Chapter 14: Of the Quality and Quantity of Hatred, and How It Is to Be Regulated

I proceed now to the consideration of this passion in the quantity and quality of its acts: which must be observed according to the evil of the object: for if that be unchangeable, there is required a continual permanency of the passion in regard of the disposition of the mind: or if it be [reconstructed: Importunate] and assaulting, there is required a more frequent repetition of the act. The same likewise is to be said of the quality of it; for if the evil be of an intense and more invincible nature, our hatred must arm us the more: if more low and remiss, the passion may be the more negligent.

[reconstructed: Here] then is a fourfold direction of the quantities and qualities of our hatred, and it will hold proportion in the other passions. First the unalterableness of the evil, warrants the continuance of our hatred. Secondly, the importunity and insinuation of it warrants the reiteration of our hatred. Thirdly, and fourthly, the greatness and the remission of it requires a proportionable intention and moderation of hatred. We may instance for the three former in sin, so much the worst of evils, by how much it is a removal from the best of goods.

First then sin is in its own formal and abstracted nature, unchangeable, though not in respect of the subject, in whom it dwells; for a creature now bad, may by the mercy of God be repaired and restored again; but this is not by a changing, but by a forsaking of evil, by a removing of it, not by a new molding it into another frame. Sin then remains in its own nature unchangeable and always evil, and the reason is because it is a transgression of a perpetual law, and a removal from an unalterable will: sin then is to be hated with a continual and peremptory hatred. But in other things there is according to the nature of their evils required a conditional and more flexible dislike, they being evils that have, either some good annexed to them; or such as are of a mutable nature. And therefore we see that in most things the variety of circumstances does alter the good or evil of them, and so makes the passions thereabout conversant, alterable likewise. Otherwise men may naturally deprive themselves of those contents and advantages, which they might receive by reasonable use of such indifferent things as they formerly for inconveniences now removed, did dislike. And in morality likewise much damage might be inferred, both to private persons and to the public by nourishing such private enmities and being peremptory in continuing those former differences, which, though happily then entertained upon reasonable grounds, may yet afterwards prove so much the more harmful, by how much the more danger is to be feared from the distemper of a grown and strong, than of a vanishing and lighter passion.

Secondly, again as no evil altogether so unchangeable as sin, so is there nothing so much to be opposed with a multiplicity and reiteration of our hatred in regard of its importunity and insinuation, that as there is an impudence in the assault, so there may be a proportionable resolution in the withstanding of it: some evils there may be, which require only a present and not a customary exercise of this passion. Present I say when the object is offensive and not customary; because as the object, so the passion likewise may be unusual. Sin only is of all other evils the most urging and active, furnished with an infinite number of [reconstructed: stratagems] and plausible impostures to insinuate into natures (though best armed against such assaults; and therefore here only are necessary such reiterated acts, as may keep us ever on our guard, that we be not unprepared for a surprise.

Thirdly, then for the quantity of an evil, because that is not in anything so intense as in sin — whether we consider it in its own nature, as a rebellion against the highest good, or in its effects; either in regard of the diffusion of it, it being an overspreading pollution, or of the vastness of it, both in guilt and punishment — in these respects our hatred of it cannot be too deep or rooted: whereas other evils are not so intense in their nature, nor so diffusive in their extension, nor so destructive in their consequences; and therefore do not require an unlimited passion, but one governed according to the exigence of circumstances.

And here I shall take notice of one or two particulars touching the manner of corruption in this particular. As first when a man shall apply his hatred of [reconstructed: Prosecution], or ill willing against that evil, which is the proper object only of aversion: for some things there are only of conditional evils, which hurt not by their own absolute being, but by their particular use or presence, which being offensive only in their application requires a particular forbearance, not any further violence to their natures.

Secondly, a corruption in regard of intensity is either when the passion admits not of any admixture of love, when yet the object admits of an admixture of good; or when the hatred is absolute against only relative evils. There is not any man between whose natural faculties and some particular courses or objects, there is not some manner of antipathy and disproportion (it being the providence of divine dispensation so variously to frame and order men's fancies, as that no man shall have an independence or self-sufficiency, [reconstructed: nor] say to the other members I have no need of you; but there should be such a mutual ministry and assistance among men, as whereby might be ever upheld those essential virtues of human society, unity and charity, no man being able to live without the aid of others; nor to upbraid others with his own service. Now in this case, if any man, who either out of the narrowness and incapacity, or out of the reluctance and antipathy of his own mind, is indisposed for some courses of life or study, shall presently fall to a professed vilifying of them, or to an undervaluing of persons, who with a more particular affection delight in them, or to a desire of the not being of them, as things utterly useless, because he sees not what use himself can have of them, he does herein discover as much absurdity in so peremptory a dislike as a blind man should do in wishing the Sun put out, not considering that he himself receives benefit at the second hand from that very light, the beauty of which he has no immediate acquaintance with.

For as too excessively to dote on the fancy of any particular thing may prove harmful, as appears in the poetical fable of Midas, whose insatiable desire to have every thing that he touched turned to gold, starved him with hunger; and so what he out of too excessive love made his idol, became his ruin; (as many men need none other enemy to undo them than their own desires.) So on the other side, the extreme hatred of anything may be equally inconvenient; as we see intimated in that other fable of the servants, who when they had, out of an extreme malice against the poor cock, at whose early crow, their covetous master every day roused them to their labor, killed him, and so (as they thought) gotten a good advantage to their laziness, were every day by the vigilancy of their master, whose covetousness now began to crow earlier than his cock, called from their sleep sooner than they were before; till at length they began to wish for that, which the rashness and indiscretion of their hatred had made away. And therefore when we go about anything out of the dictates of passion, it is a great point of wisdom, first to consider whether we ourselves may not afterwards be the first men, who shall wish it undone again.