2. If this had been true of the world, as consisting of its constitutive causes, that it is God in perfection, and eternal, &c., yet it could not be true of the daily generated and perishing beings. There are millions of men and other animals that, lately, were not what they are; therefore, as such, they were no eternal parts of God, because, as such, they were not eternal; therefore, if God brought them forth for his own perfection, it would follow that he was before imperfect, and consequently not God, and that his perfections are mutable and perishing; therefore, at least, some other cause of these must be found out.

And as for the similitudes in the objection, I answer, 1. That the fructifying of a tree is an act of generation, and the ends of it are partly the use, for food, to superior, sensitive creatures, especially man, and partly the propagation of its species, because it is mortal; fructification, is, indeed, its perfection, but that is, because it is not made for itself, but for another: sic vos non vobis, may be written upon them all but God is neither mortal, needing a propagation of the species, nor is he subservient to any other, and finally for its use.

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 so efficient, as domicilium sibi fabricare. But God made all matter of nothing, and gave the world whatsoever it is or hath, and therefore was perfect himself before; for an imperfect being could never have been the cause of such a frame: therefore, he needed no domicilium for himself, nor as an imperfect part, a form, to concur to the constitution of a whole; but he is the efficient, dirigent, and final cause of the world and all things, but not the constituent or essential, for then the creature and Creator were all one, and God debased and the creature deified but he is to them a super-essential cause, even more than a form and soul, 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 design of my present discourse, which is to prove that God is our grand Benefactor and chief Good, and that he is man's ultimate End; for if the world were his body, and he both its efficient and its soul, he would be the cause 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

d Quid enim est aliud natura quàm Deus, et divina ratio? Toti mundo partibusque ejus inserta? Ergo nihil agis ingratissime mortalium, qui te negas Deo deberc sed naturæ; quia nihil natura sine Deo est, nec Deus siue natura, idem est uterque nec distat officio.-Senec. de Benefic.

• Leg. Ænean Gazeum de Anima. iji. P.T. 2. Gr. Lat. p. 385, 386, &c

bodies, are yet the noblest part of us, and far more excellent than the body, much more would God, that made, or caused 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 so much as the body needeth the soul; and as the horse is finally for the rider, and not the rider for the horse, though the horse needeth his master more than the master doth the horse, for the horse's life is preserved by the master, when the master is but accommodated in his journey by his horse; even so, 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 most noble and first being is still the end.

And the generated part of the world, which is not formally eternal, but both oriri et interire, is it that our dispute doth most concern, which the objection doth no whit invalidate.

Sect. 5. The same will of God, which was the free, efficient, is the end of all his works ad extra.f

God's essence hath no efficient or final cause, but is the efficient and final cause of all things else; they proceeded from his power, his wisdom, and his good-will, and they bear the image of his power, wisdom, and good-will; and he loveth his own image in them, and loveth them as they bear his image, and loveth his image for himself; so that the act of his love to himself is necessary, though voluntary, and so is the act of his love to his image, and to all the goodness of the creature, while it is such; but he freely, and not necessarily, made and continueth the creature in his image, and needeth not the glass or image, being self-sufficient, so that his creature is the mediate object; his image on the creature, is the ultimate, created object; his own perfections, to which that image relateth, is the objectum simpliciter ultimatum; his complacency or love, is the actus ultimus; and that very act is the object of his preceding act of creation, or volition of the creatures: but all this is spoken according to the narrow, imperfect

f Goodness signifieth more than utility or pleasure to ourselves; as when we call a man a good man, a good scholar, a good judge, &c. and so doth evil signify on the contrary.

Bonum est quod sui ipsius gratiâ expetendum est.-Aristot. Rhet. 1.
Bonum omnis originis et ortûs finis est.-Id. Metaph. 1. 1. c. 3.

capacity of man, who conceiveth of God as having a prius et posterius in his acts, which is but respectively and denominatively from the order of the objects. In short, God's 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 said to rest when he saw that all his works were good.

Sect. 6. Whatsoever is the fullest expression and glorifying demonstration of God in the creature, must needs be the chief, created excellency.h

Because he loveth himself first, and the creature for himself; and seeing the creature hath all from him which is good and amiable in it, it must needs follow, that those parts are most amiable and best, which have most of the impression of the Creator's excellencies on them; not that he hath greater perfections to imprint on one creature than another, but the impression of those perfections is much greater on one than on another.

Sect. 7. The happier, therefore, God will make any creature, the more will he communicate to it of the image and demonstration of his own goodness, and so will both love it the more, for his own image, and cause it to love him the more, which is the chief part of his image.

Sect. 8. The goodness of God is conceived of by our narrow minds, in three notions, as it were, in three degrees of altitude; the highest is, the infinite perfections of his essence as such: the second is, the infinite perfection of his will as such, which is called his holiness, and the fountain of morality: the third is, that one part of his will's perfection, which is his benignity to his creatures, which we call his goodness in a lower notion, as relative to ourselves, because he is inclined by it to do us good; this is his goodness in condescension.

