must of necessity be from one of those two commanding powers of the soul, the understanding, or the will. As for the will; though its liberty be such, that a suitable or proper good being proposed to it, it has a power to refuse, or not to choose it; yet it has no power to choose evil, considered absolutely as evil; this being directly against the nature and natural method of its workings.

Nevertheless it is but too manifest, that things evil, extremely evil, are both readily chosen, and eagerly pursued and practised by it. And therefore this must needs be from that other governing faculty of the soul, the understanding, which represents to the will things really evil, under the notion and character of good. And this, this is the true source and original of this great mischief. The will chooses, follows, and embraces things evil and destructive; but it is because the understanding first tells it that they are good and wholesome, and fit to be chosen by it. One man gives another a cup of poison, a thing as terrible as death; but at the same time he tells him that it is a cordial; and so he drinks it off, and dies.

From the beginning of the world to this day, there was never any great villainy acted by men, but it was in the strength of some great fallacy put upon their minds by a false representation of evil for good, or good for evil. In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die, says God to Adam; and so long as Adam believed this, he did not eat. But, says the devil, in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt be so far from surely dying, that thou shalt be immortal, and from a man grow into an angel; and upon this different account of

the thing, he presently took the fruit, and ate mortality, misery, and destruction to himself and his whole posterity.

And now, can there be a wo or curse in all the stores and magazines of vengeance, equal to the malignity of such a practice; of which one single instance could involve all mankind, past, present, and to come, in one universal and irreparable confusion? God commanded and told man what was good, but the devil surnamed it evil, and thereby baffled the command, turned the world topsyturvy, and brought a new chaos upon the whole creation.

But that I may give you a more full discussion of the sense and design of the words, I shall do it under these following particulars: as,

First, I shall give you some general account of the nature of good and evil, and the reason upon which they are founded.

Secondly, I shall shew that the way by which good and evil commonly operate upon the mind of man, is by those respective names or appellations by which they are notified and conveyed to the mind. And,

Thirdly and lastly, I shall shew the mischief, directly, naturally, and unavoidably following from the misapplication and confusion of those names.

And, I hope, by going over all these particulars, you may receive some tolerable satisfaction about this great subject which we have now before us.

1. And first for the nature of good and evil, what they are, and upon what they are founded. The knowledge of this I look upon as the foundation and groundwork of all those rules, that either moral philosophy or divinity can give for the direction of

the lives and practices of men; and consequently ought to be reckoned as a first principle; and that such an one, that, for ought I see, the through speculation of good, will be found much more difficult than the practice. But when we shall have once given some account of the nature of good, that of evil will be known by consequence; as being only a privation, or absence of good, in a subject capable of it, and proper for it.

Now good, in the general nature and notion of it, over and above the bare being of a thing, connotes also a certain suitableness or agreeableness of it to some other thing: according to which general notion of good, applied to the particular nature of moral goodness, (upon which only we now insist,) a thing or action is said to be morally good or evil, as it is agreeable or disagreeable to right reason, or to a rational nature; and as right reason is nothing else but the understanding or mind of man, discoursing and judging of things truly, and as they are in themselves; and as all truth is unchangeably the same; (that proposition which is true at any time being so for ever;) so it must follow, that the moral goodness or evil of men's actions, which consist in their conformity or unconformity to right reason, must be also eternal, necessary, and unchangeable. So that, as that, which is right reason at any time, or in any case, is always right reason with relation to the same time and case; in like manner, that which is morally good or evil, at any time, or in any case, (since it takes its whole measure from right reason,) must be also eternally and unchangeably a moral good or evil, with relation to that time and to that case. For propositions concerning the good

ness, as well as concerning the truth of things, are necessary and perpetual.

But you will say, may not the same action, as for instance, the killing of a man, be sometimes morally good, and sometimes morally evil? to wit, good, when it is the execution of justice upon a malefactor; and evil, when it is the taking away the life of an innocent person?

To this I answer, that this indeed is true of actions considered in their general nature or kind, but not considered in their particular individual instances. For generally speaking, to take away the life of a man, is neither morally good nor morally evil, but capable of being either, as the circumstances of things shall determine it; but every particular act of killing is of necessity accompanied with, and determined by, several circumstances, which actually and unavoidably constitute and denominate it either good or evil. And that which, being performed under such and such circumstances, is morally good, cannot possibly, under the same circumstances, ever be morally evil. And so on the contrary.

From whence we infer the villainous falsehood of two assertions, held and maintained by some persons, and too much countenanced by some others in the world. As,

First, That good and evil, honest and dishonest, are not qualities existing or inherent in things themselves; but only founded in the opinions of men concerning things. So that any thing or action, that has gained the general approbation of any people, or society of men, ought, in respect of those persons, to be esteemed morally good, or honest; and whatsoever falls under their general disapprobation,

ought, upon the same account, to be reckoned morally evil, or dishonest; which also they would seem to prove from the very signification of the word honestus; which, originally and strictly, signifies no more than creditable, and is but a derivative from hónor, which signifies credit or honour; and according to the opinion of some, we know, that is lodged only in the esteem and thoughts of those who pay it, and not in the thing or person whom it is paid to. Thus for example; thieving or robbing was accounted amongst the Spartans a gallant, worthy, and a creditable thing; and consequently, according to the principle which we have mentioned, thievery, amongst the Spartans, was a practice morally good and honest. Thus also, both with the Grecians and the Romans, it was held a magnanimous and highly laudable act, for a man, under any great or insuperable misery or distress, to put an end to his own life; and accordingly, with those who had such thoughts of it, that which we call self-murder was properly a good, an honest, and a virtuous action. And persons of the highest and most acknowledged probity and virtue amongst them, such as Marcus Cato, and Pomponius Atticus, actually did it, and stand celebrated both by their orators and historians for so doing. And I could also instance in other actions of a fouler and more unnatural hue, which yet, from the approbation and credit they have found in some countries and places, have passed for good morality in those places: but, out of respect to common humanity, as well as divinity, I shall pass them over. And thus much for the first assertion or opinion.

Secondly, The second opinion, or position, is, that