thereof And He is at the same time the Light and the Life of all Spirits as He Acts perpetually in Us and doth not less Animate the little World which is the Assembly of the Body and Spirit whereof Man consists than the Universal World which is the Assembly of all Corporeal Natures Thereby doth subsist our dependence upon Him in all the Acts of our Life as well as in the Foundation of our Being which depends every moment upon the continuation of that Action by which he at first Created us Happy it is that the Notion which we have made of the manner whereby we know all things which are without us should lead us back and unite us so intimately to the Source of our Being and that we cannot know how our Knowledges and Sentiments are form'd in us without knowing likewise together with the dependence that all our Life and all our Being hath from Him the Immensity the Excellency and the Superiority of his infinite Essence above all created Beings The blind and ignorant Pride of Humane Understanding will not perhaps suffer in some People that we should humble it after this manner and that we should thus bring it back again to God It will revolt it may be against the Evidence of the things which I have been speaking of and it will perhaps chuse much rather not to comprehend at all how the Corporeal Impressions of Objects become in our Souls Spiritual Images and Sensations than to comprehend it after a manner which gives it so lively an Idea of its Dependence and its Nothingness But we must not suffer it peaceably and quietly to enjoy the Pleasure of its affected Ignorance of its criminal Independency we must convince it not only that there is no other means of Explaining the manner how we have by reason of Corporeal Impressions the Idea's and Sentiments of things but we must also necessarily make it acknowledge That this perpetual Action of the Illumination and Irradiation of God in us as an Essential Act of his Supream Sovereignty over us is the inseparable Character of our Essential Dependence and the necessary continuance of the Function by which he unites the Souls to Bodies so as Faith teaches it CHAP. VII A Proof of what hath been decided That it is God as Author of the Union of the Soul and Body who gives to the Soul the Sentiments and Idea's of things from the occasion of Corporeal Impressions which are made upon the Material Senses THIS continual Action of God in us whereby he Acts perpetually in us in the Quality of the First and Universal Cause Enlightning us and affecting us with several Sentiments by reason of divers Impressions which are made either by a Cause from within or by a Motion from without in our Brain ought necessarily to be acknowledg'd by two or three sorts of Proofs and different Reasons equally convincing The first Proof by the Essential Union of our Souls with God First of all We have the indubitable Sentiment and Experience thereof For if we rereflect well upon our own Sentiment we shall find equally two Unions in us an Union of our Bodies with all the visible World and an Union of our Souls with a Nature Knowing Immense Infinite and Unchangeable which with an Eye always vigilant and always attentive to all the Movements of our Brains penetrates us continually with a thousand lively Sentiments and enlightens us with a thousand Idea's upon their Occasion Our Bodies are undoubtedly united to all other Bodies and by consequence to all the visible World Because there is not one single Motion made about them which doth not come to them through some one of their Parts or through some one of the Organs which the provident Wisdom of the Creator hath disposed so diversly to receive their different Motions If the Sun or any other Luminous Body be mov'd in the middle of that imperceptible Matter which it drives in straight Lines from all sides our Eyes receive in the instant and in the moment the Impression of it by the necessary Effect of the continuation of Motion or of the effort of Motion which is imprinted in that Matter because they find themselves so dispos'd to let it pass thro' the different Humors whereof they are compos'd and to receive it in that thin and subtil Web which is form'd in the bottom of our Eyes about the Extremities of the Optick Nerves and which is call'd the Retina If there be a Shock of two solid Bodies in the Air or any vehement Fomentation of Exhalation as it happens in Thunder from whence arise redoubled Trepidations in this fluid Matter like to those Circles which are describ'd upon the Superficies of Water one after the other and one against another this Motion comes to strike in our Bodies that which is called the Tympanum in the Organ of Hearing It is generally in the same manner with all other Bodies some of them are united to our Bodies by the subtile Vapours which they emit from them as are Odours others by an Immediation as they say of the Superficies of their Parts and there is not any one single one of them which doth not Act upon our Bodies after their manner But if our Bodies are so naturally united to all other Bodies by Contiguity which communicates the Motion of one to the other our Souls are yet more sensibly united to a Superior and an over-ruling Nature which imprints on them Idea's and Sentiments as it pleases by General Wills and universal and immutable Laws which it almost never departs from but in those extraordinary Occasions in the which it Acts as a particular Cause and works that which we call a Miracle We cannot be ignorant or insensible of this Empire which the Author and Master the Sovereign and the Lord of Nature Exercises over us for the Reasons which have been already observ'd and which S. Augustin had so well div'd into that he said That a reflective and an attentive Man would much rather doubt of the Union of his Body with the visible World to which it is tied by all its Parts than of that Union of his Soul with God since the Action thereof is never interrupted but it is sensible and visible for we know nothing if we do not know that it Acts in us and that it Rules us either by a lively and an involuntary Sentiment or by the Light wherewith it penetrates us since it is impossible not to acknowledge God in this Principle so Enlightning and so Vigilant of the one Part and on the other so Efficacious and so Commanding who Presides over all our Knowledges and over all our Sentiments and who makes them in us in spite of us with so admirable and so illuminating a Wisdom and so much the better as causing in us undoubtedly all the Pleasure and all the Pain which we resent by the occasion of our Bodies We see plainly that he is the Sovereign Arbiter as well as the
