actually dividing the capacity he hath to think and lessning the knowledge of his duty without being removed by it out of God's presence in short without weakning by little and little his love and his fear insomuch that actual pleasure seems a Reason or sufficient Motive to love what is not worthy of our love Adam ought to have remained fixt and unmoveable in the presence of God and not have suffered the capacity of his spirit to be divided by all those pleasures that were in perfect subjection to his Will and used only to warn him of what he was to do for the preservation of his life and as he should so he could have done it And had he made a good use of his Free-will during the time prescrib'd for a Reward he should have been confirm'd in his Righteousness not only by a more clear knowledge of God's continual operation on him but by a sensible knowledge which invincibly fixes on God all Spirits naturally desiring to be happy For the Saints do not only see by a Far-fetch'd and Metaphysical Sight that God alone is capable of acting in them and making them happy But they also feel it by an â—nspeakable comfort which God diffuses in them which â—enetrates them and unites them with him so strongly â—hat they cannot forsake him to love any thing else I speak of those things according to the present â—nowledge of human understanding and do not preâ—end always to certifie the truth or existence of things when I answer to what may be objected to me my â—tmost Design is to prove their Possibility Arist This is sufficient Theodore But how would â—ou explain the Transmission of Original Sin and the â—eneral Disorder of human Nature For it is our Soul â—hat hath sinn'd and is corrupt How comes it to â—e possible that coming from the hands of God they â—row corrupt as soon as they are united to Bodies Theod. Our Soul is made to love God She keeps â—n the Order of her Creation when she loves him that â—s to say when the motion which God gives her carries â—er towards him in the Sense that I explain'd it to you yesterday On the contrary she strays from the Order when having a motion sufficient to reach to God she stops at some particular good and thus hinders God's Act in her I do not believe it can be conceiv'd that she can be orderly or disorderly another way If then I demonstrate that by reason of the Union which Children have with their Mother the Soul of Children is by necessity turn'd towards Bodies that their Soul loves only Bodies and all her motion confines it self to some sensible thing from the moment she is form'd I shall have demonstrated the cause of the general disorder of Nature and how we are all born in Sin I prove it thus There is no Woman but hath in her Brain some Impression that represents to her sensible things either because she actually sees Bodies or receives her nourishment from them You do not doubt of this for after all we must at least eat to live and we cannot eat but our Brain receives some Impression of it since we remember it There happens also no Impression in the Brain without being follow'd by some Emotion in the Spirits which doth incline the Soul to the love of the thing that is present to the mind at the time of that Impression that is to say to the love of this or that Body for Bodies only can act on the Brain See the 7th Chapter of the 2d Book of the Inquiry after Truth In short there is no Woman but hath in her Brain some steps and vestiges or some motion of Spirits which makes her think and carries her to sensible things Now when the Child is in his Mother's Womb he feels the same Impression and Emotion of Spirits with his Mother therefore in that state he knows and loves Bodies The daily Instances we have of Children that fear or abhor those things that frighted their Mother whilst they were with Child sufficiently shews that they have had the same Impression and consequently the same Idea's and Passions as their Mothers since they sometimes never saw since they were born those things which they so much abhor And those Instances even shew us that the Impressions and Agitations are greater and consequently the Idea's and Passions more lively in Children than in their Mothers since they remain affected with them and oftentimes their Mothers no more remember it I perceive Erastus that you wonder to hear me say that Children see imagin and desire the same things with their Mothers Erast I must own that this amazes me but it seems to me demonstrated however there being holy Women and full of the love of God how come their Children to be Sinners Theod. It is because the love of God doth not communicate itself like the love of Bodies the reason whereof is that God is not sensible and that there are no steps in the Brain that by the institution of Nature do represent God nor any of those things that are purely intelligible A Woman may well represent to herself God in the Form of a Reverend old Man but whilst she thinks on God her Child shall think on an old Man when she loves God her Child will love old Men and this love of old Men doth not a justify All the Vestiges in the Brains of Mothers communicate themselves to Children But the Idea's that are join'd to those Vestiges by the Will of Man or by the Identity of Time and not by Nature do not communicate themselves to them for Children in the Womb are not as knowing and holy as their Mothers Erast But Theodore Children are not free I own they love Bodies but they cannot hinder themselves from loving them How then are they Sinners How are they corrupt Theod. Their Sin is not of their own chusing nor free and voluntary yet they are corrupt For all Spirits that are averse from God and inclin'd towards corporeal Beings do not follow God's Orders if it be true that God will be loved more than Bodies Concupiscence is not a Sin in virtuous persons because there is in them a love of choice that opposes it Concupiscence doth not reign in them but it reigns in Children their natural love is bad and they have no other When two sorts of loves are to be found in a heart God regards only that love which is free so Dreams are not sinful in pious Men because the love of choice that went before leaves in the Soul a disposition that carries and turns her towards God But in a Child who was never turned towards God nothing but his Nature and what God has fixt in him by the Decree of his first Will can be good he is a Child of wrath and must of necessity be damned For it cannot be conceived that God will ever reward the disposition of his heart except you also conceive that God
but also the desire And sometimes the Imagination does so augment all things that the pleasure it produces excites the Concupiscence after a more strong and lively manner than that we enjoy even in the use of Bodies Persons who have too quick and delicate an Imagination may sometimes cure the hurt they have received in a contagious discourse by tasting the pleasures which are represented to them or of which they form'd themselves too great an Idea And there are certain bashful lazy and judicious persons and of a certain disposition of mind hard to describe to whom it is convenient sometimes to shew the world to give 'em a dislike of it But Erastus this is rare and 't is extremely dangerous to be familiariz'd with sensible things You have an horror for Tobacco you are pleas'd not to be subject to the necessity of always having some with you yet if you were to be with Men who frequently use it their discourse and manner would engage you by degrees to use it your self and Use would subject you to it as well as others for I know some who can't be without it that could not endure it heretofore Erast. It is true Theodorus that the great Secret to resist Concupiscence is to have continually an eye to the purity of our Imagination and to take heed that it leave not footsteps in the Brain which may carry us to the love of sensible things thus to remedy the beginning of our Irregularities The Councels of JESVS CHRIST which only tend to deprive us of the use of sensible things are admirable but they are very uneasie methinks Philosophy furnishes us with a Remedy more commodious than that of the Gospel 't is this Philosophy teaches me that all Bodies which are about me can't act in me and that 't is God only that causes in me the pleasure and grief which I feel in their use this being granted I can enjoy Bodies without loving them for as I only ought to love that which is truly capable of making me happy to excite in me the love of God I have only to remember in the use of sensible things that 't is God who makes me happy by their means Thus I ought not to shun Bodies on the contrary I ought to seek them that so by exciting pleasure in me they may continually make me to think of God who is the cause of it Whence comes it that the Blessed love God constantly and that they can't leave off loving him if it is not that they see him and that they are ty'd to him by a preingaging pleasure Well then I see God by Philosophy I perceive him in every thing if I eat I think of God because 't is God that makes me eat with pleasure I 'm not careful to love good entertainment as there 's nothing but God which acts in me I only love him Theod. You Erastus are free from sin and confirm'd in grace for who shall disunite you from God the most violent pleasures tie you more strongly to him and pains can only produce in you a fear and respect for him but do you your self often make use of your own Remedy and have you never acted contrary to the remorse of your Conscience Erast. I am very sensible Theodorus that this Remedy of my Philosophy is not soveraign but pray explain to us the defects of it Theod. I will When you taste of Fruit with pleasure your Reason tells you that there is a God whom you see not who causes in you this pleasure your Senses tell you on the contrary that this Fruit which you see which you hold in your hands 〈◊〉 which you eat is that which causes in you this pleasure which of these two speaks higher your Reason or your Senses As for me I find that the noise of my Senses is so great that I even think no of God in that moment but perhaps Erastus is such a Philosopher that his Senses are silent as soon as he pleases and that they never speak to him without first obtaining his Licence If so your Remedy is good for you for the privation of Bodies is not absolutely necessary to those who have no Concupiscence Adam could taste of pleasures without becoming their Slave tho he had done better to have let them alone Then let those who feel no Concupiscence in them and whose Body is intirely subject to the Spirit make use of your Remedy 't is good for them they are just by themselves they descend in a right Line from the Pre-Adamites Neither did Christ come for them he came not to save the Just but Sinners He came for us who are Sinners Children of a sinful Parent sold and subject to Sin and who always feel in our Bodies the Rebellion of our Senses and Passions When the obligation we have to preserve our health and life constrains us to enjoy some pleasure then we must make a necessity of Virtue and make use of your Remedy if we can remembring that these are not the Objects which cause in us this pleasure but God only we must thank him for them and pray to him that he would defend us from the malignity of sensible Objects we must use them with fear and with a kind of horror for without the grace of JESVS CHRIST that which gives life to the Body gives death to the Soul you know the Reasons of it Erast. But why Pleasure in itself is not ill I receive it then it does me no harm I thank God for it and love him the more it unites me to God who is the Author of it then it does me good Theod. The love of God which the enjoyment of Pleasure causes in you is much interested I 'm much afraid Erastus that in loving God as the Author of your Pleasure you love your self instead of loving God But I wish that this love be not ill I also wish that you have the power of raising your self up to God in the time that you enjoy some Pleasure but this Pleasure makes traces in the Brain these traces continually agitate the Soul and in the time of Prayer or some other necessary business they disturb the Action blind the Mind and stir up the Passions Thus when you would even make a good use of Pleasure at the moment that you should taste it the trouble that it disperses thro' the Imagination has so dangerous Consequences that you had better have been depriv'd of it Think you Erastus that there has been a Race of Mankind so very stupid as to get drunk for the honor of God and to bring him into one's mind for the pleasure of drunkenness and do you observe that the pleasure which is found in the excessive use of sensible things is such as can't be pray'd for to God without remorse Hence it is that this pleasure was not ordain'd by Nature to carry us directly to God but for the use of Bodies so far as they shall be necessary for the preservation
