to be preferred before a meer subtle though most successful Speculator which talks as high as Heaven whose Law is such love as is hereafter described but lives as low as earth where according to the Jewish Adage 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All friendship is governed by self-interest or rather nothing is beloved but Self and what ministers to its pleasure or advantage Though it is not to be denied neither that naked discourse and true reasoning is of very great use here too For there are some men who believe all the various inclinations affections and tempers of Mankind to be the effect only of divers bodily tempers and examples not at all of Reason and Understanding and that those to Vice so called as they are more general so they are more necessary natural and reasonable too than that to what we term Virtue which say they is against Nature and so far from being reasonable that it is impossible Now these men are to be convinced if they be capable of it or at least silenced and confuted Others again there are and that of the best sort of Men who are great lovers of truth where they can discern it who are strangely affected and transported with distinct and clear understanding who desire to see why they should be more carried to one thing than another who do not care to be born away blindly with great and swelling passions without the guidance of calm Reason seem they never so natural and even Divinely inspired or impressed who finally are very uneasie slow and dissatisfied while they act ignorantly and blindly In such persons their approbation of and consent to Virtue will be more sincere and hearty their bent and tendency to it more uniform firm and constant their love more deeply rooted and embowelled when they shall see its nature and practice demonstrated and deduced from the most plain and evident truths Nor are we finally to think that the principle or end of all our actions the Vniversal Good so much insisted on in the following Essay is such a high-flown wide notion and so much out of the view of the generality of men as to be of no use or application in humane life amongst them For contrariwise every one may and we see that plain honest men of all ranks and sorts do propound and pursue it in their little sphere of action and comprehension as God himself doth in the immense revolution of his providence He that knows no more than a Neighbors Cottage or two may have the same general end namely the greatest good he understands with him who is able to comprehend the interest of a whole Nation or of the whole World if it were possible The poorest Vicar may understand as well as the pretended Pastor of the Universal Church and perhaps better practice accordingly that the only end of his Function and all his Actions is not his own personal interest only but the honour of God the Salvation of Souls or the good of his Church and how easie is it to extend his Notion to the whole world the faithful discharge of his duty and his reward altogether and so the meanest Mechanique or dullest Plowman may be easily taught to desire by all his life and particularly in his honest Calling to please and serve God to support himself and Family to supply and benefit his Neighbours in hopes of Gods general blessing upon himself here both in Soul and Body and of his reward hereafter Set but a man entirely free from himself and he will have no other bounds than the most comprehensive good he can reach Nor indeed is there any thing which lies nearer the Mind of Man and which he hath a more natural inclination to believe than that a publick good is to be preferred before a personal supposing them both equal in respect of intension or degree and why not then the most publick of all viz. the good of the whole Universe as it were one Corporation or Society But I am going to prevent my self and forget the bounds and design of a Prefatory Epistle For the rest of your Questions you were pleased to make out a score and I doubt you may have more in your Budget I must intreat you to stay your stomach a while with this Morsel and to respite an answer to them If what I now send you be acceptable to such a diligent I had almost said troublesome enquirer whom as I have observed nothing less will satisfie than the utmost a man can know and say you may hereafter command the like Essay upon some one or more of them which I know your friendship and goodness will permit me to obey when I find my self best able to serve you 1. FIrst then be pleased to observe That all that is in the Soul of Man may be reduced according to Des-Cartes to two general things 1. Passion 2. Action The first contains all sorts of Perceptions viz. Sense Memory Imagination Intellection Passions or Affections although there seems to be somewhat of Action too in the Souls Perceptions 2. And as for Action there hath seem'd to be of it in the Soul these four kinds 1. Dubitation 2. Suspension 3. Assent 4. Volition But I rather now think only two 1. Assent 2. Volition For as for Dubitation it seems to be nothing but Suspension and Suspension seems only an act of Volition not to assent and Nolition is but Volition of the absence of a thing 3. To say nothing at this time of Assent in Volition may be considered four things 1. The faculty of Volition usually called Appetite which is but one in Man distinguished by its several Objects as when it hath for its Object sensible and corporeal good or certain agreeable motions of the Body which cause the perception of pleasure in the Soul it is called the Sensitive Appetite But when it hath for its Object that which can be apprehended only by the rational faculty of the Soul or that faculty whereby the Soul perceives Spiritual Objects which are but of two sorts either absolute as Spiritual Substances and their Attributes such as Perception and Volition Knowledge Power and Goodness or Relative as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 habitudes and relations of things such as Means End Likeness and Difference and consequently Equality and Inequality I say then it may be called the Rational Appetite Though indeed that only hath been used to be so termed which hath for its object Bonum honestum the honesty probity rectitude of a mans actions the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which ought to be done or is according to true reason The second thing to be observed in Volition is the Action the third An actual Inclination or Propension in the Soul and the fourth An Habitual Inclination Of the first and second none doubts and for the third experience teacheth that there is often this which I call an Actual Inclination of the Soul to a certain object others a Propension Velleity
