Ad hoc anima con jun&a corpori eft, ur fruatur fcientiis & virtutibus: fi autem cum fervore magno

cus, relegabitur ad

But these Questions, and more fuch, I put more home in my Book, called A Saint, or a Bruit. If confcience tell you, that you can put no truft in your friend, your wife, your fervant, or your neighbour, if they believe that there is no life but this furely the fame confcience may tell you, that then the thing is true, and that the God of infinite Power, Wifdom and Goodnefs hath better means enough than deceits and lies to rule the world by.

Hear what the confcience of the Epicure faith in Cicero, Academ. Quæft. 1. 4. p. (mibi) 44. Quis enim poteft, cum exiftimet à Deo fe curari, non & dies & noctes divinum numen borrere, &c. its true of the guilty: But what greater joy to the upright, godly, faithful Soul.

CHAP. XV.

Of the intrinsick Evil of Sin, and of the perpetual Punishment due to the Sinner by the undoubted Law of Nature.

. 1. 1.Tfeemed good to the most wife Creator to give Man with Reafon a Liberty of Will, by which he is a kind of fe invenerit, benigne first cause of its own determination in comparative moral recipietur à fuo crea- acis, though he hold the power in full dependance upon God, and tore; fin autem fe- perform each act as an act in genere by the influx of his Maker, inferna. Plat. in Tim, and do all under bis perfect government. And thefe great PrinAnimus re&te folus ciples in his Nature, bis Power, his Reason, and his free felfliber, nec dominati- determining Will, are the Image of God, in which as Man oni cujufquam pa- he was created, which advanced by the perfections of Fortirens, neque obediens tude, Wisdom and Moral Goodnefs, are alfo in Holiness the cupiditati. Re&te invictus, cujus etiamfi Image of God's Perfections.

corpus conftringatur,

When a man deliberateth whether he fhall do this fin or animo tamen vincu- not, (as lie or murder) he cannot act in general without Ja injici nulla pof God, but that he chooseth this act rather than another, may funt. Cic. 3. de finib. Deus animum ut Do- be without any more of God, than his giving and mainminum & imperan- taining his free-choofing power, and his univerfal influx tem obedienti præ- before mentioned, and his fetting him among fuch objects as fecit corpori. Cic. de he acteth upon. Neither do thofe objects, nor any Physical efuniverf

ficient

ficient motion of God, or any creature befides himself, determine his will effectually to choose the evil and refufe the good. It is not true, that nothing undetermined can determine it felf to act; this is but to deny God's natural Image on the Will of Man. The Will cannot determine it felf without the conduct of an Intellect, and without an Object in effe cognito, nor without Divine fùftentation and univerfal influx: But it can determine it felf to the moral fpecies, which is but the mode of action, to this rather than that in the comparative propofal, without any pre-determining efficient: (for fuch none of the former are.)

And God having made fuch a felf-determining creature, Cafta placent fupetook delight to govern him according to his nature, by the ris; pura cum mente fapiential moral means of Laws; of what he doth more to venite Et manibus puris caufe Good than Evil, and other fuch incident queftions, I fumite fontis aquam. muft now put them offto a fitter place.

Tibul.

Non bene cœleftes

. 2. God planted in man's mind a natural inclination to Pone Deos, & quæ Truth and Goodness, and to his own felicity, and an averfeneß tangendo facra profanas; to falfhood, and to evil, and to his own mifery and hurt; that thefe lying deeper than his liberty of choice, might be a pondus impia dextra colit. to his motions, and help him the more easily and stedfastly Ovid. to obey, and to adhere to and profecute his propofed happiness and end.

0.3. Accordingly God formed his holy Law, with a perfect fitneß to thefe faculties and inclinations, furnishing it wholly with truth and goodness, and fitting all things in it to the lenefit of man: (as is proved before.)

1.4. This Law bad afufficient promulgation, being legible on the face of the whole Creation, (within our view) and fpecially on the nature of man himself, from whence his duty ・did refult.

1. 5. And God was pleased to make as legible the most rational powerful motives to love and obedience, that can be imagined by man, that no tempter might poffibly bid the ten thousandth part fo much for our love and obedience as he had bid, and affured us of himself.

6. 6. From all this it is most evident, that God made us not finners, though he made us men; but that man, being defectible, abused his liberty, and turned from God, and brought Corruption and mifery upon himself.

X-3

$.7. He

Morbi perniciofiores, poris. Cic. 3. Tufc. plurefque quam cor

The Athenians pu nished not only the total violation of a Law, but even of a claufe or part of a

Law.

Pifo in Cic. de fin.

6.7. He that will understand God's Justice aright, must confider of thefe forty intrinfick evils that are in fin, which nature it felf declareth.

1. In its formal nature, it is the violation of a perfect righ

teous Law.

2. It is a contempt or denial of God's governing authority

over us.

3. It is the ufurping of the government of our felves, which we denied to God.

4. It is a denial or contempt of the wisdom of God, as if he had erred in the making of his Laws, and knew not fo well what is just, and meet, and good for us, as we our felves, and were not wife enough to govern a lump of animated clay.