is convincing and taste alone hath made all mankind agree in that If the mind saw in bodies but what is in them without having a sentiment of what is not in them their use would be very painful and inconvenient to us for who would take the pains to examine with care the nature of all things that are about us to cleave to or leave them What should tell us when we ought to sit down to dinner and when rise from it What should place us at a reasonable distance from the fire And should we not often doubt whether we burnt or warm'd our selves In short would it not happen sometimes that we should be the cause of our own death by Inadvertency by Grief or even out of desire of making near discoveries in Anatomies Therefore it is most reasonable that God incline us to seek the good of the body and shun its contrary by the foregoing sensations of Pleasure and Pain For after all if men were oblig'd to examine the Configuration of a Fruit those of all the parts of their bodies and the different relations which result from the one to the other to be able to judge if in the present heat of their blood and a thousand other dispositions of their body this Fruit were good to nourish them 't is obvious that such things as are altogether unworthy of the application of their minds would wholly fill its capacity and that also unprofitably enough since they would not be able to preserve themselves any considerable time by that only way Arist I must confess this conduct is very wise and most worthy its Author But yet we feel some pleasure in the use of sensible things why then must we not love them Theod. Because they are not lovely you are a rational creature and your reason doth not represent to you bodies as your good If sensible objects did contain in themselves what you feel when you use them if they were the true cause of your Pleasure and Grief you might love and fear them but your reason doth not tell you so as I yesterday prov'd it to you You may use them but not love them you may eat of a fruit but not settle your Love upon it Likewise you ought to avoid Fire or a Sword but ought not to fear them * See the 8th Chapter of the 6th Book of the Inquiry after Truth We must love and fear what is able to cause pleasure and pain that 's a common notion which I do not contradict But we must take heed not to confound the true efficient cause with the occasional I say it once more we must love and fear the efficient cause of pleasure and of pain and we may seek or avoid their occasional causes provided we do not do it against the positive orders of that efficient cause and do not force it in consequence of its natural Laws to work in us what is against its precepts And we must not imitate the voluptuous who make God an instument of their sensuality and oblige him in consequence of his first will to reward them with a sentiment of pleasure in the very moment when they offend him for that 's the greatest Injustice can be committed Believe me Aristarchus the good of the body cannot be belov'd but by Instinct but the good of the mind can and ought to be belov'd by reason The good of the body can be belov'd but by Instinct and with a blind Love because the mind cannot even perceive so clearly that the good of the body is a real good for the mind cannot see what is not It cannot clearly perceive that Bodies are above the Spirit that they can act in it punish or reward it and render it more happy and more perfect but the good of the mind ought to be lov'd by reason God will be lov'd with a Love of choice with a reasonable Love a meritorious Love a Love worthy of him and worthy of us we see clearly that God is our good that he is above us that he can act in us that he can reward us and render us not only more happy but also more perfect than we are is it not this sufficient to make a Spirit love God And thus we see that God was not to make man love him by the instinct of Pleasure when he created him he was not to make use of this kind of art nor implore any force against the Liberty of a reasonable creature to lessen the merit of his Love For the first man ought to have adhered to God and could do it without the help of a preingaging pleasure though now Pleasure is commonly necessary to remedy the blindness which sin has brought upon us and to withstand the continual attacks of Concupiscence against our Reason I 'le say it again Aristarchus that you may remember it It was necessary that the antecedent pleasure and not the light of reason should incline us to the good of the body since reason cannot even represent to its self the bodies that are about us as a good But there was no need that God should make use of preingaging pleasure as of a kind of art to cause himself to be beloved by the first man since it was sufficient that he should enlighten his reason he being the sole and only good of Spirits Arist I grant all these things are very well imagin'd but there is still in your System a difficulty that puzzles me For methinks you confound Concupiscence with the institution of Nature and making God the Author of the pleasure we feel in the use of sensible things you also make him Author of Concupiscence since it is nothing else but that pleasure considered as striving against our reason Theod. This institution of Nature is thus Aristarchus God hath made the Soul and the Body of man and 't was his pleasure for the preservation of his work that as often as there should be in the body some certain motions there should result in the Soul some certain sentiments provided those motions did communicate themselves as far as a certain part of the Brain which I shall not specifie but because the will of God is efficacious there never hapned any motions in that part of the Brain but there followed some sensations and because the will of God is unchangeable this was not changed by the sin of the first man Yet as before man had sinned and whilst all things were in perfect good order it was not just that the body should hinder the Spirit from thinking on what is desired It follows that man had necessarily such a power over his body that he did as it were separate the principal part of his brain from the rest of his body and did hinder its usual communication with the sensitive Nerves as often as he desired to apply himself to truth or to some other thing than the good of the body And by those means it was in Adam's power first to make use
our love and we are so free in the love of finite good that we even feel the secret reproaches of our reason when we fix our selves on it Because he that made us for himself speaks to us that we may turn to him and give no bounds to the motion of love which he incessantly produces in us All the motion that the soul hath towards good comes from God and God only acting for himself all the motion of the soul hath no other end nor bound than God in the Institution of Nature God presenting to spirits no other Idea but himself since he hath made spirits for himself All the motion of our wills is towards him since wills move themselves towards those things only which the spirit perceives But men thinking that they see creatures in themselves the consent they give to the motion that God imprints in them ends in the creatures and it may be said with a great deal of truth that the free will of men or their consent to the motion they receive from God tends to the creatures though the natural motion of their love can tend only to God By this you see Aristarchus that God preserves spirits for himself only that the faculties they enjoy to know and love know and love none but him that sinners do not overturn the laws of nature that they are inviolable and that this general principle of Religion and Morality viz. That God hath made us for himself is undeniable Arist But if the order of nature is that we know and love God and if we cannot resist that order since the motion of our love for the creatures tends of necessity towards the Creator how can it be said that we really offend God Theod. It may be said for many reasons God incessantly moves spirits towards good either general or particular for all good is to be beloved He invincibly moves them towards general good but 't is otherwise with the impression he gives them towards particular good God doth not limit towards that good the act which he produces in them For if we observe it duely we sufficiently perceive that in the very time when we fix on some finite good we have some motion to go further if we will So we offend God by stopping his act and not letting him act in us according to the full extent of his act The reason why God moves us towards good is because it moves us towards him and he moves us towards himself because he loves himself 'T is then the love of God to himself that produces our love in us Therefore our love ought to be like to that which God bears to himself But it is not like it when it concenters in a particular good it is then unworthy of the cause that hath produced it and it may be said to be displeasing to him Order is certainly the essential and necessary Will of God according to which and by which he wills whatever he wills for God loves order he wills nothing but order his will always follows order But a creature who loves more those things that are less lovely thwarts order withdraws himself from it and even overthrows it as much as he is capable of it He resists then to the will of God and so deserves to come into the order of his justice since he leaves that of his goodness which is the first and most natural God alone can act in the soul and cause in her some pleasure And by his decree or general will that makes the order of nature 't was his