whereby two Spirits may be united we must not here imagine Embracings Penetration Minglings Extensions or Adjustments of Magnitude or of Quantity Wherein the union of a Spirit and a Body may consist It is in that precisely that the Union of two Spirits can consist and it is easie to conceive thereupon the Idea of the Union of a Body and of a Spirit for if we conceive a Mutual and Reciprocal Dependence caused by the Physical Action of a Superior Power between the movements of that Structure of Bone of Flesh and of Nerves which we call Humane Body And between the Thoughts the Sentiments the Wills or desires of a Spirit we conceive this Spirit and this Body united and as making no more than one single VVhole and one single Person Whatsoever other Things we may fancy to our selves we can never thereby at all conceive a Spirit united to a Body but in the moment that we have conceived that Thing only we have conceived them United For what is it to be United but to be One but to become one and the same Whole And who sees not that all This Results from the Mutual Dependence of the Operations of a Soul and of the Motions of the Body Let Us not then go about to make impossible Efforts of Imagination for to conceive the Union of the Soul with the Body by a kind of a Co-extension or Local Circumscription of the Soul with the Body by a Kind of Mingling of Penetration of Confusion and Immediation by an adjustment of Figure and Magnitudes c. All this would be well between Body and Body but concerning the Union of a Spiritual Nature with a Corporal Structure of Flesh of Bones of Muscles of Nerves all these material Ideas ought to be removed and banished a great way off God was pleased to do himself honor by this admirable Composition of Spirit and of Body and having found that it was agreeable to his Dignity of Universal Cause to tie together the determination of Ideas by the which he was willing that we should by little and little and successively be Enlightned to the diversity of Impressions which should be made upon our Brain by the divers Objects which should strike upon it and to tie together the Determination of divers Sentiments by the which he was willing that we should be Advertised by way of Instinct of that which should be good or evil to our Body to divers Impressions which should affect it he hath Established this mutual Relation That when these Impressions are received in the Body there is so soon and at the same time by his infinite Efficacy conformable Sentiments and Ideas which are determined in the Soul and on the contrary as often as there is in the Soul Thoughts and Sentiments or Wills that require that the Body should be moved if its Structure be well disposed the Motion is by the same Efficacy of his infinite Power determined in the Body The Creator hath thought fit to conserve thereby the Dignity of the Universal Cause and to unite our Souls to all the Visible World in tying Them to a particular Body by a Physical and Substantial Union Our Souls lose something thereby even very much of their Natural Liberty but they conserve some Character of their Grandeur by the Immensity by which their Union with the Body renders them present to all the Immensity of the Universe since by the contiguity of all Bodies which compose the World without any interruption of vacuity they continually receive a Thousand and a Thousand divers Ideas from all its parts in proportion as they come which they continually do by their Motions or by their Fluxes Either to strike or to affect some one of the Parts of our Body This Decision ought to pass for a Demonstration I will not stay here to prove that it is God the Author of Nature or acting as Universal Cause who makes and who entertains by his continual Action this Mutual Dependence and this Reciprocal Relation Since besides that I have already let you see clearly That it is He alone who can be the immediate and efficient Principle and Cause of the Union of our Souls and of our Bodies because the Body can neither subject the Soul to be united to it nor can the Soul be willing to submit to the Body which humbleth and constraineth it I have moreover proved very evidently That none but God alone can give to the Soul the Sentiments and Ideas which she hath from the occasion of the Impressions which are made upon the Body by other Bodies which environ Us and which Act perpetually upon Us. This continual Action of the Author of Nature who Enlightens Us by the Ideas which we receive upon the occasion of that Impression of exterior Objects and who affectionates Us to the Conservation of the Body by the agreeable or disagreeable Sentiments which he gives Us for to make Us know by way of Instinct that which is profitable or hurtful to the Conservation of our Bodies and of Human Species This Action I say joyned to that by which he Moves our Bodies when our Thoughts and our Wills require it is properly the Action by the which He unites our Bodies to our Souls and our Souls to our Bodies This is the active or actual Union This is what the Schools call the Unitive Action of God which joyned to the immutable Decree and Will by the which he hath determined to continue it so long as the Structure of the Body shall subsist makes in the Soul and in the Body that Estate of Union which we call Passive and formal Union Against them who say that this is to have recourse to a Miracle And you must not come here again to say that it is a manner very easie to explain every thing by a Miracle and to call God to the support of our Ignorance For so far it is from being contrary to Rules to make God the Author of our Union with the Body That this is the first Rule of good Reasoning That we acknowledge the Cause and the Principle in the Effect and to see that God alone can unite two Natures so opposite and disproportionate as are Spirit and Body as he only can Create them Moreover so far it is from having recourse to Miracles That it is on the contrary to reduce the Thing to all Common Laws to say that it is God the Author of Nature the necessary Principle of this Union who that he may conserve this Dignity of Universal Cause establishes in the divers Modifications of a certain Part of the Body the occasional Cause of the Idea's and of the Sentiments of the Soul which is the most Regular manner of Acting The most Natural and most conformable to his ordinary manner of Acting and by consequence the most contrary to Miracle which is not but when God changes his ordinary manner of Acting and departs from his general Will. The Action whereby God preserves the Union
