of Knowledge like to ours 37 Chap. 8. What Judgment soever is made of Beasts our Souls are undoubtedly Spiritual by reason of their Knowing Nature 43 Chap. 9. The double immense and infinite Ground of Knowledge that is in our Souls is a new and certain Proof of their Spiritual Nature 56 Chap. 10. That Libertines cannot maintain this monstrous Opinion That the Soul of Man is Corporeal 59 Chap. 11. That our Souls are undoubtedly Immortal by reason of their Knowing Nature 67 Chap. 12. That our Souls are undoubtedly Spiritual by reason of the Principle and Ground of Liberty which we find in them 75 Animals have not the Liberty of their Motions 76 Our Liberty of Thinking is a certain Character of the Nature and Spiritual Essence in our Souls 81 The Empire of our Desires is another certain Proof of the Spirituality of our Souls 83 Chap. 13. We have an indubitable Certainty of the Immortal Condition of our Souls by the Desires and Instincts of Immortality and Eternity which we have 87 Chap. 14. Of the Spiritual and Immortal Nature of our Souls drawn from the Ground of Conscience 95 That Conscience is not in the Soul of Man an Effect of Education or of some Opinion with which it was imprinted and prepossess'd in the Infancy 98 Chap. 15. That our Souls are indubitably Immortal by a Certainty that the Sentiment of the Conscience gives us thereof 104 Chap. 16. That it is easie not only to give our selves a Conviction of the Spiritual Nature of our Souls but to give a neat Idea of them 112 That every one feels and perceives his Soul and that altho' he be ignorant it is only because he knows not that he knows it 116 Chap. 17. Some Essential Reflections to Rstablish the Order of the Preference of the Soul above that of the Body 119 That all the good and ill Fortune are in our Souls 120 That the Soul hath Pleasures and Pains independently of the Body 121 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 ibid. 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 123 That Vertue is the proper and true Good of the Soul and Vices its Evils 124 That the Passions are the Fevers of the Soul 126 That the Soul hath Essentially in her Disorders the Apprehension of a Superior Justice which wounds her 128 Chap. 18. That all these Knowledges are so many Lights and Principles of Morality and Duty 130 The Order of Duties between our Souls and our Bodies 132 PART II. OF our Duties of Religion and of Morality whether towards God whether towards our Selves whether towards Man and of our Duty of all Gospel Self-denial which result from the manner how our Souls Are and Operate in our Bodies under the Visible Empire of God Page 141 Chap. 1. How we may with Assurance know the manner how our Souls are in our Bodies ibid. Chap. 2. General Experiences of a Power Superior to our Souls and to our Bodies which Acts in our Souls and in our Bodies 146 The first Experience that we have That God Acts upon us as a Sovereign Ruler after the manner wherein our Souls Are in our Bodies ibid. The Second Experience of the same Empire in the Sovereign Domination with which our Souls are sent into our Bodies without Consulting them 147 A Third Experience of the same thing in Diseases over which our Soul hath no Empire 148 A Fourth Experience of the same in Pleasure and Pain ib. A Fifth Experience of the same in the Idea's which we receive 150 Chap. 3. Experiences of the Power which Governs Nature and which comes to the Assistance of our Souls in a moment 153 Another Experience of the same from the diversity of delectable and painful Sentiments 155 A Third Experience That God Acts as an Universal Cause in the manner that he Acts upon our Souls and upon our Bodies 156 Chap. 4. False Idea's which we must avoid by the Light of these Experiences and first That of Believing that our Souls are united to our Bodies by any Sympathy Proportion or Inclination 158 That the Soul is not as Corporeal Forms tho' it be the Form of a Man 160 The difference between a Soul and an Angel ibid. The Opinion of the Ancient Fathers upon all that hath been said concerning the Disproportion betwixt Souls and Bodies 161 Chap. 5. That the Body cannot in any manner Act upon the Soul to Illuminate or Affect it Physically and Immediately by it self 164 That our own Bodies cannot Act Physically and Immediately by themselves upon our Souls whose Spirituality renders them inaccessible to all sorts of Impressions of bodies 167 That the Body doth not cause in the Soul either Pleasure or Pain 168 Bodies do not only not cause the Sentiments and Idea's in the Soul but they do not so much as determine the Soul Physically to make them 170 That the Souls of themselves do not make the Idea's or Images of Bodies 171 pressing an Ardor as we have to know all things out of our selves so much Coldness have we for that excellent Curiosity of knowing our selves It is the only Map and the only History the only Intrigue and the only Matter which we take no care at all to understand The Dignity of our Souls Yet in the mean time we have a Soul not only Spiritual and of a Nature altogether different from the Body and more excellent than all we can conceive that is Material and Corporeal but also Immortal and Celestial imprinted