by the motion of his Body The Love which we bear to Persons of Worth and Merit is a love of Benevolence for we love them even when they are not in a condition to do us any good We Love them because they have more Perfection and Vertue than other Men. So that the power to do us Good or that kind of perfection which relates to our Happiness in one Word Goodness excites in us a love of Vnion and all other perfections a love of Benevolence Now God only is Good He alone hath the Power of acting on us He doth not really communicate that Perfection to his Creatures but only makes them occasional Causes for the producing of some Effects For true and real Power is Incommunicable Therefore all our love of Union ought to tend toward God IX We may for Instance bring our Body to the Fire because Fire is the occasional cause of Heat which is necessary for it But we cannot love it with a love of Vnion without offending against Order because the Fire is so far from having any power over that part of us which is capable of Loving that it hath no Power at all The same may be said of all other Creatures even Angels and Devils we ought to love none of them with a Love of Union with that Love which is an Honour given to Power for all of them being absolutely impotent we should by no means love them When I speak of loving I mean also fearing and hating them I mean that the Soul should remain unmov'd in their Presence The Body by a local Motion may come near the Fire or avoid the Fall of a House but the Soul must fear and love nothing but God at least it must love none but him with a love of Freedom Choice and Reason For since the Union of the Soul and Body is chang'd into a dependance it is hardly in our power to hinder sensible Goods from exciting in us some love for them The motions of the Soul naturally answer those of the Body and the Object which makes us fly from it or attracts us to it almost always begets in us Aversion or Love X. But the Case is not the same with the Love of Benevolence as with the Love of Union God is infinitely more amiable with this sort of Love than all his Creatures together But as he hath really communicated to them some Perfection as they are capable of Happiness they really deserve our Love and Esteem Order it self requires that we should esteem and love them according to the measure of Perfection which they enjoy or rather according to that which we know to be in them For to esteem and love them exactly in proportion to their being amiable is utterly impossible because many times their Perfections are unknown to us and we can never know exactly the proportions that are between Perfections for we cannot express them either by Numbers or incommensurable Lines Nevertheless Faith takes away a great many difficulties in this matter For since a finite Being by the relation it hath to infinity acquires an infinite Value it is evident that we ought to love those Creatures which have or may have a great relation to God infinitely more than those which do not bear his Image or which have no immediate union with or relation to him It is plain that all other things being equal one righteous Man one member of Jesus Christ deserves more of this kind of Love than a thousand wicked Men and that God who judges truly and exactly of the Value of his Creatures prefers one of his adopted Children before all the Nations of the Earth XI It is certain that our Duties ought to be regulated by the Love of Esteem or Benevolence but yet we must not imagine that we always owe more Duties to righteous Men than to Sinners to the Faithful than to Hereticks or even Heathens themselves For we must observe that there are Perfections of several sorts some Personal or Absolute and others Relative Personal Perfections ought to be the immediate Object of the Love of Esteem and Benevolence but relative Perfections do not deserve either this or any other kind of Love but only the Object to which these Perfections have a relation We should love and honour Merit where-ever we find it for Merit is a personal Perfection which ought to regulate our Love of Esteem and Benevolence but it ought not always to regulate the greatness and quality of our Duties On the contrary we owe a great many Duties to our Prince to our Parents and to all those that are in Authority for Authority is necessary for the preservation of Order in States which is the most valuable thing in the World But the Honour which we pay to them the Love which we bear them ought to terminate in God alone Colos 3.23 As to the Lord and not unto Men saith St. Paul The Honour which we give to Power must be refer'd to God and not to Men for the power of Acting is in God alone In like manner if a Man have such natural endowments as may be serviceable for the Conversion of others tho' he have no personal Merit or Vertue we ought to love him with a love of Esteem which hath a relation to something else and we are oblig'd to many more Duties towards him than towards another Man who hath a great deal of personal Merit but is not capable of being useful to any but himself But I shall explain this matter-more at large in another place what I have said of it here is only to prevent the Reader from running insensibly whither I have no design to lead him XII Self-Love the irreconcileable Enemy of Vertue or a ruling Love of the immutable Order may agree with the Love of Union which is refer'd to and honours a Power capable of acting on us for it is sufficient for that purpose that this Self-love be enlightned Man invincibly desires to be happy and he sees clearly that God alone is able to make him so This being suppos'd and all the rest excluded of which I do not speak it is evident that he may desire to be united to God For to take away every thing that may be equivocal I do not speak of a Man who knows that God rewards only Merit and who finds none in himself but I speak of one who considers only the Power and Goodness of God or one to whom the Testimony of his Conscience and his Faith give a free access as I may so say to draw near to God and join himself to him XIII But the case is different with the Love of Esteem or Benevolence which a Man ought to bear to himself Self-love makes it always irregular Order requires that the Reward should be proportionable to the Merit and the Happiness to the Perfection of the Soul which it hath gain'd by a good use of its Liberty but Self-love can endure no bounds to its Happiness
addresses them to the Son she considers him as equal to the Father and consequently calls upon him not simply as he is Man but as he is God and Man This appears from the ordinary conclusions of our Prayers Through Christ our Lord or through Jesus Christ our Lord or who livest and reignest one God c. For since God alone is the true cause who by his own power can do all that we desire it is necessary that the greatest part of our Prayers and all our Worship should be refer'd to him But as he never acts but when the occasional causes which he hath appointed determine the efficacy of his Laws it is fit that the manner of our calling upon him should be conformable to this Notion of him III. If Jesus Christ as Man did not intercede for Sinners it would be in vain for them to call upon him For since Grace is not given to Merit the immutable Order of Justice doth not oblige God to grant it to Sinners who Pray for it It must therefore be the occasional cause which obliges him to do it in consequence of the Power given to this cause by the establishment of the general Laws of the Order of Grace Because as I said before God never acts but when the immutable Order requires it or when the occasional or particular Causes oblige him to it But tho' Christ alone as Man be the particular cause of the good Things which we receive yet if the Prayers of the Church were always Address'd directly to him this might give Men some occasion of Error and induce them it may be to Love him as he is Man with that kind of Love which is due only to the true Power and to Worship him even without regard to the divine Person in which his humane Nature subsists Now Adoration and Love of Union which are Honours belonging to Power are due to the Almighty alone For Christ himself challenges our Adoration and this kind of Love only as he is at the same time both God and Man IV. Therefore the Church hath very great reason to Address her Prayers to God the only true Cause but through Christ who is the occasional and distributive Cause of the good Things which we Pray for For tho' Sinners never receive Grace but when Christ Prays for them by his Desires either Actual or Habitual Transient or Permanent yet we must always remember that it is God alone who gives it as the true Cause that so our Love and Devotion may be ultimately refer'd to him alone Nevertheless when we apply our selves to the true and general Cause it is the same thing as if we did it to the particular and distributive Cause Because Christ as Man being the Saviour of Sinners Order requires that he should be acquainted with their Prayers and he is so far from being Jealous of the Honour which we give to God that he himself as Man always acknowledges his Impotence and Subordination and will never hear those who like the Eutychians look upon his humane Nature as transform'd into the Divine and so take from him the qualities of Advocate Mediator Head of the Church and High Priest of the true Goods Thus we see on one side that to make our Prayers effectual it is not absolutely necessary that we should know the Truths which I have here explain'd so precisely and distinctly and on the other that the Churches proceeding agrees perfectly with the fundamental Vertue of Religion and Morality namely that God alone is the final Cause of all Things and that we cannot have access to him but by Jesus Christ our Lord. This I think will easily be granted V. But the case of the Blessed Virgin Angels and Saints hath somewhat more difficulty in it Nevertheless the sense of the Church is that they know our Necessities when we call upon them and that being in favour with God and united to Christ their Head they may by their Prayers and Desires sollicite him to deliver us from our Miseries Nay it seems to be beyond Dispute from the example of S. Paul and all the Saints who constantly recommended themselves to one another's Prayers For if the Saints on Earth as yet full of Imperfection can by their Prayers be beneficial to their Friends I see no sufficient reason to deny the Saints in Heaven this Power Only we must observe That they are not occasional causes of inward Grace For this Power was given to Christ alone as the Architect of the eternal Temple the Head of the Church the necessary Mediator in a Word as the particular or distributive cause of the true Goods VI. So then we may Pray to the Blessed Virgin to Angels and Saints that they would move the love of Christ on our behalf And probably there are some certain times of Favour for each particular Saint such as are the Days on which the Church celebrates their Festivals It is possible also that as natural or occasional Causes they may have a Power of producing those effects which we call Miraculous because we do not know the Causes of them such as the curing of Diseases plentiful Harvests and other extraordinary changes in the position of Bodies which are Substances inferiour to Spirits and over which it should seem that Order requires or at least permits them to have some Power as a reward of their Vertue or rather as an inducement to other Men to admire and imitate it But tho' this be not altogether certain as to Saints yet I think it cannot be doubted as to Angels This Truth is of so great Importance on several Accounts that I think it necessary to give a brief explication of it from the manner of God's proceeding in the execution of his Designs VII God could not act but for his own Glory and not finding any Glory worthy of himself but in Jesus Christ he certainly made all Things with respect to his Son This is so evident a Truth that we cannot possibly doubt of it if we do but reflect a little on it For what â—elation is there between the Action of God and the product of that Action if we separate it from Christ by whom it is Sanctified What proportion is there between an unhallow'd World which hath nothing of Divinity in it and the Action of God which is wholly Divine in a Word between Finite and Infinite Is it possible to conceive that God who cannot act but by his own Will or the Love which he bears to himself should act so as to produce nothing worthy of himself to create a World which bears no proportion to him or which is not worth the Action whereby it is produc'd VIII It is probable then that the Angels immediately after their Creation being astonish'd to find themselves without a Head without Christ and not being able to justify God's design in Creating them the Wicked ones imagin'd some Worth in themselves with relation to God and so Pride ruin'd them Or supposing
none but God in the Creatures Jer. 17.7 5. Blessed is the Man that trusteth in the Lord and cursed is the Man that trusteth in Man and maketh flesh his Arm. IX This probably was the Philosophy of the noble Mordecai which he taught his adopted Daughter Esther For the Jews had a more divine Philosophy than that which the Heathens have left us In a Motion conformable to the Principles of that Philosophy without doubt it was that she makes this Prayer to God and lays before him the true Sentiments of her Heart Deliver us O Lord with thine hand Esther 14.14 c. and help me that am desolate and which have no other helper but thee Thou knowest all things O Lord thou knowest that I hate the Glory of the Unrighteous and abhor the Bed of the Uncircumcised and of all the Heathen Thou knowest my necessity for I abhor the sign of my high Estate which is upon mine Head in the days whereon I shew my self and that I wear it not when I am private by my self And that thine Hand-maid hath not eaten at Haman's Table and that I have not greatly esteem'd the King's Feast nor drunk the Wine of the Drink Offerings Neither had thine Hand-maid any joy since the day that I was brought hither to this present but in thee O Lord God of Abraham This great Queen takes God to witness That she had no joy but in him alone Tho' she were Wife to a Prince that commanded a Hundred and seventeen Provinces and liv'd in the midst of Pleasures yet she despises her Greatness and abhors the Delights of a voluptuous Court She remains unmov'd in the midst of so many Allurements and God alone is the Object of all the Motions of her Soul Thine Hand-maid never had any joy but in thee O Lord God of Abraham What constancy of Mind what greatness of Soul This is it which the Law of God teaches us and this also is demonstrated by that Principle that God alone doth every thing and that the Creatures are only the Occasional Causes of that Splendor which seems to environ them and of those Pleasures which seem to flow from them But the Duties we owe to Power which is in none but God require a more particular Explication X. All our Duties consist properly in nothing but certain Judgments and Motions of the Soul as I said before For God is a Spirit and will be worship'd in Spirit and in Truth All our outward Actions are but Consequences of the Action of our Mind This clear Perception That God alone hath Power obliges us to form the following Judgments 1. That God alone is the Cause of our Being 2. That he alone is the Cause of the duration of