desire that pleasure should attend certain motions in the body So those that produce in their body these motions without reason even against the secret reproaches of their reason oblige God in consequence of his general will to renumerate them by pleasing sentiments even in the very time when they ought to be punished They therefore use violence against his justice and offend him But they only use this violence by the love they have for particular good So this love offends God For all those who love their pleasure without minding the true cause that produces it offend that cause since God never causes pleasure with an intent that we should fix on it but rather that we may love the cause that produces the pleasure and that we may unite with the thing that determines that cause to produce it You see therefore Aristarchus that God is offended when we fix the motion of love he causes in us on particular good But though you might not see it you cannot doubt but it is so for when we confine our love to some particular good we feel an inward check in the secret of our reason and a just check is a mark of infidelity against him that causes it those checks or reproaches can proceed but from a general cause since they are generally to be found in all mankind and must therefore be just since they are caused by a just God and this just God is offended when we confine our love to particular good This single Argument is sufficient for 't is unnecessary to seek metaphysical proofs of a thing whereof we are convined by inward sentiments that is by a light which strikes through the blindest and by a punishment that stings the most hardened sinners Arist I believe all this and I pray you to go on Theod. If you believe all this Aristarchus you may see your friend ask him at first if he desires to be happy Show him that none but God can act and cause in him that pleasure he loves so much and that renders him the more happy the greater it is Let him know that God is just that he will be obey'd that it cannot be conceived he should make truely happy those who do not follow his orders nor unhappy those that follow them that so we ought to use all our endeavours to know the Will of God and ought to obey it with all the fidelity imaginable You are sensible that men must be either stupid or out of their senses not to see those things and that those that see them and are not affected with them must either be mad or desperate but do not tell him so take heed above all things you do not awaken his passions and principally his pride for he would conceive nothing of what you might tell him make him understand as much as you can that God acts only for himself That he hath made our spirit only for himself That he hath given some motion to our heart only to incline it towards him That therefore we ought not to make an ill use of the motion of love which God causes in us by loving any thing besides him or without relation to him Make him understand that God is his true good not only by being alone capable to make him happy but also because none but God can make him more perfect not only as he is the cause of pleasure but also as he is
Erastus all Spirits are essentially united to God nor can they be entirely separated from him without ceasing to be But what ought to be their Union with God that they may be as happy and perfect as it is possible for them to be Erast It is plain that this Union ought to be the narrowest that can be for none but God is the sovereign good of Spirits Theod. Thus Erastus we become more perfect the greater and the stronger the Union which we have with God is The damned have but just so much Union with God as is necessary to keep them in being But the blessed are united to God in so perfect a manner that they do not only receive from him a being but also its perfection Let us see therefore Erastus wherein consists this kind of Union with God whereby we receive all the perfection whereof we are capable in this life Erast I have learn'd in the Conferences which I have had with you and by the perusal of the Book of the Inquiry after Truth Chap. 8. of the last Book that God alone is the true cause and true mover as well of Bodies as of Spirits and that natural causes are only occasional causes which determin the true cause to act in consequence of his eternal Will I am persuaded that I can be united to the Bodies that are about me and to that which I animate and move only because I am united to God Dialog 1. for all Bodies cannot by themselves act in my Soul nor make themselves visible to her as she likewise hath not by herself the strength to move any Body since she doth not even know what must be done to stir an Arm. Thus Theodorus if I speak to you and understand you if my Spirit unites itself to yours or my Body to your Body God alone is the true cause of it he is the Bond of all the Unions which I am able to have with all his Works I can be immediately united to none but him since none but he can immediately act in me and I only act through his means But Theodorus I may be united to God and fix my self to him and in that have no relation to any other but him and I may also be united to God with relation to some other thing but God For when I think on abstracted Idea's of things I am united to God by my thought since I see those things only through the means of the Union that I have with God * Dial. 3. But this Union doth not bind me to Creatures On the other side when I feel sensible good it is only by the Union that I have with God and because he acts in me * Dial. 2. For all Bodies are insensible by themselves but this second Union which I have with God fastens me to sensible things for God unites among themselves all his Works and he alone can be the Bond of all Unions I therefore believe that our Union with God upholds our Being and that we should not exist without it But I am persuaded that the Union which fastens us to none but God and hath relation to none but him is that which gives the utmost perfection of which we are capable Theod. Do you not remember Erastus that the Author of the Book of the Inquiry after Truth demonstrates That our Senses never represent things to us as they are in themselves but only according to their relation to our selves and that therefore all sensible knowledg is useful for the preservation and conveniency of our lise but altogether unprofitable for the perfection of the Mind and the knowledg of Truth Erast I do remember it Theodorus and shall never forget it for it was that which persuaded me that of all our Knowledg and Notions none but those that are purely intellectual make us more perfect and indeed we can be said to see in God things as they are only through those forts of Notions When we have a sentiment of things we do not see them in themselves we have no knowledg of them and even in reality they are not the sensible Objects that we do feel but our very selves for our Sensations belong to us and not to those Objects to which we generally use to attribute them How then could our Senses lead us to the knowledg of Truth since we do not know Truth but when we see things such as they are Theod. If you remember also what that Book saith of the Errors of our Imagination and Passions you ought to grant that not only the Imagination and Senses hinder us from discovering Truth but also that our Passions carry and remove us from the true Good In a word that all the thoughts and motions of the Soul that excite themselves in us by reason of some changes that happen in our Body disunite us from God to unite us to Bodies For after all it is necessary that the Soul who ought to mind the preservation of her Body be warn'd to think on it when some new Accident happens to it Erast I grant all these things Theod. Let us suppose then that there never happens any change in the Brain but that the Soul receives some thought which takes it off from the light of truth and the love of true good and disunites her from God to unite her to Bodies If it is certain that the perfection of the mind consists in the knowledg of truth and in the love of true good in one word in an Union with God which hath relation to none but him I ask you In the state which we are in wherein we cannot hinder the communication of motion nor the bodies that are about us from penetrating and agitating ours what are we to do to tend continually towards our perfection do not consult the Gospel now consult only your reason Erast It is plain that we ought by flight to avoid being acted by those Bodies that are about us that we ought to mortify our Senses and keep shut as much as we can all the passages at which sensible Objects come in and disturb our Reason When we cannot stay the motion of those Bodies that are capable of offending us we never fail to step aside to avoid being struck by them Thus when we are not able to stop the action of sensible Objects we ought to avoid them by flight in the same manner as we use to preserve our selves from contagious distempers by change of Air. Let an Insect but prick us we immediately lose sight of the most solid truths let a Fly but buz in our Ears and our mind will be presently fill'd with darkness What shall we do then to hold this truth which still gets away and preserve this light which vanishes from us Must we kill all the Insects and drive away all the Flyes this can never be We must then remove somewhere else for after all it is impossible that the Sensations that divide your thinking Faculty should
of life We must love God because Reason informs us that every thing is center'd in him that deserves our love God will be lov'd with a clear love with a love which flows from pure light and not with a confus'd Sentiment such as Pleasure is God is so lovely that those who see him as he is would love him in the midst of the most cruel Torments and we do not love him as he deserves when we love him because 't is he only who can create agreeable Sentiments in us A Friend reproves us because he should do it we offend our selves when we punish our selves for our Irregularities do we therefore cease to love our selves or our Friend No doubtless we endeavor perhaps to shun the Reproof which our Friend thinks himself oblig'd to give us but if we see that he only does what he ought to do we are unreasonable if we cease to have an intrinsic respect and love for him If then a person could conceive that God ows that to his Justice which he inflicts upon him to make him sensible of the highest pains he always would suffer patiently without ceasing to love God He should not love these pains in themselves but he should love the Author of them who if he did not inflict them would be less lovely because he would be less just and less perfect A Criminal who hath brib'd his Judge loves and esteems him much less than if he had punisht him provided that this Criminal who is not just enough to hate the Crime in himself would be reasonable enough to hate it in another Accordingly the blessed might suffer the pains of the damned without hating God for altho' the pleasure they enjoy keeps them united to God inseparably yet they love not God for the sake of the pleasure which they receive from him they would even love him in their Torments For after all pleasure is not so much instituted to make us love the Author of