* Chap. 4.

which must perform the most perfeci final act, is most fully fuited: And therefore is in a special fort, our ultimate end. The Omnipotency of God, is truly the efficient, dirigent and final Caufe of all things, but it is moft eminent in Efficiency: The Wisdom of God is truly the efficient, dirigent and final caufe of all things: but it is moft eminent in Direction and Government: The Goodness of God is truly the efficient, dirigent and final caufe: But it is molt eminent in being the perfective efficient, and final Cause.

.4. Gods ultimate end in Creation and Providence,is not any Supply or addition of Perfection or Blessedness in himself, as being abfolutely perfect in himself, and capable of no addition.

But thofe who think that God doth produce all things ex neceffitate nature from Eternity, fay, that as the Tree is not perfect without its fruits, fo neither is God without his works: They fay with Balbus in Cicero, and other Stoicks, that the World is the most excellent Being; and that God is but the foul of the World: and though the Soul be a compleat foul if it had no body, yet it is not a compleat Man: and as the Tree is compleat in genere caufe without the fruit, yet not as a Totum containing thofe effects ab effentia which are its Part and End: So fay they, God may be perfect without the World, as he is only the Soul and part of the World, but he is not a compleat world, nor in toto.

Anfw. 1. That God is not the foul or conftitutive caufe of the World, but fomewhat much greater, is proved before*: And alío that it was not from Eternity; and confequently that he created it not by naturall neceffity: The foundation therefore being overthrown,the building falleth. Thofe that hold the forefaid opinion muft hold, that God is in point of duration, an eternall efficient, matter, form and end; and that in order of Nature, he is firft an Efficient principle causing matter, and secondly, he is an efficient with matter, and in the third inftant he is the form of the effected matter, and in the fourth inftant he is the end of his operations herein. And if you call the efficient Principle only by the name of God, then you grant what I prove and you feemed to deny: But if he be not God as the meer efficient and end, but allo as the matter; then you make every ftone, and Serpent, and every thief and murderer, and devil, to be part of God,

and

and make him the fubject of all the fin and evil, all the weaknefs, folly and mutations which be in the World: (with the other abfurdities before mentioned). And if you fay, that he is God, as efficient, form, and end, and not as matter, then you contradict your felf, becaufe the form and matter are parts of the fame being: And whether you call him God as the form only (and so make him but part of Being, and confequently imperfect, and confcquently not God) or as matter and form alfo, and fo make him a compounded being, ftill you make him imperfect, in denying his fimplicity or unity, and as guilty of all the imperfections of matter, and of compofition: And you make one part of God more imperfect than the reft, as being but an effect of it. All which are inconfiftent with the nature of God, and with the nature of Man and every Creature, who is hereby made a part of God.

2. If this had been true of the World as confifting of its Quid enim eft aliud conftitutive causes, that it is God in perfection, and eternal, & divina ratio? toti natura quam Deus? &c. yet it could not be true of the daily-generated and mundo partibufque perifhing beings. There are millions of men and other ani- ejus inferta? Ergo mals, that lately were not, what they are: Therefore as fuch nihil agis ingratiffithey were no eternall parts of God, becaufe as fuch they me mortalium, qui were not eternall: Therefore if God brought them forth for re, fed nature; quia te negas Deo debehis own Perfection, it would follow that he was before im- nihil natura fine Deo perfect, and confequently not God; and that his Perfections eft, nec Deus fine are mutable and perifhing. Therefore at least fome other natura, fed idem eft caufe of these muft be found out.

uterq; nec diftat officio. Senec, de Bene

And as for the fimilitudes in the objection, I answer, fic. 1. That the fructifying of a Tree is an act of Generation;

um de Anima B. P.

and the ends of it are partly the ufe (for food) to fuperiour Leg. Anean. Gazefenfitive Creatures, efpecially man; and partly the propa- T. 2. Gr. lat. p. 385, gation of its fpecies, because it is mortall. Fructification is 386, &c. indeed its perfection, but that is because it is not made for it felf, but for another. Sic vos non vobis, may be written upon all. But God is neither mortall needing a propagation of the fpecies, nor is he fubfervient to any other, and finally for its ufe.

And as for the Soul, it made not the matter of its own body, but found it made, though in the formation of it, it might be fo efficient as domicilium fibi fabricare. But God

made

made all matter of nothing, and gave the World whatfoever it is or hath; And therefore was Perfect himfelf before: For an imperfect being could never have been the cause of fuch a frame: Therefore he needed no domicilium for himfelf, nor as an imperfect Part (a form) to concurr to the conftitution of a whole. But he is the efficient, dirigent and final caufe of the World and all things, but not the conftituent or effential; for then the Creature and Creator were all one, and God debased, and the Creature deified: But he is to them a fupra-effential caufe; even more than a form and foul, while he is a total efficient of all.

3. If all that is in the Objection had been proved, it would not at all shake the main defign of my prefent difcourfe, which is to prove that God is our Grand Benefactor and Chief Good! and that he is mans ultimate end. For if the World were his Body, and he both its Efficient and its Soul, he would be the caufe of all its Good; and the Cause would be more excellent than the Effect: And if our Souls that never made the matter of our Bodies, are yet the nobleft part of us, and far more excellent than the Body; much more would God that made or caufed all the Matter and Order in the World, be more excellent than that World which he effected: And as the Soul is not for the Body as its ultimate end, (though it be the Life of the Body, and its great Benefactor,) but the Body is finally more for the Soul, though the Soul need not the Body, fo much as the Body necdeth the Soul; and as the Horfe is finally for the Rider, and not the Rider for the Horfe; though the Horse needeth his Mafter more than the Mafter doth the Horfe; (for the Horfes life is preferved by the Mafter, when_the Matter is but accommodated in his Journey by his Horfe; ) Even fo, though the World need God, and he needeth not the World, and God giveth being and life to the World, which can give nothing at all to him, yet the World is finally for God, and not God for the World. The nobleft and firft Being is fill the End.