our Being or of our Time 3. That he alone is the Cause of our Knowledge 4. That he alone is the Cause of the natural Motions of our Will 5. That he alone is the Cause of our Sensations Pleasure Pain Hunger Thirst c. 6. That he alone is the Cause of all the Motions of our Body 7. That neither Men nor Angels nor Devils nor any other Creature can of themselves do us either good or harm That they may nevertheless as Occasional Causes determine God in consequence of certain general Laws to do us good or harm by means of the Body to which we are united 8. That in like manner we can do neither good nor harm to any one by our own strength but only oblige God by our practical Desires in consequence of the Laws of the Union of the Soul and Body to do good or harm to other Men For we indeed have the Will to move our Tongue or Arm but it is God alone who can and doth actually move them XI These Judgments require of us the following Motions 1. To love none but God with a Love of Vnion or Conjunction because he alone is the Cause of our Happiness either small or great transitory or durable I say with a Love of Vnion for we must love our Neighbour not as our Good or the Cause of our Happiness but only as capable of enjoying the same Happiness with us The word Love is equivocal and therefore we must take care of it 2. To have no joy but in God alone for he that rejoyces in any other thing judges that that other thing can make him happy which is a false Judgment and can cause only an irregular Motion 3. Never to unite our selves to the occasional Causes of our Happiness contrary to the Prohibition of the true Cause for that would be to oblige God in consequence of his Laws to promote Iniquity 4. Not to unite our selves to them without a particular necessity for the Sinner ought to avoid Pleasure because actual Pleasure gives actual Happiness and Happiness is a Reward which the Sinner doth not deserve besides the Pleasures which we enjoy by the means of the Body fortify Concupiscence disturb the Mind and corrupt the Heart a thousand ways This is the Ground of the necessity of Penance 5. To fear none but God because he alone can Punish us We must fear God in this life to keep us from offending him The happy day will come which excluding Sin shall also banish Fear 6. To be sorry for nothing but our Sin because nothing but Sin can oblige a just God to make us miserable He that grieves at the loss of a false Good gives Honour to it and considers it as a true Good And he that grieves at a Misfortune which he cannot remedy afflicts himself in vain Self-love enlightned is griev'd only for its own Disorders and Charity for those of others 7. Tho' God alone can make us miserable yet we must not hate him tho' we may fear him Only he that is harden'd in Sin hates God out of Self-love for being sensible that he will not obey God or knowing as the damn'd do that in the condition which he likes and is pleas'd with he hath no means of access or return to God the invincible love of Happiness inspires him continually with an invincible hatred against him who alone can be the cause of Misery 8. We must not hate nor fear the occasional causes of physical Evil or Misery We may separate our selves from them But we must not do that neither against the Will of the true Cause I mean contrary to Order or the Law of God 9. We should will nothing but what God wills because we can do nothing but what God doth If we have not the Power to act it is plain that we should not have the Will to act Order or the divine Law should also be our Law or the Rule of our Desires and Actions because our Desires are efficacious only by the power and action of God I cannot move my Arm by my own Strength And therefore I ought not to move it according to my own Desires The Law of God should govern all the effects of Power not only in God but
to change his state and condition Perfection then or Vertue doth not consist in following the Order of Nature but in submitting wholly to the immutable and necessary Order the inviolable Law of all intelligent Beings CHAP. II. There is no other Vertue but the Love of Order and Reason Without this Love all Vertues are false We must not confound Duties with Vertues We may discharge our Duties without Vertue 'T is for want of consulting Reason that Men approve and follow damnable Customs Faith serves or conducts to Reason For Reason is the supreme Law of all intelligent Beings I. THE Love of Order is not only the chief of all moral Vertues but the only Vertue It is the Mother Vertue the fundamental universal Vertue the Vertue which alone makes the Habits or Dispositions of our Minds vertuous He that bestows his Goods on the Poor out of Vanity or natural Compassion is not liberal because it is not Reason that guides him nor Order that governs him it is nothing but Pride or Mechanism Officers that voluntarily expose themselves to Dangers are not brave if it is Ambition that animates them nor Soldiers if it is only an abundance of Spirits and the Fermentation of the Blood This imaginary noble Ardour is nothing but Vanity or Clock-work A little Wine oftentimes is sufficient to produce a great deal of it He that bears the Injuries that are offer'd him many times is neither moderate not patient 'T is his Slothfulness that makes him immoveable or his ridiculous and stoical Bravery that bears him up and in imagination sets him above his Enemies It may be nothing but the disposition of the Machine want of Spirits coldness of Blood Melancholy and perhaps above all some contagious Distemper of a strong Imagination The same may be said of all the other Vertues If the love of Order be not the foundation of them they are false and vain and altogether unbecoming a reasonable Nature which bears the Image of God himself and hath a communication with him They derive their Original from the Body only they are not form'd by the Holy Ghost and whoever makes them the Object of his Desires and the Foundation of his Glory hath a base and abject Mind a mean Spirit and a corrupted Heart But whatever a rebellious Imagination may think it is not mean nor servile to submit to the Law of God himself nothing is more just than to be conformable to Order nothing is more great and noble than to obey God nothing is more brave and generous than to follow the Party of Reason with an unshaken Constancy and inviolable Fidelity not only when one may follow it with Honour but then more especially when the circumstances of Times and Places are such that one cannot do it without the greatest Shame and Disgrace For he that passes for a Fool in following Reason loves Reasom more than himself But he that follows Order only when it shines and sparkles in the Eyes of the World seeks only Glory and though he may appear very Glorious in the Eyes of Men he is an Abomination in the Sight of God II. I know not whether I may be mistaken or no but I believe there are abundance of People that do not rightly know what true Vertue is and even those that have writ of Morality do not always speak very clearly and exactly of it It is certain that all those great Names which they give to Vertues and Vices produce rather confus'd Sensations in the Mind than clear Ideas But because these Sensations affect the Soul and abstracted Ideas tho' clear in themselves do not diffuse their Light but in attentive Minds Men most commonly rest satisfied with these words which please the Senses but leave the Mind in the dark They fancy that a Discourse the more briskly it strikes upon the Imagination the more Solid it is and look upon those exact Reasonings which disappear when Attention is wanting as Spectres and Illusions like Children who judging of Objects by the Impression they make on their Senses imagine that there is more Matter in Ice than in Water in Gold and heavy and hard Metals than in the Air which surrounds them almost without being felt III. Besides whatever is familiar to us doth not surprise us we never stand to examine it we think we conceive very well what we have said our selves or heard others say a great many times tho' we have never examin'd it But the most solid and evident Truths always create Distrust in us when they are new Thus a Word of an obscure and confus'd Signification seems clear and obvious how equivocal soever it be if common use hath made it current but a Term which contains nothing equivocal in it seems obscure and dangerous if we have never heard it us'd by those Persons whom we love and esteem This is the cause that the Terms of Morality are the most obscure and confus'd and especially those which we look upon as the most clear because they are the most common Every one for Example imagines he understands very well the Signification of these Terms Loving Fearing Honouring Charity Humility Generosity Pride Envy self-Self-love and if a Man should join clear Ideas to these Terms and to all the Names which are given to Vertues and Vices besides that this supposes more Knowledge than is generally believ'd he would certainly take the most confus'd and perplex'd way to treat of Morality For it will appear in the sequel of this Discourse that to define these Terms rightly he ought first clearly to comprehend the Principles of that Science and to be well vers'd in the Knowledge of Human Nature IV. One of the greatest Defects observable in the Moral Writings of some Philosophers is that they confound Duties with Vertues or that they give the name of Vertues to simple Duties So that tho' properly there be but one Vertue to wit the love of Order they make an infinite number of them This is it which causes such Confusion and so perplexes that Science that it is very hard to understand throughly what a Man must do to be perfectly Good and Vertuous V. It is evident that Vertue ought to render him Virtuous that possesses it and yet a Man may acquit himself of his Duty and with ease perform acts of Humility Generosity or Liberality without any of these Vertues So that a disposition or facility of performing such Duties is not properly Vertue without the love of Order When a Man discharges his Duty he is Vertuous in the Eyes of Men when he bestows part of his Goods on his Friend he appears Liberal and Generous But Men are not always such as they seem to be and he that never neglects the outward Offices of Friendship but when they are contrary to the inviolable Order tho' he may sometimes seem guilty of Infidelity is a truer and more faithful Friend at least he is a more Vertuous Man and more worthy of Love than those hot and
Heart and with all thy Strength and thy Neighbour as thy self And of which St. Paul hath given us the elogy in that admirable Chapter of his first Epistle to the Corinthians which begins thus 1 Cor. 13.1 Tho' I spake all Languages even that of Angels themselves yet if I had not Charity I should be but like sounding Brass or a tinkling Cymbal The ways of Speaking are different according to the diversity of Persons spoken to The Scripture which is written for all the World expresses the Truths it contains in such Terms only as are authoris'd by the most common Use But he that would convince and inform the most obstinate Persons I mean those Men of strong Reason as they fancy themselves and those whom they call Philosophers People that find difficulties in every Thing must endeavour to explain his Sentiments by Terms that as far as may be are free from an equivocal Signification II. These Words Thou shalt Love God with all thy Strength and thy Neighbour as thy Self are clear but it is chiefly to those who are inwardly Taught by the Unction of the Spirit For as to others they are more obscure than is commonly imagin'd To Love is an equivocal Term It signifies two Things among many others First to unite our selve by the Will to any object as to our Good or the cause of our Happiness and Secondly to wish Well to any one We may love God in the first Sense and our Neighbour in the Second But it would be Impiety or at least Stupidity or Ignorance to love God in the latter Sense and a kind of Idolatry to love our Neighbour in the former III. The word God is likewise Equivocal and much more than it is thought to be A Man may fancy he loves God when indeed he loves only a vast immense Phantom which he hath form'd to himself He may think he loves God when at the same time he lives in Disorder or without loving Order above all Things But he is mistaken for he is so far from loving him that he doth not so much as know him 1 Joh. 2.4 5. For he that saith I know him and keepeth not his Commandments is a Lier and the Truth is not in him But whoso keepeth his Word in him verily is the love of God perfected or he perfectly loves God v. 3. saith St. John Hereby we do know that we know him if we keep his Commandments IV. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Strength The word all is clear enough but thy Strength may Minister occasion of Error to those who either have no Humility or a false and mistaken one The former may draw from it some ground of Vanity and the latter of a sinful Negligence And thy Neighbour as thy self Our Saviour tells us in the Parable of the Samaritan that all Mankind is our Neighbour So that the word Neighbour is not very clear and so we find the Jews always took it in a wrong Sense As thy self Certainly there are none but those that love the true and real good who fulfil this Commandment in loving their Neighbour as themselves For a Father who loves his Son with the greatest Tenderness and carefully procures for him all sensible good Things what love soever he may have for him is very far from loving him as God commands us to love our Neighbour V. These words then Thou shalt love the Lord thy God c. are obscure But in Truth they are obscure only to those who have a mind to Dispute or who will not retire into themselves to behold this Commandment written there with the Finger of God The Holy Scripture is a clos'd Book only to those who are not instructed by the unction of the Spirit For pious Men tho' never so Dull and Stupid understand this Precept very well They know that all the application of our Mind and all the motions of our Heart ought to tend toward God that we should employ our Thoughts on nothing but him as far as it is possible That we do not truly Love him if we are not nice and exact in doing our Duty And that to violate the order of Justice or the immutable Order is in effect to offend against the Divine Majesty They are so far from loving Men as capable of doing them Good that they are afraid to come near great Persons and are only pleas'd to be amongst those who stand in need of their Assistance They love Men not as their Good nor as capable of enjoying transitory Goods with them Goods which only serve to cause division every where But they Love them as Co-heirs of the true Goods true Goods because they are possess'd without division enjoy'd without satiety and lov'd without any fear of losing them like the Pleasures of this present Life The Father loves his Son but he had rather see him Deform'd than Disorderly He had rather see him Sick Dead or at the Gallows than see him Dead in the Eyes of him who never had a more agreable Sight than that of his only Son fasten'd to the Cross to re-establish Order in the World Pious Men understand the Law of God because they are instructed by the same Spirit that dictated it But because this Discourse is intended chiefly for Philosophers and it lies not in my Power to communicate that holy Unction which produces Light in the Minds of Men I think my self oblig'd to endeavour to prove by Reason and explain as far as I am able in clear Terms those Truths of which perhaps they are not sufficiently Convinc'd VI. I think then I may say that justifying Charity or that Vertue which renders the possessors of it truly Just and Vertuous is properly a ruling Love of the immutable Order But that I may clear those Obscurities which ordinarily attend abstract Ideas I must explain these Terms a little more at large VII I have already said that the immutable Order consists in nothing else but in those proportions or relations of Perfection which are between the intellectual Ideas comprehended in the substance of the eternal Word Now we ought to esteem and love nothing but Perfection And therefore our esteem and love should be conformable to Order From hence it is evident that Charity or the love of God is a consequence of the love of Order and that we ought to esteem and love God not only more but infinitely more than all other Things for there can be no finite relation between infinite and finite VIII There are Two principal kinds of Love a Love of Benevolence and a Love which may be call'd Love of Vnion A sensual Man Loves the object of his Passion with a Love of Vnion because he looks upon that Object as the cause of his Happiness and therefore he desires to be united to it that it may act upon him and make him Happy He is carried towards it as well by the motion of his Heart or by his Affections as
