not so much as see or know even themselves only which gave occasion of that Expression of the Schoolmen Videntur ut quò non ut quod non cognita faciunt cognoscere We may then presuppose that it is not at all these Tables whereon the Soul sees the Object and this being presupposed we have no more to do than to search into the manner how the Soul hath by the occasion of these dead and Corporeal Images and Impressions those living and animated Idea's and Images which she hath in her self and by which she is render'd formally and actually Knowing having in her self a lively Representation or an inward Sentiment of the Objects which render themselves present by the Material Impression which is receiv'd in the Body That Men do not commonly Explain how the Passage of the Material Impressions of Corporeal Objects make a Passage into the Spiritual Substance of the Soul One may say That here are the Limits or if a Man may be permitted to say so the Pillars of Humane Intelligence there hath appear'd nothing neither hath there been any thing in Nature more inaccessible than the Knowledge and the clear Notion of the manner how this Passage is made and this Transmission from the Corporeal into the Spiritual Region and than the manner how the Corporeal Impressions of the Senses whether Interior or Exterior do become Spiritual Idea's and Perceptions in the Soul Men have said almost nothing thereupon but enormous and monstrous Contradictions But we need not despair of arriving at a clear Notion and an indubitable Certainty thereof how dark soever this Mystery may be wrapped up if we follow that Rule which prescribes to us to go always notwithstanding the resistance of Prejudices thither where the Evidence and clearness of Principles and Consequences calls us and leads us on In following on the one part the double shining Light of the Experience which we have of a Superior Light and Power which rules over us and which enlightens us and of the Certainty we have made our selves of the Spiritual Nature of our Souls And on the other part in following the infallible Principle of this certain Truth That it is God alone who Essentially unites things Spiritual and Corporeal and who alone can unite our Bodies and our Souls we shall carry a certain and an infallible Light in this so dark and so obscure a place and we shall come to have a clear Idea of that which we search after That it is the Author and the Principle of the Union of the Soul and of the Body which makes the Commerce between the Soul and the Body and by consequence between the Soul and the Corporeal Objects We find that these Corporeal Images and these Material Impressions do not pass into the Soul to render it actually and formally Knowing by themselves for this would be a Repugnancy with a Witness if it were only in this because a Corporeal thing cannot be the enlightning and illuminating Form of a Spiritual Nature We find that these Images and these Corporeal Impressions do not quit their quality and material Essence to change themselves by a Chimerical and an Impossible Metamorphosis to Spirituals We find that these Corporeal Images are not the Tables and Glasses to which the Soul doth apply her self and towards which she turns her self to contemplate and see in them the Objects which are render'd present to the Body in drawing upon them their Idea and Representation We find that these Images or Corporeal Impressions which the Exterior Objects do engrave in our Brains are no other thing than the Occasional Cause of the Action by which He who unites the Body and Soul doth Instruct Us and Enlighten Us who in the Quality of the First Cause concurs Essentially with all Second Causes and who in the Quality of an Universal Cause hath been pleas'd to render in Men the Concourse of his Illumination and the Essential Irradiation of his Life by which He makes to live all that liveth dependent of divers Impressions which are brought and receiv'd within our Brains for to conserve his Character of Universal Cause in such a manner that these Images serve to no other purpose than to determine the Author of Nature who is necessarily the immediate Cause and immediate Principle of the Union of the Soul and of the Body and by consequence of our Corporeal Impressions and of our Spiritual Faculties to give as an Essential Cause of all the Light and of all the Life which is in created Beings the Idea's and the Sentiments of things at that moment that the general Course of the Universal Movement of Corporeal Matter and of Nature or the free and accidental Determination of some particular Cause doth make in that Structure of Bone of Flesh and of Nerves which we call Human Body any Impression which is carried to the Center of all that Structure which is the Brain This is the Formal Act of the Power which unites the Soul to the Body and the Body to the Soul This is the Active and Formal Union of the Soul to the Body This is It which is the immediate and necessary Principle and Cause which makes the Commerce betwixt the Body and the Spirit This is It which makes the Passage to the Corporeal Species and Images from the Corporeal to the Spiritual Region This is It which Spiritualizeth our Phantômes not by a Chimerical and Impossible Metamorphosis but by an Infallible and an Omnipotent Efficacy of his Action as First Cause and as Cause Universal by which from the occasion of divers Impressions made in the Body He gives to Souls the Idea's and Sentiments which ought to correspond and accompany them in the Intention of the End of his Workmanship It would be very surprising if this Idea should appear New to those Understandings who know that it is an Idea so common and so necessary To regard God as the immediate Author and necessary Cause of the Union of our Souls and of our Bodies for when it shall be known that God is the immediate and necessary Principle and Cause of this Union it ought not to appear strange or new That it is God who makes and who entertains this Commerce which is the essential and necessary continuance thereof and that he continually Acts after this manner upon our Souls from the occasion of the Impressions of Bodies seeing that the Action by which he makes this Union which ought necessarily to be renew'd reiterated and continu'd every moment cannot consist but in this everliving Commerce between the Soul and between the Body as shall be prov'd hereafter In sum all is thereby clear and easie all of a piece and made very plain Thereby we do not only ascend to the true Principle and immediate Cause of the Union of our Souls and of our Bodies but we clearly conceive thereby how this Union so incomprehensible and so admirable is made how it is He that is the First Tie and Essential Band
thereof And He is at the same time the Light and the Life of all Spirits as He Acts perpetually in Us and doth not less Animate the little World which is the Assembly of the Body and Spirit whereof Man consists than the Universal World which is the Assembly of all Corporeal Natures Thereby doth subsist our dependence upon Him in all the Acts of our Life as well as in the Foundation of our Being which depends every moment upon the continuation of that Action by which he at first Created us Happy it is that the Notion which we have made of the manner whereby we know all things which are without us should lead us back and unite us so intimately to the Source of our Being and that we cannot know how our Knowledges and Sentiments are form'd in us without knowing likewise together with the dependence that all our Life and all our Being hath from Him the Immensity the Excellency and the Superiority of his infinite Essence above all created Beings The blind and ignorant Pride of Humane Understanding will not perhaps suffer in some People that we should humble it after this manner and that we should thus bring it back again to God It will revolt it may be against the Evidence of the things which I have been speaking of and it will perhaps chuse much rather not to comprehend at all how the Corporeal Impressions of Objects become in our Souls Spiritual Images and Sensations than to comprehend it after a manner which gives it so lively an Idea of its Dependence and its Nothingness But we must not suffer it peaceably and quietly to enjoy the Pleasure of its affected Ignorance of its criminal Independency we must convince it not only that there is no other means of Explaining the manner how we have by reason of Corporeal Impressions the Idea's and Sentiments of things but we must also necessarily make it acknowledge That this perpetual Action of the Illumination and Irradiation of God in us as an Essential Act of his Supream Sovereignty over us is the inseparable Character of our Essential Dependence and the necessary continuance of the Function by which he unites the Souls to Bodies so as Faith teaches it CHAP. VII A Proof of what hath been decided That it is God as Author of the Union of the Soul and Body who gives to the Soul the Sentiments and Idea's of things from the occasion of Corporeal Impressions which are made upon the Material Senses THIS continual Action of God in us whereby he Acts perpetually in us in the Quality of the First and Universal Cause Enlightning us and affecting us with several Sentiments by reason of divers Impressions which are made either by a Cause from within or by a Motion from without in our Brain ought necessarily to be acknowledg'd by two or three sorts of Proofs and different Reasons equally convincing The first Proof by the Essential Union of our Souls with God First of all We have the indubitable Sentiment and Experience thereof For if we rereflect well upon our own Sentiment we shall find equally two Unions in us an Union of our Bodies with all the visible World and an Union of our Souls with a Nature Knowing Immense Infinite and Unchangeable which with an Eye always vigilant and always attentive to all the Movements of our Brains penetrates us continually with a thousand lively Sentiments and enlightens us with a thousand Idea's upon their Occasion Our Bodies are undoubtedly united to all other Bodies and by consequence to all the visible World Because there is not one single Motion made about them which doth not come to them through some one of their Parts or through some one of the Organs which the provident Wisdom of the Creator hath disposed so diversly to receive their different Motions If the Sun or any other Luminous Body be mov'd in the middle of that imperceptible Matter which it drives in straight Lines from all sides our Eyes receive in the instant and in the moment the Impression of it by the necessary Effect of the continuation of Motion or of the effort of Motion which is imprinted in that Matter because they find themselves so dispos'd to let it pass thro' the different Humors whereof they are compos'd and to receive it in that thin and subtil Web which is form'd in the bottom of our Eyes about the Extremities of the Optick Nerves and which is call'd the Retina If there be a Shock of two solid Bodies in the Air or any vehement Fomentation of Exhalation as it happens in Thunder from whence arise redoubled Trepidations in this fluid Matter like to those Circles which are describ'd upon the Superficies of Water one after the other and one against another this Motion comes to strike in our Bodies that which is called the Tympanum in the Organ of Hearing It is generally in the same manner with all other Bodies some of them are united to our Bodies by the subtile Vapours which they emit from them as are Odours others by an Immediation as they say of the Superficies of their Parts and there is not any one single one of them which doth not Act upon our Bodies after their manner But if our Bodies are so naturally united to all other Bodies by Contiguity which communicates the Motion of one to the other our Souls are yet more sensibly united to a Superior and an over-ruling Nature which imprints on them Idea's and Sentiments as it pleases by General Wills and universal and immutable Laws which it almost never departs from but in those extraordinary Occasions in the which it Acts as a particular Cause and works that which we call a Miracle We cannot be ignorant or insensible of this Empire which the Author and Master the Sovereign and the Lord of Nature Exercises over us for the Reasons which have been already observ'd and which S. Augustin had so well div'd into that he said That a reflective and an attentive Man would much rather doubt of the Union of his Body with the visible World to which it is tied by all its Parts than of that Union of his Soul with God since the Action thereof is never interrupted but it is sensible and visible for we know nothing if we do not know that it Acts in us and that it Rules us either by a lively and an involuntary Sentiment or by the Light wherewith it penetrates us since it is impossible not to acknowledge God in this Principle so Enlightning and so Vigilant of the one Part and on the other so Efficacious and so Commanding who Presides over all our Knowledges and over all our Sentiments and who makes them in us in spite of us with so admirable and so illuminating a Wisdom and so much the better as causing in us undoubtedly all the Pleasure and all the Pain which we resent by the occasion of our Bodies We see plainly that he is the Sovereign Arbiter as well as the
in the Vital and Natural Motions There are none but the Motitions which we call Animal or Voluntary that she can determine by her Empire There needs no other Proof of this here than that which we draw from our Sentiment which is the only bright and clear Light which Enlightens us in the Knowledge of our Soul for we ought not to conceive any thing of her but that which we Experience of her and that which evidently follows from that Experience And it is certain that that Vegetating Faculty and that Vertue of Heating the Meat and the Blood is neither found nor perceiv'd nor doth follow from any thing that is found and perceiv'd in the Soul But besides this Reason there is this farther evident Conviction that is drawn from two Principles from a Principle of St. Augustin which is That the Acting or Operating Soul is always free as the Receiving Soul is never so And from the Principle of Essential Certainty which the Soul hath of her self and of every thing that is done in her and much more of that which is done by her which is that which we have acknowledg'd to make the Foundation or the Ground of the Knowing Nature For it follows from these two Principles That if the Soul was the Cause of the Heat of the Stomach and of the Blood of the Formation and of the Distribution of the Chyle and the like in Us she would have Essentially the Sentiment and the Perception of it because she Essentially perceives every thing that she doth And not only the Perception but the Empire because she hath Essentially the Empire over every thing that she doth as Acting according to S. Augustin's Observation that is to say That she can increase or diminish Heat That she can advance or retard Digestion and make it as she pleases For this is an intimate Sentiment which we have from our selves That we are Free in the things that we have the Power and Vertue of doing by the Active Faculty Our Soul perceives her Liberty in all the things whereof she is the Cause and the Principle There is nothing which we certainly know but the Soul is the Active Cause and the Principle of it of which she hath gain'd the Empire either to do or not to do as she pleases We have no more to do than to reflect upon the Faculty which she hath of Thinking or of Willing and of Determining her self which are the two only Active Faculties that we know in her for the others are Passive and Receptive Faculties if I may so say And we shall see that the Soul hath Essentially the Empire as well as the Certainty of that double Faculty and of all the Acts which proceed therefrom We shall see that she suspends her Thoughts and her Reasonings That she puts them by That she determines and applies them to Matters as she pleases And we shall see that she is in the same manner Mistress of her Will without the Motion that carries her towards God in general if she be not preoccupy'd and transported with some Passion or other Now the Soul hath neither the Sentiment nor the Certainty of the Act and Vertue of Healing of Concocting and of Digesting nor the Empire over them For neither do we any ways perceive that our Soul Exercises these Functions nor have we Power to suspend or to advance them if we had the Power we should always without doubt make a very good and laudable Digestion and we should always take heed of producing in our selves any excessive Heat this would deliver us from all the Distempers of the Bowels and from all the ill Consequences which follow thereupon In my Opinion there is nothing more insupportable than this gross Idea of having the Soul to be the Formal or Physical Cause of the Heat which is in our Bodies because that besides that the Soul cannot be the Formal Cause of Heat since nothing can be the Formal Cause of Heat but that which is hot Nor likewise can it be the Efficient or Physical Cause since it is impossible to conceive that a Spirit should produce Heat and yet we not at all know in our Souls any other Vertue of Operating out of themselves than that of moving the Body by Empire and by Will as hath been said and by them other Bodies to whom they apply themselves It is certain that there is nothing more ridiculous than to imagine and to conceive our Soul as an Enemy to her self in refusing Heat sometimes even to a general Decay and Languishing of the whole Body and at other times increasing it even to a frightful Conflagration of the Blood and Humors of the Bowels and of all the Viscera which serve to keep up the Life of the Body This we must acknowledge for certain and indubitable That there are a thousand things done in Us which are only if I may so say but the Acts of of the Body and its Life How there is a Corporeal Act of Seeing Hearing and Smelling which is alike in Man and Beast This is extreamly remarkable for it follows from hence That as there is in Us a Material Principle of Vegetation or a Vegetative Life which the Soul doth not Cause so there is likewise a certain kind of Acts of Seeing of Hearing of Tasting of Smelling of Touching of Self-moving or of Sensibility in the Body in which the Soul hath not any part to which she doth not influence any thing and of which she hath not so much as a Sentiment For when the Image reflected from the Superficies of a Body which is before us by the Rays of Light which result from all the Points of its Exterior Superficies is en graven in that subtle thin Web form'd in the bottom of our Eye from the Extremities of the delicate Threds of the Optick Nerve which makes an end of carrying to the Brain the Material Image which it hath receiv'd the Soul so far meddles not at all and this Action may very well be call'd the Act of Seeing or Corporeal Vision because it cannot be carry'd into the Brain but it must there engrave the Corporeal Image of the Object which is before us and it must affect it after a certain particular Fashion which is capable to determine a Motion either of Flight or Pursuit without the Souls medling with it in any manner as we see every day happens by the force and vehemence of certain sudden Impressions which make us shun or approach in spite of our selves and which make us either open or shut our Eye-lids or turn to or turn away our Face whatsoever Determination we have to the contrary It is in the same manner with the Acts of Tasting Hearing and Moving For Odors for Example being receiv'd through the Os cribriformis into the Olfactory Nerve doe there determine a Motion which may lead on and determine another in the Nerves and Muscles which answer to the Olfactory Nerve without the Souls medling or taking any
that the natural order and connexion of these Species cannot be observ'd and kept but are confusedly and tumultuously excited and stirr'd up by a tumultuous and irregular agitation of the Organ in which they reside There are divers sorts of Follies there are the Furious and the Peaceable there are the Rejoycing and the Melancholy and there are general ones and particular ones which are fastned to one single Object And all these diversities do proceed from the diverse manner whereby the Brain is disorder'd and it would be easie to Explain them particularly if there was occasion It is sufficiento say that in what manner soever Folly subsists it is the greatest Humiliation of our Nature and that which gives us the best Prospect of the Misery of the Servitude of our Souls in the present Estate of Union with the Body since they lose by Folly the Empire and the Liberty of their Thoughts being forc'd to follow the fantasticalness the perplexity the disorder and the confusion of the irregular Motion of the Brain either too much dry'd and burnt up by Choler and Melancholy or too much overflow'd or too much moistned by Phlegm without being able either to suspend or stop them or to hasten or advance them This lets us see the Limitation even of our Spiritual Nature which is Finite even in the most Divine Perfection that she possesses for this disorder of the loss of the Empire and of the Liberty of Thoughts happens in Man because he doth not possess as God doth an Infinite Liberty that is to say an Infinite Empire but only a Finite Liberty or a Finite Empire over himself For it is this which makes that God as the Universal Cause doth not respect this Liberty of Man but determines in his Soul Thoughts conformable to the Agitations of his Brain which is the Occasional Cause by which he is determin'd in this Quality of Universal Cause to give Thoughts and Idea's to the Soul God concurs with Fools as he doth with Natural Causes for the making of Monsters he follows the Motion of the Brain as a Necessary Cause Raving doth not differ from Folly but by the Intervals which it hath and because it is only an Accident and a transient Symptom of a Fever which too strongly agitates the Brain Frensie is but a violent Raving and both the one and the other let us see that there must be a Superior Power who with an absolute Empire Determines our Thoughts from the Occasion of the Motions of our Brain and Confirms by a sensible Argument all that we have said concerning the Union of our Souls with our Bodies and concerning the continual Action by which we believe that God Determines our Thoughts and our Sentiments from the Occasion of divers Impressions which are made on our Bodies either by External Objects or by the Fermentation of their proper Humors If we reflect seriously upon it we shall see that it is not at all possible to think that the Soul in these States of Folly and Frensie should make in her self her Thoughts We shall be persuaded that she receives them from that Superior Power which unites her to the Body and which Acting as an Universal Cause hath no regard to the incongruity of these Thoughts as it hath no regard to the incongruity of Monsters in the Motions which it gives to the common Matter of the Universe by its inviolable and infallible Laws but makes the Fortune of the Disorder and of the Disranging of the Harmony of the Body to follow and run upon the Soul not ceasing to determine her Thoughts according to the Occasion which that part gives her thereof and that common Center of the Organizanization which it hath establish'd for the occasional Cause of its Essential Concourse or of the Action by which it Enlightens us God Determines the Thoughts in Madmen and in Fools by the immutable Laws which he hath Establish'd in the Union of Bodies with Souls which is To give Idea's upon the Occasion of the Corporeal retracement of Objects which are made in the Brain without having regard either to the Order or to confusion of the Thoughts Visions The Illusions of the Imagination by which Men believe they see by Intervals Things which in effect they do not see are a kind of short and transient Folly and they are made by a deep and lively retracement of some particular Species which so occupie the Organ of the internal Sense that the other Species there remain as it were all of them defaced from whence it happens that the Imagination of it is livelily determined And as this is the effect of lively and strong Imaginations to represent Things absent as if they were just present and as if they actually struck the Senses so it happens from thence that Men do believe they see that which they do not see because they judge that the Image that they have of it is determined by the presence of the Object not minding that it comes from the Imagination only and thus it is that there are a thousand sorts of Illusions and vain and chymerical Visions in certain Spirits which we call feeble or weak tho' indeed they are too strong because that these sorts of Illusions proceed not but from an excessive force of the Imagination the which is a true and real weakness of Reason since the Imagination is never excessively strong but Reason is thereby as much weak because the Power of Reason is to rule over the Imagination to redress to correct it to suspend its Operations and to consider it nearly to see wherein it exceeds The supernatural Visions which come from God are when God as a particular Cause makes a miraculous and supernatural Impression in the Imagination that is to say which doth not at all come from the necessary consequences of the Course of the natural Motion of the Blood of the Humors and of the Spirits and those which come from good and evil Angels are made by the Natural Empire that Angels have over Bodies by vertue whereof they stir up Images in the Brain which determin God as an Universal Cause by the Law of the Union of the Soul with the Body to give Idea's and Thoughts of which the Corporeal Images are the occasional Cause for be it what it will an Angel or a Devil which retrace a certain Object in our Brain God gives us necessarily the Idea of it by that immutable Law of Union which we have often explained which is no other but the confused Idea which Philosophers commonly express by the Term of Concourse which they conceive as the Universal Influence and perpetual and necessary Action of the Creator acting as an Universal Cause and animating by his Intimate Co-operation and by the most efficacious influence of his Life and of his Power the whole Universe reduced to a clear and distinct Idea under the name of the Action by which God makes and entertains the Union of the Souls with Bodies The
