to neglect the Business and the Duties of Life and of the Republic but even to hasten on their own Deaths It is not to be questioned here whether this Prudence were not a little too Precautious it is not our business our business is to Remark the Effect which the Notion of a Knowing Nature hath produced to make Men believe That their Souls subsist and live after their Death The Conviction hereof is effectively Lively and Sensible by that alone independently of all the Regards of Religion and it is incredible how much Force and Evidence it receives from all the Foundations and Circumstances of Religion of which this New Life which our Souls ought to have out of our Bodies is as it were the Point in View and the only and perpetual Object All the Old and all the New Testament All the Law and all the Gospel Moses and Jesus Christ The Prophets and the Apostles All the Miracles and all the Mysteries have no other Essential Termination and End than this New and Immortal Life of our Souls after our Death Both the Old and the New Testament under the Names of the New World the Future World the Age to come the Life Everlasting the Heavenly Jerusalem do not speak almost of any thing else And these cannot be Fables and Fictions for if they were nothing else but Fables then this Sovereign Power which hath been manifested to the World with a thousand Characters of Wisdom of Holiness of Truth and of Goodness by that Miraculous Train of Prodigious Events which make what we call the Holy History and the Body of Religion must have laboured for above these Six thousand Years to deceive the Word and to laugh at Mankind which is the most impossible thing in the World The Conviction then which is lively and penetrating independently of Religion is yet much more so by Religion The Faithful knows much better than the Philosopher That when this House of Clay which he Inhabits at present shall fall and crumble into Dust He shall pass out of this Melancholy and obscure Habitation into a New and an Heavenly Habitation not made with Mens hands into the proper Habitation and the Eternal Palace where God himself dwells The Philosopher knows it because he knows That the Souls of Men departing from the Body do pass into a New Life full of Darkness or of Light of Happiness or of Misery according as they have rendred themselves worthy in their Bodies either of the Love or the Anger of Him who is essentially the Life and by consequence the Punishment or the Reward of all Intelligent Natures according as they have deserved that He should Act in them and Reward or Punish them Socrates having already the Mortal and Deadly Draught in his Hand spake after this manner Says the Roman Orator and Philosopher That it did not seem to him that they led him to Death but that he was going to mount up to Heaven Cato was Transported with Joy at the sight and at the presence of Death The Wise Man saith Plutarch goes with Pleasure out of the Darkness of the Earth to enjoy in Heaven an Immortal Light with the Gods Have Courage saith this Other Let not Death affright Us since after Death we shall either be Gods or like Gods Let us not fear that our Bodies will bury our Souls under their Ruins When the Heavens shall fall and Corporeal Nature shall entirely perish and disappear There is a necessity that the Spirit which Animates Us and which is the Foundation of our Being must subsist and remain under those Ruins without being hurt or endamaged by them Such is the Conviction and Certainty of the Philosopher But the Faithful is much more enflamed and Transported with this so animated and so lively Certainty and Persuasion He sees with St. Stephen the Heavens open over his Head and he is taken and wrapt up thither like St. Paul with unspeakable Joys and Extasies He hath this Certainty and this Persuasion so lively and so animated by two divers Principles He hath it by the Impression of Faith and of Grace which makes him See and Feel if I may say so this New Life without Reasoning by way of Supernatural Inspiration and Illumination and He hath it when he will Reflect and Reason by an evident Conviction which the Reflection upon the Mysteries and Miracles of Christianity and upon all Religion give him of it for tho' there were none but that Historical single Fact of the Mystery of the Incarnation of God the truth of which is incontestably Established by so many Miracles and so many sensible Convictions it would be impossible to call into doubt that New and Immortal Life of this New State we are speaking of into which our Souls must enter when they go out of our Bodies because it is not possible to conceive That if there was no other for Men but this present Life that God would have become Man upon the Earth to undergo all that Train of humbling and dolorous Mysteries which he hath undergon Since it is certain That if there was no other Life for Men there would be no advantage neither for God nor for Men in those Mysteries which do no wise Regard the present Life but only the Life to come God can do nothing in Vain and in vain would He have bin Born as he was Born in vain would He have Lived as he did Live in vain would He have Died as he did Dye if He had not been Born if He had not Lived and if He had not Dyed to Redeem Men from Eternal Death and to give them that Happy and Immortal Life which the First Man had lost them God Incarnate came not to make this Present Life neither more agreeable nor more fortunate or more happy to Us He came not to spread abroad Treasures and Riches to give Honors and great Employments to Distribute Dignities to give Pleasures to the Senses and to the Cupidinous Desires of this Present Life St. Paul calls him the High Priest of Goods to come and the Prophets who Prophecied of Him called Him the Father of the Ages to come and King of the Future World but I must not enlarge here any more upon this on the contrary I must shut it up and return to the Point we proposed to Illustrate in this Third Part which is The manner how our Souls Are to be out of our Bodies CHAP. II. What is to be Illustrated in this Third Part concerning the Future State of our Souls out of our Bodies and first whether our Souls when they go out of our Bodies do pass into a true Corporeal Place THAT which we already said Teaches Us That our Souls Are and Subsist out of our Body That they Live and have Essential Acts and Proprieties inseparable from their Knowing Nature but we do not learn from thence How our Souls Are out of the Body which is however what we have proposed to Illustrate To satisfie our Curiosity