it as to unite us to him since as reasonable Creatures Reason alone ought to stir up our love Pleasure should carry us to the cause of it and true Good should be capable of producing it because true Good should recompence all those who truly love But pleasure which is the recompence and attraction of the love of the Iust is not their end for the Just would then love themselves instead of their good God deserves love in himself and the pleasure which is found in the use of Bodies instead of inviting is to love him as we ought to do and even the sweetness which is tasted in love sets us at a distance from him if resting upon this sweetness we love him not for himself for then we love our selves instead of him Erast. I observe that there 's nothing more dangerous than to make use of sensible pleasures and I am am now convinc'd that they increase Concupiscence by the impressions which they make in the Brains and carry the mind not to God who is their Author but to Bodies which seem to produce them and that tho' absolutely speaking they may induce us to think of God who is their Author yet they excite in us nothing but an interested love a love which is more like Self-love than true Charity Arist. But Theodorus the Law of Nature does not only oblige us to love God but also Men and if we have not some Correspondence with them by means of the Body what other Reason will induce us to love them 'T is Interest which forms Societies 'T is Pleasure which unites different Sexes and there are whole Nations that can't maintain Peace and Commerce but by the means of Wine To drink together is sufficient to put away Enmity amongst some Men. A glass of Wine must be drunk to drive on a Bargain Thus you see it is profitable for Men to enjoy Pleasure together to preserve that Union and Charity amongst them which is commanded them Theod. I believe you have a mind to make your self merry Aristarchus What! do you believe that there 's any thing besides Truth and Justice which can strictly unite us together do you believe that a Peace concluded in drink betwixt Drunkards would be so solid as that which reasonable Men make in the sight of Justice and by a Motive of Charity Certainly all the Bonds which are made by Interest are unserviceable towards the fulfilling of the Precept of loving our Neighbor The Appearances are sav'd and Men are treated with Civility but cordial Love is wanting when Interest lies at the stake We must love other Men for God for as it is he that should terminate all the motions of our heart he can only reunite all minds in himself But the Commerce which we may have with Men by means of the Body are only proper to create a division amongst us for sensible Goods are not like those of the mind one can't possess them without sharing them It 's enough for a Man to desire an enjoyment of his Friend's Estate to make him unhappy and become his Enemy It 's the Love of temporal advantage which begets Wars and breeds Division in Families Persons would enjoy these Goods but can't without depriving those of them that possess them Thus 't is evident that a contempt of sensible Goods and a privation of Pleasures are as useful for the preservation of Peace amongst them as to continue a strict Union with God Arist. 'T is true Theodorus that to avoid a quarrel with any Body there 's no better means than to yield our Possessions to those that desire them of us but the Command of Jesus Christ in this matter is very inconvenient and I do not see that even the most perfect follow it Theod. I confess it Aristarchus there are many occasions on which we should not too rigidly pursue this Command but we must always be disposed to it if there be necessity 'T is not the difficulty that we find in this Command and in the rest which ought to hinder us from practising them on the contrary they are so much the more useful as they tend more to satisfy the * Pontificius loquitur Justice of God and to merit the Favor of our perfect re-union with him We are all Sinners and deserve to suffer and these instructions of Privation being painful they have this advantage that they cleanse us from our Sins in making us partakers in the Sufferings of CHRIST In our misery we have all of us need of the assistance of Heaven but CHRIST teaches us to merit them when our Sufferings being join'd to his our Sufferings are meritorious with his Thus the Inconveniency you find in the Precepts of CHRIST bring their Recommendation along with them If the trouble which attends the privation of sensible Objects were not necessary to satisfy God nor merit his Assistance of which we have the greatest need I confess there would be a fault in the Evangelic Councils nevertheless there would be none better for
also by what he said to me Yesterday when I was come back from my Friend's Would you have me give you some account of it Theod. You will oblige me we are always very fond of knowing the last Words of those that leave us Arist Erastus never exprest himself with more Eloquence and Happiness of Thought He told me among other Things that Man is not only united to his own Body but also to all those that surround him that our Passions diffuse our Soul into all sensible Objects as our Senses diffuse it through every part of the Body and that those who launch into the wide World continually running after Riches Pleasures and Honours dissipate and lose themselves by being disperst as it were out of themselves While they fancy that they enlarge their own Being they weaken themselves and become Slaves to those whom they would command And while they encrease their Power on the Bodies that surround them they lose that which they have on the Truth that penetrates them Let me consider said he how Man comes to be sensible Out of his Brain certain Nerves are emitted whose infinite number of Branches are disperst over all the Parts of his Body These Nerves or Fibres which correspond to the Seat of the Soul agitate her as soon as they are stirred they disperse her through all the Parts into which they insinuate themselves and whatsoever happens in the Body breaks her Quiet and disturbs her Now let me examine the Condition which that Man is in who is led by his Passions and fasten'd to every Thing Out of his Heart some Bonds may in one sense be said to be emitted and thence their strings are disperst through all sensible Objects These Strings are no sooner stirr'd by the Motion of those Objects but his Heart is also mov'd If these Objects are remov'd at some distance his Heart must follow or be torn In short his Soul disperses her self by the Means of these Tyes through whatever surrounds him just as she diffuses her self by the Means of Nerves over every Part of the Body When a Man inconsiderately gives himself up to the Commerce of the World the Tyes of his Heart fasten him to a Thousand Objects which only serve to make him wretched and if he be mad enough to have a real Love for those Objects or to be pusst up with his new Greatness he is said he to me like those who would be proud of a Dropsie or of Wens or Bunches that swell their Body to a bigger Bulk than ordinary Do you think continued he that the Souls of Gigantic Men are greater than those of other Men They have indeed a larger Body and can put a greater Mass of Matter into Motion but if you examine them well you 'll find that their Motions are more irregular The very Horses and Elephants are stronger than they and more bulky and if these Men measur'd the Greatness of their Soul by that of their Body they would make themselves universally ridiculous Yet it were a juster Thing to measure the Greatness of the Soul by that of the Body than by that of Riches and Honours For after all our Body is more our own than our Wealth and we are more united to it than we are to our Clothes our House or our Lands How foolish and vain then are not Men when they pretend to grow greater by being disperst out of themselves Truely cry'd he Imaginary Greatness makes Men become very miserable Creatures Every thing offends them every thing disturbs them every thing holds them fast And can Men in a perpetual Hurry and as it were wounded in every Part be able to Think Can they be able to cleave to Truth for which alone they are made with which alone they can be nourish'd and through which alone they can grow more wise and more happy They are commonly mad stupid thoughtless Creatures void of Light and Understanding Do you think added he that the Voluptuous and those who continually strive to extend their Slavery by enlarging the Bounds of their Commands do so much as know that they are not made for Bodies nor for a Time and that they are not on Earth barely to live there Alas they know nothing of this they do not perceive that Bodies are inferiour to them uncapable of acting on them and altogether unworthy of their Love As they have not yet felt the Sting of Death they cannot strictly be said to know they shall dye Their Tongues indeed say they must and they believe it but they do not know it They think they shall be no more but they do not know they shall dye What vast difference is there not between seeing and seeing 'T is but a very little while since I know that I am not made for Corporeal Beings that the Figure of this World passeth away that the true Good of Spirits is a Spiritual Good and even since I know what it is to dye Nay as my Understanding is but small I have too been obliged to think with my utmost application to comprehend these Truths Before this I thought of Death what my Eyes discover'd to me of it and scarce any thing more And if I had not been in a greater Capacity of applying my self to thinking than those who are in the Hurry of Business or a hunting after Pleasure I must confess I had not known what I believe is unknown to great Numbers of Men. The application of the Mind produces Light and discovers Truth The sight of Truth gives perfection to the Mind and regulates the Heart Such an application is then necessary But can a Man when he is pull'd and drawn on all sides struck and wounded every where thrust back when he would get forwards dragg'd forwards when he would go back and continually disturb'd and misus'd can such a Man I say think with application Can a Man who fears every thing yet desires hopes for and runs after every thing think on what he does not see Truth is distant and not sensible nor is it a Good which we find our selves press'd to love We must seek it if we would find it But we may still put off the Search for it never wholly leaves us On the contrary Bodies cause themselves to be felt every Moment press us to love them and continually oblige us to cleave to them for they are transitory and leave us as soon as they have tempted us So because Opportunity when lost is not easily recover'd Men are quickly determin'd to enjoy them but as for Truth they put off from time to time the applying of themselves to it because it never leaves them nor causes it self to be felt and for that reason it does not press them to love it How happy are those added he who wait for Eternity in Deserts and who finding themselves too weak to preserve the Freedom of their Mind and the purity of their Imagination against the Efforts and Malignity of sensible Objects have bravely
