The fourth is quibus auxiliis: If men seek health by lawful means, the action is good; if by the devil, or his instruments, it is evil.
The fifth is cur: If I rebuke my brother for his fault, out of my love to him, and desire to reclaim him, the action is good; if out of hatred and spleen, the action is evil.
The sixth is quomodo: For he who doth the work of the Lord carefully doth well; but he who doth it negligently doth evil.
The seventh is quando: To do servile work upon the six days of labour, is good; but to do it upon the Lord's Sabbath, is evil.
2. There is another consideration which followeth upon the former; and it is this: The goodness or badness of a human action may be considered two ways, viz., either in actu signato, and quo ad speciem; or in actu exercito, and quo ad individuum; for an action is said to be specificated by its object, and individuated by its circumstances; so that, when an action is good or evil in respect of the object of it, then it is called good or evil quo ad speciem: when it is good or evil in respect of the circumstances of it, then it is said to be good or evil quo ad individuum.
3. Human actions, whether considered quo ad speciem, or quo ad individuum, are either such as proceed from the deliberation of reason, or from bare imagination only. To this latter kind we refer such actions as are done through incogitancy, while the mind is taken up with other thoughts; for example, to scratch the head, to handle the beard, to move the foot, &c.; which sort of things proceed only from a certain stirring or fleeting of the imagination.
4. Let it be remembered, that those things we call morally good, which agree to right reason; those morally evil which disagree from right reason; and those indifferent [pg 1-387] which include nothing belonging to the order of reason, and so are neither consonant unto nor dissonant from the same.
5. When we speak of the indifferency of an individual action, it may be conceived two ways: either absolute et sine respectu ad aliud; or comparate et cum respectu ad aliud. In the free-will offerings, if so be a man offered according as God had blessed and prospered his estate, it was indifferent to offer either a bullock, or a sheep, or a goat; but if he chose to offer any of them, his action of offering could not be indifferent, but either good or evil. When we speak of the indifferency of an action comparate, the sense is only this, that it is neither better nor worse than another action, and that there is no reason to make us choose to do it more than another thing; but when we speak of the indifferency of an action considered absolutely and by itself, the simple meaning is, whether it be either good or evil, and whether the doing of the same must needs be either sin or evil doing.
6. Every thing which is indifferent in the nature of it, is not by and by indifferent in the use of it. But the use of a thing indifferent ought evermore to be either chosen or refused, followed or forsaken, according to these three rules delivered to us in God's word: 1. The rule of piety; 2. The rule of charity; 3. The rule of purity.
The first of these rules we find, 1 Cor. x. 31, “Whether, therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God;” and Rom. xiv. 7, 8, “For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord, and whether we die, we die unto the Lord:” where the Apostle, as Calvin noteth,[1190] reasoneth from the whole to the part. Our whole life, and, by consequence, all the particular actions of it, ought to be referred to God's glory, and ordered according to his will. Again, Col. iii. 17, “And whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” In the expounding of which words Dr Davenant saith well, that Etiam ille actiones quæ sunt sua natura adiaphoræ, debent tamen à Christianis fieri in nomine Christi, hoc est, juxta voluntatem Christi, et ad gloriam Christi.