Pleasure we may taste in Eternity if we live in such a manner as may render us worthy of having our Fidelity recompensed Our Soul is something that is great noble and admirable by the Ideas which it is capable of receiving and it is yet more great and more noble if you will by the Pleasure and Felicity which it is capable of having God who hath the Treasures of Knowledge and Wisdom hath infinite Riches of Goodness and Oceans of Felicities and of Pleasures and our Soul which is capable of receiving all the Idea's which God contains in the Treasures of his Knowledge and Wisdom can also taste all the Pleasures which he contains in the Riches of his Goodness Such is the nature of our Souls they are not only undoubtedly Spiritual by their Intelligent Nature but they are in some manner infinite in Dignity and in Nobleness they are admirable Copies and Images of the Supreme Nature they carry a thousand Characters of his Grandeur and their Celestial Origine and that which augments and enhances all this Merit is that they are undoubtedly as Immortal and Eternal as Spiritual CHAP. XI That our Souls are undoubtedly Immortal by reason of their Knowing Nature YES as undoubtedly Immortal and Eternal because being Natures altogether distinct and altogether different from Body and all Corporeal Nature it is impossible that Death which only cuts and makes this havock upon Bodies should have any Prey upon them or give them the least Stroke If God who hath drawn them out of his Heart will not employ his Almighty Power to annihilate and destroy them in that moment that Death breaks the Structure and Harmony of Body which will appear hereafter that he cannot be willing to do there is no It is thus that Diseases and Old Age causes us to die and the violent Accidents of Fire and Sword or Falls and Ruines do the same It is the Body that Diseases Old Age and violent Accidents do all attack it is its Structure that they break and ruine for they do not touch the very Ground and Matter of the Body Death doth not touch the Substance of the Body and its Matter it only touches the Disposition of its Organs it is That only that it destroys It 's true that when the Brain can no longer serve to the Universal Cause and to the Eternal Wisdom and Power which holds our Souls united to the Bodies for an Occasional and Determinate Cause to determine it to give us Idea's and Perceptions of other Bodies which are round about Ours and which act upon them which is properly the Chain and Knot which holds our Souls united to our Bodies then It retires our Souls from our Bodies and they cease to Be in our Bodies We commonly conceive that our Bodies die because our Souls do retire themselves but this is to conceive things very ill It is not that our Bodies die because our Souls retire themselves but on the contrary our Souls retire themselve because our Bodies die because the Structure that render'd them fit to serve for a Lodging to our Souls comes to be broken and destroy'd Death is nothing precisely but this ruining of the Harmony of the Body which obliges God to withdraw the Soul And who do's not see that it being so Death is so far from being able to destroy the Soul that it cannot do any thing unto it It cannot so much as cause the least alteration in it all that it doth precisely to it is to take from it its Union with the Body it disunites the two Parts but it doth not destroy nor annihilate any of them the Body remains Body every Part remains in its Nature the Body remains ruin'd and the Soul returns separated Death can do nothing unto our Souls which are not a Material Structure it destroys the Souls of Beasts because their Soul results from the Organization and Harmony of a Material Structure and from a certain degree of Heat and quickness in their Blood which keeping their Members dispos'd and their Nerves well extended keeps them at the same time dispos'd to receive the Impressions of exterior Bodies which act upon them and to move themselves in a thousand manners according as He hath destin'd them who hath ordain'd and directed to his Ends their particular Structure But Death can do nothing to our Souls which are evidently natures wholly Immaterial and Spiritual in which there is neither Structure nor Harmony of Parts Diseases cannot at all attack our Souls they have no Blood nor Humors to be enflam'd and set afire Old Age cannot make them die because they know not what it is to grow old Fire and Sword cannot kill them as Jesus Christ hath said they have no Parts that the Sword can divide or that Fire can consume or dry up Let us say something boldly Though Death should be able to prey upon our Souls as it doth upon our Bodies it would not cease to be certain that Death could not in the least annihilate them for it cannot annihilate even our Bodies which are given as a Prey to it and upon which it exercises all its cruelties and rigour Do not our Bodies remain Bodies after our Death they change indeed the Name and Form but they subsist in the Ground of their Corporeal Nature Doth not their Matter remain always What is there in the World more constant and what greater and stronger Argument would you have of the Immortality and Eternity of our Souls Would you have the Corporeal Part to be Eternal That Nature so base and so vile and This Nature so noble so admirable so divine which we have made you acknowledge to be in you would you have this to have an end and to return into nothing That Death should not be able to annihilate the Body which is given it to destroy and yet that it should annihilate our Souls upon which it neither hath nor can make any Prey Nothing is so certain and so evident in the World as this is That all the Bodies of the Universe and all created Powers cannot destroy a Spiritual Nature nor so much as endamage and alter it That only Power which made our Souls out of nothing can make them thither to return again and we are assur'd by the infallible Prejudgment of his Wisdom that this Sovereign Power neither ought or can ever be willing to employ his Infinite Power upon such an Essay or to make such a Trial of it He that created the Souls could absolutely annihilate them if he would but he cannot be willing to it but for some Benefit either of his Glory or of the common Good of the Universe or of some singular Advantage of the Perfection of some one of his Creatures of which he would do himself Honor. And it is impossible for him to find any such Utility by annihilating our Souls who necessarily acknowledge his Sovereignty over them so long as they endure For every Intelligent Nature hath Essentially some Sentiment
is a Burthen to them and they would if it were in their power shorten it and hasten its End Some Men naturally Couragious and Magnanimous until the Celestial Light of the true Religion had instructed them and made them see that they ought to wait till God withdraws them from the present Trial have been found so transported and so inflam'd with the Desire and Love of this new and Immortal Life that they have not had patience to wait the Course of Nature to let it bring them thither but they have violently launch'd out of it like furious Madmen And one cannot say that this was the Effect of Education or of some Opinion and Human Invention with which the Infancy of Men is and hath been prepossess'd for besides that Education neither can be nor hath been the same every where and that no Human Invention or Opinion hath ever been able to establish it self into an universal Prepossession how happy soever it hath been this Pretension is contrary to the Evidence and Notoriety of the most constant Experience of the World which is That independently of Education and before all sort of Instruction this Idea of Eternity and this Desire of Immortality was found and is always found in Nature of the same Date if I may so say as the Sentiment of the Divinity And as there the Character of that which is call'd Instinct or natural Inspiration is and that nothing from elsewhere is more assur'd in the World than this Maxim and this constant Truth That natural Instinct is never False that it hath always a Real Object and that it never deceives for this is a Reflection which is too Essential to omit