Now if men had not naturally this desire to be happy, how were it possible that all men should have it? All men have. Therefore this desire in man is natural. It is not in our power not to do the same; how should it then be in our power to do it coldly or remissly? So that our desire being natural is also in that degree of earnestness whereunto nothing can be added. And is it probable that God should frame the hearts of all men so desirous of that which no man may obtain? It is an axiom of nature that natural desire cannot utterly be frustrate⁸. This desire of ours being natural should be frustrate, if that which may satisfy the same were a thing impossible for man to aspire unto. Man doth seek a triple perfection⁹: first a sensual, consisting in those things which very life itself requireth either as necessary supplements, or as beauties and ornaments thereof; then an intellectual, consisting in those things which none underneath man is either capable of or acquainted with; lastly a spiritual and divine, consisting in those things whereunto we tend by supernatural means here, but cannot here attain unto them. They that make the first of these three the scope of their whole life, are said by the Apostle¹⁰ to have no god but only their belly, to be earthly-minded men. Unto the second they bend themselves, who seek especially to excel in all such knowledge and virtue as doth most commend men. To this branch belongeth the law of moral and civil perfection. That there is somewhat higher than either of these two, no other proof doth need than the very process of man’s desire, which being natural should be frustrate, if there were not some farther thing wherein it might rest at the length contented, which in the former it cannot do. For man doth not seem to rest satisfied, either with fruition of that wherewith his life is preserved, or with performance of such actions as advance him most deservedly in estimation; but doth further covet, yea oftentimes manifestly pursue with great sedulity and earnestness, that which cannot stand him in any stead for vital use; that which exceedeth the reach of sense; yea somewhat above capacity of reason, somewhat divine and heavenly, which with hidden exultation it rather surmiseth than conceiveth; somewhat it seeketh, and what that is directly it knoweth not, yet very intentive desire thereof doth so incite it, that all other known delights and pleasures are laid aside, they give place to the search of this but only suspected desire. If the soul of man did serve only to give him being in this life, then things appertaining unto this life would content him, as we see they do other creatures; which creatures enjoying what they live by seek no further, but in this contentation do shew a kind of acknowledgment that there is no higher good which doth any way belong unto them. With us it is otherwise. For although the beauties, riches, honours, sciences, virtues, and perfections of all men living, were in the present possession of one; yet somewhat beyond and above all this there would still be sought and earnestly thirsted for. So that Nature even in this life doth plainly claim and call for a more divine perfection than either of these two that have been mentioned.

This last and highest estate of perfection whereof we speak is received of men in the nature of a Reward¹¹. Rewards do always presuppose such duties performed as are rewardable. Our natural means therefore unto blessedness are our works; nor is it possible that Nature should ever find any other way to salvation than only this. But examine the works which we do, and since the first foundation of the world what one can say, My ways are pure? Seeing then all flesh is guilty of that for which God hath threatened eternally to punish, what possibility is there this way to be saved? There resteth therefore either no way unto salvation, or if any, then surely a way which is supernatural, a way which could never have entered into the heart of man as much as once to conceive or imagine, if God himself had not revealed it extraordinarily. For which cause we term it the Mystery or secret way of salvation. And therefore St. Ambrose in this matter appealeth justly from man to God¹², “Cœli mysterium doceat me Deus qui condidit, non homo qui seipsum ignoravit:—Let God himself that made me, let not man that knows not himself, be my instructor concerning the mystical way to heaven.” “When men of excellent wit,” saith Lactantius, “had wholly betaken themselves unto study, after farewell bidden unto all kind as well of private as public action, they spared no labour that might be spent in the search of truth; holding it a thing of much more price to seek and to find out the reason of all affairs as well divine as human, than to stick fast in the toil of piling up riches and gathering together heaps of honours. Howbeit, they both did fail of their purpose, and got not as much as to quite¹³ their charges; because truth which is the secret of the Most High God, whose proper handy-work all things are, cannot be compassed with that wit and those senses which are our own. For God and man should be very near neighbours, if man’s cogitations were able to take a survey of the counsels and appointments of that Majesty everlasting. Which being utterly impossible, that the eye of man by itself should look into the bosom of divine Reason; God did not suffer him being desirous of the light of wisdom to stray any longer up and down, and with bootless expense of travail to wander in darkness that had no passage to get out by. His eyes at the length God did open, and bestow upon him the knowledge of the truth by way of Donative, to the end that man might both be clearly convicted of folly, and being through error out of the way, have the path that leadeth unto immortality laid plain before him¹⁴.” Thus far Lactantius Firmianus, to shew that God himself is the teacher of the truth, whereby is made known the supernatural way of salvation and law for them to live in that shall be saved. In the natural path of everlasting life the first beginning is that ability of doing good, which God in the day of man’s creation endued him with; from hence obedience unto the will of his Creator, absolute righteousness and integrity in all his actions; and last of all the justice of God rewarding the worthiness of his deserts with the crown of eternal glory. Had Adam continued in his first estate, this had been the way of life unto him and all his posterity. Wherein I confess notwithstanding with the wittiest of the school-divines¹⁵, “That if we speak of strict justice, God could no way have been bound to requite man’s labours in so large and ample a manner as human felicity doth import; inasmuch as the dignity of this exceedeth so far the other’s value. But be it that God of his great liberality had determined in lieu of man’s endeavours to bestow the same by the rule of that justice which best beseemeth him, namely, the justice of one that requiteth nothing mincingly, but all with pressed and heaped and even over-enlarged measure; yet could it never hereupon necessarily be gathered, that such justice should add to the nature of that reward the property of everlasting continuance; sith possession of bliss, though it should be but for a moment, were an abundant retribution.” But we are not now to enter into this consideration, how gracious and bountiful our good God might still appear in so rewarding the sons of men, albeit they should exactly perform whatsoever duty their nature bindeth them unto. Howsoever God did propose this reward, we that were to be rewarded must have done that which is required at our hands; we failing in the one, it were in nature an impossibility that the other should be looked for. The light of nature is never able to find out any way of obtaining the reward of bliss, but by performing exactly the duties and works of righteousness.

