_Answ._ Aristotle and Porphyry have not so clearly made known to us the nature of those things or modes which they are pleased to call accidents, as that we should lay any great stress upon their sayings about them. Another will say that goodness itself is but an accident, and most will call it a mode; and they will say that the substance is better than the mode or accident, and therefore better than goodness itself. And would this, think you, be good arguing? Distinguish then between physical goodness of being, in the soul, both as a substance, and as a formal virtue; and the perfective, or modal, qualitative or gradual goodness; and then consider, that the latter always presupposeth the former: where there is holiness, there is the substance, with its physical goodness, and the perfective, modal, or moral goodness too; but where there is no holiness, there is only a substance deprived of its modal, moral goodness. And is not both better than one, and a perfect being than an imperfect?
And as to Arminius's saying, He cannot mean that God loveth righteousness with a subject or substance, better than a subject without righteousness; for there is no such thing to love, as righteousness without a subject (though there maybe an abstracted, distinct conception of it). If therefore the question be only, Whether God love the same man better, as he is a man, or as he is a saint, I answer, he hath a love to each which is suitable to its kind. He hath such complacency in the substance of a serpent, a man, a devil, as is agreeable to their being; that is, as they bear the natural impressions of his creating perfections, yet such as may stand with their pain, death, and misery. But he hath such a complacency in the actual holiness, love, and obedience of men and angels, as that he taketh the person that hath them to be meet for his service, and glory, and everlasting felicity, and delight in him, as being qualified for it. So that God's love must be denominatively distinguished from the object; and so it is a love of nature, and a love of the moral perfections of nature: the first love is that by which he loveth a man because he is a man, and so all other creatures; the second love is that by which he loveth a good man, because he is good or holy. And if it will comfort you, that God loveth your being without your perfections or virtue, let it comfort you in pain, and death, and hell, that he continueth your being without your well-being or felicity.
_Object._ VII. All goodness or holiness is some one's goodness or holiness (as health is). And as it is the person's welfare and perfection, so it is given for the person's sake: therefore the person, as the _finis cui_, and utmost end, is better than the thing given him, and so more amiable.
_Answ._ That all goodness is some one's goodness, proveth but that some one is the subject or being that is good, but not that to be is better than to be good, as such. And as he is in some respect the _finis cui_, for whom it is, and so it is good to him; yet he and his goodness are for a higher end, which is the pleasing of God in the demonstration of his goodness: that therefore is best which most demonstrateth God's goodness. And there is no subject or substance without its accidents or modes; and that person that is not good and holy, is bad and unholy. Therefore the question should be, Whether a person bad and unholy, be more amiable than a person good and holy, that hath both physical and moral goodness. And for all that the name of an accident maketh action seem below the person: yet it must be also said, that the person and his faculties are for action, as being but the substance in a perfect mode, and that action is for higher ends than the person's being or felicity.
_Object._ VIII. Love is nothing but benevolence, _velle bonum alicui ut ei bene sit_. But who is it that would not wish good to God, that is to be blessed as he is? But how can holiness then be loved, but rather the person for his holiness; because we cannot wish it good, but only to be what it is.
_Answ._ 1. The definition is false, as hath been showed, and as the instance proveth; else a man could not be said to love learning, virtue, or any quality, but only to love the person that wanteth it, or hath it. But love is a complacency, and benevolence is but its effect or antecedent. 2. The unholy wish not good to God, for they would all depose him from his Godhead: they would not have him to be a hater of their sin, nor to be their holy and righteous Governor and Judge.
_Object._ IX. It is better to be a man, though a sinner and miserable in hell, than not to be at all. Else God would never ordain, cause, or permit it.