here or not to repeat it again That the Instinct of Nature is never False as appears in all the Instincts of Animals themselves of which there is not one single one that is False since it is not at all a Fault that it makes them to fly from or pursue the things which it inspires them to fly from or pursue nor can it ever be a Fault because Instinct is an Inspiration and a Determination of Nature and by consequence of that Truth and of that Infallible and Eternal Wisdom which is the Author of Nature which can never inspire or give to Men false Desires nor determine in Beasts Motions useless and deceitful It follows That this new and Immortal Life of our Souls of which Nature gives us so indubitable an Instinct must be the most True and the most Real thing of the World My Hope and my Certainty are built upon an hundred other immovable Foundations of Natural Conviction and Celestial Revelation but tho' there was only this certain Experience of Natural Instinct which cannot be disputed since this Idea and this Desire of this new and Immortal Life hath indisputably its Principle in Nature and cannot come from an universal Error that Education might cause in all Men and that it is certain that these are not the Reasonings of Philosophers who have invented this so Religious an Opinion as that Ancient speaks but it is all pure Nature that gives it I shall not for my part be less persuaded of this Immortal Life of our Souls after the short Passage of this Life than of the present Life because in fine I find the Instinct of it in my first and most natural Sentiments and because I can never believe that Nature which do's not deceive our Senses when she carries them towards their Objects do's deceive our Hearts and our Desires when she gives them the clear and lively Instinct of an Immortal Life for our Souls after this Life St. Augustin hath observ'd That that which we call Instinct and Nature in Corporeal Natures and in Spiritual Natures is God himself The Instinct saith he which operates in Men and in Animals is God himself And he hath very good Reason to speak after that manner because that Instinct in Corporeal Nature are those extraordinary Motions which it makes from time to time as if it had Knowledge Reason and Foresight altho it cannot have either Foresight or Reason or Knowledge And Instinct in Intellectual Nature are the Desires and the Ideas which it finds in it self without acquiring them by the Senses or by Reasoning and Reflection And as it is from God immediately that these Motions in the One and these Ideas and Desires in the Other do proceed so it is with Reason that this Holy Doctor saith That the Instinct which operates in Men and in Animals is God himself which hath likewise been very well observ'd by Thomas Aquinas So that Instinct is Infallible as God himself and if by Instinct it is that we know the Life to come it is indubitable and certain by this Victorious Reason That Instinct never deceives as it may easily be seen in Corporeal Nature For as St. Augustin very solidly further observes we cannot convince the Instinct of Deceitfulness and Error in any part even of Corporeal Nature in which it might be able to deceive in things of no moment Let us Regard it Do's it for example deceive the Hart when it makes him run after he is wounded to the Herb that heals him Do's it deceive the Ant when it makes her fit and furnish her Magazens to purpose Do's it deceive the Lamb whin it makes it fly the Wolf or the Chickens or other Birds when it makes them shun the Kite It is apparent it never deceives and if by Instinct it is that we know the Life to come the Life to come must needs be indubitable There is no Instinct in Nature if the Natural Idea which all Nations have had of the Life to come in all Times and in all Places of the World be not most certain and most indubitable There is no Man saith St. Chrysostom very well who hath not this Natural Idea of the Life to come because there is no Man who independently of all Reflection and of all Education do's not Fear or Hope something according as he is either Good or Wicked in that Dream-like dark Time to come in the which the present Life is lost to our Eyes This Idea saith Lactantius of a Life to come must needs be a Natural Idea since Men who see themselves generally die have never been able to believe themselves entirely mortal were they possess'd with what sort of Opinion or Religion soever were they Greeks or were they Jews were they Romans or were they Barbarians were they Heathens or were they Christians they have never been able to believe themselves entirely Mortals they have always believ'd or rever'd their Deaths which hath been the true beginning of Idolatry they have always fear'd or hop'd for something after Death which they could never as much as have thought of if the Idea of a Life to come had not been Natural It is so Natural that nothing is able to efface it out of Nature neither Error of Opinion nor Corruption nor Education nor any sort of
which as we have seen cannot be destroy'd by Death which does not act but upon Bodies It is an ancient Reasoning of the Holy Fathers and even of the profane Philosophers That God punishing here sensibly some few of the Crimes of Men and not punishing them all there need be another Life where he finishes the Justice which he begins here And this Reasoning carries the most sensible Conviction in the World since we see so visibly the Hand of God to extend it self upon the Wicked which is according to St. Augustin that which the Kingly Prophet calls the Lightnings of the Supreme Justice which fore-run the Clap of Thunder Apparuerunt fulgura ejus orbi terrae vidit commota est terra His Lightnings appear'd to the Globe of the Earth the Earth saw and it was moved But tho' we had never seen such miraculous Examples of the Heavenly Justice upon the Wicked we should see enough to be convinc'd of the Immortal Conditions of our Souls from the so indubitable Sentiment that Conscience gives us of an Eternal Uprightness and Holinevs which ought to recompense us or to punish us because there must be nothing certain in the World if this be not That this natural Sentiment and this clear Idea of the Supreme Justice and Holiness cannot Deceive us Reason and all that is call'd Light and Certainty whether Natural or Supernatural must needs be nothing but Illusion and Chimera if Good and Evil can remain without Reward and Punishment because God must needs be only a Wisdom and Sanctity indolent and insensible of the Order and Disorder of the World with the Conduct of which he is charg'd if he ought not at last signally to evidence his Justice and if Natural Reason and Light is any thing as he cannot be a disarm'd and an useless Power so he is not assuredly a Sleepy Wisdom and an Indolent and Idle Sanctity He cannot leave either Vertue without a Reward or Vice without Punishment and tho' he neither punishes Crimes nor rewards Vertue in this Life it follows necessarily that this Sentiment and this Idea which Conscience gives us of a Justice which prepares a Reward for Vertue and a Punishment for Crimes in another Life is an Idea most true and which hath a real and most effective Object and that there is a new Life for our Souls after the present Life wherein they receive the Price of their Vertues and the Recompence of the Fidelity and the Constancy of their Trial and the