with a thousand Characters of a lively Resemblance of the Supreme Nature and Essence and destin'd to an Eternity and a happy Immortality in an eternal Union and an Everlasting Society of Delights and Joys with God Moses hath taken care to give us the History and Genealogy of it For says he He that in the Beginning created the Heaven and the Earth formed out of the Common Matter of the Universe the Beasts of the Field the Birds of the Air the Fishes of the Sea by the sole construction of their Members and Corporeal Organs which he directed to those particular Ends which he had propos'd to himself for a general End of his Workmanship By means of which he made them capable of those admirable and different Instincts and Movements that we see in them which is that only Life that Experience makes us see and Reason suffers us to acknowledge to be in Beasts By the sole construction or organization of their Bodies That a most pure and a most subtle Fire form'd from the most pure and most agitated part of their Blood mov'd and animated suddenly They became says the Holy Historian Living Creatures But when he came to Man to whom he gave the place of Master and King of
and Actions the love of Pleasure and of sensible Good which is The Pleasure which we have from the Occasion of our Bodies This Experience is also indubitable for no Man can hinder himself from loving Good and Pleasure and every one that reflects upon it will find and perceive it in himself a Man will find that he is able to deprive himself of one Pleasure when he is in view of another but he will never find his Heart without the love of Pleasure It is an Empire of Nature or to say better of the Master of Nature which we can no ways resist Our Souls are indubitably push'd on continually by a greater Force towards Pleasure and from thence is form'd in Us that Propensity towards Good but which carrying us towards sensible Good is become by Sin the Matter and living Source of a thousand Passions which Rule over us We love our Bodies and the Pleasures which we have from their Occasion by an Invincible Empire altho' we see that this Love is oftentimes in many of its Acts quite contrary to our Duty and to the Order of the Supreme Will and of Reason The Body enticeth us by our Concupiscence against our Conscience and against our Reason and Nature hath equally plac'd in Us Concupiscence and Conscience Passion and Reason You see here Six Remarkable Experiences which I have been observing concerning the Empire and Dominion which our Souls suffer in our Bodies on the part of the Author of Nature to which we might add others but since these here are sufficient to give us a great and clear sight and to prepare us to understand the manner how our Souls are in our Bodies and thereby our Duties of Dependance and of Religion of Fear and of Love towards God and our Obligations of Justice and of Charity towards Mankind and of Temperance towards our selves therefore I will let the others alone without using them and so pass on to let you observe That as the Author of Nature Commands us and Rules over us indubitably in all these manners in our Bodies so He Serves us also and Obeys us and if I may be permitted to say so we Command Him in our Turn and we are Obey'd with an exact Regularity CHAP. III. Experiences of the Power which Governs Nature and which comes to the Assistance of our Souls in a moment I. WE find First That when we Move our Bodies we do no more precisely than to Will them to Move for we do not feel that there goes any kind of thing from Us but the Desire to Move our selves and the Act of the Determinative Faculty of the Will by the which we give a Command to the Body to Move it self and because we know too well from other things our Dependence our Weakness and our limited Power to be able to believe that we have a Power to Operate any thing out of Us by our Will alone since That is the Character of an Infinite Power as we have already said Upon this indubitable Experience which we have that doing nothing but to Will our selves to Move we do Move our selves nevertheless effectively we therefore conclude that there must be an Assisting Power which moves our Bodies in the moment that we would have it And as this Power is Immense and Infinite since It Operates through all in the same time moving all the Bodies of Men when they will and that It is also indubitably Enlightned Wise and Unchangeable since It doth not move them but in the instant that we Will and by the inviolable Rule of a certain Disposition in our Nerves and in our Members from whence it comes to pass That those that have the Palsey cannot move themselves tho' they would We conclude therefore that this can be nothing but the Power of the Author of Nature from whence we infer That the Author of Nature intermeddles between our Souls and our Bodies and that He takes Part and Interest in their Union and in the manner how these Natures and these Spiritual Substances Are in the Terrestrial and Mortal Habitations of our Bodies II. Another Experience of the same from the diversity of delectable and painful Sentiments We find in the Second place under this new Consideration That this same Enlightned Immense and Immutable