Peter, there is "Ayvoia èx @poaigéσews, an elected, or voluntary ignorance, which, for their security's sake, men nourish themselves in.

And that there should be such an alienation of the mind from truth, when the fancy and heart are hot with passion, cannot be any great wonder: for the soul is of a limited and determined activity in the body; insomuch that it cannot, with perspicuity and diligence, give attendance unto divers objects. And therefore when a passion, in its fulness both of violence and delight, doth take it up, the more clear and naked brightness of truth is suspended and changed: so that as the sun and moon, at their rising and setting, seem far greater than at other times, by reason of thick vapours which are then interposed; so the mind, looking upon things through the mists and troubles of passion, cannot possibly judge of them, in their own proper and immediate truth, but according to that magnitude or colour, which they are framed into, by prejudice and distemper.

But then, thirdly, If reason will neither be deluded, nor won over to the patronage of evil, nor diverted from the knowledge and notice of good; then doth passion strive to confound and distract the apprehension thereof, that they may not, with any firmness and efficacy of discourse, interrupt the current of such irregular and headstrong motions. And this is a most inward and proper effect of passion: for, as things, presented to the mind in the nakedness and simplicity of their own truth, do gain a more firm assent unto them, and a more fixed intuition on them; so, on the contrary, those things which come mixed and troubled, dividing the intention of the mind between truth and passion, cannot obtain any settled or satisfactory resolution from the discourses of reason.

And this is the cause of that reluctancy between the knowledge and desires of incontinent men, and others of the like nature: for, as Aristotle observes of them, they are but

mónpo, half evil,' as not sinning with that full and plenary consent of will, but præter electionem,' as he speaks; so I may more truly say of them, that they have but half

f Eth. 1. 7. c. 10. In confinio concupiscentiæ et poenitentiæ, aspera et tumultuosa gaudia. Plut. lib. Philosoph, cum princip.

knowledge, not any distinct and applicative apprehension of truth, but a confused and broken conceit of things in their generality; not much unlike unto night-talkers, who cannot be said to be thoroughly asleep, nor perfectly awaked, but to be in a middle kind of inordinate temper between both; or (as Aristotle himself gives the similitude) it is like a stage-player, whose knowledge is express and clear enough, but the things which it is conversant about, are not personal and particular to those men, but belonging unto others whom they personate: so, the principles of such men are, in the general, good and true; but they are never brought down so low, as if they did concern a man's own particular weal or woe; not thoroughly weighed with an assuming, applying, concluding conscience; but, like the notion of a drunken or sleeping man, are choked and smothered with the mists of passion.

And this third corruption is that, which Aristotle, in the particular of incontinency, calleth 'Artéveia, the weakness and disability of reason, to keep close to her own principles and resolutions. Whereunto exactly agreeth that of the prophet, "How weak is thy heart, seeing thou dost all these things, the works of an imperious whorish woman." And elsewhere, whoredom and wine are said to take away the heart. So Hector describes lascivious Paris:'

Καλόν

Εἶδος ἔπ'· αλλ ̓ οὐκ ἔστι βίη φρεσὶν, οὐδέ τις ἀλκή.

Thy face hath beauty in't, but in thy breast
There doth no strength nor resolution rest.

The last effect (which I shall but name) is that which Aristotle calleth IIponirea, rashness,' or 'precipitancy;" which is the most tyrannical violence which passion useth, when, in spite of all the dictates of reason, it furiously overruleth the will, to determine and allow of any thing which it pleaseth to put in practice; and, like a torrent, carrieth all before it; or, as the prophet speaks", rusheth like a horse into the battle. So lust and anger are sometimes in the scripture called 'madness", because it transporteth the soul

beyond all bounds of wisdom or counsel; and by the dictates of reason, takes occasion to become more outrageous. Ipsaque præsidia occupat;' feeds like wild-fire upon those remedies which should remove it. As She said in the Poet:"

6

Levis est dolor, qui capere consilium potest;

Libet ire contra.

That's but light grief which counsel can abate;
Mine swells, and all advice resolves to hate.