A Discovery of Divine Mysteries OR THE NATURE and EFFICACY OF THE Soul of Man Considered in all its Faculties Operations and Divine Perfections and how it governs in Divine and Secular Affairs of Life In Three Parts I. Of the Preference due to the Soul above the Body by Reason of its Spiritual and Immortal Nature and how it operates on Things in Heaven and Earth II. How the Soul of Man moves and operates in Religious Duties and Moral Actions whether towards God towards our selves or towards Man And of our Duty of Gospel Self-denyal which results from the manner how our Souls operate in our Bodies under the visible Empire of God III. Concerning our Duties of Time and Eternity of the present Life and of the Life to come of the present World and of the World to come which results from the manner how our Souls ought to be out of our Bodies first of all and then in our Spiritualiz'd Bodies after the Universal Resurrection With many other Curious Matters Being a Compleat Body of Divine and Moral Philosophy By C. B. D. D. Fellow of the Royal Society LONDON Printed for Eben Tracy at the Three Bibles on London-Bridge 1700. TO THE READER THO' the World be full of Discourses Treatises and Essays of Morality yet we have believ'd it might not be unnecessary to Expose these New Essays to the Publick View Either because one cannot enough propose to Mankind their Duties or else because the greatest part of those Essays Treatises and Discourses which have appear'd already and of which some have so justly pleas'd the Relish of the Age are if well regarded no more than onely Paintings and Descriptions or at best but Incitements not Convictions and Establishments of Duties For they suppose that the Principles of Religion Morality and Duties are setled and acknowledg'd they presuppose them but they prove them not they persuade them to those who already do believe them but if there be some who do not believe them as there are too too many who doubt thereof or at least who are not sufficiently persuaded of them they do neither persuade nor convince Them in the least We believe that we have Discover'd the precious and inestimable Treasure of an entire Conviction of Religion and Morality in the Incultivated and Neglected Field of the Natural Knowledge of our Souls and the no less precious Treasure of that Knowledge of our Souls in the Attention and Reflection upon every ones Proper and Indubitable Sentiment and we have believ'd that we ought to render the Discovery Publick This is what we have done And tho' in all this Essay which is indeed no other than a meer Essay because it is only an Idea which we rough-draw and an Overture which we make but do not fully accomplish by Vnfolding and Pressing on in a particular and compleat Delineation all our Duties and all their Circumstances there needs nothing more Than that every one should apply his proper Sentiment and the clear Idea's which he finds in Himself by Attention and Reflection upon this Indubitable Sentiment which he hath in Himself Nevertheless because there are few Persons who are accustom'd to Reflect and Reason upon Matters so remote from their Senses and the Carnal Relish of Human Passions which stir up Attention in Reading the greatest part of other Books we foresaw that this Essay might appear too strong to some Spirits who can only digest Matters that are very easie who are not accustom'd to mount up to the Principles of Things who Relie upon the Credit of Authors and who are not at all Curious to see what we propose to them in First Notions and Clear Idea's But besides that we believ'd that an Age so Enlightned as Ours is would require an Instruction as strong and that there are Spirits who would willingly be thus Fundamentally Instructed and that it would be convenient to Impress this Relish upon others to the end that they may be rais'd up to a more Perfect Knowledge of God and themselves We do also hope that the meanest Capacities may here learn how to Know their Souls and by their Souls their Duties S. Paul would have all the Faithful apply themselves to Augment and Encrease Light and Knowledge in themselves And if there be any Knowledge which is useful and necessary to be Encreased and brought to Perfection it is without doubt The Knowledge of our Soul which is the most Essential Science which we have to acquire and the true Science of God and of Salvation as the Divine Apostle speaks since we can Know nothing Fundamentally neither of our Heavenly and Eternal Hope nor of our Present State upon Earth nor of our Essential Relation with the Eternal Nature and Essence from whence proceed all our Duties but in Proportion as the Knowledge of our Soul Encreaseth We see very Exact and very Religious Observers of Duties who oftentimes Know not why they perform them and tho' they do not do amiss in being so yet they would do much better in Being and Knowing why they are so because whatsoever a Man is Knowingly and by the Conviction of Reason he is much more solidly so for himself and much more profitably so for others We have believ'd that we ought to give a Compleat Science and Knowledge of the Soul to the end that all the World might thereby Instruct themselves in their Duties either for a particular Edification or for the Instruction and Edification of others And we are persuaded that all those who will give themselves the pains of Reading with some Attention and of adding to that Reading some little Reflection upon themselves to Remark what we Observe of the Natural and Universal Sentiments of all Mankind which is the perpetual Light of this Treatise will find that we have render'd this Matter otherwise so obscure and difficult of it self most Intelligible and Proportion'd to the Capacity of the whole World THE CONTENTS PART I. OF the Preference due to the Soul above the Body from the Reason of its Spiritual and Immortal Nature Page 1. Chap. 1. The Curiosity which we ought to have how to know our Souls ibid. The Dignity of our Souls 6 The Perception and Certainty which all of us have of our Souls 8 Chap. 2. That our Souls undoubtedly are Spiritual Natures and altogether distinct from Bodies upon the account of their Intelligent Nature 11 Why and how we conceive of God and Angels as Spirits 12 This is the common Doctrin of the Schools 14 Chap. 3. The manner of our conceiving that Knowledge which is in Beasts causes a Confusion which must necessarily be rectified 16 Four different Opinions which make four different Degrees of Knowledge in Beasts 19 Chap. 4. A general Discussion of the Opinion which gives to Beasts a Knowledge like to ours 21 Chap. 5. Whether Beasts have a true Reason like to ours 25 Chap. 6. Whether Beasts have any Reasoning inferior to Reason 33 Chap. 7. Whether Beasts have any sort
