Ductor dubitantium, or, The rule of conscience in all her generall measures serving as a great instrument for the determination of cases of conscience : in four books / by Jeremy Taylor ...

RULE 9. The law of Nature can be dispensed with,* 1.1 by the Divine power.

I Am willing publikely to acknowledge that I was alwaies since I understood it,* 1.2 a very great enemy to all those questions of the School which inquire into the power of God: as whether by Gods absolute power a body can be in two places: whether God can give leave to a man to sin: and very many there are of them to as little purpose. But yet here I am willing to speak in the like manner of expression, because the consequent and effect of it goes not to a direct inquiry concerning the Divine power, for it intends to remon∣strate that because Gods does actually dispense in his own law, this prime law of God, or the law of Nature is nothing else but the express and declar'd will of God in matters proportionable to right reason and the nature of Man.

But in order to the present inquiry;* 1.3 it is to be observed that Gods di∣spensation is otherwise then Mans dispensation;* 1.4 1. God is the supreme Lawgiver, and hath immediate power and influence over laws, and can cancell these, and impose those, new or old as he please. By this power it is that he can relaxe to particular persons their personal obligation quoad hic & nunc & sic; and if he does, the law still remaining in its force and power to other persons and in other cases,* 1.5 this is properly dispensation. 2. God is the supreme Lord, and can transfer dominions and take away Kingdomes, and give them to whom he

please; and when he makes such changes, if he commands any one to be his Minister in such translations, he does legitimate all those violences by which those changes are to be effected: and this also is a dispensation; but improperly. 3. God also is the supreme Judge,* 1.6 and can punish and exauthorate whom he please, and substitute others in their room; and when he does so by command and express declaration of his will; then also he dispenses in those obligati∣ons of justice, or obedience, or duty respectively, by which the successor or substitute, or Minister was hindred from doing that which before the command was a sin, but now is none: and this also is another manner of dispensation. Some Doctors of the law are resolved to call nothing Dispensation, but the first of these: and the other under another name shall signifie the same thing; but say they, He onely dispenses who does take off the obligation directly, by his le∣gislative power without using his judicative and potestative, he who does it as an act of direct jurisdiction, not as a Lord, or a Judge, but as a Lawgiver: Now say they, God does never as a Lawgiver cancel or abrogate any law of Na∣ture: but as a Lord he transfers rights, and as a Judge he may use what in∣struments he please in executing his Sentence, and so by subtracting or changing the matter of the laws of Nature, he changes the whole action. To these things I make this reply.

1. That this is doing the same thing under another manner of speaking,* 1.7 for when it is inquired whether the law of Nature is dispensable; the meaning is, whether or no that which is forbidden by the law of Nature may in certain cases be done without sin: but we mean not to enquire whether or no this change of actions from unlawful to lawful be that which the Lawyers in their words of art and as they define it call Dispensation: for in matters of Consci∣ence, it is pedantry to dispute concerning the formes and termes of art: which Men to make their Nothings seem learning dress up into order and me∣thods, like the dressings and paintings of people that have no beauty of their own: but here the inquiry is and ought to be more material in order to practice and cases of Conscience. For if I may by God be permitted to do that, which by the law of Nature I am not permitted, then I am dispensed with in the law of Nature, that is, a leave is given to me to doe what otherwise I might not.

2. That the doing of this by any of the forenamed instruments or waies is a dispensation and so really to be called,* 1.8 appears in the instances of all laws. For if it be pretended that the Pope can dispense in the matter of vowes, or a Prince in the matter of mariages; which are rate and firm by the law of nature; he cannot doe it by direct jurisdiction or by annulling the law which is greater then either King or Bishop: for when a dispensation is given in these instances, it is not given but when there is cause: and when there is cause the matter is chang'd; and though the law remains, yet in a changed matter the obligation is taken off; and this is that which all the world calls dispensation, and so it is in the present question; when God changes the matter or the case is pity∣able, or some greater end of God is to be served, that is, when there is cause, God dispenses, that is, takes off the obligation. Here onely is the difference,

