to direct and govern his inferior Faculties; for by this we are able to compare Good and Evil, and the Degrees of both with one another, and thereby to judge what is worthy of our Love, our Hatred, our Anger, our Joy and Sorrow, and the like, and in what Measure also they are worthy to engage our Affections; by this alfo we have a Senfe of God, and of our Duty to him, and are therefore capable of keeping within the Bounds of Duty; by this we are informed what natural Religion obliges us to, and moreover are capable of understanding what God hath otherways fhewn to us, what he hath required of us in the Doctrine of his revealed Word, what Rules he hath given us there to obferve in the Government of our Affections and Actions. That therefore by which a Man is to rule his own Spirit, and to govern his Paffions, is his Reafon, in comparing Good and Evil with his Sense of God, and his Confcience of Duty to him, enlightned with the Knowledge of all the Particulars thereof. And fo it is plain that to govern our Passions, is to order and use them, to let them go, or to restrain and keep them in, as Reafon and the Sense of Duty requires.

It was a very odd Notion of the Paffions of our Nature in the general, that they are evil in themselves: that is far from being true; for there is a moderate Ufe of the

Paffions

Paffions allowable about the Goods of Fortune, as they are called, the Conveniences of our Animal Life, and the contrary Evils thereof, and that because our Happiness doth in fome measure depend upon these Things, viz. upon Health of Body, a competent Livelihood, Relations, Friendships, and the like. And therefore fo much Defire of these Things is rational, as is needful to procure them, fo much Joy in the Poffeffion of them, as is neceffary to retain them all honeft Ways, fo much Anger at thofe that invade them, as is neceffary to guard them, and fo much Sorrow at the Lofs of them, as will put us upon all fit Endeavours to recover them. And it is plain enough, that without being in fome measure moved and affected with these Things, we should take no manner of Care about them. So that what is between us and thofe Stoicks of old, that would have it an High Point of Virtue to be without any Paffion at all, with regard to outward Things, must be refolved at laft into this: Whether it be agreeable to Wisdom to make any Provifion at all for Health, Safety, a Livelihood, and fuch Neceffaries and Conveniences of Life as these are; That is, Whether thefe Things be in any degree good for us, and whether the Contraries be in any degree evil; For then to be in fome measure concerned about them is needful.

1

It may therefore be observed of that Sect of Philofophers, that, confequently to their Principles, they affirmed, that even Pain it felf was not evil; which wild Fancy of theirs there was no need to go about to confute, because no Argument can be plainer than that which is taken from common Senfe. I cannot frame any Notion of the perfect Happiness of a wife and good Man in a fharp Fit of the Stone. I can well enough understand, that taking all toge ther, his good Confcience, and his Hopes of a better Life, he is a happy Man. But I cannot conceive that he is yet fo happy, that nothing can be added to his good State, because I must make his Hopes of a better Life the reafon why he is happy at all in this. God may work a Miracle for a Man who is in that Condition, that is, he may take away from him all Senfe of Pain, and then there is no occafion for Patience, nor is there any need of Virtue to moderate his Paffion, because there is none. But fetting Miracles afide, there will be Pain under the natural Causes of Pain, and where there is Pain, there is need of Patience, and where there is need of that, a Man is not fo well as he could wish to be. Some Moralifts have call'd the Paffions Perturbations, and disparaged them by that ill Title, and tried to prove that they are unworthy of a wife Man. But I am fure that if I were Ꮮ Ꭵ upon

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upon the Rack, I fhould not be afhamed to wifh my felf off, and I believe the wifeft Stoick of them all would have been of the fame Mind. And whereas the reason that hath been given why all Paffions are Perturbations is this, that they are contrary to right Reason, I gather from thence, that When they are not contrary to Reason, they are not what they are called by fome, Perturbations, or, as we fpeak, Sins. There fore if when I am in Pain I do no blameable thing, neither murmur against Providence, nor envy thofe that are in a better State, nor do any thing that is difhonourable to God, or injurious to my Neighbour, my bare Senfe of the Evil is altogether faultlefs; perhaps it makes me more devout towards God, and charitable to Man, and then I may do better with it than I fhould have done without it. And fo in all other Occafions and Matters of Paffion, if there be due Caufe for it, and a just Use made of it, and the right End attained by it, here is right Reafon on my fide in every Ufe and Exercise of fuch Paffion, that is, fo long as my Affections are by Reafon tempered and moderated in Proportion to the Cause that naturally excites them.

A

Now the Government of the Paffions confifts in Placing them upon a Right Object, and in Proportioning them to the Object they are placed upon.

1. They

1. They must be always carried to a Right Object. As we must not call Evil Good, nor Good Evil, fo we must not love the Evil we should hate, nor hate the Good, we should love. We must not rejoice at Paffages that should be refented with Grief, nor delight in Things that we should abhor, as in Strife and Discord, in Revenge and Cruelty, in Uncleanness and Debauchery, nor be angry at Things wherewith we fhould be pleafed, as at good Counsel, and prudent and kind Reproof, and the like. God had never endued us with the Paffions of Love and Hatred, Hope and Fear, Difdain, Anger, Joy and Sorrow, if fome Things were not to be loved; others hated by us, fome hoped, fome feared, fome difdained; if there were not fome good Caufes of Anger, fome true Occafions of Joy, fome Reafon and Ufe of Sorrow. But that which the Government of these Pallions requires is, that Reafon fhould place them ftill upon their Proper Objects, diftinguishing between the Good, and what they fhould carry us to, on the one fide, and the Evil from which they should carry us on the other.

2. Our Affections must be Commenfurate to the Object upon which they are engaged. We must profecute the best Things and the greatest Good with the strongest Affections, middle and fecondary good Things with a Ii 2 moderate