Chapter 18: Rules Touching Our Desires — Earthly vs. Heavenly Objects
To the things already delivered touching this affection, I shall here add two or three rules pertaining to the moral use, and managing of it. And they are, first, concerning objects of an inferior and transitory nature, that our desires be neither hasty and precipitate, nor vast, and unlimited. And in matters more high and noble, that they be not either wavering and interrupted desires, or lazy and negligent desires.
1 For the first of these, we have a rule in Solomon, concerning riches, which will hold in all other objects of an immoderate desire: He that makes haste to be rich, shall not be without sin; I may add, Not without cares neither: for we know the nature of all earthly things, they have something of the serpent in them, to deceive. The way of riches and profit, is a thorny way; the way of honor and ambition, a slippery and giddy way; the way of carnal pleasures, a deep and a foul way, the way of learning itself (the noblest of all sublunary things) an involved and intricate way. And certainly he had need have better eyes than a blind passion, who in so ill ground will make good haste and good speed together. Inlabyrintho properantes ipsa velocitas implicat. He is the likeliest man to get first out of a maze, who runs fastest. An over-nimble desire is like the stomach of a sick man newly recovered, more greedy than strong, and fuller of appetite than digestion. From where arise immature and unconcocted counsels, blind and ungoverned resolutions: like those monstrous people, which Pliny speaks of, whose feet go backward, and behind their eyes. For when the mind of man is once possessed with conceit of contentment to be found in worldly glories, when the insinuations and sweet enchantments of honor, profit, pleasure, power, and Satan's Hac omnia, has once crept upon the affection, and lulled reason asleep; it is then sufficient that we know the end, which we desire; we have not the patience to inquire after the right way to it: because it is the suspicion of our greedy desires, that the true means are commonly the most tedious, and that honesty for the most part goes the [reconstructed: farthest] way about. And hence withal it usually comes to pass that these hasty and [reconstructed: preposterous] appetitions do hinder ends, and intercept advantages which slowness with maturity might have made use of. As the Roman soldiers by their greediness on their prey, missed of taking Mithridates, who otherwise could not have escaped them. And therefore it was wise counsel of Nestor in the Poet.
[illegible] Let none go lingering after spoil, and stay to load himself with a too hasty prey. But first let's kill: We're sure after such fight — carcasses being rifled cannot bite.
2 The next rule to keep this passion in order with reference to inferior objects is, that it be not an infinite and unlimited desire. Appetite should answer our power to procure, and our strength to bear and to digest. We should not go about to swallow a camel, when a [reconstructed: gnat] does make us strain. Immoderate desires can neither be satisfied, nor concocted. And this unboundedness of desires we are to take heed of for these reasons.
1 First, for the unnaturalness of it: for all unnatural and unnecessary desires are infinite, as the philosopher has observed. As he that is out of his way may wander infinitely. An unlimited desire is only there requisite, where the object thereof is infinite, and ordained to perfect man's nature; but not where it is only a means appointed for his benefit and comfort. Wherein he ought therefore then to enjoy his contentment, when it is sufficient — not to fill his mind (which is immortal, and therefore not able to be replenished with any perishing happiness) nor to outreach the vastness of his opinion, which being erroneous is likewise infinite (for Omnis Error immensus, as Seneca speaks) — but then only when it affords such conveniences, as with which the seasonable and virtuous employments of nature may with content be exercised. It is then a corrupt desire which proceeds not from our want, but from our vice. As that is not a natural thirst, but a disease and distemper of the body, which can never be satisfied.
Now the miseries of unnatural desires are first, that they corrupt and expel those which are natural: as multitudes of strangers in a city do eat out the natives; thus in luxurious men, strange love does extinguish that which is conjugal.
Secondly, they ever bring vexation to the mind with them. As immoderate laughter, so immoderate lusts are never without pain and convulsions of nature. Morbid desires of the mind are like an itch or [reconstructed: ulcer] in the body, which is with the same nails both angered and delighted, and has no pleasure but with vexation.
Thirdly, they are ever attended with repentance, both because in promises they disappoint, and in performances they deceive; and when they make offers of pleasure, do expire in pains; as those delicates which are sweet in the mouth, are many times heavy in the stomach; and after they have pleased the palate do torment the bowels. The mind surfeits on nothing sooner than on unnatural desires.
Fourthly, for this reason they are ever changing and making new experiments; as weak and wanton stomachs which are presently cloyed with a uniform diet, and must have not only a painful but a witty cook, whose inventions may be able with new varieties to gratify and humor the niceness of their appetite. As Nero had an officer who was called Elegantiae Arbiter, the inventor of new lusts for him.
Lastly, unlimited desires are for the most part envious and malignant: for he who desires everything, cannot choose but repine to see another have that which himself wants. And therefore Dionysius the Tyrant did punish Philoxenus the musician, because he could sing, and Plato the philosopher, because he could dispute better than himself. In which respect he did wisely, who was contented not to be esteemed a better orator than he who could command thirty legions.
