All this is evidently legible in nature, to any man that hath not lost his reason, or refuseth not considerately to use it. And he that will read but Antonine, Epictetus, and Plutarch, (who are so full of such precepts, that I refer you to the whole books, instead of particular citations,) may see, that he who will deny a life of piety, justice, and temperance to be the duty and rectitude of man, must renounce his reason and natural light, as well as supernatural revelation.

Sect. 44. Reason also teacheth us, that when the corruptions, sluggishness, or appetite of the flesh, resisteth or draweth back from any of this duty, or tempteth us to any sin, reason must rebuke it, and hold the reins, and keep its government, and not suffer the flesh to bear it down, and to prevail.

III. Of God's Relation to Man, as his Benefactor and his End, or as his Chief Good.

THE three essential principles in God do eminently give out themselves to man in his three divine relations to us,-his power, intellect, and will; his omnipotency, omniscience, and goodness; in his being our Owner, our Ruler, and our chief Good. The two first I have considered already; our omnipotent Lord or Owner, and our most wise Governor, and our counter-relations with the duties thereof. I now come to the third.

For the right understanding whereof, let us a little consider of the image of God in man, in which we must here see him. It is man's will, which is his ultimate, perfective, imperant faculty; it is the proper subject of moral habits, and principal agent of moral acts; and therefore in all laws and converse, the will is taken for the man, and nothing is further morally good or evil, virtuous or culpably vicious, than it is voluntary. The intellect is but the director of the will; its actions are not the perfect actions of the man; if it apprehend bare truth, tiæ, in quâ jacet, solvitur. Dormio minimum, et brevissimo somno utor: satis est mihi vigilare desiisse. Aliquando dormisse scio, aliquando suspico.-Sen.

Porò cœli generationis authorem summè bonum atque excellentissimum (asseruit Plato): ejus quippe quod sit in rebus conditis pulcherrimum, eum esse conditorem, quem intelligibilium omnium constet esse præstantissimum. Itaque, quoniam hujusmodi Deus est, cœlum vero præstantissimo illi simile est; quoniam pulcherrimum ceruitur, nulli creaturæ erit similius, quàm Deo soli.-Laert. in Plat.

without respect to goodness, its object is not the highest, or felicitating, or attractive object, and therefore the act can be no higher if it apprehend any being or truth as good, it apprehendeth it but as a servant or guide to the will, to bring it thither to be received by love. The perfect excellency of the object of human acts is goodness, and not mere entity or verity. Therefore, the most excellent faculty is the will; it is good that is the final cause in the object of all human acts: therefore, it is the fruition of good which is the perfective, final act; and that fruition of good, as good, is, though introductorily by vision, yet finally and proximately by complacencies, which is nothing else but love in its most essential act, delighting in its attained object. And for the executive power, though, in the order of its natural being, it be before the will, yet in its operation, ad extra, it is after it, and commanded by it.

Accordingly, while we see God but in this glass, we must conceive that his principle of understanding and power, stand in the foresaid order as to his will: and his omnipotence and omniscience, to that eminently moral goodness, which is the perfection of his will. The natural goodness of his essence filling all.

Therefore, here note, that this attribute of God, his goodness doth make him our chief Good, in a twofold respect, both efficiently and finally. In some sort it is so with the other attributes his power is efficiently the spring of our being and actions; and, finally and objectively, it terminateth our submission and our trust. His wisdom is the principle of his laws, and also the object and end of our inquiries and understandings; but his goodness is the efficient of all our good in its perfection of causality, and that end of our souls, which is commonly called ultimate-ultimus. So that to submit to his power, and to be ruled by his wisdom, is, as I may say, initially our end. But to be pleasing to his good-will, and to be pleased in his goodwill; that is, to love him, and to be beloved by him, is the absolute perfection and end of man."

Therefore, under this his attribute of goodness, God is to be spoken of, both as our Benefactor, and our End; which is to be indeed our Summum Bonum.

Nihil est Deo similius at gratius, quàm vir, animo perfecto bonus, qui hominibus cæteris antecellit, quod ipse à diis immortalibus distat.--Luc. Apul. de Deo Soer.

Sect. 1. Man hath his being, and all the good which he possesseth, from God, as the sole, first efficient by creation.

Sect. 2. Therefore, God alone is the universal, grand Benefactor of the world, besides whom they have no other, but merely subordinate to him.

No creature can give us any thing which is originally its own, having nothing but what it received from God: therefore, it is no more to us, but either a gift of God, or a messenger to bring us his gift; they have nothing themselves but what they have received; nor have we any sort .of good, either natural, moral, of mind or body, or fortune, or friends, but what is totally from the bounty of our Creator, and as totally from him, as if no creature had ever been his instrument.

Sect. 3. As God's goodness is that by which he communicateth being, and all good, to all his creatures, and is his most completive attribute in point of efficiency; so is it that attribute which is in genere causæ finalis, the finis, ultimatè-ultimus of all his works. God can himself have no ultimate end but himself; and his rational creatures can have no other lawful, ultimate end. And in himself, it is his goodness which is completely and ultimately that end."

Here I am to show, I. That God himself can have no ultimate end but himself. II. That man should have no other. III. That God, as in his goodness, is ultimatè-ultimus, the end of man.

