More reasons for the Christian religion and no reason against it, or, A second…

Fourteenthly, There is some Moral Historical Evidence of the truth of things past, which is as certain, ⟨p. 151⟩and much more satisfactory than the Natural Evidence of Conclusions, raised by a long series of argumentation: Yea, some which is truly a Natural Evidence though it depend on the credit of free Agents. The proof and reasons I have given in the Treat. First, The Will though free is Quaedam Natura, and hath its Natural propensity to known good, as the understanding also is, and hath its Natural propensity to Truth. And the understanding is not free, of it self, but acteth per modum Naturae. Secondly, There are some of the acts of the Will it self, which are so free as yet to be necessary. As to will Good sub ratione boni; to will our own Felicity, and nill our own misery; to will Life and Pleasure, with a simple complacency, though not always by election: To will all that is fully discerned to have omnimodam rationem boni, and nill all that is discerned to have omnimodam rationem mali: Now it oft falls out that Historical Narratives shall proceed from some of these necessary ⟨p. 152⟩acts. Salvation, Life and Goodness and the necessary means of all, may be the Motives. Thirdly, There are other acts of the will which though they are not absolutely necessary, are yet so near to necessary, that they always go one way, except in some very rare extraordinary case. As for example, It is not of absolute necessity that a man feed or clothe himself, or that he murder not himself: But yet he will ordinarily do the first and forbear the latter, because he is necessarily a lover of himself, and life, and therefore will not cast himself away, nor destroy himself, without some conceived cause. Fourthly, There are no causes extant in rerum Natura for the commonness of some such actions: Therefore it is certain they will not be done, because there can be no effect without its cause; And the turning of the will to a mans known corporeal destruction is an effect which hath no common cause. Therefore it is a point of more Natural Evidence and Certainty, than many ⟨p. 153⟩Conclusions from Natural premises are, that all the people of Europe or England will not to morrow kill themselves, nor go naked, nor famish or wound themselves, &c. And consequently that formerly all never did so, since it was notoriously so much their interest to do otherwise.