The like I may say of them that are said to place their delight in Moral Virtues. Indeed nothing is properly a Moral Good (or virtue) but that which is exercised upon God as our End, or upon the Creature as a Means to this End. To study and know mere notions of God, or what is to be held and said of him in discourse, is not to study or to know God, no more than to love the language and phrase of holy writing, is to Love God. To study God as one that is less regardable and desirable than our sensual delights, is but to blaspheme him. To study seek and serve him as one that can promote or hinder our sensual felicity, is but to abuse him as a means to your sensuality. And for the virtues of Temperance, Justice or Charity, they are but Analogically and secundum quid to be found in any ungodly person. Materially they may have them in an eminent degree; but not as they are informed by the End which moralizeth them. Jezebel's fast was not formally a virtue, but an odious way of Hypocrisy to oppress the innocent: He that doth works of Justice or Mercy, to Evil ends only (as for applause, or to deceive, &c.) and not from the true principles of Justice and Mercy, doth not thereby exercise Moral Virtue, but hypocrisy, and other vice. He that doth works of Justice and Mercy, out of mere natural compassion to others, and desire of their good, without respect to God, as obliging, or rewarding, or desiring it, doth perform such a natural good work, as a Lamb or a gentle Beast doth to his fellows, which hath not the true form of Moral Virtue, but the Matter only. He that in such works hath some little by respect to God, but more to his carnal interest among men, doth that which on the by, participateth of Moral Good, or is such secundum quid, but not simpliciter, being to be denominated from the part predominant. He that doth works of Justice or Charity principally to please God, and in true obedience to his Will, and a desire to be conformed thereto, doth that which is formally a Moral Good, and Holy, though there may be abhorred mixtures of worse respects.
The like I may say of them that are said to place their delight in Moral Vertues. Indeed nothing is properly a Moral Good (or vertue) but that which is exercised upon God as our End, or upon the Creature as a Means to this End. To study and know meer notions of God, or what is to be held and said of him in discourse, is not to study or to know God, no more than to love the language and phrase of holy writing, is to Love God. To study God as one that is less regardable and desirable than our sensual delights, is but to blaspheme him. To study seek and serve him as one that can promote or hinder our sensual felicity, is but to abuse him as a means to your sensuality. And for the vertues of Temperance, Justice or Charity, they are but Analogically and secundum quid to be found in any ungodly person. Materially they may have them in an eminent degree; but not as they are informed by the End which moralizeth them. Jezabel's fast was not formally a vertue, but an odious way of Hypocrisie to oppress the innocent: He that doth works of Justice or Mercy, to Evil ends only (as for applause, or to deceive, &c.) and not from the true principles of Justice and Mercy, doth not thereby exercise Moral Vertue, but hypocrisie, and other vice. He that doth works of Justice and Mercy, out of meer natural compassion to others, and desire of their good, without respect to God, as obliging, or rewarding, or desiring it, doth perform such a natural good work, as a Lamb or a gentle Beast doth to his fellows, which hath not the true form of Moral Vertue, but the Matter only. He that in such works hath some little byrespect to God, but more to his carnal interest among men, doth that which on the by, participateth of Moral Good, or is such secundum quid, but not simpliciter, being to be denominated from the part predominant. He that doth works of Justice or Charity principally to please God, and in true obedience to his Will, and a desire to be conformed thereto, doth that which is formally a Moral Good, and Holy, though there may be abhorred mixtures of worse respects.