the Just Souls See and Know God out of the Body and how the Criminal Souls do also See and Know Him TO this purpose we would willingly Know in the first place What those things Are which the Soul Knows out of the Body and it is easie to Resolve it by those Principles which we have setled For since we have said That there is not at all any other Occasional Cause of the Idea's and Sentiments of the Soul when it is once out of the Body than the Irregular and Vitious Disposition and the Regular and Vertuous Disposition of the Soul on one one part and on the other the Necessary and Eternal Love which God hath for Order so it is certain That this Sovereign Wisdom this Essential Life of all Intelligent Natures dispenseth his Lights and his Darknesses by his Sovereign Equity and that so he Acts otherwise in the Just Souls than in the Souls which are Criminal and Reprobate As to the Just Souls They have as it were a true Immensity of Knowledge First of all They Know God and See Him I say They see Him for it is not a simple Knowledge Abstractively such as we have at present that is to See to Perceive to Touch and if I may say so to Tast as the Holy Writ saith But this is to See by a kind of Vision which we call Intuitive which is not at all a simple or bare View of Speculation or a pure Contemplation of Reasoning but this is a lively and penetrating Impression of the whole Substance of the Divinity which renders it self present and intimate to the Soul by an intimate and penetrating Sentiment just as the Material Objects do now render themselves present to us by the Immediate Action whereby they strike upon and advertise our Senses This is to see God as it were by Sensation This is to perceive Him Present by a lively and an indubitable Experience of His Ineffable Nature and His Beatific Vision just as we perceive the Presence of Things whereof we have the most lively Idea and the most certain and most indubitable Experience This Intuitive Knowledge or Vision of God is not at all the indubitable Knowledge and Sentiment of His Existence only but it is the clear and distinct Knowledge and Idea of All his Attributes in general and of all his Perfections in particular it is a clear and distinct View of all the marvellous Table and of all the Charming Spectacle of the Beauties of this Supream Nature and especially the delicious and ineffable Sentiment of his Goodness and of his Love by which he pours if I may say so all the Joys and all the Felicities of his Heart into these Sanctified and Happy Souls Moreover These Just Souls in thus Knowing God do at the same time no longer Know themselves by that confused Sentiment by which they at present disentangle themselves as it were by main strength and force of Reason from the Body but by a clear and distinct Sentiment and by an Idea equally neat and lively all Shining and all Bright whereby they see themselves with all their Nobleness and with all the Characters of Resemblance which they have with God just as they now see a Picture exposed to their View almost like their Corporeal Image which the Nature of the Soul doth exclude CHAP. IX How the Just Souls See and Know the Visible VVorld and what they Know of the Politic and Civil VVorld IT is not only God and Themselves that they Know They also distinctly see in God all the visible World because besides that the Scripture do's in a manner speak to us of it It is a Knowledge which is naturally inherent in every created Spirit unless God for a time suspends this Knowledge for Reasons of his Providence as he now do's to our Souls which he makes Trial of in the Body and to whom he doth not give these Knowledges as we said before but Successively from the Occasion of the different Impressions made upon our Bodies by the divers parts of the Visible World which present themselves to our Senses one after another It is in Order That Spirits being Superior to Bodies by Reason of their Knowing Nature should Know Bodies Also when the Disposition of the present Oeconomy which requires That God should not Enlighten the Souls but Successively as we said before and from the Occasion of the Immutable Laws of the Motion of the Universe When I say this present Disposition shall cease the Illumination of God being no more annexed to these Vicissitude 〈…〉 of the Universe and of the 〈…〉 of Bodies received in our Material Senses will give in an Instant at once an Idea of all Corporeal Nature and of all the Visible World in its Whole and in its Parts in its Immensity or in its Extent in its agreeable Variety in its Order and Symmetry to all Souls which have not deserved his Anger and instead of this Light he needs but only to spread Darknesses upon the Criminal and Rebellious Souls The Scripture tells us of Holy Souls as if they had the pleasure of walking upon the Globes of the Heavens and to be in the midst of the Stars to walk upon the Sun and upon the Moon and after this manner of speaking it accommodates it self to our gross manner of conceiving the most Spiritual Things under Corporeal Forms But we need conceive by all these Expressions no more than what we have said of a clear and distinct Idea of all the Visible World which God gives to the just Souls they walk after their manner upon the Arches of the Heavens they march upon the Sun and Moon c. because that the lively Idea which they have of all the Visible World makes all the parts thereof present and as it were subjected and placed under their Feet They are at the same time at both the Poles of the World they fill its whole Extent they are in both the Hemispheres their Horizon is not at all a limited Horizon which never permits us to see here but a little Portion of the Universe It is not bounded but by the Bounds of Nature We do not at present see Bodies but only those parts of them which reflect the Light upon us We do not see the Sun the Moon the Stars and the Terraqueous Globe of the Earth and Seas but only one side of them but the pure Souls immediately enlightned by God as they Are They see at the same time the whole Globe of the Sun all the Face of the Moon both the Hemispheres of the Earth There is no Antipodes to them They see All at one View all the fair Prospects of Nature and all the Beautiful Table of the Visible World For besides That their Knowledge is Universal in this respect so it is not at all Successive but all at once So much for the Natural World VVhat the Souls out of the Body Know concerning the Civil and Politic World As to the Civil and Politic
World I confess it will not be easie to determin what they see of it and what they do not see of it because we have no Principle so well Established thereupon that I know as to make us willing to build a sure Determination upon it We may most probably say That God discovers to Innocent Souls that which regards their Family and their Friends but to say That he sets before their Eyes a Diversified Table of Events Revolutions Intrigues and the Mannagements and Contrivances of Courts and States the Successes of Wars Negotiations and Treaties the vast and ambitious Designs of Great Princes and a peculiar Account of Families and particular Fortunes is a thing which I dare neither affirm nor gain-say for the Scripture gives us sufficiently to understand That there are Angels too amongst whom these Knowledges are partly Communicated or it may be wholly given to them But as to Souls I do not find either in the Scripture or in the clear Notion which we have either of the Soul or of God who enlightens the Soul any thing thereupon which may Establish a solid and an infallible Judgment if it be not that God makes them see something of it which may contribute to the satisfaction of the innocent and pure Souls It is very certain That that which is of certainty therein is That if they do see all these things they undervalue them as much as we esteem them and that all those great Changes and Revolutions which we attribute to Fortune are to their Eyes but what the Play of Children is to ours or to say better The business of Ants or of Bees or that perpetual and impertinent Agitation which we see in those Flies whom a vain and unnecessary Motion drives too and fro in the middle of the Air without any purpose or advantage CHAP. X. That Criminal Souls are in Darkness and see nothing SUCH is the knowledge in Just Souls in Relation to Extension But we ought to have sufficiently comprehended That it ought not to be in the same manner in the Impure and Criminal Souls For that Order which requires that the Just one should be illuminated wills on the contrary that the other should be filled with Darknesses so that instead of that Immensity of Light and Knowledge which the former have this other will have only an Immensity of obscurity of Night and of the horror of Darknesses These will be Darknesses that is to say an obscurity and privation on all sides of Kowledge and of Light Jesus Christ makes use of the Expression of outward Darknesses or Darknesses invironing that is to say which will encompass on every side for it is so I understand these outward Darknesses of which the Divine Redeemer speaks so often They will know and see God after their manner but it will be only his Wrath which they will see by a kind of Intuitive Vision in the manner as it hath been hereupon already Explained They will see the Eternal and Essential Light but that Light will only serve to blind them because it will only leave them the Idea's of his Wrath and of their Sins and of all the Circumstances that possibly may augment their Despair Instead of the Beauteous Spectacle of Nature which the Just shall have Eternally they will never have any but the Idea of that dark and burning place which the Supream Justice hath prepared for their Bodies and if they do know any thing of their Family and of their Friends it is only to augment and redouble the Pain of their Regrets of their Privation and eternal Desolation Ejicite in tenebras exteriores ibi erit fletus stridor dentium The Soul of the Father for Example I speak of the ambitious and covetous Soul which loves nothing but the World and its Vanity for himself and his Family will see in his Children all that can be capable of augmenting his Regret and his Remorse The Soul of a Prince in the same manner unjust and reprobate will see in the State which he hath quitted that which will increase his Pain c. CHAP. XI The Faculties of the Souls of which the Acts will be Exercised out of the Body AFTER having seen the Matter and the extent of the Souls Knowledges out of the Body We must now see what perceptive or Knowing Faculties the Soul will Exercise upon this Matter and upon these Objects We have observ'd in the Soul in its present State of Union with the Body a Faculty of Knowing by Sensation a Faculty of Imagining or of Representing things to us by lively and distinct Images a Faculty of Recollecting our selves by Memory and Reminiscency a Faculty of Conceiving by pure Intellection a Faculty of Reasoning or Extending Knowledge acquir'd thereupon by new Consequences and a Faculty of Separating universal Notions of Things from Particular and Individual Differences to frame thereof general Maxims and Principles whither they be of pure Speculation or Moral and Practical for the Order of Life and Action and for the Perfection of Arts and Sciences How the Souls will have Acts of Sensation without any Exterior Sense or Corporeal Organs The Souls whether they be Just or Reprobate do Exercise all these Faculties for tho' Sensation Imagination and the Memory have at present Corporeal Organs yet we must not say for all that that these Faculties ought no more to Exercise themselves out of the Body The Corporeal Organ doth now serve but for two Purposes To be an Occasion to the Universal Cause of the Knowledge that it ought to give to the Soul from the presence of such or such an Object and To be also an Occasion to it of giving to the Soul diverse and different Idea's according to the diversity of Objects and it is for that Reason that he hath Establish'd a diversity of them All the Parts of the Body cannot be shaken by the Motion of the Air which striking upon our Ears causes that which we call a Report or a Sound The Motion of the Beams of the Sun which in striking upon our Eyes causes a sense of the Light cannot affect any other part than that subtile Web which is in the inward part of the Eye which we call the Retina The exterior Fibres of the Skin which cover the Hand and the whole Superficies of the Body will be sufficiently shaken by the Rencounter of a Thorn of a Needle of the Point of a Sword and of a thousand such like things to the end that the Motion may be carry'd by reason of the continuity of the Fibres and Nerves as far as the Brain but neither Sounds nor Light will ever shake them enough to carry the Impression of them to the Brain When the Ears are well stopt you will to little purpose expose the whole Body to the Harmony of a melodious Symphony which is only the Air melodiously struck for this Air so melodiously struck will find no other part in the Body than the Ear only by which it
of Knowledge like to ours 37 Chap. 8. What Judgment soever is made of Beasts our Souls are undoubtedly Spiritual by reason of their Knowing Nature 43 Chap. 9. The double immense and infinite Ground of Knowledge that is in our Souls is a new and certain Proof of their Spiritual Nature 56 Chap. 10. That Libertines cannot maintain this monstrous Opinion That the Soul of Man is Corporeal 59 Chap. 11. That our Souls are undoubtedly Immortal by reason of their Knowing Nature 67 Chap. 12. That our Souls are undoubtedly Spiritual by reason of the Principle and Ground of Liberty which we find in them 75 Animals have not the Liberty of their Motions 76 Our Liberty of Thinking is a certain Character of the Nature and Spiritual Essence in our Souls 81 The Empire of our Desires is another certain Proof of the Spirituality of our Souls 83 Chap. 13. We have an indubitable Certainty of the Immortal Condition of our Souls by the Desires and Instincts of Immortality and Eternity which we have 87 Chap. 14. Of the Spiritual and Immortal Nature of our Souls drawn from the Ground of Conscience 95 That Conscience is not in the Soul of Man an Effect of Education or of some Opinion with which it was imprinted and prepossess'd in the Infancy 98 Chap. 15. That our Souls are indubitably Immortal by a Certainty that the Sentiment of the Conscience gives us thereof 104 Chap. 16. That it is easie not only to give our selves a Conviction of the Spiritual Nature of our Souls but to give a neat Idea of them 112 That every one feels and perceives his Soul and that altho' he be ignorant it is only because he knows not that he knows it 116 Chap. 17. Some Essential Reflections to Rstablish the Order of the Preference of the Soul above that of the Body 119 That all the good and ill Fortune are in our Souls 120 That the Soul hath Pleasures and Pains independently of the Body 121 The Essential Difference of the Pleasures and the Pains which the Soul hath by reason of the Body and of the Pleasures and the Pains which She hath independently of the Body ibid. That the Pleasures and the Pains which the Soul hath not but upon the account of the Body are only as it were to shew the Pleasures and the Pains of Eternity 123 That Vertue is the proper and true Good of the Soul and Vices its Evils 124 That the Passions are the Fevers of the Soul 126 That the Soul hath Essentially in her Disorders the Apprehension of a Superior Justice which wounds her 128 Chap. 18. That all these Knowledges are so many Lights and Principles of Morality and Duty 130 The Order of Duties between our Souls and our Bodies 132 PART II. OF our Duties of Religion and of Morality whether towards God whether towards our Selves whether towards Man and of our Duty of all Gospel Self-denial which result from the manner how our Souls Are and Operate in our Bodies under the Visible Empire of God Page 141 Chap. 1. How we may with Assurance know the manner how our Souls are in our Bodies ibid. Chap. 2. General Experiences of a Power Superior to our Souls and to our Bodies which Acts in our Souls and in our Bodies 146 The first Experience that we have That God Acts upon us as a Sovereign Ruler after the manner wherein our Souls Are in our Bodies ibid. The Second Experience of the same Empire in the Sovereign Domination with which our Souls are sent into our Bodies without Consulting them 147 A Third Experience of the same thing in Diseases over which our Soul hath no Empire 148 A Fourth Experience of the same in Pleasure and Pain ib. A Fifth Experience of the same in the Idea's which we receive 150 Chap. 3. Experiences of the Power which Governs Nature and which comes to the Assistance of our Souls in a moment 153 Another Experience of the same from the diversity of delectable and painful Sentiments 155 A Third Experience That God Acts as an Universal Cause in the manner that he Acts upon our Souls and upon our Bodies 156 Chap. 4. False Idea's which we must avoid by the Light of these Experiences and first That of Believing that our Souls are united to our Bodies by any Sympathy Proportion or Inclination 158 That the Soul is not as Corporeal Forms tho' it be the Form of a Man 160 The difference between a Soul and an Angel ibid. The Opinion of the Ancient Fathers upon all that hath been said concerning the Disproportion betwixt Souls and Bodies 161 Chap. 5. That the Body cannot in any manner Act upon the Soul to Illuminate or Affect it Physically and Immediately by it self 164 That our own Bodies cannot Act Physically and Immediately by themselves upon our Souls whose Spirituality renders them inaccessible to all sorts of Impressions of bodies 167 That the Body doth not cause in the Soul either Pleasure or Pain 168 Bodies do not only not cause the Sentiments and Idea's in the Soul but they do not so much as determine the Soul Physically to make them 170 That the Souls of themselves do not make the Idea's or Images of Bodies 171 pressing an Ardor as we have to know all things out of our selves so much Coldness have we for that excellent Curiosity of knowing our selves It is the only Map and the only History the only Intrigue and the only Matter which we take no care at all to understand The Dignity of our Souls Yet in the mean time we have a Soul not only Spiritual and of a Nature altogether different from the Body and more excellent than all we can conceive that is Material and Corporeal but also Immortal and Celestial imprinted with a thousand Characters of a lively Resemblance of the Supreme Nature and Essence and destin'd to an Eternity and a happy Immortality in an eternal Union and an Everlasting Society of Delights and Joys with God Moses hath taken care to give us the History and Genealogy of it For says he He that in the Beginning created the Heaven and the Earth formed out of the Common Matter of the Universe the Beasts of the Field the Birds of the Air the Fishes of the Sea by the sole construction of their Members and Corporeal Organs which he directed to those particular Ends which he had propos'd to himself for a general End of his Workmanship By means of which he made them capable of those admirable and different Instincts and Movements that we see in them which is that only Life that Experience makes us see and Reason suffers us to acknowledge to be in Beasts By the sole construction or organization of their Bodies That a most pure and a most subtle Fire form'd from the most pure and most agitated part of their Blood mov'd and animated suddenly They became says the Holy Historian Living Creatures But when he came to Man to whom he gave the place of Master and King of
Pleasure we may taste in Eternity if we live in such a manner as may render us worthy of having our Fidelity recompensed Our Soul is something that is great noble and admirable by the Ideas which it is capable of receiving and it is yet more great and more noble if you will by the Pleasure and Felicity which it is capable of having God who hath the Treasures of Knowledge and Wisdom hath infinite Riches of Goodness and Oceans of Felicities and of Pleasures and our Soul which is capable of receiving all the Idea's which God contains in the Treasures of his Knowledge and Wisdom can also taste all the Pleasures which he contains in the Riches of his Goodness Such is the nature of our Souls they are not only undoubtedly Spiritual by their Intelligent Nature but they are in some manner infinite in Dignity and in Nobleness they are admirable Copies and Images of the Supreme Nature they carry a thousand Characters of his Grandeur and their Celestial Origine and that which augments and enhances all this Merit is that they are undoubtedly as Immortal and Eternal as Spiritual CHAP. XI That our Souls are undoubtedly Immortal by reason of their Knowing Nature YES as undoubtedly Immortal and Eternal because being Natures altogether distinct and altogether different from Body and all Corporeal Nature it is impossible that Death which only cuts and makes this havock upon Bodies should have any Prey upon them or give them the least Stroke If God who hath drawn them out of his Heart will not employ his Almighty Power to annihilate and destroy them in that moment that Death breaks the Structure and Harmony of Body which will appear hereafter that he cannot be willing to do there is no It is thus that Diseases and Old Age causes us to die and the violent Accidents of Fire and Sword or Falls and Ruines do the same It is the Body that Diseases Old Age and violent Accidents do all attack it is its Structure that they break and ruine for they do not touch the very Ground and Matter of the Body Death doth not touch the Substance of the Body and its Matter it only touches the Disposition of its Organs it is That only that it destroys It 's true that when the Brain can no longer serve to the Universal Cause and to the Eternal Wisdom and Power which holds our Souls united to the Bodies for an Occasional and Determinate Cause to determine it to give us Idea's and Perceptions of other Bodies which are round about Ours and which act upon them which is properly the Chain and Knot which holds our Souls united to our Bodies then It retires our Souls from our Bodies and they cease to Be in our Bodies We commonly conceive that our Bodies die because our Souls do retire themselves but this is to conceive things very ill It is not that our Bodies die because our Souls retire themselves but on the contrary our Souls retire themselve because our Bodies die because the Structure that render'd them fit to serve for a Lodging to our Souls comes to be broken and destroy'd Death is nothing precisely but this ruining of the Harmony of the Body which obliges God to withdraw the Soul And who do's not see that it being so Death is so far from being able to destroy the Soul that it cannot do any thing unto it It cannot so much as cause the least alteration in it all that it doth precisely to it is to take from it its Union with the Body it disunites the two Parts but it doth not destroy nor annihilate any of them the Body remains Body every Part remains in its Nature the Body remains ruin'd and the Soul returns separated Death can do nothing unto our Souls which are not a Material Structure it destroys the Souls of Beasts because their Soul results from the Organization and Harmony of a Material Structure and from a certain degree of Heat and quickness in their Blood which keeping their Members dispos'd and their Nerves well extended keeps them at the same time dispos'd to receive the Impressions of exterior Bodies which act upon them and to move themselves in a thousand manners according as He hath destin'd them who hath ordain'd and directed to his Ends their particular Structure But Death can do nothing to our Souls which are evidently natures wholly Immaterial and Spiritual in which there is neither Structure nor Harmony of Parts Diseases cannot at all attack our Souls they have no Blood nor Humors to be enflam'd and set afire Old Age cannot make them die because they know not what it is to grow old Fire and Sword cannot kill them as Jesus Christ hath said they have no Parts that the Sword can divide or that Fire can consume or dry up Let us say something boldly Though Death should be able to prey upon our Souls as it doth upon our Bodies it would not cease to be certain that Death could not in the least annihilate them for it cannot annihilate even our Bodies which are given as a Prey to it and upon which it exercises all its cruelties and rigour Do not our Bodies remain Bodies after our Death they change indeed the Name and Form but they subsist in the Ground of their Corporeal Nature Doth not their Matter remain always What is there in the World more constant and what greater and stronger Argument would you have of the Immortality and Eternity of our Souls Would you have the Corporeal Part to be Eternal That Nature so base and so vile and This Nature so noble so admirable so divine which we have made you acknowledge to be in you would you have this to have an end and to return into nothing That Death should not be able to annihilate the Body which is given it to destroy and yet that it should annihilate our Souls upon which it neither hath nor can make any Prey Nothing is so certain and so evident in the World as this is That all the Bodies of the Universe and all created Powers cannot destroy a Spiritual Nature nor so much as endamage and alter it That only Power which made our Souls out of nothing can make them thither to return again and we are assur'd by the infallible Prejudgment of his Wisdom that this Sovereign Power neither ought or can ever be willing to employ his Infinite Power upon such an Essay or to make such a Trial of it He that created the Souls could absolutely annihilate them if he would but he cannot be willing to it but for some Benefit either of his Glory or of the common Good of the Universe or of some singular Advantage of the Perfection of some one of his Creatures of which he would do himself Honor. And it is impossible for him to find any such Utility by annihilating our Souls who necessarily acknowledge his Sovereignty over them so long as they endure For every Intelligent Nature hath Essentially some Sentiment
