CHAPTER VIII.

MAN CONSIDERED AS AN INDIVIDUAL, HIS
FACULTIES, &c.

1. The excellence and baseness of man. IN reference to other creatures of this inferior world, man's worth and excellency is admired. Compared with God, the truest inscription wherewith we can circle so base a coin is that of David, Universa vanitas est omnis homo; whosoever hath the name of a mortal man, there is in him whatsoever the name of vanity doth comprehend.

2. His choice or freewill in action.

Man in perfection of nature being made according to the likeness of his Maker, resembleth him also in the manner of working; so that whatsoever we work as men, the same we do wittingly1 work and freely neither are we according to the manner of natural agents any way so tied, but that it is in our power to leave the things we do undone. The good which either is gotten by doing, or which consisteth in the very doing itself, causeth not action, unless apprehending it as good we so like and desire it. That we do unto any such end, the same we choose and prefer before the leaving of it undone. Choice there is not, unless the thing which we take be so in our power, that we might have refused and left it. If fire consumeth the stubble, it chooseth not so to do, because the nature thereof is such that

1 "Wittingly;" i. e. willingly, or according to our will.

it can do no other. To choose, is to will one thing before another; and to will, is to bend our souls to the having 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 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.

3. On right action.

As the straight way is most acceptable to him that travelleth, because by it he cometh soonest to his journey's end; so that in action, which doth lie the evenest between us and the end we desire, must needs be the fittest for our use.

Of earthly blessings the meanest is wealth, reputation the chiefest: none, whose desires are rightly ordered, would wish to live, to breathe, and move, without performance of those actions which are beseeming man's excellency.

There is in the whole world no one thing great or small, but, either in respect of knowledge or of use, it may unto our perfection add somewhat.

4. Religion.

Without [religion] if so be it were possible, that all other ornaments of mind might be had in their full perfection, nevertheless the mind that should possess them, divorced from piety, could be but a spectacle of commiseration.

5. The proof of wisdom.

That which sheweth them to be wise, is the

gathering of principles out of their own particular experiments. And the framing of our particular experiments, according to the rule of their principles, shall make us such as they are.

6. Example.

To conclude out of general rules and axioms by discourse of wit our duties in every particular action, is both troublesome and many times so full of difficulty, that it maketh deliberations hard and tedious to the wisest men. Whereupon we naturally all incline to observe examples, to mark what others have done before us, and in favour of our own ease rather to follow them, than to enter into a new consultation, if in regard of their virtue and wisdom we may but probably think they have waded without error. The force of examples therefore is great, when in matter of action, being doubtful what to do, we are informed what others have commendably done whose deliberations were like.

We had rather follow the perfections of them whom we like not, than in defect resemble them whom we love.

7. The examples proposed to Christians.

Christian men therefore having, besides the common light of all men, so great help of heavenly direction from above, together with the lamps of so bright examples as the Church of God doth yield, it cannot but worthily seem reproachful for us to leave both the one and the other to become disciples unto the most hateful sort that live, to do as they do, only because we see their example before us, and have a delight to follow it.

8. Conscience.

Whatsoever we do, if our own secret judgment

consent not unto it as fit and good to be done, the doing of it to us is sin.

The eye of a man's own conscience is more to be feared by evil doers than the presence of a thousand witnesses, inasmuch as the mouths of other accusers are many ways stopped, the ears of the accused not always subject to glowing with contumely and exprobration; whereas a guilty mind being forced to be still both a martyr and a tyrant in itself, must of necessity endure perpetual anguish and grief; for, as the body is rent with stripes, so the mind with guiltiness of cruelty, lust, and wicked resolutions.

As long as we are in ourselves privy to our own most heinous crimes, but without sense of God's mercy and grace towards us, unless the heart be either brutish for want of knowledge, or altogether hardened by wilful atheism, the remorse of sin is in it, as the deadly sting of the serpent.

9. The thoughts of men are evil.

If our hands did never offer violence to our brethren, a bloody thought doth prove us murderers before him; if we had never opened our mouth to utter any scandalous, offensive, or hurtful word, the cry of our secret cogitations is heard in the ears of God. If we did not commit the sins, which daily and hourly either in deed, word, or thoughts we do commit; yet in the good things which we do, how many defects are there intermingled. God, in that which is done, respecteth the mind and intention of the doer.

10. So are their motives.

Cut off all those things wherein we have regarded our own glory, those things which men do to please men, and to satisfy our own liking, those things

which we do for any by respect, not sincerely and purely for the love of God, and a small score will serve for the number of our righteous deeds.

11. Right helps of art and learning.

If there might be added the right helps of true art and learning, (which helps, I must plainly confess, this age of the world, carrying the name of a learned age, doth neither much know, nor greatly regard,) there would undoubtedly be almost as great difference in maturity of judgment between men therewith inured, and that which now men are, as between men that are now, and innocents.