Power doth continually serve our Souls in our Bodies for to advertise them in an instant of every thing that is done in them and to advertise them of it to their Advantage too For so soon as there is any Impression or any Alteration made or caused within the Body which of it self tends to the dissolution and destruction of it or even but to the incumbrance and hindrance of its Functions so soon the Soul is in an instant advertis'd thereof by a sad and painful Sentiment which she finds her self suddenly transpierc'd with as with a sharp pointed Instrument which she finds her self attacked with without knowing whereby or how it entred And on the contrary if there be any Motion made in her Body which tends of it self either to its good Disposition or to the Conservation of a Humane Species the Soul soon in a moment finds her self penetrated and tickl'd with an agreeable Sentiment which we call Pleasure and Delight without knowing in like manner either how or where it entred It is likewise in the same manner with indifferent Impressions which do neither good nor hurt to the Body the Soul is in like manner in an instant advertis'd by this Illuminating Immense and Immutable Power but not by the Sentiment of Pleasure or of Pain which would be false if instead of Impressions indifferent to the Body She should give Sentiments which might affectionate and determine it to Love or to Hate But Sentiments indifferent such as are White Black Dry and Moist and Images and Idea's indifferent also which leave the Soul the liberty of approaching or withdrawing it self from those Objects upon whose Occasion she hath them I call this Power Immense because It Operates through all at the same time within both Poles and in the two Hemispheres I call it Illuminating because it neither gives salsly nor unseasonably neither Idea's nor Sentiments And I call it Immutable because it do's not give them but by inviolable and immutable Rules from which it never swerves III. A Third Experience That God Acts as an Universal Cause in the manner that he Acts upon our Souls and upon our Bodies We find in the Third place That this Power which Acts in Us as well to Obey and Serve us as to Rule over us Acts not between our Souls and our Bodies between whom it Acts without ceasing as appears by all these Experiences which we have already remarked as a Particular and a Free Cause but as an Universal and Necessary Cause because we experience that it Acts not from the occasion of the same Immutable Laws by which it hath resolv'd to entertain a Commerce between the Soul and the Body and that this Power Acts
the Notion of a Spiritual Nature do conceive well That separated Bodies say they cannot Act Physically upon the Souls but it is not after the same manner with Bodies which are united to them Separated Bodies can do nothing to the Souls say they they cannot determine in the Souls any Sentiment nor any Idea But the Body united to the Soul doth acquire by that Union a near Disposition whereby it is enabled to Act Immediately and Physically upon the Soul and to determine all its Idea's and Modifications which it hath from the occasion of other Bodies which surround it This is the common Fancy of the Schools which indeed is but a most false and a most repugnant Imagination full of Contradiction and Incompatibility for besides that the Union that is betwixt the Body and the Soul is but the Act of the Creator as I shall Explain it hereafter so that Union doth not at all change the Nature or Essence of the Body nor the Nature or Essence of the Soul The Body united to the Soul remains still a Body and the Soul united to the Body retains still its former Being of a Soul and by consequence of a Nature wholly Spiritual to which no Body can be united and upon which no Body can have a Physical Action because Bodies are not united but by a continuity of Parts neither do they Act but by Impelling Dividing or Figuring diversly which cannot be done upon Spiritual Natures who cannot be subject to any of these Corporeal Passions and to whom the Body can never approach by reason of the distance of an infinite Disproportion which keeps them asunder That the Body doth not cause in the Soul either Pleasure or Pain We must banish all those gross Imaginations by which Men conceive that our Bodies Act Immediately and Physically in any manner whatsoever upon our Souls be it for the illuminating them or for the producing in them either Pleasure or Pain That cannot be for two Reasons for the general Reason That Bodies can never be united to Spirits and Act Physically upon them and for a particular Reason That if they could have any Action upon them they could not have one so Superior and so Excellent For to cause Pain or Pleasure or generally any Modification in the Soul by which she is so intimately affected and as it were alter'd and penetrated in her Substance is an Act of Superiority and Dominion This is an Act of a Superior Nature which keeps the Body under it and subjected to it It is clear That the Body cannot at all be Superior to the Soul especially to cause in it either Pleasure or Pain which are not only the Acts of a Superior Nature but the Acts of a Nature Supreme in whom is