y be considered two
ways, viz., either _in actu signato_, and _quo ad speciem_; or _in actu
exercito_, and _quo ad individuum_; for an action is said to be
specificated by its object, and individuated by its circumstances; so
that, when an action is good or evil in respect of the object of it, then
it is called good or evil _quo ad speciem_: when it is good or evil in
respect of the circumstances of it, then it is said to be good or evil
_quo ad individuum_.

3. Human actions, whether considered _quo ad speciem_, or _quo ad
individuum_, are either such as proceed from the deliberation of reason,
or from bare imagination only. To this latter kind we refer such actions
as are done through incogitancy, while the mind is taken up with other
thoughts; for example, to scratch the head, to handle the beard, to move
the foot, &c.; which sort of things proceed only from a certain stirring
or fleeting of the imagination.

4. Let it be remembered, that those things we call morally good, which
agree to right reason; those morally evil which disagree from right
reason; and those indifferent which include nothing belonging to the order
of reason, and so are neither consonant unto nor dissonant from the same.

5. When we speak of the indifferency of an individual action, it may be
conceived two ways: either _absolute et sine respectu ad aliud_; or
_comparate et cum respectu ad aliud_. In the free-will offerings, if so be
a man offered according as God had blessed and prospered his estate, it
was indifferent to offer either a bullock, or a sheep, or a goat; but if
he chose to offer any of them, his action of offering could not be
indifferent, but either good or evil. When we speak of the indifferency of
an action _comparate_, the sense is only this, that it is neither better
nor worse than another action, and that there is no reason to make us
choose to do it more than another thing; but when we speak of the
indifferency of an action considered absolutely and by itself, the simple
meaning is, whether it be either good or evil, and whether the doing of
the same must needs be either sin or evil doing.

6. Every thing which is indifferent in the nature of it, is not by and by
indifferent in the use of it. But the use of a thing indifferent ought
evermore to be either chosen or refused, followed or forsaken, according
to these three rules delivered to us in God's word: 1. The rule of piety;
2. The rule of charity; 3. The rule of purity.