In Book 1

1. Genesis 2:18. God works nothing without cause. All those things which are done by him have some end for which they are done: and the end for which they are done is a reason of his will to do them. His will had not inclined to create woman, but that he saw it could not be well if she were not created. Non est bonum, it is not good, man should be alone. Therefore let us make a helper for him. That, and nothing else is done by God, which to leave undone were not good. Section 2.

2. Proverbs 16:4. The Lord has made all things for his own sake. Not that anything is made to be beneficial to him, but all things for him to show beneficence and grace in them. Section 2.

3. Ephesians 1:11. There are those who think that of the will of God to do this or that, there is no reason besides his will. Many times no reason known to us, but that there is no reason thereof, I judge it most unreasonable to imagine, inasmuch as he works all things — not only according to his own will, but the counsel of his own will. And whatever is done with counsel, or wise resolution, has of necessity some reason why it should be done; although that reason be to us in some things so secret, that it forces the wit of man to stand, as the blessed Apostle himself does, amazed at it. Romans 11:33. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, etc. Ibid.

4. Hebrews 6:17. Concerning the counsel of God (the same with that law of God, whereby he works all things, of which he is the cause and author) the Apostle terms it a thing unchangeable. Nor is the freedom of the will of God at all abated, hindered, or prevented by means of this; because the imposition of this law upon himself is his own free and voluntary act. Ibid.

5. Genesis 1. Moses in describing the work of creation, attributes speech to God: God said, Let there be light; let there be a firmament, etc. It was not only the intent of Moses to signify the infinite greatness of God's power, by the easiness of his accomplishing such effects, without travail, pain, or labor; but his commanding those things to be which are, and to be in such sort as they are, to keep that tenure and course which they do, imports the establishment of nature's law. Section 3.

6. Matthew 6:10. Touching angels, which are spirits immaterial and intellectual, the glorious inhabitants of those sacred palaces, where nothing but light and blessed immortality forever dwell — as in number and order they are huge, mighty, and royal armies, so likewise in perfection of obedience to that law which the Highest, whom they adore, love, and imitate, has imposed upon them — such observers they are thereof, that our Savior himself, being to set down the perfect idea of that which we are to pray and wish for on earth, did not teach to pray or wish for more than only that here it might be with us, as with them it is in heaven.

7. Deuteronomy 13:19. Goodness is seen with the eye of the understanding, and the light of that eye is reason. So that two principal fountains there are of human action, knowledge, and will — which will in things tending towards any end is termed choice. Concerning knowledge, behold, says Moses, I have set before you this day, good and evil, life and death. Concerning will, he adds immediately, choose life; that is to say, the things that tend to life, them choose. Section 7.

8. Romans 2:14. The Apostle Saint Paul having speech concerning the heathens, says of them, they are a law to themselves. His meaning is, that by force of the light of reason, with which God illuminates every one who comes into the world, men being enabled to know truth from falsehood, and good from evil, do thereby learn in many things what the will of God is — which will himself not revealing by any extraordinary means to them, but they by natural discourse attaining the knowledge thereof, seem the makers of those laws which indeed are his, and they but only the finders of them out. Section 8.

9. 2 Corinthians 4:17. Small difficulties, when exceeding great good is sure to ensue; and on the other side momentary benefits, when the hurt which they draw after them is unspeakable, are not at all to be respected. Upon this infallible ground the Apostle enjoins patience to himself: the present lightness of our affliction works to us even with abundance upon abundance an eternal weight of glory, while we look not, etc. Therefore Christianity is to be embraced, whatever calamities in those times it was accompanied with. Ibid.

10. Matthew 22:38. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, etc. This is the first and great commandment, says our Savior, and the next is like to it. He means in amplitude and largeness, inasmuch as it is the root out of which all laws of duty to men have grown; as out of the former, all offices of religion towards God. Ibid.

11. 2 Peter 2:5. We all make complaint of the iniquity of our times, not unjustly, for the days are evil. But compare them with those times, wherein there were no civil societies; with those times, wherein there was as yet no manner of public government established; with those times, wherein there were not above eight persons righteous living upon the face of the earth — and we have surely good cause to think, that God has blessed us exceedingly, and has made us behold most happy days. Section 10.

12. John 6:29. The way of supernatural duty which God has prescribed to us, our Savior in the Gospel of Saint John notes, terming it by an excellency, the work of God: this is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent. Not that God requires nothing to happiness at the hands of men, saving only a naked belief (for hope and charity we may not exclude) but that without belief all other things are as nothing. Section 11.

13. (John 20:31) The main drift of the whole New Testament is that which St. John sets down as the purpose of his own history: these things are written, that you might believe, that Jesus is Christ, the Son of God; and that in believing, you might have life through his Name. The drift of the old, that which the Apostle mentions to Timothy (2 Timothy 3:15): the holy Scriptures are able to make you wise to salvation. So that the general end both of old and new is one, the difference between them consisting in this, that the old did make wise by teaching salvation through Christ that should come. The New, by teaching that Christ the Savior is come, and that Jesus whom the Jews did crucify, and whom God did raise again from the dead, is He. When the Apostle therefore affirmed to Timothy that the Old was able to make him wise to salvation, it was not his meaning that the Old alone can do this to us who live since the publication of the New. For he speaks with presupposal of the doctrine of Christ, known also to Timothy; and he adds, through the faith which is in Christ. 14.

14. (Revelation 14:6) St. John peculiarly terms the doctrine that teaches salvation by Jesus Christ, Evangelium aeternum, an eternal Gospel; because there can be no reason the publishing of it should be taken away, and any other instead of it proclaimed, as long as the world does continue. Whereas the whole law of rites and ceremonies, although delivered with so great solemnity, is notwithstanding clean abrogated, inasmuch as it had but temporary cause of God's ordaining of it. 15.

15. (Romans 13:1) Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. The public power of all societies is above every soul contained in the same societies, and the principal use of that power is to give laws to all that are under it. Which laws in such case we must obey, unless there be reason shown which may necessarily enforce that the law of reason, or of God, does enjoin the contrary. Because except our own private and but probable resolutions be by the law of public determinations overruled, we take away all possibility of sociable life in the world. 16.

16. (Acts 15:20) As men's private fancies must give place to the higher judgment of that church which is in authority a mother over them, so the very actions of whole churches have, in regard of commerce and fellowship with other churches, been subject to law, the contrary to which had else been thought more convenient for them to observe. This is shown by that order (Acts 15) of abstinence from strangled meat and blood, an order grounded upon that fellowship which the churches of the Gentiles had with the Jews.