not so much as see or know even themselves only which gave occasion of that Expression of the Schoolmen Videntur ut quò non ut quod non cognita faciunt cognoscere We may then presuppose that it is not at all these Tables whereon the Soul sees the Object and this being presupposed we have no more to do than to search into the manner how the Soul hath by the occasion of these dead and Corporeal Images and Impressions those living and animated Idea's and Images which she hath in her self and by which she is render'd formally and actually Knowing having in her self a lively Representation or an inward Sentiment of the Objects which render themselves present by the Material Impression which is receiv'd in the Body That Men do not commonly Explain how the Passage of the Material Impressions of Corporeal Objects make a Passage into the Spiritual Substance of the Soul One may say That here are the Limits or if a Man may be permitted to say so the Pillars of Humane Intelligence there hath appear'd nothing neither hath there been any thing in Nature more inaccessible than the Knowledge and the clear Notion of the manner how this Passage is made and this Transmission from the Corporeal into the Spiritual Region and than the manner how the Corporeal Impressions of the Senses whether Interior or Exterior do become Spiritual Idea's and Perceptions in the Soul Men have said almost nothing thereupon but enormous and monstrous Contradictions But we need not despair of arriving at a clear Notion and an indubitable Certainty thereof how dark soever this Mystery may be wrapped up if we follow that Rule which prescribes to us to go always notwithstanding the resistance of Prejudices thither where the Evidence and clearness of Principles and Consequences calls us and leads us on In following on the one part the double shining Light of the Experience which we have of a Superior Light and Power which rules over us and which enlightens us and of the Certainty we have made our selves of the Spiritual Nature of our Souls And on the other part in following the infallible Principle of this certain Truth That it is God alone who Essentially unites things Spiritual and Corporeal and who alone can unite our Bodies and our Souls we shall carry a certain and an infallible Light in this so dark and so obscure a place and we shall come to have a clear Idea of that which we search after That it is the Author and the Principle of the Union of the Soul and of the Body which makes the Commerce between the Soul and the Body and by consequence between the Soul and the Corporeal Objects We find that these Corporeal Images and these Material Impressions do not pass into the Soul to render it actually and formally Knowing by themselves for this would be a Repugnancy with a Witness if it were only in this because a Corporeal thing cannot be the enlightning and illuminating Form of a Spiritual Nature We find that these Images and these Corporeal Impressions do not quit their quality and material Essence to change themselves by a Chimerical and an Impossible Metamorphosis to Spirituals We find that these Corporeal Images are not the Tables and Glasses to which the Soul doth apply her self and towards which she turns her self to contemplate and see in them the Objects which are render'd present to the Body in drawing upon them their Idea and Representation We find that these Images or Corporeal Impressions which the Exterior Objects do engrave in our Brains are no other thing than the Occasional Cause of the Action by which He who unites the Body and Soul doth Instruct Us and Enlighten Us who in the Quality of the First Cause concurs Essentially with all Second Causes and who in the Quality of an Universal Cause hath been pleas'd to render in Men the Concourse of his Illumination and the Essential Irradiation of his Life by which He makes to live all that liveth dependent of divers Impressions which are brought and receiv'd within our Brains for to conserve his Character of Universal Cause in such a manner that these Images serve to no other purpose than to determine the Author of Nature who is necessarily the immediate Cause and immediate Principle of the Union of the Soul and of the Body and by consequence of our Corporeal Impressions and of our Spiritual Faculties to give as an Essential Cause of all the Light and of all the Life which is in created Beings the Idea's and the Sentiments of things at that moment that the general Course of the Universal Movement of Corporeal Matter and of Nature or the free and accidental Determination of some particular Cause doth make in that Structure of Bone of Flesh and of Nerves which we call Human Body any Impression which is carried to the Center of all that Structure which is the Brain This is the Formal Act of the Power which unites the Soul to the Body and the Body to the Soul This is the Active and Formal Union of the Soul to the Body This is It which is the immediate and necessary Principle and Cause which makes the Commerce betwixt the Body and the Spirit This is It which makes the Passage to the Corporeal Species and Images from the Corporeal to the Spiritual Region This is It which Spiritualizeth our Phantômes not by a Chimerical and Impossible Metamorphosis but by an Infallible and an Omnipotent Efficacy of his Action as First Cause and as Cause Universal by which from the occasion of divers Impressions made in the Body He gives to Souls the Idea's and Sentiments which ought to correspond and accompany them in the Intention of the End of his Workmanship It would be very surprising if this Idea should appear New to those Understandings who know that it is an Idea so common and so necessary To regard God as the immediate Author and necessary Cause of the Union of our Souls and of our Bodies for when it shall be known that God is the immediate and necessary Principle and Cause of this Union it ought not to appear strange or new That it is God who makes and who entertains this Commerce which is the essential and necessary continuance thereof and that he continually Acts after this manner upon our Souls from the occasion of the Impressions of Bodies seeing that the Action by which he makes this Union which ought necessarily to be renew'd reiterated and continu'd every moment cannot consist but in this everliving Commerce between the Soul and between the Body as shall be prov'd hereafter In sum all is thereby clear and easie all of a piece and made very plain Thereby we do not only ascend to the true Principle and immediate Cause of the Union of our Souls and of our Bodies but we clearly conceive thereby how this Union so incomprehensible and so admirable is made how it is He that is the First Tie and Essential Band
Principle of Happiness and Unhappiness which is the most Essential Character and Attribute of that which we call Divinity or Supream Nature Tho we should not have this so assur'd Experience of the Union which our Souls have with God by the continual Irradiation of his Divine Life and Influence in us the which agrees so well with this Idea which Faith gives That it is God who is the Immediate Cause of the Union of our Souls and our Bodies for we must observe by the way that it would be an Impiety to doubt of it since not only God according to Faith Created our Souls but he Infuses them also as they say and unites them to our Bodies we could not possibly be ignorant of it if we gave any attention to his Supream Sovereignty over us and to our Essential Dependence upon Him in all the Acts of our Life as well as in all the Foundations of our Being and by consequence in all our Knowledges Can the Sun-beam shine when it is separated from the Sun And can the created Spirit either subsist one moment or have the least Light or the least Spark of Life or of Knowledge without the Irradiations of the Supream Being The Ancients said very well when they said That all things were full of God That God was the Soul of the World the Life of every thing that Lives and the Being of every thing that Is and doth Subsist They had much better than Us conceiv'd the Supream Nature when they said that It was the Circumference and Center of a Circle That it was the Sun and its Rays That it contain'd All and replenish'd All And that its Action was the Life and the Motion of all things God is Effectively and Essentially apply'd to all the Parts of the Universe and that there is not one onely thing from which he withdraws himself for one only Minute Natural Evidence persuades us no less than the Divine and Heavenly Authority of S. Paul That every thing that Lives every thing that Moves every thing that Is Lives Moves and Is in Him In ipso vivimus movemur sumus But tho' he should not continually apply himself to all the other Parts of the Universe yet it must needs be that he should apply himself to Spiritual Natures and to every thing that is call'd Spirit or Knowing and Spiritual Nature for that also the Scriptures and the Holy Fathers do teach us That He is the Father that is to say the Lively and Essential Source of all Light and by consequence of all Knowledge the Sun of Intelligence and the Life of all Spirits Exposition of this Principle by S. Augustin St. Augustin by the force of this Natural Evidence Divinely said That we are so Essentially united to God that we may say we are much more in God even by our Bodies not only than we are in the Air or within any other Corporeal Space whatsoever but than we are in our selves because in fine saith he It is certain that God not only contains and environs our Bodies better than any Corporeal Space but he continually gives them their Being and their Motion by his Action and by his Almighty Influence a thousand times more than the Illumination of the Sun gives Light and Splendor to its Rays But this which the Holy Doctor says of our Bodies hath much greater force in it when he saith it of our Souls for tho' it be true that our Bodies are in God in whom all things are Essentially it is much more so that our Souls are in Him because they are ty'd to him by a thousand times more Dependences than the Body since they continually receive Life from him through all the Acts of all their diverse Faculties which are without number If a Man demands says he Where is the place of the Soul That is a Question which our gross and curious Imaginations make who being desirous to conceive all things after a Corporeal manner would determine a certain Space and a certain Extent to Souls But it would be very well says he to answer them and to say to them for to undeceive them of this Manichean Idea That they are in God that they Live they See they Perceive and they Imagine in God for it is certain that they do not any thing of all this but by the Immediate and Physical Influence and the continual and Essential Irradiation of his Divine Life which he communicates to them without ceasing And because the Life of God and of every Spirit is to See to Know and to Love it is certain That every thing that Thinks every thing that Seeth every thing that Loveth and every thing that Knoweth doth Think See Love and Know in him and by him by whom is every thing that is by whom is moved every thing that moves and by whom liveth every thing that lives For byreason that He is the First Being or Principle of Being it must needs be that every thing that Is receiveth without ceasing its Being from him by a perpetual and never-interrupted Communication of this Supream Essence By the reason that He is the Principle of Life or the Essential and Original Life it must needs be That every thing that lives receives continually a Life from Him by a like Influence and by a like Communication of his Life and by consequence That every thing that Thinks and Knows Thinketh and Knoweth by Him since to Think and Know is the Life of Spirits This is the solid Metaphysick of S. Augustin and this is also the Theology of S. Thomas who hath so often made use of these Arguments under the Name and Notion of a First Agent of a First Cause and of an Essential Principle of Life And this is the same common Notion of all the Doctors that ever were under the more consu'd Name and Idea of Concourse because it is certain that this Action of God which we call his Concourse cannot be in relation to the Passive Faculty by which our Soul hath the Idea's and Sentiments of Corporeal Objects but a Vision and a Chimera if it be not that Action by which I say That in the Quality of a First and Universal Cause on the one Part and on the other of a Particular Cause of the Union of our Souls and Bodies He determines in us our Sentiments and gives us our Idea's from the Occasion of the Impressions which either Actions from without on the part of the Bodies which are round about us cause upon our Brains or the Determination of the Circulation of the Blood of the Humors and of the Spirits within us which oftentimes are the Occasion of the Action of the Supream Cause without the intervening of any thing from without That this is not to have recourse to a Miracle but to Explain what sort of Commerce there is betwixt the Soul and the Body There is no need of opposing here that This is to have recourse to Miracle or to make God descend from
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
He gives for the Propagation of the Human Species and they will see that not only this Pleasure hath in its Intention an Essential Relation of one Sex to another this will make them conceive the horrors of those Monstrous Impurities which the Civil and Politic Laws do no less condemn than Religion and Nature but that it ought likewise so necessarily to be Enclosed within the Sacred Bed and Holy Society of Mariage That from the moment it breaks off and goes out from thence it becomes Criminal and Sacrilegious If we did well comprehend That it is God that raises up the Bodies to an Honor of Alliance with the Souls and that he doth it to make them serve for a Trial and for a Matter to their Triumph and to their Recompence We should not only clearly conceive the Disorder of all kinds of Inconveniences and of all Intemperances of which there is not any one but which in defiling our Bodies violates the most Holy and the most Religious of all Consecrations But we should livelily conceive that Obligation of the Sanctification of Souls and Bodies which St. Paul Preaches continually and which he requires to be so perfect that St. Gregory had reason to say That it goes as far as to impose upon us the Obligation of Spiritualizing our Bodies almost as much in this Life as they ought to be in the other It is the same thing with the Duties for which we are accountable one to another they spring all of them from the same Principle and from the same Knowledge Let us but say a word or two of them in general There are two sorts of Duties from Man to Man there are general ones and particular ones The general are those which bind us equally to all Men The particular ones are those which are limited and determined to Particulars We are accountable to all Men for Justice for Charity for Civility and for good Behaviour for a certain Honor due to the Impression of the Divine Resemblance and to the Regards of Natural Equality And we owe Friendship to our Friends Piety to our Parents Acknowledgments to our Masters Obedience to our Superiors And all these Duties flow with an indubitable Clearness and Evidence from the Knowledge which we have acquired of the manner how our Souls are in our Bodies essentially united to God by themselves and accidentally by their Bodies to all the Visible World and to all the Bodies of Civil and Natural Society As to Common Duties it cannot be but that we seeing into the manner how our Souls are in our Bodies wholly united equally in God wholly animated with one and the same Influence with Divine Life marked with one and the same Resemblance with him and equally impelled by the same Love of Duty It cannot be I say But that we must be obliged to Love and to accomplish all the extents of Juslice of Truth of Charity and of Civility or of mutual and reciprocal Respect towards all Men who under all the Differences of unequal Conditions and Fortunes do conserve the Honor of Natural Equality and the Divine Resemblance The Duty of Blood and of Alliances And as to particular Duties whether they be those which immediately proceed from our Bodies as those of Piety which makes the Alliance betwixt Parents and Children Husbands and Wives Brothers and Neighbours or those which proceed immediately from the Soul as the Acknowledgment which obliges us to our Benefactors and the Obedience which submits us to our Superiors as having the Sovereignty and the Character of Gods Authority They do all of them equally spring from the same Knowledge because in Regard of the Relations which we have one to another by the Body it is indubitable That the Bodies entring as they do into the Order of Providence by which God prepares us to the Order of Eternity by the present Trial of Time He Wills that we should follow all the Duties which occur to us from their Occasion And He Wills by consequence That we should be more entirely United to those from whom we hold our Bodies or who hold their Bodies from Us. The Bodies are the Knot and the Ligament of our Union with the Visible World as hath been said and they are there by the Knot and the Ligament of Natural and Civil Society and as the one and the other doth not subsist but by the particular Societies of Families and of Alliances which compose them For as Rivulets form Rivers and Rivers the Ocean the particular Societies of Families began to form Towns and Burroughs and those Towns and Burroughs which proceed from thence do form States and Commonwealths whereof is made the Universal Society which is Govern'd by the Common Law which is call'd Jus Gentium or The Law of Nations besides the particular Laws of every Country and of every State So it cannot be that particular Societies who are the Basis and the Foundation of all the Civil and Political World should not have their Laws their Policy and Equity as well as the Universal Society and by consequence their Duties to which it is necessary we should be oblig'd in proportion to the divers Degrees of Relation which it gives us one to another From whence arises the Duties of Citizen to Citizen of Brother to Brother of Neighbor to Neighbor of a Son to his Father of a Servant to his Master and of a Master to his Servant The Crime of Superstition There are some People and it is a Disorder very common and very much spread abroad who make no account of these Duties and they are for the most part People that are otherwise nice and scrupulous concerning the Commendable but not Essential Practices of certain Popular Institutions or Devotions They would believe themselves very guilty if they should have omitted or violated them and yet they do not at all believe that they hurt their Consciences in violating or omitting the Duties of Friendship of Fidelity of Charity of Proximity of Paternal Piety and of those other Natural Duties which arise in us from these Relations which have been Explain'd And yet in the mean time there is no Religion without an Effective Accomplishment of all these Duties which have all of them their Principle and their Source in God We cannot worship God in Spirit and in Truth as he would have us worship him if we do not love and embrace in him all those Obligations And the pretended Religion of these false Worshippers is nothing but Superstition and Illusion equally vain and criminal I say Superstition for Superstition is not only as some conceive the worshipping of false Divinities the false worshipping of the true Divinity is no less a Superstition than the worshipping of false Divinities and all that pretended Piety which despises the least of Natural Duties and which do's not prefer them to those Devotions Practices Customs and Humane Institutions howsoever authoris'd and approv'd of by the Church is a real Superstition For it is so