is called Moral Good Evil Holiness and Sin bonum honestum inhonestum Virtue and Vice and by an hundred other Names viz. When Volition hath for its Object the greatest good actually or habitually known immediately or mediately then is that Volition Morally good honest or virtuous but when it hath any other lesser delectable good for its Object and some good it must have then it is Morally Evil or a Sin Whence it appears that Sin is a Defect only or a Negation for the Defect of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or relation of Volition to its Object which is always delectable good is only this that it hath not for its Object the greatest good 16. I have before just hinted That this Moral Good is also a kind of bonum utile or profitable good that is to say it is a means of or hath in it some degree of Causality of delectable good For Volition of any good hath at least a tendency to effect it which is some degree of Causality and in us it hath no more like as the Nisus in Bodies to Motion is something and is a tendency which hath some degree of Causality of Motion in it as appears from this that if you remove the impediment only Motion presently follows and that there is plainly difference between two Bodies one of which hath the other hath it not But in God it always actually efeffects it and God by his power doth generally upon occasion of our Volition make actually existent delectable good or those things which cause it and in this consists all the goodness of Moral Good or all its Eligibility or that which makes it the Object of any Volition or its perfection for by perfection I mean bonum utile or profitable good that which doth perficere or effect delectable good On the contrary the evil of Sin or that for which it is not eligible and refusable is the privation of a tendency to or Causality of Delectable Good Virtue therefore is a tendency to an infinite good Sin a privation of it 17. Sin then is no small or light thing being in one respect plainly an infinite evil For whereas our Volition may and ought to have for its Object an infinite Delectable Good in respect of Extension Intention and Duration the greatest Eternal Felicity of the Universe and consequently tends to it and hath some Causality thereof in it When this our Volition is sinful or hath any lesser good for its Object there is a deprivation of all this In this sence that of the Schoolmen is true That Sin is a Conversion of the Will from an Infinite Good to a Finite one 18. But this is not all though the Evil or Mischief of Sin immediately be privative yet often by necessary consequence it is positive also as when one wills any Delectable Good to himself which cannot be effected without the positive inconvenience grief hurt misery of another For example if any one should be of such a temper as to be delighted with anothers pain or suffering and consequently will and desire it in order to that end which is called pure Malice Or if unlimited power to do what he listeth and consequently to do Mischief called Tyranny please him or if being pleased with Superiority and Eminency in any thing as in Power Riches Knowledge Happiness in order to this his Superiority he takes away from any person what he hath of all these and these appetites may be so boundless that they cannot be satisfyed but by an infinite mischief As if any Being that he might be infinitely superiour to all in happiness or in the possession of any good should not only take from all all they possessed but make all besides himself the most extreamly miserable And there have been such Monsters among Men some of the Roman Emperors and others who have advanced very far in this prodigious wickedness Historians report Tiberius to have been so delighted with Cruelty that he was termed Lutum sanguine maceratum a lump of Clay soaked in Blood after which he more thirsted than strong drinks notwithstanding that he loved them so well as to have the Name of Biberius Caldius Mero instead of Tiberius Claudius Nero. They tell us also that Caligula made it the diversion of his Meals to see men racked and Beheaded and that Nero set the City of Rome on fire that he might have the glory of Re-building it and having it called after his own Name Neropolis Dangerous certainly it is to begin to lay aside a certain tenderness of others good and to be careless what mischief we do to any body so we may gratifie our own Appetites Though our power may be short and insufficient yet our Minds may be soon debauched to such a degree as first to be content to molest or incommode our Neighbour then to ruine him then to undo and destroy whole Families Cities and Nations for the sake of some small paltry pleasure of our own and at last to delight in it 19. A second perfection of Volition we have said to be in respect of the Action which is two fold The first is Intension Force and Strength of which it is certain there may be various degrees in the Actions of Spirits The greatest good viz. That of the whole Universe ought to have the greatest strength of Volition that can be which is no less than Infinite And here is a necessary defect in all Finite Rational Beings whatsoever only God who is Infinite in Power Force Action hath this to his Nature alone it belongs all other Beings fall infinitely short of him and therefore may be said too to be faulty in compare with him In the other perfection of our Volition viz. the having its due Object an Infinite Good God hath made us capable of being perfectly like himself but here the most perfect of his Creatures are at an infinite distance from him The greatest degree of this perfection