Bodies and by their means in the Souls wihch are united to them certain effects which may promote the efficacy of Grace and keep Men from those Stumbling-blocks which the Devils continually lay in their way For as the Psalmist saith Psal 91.11 12. He hath given his Angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways They shall bear thee up in their Hands lest thou dash thy Foot against a Stone XIII So then we may pray to the Angels and desire their protection against that roaring Lion who as St. Peter saith walketh about seeking whom he may devour Eph. 6.12 Or to use St. Paul's words Against those Principalities and Powers against the Rulers of the Darkness of this World those Princes of the World full of Darkness and Error against spiritual Wickedness in high places those evil Spirits which are scatter'd through the Air For we wrestle not against Flesh and Blood only But we must not look upon the Angels as distributive Causes of Grace nor give them that Worship which is due to Christ alone Col. 2.18 19. Be not deceiv'd saith St. Paul by those who in a voluntary Humility pay a superstitious Worship to Angels who meddle with those things which they do not understand being dazled by the vain Imaginations of their fleshly Mind and not keeping themselves united to the Head from which the whole body of the Church receives the Spirit which gives it Growth and Life v. 15. even to Jesus Christ who having spoil'd Principalities and Powers which he had vanquish'd by his Cross made a shew of them openly triumphing over them in it CHAP. X. Of the Occasional Causes of the Sensations and Motions of the Soul which resist the Efficacy of Grace either of Light or Sense The Vnion of the Soul with God is immediate not that of the Soul with the Body An Explication of some general Laws of the Vnion of the Soul and Body necessary for the right understanding the rest of this Treatise I. IN the Fifth Sixth and Seventh Chapters I have spoken at large of the occasional Cause of Light and in the two last I have endeavoured to shew what is the occasional Cause of the Grace of Sense and what we must do to obtain it And therefore seeing there is nothing beside Light and Sense which determines the Will or the tendency which the Soul hath toward Good in general all that now remains in relation to the Means of acquiring or preserving the habitual and ruling Love of the immutable Order is to explain the Laws of the Union of the Soul and Body or the occasional Causes of all those lively and confus'd Sensations and those indeliberate Motions which unite us to our Body and by that to all the Objects which are about us For to make us love Order and to acquire Vertue it is not sufficient to obtain the Grace of Sense which alone can stir the Soul and put it in Motion toward the true Good but we must also manage our selves so that this Grace may work in our Hearts with its full Efficacy For this end we must carefully avoid the occasional Causes of those Sensations and Motions which resist the Operation of Grace and sometimes render it altogether ineffectual This is the most general Principle of all that I shall say in the First Part of this Discourse II. The Soul of Man hath two essential and natural Relations one to God the true Cause of all that passes within him the other to his Body the occasional Cause of all those Thoughts which relate to sensible Objects When God speaks to the Soul it is to unite it to himself when the Body speaks to it it is only for the Body to unite the Soul to sensible Good God speaks to the Soul to enlighten and render it perfect the Body only to darken and corrupt it in favour of it self God by the Light conducts the Soul to its Happiness the Body by Pleasure involves the whole Man in its ruin and throws him headlong into Misery In a word tho' it is God that doth every thing and tho' the Body cannot act upon the Soul no more than the Soul can upon the Body but as an occasional Cause in consequence of the Laws of their Union and for the Punishment of Sin which without medling with those Laws hath chang'd the Union into a Dependence yet we may say that it is the Body which darkens the Mind and corrupts the Heart for the Relation which the Soul hath to the Body is the Cause of all our Errors and Disorders III. Notwithstanding we should be throughly convinc'd of this and never forget it that the Soul can have no immediate Relation but to God alone and that it cannot be united directly to any thing but to him for the Soul cannot be united to the Body but as it is united to God himself It is certain for very many Reasons that if I feel for instance the pain of a Scratch it is God that acts in me tho' in consequence of the Laws of the Union of the Soul and Body for those Laws derive their force from the Operation of the Divine Will which alone is capable of acting in me But the Body by it self cannot be united to the Soul nor the Soul to the Body They have no Relation to one another nor any one Creature to another I speak of Relations of Causality such are those which depend on the Union of the Soul and Body It is God that doth every thing his Will is the Union of all Unions the Modifications of Substances depend on him alone who gives and preserves their Being This is an essential Truth which I think I have sufficiently prov'd in another place IV. But tho' the Soul cannot be united immediately to any Thing but God yet it may be united to the Creatures by the Will of God who communicates his Power to them in making them occasional Causes for the production of certain Effects My Soul is united to my Body because on one side my Will is made the occasional Cause of some changes which God alone produces on it and in the other because the changes which happen in my Body are made occasional Causes of some of those which happen in my Soul V. Now God hath establish'd these Laws for many Reasons which are unknown to us But of those which we do know one is that God in following them acts in a uniform and constant manner by general Laws by the most simple and wisest ways in a word he Acts in such a manner as admirably bears the Character of his Attributes Another Reason is because the Body of Man is his proper Sacrifice for it seems to Sacrifice it self by Pain and to be Annihilated by Death The Soul is in a State of Probation in the Body and God who desires in some measure to be merited and to proportion Rewards to Merits doth by the Laws of the Union of the Soul and
do not first rid them of a great many false Maxims such as these for instance That if God concern'd himself with our Affairs the World would not go as it doth that Injustice would never be advanc'd to the Throne and that Bodies would not be rang'd so irregularly as they are that so deform'd and mishapen a World as this is can be nothing but the work of a blind and unintelligent Nature and that God doth not require of us vile Creatures Honours unbecoming his Nature that that which appears right and just to us is not so in it self or in the sight of God who if it were would often Punish those that he ought to Reward for many times we meet with the greatest Misfortunes when we are doing the best Actions I have elsewhere confuted these Principles and if the Reader doth not clearly comprehend what I am going to say he may read the first Eight of my Christian Meditations V. Wherefore that we may discover the Foundation and Original of our Duties it is not sufficient to consider the infinitely perfect Being without the relation it bears to us On the contrary we must above all things take notice that we depend on the Power of God that we are united to his Wisdom and that we have no Motion but from his Spirit from the Love which he bears to himself We depend on the Power of God for we have our Existence from that alone we act by that alone and can do nothing but by that We are united to the Wisdom of God for by that alone we are enlightned in that alone we discover Truth we are rational only by that for that alone is the universal Reason of all intelligent Beings Lastly we have no Motion but from the Spirit of God for as God acts only by his own Will or by the Love which he bears to himself so all the Love which we have for Good is only an Effusion or Impression of that Love with which God loves himself We love nothing invincibly and naturally but God because we love and can love nothing but Good and Good I mean the cause of Happiness is no where but in God for no Creature can of it self Act on spiritual Substances I must explain these things more at large in order to deduce from them the Rules of our Conduct I begin with Power and the Duties we owe to it VI. Glory and Honour belong only to God 1 Tim. 1.17 All the Motions of our Souls ought to tend toward him alone for in him alone Power resides All the Wills of the Creatures are of themselves impotent and ineffectual He alone who gives them their Beings can give them the Modes of their Beings for the different Modes of Beings are nothing but the same Beings in such and such particular Fashions or Dispositions nothing is more evident to one that can sedately and silently consult the inward Truth For what can be plainer than that if God for instance will keep any Body always in one place no Creature can remove it into another and that Man cannot so much as move his Arm but only because God is pleass'd to do that which ungrateful and senseless Man thinks he doth himself It is the same with the Modifications of spiritual Beings If God creates or continues a Soul in the Modification of Pain no other Spirit can deliver it from that Pain nor make it feel Pleasure except God gives his Assent I am the Lord that is my Name 〈◊〉 Glory will not give to another Isa 42.8 and co-operates with it in the accomplishment of its desires By this extraordinary Concession and Liberality it is that God without losing any thing of his Power without diminishing his Greatness or lessening his Glory imparts to the Creatures his Glory Greatness and Power VII God hath subjected this present World to the Angels it is they that act and God that doth every thing He hath given to Jesus Christ as Head of the Church a Sovereign Power over all the Nations of the Earth Christ distributes the true Goods but it is God alone who sends them it is he alone that acts in our Souls and penetrates the hardness of our Hearts Christ as he is Man prays intercedes desires and performs the Office of Advocate Mediator and High-Priest But it is God alone that operates he only hath power he is the sole cause and beginning of all Things and ought to be the sole end All the Motions of our Souls should tend towards him and to him alone belong Glory and Honour This is that eternal necessary and inviolable Law which God hath establish'd by the necessity of his own Being by the love which he necessarily bears to himself a Love which is always conformable to Order and makes Order to be the inviolable Law of all spiritual Beings When God ceases to know himself to be what he is and to love himself as much as he deserves to act according to his own Light and by the Motion of his own Love when he ceases to observe this Law then it will be lawful for us to desire Glory our selves or give it to any other beside God then we may without fear delight in and make much of the Friendship of the Creatures we may love and be belov'd give and receive Worship and Adoration we may then shew our selves to the World to attract the Esteem and Love of the World we may exalt and expose our selves to View as Objects fit to employ those Minds and Hearts which God hath made only for himself we may then employ our selves either about our selves or the imaginary Power of the Creatures VIII There is nothing certainly more agreeable both to Christianity and Reason than this Principle That it is God alone who doth every thing and that he communicates his Power to the Creatures no otherwise than as he makes them Occasional Causes for himself to act by in such a manner as bears the Character of an infinite Wisdom an immutable Nature and an universal Cause in such a manner that all the Glory which the work of the Creature deserves is refer'd to the Creator alone when the Creatures by a Power which they have not in them execute such Designs as were form'd before their Creation What is more holy than this Principle which clearly shews to such as are capable of rightly understanding it that in many Cases it is lawful for us to approach the Objects of our Senses by the Motion of our Body but that we must reserve all the Motions of our Soul for God alone For we may nay and many times ought to move toward the occasional Cause of our Sensations but we must never leave it We may join our selves to other Men but we must never adore them with the Motion of our Love either as our Good or as capable of procuring us any Good We must love and fear only the true Cause of Good and Evil We must love and fear