the Notion of a Spiritual Nature do conceive well That separated Bodies say they cannot Act Physically upon the Souls but it is not after the same manner with Bodies which are united to them Separated Bodies can do nothing to the Souls say they they cannot determine in the Souls any Sentiment nor any Idea But the Body united to the Soul doth acquire by that Union a near Disposition whereby it is enabled to Act Immediately and Physically upon the Soul and to determine all its Idea's and Modifications which it hath from the occasion of other Bodies which surround it This is the common Fancy of the Schools which indeed is but a most false and a most repugnant Imagination full of Contradiction and Incompatibility for besides that the Union that is betwixt the Body and the Soul is but the Act of the Creator as I shall Explain it hereafter so that Union doth not at all change the Nature or Essence of the Body nor the Nature or Essence of the Soul The Body united to the Soul remains still a Body and the Soul united to the Body retains still its former Being of a Soul and by consequence of a Nature wholly Spiritual to which no Body can be united and upon which no Body can have a Physical Action because Bodies are not united but by a continuity of Parts neither do they Act but by Impelling Dividing or Figuring diversly which cannot be done upon Spiritual Natures who cannot be subject to any of these Corporeal Passions and to whom the Body can never approach by reason of the distance of an infinite Disproportion which keeps them asunder That the Body doth not cause in the Soul either Pleasure or Pain We must banish all those gross Imaginations by which Men conceive that our Bodies Act Immediately and Physically in any manner whatsoever upon our Souls be it for the illuminating them or for the producing in them either Pleasure or Pain That cannot be for two Reasons for the general Reason That Bodies can never be united to Spirits and Act Physically upon them and for a particular Reason That if they could have any Action upon them they could not have one so Superior and so Excellent For to cause Pain or Pleasure or generally any Modification in the Soul by which she is so intimately affected and as it were alter'd and penetrated in her Substance is an Act of Superiority and Dominion This is an Act of a Superior Nature which keeps the Body under it and subjected to it It is clear That the Body cannot at all be Superior to the Soul especially to cause in it either Pleasure or Pain which are not only the Acts of a Superior Nature but the Acts of a Nature Supreme in whom is Essentially this Sovereign Dominion over all created Natures to cause in them either Happiness or Unhappiness and by consequence the Pleasure and the Pain which makes up this Happiness or Unhappiness Moreover Pain and Pleasure and generally every Modification of the Soul is Essentially a Spiritual Act or Passion This is essentially a Vital Act of the Soul which is undoubtedly Spiritual for every Act of the Soul is of the same Nature with the Soul every Act of the Soul being Immanent as the Schoolmen say and by consequence receiv'd within the Soul and it is not possible to conceive that any thing should be receiv'd within the Soul which is not Spiritual Therefore there is nothing more incompatible than to conceive that the Body can produce any thing that is Spiritual I could here make use of the Authority of all the ancient Doctors who have held That God alone can Exercise upon created Spirits that Physical Action by which they are Modifi'd in themselves and by which they receive those Sentiments or Idea's whereof they are not at all Masters which is that which is call'd Agere per illapsum But that that we may better support this Tract rather upon the Experience of our own proper Sentiment and upon the clear Notions and Idea's which we can attain to by Reasoning than upon any Authority we will not if you please have any regard to an Authority so great and so worthy of Deference and Respect Let us say no more of it then but let us see if we can conceive That our Bodies by the Impressions which they receive from without or which come to them from their own proper Spirits and from their own proper Humors can by their Physical Action affect our Souls or determine them to cause to themselves either Pleasure or Pain or the Images which they have of things by reason of Corporeal Impressions Bodies do not only not cause the Sentiments and Idea's in the Soul but they do not so much as determine the Soul Physically to make them This is another vulgar Imagination and Opinion That if the Body doth not cause in Us these Sentiments and these Idea's at least it doth determine the Soul to make them But we ought also to cut off this Imagination and this Idea for many Reasons First of all for the Pleasure and the Pain because besides that it is always impossible to conceive in the Body a Physical Action upon the Soul since a Body cannot Act but by Stirring Dividing Figuring and Removing and that the Soul can neither be Stirr'd Figur'd nor Divided nor Corporeally affected in any manner It is also incompatible to conceive That the Soul can cause to it self and in it self either Pleasure or Pain for that moreover that the one and the other are things which are above it it is certain that Pleasure and Pain are things which we receive and which make in Us this invincible Power of Nature which we have so often taken notice of to be no other than the Author and Master of Nature and to say That the Soul causeth in it self either Pleasure or Pain a Man may as well say That she causeth the Health and Sickness the Beauty or Deformity of the Body That the Souls of themselves do not make the Idea's or Images of Bodies It is after the same manner with the particular Idea's of things which she receives by reason of the divers Modifications and Configurations of the Brain caused by the Impressions of Exterior Bodies as with Pleasure and with Pain for whatsoever Affection we can conceive the Soul to have by the Impression of the Idea receiv'd into the Brain it is impossible to conceive it Imprinted by her self with that lively and animated Image which she hath in her self This living and animated Image which she hath in her self is like a Seal which hath made an Impression upon her She suffers and receives more than she acts and whatever Advertisement is conceived there from the presence of the Object it is impossible to conceive that she should make the Pourtraicture which she hath thereof in her self To tell me that There is the King is nothing at all if I am blind to give me the means of representing
