walk speak fly eat and every thing else that is most marvellous in Animals which is what Aristotle hath said clearly in his seventh Chapter of his Book of the Movements of Animals saying That as Machins which we call Automata when they are mov'd after a certain manner do presently make their Movements by the force of Springs wound up so Animals are mov'd having Bones and Nerves as so many Instruments dispos'd by the Industry of Nature which causes in them what pieces of Wood and Iron with their Springs cause in Machins Nor that it is not Knowledge which causes these Motions even in us For it is certain that Knowledge neither causes nor directs even our voluntary Movements since none of us knows how he moves his Feet his Hands his Tongue and all the Members of his Body but only he knows that he moves them when he will if the Organ be fitly dispos'd and that Knowledge doth not at all accompany even those Motions which are purely Natural for our Blood circulates from one Ventricle of the Heart into the other going out of the one by the Arteries and returning into the other by the Veins without our having any Knowledge or Sentiment of them The Digestion the Distribution of Chyle the Separation of Humors in the Spleen in the Brain in the Liver all vital and natural Actions are made after the same manner This Judgment therefore hath been precipitous and inconsiderate and will be always so so long as it shall subsist without having other Principles or Foundations But it hath not only been inconsiderate and rash but also senseless and full of Contradiction and Contrariety in that it hath judg'd that Beasts have Knowledge like us without judging at the same time that they have a Principle of Spiritual Knowledge like us for it is a Contradiction to suppose Beasts to have a true Knowledge like us and not to have it Spiritual as ours is For either the Act of Knowing is Spiritual in us or it is not and if it is Spiritual how can it be the same in Beasts which we believe to be wholly Material and Corporeal There never was so visible a Contradiction as to maintain That the Act of Knowing is Spiritual and yet for all that that it is in a Subject wholly Corporeal and Material in which there can be nothing that is Spiritual When the Question was to be decided to our advantage we judg'd that Knowledge was essentially Spiritual to do our selves Honor and afterwards when we came to decide it about Beasts which we have judg'd to have Knowledge as well as we for we have not apply'd to them any other Idea of Knowledge than that which we have of our own proper Knowledge for how could we apply any other to them since it is manifest we have no other as hath been observed more than once we have forgotten what we had at first decided That Knowledge was essentially Spiritual and having at first conceiv'd it as such we have suddenly degraded it to make it Corporeal in Beasts We have believ'd that Butterflies Catterpillars Flies and Hand-worms ought to be rais'd to the Honor of Knowing as we do but being asham'd to give them a Spiritual Knowledge and a Soul like ours we have been forc'd to say that their Knowledge was Corporeal altho' like to ours in which there are two Contradictions one in saying that a Corporeal thing can be like a thing that is Spiritual the other That a thing which at first hath been conceiv'd to be essentially Spiritual should afterwards be found to be Corporeal CHAP. V. Whether Beasts have a true Reason like to ours BUT if the Judgment which we have made of Beasts is so insupportable in the Abstract the generality of it it is yet much more in the particular Opinions into which it is divided for there is not any one of them which is not either evidently false or evidently repugnant and full of Incompatibilities Not to say any thing of the fantastical Dream of the Transmigration of Souls of which the System is more reasonable than that which making the Souls of Beasts totally Corporeal gives them nevertheless a true Knowledge like ours And to let you see that the Chiefest amongst the Philosophers have very well comprehended that a Knowing Nature is essentially Spiritual let us say nothing of it but only that besides its other Repugnancies Incompatibilities and Absurdities and the rashness and precipitation of Judgment which is common to it with the other Three it contains the Incompatibility and the Defect of not being able to furnish Human Souls enough to animate all Living Creatures for it is certain that there are many more Ants and Flies only than there are Men. Let us dwell a little longer upon the Opinion of those who give to Beasts a true Reason and Souls like to ours They believe they are well grounded in this Opinion because it is certain that Animals perform Acts of Reason For who will gainsay that the Foresight of the Ant that the good Intelligence of the Bees that a thousand and a thousand admirable Effects of Instinct which guide Animals of which the Books and Discourses of Men are full are not Acts of a true Wisdom and Reason It is likewise certain that if Beasts did all these things by a true Knowledge which enlightned directed and conducted them it would be impossible to take from them the advantage of a true Reason and of having by consequence a Soul like ours But being we are far from having any certainty that it is by a true Knowledge like to ours that the Instincts of Beasts do operate which cannot be had but by an Experience which is absolutely impossible because one must have been a Brute to know that which is done in Brutes we have therefore indubitable certainty that it is not by Knowledge that Beasts perform these marvellous effects which we have acknowledg'd to be the Acts of Reason and we must decide without hesitation that there is no true Reason in Beasts The first Prejudice and the first Certainty which we have that the Acts of Reason which appear in Beasts are not Acts of their proper Reason but of an exterior Reason which guides them and that this Reason and this Wisdom which guides them is a Wisdom and a Reason more excellent and more certain than that of Man for there is no likelyhood that there should be in Ants and Bees more Light and more Wisdom than in Man and they should have a great deal more without doubt if it were by Light and true Wisdom that they did all which they do Let us see a little the Industry Capacity and Knowledge of all Birds who make their Nests at a certain time a little before they lay their Eggs. Let us look upon the Foresight of the Ant who heaps up its Provision for the Winter Let us behold the Agreement and good Order and all the Policy of that little Monarchical State of the
Bodies either to the Right or the Left forwards or backwards above or below and all manner of ways We must needs see with what Volubility what Agility and with what Quickness we move our Tongues our Feet and our Hands And all this is done without our knowing how by meer Empire as hath been said hereupon When we have studied Anatomy and Physic we know that they are the Muscles and the Nerves which serve to these Motions but before we had ever known that we had Nerves and Muscles we spoke we danced we leaped all one and since we have acquir'd this Knowledge we neither speak nor walk the better for it nor do we make e're the more use of it to make our Movements once more I say it is purely an Empire which our Will exercises upon that Portion of the Common Matter of the World out of which the Creator hath form'd us the Place of our Trial and our Prison Now I say That this Empire or Command is an evident Mark of the Spirituality in our Souls first because it is already a Mark of a Nature Spiritual and Superior to all that there is of Body and to all that there can be had of Material in the World to have the Power of Willing because to Will is an Act no less essentially Spiritual than to Know for all that is Corporeal may be conceiv'd under some Corporeal Image and it is impossible to conceive either the Act or the Faculty of Willing under any Form or Image Corporeal or Material In the second place To Will and especially to Will and to have the Power of Willing as we experience in Us is a farther Mark of a Spiritual Nature because there is in this Ground of Liberty by the which we find that we have the Power of Willing and Desiring something Infinite and Immense for Our Will and our Desires have no Limits our Faculty and our Liberty of Willing is truly Infinite whether it be because there is not any thing but what we can Desire and Will whether it be because we effectively carry continually in the Bosom of this Liberty an Infinity of Desires and Wills or lastly whether it be because we can always conceive new Ones and it is plainly apparent no Corporeal Nature can be capable of such a Character of Immensity In the third place This Power and this Empire which we have of removing our Body by Command and by Will only is an evident Character of a Nature Spiritual and Superior to Body for two Reasons by the Reason that to Command is a Character and an Act of Superiority and as so the Nature that commands is Superior to that which obeys from whence it follows That the Soul which commands is of a Nature Superior to Body which obeys and by the Reason that this so Efficacious a manner of Empire and Authority is a lively Image of the Sovereignty of God which cannot be within a Corporeal Nature St. Augustin had well penetrated into this Reason when he said That by it we carry sensibly in Us a lively Resemblance of the Supreme Sovereignty and of the Infinite Power with which He created the World In effect by this Empire which we exercise over our Bodies we have in our selves the lively Idea of it and altogether resembling it in that kind of Almightiness with which we make our selves obey'd by the Members of our Bodies God said Let the Earth come out of Nothing and it came out by that alone that it was said to it Come out He said Let the Light be made and there was Light by the infinite Efficacy of that Sovereign Will. And we our selves say Let the Tongue speak Let the Foot advance Let the Hand be lifted up c. and so by the incomprehensible efficacy of this Command the Tongue speaks the Foot advances and the Hand is lifted up We do not seek here whether this Efficacy or this Force comes Effectively from ourselves for this is not a place for such a re-search But tho' it should not come from us the Empire which we exercise with that Vertue and that Efficacy which is undoubtedly in us is a Character incontestably Spiritual and not only Spiritual but Divine It is impossible to conceive that a Body can have such an Empire and this Empire marks essentially the Nature in which it resides with an admirable Tract of resemblance