A Discovery of Divine Mysteries OR THE NATURE and EFFICACY OF THE Soul of Man Considered in all its Faculties Operations and Divine Perfections and how it governs in Divine and Secular Affairs of Life In Three Parts I. Of the Preference due to the Soul above the Body by Reason of its Spiritual and Immortal Nature and how it operates on Things in Heaven and Earth II. How the Soul of Man moves and operates in Religious Duties and Moral Actions whether towards God towards our selves or towards Man And of our Duty of Gospel Self-denyal which results from the manner how our Souls operate in our Bodies under the visible Empire of God III. Concerning our Duties of Time and Eternity of the present Life and of the Life to come of the present World and of the World to come which results from the manner how our Souls ought to be out of our Bodies first of all and then in our Spiritualiz'd Bodies after the Universal Resurrection With many other Curious Matters Being a Compleat Body of Divine and Moral Philosophy By C. B. D. D. Fellow of the Royal Society LONDON Printed for Eben Tracy at the Three Bibles on London-Bridge 1700. TO THE READER THO' the World be full of Discourses Treatises and Essays of Morality yet we have believ'd it might not be unnecessary to Expose these New Essays to the Publick View Either because one cannot enough propose to Mankind their Duties or else because the greatest part of those Essays Treatises and Discourses which have appear'd already and of which some have so justly pleas'd the Relish of the Age are if well regarded no more than onely Paintings and Descriptions or at best but Incitements not Convictions and Establishments of Duties For they suppose that the Principles of Religion Morality and Duties are setled and acknowledg'd they presuppose them but they prove them not they persuade them to those who already do believe them but if there be some who do not believe them as there are too too many who doubt thereof or at least who are not sufficiently persuaded of them they do neither persuade nor convince Them in the least We believe that we have Discover'd the precious and inestimable Treasure of an entire Conviction of Religion and Morality in the Incultivated and Neglected Field of the Natural Knowledge of our Souls and the no less precious Treasure of that Knowledge of our Souls in the Attention and Reflection upon every ones Proper and Indubitable Sentiment and we have believ'd that we ought to render the Discovery Publick This is what we have done And tho' in all this Essay which is indeed no other than a meer Essay because it is only an Idea which we rough-draw and an Overture which we make but do not fully accomplish by Vnfolding and Pressing on in a particular and compleat Delineation all our Duties and all their Circumstances there needs nothing more Than that every one should apply his proper Sentiment and the clear Idea's which he finds in Himself by Attention and Reflection upon this Indubitable Sentiment which he hath in Himself Nevertheless because there are few Persons who are accustom'd to Reflect and Reason upon Matters so remote from their Senses and the Carnal Relish of Human Passions which stir up Attention in Reading the greatest part of other Books we foresaw that this Essay might appear too strong to some Spirits who can only digest Matters that are very easie who are not accustom'd to mount up to the Principles of Things who Relie upon the Credit of Authors and who are not at all Curious to see what we propose to them in First Notions and Clear Idea's But besides that we believ'd that an Age so Enlightned as Ours is would require an Instruction as strong and that there are Spirits who would willingly be thus Fundamentally Instructed and that it would be convenient to Impress this Relish upon others to the end that they may be rais'd up to a more Perfect Knowledge of God and themselves We do also hope that the meanest Capacities may here learn how to Know their Souls and by their Souls their Duties S. Paul would have all the Faithful apply themselves to Augment and Encrease Light and Knowledge in themselves And if there be any Knowledge which is useful and necessary to be Encreased and brought to Perfection it is without doubt The Knowledge of our Soul which is the most Essential Science which we have to acquire and the true Science of God and of Salvation as the Divine Apostle speaks since we can Know nothing Fundamentally neither of our Heavenly and Eternal Hope nor of our Present State upon Earth nor of our Essential Relation with the Eternal Nature and Essence from whence proceed all our Duties but in Proportion as the Knowledge of our Soul Encreaseth We see very Exact and very Religious Observers of Duties who oftentimes Know not why they perform them and tho' they do not do amiss in being so yet they would do much better in Being and Knowing why they are so because whatsoever a Man is Knowingly and by the Conviction of Reason he is much more solidly so for himself and much more profitably so for others We have believ'd that we ought to give a Compleat Science and Knowledge of the Soul to the end that all the World might thereby Instruct themselves in their Duties either for a particular Edification or for the Instruction and Edification of others And we are persuaded that all those who will give themselves the pains of Reading with some Attention and of adding to that Reading some little Reflection upon themselves to Remark what we Observe of the Natural and Universal Sentiments of all Mankind which is the perpetual Light of this Treatise will find that we have render'd this Matter otherwise so obscure and difficult of it self most Intelligible and Proportion'd to the Capacity of the whole World THE CONTENTS PART I. OF the Preference due to the Soul above the Body from the Reason of its Spiritual and Immortal Nature Page 1. Chap. 1. The Curiosity which we ought to have how to know our Souls ibid. The Dignity of our Souls 6 The Perception and Certainty which all of us have of our Souls 8 Chap. 2. That our Souls undoubtedly are Spiritual Natures and altogether distinct from Bodies upon the account of their Intelligent Nature 11 Why and how we conceive of God and Angels as Spirits 12 This is the common Doctrin of the Schools 14 Chap. 3. The manner of our conceiving that Knowledge which is in Beasts causes a Confusion which must necessarily be rectified 16 Four different Opinions which make four different Degrees of Knowledge in Beasts 19 Chap. 4. A general Discussion of the Opinion which gives to Beasts a Knowledge like to ours 21 Chap. 5. Whether Beasts have a true Reason like to ours 25 Chap. 6. Whether Beasts have any Reasoning inferior to Reason 33 Chap. 7. Whether Beasts have any sort
which as we have seen cannot be destroy'd by Death which does not act but upon Bodies It is an ancient Reasoning of the Holy Fathers and even of the profane Philosophers That God punishing here sensibly some few of the Crimes of Men and not punishing them all there need be another Life where he finishes the Justice which he begins here And this Reasoning carries the most sensible Conviction in the World since we see so visibly the Hand of God to extend it self upon the Wicked which is according to St. Augustin that which the Kingly Prophet calls the Lightnings of the Supreme Justice which fore-run the Clap of Thunder Apparuerunt fulgura ejus orbi terrae vidit commota est terra His Lightnings appear'd to the Globe of the Earth the Earth saw and it was moved But tho' we had never seen such miraculous Examples of the Heavenly Justice upon the Wicked we should see enough to be convinc'd of the Immortal Conditions of our Souls from the so indubitable Sentiment that Conscience gives us of an Eternal Uprightness and Holinevs which ought to recompense us or to punish us because there must be nothing certain in the World if this be not That this natural Sentiment and this clear Idea of the Supreme Justice and Holiness cannot Deceive us Reason and all that is call'd Light and Certainty whether Natural or Supernatural must needs be nothing but Illusion and Chimera if Good and Evil can remain without Reward and Punishment because God must needs be only a Wisdom and Sanctity indolent and insensible of the Order and Disorder of the World with the Conduct of which he is charg'd if he ought not at last signally to evidence his Justice and if Natural Reason and Light is any thing as he cannot be a disarm'd and an useless Power so he is not assuredly a Sleepy Wisdom and an Indolent and Idle Sanctity He cannot leave either Vertue without a Reward or Vice without Punishment and tho' he neither punishes Crimes nor rewards Vertue in this Life it follows necessarily that this Sentiment and this Idea which Conscience gives us of a Justice which prepares a Reward for Vertue and a Punishment for Crimes in another Life is an Idea most true and which hath a real and most effective Object and that there is a new Life for our Souls after the present Life wherein they receive the Price of their Vertues and the Recompence of the Fidelity and the Constancy of their Trial and the pain of their unfaithful dissolute Prevarications through which they abandon the Interest of God and his Service for the little and trifling Interest of the false and frenetick Pleasures of their Passions With all these Certainties and all these Convictions we ought to see more sensibly the Future Life into the which our Souls enter in going out of the Body than we do the Present Life for it glitters and shines more lively in the midst of us than the Sun shines or glitters in the midst of the World But we must take care that we do not apprehend it after the same manner We are commonly full of Incredulity of the World to come and of the Immortal Condition of our Souls it is the just Punishment of our Disorders and the natural Effect of our Exorbitant Desires Tho' God should not concern himself and tho' He should not spread over his Darknesses He that makes the Day and Night of Grace as well as the Light and Darkness of Nature over our Criminal Desires to blind the Carnal Souls who forgetting the Advantage of their Spiritual and Immortal Nature plunge themselves wholly into sensual and earthly Pleasures our own exorbitant Desires are Veils thick enough to rob us of that Light how resplendent soever it may be The Incredulity of the Life to come and of the Immortal Condition of our Souls cannot be in Us but by these two Principles If it is so common it is because the inward Eye is so troubled and obscur'd by the disorder of carnal and terrestrial Passions and that this natural Blindness of Passions is augmented by a Veil of Darkness that God puts upon impure and terrestrial Hearts I know not how Libertines apprehend it but if they would in the lucid Intervals of their Reasoning never so little reflect upon themselves and upon the Light which they smother it is sure that it is impossible but that they must conceive that their Libertinism and their Incredulity is not only an Estate of Obscurity and natural Blindness but an Effect of the Hand of God which is upon them This is effectually the Effect of the utmost Disorder of the Spirit and of the uttermost abandonment of God for how should one be ignorant of the Life to come and of the Immortal Condition of our Souls if one had had either any spark of Natural Light of good Sense and Reason or any Ray of Grace or Celestial Illumination Let the Libertines speak and let them tell us upon what they found their Impious and Sacrilegious System upon what Principle and upon what Reason they believe that their Souls die with their Bodies Let them speak they would be in a great deal of Pain to do it for this furious and frenetic Judgment by which they bloody their Hands with the Parricide of their Souls if one may be allow'd to say so hath not any Foundation nor any Principle There are some to whom the Immortality of the Soul is not incredible but because they cannot as they say comprehend what the Soul will be when it shall be no longer in the Body but these themselves here do no ways conceive how their Soul is in the Body and People who do not doubt but that their Soul is and that it is the thing of the World which hath so much effective Reality altho' they do not know how it is do doubt that their Soul can be any thing out of the Body under pretext that they do not conceive how it will be then There are some who stupifie themselves on set purpose to judge that their Soul is no more any thing after this Life not by any Reason that they have to form this Judgment but because that the fear of finding at their going out of this Life an Implacable Judge who they well see ought to punish their Licentiousness and Disorder if there remains any thing of them after their Death makes them desire that there should remain nothing of them and makes them prefer the horror of the Nothingness of this sad and vast Darkness to the Beauty and Light of that Immortal and Resplendent Life of Joys and Felicities which Reason and Religion equally discover to us at the end of the short Career of this Life There are in fine some who make the same Judgment without knowing why they make it they judge without Reason and without Principle contrary to all Reason and all Principles I say against all Lights all Reasons and all Principles for I
but it should moreover kindle in Us a thousand glittering Days of clear and indubitable Duties from whence we should draw That part of Morality which is the Order of Duties and Obligations between our Souls and our Bodies which we have propos'd as the First thing in the Idea and Essay which we give of it All the Order of our Duties between our Souls and our Bodies springs from that Notion of the Spiritual and Immortal Nature of our Souls and of the Advantages which follow and accompany it for it appears by that Notion and by every thing which we have been discovering of her Followers and her Companions and as it were Appanages That they have an Incomparable Essence and Dignity and in some manner Infinite a lively Resemblance of the Supreme Nature a Richness a Nobleness a Ground or a Capacity of Felicity and Vertue Immense and without Bounds which lies upon our part to replenish with a real Light Vertue and Felicity by the which we may from that time be Sovereignly happy in our selves in expecting that the Supreme and Eternal Nature the Living and Eternal Source of Duties and their Rewards will in Recompence of the Fidelity of our Trial make us partakers of all Joy and Felicity It appears that St. Augustin had reason to say That our Souls do immediately touch God That God only is above their Spiritual and Immortal Nature and that every thing that is not either an increated Nature or a Spiritual Nature like them is Essentially below them It appears that God had reason to Reclaim them if I may so say and to pursue them in their wandring to bring them back to himself in the manner that he hath done that he had reason to follow them even into the Flesh and into this visible World where they were so visibly gone astray and lost as having been sent thither to fight for him and to render themselves worthy to obtain the Crown of Reward It appears that they could not be Redeem'd at a Price too dear It appears that they make up all our Being and that our Bodies are only the Matter of the Victories and Combats and that he was pleas'd to joyn our Souls to them to Try them and to Recompense and Crown them It appears that our Souls are All and that our Bodies are Nothing and by consequence that the Goods and Ills of our Souls are our true Goods and our true Ills and that the Goods and Ills of the Body are only false and seeming Goods and Evils And from hence who do's not see that there follows an evident and sensible Order by which we ought to guide our selves in relation to our Souls and to our Bodies quite contrary to that we follow which makes our Lives to be a Confusion and Disorder full of Horror The Order of Duties between our Souls and our Bodies It follows from this Knowledge which we have of the Spiritual and Immortal Nature of our Souls That by how much we ought to love esteem cultivate and preserve our Souls by so much we ought to despise disregard and in some sense hate our Bodies It follows That we ought to quite alter or change all our Conduct and to turn on the Souls side all the Impressions and all the Sensibility which we have for the Body It follows That we ought to correct and change all our Idea's and all our Maxims all the Body and all the Method of our Lives the End the Object and the Motive of all our Actions the Bent the Course and the Motion of all our Inclinations and the general and particular View of all our Designs and to make in our selves a World altogether New if it may be allow'd to say so in putting the Soul in the place which the Body now occupies and the Body in that of the Souls All these Consequences have a clear and immediate Evidence For from hence follows clearly I. The Order of the Esteem which we ought to have of our Souls and of the Esteem which we ought to have of our Bodies II. The Order between the Pleasures of the Soul and between the Pleasures of the Body which are those that the Soul hath by the Bodies Occasion for as hath been said and shall be more fully Explain'd the Body hath neither Pleasures nor Pains but we call Pleasures of the Body those which the Soul hath by the Occasion of the Body III. The Order between the Riches of the Soul which are Vertue Grace Religious Exercises or the Works of Piety Charity and Justice together with the precious Treasure of the Testimony of Conscience and Eternal Hope and between the Riches of the Body which are the Succors and Commodities for the Necessities the Businesses the Eases and the Agreements of the Body for the short time of the Voyage and Journey of Eternity IV. The Order between the Care of the Body and between the Care and Cultivation of the Soul whether in Relation to Men and the Civil Life for Policy Ability and Capacity and the Sciences or whether in Relation to God to a Christian Life and to Hope Everlasting V. The Order between the Health of the Soul which is free and sound Reason and Conscience exempt from Vice and Passions and between the Health of the Body VI. The Order between the Beauty of the Body and the Beauty of the Soul which is a Noble and Generous Inclination Uprightness and Love of Duty together with the glorious Brightness of Vertue and as it were the Colour of Grace VII The Order between the Sensibility of the Soul whether for the Goods or the Ills of the Soul and between the Sensibility of the Bdoy All this flows and follows clearly from what hath been just now made clear and establisht concerning the Spiritual and Immortal Nature of the Soul and this would be a fair Field of Morality to any Man that would exactly and regularly pursue and explain all the aforemention'd Particulars but what hath been said is but an Essay and an Idea which we give you we shall not enlarge upon it here we shall only say That the Foundation of all our Duties is to comprehend well the Difference of the Price and the Value of the Soul and the Price and Value of the Body for if this Difference be once well understood and well div'd into all the rest will follow and appear of its self And to penetrate well into this Difference we need only first of all to compare what the Soul is in it self by the Difference of the Spiritual and Immortal Nature of it and what the Body is by its proper Difference of its Perishable and Mortal Matter And in the Second place we ought to compare what the one and the other are by their Attributes and their Accidents or by such things to which the one and the other do serve for a Basis Foundation and Support Let us not say any thing of the Foundation of the Body of that Filth and Corruption
