefore, is of Character a virtue-less Kind of Virtue, and a bad Kind of Goodness. But, amongst the sinful Kinds of doing Duty, (the evil manner of doing what is materially Good,) there is this remarkable Difference; in some of them, that which is materially Good, is done in so criminal a Manner, and out of Ends and Principles so Vitious, that the Nature of Virtue is intirely lost out of the Action, and it becomes (like Pharisaical Holiness) Vice simply so called; but it is otherwise in this alien Kind of Virtue and Well doing, which is a different evil Kind of doing what is materially Good, for the Nature of Virtue and Well-doing is in part really preserv’d and retain’d in it, as the Nature of an Olive is in the Wild-Olive. The Virtues of the Gentiles, therefore, are Sin in one sense, but not in another. He that saith, They are Sin, Vice and Crime, not Righteousness and true Holiness, saith true; but he that saith, They are not any sort of Virtue, saith false. They are not so Vice, as not to be an unholy Virtue and Well-doing. They are not simply, either Vice, or Virtue; for they are not the true and genuine, but the spurious and illegitimate, Kind of good Works. The case is the same, if we consider them with respect to the Law, or Rule of Virtue and Duty. For, as the holy kind of Virtues are of kind and for the main, according to the Law of our Piety and Holiness towards God, who is the formal Object of our Obedience, whom we ought to obey out of dutiful Affection to him, and to make the pleasing him, his Honour and Service the chief End of our Doings and Business of our Lives: So the Atheous unholy kind of Duties, Virtues, and good Works, are, of kind and for the main, against the Law of our Piety and Holiness towards God, and, therefore, have the Nature of Sins; they are against the Law of our Piety and Holiness, both by way of privation and opposition; for the not living unto God, is an undeifying him (as far as is in our power,) a being an Enemy to him, and a living to ourselves; the not regarding and affecting him dutifully, is a disregarding him, and a disaffecting him, and a regarding and affecting somewhat else above him and against him, and therefore the natural Man, by his unholy Kind of Virtue, is no otherwise Virtuous, than so as to be an Impietist towards God. Yet it has so much in it of the Nature of Virtue, that the Apostle styleth it “a doing the Things contain’d in the Law”; God himself hath so much respect to it, that he rewardeth it several ways: No Man, upon his Conversion, so repenteth of it, as he doth of his Sins simply so called. It is not only a doing what is materially Good (which is of good Example to others, and may be of great advantage to the Publick:) But in its Principle, impulsive Cause, and End, there is so much Good as serveth to constitute it a spurious and degenerate kind of Virtue and Well-doing, as will appear from the Heathens Principles of laudable Practice, which may be reduc’d to these Four. 1. Good-Nature and natural Instinct. 2. Human-Socialness. 3. An unholy Kind of respect for Worth and Virtue, Honesty and Duty, Justice and Equity, Reason and Ingenuity, Civility, Decency, and Order, and a like respect for himself, his own Perfection and Felicity. 4. Religion on this side true Religion.

      Of the Principles of laudable Practice amongst the Heathens.

      In the first place, Animal Temper and the kindly Instincts, which are in Animal Nature, may be call’d Good-Nature, which is a Principle of laudable Practice; for Mankind have this in common with the Brutes, of whom some are tame, tractable, placid; others are fierce and savage, and have the Name of Evil Beasts, which Name implyeth, that there are good-natur’d Beasts. Cato was of a good Nature, if, as Cicero