xxx. 19. or doing of that which they see to be good. Goodness is seen with the eye of the understanding, and the light of that eye is reason. So that two principal fountains there are of human action, knowledge and will; which will, in things tending towards any end, is termed choice. Concerning Deut. knowledge, "Behold (saith Moses), I have set before you this day good and evil, life and death." Concerning will, he addeth immediately, "Choose life;" that is to say, the things that tend unto life, them choose. But of one thing we must have special care, as being a matter of no small moment, and that is, how the will, properly and strictly taken, as it is of things which are referred unto the end that man desireth, differeth greatly from that inferior natural desire which we call appetite. The object of appetite is whatsoever sensible good may be wished for; the object of will is that good which reason doth lead us to seek. Affections, as joy, and grief, and fear, and anger, with such-like, being as it were the sundry fashions and forms of appetite, can neither rise at the conceit of a thing indifferent, nor yet choose but rise at the sight of some things. Wherefore it is not altogether in our power whether we will be stirred with affections, or no whereas actions which issue from the disposition of the will, are in the power thereof to be performed or stayed. Finally, appetite is the will's solicitor, and will is appetite's controller; what we covet according to the one, by the other we often reject. Neither is any other desire termed properly will, but that where reason and understanding, or the show of reason, prescribeth the thing desired. It may be therefore a question, whether those operations of men are to be counted voluntary, wherein that good which is sensible provoketh appetite, and appetite causeth action, reason being never called to counsel; as when we eat or drink, and betake ourselves unto rest, and such-like. The truth is, that such actions in men having attained to the use of reason, are voluntary for as the authority of higher powers, hath force even in those things which are done without their privity, and aré of so mean reckoning that to acquaint them therewith it needeth not; in like sort, voluntarily we are said to do that also, which the will, if it listeth, might hinder from being done, although about the doing thereof we do not expressly use our reason or understanding, and so immediately apply our wills thereunto. In cases therefore of such facility, the will must yield her assent, as it were with a kind of silence, by not dissenting; in which respect her force is not so apparent as in express mandates or prohibitions, especially upon advice and consultation going before. Where understanding therefore needeth, in those things reason is the director of man's will, by discovering in action what is good. For the laws of well-doing are the dictates of right reason. Children which are not as yet come unto those years whereat they may have; again, innocents which are excluded by natural defect from ever having; thirdly, madmen, which for the present cannot possibly have the use of right reason to guide themselves, have for their guide the reason that guideth other men, which are tutors over them to seek and to procure their good for them. In the rest there is that light of reason, whereby good may be known from evil; and which discovering the same rightly is termed right. The will, notwithstanding, doth not incline to have or do that which reason teacheth to be good, unless the same do also teach it to be possible. For albeit the appetite, being more general, may wish any thing which seemeth good, be it never so impossible; yet for such things the reasonable will of man doth never seek. Let reason teach impossibility in any thing, and the will of man doth let it go; a thing impossible it doth not affect, the impossibility thereof being manifest. There is in the will of man naturally that freedom, whereby it is apt to take or refuse any particular object whatsoever being presented unto it. Whereupon it followeth, that there is no particular object so good but it may have the show of some difficulty or unpleasant quality annexed to it, in respect whereof, the will may shrink and decline it; contrariwise (for so things are blended) there is no particular evil which hath not some appearance of goodness whereby to insinuate itself. For evil, as evil, cannot be desired; if that be desired which is evil, the cause is the goodness which is, or seemeth to be, joined with it. Goodness doth not move by being, but by being apparent; and therefore many things are neglected which are most precious, only because the value of them lieth hid. Sensible goodness is most apparent, near, and present, which causeth the appetite to be therewith strongly provoked. Now a O mihi præteritos referat si Jupiter annos! · Εἰ δέ τις ἐπὶ κακίαν ὁρμᾷ, πρῶτον μὲν οὐχ ὡς ἐπὶ κακίαν αὐτὴν ὁρμήσει, ἀλλ ̓ ὡς ἐπ ̓ ἀγαθόν. Paulo post: Αδύνατον γὰρ ὁρμᾶν ἐπὶ κακὰ βουλόμενον ἔχειν αὐτὰ, οὔτε ἐλπίδι ἀγαθοῦ, οὔτε φόβῳ μείζονος κακοῦ. Alcin.de Dog. Plat. pursuit and refusal in the will do follow, the one the affirmation, the other the negation of goodness, which the understanding apprehendeth, grounding itself upon sense, unless some higher reason do chance to teach the contrary. And if reason have taught it rightly to be good, yet not so apparently that the mind receiveth it with utter impossibility of being otherwise, still there is place left for the will to take or leave. Whereas therefore amongst so many things as are to be done there are so few, the goodness whereof reason in such sort doth or easily can discover, we are not to marvel at the choice of evil even then when the contrary is probably known. Hereby it cometh to pass, that custom, inuring the mind by long practice, and so leaving there a sensible impression, prevaileth more than reasonable persuasion what way soever. Reason therefore may rightly discern the thing which is good, and yet the will of man not incline itself thereunto as oft as the prejudice of sensible experience doth oversway. Nor let any man think, that this doth make any thing for the just excuse of iniquity: for there was never sin committed wherein a less good was not preferred before a greater, and that wilfully; which cannot be done without the singular disgrace of nature, and the utter disturbance of that Divine