to my self the Figure of him there needs a great deal more than the single Advertisement of the presence of the Object Tho' then we should conceive that the Soul should be Stirr'd Advertis'd and Determin'd by the Physical Action of the Body which is incompatible with the Spiritual Nature of the Soul it is certain that we cannot conceive for all that that the Soul can make to it self the Images of things as she hath them it is an Impression wholly Immaterial and wholly Spiritual which she receives by her Passive Faculty And as Wax which hath a Capacity of receiving the Impression of the Seal hath not for all that the Power of imprinting it upon it self or to make in it self that Figure which it receives thereof the Soul also which in this respect hath nothing above the Wax but that its Knowing Nature gives it essentially an inward Certainty and Experience of every thing which is made in her self can well receive those Images of things wherewith she finds her self Imprinted but she cannot make them her self This Doctrine is the common Doctrine of the Schools when they speak of Angels All the Schoolmen do hold That Angels cannot make to themselves the particular Idea's of things and that they ought to receive from God the Species of the things which they know without which they would remain eternally without the Idea of any thing out of themselves but only with an inseparable Sentiment of themselves and with a Light of Reason by which Reasoning upon their Dependency whereof they essentially have the Sentiment they know the Supreme Being by an abstractive Knowledge and Idea To the end that the Angels might see the visible World it was needful That God should imprint in them the Idea which is that we call a Species in relation to Angels and in relation to separated Souls for a Species and an Idea are the same thing in respect of Spirits God alone who is a Knowing Being by himself as he is an Existent Being by himself God alone hath Essentially of himself and by himself his Eternal and Subsistent Idea by which he knows and can distinctly see all things possible Present and to Come The created Spirits who are not Thinking Beings by themselves much less Spirits Knowing by themselves and in themselves the things which are Exterior to them have need to receive the Idea's of particular things to the end they may have a Knowledge of them If they had by themselves the Idea of one sole particular thing out of themselves there would not be any Idea which they might not have for what a Man by Himself hath all That he can always have God hath all Perfection because he hath it by Himself and the Soul of Man would have been ignorant of nothing and would have had the Idea's of all things if she had had the Power by her self to form an Idea of the least thing CHAP. VI. How a Corporeal Impression received into the Sense passeth into the Soul THE Soul then hath no Power of giving to it self neither the Idea nor Knowledge nor Sentiment of any particular thing and she cannot receive them of any body but it is the Author of Nature and of our Particular Being rather than of the rest of Nature the Life of every thing that lives and the Light of every thing that is enlightned who gives us all the Sentiments and all the Idea's which we have from the occasion of our particular Bodies and of others which environ us And to clear this Point so obscure and so difficult and at the same time so important and so necessary in order to make us comprehend our dependence upon God it is necessary that I should Observe That all the World agree and ought necessarily to agree about two things upon this Subject Propositions Essential and Certain The One That we do not know nor see nor seel any Bodies which environ us but by reason of the Impression which they make either Immediately by themselves upon our Bodies and upon our Senses or Mediately if I may be permitted to say so by their thin and subtil Particles or by their Species or the Images which they send us from them by the Light which results from all the Points of their Superficies which regard us That this Impression ought to be carried and arrive through the Exterior Senses as far as the Brain which is the Seat and Organ of the Senses which we call Internal where all the Rays of the exterior Impression ought to be terminated and that this Action or Impression carried to the Brain ought to engrave and imprint it self there to the end that the Soul may be advertis'd of the presence of the Object and that she may thence receive the Spiritual Image in her self The Other is That this Corporeal Impression which we otherwise call a Corporeal Species or Phantôme which ought necessarily to precede the Act of Knowing which ought to come to the Soul is not that which makes in the Soul her Knowledge nor even that which determines her Physically forasmuch as that Impression being Corporeal it always keeps its Impossibility and its Disproportion of being able to unite it self to the Soul of being able to Act upon the Soul of being able to arrive as far as the Soul of being able to affect the Soul of being able to enlighten it or of being able to modifie it in any manner by it self and to render it Knowing These Impressions Images or Phantômes cannot Act but upon the Body they are like the Seal which doth not Act but in Figuring the Matter and Imprinting the Cutts of the Graver wherewith the Seal it self is Imprinted They can Imprint and Engrave themselves where they find Body and Matter but they cannot pass from the Region of the Body they must necessarily acquiesce where the Body terminates they cannot pass within the Soul That is another Country not for them That is not the soft Substance of the Fibres of the Brain That is a Nature wholly Spiritual where no Seal can Imprint it self There is nothing more certain A Point unanimously acknowledg'd All the Philosophers both Ancient and Modern do agree in this Principle That they are not the Corporeal Species Images or Impressions engraven in our Brain which render our Souls formally Knowing Thus the Presupposition is indubitable and one may yet suppose it as certain and unquestionable altho' some have believ'd and maintain'd it with much vehemency That these Images of Objects so engraven in the Brain are not at all as Tables within which the Soul sees things Another Presupposition that the Soul doth not see the Objects in the Passages of the Brain or the Species as in Pictures and that she neither sees nor feels them This is a thing which we know by an indubitable Sentiment That so far are these Corporeal Images and Species from being as Tables which we bring near to the Soul and in which she sees things that we do
is continual As to the rest let us not fear that God is too much Employed and hath too many Affairs than continually to entertain This Union by his perpetual Action multiplied and diversified into so many Manners in determining so many Sentiments and Thoughts or Idea's on one part in the Souls and so many Motions on the other part in the Bodies to the Souls liking for this Supream Agent who Animates and who Essentially moves the Universe who gives Life to every Thing that Lives Motion to every Thing that is Moved Thought to every Thing that Thinks and Light to every Thing that is Enlightned is in no wise incumbred by so much Action It is on the contrary his Essence and his Nature to Act thus continually and to be Equally the Soul of the Corporeal as well as of the Intelligible World to be equally applyed to the one and to the other To the one for to Entertain and direct its Motions to the other for to Englighten all its Thoughts and to Determin its Sentiments or its sensible Modifications Pater meus usque modo operatur As God conserves Things by a new Creation renew'd every Instant or to say better always continued so he Entertains the Union of Souls and Bodies by that continual Application which he hath of Acting on one part on the Souls in Enlightning them diversly from the occasion of Impressions which external Objects or the internal Course of the Animal Spirits make continually in our Brains and on the other part upon Bodies in determining their Motions according to the occasion of the Thoughts of the Sentiments and of the Wills of the Soul Union can be nothing else Let us not fear then Let us not at all fear that God is fatigued with so grand an Exercise nor that it is unworthy of him to be thus always Employed upon Nature and upon his Workmanship since it is on the contrary not only his Pleasure and his Glory but the Essential Act of his Supream Nature also But let Us comprehend that no other Idea can make Us conceive the Union of our Souls with our Bodies For let us not believe that the Body and the Soul can be united like two Liquors or like two Metals which are melted one with the other Let us not conceive that this Union can be made like the Union of Bodies to Bodies which are made either by an unctuous or viscous humor which binds the Parts of them together or by Nails Pegs and Joynts Let Us not imagine here any Thing that is material Let Us cut off every Thing which presents it self Corporeal to our Spirit Let Us conceive precisely this mutual and necessary Dependence and having conceived thereby the Union of our Souls and of our Bodies We shall find that we have comprehended the manner how our Souls are in our Bodies They are not there by a Local and Corporeal Circumscription They are not there as Liquor is in the Vessel as the Bird is within the Nest or in his Cage or as the Body is in the Air which environs it They are there as God is in the World in which we must so conceive Him as that we must conceive Him saith St. Augustin much more containing than contained Let us remember that tho the Nature of the Soul is a Spiritual Nature which doth as essentially exclude Local Extention and by consequence all sorts of Idea's of Local Presence such as we commonly conceive under the Corporeal Immages of Immediation of Proportion and of Co-extention of Substances as it doth essentially include the Grounds and the Acts of the knowing Faculty Bodies have their proper fashion of Being within Places and Spirits have theirs likewise There is nothing of likeness between the one and the other And from the moment that you shall conceive the manner how a Spirit is within a Place by any thing resembling the manner how do you conceive that Bodies are in their Places Say and hesitate not that you deceive your selves since you confound the Things of the World which are most distinct and by confounding Them you subvert and destroy both Corporeal and Spiritual Nature The Doctrin of Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas saith very well that Spirits are not in Bodies or in a Corporeal Spirit but in two manners Either by the Action which they exercise upon certain Bodies or certain Corporeal Spaces Or by the Action which they suffer and which they receive upon the Occasion of certain Bodies which is the manner how the Devils are in the Fire of Hell whose Motion they determine by the Empire of their Will upon the Occasion where of they are penetrated with an intimate Sentiment of Burning by the Supream Power and Justice which punishes them This Idea of Thomas Aquinas is just and exact and it is thus we ought to conceive that our Souls are in our Bodies They are not there but because they have the greatest part of their Thoughts and of their Idea's and all their Sentiments of Pleasure and of Pain by the Occasion of the Body and because that they Act upon the Body by the Action of their Will which removes them and moves them in the manner that hath been said already They are no otherwise in the Body Every thing that we shall conceive beyond this will be False Contradictory Impossible and Chimerical they will only be Corporeal Images of which there is not any one that can agree to the Soul and to the manner how she is in the Body For it is with the manner how the Soul is in the Body as it is with the Soul it self we cannot comprehend it as often as we conceive it by Imagination what Corporeal Image soever we may make of it under what Material Form soever we may conceive it it is not at all the Soul that we do conceive And it is the same with the manner how the Soul is in the Body From the moment that we imagine it it is no more That which we imagine it for to imagine is to conceive under a Corporeal Form and Image and it is impossible to conceive any thing Corporeal in the Soul either in the Foundation and Substance or in the Accidents of it The manner how the Soul is in the Body is altogether as Spiritual as is the Substance of the Soul And all these Idea's which conceive the manner how the Soul is in the Body with any Resemblance with the manner how Bodies are in Corporeal Spaces are False Chimerical and Monstrous Idea's because they conceive the Soul as Corporeal In what part the Soul is and whether it be in all the Body If it be demanded after this In what part of the Body the Soul is or Whether she is in all the Body The Question will not be difficult to resolve because there needs no more than to apply the Principle of Thomas Aquinas of the manner how Spirits are in Places because it will make us easily to comprehend without any Corporeal Image
in the Vital and Natural Motions There are none but the Motitions which we call Animal or Voluntary that she can determine by her Empire There needs no other Proof of this here than that which we draw from our Sentiment which is the only bright and clear Light which Enlightens us in the Knowledge of our Soul for we ought not to conceive any thing of her but that which we Experience of her and that which evidently follows from that Experience And it is certain that that Vegetating Faculty and that Vertue of Heating the Meat and the Blood is neither found nor perceiv'd nor doth follow from any thing that is found and perceiv'd in the Soul But besides this Reason there is this farther evident Conviction that is drawn from two Principles from a Principle of St. Augustin which is That the Acting or Operating Soul is always free as the Receiving Soul is never so And from the Principle of Essential Certainty which the Soul hath of her self and of every thing that is done in her and much more of that which is done by her which is that which we have acknowledg'd to make the Foundation or the Ground of the Knowing Nature For it follows from these two Principles That if the Soul was the Cause of the Heat of the Stomach and of the Blood of the Formation and of the Distribution of the Chyle and the like in Us she would have Essentially the Sentiment and the Perception of it because she Essentially perceives every thing that she doth And not only the Perception but the Empire because she hath Essentially the Empire over every thing that she doth as Acting according to S. Augustin's Observation that is to say That she can increase or diminish Heat That she can advance or retard Digestion and make it as she pleases For this is an intimate Sentiment which we have from our selves That we are Free in the things that we have the Power and Vertue of doing by the Active Faculty Our Soul perceives her Liberty in all the things whereof she is the Cause and the Principle There is nothing which we certainly know but the Soul is the Active Cause and the Principle of it of which she hath gain'd the Empire either to do or not to do as she pleases We have no more to do than to reflect upon the Faculty which she hath of Thinking or of Willing and of Determining her self which are the two only Active Faculties that we know in her for the others are Passive and Receptive Faculties if I may so say And we shall see that the Soul hath Essentially the Empire as well as the Certainty of that double Faculty and of all the Acts which proceed therefrom We shall see that she suspends her Thoughts and her Reasonings That she puts them by That she determines and applies them to Matters as she pleases And we shall see that she is in the same manner Mistress of her Will without the Motion that carries her towards God in general if she be not preoccupy'd and transported with some Passion or other Now the Soul hath neither the Sentiment nor the Certainty of the Act and Vertue of Healing of Concocting and of Digesting nor the Empire over them For neither do we any ways perceive that our Soul Exercises these Functions nor have we Power to suspend or to advance them if we had the Power we should always without doubt make a very good and laudable Digestion and we should always take heed of producing in our selves any excessive Heat this would deliver us from all the Distempers of the Bowels and from all the ill Consequences which follow thereupon In my Opinion there is nothing more insupportable than this gross Idea of having the Soul to be the Formal or Physical Cause of the Heat which is in our Bodies because that besides that the Soul cannot be the Formal Cause of Heat since nothing can be the Formal Cause of Heat but that which is hot Nor likewise can it be the Efficient or Physical Cause since it is impossible to conceive that a Spirit should produce Heat and yet we not at all know in our Souls any other Vertue of Operating out of themselves than that of moving the Body by Empire and by Will as hath been said and by them other Bodies to whom they apply themselves It is certain that there is nothing more ridiculous than to imagine and to conceive our Soul as an Enemy to her self in refusing Heat sometimes even to a general Decay and Languishing of the whole Body and at other times increasing it even to a frightful Conflagration of the Blood and Humors of the Bowels and of all the Viscera which serve to keep up the Life of the Body This we must acknowledge for certain and indubitable That there are a thousand things done in Us which are only if I may so say but the Acts of of the Body and its Life How there is a Corporeal Act of Seeing Hearing and Smelling which is alike in Man and Beast This is extreamly remarkable for it follows from hence That as there is in Us a Material Principle of Vegetation or a Vegetative Life which the Soul doth not Cause so there is likewise a certain kind of Acts of Seeing of Hearing of Tasting of Smelling of Touching of Self-moving or of Sensibility in the Body in which the Soul hath not any part to which she doth not influence any thing and of which she hath not so much as a Sentiment For when the Image reflected from the Superficies of a Body which is before us by the Rays of Light which result from all the Points of its Exterior Superficies is en graven in that subtle thin Web form'd in the bottom of our Eye from the Extremities of the delicate Threds of the Optick Nerve which makes an end of carrying to the Brain the Material Image which it hath receiv'd the Soul so far meddles not at all and this Action may very well be call'd the Act of Seeing or Corporeal Vision because it cannot be carry'd into the Brain but it must there engrave the Corporeal Image of the Object which is before us and it must affect it after a certain particular Fashion which is capable to determine a Motion either of Flight or Pursuit without the Souls medling with it in any manner as we see every day happens by the force and vehemence of certain sudden Impressions which make us shun or approach in spite of our selves and which make us either open or shut our Eye-lids or turn to or turn away our Face whatsoever Determination we have to the contrary It is in the same manner with the Acts of Tasting Hearing and Moving For Odors for Example being receiv'd through the Os cribriformis into the Olfactory Nerve doe there determine a Motion which may lead on and determine another in the Nerves and Muscles which answer to the Olfactory Nerve without the Souls medling or taking any