Sect. 9. Though all this is but one in God, yet because our minds are fain to receive it as in several parts or notions, we may, therefore, not only distinguish 'them, but compare them, as the objects of our love.

g Maximum bonum maxime semper expetendum.-Arist. 1, Eth. c.7. Duplex bonum est. Alterum quod absolute et per se bonum sit; alterum quod alicui bono sit et usui.-Arist. Eth. 1. 7. c. 12. Veteres probe summum bonum definierunt, id ad quod omnia referuntur.-Arist. Eth. 1. c. 1.

hIt is a saying of Pliny's, that as pearls, though they lie in the bottom of the sea, are yet much nearer kin to heaven, as their splendour and excellency show; so a godly and generous soul hath more dependence on heaven, whence it cometh, than on earth where it abideth.

Sect. 10. Man usually beginneth at the lowest, and loveth God first, for his benignity and love to us, before he riseth to the higher acts.

And this is not an irregular motion of a lapsed soul in its return to God, so be if we make haste in our ascent, and make no stay in these lower acts; otherwise it will be privately sinful. Sect. 11. Therefore, God multiplieth mercies upon man, that he might facilitate this first act of love by gratitude.

Not that these mercies being good to ourselves, should lead us to love God ultimately for ourselves; but they should help us first to love him for ourselves, as the immediate passage to a higher act of love, with which we must love him in and for himself, and ourselves for him.

Sect. 12. Therefore, God hath planted in our natures the principle of self-love, that it might suit our natures to the mercies of God, and make them sweet to us: not that we should arise to any other esteem of them; but that this sweetness in them, which respecteth ourselves, and is relished by self-love, should lead us to the fountain of perfect goodness from which they flow.

Our very senses and appetites are given us to this end, not that we should judge by any higher faculties, but that the delights of the patible or sensible qualities in the creatures, by affecting the sense, might presently represent to the higher faculties, the sweetness of infinite goodness to the soul; and so we might by all ascend to God.

Sect. 13. Those mercies, therefore, are the greatest, which reveal most of God, with the least impediments of our ascent unto him.i

Sect. 14. Therefore his love most revealed and communicated, and his perfect goodness most manifested to the soul, is the greatest mercy; and all corporal mercies are to be estimated and desired, but as they subserve and conduce to these, and not as they are pleasing to our flesh or senses.

k

Sect. 15. The perfect goodness of the will of God, though it contain benignity and mercy, yet is not to be measured by the good which he doth to us ourselves, or to any creature; but its highest excellency consisteth in its essential perfection, and the perfect love that God hath to himself, and in the conformity of i Bonum summum est animi operatio secundum virtutem optimam et perfectissimam in vitâ perfectâ.—Aristot. Rhet. 1.

Tria sunt genera bonorum; maxima animi, secunda corporis ; externa tertia. Cicero 3. Tuscul. Nihil bonum nisi quod honestum; uihil malum nisi quod turpe.-Cicero Att. 1. 10.

his will to his most perfect wisdom, which knoweth what is to be willed ad extra; and in his complacency in all that is good as such.

1

When self-love so far blindeth us, as to make our interest the standard to judge of the goodness of God, we do but show that we are fallen from God unto ourselves, and that we are setting up ourselves above him, and debasing him below ourselves as if we and our happiness were that ultimate end, and he and his goodness were the means, and had no other goodness but that of a means to us and our felicity. If he made us, he must needs have absolute propriety in us, and made us for himself. To measure his goodness by our own interest, is more unwise than to measure the sea in our hand, or the sun and all the orbs by our span. And to measure it by the interest of the universe, is to judge of that which is infinite, by that which is finite; betwixt which there is no proportion. As God is infinitely better than the world, so he is infinitely more amiable, and therefore must infinitely more love himself than all the world; and, therefore, so to do, is infinite excellency and perfection in his will. But the out-going of his will to the creature by way of causative volition, is free; and conducted by that wisdom, which knoweth what is fit, and what degrees of communication are most eligible to God. God is perfect without his works: he had wanted nothing if he had never made them. He will not herein do all that he is simply able to do, but all that his wisdom seeth fittest to be done. He was as good before he made the world, as since ; and those that think he caused it eternally, must confess him, in order of nature, to be first perfect in himself, and to have more goodness than all which he communicateth to the world. He was as good before this present generation of men on earth had any being he is as good before he bringeth us to the heavenly glory, as he will be after; though before he did not so much good to us. It is no diminution of his goodness, to say, that he made millions of toads, and flies, and spiders, whom he could have made men if he had pleased; or to say, that he made millions of men, whom he could have made angels; or that he 1 If a man must love his country better than himself, then God, much more, and then self is not to be highest in our love. Respublica nomen universæ civitatis est, pro qua mori, et cui nos totos dare, et in qua omnia nostra ponere, et quasi consecrare debemus.-Cicero 2. de Leg. Laudandus est is qui mortem oppetit pro republica, qui doceat patriam esse chariorem nobis, quam nosmetipsos estque illa vox inhumana et scelerata eorum, qui negant se recusare, quo minus ipsis mortuis terrarum omnium deflagratio consequatur.Cicer. 3, de Fin.

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