Essentially this Sovereign Dominion over all created Natures to cause in them either Happiness or Unhappiness and by consequence the Pleasure and the Pain which makes up this Happiness or Unhappiness Moreover Pain and Pleasure and generally every Modification of the Soul is Essentially a Spiritual Act or Passion This is essentially a Vital Act of the Soul which is undoubtedly Spiritual for every Act of the Soul is of the same Nature with the Soul every Act of the Soul being Immanent as the Schoolmen say and by consequence receiv'd within the Soul and it is not possible to conceive that any thing should be receiv'd within the Soul which is not Spiritual Therefore there is nothing more incompatible than to conceive that the Body can produce any thing that is Spiritual I could here make use of the Authority of all the ancient Doctors who have held That God alone can Exercise upon created Spirits that Physical Action by which they are Modifi'd in themselves and by which they receive those Sentiments or Idea's whereof they are not at all Masters which is that which is call'd Agere per illapsum But that that we may better support this Tract rather upon the Experience of our own proper Sentiment and upon the clear Notions and Idea's which we can attain to by Reasoning than upon any Authority we will not if you please have any regard to an Authority so great and so worthy of Deference and Respect Let us say no more of it then but let us see if we can conceive That our Bodies by the Impressions which they receive from without or which come to them from their own proper Spirits and from their own proper Humors can by their Physical Action affect our Souls or determine them to cause to themselves either Pleasure or Pain or the Images which they have of things by reason of Corporeal Impressions Bodies do not only not cause the Sentiments and Idea's in the Soul but they do not so much as determine the Soul Physically to make them This is another vulgar Imagination and Opinion That if the Body doth not cause in Us these Sentiments and these Idea's at least it doth determine the Soul to make them But we ought also to cut off this Imagination and this Idea for many Reasons First of all for the Pleasure and the Pain because besides that it is always impossible to conceive in the Body a Physical Action upon the Soul since a Body cannot Act but by Stirring Dividing Figuring and Removing and that the Soul can neither be Stirr'd Figur'd nor Divided nor Corporeally affected in any manner It is also incompatible to conceive That the Soul can cause to it self and in it self either Pleasure or Pain for that moreover that the one and the other are things which are above it it is certain that Pleasure and Pain are things which we receive and which make in Us this invincible Power of Nature which we have so often taken notice of to be no other than the Author and Master of Nature and to say That the Soul causeth in it self either Pleasure or Pain a Man may as well say That she causeth the Health and Sickness the Beauty or Deformity of the Body That the Souls of themselves do not make the Idea's or Images of Bodies It is after the same manner with the particular Idea's of things which she receives by reason of the divers Modifications and Configurations of the Brain caused by the Impressions of Exterior Bodies as with Pleasure and with Pain for whatsoever Affection we can conceive the Soul to have by the Impression of the Idea receiv'd into the Brain it is impossible to conceive it Imprinted by her self with that lively and animated Image which she hath in her self This living and animated Image which she hath in her self is like a Seal which hath made an Impression upon her She suffers and receives more than she acts and whatever Advertisement is conceived there from the presence of the Object it is impossible to conceive that she should make the Pourtraicture which she hath thereof in her self To tell me that There is the King is nothing at all if I am blind to give me the means of representing
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
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
the Members every one to the Movement for the which it is destin'd when they themselves come to be determin'd That neither our Souls do come of themselves to lay hold on the Body nor do's the Body cause the Soul to descend but it is God who assembles them together There you see how I conceive the Body And whereas we have conceived the Soul as a Nature purely Spiritual capable of Perceiving of Knowing and of Willing We have no more to do than to see how this Spiritual Nature can become united to that Terrestrial Structure Whereupon the first thing that is to be conceiv'd is That neither the Body can lay hold on the Soul or draw it to it for to subject it and for to shut it up Nor can the Soul on its side neither be driven by any Inclination to become pour'd upon the Body nor become ty'd there of it self by its Choice and Good liking as being to be so ill match'd We must therefore comprehend before all things that these two Parties and these two so far distant Natures do neither of themselves by consent and by an appointed Rendezvous assemble nor by Chance