The Soul's Conflict with Itself

There ought to be in man a conformity to the truth and goodness of things, or else 1. we shall wrong o• own souls with false apprehensions, ¹and 2. the creature, by putting a fashion upon it otherwise then God hath ²made, and 3. we shall wrong God himself the Author of goodness, who cannot ³have his true glory but from a right apprehension of things as they art; ⟨p. 205⟩what a wrong is it to men when we shall take up false prejudices against them without ground? and so suffer our conceits to be envenomed against them by unjust suspicions, and by this means deprive our selves of all that good which we might receive by them; for our nature is apt to judge, and accept of things as the persons are, and not of persons according to the things themselves: this faculty exercises a tyranny in the soul, setting up and pulling down whom it will. Job judged his friends altogether vain, because they ⁴went upon a vain imagination and discourse judging him to be an hypocrite, which could not but add much to his affliction: when men take a toy in their head against a person or place, they are ready to reason as he did, Can any good ⁵come out of Nazareth?

There ought to be in man a conformity to the truth and goodnesse of things, or else 1. wee shall wrong o• owne soules with false apprehensions, ¹and 2. the creature, by putting a fashion upon it otherwise then God hath ²made, and 3. we shall wrong God himselfe the Author of goodnesse, who cannot ³