Truth doth not always answer our expectation for we do not know how to make our addresses We often ask it questions without knowing what we ask as when we go about to resolve questions whose terms we do not understand We ask it questions and then leave it not waiting for its answers as when Impatience seizes us and our Imagination is displeas'd that we think on things that have no relation to the good of the body We ask it questions and strive to corrupt it as when our Passions move us and we will have its answers to agree with our opinions In short we ask it questions we hear its answers and do not understand them as when our prejudices prepossess our mind and it is fill'd with false Ideas and our Imagination is utterly spoil'd by an infinite number of dark and confus'd notions that continually represent all things to us with respect to our selves Then God speaks and the body also reason and imagination the mind and the senses there arises a confused noise and nothing can be heard Darkness mixes it self with Light and nothing can be seen For we cannot always discern what God tells us Immediately and through himself to unite us to truth from what he tells us through our body to unite us to sensible things The various Imployments of your Life have fill'd your mind with a great number of prejudices that have imprinted on it a certain Character much esteem'd in the world which is but as a Seal that fastens those prejudices on our minds You have read much the Books of certain Scepticks who are proud of doubting of all things and yet speak of them peremptorily and I fear that like them you will have me hereafter prove you common notions and receive as principles opinions altogether unknown to the greatest part of mankind It is also much to be fear'd that your travels have too much disperst your thoughts and given your mind too much of the Court-air to let you hear with attention some things altogether unknown amongst Travellers and Military men You do not believe at present that your Studies and Travels have corrupted your reason and prepossess'd you with many unreasonable opinions You have some cause not to believe it and I will not undertake to convince you of it yet But that hereafter we may reconcile our differences let us take for a third a young man whom the conversation of the World hath not yet spoilt that Nature alone may speak in him and we may find who of us two is prepossess'd Methinks Erastes who heard us t'other day would be very fit for this I observ'd by his countenance that he often consulted within himself to examine our sentiments with those of his Conscience and always approv'd of the most reasonable tho he us'd to stand as it were amaz'd and surpriz'd without judging of any thing when ever he heard you relate certain things which you have read in Books Arist You do him a great deal of honour at my cost but I can find no fault with it that young man is so lovely that besides the tye of blood I have all the reason in the world to be glad of the esteem you have of his Wit I freely consent But here he comes in very good time Erastes Gentlemen will you be pleas'd to do me the same favour you did me lately Will you give me leave to stay here Arist With all our hearts Erastus we were thinking to send for you I have just now told you my resolution Theodorus and you approve of it Let us Philosophize I pray you but let it be after a Christian and solid manner Instruct me of the Truths that are essential and most capable of rendering us happy How would you prove that there is a God for I believe that 't is by this we ought to begin Theod. The Existence of God may be prov'd a thousand ways for there is nothing but may serve to demonstrate it and I wonder how a person of your parts so well read in Antiquity and so accomplisht every way seems not to be convinc'd of it Arist I am convinc'd of it by Faith but I must confess I am not fully convinc'd of it by Reason Theod. If you speak as you think you are convinc'd of it neither by reason nor by Faith For do you not know that the assurance of Faith comes from the authority of a God that speaks and who can never deceive us If then you are not convinc'd by reason that there is a God how will you be convinc'd that he hath spoke Can you know that he hath spoke without knowing that he is And can you know that the things which he hath reveal'd us are true without knowing that he is Infallible and never deceives us Arist I do not examine things so narrowly and the reason why I believe it is because I will believe it and that I have been told so all my life But let us see your proofs Theod. Your Faith hath much of the man in it and your answers shew much Indifference I design'd to give you the most simple and natural proofs of the Existence of God but I find by the disposition of your mind they would not be the most convincing You must have sensible proofs Here are many things about us which of them shall I make use of to prove you that there is a God Shall it be this Fire that delights us this Light that illuminates us the nature of Words by whose means we discourse together for as I told you just now there is nothing but may serve to shew the existence of its Author provided we consider it with all possible attention God acts incessantly in and by all his works 'T is he that illuminates us by this outward light that delights us by the warmth of this fire and discourses with us when we think we converse together God neither produces nor preserves any creature but which may cause those to know him who make good use of their reason I will convince you of it presently In the mean time Erastus take heed that neither of us prepossess you Answer me Aristarchus What doth Fire do in you Arist It warms me Theod. Then Fire causes a pleasure in you Arist I own it Theod. What causes in us some pleasure makes us in some measure happy Arist It is true Theod. Then what makes us in some manner happy is in some manner our good and in some manner above us and deserves in some manner love and veneration What think you of it Erastus is Fire in some manner above you Can Fire act in you Can it cause in you a pleasure it hath not it feels not it knows not and cause it in you that is to say in a Spirit in a being infinitely above it Erast I do not think so Theod. See then Aristarchus what you have to answer Arist You conclude too fast And I see what you drive at I distinguish Fire
made man can restore reconcile and save us That nothing but the blood of Christ can cleanse us that nothing but his grace can strengthen us that only his precepts can conduct us to that wisdom and to that felicity you wish for and that all we have to do in this life is to study the moral of the Gospel to hear Jesus Christ to love Jesus Christ to follow and to imitate Jesus Christ who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption that according as it is written he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord 1 Cor. 1.30,31 DIALOGUE II. Objections and Answers Aristarchus WE long'd with impatience to see you again Theodorus for we wanted you almost as soon as we had left you Erastus and I could not agree about the things you told us yesterday for there come into my mind some difficulties which seem to me not to be overcome and so we have done nothing but disputed all the while but at last Erastus saith he doth not understand me and that he hath nothing else to answer me Theod. Nothing but truth can reconcile minds and if you disagree it is because one of you doth not consult it I am very much affraid that you have consulted your imagination more than your reason and that you have lancht into the deepest recess of your memory for some justificative evidence of your prejudices Tell me is it not true Aristarchus that you have but little meditated on the things I told you yesterday and that whereas you should have examined them by the light of truth you have compar'd them with those things of which the perusual of the Ancients hath left you a tincture Will you never be brought to and will you never understand that you have in your self a faithful master ready to give you an answer at all times if you ask it with decency and submission that is to say in the calm of your senses and passions You tell me that you wanted me but pray are you not ashamed to have recourse to a man to be enlightned and ought you not to know that if I am capable of giving you some instruction 't is not by diffusing light into your mind but making you retire within your self and turning you towards the light that enlightens me Why are we sometimes of the same mind but because we both retire within our selves and harken to him of whom all mankind receives the like answers And why have you so much disputed with Erastus but because you told him things which the truth he consults did not tell him nor had ever told you I beg of you then Aristarchus that we may have no more disputes but let truth be the supreme Judge amongst us and use all your endeavours to make me no objections but such as you understand clearly and may also be understood by Erastus Arist Perhaps all the difficulty in the objections I made Erastus proceeded from our ignorance of a great many things and it may be that not being much used to meditate I have proposed to him my ancient prejudices as so many new truths which presented themselves to me by the strength of meditation But really I have started to him some difficulties which seem to me grounded upon evident Principles and are received by all men Here they are You have told us that none but God can act in our soul and that all the bodies which are about us are uncapable of causing in us the sentiments we have of them But pray is not the Sun bright enough to be visible Do you think I can suffer my self to be imposed upon by Philosophical Reasons to believe that 't is not the Sun that gives me light after all the experiments I have of it And supposing you could perswade me that Fire doth not cause the heat or pain I feel when 't is near me Do you think you may conclude that the Sun doth notdiffuse light and say in general as you do now that all the bodies that surround us are uncapable of producing in us the sentiments we have of them Theod. Forbear to consult your senses Aristarchus if you desire to hear the answers of Truth It dwells in the deepest recess of Reason Peruse at your leisure the first Book of The inquiry after Truth if you have a mind to be fully instructed of the errors of our senses with respect to sensible qualities for I do not intend to make it my business to explain to you all the difficulties of Philosophy which may puzzle you The only thing that 's necessary at present is that you know there is a God and he alone can cause in you the pleasure and pain you feel by the intervention of Bodies You believed it yesterday or I am mistaken Do you believe it now Arist I doubt of it for this Reason that if God did cause in me the pleasure I feel in the use of sensible things It seems he would dispose me to love them and to cleave to them as to my good For pleasure is the character of good 't is an instinct of nature which disposes us to love what produces or seems to produce it Yet faith teaches me that God will not have me to love bodies Can God draw me by pleasure to cleave to sensible things and forbid me at the same time to love them This is my difficulty judge of it now Theod. It is a solid one and 't is absolutely necessary to solve it for from its solution most of the true principles of morality may be deduced This is my system * It is taken out of the fifth Chapter of the first Book of the Inquiry after Truth I have taken several things from that Book and desire the Reader to take notice of it once for all Being made up of spirit and body we have two sorts of good to seek spiritual and corporal We have likewise two ways to know if a thing is good or bad viz. the use of the mind alone and the use of the mind jointly with the body We can know the good of the mind by an evident and clear knowledge of the mind alone and we can also discover the good of the body by a confus'd sentiment By the mind I know justice is to be beloved and by the taste I assure my self such a fruit is good The beauty of justice cannot fall under our senses for 't is unnecessary to the perfection of the body and the goodness of the fruit doth not fall under our understanding for a fruit cannot be useful to the perfection of the mind The good of the body not deserving the application of the mind which God made but for himself and God not being willing that we should be taken up with it it is necessary that the mind do know it without examination and by the short and incontestable proof of sentiment Bread is fit to nourish us and Stones are not The proof of it