that the natural order and connexion of these Species cannot be observ'd and kept but are confusedly and tumultuously excited and stirr'd up by a tumultuous and irregular agitation of the Organ in which they reside There are divers sorts of Follies there are the Furious and the Peaceable there are the Rejoycing and the Melancholy and there are general ones and particular ones which are fastned to one single Object And all these diversities do proceed from the diverse manner whereby the Brain is disorder'd and it would be easie to Explain them particularly if there was occasion It is sufficiento say that in what manner soever Folly subsists it is the greatest Humiliation of our Nature and that which gives us the best Prospect of the Misery of the Servitude of our Souls in the present Estate of Union with the Body since they lose by Folly the Empire and the Liberty of their Thoughts being forc'd to follow the fantasticalness the perplexity the disorder and the confusion of the irregular Motion of the Brain either too much dry'd and burnt up by Choler and Melancholy or too much overflow'd or too much moistned by Phlegm without being able either to suspend or stop them or to hasten or advance them This lets us see the Limitation even of our Spiritual Nature which is Finite even in the most Divine Perfection that she possesses for this disorder of the loss of the Empire and of the Liberty of Thoughts happens in Man because he doth not possess as God doth an Infinite Liberty that is to say an Infinite Empire but only a Finite Liberty or a Finite Empire over himself For it is this which makes that God as the Universal Cause doth not respect this Liberty of Man but determines in his Soul Thoughts conformable to the Agitations of his Brain which is the Occasional Cause by which he is determin'd in this Quality of Universal Cause to give Thoughts and Idea's to the Soul God concurs with Fools as he doth with Natural Causes for the making of Monsters he follows the Motion of the Brain as a Necessary Cause Raving doth not differ from Folly but by the Intervals which it hath and because it is only an Accident and a transient Symptom of a Fever which too strongly agitates the Brain Frensie is but a violent Raving and both the one and the other let us see that there must be a Superior Power who with an absolute Empire Determines our Thoughts from the Occasion of the Motions of our Brain and Confirms by a sensible Argument all that we have said concerning the Union of our Souls with our Bodies and concerning the continual Action by which we believe that God Determines our Thoughts and our Sentiments from the Occasion of divers Impressions which are made on our Bodies either by External Objects or by the Fermentation of their proper Humors If we reflect seriously upon it we shall see that it is not at all possible to think that the Soul in these States of Folly and Frensie should make in her self her Thoughts We shall be persuaded that she receives them from that Superior Power which unites her to the Body and which Acting as an Universal Cause hath no regard to the incongruity of these Thoughts as it hath no regard to the incongruity of Monsters in the Motions which it gives to the common Matter of the Universe by its inviolable and infallible Laws but makes the Fortune of the Disorder and of the Disranging of the Harmony of the Body to follow and run upon the Soul not ceasing to determine her Thoughts according to the Occasion which that part gives her thereof and that common Center of the Organizanization which it hath establish'd for the occasional Cause of its Essential Concourse or of the Action by which it Enlightens us God Determines the Thoughts in Madmen and in Fools by the immutable Laws which he hath Establish'd in the Union of Bodies with Souls which is To give Idea's upon the Occasion of the Corporeal retracement of Objects which are made in the Brain without having regard either to the Order or to confusion of the Thoughts Visions The Illusions of the Imagination by which Men believe they see by Intervals Things which in effect they do not see are a kind of short and transient Folly and they are made by a deep and lively retracement of some particular Species which so occupie the Organ of the internal Sense that the other Species there remain as it were all of them defaced from whence it happens that the Imagination of it is livelily determined And as this is the effect of lively and strong Imaginations to represent Things absent as if they were just present and as if they actually struck the Senses so it happens from thence that Men do believe they see that which they do not see because they judge that the Image that they have of it is determined by the presence of the Object not minding that it comes from the Imagination only and thus it is that there are a thousand sorts of Illusions and vain and chymerical Visions in certain Spirits which we call feeble or weak tho' indeed they are too strong because that these sorts of Illusions proceed not but from an excessive force of the Imagination the which is a true and real weakness of Reason since the Imagination is never excessively strong but Reason is thereby as much weak because the Power of Reason is to rule over the Imagination to redress to correct it to suspend its Operations and to consider it nearly to see wherein it exceeds The supernatural Visions which come from God are when God as a particular Cause makes a miraculous and supernatural Impression in the Imagination that is to say which doth not at all come from the necessary consequences of the Course of the natural Motion of the Blood of the Humors and of the Spirits and those which come from good and evil Angels are made by the Natural Empire that Angels have over Bodies by vertue whereof they stir up Images in the Brain which determin God as an Universal Cause by the Law of the Union of the Soul with the Body to give Idea's and Thoughts of which the Corporeal Images are the occasional Cause for be it what it will an Angel or a Devil which retrace a certain Object in our Brain God gives us necessarily the Idea of it by that immutable Law of Union which we have often explained which is no other but the confused Idea which Philosophers commonly express by the Term of Concourse which they conceive as the Universal Influence and perpetual and necessary Action of the Creator acting as an Universal Cause and animating by his Intimate Co-operation and by the most efficacious influence of his Life and of his Power the whole Universe reduced to a clear and distinct Idea under the name of the Action by which God makes and entertains the Union of the Souls with Bodies The