of the Supreme Power Our liberty of Thinking is a certain Character of the Nature and Spiritual Essence in our Souls If this Empire which we exercise over our Bodies be so certain a Conviction to us of the Spiritual Nature and Quality of our Souls of their Celestial Dignity and their Divine Quality what will it be if we consider the two other sorts of Empire and Liberty which we exercise over our selves If we find the Empire over the Motions of our Body to be so fine how much more fine shall we find that of the Thoughts of our Spirit and the Desires of our Heart We have the power to extend perpetually our Knowledges without any limits and to an Infinity by Reflection by Speculation of Principles by Reasoning and by Consequences Nothing can give bounds to our Thoughts and nothing can stop their Knowledge If we endeavor to extend them by the bright Light of Reasoning and Reflection we have before us a vast and an infinite Field of Truth and tho' we have of our selves but one Spark of Light which is that which we call the Ground of our Reason to wit that Light which makes us acknowledge and acquiesce to the Truth that is to say to the Relations and Conveniences or to the Oppositions and Contrarieties of things with this Spark we shall be able by Attention and Reflection to run thro' all this vast Field and acquire to our selves if I may be permitted to say so as it were the property and possession of all Truth We shall be able to lift up ourselves above the Heavens to know the Order the Structure the Harmony and the Periodick Motions of them We shall be able to measure the height and the extension of them We shall be able to reduce the Motions of them to their Principles We shall be able to see how the Lightning the Rain-bow the Thunder and the other Meteors in the Air are form'd We shall be able to penetrate into the Bowels of the Earth to see the diversity of Metals and Minerals there formed and to see how it sustains it self in the midst of Air without being supported but by its proper Center We shall be able to enter into the vast Ocean of the proper Nature of God We shall be able when he pleases to reveal them to us to know the adorable Mysteries Nothing can give bounds to our Curiosity nor to our Knowledge And this without doubt is a certain and infallible Character of a Spiritual Nature for Bodies are essentially Finite as well as Blind and an infinite Light wherewith a Nature
or Material Imagination That all the Soul is in all the Body and all of it in all the Essential and Integral Parts of the Body as God is all in all the World and in all the Parts of the World not by that Co-extension and and Local Chimerical Presence which gross Spirits do imagine but by the Intimate Presence of his Sovereign Essence Essentially Operating in all the World and in all the Parts of the World We must say the same of the Soul that it is in all the Body by the Relation of its Dependence and Activity But this do's not hinder but that we may say That she is more properly and more particularly in the Brain since it is by that Part that the Action of the Soul upon the Body immediately commences and that all the Action of the Body upon the Soul terminates wholly in that Part as it sensibly appears by that which interrupts and suspends the Action of the Soul upon the Body and the Action of the Body upon the Soul For as often as it happens that the Action of the Body upon the Soul is interrupted it is because there is some relaxation or some obstruction in some of the Nerves which hinders the Motion from being continu'd in the Part affected of the Body as far as the Brain and when the Action of the Soul upon the Body is interrupted as when the Soul would move the Paralytick Foot but cannot at all move it It is likewise because the Motion which begins always by the Brain or by the determination of the Nerves which have their Origine in the Brain or if you will by that most subtile Portion of the Blood which we call Animal Spirits cannot be continu'd so far as to that diseased Part. But after having Explain'd the manner how our Souls Are in our Bodies which gives us so lively an Idea of our Dependence upon the Supream Being and upon all his Divine Attributes we must now see how our Souls Operate in our Bodies and observe all the Differences of our diverse Operations for the clearing every thing that may have any difficulty and require Day and Light for the better apprehending the Sovereign Perâ—â—◠〈◊〉 of the Supream Nature the which Operates continually in us and Rules over us so many ways in all our diverse Operations and the Essential Subjection and Limitation of all created Natures which do in so many ways depend upon this Supream Nature CHAP. X. What the Soul doth in the Body and what it doth not WE observe first of all That there are in Us the Operations or Acts of the Body and the Operations or Acts of the Soul for there are things which the Body doth in Us and things which the Soul doth in the Body This is a certain Rule That the Soul doth not do any thing which she doth not perceive that she doth and that she doth every thing that she perceives that she doth Thus we may say with Assurance That our Souls do not make the Digestion in Us the Circulation of the Blood the Natural and purely Animal Respiration in Us the Separation of the Chyle which is the prepar'd Juyce of concocted and digested Victuals in the Stomach together with the Faeces or gross Matter which is discharg'd into the Bowels the Motion of the Heart of the Veins and of the Arteries the Ebullitions and Fermentations of the Blood and of that Matter which provokes carnal Concupiscence It is moreover certain That the Souls do not make neither the Preparation of Spirits either Vital or Animal nor the Continuation of the Motion or of the Impression of External Objects which are carry'd by the Nerves as by little well stretch'd Chords from all the Circumference of the Body to the most Integral part of the Brain as to the common Center of all its Structure and all its Organization nor the retracement of Objects which is made in the bottom of the Eye in the Retina or that which is made in that part of the Brain which is the Organ of that which we call the Common and Internal Sense It is sure that they do not make the Relaxation of the Muscles and of the Nerves which cause the Tympanum to be relaxed with all the Nerves which serve to Hearing and the Optick Nerves which serve to the Sight from whence Sleep comes That they do not cause Fevers the Stone the Gout the Cholique the Bloody-Flux Palsies Obstructions Apoplexies and Diseases in general Our Souls do nothing of all this these are the Acts of the Body or its Alterations and its Passions for altho' the Perception and the Sentiments of the Soul do accompany some one of these Effects she feels and perceives them in such a manner that she perceives at the same time that they go before and precede her Sentiments and her Perception and that being so she doth not at all Cause them Much better doth she perceive that she hath Essentially the Empire over every thing that she doth and that she hath none at all over all these things That our Souls do not Operate out of themselves but by Will and cause not in Us neither Heat nor Digestion nor any Corporeal Effect There are some who conceive our Souls as the Physical and Immediate Causes of that Heat for Example which Concocts and Digests the Meat in our Stomach and which keeps in our Blood that degree of ardor and quickness which is necessary to the end that it may spread abroad the Nourishment and maintain Motion in all the Body They conceive the Soul of Man as having formally the Vegetable Faculty which nourishes and which causes the Body to increase by the which as Thomas Aquinas says we are rather Plants than Men And this is what they express by that common manner of Speaking when they say that our Souls are not only Reasonable but Vegetable or Vegetating But as we ought not to conceive or say any thing of our Souls but that which we find included and contain'd in the Idea and Notion which give us the Sentiment which we have of them and that this is a certain sure Rule by which we ought to guide our Opinions and our Judgments Not to Judge but according to our Light not finding at all in that Idea of our Soul which gives us that intimate Sentiment which we have of it that our Soul hath any such Vertue to do it Immediately and notwithstanding any other Vertue and Faculty that she may have for it we do not at all believe that it ought to be attributed to her We experience in our Soul no other Power nor no other Vertue upon Body than that of being able to move that Structure of Bone of Flesh and of Nerves which we call our Body and thereby other Bodies to which we do apply it So likewise she hath not the Power to make and determine all the Motions of the Body She can do nothing and she doth nothing as hath been already said
constrain'd but by Accident and by particular Rencounters for whether God gives them for Recompence of their Hope or the Attention of their Spirit as some conceive Or whether the Spirit makes them it self by the Light which it hath once received from God to discover the Essences of Things in separating that which is Essentially agreeable to them from those which they have not but by Accident and as it were Accessorily as well as the Proportions and Relations of Equality or Inequality which are in them as others have more willingly conceiv'd it It is hower always true to say That the Soul forms these Idea's and these Notions Since it is certain that she forms them at least by her Attention that is to say that she renders her self Attentive by her self and by her own proper Choice and Determination from whence there comes to her afterwards these Idea's and these Notions as hath been said already That God Acts perpetually in Us in our Perceptive Faculty and in our Appetitive Faculty After this particular Account I do not see that one could wish for any thing more to be fully instructed of the manner how our Souls Are and Operate in our Bodies unless it be that there is this general Reflection to spread over all that hath been said That it is God who is indubitably our Light and our Life who Operates in Us in all these divers Acts of our Perceptive Faculty and of our Appetitive Faculty in the same manner that he perpetually Acts in our Spirits and in our Hearts in our Spirits by the Act of his continual Illumination and in our Hearts by that of his insurmountable and invincible Attraction for that which we call in Us the Heart and the Will or the Appetitive Faculty is but a vehement and an invincible Desire by which God draws us to himself under the confused Idea of Good of