Good his Love can be no other but Love of himself His end is himself and can be nothing but himself Therefore he doth not produce in spiritual Beings a Love which hath a different tendency from his own for the love of Good in spiritual Beings proceeds only from the Will of God which is nothing else but the Love he bears to himself But further there are not Two or more true Goods there is but one alone for there is but one true Cause Therefore there is nothing amiable I mean with a love of Union but God So then since God cannot will that we should Love that which is not amiable or not Love that which is amiable supposing that we are capable of Loving our Love proceeding from God must necessarily according to the primitive institution of its Nature tend toward him and be refer'd to him alone III. God having created our Souls with a design to make them happy continually imprints on them a Love for Good and as he acts only for himself and Good neither is nor can be in any but in him this natural Love of Good doth of it self carry them toward God alone For this Love is like that which God bears to himself It is also invincible and irresistible because it is a powerful and continual Impression of the divine Love and it is the same thing with our Will for it is only by the particular determinations of this Love that we are capable of loving all Objects that have the appearance of Good IV. From hence it is plain that we cannot love Evil and that we have no Motion ordain'd for that end Notwithstanding we may mistake Evil for Good and so we may love Evil by loving Good we may love Evil out of choice by loving Good naturally we may love Evil or rather that which is neither Good nor Evil by a horrid abuse of that love for Good which God continually imprints on us to make us Love him as being our only Good or alone capable of making us happy For we must take particular notice that the Creatures tho' they are all Perfect or Good in themselves are neither Good nor Evil in respect of us because they have not really the power to do us either Good or Harm As they are occasional causes of Good or Evil of Pleasure or Pain we may unite our selves to them or separate our selves from them by the motion of our Body But we cannot reasonably Love or Fear them because every Motion which doth not tend toward God the beginning and end of it is irregular and if it be free and voluntary deserves to be Punish'd V. It is also evident that we cannot hate Good for since we invincibly desire to be happy we cannot separate our selves from that which makes us so but we may mistake Good for Evil and so hate Good from the hatred we have for Evil. And even this hatred is at the bottom a motion of Love We fly from Evil only by the motion of the Love we have for Good For God having created us to be happy by loving him hath given us no motion to separate us from him but only to unite us to him The wicked or the damn'd hate God with an invincible and irreconcilable Hatred but this proceeds from the very Love which God hath given them for himself For since God is not their Good but their Evil or the cause of their Punishment according to the Psalmist Psal 18.26 With the Pure thou wilt shew thy self Pure and with the Froward thou wilt shew thy self Froward they hate him by that irresistible Motion which God who is immutable in his proceeding gives then for their Happiness VI. For the right understanding of this it is sufficient to observe that actual Pleasure is the formal cause of actual Happiness as Pain is of Misery Now the Damn'd feel Pain the harden'd Sinner fears it The Damn'd know that God alone is the cause of Pain the Sinner believes he is Therefore both of them from the very desire they have to be Happy must of necessity make a wrong use of that Motion which God gives them to unite them to himself and must separate themselves from him for the more they are united to God the more God acts on them the more sensible they are of their Misery The Blessed on the contrary for a like reason cannot cease to love God And those that have access to God those that expect to find their Happiness in him Sinners who by Faith in Christ have hope of returning and finding favour with God may by the invincible desire of Happiness love and fear God This is our condition in this Life VII Now that the natural Love which God continually imprints on us may still continue Love and not be turn'd into Hatred that the love of Happiness may make us Happy that it may carry us toward God and unite us to him instead of separating us from him In a word that God may be or continue Good in respect of us and not become Evil our Love must always be conformable to or resembling the divine Love we must love Perfection as well as Happiness we must remain united to the wisdom of God as well as to his Power For God when he created Man gave him in the love of Good and by the impression of the Love which he bears to himself as it were two sorts of Love one of Happiness and the other of Perfection By the love of Happiness he united him to his Power which alone can make him Happy and by the love of Perfection he united him to his Wisdom by which alone as his inviolable Law he ought to be govern'd God if I may so say is divinely inspir'd with both these Loves They are inseparable in him and they cannot be separated in us without destroying us utterly For the power of God is Wise and Just His Wisdom is all Powerful and he that thinks to retain the love of his Happiness without the love of his Perfection without the love of Wisdom Justice and the immutable Order that love of Happiness will only serve to make him eternally Miserable God by his Power will not be the Good of Men but their Evil if by his Wisdom he is not their Law or the principle of their inward Reformation For Happiness is a Reward It is not enough to desire the enjoyment of it but we must also deserve it And we cannot deserve it if we do not govern the motions of our Heart by the inviolable Law of all intelligent Beings and regulate them according to the Model by which Man was first form'd and by which he must be form'd anew In a word the love of Conformity which relates to the immutable Order or the Wisdom of God must always be joyn'd with the love of Union which relates to his Power that so our Love being like the divine Love may carry us to all the Happiness and all the Perfection that
the Happiness of which God alone is the Cause and which we have justly been depriv'd of for those unjust and unreasonable Pleasures which we have unworthily and disingenuously requir'd of a just God These are very trite and very common but very necessary Truths XII Motions or Duties 1. We should love nothing but God with a love of Union and whenever we find any love for the Creatures any joy in the Creatures arising in us we should stifle those Sensations and consider that Power belongs to God alone and that he inspires us with his Love to unite us only to himself 2. We should be afraid of Pleasures for they seduce and corrupt us Pleasure is the distinguishing Mark of Good God alone can give us the enjoyment of it But because his Operation is not visible we look upon the Objects which are only the occasions of our Sensations as if they were the Causes of them and when we enjoy those Objects we love them as our Good or at least we love nothing but our selves and our own Hapness Now every Pleasure which inclines us to the love of Bodies Substances inferiour to our own Being perverts and disorders us and since the Soul is not the Cause of its own Happiness it is blind ingrateful and unjust if it loves its Pleasure without rendring to the true Cause of it the Love and Respect which are due to him But besides how is it possible to love God in the midst of Pleasure How can we actually encrease our Charity when we so many ways provoke and fortify our Concupiscence 3. The love of Grandeur Elevation and Independance is abominable He that desires to be esteem'd and lov'd ought to be detested and abhor'd What I shall those Minds which were made to contemplate the universal Reason and to love the Power of the true Good shall they I say employ their Thoughts and their Love on us Weak and Impotent as we are shall we suffer our selves to be ador'd Corrupt and Ignorant as we are shall we seek Admirers Imitators and Followers Certainly he that doth not see the Injustice of Pride hath no Communication with Reason and he that knows it and yet is not afraid of committing it renounces Reason entirely 4. We should love Order it is the Law of God he inviolably observes it he invincibly loves it And can we think that we may safely dispense with our Obedience to it If we deviate from it the inexorable Justice of the living God will follow us But if our Love be conformable to that Law we shall be happy and perfect both we shall have fellowship with God and a share in his Happiness and Glory 5. We cannot be Rational but by the universal Reason we cannot be Wise but by the eternal Wisdom we cannot be Just and Holy but by a conformity to the immutable Order Let us therefore incessantly contemplate Reason let us ardently love Wisdom let us inviolably obey the Divine Law Let us fashion our selves anew after our Model he hath made himself like us that he might make us like him He is now level'd to our Capacity he is proportion'd to our Weakness He is before us let us open our Eyes to see him He is within us let us retire into our selves and consult him He sollicites us continually let us hear his Voice and not hearden our Hearts Heb. 5. But he is also in the Holy of Holies ordain'd a High Priest after the Order of Melchisedech always living to make intercession for us and to give us those Succours which we extremely need Let us therefore approach the true Mercy-Seat of Jesus Christ the Saviour of Sinners the Head of the Church the Builder of the eternal Temple in a word the occasional Cause of Grace without which such is our deprav'd and miserable Condition that we cannot endeavour our Amendment we cannot esteem and relish the true Goods nor so much as desire to be deliver'd from our Miseries CHAP. V. The three Divine Persons imprint each their proper Character on our Souls and our Duties give equal Honour to them all three Tho' our Duties consist only in inward Judgments and Motions yet we must shew them by outward Signs in regard of our Society with other Men. I. THe three Divine Persons of the Holy Trinity imprint each their proper Character on the Spirits which they created after their own Image The Father whose peculiar Attribute is Power imparts his Power to them by making them occasional Causes of all the Effects which are produc'd by them The Son communicates his Wisdom and discovers to them all Truth by closely uniting them to that intellectual Substance which he hath as he is the universal Reason The Holy Ghost inspires and sanctifies them by the invincible Impression which they have for Good and by Charity or the love of Order which he sheds abroad in their Hearts As the Father begets his Word so the Mind of Man by his desires is the occasional Cause of his Knowledge And as the Father with the Son is the Fountain and Original of the Substantial and Divine Law so our Knowledge occasion'd by our desires which are the only Things that are truly in our Power is with us the Principal and Original of all the Regular Motions of our Love II. It is true the Father begets his Word of his own Substance because God alone is essentially and substantially his own Wisdom and his own Light The mutual Love of the Father and the Son proceeds from themselvees because God alone is his own Good and his own Law But we are not our own Reason and therefore Light and Understanding cannot be a natural Emanation of our own Substance We are not our own Good nor our own Law and therefore all the Motion we have must proceed from and carry us to something without us it must unite us to our Good and make us conformable to our Pattern III. God made all Things by his Wisdom and in the Motion of his Spirit or his Love So also we never act but with Knowledge and by the Motion of Love The three Divine Persons have an equal share in the Production of all Things So also that which we do without Knowledge and without a full and entire Will is not properly our own Work The Father hath as I may say a Right of Mission over the Son So it is in our power to think on what we will The Son sends the Holy Ghost who proceeds from the Father and the Son in the unity of the same Nature so also our Love is grounded on Light it proceeds from and is produc'd by it Lastly The Love which proceeds from a clear Perception or Knowledge loves it self the Object of that Knowledge and the Knowledge it self as the substantial Love infinitely loves the Divine Substance in the Father begetting in the Son begotten and in the Holy Ghost himself proceeding from the Father and the Son IV. All these Relations of the Mind of
Duties It is principally the knowledge and love of the relations of Perfection or practical Truths wherein consist our Perfection Let us apply our selves then to know to love and follow Order Let us labour for our Perfection as for our Happiness let us leave that to the disposal of God on whom it wholly depends God is just and necessarily rewards Vertue Let us not doubt then but that we shall infallibly receive all the Happiness that we have deserv'd XX. The Obedience which we pay to Order and submission to the Law of God is Vertue in all Senses Submission to the divine Decrees or to the power of God is rather Necessity than Vertue A Man may follow Nature and yet walk irregularly for Nature it self is irregular On the other side he may resist the action of God without opposing his Orders for oftentimes the particular action of God is so determin'd by second or occasional Causes that it is not conformable to Order It is true indeed that God wills nothing but according to Order but he often acts contrary to it For Order it self requiring See the 7 and 8 Christian Medit. that God as the general cause should act in a constant and uniform manner according to certain general Laws which he hath establish'd the effects of that cause are many times contrary to Order He forms Monsters and is subservient as it were to the Wickedness of Men in this World by reason of the simplicity of those ways by which he executes his Designs So that he who should think to obey God in submitting to his Power and in following and observing the course of Nature would offend against Order and fall into Disobedience every Moment XXI If all the motions of Bodies were caus'd by particular acts of the Will of God it would be a sin to avoid the Ruins of a falling House by flight for we cannot without injustice refuse to render back to God that Life which he hath given us when he requires it again At this rate it would be an Affront to the Wisdom of God to alter the course of Rivers and to turn them to Places that want Water we should follow the Order of Nature and be quiet But since God acts in consequence of certain general Laws we correct his Work without injuring his Wisdom We resist his action without opposing his Will because he doth not will positively and directly every thing that he doth For example he doth not directly will unjust Actions tho' he alone gives motion to those that commit them And tho' it be only he who sends Rain yet every Man hath a liberty to shelter himself when it Rains For God doth not send Rain but by a necessary consequence of general Laws Laws which he hath establish'd not that such or such a Man should be wet through but for greater ends and more agreeable to his Wisdom and Goodness If the Rain fall upon Men upon the Sea or upon the Sand it is because he is not oblig'd to alter the uniformity of his Conduct for the uselessness or inconvenience of the consequences of it XXII The case is not the same between God and Men between the general cause and particulationes When we oppose the action of Men we offend them for since they act only by particular motions of the Will we cannot resist their action without opposing their Designs But when we resist the action of God we do not at all offend him nay we often promote his Designs For since God constantly follows those general Laws which he hath prescrib'd to himself the combination of those effects which are the necessary consequences of them cannot always be conformable to Order nor proper for the execution of his Work And therefore it is lawful for Men to divert these natural effects not only when they may be the occasion of their Death but also when they are inconvenient or disagreeable Our Duty then consists in