and Actions the love of Pleasure and of sensible Good which is The Pleasure which we have from the Occasion of our Bodies This Experience is also indubitable for no Man can hinder himself from loving Good and Pleasure and every one that reflects upon it will find and perceive it in himself a Man will find that he is able to deprive himself of one Pleasure when he is in view of another but he will never find his Heart without the love of Pleasure It is an Empire of Nature or to say better of the Master of Nature which we can no ways resist Our Souls are indubitably push'd on continually by a greater Force towards Pleasure and from thence is form'd in Us that Propensity towards Good but which carrying us towards sensible Good is become by Sin the Matter and living Source of a thousand Passions which Rule over us We love our Bodies and the Pleasures which we have from their Occasion by an Invincible Empire altho' we see that this Love is oftentimes in many of its Acts quite contrary to our Duty and to the Order of the Supreme Will and of Reason The Body enticeth us by our Concupiscence against our Conscience and against our Reason and Nature hath equally plac'd in Us Concupiscence and Conscience Passion and Reason You see here Six Remarkable Experiences which I have been observing concerning the Empire and Dominion which our Souls suffer in our Bodies on the part of the Author of Nature to which we might add others but since these here are sufficient to give us a great and clear sight and to prepare us to understand the manner how our Souls are in our Bodies and thereby our Duties of Dependance and of Religion of Fear and of Love towards God and our Obligations of Justice and of Charity towards Mankind and of Temperance towards our selves therefore I will let the others alone without using them and so pass on to let you observe That as the Author of Nature Commands us and Rules over us indubitably in all these manners in our Bodies so He Serves us also and Obeys us and if I may be permitted to say so we Command Him in our Turn and we are Obey'd with an exact Regularity CHAP. III. Experiences of the Power which Governs Nature and which comes to the Assistance of our Souls in a moment I. WE find First That when we Move our Bodies we do no more precisely than to Will them to Move for we do not feel that there goes any kind of thing from Us but the Desire to Move our selves and the Act of the Determinative Faculty of the Will by the which we give a Command to the Body to Move it self and because we know too well from other things our Dependence our Weakness and our limited Power to be able to believe that we have a Power to Operate any thing out of Us by our Will alone since That is the Character of an Infinite Power as we have already said Upon this indubitable Experience which we have that doing nothing but to Will our selves to Move we do Move our selves nevertheless effectively we therefore conclude that there must be an Assisting Power which moves our Bodies in the moment that we would have it And as this Power is Immense and Infinite since It Operates through all in the same time moving all the Bodies of Men when they will and that It is also indubitably Enlightned Wise and Unchangeable since It doth not move them but in the instant that we Will and by the inviolable Rule of a certain Disposition in our Nerves and in our Members from whence it comes to pass That those that have the Palsey cannot move themselves tho' they would We conclude therefore that this can be nothing but the Power of the Author of Nature from whence we infer That the Author of Nature intermeddles between our Souls and our Bodies and that He takes Part and Interest in their Union and in the manner how these Natures and these Spiritual Substances Are in the Terrestrial and Mortal Habitations of our Bodies II. Another Experience of the same from the diversity of delectable and painful Sentiments We find in the Second place under this new Consideration That this same Enlightned Immense and Immutable Power doth continually serve our Souls in our Bodies for to advertise them in an instant of every thing that is done in them and to advertise them of it to their Advantage too For so soon as there is any Impression or any Alteration made or caused within the Body which of it self tends to the dissolution and destruction of it or even but to the incumbrance and hindrance of its Functions so soon the Soul is in an instant advertis'd thereof by a sad and painful Sentiment which she finds her self suddenly transpierc'd with as with a sharp pointed Instrument which she finds her self attacked with without knowing whereby or how it entred And on the contrary if there be any Motion made in her Body which tends of it self either to its good Disposition or to the Conservation of a Humane Species the Soul soon in a moment finds her self penetrated and tickl'd with an agreeable Sentiment which we call Pleasure and Delight without knowing in like manner either how or where it entred It is likewise in the same manner with indifferent Impressions which do neither good nor hurt to the Body the Soul is in like manner in an instant advertis'd by this Illuminating Immense and Immutable Power but not by the Sentiment of Pleasure or of Pain which would be false if instead of Impressions indifferent to the Body She should give Sentiments which might affectionate and determine it to Love or to Hate But Sentiments indifferent such as are White Black Dry and Moist and Images and Idea's indifferent also which leave the Soul the liberty of approaching or withdrawing it self from those Objects upon whose Occasion she hath them I call this Power Immense because It Operates through all at the same time within both Poles and in the two Hemispheres I call it Illuminating because it neither gives salsly nor unseasonably neither Idea's nor Sentiments And I call it Immutable because it do's not give them but by inviolable and immutable Rules from which it never swerves III. A Third Experience That God Acts as an Universal Cause in the manner that he Acts upon our Souls and upon our Bodies We find in the Third place That this Power which Acts in Us as well to Obey and Serve us as to Rule over us Acts not between our Souls and our Bodies between whom it Acts without ceasing as appears by all these Experiences which we have already remarked as a Particular and a Free Cause but as an Universal and Necessary Cause because we experience that it Acts not from the occasion of the same Immutable Laws by which it hath resolv'd to entertain a Commerce between the Soul and the Body and that this Power Acts
the Notion of a Spiritual Nature do conceive well That separated Bodies say they cannot Act Physically upon the Souls but it is not after the same manner with Bodies which are united to them Separated Bodies can do nothing to the Souls say they they cannot determine in the Souls any Sentiment nor any Idea But the Body united to the Soul doth acquire by that Union a near Disposition whereby it is enabled to Act Immediately and Physically upon the Soul and to determine all its Idea's and Modifications which it hath from the occasion of other Bodies which surround it This is the common Fancy of the Schools which indeed is but a most false and a most repugnant Imagination full of Contradiction and Incompatibility for besides that the Union that is betwixt the Body and the Soul is but the Act of the Creator as I shall Explain it hereafter so that Union doth not at all change the Nature or Essence of the Body nor the Nature or Essence of the Soul The Body united to the Soul remains still a Body and the Soul united to the Body retains still its former Being of a Soul and by consequence of a Nature wholly Spiritual to which no Body can be united and upon which no Body can have a Physical Action because Bodies are not united but by a continuity of Parts neither do they Act but by Impelling Dividing or Figuring diversly which cannot be done upon Spiritual Natures who cannot be subject to any of these Corporeal Passions and to whom the Body can never approach by reason of the distance of an infinite Disproportion which keeps them asunder That the Body doth not cause in the Soul either Pleasure or Pain We must banish all those gross Imaginations by which Men conceive that our Bodies Act Immediately and Physically in any manner whatsoever upon our Souls be it for the illuminating them or for the producing in them either Pleasure or Pain That cannot be for two Reasons for the general Reason That Bodies can never be united to Spirits and Act Physically upon them and for a particular Reason That if they could have any Action upon them they could not have one so Superior and so Excellent For to cause Pain or Pleasure or generally any Modification in the Soul by which she is so intimately affected and as it were alter'd and penetrated in her Substance is an Act of Superiority and Dominion This is an Act of a Superior Nature which keeps the Body under it and subjected to it It is clear That the Body cannot at all be Superior to the Soul especially to cause in it either Pleasure or Pain which are not only the Acts of a Superior Nature but the Acts of a Nature Supreme in whom is Essentially this Sovereign Dominion over all created Natures to cause in them either Happiness or Unhappiness and by consequence the Pleasure and the Pain which makes up this Happiness or Unhappiness Moreover Pain and Pleasure and generally every Modification of the Soul is Essentially a Spiritual Act or Passion This is essentially a Vital Act of the Soul which is undoubtedly Spiritual for every Act of the Soul is of the same Nature with the Soul every Act of the Soul being Immanent as the Schoolmen say and by consequence receiv'd within the Soul and it is not possible to conceive that any thing should be receiv'd within the Soul which is not Spiritual Therefore there is nothing more incompatible than to conceive that the Body can produce any thing that is Spiritual I could here make use of the Authority of all the ancient Doctors who have held That God alone can Exercise upon created Spirits that Physical Action by which they are Modifi'd in themselves and by which they receive those Sentiments or Idea's whereof they are not at all Masters which is that which is call'd Agere per illapsum But that that we may better support this Tract rather upon the Experience of our own proper Sentiment and upon the clear Notions and Idea's which we can attain to by Reasoning than upon any Authority we will not if you please have any regard to an Authority so great and so worthy of Deference and Respect Let us say no more of it then but let us see if we can conceive That our Bodies by the Impressions which they receive from without or which come to them from their own proper Spirits and from their own proper Humors can by their Physical Action affect our Souls or determine them to cause to themselves either Pleasure or Pain or the Images which they have of things by reason of Corporeal Impressions Bodies do not only not cause the Sentiments and Idea's in the Soul but they do not so much as determine the Soul Physically to make them This is another vulgar Imagination and Opinion That if the Body doth not cause in Us these Sentiments and these Idea's at least it doth determine the Soul to make them But we ought also to cut off this Imagination and this Idea for many Reasons First of all for the Pleasure and the Pain because besides that it is always impossible to conceive in the Body a Physical Action upon the Soul since a Body cannot Act but by Stirring Dividing Figuring and Removing and that the Soul can neither be Stirr'd Figur'd nor Divided nor Corporeally affected in any manner It is also incompatible to conceive That the Soul can cause to it self and in it self either Pleasure or Pain for that moreover that the one and the other are things which are above it it is certain that Pleasure and Pain are things which we receive and which make in Us this invincible Power of Nature which we have so often taken notice of to be no other than the Author and Master of Nature and to say That the Soul causeth in it self either Pleasure or Pain a Man may as well say That she causeth the Health and Sickness the Beauty or Deformity of the Body That the Souls of themselves do not make the Idea's or Images of Bodies It is after the same manner with the particular Idea's of things which she receives by reason of the divers Modifications and Configurations of the Brain caused by the Impressions of Exterior Bodies as with Pleasure and with Pain for whatsoever Affection we can conceive the Soul to have by the Impression of the Idea receiv'd into the Brain it is impossible to conceive it Imprinted by her self with that lively and animated Image which she hath in her self This living and animated Image which she hath in her self is like a Seal which hath made an Impression upon her She suffers and receives more than she acts and whatever Advertisement is conceived there from the presence of the Object it is impossible to conceive that she should make the Pourtraicture which she hath thereof in her self To tell me that There is the King is nothing at all if I am blind to give me the means of representing
Principle of Happiness and Unhappiness which is the most Essential Character and Attribute of that which we call Divinity or Supream Nature Tho we should not have this so assur'd Experience of the Union which our Souls have with God by the continual Irradiation of his Divine Life and Influence in us the which agrees so well with this Idea which Faith gives That it is God who is the Immediate Cause of the Union of our Souls and our Bodies for we must observe by the way that it would be an Impiety to doubt of it since not only God according to Faith Created our Souls but he Infuses them also as they say and unites them to our Bodies we could not possibly be ignorant of it if we gave any attention to his Supream Sovereignty over us and to our Essential Dependence upon Him in all the Acts of our Life as well as in all the Foundations of our Being and by consequence in all our Knowledges Can the Sun-beam shine when it is separated from the Sun And can the created Spirit either subsist one moment or have the least Light or the least Spark of Life or of Knowledge without the Irradiations of the Supream Being The Ancients said very well when they said That all things were full of God That God was the Soul of the World the Life of every thing that Lives and the Being of every thing that Is and doth Subsist They had much better than Us conceiv'd the Supream Nature when they said that It was the Circumference and Center of a Circle That it was the Sun and its Rays That it contain'd All and replenish'd All And that its Action was the Life and the Motion of all things God is Effectively and Essentially apply'd to all the Parts of the Universe and that there is not one onely thing from which he withdraws himself for one only Minute Natural Evidence persuades us no less than the Divine and Heavenly Authority of S. Paul That every thing that Lives every thing that Moves every thing that Is Lives Moves and Is in Him In ipso vivimus movemur sumus But tho' he should not continually apply himself to all the other Parts of the Universe yet it must needs be that he should apply himself to Spiritual Natures and to every thing that is call'd Spirit or Knowing and Spiritual Nature for that also the Scriptures and the Holy Fathers do teach us That He is the Father that is to say the Lively and Essential Source of all Light and by consequence of all Knowledge the Sun of Intelligence and the Life of all Spirits Exposition of this Principle by S. Augustin St. Augustin by the force of this Natural Evidence Divinely said That we are so Essentially united to God that we may say we are much more in God even by our Bodies not only than we are in the Air or within any other Corporeal Space whatsoever but than we are in our selves because in fine saith he It is certain that God not only contains and environs our Bodies better than any Corporeal Space but he continually gives them their Being and their Motion by his Action and by his Almighty Influence a thousand times more than the Illumination of the Sun gives Light and Splendor to its Rays But this which the Holy Doctor says of our Bodies hath much greater force in it when he saith it of our Souls for tho' it be true that our Bodies are in God in whom all things are Essentially it is much more so that our Souls are in Him because they are ty'd to him by a thousand times more Dependences than the Body since they continually receive Life from him through all the Acts of all their diverse Faculties which are without number If a Man demands says he Where is the place of the Soul That is a Question which our gross and curious Imaginations make who being desirous to conceive all things after a Corporeal manner would determine a certain Space and a certain Extent to Souls But it would be very well says he to answer them and to say to them for to undeceive them of this Manichean Idea That they are in God that they Live they See they Perceive and they Imagine in God for it is certain that they do not any thing of all this but by the Immediate and Physical Influence and the continual and Essential Irradiation of his Divine Life which he communicates to them without ceasing And because the Life of God and of every Spirit is to See to Know and to Love it is certain That every thing that Thinks every thing that Seeth every thing that Loveth and every thing that Knoweth doth Think See Love and Know in him and by him by whom is every thing that is by whom is moved every thing that moves and by whom liveth every thing that lives For byreason that He is the First Being or Principle of Being it must needs be that every thing that Is receiveth without ceasing its Being from him by a perpetual and never-interrupted Communication of this Supream Essence By the reason that He is the Principle of Life or the Essential and Original Life it must needs be That every thing that lives receives continually a Life from Him by a like Influence and by a like Communication of his Life and by consequence That every thing that Thinks and Knows Thinketh and Knoweth by Him since to Think and Know is the Life of Spirits This is the solid Metaphysick of S. Augustin and this is also the Theology of S. Thomas who hath so often made use of these Arguments under the Name and Notion of a First Agent of a First Cause and of an Essential Principle of Life And this is the same common Notion of all the Doctors that ever were under the more consu'd Name and Idea of Concourse because it is certain that this Action of God which we call his Concourse cannot be in relation to the Passive Faculty by which our Soul hath the Idea's and Sentiments of Corporeal Objects but a Vision and a Chimera if it be not that Action by which I say That in the Quality of a First and Universal Cause on the one Part and on the other of a Particular Cause of the Union of our Souls and Bodies He determines in us our Sentiments and gives us our Idea's from the Occasion of the Impressions which either Actions from without on the part of the Bodies which are round about us cause upon our Brains or the Determination of the Circulation of the Blood of the Humors and of the Spirits within us which oftentimes are the Occasion of the Action of the Supream Cause without the intervening of any thing from without That this is not to have recourse to a Miracle but to Explain what sort of Commerce there is betwixt the Soul and the Body There is no need of opposing here that This is to have recourse to Miracle or to make God descend from
the Members every one to the Movement for the which it is destin'd when they themselves come to be determin'd That neither our Souls do come of themselves to lay hold on the Body nor do's the Body cause the Soul to descend but it is God who assembles them together There you see how I conceive the Body And whereas we have conceived the Soul as a Nature purely Spiritual capable of Perceiving of Knowing and of Willing We have no more to do than to see how this Spiritual Nature can become united to that Terrestrial Structure Whereupon the first thing that is to be conceiv'd is That neither the Body can lay hold on the Soul or draw it to it for to subject it and for to shut it up Nor can the Soul on its side neither be driven by any Inclination to become pour'd upon the Body nor become ty'd there of it self by its Choice and Good liking as being to be so ill match'd We must therefore comprehend before all things that these two Parties and these two so far distant Natures do neither of themselves by consent and by an appointed Rendezvous assemble nor by Chance do they meet together but that it is the Infinite Power which Governs the World and which would have it be adorn'd by the Beauty of this so rare and singular a Work which as Faith teacheth and all the World conceiveth brings them together and assembles them and makes all the Union that is between them St. Augustin most solidly observes That God makes three Functions for our sakes That of the Creator of the Matter of our Bodies and of the Substance of our Souls That of the Author of the Structure and Organisation of our Bodies And lastly That of the Principle of the Union of the two Parties and of the two Natures which compose Us Creator Fictor Unitor He is as essentially the efficient and immediate Principle of the Union of our Souls and of our Bodies as he is of the Structure of the Body and of the Creation of the Soul There is no other Power in the World that can shut up this Immaterial Immortal and Eternal Nature within that Terrestrial and Carnal Structure This is a certain Truth we read it in our own proper Sentiments and in the infallible Light of the notion of the Soul and of the Body and there is nothing in the World more undoubtable than this Principle That it is God that unites our Souls to our Bodies and I believe no Man will disagree with it and the Question is not Whether he doth it but How he doth it CHAP. IX How God can assemble and unite the Soul and the Body GOD cannot without doubt Unite these two so opposite Natures but in such a manner that they may be United and Assembled so that we must see first of all how a Spirit and a Body may be Assembled and United Men fall into a thousand Errors upon this matter and all these Errors happen because they will apply the Idea which they have of the Union of two or more Bodies to the Union of the Soul and Body which is the greatest mistake in the World and the entire Subsersion of Reason and good Sense for it is evident that the Union of a Spirit with a Spirit cannot be conceived by the Idea of the Union of a Body with a Body so likewise the Union of a Spirit with a Body cannot be comprehended by the Idea which we have of the Union of two Bodies We must shun this defect and disorder and give attention to this certain and infallible Rule That Union being a Relation of one thing to another it follows that she must change the Nature and the Idea according to the Nature of the Things which are United and thus to conceive an Union of a Spirit and a Body we must comprehend wherein and whereby these two Natures may be united How two Spirits may be united That we may well form an Idea thereof We must first of all conceive the Union of two Spirits for when we shall have comprehended how two Spirits may be united we shall with much more ease comprehend the Union of a bound dy a Spirit If we give good attention thereto we shall find that there being nothing in a Spiritual Nature but Knowledge Sentiment and Will for there is nothing precisely but That which we know in Spiritual created Natures It is impossible to conceive the Union of two Spirits otherwise than by the Union of their Thoughts of their Sentiments and of their Wills Things cannot be united but by that which is in them and there being nothing in Spirits but this triple ground of the Faculty of Thinking or of Knowing of the Faculty of Perceiving which is it self a manner of the Faculty of Knowing And lastly Of the faculty of Willing and freely determining themselves It is clear that two Spirits cannot be united but by the Faculties and by the Acts and Faculties of Thinking Perceiving and of Willing That which makes precisely the Union of two Spirits But this is not enough to have found and conceived that two Spirits cannot be united but by their Faculties of Thinking of Knowing and of Willing we must see also wherein the Union of the two Faculties of Thinking and the two Faculties of Perceiving and of the two Faculties of Willing may consist Wherein then may this Union consist It cannot without doubt consist but in the mutual respective and reciprocal dependence of the Faculties and their Acts If we conceive that an Angel thinks necessarily as often as another Angel thinks that he hath a Sentiment of Pleasure and of Pain of Joy or of Sadness as often as the other is sad or rejoyces That he hath a motion of love or of hatred as often as the other loves or hates We shall conceive without doubt these two Angels united and united in an Hypostatical Union or in Unity of Person and in a Substantial and Physical Union especially if this dependence of Thought of Sentiment and of Will be of the one side mutual and reciprocal and on the other not voluntary and arbitrary but necessary and forced caused by a Superior Power which leaves them not the liberty of breaking the Band of this mutual dependence This mutual and not arbitrary dependence caused by that Empire and that Physical Action of a Superior Power will so unite these two Spirits that it will be no longer a simple Angel but a Compositum wholly Spiritual of two Angels which will make no more than one single Whole in two individual Substances altogether distinct Such a mutual dependance makes precisely all the Physical Union that can be betwixt two Spirits since cutting off all other Ideas by that alone these two Angels will be comprehended to be united and not conceiving That though we may conceive other Things between these two Angels It will however be impossible to conceive them United for it is impossible to conceive any other Thing