us than the perpetual Miracle by which and with which we have seen that God Operates in our Bodies according to the Desires of our Souls I say the Miracle not that that Action by which God transports and moves our Members and our Bodies where we will in the moment that our Souls desire ought to be regarded as a true and proper Miracle since we do not at all call that a Miracle which is made in consequence of the Laws of Nature or the General Will of God But because there is nothing more Divine in all the Miracles that can be than that Regularity whereby the Desires of our Wills are follow'd by the Effective Motion of our Members and of our whole Body at such time as they are not hindred by any Relation or by any Obstruction of the Nerves or by any Dislocation or Fracture of the Bones we may say that this is a perpetual Miracle of Nature which perpetually Preaches to us this Divine Affiance of that Evangelical Faith of which one single Spark like a Grain of Mustard-Seed is able to remove Mountains For as this Eternal Power by the Effect and the Engagement of his General Will by which he makes and entertains the Union of Souls and Bodies applies himself to move and transport our Bodies as we will according to the Laws and the Rules of that Union which he hath resolv'd never to depart from to Act as an Universal Cause as it seems fit to his Greatness and worthy of his Sovereign and Infinite Wisdom So when we unite our selves to him by an entire and perfect Affiance we unite our selves to his Almightiness and we make him sure to do every thing that we expect from him without Doubt and without Uncertainty according to the Sacred Oracles of the Gospel And thus it is that the Saints under the New Law and the Prophets under the Old Law have dispos'd of the Heavenly Almightiness to make it do Wonders and Miracles the Historical Fact of which is the most establish'd and the most incontestable thing in the World almost as we do make use of the Members of our Bodies and the things whereof we have the most free disposition Our Affiance which strictly and intimately unites us by its lively Faith to the Eternal Goodness and Power renders them as it were in some manner united and dependent upon us This Eternal Goodness and this Eternal Power have so great an Inclination to communicate and expand themselves that they only wait for our lively Faith or our Affiance to put themselves into our Hands as it were and to be obedient to our Desires The love of Holy Concupiscence for God But it is above all the Duty of Love whether it be of Complacency and Preference or of Union and Holy Concupiscence which springs and flows sensibly from the Knowledge we have been acquiring of the Sovereign Source of Beauty and of Felicities which that Eternal Essence contains to which we so certainly see that we are able to aspire and to drink eternally of it since at this very hour wherein he doth nothing but make us Combate and keep us in Trial and in Exercise to see if we render our selves worthy of being Rewarded He makes us feel so indubitably the Pleasures and the Delights which he contains and He discovers to us so many Charms and so many Beauties in his Sovereign Nature Brutish Men remove themselves far from God by Pleasure and Pleasure is a Rivulet that flows from that pure and eternal Source by which our Heart ought naturally to mount up again to God The present Pleasure which wholly essentially and immediately comes from God ought to bring us back again to him God doth not give it us but to draw to himself our Hearts to which he hath not given Motion but for Pleasure He hath not given us Love but for Good and Pleasure and he makes us see that the Source of Good and Pleasure is in Him There are some who conceive the Love of Union or of this Holy Concupiscence which I here speak of and whereupon I Establish Duty as a Disorder and Irregularity of Self-love which Reverses the Order of the Essential Relation which all Creatures ought to have to God but this is not rightly to comprehend the Free and Voluntary Relation by which we ought to relate our selves to God We do not only relate our selves to God by the Confession of our Dependence and of His Supereminent Excellence over us by which we do acknowledge that we deserve to be Annihilated by him We do no less relate our selves to him by that which we do from the Source of Pleasure and Happiness which we acknowledge in Him only It is no less agreeable for him to be the Source of Happiness and of Pleasure which is as it were the Accomplishment the Perfection and the Crowning of our Being than to be the Source and the Principle of the Foundation of our Being The Love of Union or of this Sacred Thirst which I call Holy Concupiscence doth no less Honor to God than the Love of the most pure and the most disinteressed Complacency God is not so much God by any other way if we may be permitted to say so than in being the only and essential Source and necessary Principle of Happiness and of Pleasure St. Austin saith That Felicity is in God the Summit of his Divinity because his Infinite Felicity is that which is most Divine and most Eminent in Him and we may say That the Advantage of containing and shutting up in Himself Felicity and Pleasure is if we may be permitted to enhance upon the Expression of St. Augustin the Act and the Summit of that very Summit of his Divinity This Love then of Union and of Holy Concupiscence is not only not Evil and Imperfect but it is positively Infinitely Perfect and the greatest Honor that can be rendred to the Supream Being and all the Motions of our Heart ought to be continual and uninterupted Acts thereof Our Heart and our Will in general is not as hath been said but the Love of Good and of Pleasure And as it is God who is the Good and the Pleasure or at least the Source and the Principle of Pleasure since it is He only that causeth it and since it is in Him and by Him that we ought only to Hope for our Soveraign Pleasure All the Pantings of our Heart and all its Agitations for Pleasure ought to be turned and directed towards Him Our Heart ought continually to regard nothing but Him and to search after nothing but Him All its Motion ought to Center in Him This Torrent or this River ought to have this perpetual Course it ought to Flow in this Channel and it ought not to suffer one single Rill or one drop of its Waters to be lost Its Course and its Motion ought never to stand still or be turned aside or diverted from that bound and Center or go never so little out of