Pleasure and of Happiness which are not to be found but in him And as all the Acts of the Perceptive Faculty are but only different Modifications of his Eternal Illumination which Operate in Us in an hundred divers manners So all these divers Acts of our Appetitive Faculty all these divers Resentments of our Passions are but the divers Modifications of that Desire and of that Motion of that Attraction and of that Ardor so enflamed with Pleasure and with Soveraign Good by which he perpetually draws us to himself which is the Principle of that Insatiability of Desires and of that perpetual Emptiness of Heart which nothing can satisfie and fill till it be filled by Himself Him of whom St. Paul hath so well said That a time will come and that He shall be All in All. Erit Deus Omnia in Omnibus It is in God that we See and Perceive all that we See and Perceive And it is in God that we Love and we Desire all that we Love and all that we Desire It is from God that we receive all our Light and it is in God that all the Motions of our Heart do center We know not at all that it is He that searcheth us but it is He who is the true Object and the true End of all our Pursuits as He is the Principle and the Mover of them It is He that drives us on and who Stimulates Us in all our Desires and it is He who is the Center and Term of all our Desires Our Poor Soul goes groping through all the Bodies which environs it searching for a Pleasure and Contentment which should satisfie it and it is God who is that Soveraign Pleasure which makes the Soul thus search after it Our Soul regards God by all its Being and by all its Motion and God regards the Soul as it were by all the Rays of his Infinite Essence She holds fast to God on every side if we may be permitted to say so God ties Himself to her by a thousand Regards of his Puissance of His Bounty and of His intimate and continual Influence We cannot separate our Souls from God nor God from our Souls We can know nothing clear of them but as far as we see and know God wholly united and wholly applied to her and that we do not see them all turned towards God either to receive from Him their Light or to dart themselves towards him to the end they may find in Him their Satisfaction and their Joy their Contentment and their Soveraign Felicity The Body doth a little interpose betwixt them but this is it which compleatly gives us Knowledge of our State upon Earth CHAP. XXII Man upon Earth and the visible Point wherein He ought to regard himself for to comprehend His State and his Duties of this present Life OUR Souls being the chiefest part of Us as we have seen that are in Relation to God Our Bodies are given to them for a Trial and for a Matter to Exercise themselves upon Our Souls are Essentially United to God and God removes them as it were from Him for a time placing them and keeping them in the Bodies to see if they can pierce the Vail of them and break thro' the Wall to go to Him by their Free and Voluntary Union which He would have them add to their Essential Union The Bodies which he gives them as it were a Burden and for a House upon the Rode of Eternity are the only thing that can stop them and make them to wander and be lost in that Course The Bodies which are to God in the Quality of the immediate Cause of the Union of Soul and Body the occasion of the determination of Idea's and Sentiments which He gives to the Souls are to the Souls the perpetual occasion of their Ruin and the obstacle of their Free and Voluntary Union with God Man is thereby a Composition of Body and of Soul which holds to God both by the one and by the other and to Men thro' God chiefly who unites us all in Himself one to the other as in the common Center and Principle of our Being and of our Life and afterwards by the Body which unites all of us again the one to the other by a thousand Relations either of Duties or of Businesses into a Natural Society first of all and then into a Politic Society Such is Man or to say better such is the Soul in the Body she is there equally a Tenant to the Visible World by the Body and to the Intelligible World by her Self a Tenant to God Essentially by her Self and accessorily and accidentally as it were to all the Visible World by the Body and even to created Intelligences to whom is committed some Intendance or some Direction over the Visible World who are able to Act upon her in Acting upon the Body She is there a Tenant for God as it were in a Inclosed Field and Amphitheater of the Body against the Flesh and the Senses and against all the Visible World c. Even against that Rebellious part of
the visible World the Common Matter which suffic'd to make the other Living Creatures was not at all sufficient for the making of Man Man cannot be made like Beasts by a sole Construction and Organization of his Body for the Body being fram'd it would not have been for all that a Man it would have been a Beast as Brutish as the rest if God had not sought out a Soul for it in His own Heart and in His own Essence There needed nothing but a well-placing of Matter and an altogether Earthly Structure of Organs animated by a Blood a little set on fire to cause a Body to eat and walk and to make it a living Creature like the rest But to make a Man who far above the Life of Beasts hath a Life of Knowledge Understanding and Reason who hath that Empire over himself which we call Liberty and that Natural Rightness which we call Conscience there was a necessity of searching for the Principle of this excellent Life out of all the Extent of Matter and the Region of Bodies and the Creator could find it no where but in Himself For this is what that Expression of the Holy Writer means And he breathed into him the breath of life He grafted upon this Material and Terrestrial Structure which of it self could have no other than the Life of Beasts which had been given to the Common Matter of the World in Animals a lively Image and an admirable Resemblance of his Eternal Essence And from the Conjunction of this Terrestrial Structure and this Celestial and Divine Nature which he pour'd into it Man became Man after His Image and was rais'd up in the middle of the World as a Living Statue to be reverenc'd by all the Universe The Perception and Certainty which all of us have of our Souls This is the History and Genealogy which Moses gives us of our Soul in which he appears no less a Philosopher than a Prophet And altho' he should never have given it us we should not have forborn to climb up to that Source or Origin of our Nobility by the inward Experience and Certainty which we all of us have of our selves since there is no body that doth not feel and perceive in himself this Celestial and Divine Part added and ingrafted upon this Terrestrial Matter with a thousand Characters and a thousand Attributes undoubtedly Celestial and Divine For who is there that doth not perceive in himself a Principle of Knowledge without Bounds which gives a kind of Immensity to his Soul Who is there that doth not perceive in himself a Principle and a Ground of an Empire over himself and over the visible World in the Foundation of his Liberty which raises up a Man into a kind of Equality or at least a Resemblance of Sovereignty with God Who doth not perceive in himself a Ground of Justice or Love of Order of Vertue and Duty which makes him like to the Eternal Justice from whence flows all the Order all the Beauty of the World both Moral and Natural Who doth not perceive in himself a Ground of Conscience whereby every one is punish'd or rewarded upon the spot according as he hath done well or ill in which Man bears in himself a lively Image of that Supreme Justice which continually judges the Universe and which will one day solemnly manifest its Judgment by a manifest Recompence of the Good and an awful Punishment of the Wicked Men have essentially this Perception and this Experience of themselves Some have it more clear and lively others more confus'd stupid and dead if I may so say according as they have more or less Attention or Reflection upon themselves but it is certain that they all of them have it It is apparent that the ancient Philosophers and the ancient Poets who were themselves the Philosophers of their time had not at all read the Book of Genesis when they made our Souls to descend from Heaven and confounded them with the Supreme Nature and said that they were a Portion of It more particularly applied to animate our Bodies than the rest of the Universe It is not any Tradition that hath given Men these Ideas it is the natural perception and inward experience and certainty which the Soul essentially hath of it self And if Men were not diverted and carried away on the one side by their Passions and on the other side over-rul'd to that degree as they are by the Empire exercis'd over them by the Imagination which dulls and obscures them so as hath been said there would be no need of writing Books to let them know the Nobility and Dignity the Imaterial Nature and the Spiritual and Immortal Quality of their Souls Every one would be his own Master and his own Book to himself But seeing that the Passions on one side take from us the Attention and Reflection upon our selves and that the Imagination on the other side presents us with Corporeal Images as soon as we apply our selves to conceive things Spiritual and Immaterial it is necessary to awaken and help this natural Sentiment and to support the feeble and weak Effort of the Understanding and Reason to unmingle our Soul from that Confusion with the Body which the Imagination causes For that purpose we must begin to own its Spiritual and Immortal Nature of which it can accumulate a thousand Proofs but not to weary the Spirit by too much Speculation we will close it up in Three only drawn from one triple indubitable Sentiment which every one hath and upon which every one may easily reflect For every one finds in himself a Principle of Knowledge a Principle of Liberty and a Principle of Conscience or Love of Order and Justice And these are the three evident Convictions of the Spiritual and Immortal Nature of our Souls which sparkle within us Let us treat of them in order and explain them one after another CHAP. II. That our Souls undoubtedly are Spiritual Natures and altogether distinct from Bodies upon the account of their Intelligent Nature IF we should follow the Light of our natural Ideas there would be no need here of any Effort of Reason or any Train of Discourse for the natural Idea which we have of a Spirit or a Spiritual Nature is no other than an Idea of an Intelligent Nature such as we find and perceive in us by that intimate and inseparable Experience which we have of our selves For we must observe and which admits of no difficulty that as we do not know Bodies but by the Experience which we have of them so we know not Spirits but by that Spirit which we have in our selves and by that Idea which we have of our Soul which we know not but under the Idea of a knowing Substance which we experiment and perceive in us to be capable of divers Matters of knowing perceiving and willing of loving of hating of being afflicted and rejoycing of having Pain and Pleasure and in fine to