3. In Divine dispensations God makes the cause;* 1.9 for his laws are so wise, so prudent, so fitted for all needs and persons and all cases that there is no de∣f••illance or new arising case which God did not foresee: but because he hath ends of providence, of justice, of goodness or power to serve, he often in∣troduces new causes of things, and then he gives leave to men to finish his de∣signes

by instruments which without such leave would be unlawful. But in Humane dispensations the cause is prepared before hand, not by the Lawgiver, but by accident and unavoidable defect: for without cause dispensations are not to be granted; but in both the dispensation is not without the changing of the matter, that is, without altering the case. God does not give leave to any man to break a Natural law, as long as he keeps that Natural law in its own force and reason; and neither does a Prince or Bishop give leave to any Subject to break any of his Laws when there is no need; for the first would be a contradiction, and the second a plain ruine of his power, and a contempt to his lawes: There∣fore in the summe of affairs it is all one; and because actions generally forbidden by the law of Nature may by God be commanded to be done, and then are made lawful by a temporary command, which he made unlaw∣ful by Nature or first sanction; this is a direct dispensing with single per∣sons in the law of Nature. And to say it is not a dispensation, because God does not doe it by an act of simple jurisdiction, but by the intertexture of his dominative and Judicial power, is nothing but to say that God having made a law agreeable to reason, will not doe against that reason which himself made, till he introduces a higher, or another. For while all things remain as was foreseen or intended in the law, both divine and humane laws are indispensable, that is, neither God in his providence, nor Men in the admini∣stration of justice and government doe at all relaxe their law. If it be said, a King can doe it by his absolute power, though it be unjust: I confess this God cannot doe, because he can doe no wrong: but if God does it, his very doing it makes it just: and this a King cannot doe. But if the question be of matter of power, abstracting from considerations of just or unjust; there is no pe••ad∣venture but God can doe in his own law, as much as any Prince can doe in his. When the matter is chang'd, the Divine law is as changable as the humane, with this onely difference, that to change the matter of a Divine Natural law, is like the changing of the order of Nature; sometimes it is done by Miracle▪ and so is the law also chang'd, by extraordinary dispensation; but this although it can happen as often as God please, yet it does happen but seldome as a Mira∣cle; But in humane laws it can and does often happen, and therefore they are to be dispensed with frequently: and sometimes the case can so wholly alter, and the face of things be so intirely new, and the inconvenience so intolerable that the whole law must pass away into desuetude and nullity; which can never hap∣pen in the Divine Natural law; because the reason of it is as eternal as Nature herself; and can onely be interrupted by rare contingencies of Gods procuring, as the order of Nature is by Miracle; but will revert, because Nature will re∣turn into her own channel, and her laws into their proper obligation.

4. But now to the matter of fact that God hath dispensed not onely by subtraction or alteration of the matter,* 1.10 but by direct jurisdiction, that is, as he is a Judge, and a Lord, and a Lawgiver even in all the waies in which dispen∣sations can be made appears in several instances.

1. That the marriage of one Man and one Woman is by the law of Na∣ture,* 1.11 appears by the institution of marriage, and by Christs revocation of it to the first sanction. It was so from the beginning: and if any thing be a law of Nature, that is one by the consent of all men: and yet Moses permitted divor∣ces, and God and Moses his servant permitted Polygamy when there was no ne∣cessity, no change of the matter or of case, but only that men had a mind to it.

For if the conjunction of male and female was established in singulari conjugio at the first, when there might be a greater necessity of multiplying wives for the peopling the world, then as the world grew more populous the necessity could less be pretended; therefore this must be an act of pure jurisdiction: the causes of exception or dispensation grew less when the dispensation was more frequent, and therefore it was onely a direct act of jurisdiction. Though I confess that to distinguish dominion from jurisdiction, and the power of a Judge from that of a Lawgiver, I mean when both are supreme, and the pow∣er of a Lord from them both, is a distinction without real difference: for as he is our Lord he gives us laws and judges us by those laws: and therefore nothing is Material in this inquiry, but whether the action can pass from unlawful to lawful; though because the Lawyers and other Schools of learning use to speak their Shibboleth, I thought it not amiss to endeavour to be understood by them in their own way. So again, That brother and sister should not marry is suppos'd to be a law of Nature: but yet God dispens'd with it in the case of Cain and his sister: and this he did as a Lord or as a Lawgiver; he made it necessary to be so, and yet it was not necessary he should make it so; for he could have created twenty men and twenty women as well as one: But that which is incest in others was not so in him; but there was no signal act of do∣minion or of Judicature in this, but it was the act of a free Agent; and done be∣cause God would doe so; whether this be jurisdiction or dominion, let who can determine.

