11. Now concerning men’s affections to Godward, they are not the same always that are described in the chapter concerning passions. There, for to love, is to be delighted with the image or conception of the thing loved; but God is unconceivable: to love God therefore, in the Scripture, is to obey his commandments, and to love one another. Also to trust God, is different from our trusting one another: for, when a man trusteth a man, (chap. IX. [sect. 9]) he layeth aside his own endeavours: but if we do so in our trust to God Almighty, we disobey him; and how shall we trust to him whom we know we disobey? To trust to God Almighty therefore, is to refer to his good pleasure all that is above our own power to effect: and this is all one with acknowledging one only God, which is the first commandment. And to trust in Christ, is no more but to acknowledge him for God; which is the fundamental article of our Christian faith: and consequently, to trust, rely, or, as some express it, to cast and roll ourselves on Christ, is the same thing with the fundamental point of faith, namely, that Jesus Christ is the son of the living God.
12. To honour God internally in the heart, is the same thing with that we ordinarily call honour amongst men: for it is nothing but the acknowledging of his power; and the signs thereof, the same with the signs of the honour due to our superiors, mentioned chapter VIII. [section 6], viz. to praise, to magnify, to bless, to pray to him, to thank him, to give oblations and sacrifices to him, to give attention to his word, to speak to him in prayer with consideration, to come into his presence with humble gesture, and in decent manner, and to adorn his worship with magnificence and cost: and these are natural signs of our honouring him internally: and therefore the contrary hereof, to neglect prayer, to speak to him extempore, to come to church slovenly, to adorn the place of his worship worse than our own houses, to take up his name in every idle discourse, are the manifest signs of contempt of the Divine Majesty. There be other signs which are arbitrary; as, to be uncovered, as we be here, to put off their shoes, as Moses at the fiery bush, and some other of that kind, which in their own nature are indifferent, till, to avoid indecency and discord, it be otherwise determined by common consent.
CHAPTER XII.
1. It hath been declared already, how external objects cause conceptions, and conceptions, appetite and fear, which are the first unperceived beginnings of our actions: for either the actions immediately follow the first appetite, as when we do anything upon a sudden; or else to our first appetite there succeedeth some conception of evil to happen to us by such actions, which is fear, and which holdeth us from proceeding. And to that fear may succeed a new appetite, and to that appetite another fear alternately, till the action be either done, or some accident come between, to make it impossible; and so this alternate appetite and fear ceaseth. This alternate succession of appetite and fear during all the time the action is in our power to do or not to do, is that we call deliberation; which name hath been given it for that part of the definition wherein it is said that it lasteth so long as the action, whereof we deliberate, is in our power: for, so long we have liberty to do or not to do; and deliberation signifieth a taking away of our own liberty.
2. Deliberation therefore requireth in the action deliberated two conditions; one, that it be future; the other, that there be hope of doing it, or possibility of not doing it; for, appetite and fear are expectations of the future; and there is no expectation of good, without hope; or of evil, without possibility: of necessaries therefore there is no deliberation. In deliberation, the last appetite, as also the last fear, is called will, viz. the last appetite, will to do, or will to omit. It is all one therefore to say will and last will: for, though a man express his present inclination and appetite concerning the disposing of his goods, by words or writings; yet shall it not be counted his will, because he hath still liberty to dispose of them otherways: but when death taketh away that liberty, then it is his will.
3. Voluntary actions and omissions are such as have beginning in the will; all other are involuntary, or mixed voluntary; involuntary, such as he doth by necessity of nature, as when he is pushed, or falleth, and thereby doth good or hurt to another: mixed, such as participate of both; as when a man is carried to prison, going is voluntary, to the prison, is involuntary: the example of him that throweth his goods out of a ship into the sea, to save his person, is of an action altogether voluntary: for, there is nothing therein involuntary, but the hardness of the choice, which is not his action, but the action of the winds: what he himself doth, is no more against his will, than to flee from danger is against the will of him that seeth no other means to preserve himself.
4. Voluntary also are the actions that proceed from sudden anger, or other sudden appetite in such men as can discern good or evil: for, in them the time precedent is to be judged deliberation: for then also he deliberateth in what cases it is good to strike, deride, or do any other action proceeding from anger or other such sudden passion.
5. Appetite, fear, hope, and the rest of the passions are not called voluntary; for they proceed not from, but are the will; and the will is not voluntary: for, a man can no more say he will will, than he will will will, and so make an infinite repetition of the word [will]; which is absurd, and insignificant.
6. Forasmuch as will to do is appetite, and will to omit, fear; the cause of appetite and fear is the cause also of our will: but the propounding of the benefits and of harms, that is to say, of reward and punishment, is the cause of our appetite, and of our fears, and therefore also of our wills, so far forth as we believe that such rewards and benefits as are propounded, shall arrive unto us; and consequently, our wills follow our opinions, as our actions follow our wills; in which sense they say truly, and properly, that say the world is governed by opinion.