Beasts other than that improper and equivocal Knowledge which common Speech gives even to Plants and Metals It is not only a Capriciousness but it is a manifest Contradiction when we give to Beasts this simple Knowledge of Perception without Reasoning and without Reason For it is certain that if that which we see in Beasts be a certain Mark and Proof of the least Degree of Proper and True Knowledge it is no less an invincible Argument of their true Reasoning and of true Reason as may be easily comprehended by all that hath been said hereupon For if it is by Knowledge that Animals follow and execute their Instincts there is no Reason to limit their Knowledge to a simple Perception They see much more than simple Objects only they see what Relation simple Objects have with them they know their own Businesses and foresee them they know their Diseases and they cure them by Specific Purgatives which they pick out and discern a thousand times more surely than Physicians do They perceive and know their Duty and that God ought to punish and reward them according as they have well or ill discharg'd their Duty CHAP. VIII What Judgment soever is made of Beasts our Souls are undoubtedly Spiritual by reason of their Knowing Nature I Am sure if we do reflect deliberately upon all that hath been already said against the Judgment of our Infancy by which we have given a true and proper Knowledge to Beasts like to that which we experience in us we shall see that This Judgment hath been and is the most rash and most unmaintainable in the World And that also these equivocal Signs of Knowledge which we see in Beasts in the resemblance of their exterior Movements with ours ought in no manner to suspend the Conviction of the Spiritual Nature of our Soul which results from the Distinction of the Ideas which we naturally have of a Knowing Nature and of a Corporeal or of an Unknowing Nature under which Shadow we conceive Animals to be entirely Material and Corporeal as well in their Souls as in their Bodies I am entirely persuaded that we have not any reason to give to Beasts any Knowledge like to ours For for what reason should we give it them Let us not say of them any thing which we do not know Let us say with all my Heart that they have admirable Instincts which the Infinite Wisdom guides since it is an Immense Wisdom which operates at the same time in them as in the whole Universe and which operates by sure and infallible Means Let us say That this Wisdom Operates in them but not that it Is in them Let us say That they know blindly like Plants and Metals those Objects which Nature would have them fly from or pursue Let us say That they keep and observe the Tract which Education and Discipline hath imprinted on them to make them perform those Movements which Men have learnt them from whence it comes to pass that they perform them as often as these same Tracts come to be awaken'd or reviv'd in them Let us say all that we see clearly of them but not to go beyond our Light do not let us say any thing but what we see with an entire Evidence Let us make an infinite difference betwixt that which the easiness of Conjecturing and the rashness of Judging makes the ignorant Vulgar presume and between that which the Evidence of our proper Sentiment causes us to acknowledge of our own selves Let us not heed Visions and Chimerical Imaginations and let us not reason but upon certain and infallible Experiences Let us say to our great satisfaction That the Example of true Knowledge and of that Certainty of our selves which we experience so undoubtedly in us is the proper Distinction of our Nature in the visible World in the which it is certain there is none but Man alone that undoubtedly bears this Character of the Divine Resemblance Let us not doubt of this Advantage but tho' others should doubt of it we should not for all that doubt of the Advantage of our Spiritual Nature because it is certain that a Knowing Nature such as we experience in us is essentially a Spiritual Nature so far that if others be so obstinate as to place a like Knowledge in Beasts they must necessarily acknowledge in them a Spiritual Nature For it is certain that That Knowledge which we experience in us and whereupon we have conceiv'd the Idea and the Notion of a Spiritual Nature as distinct from a Corporeal one is effectively a thing Spiritual wholly distinct from all that is call'd Body and from all that can be conceiv'd as Body And this is it which we go about to establish and to prove invincibly to all those who are willing to give attention What Judgment soever Men may make of Beasts of which we will take no further notice in this Writing our Souls are undoubtedly Spiritual and Immortal by reason of the advantage of Knowledge which makes as it were the first Ground and the first Basis of their Nature and at the same time the first Conviction of their Quality Spiritual and Immortal Condition because to know truly and properly after the manner that we know which is the only thing of which we have the Idea and the Certainty for we have no Idea of any sort of Knowledge but of that which we experience and find in us is a thing undoubtedly and essentially Spiritual And to the end that we may not doubt of it we need only to examine and to comprehend what it is to know as we know and we must always remember that we know of no other Knowledge than our own of which we have the Idea either of Certainty or of Experience for tho' we say commonly that Beasts have Knowledge none of us hath any Certainty or Experience of it by which one may form any Idea of their pretended Knowledge To know then as we know is to have in ones self a lively and intimate Certainty which penetrates and enlightens him that hath it either by a simple Perception as in the sensation which we have of Heat and Cold of Sweet and Bitter of Pleasure and of Pain or by Idea or clear and distinct Representation as in the Acts of Seeing and Imagining and of conceiving his Intellection by the which we have in us clear and lively Images of the things which we see which we imagin and which we conceive from whence we may be able to draw Reasonings and Consequences for an extension of our Light and to instruct us of the Relations Proprieties and Incompatibilities of things and to form to us together with the Rules of our Duties a thousand Sorts of different Arts and Sciences See here what it is to know as we know and it is easie to conceive thereby what this Knowing Nature is which we find to be in Us. This Knowing Nature is a Nature which hath a Certainty from it self and of that
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
of its Dependence and is capable of doing Honor to God in a thousand manners whether it be in serving to his Justice and in paying Homage to his Power or in honoring his Mercy and in serving as a Manifestation of his Wisdom and other Divine Perfections Experience lets us see that God annihilates nothing even of Corporeal Nature since all the Matter which he created in the Beginning to frame the World subsists wholly entire without the loseing of one single Atom of it and the Scripture teaches us that tho' Heaven and Earth must pass away it must not be to return into Nothing but to re-take a Beauty altogether new after the Conflagration of the Last Day But tho' we could conceive that God should annihilate all the visible World it would not be possible to conceive that he would be willing to annihilate the least of Souls because that tho' one could conceive some Benefit in annihilating the World he could never have any by annihilating the Soul which Being no more can no more do Honor to God in any manner and which Being doth essentially do him Honor by the Perception which it hath of him by the Idea which it gives of him and by the essential Relation which It hath to Him as to Its Principle Its End and Its Center This is sufficient without doubt to make us acknowledge with the uttermost Evidence the Spiritual and Immortal Nature of our Souls by reason of their Knowing Nature which is the only thing we have hitherto consider'd in them But because we can increase this Certainty and this Conviction of the Spiritual Nature and Quality of our Souls and of their Immortal and Eternal Condition by the consideration of a second sensible and admirable Advantage which we all of us see and experience in them we must here give a little attention I speak of the Ground and of the Principle of Liberty which we all of us find in our selves and I say That This is a further indubitable Proof and Conviction to Us of the Spiritual Nature and Quality of our Souls CHAP. XII That our Souls are undoubtedly Spiritual by reason of the Principle and Ground of Liberty which we find in Them AS We Experience in Us a Ground and Principle of Knowledge which alone hath hitherto made Us Know the Spiritual Nature of our Souls we do there likewise Experience with the same Certainty a Marvellous Empire which we Exercise over our Selves and which we call Liberty or Free-will by the which we dispose of the Motions of our Bodies the Desires of our Hearts and the Thoughts of our Spirit The Experience of this Triple Ground of Liberty or Empire over Our Selves is General in all Mankind For altho' we do not all of Us Experience it in the same Degree yet there is no body who do's not Experience it in some Degree or other We all of us find that we have a free and voluntary Empire over the Motions of our Body either to Cause them or to Suspend them by a meer Empire We all of us find in the very same manner that we have the power of turning away our Love and our Pursuit from Objects that do most attract Us. And we find in fine that we have the power of applying or suspending our Reasoning as we please And it is certain that this Triple Principle of Liberty which frames in Us a most singular and most remarkable Distinction of our Nature is an evident and an indubitable Character of Spirituality in our Souls Animals have not the Liberty of their Motions Animals in truth move diversly and are not like Machines which Men make which for the most part move after a certain fashion they turn to the Right and Left they Advance and Retire they move all manner of ways But