The corrupt effects which passion worketh, in the last place, on the body, are divers, according to the particular nature of the passions: sometimes too sudden and violent; sometimes, too heavy oppression of the heart, or other sudden perturbation of the spirits. Thus old Eli died with sudden grief; Diodorus, with shame; Sophocles, Chilo the Lacedæmonian, and others, with joy; nature being not able to bear that great and sudden immutation, which these passions made in the body. The causes and manner of which concitation, I refer (as being enquiries not so directly pertinent to the present purpose) unto natural philosophers and physicians. And from the generality of passions, I proceed unto the consideration of some particulars, according to the order of their former division: in all which, I shall forbear this long method of the antecedents, concomitants, and consequents of their acts (many particulars whereof, being in the same nature in all passions, will require to be observed only in one or two, and so proportionally conceived in the rest), and shall insist principally in those particulars which I handle, on the cases and effects of them, as being considerations, wherein commonly they are most serviceable or prejudicial to our nature.

CHAP. IX.

Of the Affection of Love; of love natural; of general communion; of love rational; the object and general cause thereof.

Now the two first and fundamental passions of all the rest, are love and hatred. Concerning the passion of love, we will therein consider, first, its object, and its causes; both

Senec. Medea.

which being of a like nature, (for every moral object is a cause, though not every cause an object) will fall into one.

Love then consists in a kind of expansion or egress of the heart and spirits to the object loved, or to that whereby it is drawn and attracted: whatsoever therefore hath such an attractive power, is, in that respect, the object and general cause of love. Now, as in nature, so in the affections likewise, we may observe from their objects a double attraction: the first, is that natural or impressed sympathy of things, whereby one doth inwardly incline to a union with the other, by reason of some secret virtues and occult qualities disposing either subject to that mutual friendship, as between iron and the loadstone: the other, is that common and more discernible attraction which every thing receives from those natures or places, whereon they are ordained and directed, by the wisdom and providence of the First Cause, to depend, both in respect of the perfection and conservation of their being. For, as God is in his temple, the church,-so is he in his palace, (if I may so call it) the world,-a God of order, disposing every thing in number, weight, and measure; so sweetly, as that all is harmonious, (from which harmony the philosophers have concluded a divine providence,) and so powerfully, as that all things depend on his government, without violence, breach, or variation.

And this order and wisdom is seen chiefly in that sweet subordination of things each to other, and haply inclination of all to their particular ends, till all be reduced finally unto him who is the fountain, whence issue all the streams of their limited being, and the fulness of which, all his creatures have received: which the poet, though something too poetically, seemeth to have expressed :

Principio, caelum, ac terras, camposque liquentes,
Lucentemque globum lunæ, Titaniaque astra
Spiritus intus alit; totamque infusa per artus

Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet."

Heaven, earth, and seas, with all those glorious lights,
Which beautify the day, and rule the nights,

A divine inward vigour, like a soul,

Diffus'd through ev'ry joint of this great whole,

Arrian. Epist. lib. 1. c. 6.

e Græci enim rồ wây vocant.

Eneid. lib. 6.—Pet. Crinit. lib. 6. c. 12.

Doth vegetate, and with a constant force,

Guideth each nature through its fixed course.

And such is the natural motion of each thing to its own sphere and centre; where is both the most proper place of its abode, and withal the greatest freedom from foreign injury or violence.

But we must herewithal take notice of the general care of the Creator, whereby he hath fastened on all creatures, not only this private desire to satisfy the demands of their own nature, but hath also stamped upon them a general charity and feeling of communion, as they are sociable parts of the universe or common body: wherein cannot possibly be admitted (by reason of that necessary mutual connexion between the parts thereof) any confusion or divulsion, without immediate danger to all the members. And therefore God hath inclined the nature of these necessary agents, so to work, out of their discords, the perfect harmony of the whole, that, if by any casualty it falls out, that the body of Nature be like to suffer any rupture, deformity, or any other contumely, though haply occasioned by the uniform and natural motions of the particulars,-they then must prevent such damage and reproach, by a relinquishing and forgetting of their own natures, and by acquainting themselves with motions, whereunto considered in their own determinate qualities, they have an essential reluctancy: which property and sense of nature in common, the apostle hath excellently set down, 1 Cor. xii.; where he renders this reason of all, that there might be "no schism in the body;" which likewise he divinely applieth in the mystical sense, that all the several "gifts of the Spirit "" to the church, should drive to one common end, as they were all derived from one common fountain; and should never be used, without that knitting quality of love, to which he elsewhere properly ascribeth "the building, concinnation, and perfecting of the saints."

e

Now, as it hath pleased the infinite wisdom of God to guide and moderate, by his own immediate direction, the motions of necessary agents, after the manner declared to their particular, or to the general end, (which motion may