do they meet together but that it is the Infinite Power which Governs the World and which would have it be adorn'd by the Beauty of this so rare and singular a Work which as Faith teacheth and all the World conceiveth brings them together and assembles them and makes all the Union that is between them St. Augustin most solidly observes That God makes three Functions for our sakes That of the Creator of the Matter of our Bodies and of the Substance of our Souls That of the Author of the Structure and Organisation of our Bodies And lastly That of the Principle of the Union of the two Parties and of the two Natures which compose Us Creator Fictor Unitor He is as essentially the efficient and immediate Principle of the Union of our Souls and of our Bodies as he is of the Structure of the Body and of the Creation of the Soul There is no other Power in the World that can shut up this Immaterial Immortal and Eternal Nature within that Terrestrial and Carnal Structure This is a certain Truth we read it in our own proper Sentiments and in the infallible Light of the notion of the Soul and of the Body and there is nothing in the World more undoubtable than this Principle That it is God that unites our Souls to our Bodies and I believe no Man will disagree with it and the Question is not Whether he doth it but How he doth it CHAP. IX How God can assemble and unite the Soul and the Body GOD cannot without doubt Unite these two so opposite Natures but in such a manner that they may be United and Assembled so that we must see first of all how a Spirit and a Body may be Assembled and United Men fall into a thousand Errors upon this matter and all these Errors happen because they will apply the Idea which they have of the Union of two or more Bodies to the Union of the Soul and Body which is the greatest mistake in the World and the entire Subsersion of Reason and good Sense for it is evident that the Union of a Spirit with a Spirit cannot be conceived by the Idea of the Union of a Body with a Body so likewise the Union of a Spirit with a Body cannot be comprehended by the Idea which we have of the Union of two Bodies We must shun this defect and disorder and give attention to this certain and infallible Rule That Union being a Relation of one thing to another it follows that she must change the Nature and the Idea according to the Nature of the Things which are United and thus to conceive an Union of a Spirit and a Body we must comprehend wherein and whereby these two Natures may be united How two Spirits may be united That we may well form an Idea thereof We must first of all conceive the Union of two Spirits for when we shall have comprehended how two Spirits may be united we shall with much more ease comprehend the Union of a bound dy a Spirit If we give good attention thereto we shall find that there being nothing in a Spiritual Nature but Knowledge Sentiment and Will for there is nothing precisely but That which we know in Spiritual created Natures It is impossible to conceive the Union of two Spirits otherwise than by the Union of their Thoughts of their Sentiments and of their Wills Things cannot be united but by that which is in them and there being nothing in Spirits but this triple ground of the Faculty of Thinking or of Knowing of the Faculty of Perceiving which is it self a manner of the Faculty of Knowing And lastly Of the faculty of Willing and freely determining themselves It is clear that two Spirits cannot be united but by the Faculties and by the Acts and Faculties of Thinking Perceiving and of Willing That which makes precisely the Union of two Spirits But this is not enough to have found and conceived that two Spirits cannot be united but by their Faculties of Thinking of Knowing and of Willing we must see also wherein the Union of the two Faculties of Thinking and the two Faculties of Perceiving and of the two Faculties of Willing may consist Wherein then may this Union consist It cannot without doubt consist but in the mutual respective and reciprocal dependence of the Faculties and their Acts If we conceive that an Angel thinks necessarily as often as another Angel thinks that he hath a Sentiment of Pleasure and of Pain of Joy or of Sadness as often as the other is sad or rejoyces That he hath a motion of love or of hatred as often as the other loves or hates We shall conceive without doubt these two Angels united and united in an Hypostatical Union or in Unity of Person and in a Substantial and Physical Union especially if this dependence of Thought of Sentiment and of Will be of the one side mutual and reciprocal and on the other not voluntary and arbitrary but necessary and forced caused by a Superior Power which leaves them not the liberty of breaking the Band of this mutual dependence This mutual and not arbitrary dependence caused by that Empire and that Physical Action of a Superior Power will so unite these two Spirits that it will be no longer a simple Angel but a Compositum wholly Spiritual of two Angels which will make no more than one single Whole in two individual Substances altogether distinct Such a mutual dependance makes precisely all the Physical Union that can be betwixt two Spirits since cutting off all other Ideas by that alone these two Angels will be comprehended to be united and not conceiving That though we may conceive other Things between these two Angels It will however be impossible to conceive them United for it is impossible to conceive any other Thing