From salvation therefore and life all flesh being excluded this way, behold how the wisdom of God hath revealed a way mystical and supernatural, a way directing unto the same end of life by a course which groundeth itself upon the guiltiness of sin, and through sin desert of condemnation and death. For in this way the first thing is the tender compassion of God respecting us drowned and swallowed up in misery; the next is redemption out of the same by the precious death and merit of a mighty Saviour, which hath witnessed of himself, saying¹⁶, “I am the way,” the way that leadeth us from misery into bliss. This supernatural way had God in himself prepared before all worlds. The way of supernatural duty which to us he hath prescribed, our Saviour in the Gospel of St. John doth note, terming it by an excellency, The Work of God¹⁷, “This is the work of God, that ye believe in him whom he hath sent.” Not that God doth require nothing unto happiness at the hands of men saving only a naked belief (for hope and charity we may not exclude¹⁸); but that without belief all other things are as nothing, and it the ground of those other divine virtues.

Concerning Faith, the principal object whereof is that eternal Verity which hath discovered the treasures of hidden wisdom in Christ; concerning Hope, the highest object whereof is that everlasting Goodness which in Christ doth quicken the dead; concerning Charity, the final object whereof is that incomprehensible Beauty which shineth in the countenance of Christ the Son of the living God: concerning these virtues, the first of which beginning here with a weak apprehension of things not seen, endeth with the intuitive vision of God in the world to come; the second beginning here with a trembling expectation of things far removed and as yet but only heard of, endeth with real and actual fruition of that which no tongue can express; the third beginning here with a weak inclination of heart towards him unto whom we are not able to approach, endeth with endless union, the mystery whereof is higher than the reach of the thoughts of men; concerning that Faith, Hope, and Charity, without which there can be no salvation, was there ever any mention made saving only in that law which God himself hath from heaven revealed? There is not in the world a syllable muttered with certain truth concerning any of these three, more than hath been supernaturally received from the mouth of the eternal God.

Laws therefore concerning these things are supernatural, both in respect of the manner of delivering them, which is divine; and also in regard of the things delivered, which are such as have not in nature any cause from which they flow, but were by the voluntary appointment of God ordained besides the course of nature, to rectify nature’s obliquity withal.

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Footnotes

1. “He that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” Gal. vi. 8. ↩

2. Vide Arist. Ethic. lib. x. c. 10. [c. 7.] et Metaph. l. xii. c. 6. [“Est aliquid, quod non motum movet; quod æternum, et substantia, et actus est.”] et c. 4, [‘Præter hæc item [est] cuncta movens, tanquam omnium primum.”] et c. 30. ↩