part therein and the Body doth then feel Odor Corporeally and moves it self either by withdrawing or approaching according as the Odor withdraws or approaches Noise or the Pulsation of the Air causes the same thing in the Organ of Hearing The sudden noise of the Report of a Pistol or of a sudden Ruine makes us flie and tremble before the Soul perceives it The Body hath also its proper Action of Tasting and of Touching which precedes that of the Soul And this is that which makes the Sensitive Life and Knowledge proper to Beasts It is very truly said That they Taste that they Understand that they are Sensible provided that in so saying we do not at all understand that they see as we do with any certainty either of themselves or of their Objects or their Acts. Thus we may likewise place in Beasts all the Passions for there are in Us Corporeal Motions which precede and which accompany those Emotions of our Souls which we call Passions And as the Names of Passions may very well be given to these Corporeal Emotions which are in our Bodies before those of our Souls which are rais'd up upon their Occasion it is certain that it is not ill said That Animals have Joys Sorrows Desires c. since they have all the Corporeal Emotions which we have in the Resentments of Joy of Sorrow of Pleasure and of Pain with which our Soul is agitated Our Soul then doth not either do any thing of that which in our Senses precedes her Sensation or her Perception and Certainty or any thing of that which precedes in any part of the Body whatsoever her Emotion or her lively Resentment in her Passions The Soul doth never any thing but what is Spiritual she never doth any thing that is Corporeal Every Configuration of Body every Emotion of Body every Movement of Body is the proper Act or Passion of Body and is never the proper Act of the Soul We do not know in our Soul any Faculty of Acting out of her self but by the Will Every thing that she doth is Essentially in her she is not capable but of those sorts of Acts which the Schoolmen call Immanent and as all these Acts are of the same Nature with her since they are Essentially receiv'd in her so no Corporeal Act can ever be her proper and immediate Act A Corporeal Act may be an Act commanded by her but it can never be an Act done in her and by her which is that we call her Elicite Act And it is easie for us by this Principle infallibly to discern what the Body and what the Soul do in Us. A Rule to discern what the Body doth without any Cooperation with the Soul and what the Soul doth in the Body This Rule is certain and will never deceive That every Act by the which we formally have an indubitable Certainty of our selves is an Act and Operation of the Spirit and Every Act which do's not bear in us that Certainty but only makes some change in the Humors or in the solid Parts of our Bodies is an Act and Operation of Body And by this Rule as to Sleep to Digest to have Health or a Fever to have the Gout or the Stone c. are Acts or Operations or Passions and Alterations of Bodies So to Perceive Objects to be Passionated with any Desire with any Fear or with any like Emotion to be Sensible of Heat and Cold White and Black Sweet and Bitter to Imagine to Remember Judge Doubt Compare Reflect Infer Speculate Deliberate to Reason and Conceive the abstracted and universal Notions of things to be sensible of Duty to have Remorse to determine it self to Love or Hate c. are Essentially the Acts of the Soul That Pleasure and Pain are in the Soul and not in the Body It is very important well to observe this Rule because there are some who are so gross that they have not any neat distinct Idea that they know not in the least how to Explain the proper Operations of the Soul and the proper Operations of the Body How many are there of them likewise who confound these things so Essential to be distinguish'd How many are there who believe for Example that it is the Body that hath the Pleasure of Drinking of Eating and of being Warmed and generally all the Pleasures which are not in the Soul but upon the account of the Body If they had reflected they would have seen plainly that these sorts of Pleasures give us an entire Certainty of our selves and that so they are Acts of a Knowing Nature They will see moreover that they affect that part which Reasons and which Determines it self freely in us which all the World conceive as Spiritual and every one well knows it to be the Soul But what shall we do in this Case It is that Curse which being thrown upon the Serpent fell upon the Spirit and the Heart of Man and which Operates and will Operate aswel as the Benediction of Fruitfulness given to the Earth even to the end Men will have always an infinite difficulty to reflect upon themselves and to raise themselves up to the Knowledge of their Spiritual Nature Super ventrem tuum Gradieris Upon thy belly shalt thou go c. If Habits whether of Sciences or of Vertues are in the Body or in the Soul There presents it self here upon the occasion of what hath been said a Question which it imports us to clear up and decide which is To know in what part of the Soul or Body the Habits whether of Vertue or of Science do reside which ought to be a fruitful Principle of most important Moral Consequences For altho' there can be no Question made as to the Acts of Science and of Vertue which are indubitably in the Soul yet there is nevertheless a true Question which ought to be cleared as to the Subject of Habits The Habits of Sciences and of Vertues do indubitably subsist partly in the Body since it is certain with regard to Sciences that they subsist partly by the Memory and that the Memory depends upon the Corporeal Organ as shall be said more at large And so in the same manner with respect to Vertues It is sure that they are not setled into Habits but by the Faculty and the Disposition which the Soul acquires of Practising the Acts thereof and of fulfilling the Duties of them which she do's not acquire but by a certain profound Impression of the lively Images of Duties which deface the Images of the difficulty of their Acts which are commonly taken from the resistance of the Body or of the Inclinations which are entail'd upon the Body this is the cause that there must necessarily be some change which happens in the Brain and in the Corporeal Species and Images which determine the Thoughts and the Affections of the Soul as often as we establish in Us the Habit of one Vertue For Example It is impossible
the Invisible World against those unhappy Spirits who have been permitted to tempt and to try by their Assaults the Fidelity of Souls destined to fill up the places that their Rebellion had left empty in the Heavenly and Eternal Court. There you see Man in his present State there you see the best of Prospects in which he ought to be regarded for to know well his State in the Body and in the present Life from whence do arise all his Duties whether those which ought to Regulate us in Relation to God and our Selves or those which ought to put us into Order in Relation to other Men during the Course of this Mortal and Transitory Life There is nothing that Men do so ill comprehend and conceive as Life I speak here according to common usage which calls the present Life simply Life though it be only the Shaddow of the True Life which is to come as shall be said in its proper place We conceive the present Life as if it were all the Life of Man and as if we were not in the Body and in the present World but for Ambition and for Vanity and Pleasure to See and to be Seen to enjoy the present Good and to make to our selves a Felicity wholly Corporeal in the vain Honors and the vain Pleasures of this World Man blinded by Self-love and by his Pride looks upon himself in his Body to be in the midst of this Visible World as it were the Center of himself and of all things He makes to himself an Idea of Independency in Relation to every thing that is above him or about him He believes there is nothing but what is owing to him and his Passions and he believes all is reducible to him and that there is nothing but what ought to serve his Desires and his Pleasures He knows not any Duty He believes himself wholly Free and wholly Master of himself Se Liberum natum putat saith the Divine Writer and he believes it too But to undeceive himself he need only reflect upon what hath been Explained and Cleared of the manner how our Souls are in our Bodies for so far is He from finding himself Free and Disfranchised of Duties and of being Independent and Master of himself That he will find himself charged with all the Parts of Duty accountable to God to Himself and to all Mankind to the Future Life and to the World to come He will understand that That which he calls Life is but a Tryal or a Proof That Time is for Eternity and the present World for the World to come That all his Being is Essentially Relative to the Supream Being That he owes all to God That he owes a thousand things to himself contrary to his most lively Inclinations and that he owes no less to all Mankind Instead of his Imaginary Independence he will see in himself nothing but Dependence and Servitude And so far will he be from finding himself in the Body and in the Visible World as it were in that Garden of Pleasure which he Figures to himself as the Scripture saith into which he is only sent to gather the agreeable Flowers and Fruits he will find himself there as it were in an Enclosed Field or an Amphitheater where he hath nothing to do but to struggle and to combat but let us see from thence how the Particulars of our Duties do arise CHAP. XXIII How the Conviction of all our Duties and especially of our Duties towards God doth arise from thence ALL our Duties do arise from the Relation which we have with God from the Alliance which we have with Mankind whether it be by the Soul or by the Body or by God himself and from the Engagements which the Soul hath for the Body and the Body for the Soul for Duty is Essentially an Order of Relation and Respect of one thing to another and the manner how our Souls Are and Operate in our Bodies doth discover to Us all the Engagements of Order of Respect and of Relation which our Souls have towards our Bodies and our Bodies towards our Souls and which we have Essentially with God whether it be in the Soul or in the Body and accidentally with Mankind whether those which we generally have with all Mankind or those which we particularly have with some one or other amongst them partly by the Body and partly by the Soul Our Duties towards God We have as many Relations to God as he hath Regards in his Divine Attributes and Eternal Essence which have Relation to Us and as there is nothing in that Eternal and Sovereign Essence or Being which doth not regard Us either in respect of His Superiority Power and Authority or by the Rays of Charms of Attractions Amability and Loveliness or by the Chains and Bands of Dependence or by the Terrors and the Threatnings of his Vengance So we may say that there is not one single Perfection in God from which there doth not arise a thousand Duties in Relation to Us. There is not one single Point saith St. Agustin else where within the little Circumference of our Being upon which there doth not fall a Million as it were of Lines from all the Points if I may so say of this vast and immense Circumference of the Supream Nature and there is not one of these Lines or of these Relations of Dependence of Respect and of Union but what makes in us as many Duties All our Being is owing to God and it is owing to Him under a thousand and a thousand Regards and tho' it would be much more easie to count the Hairs of our Heads and the Sands of the Sea than to count the Number of the Essential Obligations wherein we are bound to him yet methinks we may reduce them to these Four General Heads To the Duties of Fear To the Duties of Affiance To the Duties of Dependence and To the Duty of Love whether it be of Union and of Holy Concupiscence or of Preference or of pure Complacency and entire Resignation And if we would reflect well upon the manner How God Acts and Operates continually in Us by an Omnipotent and Infinite Action by which he makes and entertains the Union of our Souls and of our Bodies we shall find That it discovers to Us and makes Us see more sensibly than any thing else the Love the Fear the Affiance and all the Sentiment of Dependence which we owe him The Fear of God We ought to fear him as he who can render our Souls irreparably unhappy according to the Word of the Wisdom Incarnate Fear not says he those who threaten to kill your Bodies but fear him who is able to deliver up your Souls to despair and plunge them into everlasting fire You see here the first Duty The first not in Dignity or by the order of Excellency and of Rank saith St. Augustin but the first in relation to our interessed Sensibility since it is thereby that it commonly
Banks and its Channel He hath prescribed certain Bounds and certain Circumstances to it beyond which he will not have it pass God as a Particular Cause by the Regards of his Paternal Providence over us is oblig'd to prescribe certain Circumstances and certain Conditions to the Pleasures which he makes in us as Universal Cause He hath been oblig'd to inclose the Sea within a Bank that it might not overflow the whole Earth and he hath been forc'd to Limit in us the Desire of Pleasures which he is oblig'd to give us upon the Occasion of the Body within Barriers and Ramparts to the End that our Concupiscence should be Bounded and that it should not injure his Rights nor trouble the good Order of the Universe nor settle it self under the Shade of Bodily Pleasures and so forget the Pleasures to come by too great a Relish of the present Pleasures The Necessity of Gospel-Self-denial and Mortification You see here what is the Reason we are debarr'd from Pleasures and that all Pleasures of the Body are dangerous and require in us a continual Vigilance and Attention to remove or moderate them This is the Principle of that Self-denial and of that Self-hatred which the Gospel so strictly commandeth us Our Concupiscences have need to be restrain'd to the end that our Soul may preserve its Liberty and its Purity its Empire and its Reason together with our Obedience and Subjection to God and his Duties and if we do not soon prevent them by continually weakning them in the beginning it is impossible but that they will subdue and stifle in us all our Duties It belongs only to us to render Concupiscence weak and our Duties strong and stable by the constant Practice of Self-denial With this constant Exercise of Self-denial and Opposition to the Inclination of Pleasure we shall acquit our selves of all our Duties for Self-love being tam'd thereby and easily suppress'd gives free leave for all the Vertues to issue out of the Natural Foundations of Conscience and out of the Supernatural Principle of Grace Without this Exercise and Usage of Self-denial we cannot clearly acquit our selves of any Duty We may from time to time and by Intervals perform some Acts of them when they are easie and assisted by some Interest or Passion but we can never constantly accomplish them There is no Heart Pure and Innocent without Gospel Self-denial God Incarnate calls his Gospel The Salt of the World and it is by this Law of Self-denial that it is effectively so It is this Mystical and Spiritual Salt which hinders the Corruption of our Hearts and our Duties By the Practice of Self-denial these Duties subsist and continue Incorruptible in the Hearts of Men without which they degenerate into an universal Corruption And that is the Reason that there is so little Honesty Vertue and Love of Duty in the World and in this Part of the World especially from whence Gospel Self-denial is banish'd by express Profession Every one can play his Part in it One may find a Colour for the Corruption of his Heart an Appearance and a Masque of Honesty and sometimes also of Piety and Superficial Religion but there is never any Truth or Fidelity Amity or Equity and much less Piety and Effective Religion Under this Superficies and this apparent Colour They have their Hearts estranged from all Duties being opposite to all their Obligations void of all Vertues and subdu'd by all Vices They can here deceive themselves they may believe of them what they will and flatter themselves with Friendship Truth and Equity but God sees them in the Light of his Eternal Truth full of a secret Opposition to Charity and Justice full of themselves and enslav'd by their Passion of Pleasure and Self-love These Acts do not always proceed from this Foundation of Corruption because the Occasions thereof are not continual but the Foundation of Corruption is always establish'd in the Heart it doth not fail to express and manifest it self in these Rencounters and Occurrences There is nothing then more constant and more certain than this Maxim That without Gospel Self-denial there cannot be in the Hearts of Men either any solid Religion towards God or any true Honesty towards Men And this Rule so Establish'd by the constant Experience of the World follows necessarily from the Principles whereby our Souls are in our Bodies But let us pass to our Third Part and let us see How our Souls ought to Be out of the Body to draw from thence the last Part of Morality which ought to Regulate the Order of our Duties betwixt the present and future Life between Time and Eternity and between the present World and the World to come The End of the Second Part. A MORAL ESSAY Upon the Soul of Man PART III. Concerning our Duties of Time and Eternity of the Present Life and of the Life to come of the Present World and of the World to come which Result from the manner how our Souls ought to be out of our Bodies first of all and then in our Spiritualized Bodies after the Universal Resurrection CHAP. I. An Objection against the Design of this Third Part to be Answered which is to believe that it is impossible to know how our Souls are to be out of our Bodies SINCE we are accustomed to limit our Knowledges by our Senses and that we do not only follow with an extream Propensity the Facilily of Imagining whose Acts we Exercise without doing any Violence to our selves But besides we make but very little use of the Faculty of Reasoning or of serving our selves with the Lights already acquired to enlighten the Matters which we have not as yet dived into I have Reason to believe that many will Censure my Undertaking of Rashness to go about to speak of a thing so impenetrable in their Opinion so remote and so hid from our Sights as is the manner how our Souls Are and how they Operate out of our Bodies Perhaps there are those who will tell me as it is said in the Book of Job Nunquid ingressus es portas mortis aut ostia tenebrosa vidisti But I hope that all reasonable Persons will find that my Curiosity is lawful and that I have Reason to Communicate it to all the World in desiring that every one may know how our Souls are out of our Bodies and that all those who are willing to give themselves the trouble of being Attentive to use their Reason will Judge that my Enterprize is not Rash It is true that we conceive nothing out of the Circumference and beyond the Activity of our Senses and of our Imagination and by consequence out of our Bodies but an Immensity of Darkness and that it is impossible but that it should appear Rash to attempt to carry a Light into it But if we remember that Reason hath Rays and a Light to which nothing can give Bounds which is that which St. Paul means when he says that