whereby two Spirits may be united we must not here imagine Embracings Penetration Minglings Extensions or Adjustments of Magnitude or of Quantity Wherein the union of a Spirit and a Body may consist It is in that precisely that the Union of two Spirits can consist and it is easie to conceive thereupon the Idea of the Union of a Body and of a Spirit for if we conceive a Mutual and Reciprocal Dependence caused by the Physical Action of a Superior Power between the movements of that Structure of Bone of Flesh and of Nerves which we call Humane Body And between the Thoughts the Sentiments the Wills or desires of a Spirit we conceive this Spirit and this Body united and as making no more than one single VVhole and one single Person Whatsoever other Things we may fancy to our selves we can never thereby at all conceive a Spirit united to a Body but in the moment that we have conceived that Thing only we have conceived them United For what is it to be United but to be One but to become one and the same Whole And who sees not that all This Results from the Mutual Dependence of the Operations of a Soul and of the Motions of the Body Let Us not then go about to make impossible Efforts of Imagination for to conceive the Union of the Soul with the Body by a kind of a Co-extension or Local Circumscription of the Soul with the Body by a Kind of Mingling of Penetration of Confusion and Immediation by an adjustment of Figure and Magnitudes c. All this would be well between Body and Body but concerning the Union of a Spiritual Nature with a Corporal Structure of Flesh of Bones of Muscles of Nerves all these material Ideas ought to be removed and banished a great way off God was pleased to do himself honor by this admirable Composition of Spirit and of Body and having found that it was agreeable to his Dignity of Universal Cause to tie together the determination of Ideas by the which he was willing that we should by little and little and successively be Enlightned to the diversity of Impressions which should be made upon our Brain by the divers Objects which should strike upon it and to tie together the Determination of divers Sentiments by the which he was willing that we should be Advertised by way of Instinct of that which should be good or evil to our Body to divers Impressions which should affect it he hath Established this mutual Relation That when these Impressions are received in the Body there is so soon and at the same time by his infinite Efficacy conformable Sentiments and Ideas which are determined in the Soul and on the contrary as often as there is in the Soul Thoughts and Sentiments or Wills that require that the Body should be moved if its Structure be well disposed the Motion is by the same Efficacy of his infinite Power determined in the Body The Creator hath thought fit to conserve thereby the Dignity of the Universal Cause and to unite our Souls to all the Visible World in tying Them to a particular Body by a Physical and Substantial Union Our Souls lose something thereby even very much of their Natural Liberty but they conserve some Character of their Grandeur by the Immensity by which their Union with the Body renders them present to all the Immensity of the Universe since by the contiguity of all Bodies which compose the World without any interruption of vacuity they continually receive a Thousand and a Thousand divers Ideas from all its parts in proportion as they come which they continually do by their Motions or by their Fluxes Either to strike or to affect some one of the Parts of our Body This Decision ought to pass for a Demonstration I will not stay here to prove that it is God the Author of Nature or acting as Universal Cause who makes and who entertains by his continual Action this Mutual Dependence and this Reciprocal Relation Since besides that I have already let you see clearly That it is He alone who can be the immediate and efficient Principle and Cause of the Union of our Souls and of our Bodies because the Body can neither subject the Soul to be united to it nor can the Soul be willing to submit to the Body which humbleth and constraineth it I have moreover proved very evidently That none but God alone can give to the Soul the Sentiments and Ideas which she hath from the occasion of the Impressions which are made upon the Body by other Bodies which environ Us and which Act perpetually upon Us. This continual Action of the Author of Nature who Enlightens Us by the Ideas which we receive upon the occasion of that Impression of exterior Objects and who affectionates Us to the Conservation of the Body by the agreeable or disagreeable Sentiments which he gives Us for to make Us know by way of Instinct that which is profitable or hurtful to the Conservation of our Bodies and of Human Species This Action I say joyned to that by which he Moves our Bodies when our Thoughts and our Wills require it is properly the Action by the which He unites our Bodies to our Souls and our Souls to our Bodies This is the active or actual Union This is what the Schools call the Unitive Action of God which joyned to the immutable Decree and Will by the which he hath determined to continue it so long as the Structure of the Body shall subsist makes in the Soul and in the Body that Estate of Union which we call Passive and formal Union Against them who say that this is to have recourse to a Miracle And you must not come here again to say that it is a manner very easie to explain every thing by a Miracle and to call God to the support of our Ignorance For so far it is from being contrary to Rules to make God the Author of our Union with the Body That this is the first Rule of good Reasoning That we acknowledge the Cause and the Principle in the Effect and to see that God alone can unite two Natures so opposite and disproportionate as are Spirit and Body as he only can Create them Moreover so far it is from having recourse to Miracles That it is on the contrary to reduce the Thing to all Common Laws to say that it is God the Author of Nature the necessary Principle of this Union who that he may conserve this Dignity of Universal Cause establishes in the divers Modifications of a certain Part of the Body the occasional Cause of the Idea's and of the Sentiments of the Soul which is the most Regular manner of Acting The most Natural and most conformable to his ordinary manner of Acting and by consequence the most contrary to Miracle which is not but when God changes his ordinary manner of Acting and departs from his general Will. The Action whereby God preserves the Union
part therein and the Body doth then feel Odor Corporeally and moves it self either by withdrawing or approaching according as the Odor withdraws or approaches Noise or the Pulsation of the Air causes the same thing in the Organ of Hearing The sudden noise of the Report of a Pistol or of a sudden Ruine makes us flie and tremble before the Soul perceives it The Body hath also its proper Action of Tasting and of Touching which precedes that of the Soul And this is that which makes the Sensitive Life and Knowledge proper to Beasts It is very truly said That they Taste that they Understand that they are Sensible provided that in so saying we do not at all understand that they see as we do with any certainty either of themselves or of their Objects or their Acts. Thus we may likewise place in Beasts all the Passions for there are in Us Corporeal Motions which precede and which accompany those Emotions of our Souls which we call Passions And as the Names of Passions may very well be given to these Corporeal Emotions which are in our Bodies before those of our Souls which are rais'd up upon their Occasion it is certain that it is not ill said That Animals have Joys Sorrows Desires c. since they have all the Corporeal Emotions which we have in the Resentments of Joy of Sorrow of Pleasure and of Pain with which our Soul is agitated Our Soul then doth not either do any thing of that which in our Senses precedes her Sensation or her Perception and Certainty or any thing of that which precedes in any part of the Body whatsoever her Emotion or her lively Resentment in her Passions The Soul doth never any thing but what is Spiritual she never doth any thing that is Corporeal Every Configuration of Body every Emotion of Body every Movement of Body is the proper Act or Passion of Body and is never the proper Act of the Soul We do not know in our Soul any Faculty of Acting out of her self but by the Will Every thing that she doth is Essentially in her she is not capable but of those sorts of Acts which the Schoolmen call Immanent and as all these Acts are of the same Nature with her since they are Essentially receiv'd in her so no Corporeal Act can ever be her proper and immediate Act A Corporeal Act may be an Act commanded by her but it can never be an Act done in her and by her which is that we call her Elicite Act And it is easie for us by this Principle infallibly to discern what the Body and what the Soul do in Us. A Rule to discern what the Body doth without any Cooperation with the Soul and what the Soul doth in the Body This Rule is certain and will never deceive That every Act by the which we formally have an indubitable Certainty of our selves is an Act and Operation of the Spirit and Every Act which do's not bear in us that Certainty but only makes some change in the Humors or in the solid Parts of our Bodies is an Act and Operation of Body And by this Rule as to Sleep to Digest to have Health or a Fever to have the Gout or the Stone c. are Acts or Operations or Passions and Alterations of Bodies So to Perceive Objects to be Passionated with any Desire with any Fear or with any like Emotion to be Sensible of Heat and Cold White and Black Sweet and Bitter to Imagine to Remember Judge Doubt Compare Reflect Infer Speculate Deliberate to Reason and Conceive the abstracted and universal Notions of things to be sensible of Duty to have Remorse to determine it self to Love or Hate c. are Essentially the Acts of the Soul That Pleasure and Pain are in the Soul and not in the Body It is very important well to observe this Rule because there are some who are so gross that they have not any neat distinct Idea that they know not in the least how to Explain the proper Operations of the Soul and the proper Operations of the Body How many are there of them likewise who confound these things so Essential to be distinguish'd How many are there who believe for Example that it is the Body that hath the Pleasure of Drinking of Eating and of being Warmed and generally all the Pleasures which are not in the Soul but upon the account of the Body If they had reflected they would have seen plainly that these sorts of Pleasures give us an entire Certainty of our selves and that so they are Acts of a Knowing Nature They will see moreover that they affect that part which Reasons and which Determines it self freely in us which all the World conceive as Spiritual and every one well knows it to be the Soul But what shall we do in this Case It is that Curse which being thrown upon the Serpent fell upon the Spirit and the Heart of Man and which Operates and will Operate aswel as the Benediction of Fruitfulness given to the Earth even to the end Men will have always an infinite difficulty to reflect upon themselves and to raise themselves up to the Knowledge of their Spiritual Nature Super ventrem tuum Gradieris Upon thy belly shalt thou go c. If Habits whether of Sciences or of Vertues are in the Body or in the Soul There presents it self here upon the occasion of what hath been said a Question which it imports us to clear up and decide which is To know in what part of the Soul or Body the Habits whether of Vertue or of Science do reside which ought to be a fruitful Principle of most important Moral Consequences For altho' there can be no Question made as to the Acts of Science and of Vertue which are indubitably in the Soul yet there is nevertheless a true Question which ought to be cleared as to the Subject of Habits The Habits of Sciences and of Vertues do indubitably subsist partly in the Body since it is certain with regard to Sciences that they subsist partly by the Memory and that the Memory depends upon the Corporeal Organ as shall be said more at large And so in the same manner with respect to Vertues It is sure that they are not setled into Habits but by the Faculty and the Disposition which the Soul acquires of Practising the Acts thereof and of fulfilling the Duties of them which she do's not acquire but by a certain profound Impression of the lively Images of Duties which deface the Images of the difficulty of their Acts which are commonly taken from the resistance of the Body or of the Inclinations which are entail'd upon the Body this is the cause that there must necessarily be some change which happens in the Brain and in the Corporeal Species and Images which determine the Thoughts and the Affections of the Soul as often as we establish in Us the Habit of one Vertue For Example It is impossible
constrain'd but by Accident and by particular Rencounters for whether God gives them for Recompence of their Hope or the Attention of their Spirit as some conceive Or whether the Spirit makes them it self by the Light which it hath once received from God to discover the Essences of Things in separating that which is Essentially agreeable to them from those which they have not but by Accident and as it were Accessorily as well as the Proportions and Relations of Equality or Inequality which are in them as others have more willingly conceiv'd it It is hower always true to say That the Soul forms these Idea's and these Notions Since it is certain that she forms them at least by her Attention that is to say that she renders her self Attentive by her self and by her own proper Choice and Determination from whence there comes to her afterwards these Idea's and these Notions as hath been said already That God Acts perpetually in Us in our Perceptive Faculty and in our Appetitive Faculty After this particular Account I do not see that one could wish for any thing more to be fully instructed of the manner how our Souls Are and Operate in our Bodies unless it be that there is this general Reflection to spread over all that hath been said That it is God who is indubitably our Light and our Life who Operates in Us in all these divers Acts of our Perceptive Faculty and of our Appetitive Faculty in the same manner that he perpetually Acts in our Spirits and in our Hearts in our Spirits by the Act of his continual Illumination and in our Hearts by that of his insurmountable and invincible Attraction for that which we call in Us the Heart and the Will or the Appetitive Faculty is but a vehement and an invincible Desire by which God draws us to himself under the confused Idea of Good of Pleasure and of Happiness which are not to be found but in him And as all the Acts of the Perceptive Faculty are but only different Modifications of his Eternal Illumination which Operate in Us in an hundred divers manners So all these divers Acts of our Appetitive Faculty all these divers Resentments of our Passions are but the divers Modifications of that Desire and of that Motion of that Attraction and of that Ardor so enflamed with Pleasure and with Soveraign Good by which he perpetually draws us to himself which is the Principle of that Insatiability of Desires and of that perpetual Emptiness of Heart which nothing can satisfie and fill till it be filled by Himself Him of whom St. Paul hath so well said That a time will come and that He shall be All in All. Erit Deus Omnia in Omnibus It is in God that we See and Perceive all that we See and Perceive And it is in God that we Love and we Desire all that we Love and all that we Desire It is from God that we receive all our Light and it is in God that all the Motions of our Heart do center We know not at all that it is He that searcheth us but it is He who is the true Object and the true End of all our Pursuits as He is the Principle and the Mover of them It is He that drives us on and who Stimulates Us in all our Desires and it is He who is the Center and Term of all our Desires Our Poor Soul goes groping through all the Bodies which environs it searching for a Pleasure and Contentment which should satisfie it and it is God who is that Soveraign Pleasure which makes the Soul thus search after it Our Soul regards God by all its Being and by all its Motion and God regards the Soul as it were by all the Rays of his Infinite Essence She holds fast to God on every side if we may be permitted to say so God ties Himself to her by a thousand Regards of his Puissance of His Bounty and of His intimate and continual Influence We cannot separate our Souls from God nor God from our Souls We can know nothing clear of them but as far as we see and know God wholly united and wholly applied to her and that we do not see them all turned towards God either to receive from Him their Light or to dart themselves towards him to the end they may find in Him their Satisfaction and their Joy their Contentment and their Soveraign Felicity The Body doth a little interpose betwixt them but this is it which compleatly gives us Knowledge of our State upon Earth CHAP. XXII Man upon Earth and the visible Point wherein He ought to regard himself for to comprehend His State and his Duties of this present Life OUR Souls being the chiefest part of Us as we have seen that are in Relation to God Our Bodies are given to them for a Trial and for a Matter to Exercise themselves upon Our Souls are Essentially United to God and God removes them as it were from Him for a time placing them and keeping them in the Bodies to see if they can pierce the Vail of them and break thro' the Wall to go to Him by their Free and Voluntary Union which He would have them add to their Essential Union The Bodies which he gives them as it were a Burden and for a House upon the Rode of Eternity are the only thing that can stop them and make them to wander and be lost in that Course The Bodies which are to God in the Quality of the immediate Cause of the Union of Soul and Body the occasion of the determination of Idea's and Sentiments which He gives to the Souls are to the Souls the perpetual occasion of their Ruin and the obstacle of their Free and Voluntary Union with God Man is thereby a Composition of Body and of Soul which holds to God both by the one and by the other and to Men thro' God chiefly who unites us all in Himself one to the other as in the common Center and Principle of our Being and of our Life and afterwards by the Body which unites all of us again the one to the other by a thousand Relations either of Duties or of Businesses into a Natural Society first of all and then into a Politic Society Such is Man or to say better such is the Soul in the Body she is there equally a Tenant to the Visible World by the Body and to the Intelligible World by her Self a Tenant to God Essentially by her Self and accessorily and accidentally as it were to all the Visible World by the Body and even to created Intelligences to whom is committed some Intendance or some Direction over the Visible World who are able to Act upon her in Acting upon the Body She is there a Tenant for God as it were in a Inclosed Field and Amphitheater of the Body against the Flesh and the Senses and against all the Visible World c. Even against that Rebellious part of
give as well as he understands his Sence of the Divine Mysteries and of the Divine Word This is the Occasion that amongst such it is not material as to the Fundamentals what Society they adhere to amongst Christians and that they account as nothing That which we call Schism and Heresie But besides that it cannot be in vain that the Divine Word so much condemns Schisms and Heresies tho' we should not know the Crime and Disorder of them we need but only reflect upon that Sovereign Unity of the Sovereign Power which Presides over the Union of our Souls and Bodies for to see and comprehend it clearly This Sovereign Uniformity this Unity of Conduct of Rules immutable Laws whereby this Infinite Power which holds our Souls united to our Bodies Acts upon our Bodies and in all the Souls in all the Parts of the World after the same manner is a sensible Proof and Conviction of its Sovereign Unity And it is impossible to have an Idea of this Sovereign Unity without thereby seeing the Crime of all that which we call Schism and Heresie But let us proceed and see how it follows from all that hath been said of the manner how God Acts in our Souls upon the Occasion of our Bodies as a Necessary and Universal Cause with a Clearness and Evidence so sensible That we cannot firmly acquit our selves of any of our Duties but by the constant and regular Practice of that Christian Self-denial which makes the whole Foundation of the Gospel by which we ought to watch without ceasing to fortifie in us Conscience and Natural Right by weakning our Concupiscences CHAP. XXV The Necessity of Gospel Self-denial Establish'd and Justifi'd by the same Principles GOD who Acts as hath been said as Universal Cause in the Dependence which he entertains between the Soul and the Body doth give as it were in spite of himself to our Souls by the inviolable Law of the Union of the Soul and the Body agreeable Pleasures and Sentiments which fortifie Concupiscence as often as he is thereto determin'd in consequence of an immutable Decree of his General Will by the Disposition of the Body And as these Occasions do continually present themselves if we do not watch to turn them away so Concupiscence is augmented continually thereby And as this fatal Concupiscence is Essentially contrary to our Duties because it is Essentially a Revolt against Order against the Law and the Eternal Righteousness Non est legi Dei subjecta saith St. Paul nec enim potest So from thence it comes to pass that if we are not perpetually attentive to decline the Occasions of these Pleasures which entertain and augment Concupiscence or sensible Love it encreases and raises it self to that degree that Righteousness Reason and Conscience are wholly stifled and all the Natural and Civil Duties so enfeebled and weakned that they are not able to support themselves against any Temptation that hath the least strength in it If God had not given us the Power and a Command to moderate and correct our Concupiscence by this continual Vigilance of Self-denial possibly we might be in some manner excusable in our opposition to Justice to Charity to Truth to the Respect of natural Equality and to all other general and particular Obligations of our Reasonable Nature The necessity that there is that He should affectionate Us to the Conversation of the Body produces not only this sensible Love which we call Concupiscence but an inevitable necessity that he should perpetually augment it by this Action of Universal Cause but he hath given us the Grace and the Precept of Sel-denial thro' his All-foreseeing and Fatherly Goodness For in that instant wherein as Universal Cause he is oblig'd to entertain and augment Concupisence in us if we do not watch to avoid in us the Occasions which determine him to give us sensible Pleasures He do's not only give us the Power to avoid those Occasions by the Empire which he gives us over the Liberty of our Thoughts and our Motions But as a Particular Cause he came in Person to bring us the Law the Example and the Grace of Self-denial and he doth not cease to call to us and press us by the clear and loud voice of his Gospel that we should continually stand upon our guard and never slacken our care to cut off all these Occasions Every Pleasure is pure and innocent in it self and only criminal by its Circumstances It would be very ill to understand Christian Morality and the Gospel to regard it as a malignant Inclination and a Jealousie which God hath of us to grudge us our little Pleasure and our Natural Satisfaction God doth not at all hate Pleasures neither is he capable of grudging us them There is not one Pleasure which doth not immediately derive it self from him and which he doth not cause and by consequence which he doth not love and which he would not willingly that we should taste of his Design is to nourish us eternally with Joy and Pleasure as he doth not live himself but with Joy and Pleasure with that Divine and Heav'nly Food and yet he spreads abroad a thousand Pleasures in the mean time upon all the Acts of our Natural Life whether it be to make them serve to sweeten as hath been said the Pain of our State of Trial or else to give us as it were some Earnest or Taste beforehand of the Sovereign Felicity which he contains in his Supream Essence and wherewith he will abundantly fill us in his happy Eternity for the present Pleasures enter in the general Idea which St. Paul gives us of the present World as of a Shadow a Figure and a kind of Prospect of the World to come they are given us as Shadows and Figures as an Earnest and a Foretaste as Drops and Particles of that Ocean of Pleasure which the World to come prepareth for us And God can neither hate them in themselves nor envy them us nor hinder us from them in respect of themselves He doth not do it in Effect neither doth he prohibit or condemn any of them as the Church hath decided against those Hereticks who destroy and condemn Marriage It is never the Pleasure in it self and for it self which God concondemns and prohibits and which renders us Impure and Criminal On the contrary every Pleasure is most proper of it self to purifie us because it is most proper to unite Us to God as to its lively Source and the Source also of all Purity It is never the Pleasure which causeth the Sin and which disorders or corrupts the Heart of Man by it self It is the Reinversement and the Violation of the Order of Pleasure which causeth the Impurity the Disorder and the Crime of that Thing in the World which is the most amiable and the most pure in it self God doth not deny Us any Pleasure for the Pleasure's sake but he hath inclos'd this Rivulet and this Current within its
soon as their Union with the Body ceaseth they begin to be nowhere but in God only because they have no more Relation but with God only there is nothing of an Intervention there is no more of a Partitionary Occasion and Condition between God and the Soul which determines or suspends the Influence of his Divine Action in us and by which we receive all the Idea's and all the Sentiments that we have CHAP. IV. What this Immediate Union is which our Souls have with God when they go out of the Body which makes us say that they go to God THUS it is that we ought to Conceive the Place where our Souls Are after they are gone out of the Body We must Conceive that they Are in God not only as S. Augustin saith as the World is in God For saith he you must Answer to him who shall Ask you where the World is That it is in God since there is no other Place out of the World where the World can be and since it is God alone who penetrates and environs it by the Immensity of his Operation but because Spirits have no other Place than their Relation of Dependence and Activity and that after the going out of the Body our Souls do no more depend either upon any Corporeal Nature or upon any Spiritual Nature which ought to be the Occasion or Condition of the Idea's with which they ought to be Enlightned or of the Sentiments with which they ought to be Affected but immediately from God only who gives them as he pleases to them It is God therefore who immediately Enlightens them it is God immediately who without being Determined by any thing Exterior Determines all the Sentiments which they have This is it which makes us evidently see the necessary Consequence and Connexion of the incontestable Principles which have been hitherto Establish'd for we must say nothing of our Souls nor of any Matter whatsoever but that which we know of it by a Certain Light And as we have no such Light by which we can judge that our Souls when they go out from the Dependence upon the Body ought to enter into another Servitude and another sort of Dependence upon any Created Nature so we have not any Reason to Conceive any other Relation of Dependence in our Souls which they ought to have when they are gone out of the Body than that which they have Essentially with God and by consequence we ought to say in Terms purely Natural That it is in God only that our Souls Are that moment that they go out of the Body We say it by the only Lights of Reason and we ought extreamly to rejoyce that Philosophy is agreed here with the Divine Word which gives us entirely the same Idea This Notion of the Immediate Union of our Souls with God Establish'd and Prov'd by Scripture For besides that the Scripture saith we return to God and into God it saith expresly also That our Habitation shall not be after this Life in Houses made with Hands or in Corporeal Spaces for this is what St. Paul means when he calleth it Domum non manufactam à Deo aeternam He tells us That there will be no more Sun and Moon which we might have need of because the Brightness of God will Enlighten us Civitas non eget Sole neque Luna ut luceant in ea nam Claritas Dei illuminabit eam Nox non erit illic non egebunt lumine lucernae neque lumine Solis quoniam Dominus Deus illuminabit illos It saith That after this Life we shall dwell with God and God with us Ecce Tabernaculum Dei cum hominibus habitabit cum eis It is very full of these sorts of Expressions and if we will reduce them to neat Idea's we shall find that they mean nothing else than what we have said That after the going out of our Bodies there is no more any thing betwixt God and our Souls to suspend or to diminish the Essential Union of them or to be the Occasional Cause of his Operation and of his Influence in Us but that it is only He immediately who determins our Thoughts our Idea's and all the Essential Acts of our New Life for this is what St. John means when he saith That in this New Life and New Estate after our Death it is God himself who shall Enlighten Us without our having any need either of the Sun or the Moon or of any other sort of Light which is at present but the Occasional Cause of his Illumination by which we See How we must understand That Holy Souls Ascend into Heaven and Criminal Souls Descend into Hell We must therefore conceive our Souls to be united immediately to God that moment that they go out of the Body and we must cut off all the Idea of any Corporeal Place in which we might conceive them to be after the fashion of Bodies For when the Scripture makes us conceive That the Saints are carried up into Heaven before the Corporeal Resurrection after which there will be a real Local Transportation of Bodies it would only make us conceive That God who Unites these Holy Souls to Jesus Christ and to His Glory makes himself and all Heaven wherein he Reigns to be as present to them as the Objects which we now see feel and perceive more nearly are at present to Us. We should very illy conceive Heaven wherein Jesus Christ Reigns in Body and in Soul if we should conceive it as including and containing God and discovering and manifesting Him to the Saints we must on the contrary saith St. Augustin Conceive Heaven and Jesus Christ also to be in God who contains All and who is contained of Nothing who manifests and discovers All and whom Nothing neither manifests nor discovers and Holy Souls are not in Heaven but in as much as they are in God in whom and by whom they are united and present to Heaven and to Jesus Christ by the lively and distinct Idea which they have of His glorious Presence like to those Idea's which the most present Objects give Us by their immediate Impression by which they strike our Senses For we must not go about to imagine That they are in Heaven by any sort of Extension or Corporeal Dimension and Local Circumscription after the manner of Bodies How the Souls of the Wicked are in God And we must Reason after the same manner concerning the Souls of the Wicked They are most really in Hell but this is because they are in God who fastens them there and unites them to the Fire of his Wrath as He doth the Souls of the Just to Jesus Christ and to that part of the Heavens where He Reigns There is indeed this great Difference That the Immediate Union which is between the Souls of the Just and God is an Union of Love of Tenderness and of Favour or good Liking and the Immediate Union which is between God and the