all these diverse Motions are either determin'd by the manifest and sensible Impression of some External Principle as when Sheep are attracted by the Verdure the Ox prick'd on by the Goad or provok'd by the secret Course of the Blood and Spirits which without any external Impression determine a thousand different Motions as the Skipping of fresh and pamper'd Horses and other Animals when a sudden Gayety makes them make a thousand different Leapings Those Persons also who by that Rashness of Judging which we have so justly condemn'd do believe that Beasts have a true Knowledge like to Ours by which they Act and Move do confess that they have not any sort of Liberty of their Movements that they have not any Empire to make them or to suspend them as they please They confess that they are always carried on by an invincible Necessity which draws them In effect we see that they always follow either the Exterior Determination of present Objects of which the Strongest always carries them as when the Dog being violently attracted by Bread or Meat is beaten back by the Stick the Species or Image of which passing thro' the Eyes is engrav'd in the Retina and is carried by the Optic Nerve as far as the Brain and to the Root of the Nerves and Muscles where It determins a Motion quite contrary to that which the Meat produc'd or else the Interior Determination of the Fermentations and Boyling of their Blood and Humors as when they go a Rutting or when they go to seek and pick out Juyces Plants or Metals which Nature hath prepar'd for them as Remedies against their Diseases St. Augustin observes That this is the Reason why the Creator hath in such manner ordain'd in the greatest part of Animals Passions which serve to the Conservation of their Species that they do not rise up in them but by certain orderly Intervals and in certain Seasons only because not having any command over themselves to check to moderate and to govern in any fashion the Movements which accompany them they would not be able to serve for the Uses to which they were destin'd if these Passions had been in them at all times as they are in Man Animals then have not any Command over their Body to determine or suspend it or to check its Motions but We We undoubtedly have this Empire not indeed in regard of Motions purely Natural and Vital for our Stomach do's not hearken to Us at all either to make or not to make Digestion our Blood circulates whether we will or no our Heart hath its twofold Motion of Systole and Diastole or of Dilation and Contraction our Arteries in like manner have their Pulsations which we can neither advance nor retard But in respect to the Motions which Men call Animal we have so absolute a Command of them that they are made suspended or check'd for that sole Reason precisely Because we will which it may be is a thing the most admirable either in Us or in all Nature for we do not know that there needs any thing else than to Will and to Desire to cause our Muscles and our Nerves to carry the dull Mass of our
Happiness of which it is the Basis and so long as it is indubitable that that Part by which and in which we can and we ought to be Essentially either happy or unhappy is not only our Principal Part but the whole true Ground of our Being so long it is clear and certain that our Soul is all the true Ground of our Being because we find that it is in the Soul that all our Sentiments Essentially are that is to say Joys and Pleasures on the one part and Pains and Griefs on the other and by consequence Happiness or Unhappiness for it is the Soul which alone hath Essentially the Certainty and Sentiment of All that we perceive and if the Soul hath Pleasure she takes no care at all of the Body in what Estate soever it may be she is content and when she is content we are contented also That the Soul hath Pleasures and Pains independently of the Body We must observe in the second place That the Soul in which alone is Pleasure and Joy Grief and Sadness or Pain hath two sorts of Pleasures and two sorts of Pains Pleasures which she hath in her self and by her self as are those of Duty and of Conscience and Pleasures which she hath and which she receives from without upon the occasion of the Body by that Power and Empire of Nature which rules over us And Pains on the other Hand which she hath in her self such as are the invisible Wounds of secret Fears and of Mortal Sadness with which God pierces her through when He pleases and those of the Disorder and Irregularity of her Desires and of her Passions and Pains which she hath and which she receives from without upon the occasion of the Body The Essential Difference of the Pleasures and the Pains which the Soul hath by reason of the Body and of the Pleasures and the Pains which She hath independently of the Body Thirdly We must observe in the Third place That the Pleasures and the Pains which the Soul hath by her self and of her self independently of the Disposition of the Body by the Order by the Duty by the Vertue and by the Impression of Grace and of the Celestial and Eternal Hope or by the Irregularity and Disorder and Fear of Celestial Judgments have this Advantage above the Pleasures and the Pains which the Soul hath only upon the occasion of the Body That the Pleasures and the Pains which the Soul hath as ubjected to and occasion'd by the Body do never go so near to the bottom of the Heart and Soul as to render it entirely happy or unhappy because that together with the Pleasures of the Body the Soul may have Pains which may make it insensible of those Pleasures and with the Pains of the Body the Soul may have Pleasures which may render it invulnerable and insensible of the Pains of the Body For it is a constant Experience That the proper Pleasures of the Soul do Heal and take away all the Griefs and all the Pains of the Body and that the proper Pains of the Soul do dull and blunt likewise the edge of all the Pleasures of the Body In such a manner that the Soul being sick in her Conscience can never be cur'd by any Pleasures or any Delights of the Body which can only suspend and lessen for some short Intervals the Attention of the Soul to her proper Ills and her interior Wounds and that the Soul void of solid Goods can never be fill'd and satisfied by any Goods or by any Pleasures of the Body and on the contrary the Soul being very sound in her Conscience and being very quiet in the Testimony which she hath in her self can never be disturb'd in her Happiness by the Pains and Contradictions of the Body She can suffer Poverty and Disease but She cannot lose her Satisfaction and her Happiness She is contented in her self and the Ills of the Body cannot reach that inaccessible Place of the Heart where She rejoyceth in her self in Order and Duty on one part and on the other in a firm and sure expectation of Consolation and Recompence which she waits for from above That the Pleasures and the Pains which the Soul hath not but upon the account of the Body are only as it were to shew the Pleasures and the Pains of Eternity Fourthly We must observe in the fourth place That Pleasures and Pains be they those which are immediately in the Soul or be they those which are not in Her but upon the Bodies account are only in her for to shew if I may so say the Pleasures and Pains which ought to be the Recompence or the Punishment of Vertue or of Vice and which ought to give us the Manner of the New Estate into which we are going thro' this present Life of which we have so indubitable a Certitude by a thousand Assurances and by the sole Instinct of Nature as we have observ'd already since it gives Us an Idea which cannot be false and a Desire which cannot deceive and so Our Souls have essentially in the Grounds of their Spiritual Nature an Infinite Ground of Happiness and an Infinite Ground of Misery which the Pains and the Joys of this Life are only for to give us an Idea of For it is certain that the Power which we find rules over Us both by Pleasure and by Pain being as it is essentially Just and oblig'd to Reward or Punish Us according to our Deserts ought necessarily to Recompense Us by a thousand sorts of unspeakable Joys and unimaginable Pleasures and to punish us after this Life by a thousand sorts of Pains and Dolors in like manner So that indeed We carry in our Souls a Ground of Immense and Infinite Happiness or Misery of which the Alternative and the Manner is decided and determin'd by Vice and by Vertue and we are as much assur'd that this Immortal and Eternal Life which we are to begin after having finish'd This here will be fill'd with unspeakable Joys and Pleasures infinitely more touching and piercing than these which we taste at present as we are that we have at present Transitory Joys and Pleasures That Vertue is the proper and true Good of the Soul and Vices its Evils Fifthly In the fifth place we must observe That All that We call Good and Evil to wit the Good and the Evil which are only so upon the account of the Body are only false Goods and false Evils The Pleasures of Sense for Example are only false Goods and Pleasures because they promise to make the Heart happy they make a Shew of a certain Felicity which they display to our hungry Hearts and in stead of that Felicity which they promise and of which they have given so false and so deceitful a shew they leave the Soul very unhappy by leaving it empty and hungry on the one part and on the other part wounded murther'd and embloodied if I may so say with a thousand mortal