2. But in some things God did dispense by changing the matter,* 1.12 using that which men are pleas'd to call the right of Dominion. Thus God did dispense with Abraham in the matter of the sixt Commandement; God commanded him to kill his Son, and he obeyed, that is, resolved to doe it, and will'd that, which in others would be wilful murder. Now God was Lord of Isaac's life, and might take it away himself, and therefore it was just: but when he gave A∣braham command to doe it, he did not doe it but by dispensing with him, in that Commandement: It is true that God by his dominion made the cause for the dispensation; but yet it was a direct dispensation; and it is just as if God should by his dominion resolve to take away the lives of the men in a whole Nation, and should give leave to all mankinde to kill all that people as fast as they could meet them, or when they had a minde to it: And this was the case of the sons of Israel, who had leave to kill the Canaanites and their neigh∣bours. God dispensed with them in the matter of the sixth and eighth Com∣mandements: for it is not enough to say, That God as Lord of lives, and for∣tunes, had devested them of their rights, and permitted them to others: for that is not enough, that God as Lord hath taken away the lives and liberties and possessions of any man, or community of Men: for that act of dominion is not enough to warrant any man to execute the Divine decree; Nay though God hath decreed and declar'd it concerning a crime that it shall be capital, yet a man must have more then this to make it lawful to put that man to death. He must be a Minister of the Divine jurisdiction; he must have a power intrust∣ed to him from God, and a Commission to execute the Divine Sentence; and from hence it follows undeniably, that since the delegate power is a delegate jurisdiction and without this a man may not put a Capital offender to death; that therefore the supreme power from whence the delegation is commissiona∣ted is also a power of jurisdiction; and therefore if the words of their own Art are true, this leave given to doe that which without that leave were a sin against the law of Nature, is properly and truly a Dispensation.

3. The third way of dispensing is by applying the power of a Judge to a certain person or community,* 1.13 and by way of punishment to take from him what cannot be taken from him but by a superior power, or by the Supreme; Thus we are commanded by the law of Nature to give nourishment and to make provisions for our children; but if children prove rebellious and unnatural; God can command us to neglect that duty, and to ex∣pose them to the contingencies of fortune. It is by the law of Nature commanded to us to love and honour our Parents; to be loving and kind to our children: but if Parents inticed their children to idolatry, their children might lay their hands upon them and stone them to death. * It is a com∣mand and a prime rule of the law of Nature that we should doe as we would be done to: but even in this original rule and great sanction God did dispense with the Israelites, for they might not exact upon one another by Usury: but to strangers they might; what they hated to have done to themselves they were willing and expressly permitted to doe to others. In these and the like cases, although an act of dominion or judgement might intervene, yet that's not enough to warrant the irregular action; there must be an act of jurisdiction besides, that is, if God commands it or by express declara∣tion warrants it, then it may be done. Thus God as a Judge and being angry with David intended to punish him by suffering his Concubines to be hum∣bled by his son in the face of all Israel, but though he did it justly; yet be∣cause Absalom had no command or warrant to doe what God threatned he was criminal. But Jeroboam and Jehu had commissions for what they did, though of it self it was otherwise violent, unjust, rebellious and unnatural, and therefore did need the same authority to legitimate it, by which it be∣came unlawful. God often punishes a Prince by the rebellion of his Subjects God is just in doing it; but he hates the instruments, and will punish them with a fearful destruction unless they doe repent, in this case nothing can war∣rant the Subjects to strike, but an express command of God.

Thus I conceive the thing it self is clear and certain;* 1.14 but for the exten∣sion of this, the case is yet in question, and it is much disputed amongst them that admit this rule in any sense, how many laws of Nature can be dispensed with: for if all, then the consequents will be intolerable; if not all, by what are they separated since they all seem to be established by the bands of Eternal reason. * Some say that the precepts of the second Table are dispensable, but not the first; But that is uncertain, or rather certainly false; for if God did please he might be worshipped by the interposition of an image; or if he essentially should hate that as indeed in very many periods of the world he hath severely forbidden it; yet the second Commandement and the fourth have suffer'd alteration and in some parts of them are exstinguished. * Others say that the Negative precepts are indispensable; but not the affirmative. But this is not true; not onely because every Negative is complicated with an affirmative; and every affirmative hath a Negative in the armes of it, but be∣cause all the precepts of the second Table, the first onely excepted, are Negative; and yet God can dispense with all of them as I have already prov'd.