Reprobated Souls is a Union of Wrath of Enmity and of Implacable Vengeance They are in God and God say the Holy Fathers is their First and True Hell if it may be permitted to use an Expression so strong Not that there is not an Hell or a Corporeal Place wherein the Bodies of the Wicked Are to be shut up after the Resurrection and where we are to conceive their Souls before hand but we must say that they are in such a Place where God keeps the Fire of His Wrath continually Burning and they are there Effectively after the manner that Spirits are in Corporeal Places as really as it is possible God gives them perpetually the Idea thereof and by the Occasion of that Idea he Impresses on them a dolorous Sentiment of real Burning that is to say The same Sentiment which we have upon the Occasion of Elementary Fire when by its too great Activity it Disranges Agitates and violently Scorches up the Fibres of those Parts of our Bodies upon which it Acts and the Vertue and Efficacy of His Power by his Irrevocable Decree fixeth them there and is a Chain which no force can break and which no length of Duration can wear out but it is always truly said That it is in God who contains Hell as well as Heaven as St. Augustin further saith And who unites Impure Souls to Fire Everlasting in the manner as hath been said that properly and chiefly the Reprobate Souls Are as well as the Holy Souls They are only but Accessorily if I may so say either in Heaven or in Hell within these Material Places and Spaces of which God gives them that lively Idea which renders Them present to them CHAP. VI. Whether Jesus Christ be the Occasional Cause of these Idea's and Sentiments of Holy Souls out of the Body THAT which we have been saying concerning the Fire of Hell might give Occasion here to some to Imagin That it is not perhaps so certain as we would have them believe it to be That the Union of Souls with God and of God with the Souls is Immediate from the Moment that they go out of the Body because They may Imagine That as God unites Impure Souls to Hell Fire Establishing it as the Occasional Cause of that particular Torment and of that That Pain of Burning with which he Afflicts them with so he Establishes also an Occasional Cause of the agreeable Idea's and Sentiments which he gives to the Saints And there are some who would willingly conceive That the Soul of Jesus Christ might very well be the Occasional Cause of all the Ineffable Pleasures of Holy Souls so much the rather because the Analogy of the Divine Conduct inspires us to acknowledge an Occasional Cause of their Joy and their Felicity as there is an Occasional Cause of the Torment of the Reprobates But this ought not to shake a Truth so well Established and Proved as is that of the Immediate Union of God with our Souls and of our Souls with God from the Moment that they go out of our Body This Union is without doubt Immediate and without the Intervention of any thing and without Dependence upon any Occasional Cause for the Foundation and Essentiality of this New State For tho' there may be some Occasional Cause of the Accessory Pain of Reprobated Souls and of the Accessory Felicity of Holy Souls yet it is certain That there is none at all for their Essential Pain and their Essential Felicity St. Paul speaks it expresly of Holy Souls when he says That God shall be all in them Erit Deus Omnia in Omnibus The whole Scripture says so likewise when it says We shall see God Face to Face for these Expressions do import an Immediate Union of God with us Since it would not at all be to see him Face to Face but to see him thro' a Veil if we did only receive from him Idea's and Lights upon the occasion of some Things that was extraneous to Him Let then the Adorable Humanity of Jesus Christ be with all my heart an Occasional Cause of a thousand Joys and a thousand Accessory Felicities to Holy Souls as St. John says it expresly enough in the Description he makes us of our State out of our Bodies under the Name of the New City or of the Heavenly Jerusalem where the Holy Lamb gives a thousand Pleasures But as to the Foundation of this New State as to the Lights and Idea's the Sentiments and the Joys which constitute it and are the Essence of it they depend not upon any Occasional Cause they come from the Immediate Union of God with the Holy Souls Independently of all Exterior Occasional Determination God penetrates them with His Glorious Light and with the Intimate Impression of His Beatifick Presence and he fills them full with his Ineffable Joys and Pleasures How Impure Souls are united to Hell Fire We need only say The same thing in Proportion of Reprobate Souls Let then the Action of the Terrible Element which God makes to be Serviceable to His Anger be the Occasional Cause of the Accessory Pain of the Wicked for as the Impurity of the Reprobate Souls is a perpetual Object of Horror wherewith the Sovereign Purity of the Divine Eyes is sensibly hurt so it is not improbable That the Terrible Element which naturally Cleanses and Purifies all things should be likewise Employed as an Occasional Cause to a Particular Action by which the Eternal Sanctity applies it self to make them feel the Horror of their Impure State But that do's not at all hinder but that for the Ground of this unhappy State it should be intirely Independent of all sort of an Occasional Cause for it is certain That God is immediately united to the Reprobates by his Anger as He is immediately united by His Love to the Just Souls God is the Principal Fire which burns them and His Anger is the Fire and Brimstone that Feeds their Chief and Principal Torment We commonly conceive very ill That which we call The Pain of the Damned when we conceive it as a simple Privation or a Partition Wall betwixt God and the Reprobated Souls There may well be an Eternal Wall of Separation but there is also an Eternal and Immediate Union There is a Wall of Separation betwixt Gods Goodness and Sinners that is a Wall which stops all the Influences of Mercy of Grace and of Glory but it is likewise an Union which nearly attracts all the Characters of his Anger and his Vengeance God also makes himself to be felt as nearly and as immediately to the Reprobates as to the Saints The Unhappy see God Face to Face but it is only his Terrible Face which they see It is not that Illuminating Face which Enlightens the Just and wherein he promised to Moses to let him see and find All Good It is a Face Sparkling with Thunder which penetrates them with Fear and covers them with Horror and Darkness They are Eternally
in God as in a Rageing Sea which dashes against them and tosses them and threatens them perpetually with its Storms and Tempests And this is All in my Opinion that we can desire to know upon the Principal Head of that which Regards the State of our Souls out of our Bodies Let us conceive with all my heart That there is above those Heavens which we know a Heaven wholly Enlightned and abounding with Joy and overwhelmed with Pleasures wherein the Holy Souls are involved And let us conceive on the other side a Place replenished with Flames and Darknesses with Horror and all manner of Despair which the Criminal Souls do fall into All this is most True and these Places are most Real and Effective but it is in God in whom the Holy Souls do find this Enlightned Heaven and in whom the Criminal Souls do find these Flames and these Darknesses these Despairs and these Horrors It is God who by an Immediate Union of his Almighty Activity causeth in Them this Light and these Darknesses these Sadnesses and these Joys these Pleasures and these Pains all the Paradice and all the Hell Erit Deus Omnia in Omnibus it is by an Immediate Union of God with Them and They with God that they are in Heaven and in Hell Since it is by this Union that they have this Lively Idea thereof which renders these Places present to them CHAP. VII That which makes the Difference between the Present and Future State of the Soul IT follows from what hath been said That that which makes the Essential Difference of the manner how our Souls are in our Bodies and of the manner how they are out of our Bodies is That when they are in the Body then they have but Successively the Idea's and the Knowledges of Things from the Occasion of different Impressions which come and arrive to the Brain by the Action of other Bodies which are round about Us and that they have not also the Sentiments and the several Movements of the Appetite but from the Occasion of divers Dispositions of Bodies and when they are parted from the Body they receive immediately from God these Idea's and these Sentiments which is requisite for the Disposition of Vice or Vertue which we otherwise call Merit of Demerit in which they find themselves when they are parted from the Body Now the Body by the divers Impressions which it receives from other Bodies or by the divers Dispositions which are raised formed in it by the Ebullition of the Blood by the Course of the Spirits and by the divers Excesses or Fermentations of Humors is the Occasional Cause of all these Idea's and of all the Sentiments of the Soul because that the Supream Being by which it Lives it Perceives Thinks and Wills for to conserve the Dignity and good Order of its Greatness in acting as Universal Cause was pleased to tye the Determination of these Idea's and Sentiments to those Dispositions of the Body which result from the Laws of Motion by which He moves all the Corporeal Nature and by which he composes and conserves the Visible World with an infinite Wisdom which alone was able to produce so many Prodigious Effects with so much Order and so much Harmony from two or three Immutable Laws by which He moves the Matter of the Universe That in this New State of the Soul out of the Body God is not determined to Act in Them but by a necessary and immutable Love of Order and by their Vertuous or Criminal Disposition God doth not Act but as an Universal Cause with our Souls so long as they are in the Body He doth but follow the Law of Motion of the common Matter of the Visible World which diversly affecting our Bodies necessarily determines him by Vertue of his Immutable Decree to give to the Souls those Idea's and those Sentiments which answer the different Impressions wherewith the Body is affected but when the Soul is out of the Body God doth lay aside the Character of Universal Cause as to this purpose He no longer follows in respect of them the Laws of the Motion of the Universe Souls part with the World in parting with the Body They have no longer any Relation with the Body nor by consequence with the Visible World from that very instant that they have no more to do with their particular Bodies So long as they are in the Body they are united to all the Visible World because that their Thoughts and their Sentiments do depend upon the Laws of the Motion which moves all the Matter of the World it being that which gives them an Essential Relation to all the Parts of it because there is not any one of them which may not be an Occasion of the Determination of these Idea's and Sentiments but after Death all that ceases there is a new Order of things there are no more the same Laws God afterwards follows none but the Law of his Eternal and Inflexible Justice to Punish or to Reward the Souls according as they have made themselves deserving It is no more the Motion of the Universe and the particular Disposition of every ones Temperament which results from it which determins the diversity of our Idea's and Sentiments It is only the Pure and Holy Disposition or the Impute and Criminal Disposition of our Souls which determins the Sovereign and Eternal Justice and Equity to give us the Idea's and Sentiments proper to Reward or Punish our Irregular or our Vertuous Disposition God hath no longer Reason to be willing to mannage and conserve the Dignity and Character of Universal Cause He hath no longer Reason to mannage and conserve the Liberty of our Souls The time of our Trial is ended The time of Merit is past There is no more question to see whether they will make themselves worthy that is over They are fixed in an Immutable State That is Eternity There is no more Vicissitudes or Diversifications no more Instability or Changes no more an Alternativeness or a Passage from Evil to Good and from Good to Evil from Vice to Vertue and from Vertue to Vice The Tree lies where it falls And as the State of the Soul is fixed by this State of Immutability which is properly That which we call Eternity so God fixeth himself to Love or to Hate to Punish or to Reward He Acts thenceforwards as a particular Cause because that He immediately takes in the Ground of His Eternal Love of Order the determination of all these Idea's and Sentiments which he gives to our Souls That is all the Light which we can give to our First Curiosity concerning the State of our Souls out of our Body by which we see that they are not properly but in God and that it is He only who is the Cause and Occasion of all their Idea's and Sentiments We must now proceed and endeavour to Know all that belongs to this State by clear and infallible Lights CHAP. VIII How
can carry its Harmony so far as to the Brain The Canals or the Membranes and Nerves of the Ear which we call the Internal Ones are the only Gates and the only Ways whereby this Air so melodiously struck can make its Impression on the Brain It is after the same manner with the Impression of the Sun-beams in respect of the Eyes of Savours in respect of the Palat and the Tongue and of Odors in respect of the Organ of Smelling The Eyes being shut it would be ridiculous to expose the Hands and the rest of the Body to the Light the Light cannot at all pass its Impression to the Brain It would be Nonsense to sequeeze the Juyce of delicate Food with the Hands and apply it to any other part of the Body than the Mouth only this Juyce will nowhere make that agreeable Tickling which it makes upon the Tongue and Palat. The Universal Cause which being willing to advertise us of all the Impressions that all that Diversity of different Bodies whereof the World is compos'd doth make upon our Bodies hath been pleas'd to conserve the Character of Universal Cause and hath prepar'd in our Bodies so many different Organs and different Structures of Fibres and Nerves to receive the Impressions of these Exterior Bodies which he hath foreseen would there have different Impressions Thus it hath made in our Eyes a Structure of Skins or of Tunicks or Coats and of Transparent Humors to let the Rays of Light pass through and an admirable Web of the Extremities of the subtile Fibres or Filaments of the Optick Nerve to receive and carry thereby the Impression to the Brain He hath stretched out at the Entrance of the Ear a thin and subtile Membrane just like a little Drum to receive the Impression of the Air that is struck or of the divers Concussions of it which causes that which we call the Report or Sound or Voice c. These are call'd the Organs of different Sensations which are necessary in the present State to the end that God might Conserve his Character of Universal Cause which he hath so justly affected to Conserve in all the Extents of his Natural Providence But as when the Souls are out of the Body there is an Order altogether New where God Acts no more as Universal Cause being no further oblig'd to be determin'd by an Exterior Occasion to determine in the Souls the Idea's and Sentiments which they ought to have so the Faculties which are now Organical will have even after the Universal Resurrection their Exercise and their Acts without any Organs The Souls have no need at all to Eat for to have a thousand sorts of agreeable and delicious or disagreeable and loathsom Tasts if it pleases God to give them They will have no need at all of Ears nor even of Voice of Organs Harpsichords Guittars or Violins to cause a lively and penetrating Sentiment of a thousand sorts of Melodies They will have no need at all of Eyes to have the Pleasure of the Prospect of the Visible World The Scripture it self will not permit us to doubt that the Souls have not out of the Body before the Resurrection real Sensations altho' they have no Corporeal Organs for to Burn is an Act of the Sensitive Faculty a real and a proper Sensation and the Scripture teaches That the wicked Rich Man burns and that the Souls of the Wicked are to burn eternally in Hell The Imagination and Memory That which we have said concerning Acts of Sensation doth decide the Question of the Faculty of Imagining and of the Acts of the Memory for it is certain that tho' these Faculties are now Organical yet they are but only Accidentally so as they say as well as the Faculty of Feeling It is only in respect to the present Order and to the Manner of Gods Acting as Universal Cause that they are Organical they are not so for any Insufficiency or Incapacity of the Soul which requires such Helps Thus it is certain the Holy Souls will have an Idea of all Corporeal Natures and of all the Structure of the World by Idea's and Images altogether like those whereby we see present Corporeal Objects or we Imagine them when they are absent when the Tracks which their presence had lest behind them come to be resuscitated and renew'd We may say the same thing of Memory of which we may say That God supplies the Corporeal Species by his lively Determination which calls back to the Souls the Idea's of things which the Corporeal Species would send back if they had them It is without doubt that Souls do recollect themselves not truly by proper Acts of Corporeal Memory for that is Organical and by Mechanism as we have said but by lively Idea's which God supplies and puts in the room or place of those Corporeal Species How the Just Souls see in the Word of God Things past present and to come St. Augustin and other Ancient and Modern Doctors do say That Sanctifi'd Souls do Read in the Word of God as in a Book Things past Things present and Things to come And this Notion is just and exact provided that we comprehend that this Action of Reading in the Souls is rather an Act of the Passive Faculty of the Soul by which she receives the Light and the Idea's than of the Active Faculty by which she goes about to search as it were of her own accord for we must call to mind this double Faculty whereof one is the Cause of the Souls being Instructed and Enlightned from without and the other That she Instructs and Enlightens her self all manner of ways from within This is the Principle of all Sciences We may say that the Souls Read in the Divine Word Things past present and to come provided we comprehend That it is not the Soul which goes to search the Divine Word as we conceive that we go to search a Book by the help of Corporeal Eyes but that it is the Word of God which goeth to be united to the Soul shewing uniting and communicating it self to it either Immediately by it self as some conceive or Mediately as we say by an Omnipotent Action by which it modifies and imprints us with created Idea's drawn from the proper Substance of the Soul wherein it Copies out and Paints it self in proportion to that which it would communicate of it self as others are pleas'd to conceive it The Word of God is nothing else but that Substantial and Eternal Idea by which the Supream Essence Reflects in some manner upon it self in admiring its Perfection and its Fulness and forms by that Reflection upon all which it hath found in it self a Platform or Model of all that which it can do and of the manner How it ought to be done This Eternal Idea is as it were the Source of all Particular Idea's and the Essential Mirror of all things There is the Light which Enlightens all the Conduct of God out of
doth not say that they shall change Nature and that by an impossible Conversion and Metamorphosis they shall become Knowing Natures and shall cease to be Extended Substances He means that the Bodies shall be no more a Charge to the Souls that they shall be to them no more an Obstacle or Hindrance in any thing and that they shall only serve to do Honor to the glory of the Creation and of the Redemption We will first of all take away from Bodies that which we call Gravity which is nothing else but an Impulsion wholly exterior towards the Center of the Earth which happens to them at present from the Impression of the Creator by reason of their Terrestrial Nature and Composition We will restore to them their natural Indifference to Motion and to Rest For Bodies of themselves have not any Motion neither of Lightness nor of Weight they neither ascend nor descend they neither move themselves Perpendicularly nor Horizontally as they say At this present as they are part of the Visible and Corporeal World which ought wholly to subsist upon that indivisible Point which is called its Center which sustains all Bodies without being sustained of any thing They must be moved and driven continually towards the Center and middle of the Earth which doth not sustain it self upon its self but by that Impulsion of all its Parts and of all that which we call Terrestrial Bodies which from all parts tend towards this middle and the same indivisible Point but then being no longer Parts of the Terrestrial World they no longer follow the Laws of that Motion which moves Corporeal and Terrestrial Nature they will neither have Levity nor Gravity but a Perfect and Sovereign Agility that is to say an entire Indifference for all sorts of Motion which will cause them without any Resistance to be carried every where where the Souls would have them We will fix in these Resuscitated Bodies such a Degree of Heat and Motion in the Blood as shall be necessary to entertain the natural Movements with a certain Agility and Disposition for the Animal and Voluntary Motions which the good Constitution of a healthful Body requires This Heat will be sufficient to make the Blood and Humors to flow but not to escape or dissipate the least of the Parts either fluid or solid Parts of the Body from whence it will happen That there will not be any Dissipation and that Nourishment which is only to repair the Dissipation will be never necessary Those Inclinations which are now placed in Man for the Propagation of Species will cease by this Reason and this Principle because in these Bodies fixed in an Immutable Situation of Parts and which never take Nourishment there will not be any excess of Superfluous Matter by which those natural Ebullitions and Fermentations are made which give occasion to those Desires and to those Inclinations which we now have for the Propagation of Species Erunt sicut Angeli Dei neque nubent neque nubentur Almost in the same manner the Senses will have all their Functions and altho' the Souls ought to be enlightned and affected with Idea's and Sentiments upon the Occasion of their Bodies thus Spiritualized in proportion as they themselves shall be affected by the Corporeal Impression of other Bodies which shall act upon them however that will not at all hinder but that the Union of the Souls with God and of God with the Souls shall be near and immediate because that independently of these Corporeal Impressions He will Act continually in them The Bodies are now an essential Occasional Cause of all the natural Action of God in the Souls but then they shall be the Cause Occasional not Essential God will Act by himself immediately in them enlightning them and diversly modifying or affecting them without any Regard of the Body in a thousand manners The Bodies shall be no longer neither a Wall nor a Vail between God and the Souls nor a Channel of Communication between the Souls and God He will Act in them independently of the Disposition of the Body which is now the essential Condition of his natural Action in us Then when the Holy Souls shall be re-united to their Bodies They will not at all fail as hath been said to have the whole Spectacle of the Visible World altho' there be but one part of the Visible World whose Species comes to be retracted in the Material Eyes They will not at all fail to have the Pleasure of Melodies altho' there be not any Symphony which strikes their Corporeal Ears Civitas non egebit Sole neque Lunâ nam Claritas Dei illuminabit eam Such will be our Souls in their Spiritualiz'd Bodies after the Universal Resurrection there remains nothing more for us to do after this last Illustration than to make use of these Knowledges to reform our Idea's and correct our Judgments about Eternity and about Time about the Present Life and the Future about the Present World and the World to come And thereby to comprehend the whole Extent of our Duties CHAP. XIV What is Time and Eternity the Present World and the World to come the Present Life and the Future Life IT is easie for us after all that hath been Illustrated concerning that Future State of our Souls in the New and Immortal Life which they ought to Commence in going out of the Body It is easie for us I say to comprehend what is Time and Eternity the Present World and the World to come the Present Life and the Future Life That which we Men call Time is taken either by Relation to the Duration of the Abode of every Soul in its Body or by Relation to the Duration of the whole present Oeconomy of the Visible World destined to the Trial of the Souls in the Bodies and in whatsoever signification Men take Time in the Opposition which Men make of it to Eternity It signifies precisely a State of Instability of Change and of Vicissitude and a State which ought to have an End for these are the two things which enter essentially into the Idea of that which is called Time Vicissitude and End The space of the Duration that our Souls are in our Bodies is called Time for those two Reasons because it ought to have an End and because in the Interim so long as it endures it holds us exposed to a thousand Changes and to a thousand Vicissitudes and above all to the Vicissitude of being able to pass from Good to Evil and from Evil to Good from Sin to Vertue and from Vertue to Crimes or Vice You see here exactly what Time is and Eternity ought to be conceived by Opposition for Eternity is on the contrary The immutable and interminable State and Order of things As much as Time includes Instability and End so much do's Eternity exclude them both Time speaks Change and End Eternity speaks the being always the same and never ending Thus as our present State in