Secondly, unbounded desires do work anxiety and perturbation of mind; and by that means disappoint nature of that proper end which this passion was ordained to; namely, to be a means of obtaining some further good; whereas those desires which are in their executions turbid, or in their continuance permanent, are no more likely to lead to some farther end, than either a misty and dark, or a winding and circular way is to bring a man at last to his journey's end; whereof the one is dangerous, the other vain. And together with this they do distract our noble cares, and quite avert our thoughts from more high and holy desires. Martha's many things, and Mary's one thing will very hardly consist together.
Lastly, there is one corruption more in these unlimited desires — they make a man unthankful for former benefits: as first, because Caduca memoria [reconstructed: futuro] imminentium. It is a strong presumption that he seldom looks back upon what is past, who is earnest in pursuing something to come. It is Saint Paul's profession and argument in a matter of greater consequence, I forget those things which are behind, and reach forth to those things which are before. And secondly, though a man should look back; yet the thoughts of such a benefit would be but slight and vanishing, because the mind finding present content in the liberty of a roving desire, is marvelously unwilling to give permanent entertainment to thoughts of another nature, which likewise (were they entertained) would be rather thoughts of murmuring than of thankfulness: every such man being willing rather to conceive the benefit small, than to acknowledge the vice and vastness of his own desires.
The next rule which I observed for the government of these passions, do respect those higher and more glorious objects of man's felicity: and herein,
Our desires are not to be wavering and inconstant, but resolute and full of quickness and perseverance: first, because though we be poor and shallow vessels; yet so narrow and almost shut up are those passages, by which we should give admittance to the matter of our true happiness — indeed so full are we already of contrary qualities, as that our greatest vehemency will not be enough, either to empty ourselves of the one, or to fill ourselves with the other. And therefore the true desires of this nature are in the Scripture set forth by the most moving and strong similitudes of hunger and thirst; and those not common neither; but by the panting of a tired hart after the rivers of water, and the gaping of the dry ground after a seasonable shower. Secondly, [reconstructed: every] desirable object the higher it goes, is ever the more united within itself, and drives the faster to a unity: it is the property of errors to be at variance; whereas truth is one, and all the parts thereof do mutually strengthen and give light to each other: so likewise in things good, the more noble, the more knit they are — Scelera [reconstructed: dissidunt]: it is for sins to be at variance among themselves. And those lower goods of riches, pleasure, nobility, beauty, though they are not incomparable; yet they have no natural connection to each other; and have therefore the less power to draw a [reconstructed: constant] and continued desire. But for nobler and immaterial goods we see how the philosopher has observed a connection between all his moral virtues, whereby a man that has one, is naturally drawn to a desire of all the rest: for the mind being once acquainted with the sweetness of one, does not only apprehend the same sweetness in the others, but besides finds itself not sufficiently possessed of that which it has, unless it be thereby drawn to procure the rest: all whose properties it is by an excellent mutual service to give light and luster, strength and validity, and in some sort greater unity to each other.
And lastly for the highest and most divine good; the truth of religion, that is in itself most of all other one, as being a beam of that light and revelation of that will, which is unity itself. And therefore though we distinguish the Creed into twelve articles, yet Saint Paul calls them all but one faith, as having but one Lord for the object and end of them. Now then where the parts of good are so united, as that the one draws on the other, there is manifestly required united desire to carry the soul there.
2. The last rule which I observed was that our desires ought not to be faint and sluggish, but industrious and painful, both for the arming us to avoid and withstand all oppositions and difficulties, which we are everywhere likely to meet with in the pursuit of our happiness; and also for the wise and discreet applying of the several furtherances requisite for it. And indeed that is no true desire, which is not an operative desire: a velleity it may be, but a will it is not. For whatever a man will have, he will seek in the use of such means, as are proper to procure it. Children may wish for mountains of gold, and Balaam may wish for a happy death, and an atheist may wish for a soul as earthly in substance as in affection; but these are all the ejaculations rather of a speculative fancy, than of an industrious affection. True desires as they are right in regard of their object, so are they laborious in respect of their motion. And therefore those which are idle and impatient of any pains, which stand like the carter in the fable, crying to Hercules when his [reconstructed: wagon] [reconstructed: stuck] in the mud to help it out, without stretching out his own hands to touch it, are first unnatural desires, it being the formal property of this passion to put the soul upon some motion or other. And therefore we see wherever nature has given it, she has given likewise some manner of motion or other to serve it. And secondly they are by consequence undutiful and disobedient desires, in that they submit not themselves to that law, which requires that we manifest the life and strength of our love by the quickness and operation of it in our desires. And lastly, such desires are useless and fruitless: for how can an object which stands in a fixed distance from the nature, which it should perfect, be procured by idle and standing affections? The desires of the sluggard (says Solomon) slay him, because his hands refuse to labor. These affections must have life in them, which bring life after them: dead desires are deadly desires.