in God as in a Rageing Sea which dashes against them and tosses them and threatens them perpetually with its Storms and Tempests And this is All in my Opinion that we can desire to know upon the Principal Head of that which Regards the State of our Souls out of our Bodies Let us conceive with all my heart That there is above those Heavens which we know a Heaven wholly Enlightned and abounding with Joy and overwhelmed with Pleasures wherein the Holy Souls are involved And let us conceive on the other side a Place replenished with Flames and Darknesses with Horror and all manner of Despair which the Criminal Souls do fall into All this is most True and these Places are most Real and Effective but it is in God in whom the Holy Souls do find this Enlightned Heaven and in whom the Criminal Souls do find these Flames and these Darknesses these Despairs and these Horrors It is God who by an Immediate Union of his Almighty Activity causeth in Them this Light and these Darknesses these Sadnesses and these Joys these Pleasures and these Pains all the Paradice and all the Hell Erit Deus Omnia in Omnibus it is by an Immediate Union of God with Them and They with God that they are in Heaven and in Hell Since it is by this Union that they have this Lively Idea thereof which renders these Places present to them CHAP. VII That which makes the Difference between the Present and Future State of the Soul IT follows from what hath been said That that which makes the Essential Difference of the manner how our Souls are in our Bodies and of the manner how they are out of our Bodies is That when they are in the Body then they have but Successively the Idea's and the Knowledges of Things from the Occasion of different Impressions which come and arrive to the Brain by the Action of other Bodies which are round about Us and that they have not also the Sentiments and the several Movements of the Appetite but from the Occasion of divers Dispositions of Bodies and when they are parted from the Body they receive immediately from God these Idea's and these Sentiments which is requisite for the Disposition of Vice or Vertue which we otherwise call Merit of Demerit in which they find themselves when they are parted from the Body Now the Body by the divers Impressions which it receives from other Bodies or by the divers Dispositions which are raised formed in it by the Ebullition of the Blood by the Course of the Spirits and by the divers Excesses or Fermentations of Humors is the Occasional Cause of all these Idea's and of all the Sentiments of the Soul because that the Supream Being by which it Lives it Perceives Thinks and Wills for to conserve the Dignity and good Order of its Greatness in acting as Universal Cause was pleased to tye the Determination of these Idea's and Sentiments to those Dispositions of the Body which result from the Laws of Motion by which He moves all the Corporeal Nature and by which he composes and conserves the Visible World with an infinite Wisdom which alone was able to produce so many Prodigious Effects with so much Order and so much Harmony from two or three Immutable Laws by which He moves the Matter of the Universe That in this New State of the Soul out of the Body God is not determined to Act in Them but by a necessary and immutable Love of Order and by their Vertuous or Criminal Disposition God doth not Act but as an Universal Cause with our Souls so long as they are in the Body He doth but follow the Law of Motion of the common Matter of the Visible World which diversly affecting our Bodies necessarily determines him by Vertue of his Immutable Decree to give to the Souls those Idea's and those Sentiments which answer the different Impressions wherewith the Body is affected but when the Soul is out of the Body God doth lay aside the Character of Universal Cause as to this purpose He no longer follows in respect of them the Laws of the Motion of the Universe Souls part with the World in parting with the Body They have no longer any Relation with the Body nor by consequence with the Visible World from that very instant that they have no more to do with their particular Bodies So long as they are in the Body they are united to all the Visible World because that their Thoughts and their Sentiments do depend upon the Laws of the Motion which moves all the Matter of the World it being that which gives them an Essential Relation to all the Parts of it because there is not any one of them which may not be an Occasion of the Determination of these Idea's and Sentiments but after Death all that ceases there is a new Order of things there are no more the same Laws God afterwards follows none but the Law of his Eternal and Inflexible Justice to Punish or to Reward the Souls according as they have made themselves deserving It is no more the Motion of the Universe and the particular Disposition of every ones Temperament which results from it which determins the diversity of our Idea's and Sentiments It is only the Pure and Holy Disposition or the Impute and Criminal Disposition of our Souls which determins the Sovereign and Eternal Justice and Equity to give us the Idea's and Sentiments proper to Reward or Punish our Irregular or our Vertuous Disposition God hath no longer Reason to be willing to mannage and conserve the Dignity and Character of Universal Cause He hath no longer Reason to mannage and conserve the Liberty of our Souls The time of our Trial is ended The time of Merit is past There is no more question to see whether they will make themselves worthy that is over They are fixed in an Immutable State That is Eternity There is no more Vicissitudes or Diversifications no more Instability or Changes no more an Alternativeness or a Passage from Evil to Good and from Good to Evil from Vice to Vertue and from Vertue to Vice The Tree lies where it falls And as the State of the Soul is fixed by this State of Immutability which is properly That which we call Eternity so God fixeth himself to Love or to Hate to Punish or to Reward He Acts thenceforwards as a particular Cause because that He immediately takes in the Ground of His Eternal Love of Order the determination of all these Idea's and Sentiments which he gives to our Souls That is all the Light which we can give to our First Curiosity concerning the State of our Souls out of our Body by which we see that they are not properly but in God and that it is He only who is the Cause and Occasion of all their Idea's and Sentiments We must now proceed and endeavour to Know all that belongs to this State by clear and infallible Lights CHAP. VIII How
