CHAP. 9. Why the soule is so slow to good∣nesse.
1. VVHence now is this monster? and to what purpose? Let thy mercy
Saint Augustines confessions translated: and with some marginall notes illustrated. Wherein, diuers antiquities are explayned; and the marginall notes of a former Popish translation, answered. By William Watts, rector of St. Albanes, Woodstreete
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- Title
- Saint Augustines confessions translated: and with some marginall notes illustrated. Wherein, diuers antiquities are explayned; and the marginall notes of a former Popish translation, answered. By William Watts, rector of St. Albanes, Woodstreete
- Author
- Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo.
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- London :: Printed by Iohn Norton, for Iohn Partridge: and are to be sold at the signe of the Sunne in Pauls Church-yard,
- 1631.
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- Augustine, -- Saint, Bishop of Hippo.
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http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A22627.0001.001
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"Saint Augustines confessions translated: and with some marginall notes illustrated. Wherein, diuers antiquities are explayned; and the marginall notes of a former Popish translation, answered. By William Watts, rector of St. Albanes, Woodstreete." In the digital collection Early English Books Online. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A22627.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 2, 2024.
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Page 463
enlighten mee that I may put this question; if so be those con∣cealed anguishes which men feele, and those most undiscove∣rable pangs of contrition of the sonnes of Adam, may perhaps afford mee a right answer? Whence is this monster? and to what end? The soule com∣mands the body, and is present∣ly obeyed: the soule commands it selfe, and is resisted. The soule gives the word, commanding the hand to be moved; and such readinesse there is, that the in∣stant of command, is scarcely to be discerned from the moment of execution. Yet the soule is the soule, whereas the hand is of the body. The soule com∣mands, that the soule would Will a thing; nor is the soule another thing from the soule, and yet o∣beyes it not the command. Whence is this monster? and to what purpose? The soule (I say) commands that it selfe would
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Will a thing, which never would give the command, unlesse it willed it: yet is not that done, which it commanded.
2. But it willeth not entirely: therefore doth it neither com∣mand entirely. For so farre forth it commandeth, as it willeth: and, so farre forth is not the thing done, which is comman∣ded, as it willeth it not. Because, the Will commandeth that there * 1.1 be a Will; not another will but the same. Because verily it doth not command fully, therefore is not the thing done, which it commanded. For were the wil∣ling full, it would never com∣mand there should be a Willing, because that Willing was extant before. Tis therefore no mon∣ster partly to Will, and partly to Nill; onely an infirmity of the soule it is, that it being over∣loaded with ill custome, cannot entirely rise up together, though supported by Ʋerity. Hence is
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it that there be two Wills, for that one of them is not entire: and the one is supplied with that, wherein the other is de∣fective.
Notes
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* 1.1
In this and the former Chapter, hath the o∣ther Tran∣slator beene a Transla∣tor indeed; that is, a very Cob∣ler.