saith Thomas Aquinas Because by reason of much loving the Present Life we come saith he to hate the Future and to wish that there were none at all and when we are gone as far as to hate it we shall easily come not to believe it at all and when the Future Life is once become a Fable Divinity soon after will be but a Chimera only This excessive Love then of the Present Life is a great Disorder and Irregularity and this Irregularity is mounted in us even to the last Period and to the highest Degree I call it a Love enchanted of the Present Life for it is a Love of Charm and of Enchantment It is a Fury and a Rage a Madness and a Frenzy of Love The Future Life allures us to it by a thousand Charms it glitters before us I will not say like a Sun but like an Immensity of Light which ought to carry as much Ardor into our Hearts as Conviction into our Spirits it opens her Bosom to us and lends us an assisting Hand Instinct and Religion Grace and Nature the Law and the Gospel Heaven and Earth all of them shew our Future Life in a happy Immortality all sparkling with Joys with Felicities and with Glories The sweet and ineffable Impression of Grace and the Holy Spirit The lively sparkles of Heavenly Regeneration which operate in us by a thousand secret Incitements The Example of the truly Faithful who groan without ceasing with St. Paul in Expectation of their Deliverance from their Bodies and of the manifestation of the Future Life and of the Glories of the Children of God do sollicite and impel us and do call upon us The World it self by its Contradictions and the Present Life by its Pains and its Disgusts do render the Love and the desire of the Future Life necessary to us to comfort us under our present Pains and Miseries And yet notwithstanding we have the deadly weight upon our heart which inclines us and fixes us to the Earth and to this miserable Life we are not able to raise our selves up to desire Celestial Beauties and the Eternal Delights we are more ready to say Let God take care of Heaven for himself and let him leave the Earth for us We see here what sort of Creatures we are it is impossible to make the least Ray or Spark of the Love of the Future Life to enter into our hearts St. Paul notwithstanding teaches us That the Present World is but a Shadow of the World to come and the Present Life upon that account cannot be but the Shadow of the Future that is to say there is the same difference between the Present Life and the Future Life as there is between a Body that is all real and all effective and between the Shadow which is only a void and an empty Figure All the Shadows here below that is to say all the Joys and all the Felicities of this Life which are only Shadows here are in the Future Things real All that is here a Figure is there Reality The Honors the Pomps and the Glories the Abundance the Pleasures are There true Pomps true Honors true Glory true Abundance true Pleasures Conceive the Difference saith St. Chrysostom between the Shadow and the Sun conceive how great are the Beauties of that Planet which animates all the Beauty of the World above that drowsie Obscurity which hath only a pure Nothingness of Privation for the Body and the Foundation of its Being and when you have comprehended that do not believe that you have comprehended the advantage of the Future Life above the Present Life St. Paul said very well That to die is gain Mori lucrum We gain without doubt because that instead of a World of Shadows of Figures of Illusions of Vanities of Dreams of pure Nothings cloath'd with the Painted Superficies of Being or rather with the simple and false Appearance we enter into the Possession of a World where all is Real all Solid all Effective and all Immortal The Condemnation of our violent Desires for the Establishment of our Present Fortunes and of our deadly Indifference for the sort of Event of our Eternal Predestination which is decided in this Present Life We have acknowledged by the State of Trial in which we have seen our Souls are at present their uncertain and doubtful State of Alternativeness of the formidable coming of Eternity in which they ought to enter in going out of Time and out of the Present Life We have acknowledged that we are here as it were suspended and ballanced betwixt two Extreams of two different Eternities of which we have the Lot to decide by our Vigilance and by our Application to Sanctifie our selves and to prepare our selves for that Impression of Glory and Sovereign Felicity which God will really give to all those whom he shall find prepared and disposed for it by a faithful and constant Co-operation with his Grace and there follows from thence a Condemnation equally just and formidable of our violent Desires for our present Fortunes and of our brutal Indifference for that of Eternity which we are to make for our selves and for which we cannot rely and repose our selves upon any one else If our Lot of Eternity was cast upon us after the manner as some conceive it if it was a Destiny which ought to be effected without us and if we were only to expect the Event and the infallible and inevitable Execution of it there would not be any Thing to reproach us thereupon we might in the mean time wholly employ our selves about our present Fortunes But besides That even then when God hath a particular Cause in the Predestination of some few and that he Charges himself with the success of their Salvation which I believe he do's for a certain number he do's not at all save even these Priviledged Persons without their Co-operation It is certain That in regard to the generality of Men he do's not concur to their Predestination and their Salvation but as Universal Cause and that the Success of it is left to the Vigilance of every one Thus our Souls do themselves before-hand decide by the good or ill usage of Time of the Present Life and of Grace the Alternativeness of the Immutable State of Happiness or Unhappiness in which they are to be fixed and established when they depart hence Thus It is certain That all the Occupations all the Designs and all the Enterprizes of Men which have not for their End the great Object of that building of our House of Eternity which the Scripture frequently mentions which we ought to be building every moment of this Present Life as it were by so many Stones that we are to raise one upon another to the end that our Souls may find their Habitations ready prepared It is certain once again That all our Occupations all our Cares all our violent Desires all our Designs and all our Enterprizes are things not only vain and
A Discovery of Divine Mysteries OR THE NATURE and EFFICACY OF THE Soul of Man Considered in all its Faculties Operations and Divine Perfections and how it governs in Divine and Secular Affairs of Life In Three Parts I. Of the Preference due to the Soul above the Body by Reason of its Spiritual and Immortal Nature and how it operates on Things in Heaven and Earth II. How the Soul of Man moves and operates in Religious Duties and Moral Actions whether towards God towards our selves or towards Man And of our Duty of Gospel Self-denyal which results from the manner how our Souls operate in our Bodies under the visible Empire of God III. Concerning our Duties of Time and Eternity of the present Life and of the Life to come of the present World and of the World to come which results from the manner how our Souls ought to be out of our Bodies first of all and then in our Spiritualiz'd Bodies after the Universal Resurrection With many other Curious Matters Being a Compleat Body of Divine and Moral Philosophy By C. B. D. D. Fellow of the Royal Society LONDON Printed for Eben Tracy at the Three Bibles on London-Bridge 1700. TO THE READER THO' the World be full of Discourses Treatises and Essays of Morality yet we have believ'd it might not be unnecessary to Expose these New Essays to the Publick View Either because one cannot enough propose to Mankind their Duties or else because the greatest part of those Essays Treatises and Discourses which have appear'd already and of which some have so justly pleas'd the Relish of the Age are if well regarded no more than onely Paintings and Descriptions or at best but Incitements not Convictions and Establishments of Duties For they suppose that the Principles of Religion Morality and Duties are setled and acknowledg'd they presuppose them but they prove them not they persuade them to those who already do believe them but if there be some who do not believe them as there are too too many who doubt thereof or at least who are not sufficiently persuaded of them they do neither persuade nor convince Them in the least We believe that we have Discover'd the precious and inestimable Treasure of an entire Conviction of Religion and Morality in the Incultivated and Neglected Field of the Natural Knowledge of our Souls and the no less precious Treasure of that Knowledge of our Souls in the Attention and Reflection upon every ones Proper and Indubitable Sentiment and we have believ'd that we ought to render the Discovery Publick This is what we have done And tho' in all this Essay which is indeed no other than a meer Essay because it is only an Idea which we rough-draw and an Overture which we make but do not fully accomplish by Vnfolding and Pressing on in a particular and compleat Delineation all our Duties and all their Circumstances there needs nothing more Than that every one should apply his proper Sentiment and the clear Idea's which he finds in Himself by Attention and Reflection upon this Indubitable Sentiment which he hath in Himself Nevertheless because there are few Persons who are accustom'd to Reflect and Reason upon Matters so remote from their Senses and the Carnal Relish of Human Passions which stir up Attention in Reading the greatest part of other Books we foresaw that this Essay might appear too strong to some Spirits who can only digest Matters that are very easie who are not accustom'd to mount up to the Principles of Things who Relie upon the Credit of Authors and who are not at all Curious to see what we propose to them in First Notions and Clear Idea's But besides that we believ'd that an Age so Enlightned as Ours is would require an Instruction as strong and that there are Spirits who would willingly be thus Fundamentally Instructed and that it would be convenient to Impress this Relish upon others to the end that they may be rais'd up to a more Perfect Knowledge of God and themselves We do also hope that the meanest Capacities may here learn how to Know their Souls and by their Souls their Duties S. Paul would have all the Faithful apply themselves to Augment and Encrease Light and Knowledge in themselves And if there be any Knowledge which is useful and necessary to be Encreased and brought to Perfection it is without doubt The Knowledge of our Soul which is the most Essential Science which we have to acquire and the true Science of God and of Salvation as the Divine Apostle speaks since we can Know nothing Fundamentally neither of our Heavenly and Eternal Hope nor of our Present State upon Earth nor of our Essential Relation with the Eternal Nature and Essence from whence proceed all our Duties but in Proportion as the Knowledge of our Soul Encreaseth We see very Exact and very Religious Observers of Duties who oftentimes Know not why they perform them and tho' they do not do amiss in being so yet they would do much better in Being and Knowing why they are so because whatsoever a Man is Knowingly and by the Conviction of Reason he is much more solidly so for himself and much more profitably so for others We have believ'd that we ought to give a Compleat Science and Knowledge of the Soul to the end that all the World might thereby Instruct themselves in their Duties either for a particular Edification or for the Instruction and Edification of others And we are persuaded that all those who will give themselves the pains of Reading with some Attention and of adding to that Reading some little Reflection upon themselves to Remark what we Observe of the Natural and Universal Sentiments of all Mankind which is the perpetual Light of this Treatise will find that we have render'd this Matter otherwise so obscure and difficult of it self most Intelligible and Proportion'd to the Capacity of the whole World THE CONTENTS PART I. OF the Preference due to the Soul above the Body from the Reason of its Spiritual and Immortal Nature Page 1. Chap. 1. The Curiosity which we ought to have how to know our Souls ibid. The Dignity of our Souls 6 The Perception and Certainty which all of us have of our Souls 8 Chap. 2. That our Souls undoubtedly are Spiritual Natures and altogether distinct from Bodies upon the account of their Intelligent Nature 11 Why and how we conceive of God and Angels as Spirits 12 This is the common Doctrin of the Schools 14 Chap. 3. The manner of our conceiving that Knowledge which is in Beasts causes a Confusion which must necessarily be rectified 16 Four different Opinions which make four different Degrees of Knowledge in Beasts 19 Chap. 4. A general Discussion of the Opinion which gives to Beasts a Knowledge like to ours 21 Chap. 5. Whether Beasts have a true Reason like to ours 25 Chap. 6. Whether Beasts have any Reasoning inferior to Reason 33 Chap. 7. Whether Beasts have any sort
the visible World the Common Matter which suffic'd to make the other Living Creatures was not at all sufficient for the making of Man Man cannot be made like Beasts by a sole Construction and Organization of his Body for the Body being fram'd it would not have been for all that a Man it would have been a Beast as Brutish as the rest if God had not sought out a Soul for it in His own Heart and in His own Essence There needed nothing but a well-placing of Matter and an altogether Earthly Structure of Organs animated by a Blood a little set on fire to cause a Body to eat and walk and to make it a living Creature like the rest But to make a Man who far above the Life of Beasts hath a Life of Knowledge Understanding and Reason who hath that Empire over himself which we call Liberty and that Natural Rightness which we call Conscience there was a necessity of searching for the Principle of this excellent Life out of all the Extent of Matter and the Region of Bodies and the Creator could find it no where but in Himself For this is what that Expression of the Holy Writer means And he breathed into him the breath of life He grafted upon this Material and Terrestrial Structure which of it self could have no other than the Life of Beasts which had been given to the Common Matter of the World in Animals a lively Image and an admirable Resemblance of his Eternal Essence And from the Conjunction of this Terrestrial Structure and this Celestial and Divine Nature which he pour'd into it Man became Man after His Image and was rais'd up in the middle of the World as a Living Statue to be reverenc'd by all the Universe The Perception and Certainty which all of us have of our Souls This is the History and Genealogy which Moses gives us of our Soul in which he appears no less a Philosopher than a Prophet And altho' he should never have given it us we should not have forborn to climb up to that Source or Origin of our Nobility by the inward Experience and Certainty which we all of us have of our selves since there is no body that doth not feel and perceive in himself this Celestial and Divine Part added and ingrafted upon this Terrestrial Matter with a thousand Characters and a thousand Attributes undoubtedly Celestial and Divine For who is there that doth not perceive in himself a Principle of Knowledge without Bounds which gives a kind of Immensity to his Soul Who is there that doth not perceive in himself a Principle and a Ground of an Empire over himself and over the visible World in the Foundation of his Liberty which raises up a Man into a kind of Equality or at least a Resemblance of Sovereignty with God Who doth not perceive in himself a Ground of Justice or Love of Order of Vertue and Duty which makes him like to the Eternal Justice from whence flows all the Order all the Beauty of the World both Moral and Natural Who doth not perceive in himself a Ground of Conscience whereby every one is punish'd or rewarded upon the spot according as he hath done well or ill in which Man bears in himself a lively Image of that Supreme Justice which continually judges the Universe and which will one day solemnly manifest its Judgment by a manifest Recompence of the Good and an awful Punishment of the Wicked Men have essentially this Perception and this Experience of themselves Some have it more clear and lively others more confus'd stupid and dead if I may so say according as they have more or less Attention or Reflection upon themselves but it is certain that they all of them have it It is apparent that the ancient Philosophers and the ancient Poets who were themselves the Philosophers of their time had not at all read the Book of Genesis when they made our Souls to descend from Heaven and confounded them with the Supreme Nature and said that they were a Portion of It more particularly applied to animate our Bodies than the rest of the Universe It is not any Tradition that hath given Men these Ideas it is the natural perception and inward experience and certainty which the Soul essentially hath of it self And if Men were not diverted and carried away on the one side by their Passions and on the other side over-rul'd to that degree as they are by the Empire exercis'd over them by the Imagination which dulls and obscures them so as hath been said there would be no need of writing Books to let them know the Nobility and Dignity the Imaterial Nature and the Spiritual and Immortal Quality of their Souls Every one would be his own Master and his own Book to himself But seeing that the Passions on one side take from us the Attention and Reflection upon our selves and that the Imagination on the other side presents us with Corporeal Images as soon as we apply our selves to conceive things Spiritual and Immaterial it is necessary to awaken and help this natural Sentiment and to support the feeble and weak Effort of the Understanding and Reason to unmingle our Soul from that Confusion with the Body which the Imagination causes For that purpose we must begin to own its Spiritual and Immortal Nature of which it can accumulate a thousand Proofs but not to weary the Spirit by too much Speculation we will close it up in Three only drawn from one triple indubitable Sentiment which every one hath and upon which every one may easily reflect For every one finds in himself a Principle of Knowledge a Principle of Liberty and a Principle of Conscience or Love of Order and Justice And these are the three evident Convictions of the Spiritual and Immortal Nature of our Souls which sparkle within us Let us treat of them in order and explain them one after another CHAP. II. That our Souls undoubtedly are Spiritual Natures and altogether distinct from Bodies upon the account of their Intelligent Nature IF we should follow the Light of our natural Ideas there would be no need here of any Effort of Reason or any Train of Discourse for the natural Idea which we have of a Spirit or a Spiritual Nature is no other than an Idea of an Intelligent Nature such as we find and perceive in us by that intimate and inseparable Experience which we have of our selves For we must observe and which admits of no difficulty that as we do not know Bodies but by the Experience which we have of them so we know not Spirits but by that Spirit which we have in our selves and by that Idea which we have of our Soul which we know not but under the Idea of a knowing Substance which we experiment and perceive in us to be capable of divers Matters of knowing perceiving and willing of loving of hating of being afflicted and rejoycing of having Pain and Pleasure and in fine to
be generally susceptible of an infinite number of divers Modifications of which it hath an essential Certainty as often as it makes them in it self or suffers or receives them from any thing else As we have no Idea nor Experience of any sort of true Knowledge but that of our own so we have naturally no Certainty nor near or immediate Idea but of our own Spirit And tho' we form to our selves an Idea of some Spirit without us and of some Intelligent Nature it is only grounded upon that Idea which we have of our selves or of that Intelligent Nature which as I have said we find and prove to be in us for we know neither God nor Angel but by an Idea which we draw and which we form and build upon that Idea which we have of our selves Why and how we conceive of God and Angels as Spirits The Idea which we have of an Angel is no other than an Idea of an Intelligent Nature such as is in us but separated and disengag'd from the Servitude and Union of Bodies and by consequence enfranchiz'd from the Imperfections and Miseries tied to their Dependence such as we find in our selves The Idea which we have of God is in like manner no other than an Idea of an Intelligent Nature such as is in us but exempt from all the Imperfections which are in us It is an Idea of a Nature Intelligent and existing by it self with a Power Wisdom and Sanctity or Infinite Justice whereas we conceive of our selves just as we are under an Idea of a Created Intelligent Nature Imperfect Defective and Dependent in a thousand manners but this difference doth not at all hinder but that this Great and August Idea of the Supreme Spirit may be apprehended under the Idea of that Intelligent Nature which we find and prove in our selves We do not know that God knows otherwise than we were it not that he must of necessity know by Himself essentially all things without a Cloud without Obscurity without Uncertainty and all at one View Whereas we only know successively and dependently of a Superior Power which gives us Ideas and Perceptions as he pleases As we know no other Spirit than God Angel and Man and as we conceive neither God nor Angel nor Man as Spirits but under an Idea of a Knowing Nature and knowing with that kind of Knowledge which we find in us it follows That the Idea under which we conceive a Spiritual Nature is the Idea of that Knowing Nature which is in us And indeed it is impossible to have any clear and positive Idea of a Spirit which hath not for its Basis and Foundation either Knowledge or a Knowing Faculty for all other Definitions and Notions which are given of a Spiritual Substance have nothing Positive but consist in Negations This is the common Doctrin of the Schools Thomas Aquinas and the Scholiasts do commonly teach That we know neither God nor Angels but after the manner I have been speaking of For this is what they would say when they teach That we do not know either God or Angels but as they term it per alienam speciem that we know them not but by a borrow'd and copied Idea that we have no proper original and immediate Idea of them for these are their Expressions And tho' we had not these Authorities the Experience which we all of us have of the manner how we form to our selves the Notion and Idea of God and Angels by Reasoning and by Abstractions and by Precision or separation of the Imperfection which we know to be in us would not permit us to doubt but that the sole Idea and the sole Notion which we have of a Spiritual Nature is the Notion or Idea of an Intelligent Nature We know by an indubitable Experience that there are in the World two sorts of Natures a Knowing Nature and a Nature not knowing And to distinguish these two Natures of which we find in our selves Ideas and Notions altogether distinct by our Apprehension and Experience not to be doubted of we have given to the one the Name of Spiritual Nature and to the other the Name of Corporeal Nature Here you see the Truth of the Matter So if we would follow the Ideas and the Pure Lights of Nature which are always Infallible there would be no need here of making any Effort of Reasoning to manifest the Spiritual Nature of our Souls which we so surely find to be Intelligent But by the misfortune of a deadly Prejudice generally establish'd by a precipitate and an inconsiderate Judgment from our Infancy whereby is form'd an almost universal Error which hath taken place of Truth we have so confounded obscur'd and involv'd this lively and pure Light of Nature and of the Idea of Body and Spirit or of Spiritual and Corporeal Nature as it is absolutely necessary to stop here in order to regulate that Confusion which hath been cast upon these Ideas CHAP. III. The manner of our conceiving that Knowledge which is in Beasts causes a Confusion which must necessarily be rectified WE understand already that it is the Judgment which we have made of Beasts when upon the appearance of some exterior Movements like ours and of some Vital and Natural Functions we have judg'd that they had Knowledge like us which hath caused that Confusion which we are now about to rectifie I am no way desirous to change the Language of Men I will never say that Fire is not hot nor that Beasts do not know after their fashion provided Men do not confound their manner of Knowing with ours That Beasts know I grant and let People talk as much of it as they will provided they allow that they have no Idea of that Knowledge which they give them Beasts without doubt know after their manner since they fly from and pursue Objects as they are agreeable or disagreeable to them And it would be a very sad thing and contrary to the current Style of the Language of Men if we should not permit that to be call'd Knowledge in the best sense Let not then any one believe that I will here make any Innovation in the Language of Men or at all proceed in the Method of that New Philosophy which changes all Ideas and common Expressions into Paradoxes and Riddles Let Animals know with all my Heart after their manner which is to fly from or to pursue without knowing for all that what they do by an Instinct altogether blind in respect to them but most clear in respect of the Workman which gave it them and who conducts them the things which are good or ill for them and to be thereby capable of a thousand several Movements occasion'd by the different Impressions which come to them from without and from the divers Fermentations which arise in them from the Mass of Blood and the Humors which are within them But if we look upon Beasts to be entirely Corporeal as Moses would have us to