submitting our selves to the Law of God and following Order For to submit to his absolute Power is necessity This Order we may know by our union with the Word so that the immutable Order may be our Law and our Guide But the Divine Decrees are absolutely unknown to us And therefore let us not make them our Rule Let us leave that chimerical Vertue of following God or Nature to the Sages of Greece and the Stoicks But let us consult Reason let us love and follow Order in all things for then we truly follow God when we submit to a Law which he invincibly loves XXIII But tho' the Order of Nature be not precisely our Law and a submission to that Order be by no means a Vertue we must observe nevertheless that we ought oftentimes to have a regard to it Yet still this is because the immutable Order so requires and not because the Order of Nature is an effect of the Power of God A Man that suffers Persecution or rather one that is tormented with the Gout is oblig'd to bear it with Patience and Humility because being a sinner Order requires that he should suffer besides other Reasons which need not here be produc'd But if Man were not subject to Sin and the immutable Order did not require that he should suffer to deserve his Reward certainly he might nay and ought to seek his ease and avoid all sorts of inconveniences tho' he were persecuted if that were possible by the inclemency of the Seasons and by the Miseries which Sin hath brought into the World And a Man tho' he be a sinner may shelter himself from the Rain and the Wind and avoid the action of an avenging God because Order requires that he should preserve his Strength and Health and especially the liberty of his Mind to think upon his Duty and search after Truth And because Rain and Wind being consequences of the general laws of the Order of Nature it doth not plainly appear that it is the positive Will of God that he should suffer that particular inconvenience For it would be a hainous Crime in us to avoid the Rain if God should make it Rain on purpose to wet and punish us As it was in our first Parent to eat of a Fruit because of the express Prohibition and his formal Disobedience But if Vertue consisted precisely in living in that condition wherein we are plac'd in consequence of the Order of Nature he that is born in the midst of pleasure and abundance would be vertuous without pain and Nature having been happily favourable to him he would follow it with pleasure But Virtue must be painful at present that it may be generous and meritorious A Man ought to sacrifice himself for the possession of God Pleasure is the Reward of Merit and therefore cannot be the foundation of it as I shall shew hereafter In a Word Truth it self informs us of one that was commanded to sell his Goods and distribute them to the Poor if he would be perfect which was
the search of Truth what the Liberty of the Mind is to the Possession of the same Truth or at least to Infallibility or exemption from Error For by the use we make of the Strength of our Mind we discover Truth and by using the Liberty of our Mind we avoid Error The Strength and Capacity of the Mind being deficient Liberty was necessary for it that by suspending its Assent it might avoid Error and that the Author of its Being might not also be the Author of its Disorders For the Liberty of the Mind makes amends for its Weakness and Limitation and he that hath so much Liberty as to be always able to suspend his Assent tho' he cannot deliver himself from Ignorance a necessary Imperfection of all finite Spirits may yet avoid Error and Sin which render a Man contemptible and make him liable to Punishment IV. It is certain that if we always made use of our Liberty as far as we are able we should never assent but to Evidence which alone doth never deceive as I have prov'd elsewhere and which also obliges the Will to give its Assent For when the Mind sees clearly it cannot doubt that it sees when it hath examin'd every thing that there is to examine in order to the discovery of those Relations or Truths which it searches after it is necessary that it should rest there and give over its Enquiries In the same manner as to Sin he that loves nothing but what he evidently knows to be the true Good nothing but what he cannot help loving is not irregular in his Love He loves nothing but God for there is nothing else which we cannot without Remorse hinder our selves from loving There is nothing but God which we clearly and evidently know to be really Good to be the true Cause of Happiness a Being infinitely Perfect an Object capable of contenting the Soul which being made for the enjoyment of all Good may suspend its Assent of loving that which doth not contain every thing that is Good V. Strength and Liberty of Mind then are two Vertues which we may call General or to use the common Term Cardinal Vertues For since we ought never to Love any thing not do any Action without good Consideration we must make use of the Strength and Liberty of our Mind every moment These Vertues according to my Notion of them are not natural Faculties common to all Men There is nothing more rare nor is there any Man who possesses them perfectly I know well enough that Man is naturally capable of some Labour of Mind but that doth not make him have a strong Mind He can also suspend his Assent but his Mind is not therefore naturally free in such a manner as I mean The Strength and Liberty of Mind of which I speak are Vertues which are gotten by use But because these Vertues add Perfection to the Soul and restore it in some measure to its original State for before Sin the Mind was every way strong and free Men do not generally look upon them as Vertues For they imagine that Vertue instead of correcting and repairing Nature ought to change or destroy it Nay there are some People who think that Strength and Liberty of Mind are Faculties of the Soul subsisting in a kind of individual and judging of others by themselves they imagine that it is impossible to be attentive to those Subjects which frighten and discourage them and that it is Obstinacy not to Assent to Probabilities by which they are deceiv'd VI. But the Strength and Liberty of the Mind are unequal in all Men. There are no two Persons equally fit to retire into themselves nor equally capable of suspending their Assent Nay the same Person doth not long preserve the Strength and Liberty of his Mind in the same Condition If they do not encrease by Use and Exercise they must necessarily decrease for there are no Vertues more oppos'd by and more contrary to the continual Motions of Concupiscence Most Vertues agree well enough with Self-love for we may often perform a great many Duties with Pleasure and by a motive of Self-love But we cannot meditate long without Pain and much less suspend our Assent or the Judgment which determines the Motions of the Soul and Body When any Good discovers it self to the Soul and attracts it by its Charms it is not at ease if it remains unmov'd for there is no harder Labour than to keep our selves firm and steady in a Current when-ever we cease to act we are carried away with the Stream VII Thus we see there is scarce any Man that applies himself to Meditation and that those who undertake the search of Truth often want Strength and Courage to bring them to the place of its Habitation tir'd and dishearten'd they strive to content themselves with what they already possess or perhaps comfort themselves with a ridiculous contempt of what they cannot attain to or a cowardly and mean spirited Despair If they are deceiv'd they turn Deceivers if they are tir'd themselves they infect others with Sloth and Idleness and but to see them is enough to make one like themselves discourag'd with Labour and out of relish with Truth For such is the Nature of Men that they had much rather deceive one another than consult their common Master they are so credulous in respect of their Friends and so unbelieving or so little attentive to the Answers of the Truth within them that Opinion and Party are the general Rule of their Thoughts and Actions VIII In order to gain some Liberty of Mind and to accustom our selves to suspend our Assent we must continually reflect on the prejudices or pre-occupations of our Minds and the cause of them We fancy we comprehend things very well when we cease to admire them and their familiarity ridding us of all apprehension our Mind readily gives its assent because it hath no interest to with-hold it It signifies nothing to suspend our Assent if we have no design to examine for what matter is it if we do fall into Error But it is great and agreeable to judge of every Thing Now we cannot examine without Pain at least we must spend some time in Examination which the Soul created to be happy thinks lost when it is not kept in motion by Pleasure Vanity or Interest Hence it is that the ordinary Language is nothing but perpetual Jargon For every Man thinks he understands very well what he says himself or hears another say when he hath said it or heard it said a great many times over They are only new Terms which cause uneasiness and awaken the Attention and these new Terms tho' never so clear and free from equivocal Significations are always suspected because every one is capable of Suspicion and Apprehension but there are few People capable of Attention sufficient to discover Truth and free themselves from Apprehension I could fill whole Volumes with Examples of expressions which are
of them I do not say that we must Sacrifice it with all those Ornaments which disguise it On the contrary seeing we would not be deceiv'd seeing we would be solidly happy I say we must endeavour to know it for what it really is to discover the Ridiculousness of it which may make us despise it or the Deformity of it which may create in us an aversion for it This I say that we should and may by the Strength of our Hope and Faith bring our Mind to such a Temper that with the help of Grace it may perform this Sacrifice which appears so terrible with Pleasure or at least with Joy and Satisfaction After all there is a necessity for it We must either unavoidably perish together with our imaginary Riches or throw them over-board to arrive happily at the Port where we shall find solid and substantial Wealth not subject to Storms and Tempests VIII For this end we must study the Nature of Man we must know our Selves our Greatness our Weakness our Perfections and Inclinations we must be fully satisfied of the Immortality of our Being we must carefully examine the difference between the two Parts of which Man is compos'd and the admirable Laws of their Union from thence we must raise our Minds to the Author of these Laws and the true Cause of all that passes within our selves and in the Objects that are about us We must contemplate God in those Attributes which are contain'd in the vast and boundless Idea of an infinitely perfect Being and never judge of him with relation to our selves but support the View of our Mind if there be occasion in so abstracted and profound a Subject by the visible Effects of the universal Cause Above all we must examine the Relations which the Conduct of God hath to the Divine Attributes and find out how his Conduct ought necessarily to be the Rule of ours Finally we must penetrate into his eternal Designs and know at least that he is himself the end of his working and that the immutable Order is his Law Then we must go back again to our selves compare our selves with Order and discover that we are wholly corrupted we must be sensible and asham'd of our low and unworthy Inclinations and condemn our selves as guilty as Enemies of our God as not engaging in his Designs as not obeying his Law but the filthy Law of Flesh and Blood we must humble our selves and tremble before a God jealous of his Glory and a punisher of Crimes we must dread his just and terrible Vengeance Death and Hell seek for a Mediator with the greatest concern and find him at length in the Person of Jesus Christ the only Son of God who was once offer'd as a Sacrifice upon the Cross for the Sins of the World and is now seated at the right hand of the living God made Lord of all things and consecrated a High Priest of the true Goods once put to death as a Malefactor without Jerusalem and now within the Temple in the Holy of Holies before his Face of the Father always living to make intercession for Sinners and to shower down Blessings and Graces upon them but after all their inexorable Judge in the day of the Vengeance of the Lord that eternal Day which shall put an end to all Time and fix the measures of Good and Evil to all Eternity IX Can we think of these great Truths and be convinc'd of them by frequent Meditations and yet find our Passions still the same Can that sensible Pomp and those Charms which surround them can they I say bear that strong and penetrating Light which diffuses it self in the Mind when we think of Death and Hell and the World to come that heavenly Jerusalem enlightned with the Splendor of God himself and environ'd with the River of his Pleasures Certainly the thought of Death alone must change the whole Face of things in those who have any Sense left or retain any Strength and Liberty of Mind But that unavoidable Alternative of two Eternities so opposite to each other which succeed our latest Moments must needs break all the Designs and blot out all the Ideas which our Passions represent to us at least they cannot possibly justify their Extravagancies and Irregularities in these times of Reflection X. If to those Truths which Reason discovers when it is guided by Faith we add that which Reason by it self informs us of the difference between the Soul and the Body and of the Laws of the Union of these two Substances it will not be so difficult to discover the Malignity of the Passions and to despise their flattering Caresses which irresistibly seduce weak Minds For when we reflect seriously on the movement and working of our Machine we sometimes choose rather to govern the Springs of it our selves than to be carried along with its Motions and when we are fully convinc'd that all the Splendor and all the Charms of sensible Objects depend only on the manner in which the Fermentation of the Blood and other Humours represent them to us the desire which we have of being solidly happy carries our Thoughts another way and sometimes makes us loath and abhor those vain Objects vain and contemptible without doubt as well because the Splendor of them vanishes when the Fermentation abates or when the Circulation of the Blood supplies the Brain with Spirits of a different Quality as for a great many other Reasons which need not here be alledg'd they pass away and that is sufficient But they pass away in such a manner that they draw along with them those that fasten themselves to them and destroy them for ever XI Let every one then examine his predominant Passion by the Principles of the true Philosophy and those Truths which Faith teaches him of which he ought to satisfy himself by a good use of Grace and Liberty for nothing is more reasonable than Religion tho' we stand in need os some help to make us throughly comprehend it and submit our selves to it let every one I say examine by the Light of Reason and of Faith the Passion which holds him in Captivity and he will find in himself some desire at least to be deliver'd from its Tyranny The Enchantmens which bewitch'd him will vanish by degrees he will be asham'd of himself for being so easily seduc'd and if the Fermentation of the Blood and Humours ceases for a little while and the animal Spirits change their Course he will find himself so displeas'd with the Object of his Inclinations that he will not be able so much as to endure the Presence of it XII But notwithstanding this we must not cease to watch over our selves to distrust our own Strength and to meditate on those Subjects which render out Passions ridiculous and contemptible for we must not imagine our selves at liberty because we are not actually ill us'd by them Our Imagination remains a long time polluted by the impression of