whereby two Spirits may be united we must not here imagine Embracings Penetration Minglings Extensions or Adjustments of Magnitude or of Quantity Wherein the union of a Spirit and a Body may consist It is in that precisely that the Union of two Spirits can consist and it is easie to conceive thereupon the Idea of the Union of a Body and of a Spirit for if we conceive a Mutual and Reciprocal Dependence caused by the Physical Action of a Superior Power between the movements of that Structure of Bone of Flesh and of Nerves which we call Humane Body And between the Thoughts the Sentiments the Wills or desires of a Spirit we conceive this Spirit and this Body united and as making no more than one single VVhole and one single Person Whatsoever other Things we may fancy to our selves we can never thereby at all conceive a Spirit united to a Body but in the moment that we have conceived that Thing only we have conceived them United For what is it to be United but to be One but to become one and the same Whole And who sees not that all This Results from the Mutual Dependence of the Operations of a Soul and of the Motions of the Body Let Us not then go about to make impossible Efforts of Imagination for to conceive the Union of the Soul with the Body by a kind of a Co-extension or Local Circumscription of the Soul with the Body by a Kind of Mingling of Penetration of Confusion and Immediation by an adjustment of Figure and Magnitudes c. All this would be well between Body and Body but concerning the Union of a Spiritual Nature with a Corporal Structure of Flesh of Bones of Muscles of Nerves all these material Ideas ought to be removed and banished a great way off God was pleased to do himself honor by this admirable Composition of Spirit and of Body and having found that it was agreeable to his Dignity of Universal Cause to tie together the determination of Ideas by the which he was willing that we should by little and little and successively be Enlightned to the diversity of Impressions which should be made upon our Brain by the divers Objects which should strike upon it and to tie together the Determination of divers Sentiments by the which he was willing that we should be Advertised by way of Instinct of that which should be good or evil to our Body to divers Impressions which should affect it he hath Established this mutual Relation That when these Impressions are received in the Body there is so soon and at the same time by his infinite Efficacy conformable Sentiments and Ideas which are determined in the Soul and on the contrary as often as there is in the Soul Thoughts and Sentiments or Wills that require that the Body should be moved if its Structure be well disposed the Motion is by the same Efficacy of his infinite Power determined in the Body The Creator hath thought fit to conserve thereby the Dignity of the Universal Cause and to unite our Souls to all the Visible World in tying Them to a particular Body by a Physical and Substantial Union Our Souls lose something thereby even very much of their Natural Liberty but they conserve some Character of their Grandeur by the Immensity by which their Union with the Body renders them present to all the Immensity of the Universe since by the contiguity of all Bodies which compose the World without any interruption of vacuity they continually receive a Thousand and a Thousand divers Ideas from all its parts in proportion as they come which they continually do by their Motions or by their Fluxes Either to strike or to affect some one of the Parts of our Body This Decision ought to pass for a Demonstration I will not stay here to prove that it is God the Author of Nature or acting as Universal Cause who makes and who entertains by his continual Action this Mutual Dependence and this Reciprocal Relation Since besides that I have already let you see clearly That it is He alone who can be the immediate and efficient Principle and Cause of the Union of our Souls and of our Bodies because the Body can neither subject the Soul to be united to it nor can the Soul be willing to submit to the Body which humbleth and constraineth it I have moreover proved very evidently That none but God alone can give to the Soul the Sentiments and Ideas which she hath from the occasion of the Impressions which are made upon the Body by other Bodies which environ Us and which Act perpetually upon Us. This continual Action of the Author of Nature who Enlightens Us by the Ideas which we receive upon the occasion of that Impression of exterior Objects and who affectionates Us to the Conservation of the Body by the agreeable or disagreeable Sentiments which he gives Us for to make Us know by way of Instinct that which is profitable or hurtful to the Conservation of our Bodies and of Human Species This Action I say joyned to that by which he Moves our Bodies when our Thoughts and our Wills require it is properly the Action by the which He