the Spirit that is to say the Spiritual Nature pierces penetrates and enlightens all things If we consider the advantage which Reason and the proper Intelligence of our Spiritual Nature gives us of being able surely to Enlarge our Knowledges by the infallible Consequences which we draw from things we have already known for those which we do not know as yet We shall find that there is nothing more Natural and less Rash than to endeavour to decide by the clear Idea which we have of our Soul and by the Notion no less clear which we have of the Supream Nature which alone is able to be the Cause of the divers Conditions of the Soul of the Estate wherein it ought to place our Souls after they shall have finished their Trial in the Body and that this Eternal Justice shall have fixed upon them his Anger or his Love according as they shall have render'd themselves worthy by their Obedience and Fidelity or by the obstinacy of their Disorder and Revolt This double Notion which we have so clear and so distinct of God and of our Spiritual Nature joyned to that which we have of our present State as of a State where our Obedience and Fidelity are put to a Trial and where the Eternal Justice hath his Eyes open to see our Combat with the Flesh and with our Senses We form a sure Light by which we are able to enter march safely into that obscurity and those darknesses And since we have a Taper in our hands lighted by those Idea's so clear and so certain of the Knowledges which we have already acquired why then should we not carry it into that dark and unknown Country which is of so great Importance to us to discover and know Since we have Wind and Sails enough to carry us over to this New World why then should not we go thither to make a Map of it Since our Reason may be illuminated above the Darkness of the Night of our Senses and of our Imagination why should not we illuminate the Blind who being once Enlightned will no more resist the Light of Divine and Heavenly Revelation which they often esteem when they are not Enlightned by Reason but as a Fable and a Fiction Then let us not fear to attempt this Discovery and Explain how our Souls are to be out of the Body since we are able to speak of it with some certainty The certainty of a New Estate of a New and Immortal Life for our Souls after this Present Life We are able to speak most certain and make as St. John did a Description and a Topography of this World to come and of this Heavenly Jerusalem VVe do not only know by the evident Conviction of the Spiritual Nature of our Souls That they are not at all destroyed and annihilated by Death which is not an advantage to the Spiritual Nature because there is nothing even in the most Corporeal Nature which is most Frail most Perishable and most subject to Corruption and the most liable to Death that Perishes entirely But we know with the same Certainty That the Soul subsists with all its Foundation of Life which we see it hath which is the advantage and essential Distinction of the Spiritual Nature For there is this Difference between a Spiritual or Knowing Nature and a Nature Corporeal That the Corporeal Nature may be deprived of Life but not of its Being for its Life is distinct from its Being in the Body for the Life of the Body is but a Motion which it hath there by its Structure its Organization and its inward and natural Composition which it may lose and doth every day lose without losing the Foundation of its Being And in preserving all the Basis of its material Substance which always remains and subsists notwithstanding any Change which may happen to it in its Structure and its outward and sensible Form But in Knowing or Spiritual Nature the Life and Being are but one and the same thing Since Knowledge and Sensibility or the Acts of the Appetitive Faculty which are the Basis and the Foundation of their Being are also essentially the Foundation of their Life For in Spiritual Nature to Live is not to Eat Walk or to be Moved but to Know to Perceive to Will to have Joy and Sadness Pain and Pleasure Those of the Heathen Philosophers who had some Glimmering of a true Idea of the Spiritual Nature but not under the Name of Spiritual Nature but only of a Knowing Nature did so well perceive That the Knowing Nature was Essentially Living that we see they all of them Established thereupon the Certainty of the Immortality of Mans Soul because indeed say they This Matter whereof the Soul of Man is formed is a Matter essentially Knowing and by consequence Living if it is Air or Fire it is not only an Air and a Fire that is most subtil but an Air and a Fire of a singular Nature an Air and a Fire essentially Knowing and by consequence Living Thus though the Souls of Men should be this Air and this material Fire say they as some do imagine yet for all that they would not cease to be Immortal because they would be always Essentially Living We see this System in all the Books of the Ancient Philosophers and we see at the same time That this Notion of the Soul as a Nature essentially Knowing whereof we have a certainty by a Conviction so lively and so full of Sentiments convinced all these Ancient Sages not only That Death doth not touch the Life of our Souls not only that it doth not destroy them But on the contrary That Death makes the Life of them perfect because it breaks their Prison and takes away from their Thoughts and their Views the Wall which stops them and the Vail which blinds them And their Conviction was so great thereupon that they did not speak with less Certainty and Pleasure of this New and Immortal Life of our Souls after Death than we speak to one another of some Neighbouring Provinces or of some New Discoveries They did no more doubt of this New Life than we do of Italy or of Spain For to speak of Canada and the American Isles would be too little to express the Certainty They did not only speak of it with Assurance and without incertainty They spoke of it with Incredible Joys and Transports They longed to arrive at the happy end of their Voyage They conceived ardent desires for Death They did more than all this they advanced it further And we know That in a Famous Common Wealth of Grece they were obliged to Prohibit and Suppress a Book that had been Writ upon the Immortality of the Soul because it did so livelily Impress upon their Spirits the Conviction of their Immortality that they were fearful lest it should Depopulate the Earth and cause the Race of Mankind to be destroyed because they saw it had carried a great many of them not only
to neglect the Business and the Duties of Life and of the Republic but even to hasten on their own Deaths It is not to be questioned here whether this Prudence were not a little too Precautious it is not our business our business is to Remark the Effect which the Notion of a Knowing Nature hath produced to make Men believe That their Souls subsist and live after their Death The Conviction hereof is effectively Lively and Sensible by that alone independently of all the Regards of Religion and it is incredible how much Force and Evidence it receives from all the Foundations and Circumstances of Religion of which this New Life which our Souls ought to have out of our Bodies is as it were the Point in View and the only and perpetual Object All the Old and all the New Testament All the Law and all the Gospel Moses and Jesus Christ The Prophets and the Apostles All the Miracles and all the Mysteries have no other Essential Termination and End than this New and Immortal Life of our Souls after our Death Both the Old and the New Testament under the Names of the New World the Future World the Age to come the Life Everlasting the Heavenly Jerusalem do not speak almost of any thing else And these cannot be Fables and Fictions for if they were nothing else but Fables then this Sovereign Power which hath been manifested to the World with a thousand Characters of Wisdom of Holiness of Truth and of Goodness by that Miraculous Train of Prodigious Events which make what we call the Holy History and the Body of Religion must have laboured for above these Six thousand Years to deceive the Word and to laugh at Mankind which is the most impossible thing in the World The Conviction then which is lively and penetrating independently of Religion is yet much more so by Religion The Faithful knows much better than the Philosopher That when this House of Clay which he Inhabits at present shall fall and crumble into Dust He shall pass out of this Melancholy and obscure Habitation into a New and an Heavenly Habitation not made with Mens hands into the proper Habitation and the Eternal Palace where God himself dwells The Philosopher knows it because he knows That the Souls of Men departing from the Body do pass into a New Life full of Darkness or of Light of Happiness or of Misery according as they have rendred themselves worthy in their Bodies either of the Love or the Anger of Him who is essentially the Life and by consequence the Punishment or the Reward of all Intelligent Natures according as they have deserved that He should Act in them and Reward or Punish them Socrates having already the Mortal and Deadly Draught in his Hand spake after this manner Says the Roman Orator and Philosopher That it did not seem to him that they led him to Death but that he was going to mount up to Heaven Cato was Transported with Joy at the sight and at the presence of Death The Wise Man saith Plutarch goes with Pleasure out of the Darkness of the Earth to enjoy in Heaven an Immortal Light with the Gods Have Courage saith this Other Let not Death affright Us since after Death we shall either be Gods or like Gods Let us not fear that our Bodies will bury our Souls under their Ruins When the Heavens shall fall and Corporeal Nature shall entirely perish and disappear There is a necessity that the Spirit which Animates Us and which is the Foundation of our Being must subsist and remain under those Ruins without being hurt or endamaged by them Such is the Conviction and Certainty of the Philosopher But the Faithful is much more enflamed and Transported with this so animated and so lively Certainty and Persuasion He sees with St. Stephen the Heavens open over his Head and he is taken and wrapt up thither like St. Paul with unspeakable Joys and Extasies He hath this Certainty and this Persuasion so lively and so animated by two divers Principles He hath it by the Impression of Faith and of Grace which makes him See and Feel if I may say so this New Life without Reasoning by way of Supernatural Inspiration and Illumination and He hath it when he will Reflect and Reason by an evident Conviction which the Reflection upon the Mysteries and Miracles of Christianity and upon all Religion give him of it for tho' there were none but that Historical single Fact of the Mystery of the Incarnation of God the truth of which is incontestably Established by so many Miracles and so many sensible Convictions it would be impossible to call into doubt that New and Immortal Life of this New State we are speaking of into which our Souls must enter when they go out of our Bodies because it is not possible to conceive That if there was no other for Men but this present Life that God would have become Man upon the Earth to undergo all that Train of humbling and dolorous Mysteries which he hath undergon Since it is certain That if there was no other Life for Men there would be no advantage neither for God nor for Men in those Mysteries which do no wise Regard the present Life but only the Life to come God can do nothing in Vain and in vain would He have bin Born as he was Born in vain would He have Lived as he did Live in vain would He have Died as he did Dye if He had not been Born if He had not Lived and if He had not Dyed to Redeem Men from Eternal Death and to give them that Happy and Immortal Life which the First Man had lost them God Incarnate came not to make this Present Life neither more agreeable nor more fortunate or more happy to Us He came not to spread abroad Treasures and Riches to give Honors and great Employments to Distribute Dignities to give Pleasures to the Senses and to the Cupidinous Desires of this Present Life St. Paul calls him the High Priest of Goods to come and the Prophets who Prophecied of Him called Him the Father of the Ages to come and King of the Future World but I must not enlarge here any more upon this on the contrary I must shut it up and return to the Point we proposed to Illustrate in this Third Part which is The manner how our Souls Are to be out of our Bodies CHAP. II. What is to be Illustrated in this Third Part concerning the Future State of our Souls out of our Bodies and first whether our Souls when they go out of our Bodies do pass into a true Corporeal Place THAT which we already said Teaches Us That our Souls Are and Subsist out of our Body That they Live and have Essential Acts and Proprieties inseparable from their Knowing Nature but we do not learn from thence How our Souls Are out of the Body which is however what we have proposed to Illustrate To satisfie our Curiosity
Place of Spirits than the Sea is the Place for Fishes and the Air the Place for Birds The Body saith the Wise-man returns to the Earth from whence it was taken and the Soul returns to God who made it and from whom it issu'd out that is to say It hath no more immediate Union but with God alone which occasions us to say very exactly That she goes into God We have said That our Souls have an Essential Union with God in whom they live and to whom they are much more united by all their Parts and by all the Faculties of their Being than the Beams are united to the Sun than a River is united to its Spring than the living Branch is united to its Root We have said That all Knowing Created Natures do depend as immediately upon God in all the Acts of their Life and by consequence in all the Acts of their Perceptive and Appetitive Faculties as they depend upon him for the Foundation of their Being as well as all other Created Natures that is to say That as they cannot come out of nothing but by the Almighty and Efficacious Action of his Eternal Essence so they can neither Think nor Will but by the continual Action of his Supream Influence We have said That as God is the sole Being Existing by himself so he is the sole Living Being and by consequence the sole Thinking and Willing Being by himself and from thence arises a Relation and an Essential Union of all Created Spirits with the Supream Spirit and of the Supream Spirit with the Created Spirits All the Rivers drink of the Sea saith that Ancient all the Branches suck up perpetually the the Juyce and the Sap of the Root the Beams draw perpetually their Heat and Light from the Sun and all Living Beings drink perpetually of that Living and Eternal Spring of Life and all Spirits of that Living and Eternal Source of Knowledge It is the Natural Estate of all Spiritual Natures to have this immediate Union with God but this Supream Spirit being willing to do Honor to his Almightiness and to his Wisdom being willing to make the Idea of all kinds of Creatures possible to proceed from himself and to render it Real and Effective to make the World thereby compleat and finish'd and being willing to assemble together Corporeal and Spiritual Nature in one single Whole and being willing perhaps thereby to put Pure Spirits into the Places of the Fall'n Angels and to triumph over the Rebellious Ones in causing himself to be Serv'd in Bodies by Inferior Spirits would have it that this Immediate Union which the Created Spirits have Essentially with Him should be in some manner suspended and interrupted or at least obscur'd and diminish'd in regard of those whose Fidelity and Obedience he was willing to make Trial of in the Body The Union of Bodies interrupts and suspends the Immediate Union of our Souls with God Our Souls naturally like other Created Spirits ought not to have any Dependence upon any Bodies for to have the Idea's of things they ought only to depend immediately upon God and by consequence ought only to have Union with Him But this Supream Spirit having been pleas'd for the Reasons we have said for many others which we conceive and for more yet apparently which we do not conceive that our Souls should have their Thoughts and their Sentiments their Desires and their Affections upon the Occasion of the Body to the End that That should be a continual Subject of Victory and of meritorious Exercise He hath thought fit that for a time this Immediate and Essential Union of all Created Spirits with the Eternal Essence should become in our Souls Mediate if I may be permitted to say so and that the Essential Union of God and of all Created Spirits should not Operate in them but by an Accessory Union with this Matter Organiz'd or dispos'd into a certain Structure of Bones of Flesh and of Nerves which we call Human Body This Union of our Souls with our Bodies is not as we have said but this precisely That our Bodies by the diverse stirrings up the diverse Agitations and the diverse Configurations of the Brain which they receive from Bodies which environ them or from the natural Course of the Blood or from their proper Humors are the Occasion and Condition of the Determination of the Idea's and Sentiments which the Supream Spirit gives us that is to say That the Body is the Occasional Cause which Determines the Influence of the Essential Union which we have with God and thereby it is in some manner betwixt us and God it diminisheth in some manner our Essential Union with him because it hinders if I may be permitted to say so the Immediation of him Without That we could not say that our Souls were in our Bodies they would be immediately in God because the Place of the Souls and of all Spirits is intirely their Relation of Dependence and of Activity and our Souls in that case would have no Relation and Dependence but upon God only It is for that Reason that the Scripture speaks to us of the Union of our Souls with our Bodies or of our present Life not only as it were of a Wall between God and us but as it were of a Banishment as it were a Voyage and a Running away or Departure which we make from God Peregrinamur à Domino saith St. Paul and this is Effectively as it were a kind of Departure from God and by consequence a Banishment a Voyage a Running away from him because it is a Suspension and an Interruption of the Essential and Immediate Union which all Spirits have necessarily with him Our Souls going out of the Body are immediately united to God Now since our Souls entring into Bodies do go out from God according to the Expressions of the Divine Word which are exact and just when we know how to comprehend and penetrate them we must say likewise That our Souls going out of the Body return to God and in God as the Scripture Effectively saith it God is on both sides the Term of the Voyage It is from him we part in ceasing to be united immediately to him by reason of the Intervention of Body through which the Action of the Influence of his Divine Life in us doth pass and it is to him that we return in Dying and in going out of the Body because our Dependence on the Body ceaseth by Death and Death beating down the Wall which was between God and us the Union of God to us and of us to God becomes Pure and Immediate God is the Term we arrive to as well as that from whence we parted we are come out of him and we enter again into him that is to say That as before our Souls are united to our Bodies they have no Union with any thing but with God and by consequence they are nowhere but in God so after the same manner so
