or of Kingdoms, or of thoufands, is better than the pleasure of one individual perfon, fo fhould it be better loved, and more delighted in. For if Good as Good be appetible and delectable, then the greatest Good muft have the greatcft love and pleasure. And nature it felftelleth us, that he that would not rather be annihilated than the world fhould be annihilated, or would not lofe his life and honour, to fave the life, and honour, and felicity of King and Kingdom, is no good member of Civil Society, but a perfon blinded by felfishness and fenfuality. Therefore man hath fomething above himself, and his own pleasure, to feek and to take pleasure in. How far you can congruously say, that you take pleasure in your pleasure, and fo make your own pleafure the object, yea, the only ultimate object of it felf, I shall not now stay to enquire. But certain I am, that though our love, which is our complacency in the beloved object, is Our alius finalis, yet is it not the objectum finale to it self; but God himself, the infinite Good, is that final Object; and the Publick Good is a more noble and excellent object than our own. And though it be truly our felicity to love God, yet we love him not chiefly because it is our felicity to love him, but because he is chiefly Good and Lovely; and then in the fecond inftant, we love our own love, and delight even in our own delights. Indeed the fenfitive life, as fuch, can feek nothing higher than its own delight: but the rational life is made to intend and profecute that end, which reafon telleth us is beft, and to prefer that before our felves, which is better than our felves. And therefore the Epicurean opinion, which maketh Pleasure our higheft end, doth fhew that the Sect is fenfual and bruitish, and have brought their reason into fervitude to their appetites and lufts. And nature it felf doth abhor the notion, when it is brought into the light; and will hear him with fome horrour who fhall speak out and fay, God is not to be chiefly loved for bimself, nor as he is best in himself, nor as my ultimate objective end, but only to be loved next my felf, as a means to my felicity or pleafure, as meat, drink, ease, and sport, and luft are. And virtue or bolinefs is not to be loved chiefly for it felf, that is, as it is the Image of God, and pleafing to him, but as it conduceth to my pleafure.] As Cicero excellently noteth, there is a great deal

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of difference between thefe two; [To love vertue as vertue, and fo to take pleasure in it because it is virtue;] and [To love virtue for pleasures fake, more than for its own:] For he that doth fo, muft fay as Cicero chargeth Epicurus plainly to fay, that Luxury is not to be difcommended if it be not unpleasant : for the end is the measure and rule to judge of all the means. If pleafure as pleasure be beft, then to him that fo continues it, to live more pleafedly in whoredom, and drunkenness, and theft, and murder, than in godliness and honefty, it will be better fo to do: And virtue, and luft or wickedness, will ftand in competition only in the point of pleasure. And then, which think you will have the greater party, and what a cafe would mankind be in? I am perIwaded, that the well ftudying the excellent difcourfe of Cicero on this point, and the reasons which the Stoicks and the reft of the Philofophers give against the Plebeian Philofophers, (as Cicero calleth them) may much conduce to help many Divines themselves to a righter understanding of the, fame controverfie, as in Theology they have otherwise worded it, Whether God or our own felicity be most to be loved?· (And yet without running into the fanatick extreme, of Separating the love of God and our felves, and calling men to try whether for his glory they can be willing to be damned. ) Only when you read the Philofopher faying, that virtue in and for it felf is to be loved as our felicity; elucidate it by remembring, that this is, because that vertue in it felf is the Image of God, and by our felicity they mean the perfection of our natures, in refpect of the end for which we were made. And that as the excellency of my knife orpen ( yea, or my horfe) is not to be measured by their own pleasure but their usefulness to me, because I am their end; fo is it, as to man's perfection, as he is made for God, and related to him, (for all that he hath no need of us, feeing he can be pleafed in us.) Thus this Philofophical controverfie is coincident with one of the greateft in Theologie.

Though I have difpleafed many Readers, by making this Treatife fwell fo big, by anfwering fo many objections as I have done, yet I know that many will expect that I fhould have made it much greater, by answering, 1. Abundance of particular objections from Scripture-difficulties: 2. And

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many difcourfes of feveral forts of perfons, who contradict fome things which I have faid. But I fuperfede any further labour of that kind, for thefe following reasons.