that the Vertue and the Habit of Continence should be establish'd without that the Images of Pleasure which were engraven in the Brain by deep Traces and Impressions come to be as it were defac'd by new Images and new Impressions which give to the Soul the power and the liberty of suspending and turning away the Thoughts of Pleasure and of determining the Motions of the Spirits and of the Nerves to a side opposite to that which would cause the impure Blood and Humors to flow into those places where Concupiscence is set on fire It is almost the same thing with all other Vertues they have need that the Imagination should be subjected to them and as the Organ of the Imagination is Corporeal so there is no Vertue whose Habit doth not subsist partly in the Organ of the Imagination for to keep it tame and submiss So it is out of question that all the Habits whether of Sciences or of Vertues are partly in the Body There will be some who perhaps will maintain that they are There entirely but the surest way is to say that they are partly in the Body and partly in the Soul In the Body for the Sciences it is the Order the Connexion and the Enchaining of Corporeal Species which serve to that which we call Memory And for the Vertues it is the Imagination purifi'd or the Brain imprinted with Corporeal Traces and Images which make us think more strongly upon the Duties of Vertue than upon Pleasures which are contrary to it And in the Soul it is for the Sciences the train of Consequences well form'd in their Principles and the facility which Reason hath there to exercise it self and to employ it self there And for the Vertues it is the natural love of Uprightness fortifi'd above the Instinct of Conscience by the reflection and by the taste of Reason from whence is form'd in the Soul a Disposition of force against the Pleasures which Concupiscence may oppose against it How Grace Operates upon the Body This is a sure Decision and may be apply'd to Supernatural Vertues for supernatural Vertues as well as Natural have need that the Imagination should be purifi'd Grace can enter immediately thro' the Soul tho' for the most part she immediately enters by the Imagination but whether she enters immediately by the Soul or that she doth not she Acts necessarily at least by a Counter-blow upon the Body that is to say upon the Organ of the Imagination And it is impossible that our Heart should be pure and innocent if our Imagination is impure and defil'd or over-rul'd by the Images of the World of Vanity and of Pleasure from whence is form'd a Principle of Christian Morality very fruitful and very remarkable which makes us see at once the indispensible necessity of the constant and continual Practice and Observation of all the Gospel as it would be easie to justifie it by an exact and particular Examination hereof if we had propos'd here any other thing than to give Overtures and Principles There needs no more to be said of it for to have a sure Discernment of the Acts of the Body and of the Acts of the Soul and there is no more Question but to observe the proper Differences of the Operation of the Soul Let us follow them one after another CHAP. XI Operations depending and Operations independing upon the Body WE observe Secondly in us in the proper Operations of the Soul Operations which do depend upon the Body and Operations which do not depend upon the Body For we Experience that there are Acts in us which we have independently of all Disposition of the Body as the Acts of the Will which is the necessary and invincible love of Good in general but it is not after the same manner neither with those of the Liberty of our Heart which is the Power that we have to determine our selves to Love or to Hate to Flie or Pursue freely Nor with those of the Conscience which do commonly presuppose Liberty Nor with those of Reasoning which do all of them alike suppose a certain Disposition of a just Organization and of a just Temperament in the Body without the which we can neither exercise our Determinative Faculty which is call'd Liberty nor the Sensibility of Duty which we call Conscience nor our Active Faculty of Thinking which we otherwise call the Faculty of Reasoning from whence it happens that Sleeping or falling into Ravings thro' Diseases or thro' Madness we lose the very entire and very free usage of these Faculties Whereas being Fools or Mad Well or Ill Sleeping or Waking we love always alike that which is Good in general would all be happy and content There is only This Movement of our Will which is entirely independent of the Disposition of the Body all the rest do more or less depend upon it I say more or less because there are divers Degrees of the Dependence which the Operations of the Soul have upon our Bodies The Acts of Perception of Imagination of Reminiscency and of Passionating ones self depend thereupon much more than the Act of Understanding or of Reasoning and the Acts of Liberty and of Conscience which are the Faculties we have the most independent on the Disposition of the Body The Acts of Perceiving of Imagining c. depend much more upon the Disposition of the Body than these three Faculties of Intellection or Reason of Liberty and of Conscience because these three Faculties do not depend upon it but indirectly and occasionally or accidentally inasmuch as their Acts cannot be exercis'd in all their Perfection if the Imagination be not calm and sedate For the Soul hath no need of a certain positive Disposition of the Body or of a certain Determination which should happen to her from it for to determine her to conceive by pure Intellection and to be sensible of Duty but only of not being troubled diverted and transported by foolish and confus'd Thoughts which she conceives thro' the disorder of the Organ of the Imaginative Faculty This ought to make us comprehend how the Passions are pernicious since they all of them take away the Scepter and the Empire from Reason to give it to the Imagination and that they give to this Faculty already rebellious and impure and unruly enough of it self a rapid and untameable Motion which infinitely augments its unruliness But to Perceive to Imagine to Remember to Passionate it self the Soul hath need of being necessarily determin'd by a certain Disposition and a certain Configuration of the Brain which ought to precede her Act of Imagining of Perceiving of Passionating and of calling to Mind by Memory properly so called This hath given place to the division of the Organical Faculties and of the Inorganical Faculties of the Soul for we have believed that we might call those Organical which do not Operate but upon the occasion and by the determination of a particular Disposition of the Body CHAP. XII
diversity of Temperaments and of Genius's After which there remains nothing more to be said upon the occasion of this difference of the Operation of the Soul unless that it is thereby easie to comprehend that all the diversity which is observed betwixt one Man and another do's not come but from the diversity of the Temperament and from the material Structure and Harmony of the Body and from the greater or lesser Disposition whereby the Objects which strike the Senses are lively represented to the passive or to the active Faculty of the Thinking Soul for if one is Choleric and the other Phlegmatic it do's not at all happen because the Soul of one is more lively and more sensible than the Soul of another but because the same things do more hurt the Brain of the one and less hurt the Brain of the other and it is in the same manner with the advantage of the Understanding of the Judgment and of the Memory and of the other Natural Qualities But let us go on and see further what other Operations our Souls make in our Bodies CHAP. XVIII Acts of Spiritual Reminiscency and Acts of Corporeal Memory WE observe in the ninth place Acts of Reminiscency or of Remembrance Spiritual and to speak properly Inorganical and Acts of Corporeal Memory or of Mechanic Memory if we may be admitted to say so for if you observe you will find that beyond or above that Organical Mechanic Memory which determins in the same order and in the same connection that it hath received them the Species and the Motions of the Fibers of the Spirit from whence are formed the Motions of the Muscles of the Throat and of the Tongue which make us recite or sing truly an Air without dreaming of it or those of the Feet which make us dance a Currant or a Ballet There is another Species of Memory by which we conserve the most abstracted Idea's of Sciences in all the order and all the Arangement that Demonstrations make of them for tho' Corporeal and Mechanic Memory serves to these Sciences for conservation of these Kinds of Terms which serve thereto yet it is undubitable that there are a thousand sorts of Knowledges wholly intellectual which we have acquired by Speculation and Reasoning the remembrance of which remains with us which do's no way depend upon that Organ of the Corporeal Memory which goes like a Wheel or like a Clock so long as it hath Line and Weights for tho' this Corporeal Memory is lost this Spiritual Reminiscency remains and so far is Reminiscency or Spiritual Memory from being weakned by Time and Old Age that she is always growing more perfect for we see that abstracted and speculative Sciences are perfectioned more and more tho' the Memory diminishes in speculative Men. There might be a thousand Reflections made upon this double Memory for the Corporeal on the one side operating as she do's sensibly by Spirits without the determination of the Soul and often times without her participation from whence proceed a thousand marvellous Effects as to observe the Order and the Dependence of Tones and of Pauses or Cadences in Singing or in Dancing and to repeat thousands of Words in the Order that we have learn'd them may serve for a sensible Demonstration of the inutility of the Principle of a Knowledge like to ours which we so imprudently give to Beasts Since it is certain that Memory makes us Sing and Dance without our dreaming of it And on the other side Reminiscency and the Faculty wholly Spiritual of the Soul of Remembrance make us see in our Souls their Spiritual Quality and Nature by the Immensity of its Idea's of its Principles and of its Consequences and by the enchaining of the one with the other which she Treasures up in her self CHAP. XIX Acts of Spiritual Resentment and Acts of Corporeal Passion The difference of Pleasure and Joy of Grief and Sadness WE observe in us in the tenth place Acts of Spiritual Passion and Acts of Corporeal Passion for we have not only Pleasures and Pains but we have Joys and Sorrows Things altogether different Pain and Pleasure are Sensations these are Modifications and confused Sentiments of the Soul which affect it and penetrate it without Enlightning it but in respect to the conduct of the Body by Relation to which they instruct it teaching it to apprehend what is good and what is ill for the Body by way of Instinct A Joy and Sadness are Passions or Acts and Resentments of the Appetite of that Love which we have said caries us towards Good and do flow from the Idea oâ— the Opinion which we have of it The difference of Pain and Sadness Pain is very different from Sadness not only in the Sentiment which the one and the other gives us but also in the manner whereby the one and the other enter into our Souls Pain is made in us without us it enters indeed by our Senses but it is not us who open the Gate of our Soul to it we are very willing to keep it shut it makes way it enters it penetrates it in spight of us and independently of our Reflections even to the bottom of our Soul On the contrary we open the Gate to Sadness it enters by our Thought and by our Reflection and it is after the same manner with Pleasure and Joy as it is with Pain and Sadness Pleasure is a Sentiment like Pain which is made in us without us independent of our Thought and of our Reflection and Joy on the contrary enters by the Gate of our Thought and of our Knowledge or Reflection Joys Corporeal and Corporeal Sadnesses And as Pain and Sadness Pleasure and Joy are divers Operations in us so there is likewise in us a great difference of Joys and Sadnesses we have two sorts of them which we may call Corporeal and we have some which we may call and which we have always called Spiritual both the one and the other are Passions of the Soul for they are the Acts of the Appetitive Faculty which we otherwise call the Will not by way of free Determination and deliberate Act but by way of Resentment and Emotion and this is properly called Passion We have Corporeal Joys and Sadnesses not that the Body can have any resentment of Joy or Sadness for it cannot have them in any manner but because we have them upon the occasion of the Body or by the Principle of the Sensible or Corporeal Appetite which is the love of Sensible Good Corporeal Joys and Sadnesses do arise in Us these two ways either because the violent Passion of love for some Sensible Good hath a happy or unhappy Success from whence Joy and Sadness spring up by a necessary Resentment or because the Humours of the Body of which there are some Earthy and Melancholy ones which lock up the Fibres of the Brain and Heart and thereby give occasion to sad Thoughts Conditions and Dispositions and some that are