the Just Souls See and Know God out of the Body and how the Criminal Souls do also See and Know Him TO this purpose we would willingly Know in the first place What those things Are which the Soul Knows out of the Body and it is easie to Resolve it by those Principles which we have setled For since we have said That there is not at all any other Occasional Cause of the Idea's and Sentiments of the Soul when it is once out of the Body than the Irregular and Vitious Disposition and the Regular and Vertuous Disposition of the Soul on one one part and on the other the Necessary and Eternal Love which God hath for Order so it is certain That this Sovereign Wisdom this Essential Life of all Intelligent Natures dispenseth his Lights and his Darknesses by his Sovereign Equity and that so he Acts otherwise in the Just Souls than in the Souls which are Criminal and Reprobate As to the Just Souls They have as it were a true Immensity of Knowledge First of all They Know God and See Him I say They see Him for it is not a simple Knowledge Abstractively such as we have at present that is to See to Perceive to Touch and if I may say so to Tast as the Holy Writ saith But this is to See by a kind of Vision which we call Intuitive which is not at all a simple or bare View of Speculation or a pure Contemplation of Reasoning but this is a lively and penetrating Impression of the whole Substance of the Divinity which renders it self present and intimate to the Soul by an intimate and penetrating Sentiment just as the Material Objects do now render themselves present to us by the Immediate Action whereby they strike upon and advertise our Senses This is to see God as it were by Sensation This is to perceive Him Present by a lively and an indubitable Experience of His Ineffable Nature and His Beatific Vision just as we perceive the Presence of Things whereof we have the most lively Idea and the most certain and most indubitable Experience This Intuitive Knowledge or Vision of God is not at all the indubitable Knowledge and Sentiment of His Existence only but it is the clear and distinct Knowledge and Idea of All his Attributes in general and of all his Perfections in particular it is a clear and distinct View of all the marvellous Table and of all the Charming Spectacle of the Beauties of this Supream Nature and especially the delicious and ineffable Sentiment of his Goodness and of his Love by which he pours if I may say so all the Joys and all the Felicities of his Heart into these Sanctified and Happy Souls Moreover These Just Souls in thus Knowing God do at the same time no longer Know themselves by that confused Sentiment by which they at present disentangle themselves as it were by main strength and force of Reason from the Body but by a clear and distinct Sentiment and by an Idea equally neat and lively all Shining and all Bright whereby they see themselves with all their Nobleness and with all the Characters of Resemblance which they have with God just as they now see a Picture exposed to their View almost like their Corporeal Image which the Nature of the Soul doth exclude CHAP. IX How the Just Souls See and Know the Visible VVorld and what they Know of the Politic and Civil VVorld IT is not only God and Themselves that they Know They also distinctly see in God all the visible World because besides that the Scripture do's in a manner speak to us of it It is a Knowledge which is naturally inherent in every created Spirit unless God for a time suspends this Knowledge for Reasons of his Providence as he now do's to our Souls which he makes Trial of in the Body and to whom he doth not give these Knowledges as we said before but Successively from the Occasion of the different Impressions made upon our Bodies by the divers parts of the Visible World which present themselves to our Senses one after another It is in Order That Spirits being Superior to Bodies by Reason of their Knowing Nature should Know Bodies Also when the Disposition of the present Oeconomy which requires That God should not Enlighten the Souls but Successively as we said before and from the Occasion of the Immutable Laws of the Motion of the Universe When I say this present Disposition shall cease the Illumination of God being no more annexed to these Vicissitude 〈…〉 of the Universe and of the 〈…〉 of Bodies received in our Material Senses will give in an Instant at once an Idea of all Corporeal Nature and of all the Visible World in its Whole and in its Parts in its Immensity or in its Extent in its agreeable Variety in its Order and Symmetry to all Souls which have not deserved his Anger and instead of this Light he needs but only to spread Darknesses upon the Criminal and Rebellious Souls The Scripture tells us of Holy Souls as if they had the pleasure of walking upon the Globes of the Heavens and to be in the midst of the Stars to walk upon the Sun and upon the Moon and after this manner of speaking it accommodates it self to our gross manner of conceiving the most Spiritual Things under Corporeal Forms But we need conceive by all these Expressions no more than what we have said of a clear and distinct Idea of all the Visible World which God gives to the just Souls they walk after their manner upon the Arches of the Heavens they march upon the Sun and Moon c. because that the lively Idea which they have of all the Visible World makes all the parts thereof present and as it were subjected and placed under their Feet They are at the same time at both the Poles of the World they fill its whole Extent they are in both the Hemispheres their Horizon is not at all a limited Horizon which never permits us to see here but a little Portion of the Universe It is not bounded but by the Bounds of Nature We do not at present see Bodies but only those parts of them which reflect the Light upon us We do not see the Sun the Moon the Stars and the Terraqueous Globe of the Earth and Seas but only one side of them but the pure Souls immediately enlightned by God as they Are They see at the same time the whole Globe of the Sun all the Face of the Moon both the Hemispheres of the Earth There is no Antipodes to them They see All at one View all the fair Prospects of Nature and all the Beautiful Table of the Visible World For besides That their Knowledge is Universal in this respect so it is not at all Successive but all at once So much for the Natural World VVhat the Souls out of the Body Know concerning the Civil and Politic World As to the Civil and Politic
that Will which remains in the Reprobate Souls do's not Operate there as it doth in Holy Souls They are driven and moved essentially by an invincible Love towards Good and instead of Good which they seek for with so much vehemence They see nothing before them but Pains Despair and Misery They launch out and throw themselves perpetually towards the Good by Efforts and Movements inconceivable and He in whom they see the Source of Good and as it were all the Treasure and all the Foundation of Good Repulses them and throws them back again and in the same time wounds and transpierces them with a thousand deadly Darts They are Eternally thirsting after Pleasure and they have Eternally nothing but Grief Pain and Despair for their Portion so that the Will placed in them to be the Beginning and the Seat of their Happiness is found to be the Eternal Principle and Seat of their Unhappiness and Despair It would be to no purpose to lose time in saying That all the agreeable Passions will be in the Holy Souls and all the afflicting ones in the Reprobate that is comprehended of it self as also That these Passions will be in the Appetitive Faculty independently of the Body as we have said That the acts of Perceiving Imagining and Remembring will be in the Perceptive Faculty So there remains nothing more to finish this last Illustration and to draw from thence the so-essential Instruction of our Duties of Time and of Eternity of the Present Life and the Future Life of the Present World and the World to come of all our Present Condition and of all our Future State Than to remark that this Estate of the Souls out of the Body will not be changed in the main at bottom but only in some Circumstances not essential by the Re-union of the Bodies which will be made by the Universal Resurrection CHAP. XIII That this State of the Souls out of the Body will not be changed in the main or at Bottom by the new State of the Universal Resurrection but only in some accessory Circumstances ALthough we do not at all find in the Sentiment or in the precise Idea which we have of our Souls the Certainty and the Conviction of their Future Re-union with the Bodies which Faith teaches us ought to be made by the Universal Resurrection it is for all that certain That considering all the Train and all the Concatenation of the Mysteries and Principles whereof the Divine System of Religion and of Christianity is formed considering also the honor of the Divine Attributes which require That God should be jealous of his Glory and of the happy Event and Success of his Designs It is altogether evident That God who hath been pleased to Assemble the two kinds of Natures which only are known to Us whether as Existing or as Possible viz. To wit Corporeal Nature and Spiritual Nature into one single Compositum and one single Whole or Hypostasis to make thereof the Master-piece of the Visible World and as it were an Epitome an Abridgment or a curious Recapitulation of all his Works ought necessarily to Re-place it and to Re-establish it such as he formed it and designed it at first He ought to do it either for his own honor and glory as Creator to the end That Man may eternally subsist in this admirable Composition of Body and of Spirit who holding equally of the Visible and Corporeal World and of the Intelligible and Spiritual World makes as it were a Third and a kind of One altogether singular which infinitely exalteth his Wisdom and his Power or else for the honor and glory of the Redemption and of the Man-God who would eternally remain Imperfect and Defective if things were not Re-established upon the foot of the first Plat-form and of the first Design of the Creation and by consequence if the Bodies were not re-placed with the Souls because the Man-God would not be altogether a Repairer and a Restorer if he did not re-place Man such as he was at first Created and Designed and his Triumph over Sin over Death and Satan would not be compleat and finished if the half of Men should remain in the Jaws of Death Considering then all this Train of the Divine System of Religion it is without doubt most clear and certain That the Universal Resurrection ought to be a Circumstance of that glorious Solemnity of Justice which God ought then to make at the Consummation of Ages for the Consecration of his Eternal Temple for the Overture and Commencement of his Immortal Reign for the Solemn Coronation of his Predestined for the compleat Triumph of the Man-God for the Justification of all his Providence and the Declaration of all his Designs It is I say indubitable and constant That then at the end of the present Oeconomy and then when God will put an end to the Vicissitudes of Time and to the liberty of Revolt and of License which he gives at present to his Creatures then when he will fix all things in an Immutable and Eternal Order then when he will give a beginning to the New World He will then Re-establish all the Bodies and Re-unite every Soul to that which she animated during the present Life But in the mean time as we cannot say That our Souls find in themselves the Sentiment of their future Re-union with their Bodies so we will not speak of it here but as a Truth of Faith because we proposed to our selves to decide nothing concerning Them but what we should find Established either by our own proper Sentiment and our indubitable Experience or by a clear Light of Evidence arising from the Notion which we have made our selves of it as of a knowing Nature sensible of Order and Duty no less than of Pleasure and Pain and of all that is done in Her but this Truth presupposed and elsewhere sufficiently justified to the Idea of the Divine Attributes and in all the Train of the Principles of Religion and of Christianity VVe may speak with assurance of the manner how our Souls will be in their Resuscitated Bodies He who calls Himself the Resurrection and the Life the First-Born amongst the Dead the Father of the Ages to come He in whom we are all raised up again in Mystery and in Figure according to St. Pauls Expression and by whom we all of us ought to be raised up again effectively at the Last Day He tells us that we shall be then even in our Bodies like the Angels disfranchised from the Businesses and the Inclinations which we have upon the Occasion of the Body St. Paul also teaches us That our Bodies shall be Spiritualized and we may upon this Principle decide with certainty That the Re-union of Bodies doth not at all change the Foundation of that State of the Soul out of the Body the manner and circumstances whereof we have been Illustrating When St. Paul saith That our Bodies shall be Spiritualized by the Resurrection he
doth not say that they shall change Nature and that by an impossible Conversion and Metamorphosis they shall become Knowing Natures and shall cease to be Extended Substances He means that the Bodies shall be no more a Charge to the Souls that they shall be to them no more an Obstacle or Hindrance in any thing and that they shall only serve to do Honor to the glory of the Creation and of the Redemption We will first of all take away from Bodies that which we call Gravity which is nothing else but an Impulsion wholly exterior towards the Center of the Earth which happens to them at present from the Impression of the Creator by reason of their Terrestrial Nature and Composition We will restore to them their natural Indifference to Motion and to Rest For Bodies of themselves have not any Motion neither of Lightness nor of Weight they neither ascend nor descend they neither move themselves Perpendicularly nor Horizontally as they say At this present as they are part of the Visible and Corporeal World which ought wholly to subsist upon that indivisible Point which is called its Center which sustains all Bodies without being sustained of any thing They must be moved and driven continually towards the Center and middle of the Earth which doth not sustain it self upon its self but by that Impulsion of all its Parts and of all that which we call Terrestrial Bodies which from all parts tend towards this middle and the same indivisible Point but then being no longer Parts of the Terrestrial World they no longer follow the Laws of that Motion which moves Corporeal and Terrestrial Nature they will neither have Levity nor Gravity but a Perfect and Sovereign Agility that is to say an entire Indifference for all sorts of Motion which will cause them without any Resistance to be carried every where where the Souls would have them We will fix in these Resuscitated Bodies such a Degree of Heat and Motion in the Blood as shall be necessary to entertain the natural Movements with a certain Agility and Disposition for the Animal and Voluntary Motions which the good Constitution of a healthful Body requires This Heat will be sufficient to make the Blood and Humors to flow but not to escape or dissipate the least of the Parts either fluid or solid Parts of the Body from whence it will happen That there will not be any Dissipation and that Nourishment which is only to repair the Dissipation will be never necessary Those Inclinations which are now placed in Man for the Propagation of Species will cease by this Reason and this Principle because in these Bodies fixed in an Immutable Situation of Parts and which never take Nourishment there will not be any excess of Superfluous Matter by which those natural Ebullitions and Fermentations are made which give occasion to those Desires and to those Inclinations which we now have for the Propagation of Species Erunt sicut Angeli Dei neque nubent neque nubentur Almost in the same manner the Senses will have all their Functions and altho' the Souls ought to be enlightned and affected with Idea's and Sentiments upon the Occasion of their Bodies thus Spiritualized in proportion as they themselves shall be affected by the Corporeal Impression of other Bodies which shall act upon them however that will not at all hinder but that the Union of the Souls with God and of God with the Souls shall be near and immediate because that independently of these Corporeal Impressions He will Act continually in them The Bodies are now an essential Occasional Cause of all the natural Action of God in the Souls but then they shall be the Cause Occasional not Essential God will Act by himself immediately in them enlightning them and diversly modifying or affecting them without any Regard of the Body in a thousand manners The Bodies shall be no longer neither a Wall nor a Vail between God and the Souls nor a Channel of Communication between the Souls and God He will Act in them independently of the Disposition of the Body which is now the essential Condition of his natural Action in us Then when the Holy Souls shall be re-united to their Bodies They will not at all fail as hath been said to have the whole Spectacle of the Visible World altho' there be but one part of the Visible World whose Species comes to be retracted in the Material Eyes They will not at all fail to have the Pleasure of Melodies altho' there be not any Symphony which strikes their Corporeal Ears Civitas non egebit Sole neque Lunâ nam Claritas Dei illuminabit eam Such will be our Souls in their Spiritualiz'd Bodies after the Universal Resurrection there remains nothing more for us to do after this last Illustration than to make use of these Knowledges to reform our Idea's and correct our Judgments about Eternity and about Time about the Present Life and the Future about the Present World and the World to come And thereby to comprehend the whole Extent of our Duties CHAP. XIV What is Time and Eternity the Present World and the World to come the Present Life and the Future Life IT is easie for us after all that hath been Illustrated concerning that Future State of our Souls in the New and Immortal Life which they ought to Commence in going out of the Body It is easie for us I say to comprehend what is Time and Eternity the Present World and the World to come the Present Life and the Future Life That which we Men call Time is taken either by Relation to the Duration of the Abode of every Soul in its Body or by Relation to the Duration of the whole present Oeconomy of the Visible World destined to the Trial of the Souls in the Bodies and in whatsoever signification Men take Time in the Opposition which Men make of it to Eternity It signifies precisely a State of Instability of Change and of Vicissitude and a State which ought to have an End for these are the two things which enter essentially into the Idea of that which is called Time Vicissitude and End The space of the Duration that our Souls are in our Bodies is called Time for those two Reasons because it ought to have an End and because in the Interim so long as it endures it holds us exposed to a thousand Changes and to a thousand Vicissitudes and above all to the Vicissitude of being able to pass from Good to Evil and from Evil to Good from Sin to Vertue and from Vertue to Crimes or Vice You see here exactly what Time is and Eternity ought to be conceived by Opposition for Eternity is on the contrary The immutable and interminable State and Order of things As much as Time includes Instability and End so much do's Eternity exclude them both Time speaks Change and End Eternity speaks the being always the same and never ending Thus as our present State in