know his will that causes it is the principle of the mutability corruption and generation of all different bodies Thus God sees in himself the corruption of all things though he is incorruptible for whilst he sees in his wisdom the incorruptible Ideas he sees in his will all corruptible things since nothing happens but is done by him Now I will tell you how we see all those things in God All ideas and immutable truths we see in him As for transitory truths we do not know them in the will of God as God himself doth for his will is unknown to us But we know them by the sentiment God causes in us at their presence Thus when I see the Sun I see the Idea of a circle in God and have in my self the sentiment of light which denotes to me that this Idea represents something that is created and actually extent But I have this sentiment from none but God who certainly can cause it in me since he is Almighty and sees in the Idea he hath of my Soul that I am capable of sentiment Thus in all our sensible knowledge of corruptible things there is pure Idea and sentiment the Idea is in God the Sentiment in us but God alone is the true Cause of both The Idea represents the Essence of the thing and the sentiment only makes us believe that it exists since it disposes us to believe that the thing causes it in us because it is then present to our mind and not the will of God which alone causes that sentiment in us Arist I own that God can enlighten us and show us in himself all the Ideas we have of things But why should you have your recourse to this last refuge At least explode the sentiments of Philosophers upon that subject that I may the better convince my friend for without doubt I shall find him prepossessed with some opinion or other differing from yours Theod. It hath been done already by the Author of the Inquiry after Truth * Lib. 3. But if your friend finds fault with me for having a recourse to God and the first cause to explain some certain things you may tell him that there are two kinds of natural effects The Particular and the General it is ridiculous to have recourse to the general cause to explain particular effects but 't is as much amiss to seek some particular cause to explain the general For example if I am asked why Linnen becomes dry when 't is exposed to fire I will not answer like a Philosopher if I say that God will have it so for 't is sufficiently known that whatever happens is by his will 'T is not the general cause is demanded but the particular cause of a particular effect I ought then to say that the small particles of the fire or the agitated wood striking against the linnen impart their motion to the particles of water that are in it and loosen them from the linnen and I shall have given the particular cause of the particular effect But if one ask'd me why the particles of the wood agitate those of the water or why bodies communicate their motion to those they meet I should not be a Philosopher did I seek some particular cause of that general effect I ought to have recourse to the general cause that is to the Will of God and not to some particular faculties or qualities Now 't is acknowledged that the effect is general and that consequently we must have recourse to the general cause when thesame effect hath no necessary connexion with what seems to be its cause as it happens in the communication of motion for the mind sees no necessity why a body that presses upon another should push it forwards rather then recoil it self If then your friend pretends to explain to you the nature and original of Ideas by the scientific terms of innate or visible species of external or internal senses of the common apprehensions of the active or passible intellect you may let him know that when a body changes its situation or figure there is no necessity that there be a new thought in a spirit And that therefore we must go to the general cause which alone can reconcile things that have no necessary relation with one another I will lose no time in solving all the difficulties you or your friend may find concerning what I have told you now You will perhaps find them solv'd in the third book of the Inquiry after Truth Let us come to the will of man I will explain it to you God only making and preserving us for himself incessantly moves us towards him that is to say towards good in general or towards what we conceive to include all good He even moves us towards particular good without removing us from himself because he includes that good in the infinity of his being For as spirits see none but him in the sense that I have explained he may incline us towards whatever we see though he hath made us for himself alone But we ought to observe that he inclines us invincibly and necessarily towards good in general because as the love of good in general can never be bad it was not to be free But as the love of particular good though good in it self may be bad it was to be in our power to consent to or withstand its motion Arist But how can the love of particular good be bad Theodorus We only love what we see we see nothing but God therefore we love nothing but God when it seems we love the Creatures how then can our love be bad Theod. We love nothing but God Aristarchus for God preserves us only to love him But our love is bad when it is not regulated Or rather our love is always good absolutely and in it self but it is not relatively good Our love is always good in it self for we can never love what seems bad to us We can love but what we believe to be good and lovely since 't is God that makes us love and that we love none but him because we love nothing but what we see in him But our love is bad relatively because we love too much those things that are least lovely in short because instead of loving God in himself we love him with relation to his Works for loving only what we see we love God but only as he represents a vile creature and not according to what he is in himself God allows us to love what is in him that represents a creature for that is good but he will not have us to fix there the motion of our love He would have us to love whatever he includes He would be belov'd according to the Idea of Being in general of Being infinitely perfect and soveraignly lovely which Idea hath no relation but to himself and represents nothing that is out of him Nothing but the Idea of the infinite good ought to stop the motion of
follow him and stop at some particular good do you think that he fixes you on it by the pleasure you find in it Erast What are you affraid of Aristarchus Is it not plain that God alone can act in us hath not Theodorus demonstrated it to you why do you hesitate will you already leave Principles plainly demonstrated for an objection you cannot solve will you prefer darkness to light Yes 't is God Theod. Softly Erastus I esteem the firmness of your mind but I like the disposition wherein I find Aristarchus better in this case he fears to fail in point of respect towards God and that there may be something hard and violent in the consequence I would draw Erast I have thought on your System Theodore and can explain all this without saying any thing hard or displeasing What you just now did object to Aristarchus plainly evinces original sin the disorder of nature the enmity that is between God and man the necessity of a Mediator Lawgiver and Restorer in short it seems to me that I have a glimpse of the Christian Religion in that Principle Arist You go very fast Erastus I pray you Theodore demonstrate that the proof of original sin is to be found as Erastus pretends in those things you told me just now Theod. How Aristarchus do you not see it Do you not remember the system which I explained to you two days ago But 't is no matter I ask you Is it not a disorder that a spirit who is made for none but God should suffer when he loves God Arist But you say that it is God that makes him suffer Theod. I own it But is it not a disorder that God who hath made spirits for none but himself and gives them no motion but towards himself should repel them from him push them back and use them ill when they come near him and cause in them sentiments of pleasure when they turn from him and fix on some particular good Arist This is not only a disorder but a contradiction This cannot be God doth not contradict nor oppose himself Theod. But Aristarchus Is it not certain that God makes and preserves us for none but himself Is it not also most certain that God alone acts in the Soul and gives her sensations of pleasure or pain when she cleaves to bodies or when she deprives her self of them Is it not God that moves us to love him and also to love bodies if the pleasure we feel at their appearance may be reckoned a sufficient reason for a rensonable spirit to love then Arist It is true But how Theod. I have already explained it to you But yet can this disorder this fight of God against himself give me leave to use these expressions for a while this want of uniformity we imagin to be in Gods Actions proceed from God God made man for himself and even preserves him for himself only but when a man quits the body to unite himself to God by the force of meditation when a man walks in the ways of vertue to come near God he feels pain and this pain proceeds from none but God Doth not this show that God is angry with us and that we have displeased him If God will have us to run after him and to follow and seek him is it possible he can reject and push us back and make us resent pain when we really follow him unless at the same time there be some Enmity between us and him Why doth he repel us when we follow him but because we are unworthy to come near him And how are we unworthy to come near him since he is the end of our Creation unless it be because we are no more such as God had made us and he doth not care for us as we are now and we want a Restorer and a Mediator Arist I doubt