pain of their unfaithful dissolute Prevarications through which they abandon the Interest of God and his Service for the little and trifling Interest of the false and frenetick Pleasures of their Passions With all these Certainties and all these Convictions we ought to see more sensibly the Future Life into the which our Souls enter in going out of the Body than we do the Present Life for it glitters and shines more lively in the midst of us than the Sun shines or glitters in the midst of the World But we must take care that we do not apprehend it after the same manner We are commonly full of Incredulity of the World to come and of the Immortal Condition of our Souls it is the just Punishment of our Disorders and the natural Effect of our Exorbitant Desires Tho' God should not concern himself and tho' He should not spread over his Darknesses He that makes the Day and Night of Grace as well as the Light and Darkness of Nature over our Criminal Desires to blind the Carnal Souls who forgetting the Advantage of their Spiritual and Immortal Nature plunge themselves wholly into sensual and earthly Pleasures our own exorbitant Desires are Veils thick enough to rob us of that Light how resplendent soever it may be The Incredulity of the Life to come and of the Immortal Condition of our Souls cannot be in Us but by these two Principles If it is so common it is because the inward Eye is so troubled and obscur'd by the disorder of carnal and terrestrial Passions and that this natural Blindness of Passions is augmented by a Veil of Darkness that God puts upon impure and terrestrial Hearts I know not how Libertines apprehend it but if they would in the lucid Intervals of their Reasoning never so little reflect upon themselves and upon the Light which they smother it is sure that it is impossible but that they must conceive that their Libertinism and their Incredulity is not only an Estate of Obscurity and natural Blindness but an Effect of the Hand of God which is upon them This is effectually the Effect of the utmost Disorder of the Spirit and of the uttermost abandonment of God for how should one be ignorant of the Life to come and of the Immortal Condition of our Souls if one had had either any spark of Natural Light of good Sense and Reason or any Ray of Grace or Celestial Illumination Let the Libertines speak and let them tell us upon what they found their Impious and Sacrilegious System upon what Principle and upon what Reason they believe that their Souls die with their Bodies Let them speak they would be in a great deal of Pain to do it for this furious and frenetic Judgment by which they bloody their Hands with the Parricide of their Souls if one may be allow'd to say so hath not any Foundation nor any Principle There are some to whom the Immortality of the Soul is not incredible but because they cannot as they say comprehend what the Soul will be when it shall be no longer in the Body but these themselves here do no ways conceive how their Soul is in the Body and People who do not doubt but that their Soul is and that it is the thing of the World which hath so much effective Reality altho' they do not know how it is do doubt that their Soul can be any thing out of the Body under pretext that they do not conceive how it will be then There are some who stupifie themselves on set purpose to judge that their Soul is no more any thing after this Life not by any Reason that they have to form this Judgment but because that the fear of finding at their going out of this Life an Implacable Judge who they well see ought to punish their Licentiousness and Disorder if there remains any thing of them after their Death makes them desire that there should remain nothing of them and makes them prefer the horror of the Nothingness of this sad and vast Darkness to the Beauty and Light of that Immortal and Resplendent Life of Joys and Felicities which Reason and Religion equally discover to us at the end of the short Career of this Life There are in fine some who make the same Judgment without knowing why they make it they judge without Reason and without Principle contrary to all Reason and all Principles I say against all Lights all Reasons and all Principles for I
the Spirit that is to say the Spiritual Nature pierces penetrates and enlightens all things If we consider the advantage which Reason and the proper Intelligence of our Spiritual Nature gives us of being able surely to Enlarge our Knowledges by the infallible Consequences which we draw from things we have already known for those which we do not know as yet We shall find that there is nothing more Natural and less Rash than to endeavour to decide by the clear Idea which we have of our Soul and by the Notion no less clear which we have of the Supream Nature which alone is able to be the Cause of the divers Conditions of the Soul of the Estate wherein it ought to place our Souls after they shall have finished their Trial in the Body and that this Eternal Justice shall have fixed upon them his Anger or his Love according as they shall have render'd themselves worthy by their Obedience and Fidelity or by the obstinacy of their Disorder and Revolt This double Notion which we have so clear and so distinct of God and of our Spiritual Nature joyned to that which we have of our present State as of a State where our Obedience and Fidelity are put to a Trial and where the Eternal Justice hath his Eyes open to see our Combat with the Flesh and with our Senses We form a sure Light by which we are able to enter march safely into that obscurity and those darknesses And since we have a Taper in our hands lighted by those Idea's so clear and so certain of the Knowledges which we have already acquired why then should we not carry it into that dark and unknown Country which is of so great Importance to us to discover and know Since we have Wind and Sails enough to carry us over to this New World why then should not we go thither to make a Map of it Since our Reason may be illuminated above the Darkness of the Night of our Senses and of our Imagination why should not we illuminate the Blind who being once Enlightned will no more resist the Light of Divine and Heavenly Revelation which they often esteem when they are not Enlightned by Reason but as a Fable and a Fiction Then let us not fear to attempt this Discovery and Explain how our Souls are to be out of the Body since we are able to speak of it with some certainty The certainty of a New Estate of a New and Immortal Life for our Souls after this Present Life We are able to speak most certain and make as St. John did a Description and a Topography of this World to come and of this Heavenly Jerusalem VVe do not only know by the evident Conviction of the Spiritual Nature of our Souls That they are not at all destroyed and annihilated by Death which is not an advantage to the Spiritual Nature because there is nothing even in the most Corporeal Nature which is most Frail most Perishable and most subject to Corruption and the most liable to Death that Perishes entirely But we know with the same Certainty That the Soul subsists with all its Foundation of Life which we see it hath which is the advantage and essential Distinction of the Spiritual Nature For there is this Difference between a Spiritual or Knowing Nature and a Nature Corporeal That the Corporeal Nature may be deprived of Life