I. 1. That which is most beloved of God, is his ultimate end: but God himself is most beloved of himself, therefore he is his own ultimate end.

The reason of the major proposition is, because to be the ultimate end, and to be maximè amatum, is all one. Finis quærentis hath respect to the means of attainment, and is that cujus amore media eliguntur et applicantur. This, God is not capable of, (speaking in propriety,) because he never wanteth his end. Finis fruitionis is that, which amando fruimur, which we love, complacentially, in full attainment: and so God doth still enjoy his end, and to have it in love is to enjoy it.

The minor is past controversy.

Quis dubitare potest, mi Lucili, quin Deorum immortalium munus sit quod vivimus.-Prope Deus est, tecum est, intus est: ita dico, Lucili, sacer intra nos spiritus sedet, bonorum malorumque nostrorum observator et custos. Hic prout à nobis tractatur, ita et nos tractat ipse. Bonus verò vir sine Deo nemo est. Au potest aliquis supra formam, nisi ab illo, adjutus exurgere. Ille dat consilia, magnifica et erecta, in unoquoque bono viro.-Sen.

Object. But if God have not finem quærentis, then in every instant he enjoyeth his end: and if so, then he useth no means at all, for what need any means be used for that end which is not sought, but still enjoyed. And, consequently, where there is no means, there is no end.

Answ. As finis signifieth nothing but effectum, viz., perfectionem operis, which is but finis terminativus, so it is not always at present attained; and God may be said to use means, that is, subordinate efficients, or instruments, to accomplish it. But as it signifieth Causam finalem, scil. cujus amores res fit, so far as it may, without all imperfection, be ascribed to him, he must be said continually to enjoy it: and yet to use means for it, but not as wanting it, but in the same instant using and enjoying; that is, he constantly communicateth himself to his creature, and constantly loveth himself so communicated. He is the first, efficient and ultimate end, without any interposing instant of time, were eternity divisible; but in order of nature, he is the efficient before he is the end enjoyed, but not before the end intended. He still sendeth forth the beams of his own glory, and still taketh pleasure in them so sent forth. His works may be increased, and attain perfection, (called finem operis by some,) but his complacency is not increased or perfected in his works, but is always perfect as if the sun took constant pleasure in its own emitted light and heat, though the effects of both on things below were most various. God is still pleased in that which still is, in all his own works, though his works may grow up to more perfection.

Or, if any think fit to say, that God doth quærere finem, and that he may enjoy more of it at one time than another, yet must he confess, that nothing below the complacency of his own will, in his own emitted beams of glory, shining in his works, is this his ultimate end.

2. That which is the beginning, must be the end: but God is the beginning of all his works, therefore he is the end of all. He himself hath no beginning or efficient, and consequently no final cause of himself, but his works have himself for the efficient and for their end: that is, he that made them, intended in the making of them, that they should be illustrious with his communicated beams of glory, and thereby amiable to his will, and should all serve to his complacency.

If the end were lower than the beginning, there would be no proportion, and the agent would sink down below himself.

3. If any thing besides God were his ultimate end, it must thereby be in part deified, or his actions debased by the lowness of the end: but these are impossibilities. The actions are no more noble than their end, and the end is more noble than the means as such.

4. The ultimate end is the most amiable and delectable. The creature is not to God the most amiable and delectable : therefore, the creature is not his ultimate end. The first argument was from the act; this from the object.

5. The ultimate end is that in which the agent doth finally acquiesce: God doth not finally acquiesce in any creature. Therefore, no creature is his ultimate end.

6. That which is God's ultimate end, is loved simply for itself, and not as a means to any higher end. The creature is not loved by him simply for itself, but as a means to a higher end, viz., his complacency in his glory shining in it; ergo, it is not his ultimate end. The ultimate end hath no end; but the creatures have an end, viz., the complacency of God in his glory shining in the creature."

Object. But you confound the final object and the final act. God's complacency of love is his final act, but our inquiry is of the final object.

Answ. The finis cui, or personal end, is most properly the ultimate, to him for whose sake, or for whom the thing is done: but this is God only, and therein he is both the act and object. He that did velle creaturas, did velle eas ad complacentiam propriæ voluntatis. The question is not of the actus complacentiæ, but of the actus creandi vel volendi creaturarum existentiam: which he doth propter voluntatis impletionem, et inde complacentiam, which is the final act, and the final object of the creating act; but for the actus complacentia, it is not actus intentionis, but fruitionis, and therefore hath no end above itself. And the final object of that complacency, is not the creature itself, but the impletion of the divine will in the creature; yea, the image of his omnipotency, wisdom, and goodness shining in the creation, is not loved propter se, ultimately, but for the sake of that divine essence and perfection

That the finis cui is properly the ultimate end, and the finis cujus is subordinate to it, Cicero showeth in Piso's Speech,' (1. 5. de Finib. p. 188.) In nobis ipsis ne intelligi quidem, ut propter aliam quampiam rem, verbi gratiâ, propter voluptatem, nos amemus. Propter nos enim illam, non propter eam nosmetipsos diligimus. Quid est quod magis perspicuum est, non modo carum sibi quemque, verum etiam vehementer carum.