is to will the Universal good or rather the greatest good with all the vehemency zeal and force our Minds are capable of and contrariwise a great degree of the opposite defect is to will the Universal good the most remisly but a greater degree not to will it at all and the greatest of all it seems both in respect of the Action and Object together to will the least good with the greatest force and vehemency Of this intension and firmness of our Volition and likewise our actual and habitual inclination to the Universal good the passions of desire after love to and delight in so doing and being are the causes and the effects too and therefore signs according to their respective degrees and the being thus affected towards Piety Charity Humility Spirituality and all other instances thereof is that which is signified by the phrases of Virtues being natural to us it being the Temper Complexion Constitution of our Minds it s being a living and vital principle producing fruits and effects of outward
of some such bodily disposition and perhaps mental temper which naturally impresseth or causeth such inclinations The spontaneous emergency of certain thoughts in us usually proceeds from such a disposition of the Body in us as is the cause of delight and love to such Objects and then those passions if not hindered impress on the Will actual and habitual inclinations What is meant by sin and sinful hath been before laid down viz. when the Inclination and Volition of the Will hath for its Object only some Particular good and not the Universal or that which God hath commanded by Revelation or Reason that which pleaseth him which is all one because the Commands of God are and are by all men taken to be an inseparable sign thereof actually or habitually i. e. actually perceived or habitually and confusedly remembred For it is of great moment to be observed that when the Understanding actually takes notice of and regards and the Will is carried to some particular good only such as is ones daily food sleep c. yet the Will may by an habitual memory be carried to or have for its object the Universal good and that which is right just honest for the Understanding may have concluded generally from Revelation or Reason or the common uncontradicted practice of the world that my particular use and enjoyment in such measure and seasons of such particular good things is in such circumstances for the universal good that it enables me to do more good and consequently to please God and better my own condition and the Will may act upon such an habitual Memory without any actual perception preceding 'T is much like a mans habitual direction of all his steps to the end of his journey though he doth not in every step nay perhaps in very few actually think thereof And as it is a certain sign of this habitual direction that the man attends and is sagacious as much as the danger of going out of the way requires and that if he hath by anothers admonition or any other means any suspicion that he is out of the way he presently stops and inquires and endeavours to be satisfied whether he be in the right way or no So it is also a sign of the habitual inclination of the Will to that which is right which is for the Universal good of which the indubitable commands of God are a certain mark if in any such ordinary and common actions of life he be as wary and circumspect as the danger and the importance compared with other matters and the likelihood of his erring requires and when he hath any sufficient reason to suspect he doth or may err to stop to abstain to consider And this is all I have at present to return you in Answer to your first Question 35. I have Sir in these Propositions made use of Scholastick terms or such-like which I know are not much agreeable to the humour of this Age but in truth I could not avoid it oft-times in the most received style either there wanted Words as far as I know or they being of confused loose and uncertain signification sometimes signifying one thing and sometimes another sometimes more or less as every one may inform themselves they would not serve my purpose And I thought it of grét pleasure and use not only to conceive these things my self the most simply and distinctly but also to be understood clearly by others of more close attention and reasoning and therefore by your self in the first place whose Command I very well remember If the Sense and Notions as they are here delivered be well comprehended as I hope they may with a little use it will be easie for men of Style as they have occasion to make for them and put them into a more fashionable dress and to express them by more tunable talk for the sake of those who either wanting Ability or shunning Pains or admiring Eloquence Fancy and Wit more than Truth and Distinctness and Usefulness of Knowledge are content and best pleased with a general confused and figurative apprehension or with a smooth modish and affectionate expression of things Nor are they indeed to be neglected being the generality of men who though they have little Appetite to Naked Sense and dry Reason the food of strong and sound Minds yet will very well receive and digest it too for use and action when it is garnished and sweetned in such manner as useth to be most acceptable and grateful to them FINIS These Books following are published by the same Author G. Bright D. D. A Treatise concerning Judging one another Being several Discourses on the occasion of our Saviour's Precept Matth. 7.1 Judge not that you be not judged in Octavo A Treatise of Prayer with several useful occasional Observations and some larger Digressions concerning the Judaical observation of the Lords day the external Worship of God In Octavo Tabulae Mosaicae Duae Quarum Altera Precepta Legis Mosaicae commodâ Methodo Disposita altera oblationum omnium ex Efficiente Materiâ Consumptione Personis significatu Tempore Distributiones varias continet All Three sold by John Wright at the Crown on Ludgate-hill ERRATA PAge 8. line 14. read think it Page 32. l. 16. r. kinds Page 38. l. 11. r. Momentany Page 39. l. 16. r. Momentany Page 50. l. 16. r. Beneficence Page 62. l. 9. r. Biberius