but not of its Being for its Life is distinct from its Being in the Body for the Life of the Body is but a Motion which it hath there by its Structure its Organization and its inward and natural Composition which it may lose and doth every day lose without losing the Foundation of its Being And in preserving all the Basis of its material Substance which always remains and subsists notwithstanding any Change which may happen to it in its Structure and its outward and sensible Form But in Knowing or Spiritual Nature the Life and Being are but one and the same thing Since Knowledge and Sensibility or the Acts of the Appetitive Faculty which are the Basis and the Foundation of their Being are also essentially the Foundation of their Life For in Spiritual Nature to Live is not to Eat Walk or to be Moved but to Know to Perceive to Will to have Joy and Sadness Pain and Pleasure Those of the Heathen Philosophers who had some Glimmering of a true Idea of the Spiritual Nature but not under the Name of Spiritual Nature but only of a Knowing Nature did so well perceive That the Knowing Nature was Essentially Living that we see they all of them Established thereupon the Certainty of the Immortality of Mans Soul because indeed say they This Matter whereof the Soul of Man is formed is a Matter essentially Knowing and by consequence Living if it is Air or Fire it is not only an Air and a Fire that is most subtil but an Air and a Fire of a singular Nature an Air and a Fire essentially Knowing and by consequence Living Thus though the Souls of Men should be this Air and this material Fire say they as some do imagine yet for all that they would not cease to be Immortal because they would be always Essentially Living We see this System in all the Books of the Ancient Philosophers and we see at the same time That this Notion of the Soul as a Nature essentially Knowing whereof we have a certainty by a Conviction so lively and so full of Sentiments convinced all these Ancient Sages not only That Death doth not touch the Life of our Souls not only that it doth not destroy them But on the contrary That Death makes the Life of them perfect because it breaks their Prison and takes away from their Thoughts and their Views the Wall which stops them and the Vail which blinds them And their Conviction was so great thereupon that they did not speak with less Certainty and Pleasure of this New and Immortal Life of our Souls after Death than we speak to one another of some Neighbouring Provinces or of some New Discoveries They did no more doubt of this New Life than we do of Italy or of Spain For to speak of Canada and the American Isles would be too little to express the Certainty They did not only speak of it with Assurance and without incertainty They spoke of it with Incredible Joys and Transports They longed to arrive at the happy end of their Voyage They conceived ardent desires for Death They did more than all this they advanced it further And we know That in a Famous Common Wealth of Grece they were obliged to Prohibit and Suppress a Book that had been Writ upon the Immortality of the Soul because it did so livelily Impress upon their Spirits the Conviction of their Immortality that they were fearful lest it should Depopulate the Earth and cause the Race of Mankind to be destroyed because they saw it had carried a great many of them not only
Place of Spirits than the Sea is the Place for Fishes and the Air the Place for Birds The Body saith the Wise-man returns to the Earth from whence it was taken and the Soul returns to God who made it and from whom it issu'd out that is to say It hath no more immediate Union but with God alone which occasions us to say very exactly That she goes into God We have said That our Souls have an Essential Union with God in whom they live and to whom they are much more united by all their Parts and by all the Faculties of their Being than the Beams are united to the Sun than a River is united to its Spring than the living Branch is united to its Root We have said That all Knowing Created Natures do depend as immediately upon God in all the Acts of their Life and by consequence in all the Acts of their Perceptive and Appetitive Faculties as they depend upon him for the Foundation of their Being as well as all other Created Natures that is to say That as they cannot come out of nothing but by the Almighty and Efficacious Action of his Eternal Essence so they can neither Think nor Will but by the continual Action of his Supream Influence We have said That as God is the sole Being Existing by himself so he is the sole Living Being and by consequence the sole Thinking and Willing Being by himself and from thence arises a Relation and an Essential Union of all Created Spirits with the Supream Spirit and of the Supream Spirit with the Created Spirits All the Rivers drink of the Sea saith that Ancient all the Branches suck up perpetually the the Juyce and the Sap of the Root the Beams draw perpetually their Heat and Light from the Sun and all Living Beings drink perpetually of that Living and Eternal Spring of Life and all Spirits of that Living and Eternal Source of Knowledge It is the Natural Estate of all Spiritual Natures to have this immediate Union with God but this Supream Spirit being willing to do Honor to his Almightiness and to his Wisdom being willing to make the Idea of all kinds of Creatures possible to proceed from himself and to render it Real and Effective to make the World thereby compleat and finish'd and being willing to assemble together Corporeal and Spiritual Nature in one single Whole and being willing perhaps thereby to put Pure Spirits into the Places of the Fall'n Angels and to triumph over the Rebellious Ones in causing himself to be Serv'd in Bodies by Inferior Spirits would have it that this Immediate Union which the Created Spirits have Essentially with Him should be in some manner suspended and interrupted or at least obscur'd and diminish'd in regard of those whose Fidelity and Obedience he was willing to make Trial of in the Body The Union of Bodies interrupts and suspends the Immediate Union of our Souls with God Our Souls naturally like other Created Spirits ought not to have any Dependence upon any Bodies for to have the Idea's of things they ought only to depend immediately upon God and by consequence ought only to have Union with Him But this Supream Spirit having been pleas'd for the Reasons we have said for many others which we conceive and for more yet apparently which we do not conceive that our Souls should have their Thoughts and their Sentiments their Desires and their Affections upon the Occasion of the Body to the End that That should be a continual Subject of Victory and of meritorious Exercise He hath thought fit that for a time this Immediate and Essential Union of all Created Spirits with the Eternal Essence should become in our Souls Mediate if I may be permitted to say so and that the Essential Union of God and of all Created Spirits should not Operate in them but by an Accessory Union with this Matter Organiz'd or dispos'd into a certain Structure of Bones of Flesh and of Nerves which we call Human Body This Union of our Souls with our Bodies is not as we have said but this precisely That our Bodies by the diverse stirrings up the diverse Agitations and the diverse Configurations of the Brain which they receive