World I confess it will not be easie to determin what they see of it and what they do not see of it because we have no Principle so well Established thereupon that I know as to make us willing to build a sure Determination upon it We may most probably say That God discovers to Innocent Souls that which regards their Family and their Friends but to say That he sets before their Eyes a Diversified Table of Events Revolutions Intrigues and the Mannagements and Contrivances of Courts and States the Successes of Wars Negotiations and Treaties the vast and ambitious Designs of Great Princes and a peculiar Account of Families and particular Fortunes is a thing which I dare neither affirm nor gain-say for the Scripture gives us sufficiently to understand That there are Angels too amongst whom these Knowledges are partly Communicated or it may be wholly given to them But as to Souls I do not find either in the Scripture or in the clear Notion which we have either of the Soul or of God who enlightens the Soul any thing thereupon which may Establish a solid and an infallible Judgment if it be not that God makes them see something of it which may contribute to the satisfaction of the innocent and pure Souls It is very certain That that which is of certainty therein is That if they do see all these things they undervalue them as much as we esteem them and that all those great Changes and Revolutions which we attribute to Fortune are to their Eyes but what the Play of Children is to ours or to say better The business of Ants or of Bees or that perpetual and impertinent Agitation which we see in those Flies whom a vain and unnecessary Motion drives too and fro in the middle of the Air without any purpose or advantage CHAP. X. That Criminal Souls are in Darkness and see nothing SUCH is the knowledge in Just Souls in Relation to Extension But we ought to have sufficiently comprehended That it ought not to be in the same manner in the Impure and Criminal Souls For that Order which requires that the Just one should be illuminated wills on the contrary that the other should be filled with Darknesses so that instead of that Immensity of Light and Knowledge which the former have this other will have only an Immensity of obscurity of Night and of the horror of Darknesses These will be Darknesses that is to say an obscurity and privation on all sides of Kowledge and of Light Jesus Christ makes use of the Expression of outward Darknesses or Darknesses invironing that is to say which will encompass on every side for it is so I understand these outward Darknesses of which the Divine Redeemer speaks so often They will know and see God after their manner but it will be only his Wrath which they will see by a kind of Intuitive Vision in the manner as it hath been hereupon already Explained They will see the Eternal and Essential Light but that Light will only serve to blind them because it will only leave them the Idea's of his Wrath and of their Sins and of all the Circumstances that possibly may augment their Despair Instead of the Beauteous Spectacle of Nature which the Just shall have Eternally they will never have any but the Idea of that dark and burning place which the Supream Justice hath prepared for their Bodies and if they do know any thing of their Family and of their Friends it is only to augment and redouble the Pain of their Regrets of their Privation and eternal Desolation Ejicite in tenebras exteriores ibi erit fletus stridor dentium The Soul of the Father for Example I speak of the ambitious and covetous Soul which loves nothing but the World and its Vanity for himself and his Family will see in his Children all that can be capable of augmenting his Regret and his Remorse The Soul of a Prince in the same manner unjust and reprobate will see in the State which he hath quitted that which will increase his Pain c. CHAP. XI The Faculties of the Souls of which the Acts will be Exercised out of the Body AFTER having seen the Matter and the extent of the Souls Knowledges out of the Body We must now see what perceptive or Knowing Faculties the Soul will Exercise upon this Matter and upon these Objects We have observ'd in the Soul in its present State of Union with the Body a Faculty of Knowing by Sensation a Faculty of Imagining or of Representing things to us by lively and distinct Images a Faculty of Recollecting our selves by Memory and Reminiscency a Faculty of Conceiving by pure Intellection a Faculty of Reasoning or Extending Knowledge acquir'd thereupon by new Consequences and a Faculty of Separating universal Notions of Things from Particular and Individual Differences to frame thereof general Maxims and Principles whither they be of pure Speculation or Moral and Practical for the Order of Life and Action and for the Perfection of Arts and Sciences How the Souls will have Acts of Sensation without any Exterior Sense or Corporeal Organs The Souls whether they be Just or Reprobate do Exercise all these Faculties for tho' Sensation Imagination and the Memory have at present Corporeal Organs yet we must not say for all that that these Faculties ought no more to Exercise themselves out of the Body The Corporeal Organ doth now serve but for two Purposes To be an Occasion to the Universal Cause of the Knowledge that it ought to give to the Soul from the presence of such or such an Object and To be also an Occasion to it of giving to the Soul diverse and different Idea's according to the diversity of Objects and it is for that Reason that he hath Establish'd a diversity of them All the Parts of the Body cannot be shaken by the Motion of the Air which striking upon our Ears causes that which we call a Report or a Sound The Motion of the Beams of the Sun which in striking upon our Eyes causes a sense of the Light cannot affect any other part than that subtile Web which is in the inward part of the Eye which we call the Retina The exterior Fibres of the Skin which cover the Hand and the whole Superficies of the Body will be sufficiently shaken by the Rencounter of a Thorn of a Needle of the Point of a Sword and of a thousand such like things to the end that the Motion may be carry'd by reason of the continuity of the Fibres and Nerves as far as the Brain but neither Sounds nor Light will ever shake them enough to carry the Impression of them to the Brain When the Ears are well stopt you will to little purpose expose the whole Body to the Harmony of a melodious Symphony which is only the Air melodiously struck for this Air so melodiously struck will find no other part in the Body than the Ear only by which it