worketh on the principle of self-love in man's conversion?—with To avoid the tediousness of a distinct

many such like. debating each question.

THOUGH these things principally belong to the theory, and so to another treatise in hand, called "Methodus Theologiæ;" yet because they are also practical, and have a great influence upon the more Practical Directions, and the right understanding of them may help the reader himself、 to determine a multitude of Cases of Conscience, the particular discussion and decision of which would too much increase this volume, which is so big already, I shall here explain them in such brief Propositions as yet shall give light to one another, and I hope contain much of the true nature of Love, which is the mystery of the Christian religion. Prop. 1. The formal act of Love is Complacency, expressed by a placet;' which Augustine so oft calleth Delectation.

2. Benevolence, or desiring the good of those we love, is but a secondary act of love, or an effect of the prime, formal act. For to wish one well is not to love him formally; but we wish him well because we love him, and therefore first in order love him.

3. Their definition of love is therefore inept, and but from an effect, who say it is, Alicui bene velle, ut ipsi bene sit.'

4. Love is either merely sensitive and passionate, which is the sensible act and passion of the sensitive and fantastical appetite; or it is rational, which is the act of the rational appetite or will. The first is called sensitive in a double respect, 1. because it followeth the apprehension of the senses, or fantasy, loving that which they apprehend as good; 2. and because it is exercised passionately and feelingly by the sensitive appetite. And the other is called rational, 1. because it is the love of that which reason apprehendeth as good; and 2. because it is the complacency of that will which is a higher faculty than the sensitive appetite. 5. Sensitive love is oft without rational (always in brutes), but rational love is never totally without sensitive, at least in this life; whether it be because that the sensitive and rational are faculties of the same soul, or because they are so nearly connexed as that one cannot move or act without the other?

6. But yet one is predominant in some persons, and the other in others.

7. Love is the complacency of the appetite in apprehended good. Good is the formal object of love. Sensitive love is the complacency of the sensitive appetite in sensible good, (or in that which the sense and imagination apprehend as good). Rational love is the complacency of the rational appetite in that which reason apprehendeth good : the same thing with primary volition.

8. Good is not only a man's own felicity and the means thereto, called 'mihi bonum,' good to me; either as profitable, pleasant, or honourable (as some think that have unmanned themselves): but there is extrinsic good, which is such in itself, in others, or for others, which yet is the natural object of man's love, (so far as nature is sound.) As the learning, and wisdom, and justice, and charity, and all other perfections of a man at the antipodes, whom I never saw nor hope to see, or to receive any benefit by, is yet amiable to every man that hath not unmanned himself. So also is the good of posterity, of countries, of kingdoms, of the church, of the world, apprehended as future when we are dead and gone; yea, if we should be annihilated, desirable, and therefore amiable to us; when yet it could be no benefit to us.

9. Self-love is sensitive or rational: sensitive as such is necessary and not free; and it is purposely by the most wise and blessed Creator planted in man and brutes, as a principle useful to preserve the world, and to engage the creature in the use of the means of its own preservation, and so to bring it to perfection, and to endue it with those fears and hopes which make us subjects capable of moral govern

ment:

10. The rational or higher appetite also hath a natural inclination to self-preservation, perfection and felicity; but as ordinable and ordinate to higher ends.

11. The rational powers cannot nullify the sensitive, nor directly or totally hinder the action of them; but they may and must indirectly hinder the act, by avoiding the objects and temptations, by diverting the thoughts to higher things, &c.; and may hinder the effects by governing the locomotive power.

12. Sensitive self-love containeth in it, 1. A love of life, and, that is, of individual self-existence; 2. And a love of all sensitive pleasures of life; and, 3. Consequently, a love of the means of life and pleasure.

13. In sensitive self-love, therefore, self, that is, life, is both the material and formal object: we love ourselves even because we are ourselves; we love this individual person, and loathe annihilation or dissolution.

14. Though the will (or higher faculties) are naturally inclined also to love ourselves, and our own felicity, yet they exercise this inclination with a certain liberty; and though the act of simple complacency or volition towards our own being and felicity be so free as yet to be necessary, yet the comparative act (by which comparing several goods, we choose one and refuse another) may be so free as not to be necessary; that is, a man may will his own annihilation rather than some greater evil (of which anon), not as good in itself, and therefore not willed for itself, but as a means to a greater good; and so he may less nill it than a greater evil.