from Bodies which environ them or from the natural Course of the Blood or from their proper Humors are the Occasion and Condition of the Determination of the Idea's and Sentiments which the Supream Spirit gives us that is to say That the Body is the Occasional Cause which Determines the Influence of the Essential Union which we have with God and thereby it is in some manner betwixt us and God it diminisheth in some manner our Essential Union with him because it hinders if I may be permitted to say so the Immediation of him Without That we could not say that our Souls were in our Bodies they would be immediately in God because the Place of the Souls and of all Spirits is intirely their Relation of Dependence and of Activity and our Souls in that case would have no Relation and Dependence but upon God only It is for that Reason that the Scripture speaks to us of the Union of our Souls with our Bodies or of our present Life not only as it were of a Wall between God and us but as it were of a Banishment as it were a Voyage and a Running away or Departure which we make from God Peregrinamur à Domino saith St. Paul and this is Effectively as it were a kind of Departure from God and by consequence a Banishment a Voyage a Running away from him because it is a Suspension and an Interruption of the Essential and Immediate Union which all Spirits have necessarily with him Our Souls going out of the Body are immediately united to God Now since our Souls entring into Bodies do go out from God according to the Expressions of the Divine Word which are exact and just when we know how to comprehend and penetrate them we must say likewise That our Souls going out of the Body return to God and in God as the Scripture Effectively saith it God is on both sides the Term of the Voyage It is from him we part in ceasing to be united immediately to him by reason of the Intervention of Body through which the Action of the Influence of his Divine Life in us doth pass and it is to him that we return in Dying and in going out of the Body because our Dependence on the Body ceaseth by Death and Death beating down the Wall which was between God and us the Union of God to us and of us to God becomes Pure and Immediate God is the Term we arrive to as well as that from whence we parted we are come out of him and we enter again into him that is to say That as before our Souls are united to our Bodies they have no Union with any thing but with God and by consequence they are nowhere but in God so after the same manner so
that Will which remains in the Reprobate Souls do's not Operate there as it doth in Holy Souls They are driven and moved essentially by an invincible Love towards Good and instead of Good which they seek for with so much vehemence They see nothing before them but Pains Despair and Misery They launch out and throw themselves perpetually towards the Good by Efforts and Movements inconceivable and He in whom they see the Source of Good and as it were all the Treasure and all the Foundation of Good Repulses them and throws them back again and in the same time wounds and transpierces them with a thousand deadly Darts They are Eternally thirsting after Pleasure and they have Eternally nothing but Grief Pain and Despair for their Portion so that the Will placed in them to be the Beginning and the Seat of their Happiness is found to be the Eternal Principle and Seat of their Unhappiness and Despair It would be to no purpose to lose time in saying That all the agreeable Passions will be in the Holy Souls and all the afflicting ones in the Reprobate that is comprehended of it self as also That these Passions will be in the Appetitive Faculty independently of the Body as we have said That the acts of Perceiving Imagining and Remembring will be in the Perceptive Faculty So there remains nothing more to finish this last Illustration and to draw from thence the so-essential Instruction of our Duties of Time and of Eternity of the Present Life and the Future Life of the Present World and the World to come of all our Present Condition and of all our Future State Than to remark that this Estate of the Souls out of the Body will not be changed in the main at bottom but only in some Circumstances not essential by the Re-union of the Bodies which will be made by the Universal Resurrection CHAP. XIII That this State of the Souls out of the Body will not be changed in the main or at Bottom by the new State of the Universal Resurrection but only in some accessory Circumstances ALthough we do not at all find in the Sentiment or in the precise Idea which we have of our Souls the Certainty and the Conviction of their Future Re-union with the Bodies which Faith teaches us ought to be made by the Universal Resurrection it is for all that certain That considering all the Train and all the Concatenation of the Mysteries and Principles whereof the Divine System of Religion and of Christianity is formed considering also the honor of the Divine Attributes which require That God should be jealous of his Glory and of the happy Event and Success of his Designs It is altogether evident That God who hath been pleased to Assemble the two kinds of Natures which only are known to Us whether as Existing or as Possible viz. To wit Corporeal Nature and Spiritual Nature into one single Compositum and one single Whole or Hypostasis to make thereof the Master-piece of the Visible World and as it were an Epitome an Abridgment or a curious Recapitulation of all his Works ought necessarily to Re-place it and to Re-establish it such as he formed it and designed it at first He ought to do it either for his own honor and glory as Creator to the end That Man may eternally subsist in this admirable Composition of Body and of Spirit who holding equally of the Visible and Corporeal World and of the Intelligible and Spiritual World makes as it were a Third and a kind of One altogether singular which infinitely exalteth his Wisdom and his Power or else for the honor and glory of the Redemption and of the Man-God who would eternally remain Imperfect and Defective if things were not Re-established upon the foot of the first Plat-form and of the first Design of the Creation and by consequence if the Bodies were not re-placed with the Souls because the Man-God would not be altogether a Repairer and a Restorer if he did not re-place Man such as he was at first Created and Designed and his Triumph over Sin over Death and Satan would not be compleat and finished if the half of Men should remain in the Jaws of Death Considering then all this Train of the Divine System of Religion it is without doubt most clear and certain That the Universal Resurrection ought to be a Circumstance of that glorious Solemnity of Justice which God ought then to make at the Consummation of Ages for the Consecration of his Eternal Temple for the Overture and Commencement of his Immortal Reign for the Solemn Coronation of his Predestined for the compleat Triumph of the Man-God for the Justification of all his Providence and the Declaration of all his Designs It is I say indubitable and constant That then at the end of the present Oeconomy and then when God will put an end to the Vicissitudes of Time and to the liberty of Revolt and of License which he gives at present to his Creatures then when he will fix all things in an Immutable and Eternal Order then when he