A Treatise of the Laws of Nature. Richard Cumberland
is there in good Degree reveal’d:) So, in Nature, God is fairly notic’d to the Gentiles, not without, but with true, Specifick and individual Determination. They are blind and unintelligent in the Nature of Things, that do not discern, in case of Competition, which is the true God. The Jews mundan Kind of Christ, is an Anti-Christ Kind of Christ. So the Gentiles Pagan Kind of God, their Jove; being in one Part merely mundan, and in the other, diabolical and wicked; and being the Deity of a Religion, that is in one Part merely mundan, and in the other diabolical and wicked, is an Anti-God kind of God. All these Matters are so plain in the Nature of the Thing, that it must be said, a Christ is in Scripture so notic’d to the Jews, as that the true Christ, the true Kind of Christ, is fairly notic’d unto them: A God is in Nature so notic’d to all Mankind, as that the true God, the true Kind of God, is fairly notic’d unto them. “A Philosopher is no other than a true Philosopher; but, because some counterfeit Philosophy, therefore the Epithet of true was added.” So Christ is no other than the true Christ, God is no other than the true God: If God, therefore, (or a God,) was in Nature made known to the Gentiles, the true God must necessarily be notic’d unto them. And some learned Men somewhat mistake the Case, when they say. “As Oedipus knew himself to have a Father, yet did not know that Laius was he: So the Gentiles, by the Light of Nature, might reach so far as to know, there is one God, and that he is the Fountain of all Good, without knowing who was this God, as suppose the God of Israel.”252 For, in the Case of Oedipus, there was no Competition, there was no Competition between two pretending Fathers; whereas, in the Gentiles Case, there was a Competition between two pretending Gods. And Laius, (being but a particular Man) could not be known but by an individual Determination: Whereas, in Case of Competition, the true God is distinctly and certainly notic’d by a mere Specifick Determination. For as the Divine-kind of Messiah is the true Messiah: So the Divine-kind of God, (and the Deity of such a kind of Religion) is the true God; but the Ungodly-kind of God (and the Deity of such a Religion) is the false God. It is not a Divine Being, nor a Supreme Being, nor a Supreme God, but the Divine-kind of God, which Specifick Determination is plainly notic’d in the Nature of the Thing; and therefore God, as of true Specifick Determination, is in Nature, fairly notic’d to the Reason of all Men. For suppose, that Oedipus could not know, that the Man Laius was his Father; yet, in the Nature of the Thing, this was plainly notic’d, That one of Mankind was his Father: So, in the Nature of the Thing, and therefore in Nature, this is plainly notic’d to the Reason of all the World, that God is not an unholy, or ungodly, but a Divine-kind of, God. If this God, the Deity of true Holiness and Godliness, was not, as such, fairly notic’d to the Heathen World; if they had not much of the Knowledge of him and of his Truth, (touching his Truth, their Duty and their Sin, his Rewards and Punishments,) this Knowledge could not be said, to be manifest in them, because God hath shew’d it unto them: Nor could they be said, to hold the Truth (stifled, smother’d, and imprison’d) in Unrighteousness. This being their great Crime, from thence it appeareth, that the true God was so far notic’d to them, as that they were under an Obligation, to erect an Holy Empire, imperfectly such, by being in common his Religionists.
3. As the Jews reject the true Divine-Kind of Messiah, which is notic’d unto them, such not being grateful and agreeable unto them, nor what they like and love; they are for a Messiah of another Kind: So the Gentiles did not like that of the true Divine-Kind of God, his Truth, and his Service, which was notic’d unto them, they were for another Kind of supreme God, which was more grateful to them, because of their own Kind and Quality; and so far (in setting up their Jove of several Notions jumbled and confounded together) they transform’d the Godhead into their own Similitude. According to that of Xenophanes the Colophonian; “If Horses and Oxen could draw Pictures, they would paint the Gods like Horses and Oxen, as of their own Form and Family.” The same Philosopher observeth, “That the Aethiopians paint the Gods Black, and Flat Nos’d; the Thracians paint them Reddish and Ceruleous; the Barbarians suppose them Wild and Ferine; the Greeks suppose them more Gentle and Placid.”