naturally Habits are got and maintain'd by Acts But we cannot frame a resolution of Sacrificing our predominant Passion without a lively Faith and a firm Hope especially when this Passion appears with all its Charms and Allurements And therefore since it is Light and Understanding which illuminates Faith strengthens Hope and discovers to the Mind the ridiculousness and deformity of the Passions we should continually meditate on the true Goods and seek and carefully lay up in our Memory the Motives which may induce us to love them and to despise transient Enjoyments and that with so much the greater diligence because the Light is subject to our Wills and if we live in Darkness it is most commonly our own fault I think I have sufficiently prov'd these Truths II. But when our Faith is not lively nor our Hope strong enough to make us resolve to Sacrifice a Passion which hath got such a Dominion over our Heart that it corrupts our Mind every Moment and draws it to its Party the only thing we ought to do and perhaps the only thing we can do in this Case is to seek for that in the fear of Hell and the just Indignation of an avenging God which we cannot find in the hope of an eternal Happiness and in the Motion which that Fear excites in us to pray to the Saviour of Sinners that he would encrease our Faith and Confidence in him not ceasing in the mean time to meditate on the Truths of Religion and Morality and on the Vanity of transitory Enjoyments for without this we cannot be sensible of our Miseries nor call upon our Deliverer Now when we find in our selves stâ—â—ngth enough to form an actual resolution of Sacrificing our Passions to the Love of Order then tho' according to the Principles which I have laid down in the foregoing Chapters we may through the assistance of Grace by repeating the like Acts absolutely acquire Charity or the habitual and ruling Love of the immutable Order yet it is better without delay to come to the Sacraments and in that actual Motion which the Holy Ghost inspires in us to wash away our Sins by Penance This is undoubtedly the most compendious and certain way to change the Act into a Habit the Act I say which is transient and doth not work Conversion into a Habit which remains and which justifies For God doth not Judge us according to that which is actual and transitory but according to habitual and permanent Dispositions and by the Sacraments of the New Testament we receive justifying Charity which gives us a Right to the true Goods and the assistances necessary for the obtaining of them These Truths I shall here explain either by certain Principles or by Evidence or by Faith III. I think I have shewn in several places and by several ways That God always executes his Designs by general Laws the Efficacy of which is determin'd by the action of occasional Causes I have prov'd this Truth by the Effects of those second Causes which are known to us and I think I have demonstrated it from the Idea of God himself because his Action ought to bear the Character of his Attributes And therefore I refer the Reader for this Matter to my other Writings But if Reason could not lead us to this Truth yet the Holy Scripture would not suffer us to doubt of it in relation to the Subject which I now treat of For the Scripture teaches us that Jesus Christ as Man is not only the meritorious but also the distributive or occasional Cause of all Graces that by his Sacrifice of himself he hath gain'd a Right over all the Nations of the World to make use of them as Materials in building the Spiritual Temple of the Church of which the stately Temple of Solomon was but a Shadow and a Figure and that now and ever since the day of his Ascension he makes use of that Right and raises that eternal Temple to the glory of his Father by the Power which he receiv'd from him in the day of his Victories when he was made High Priest of the true Goods after the irrevocable Order of Melchisedech Eph. 4.15 16. Christ is the Head of the Church he continually infuses into the Members of which it is compos'd 1 Joh. 2.1 1 Tâ—m 2.5 Eph. 5.23 Heb. 7.25 Joh. 11.42 Mat. 28.18 Joh. 13.5 the Spirit which gives it Life and Holiness He is the Advocate the Mediator the Saviour of Sinners He is in the Holy of Holies always Living to make intercession for us and all his Prayers and Desires are heard In a word he himself tells us That all Power was given to him in Heaven and in Earth Now he did not receive this Power as God equal to the Father but as Man like unto us and God communicates his Power to the Creatures no farther than as he executes their Wills and by them his own Designs for God alone is the true Cause of every thing that is done both in Nature and Grace Thus it is certain from the Scripture that Jesus Christ as Man is the occasional cavse which determines the efficacy of that general Law whereby God would Save all Men in and by his Son IV. It is necessary that we should be well convinc'd of this Truth which is essential to Religion by reading the New Testament and particularly the Epistle to the Hebrews And having as I think sufficiently prov'd it in my Treatise of Nature and Grace and in my Christian Meditations I shall not insist any longer upon it I write for Philosophers but they are Christian Philosophers such as receive the Scripture and the infallible Tradition of the Universal Church and I endeavour to explain the Truths of Faith by clear and unequivocal Terms This makes me say that Jesus Christ as Man and High Priest of the true Goods is the occasional cause of Grace I might have call'd him the natural instrumental second distributive Cause or have made use of some other more common Term But the commonest Terms are not always the clearest Tho' People fancy they understand them perfectly yet commonly they scarce know what they say when they use them and if they would take the pains to examine these which I have mention'd they would find that the Term of natural Cause raises a false Idea that that of instrumental is obscure that of second so general that it gives no distinct Idea to the Mind and that of distributive at least equivocal and confus'd Whereas this which I have made use of the occasional cause of Grace hath I think none of these defects at least as to those Persons for whom alone I writ the Treatise of Nature and Grace tho' many others have taken upon them to judge of it who scarce understand the Principles which I have there laid down For this Term denotes precisely that God who doth every thing as the true cause which I think I have prov'd in several places imparts his
Motive which regulates the Heart but the love of Order Every Motive is grounded on Self-love on that invincible desire of being happy which God continually inspires into us in a Word on our own Will for we cannot Love but by our Will And a Man that burn'd with a desire of enjoying the presence of God to contemplate his Perfections and have a share in the felicity of the Saints would still deserve the punishment of Hell if he had a disorder'd Heart and refus'd to sacrifice his predominant Passion to Order As on the contrary one that was indifferent as to eternal Happiness if that were possible but in all other things was full of Charity or the love of Order in which Charity is comprehended or of the love of God above all other things he I say would be a just Man and solidly Vertuous for as I have already prov'd at large true Vertue or a conformity to the Will of God consists wholly in an habitual and ruling Love of the eternal and divine Law the immutable Order XV. A Man ought to love God not only more than this present Life but also more than his own Being Order requires it But he cannot be excited to this love any other way than by the natural and invincible love which he hath for Happiness He cannot love but by the love of Good or his own Will Now he cannot find his Happiness in himself He can find it only in God because there is nothing but God alone capable of acting on him and making him happy Again it is better not to be than to be Miserable It is better then not to be than to be out of favour with God Therefore we ought to love God more than our selves and pay him an exact Obedience There is a difference between the Motives and the End We are excited by the Motives to act for the End It is the greatest Crime imaginable to place our End in our selves We should do every thing for God All our Actions should be refer'd to him from whom alone we have the power to do them Otherwise we violate Order we offend God and are guilty of Injustice This is undeniable But we should seek for the motives which may make us love Order in that invincible Love which God hath given us for Happiness For since God is Just we cannot be happy if we are not obedient to Order It matters not whether those Motives be of Fear or of Hope if they do but animate and support us The most lively the most strong solid and durable are the best XVI There are some People that make a Thousand extravagant Suppositions who for want of a true Idea of God suppose for instance that he hath design'd to make them eternally Miserable And in this Supposition they think themselves oblig'd to love this Chimera of their own Imagination above all Things This perplexes them extremely For indeed how is it possible to love God when they deprive themselves of all the rational Motives of loving him or rather when instead of him they represent to themselves a terrible Idol with nothing in it capable of being Lov'd God would have us Love him such as he is and not such as it is impossible for him to be We must love an infinitely perfect Being and not a dreadful Phantom an unjust God a God powerful indeed absolute and supreme such as Men wish to be but without Wisdom or Goodness Qualities which they do not much esteem For the ground of these extravagant Fancies which frighten those that form them is that they judge of God by the inward sense which they have of themselves and without considering imagine that God may form such Designs as they find themselves capable of forming But they have no Reason to fear if there were such a God as they Fancy the true God who is jealous of his Honour would forbid us to adore and love him They should endeavour to satisfy themselves that perhaps there is more danger of offending God in giving him so horrible a form than in despising that Phantom of their own We should continually seek for those Motives which may preserve and encrease in us the love of God such as are the Threatnings and Promises which relate to the immutable Order Motives proper for Creatures who invincibly desire to be happy and of which the Scripture also is full and not destroy those reasonable Motives and render the Fountain of all Good odious For the reason why the Devils cannot love God is because they have now through their own fault no motive to Love-him It is decreed and they know it that God will never be good in respect of them For since it is impossible to love any thing but Good or that which is capable of giving Happiness they have no motive to love God but they have to hate him with all their power as the true but most just cause of the Miseries which they suffer They cannot love God and yet they are oblig'd to love him because Order requires it Order I say which is the inviolable Law of all intelligent Beings in what state soever they be Happy or Miserable Therefore since they deserve that which they suffer they are in a state of disorder and will be incorrigible in their Wickedness to all eternity What I have said of this matter is only to shew that nothing can be Evil nor ought to be rejected which may make us love God have recourse to Jesus Christ and live according to Order If I am deceiv'd I desire to be better inform'd for this is a matter of great consequence CHAP. IX The Church in its Prayers Addresses its self to the Father by the Son and why We should Pray to the Blessed Virgin Angels and Saints but not as occasional causes of inward Grace The Angels and even the Devils have power over Bodies as occasional causes By this means the Devils may tempt us and the Angels promote the efficacy of Grace I. JESUS CHRIST consider'd in his humane Nature being alone the true Propitiatory or the occasional cause of Grace as I have shewn in the former Chapter it is evident that we must apply our selves to him alone for the obtaining of it Nevertheless we may call upon God nay we must Worship or call upon none but him as the true cause of our Good We may Pray to the Blessed Virgin to Angels and Saints not as true causes nor as occasional or distributive causes of Grace but as Friends of God or intercessors with Jesus Christ We may also Pray to the Angels as our protectors against the Devil or as occasional causes of certain effects which may dispose us to receive inward Grace profitably But I must explain those Truths more at large for they are of the greatest Importance for regulating our Prayers our Worship and all our Duties II. The Church being guided by the Spirit of Truth generally addresses her Prayers to the Father by the Son and when she