will give a beginning to the New World He will then Re-establish all the Bodies and Re-unite every Soul to that which she animated during the present Life But in the mean time as we cannot say That our Souls find in themselves the Sentiment of their future Re-union with their Bodies so we will not speak of it here but as a Truth of Faith because we proposed to our selves to decide nothing concerning Them but what we should find Established either by our own proper Sentiment and our indubitable Experience or by a clear Light of Evidence arising from the Notion which we have made our selves of it as of a knowing Nature sensible of Order and Duty no less than of Pleasure and Pain and of all that is done in Her but this Truth presupposed and elsewhere sufficiently justified to the Idea of the Divine Attributes and in all the Train of the Principles of Religion and of Christianity VVe may speak with assurance of the manner how our Souls will be in their Resuscitated Bodies He who calls Himself the Resurrection and the Life the First-Born amongst the Dead the Father of the Ages to come He in whom we are all raised up again in Mystery and in Figure according to St. Pauls Expression and by whom we all of us ought to be raised up again effectively at the Last Day He tells us that we shall be then even in our Bodies like the Angels disfranchised from the Businesses and the Inclinations which we have upon the Occasion of the Body St. Paul also teaches us That our Bodies shall be Spiritualized and we may upon this Principle decide with certainty That the Re-union of Bodies doth not at all change the Foundation of that State of the Soul out of the Body the manner and circumstances whereof we have been Illustrating When St. Paul saith That our Bodies shall be Spiritualized by the Resurrection he
in God In vain do we wander do we lose our selves and go astray We never lose our selves for God he never lets us go for altogether he hath his Cord and his Chain by which he holds us and by which he recalls us when he pleases and when he thinks fit He will recall us yes and our ungrateful Souls who are now all of them turn'd away from him always Fugitives and Vagabonds wandring from Vanity to Vanity will be much astonish'd when we shall return to him O what Surprise what Astonishment what Confusion what Disorder what Dread what Efforts but fruitless Efforts of Flying of Hiding ones self and of Escaping What Commotions what Storms what Agitations in the Hearts of these Fugitive Slaves brought back to their Master of these Rebellious Subjects dragg'd in Chains before their King At this Meeting what Despair in these Souls what Movements in God! If these Souls on their side are Troubl'd Amaz'd Affrighted and Agitated in themselves God how is he on his side how do's he receive them how do they find him what Entertainment what Accosting what Reception in your Opinion But what Reproaches or to say better What Thunder and Thunderbolts what Looks what Rage what Threatnings what Indignation But if the the Accosting and the Meeting causes so much Pain what will the Judgment and the Condemnation do what will the Account which they must give of all the Thoughts of the Spirit and all the Motions of the Heart of them who forget God There is not one Hair of our Head lost saith the Divine Word That is to say saith S. Augustin That all our Thoughts are counted all our Steps are written down there is an Account kept of all our Respirations not one of our Thoughts not one of the Motions of our Hearts shall be lost and every one of them which shall have wandred from God if we may be permitted to say so in our Lives Every one of them which shall not have God for its Mark for its principal End and over-ruling Object will be found Impious and Sacrilegious And then what Surprise will there be anew what Regret what Stinging and bitter Repentance what Shame and Confusion what Despite and what Rage of ungrateful Souls against themselves what Despair and what Fury with what Evidence and with what Sentiment will they acknowledge their Wandring With what Cries and with what Howlings will they tear themselves to pieces and will say Ergo erravimus Ah! it is too true That so much as we have forgot God we have been truly wandring All the Pleasure and the Happiness which we have search'd for out of God hath been a real Wandring Oh! how far do we find our selves from that Mark and Goal which we then did run to with so much violence and fury Oh! Pleasures Oh! Goods which we search'd for out of God and which we now see are no where but in God O Error O Wandring The Condemnation of our blind and senseless love of our Body If by the Principle of our Origine and of our Celestial Dependence which ought to make us so essentially to turn to God we ought so mightily to condemn our forgetfulness and our wandring from God We ought no less to condemn by the Principle of Nature and the Spiritual Quality of our Souls our Foolish and Idolatrous love of our Bodies For in fine Since our Souls is the true Foundation of our Being how comes it to pass That we only know our Bodies That we only Love Adore and Idolize our Bodies That we are not concern'd but for the Interests of our Bodies That we do not labour or much concern our selves but for our Bodies We are sensible to all their little Businesses to all their little Advantages to all their little Commodities and insensible to all the Businesses to all the Interests and Advantages of our Soul Our Soul is as hath been said The whole Foundation of our Being It is by her That we ought to be eternally happy or unhappy She is all our True and Essential Being The Body and every thing which hath the Body for its Basis for its Foundation and for its Subject is no more than as it were an accident of our True Being The Whole Man is in the Soul or to say better It is the Soul only that is the Whole Man because Man is nothing properly but what he ought to be Eternally for there is nothing truly and properly real but what is Eternal To be for a Moment for a Day for a Year or for some short time This is not properly to Be. Eternity is the true Ground and the true Basis of a solid and real Being Nothing properly and truly Is but that which is to be for ever To be for a time only is not truly to Be It is a Shaddow of Being It is a Figure of Being The Present World is not according to St. Paul but a Figure of a World not a True World because it passes away All Corporeal Felicity therefore all Grandeur all Abundance all the Advantages which have Bodies for a Basis and for a Subject cannot make to a Man a true and real Being since Death ought to make her Prey upon them The true Being of a Man is that which ought to Be Eternally and since it is by the Soul only and by the advantages or disadvantages of the Soul that Man ought to be Eternally all that which he ought to be Therefore there is nothing more true than to say That it is the Soul only which is the Whole Man Beauty Ladies which you make as the Basis and Foundation of all your Being And the Debaucheries in which you infamous Sensual Men make your Felicity and all your Being to consist will not go along with you into Eternity The Body which is the Basis of Beauty and of Debauchery is laid in the Grave and remains on this side when the Soul returns to God and makes her Passage into Eternity and then at the Consummation of Time and the Establishment of the Immutable Order of the World to come when the Soul shall come to Re-assume the Body She will take with it nothing of that which at present makes her Felicity and her Pomps The Pleasures of the Body are all of them Essentially false as well as empty They leave the Heart even during this Life sick and Famished and they leave the Soul eternally deceived they disappear they fly away they leave the Soul in a cruel Privation and in an insupportable Desolation of Regret and of Repentance of Horror and of Despair O Vanity then of Vanities Illusion of Illusions Thus to abandon our selves to love nothing but our Bodies and neglect the care of our Souls The Soul at this very hour hath her Goods her Riches her Grandeurs and her Pleasures which are worth more without comparison than the Pleasures the Goods Riches and Grandeurs of the Body But tho' the Soul should have none but the Pleasures the Riches