But though it be hard to tell how far this dispensation and Oecono∣my can reach,* 1.15 and to what particulars it can extend, because Gods waies are unsearchable, and his power not to be understood by us; yet since our Bles∣sed Saviour hath made up a perfect Systeme of the Natural law, and hath

obtained to himself an everlasting kingdome, so that his law must last as long as the world lasts, and by it God will governe mankinde for ever; by the eternal reasonableness and proportions of this law we can tell what is indispen∣sable and what not: and the measure by which alone we can guess at it is this, Every matter from whence the ratio debiti, or cause of the obligation can be taken is dispensable. Now because God is supreme over all his creatures, and can change all their affairs, and can also choose the manner of his own worship, therefore in these things he can dispense.

But in that essential duty which his creatures owe to him the case is diffe∣rent;* 1.16 for though God can exact more or fewer instances of affirmative du∣ty, these or others, yet there cannot be an alteration of the main relation; and of the intrinsick duty, and the intercourse of the soul with God in the matter of the principal affections there can be no dispensation. It is eternally and indispensably necessary that we love God: and it were a contradiction that either God should command us to hate him, or that we could obey him if he did. For obedience is love; and therefore if we obey'd God commanding us to hate him, we should love him in hating him, and obey him by our disobedience.

Now if it be inquir'd to what purposes of Conscience all this inquiry can minister;* 1.17 the answer to the inquiry will reduce it to practice; for the proper corollaries of this determination of the question are these.

1. That our duty to God is supreme;* 1.18 it is onely due to him; it cannot be lessen'd, and ought not upon any pretence to be extinguished; because his will is the onely measure of our obedience; and whatsoever is in Nature, is so holy for God and for Gods service, that it ought to bend, and decline from its own inclination to all the compliances in the world which can please God. Our reason, our Nature, our affections, our interest, our piety, our religion are and ought to be Gods subjects perfectly; and that which they desire, and that which we doe, hath in it no good, no worthiness but what it derives from the Divine law and will.

2. That in the Sanction of the Divine laws the reason obliges more then the letter:* 1.19 For since the change of the reason is the ground of all mutation and dispensation in laws, it is certain that the reason and the authority, that in the thing, this in God, are the soul and the spirit of the law: and though this must not be used so as to neglect the law when we fancy a reason, yet when the letter and the reason are in opposition, this is to be preferr'd before that. If the reason ceases it is not enough of warrant to neglect the law; unless a contrary reason arises, and that God cannot be served by obedience in that instance, but when the case is not onely otherwise but contrary to what it was before; let the design of God be so observ'd as that the letter be obeyed in that analogy and proportion. It is a Natural law that we should not deceive our neighbour: because his interest and right is equal to any mans else: but if God have commanded me to kill him, and I cannot by force get him into my hand, I may deceive him whom God hath commanded me to kill; if without such a snare I cannot obey the command of God. But this is but seldom practicable, because the reasons in all Natural laws are so fixt and twist∣ed with the accidents of every mans life, that they cannot alter but by Miracle, or by an express command of God; and therefore we must in the use of this Rule, wholly attend upon the express voice of God.

3. It hence also will follow,* 1.20 that if an Angel from Heaven, or any Pro∣phet, or dreamer of dreams, any teacher and pretendedly illuminate person shall teach or perswade to any act against any natural law, that is, against any thing which is so reasonable and necessary that it is bound upon our Natures by the spirit of God and the light of our reason, he is not to be heard: for un∣til God changes his own establishments, and turns the order of things into new methods & dispositions, the natural obligations are sacred & inviolable.

4. From the former discourses it will follow,* 1.21 that the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament are the light of our eyes, and the intire guide of our Consciences in all our great lines of duty; because there our Blessed Lord hath perfectly registred all the natural and essential obligations of Men to God and to one another: and that in these things no man can or ought to be prejudic'd; in these things no man is to have a fear, but to act with confidence and diligence: and that concerning the event of these things no man is to have any jealousies; because since all the precepts of Christ are perfective of our Nature, they are instruments of all that felicity of which we can be ca∣pable, and by these we shall receive all the good we can hope for: and that, since God hath by his holy Son declar'd this will of his to be lasting, and ne∣ver more to be changed by any succeeding law-giver, we must rest here, and know that no power less then God can change any thing of this, and that by this law we shall stand or fall in the eternal scrutiny.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Vide reg. 1. n. 43, 44. &c.
• * 1.2

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• * 1.3

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• * 1.4

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• * 1.5

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• * 1.6

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• * 1.7

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• * 1.8

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• * 1.9

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• * 1.10

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• * 1.11

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• * 1.12

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• * 1.13

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• * 1.14

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• * 1.15

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• * 1.16

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• * 1.17

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• * 1.19

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