15. Also a tolerable pain may on the same account be willed, or less nilled, and so consented to for the avoiding of a greater evil; but intolerable pain cannot possibly be willed, or consented to, or not nilled, because it taketh away the exercise of reason and free-will; but what is to be called intolerable I determine not, it being variously measurable according to the patient's strength.

16. The soul as intellectual, by its rational appetite, hath also a natural inclination to intellectual operations (to know and love) and to intellectual objects as such, and to intellectual perfections in itself. Yet so that, though it necessarily (though freely) loveth the said acts and perfections while it hath a being; yet doth it not necessarily love all the said objects, nor necessarily choose the continuance of its own being, but in some cases, as aforesaid, can yield or consent to an annihilation as a lesser evil.

17. The rational soul being not of itself, nor for itself alone, or chiefly, is naturally inclined not only to love to itself, and that which is for itself, but also to love extrinsic good, as was aforesaid; and accordingly it should love that best which is best: for a quatenus et ad omne et ad gra

dum, valet argumentum.' If we must love any thing or person because it is good (as the formal reason) then we should love all that is good, and love that best which is best, if so discerned.

18. Though I must love greater, simple, extrinsic good above myself, with that love which is purely rational, yet it cannot ordinarily be done with a more sensitive and passionate love.

19. I am not always bound to do most good to him that I love better than others, and ought so to love, nor to him that I must wish most good to. Because there are other particular laws to regulate my actions, divers from that which commandeth my affections: as those that put children, relations, families, neighbours, under our especial charge and care; though often others must be more loved.

20. That good which is the object of love is not a mere universal or general notion, but is always some particular or singular being in esse reali, vel in esse cognito.' As there is no such thing in rerum natura,' as good in a mere general, which is neither the good of natural existence, or of moral perfection, or of pleasure, profit, honour, &c. Yea, which is not in this or in that singular subject, or so conceived; so there is no such thing as love, which hath not some such singular object. (As Rada and other Scotists have made plain.)

21. All good is either God or a creature, or a creature's act or work.

22. God is Good infinitely, eternally, primitively, independently, immutably, communicatively, of whom, and by whom, and to whom are all things: the Beginning or first efficient, the Dirigent and ultimately ultimate cause of all created good; as making and directing all things for himself.

23. Therefore it is the duty of the intellectual creature to love God totally, without any exceptions or restrictions, with all the power, mind, and will, not only in degree above ourselves and all the world; but also as God, with a love in kind transcending the love of every creature.

24. All the goodness of the creature doth formally consist in its threefold relation to God, viz. 1. In the impresses of God as its first efficient or creator; as it is his image or

the effect and demonstration of his perfections, viz. his infinite power, wisdom, and goodness. 2. In its conformity to his directions, or governing laws, and so in its order and obedience. 3. And in its aptitude and tendency to God as its final cause, even to the demonstration of his glory and the complacency of his will.

25. All created good is therefore derivative, dependent, contingent, finite, secondary, from God, by God, and to God, receiving its form and measure from its respect to him.

26. Yet as it may be subordinately from man, as the principle of his own actions, and by man as a subordinate ruler of himself or others, and to man as a subordinate end; so there is accordingly a subordinate sort of goodness, which is so denominated from these respects unto the creature, that is himself good, subordinately.

27. But all this subordinate goodness ('bonum a nobis, bonum per nos, bonum nobis') is but analogically so; and dependently on the former sort of goodness, and is something in due subordination to it, and against it, nothing, that is, not properly good.

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28. The best and most excellent creatures, in the aforesaid goodness related to God are most to be loved; and all according to the degree of their goodness, more than as good in relation to ourselves.

29. But seeing their goodness is formally their relation unto God, it followeth that they are loved primarily only for his sake, and consequently God's image or glory in them is first loved; and so the true love of any creature is but a -secondary sort of the love of God.

30. The best being next to God is the universe or whole creation, and therefore next him most to be loved by us.

31. The next in amiableness is the whole celestial society, Christ, angels, and saints.

32. The next, when we come to distinguish them, is Christ's own created, glorified nature in the person of the Mediator, because God's glory or image is most upon him.

33. The next in amiableness is the whole angelical society, or the orders of intellectual spirits above man.

34. The next is the spirits of the just made perfect, or the triumphant church of saints in heaven.

35. The next is all this lower world.