unites our Bodies to our Souls and our Souls to our Bodies This is the active or actual Union This is what the Schools call the Unitive Action of God which joyned to the immutable Decree and Will by the which he hath determined to continue it so long as the Structure of the Body shall subsist makes in the Soul and in the Body that Estate of Union which we call Passive and formal Union Against them who say that this is to have recourse to a Miracle And you must not come here again to say that it is a manner very easie to explain every thing by a Miracle and to call God to the support of our Ignorance For so far it is from being contrary to Rules to make God the Author of our Union with the Body That this is the first Rule of good Reasoning That we acknowledge the Cause and the Principle in the Effect and to see that God alone can unite two Natures so opposite and disproportionate as are Spirit and Body as he only can Create them Moreover so far it is from having recourse to Miracles That it is on the contrary to reduce the Thing to all Common Laws to say that it is God the Author of Nature the necessary Principle of this Union who that he may conserve this Dignity of Universal Cause establishes in the divers Modifications of a certain Part of the Body the occasional Cause of the Idea's and of the Sentiments of the Soul which is the most Regular manner of Acting The most Natural and most conformable to his ordinary manner of Acting and by consequence the most contrary to Miracle which is not but when God changes his ordinary manner of Acting and departs from his general Will. The Action whereby God preserves the Union
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
that the natural order and connexion of these Species cannot be observ'd and kept but are confusedly and tumultuously excited and stirr'd up by a tumultuous and irregular agitation of the Organ in which they reside There are divers sorts of Follies there are the Furious and the Peaceable there are the Rejoycing and the Melancholy and there are general ones and particular ones which are fastned to one single Object And all these diversities do proceed from the diverse manner whereby the Brain is disorder'd and it would be easie to Explain them particularly if there was occasion It is sufficiento say that in what manner soever Folly subsists it is the greatest Humiliation of our Nature and that which gives us the best Prospect of the Misery of the Servitude of our Souls in the present Estate of Union with the Body since they lose by Folly the Empire and the Liberty of their Thoughts being forc'd to follow the fantasticalness the perplexity the disorder and the confusion of the irregular Motion of the Brain either too much dry'd and burnt up by Choler and Melancholy or too much overflow'd or too much moistned by Phlegm without being able either to suspend or stop them or to hasten or advance them This lets us see the Limitation even of our Spiritual Nature which is Finite even in the most Divine Perfection that she possesses for this disorder of the loss of the Empire and of the Liberty of Thoughts happens in Man because he doth not possess as God doth an Infinite Liberty that is to say an Infinite Empire but only a Finite Liberty or a Finite Empire over himself For it is this which makes that God as the Universal Cause doth not respect this Liberty of Man but determines in his Soul Thoughts conformable to the Agitations of his Brain which is the Occasional Cause by which he is determin'd in this Quality of Universal Cause to give Thoughts and Idea's to the Soul God concurs with Fools as he doth with Natural Causes for the making of Monsters he follows the Motion of the Brain as a Necessary Cause Raving doth not differ from Folly but by the Intervals which it hath and because it is only an Accident and a transient Symptom of a Fever which too strongly agitates the Brain Frensie is but a violent Raving and both the one and the other let us see that there must be a Superior Power who with an absolute Empire Determines our Thoughts from the Occasion of the Motions of our Brain and Confirms by a sensible Argument all that we have said concerning the Union of our Souls with our Bodies and concerning the continual Action by which we believe that God Determines our Thoughts and our Sentiments from the Occasion of divers Impressions which are made on our Bodies either by External Objects or by the Fermentation of their proper Humors If we reflect seriously upon it we shall see that it is not at all possible to think that the Soul in these States of Folly and Frensie should make in her self her Thoughts We shall be persuaded that she receives them from that Superior Power which unites her to the Body and which Acting as an Universal Cause hath no regard to the incongruity of these Thoughts as it hath no regard to the incongruity of Monsters in the Motions which it gives to the common Matter of the Universe by its inviolable and infallible Laws but makes the Fortune of the Disorder and of the Disranging of the Harmony of the Body to follow and run upon the Soul not ceasing to determine her Thoughts according to the Occasion which that part gives her thereof and that common