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Bible Dictionaries
Nature
Charles Buck Theological Dictionary
or The essential properties of a thing, or that by which it is distinguished from all others. It is used also, for the system of the world, and the Creator of it; the aggregate powers of the human body, and common sense, Romans 1:26-27 . 1 Corinthians 11:14 . The word is also used in reference to a variety of other objects which we shall here enumerate.
1. The divine nature is not any external form or shape, but his glory, excellency, and perfections, peculiar to himself.
2. Human nature signifies the state, properties, and peculiarities of Prayer of Manasseh 1:1 :
3. Good nature is a disposition to please, and is compounded of kindness, forbearance, forgiveness, and self-denial.
4. The law of nature is the will of God relating to human actions, grounded in the moral differences of things. Some understand it in a more comprehensive sense, as signifying those stated orders by which all the parts of the material world are governed in their several motions and operations.
5. The light of nature does not consist merely in those ideas which heathens have actually attained, but those which are presented to men by the works of creation, and which, by the exertion of reason, they may obtain, if they be desirous of retaining God in their mind.
See RELIGION.
6. By the dictates of nature, with regard to right and wrong, we understand those things which appear to the mind to be natural, fit, or reasonable.
7. The state of nature is that in which men have not by mutual engagements, implicit or express, entered communities.
8. Depraved nature is that corrupt state in which all mankind are born, and which inclines them to evil.
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Buck, Charles. Entry for 'Nature'. Charles Buck Theological Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/cbd/n/nature.html. 1802.