order, whereby the pre-eminence of chiefest acceptation is by the best things worthily challenged. There is not that good which concerneth us, but it hath evidence enough for itself if reason were diligent to search it out. Through the neglect thereof, abused we are with the show of that which is not; sometimes the subtilty of Satan inveigling us, as it 2 Cor. did Eve; sometimes the hastiness of our wills preventing the more considerate advice of sound reason, as in the ароstles, when they no sooner saw what they liked not, but they forthwith were desirous for fire from heaven; sometimes the very custom of evil making the heart obdurate against whatsoever instructions to the contrary, as in them over whom our Saviour spake weeping, "O Jerusalem, how often, and thou wouldest not!" Still therefore that wherewith we stand blameable, and can no way excuse it, is, that in doing evil we prefer a less good before a greater, the greatness whereof is by reason investigable and may be known. The search of knowledge is a thing painful; and the painfulness of knowledge is that which maketh the will so hardly inclinable thereunto. The root hereof is Divine malediction; where xi. 3. Luke ix. 54. Matt. xxiii. 37. by the instruments being weakened wherewithal the soul (especially in reasoning) doth work, it preferreth rest in ignorance before wearisome labour to know. For a spur of diligence therefore, we have a natural thirst after knowledge ingrafted in us. But by reason of that original weakness in the instruments, without which the understanding part is not able in this world by discourse to work, the very conceit of painfulness is as a bridle to stay us. For which cause the Eph. v. 14. apostle, who knew right well that the weariness of the flesh Heb. xii. is a heavy clog to the will, striketh mightily upon this key, 1 Cor. "Awake thou that sleepest, cast off all which presseth down; Prov. ii. 4. watch, labour, strive to go forward, and to grow in know- Luke xiii. ledge." 1.12. xvi. 13. 24. reason to that which 8. Wherefore to return to our former intent of discovering the Of the natural way of natural way, whereby rules have been found out concerning finding out that goodness wherewith the will of man ought to be moved laws by in human actions; as every thing naturally and necessarily guide the doth desire the utmost good and greatest perfection, whereof will unto nature hath made it capable, even so man. Our felicity there- is good. fore being the object and accomplishment of our desire, we cannot choose but wish and covet it. All particular things which are subject unto action, the will doth so far forth incline unto, as reason judgeth them the better for us, and consequently the more available to our bliss. If reason err, we fall into evil, and are so far forth deprived of the general perfection we seek. Seeing therefore, that for the framing of men's actions the knowledge of good from evil is necessary, it only resteth, that we search how this may be had. Neither must we suppose that there needeth one rule to know the good, and another the evil by. For he that knoweth what is straight, doth even thereby discern what is crooked, because the absence of straightness in bodies capable thereof is crookedness. Goodness in actions is like unto straightness; wherefore that which is done well, we term right. For as the straight way is most acceptable to him that travelleth, because by it he cometh soonest to his journey's end; so in action, that which doth lie the evenest between us and the end we de b a "A corruptible body is heavy unto the soul, and the earthly mansion keepeth down the mind that is full of cares. And hardly can we discern the things that are upon earth, and with great labour find we out the things which are before us. Who then can seek out the things that are in heaven?" Sap. ix. 15. • Τῷ εὐθεῖ καὶ αὐτὸ καὶ τὸ καμπύλον γνώσκομεν· κριτὴς γὰρ ἀμφοῖν ὁ κανών. Arist. de An. lib. i. sire, must needs be the fittest for our use. Besides which fitness for use, there is also in rectitude, beauty; as contrariwise in obliquity, deformity. And that which is good in the actions of men, doth not only delight as profitable, but as amiable also. In which consideration the Grecians most diKana- vinely have given to the active perfection of men a name exγαθία. pressing both beauty and goodness; because goodness in ordinary speech is for the most part applied only to that which is beneficial. But we in the name of goodness, do here imply both. And of discerning goodness, there are but these two ways; the one, the knowledge of the causes whereby it is made such; the other, the observation of those signs and tokens, which being annexed always unto goodness, argue, that where they are found, there also goodness is, although we know not the cause by force whereof it is there. The former of these is the most sure and infallible way, but so hard that all shun it, and had rather walk as men do in the dark by hap-hazard, than tread so long and intricate mazes for knowledge' sake. As therefore physicians are many times forced to leave such methods of curing as themselves know to be the fittest, and being overruled by their patients' impatiency are fain to try the best they can, in taking that way of cure which the cured will yield unto; in like sort, considering how the case doth stand with this present age full of tongue and weak of brain, behold we yield to the stream thereof into the causes of goodness we will not make any curious or deep inquiry; to touch them now and then it shall be sufficient, when they are so near at hand that easily they may be conceived without any far removed discourse: that way we are contented to prove, which being the worse in itself, is notwithstanding now, by reason of common imbecility, the fitter and likelier to be brooked. Signs and tokens to know good by, are of sundry kinds; some more certain, and some less. The most certain token of evident goodness is, if the general persuasion of all men do so account it. And therefore a common received error is never utterly overthrown till such times as we go from signs unto causes, and shew some manifest root or fountain thereof common unto all, whereby it may clearly appear how it hath come to pass that so many have been overseen. In which case surmises and slight probabilities will not serve, because the universal consent of men is the perfectest and strongest in this kind, which : |