with an Original whereof we ought to be the Copies and it is for that we ought to be continually employed as St. Chrysostom saith To Exercise this Heavenly Agriculture of eradicating even the least Fibres or Strings of our Irregular Covetous Desire and to make Christian Vertues to rise and to grow in their Place whereof we have twice received the Seeds the one by Nature and the other by Grace God hath rough-drawn the Table saith St. Augustin and then he hath put into our hands the Pencil and the Colours and he hath given us all our Life-time to compleat and finish it We ought not to lose one moment of Time He would that every moment we should give one stroke of the Pencil and that without ceasing we put Colours upon Colours That is the Eternal and only Task and all the Employment of Life that is all the Exercise of our sojourning in the Body But instead of finishing this Table and instead of culvating these precious Seeds of Vertue which ought to form in us the Divine Resemblance we Nip these Sacred and Divine Buds of Conscience and of Grace and we commonly see in the Soul but a Field very ill cultivated covered with the Thistles Bryers or all Vices We expunge the rough Draught of the Table which God had begun and instead of that excellent Painting which he would have seen finished in us he sees nothing but a monstrous and horrible Representation of all the Corruption of Devils formed from the hideous Assemblage of all Vices It is not easie to say with what trouble he sees this Disorder The Holy History teacheth us That the sad and deadly Spectacle which the Impure Souls did expose to his Eyes at the time of the Deluge made him hate and detest his own Workmanship which he at first had found so beautiful for it is said That he was at first surprized with Love and Admiration for the Workmanship which he had begun Vidit cuncta quae fecerat erant valdè bona It teaches us that he Repented himself of having made Man and of having given him the Liberty of flinging Durt and Ordure upon this rich and beautiful Work upon which he had imprinted his own Resemblance and Visage But St. Chrysostom observes very well that what he said there concerning the Inundation of Impurity which obliged him to send upon the Earth that Inundation of Water whereby he drowned the World He saith it continually upon our Occasion That it was by reason of our Vices and our Covetous Desires by which he had effaced in us the Divine Resemblance He could not suffer this Indignity this Out-rage He thundred in himself and meditated a just Vengeance How terrible and how formidable shall this Vengeance be It is from hence he will say in looking upon his Image so Blotted and Effaced in our Souls and covered over with the horrible Colours of all Vices Is this then will he say the fine Piece that thou hast finished Is it thus that thou hast answered all my Intentions Is it then for the making of this fine Work that thou hast employed all thy Life Look upon the Original compare these Lines with my Lines compare the Original with the Copy The Condemnation of our enchanted Love of the Present Life God who do's not deny us any good thing would not deny us the Pleasure of loving Life so far are we in loving Life from displeasing God that we cannot truly love Life but that we must love God in whom is the Source and Principle of Life essentially so then it cannot be amiss to love Life But we must not mistake our selves and under the Specious Pretence of loving Life to love only the Present Life God do's not forbid us absolutely to love the Present Life he commands us indeed to love it in some respect We may say That there is a love of Life permitted a love of Life commanded and a love of Life forbidden We are commanded to love the Present Life in That we are commanded to rest satisfied with our State of Trial in our Body We ought not at all to murmur at it or be impatient under the Pains or the Melancholies which accompanie it We are commanded to submit our selves to that Order of Providence which makes us pass thro' so difficult a Trial And as in the ancient Spectacle of the Combats of the Gladiators which were shew'd to the People The Combatants were not permitted to go out of the Amphitheater till the Magistrate or he that proposed the Price gave the Signal of the end of the Combat and caus'd the Gate of the Amphitheater to be open'd so we are not at all permitted to hasten our Death which we ought to expect from the hand of him that hath put us into the Lists to whom it belongs to give the the Signal of the end of our Combat and to open the Gate of the Amphitheater we are then commanded to love the Present Life in that respect We are also permitted to enjoy the Agreements which we there find as it were upon the way This is That Love which is permitted us as we have said but we are not at all permitted to place therein all our Heart all our Pleasure and all our Happiness for that would be to make it our last End and Sovereign Good We are not at all permitted to love the Present Life better than the Future For thus to love the Present Life is a Love that is criminal It is so very Criminal that it may be it is the greatest of all the Disorders that our Hearts can fall into For to love the Present Life in prejudice to the love and the desire of the Future is the greatest of all the Idolatries that the Heart of Man can commit it is to make the Body and the Visible World his God because this is to make of them his Sovereign Good and we always make that our God which is our Sovereign Good This sin of loving the Present Life was the sin of Esau The sin of the Israelites who perished in the Desert for having despised the Land of Promise The sin of the Tribes who would not pass the River Jordan and in the Gospel it is the sin of the wicked Rich Man of the Prodigal Son and of the easie and happy ones of this Age upon whom falls the Curse of Jesus Christ because they have their Consolation in this World that is to say saith St. Chrysostom The heart and affection to this Present Life a Disposition which is not only criminal by reason of that kind of Idolatry which we have said it contains and by reason of the Disesteem which it makes of the order of Gods eternal Predestination and of the Subversion of his Designs But also because it is in the Soul as it were the Foundation of Corruption from whence are formed all sorts of Vices Irregugularities and Disorders and which produces naturally the grossest of Libertinism and Atheism