A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soul of man With the…A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soule of man With the…

The next Passions in order of Nature to these two are Desire and Abomination, which because they differ not much otherwise from Love and hatred, than the Act from the Habit, or then a man sitting from himself walking, Desire being but the motion, and exercise, as delight is the Quiet and Repose of our Love, I shall therefore the more briefly pass it over. Desire is the wing of the soul whereby it moveth, and is carried to the thing which it loveth, as the Eagle to the Car•ise ¹in the Scripture proves, to feed it self upon it, and to be satisfied with it. For as the Appetite of the Eagle is attended with sharpness of fight to discover its prey, with swiftness of wing to hasten unto it, and with strength to seize upon ⟨p. 162⟩it: So according to the proportion of the Soule• love unto its object doth it command and call together both the Wisdom and Powers of the whole man to direct unto, and to promote the procuring of it. And the very best characters and truest lineaments which can be drawn of the minds of men, are to be taken from their Desires, ²rather than from their Practises. As Physician often judge of the Diseases of sick men by their Appetites. Ill men dare not do so much evil as they desire, for fear of shame or punishment▪ Good men cannot do so much good as they desire fo• want of Power and Provisions of virtue. Besides Practises may be over-ruled by ends, but Desires are always genuine and natural, for no man can be constrained to will that which •ee doth not love; And therefore in the Scripture good men have had most confidence in approving themselves unto God by their affections and the inward longings of their souls after him as being the purest and most unfeigned issues of Love▪ and such as have least Proximity and Danger of infection from foreign and secular ends. Sai• ³