International law; Natural law; War (International law)
XV. The very meaning of the words divine voluntary right, shows that it
springs from the divine will, by which it is distinguished from natural
law, which, it has already been observed, is called divine also. This
law admits of what Anaxarchus said, as Plutarch relates in the life of
Alexander, though without sufficient accuracy, that God does not will
a thing, because it is just, but that it is just, or binding, because
God wills it. Now this law was given either to mankind in general, or
to one particular people. We find three periods, at which it was given
by God to the human race, the first of which was immediately after the
creation of man, the second upon the restoration of mankind after the
flood, and the third upon that more glorious restoration through Jesus
Christ. These three laws undoubtedly bind all men, as soon as they come
to a sufficient knowledge of them.
XVI. Of all nations there is but one, to which God particularly
vouchsafed to give laws; and that was the people of Israel, whom Moses
thus addresses in the fourth Chap. of Deuteronomy, ver. 7. "What
nation is there so great who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord
our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation
is there so great, who have statutes and judgments so righteous, as
all this law, which I set before you this day!" And the Psalmist in
the cxlvii. Psalm, "God shewed his word unto Jacob, his statutes and
ordinances unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation, and as
for his judgments they have not known them." Nor can we doubt but that
those Jews, with whom we may class Tryphon in his dispute with Justin,
are mistaken, who suppose that even strangers, if they wish to be
saved, must submit to the yoke of the Mosaic Law. For a law does not
bind those, to whom it has not been given. But it speaks personally
to those, who are immediately under it. Hear O Israel, and we read
everywhere of the covenant made with them, by which they became the
peculiar people of God. Maimonides acknowledges and proves the truth of
this from the xxxiii. Chapter and fourth verse of Deuteronomy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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