4. The Heathens having form’d their Polity of Gods, and set up Jove as Chieftain of their Deities, the true God was hid from the Eyes of their Mind; and, altho he was notic’d to them, and known by them, yet no otherwise than as a Stranger-Deity (foreign to the Polity of their Gods) as they were Aliens from knowing him. For such a Degree of knowing, is knowing, not knowing, as the Apostle saith, Rom. 10. 19. “Did not Israel know?” They knew, but so as not to know. The Heathens knowing, not knowing, constituted them the Heathen People. To such a Degree the Athenians knew God, when they erected an Altar to the unknown God. To such a Degree the Kings of the Amorites and the Canaanites knew God, whose Hearts melted, “When they heard that the Lord had dried up the Waters of Jordan from before the Children of Israel.” Josh. 5. 1. And the God of Israel saith of himself, Mal. 1. 14. “My Name is dreadful among the Heathen.” To such a Degree those Pagan Magicians knew God, who made use of his Name, The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in their Inchantments.
In what Sense they did not know God.
That extraneous People the Gentiles knew not God, as a People know their God; who is the imperial Estate of their Religion, and who are none of the Strangers, Foreigners, and Aliens from his Theology and Religion. In such Sense the Gentiles Character signifieth in the Scripture, wherein the Gentiles, that knew not God, are oppos’d to God’s People; and in such Sense the God of Israel saith to Cyrus, Isa. 45. 5. “I girded thee, though thou hast not known me.” So in Ecclesiastical Writers, the Conversion of a Pagan to be one of God’s People, is express’d by a Transition from the Heathenism of the World to the Acknowledgment of the true God. And the Heathens usual Quere to the Primitive Christians, “Who is that God, which ought alone to be worshipp’d?” shews their prodigious Alienation from the Knowledge of God, and that the true God was no Deity of their Theology. Cicero hath remark’d the wild Conceits of the Stoicks concerning the Ruler of the World, or the Godhead. “Zeno and the generality of the Stoicks suppose, that the Aether is the supreme God, having a Mind whereby all Things are govern’d. Cleanthes, a Prime Stoick, and Scholar of Zeno, thinketh the Sun hath the Dominion, or is Lord of us, and all, and swayeth all. Therefore, by the Dissension of the Wise, we are necessitated to be Ignorant, who is the Lord over us; for we know not, whether to pay our Service to the Sun, or Aether.”253 The Philosophers had the true Knowledge of God, as some say; but the Apostle ranketh their Knowledge of God, with the Popular-Pagan. 1 Cor. 1. 21. “Seeing that in the Wisdom of God” (that instructive Wisdom which God furnisheth in Nature) “the World by Wisdom knew not God,” (by Philosophy, they did not attain to the Knowledge of God,) “it pleas’d God by the Foolishness of Preaching to save them that Believe.”
This Idea the King, or he that Reigneth over us, may be understood and taken, either without, or with that individual Person, who is King, or doth Reign. He that knoweth and honoureth the King only in general and indefinitely, (to use a Logical Term,) knoweth and honoureth the King according to the true Idea of a King, without any true, or determinate Knowledge of the Individual, who is King, whom he may unwittingly oppose. Many are for Truth, for Justice, Virtue, and Piety, according to some true general Notion which they have of them, that are Adversaries to that, in particular Cases, which is really and materially the Truth, Justice, Virtue, and Piety. Thus the Heathen are said to know and honour God, by having this, or the like, honourary Idea of Him in their Mind, The King of the World; The Lord of All; but with this honourary Idea some of them invested a Star; others, an Hero; others, a Demon; and others, a Platonick Idea. Some applied it to the visible Universe, being Pan-Theists; others were altogether uncertain, to what definite specifick individual Nature, it ought to be applied, and, therefore, were Theists at random, not determin’d to any one Thing; “Thou