§ 1. Ouch is the degeneracy and deep corruption of some men's natures, by ill education, base company, and long custom in sin ; that abandoning and casting away the bonds and restraints of right reason, as well as religion, they give the full scope and liberty to their lusts and passions, reckoning their chief happiness to consist in the gratification and satisfaction of their sensitive appetites. They affect a soft, delicate, sense-pleasing life ; reckoning it the only real heaven to be desired and sought by them ; and any other heaven be- side that to be merely notional and fantastic. This is the element they desire to live and sport in, fitly described, Tit. iii. 3. by serving divers lusts and pleasures. Hence it comes to pass, that their bodies serve only to be strainers for meats and drinks, and channels for filthy lusts to stream through. In this stream, their masculine agihty melts away, and all public hopes and expectations from them, are totally defeated and disappointed. Appetite is the master, and reason the slave.
These men (if it be fit to call them men) have bid defiance to their
482 THE IlEASONABLENESS OF PERSONAL REFORMATION.
own reason, and denounced a war against their own faculties as if reason had hcensed and privileged (which it never did, nor can do) their worse than brutish kists, to act to the uttermost of their abili- ties, without any matter of restraint over them.
§ 2. But notwithstanding the present captivity of reason, under usurping and domineering lusts, so long as it hath a permanent and fixed root and principle in their nature, it is possible it may recover its throne and empire over them again ; as many an imprisoned king hath done, and probably would do in a very short space, if those pre- judices they have conceived against its government, were but once fairly confuted and removed ; which certainly is not hard to do.
They are of opinion that the laws of reason are too severe, strict, and rigorous, that they too much abridge them of their pleasures and dehghts ; and that the government of sensuality being more easy, favourable and indulgent, is for that reason, much more eli- gible and desirable.
Whereas right reason designs not the abandoning of all pleasures^ but only the exchange of them, and that exchange every way to our great advantage. The only hurt or loss, (if this must be accounted so) any man can sustain by the exchange of pleasures made by reason and religion is this : tliat they design for you the rational, ordinate, and congruous delights, both of a man and of a Christian ; in lieu of the lower, baser, and filthy pleasures of a beast or a devil.
They propose to you rules about pleasures, far more safe and grate- ful, without any culpable severity, or austerity in them. Reason would only regulate and legitimate your delights, and religion sanctify them ; that you might much more purely and sweetly enjoy them, without either shame arising from their turpitude, or fear from their guilt. The rules of both are large and indulgent enough ; and keep- ing within their lines and limits, men shall find such generous, manly, and agreeable delights, as are no where to be enjoyed without them.
§ S. To make this evident, I shall postulate and presume but one thing, and that a thing so immediately true and self-evident, that in the first naked proposal of it, it naturally and easily lets itself into every man's understanding, and no sooner asks, but gains the ap- probation of right reason. And that self-evident principle, which I take for granted, no man of sound intellectuals will quarrel or dispute, is this :
That good which comprlseth and involveth the true honour^ profit, and 2)leasure of the whole man, ichich is more congruous to human nature, and preservative of it, is to be preferred in our estimation and choice, to that which only yields a lower degree of pleasure, imtli-^ out profit or honour, to the basest part of man : and that low and tran- sient pleasure it doth yield, attended and followed with many present and future miseries, destructive to the whole man.
The several parts of this complex proposition, cast such a light and glory round about them, tliat I cannot imagine, but as soon as it
•mE REASONABLENESS OF PEUSONAL KEEOltMATION. 483
■shall be propounded to the judgment and censure of sound reason, it must immediately gain botU its approbation and applause.
But because reason in many men is so beclouded and disturbed by lusts and passions, that it can neither receive things orderly, nor judge X3f them truly and impartially ; I conceive it needful, to demand the censure and judgment of their reason, upon the particulars comprised in this general complex proposition ; that so weighing and examining them one by one, we may try, whether sound reason hath any valuable exception against any part, or member thereof.
§ 4. And firsty I take it for granted, that no man's reason Avill deny, or demur to this proposition ; that^'oo^ is to be chosen, and evil to be avoided: for the will is naturally carried to that which is goody as to its proper object, and shuns that which is evil. And that is naturally good, which is convenient and agreeable to nature ; and that naturally evil, which is disconvenient and hurtful to nature. So that the choice of good rather than evil is the natural choice of the will ; and this choice of the will is founded upon the law of self- preservation, without which the creation would quickly disband, and HO particular being could be long preserved.
And not only the will of rational creatures chooseth the good, and refuseth the evil ; but every sensitive creature is endowed with a natural faculty, to discern the one from the other, in order to the preservation of their beings. You find it in the smallest and most despicable animals ; and therefore cannot deny it unto man, the no- blest and most excellent being on earth ; except only in his non-age, before he hath lived to the years of discretion. Children, indeed, in their infancy, have no knowledge to discern between good and evil : Deut. i. 39- But men, not discerning good from evil, or choos- ing evil rather than good, are many degrees beneath babes.