you have not well demonstrated yet the Enmity which you believe to be between God and men You say that God repels us when we would come near him because he makes us have a sense of pain in the practice of vertue and the inquiry after truth But I have two things to object to you First that if it seems that God repess and molests us by Sentiments of pain on the other side he comforts us in the deepest recess of our reason for we feel an inward joy in the practice of vertue which makes us know sufficiently that God is our good and if God did not desire we should love him he would not reward us with this inward comfort nor create in us those bitter checks and reproaches that make us uneasie in the injoyment of sensible good Secondly God doth not repel and thrust us from him when we run after him he only gives us notice by sentiments of pain to seek somewhere else than in him the good of the body And as meditation is not conducible to our health we ought to feel some pain in its practice that we may leave it off for all sensible pleasures or pains are only warnings to the body and you ought not to think that God will have us love or hate any thing for the sake of the pleasures or pains we receive in the use of them God will have us to seek or avoid them for the preservation of the Body as you said two days ago but he will not have us love or fear them Theod. Whatever you have said now is true Aristarchus but it doth not overthrow what I had establisht before I own that God comforts us by an inward joy when we love him and that he torments us by knawing checks when we love the good of the body After all what doth this prove nothing else but that God will have us to love him and that he hath made us for himself It is a certain mark that the enmity between God and men is not full and general but it is not a sure sign of a perfect friendship Sinners have offended God there is enmity between them and God you do not doubt it and yet God recalls them to him by checks and reproaches Yet this doth not shew that he loves them perfectly but only that the enmity is not entire and absolute for it cannot be such without causing their destruction And do not imagine that these checks alone such as the Heathens felt them could make them come back reconcile and rejoin themselves to their principle This call was only to justifie God's conduct and condemn that of Sinners For in all likelihood it is to be found even amongst the Damned who will be eternally recalled and eternally repelled and condemned those checks being a condemnation of their malice None return but such as are called back in Jesus Christ for nothing but his grace can make this Call efficacious without the grace of Christ sensible attractions have a greater power than this inward call God pushes us back more than he draws us to him and if he will have us
because he made us he will not have us such as we have made our selves far from this as such he cannot suffer us near him and always removes us from him Yet Aristarchus it is true that God is too just and loves himself too much not to desire to be beloved and to remove positively from him creatures whom he only made for himself for sensible pleasure or pain removes from God but indirectly and by our own fault First because being able to find out by reason that bodies are incapable of creating in us either pleasure or pain we ought neither to fear nor love them but God alone who hath power to cause these sensations in us When something wounds us we ought to fear God and when our senses are any ways pleased we ought to think on him and fear and love him in all things For it is a common notion that the true cause of pleasure and of pain ought to be loved and feared But our ignorance of the actual presence and continual operation of this true cause of our sensations makes us love and fear bodies imagining them to be capable to act in us Now this ignorance is not something positive caused in us by God it is nothing It is true that not to love or fear bodys it is absolutely necessary we should have a very clear and lively knowledge of the presence and continual operation of God upon us for the knowledge which Philosophy gives us of him doth not strongly enough dispose us to cleave incessantly to him But what can be concluded from God's not causing himself to be known enough without his grace to be Loved and feared in all things but that men have offended and displeased him God doth not therefore remove us positively from him when he causes some pleasure or pain in us by the means of bodys since we ought and may then think on him rather than on those bodys Now I come to the second reason Seeing we have a body it is necessary we should have notice of what passes in it It is necessary that at the appearance of objects we have sentiments moving us to cleave to or shun them It is also necessary that these sentiments be preingaging for some reasons that I have mentioned elsewhere So God doth not positively remove us from him when he causes in us our sentiments since on the contrary it is the shortest means to warn us of the things that are necessary for the preservation of life without turning us away from him But those preingaging Sentiments ought not to disturb us nor oppose our Reason and seeing they do it is evident as I have already said it 2d Dial. That Man doth not deserve God should interrupt the Law of the communication of motions for his sake but this doth not imply that God really pushes us back from him In short men see all things in God their immediate object is the intelligible world and the very substance of God but they not thinking on him at the appearance of sensible objects imagine that some outward being altogether like the Idea they have of it acts in them Thus God moves them only towards himself since he only moves them towards what they see and not towards those things which they imagine to be external and it is only indirectly and through a mistake that they love the creatures which are neither so lovely nor such as they imagin them to be Erast You are much in the right Theodorus when you believe that the first cause of our disorders is our not having God always present to our minds and not seeing or rather not feeling him in all things For did we plainly and sensibly see that none but God really acts in us when bodies are present to our sences methinks we would fear and love none but him since we love or fear nothing but what acts in us How then could Adam estrange himself from God for he could see God in all things and had all the knowledge that was necessary to remain united to him If you do not explain how he could fall into sin perhaps Aristarchus will believe that the first man was made such as we are and that concupiscence is not so much a punishment for sin as the first institution of Nature Theod. You need not fear it Erastus he knows now that we ought not to leave a demonstrated Truth because we cannot solve some difficult Points he now sticks to what he sees But I understand what you mean and answer you thus The first man did clearly see God in all things he evidently knew that bodies could not be his true good nor properly make him in the least happy or unhappy he was fully convinc'd of God's continual operation on him but his was no sensible conviction he knew this but did not feel it on the contrary he could feel that bodies acted on him tho he could not know that they did it It is true that being endowed with reason he ought to have followed his light and not his sentiment and that he could easily have done it seeing he could stop his sentiments when he pleased being free from concupiscence However deferring too much to his sences and suffering himself by degrees to hearken to them more willingly than to God himself by reason that the sences always move pleasingly and God did not move him to hear him by preingaging pleasures which must have lessened his Freedom you easily conceive how he came to remove himself so far from God as to lose sight of him to adjoyn in will to a creature by whose means he received some satisfaction and which he might then confusedly imagin to be capable of making him as happy as the Serpent assured Eve it would For tho Adam was not attackt nor seduced by the Serpent as Eve was And Adam was not deceived 1 Tim. 2.14 Yet what God said after Adam's fall Behold the man is become as one of us to know good and evil Gen. 3.22 Sufficiently shows that he had some hopes of becoming happy by the means of the forbidden Fruit. Now to determine us to do a thing there is no absolute necessity that we be fully persuaded that our Motive is just and reasonable The hopes of a great benefit tho never so small are capable of making us do much So we may suppose that Adam was so strongly applied to sensible Objects and consequently so far removed out of God's presence that the least hope the slightest doubt and the most confused sentiment of so great an advantage as that of being like God hath been capable of moving him to do a thing which he did not perhaps think very sinful at the time of his Fall All finite Spirits must be subject to Error and Sin principally if they resent preingaging pleasures which incline them to seek things that they ought not to love and to shun what they ought not to fear For no finite Spirit can actually resent pleasure without
not hinder us from discovering Truth Theod. You begin perhaps Aristarchus to discover by what we have said and by this last Answer of Erastus that what Christ hath preached about the mortification of our Senses is the best method that can be to reunite us to God by the knowledg of Truth Arist It is true But I am afraid that you attribute to the Doctrin of the Gospel some perfection that Christ never designed to give it For in all likelihood Christ never intended to give us any Precepts to direct our minds in the inquiry of certain Truths which are not absolutely necessary to us in the World Theod. I own Aristarchus that Christ's principal design was not to instruct us in certain speculative Truths which do not by themselves conduce to the knowledg and love of sovereign Truth But the Precepts of the Gospel are so useful that they extend to all the things that may in some manner add to the perfection of the mind for they are directly opposed to the cause of our disorders and remedy our diseases in their beginning And thus they tend to give us all the perfection whereof we are capable since to deprive our selves of sensible things is not only a necessary thing to help the conversion of our hearts but also for the perfecting our understandings as you will see it better hereafter Do you think Erastus that nothing besides actual Sentiments can hinder the mind from applying itself to Truth and that a Man who hath for some years enjoyed the pleasures of the World is able when he leaves them to unite himself to intellectual things with as much force and light as those who have during all their Lives been careful to purifie their Imaginations Erast No certainly none can enjoy worldly pleasure with impunity When the Imagination hath been touch'd by some sensible thing the impression of it remains and the enjoyment of worldly pleasures makes it easily Slaves to them There remains in our Brain some impressions that always represent to the mind the pleasures