1. It would fill many volumes to do it, as the number and quality of the Objections do require. 2. Thofe that require it are yet fo lazie, that they will not read this much which I have already written, as efteeming it too long. 3. They may find it done already by Commentators, if they will have but the patience to perufe them. 4. I have laid down that evidence for the main caufe of GODLINESS and CHRISTIANITY, by which he that well digefteth it, will be enabled himself to defend it againft abundance of cavils, which I cannot have time to enumerate and answer. 5. The fcribles of felt-conceited men are fo tedious, and every one fo confident that his reafons are confiderable, and yet every one so impatient to be contradicted and confuted, that it is endlefs to write against them, and it is unprofitable to fober Readers, as well as tedious to me, and Ingrateful to themselves. To inftance but in the laft that came to my hands, an Inquifitio in fidem Chriftianorum hujus feculi, (the name prefixed I fo much honour, that I will not mention it.) Page 3. he calleth confidence in errour by the name of certainty, as if every man were certain that hath but ignorance enough to over-look all caufe of doubting. Page 13. He will not contend if you fay, that it is by divine faith, that we believe the words to be true which are Gods; and by bumane faith by which we believe them to be the words of God. He faith, that Faith bath no degrees: but is alway equal to it felf: to believe is to affent, and to doubt is to fufpend affent ; Ergo, where there is the least doubt, there is no faith, and where there is no doubt, there is the bigbeft faith; Ergo, Faith is always in the highest, and is never more or lefs: And yet it may be called fmall when it is quafi nulla, (that quafi is to make up a gap) in respect of the fubje&i,or at least hardly yielded; and in regard of the object, when few things arebelieved.Page 26. He maketh the Calvinists to be Entbufiafts,(that is,Fanaticks) because they say, that they know the Scripture by the Spirit: (as if fubjectively we had no need of the Spirit, to teach us the things of God; and objectively the spirit of miracles and fanAification were not the notifying evidence or teftimony of

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the truth of Chrift.) The fame name he vouchsafeth them that hold, That the Scripture is known by universal tradition to be God's word, and every mans own reafon must tell him (or difcern) the meaning of it. And he concludeth, that if every one may expound the Scripture, even in fundamentals, then every man may plead against all Magiftrates, in defence of murder or any other crime, as a rational plea; and fay, Why should you punish me for that which God bath lid me do. As if God would have no reasonable creature, but bruits only to be his fubjects. As if a man could knowingly obey a Law, which he neither knoweth, nor muft know the meaning of; and is bound to do he knoweth not what. And as if the Kings fübjects must not understand the meaning of the fifth Commandment, nor of Rom. 13. Honour thy father and mother; and, Let every foul be fubject to the bigher powers, and not refift. Or as if Kings muft govern only dogs and fwine, or might make murder, adultery, idolatry and perjury, the duty of all their fubjects when they pleased, becaufe none mult judge of the meaning of God's Law by which they are forbidden: or as if it were the only way to make men obedient to Kings and Parents, to have no underftanding that God commandeth any man to obey them, nor to know any Law of God that doth require it: or as if all our Paftors and Teachers were not to be fo useful to us as a fign-pott; nor we were not to learn of them or of our Parents any thing, that God either by nature or Scripture ever taught us: or as if a child or fubject, who is required to learn the meaning of his Ruler's Laws, to judge of them judicio privata difcretionis, were thereby allowed to mis-understand them, and to say that they command us that which they forbid us; and because the King forbiddeth us to murder, he alloweth us to fay, You propofed it to my understanding, and I understand it that you bid me murder, and therefore you may not punish me. As if he that is bound to judge by a bare difcerning what is commanded him, and what forbidden, were allowed to judge, in partem utramlibet, that it is or it is not, as pleafe himfelf. As if when the King hath printed his Statutes, he had forfeited all his authority by fo doing, and his fubje&s might say, Why do you punish us for difobeying your Laws, when you promulgated them to us as ra

tional creatures to difcern their fenfe? Will it profit the world to write confutations of fuch ftuff as this? or muft a man that is not condemned to Stage-playing or Ballad-making, thus wafte his time? Do the people need to be faved from fuch ftuff as this? If fo, what remedy, but to pity them, and fay, Quos perdere vult Jupiter bos dementat, & fi populus vult decipi, decipiatur.

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And yet to do no more wrong to the Scriptures, than to Councils, and Bulls, and Statutes, and Teftaments, and Deeds, and Bonds, he concludeth, Of all writings whatsoever, that by the meer words of the writer you cannot be certain of bis fenfe; though they be common words, and you take them in the common fenfe. So that if any doubt arife about my words, if I refolve it by writing I cannot be understood; but if I fpake the fame fyllables by word of mouth, it would ferve the turn. As if no man could be fure of the fense of any Law, or Teftament, or Bond, or Covenant, which is committed to writing, nor of any expolition of them, if once it fall under Pen or Prefs. As if God's writing the Ten Commandments had left them unintelligible, in comparison of his speaking them. Then farewell all Hiftorical certainty. Hath every fingle Prieft himself any affurance of the fenfe of the Council, the Canons, the Popes Decreetals and Bulls, but by the way of writing? And to the poor people muft, inftead of the Church, believe only that Prieft that orally fpeaketh to them, though he have no certainty of the matter himfelf. If this doctrine be made good once, it will spoil the Printers trade, and the Clarks, and Courts of Record, and the Poft-Office too.

But, page 51. he maketh the confent of the univerfal Church to be the only fure communication of Chriftian Doctrine in the Articles of Faith; yea, the confent of the prefent age concerning the former: (But how the consent of the whole Church fhall be certainly known to every man and woman, when no writing can certainly make known any mans mind, is hard to tell a man that expecteth reafon.) And that you may fee how much the fubject of this Treatife is concerned in fuch dif courfes, he addeth, that If the Church had at any time been Small, its teftimony had been doubtful; but (faith he) it teftifietb of it felf that Chriftians were never few, and therefore it is to

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