The reasons of the Christian religion the first part, of godliness, proving by natural…

By Goodness I mean all essential Excellency, which is known to us by its fruits and appearances in the Creature: which as it hath a Goodness natural and moral, so is it the Index of that transcendent Goodness, which is the first cause of both: This goodness is incomparably beyond that which consisteth in a usefulness to the creatures good; or Goodness of Benignity as relative to Man. And it is known better by the mere name, as expressing that which Nature hath an intrinsic sense and notion of, than by definitions. As sensible qualities, light, colour, sound, odour, sweet, bitter, &c. are known by the name, best, which lead to the sensitive memory, ⟨p. 24⟩which informeth the Intellect what they are: As the mention of things sensible entereth the definition of sense, and the mention of sense doth enter the definition of things sensible; and yet the object is in order of nature before the act. And as Truth must enter the definition of Intellection, and Intellection the definition of Truth; and yet Truth is in order before Intellection, and contemporary with the Intellect: so is it between Goodness and the Will. But if we speak of uncreated Good, and of a created Will, then Good is infinitely antecedent to that Will. But the Will which is created hath a nature suited to it; and so the notion of Excellency and Goodness is naturally in our estimative faculty, and the relish of it, or complacency in it, is naturally in the Will, so far as it is not corrupted and depraved. As if I knew a man that had the wisdom and virtue of an Angel, my estimation calleth him Excellent and Good, and my Will doth complacentially cleave to him, though I should never look to be the better for him my self: or if I only heard of him, and never saw him, or were personally beholden to him.

By Goodness I mean all essential Excellency, which is known to us by its fruits and appearances in the Creature: which as it hath a Goodness natural and moral, so is it the Index of that transcendent Goodness, which is the first cause of both: This goodness is incomparably beyond that which consisteth in a usefulness to the creatures good; or Goodness of Benignity as relative to Man. And it is known better by the meer name, as expressing that which Nature hath an intrinsick sense and notion of, than by definitions. As sensible qualities, light, colour, sound, odour, sweet, bitter, &c. are known by the name, best, which lead to the sensitive memory, ⟨p. 24⟩