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
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
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
thereof And He is at the same time the Light and the Life of all Spirits as He Acts perpetually in Us and doth not less Animate the little World which is the Assembly of the Body and Spirit whereof Man consists than the Universal World which is the Assembly of all Corporeal Natures Thereby doth subsist our dependence upon Him in all the Acts of our Life as well as in the Foundation of our Being which depends every moment upon the continuation of that Action by which he at first Created us Happy it is that the Notion which we have made of the manner whereby we know all things which are without us should lead us back and unite us so intimately to the Source of our Being and that we cannot know how our Knowledges and Sentiments are form'd in us without knowing likewise together with the dependence that all our Life and all our Being hath from Him the Immensity the Excellency and the Superiority of his infinite Essence above all created Beings The blind and ignorant Pride of Humane Understanding will not perhaps suffer in some People that we should humble it after this manner and that we should thus bring it back again to God It will revolt it may be against the Evidence of the things which I have been speaking of and it will perhaps chuse much rather not to comprehend at all how the Corporeal Impressions of Objects become in our Souls Spiritual Images and Sensations than to comprehend it after a manner which gives it so lively an Idea of its Dependence and its Nothingness But we must not suffer it peaceably and quietly to enjoy the Pleasure of its affected Ignorance of its criminal Independency we must convince it not only that there is no other means of Explaining the manner how we have by reason of Corporeal Impressions the Idea's and Sentiments of things but we must also necessarily make it acknowledge That this perpetual Action of the Illumination and Irradiation of God in us as an Essential Act of his Supream Sovereignty over us is the inseparable Character of our Essential Dependence and the necessary continuance of the Function by which he unites the Souls to Bodies so as Faith teaches it CHAP. VII A Proof of what hath been decided That it is God as Author of the Union of the Soul and Body who gives to the Soul the Sentiments and Idea's of things from the occasion of Corporeal Impressions which are made upon the Material Senses THIS continual Action of God in us whereby he Acts perpetually in us in the Quality of the First and Universal Cause Enlightning us and affecting us with several Sentiments by reason of divers Impressions which are made either by a Cause from within or by a Motion from without in our Brain ought necessarily to be acknowledg'd by two or three sorts of Proofs and different Reasons equally convincing The first Proof by the Essential Union of our Souls with God First of all We have the indubitable Sentiment and Experience thereof For if we rereflect well upon our own Sentiment we shall find equally two Unions in us an Union of our Bodies with all the visible World and an Union of our Souls with a Nature Knowing Immense Infinite and Unchangeable which with an Eye always vigilant and always attentive to all the Movements of our Brains penetrates us continually with a thousand lively Sentiments and enlightens us with a thousand Idea's upon their Occasion Our Bodies are undoubtedly united to all other Bodies and by consequence to all the visible World Because there is not one single Motion made about them which doth not come to them through some one of their Parts or through some one of the Organs which the provident Wisdom of the Creator hath disposed so diversly to receive their different Motions If the Sun or any other Luminous Body be mov'd in the middle of that imperceptible Matter which it drives in straight Lines from all sides our Eyes receive in the instant and in the moment the Impression of it by the necessary Effect of the continuation of Motion or of the effort of Motion which is imprinted in that Matter because they find themselves so dispos'd to let it pass thro' the different Humors whereof they are compos'd and to receive it in that thin and subtil Web which is form'd in the bottom of our Eyes about the Extremities of the Optick Nerves and which is call'd the Retina If there be a Shock of two solid Bodies in the Air or any vehement Fomentation of Exhalation as it happens in Thunder from whence arise redoubled Trepidations in this fluid Matter like to those Circles which are describ'd upon the Superficies of Water one after the other and one against another this Motion comes to strike in our Bodies that which is called the Tympanum in the Organ of Hearing It is generally in the same manner with all other Bodies some of them are united to our Bodies by the subtile Vapours which they emit from them as are Odours others by an Immediation as they say of the Superficies of their Parts and there is not any one single one of them which doth not Act upon our Bodies after their manner But if our Bodies are so naturally united to all other Bodies by Contiguity which communicates the Motion of one to the other our Souls are yet more sensibly united to a Superior and an over-ruling Nature which imprints on them Idea's and Sentiments as it pleases by General Wills and universal and immutable Laws which it almost never departs from but in those extraordinary Occasions in the which it Acts as a particular Cause and works that which we call a Miracle We cannot be ignorant or insensible of this Empire which the Author and Master the Sovereign and the Lord of Nature Exercises over us for the Reasons which have been already observ'd and which S. Augustin had so well div'd into that he said That a reflective and an attentive Man would much rather doubt of the Union of his Body with the visible World to which it is tied by all its Parts than of that Union of his Soul with God since the Action thereof is never interrupted but it is sensible and visible for we know nothing if we do not know that it Acts in us and that it Rules us either by a lively and an involuntary Sentiment or by the Light wherewith it penetrates us since it is impossible not to acknowledge God in this Principle so Enlightning and so Vigilant of the one Part and on the other so Efficacious and so Commanding who Presides over all our Knowledges and over all our Sentiments and who makes them in us in spite of us with so admirable and so illuminating a Wisdom and so much the better as causing in us undoubtedly all the Pleasure and all the Pain which we resent by the occasion of our Bodies We see plainly that he is the Sovereign Arbiter as well as the
a Consequence of the clear and sensible Conviction of the Disorder of our foolish and Idolatrous love of our Body which we believe to be so lawful and so innocent We shall draw from the Principle of our Immortal Condition the Consequence of an evident Conviction of the Disorder of our bewitching love of the present Life whereof we have so little Remorse We shall draw from the Principle of the Divine Quality of our Souls which is the Honor of the Divine Resemblance which Nature begins in them by Conscience and by the Seeds of Vertue and which Grace and Glory do finish the Consequence of the Condemnation of that little care which we have to cooperate to the Honor of the Divine Resemblance We shall draw from the Principle of the Alternativeness of the immutable State of Felicity and Misery which must succeed the present Fortune and which we have presently to decide by the good usage of Time and of this Life the Conviction of the outragious Folly of our violent Transports and of our fury of Ambition for the present Fortunes which we regard as the only Prudence and the only Wisdom of this Life The Condemnation of our Forgetfulness and of our Wandring from God First of all How condemnable are we for forgetting God since it is true That our Souls do not only come from God but they live Essentially in him and that after this short Interruption of their Immediate Union with him which makes the present Life they ought to return and eternally remain in him How great is the Disorder in your Opinion of this Forgetfulness The Scripture saith That the Stars being incapable of Sentiments and of Knowledge have a perpetual Acknowledgment for him who gave them Light and for that Reason to testifie it to him they send him back perpetually their Light and are continually turn'd towards him as if it were to tell him that for Him only they desire to shine that it is for Him only that they do shine Lucent ei qui fecit illas Here is an Idea and a Lesson which they give us of the continual Application and perpetual Return which we ought to have towards God for perceiving and acknowledging his Presence his Divine Illumination and his Influence in us But we are far enough from following this Lesson our Heart and our Spirit do turn themselves equally from him they equally lose themselves in useless Thoughts and plunging themselves and advancing farther and farther into this Land of Forgetfulness and this Region of Darkness they do not so much as once a Day no not perhaps once a Week once a Month once a Year call to mind their Divine Origine and their Celestial Dependence Obstupescite Coeli super hoc here would the Prophet Esay say All Nature saith the same thing with the Prophet and would rise and Arm her self against this so monstrous Ingratitude and this so monstrous Insolence There is not betwixt Man and Man the like Example of Injustice of Brutality and of Rashness It would be very much that the Heart only should forget God and should wander from him in searching as she doth her Happiness and her Pleasure out of him which is the greatest Wandring that can be But it is not the Heart alone that for gets God and wanders from him the Spirit it self the Spirit who could have quitted it self at so easie a rate of the Duty of its Dependence and its Acknowledgment the Spirit forgets him the Spirit effaces his Idea the Spirit turns it self wholly from him it revolts entirely And tho' the Spirit receives continually a Light and Thought from God it is by him that she Perceives all that she perceives it is by him that she Thinks all that she Thinks and it is by him that she Knows all that she Knows and yet so far is she from acknowledging and perceiving it that she believes that she is a Light to her self and she doth not at all believe that she oweth any thing to God for it If the the Sun did never Set or were never under a Cloud we should not at all believe that it was by it we had the Light we should believe that the Light by the help of which we see all things were in our Eyes and because God doth continually Enlighten us because that this Sun never Sets because that this Sun is always ready to Enlighten us every instant we believe that we have in our selves the Light and the Idea's where with He Enlightens us The Dog lifts up his Head to him who gives Bread to him the Spirit of Man doth not at all lift up his Thoughts towards him who continually gives him all his Light and all his Life O Ingratitude O Revolt What Judgment do you think doth God make of those Men who live in Courts in Palaces and in great Offices of all sort of Profession who pass their Days their Weeks their Months their Years all their whole Life without any true Remembrance or any true Sentiment of him and of the continual Dependence which we have of the perpetual Irradiation of his Eternal Essence With what Eyes do you think doth he look upon them What Violence do you think doth he offer himself in not hastning the end of their Lives and the beginning of his Vengeance Yet He never spoke with more Resentment than Laboravi sustinens He never thunder'd or demanded Justice from Heaven or Earth with more vehemence He never demanded it with a greater Indignation Let us see if there be any thing like this amongst Men from a Subject to a King from Children to their Parents from Husbands to their Wives from Servants to their Masters or amongst the most savage Beasts towards those who take care to feed them But if you conceive thereby how Criminal our forgetfulness of and our wandring from God is you will apprehend how unhappy it is by the Anger with which God will receive those ungrateful Souls who forget him when they shall return to him The Rivers which flow from the Sea return to the Sea The Bodies which came from the Earth return to the Earth And our Souls which came from God return also necessarily to God They are as it were Portions of himself which he recalls and would have reunited to the Whole if we may be permitted to say so after the Ancient Fathers Exivi à Patre veni in mundum saith Jesus Christ iterum relinquo mundum vado ad Patrem I am come out from my Father and I am come into the World and I must again leave the World and go to my Father He said it for himself and for us equally He being come from God ought to return to God being sent from God to the Earth ought to return to God And our Souls which in the same manner are sent into the Body and into the Visible World to be there try'd ought to return to God they came from God and they return to God and
and the Grandeurs of Eternity The expectation of those Pleasures of those Grandeurs and of those Riches of Eternity ought to possess us instead of the Pleasure Grandeur and Riches of the Body In the mean time How great is our furious and ridiculous Blindness thereupon What do we take care for but the Body What do we take Pains for but the Body Do's not every thing rely upon the Body Do not all all things terminate in the Body Do not all things turn about the Body See a little all the Pains all the violent Transports all the agitation of Human Life if we seek for great Riches Treasure and Fortune is it not that we may have a sure and infallible Mean of being able to make upon the Body all the Impressions of Pleasure and Voluptuousness that we would desire to prefer it to High Places to make it carry it self Superbiously to make it be reverenced by the People the Multitude To cause it to be Lodged magnificently To cause it to be delicately and excellently well Cloathed It is for the Body that we Labour that we Sow that we Reap It is the Body that all Arts swet for The Body takes up all there is neither place nor time for the Soul See if you can find from Morning till Night That the Body leaves the Soul one moment free and at leasure What say you to this Conduct What think you of it Is this good Order Is this indeed Justice and Reason Ah! poor Soul how ill art thou Lodged how unjustly and unworthily art thou Treated yet in the mean time thou art an Immortal and Eternal Nature and Substance or to say better an Immortal and Eternal Queen to whom equally belong both Time and Eternity the Present World and the World to come It is to Thee that all ought to be Subservient for thou art the sole End of all the present Oeconemy There cannot be a greater Subversion of Order and of Reason than that Out-rage which we commit upon our Souls than that Preference which we give to our Bodies Thou Reason of Man do thou Justice to thy Self Thou Soul of Man know thy Price and thy Nobleness begin to know thy self and to know thy Body Oh Soul Oh Body If we could weigh you in a just Ballance what shame should we not have that we thus vilifie and debase degrade and dishonour our Souls at the rate that we do They are not at all now sensible of the Outrage that they do to themselves but they will be cruelly sensible of it one day and that one day will quickly come What Reproaches and what Shame then will they not endure What Indignation and what Storm will they not then conceive against themselves And with what Air will they look down from Heaven and from the bosom of God upon their Bodies turned into Worms or into Serpents or if you will into Dust and Ashes only as they are lying in their Graves See there will they then say The Idols we Adored See there The Subjects of our Felicities See there the Theater of our Vanities See there the Object of all our Designs See there The Matter of our Passions See there our perpetual and eternal Illusion Even the Happy Souls will make this Reproach which will serve to augment their Joy of having at last acknowledged the Justice that was due to them But the Reprobate Souls with what Grief will they cast their frightful and terrible looks towards their Bodies and with what Horrors will they joyn Themselves again to them at the Universal Resurrection Good God! What Rage and what Despair What Horrors and what Furies It is then for Thee thou Case off filthiness and ordure that we have kindled this Fire It is long of thee That this of Fire and Brimstone is prepared for us It is long of thee That we shall burn Eternally but let Us endeavour to prevent these Things and let us turn all our esteem and all our cares towards our Souls of which there will be nothing lost but all will be Converted on the contrary into an Eternal Harvest of Incorruption and Immortality of Felicities and of Joys as St. Paul says Whereas all that is done as the same Apostle says that is cast into and sown in the Body is cast and sown in pure loss and produces nothing but an eternal Harvest of Pain and of Despair The Condemnation of that little Care which we have to Co-operate to the Honor of the Divine Resemblance It is one of the best Advantages of our Souls That they are made after the Image and Resemblance of God It is for that Reason the Sacred Historian who hath given us the History of their Creation do's principally exalt their Dignity and their Nobility And it is with Reason saith St. Augustin because there is there a Recapitulation of all their Advantages This Advantage of our Souls of being the Images and Resemblances of God implies saith He all their other Advantages and adds something which nothing else contains How happy are we that God hath made us his Images saith St. Chrysostom for what advantage do you think here we have of being his Image It is not only a glorious Title which flatters our Pride or which puffs up our Vanity it is a Right which we have to the Immortal Happiness and to the Ineffable Participation of all his Felicity We are his Images in Nature that we may be his Images also in Glory For it is not in vain that we are the Portraiture and the lively animated Picture of that Supream and Eternal Nature in the Foundation of the Essence of our Souls God do's not leave his Works imperfect for having made in us his Images in Nature he hath made us capable of being the lively Images of all his Felicity This is it which makes what I call the Divine Quality of our Souls Great Nobility without doubt But a Nobleness which ought to cost dear to our Irregular Inclinations and to all our Desires which are contrary to Duty and Vertue which ought to give as it were the Body and put the Colours upon the Picture of the Divine Resemblance which Nature Begins in Us which Grace Perfectionates and which Glory Consummates For God cannot and ought not to imprint the Image of his Eternal and Sovereign Felicity but in our Souls where-in a constant and perpetual Vigilance to exercise Mortification and Vertue will have Copyed out during the whole Course of our Present Life his Eternal Righteousness and Holiness We are not in the Present Life but to finish that Divine Resemblance of Holiness and Vertue which Nature hath rough-drawn in us by that love of Order and of Duty which we call Conscience That is the Reason we ought to render our selves Subjects disposed to receive the happy Impression of the Sovereign Felicity which ought to compleat this Resemblance The Scripture teaches us That none of us shall enter into Heaven before we be compared with God as