that it hath enjoy'd and that often hinder it from applying itself to such things as have no sensible attraction Therefore when the Imagination is sully'd the Mind is fill'd with darkness because Concupiscence which of itself takes off the Mind from the sight of Truth is strengthned and encreas'd by this new Concupiscence that is acquir'd by the use of sensible things Theod. What must we do then Erastus to become capable of attaining that perfection of understanding which consists in the knowledg of Truth Erast It appears plainly that we must with all imaginable care avoid whatever is able to make any deep impression in our Brain we must give me leave to use your expression strictly take care to purify our Imaginations Arist But then Theodorus we ought not to do Penance for painful Sensations as much divide our thinking Faculty as those that are pleasing Theod. A Man ought not to mortify himself with an intent to find the Solution of a Problem such an Action doth not enlighten the Mind None can actually seel Pain and see Truth actually at the same time But Sufferings how unuseful soever for the knowledg of certain Truths are very useful to take us off from sensible things * Pontificius loquitur to satisfy God's Justice being join'd to those of our Saviour to merit us the sight of that sovereign Truth which dissipates all our darkness and even to teach us some certain moral Truths on which we do not think when we feel nothing But Aristarchus do you not see that the impressions of Sufferings that remain in the Memory do not darken it like the impressions of Pleasures Do you not see that they never provoke Lust never disturb the Mind never divide its Attention and that things being thus they do not hinder it from discovering Truth We easily cease to think on Pain as soon as we cease to suffer it and have no cause to fear it because Pain hath nothing that is pleasing in itself But the same doth not happen when ever we have tasted of any Pleasures their vestiges or impressions remain strongly printed in our Brains and do each moment excite some troublesom desires that disturb the peace of the mind and those desires renewing those impressions Concupiscence which is the Spring of all our Ills and consequently of the want of application of the mind to Truth as well as the corruption of the heart incessantly receives new strength Arist You are in the right But yet we see that many learned Men have spent their whole Lives in Debauchery abandoning themselves continually to all sorts of Pleasures Theod. Not so many as you may think Aristarchus for the number of the false learned is very great A Man must see Truth clearly and distinctly to be truly learned It is not enough to have read much for the Mind knows nothing if it sees nothing Pleasure unless it be excessive doth not hinder a Man from reading none but violent Pleasures darken the memory and imagination but the least thing in the World can darken the sight of the Mind The Learned of whom you were speaking make more use of their memory and of their imagination than they do of their understanding and I every day perceive that those whom you esteem most for their Learning are a sort of Men whose understanding is so small so dark so dissipated that they are not capable of having the least apprehension of many Truths which Erastus very easily comprehends There is much difference between that Learning which depends upon the largeness of the Memory and the force of the Imagination and that Learning which consists in a sight purely intellectual wherein the Imagination hath no share unless it be indirectly All pure Idea's vanish and dissipate themselves at the appearance of sensible Idea's We do not hear the voice of Truth when our Senses and our Imagination speak to us for we had much rather confusedly know the relations that things have with us than clearly to know what relations they have between themselves We are in so great a dependance under Bodies and so little united to God that the least thing separates us from him But sensible knowledg and the sight of the imagination being strengthned by the vestiges or impressions of the Brain may withstand contrary Sentiments the Idea's of that knowledg have if I may use that expression a Body and cannot be so easily dissipated Thus Retirement and a privation from all Pleasure is not absolutely necessary to gain all the knowledg wherein we make a greater use of the Senses and Imagination than of Reason If Mr. Des Cartes came to be so learned in Geometry Physics and other parts of Philosophy it is because he pass'd 25 years in a Retirement it is because he hath perfectly discover'd the errors of our Senses that he hath with care avoided their impression and oftner meditated than read In a word it is because being held
Rule of the Will of God we perceive clearly that Sinners are indispensably obliged to such a Privation and Mortification for 't is plain that Order requires the Punishment of Sinners Every Man ought to wish with a certain Holy Person Either to suffer or to dye or rather with another Not to dye till he has suffered much For every one who loves Order who prefers the Will of God before his own who has regard to the Beauty of the Universe not that visible Beauty which is the Object of our Senses but the intelligible Beauty which can be only perceived by our Minds every one I say that considers himself as a part of the Works of God and who places not his chief end in himself nor thinks it his Duty to love himself more than God ought to conform himself to the Will of his All. He ought to undertake the quarrel of God and inspir'd with a holy zeal for the satisfaction of his Justice exercise a necessary severity against himself a severity which will restore him to a state of Order so much the more quickly as he shall exercise it more voluntarily For if the punishment of Sin were not voluntary it would necessarily be eternal If we consider'd that Pleasure is a recompence which God alone is capable of producing in us and that he has obliged himself by the Order of Nature which is nothing else but the Eternal Decrees of his Will to make us feel Pleasure as often as the Bodies that surround us shall produce in our Body such motions as are useful for its preservation If we considered this I say we should be fully convinced that it is an abominable and shameful impudence to make use of the unchangeableness of the Decrees of a Just God to oblige him to reward us at the same time that we deserve to be punished as Sinners and even for those Crimes which we are then actually committing against God For it is certainly a thing that cannot be reflected on without horrour and amazement viz. that we make the goodness of God favour our Passions and in a manner force the God of order to reward disorder But if we consider on the other side that Pain is a punishment which God alone is capable of inflicting on us and that he has obliged himself by the same order of Nature to make us sensible of Pain as often as the Bodies which surround us shall produce such motions in our Bodies as are contrary to its preservation we then can no longer doubt but that a Sinner who willingly submits to the order of Justice and makes use of the immutability of the Divine Will only that he may be re-establish'd in a state of order who if I may be allowed to use that expression reconciles God with God and natural order with essential and necessary order and who knowing himself to be a Sinner obliges God in pursuance of his unalterable Decrees to treat him according to his deserts we cannot doubt I say but that such a Sinner shall certainly draw upon himself the favourable Mercy of so good a God as he whom we adore For such a Sinner is truly amiable he augments the beauty of the Universe he endeavours with all his might to re-enter into a state of order and he does effectually re-enter into it his sufferings being united to those of Christ who alone is an atonement that is able to compass the glorious design of the general restoration of all things How great is the difference between a voluptuous and a repenting Sinner Let us endeavour once more to give a lively Idea of it A voluptuous person is a monster who breaks all order and spoils the beauty of the Universe whereas a true penitent re-establishes a state of order and restores to the Universe what he hath taken from it A voluptuous Man is a Traytor who abuses the goodness of his Soveraign and who being acquainted with his designs does maliciously take advantages from them to oblige him to actions that are unworthy of him but a penitent Sinner is a faithful Servant who studies the will of his Master and is willing to undergo any sufferings that it may be executed one who makes such a prudent use of the knowledge he has of his Lord's inclinations that he obliges him in Justice to make him his Favourite Finally a voluptuous Man is a Malefactor who is perpetually committing new crimes an obdurate Sinner who drinks up iniquity like water and rejoyces in his wickedness a cast Devil whose doom is not yet pronounc'd and a fatted Victim reserv'd for the day of the Lord's vengeance and to be the fuel of inextinguishable flames On the other side a true Penitent is a just person who fears Sin more than he loves Pleasure an humble and contrite Soul that is still purifying it self in bitterness and pain a burnt sacrifice of Love a sacrifice that is too pleasing and too acceptable to the God to whom it is made to remain in the order of Justice and which shall therefore be infallibly translated to that of Mercy for its punishment being voluntary cannot continue for ever We must not then delude our selves by imagining that Christ came into the World to free us from our obligations to Repentance Christ did not come to overturn the order of things The design of his coming was to suffer with Sinners by his sufferings to sanctifie their Repentance and render it well-pleasing to God He came to bear by the greatness of his Power that which Men could not bear by reason of the weakness of their Nature the finiteness of their Being and unworthiness of their Persons But he came not to excuse them from Repentance far from that he encourages them to suffer by his own Example strengthens them by his Grace and instructs them by his Doctrine For he has assured us that none but those who follow him to the Death shall enjoy that Life which he merited for us by the loss of his own If any Man says he would rise again with me let him renounce his own Life let him bear the instrument of his punishment let him take up his Cross and follow me for he that would save his Life shall lose it Nay he even rebukes sharply the greatest of his Apostles because he would have disswaded him from suffering he calls him Satan and commands him out of his presence Mark 8 33,34,35 But when Jesus had turned about and 〈◊〉 on his disciples he rebuked Peter saying get thee behind me Sâ—… for thou savourest not the things that be of God but the things that be of men And when he had called the 〈◊〉 unto him with his disciples 〈◊〉 he said unto them whosoever will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me For whosoever will save his life shall lose it and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospels the same shall save it This is the Doctrine of the