Body a simple general uniform and constant Method furnish us with various ways of Sanctifying our selves and Meriting the true Goods I have explain'd these Truths elsewhere but it is necessary to remember them here VI. This kind of Union of the Soul with God which hath no Relation to the Creatures is look'd upon by many People as a groundless Imagination For the Operation of God not being sensible we think we answer and reprove our selves when it is the universal Reason which answers and reproves us in the most secret part of our selves It is certain that he who knows not what Truth and Order is knows not this Union tho' perhaps it may act in him as he who doth not love Truth nor obey Order breaks the Union tho' perhaps he knows it VII But as for that kind of Union of the Soul with God which relates to the Creatures we believe it real but we have a wrong Notion of it For we imagine that we receive from the Objects that which comes from God alone The Cause of this Mistake is the same with that of the former The Divine Operation not being visible we attribute to the Objects which strike our Senses all that we feel in their Presence tho' they are no otherwise present to the Soul than as God who is more present to us than we are to our selves represents them to us in his own Substance which is the only intellectual Substance the only Substance capable of acting on us and of producing in us all those Sensations which render intellectual Ideas sensible and make us judge confusedly not only that there are Bodies but also that they are those Bodies which operate on us and make us happy which is the most general Cause of all our Miscarriages VIII We would always be happy and never miserable Actual Pleasure causes actual Happiness and Pain Misery Now we feel Pleasure and Pain in the presence of corporeal Objects and believe those Objects to be the true Causes of them So that there is a necessity almost that we should fear and love them Nay tho' we are convinc'd by Metaphysical and certain Demonstrations that God alone is the true Cause yet this doth not give us Strength enough to slight and disregard them when we actually enjoy them For the judgments of the Senses work more powerfully on us than the most solid Reasons because it is not Light so much as Pleasure which stirs the Soul and puts it in Motion IX So then it is evident that to preserve a ruling Love of the immutable Order we must on the one hand use all our endeavours to strengthen this kind of Union of the Soul with God which hath no Relation to sensible Objects and on the other we must slacken as much as we can that kind of Union which relates to Bodies Substances inferiour to ours which are so far from being able to make us perfect that they have no power to act on us nor corrupt us but only because the Sin of our first Parent hath brought in Concupiscence which consists wholly in the Loss we have sustain'd of the power to stop or suspend the Laws of the Communication of those Motions by which the Bodies that are about us act on that Body which we animate and by that on our Mind in consequence of the Laws of the Union of the Soul and Body X. Christian Meditat 13 14 c. I think I have sufficiently prov'd already at least as to some Persons that since all the Motions of the Soul depend on Light and Sense to excite in us that Motion which carries us toward God and keeps us united to him it is necessary that we should continually exercise our selves in the Labour of Attention the occasional Cause of Light and frequently call upon Jesus Christ the occasional Cause of the Grace of Sense I shall now examine the Means whereby we may diminish the Union that is between Us and the Creatures and hinder them from having any share with God in our Mind and Heart For we are so plac'd between God and corporeal Objects that we cannot move toward them without departing from God and the breaking off our Correspondence with them is sufficient to unite us to God through the continual influence which Christ sheds on his Members XI That which I shall say of this matter is not so necessary for those that have read and consider'd the Principles which I have laid down in the Search of Truth And if all Men were capable of so much Reason as to think methodically or at least had so much Justice as to believe that an Author hath thought of the Subject he treats of more than they I should not be oblig'd to repeat in general what I have already said or prov'd in other places and in various manners No body reads Apollonius or Archimedes that hath not learnt Euclid because he can understand nothing of Conical Sections without knowing the common Elements of Geometry and in Geometrical matters when a Man doth not understand a thing he knows he doth not understand it But in matters of Morality or Religion every one I know not why thinks himself sufficiently capable of comprehending whatever he reads So that everyone takes upon him to judge without considering that Morality for instance I mean Morality demonstrated or explain'd by Principles is to the Knowledge of Man what the Science of curve Lines is to that of strait Lines XII Wherefore I think it requisite in this place to suppose certain Principles which I have prov'd elsewhere and which are necessary for the sequel of this Discourse This will perhaps illustrate many Things which I have said and which I very much fear have not well been understood but these suppositions are not design'd for those who have consider'd the Principles which I have elsewhere explain'd or fully comprehend what I have said hitherto They may go on to the next Chapter and save themselves a needless Labour XIII First then I take it for granted that to have a right Notion of the Union of the Soul and Body we must not confound the Ideas of these two Substances as most do who join them together by extending the Soul to all the parts of the Body and attribute to the Body all the Sensations which belong to the Soul The Union of the Soul and Body consists in the mutual and reciprocal Action of these two Beings in consequence of the Operations of the Divine Will which alone can change the modifications of Substances The Soul thinks and is not exended The Body is extended and doth not think Therefore the Soul cannot be united to the Body by Extension but only by Thinking nor the Body to the Soul by Sensation but only by Situation and local Motion The Body is wounded but the Soul feels it The Soul fears an Evil and the Body flies from it The Soul would move the Arm the Arm immediately moves it self and the Soul sees and feels
For the fuller the Brain is of Spirits the more rebellious the Imagination is the Passions are the more violent the Body speaks in a higher Tone which never speaks but in favour of the Body to unite and subject the Soul to the Body and to separate it from him who alone is able to give it that perfection it is capable of We should therefore endeavour to silence our own Imagination and be upon our guard against those that please and excite it We should as much as is possible avoid the Conversation of the World For when the Lust either of Pride or Pleasure is actually provok'd Grace cannot operate in us with its full efficacy XXII Man is subject to Two sorts of Concupiscence one of Pleasure and the other of Grandeur This is a thing not sufficiently taken notice of When a Man enjoys sensual Pleasures his Imagination is polluted and carnal Concupiscence exerts and fortifies it self In like manner when he goes abroad into the World and seeks to advance himself in it when he procures Friends and gains Reputation the Idea which he hath of himself stretches and grows larger in his Imagination and the concupiscence of Pride gains new and greater Strength There are some impressions in the Brain naturally form'd for maintaining civil Society and advancing a Man 's private Fortune as there are others relating to the preservation of his Life and the propagation of his Species We are united to other Men by a thousand Relations as really as we are to our own Body and every union with the Creatures disunites us from God in the State we are now in because the impressions of the Brain are not subject to our Wills XXIII All Men are well enough convinc'd of the pravity of carnal Concupiscence they have some fear and abhorrence of it and in some measure avoid every thing that may provoke it But there are very few that seriously reflect on the concupiscence of Pride or apprehend the danger of raising and augmenting it Every one rashly throws himself into the Conversation of the World and embarks without fear on that tempestuous Sea as S. Augustine calls it We suffer our selves to be govern'd by the Spirit that reigns in the World we aspire to Greatness and pursue Honour For indeed how is it possible to remain unmov'd in the mid'st of that Torrent of People that surrounds us who insult and domineer over us if they leave us behind them In fine we get a Name but it is such a Name as makes a Man the more a Slave the more Pains he hath taken to deserve it a Name which straitly unites us to the Creatures and separates us from the Creator a Name illustrious in the esteem of Men but a Name of Pride which God will destroy CHAP. XIII Of the Passions What they are Their dangerous effects We must moderate them The conclusion of the first Part. I. THE Senses Imagination and Passions go always in company together We cannot examine and condemn them apart That which I have said of the Senses and Imagination naturally reaches the Passions also So that the Reader may easily judge what I am going to say by what I have already said For I shall only explain a little more at large what I have been already oblig'd to say in part by reason of the close union that is between all the parts of our Being II. By the Passions I do not mean the Senses which produce them nor the Imagination which excites and keeps them up But I mean those notions of the Soul and animal Spirits which are caus'd by the Senses and Imagination and act reciprocally on the cause which produc'd them For all this is nothing but a continual circulation of Sensations and Motions which mutually produce and fortify one another If the Senses produce the Passions the Passions in return by the Motion which they excite in the Body unite the Senses to sensible Objects If the Imagination stirs up the Passions the Passions by a Counter-motion of the Spirits raise the Imagination and each of them is reciprocally supported or produc'd anew by the effect of which it is the Cause so admirable is the oeconomy of Man's Body and the mutual Relation of all the parts which compose it But this matter deserves a fuller Explication in respect of the Consequences which we should draw from it III. The Passions are Motions of the Soul which accompany that of the Spirits and the Blood and produce in the Body by the mechanical Frame and Constitution of it all the dispositions necessary to support and keep up the Cause from whence they arise At the sight of any Object which moves the Soul we will suppose that Object to be some Good the animal Spirits which come from the Brain to the other parts of the Body divide themselves into two Branches or Courses One of these Courses runs or hath a tendency to run to the external parts the Legs and Arms or if they are unserviceable then to the Lungs and Organs of the Voice in order to dispose us and those that are with us to unite us to the Object The other part of the Spirits goes into the Nerves belonging to the Heart Lungs Liver and other Viscera to proportion the Fermentation and Course of the Blood and Humours to the quality of the present Good By this means the Impression which the presence of any Good or the Imagination forms in the Brain and which determines the two Courses of the Spirits is preserv'd and maintain'd by new Spirits with which the latter Course endeavours to supply the Brain by the repeated and violent Shocks wherewith it shakes the Nerves that encompass the Vessels containing the Humours and Blood the Matter of which the Spirits are continually made IV. The Nerves which are distributed into the Limbs being full of Spirits from their origine in the Brain even to their extremities and the Impression of the Object forcibly driving the Spirits into all the parts of the Body to give them a violent and extraordinary Motion or put them into a forc'd Position the Blood must of necessity ascend up to the Head speedily and in great abundance by the Action of the Nerves which surround and compress or dilate the Vessels wherein it is contain'd For if the Brain did not send a sufficient quantity of Spirits into the Members of the Body we could not long preserve the Air Posture and Motion necessary for the acquisition of Good and the avoidance of Evil. Nay we should fall into Swounings and Faintings for this constantly happens when the Brain wants Spirits and when the Communication which it hath by their means with the other parts of the Body is interrupted V. Thus the Body is an admirable Machine compos'd of an infinite number of Pipes and Cisterns which have all innumerable communications with one another The wonderful operation of this Machine depends wholly on the Course of the Spirits which is differently determin'd by the
the Woman for it expresly figures the Union of Chirst with his Church It is an indissoluble Union for God being immutable in his Designs the Marriage of Christ and his Church shall continue for ever it is a natural Union and the two Sexes by their particular constitution in consequences of the admirable Laws of the Union of the Soul and Body have the most violent of all the Passions for each other because the love of Christ to his Church and that of the Church to her Lord her Saviour and her Husband is the greatest love that can be imagin'd as appears from the Canticles For in short the Man and the Woman are made for one another And if we can conceive that God in creating them had not a design to join them together then we may also conceive that the Incarnation of the Word was not necessary and that the principal or the only design of God which is figur'd by the marriage of the Man and the Woman more particularly than by any other thing is not the establishment of his Church in Jesus Christ who is the Basis and Foundation of it in whom also the whole Universe subsists who brings the whole Work of God out of its prophane State and by his quality of Son renders it worthy of the Majesty of the Father III. This Principle sufficiently shews that the mutual Duties of Christ and his Church are the Model of those of Husbands and Wives and that the Marriage of Christians like that of the first Man and Woman being the figure of the marriage of Christ and the Church ought not to differ in any of its consequences or circumstances from the reality which it represents And therefore St. Paul derives from this very Principle the mutual Duties of the Husband and Wife His Words are these IV. Eph. 5.22 Wives submit your selves unto your own Husbands as unto the Lord. For the Husband is the Head of the Wife even as Christ is the Head of the Church and he is the Saviour of the Body Therefore as the Church is subject unto Christ so let the Wives be to their own Husbands in every thing Husbands love your Wives even as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and cleanse it with the washing of Water by the word that he might present it to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish So ought Men to love their Wives as their own Bodies he that loveth his Wife loveth himself For no Man ever yet hated his own Flesh but nourisheth and cherisheth it even as the Lord the Church for we are Members of his Body of his Flesh and of his Bones For this cause shall a Man leave his Father and his Mother and shall be join'd unto his Wife and they two shall be one Flesh This is a great mystery but I speak concerning Christ and the Church Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his Wife even as himself and the Wife see that she reverence her Husband V. From these admirable Words of St. Paul we see that the Duty of a Husband is to maintain his Wife and to supply her abundantly with all things necessary for her subsistence to assist and guide her by his Wisdom and Counsels and to comfort her in her Afflictions and Infirmities in a word to love her as himself and after the example of Christ to expose his life for her defense And that the Wife on her part ought to obey her Husband as her Lord to fear and respect him to seek to please none but him and to govern the Family in subordination to his Authority and with a dependence on his Designs provided they are agreeable or at least not contrary to the designs of God VI. Now the design of God in the institution of Marriage is not only to supply the State with Members to compose the Body of it and to defend and maintain its Honour and Reputation but more especially to furnish Christ with Materials for the external Temple with Members of the Church and perpetual Worshippers of the divine Majesty For married Persons are not only the Figures but also the natural Ministers of Christ and the Church God hath join'd them together not only to express his great design but also to act in it It is true since Sin came into the World they beget Children only for the Devil and by