with an Original whereof we ought to be the Copies and it is for that we ought to be continually employed as St. Chrysostom saith To Exercise this Heavenly Agriculture of eradicating even the least Fibres or Strings of our Irregular Covetous Desire and to make Christian Vertues to rise and to grow in their Place whereof we have twice received the Seeds the one by Nature and the other by Grace God hath rough-drawn the Table saith St. Augustin and then he hath put into our hands the Pencil and the Colours and he hath given us all our Life-time to compleat and finish it We ought not to lose one moment of Time He would that every moment we should give one stroke of the Pencil and that without ceasing we put Colours upon Colours That is the Eternal and only Task and all the Employment of Life that is all the Exercise of our sojourning in the Body But instead of finishing this Table and instead of culvating these precious Seeds of Vertue which ought to form in us the Divine Resemblance we Nip these Sacred and Divine Buds of Conscience and of Grace and we commonly see in the Soul but a Field very ill cultivated covered with the Thistles Bryers or all Vices We expunge the rough Draught of the Table which God had begun and instead of that excellent Painting which he would have seen finished in us he sees nothing but a monstrous and horrible Representation of all the Corruption of Devils formed from the hideous Assemblage of all Vices It is not easie to say with what trouble he sees this Disorder The Holy History teacheth us That the sad and deadly Spectacle which the Impure Souls did expose to his Eyes at the time of the Deluge made him hate and detest his own Workmanship which he at first had found so beautiful for it is said That he was at first surprized with Love and Admiration for the Workmanship which he had begun Vidit cuncta quae fecerat erant valdè bona It teaches us that he Repented himself of having made Man and of having given him the Liberty of flinging Durt and Ordure upon this rich and beautiful Work upon which he had imprinted his own Resemblance and Visage But St. Chrysostom observes very well that what he said there concerning the Inundation of Impurity which obliged him to send upon the Earth that Inundation of Water whereby he drowned the World He saith it continually upon our Occasion That it was by reason of our Vices and our Covetous Desires by which he had effaced in us the Divine Resemblance He could not suffer this Indignity this Out-rage He thundred in himself and meditated a just Vengeance How terrible and how formidable shall this Vengeance be It is from hence he will say in looking upon his Image so Blotted and Effaced in our Souls and covered over with the horrible Colours of all Vices Is this then will he say the fine Piece that thou hast finished Is it thus that thou hast answered all my Intentions Is it then for the making of this fine Work that thou hast employed all thy Life Look upon the Original compare these Lines with my Lines compare the Original with the Copy The Condemnation of our enchanted Love of the Present Life God who do's not deny us any good thing would not deny us the Pleasure of loving Life so far are we in loving Life from displeasing God that we cannot truly love Life but that we must love God in whom is the Source and Principle of Life essentially so then it cannot be amiss to love Life But we must not mistake our selves and under the Specious Pretence of loving Life to love only the Present Life God do's not forbid us absolutely to love the Present Life he commands us indeed to love it in some respect We may say That there is a love of Life permitted a love of Life commanded and a love of Life forbidden We are commanded to love the Present Life in That we are commanded to rest satisfied with our State of Trial in our Body We ought not at all to murmur at it or be impatient under the Pains or the Melancholies which accompanie it We are commanded to submit our selves to that Order of Providence which makes us pass thro' so difficult a Trial And as in the ancient Spectacle of the Combats of the Gladiators which were shew'd to the People The Combatants were not permitted to go out of the Amphitheater till the Magistrate or he that proposed the Price gave the Signal of the end of the Combat and caus'd the Gate of the Amphitheater to be open'd so we are not at all permitted to hasten our Death which we ought to expect from the hand of him that hath put us into the Lists to whom it belongs to give the the Signal of the end of our Combat and to open the Gate of the Amphitheater we are then commanded to love the Present Life in that respect We are also permitted to enjoy the Agreements which we there find as it were upon the way This is That Love which is permitted us as we have said but we are not at all permitted to place therein all our Heart all our Pleasure and all our Happiness for that would be to make it our last End and Sovereign Good We are not at all permitted to love the Present Life better than the Future For thus to love the Present Life is a Love that is criminal It is so very Criminal that it may be it is the greatest of all the Disorders that our Hearts can fall into For to love the Present Life in prejudice to the love and the desire of the Future is the greatest of all the Idolatries that the Heart of Man can commit it is to make the Body and the Visible World his God because this is to make of them his Sovereign Good and we always make that our God which is our Sovereign Good This sin of loving the Present Life was the sin of Esau The sin of the Israelites who perished in the Desert for having despised the Land of Promise The sin of the Tribes who would not pass the River Jordan and in the Gospel it is the sin of the wicked Rich Man of the Prodigal Son and of the easie and happy ones of this Age upon whom falls the Curse of Jesus Christ because they have their Consolation in this World that is to say saith St. Chrysostom The heart and affection to this Present Life a Disposition which is not only criminal by reason of that kind of Idolatry which we have said it contains and by reason of the Disesteem which it makes of the order of Gods eternal Predestination and of the Subversion of his Designs But also because it is in the Soul as it were the Foundation of Corruption from whence are formed all sorts of Vices Irregugularities and Disorders and which produces naturally the grossest of Libertinism and Atheism
saith Thomas Aquinas Because by reason of much loving the Present Life we come saith he to hate the Future and to wish that there were none at all and when we are gone as far as to hate it we shall easily come not to believe it at all and when the Future Life is once become a Fable Divinity soon after will be but a Chimera only This excessive Love then of the Present Life is a great Disorder and Irregularity and this Irregularity is mounted in us even to the last Period and to the highest Degree I call it a Love enchanted of the Present Life for it is a Love of Charm and of Enchantment It is a Fury and a Rage a Madness and a Frenzy of Love The Future Life allures us to it by a thousand Charms it glitters before us I will not say like a Sun but like an Immensity of Light which ought to carry as much Ardor into our Hearts as Conviction into our Spirits it opens her Bosom to us and lends us an assisting Hand Instinct and Religion Grace and Nature the Law and the Gospel Heaven and Earth all of them shew our Future Life in a happy Immortality all sparkling with Joys with Felicities and with Glories The sweet and ineffable Impression of Grace and the Holy Spirit The lively sparkles of Heavenly Regeneration which operate in us by a thousand secret Incitements The Example of the truly Faithful who groan without ceasing with St. Paul in Expectation of their Deliverance from their Bodies and of the manifestation of the Future Life and of the Glories of the Children of God do sollicite and impel us and do call upon us The World it self by its Contradictions and the Present Life by its Pains and its Disgusts do render the Love and the desire of the Future Life necessary to us to comfort us under our present Pains and Miseries And yet notwithstanding we have the deadly weight upon our heart which inclines us and fixes us to the Earth and to this miserable Life we are not able to raise our selves up to desire Celestial Beauties and the Eternal Delights we are more ready to say Let God take care of Heaven for himself and let him leave the Earth for us We see here what sort of Creatures we are it is impossible to make the least Ray or Spark of the Love of the Future Life to enter into our hearts St. Paul notwithstanding teaches us That the Present World is but a Shadow of the World to come and the Present Life upon that account cannot be but the Shadow of the Future that is to say there is the same difference between the Present Life and the Future Life as there is between a Body that is all real and all effective and between the Shadow which is only a void and an empty Figure All the Shadows here below that is to say all the Joys and all the Felicities of this Life which are only Shadows here are in the Future Things real All that is here a Figure is there Reality The Honors the Pomps and the Glories the Abundance the Pleasures are There true Pomps true Honors true Glory true Abundance true Pleasures Conceive the Difference saith St. Chrysostom between the Shadow and the Sun conceive how great are the Beauties of that Planet which animates all the Beauty of the World above that drowsie Obscurity which hath only a pure Nothingness of Privation for the Body and the Foundation of its Being and when you have comprehended that do not believe that you have comprehended the advantage of the Future Life above the Present Life St. Paul said very well That to die is gain Mori lucrum We gain without doubt because that instead of a World of Shadows of Figures of Illusions of Vanities of Dreams of pure Nothings cloath'd with the Painted Superficies of Being or rather with the simple and false Appearance we enter into the Possession of a World where all is Real all Solid all Effective and all Immortal The Condemnation of our violent Desires for the Establishment of our Present Fortunes and of our deadly Indifference for the sort of Event of our Eternal Predestination which is decided in this Present Life We have acknowledged by the State of Trial in which we have seen our Souls are at present their uncertain and doubtful State of Alternativeness of the formidable coming of Eternity in which they ought to enter in going out of Time and out of the Present Life We have acknowledged that we are here as it were suspended and ballanced betwixt two Extreams of two different Eternities of which we have the Lot to decide by our Vigilance and by our Application to Sanctifie our selves and to prepare our selves for that Impression of Glory and Sovereign Felicity which God will really give to all those whom he shall find prepared and disposed for it by a faithful and constant Co-operation with his Grace and there follows from thence a Condemnation equally just and formidable of our violent Desires for our present Fortunes and of our brutal Indifference for that of Eternity which we are to make for our selves and for which we cannot rely and repose our selves upon any one else If our Lot of Eternity was cast upon us after the manner as some conceive it if it was a Destiny which ought to be effected without us and if we were only to expect the Event and the infallible and inevitable Execution of it there would not be any Thing to reproach us thereupon we might in the mean time wholly employ our selves about our present Fortunes But besides That even then when God hath a particular Cause in the Predestination of some few and that he Charges himself with the success of their Salvation which I believe he do's for a certain number he do's not at all save even these Priviledged Persons without their Co-operation It is certain That in regard to the generality of Men he do's not concur to their Predestination and their Salvation but as Universal Cause and that the Success of it is left to the Vigilance of every one Thus our Souls do themselves before-hand decide by the good or ill usage of Time of the Present Life and of Grace the Alternativeness of the Immutable State of Happiness or Unhappiness in which they are to be fixed and established when they depart hence Thus It is certain That all the Occupations all the Designs and all the Enterprizes of Men which have not for their End the great Object of that building of our House of Eternity which the Scripture frequently mentions which we ought to be building every moment of this Present Life as it were by so many Stones that we are to raise one upon another to the end that our Souls may find their Habitations ready prepared It is certain once again That all our Occupations all our Cares all our violent Desires all our Designs and all our Enterprizes are things not only vain and
unprofitable but foolish furious and frenetic Our Souls ought to enter into a State of Everlasting Happiness or Everlasting Misery they are to enter into the fixt and immortal Order of the Love or of the Hatred of God After the Expiration of the short Time and Account of their Trial They are to receive saith St. Paul accordingly as they have believed and governed themselves in the Body accordingly as they have heap'd up a Treasure of Anger or a Treasure of Love the Price of their happy Eternity or the Pain of their Eternal Unhappiness It is their part to decide this Lot They are suspended and ballanced betwixt the two affrighting Extremeties Every moment of the Present Life enters into one or other of these two Extremities and can thereby decide and determin the Event thereof But instead of seriously thinking upon so great an Interest we heap up Wind we make Spiders-Webs we build up Edifices which are to bury us under their Ruins We give splendid Names and specious Titles to this Vanity and this Frenzy we call it To extend the Limits of an Empire to be Masters of the World to make a great and puissant Fortune to raise a stately Structure and to Establish a mighty Family to possess the chief Ranck of Nobility to make a fair Way to Advancement to be Exalted to be Governours to leave a raised and setled Posterity a thousand fine Names but Names only Shadows and Illusions Chymera's and Visions and true Ruins and Miseries Can you call this the Building of a famous Structure and a mighty Fortune to attain great Credit and vast Riches and yet for all that to be buried three days after in a Grave and remain eternally Poor and Naked Hungry and Starved torn to pieces by Despairs and throughly pierced with Torments Can you call this Advancement and Preferment Can you call it Elevation and Fortune to find at the going out of this Life which is so short and so uncertain a so affrighting Horror of a vast and infinite Solitude a sad Desart of Universal Privation and Misery and in the midst of the Horror of this Immensity of Nothingness an Immensity of Power and Wrath armed against You A terrible and implacable God Who regarding his Eternity as his Foundation and his Riches as Tertullian saith and as a Foundation which he would make to advance his Glory in all the moments of Time which he gives us and which are as so many Portions which he requires of us is render'd an inflexible and an inexorable Avenger of the loss and dissipation which we make thereof in following those Visions and Chimera's of Fortune After all this Labor you vain and ambitious Men Labor to make to your selves an uncomfortable and an eternal Despair Labor to leave here behind you a Great Name and to find in the New World wherein you are to enter so quickly and wherein you are to stay so long a misery without end and without bounds Labor to leave your Children goodly Houses and fair Palaces and not find where to Lodg your selves in this New Country where you are to Inhabit always Labor to leave them vast Riches and to carry along with you your poor naked empty Souls murdred with Sins and torn in pieces with Remorse transpierced with Regrets having nothing at all for a Foundation but that infinite heap of Wrath and Vengeance which they have amassed to themselves by all the Cares and violent Desires of raising their Families and their Fortunes Do you believe that the eternal Despair of a Soul which the Chimera of Fortune which the Fury of Ambition which the Vanity of the Court have possessed during all the Present Life will be much comforted by the Settlement which it hath left his Children I do not know what you think of it but it is certain That whether God let him see or no the State of his Family whether his Children have any true acknowledgment or no for his Memory which is so doubtful and so uncertain whether they maintain or waste what He had raised them to it cannot be for that Soul but an Eternal Subject of Regret of Repentance and of Remorse This poor Father burns and his Children enjoy the Fruit of his eternal Misery They possess his great Estate his fine Houses his great Revenue whilst He suffers the Despair and the Punishment of them O the Fury of our Ambition O the Blindness of our Passions O the Impertinence of our violent Transports Let us make a good use Let us make a good use of the Knowledge which we have of the Immutable State of Misery or of Felicity into which we are to pass when we are to go out of this Life Let us undeceive our selves and disabuse our selves from all our care after Greatness and Temporal Fortune and think only of making for our selves a Grandeur and a Fortune which will be Eternal FINIS