we cannot resist, our concupiscence is originally bad, our heart evil,
the seat of our affections captivates and enforceth our will. So that
in voluntary things we are averse from God and goodness, bad by nature,
by [1020]ignorance worse, by art, discipline, custom, we get many bad
habits: suffering them to domineer and tyrannise over us; and the devil
is still ready at hand with his evil suggestions, to tempt our depraved
will to some ill-disposed action, to precipitate us to destruction,
except our will be swayed and counterpoised again with some divine
precepts, and good motions of the spirit, which many times restrain,
hinder and check us, when we are in the full career of our dissolute
courses. So David corrected himself, when he had Saul at a vantage.
Revenge and malice were as two violent oppugners on the one side; but
honesty, religion, fear of God, withheld him on the other.
The actions of the will are velle and nolle, to will and nill: which
two words comprehend all, and they are good or bad, accordingly as they
are directed, and some of them freely performed by himself; although
the stoics absolutely deny it, and will have all things inevitably done
by destiny, imposing a fatal necessity upon us, which we may not
resist; yet we say that our will is free in respect of us, and things
contingent, howsoever in respect of God's determinate counsel, they are
inevitable and necessary. Some other actions of the will are performed
by the inferior powers, which obey him, as the sensitive and moving
appetite; as to open our eyes, to go hither and thither, not to touch a
book, to speak fair or foul: but this appetite is many times rebellious
in us, and will not be contained within the lists of sobriety and
temperance. It was (as I said) once well agreeing with reason, and
there was an excellent consent and harmony between them, but that is
now dissolved, they often jar, reason is overborne by passion: Fertur
equis auriga, nec audit currus habenas, as so many wild horses run away
with a chariot, and will not be curbed. We know many times what is
good, but will not do it, as she said,
[1021]Trahit invitum nova vis, aliudque cupido,
Mens aliud suadet,———
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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