an action altogether brutish and if it were not for Christ our Mediatour it would be a hainous Crime to communicate to a Woman that miserable fertility of bringing forth an Enemy of God to damn a Soul for ever to labour for the Glory of Satan and the establishment of the infernal Babylon But Christ came to remedy the disorders of Sin and it is permitted by the Sacrament of Marriage the Figure of his eternal Alliance to give our Children as I may say to the Devil that Christ may have the glory to snatch them out of his Hands and having wash'd them in his own Blood to make them enter into his Building VII Now the principal Duty of Parents is to educate their Children in such a manner that they may not lose their Baptismal Innocence and Purity Married Persons may live in continence as Adam and Eve did before their Sin Christ doth not want Materials for the building of his Temple How many Nations are there still that are ignorant of the Mystery of our Reconciliation But that Parents by their Ambition their Avarice their disorderly course of Life their ill Example nay by barely neglecting to instruct their Children should deprive them of the possession of the true Goods and make them fall again into the slavery of the Devil in which they were Born and from which they had been once deliver'd this is the greatest Crime that Men are capable of committing VIII A Father may educate his Children so as to be the Honour of his Family the delight of their Country and the support of the State he may leave them the peaceable enjoyment of large Possessions and all possible Splendour Yet still he is a cruel and unnatural Father and the more cruel because he charms their Maladies in such a manner that they will not be sensible of them till they are past remedy He is Impious and Wicked and so much the more because with that which he pulls down from the sacred Temple of the living God he builds up the prophane Babylon He is Senseless and stupid and the more because there cannot be a greater degreee of Folly a more gross Stupidity a more brutish and surious Despair than that of a Father who is regardless of the inevitable alternative of Two very different Eternities which shall succeed our latest Moments who builds for himself and his Family on the Brow of a Precipice expos'd to Storms and Tempests and just ready to bury for ever the
The Mind clearly sees all this And what then must our Self-love enlightned our invincible and insatiable desire of Happiness conclude from hence but that if we would be solidly happy we must submit our selves entirely to the divine Law This is evident in the highest degree V. Our Self-love then is the motive which being assisted by Grace unites us to God as our Good or the cause of our Happiness and subjects us to Reason as our Law or the model of our Perfection But we must not make the motive our End or our Law We must truly and sincerely love Order and unite our selves to God by Reason We must prefer the divine Law before all things Because we cannot slight it and cease to conform our selves to it without losing the liberty of access to God which we enjoy by it We must not desire that Order should accommodate it self to our Will It is impossible to be done for Order is immutable and necessary We must not wish that God would not punish our Iniquities God is a Judge that cannot be corrupted These desires corrupt us These foolish and insignificant Wishes are injurious to the Purity the Justice and Immutability of God they strike at the essential Attributes of the divine Nature We should abhor our own Corruptions and fashion all the motions of our Heart by Order We should revenge on our selves the injuries done to the honour of Order or at least we should humbly submit to the divine Vengeance For he who wishes that God would not punish Theft or Drunkenness doth not love God and tho' the strength of his Self-love enlightned may keep him from Stealing or Drinking yet he is not Righteous He makes that the end which should be only the motive of his desires He must call upon the Saviour of Sinners who alone can change his Heart But he that had rather there should be no God than such an one as delights to make eternally miserable even those that truly love Order and Reason is a just Man For that chimerical Deity that unjust and cruel God is not amiable Grace it self doth not destroy Self-love but only regulates it and makes it subject to the divine Law It makes us love the true God and despise that Irregularity and Injustice which a disturb'd Imagination may attribute to the divine Nature VI. From what hath been said it is evident First that we must enlighten our Self-love to the end it may excite us to Vertue Secondly that we must never follow the motion of Self-love only Thirdly that in obeying Order inviolably we labour effectually for the contentment of our Self-love In a word since God alone is the cause of our Pleasure we ought to submit our selves to his Law and labour for our Perfection leaving it to his Justice and Goodness to proportion our Happiness to our Merits and to those of Christ in whom ours deserve an infinite Reward VII I have explain'd in the first Part of this Treatise the most material things that are necessary to make us labour for our Perfection or to acquire and preserve an habitual and ruling Love of the immutable Order in which our Duties toward our selves consist They are these in general VIII We should accustom our selves to the labour of Attention and thereby procure some strength of Mind We should never assent but to evidence and so preserve the liberty of our Mind We should continually study Mankind in general and our selves in particular that we may gain a perfect knowledge of our selves We should meditate Night and Day on the divine Law that we may obey it exactly We should compare our selves with Order to humble and despise our selves We should reflect on the divine Justice to fear it and awaken our selves We should think upon our Mediator to call upon him and comfort our selves We should look upon Christ as our Model love him as our Saviour and follow him as our Strength our Wisdom and the Fountain of our eternal Happiness The World seduces us by our Senses It troubles our Mind by our Imagination it carries us away and plunges us in the depth of Misery by our Passions We should break off the dangerous correspondence which we hold with it by our Body if we would strengthen the union which we have with God by Reason For these two unions of the Soul with God and with the Body are incompatible We cannot unite our selves perfectly to God without abandoning the interests of the Body without despising sacrificing and destroying it IX Notwithstanding we are not allow'd to procure our own Death nor to ruin our Health For our Body is not our own It belongs to God to our Country our Family and our Friends We must keep up its strength and vigour according to the use we are oblig'd to make of it But we must not preserve it contrary to the command of God and to the prejudice of other Men. We must expose it for the publick good and not fear to weaken ruin and destroy it in executing the commands of God And so likewise for our Honour and our Fortunes Every thing we have belongs to God and our Neighbour and must be preserv'd employ'd and sacrific'd to the honour of the divine Law the immutable and necessary Order and with a dependence on it I shall not enter into the particulars of this matter for my design was only to lay down those general Principles by which every Man is oblig'd to govern his Life and Actions if he would arive happily at the true and certain place of Rest and Pleasure FINIS BOOKS sold by James Knapton at the Crown in St. Paul 's Church-yard A New Voyage round the World Describing particularly the Isthmus of America several Coasts and Islands in the West-Indies the Isles of Cape Verd the Passage by Terra del Fuego the South-Sea Coasts of Chili Peru and Mexico the Isle of Guam one of the Ladrones Mindanao and other Philippine and East-India Islands near Cambodia China Formosa Luconia Celebes c. New-Holland Sumatra Nicobar Isles the Câ—pe of Good Hope and Santa Hellena Their Soil Rivers Harbours Plants Fruits Animals and Inhabitants Their Customs Religion Government Trade c. By William Dampier Illustrated with particular Maps and Draughts The Third Edition Corrected Capt. Dampier's Voyages Vol. II. in Three Parts First the Supplement of his Voyage round the World being that part that relates to Tonquin Acâ—in Malacca and other Places in the East-Indies Second his Voyage to the Bay of Campeacâ—y in the West-Indies Third his Observations about the Winds and Weather in all parts of the Ocean between the Tropicks with a General Index to both Volumes Octavo Illustrated with particular Maps A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America giving an Account of the Author's abode there the Form and Make of the Country the Coasts Hills Rivers c. Woods Soil Weather c. Trees Fruit Beasts Birds Fish c. The Indian Inhabitants their Features
also in the Creatures Order or the Law of God is common to all spiritual Beings The Power of God is common to all Causes Therefore we cannot dispense with our Obedience to that Law because we cannot act but by the efficacy of that Power 10. We may nevertheless desire to be happy nay we cannot desire to be miserable But we must neither desire nor do any thing to make us happy but what Order allows of We shall never find Happiness if we seek it by the Power of God contrary to his Law It is an abuse of Power to use it against the Will of him that communicates it The voluptuous Man who desires to be happy in this World shall be so perhaps in part in consequence of the Laws of Nature But he shall be eternally miserable in the other in consequence of the immutable Order of Justice or by the necessity of the divine Law which requires that every abuse of divine Things should be eternally punish'd by the divine Power For we should take good notice that nothing is more holy more sacred and more divine than Power And he that attributes it to himself he that makes it subservient to his Pleasures his Pride or his own particular Desires commits a Crime the enormity of which God alone knows and can punish 11. It is an abominable piece of Injustice in any Man to be proud of his Nobility Dignity Quality Learning Riches or any other thing He that glorieth 2 Cor. 10.17 let him glory in the Lord and refer all things to him for there is no Greatness nor Power but in God A Man may set some value on himself and prefer himself before his Horse He may and ought to esteem other Men and all the Creatures God hath really imparted to them his Being But to speak properly and exactly he hath not imparted to them his Power and Glory God doth every thing that we think we do our selves He alone deserves all the Honour which is given to his Creatures He alone deserves all the motions of our Souls So that he who would be belov'd honour'd and fear'd by other Men would put himself in the place of the Almighty and share with him the Duties which belong to Power 12. In like manner he that fears loves and honours the Creatures as real Powers commits a kind of Idolatry and his Crime becomes very hainous when his fear or love runs to that excess that they rule in his Heart above the fear and love of God When he is less dispos'd to employ himself about the Creator than about the Creatures by a disposition acquir'd by his own choice or by free and voluntary Acts he is an abomination in the sight of God 13. All the time that we lose or do not employ for God who is the sole cause of the duration of our Being is a Robbery or rather a kind of Sacrilege For since God acts for his own Glory and not for our Pleasure we do then as much as in us lies render his Action unserviceable to his Designs 14. In general every Gift that God bestows on us which we render useless in relation to his Glory is a Robbery and God by the necessity of his Law will call us to an account for it 15. Lastly the Power by which God Creates us and all our Faculties every Moment gives him an unquestionable Right over all that we are and over all that belongs to us which certainly belongs to us no otherwise than that we may return it to God with all possible fidelity and thankfulness and by the Gifts of God merit the possession of God himself through Jesus Christ our Lord and Head who takes us out of our prophane state to sanctify us and make us fit to honour God worthy to enter as his adopted Children into the communion of good Things with the Father and the Son in the Unity of the Holy Spirit to all eternity CHAP. III. Of the Duties we owe to the Wisdom of God It is that alone which enlightens the Mind in consequence of certain natural Laws whose efficacy is determin'd by our Desires as occasional Causes The Judgments and Duties of the Mind in relation to the universal Reason I. HAving discover'd the principal Duties which we owe to the Power of God we must next examine those which we owe to his Wisdom which tho' less known are no less due Every Creature depends essentially on the Creator Every spiritual Being is also essentially united to Reason No Creature can act by its own Strength And no spiritual Being can be illuminated by its own Light For all our clear Ideas come from the universal Reason in which they are contain'd as all our Strength proceeds wholly from the efficacy of the general cause which alone hath Power He that fancies himself to be his own Light and his own Reason is no less deceiv'd than he that thinks he really possesses Power And he that gives thanks to his Benefactor for the Fruits of the Earth which serve only to Feed the Body is very ungrateful very proud or at least very stupid if he refuse to acknowledge himself indebted to God for the true and solid Goods the knowledge of Truth which is the Food of the Soul II. The Soul of Man hath two essential Relations It is united to the universal Reason and by that it hath or may have a correspondence with all intelligent Beings even with God himself It is united to a Body and by that it hath or may have a communication with all sensible Objects The Power of God is the sole efficacious Principle or the bond of these two Unions But impotent and stupid Man imagines that it is by the efficacy of his own Will that he is Wise and Powerful that he unites himself to the intellectual World whose Relations he contemplates and to the visible World whose Beauties he admires III. It is God alone who in consequence of the Laws of the union of the Soul and Body causes in Man all those bodily Motions which carry him to or remove him from sensible Objects But the occasional cause of these Motions being only the different desires of his Will he attributes to himself the Power of doing that which God alone operates in him nay the very endeavour which accompanies his Desires that painful endeavour which is a certain mark of impotence and dependance an endeavour often fruitless and ineffectual an endeavour which God puts into him to beat down his Pride and make him deserve his Gifts this sensible and confus'd endeavour I say persuades him that he hath Strength and Efficacy He feels within himself a Will to move his Arm but doth not see nor feel the divine Operation in him and therefore the more exact and punctual God is in answering his Desires the more disingenuous Man is in not acknowledging the favour and goodness of God IV. In like manner it is God alone who in consequence of the natural Laws of the