begins to be touch'd And can this Duty be more lively drawn near us and plac'd before our Eyes than by an Action so efficacious and so Sovereign by an Empire so Almighty and so Invincible by which God causes in us the dolorous and affecting Sentiment of all kinds of Pains of Incommodity and Diseases the Idea's whereof may be always present either by our own Pains or by those of other Men. Men strive to make terrible Pictures of Gods Vengeances to establish and imprint the fear of them but as I have observ'd there is no need of making such Efforts when one hath once conceiv'd the manner how our Souls have Pain and Grief in our Body we have nothing to do but to remember that God will wound and strike after another manner the Impure and Reprobated Souls deliver'd up his to Wrath and to his Eternal Vengeance than he now wounds us by to make us sensible and concern'd for the conservation of our Bodies Of Hell I found once a Libertine who told me he could not comprehend that Hell should be such as they said it was I did no more than ask him If he had never had a Fever the Cholique or the Tooth-ache which might have very much disturb'd him and if he had never had them if he had ever seen any body in those torments The Libertine answer'd That he himself had had but too much Experience of them Alas said I to him do you but imagine now an Eternal Fit of a burning Fever or the Cholique or the Rage of a desperate Tooth-ache and you have conceiv'd what Hell is Do not you apprehend That the Power which at present makes in us these so sad Conditions can make them eternally in our Souls if they have render'd themselves worthy of his Wrath And there needed no more to that Spirit who till then was most disorder'd and the greatest Libertine perhaps that ever was to make him conceive Hell He confess'd it and believ'd it so well that he quitted not only Debaucheries but the World He afterwards made an edifying Repentance which was known to a great many The Scripture teaches us that all the Evil the Pains and the Calamities in the World which at present do afflict Mankind all the Terrors and Dreads which affright them are no other but Lightnings which come out beforehand from the Cloud of Gods Wrath and from the Shadows of the Manifestations of his Vengeance The sharpest Pain the Sword the Fire the Plague Diseases general and particular Calamities are not in the World saith the Wise Man but to serve for an Idea and a Demonstration of the Justice and the Wrath which God ought signally to manifest upon Sinners Ad vindictam creata sunt Hell is nothing but the fixed and setled Wrath of God upon Sinners and it is impossible to doubt but that it ought to settle upon them since they persist even to the Death in the obstinacy of their Revolt and their Irregularity because he cannot abandon eternally his Creatures to the liberty and obstinacy of their Licentiousness and of their Revolt How much then ought we to fear him for that Wrath that can make in us Wounds so deep and so cruel and at the same time so irremediable and so incurable when he shall Act by a true Spirit of Wrath and Vengeance Seeing that now he Acts only by Goodness and Bounty or by the Spirit of his well-doing Inclination that he do's not hurt us but to heal us yet he gives us such dolorous and such sensible Wounds Oh God of Vengeances how heavily will you lay your Hand upon us and how will your Wrath strike and wound us since your Goodness and your Mercy wounds us with Pains so lively and so penetrating The Duty of Religion We ought then without doubt to fear this so terrible a Power But if we ought thus to fear it because it hath a delicate Grandeur which is hurt by our Revolt and a formidable Anger and Wrath which ought severely to punish our Disorders we ought no less also to apprehend our Dependence And the lively and penetrating manner whereby this Supream Nature makes us perpetually to feel its Empire over the double part of our Being Acting in our Souls and in our Bodies continually carries it into our Heart and puts upon our Head as it were an immense Weight as Job felt under the which our whole Being must be perpetually incurvated and debased with Respect and with Dependence as are in the Divine Word those Sublime and Immortal Intelligences which bend not at all under the Weight of the Universe which they bear yet do notwithstanding bend and prostrate themselves perpetually under his Throne debased in themselves in their Dependence and in their Nothingness Of Faith or Affiance in God We don't commonly conceive That Affiance is a Duty for which we are accountable to God tho' it is one of the most Essential Homages that we owe him It is the most Essential Act of the Supream Worship which we owe to his Sovereign Bounty and to his Sovereign Puissance We do never sufficiently acknowledge these two Attributes but by our full and entire Affiance which is the most Essential Part of that which in the Divine Word is call'd Faith for it is not the Acquiescence of our Spirit in things Reveal'd which is that which is most agreeable to God in Faith It is Affiance which gives the greatest Value and the greatest Merit to our Faith And in Effect it is not so great a Wonder that we believe That God doth not deceive us in that which he says but to attend without Wavering and with a full and entire Assurance all that which we hope from him with Affiance This is that excellent Faith which is the Soul of that Christian Prayer of which the Divine Redeemer hath given a Lesson to the World and not to Hesitate at all because he do's not do every thing that we will This is that Faith which removes Mountains that the Divine Redeemer would have us have in our Hearts Therein is an excellent and exquisite Worship There is the Sovereign Homage paid to the Sovereign Power and to the Sovereign Goodness And this is a Worship which God requires of us and which he will receive from our Hearts and of which he cannot be frustrated without resenting it and without being extreamly offended thereby He says to our unbelieving Hearts to our uncertain and doubting Hearts that which our Saviour said to S. Peter Modicae Fidei quare dubitasti and he says it to them with an extream Indignation and an extream Sentiment because as he would have us do every thing that we desire to do with a chast and pure Affiance so he wills that we should desire it with a lively and ardent Faith animated with Affiance and a full Assurance as much as is possible The Duty of Affiance is indubitable and nothing can make us so well apprehend it and at the same time persuade
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
the Body is Time so our Future State out of the Body is Eternity and there is the Principal clear Light by which we ought to Judge of the difference of our Present and of our Future State All may Change and all ought to have an End in out Present State but nothing ought to Change nor have an End in our Future State whether it be Happy or Unhappy This is as every one may see a fruitful Source and abounding with strong and pressing Consequences which ought to penetrate Us and to cause a General and Universal Change in our Idea's Our Present State which is called Time is likewise called the Present Life and our Future State the Life to come because that tho' in the two States it is only the same Soul which in each State is essentially Living yet it is very much to the purpose that we distinguish these two Lives by their divers Objects and Conditions altho' there be but one and the same Foundation of Life in the two States The Present Life doth not Exercise it self but upon the false and perishable Objects of Time and its deceitful and deceiving Oeconomy The Future Life Exercises it self upon Objects wholly True and wholly Solid The Present Life is a perpetual alternativeness of real Cares and Torments and of false Shadows of Repose of effective Business and of seeming Riches of the agitations and Fevers of the Passions and lucid Intervals of Reason a Theater of Eternal Mutations a Chain enterlinck'd with short and transitory Felicities and long and durable Miseries a rapid and precipitous Torrent which amongst some slender and false Pleasures and some but always bitter drops of Pleasure rouls on with cruel Pains and tormenting Briers A vehement and impetuous Whirlwind of hurry and Ambition Which after having much tormented and agitated the Body and the Soul after having raised a thousand Storms in the Heart and in the Spirit is dissipated into Air and Smoak The Future Life on the contrary is either but one Day all Uniform all united to everlasting Triumphs and Felicities or one eternal Night of Horror and Despair In fine Our Present State is also called the Present World and our Future State the World to come because our Present State ties us and affixes us to the Visible and Corporeal World much more sensibly than to the Spiritual and Intelligible World and our Future State ought to break off our Union and our Relation to the Visible World and to unite us wholly and solely to God and to the pure Spirits which make together with God that which we call the Intelligible World And all these Idea's ought equally to make us undervalue our Present State for such as it is and infinitely to esteem our Future