And the generated part of the World, which is not formally eternal, but doth oriri & interire, is it that our difpute doth moft concern, which the Objection doth no whit invalidate.

. 5. The

5.5. The fame Will of God which was the free efficient, is Goodnefs fignifieth the End of all his Works ad extra.

more than utility or

As when we call a

Rhet. 1.
Bonum omnis origi-
nis & ortús finis eft.
Id. Metaph,l.u.c.3.

Maximum Ponum

Gods Effence hath no Efficient or final Carfe, but is the Pleasure to our felves: efficient and final caufe of all things elfe: They proceeded Min, a good Man, a from his Power, his Wisdom and his good will; and they bear good scholar, a good the Image of his Power, Wisdom, and Good-will; and he fudge, &c. And fo loveth his own Image in them, and loveth them as they bear doth evil fignifie on the contrary. his Image; and loveth his Image for Himfelf. So that the Bonum eft quod fui act of his Love to Himself is neceffary, though voluntary; ipfius gratiâ expeand fo is the act of his Love to his Image, and to all the tendum eft. Arifto!, Goodness of the Creature, while it is fuch: But he freely and not neceffarily made and continueth the Creature in his Image; and needeth not the Glafs or Image, (being felf-fufficient) fo that his Creature is the mediate Olje&, his Image on the Creature is the ultimate created Object; his own per- maxime femper exfections to which that Image relateth, is the objectum fimpli- petendum. Ariftot. 1. citer ultimatum; his complacency or love is the Alius ultimus; Eth. c. 7. Duplex boand that very act is the object of his precedent act of Creation, or volition of the Creatures: But all this is fpoken according to the narrow imperfect capacity of man, who conceiveth of God as having a prius & pofterius in his acts, which is but refpectively and denominatively from the order of the objects. In fhort, Gods free-will is the Beginning of his works ad extra; and the complacency of that will in his works as Good in relation to his own perfections, is the END: And therefore he is faid to Reft when he faw that all his works were Good,

num eft: alterum
fe bonum fit; alte
quod abfolute & per
rum quod alicui bo-
no fit & ufui. Arift.

Eth. l. 7. c. 12.
um bonum definic-
Veteres probe fum-
runt, id ad quod om
nia referuntur. Arift.
Etb. 1. c. 1.

6.6. Whatfuever is the fullest expreffion, and Glorifying de- It is a faying of Plimonstration of God in the Creature, must needs be the chief cre- ny's, that as Pearls ated excellency.

though they Le in the Because he loveth Himself firft, and the Creature for Him- bottom of the Sea, are. felf: And feeing the Creature hath all from him which is yet much neever kin to Heaven,as their fplengood and amiable in it, it must needs follow, that thofe dour and excellency parts are most amiable and belt, which have moft of the fheweth; fo a godly impreffion of the Creators excellencies on them. Not that and generous foul, he hath greater Perfections to imprint on one Creature than hath more dependance another, but the impreflion of thofe Perfections, is much cometh, than on earth greater on one, than on another.

0.7. The Happier therefore God will make any Creature, the more will be communicate to it of the Image and demon

N

Jiration

on Heaven, whence it

where it ab deth.

stration of his own goodness, and so will both love it the more, for his own Image, and caufe it to love him the more, which is the chif part of his Image.

0.8. The Goodness of God is conceived of by our narrow mindes, in three notions, as it were in three degrees of altitude: The Higheft is, The infinite perfections of his Effence as fuch: The Second is, The infinite perfection of his Will as fuch, which is called His Holiness, and the Fountain of Morality; The third is that one part of his Wills perfection, which is his Benignity to his Creatures, which we call his Goodness in a lower notion, as relative to our felves, because he is inclined by it to. Do us good: This is his Goodness in condefcention.

0.9. Though all this is but one in God, yet because our mindes are fain to receive it as in feveral parts or notions, we may therefore not only diftinguifh them, but compare them, as the Objects of our Love..

.10. Man ufually beginneth at the lowest, and loveth God. first, for his Benignity and Love to us, before he rifeth to the higher acts.

And this is not an irregular motion of a lapfed Soul, in its return to God, so be it we make hafte in our afcent, and make no ftay in these lower acts; otherwife it will be privatively finfull.

.11. Therefore God multiplyeth Mercies upon Man, that be might facilitate this first act of Love by gratitude.

Not that these Mercies being good to our felves, fhould lead us to love God ultimately for our felves; But they should help us firft to love him for our felves, as the immediate paffage to a higher act of Love, with which we muft love Him in and for Himfelf, and our felves for Him.

1. 12. Therefore God hath planted into our Natures the Principle of felf-love, that it might fuit our Natures to the Mercies of God, and make them fweet to us: Not that we fhould arife to no higher an esteem of them, but that this sweetnefs in them which refpecteth our felves, and is relished by felflove, should lead us to the Fountain of perfect Goodness from which they flow.

Our very fenfes and appetites are given us to this end, not that we should judge by no higher faculties, but that the delights of the patible or fenfible qualities in the Creatures,

by