LAW, in its most general and comprehensive sense, signifies a rule of action; and is applied indiscriminately to all kinds of action, whether animate or inanimate, rational or irrational. Thus we say, the laws of motion, of gravitation, of optics, of mechanics, as well as the laws of nature and of nations. And it is that rule of action which is prescribed by some superior, and which the inferior is bound to obey.
Thus when the Supreme Being formed the universe, and created matter out of nothing, he impressed certain principles upon that matter, from which it can never depart, and without which it would cease to be. When he put that matter into motion, he established certain laws of motion, to which all moveable bodies must conform. And, to descend from the greatest operations to the smallest, when a workman, forms a clock, or other piece of mechanism, he establishes at his own pleasure certain arbitrary laws for its direction; as, that the hand shall describe a given space in a given time; to which law as long as the work conforms, so long it continues in perfection, and answers the end of its formation.
If we farther advance, from mere inactive matter to vegetable and animal life, we shall find them still governed by laws; more numerous indeed, but equally fixed and invariable. The whole progress of plants, from the seed to the root, and from thence to the seed again; the method of animal nutrition, digestion, secretion, and all other branches of vital economy;—are not left to chance, or the will of the creature itself, but are performed in a wondrous involuntary manner, and guided by unerring rules laid down by the great Creator.
This then is the general signification of law, a rule of action dictated by some superior being: and, in those creatures that have neither the power to think
nor to will, such laws must be invariably obeyed, so long as the creature itself subsists; for its existence depends on that obedience. But laws, in their more confined sense, and in which it is our present business to consider them, denote the rules, not of action in general, but of human action or conduct: that is, the precepts by which man, the noblest of all subnary beings, a creature endowed with both reason and free will, is commanded to make use of those faculties in the general regulation of his behaviour.
Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator, for he is entirely a dependent being. A being, independent of any other, has no rule to pursue but such as he prescribes to himself; but a state of dependance will inevitably oblige the inferior to take the will of him on whom he depends as the rule of his conduct; not indeed in every particular, but in all those points wherein his dependance consists. This principle therefore has more or less extent and effect, in proportion as the superiority of the one and the dependance of the other is greater or less, absolute or limited. And consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for every thing, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his Maker's will.
This will of his Maker is called the law of nature.3 For as God, when he created matter, and endowed it with a principle of mobility, established certain rules for the perpetual direction of that motion; so, when he created man, and endowed him with free will to conduct himself in all parts of life, he laid down certain immutable laws of human nature, whereby that free will is in some degree regulated and restrained, and gave him also the faculty of reason to discover the purpose of those laws.
Considering the Creator only as a being of infinite power,