5. It is an exalting of our folly into the Throne of the Divine Wisdom, as if we had more wisdom than be that made us, and knew better what is just and meet, and what is fit or good for our felves, and could correct God's Laws, and make our Jelves a better Rule.

6. It is a denial or contempt of the Goodness of God, as if be had ensnared us by his Law, and envied our happineß, and forbad us that which would do us good, and put us upon that which will do us burt, and so would feduce us into calamity, and were an en my to our welfare.

.

7. It is a preferring our naughtiness before His Goodness; 1.5. p. 203. faith of as if we could do better in regulating our felves than God, and the Epicureans, Quin could make a better choice for our felves than his Laws have etiam ipfi voluptuarii made. And as if our wills were fitter than God's to be the Rule diverticula quærant, & virtutes habeant of good and evil.

in ore totos dies, &c. 8. It is a denial or contempt of his Holiness and Purity, which sheweth, that which is contrary to fin as health to fickness: as if by our deeds we virtue was commended would perfwade the world, that God is as Satan, a lover of fin, even by the voluptu- and an enemy to Himself and Holineß.

ous.

9. It is a denial or contempt of God's propriety, as if we were not his own, and he had not power to difpofe of us as be lift or it is a robbing him of the use and service of that which is abfolutely his own.

10. It is a claiming of propriety in our felves, as if we were at our own difpofal, and might do with our felves and our faculties as we lift.

11. It is a belying or contempt of the great and gracious

promifes

Promifes of God, and of the wonderfull mercy which be manifefteth in them; by which he doth binde and allure us to Obedience: As if he did not mean as he speaketh, or would not make good his Word to the Obedient.

12. It is a falfifying or contempt of his dreadfull Threatnings, as if he did not intend any execution of them, but made them only as a deceitfull terror to frighten men from fin, for want of better means.

13. It is a denyal or contempt of the dreadfull future Judgement of God, as if he would never call men to any account, nor judge them according to his Laws.

14. It is a denying the Veracity of God, as if he were a Lyar and Deceiver, and did not intend the things which he speaketh; As if his Precepts were but a false pretenfion, and he were indeed indifferent what we did, and were not to be believed in his preditions, promifes, or threats.

15. It is a contempt of all the Mercies even of this life, which flesh it felf doth overvalue; As if protection, provifion, deliverances, comforts, were not fo much to be regarded, as our Concupifcence, nor were not of weight enough to bind us to obey fo mercifull a God; and as if Ingratitude were no Crime.

16. It is a contempt of thofe Caftigatory Afflictions, by which God driveth men from fin, by giving them a taste of the bitterness of its fruits.

17. It is a contempt of all the examples of his Mercy and his Judgements upon others: by which he hath fhewed us how good he is, and how just a punisher of fin.

18. It is a contempt of all the inward motions and ftrivings of God, which finners oft feel perfwading them to forbear their fin, and to feek after God.

19. It is a contempt of Conscience, which beareth witness for God against their fins.

20. It is a contempt of all the Instructions and advife of wife and good men, who are required by God and Nature to warn men, and perfwade them from their fins.

21. It is a contempt of the Example of all Obedient Virtuous Perfons, whofe Lives inftruct them and reprove

them.

22. It is a contempt of Virtue it self, which is contrary to fin, and whofe proper worth commandeth Love.

Minus malum eft

23. It is a contempt of Gods Omniprefence, when we will fin in his very prefence; and of his Omniscience, when we will fin when we know that be feeth it.

24. It is a contempt of the Greatness and Almightiness of God, when a filly Worm dare fin against him, who upholdeth the World, and can do Juftice on him in a moment; as if we could make good our part against him.

25. It is a contempt of the attractive Goodness of God, by which he is Mans End and Happiness: As if all the Goodness and Love of God, were not enough to counterpoife the base and bruitifh pleasures of fin: and to drive the rational Soul to God? (It was his Efficient Goodness which I fpake of before.)

26. And thus it declareth, that we are so farr void of Love to God: For Love is defirous to please.

27. It is a fetting up the fordid Creature for our End, as if it were more attractive and amiable than God, and fitter to content and delight the Soul.

28. It is a contempt of all that glorious Happiness of the Life to come, which God bath warranted the righteous to expect: As if it were not all fo good as the defiling transitory pleafures of fin, and would not recompence us for all that we can do or fiffer for God.

29. It is the filencing and laying by our Reafon by inconfiderateness, or the perverting and abufing of it by Error, in the greatest matters, for which it was given us; and fo it is a voluntary drunkenness or madness, in the things of God and our felicity.

30. It is a fetting up our fenfes and appetite above our Reafon, and making our felves in use, as Beafts, by Jetting up the lower beastial faculties to rule.

31. It is the deformity, monftrofity, diforder, fickness and feritas & immanitas abufe of a Noble Creature, whom God made, in our measure, quam vitium, etfi like himself, and fo a contemptuous defacing of his Image. terribilior. Ariftot. 7. 32. It is a robbing God of that Glory of his Holiness, which fhould fhine forth in our hearts and lives, and of that complacency which he would take in our Love, Obedience, Perfection and Felicity.

Eth, c. 6.

33. It is the perverting and Moral deftruction, not only of our own faculties, (which were made for God), but of all the World which is within our reach: Turning all that against

God,