A Treatise of the Laws of Nature. Richard Cumberland
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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, when he saith, Matth. 8. 22. “Let the dead bury their dead,” i.e. leave it to them, who are in a deadly State of Sin, to busy themselves about burying the Carcases of the Dead. And, as the Jews will not allow the Gentiles, to be reckon’d amongst the Living, so the Apostle looketh upon the World of Heathen Sinners, as in the State of the Dead. 1 Pet. 4. 6. “The Gospel was preach’d to them that are dead, that they might be judg’d according to Men in the Flesh,” i.e. suffer Death, the Death of Mortification, to which they are sentenc’d by the Gospel, that they who are dead in their Carnality, by the Death of it might live Spiritually. And this plain Notion of the Dead sufficiently explaineth a very obscure Phrase, which this Apostle useth, speaking of Christ, 1 Pet. 3. 18, 19, 20. “Being put to Death in the Flesh, but quicken’d by the Spirit. By which also he preach’d to the Spirits in Prison, which sometimes were Disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the Days of Noah.” If, instead of this Phrase, the Spirits in Prison, the Apostle had made use of this Expression, those that are in the State of the Dead, there had been no difficulty in his Words; every Interpreter would have said, those who are in the State of the Dead, is a Phrase expressive of the sadly-degenerate Condition of Mankind, who are dead in a moral Sense; that this Generation, those that are in the State of the Dead, was sometimes disobedient to the preaching of Noah, (degenerate Mankind were then incredulous, and now are so;) and that Christ by the Spirit, after his Resurrection, going preach’d to them, not in his own Person, but by his Apostles, in which sense St. Paul saith, he came and preach’d, Ephes. 2. 17. If there had been no difficulty in the Apostle’s Words, supposing that he had made use of this Phrase, those that are in the State of the Dead; the difficulty in them must not be thought great, altho’ the Apostle useth this Phrase, the Spirits in Prison, (which is of more affinity with the Spirit that he was speaking of, than the other;) because the Spirits in Prison, and those that are in the State of the Dead (vitiously Dead) are plainly equivalent Expressions. Now, if the Apostle had said, that, by the Spirit, Christ preach’d to those that are in the State of the Dead, every one would have said, the Apostle is his own Interpreter, he meaneth nothing but what himself saith in the compass of a few Verses (1 Pet. 4. 6.) that the Gospel was preach’d to the Dead; therefore, when the Apostle saith, that, by the Spirit, Christ preach’d to the Spirits in Prison, every one ought to Interpret his Meaning, by what himself saith a few Verses after, that the Gospel was preach’d, τοῖς νϵκροὶς, to them that are in the State of the Dead. The Spirits in Prison, in a literal Meaning, are the Dead in a literal Meaning; the Spirits in Prison, in a moral Meaning, are