State for that which it ought to be for whether we conceive our Present State under the Idea of Life under the Idea of Time or under the Idea of the Present and Visible World and on the contrary Whether it be that we conceive our Future State under the Idea of Eternity under the Idea of a Future Life or under the Idea of the World to come the one appears infinitely Precious and Essential and the other infinitely Despisable They ought moreover to make us conceive clearly the Crime and the going astray of our Love of Time of the Present Life and World and that of our indifference and forgetfulness for the Future Life the World to come and for Eternity There are some who wonder that the Gospel should be a perpetual Condemnation of the World And who would that the Divine Redeemer had more complaisance for our Appetites and our Inclinations thereto and that he had not found it so ill that we should love an Appearance so amiable and which hath so many Charms and Enchantments But they need only consider what this Love or the Love of the World is upon which he lets fall his so terrible Condemnations and Curses 'T is this World the Gospel condemns and thunders out so many Anathema's and Curses against It is this Love of Time of Life and of the present World which blinds which besots and enchants Men and makes them forget the World to come or the future State of Souls out of Bodies It is not at all that Assemblage of Elements which makes the World that is condemn'd It is not that Society of Men whether Natural Civil or Politick which is sometimes also call'd the World which is render'd Criminal But it is the Corruption of Hearts blinded and enchanted by the Figure of this transitory World from whence is form'd that over-ruling love of Vanity which makes Eternity to be forgotten which is that impure and detestable World which the Man-God High-Priest of future Happiness and Father and Monarch of the Age to come hath necessarily cry'd down to recall Men from this wandring of Vanity to the Essential Station of Eternity He could not but condemn the World in every Part in that Sence in its Conceits in its Opinions in its Maxims in its Customs in its Prosperities and in its Goods in its Joys and in its Pleasures because there could nothing flow from so impure a Source but what must be impure But this is not a Place to enlarge upon it it is enough to have compris'd the Judgment which we ought to make of our two States and the Preference which we ought to give to the one above the other we must now see the Obligations which come to us from thence CHAP. XV. The General Order betwixt Time and Eternity the present and the future Life and the present World and the World to come which follows from the Knowledge which we have been now acquiring THERE is without doubt a real Order of Duties between Time and Eternity the present Life and the future the present World and the World to come We will not take notice of it but it is certain that Time is indebted to Eternity the present Life to the future the present World to the World to come our present State to the future State Time is indebted to Eternity for it Is not but for the sake of Eternity And that which it owes to Eternity is that it ought to refer all unto it The Order of Time is that it should be carry'd back to the Point of Eternity All that is done in Time and which is not carry'd back to Eternity States with an absolute Power and with a Sovereign Authority to gain Battels to Conquer Provinces to make all the Neighbouring Thrones and Kingdoms shake around us to give what Motion and Impression we will to the Universe to reduce to an effective Reality that Idea of an Universal Monarchy the Vision and Chimerical Ambition of which we have reproached in the last Age in our Neighbors We believe that it is something very fine and it is true that nothing in Human Affairs is greater but even That if it be not in the Order of Eternity or if it be not made for
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
is enlightned or may be enlightned is in It an indubitable Character of a Nature not only Spiritual but truly Celestial and Divine But above all this Empire which we have over our Hearts is an Argument and a sensible Conviction to us of the Spiritual Nature of our Souls The Empire of our Desires is another certain Proof of the Spirituality of our Souls It is a constant Experience That neither Plants nor Metals nor Beasts in whom we place Desire or to say better to whom we give the Name of Desires to their violent Sympathies and Antipathies which carry them diversly to embrace or to shun one another have either the power to command their Desires to suspend them to pass them by or to check them The Loadstone seeks the Pole with a Desire the most vehement one can frame an Idea of it carries it self towards it with an indefatigable Motion and yet who ever saw that the Loadstone exercis'd over it self that Empire of stopping or checking this Motion Beasts have all of them their Instincts and their rapid Motions towards certain Objects to which Men also give the Name of Desires and yet we have never seen an Animal that could command his Instinct or his Desires We easily check the Motion which carries the Horse to the Mare by Barriers but never did a Horse thereupon command his Desires We easily stop the hungry Dog who runs eagerly to his Food and so turn him away from it but he himself do's never check the Motion of his Hunger Animals follow their Instincts and their Desires like Metals and Plants by an invincible Necessity which trains them on As the Mill goes as long as it hath Water or Wind and a Clock as longs as it hath Line and Weight so Animals go as far as their Instincts drive them and they have no more power to check themselves in their pretended Desires than Clocks and Mills in their Motions But we we experience in Us an Empire a Sensible Superiority over own Desires we curb them we turn them by we resist them we cast them off and we confront them and command them with a real Authority It is true that this Liberty is extremely enfeebled in the greatest part of us by natural Corruption by evil Education by wicked Imagination by the Custom and Habit of Vice by our want of Attention and Application to our selves We see well enough that the power of checking our Passions hath been in our Nature as it were absolute and despotick and that it hath at present lost something because we have need of Dexterity and Industry to resist them and because we have not always force enough to suppress them at their first onset But this Disorder of our Nature doth not hinder but that we are sensible of its Nobility and its true Empire over its proper Desires And tho' there were only almost dead Sparks of Liberty which are in the most corrupted and and in those that are most govern'd by their Vices and tho' there were no Wise Men to whom it made its Power visible as it does there would yet be enough of that deadned Spark of slavish and captive Liberty to acknowledge in it the advantage of our Spiritual Nature because it is certain that this Empire of our Soul over its Desires is an evident and an indubitable Character of a Spiritual Nature St. Augustin says That the only Contrariety of our Desires is an assured Argument of the Spirituality of our Souls because that in fine says he there would not be in us a combat of Desires if we were not composed of two Parts of a Corporeal one by reason of which we have Corporeal Desires and of a Spiritual one which causes us to have Desires quite opposite But it is not so much from this opposition of our Desires as from the Empire that we exercise over them that I will here draw the Conviction of this Advantage and of this Excellency of our Soul This Empire makes us evidently see two things The one That we are thereby imprinted with the lively Resemblance of that Wisdom and Sovereign Liberty of the Eternal Nature and Essence which the Grecian Fathers commonly express'd by that particular Name which their Language only furnishes to express the being Sovereignly Masters of our selves The other That we have an Order essentially in our Nature from whence is form'd that light and that force of Reason which makes us condemn our Desires that are contrary to our Duty And these two things make us undoubtedly see the Nature and the Spiritual Quality of our Souls because it is impossible that this double Resemblance of the Supreme Nature which is a Sovereign Spirit should be found in a Corporeal Nature CHAP. XIII We have an indubitable Certainty of the Immortal Condition of our Souls by the Desires and Instincts of Immortality and Eternity which we have THERE might be a great many Reflections added here to that which hath been just now said concerning the Empire of our Reason over our Heart and over our Desires to draw from thence convincing Arguments of the Indubitable Spiritual Quality of our Souls but because I am unwilling to tire the Readers Patience in holding him too long upon this Speculation I chuse rather to suppress them and to remark the Certainty of the Immortal Quality and Condition of our Souls which we shall be able to find by seriously reflecting upon it in that Ground of Liberty or Will which we experience in Us and by which I am going to let you see that we have a certain and an indubitable Conviction of our Spiritual and Immortal Nature The Desires of Immortality which our Soul resents in it self and which arise from the Ground of Will which I have call'd Liberty are an assured Proof and an indubitable Argument of its Effective Eternity and by consequence of its Immortality for without dispute there is in our Nature an Idea and a Desire of Eternity which hath its Principle in Nature's self and precedes all our Reasonings and all our Reflections and which Acts and Operates in Us before we have receiv'd any Instruction from other Men. Before Men do Reason and Reflect without Study and without Instruction by the movement of Nature thro' all the Habitable Earth they do not only find and perceive in themselves a confus'd Idea of Eternity and a Desire of Immortality but they distinctly conceive a New and an Immortal Life after this here in the which they either hope or fear something for themselves and for their Neighbors and Friends and into which they carry even their Desires and their Thoughts of Vengeance against their Enemies They do not only thus conceive a new and Immortal Life for their Souls from whence issu'd in all Nations whether Civiliz'd or Barbarous the Religious Rites concerning the Dead with Expiations Lustrations and Sacrifices but they perceive by Intervals their Hearts push'd on thither by redoubled Desires and Sighs so vehement that the present Life