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An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature is a concerted effort to find a middle way between the two extremes that dominated the religious dispute of the English civil war in the seventeenth century. At one extreme end of the spectrum was the antinomian assertion that the elect were redeemed by God’s free grace and thereby free from ordinary moral obligations. At the other end of the spectrum was the Arminian rejection of predestination and assertion that Christ died for all, not just for the elect. Faced with the violence of these disputes, Nathaniel Culverwell attempted a moderate defense of reason and natural law, arguing, in the words of Robert Greene, that “reason and faith are distinct lights, yet they are not opposed; they are complementary and harmonious. Reason is the image of God in man, and to deny right reason is to deny our relation to God.”
These sermons by Nathaniel Culverwell, a significant and influential moral theologian of the seventeenth century, were delivered in 1645-46 at the chapel of Emmanuel College of Cambridge University. The sermons, which examine the relationship between reason and faith, form one of the first attempts in English Protestantism to stress the role of reason in ethics and to develop a doctrine of natural law. Culverwell represents a crucial intersection in the discussion of reason and faith. While providing a link between the Calvinist dependence on faith and grace and the Enlightenment dependence on reason and humanism, Culverwell's Discourse is a picture of the world on the brink of the Enlightenment. This Discourse was crucial to the development of a theoretical grounding for individual challenges to established authorities, both political and ecclesiastical, and thus to the development of modern theories of liberty and responsibility.

"And thus Nature is that regular line, which the wisdome of God himself has drawn in being, τάξιςγὰρἢτάξεωςἔργονἡφύσις [for nature is order or a work of order], as he speaks, whereas that which they miscall’d Fortune, was nothing but a line fuller of windings and varieties; and as Nature was a fixt and ordinary kinde of Providence, so Fortune was nothing but a more abstruse, and mysterious, and occult kinde of Providence, and therefore Fortune was not blinde, as they falsely painted and represented her; but they themselves were blinde and could not see into her. And in this sense that speech of that grave Moralist Seneca is very remarkable, Providentia, fatum, natura, casus, fortuna sunt ejusdem Dei varia nomina [providence, fate, nature, chance, fortune are various terms for the same God].
But then secondly, Nature as ’tis scattered and distributed in particular beings, so ’tis the very same with essence it self, and therefore spirituals, as they have their essence, so they have their Nature too, and if we gloried in names, ’twould be easie to heap up a multitude of testimonies in which these two must needs be ἰσοδυναμου̑ντα [synonymous].
And thus Nature speaks these two things.
1) It points out Originem entis[the origin of being], ’tis the very Genius of Entity, ’tis present at the nativity of every being, nay ’tis being it self. There is no moment in which you can imagine a thing to be, and yet to be without its Nature.
[27] 2) It speaks Operationem entis[the action of being], and ’tis a principle of working in spirituals, as well as principium motus & quietis[the origin of motion and rest] in corporeals. All essence bubbles out, flows forth, and paraphrases upon it self in operations. Hence it is that such workings as are facilitated by custome, are esteemed natural. Hence that known speech of Galen,Ἐπίκτητοιφύσειςτὰἔθη; Customes are frequently adopted and ingraffed into Nature. Hence also our usual Idiom calls a good disposition a good nature.
Thus the Moralists expresse Vertues or Vices that are deeply rooted, by this terme πεφυσιωμένα [naturalized].
And so some, and Grotius amongst the rest, would understand that place of the Apostle, Does not even Nature it self teach you, of a general custome: but that word Αὕτηἡφύσις[nature itself] does plainly refuse that interpretation; and the learned Salmasius does both grant and evince, that it cannot be meant of custome there. And thus having seen what Nature is, ’twill be very easie in the next place to tell you what the Law of Nature is."

Nathaniel Culverwell

Nathaniel Culverwell (1619-1651), was an English author and theologian, born in Middlesex. He was baptized on 14 January 1619 at the church of St. Margaret Moses where his father was rector. He was the second of six children of Richard and Margaret (Horton) Culverwell.

A student (admitted 1633) and later a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, he was associated with members of the Cambridge Platonists group.