3. Μόνον, ὡ̑ Ἀσκλήπιε, τὸ ὄνομα του̑ ἀγαθου̑ ἐν ἀνθρώποις, τὸ δὲ ἔργον οὐδαμου̑… . Τὸ μὴ λίαν κακὸν, ἐνθάδε τὸ ἀγαθόν ἐστι. Τὸ δὲ ἐνθάδε ἀγαθὸν, μόριον του̑ κακου̑ τὸ ἐλάχιστον. Ἀδύνατον οὐ̑ν τὸ ἀγαθὸν ἐνθάδε καθαρεύειν τη̑ς κακίας… . Κᾀγὼ δὲ χάριν ἔχω τῳ̑ Θεῳ̑ τῳ̑ εἰς νου̑ν μοι βαλόντι περὶ τη̑ς γνώσεως του̑ ἀγαθου̑, ὅτι ἀδύνατόν ἐστιν αὐτὸ ἐν τῳ̑ κόσμῳ εἰ̑ναι ὁ γὰρ κόσμος πλήρωμά ἐστι τη̑ς κακίας, ὁ δὲ Θεὸς του̑ ἀγαθου̑, ἢ τὸ ἀγαθὸν του̑ Θεου̑. Merc. Tris.[lib. vi. f. 14.] ↩

4. Aug. de Trin. lib. ix. c. ult. [Verbatim, “Appetitus, quo inhiatur rei cognoscendæ, fit amor cognitæ.” viii. 888.] ↩

5. “The just shall go into life everlasting.” Matt. xxv. [46.] “They shall be as the angels of God.” Matt. xxii. [30.] ↩

6. 2 Tim. iv. 8; 1 Pet. v. 4. ↩

7. Psalm viii. 4. ↩

8. [Thom. Aq.] Comment. in Proœm. ii. Metaph. [“Si comprehensio esset impossibilis, tunc desiderium esset otiosum: et concessum est ab omnibus, quod nulla res est otiosa in fundamento naturæ et creaturæ.” t. viii. p. 14, ed. Venet. 1552.] ↩

9. [Arist. Eth. Nic. I. v. 2.] ↩

10. Phil. iii. 19. ↩

11. “Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven.” Matt. v. 12. “Summa merces est ut ipso perfruamur.” Aug. de Doct. Christ. cap. 6. [I. 32. t. iii. 16.] ↩

12. Ambros. contra Sym. [Ep. 18, § 7. t. ii. 835.] ↩

13. [So A. and B.: ‘quit,’ 1617, sqq.—Cf. variation in Shakesp. Rich. II. 5. 1. 43. Qq. Rom. and Jul. 2. 4. 204, Fol. Pericl. 3. 2. 18, Qq. ‘quite,’ where edd. read ‘quit.’] 1886. ↩

14. “Magno et excellenti ingenio viri, cum se doctrinæ penitus dedidissent, quicquid laboris poterat impendi (contemptis omnibus et privatis et publicis actionibus) ad inquirendæ veritatis studium contulerunt, existimantes multo esse præclarius humanarum divinarumque rerum investigare ac scire rationem, quam struendis opibus aut cumulandis honoribus inhærere. Sed neque adepti sunt id quod volebant, et operam simul atque industriam perdiderunt: quia veritas, id est arcanum summi Dei qui fecit omnia, ingenio ac propriis sensibus non potest comprehendi. Alioqui nihil inter Deum hominemque distaret, si consilia et dispositiones illius majestatis æternæ cogitatio assequeretur humana. Quod quia fieri non potuit ut homini per seipsum ratio divina notesceret, non est passus hominem Deus lumen sapientiæ requirentem diutius aberrare, ac sine ullo laboris effectu vagari per tenebras inextricabiles. Aperuit oculos ejus aliquando, et notionem veritatis munus suum fecit, ut et humanam sapientiam nullam esse monstraret, et erranti ac vago viam consequendæ immortalitatis ostenderet.” Lactant. lib. i. cap. 1. ↩

15. Scot. lib. iv. Sent. dist. 49, 6. “Loquendo de stricta justitia, Deus nulli nostrum propter quæcunque merita est debitor perfectionis reddendæ tam intensæ, propter immoderatum excessum illius perfectionis ultra illa merita. Sed esto quod ex liberalitate sua determinasset meritis conferre actum tam perfectum tanquam præmium, tali quidem justitia qualis decet eum, scilicet supererogantis in præmiis: tamen non sequitur ex hoc necessario, quod per illam justitiam sit reddenda perfectio perennis tanquam præmium, imo abundans fieret retributio in beatitudine unius momenti.” [p. 168. Venet. 1598.] ↩

16. John xiv. 6. ↩

17. John vi. 29. ↩

18. [Chr. Letter, p. 13. “Tell us . . whether you thinke that not faith alone, but faith, hope, and love, be the formall cause of our righteousness.”Hooker, MS. note. “Is faith then the formall cause of justification? And faith alone a cause in this kind? Who hath taught you this doctrine? Have you been tampering so long with Pastors, Doctors, Elders, Deacons; that the first principles of your religion are now to learn?”] ↩