The constitution of man considered in relation to external objects / [George Combe].
- George Combe
- Date:
- 1879
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The constitution of man considered in relation to external objects / [George Combe]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
337/380
![that this world is God’s dominion; that its laws are His institu- tions ; that His glory shines in every part—His praise is re-echoed from every side ; and that Man is consecrated to be a priest, to offer up all the creatures as sacrifices of praise, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ—the great High Priest, in the Holy and Eternal Spirit. . . . “ After what has been said, perhaps none of you will deny that what has been insisted on [as to the care of the body] is right and proper—in short, a duty. But some of you may still feel disposed to ask,—Is this a religious duty 1 Is it part of Christianity that we should obey these sanitary commandments, under pain of the anger of God,—under pain of guilt ? “ Now, let me answer,— “ 1. That every duty is a religious duty : for to say it is duty, is to say it is required by Him whose we are, and whom we are bound to obey and serve, at all times, and in all things, with all that we possess, and all that we are. “ 2. If anything be God’s will, it is for that reason our law, in what- ever manner we may have discovered that it is His will, whether it be written in a book or signified by facts. “ Supposing it were demonstrated that any institution or custom fended to generate disease in the community; for example, that marriages within certain degrees generally produced an issue defi- cient in bodily health and vigour : on that supposition, such mar- riages would be forbidden by the Almighty Governor of the world, as much as if He commissioned an archangel with a trumpet to pro- claim the prohibition to the human race ; or as if He sent to every person a well-authenticated letter or book, in which the prohibition was written. To doubt this, is to doubt that there is a moral purpose in God’s providence, or that its penalties are prohibitions; which seems to me the very essence of atheism. “ 3. A very great number, not to say a large proportion, of the ordi- nances of the Mosaic law, were designed to secure the bodily health and physical welfare of the Hebrew people,—besides other and higher objects to which they also were conducive in various ways ; and obedience to these ordinances was to be rewarded by the attain- ment of those blessings; disobedience punished by physical and temporal penalties. Whatever other rewards and punishments might be suggested by the Law, none other but these are mentioned. This is unquestionable. (See Lev. xxvi. and Deut. xxviii.) “ Since, then, regulations for securing the physical wellbeing of the people formed parts of the Jewish system, we, who acknowledge the divine origin of that system, cannot reasonably doubt that the care cf health and wise sanitary measures have a religious character, and involve a religious obligation. We could escape this inference only by holding that the institutions of Moses were in great part not Teligious, but merely secular.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28105278_0337.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