two sorts of Sensation We have shewn that there is nothing precisely but the same Soul which reasons and speculates the most abstracted Objects and which at the same time is sensible of Heat and Cold Bitter and Sweet We have shewn that nothing is more contradictory and chimerical than to maintain That the Perception of Heat and Cold of Sweet and Bitter of White and Black and generally of every thing which Men call Sensible Qualities is a corporeal Act in the Soul and that the Act of Speculating Intelligible Objects and Universal Notions is a Spiritual Act there being nothing more monstrous than to conceive in a Subject undoubtedly Spiritual this Medley of Spiritual and Corporeal Acts. We have shewn that all Knowledge doth belong to the Soul and that the Body is incapable of having any Certainty or any Idea either of it self or of that which is done in it These are no more Philosophers which we have to combate withal upon this Subject these are none but Atheists and Libertines Fools and Brute Beasts who cannot maintain the Combate because as hath been said they are disarm'd by themselves and forc'd to confess that nothing is more impossible than to conceive That a Body Thinks Reasons Deliberates and Reflects There cannot be in effect a Paradox more enormous there cannot be a greater Contradiction there cannot be a Thought more monstrous than to say That a Body Knows It is as if one should say that a Thought is Green or Yellow that the Act of Reasoning is Cold or Hot that an Abstraction of Metaphysical Speculation is Square or Eight-corner'd as if one should make Birds to fly in the Sea and Elephants in the Air as if one should place Ice in the Fire and the Sweetness of Sugar or Honey in Wormwood or Gall. This is to unnature things this is to mingle subvert and confound every thing this is to bring Heaven and Earth together this is to embroil all the Universe this is to destroy all neat Ideas this is to take away and abolish the Distinction of Things this is to re-plunge the World into its first Chaos and into the first Darkness which cover'd it before the Light which enlightens it had made visible the Distinction and Diversity of its Parts We need not wonder that Libertines are willing to confound the Ideas of Body and Spirit It is the Genius of that frenetick Fury of Libertinism and Debauchery which carries them on not to be able to suffer the Light which manifests these Disorders They represent to us in History furious Men beginning by extinguishing Flambeaus by shunning the Day and the Light as it were to conceal the horror of their Rage and Fury under the horror of Night and Darkness but these by their good will would destroy the Light of Distinction of a Part that knows and a Part that do's not know Thanks to the most constant and to the most indubitable of all Experiences wee feel it we touch it we see it they cannot make us doubt but that there is in Us a thing that Knows and a thing that do's not Know and since We have seen that That which Knows is of a Spiritual Nature it is impossible for Us to doubt but that we have in us a Part that is Spiritual This Spiritual Part is our Soul for it is this Knowing Part that we call the Soul We do not only perceive that it is distinct from the Body but we perceive that it hath an Infinite Nobleness above the Body It hath not any Bulk nor any Extension it is a Being wholly Indivisible and yet in the mean time it contains and embraces the whole Universe It is a Nature Singular Determin'd and Individual and it is all the Natures Heaven Earth the Sea Trees Birds all that is seen in the World by a lively Expression which it makes of them in it self or which it receives Intelligendo fit Omnia All things are made by Understanding This is very much that this Knowing Part which we experience in Us hath by this Perfection of its Knowing Faculty that Species of Immensity by which we see it lodge as it were in its Bosom the Heavens the Earth and the Seas and to contain all the Universe and that admirable Power and Efficacy of transforming it self into all sorts of Natures and of becoming every thing it knows and conceives by the lively and animated Expression which it makes thereof in it self But its Grandeur is not shut up in that alone its Nobility appears yet more in its immense and infinite Capacity of Reasoning and extends its Knowledge and its Light upon all sorts of Objects and all sorts of Truths For whether it be that it is its essential Property as a Spiritual and Reasonable Nature and the Act of Reason to see into things whereby is made known to it all the Relations which they have and which Truth doth or whether it is God who over and above the Idea which He gives of things causes it moreover to see the Relation of them in the Eternal Idea which he hath of them I will not go about to decide here God sees nothing but what the Soul of Man may see if it pleases him to enlighten it and when he hath once enlightned it it can go of it self by its Faculty of Reasoning to a thousand and a thousand new Truths which it discovers by its proper Speculation It Contemplates the Eternal Order and reads in that Uncreated Light all the Rules of Duties It sees all the Proportions and Disproportions of things it hath no limits to its Knowledge It can know God and can plunge it self into the Abyss of his Perfections and his Mysteries it can even enjoy all his Delights and with him partake of his Felicity We find that it is sensible of a thousand Pleasures even in this Estate of Trial and Combat where it is kept in this Valley of Tears and this Earthly Inheritance of Thorns It is susceptible of a thousand sorts of agreeable Sentiments even in its present Estate by the which it is penetrated and fill'd with true and ineffable Felicity We must not believe that this Sensibility or this Capacity of feeling Pleasure is limited to those Pleasures only which we experience at present As its Knowledge by Idea's and by Lights is not bounded and limited to the Idea's which it hath at present since it is certain that we may be enlightned with a thousand sorts of new Idea's which now we have not so its Knowledge or the Faculty of Knowing by Perception is in the same manner infinite and without bounds This which at present gives us by the occasion of the Body a thousand several agreeable Sentiments with which we feel our selves so sweetly penetrated will be able always to give us new ones and greater during all Eternity These at present are Tastes of Felicity which we are made to feel and taste which ought to make us comprehend by these Foretastes what kind of
which God makes trial of out of the Body and whose Thoughts and Affections he hath not subjected to the Dispositions of a Body and Man is a Spirit which God makes trial of in the Body to which he subjects it before he crowns it with Eternity But the Soul of Man if God had not dispos'd of it after that manner would have had no need of a Body So far were the Ancient Doctors from conceiving our Souls as to have any need of Bodies or as having of themselves that ardent Desire of being united to the Body which somewould fain have attributed to them that they on the contrary have believ'd that which Experirience makes us see and perceive so clearly That the Union of Souls with Bodies is a hard and a difficult Empire which God doth Exercise over them and which if he should not sweeten the rigor and the difficulty of it by the Pleasures of agreeable Sentiments which he hath annex'd to the Acts and Operations of Souls in Bodies it would be for them not a Trial but a Hell They carry the Matter much further for they maintain That if God should not nor ought to Spiritualize Bodies that is to say to take away from Souls the Dependence which their present State gives them upon Bodies he would not raise them up again because he would not put the Just Souls whose approv'd Fidelity deserv'd to be Crown'd into Bodies which should constrain them and which enslave their Thoughts which is what Spiritualiz'd Bodies cannot bear because the Spiritualization of Bodies will consist in this precisely That they should no longer exercise an Empire over the Souls and that they should be no longer a Charge an Obstacle and an Incumbrance to them Even in the present State of Union which requires that the Souls should by the Empire of the Creator have an Affection for the Conservation of the Body and by consequence that they should Love the Body because it is as it were a Charm by which they are blinded to sweeten the pain and the rigor of their Prison The Just and Holy Souls know well that they are Captives and Prisoners they groan with S. Paul under the weight of their Fetters and their Chains and sigh with him for a deliverance from their Bodies Let us cut off then these gross and Material Idea's by the which we conceive our Souls as having this base Inclination of desiring of their own accord so improper a Match by an Union with the Body do not let us degrade them after that manner nor let us conceive in them any other Relation to Body or any other Inclination for Body but that which the Almighty Empire of the Creator gives them who being willing to have the Pleasure of receiving a free and a voluntary Service and the Honor of a Worship from them in seeing them combat for Order and Duty for his Eternal Law and for his Love against the diverse Inclinations which they have in their State of Union upon the occasion of this Terrestrial Nature sends them for a Trial into the Body to the end that he might have an occasion to Crown their Fidelity and their Combats CHAP. V. That the Body cannot in any manner Act upon the Soul to Illuminate or Affect it Physically and Immediately by it self AFter having cut off that common Idea of the Vulgar Opinion of the Inclination which the Soul of it self hath for the Body we must also remove that Belief That the Body can in any manner Act upon the Soul by any Physical Action be it from Immediation of Substance be it from an Efflux of their Parts or Species or Images as it is vulgarly conceiv'd We ought I say to banish this Imagination and this Chimerical Vision for if we consult the Idea which we have of Corporeal Nature we shall see That Body and Matter can never Act be it by themselves immediately or be it by Parts deriv'd from them or by Species or Images reflected from them but in Driving but in Dividing and diversly Figuring as they themselves cannot but be Mov'd diversly Driven Figur'd Situated and Divided For it is impossible to conceive in Bodies any other Active Faculty or any other Passive Faculty And as the Nature of the Soul is a Spiritual and Immaterial Nature in which there is not any Part or any Extension we shall evidently and clearly see that nothing of all That can have place in her We shall see That not being capable of being either Touch'd nor Driner Divided nor Figur'd or in any other manner that can be Modifi'd by the Action of Bodies Nothing is more Chimerical or more ridiculous than to conceive that there is any Physical Actions of Bodies upon Souls and by consequence that it is impossible that our Bodies or any others should produce and determine Immediately and Physically by themselves the Idea's and Sentiments which we have upon their occasion This is what ought to be seriously observ'd to undeceive us of that common Opinion and Prepossession That it is the Juice of the Meat which we eat which determines causes and produces Physically and Immediately in our Souls the Pleasure of Tasting That it is the Smell or subtil Exhalations and Evaporations of odoriferous Bodies which produce Physically in Them the Pleasure of the Smelling That they are the Pulsations of the Air melodiously beaten upon that distended Skin at the Entry of the Ear which we call the Tympanum which produce in us Physically and Immediately by themselves the Pleasure of Harmonious Sounds That they are the Beams of Light reflected from all the Points of Objects which being carried by the Optick Nerve even to the Center of the Brain do either Physically produce there the Representation of the Objects which the Soul hath upon that occasion or determine at least Physically the Soul to make it self Images of Objects wholly Spiritual and wholly Immaterial which she receives and which she hath in her self by their presence Therein lies the vulgar Opinion and the common Prejudice of believing That External Bodies by the Impression which they make upon our Bodies do either produce Effects in us or determine us Physically by their Interposition to frame to our selves the Sentiments and Idea's which we have upon their occasion But this common Opinion is indubitably a common Error combated equally by the Sentiment which every one hath of a Superior and Exterior Force which sends and detains the Soul in the Body and which Acts perpetually in them upon the occasion of the Body And by the Notion of a Spiritual Nature which do's not at all admit that we should conceive any Action or any Physical activity of Bodies upon Spirits and by consequence neither of ours nor any other Bodies upon our Souls That our own Bodies cannot Act Physically and Immediately by themselves upon our Souls whose Spirituality renders them inaccessible to all sorts of Impressions of Bodies There are some who not carrying far enough the clear Light of
Heaven to favour our Ignorance for this is no ways to have recourse to Miracles thus to reduce things to their Essential Principle and to their Necessary and Immediate Causes on the one Part and on the other Part to the common and universal Experience of all Men and to the most constant Idea's of Religion which is what we are doing here when having caus'd to be observ'd that we receive the Sentiments and Idea's of particular Bodies by the only Passive Faculty of the Soul and by a Superior Power which Rules over us and which Enlightens us and having demonstrated that we cannot at all be Knowing Beings by our selves since that is the Priviledge of God alone but that we are Essentially Knowing by an Exterior and Superior Irradiation and Illumination and that this Illumination and Irradiation cannot come to us neither from other Bodies nor from our own by reason of the Impossibility that there is that a Body can be United to a Spirit to Act upon it and Enlighten or Affect and Modifie it we say that it comes from God from God the Author of our Being and the Necessary Cause and Principle of the Union and of the Meeting together of the two different and disproportion'd Parts which Compose us This is neither to have recourse to Miracle nor to call to God to descend to the help of Humane Weakness and Ignorance but on the contrary this is to mount up again to the true Principle of all the particular Idea's and all the Sentiments which we have of Bodies and of things Corporeal upon the Occasions of our Bodies This is to reduce the confus'd Idea of the Union which God makes of our Souls and Bodies to a clear and neat Idea This is to acknowledge the true Principle of our Light and to cut off all the false Idea's by the which we have been accustom'd either to make Our Selves God in Figuring to our selves that we have of our selves Pleasure and Pain and the Idea's of things or to make Gods of all the Bodies which environ us in believing that They are those which Enlighten and Illuminate us or which at the same time make us Happy by Pleasure and Unhappy by Pain and Dolor Not to be willing that we should refer to God the Action which unites our Souls to our Bodies is Not to be willing that we should refer to him the Creation of Souls and the Existence of the World And as the Passage which the Body makes in the Soul by Corporeal Impressions is either the necessary continuance or the very Act of the Union of our Souls and of our Bodies not to be willing that it is God who doth This Immediately is Not to be willing that it should be him who by himself Immediately unites both our Bodies and our Souls which is a Species of Atheism The happy Fecundity of this Principle for Morality Thus we are able to felicitate our selves and to rejoyce our selves in having found out together with the clear Idea and Notion of the manner how our Souls have their Idea's and their Sentiments upon the Occasion of the Body the Discovery of our Intimate Union with God and of our perpetual Dependence upon him of a continual Action of him in us of a living Source of Lights and of Pleasures which are in him and of a fruitful and of an abounding Source of the Duties of Love and Fear of Dependence and of Gratitude which ought to keep us continually united to him Let others study God in the visible World and Morality in the Books of the Doctors I will for my part neither study the one nor the other but in my own Soul and in the manner whereby she perceives and whereby she knows every thing that she doth know out of her self Let others make Efforts of Imagination and prescribe to themselves a thousand Practices for to keep themselves continually present to God I for my part will desire no more than my Principle and a moderate Attention to that which passes continually in me never to lose the sight of God but to have him always present Let other search into imperfect Reasonings for the Motives of the Love and the Fear which they owe to God for my part I will only reflect upon the Pleasures which I have in the very Acts even of the Animal Life for to see in God a Source of infinite Felicities and by consequence an immense and an infinite Loveliness for what should I more naturally love than that Living Source of Pleasure since it is nothing but Pleasure that I love But this is not all I will besides only reflect upon the Equality with which God Enlightens every moment all Men to conceive that he is the Father and the common Center in whom we are all united and in whom we ought all of us to love one another to honor one another and to support one another and to observe Fidelity and Justice towards one another There are moreover I see in this Knowledge of my Soul Incitements to Duty as well as Duties themselves Let others seek to fright their Concupiscences by the dreadful Paintings of Eternal Judgment for my part I need only a simple View and a moderate Reflection upon the Pains and Dolors which we resent upon the account of our Bodies by the efficacious Impression of that Power which keeps our Souls united to our Bodies For if to affectionate us to the preservation of our Bodies and to remove far from us the things which are hurtful to them it penetrates us with such lively Dolors what will those be wherewith it will transpierce our impure and rebellious Souls which shall render themselves deserving of his Anger And what Pains must he have establish'd to oblige us to watch after the conservation of our Souls since he takes so much pains to make us watch for the preservation of these miserable Bodies which are only a vile and despicable Garment of the Soul But let us not any farther enlarge here upon these Moral Consequences whose solid Principles and Foundation we shall discover in its proper place Let us advance and after having made clear the manner how our Souls have Idea's and Sentiments upon the occasion of our Bodies and after having cut off many Idea's and many Prepossessions full of Error with which it was impossible to conceive the manner how our Souls Are and Operate in our Bodies we must now endeavour to conceive it CHAP. VIII How our Souls Are in our Bodies THAT Evidence which we have of the manner how we have Sentiments and Idea's begins to give a Light to our Eyes which makes us see the manner how our Souls are in our Bodies and we have another Light which will completely let us see it and as it were touch it and This is the Experience of the manner how we move our Bodies We have a continual Experience That our Souls have Power to move our Bodies for there is nothing more certain in the
or Material Imagination That all the Soul is in all the Body and all of it in all the Essential and Integral Parts of the Body as God is all in all the World and in all the Parts of the World not by that Co-extension and and Local Chimerical Presence which gross Spirits do imagine but by the Intimate Presence of his Sovereign Essence Essentially Operating in all the World and in all the Parts of the World We must say the same of the Soul that it is in all the Body by the Relation of its Dependence and Activity But this do's not hinder but that we may say That she is more properly and more particularly in the Brain since it is by that Part that the Action of the Soul upon the Body immediately commences and that all the Action of the Body upon the Soul terminates wholly in that Part as it sensibly appears by that which interrupts and suspends the Action of the Soul upon the Body and the Action of the Body upon the Soul For as often as it happens that the Action of the Body upon the Soul is interrupted it is because there is some relaxation or some obstruction in some of the Nerves which hinders the Motion from being continu'd in the Part affected of the Body as far as the Brain and when the Action of the Soul upon the Body is interrupted as when the Soul would move the Paralytick Foot but cannot at all move it It is likewise because the Motion which begins always by the Brain or by the determination of the Nerves which have their Origine in the Brain or if you will by that most subtile Portion of the Blood which we call Animal Spirits cannot be continu'd so far as to that diseased Part. But after having Explain'd the manner how our Souls Are in our Bodies which gives us so lively an Idea of our Dependence upon the Supream Being and upon all his Divine Attributes we must now see how our Souls Operate in our Bodies and observe all the Differences of our diverse Operations for the clearing every thing that may have any difficulty and require Day and Light for the better apprehending the Sovereign Perâ—â—◠〈◊〉 of the Supream Nature the which Operates continually in us and Rules over us so many ways in all our diverse Operations and the Essential Subjection and Limitation of all created Natures which do in so many ways depend upon this Supream Nature CHAP. X. What the Soul doth in the Body and what it doth not WE observe first of all That there are in Us the Operations or Acts of the Body and the Operations or Acts of the Soul for there are things which the Body doth in Us and things which the Soul doth in the Body This is a certain Rule That the Soul doth not do any thing which she doth not perceive that she doth and that she doth every thing that she perceives that she doth Thus we may say with Assurance That our Souls do not make the Digestion in Us the Circulation of the Blood the Natural and purely Animal Respiration in Us the Separation of the Chyle which is the prepar'd Juyce of concocted and digested Victuals in the Stomach together with the Faeces or gross Matter which is discharg'd into the Bowels the Motion of the Heart of the Veins and of the Arteries the Ebullitions and Fermentations of the Blood and of that Matter which provokes carnal Concupiscence It is moreover certain That the Souls do not make neither the Preparation of Spirits either Vital or Animal nor the Continuation of the Motion or of the Impression of External Objects which are carry'd by the Nerves as by little well stretch'd Chords from all the Circumference of the Body to the most Integral part of the Brain as to the common Center of all its Structure and all its Organization nor the retracement of Objects which is made in the bottom of the Eye in the Retina or that which is made in that part of the Brain which is the Organ of that which we call the Common and Internal Sense It is sure that they do not make the Relaxation of the Muscles and of the Nerves which cause the Tympanum to be relaxed with all the Nerves which serve to Hearing and the Optick Nerves which serve to the Sight from whence Sleep comes That they do not cause Fevers the Stone the Gout the Cholique the Bloody-Flux Palsies Obstructions Apoplexies and Diseases in general Our Souls do nothing of all this these are the Acts of the Body or its Alterations and its Passions for altho' the Perception and the Sentiments of the Soul do accompany some one of these Effects she feels and perceives them in such a manner that she perceives at the same time that they go before and precede her Sentiments and her Perception and that being so she doth not at all Cause them Much better doth she perceive that she hath Essentially the Empire over every thing that she doth and that she hath none at all over all these things That our Souls do not Operate out of themselves but by Will and cause not in Us neither Heat nor Digestion nor any Corporeal Effect There are some who conceive our Souls as the Physical and Immediate Causes of that Heat for Example which Concocts and Digests the Meat in our Stomach and which keeps in our Blood that degree of ardor and quickness which is necessary to the end that it may spread abroad the Nourishment and maintain Motion in all the Body They conceive the Soul of Man as having formally the Vegetable Faculty which nourishes and which causes the Body to increase by the which as Thomas Aquinas says we are rather Plants than Men And this is what they express by that common manner of Speaking when they say that our Souls are not only Reasonable but Vegetable or Vegetating But as we ought not to conceive or say any thing of our Souls but that which we find included and contain'd in the Idea and Notion which give us the Sentiment which we have of them and that this is a certain sure Rule by which we ought to guide our Opinions and our Judgments Not to Judge but according to our Light not finding at all in that Idea of our Soul which gives us that intimate Sentiment which we have of it that our Soul hath any such Vertue to do it Immediately and notwithstanding any other Vertue and Faculty that she may have for it we do not at all believe that it ought to be attributed to her We experience in our Soul no other Power nor no other Vertue upon Body than that of being able to move that Structure of Bone of Flesh and of Nerves which we call our Body and thereby other Bodies to which we do apply it So likewise she hath not the Power to make and determine all the Motions of the Body She can do nothing and she doth nothing as hath been already said
