"The good of every society": Taylor on the commonwealth and natural law

Jeremy Taylor in Ductor dubitantium, Book II.II.i & ii on how the laws of the commonwealth are to be an expression of natural law, and thus integral to our flourishing and the common good:

For all good laws, and all justice, hath the same reasonableness, the same rules and measures, and are therefore good because they are profitable, - and are therefore just, because they are measured by the common analogies and proportions: - and are therefore necessary, because they are bound upon us by God mediately or immediately. And therefore Cicero defined virtue to be "perfecta et ad summum perducta natura," or "Habitus animi naturae modo, rationi consentaneus," "The perfection of nature,” or “a habit of mind agreeing to natural reason" ...

And there is a proportion of this truth also in all the wise laws of commonwealths. The reasons of which are nothing but the proportions of nature, and the prime propositions of justice, common utility, and natural necessity. And therefore, supposing that every civil constitution supplies the material part or the instance, every civil law is nothing but a particular of the natural law in respect of its formality, reasonableness, and obligation. And all laws of manners are laws of nature: for there can be but one justice, and the same honesty and common utility in the world; and as a particular reason is contained in the universal, so is the particular profit in the public; "Saluti civium prospexit, quá intelligebat contineri suam," said Torquatus in Cicero, and so it is in laws. In the observation of the laws of nature, the good of every society and every private person is comprised: and there is no other difference in it, but that in every civil constitution there is something superadded; not to the reasonableness of justice, but it is invested with a body of action and circumstances. "Jus civile neque in totum A naturali ac gentium jure recedere, neque per omnia ei servire; adeo ut cum juri communi aliquid additur vel detrahitur, jus pro prium, id est, civile efficiatur," said Justinian: "The civil law neither does wholly recede from the law of nature and nations, neither does it wholly serve it: for when any thing is added or detracted from the natural law, it becomes the civil:" and another; "Leges positive repetunt jus naturae quum leges sive pactiones quae sunt jura attingunt utilita tem et scopum naturae;" "The positive laws of a commonwealth repeat the law of nature, when laws and covenants do promote the profit and this design of nature."

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Why I support the ordination of women: a High Church reflection

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