3. As motives of our actions.
The infinite wise Author of our being, having given us the power over several parts
of our bodies, to move or keep them at rest as we think fit; and also. by the motion of them, to move ourselves and
other contiguous bodies, in which consist all the actions of our body: having also given a power to our minds, in
several instances, to choose, amongst its ideas, which it will think on, and to pursue the inquiry of this or that
subject with consideration and attention, to excite us to these actions of thinking and motion that we are capable
of,--has been pleased to join to several thoughts, and several sensations a perception of delight. If this were
wholly separated from all our outward sensations, and inward thoughts, we should have no reason to prefer one
thought or action to another; negligence to attention, or motion to rest. And so we should neither stir our bodies,
nor employ our minds, but let our thoughts (if I may so call it) run adrift, without any direction or design, and
suffer the ideas of our minds, like unregarded shadows, to make their appearances there, as it happened, without
attending to them. In which state man, however furnished with the faculties of understanding and will, would be a
very idle, inactive creature, and pass his time only in a lazy, lethargic dream. It has therefore pleased our wise
Creator to annex to several objects, and the ideas which we receive from them, as also to several of our thoughts,
a concomitant pleasure, and that in several objects, to several degrees, that those faculties which he had endowed
us with might not remain wholly idle and unemployed by us.