us than the perpetual Miracle by which and with which we have seen that God Operates in our Bodies according to the Desires of our Souls I say the Miracle not that that Action by which God transports and moves our Members and our Bodies where we will in the moment that our Souls desire ought to be regarded as a true and proper Miracle since we do not at all call that a Miracle which is made in consequence of the Laws of Nature or the General Will of God But because there is nothing more Divine in all the Miracles that can be than that Regularity whereby the Desires of our Wills are follow'd by the Effective Motion of our Members and of our whole Body at such time as they are not hindred by any Relation or by any Obstruction of the Nerves or by any Dislocation or Fracture of the Bones we may say that this is a perpetual Miracle of Nature which perpetually Preaches to us this Divine Affiance of that Evangelical Faith of which one single Spark like a Grain of Mustard-Seed is able to remove Mountains For as this Eternal Power by the Effect and the Engagement of his General Will by which he makes and entertains the Union of Souls and Bodies applies himself to move and transport our Bodies as we will according to the Laws and the Rules of that Union which he hath resolv'd never to depart from to Act as an Universal Cause as it seems fit to his Greatness and worthy of his Sovereign and Infinite Wisdom So when we unite our selves to him by an entire and perfect Affiance we unite our selves to his Almightiness and we make him sure to do every thing that we expect from him without Doubt and without Uncertainty according to the Sacred Oracles of the Gospel And thus it is that the Saints under the New Law and the Prophets under the Old Law have dispos'd of the Heavenly Almightiness to make it do Wonders and Miracles the Historical Fact of which is the most establish'd and the most incontestable thing in the World almost as we do make use of the Members of our Bodies and the things whereof we have the most free disposition Our Affiance which strictly and intimately unites us by its lively Faith to the Eternal Goodness and Power renders them as it were in some manner united and dependent upon us This Eternal Goodness and this Eternal Power have so great an Inclination to communicate and expand themselves that they only wait for our lively Faith or our Affiance to put themselves into our Hands as it were and to be obedient to our Desires The love of Holy Concupiscence for God But it is above all the Duty of Love whether it be of Complacency and Preference or of Union and Holy Concupiscence which springs and flows sensibly from the Knowledge we have been acquiring of the Sovereign Source of Beauty and of Felicities which that Eternal Essence contains to which we so certainly see that we are able to aspire and to drink eternally of it since at this very hour wherein he doth nothing but make us Combate and keep us in Trial and in Exercise to see if we render our selves worthy of being Rewarded He makes us feel so indubitably the Pleasures and the Delights which he contains and He discovers to us so many Charms and so many Beauties in his Sovereign Nature Brutish Men remove themselves far from God by Pleasure and Pleasure is a Rivulet that flows from that pure and eternal Source by which our Heart ought naturally to mount up again to God The present Pleasure which wholly essentially and immediately comes from God ought to bring us back again to him God doth not give it us but to draw to himself our Hearts to which he hath not given Motion but for Pleasure He hath not given us Love but for Good and Pleasure and he makes us see that the Source of Good and Pleasure is in Him There are some who conceive the Love of Union or of this Holy Concupiscence which I here speak of and whereupon I Establish Duty as a Disorder and Irregularity of Self-love which Reverses the Order of the Essential Relation which all Creatures ought to have to God but this is not rightly to comprehend the Free and Voluntary Relation by which we ought to relate our selves to God We do not only relate our selves to God by the Confession of our Dependence and of His Supereminent Excellence over us by which we do acknowledge that we deserve to be Annihilated by him We do no less relate our selves to him by that which we do from the Source of Pleasure and Happiness which we acknowledge in Him only It is no less agreeable for him to be the Source of Happiness and of Pleasure which is as it were the Accomplishment the Perfection and the Crowning of our Being than to be the Source and the Principle of the Foundation of our Being The Love of Union or of this Sacred Thirst which I call Holy Concupiscence doth no less Honor to God than the Love of the most pure and the most disinteressed Complacency God is not so much God by any other way if we may be permitted to say so than in being the only and essential Source and necessary Principle of Happiness and of Pleasure St. Austin saith That Felicity is in God the Summit of his Divinity because his Infinite Felicity is that which is most Divine and most Eminent in Him and we may say That the Advantage of containing and shutting up in Himself Felicity and Pleasure is if we may be permitted to enhance upon the Expression of St. Augustin the Act and the Summit of that very Summit of his Divinity This Love then of Union and of Holy Concupiscence is not only not Evil and Imperfect but it is positively Infinitely Perfect and the greatest Honor that can be rendred to the Supream Being and all the Motions of our Heart ought to be continual and uninterupted Acts thereof Our Heart and our Will in general is not as hath been said but the Love of Good and of Pleasure And as it is God who is the Good and the Pleasure or at least the Source and the Principle of Pleasure since it is He only that causeth it and since it is in Him and by Him that we ought only to Hope for our Soveraign Pleasure All the Pantings of our Heart and all its Agitations for Pleasure ought to be turned and directed towards Him Our Heart ought continually to regard nothing but Him and to search after nothing but Him All its Motion ought to Center in Him This Torrent or this River ought to have this perpetual Course it ought to Flow in this Channel and it ought not to suffer one single Rill or one drop of its Waters to be lost Its Course and its Motion ought never to stand still or be turned aside or diverted from that bound and Center or go never so little out of
the Spirit that is to say the Spiritual Nature pierces penetrates and enlightens all things If we consider the advantage which Reason and the proper Intelligence of our Spiritual Nature gives us of being able surely to Enlarge our Knowledges by the infallible Consequences which we draw from things we have already known for those which we do not know as yet We shall find that there is nothing more Natural and less Rash than to endeavour to decide by the clear Idea which we have of our Soul and by the Notion no less clear which we have of the Supream Nature which alone is able to be the Cause of the divers Conditions of the Soul of the Estate wherein it ought to place our Souls after they shall have finished their Trial in the Body and that this Eternal Justice shall have fixed upon them his Anger or his Love according as they shall have render'd themselves worthy by their Obedience and Fidelity or by the obstinacy of their Disorder and Revolt This double Notion which we have so clear and so distinct of God and of our Spiritual Nature joyned to that which we have of our present State as of a State where our Obedience and Fidelity are put to a Trial and where the Eternal Justice hath his Eyes open to see our Combat with the Flesh and with our Senses We form a sure Light by which we are able to enter march safely into that obscurity and those darknesses And since we have a Taper in our hands lighted by those Idea's so clear and so certain of the Knowledges which we have already acquired why then should we not carry it into that dark and unknown Country which is of so great Importance to us to discover and know Since we have Wind and Sails enough to carry us over to this New World why then should not we go thither to make a Map of it Since our Reason may be illuminated above the Darkness of the Night of our Senses and of our Imagination why should not we illuminate the Blind who being once Enlightned will no more resist the Light of Divine and Heavenly Revelation which they often esteem when they are not Enlightned by Reason but as a Fable and a Fiction Then let us not fear to attempt this Discovery and Explain how our Souls are to be out of the Body since we are able to speak of it with some certainty The certainty of a New Estate of a New and Immortal Life for our Souls after this Present Life We are able to speak most certain and make as St. John did a Description and a Topography of this World to come and of this Heavenly Jerusalem VVe do not only know by the evident Conviction of the Spiritual Nature of our Souls That they are not at all destroyed and annihilated by Death which is not an advantage to the Spiritual Nature because there is nothing even in the most Corporeal Nature which is most Frail most Perishable and most subject to Corruption and the most liable to Death that Perishes entirely But we know with the same Certainty That the Soul subsists with all its Foundation of Life which we see it hath which is the advantage and essential Distinction of the Spiritual Nature For there is this Difference between a Spiritual or Knowing Nature and a Nature Corporeal That the Corporeal Nature may be deprived of Life but not of its Being for its Life is distinct from its Being in the Body for the Life of the Body is but a Motion which it hath there by its Structure its Organization and its inward and natural Composition which it may lose and doth every day lose without losing the Foundation of its Being And in preserving all the Basis of its material Substance which always remains and subsists notwithstanding any Change which may happen to it in its Structure and its outward and sensible Form But in Knowing or Spiritual Nature the Life and Being are but one and the same thing Since Knowledge and Sensibility or the Acts of the Appetitive Faculty which are the Basis and the Foundation of their Being are also essentially the Foundation of their Life For in Spiritual Nature to Live is not to Eat Walk or to be Moved but to Know to Perceive to Will to have Joy and Sadness Pain and Pleasure Those of the Heathen Philosophers who had some Glimmering of a true Idea of the Spiritual Nature but not under the Name of Spiritual Nature but only of a Knowing Nature did so well perceive That the Knowing Nature was Essentially Living that we see they all of them Established thereupon the Certainty of the Immortality of Mans Soul because indeed say they This Matter whereof the Soul of Man is formed is a Matter essentially Knowing and by consequence Living if it is Air or Fire it is not only an Air and a Fire that is most subtil but an Air and a Fire of a singular Nature an Air and a Fire essentially Knowing and by consequence Living Thus though the Souls of Men should be this Air and this material Fire say they as some do imagine yet for all that they would not cease to be Immortal because they would be always Essentially Living We see this System in all the Books of the Ancient Philosophers and we see at the same time That this Notion of the Soul as a Nature essentially Knowing whereof we have a certainty by a Conviction so lively and so full of Sentiments convinced all these Ancient Sages not only That Death doth not touch the Life of our Souls not only that it doth not destroy them But on the contrary That Death makes the Life of them perfect because it breaks their Prison and takes away from their Thoughts and their Views the Wall which stops them and the Vail which blinds them And their Conviction was so great thereupon that they did not speak with less Certainty and Pleasure of this New and Immortal Life of our Souls after Death than we speak to one another of some Neighbouring Provinces or of some New Discoveries They did no more doubt of this New Life than we do of Italy or of Spain For to speak of Canada and the American Isles would be too little to express the Certainty They did not only speak of it with Assurance and without incertainty They spoke of it with Incredible Joys and Transports They longed to arrive at the happy end of their Voyage They conceived ardent desires for Death They did more than all this they advanced it further And we know That in a Famous Common Wealth of Grece they were obliged to Prohibit and Suppress a Book that had been Writ upon the Immortality of the Soul because it did so livelily Impress upon their Spirits the Conviction of their Immortality that they were fearful lest it should Depopulate the Earth and cause the Race of Mankind to be destroyed because they saw it had carried a great many of them not only
Place of Spirits than the Sea is the Place for Fishes and the Air the Place for Birds The Body saith the Wise-man returns to the Earth from whence it was taken and the Soul returns to God who made it and from whom it issu'd out that is to say It hath no more immediate Union but with God alone which occasions us to say very exactly That she goes into God We have said That our Souls have an Essential Union with God in whom they live and to whom they are much more united by all their Parts and by all the Faculties of their Being than the Beams are united to the Sun than a River is united to its Spring than the living Branch is united to its Root We have said That all Knowing Created Natures do depend as immediately upon God in all the Acts of their Life and by consequence in all the Acts of their Perceptive and Appetitive Faculties as they depend upon him for the Foundation of their Being as well as all other Created Natures that is to say That as they cannot come out of nothing but by the Almighty and Efficacious Action of his Eternal Essence so they can neither Think nor Will but by the continual Action of his Supream Influence We have said That as God is the sole Being Existing by himself so he is the sole Living Being and by consequence the sole Thinking and Willing Being by himself and from thence arises a Relation and an Essential Union of all Created Spirits with the Supream Spirit and of the Supream Spirit with the Created Spirits All the Rivers drink of the Sea saith that Ancient all the Branches suck up perpetually the the Juyce and the Sap of the Root the Beams draw perpetually their Heat and Light from the Sun and all Living Beings drink perpetually of that Living and Eternal Spring of Life and all Spirits of that Living and Eternal Source of Knowledge It is the Natural Estate of all Spiritual Natures to have this immediate Union with God but this Supream Spirit being willing to do Honor to his Almightiness and to his Wisdom being willing to make the Idea of all kinds of Creatures possible to proceed from himself and to render it Real and Effective to make the World thereby compleat and finish'd and being willing to assemble together Corporeal and Spiritual Nature in one single Whole and being willing perhaps thereby to put Pure Spirits into the Places of the Fall'n Angels and to triumph over the Rebellious Ones in causing himself to be Serv'd in Bodies by Inferior Spirits would have it that this Immediate Union which the Created Spirits have Essentially with Him should be in some manner suspended and interrupted or at least obscur'd and diminish'd in regard of those whose Fidelity and Obedience he was willing to make Trial of in the Body The Union of Bodies interrupts and suspends the Immediate Union of our Souls with God Our Souls naturally like other Created Spirits ought not to have any Dependence upon any Bodies for to have the Idea's of things they ought only to depend immediately upon God and by consequence ought only to have Union with Him But this Supream Spirit having been pleas'd for the Reasons we have said for many others which we conceive and for more yet apparently which we do not conceive that our Souls should have their Thoughts and their Sentiments their Desires and their Affections upon the Occasion of the Body to the End that That should be a continual Subject of Victory and of meritorious Exercise He hath thought fit that for a time this Immediate and Essential Union of all Created Spirits with the Eternal Essence should become in our Souls Mediate if I may be permitted to say so and that the Essential Union of God and of all Created Spirits should not Operate in them but by an Accessory Union with this Matter Organiz'd or dispos'd into a certain Structure of Bones of Flesh and of Nerves which we call Human Body This Union of our Souls with our Bodies is not as we have said but this precisely That our Bodies by the diverse stirrings up the diverse Agitations and the diverse Configurations of the Brain which they receive from Bodies which environ them or from the natural Course of the Blood or from their proper Humors are the Occasion and Condition of the Determination of the Idea's and Sentiments which the Supream Spirit gives us that is to say That the Body is the Occasional Cause which Determines the Influence of the Essential Union which we have with God and thereby it is in some manner betwixt us and God it diminisheth in some manner our Essential Union with him because it hinders if I may be permitted to say so the Immediation of him Without That we could not say that our Souls were in our Bodies they would be immediately in God because the Place of the Souls and of all Spirits is intirely their Relation of Dependence and of Activity and our Souls in that case would have no Relation and Dependence but upon God only It is for that Reason that the Scripture speaks to us of the Union of our Souls with our Bodies or of our present Life not only as it were of a Wall between God and us but as it were of a Banishment as it were a Voyage and a Running away or Departure which we make from God Peregrinamur à Domino saith St. Paul and this is Effectively as it were a kind of Departure from God and by consequence a Banishment a Voyage a Running away from him because it is a Suspension and an Interruption of the Essential and Immediate Union which all Spirits have necessarily with him Our Souls going out of the Body are immediately united to God Now since our Souls entring into Bodies do go out from God according to the Expressions of the Divine Word which are exact and just when we know how to comprehend and penetrate them we must say likewise That our Souls going out of the Body return to God and in God as the Scripture Effectively saith it God is on both sides the Term of the Voyage It is from him we part in ceasing to be united immediately to him by reason of the Intervention of Body through which the Action of the Influence of his Divine Life in us doth pass and it is to him that we return in Dying and in going out of the Body because our Dependence on the Body ceaseth by Death and Death beating down the Wall which was between God and us the Union of God to us and of us to God becomes Pure and Immediate God is the Term we arrive to as well as that from whence we parted we are come out of him and we enter again into him that is to say That as before our Souls are united to our Bodies they have no Union with any thing but with God and by consequence they are nowhere but in God so after the same manner so
the End or Prospect and for the Scope of Eternity all that is nothing but a great and vast Folly but a great and frightful Wandring from the Mark and from the End a Childish Illusion and Amazement a Sport of Ants and a Triumph of those little Insects that we see roll and remove with so much Effort one Grain of Sand or one little Clod of Earth without any solid Profit We must redress our Conduct by those Lights and those Knowledges which discover to us equally our Duties and the Motives and Incentives to our Duties The Holy Fathers have said That the Eternity was a Light which is no sooner risen in a Spirit and in a Heart but that it causes more Instructions and more Lights of Duties to arise than there flows Rays from the Body and the Globe of the shining Sun who is all Light and all Rays and what sort of Expression soever this may be it doth not come up to the Truth Good God! what crowd of Rays doth not this beautiful Sun of Eternity spread over all our Ways What an Ocean of them doth not he pour upon us against our so Excessive and so Idolatrous an Esteem of the World and of its Vanity against our Adoring of vain Beauties against the Illusions of Riches against the Phantôme of Grandeur against the Chimera's of Fortune against the Enchanting and Bewitching of Pleasures against the Vanity of our Enterprises against the Inutility of our violent Transports against the Foolishness of our Leagues and Alliances against the Blindness of our Maxims and the Errors of our Opinions One of the Ancients said That the Contemplation of Wisdom did cause in the Spirit and in the Hearts of Men that which the fixed looking upon the Sun causes in Corporeal Eyes which being blinded with his great Light see not any thing more in the World But it is the Knowledge of the future State of our Souls out of the Body and in the Eternal World which marvellously causeth this Effect When we have well view'd the World to come and the new State of our Souls we see nothing in this World but Darknesses and Shadows but a great and vast Nothingness but a perpetual Illusion For this is not only a Light which obscures all the present Advantages and all the Objects of Human Passions but 't is a Day that annihilates them and effaces them entirely From thence there springs together with the clear Knowledge and Conviction of a thousand and a thousand Obligations a thousand and a thousand Incitements to Vigilance whether it be on the side of Fear or on the side of Hope The fear of the infinite Ills of the unhappy Fortune of this new Place doth not leave us any thing in the Pains of Vertue which we might fear nor any thing in the Pleasure of the World and of Sin with which we might be affected The short and little Interval which is between the Pleasure of Passions and of Sin and between these so affrighting Ills doth not permit us one single moment to have the least rest The Thunder rumbles over our Head and is ready to break upon us we touch the End of the present Life as it were with Foot and Hand we see it before us as a high and lofty Wall which stops our further Progress in spite of us and which presents it self like an unsurmountable Wall against which our exorbitant Desires ought to dash themselves in pieces and which ought to give a violent Interruption to our Covetousness and at the same time a large and vast Gate open to our Souls and to our Sins for to procure them the Passage to Eternity and to make them enter into a new Career of Unhappiness or of Felicity the sort of which ought to be decided by the Disposition and Situation of the Order or Disorder in which we die We see in the End of our Lives which is so near and so inevitable this Gate and this Wall all at once and the greatness of the Despair which we see so near us if we remain so carelesly Sleeping is so powerful an Incitement to Vigilance and at the same time so fruitful a Principle of so many Duties and of so many Obligations of Attention concerning our selves of Reflection of Deliberation and of Consultation concerning the End and Event of Lise concerning the Means and the Help of Innocence that if I would here give a particular Account of them I should be forc'd to make a great Volume whereas I will only shew and give an Overture to the particular Reflections of every one I cannot however but remark That the Duty of Vigilance or of the Cooperation of Salvation do's include them altogether and that it is together with the Misprisal of this present Life and the lively and ardent Desire of the future Life the most Essential Duty of the Order of Time and of Eternity which deserves here a particular Reflection CHAP. XVI The Duty of the Cooperation of Salvation and what Divine Predestination and what Divine Reprobation is on Gods part ALTHO' there are some amongst Men more particularly call'd to that which we call Salvation which is that which we mean by Divine Predestination Men more particularly favour'd and cherish'd for the happy End and the favourable Event of that Alternativeness of Happiness or Unhappiness which is determin'd in Time for Eternity Men with whose Salvation God charges himself as a particular Cause if you will for it is thus that some few conceive it Yet it is nevertheless certain and indubitable That all Men are generally Call'd to Salvation to that happy Lot of Eternity which Associates Man to all the Felicities of God Even those themselves which Men conceive as Reprobates antecedently as they say on Gods part who are those whom God abandons to the common Graces of the general Vocation and with whose Salvation he doth not charge himself or to say better he doth not meddle as to the Success and the Event but as Universal Cause This is call'd his Reprobation for on his part there is not any other which comes purely from him or which can be imputed to him Even those very Men I say which others conceive as Reprobated on Gods part are really Call'd to Salvation God generally prepares for them Means not only sufficient but abounding and he would withal his Heart that they should put no Obstacle to the sincere Intentions which he hath of Associating all Men to his Felicity and his Glory in his most happy Eternity It is true he will not use all his Power to surmount the Obstacles which Men may put there he will not charge himself with the making the Salvation of all Men to succeed at what Price soever it be which is the Sence in which St. Augustin says in some places That God will not Save all Men he will not charge himself with the Effective Success and Event of the Salvation of all which if he should do it would be impossible that