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
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
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
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
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