Center of the Organizanization which it hath establish'd for the occasional Cause of its Essential Concourse or of the Action by which it Enlightens us God Determines the Thoughts in Madmen and in Fools by the immutable Laws which he hath Establish'd in the Union of Bodies with Souls which is To give Idea's upon the Occasion of the Corporeal retracement of Objects which are made in the Brain without having regard either to the Order or to confusion of the Thoughts Visions The Illusions of the Imagination by which Men believe they see by Intervals Things which in effect they do not see are a kind of short and transient Folly and they are made by a deep and lively retracement of some particular Species which so occupie the Organ of the internal Sense that the other Species there remain as it were all of them defaced from whence it happens that the Imagination of it is livelily determined And as this is the effect of lively and strong Imaginations to represent Things absent as if they were just present and as if they actually struck the Senses so it happens from thence that Men do believe they see that which they do not see because they judge that the Image that they have of it is determined by the presence of the Object not minding that it comes from the Imagination only and thus it is that there are a thousand sorts of Illusions and vain and chymerical Visions in certain Spirits which we call feeble or weak tho' indeed they are too strong because that these sorts of Illusions proceed not but from an excessive force of the Imagination the which is a true and real weakness of Reason since the Imagination is never excessively strong but Reason is thereby as much weak because the Power of Reason is to rule over the Imagination to redress to correct it to suspend its Operations and to consider it nearly to see wherein it exceeds The supernatural Visions which come from God are when God as a particular Cause makes a miraculous and supernatural Impression in the Imagination that is to say which doth not at all come from the necessary consequences of the Course of the natural Motion of the Blood of the Humors and of the Spirits and those which come from good and evil Angels are made by the Natural Empire that Angels have over Bodies by vertue whereof they stir up Images in the Brain which determin God as an Universal Cause by the Law of the Union of the Soul with the Body to give Idea's and Thoughts of which the Corporeal Images are the occasional Cause for be it what it will an Angel or a Devil which retrace a certain Object in our Brain God gives us necessarily the Idea of it by that immutable Law of Union which we have often explained which is no other but the confused Idea which Philosophers commonly express by the Term of Concourse which they conceive as the Universal Influence and perpetual and necessary Action of the Creator acting as an Universal Cause and animating by his Intimate Co-operation and by the most efficacious influence of his Life and of his Power the whole Universe reduced to a clear and distinct Idea under the name of the Action by which God makes and entertains the Union of the Souls with Bodies The
us than the perpetual Miracle by which and with which we have seen that God Operates in our Bodies according to the Desires of our Souls I say the Miracle not that that Action by which God transports and moves our Members and our Bodies where we will in the moment that our Souls desire ought to be regarded as a true and proper Miracle since we do not at all call that a Miracle which is made in consequence of the Laws of Nature or the General Will of God But because there is nothing more Divine in all the Miracles that can be than that Regularity whereby the Desires of our Wills are follow'd by the Effective Motion of our Members and of our whole Body at such time as they are not hindred by any Relation or by any Obstruction of the Nerves or by any Dislocation or Fracture of the Bones we may say that this is a perpetual Miracle of Nature which perpetually Preaches to us this Divine Affiance of that Evangelical Faith of which one single Spark like a Grain of Mustard-Seed is able to remove Mountains For as this Eternal Power by the Effect and the Engagement of his General Will by which he makes and entertains the Union of Souls and Bodies applies himself to move and transport our Bodies as we will according to the Laws and the Rules of that Union which he hath resolv'd never to depart from to Act as an Universal Cause as it seems fit to his Greatness and worthy of his Sovereign and Infinite Wisdom So when we unite our selves to him by an entire and perfect Affiance we unite our selves to his Almightiness and we make him sure to do every thing that we expect from him without Doubt and without Uncertainty according to the Sacred Oracles of the Gospel And thus it is that the Saints under the New Law and the Prophets under the Old Law have dispos'd of the Heavenly Almightiness to make it do Wonders and Miracles the Historical Fact of which is the most establish'd and the most incontestable thing in the World almost as we do make use of the Members of our Bodies and the things whereof we have the most free disposition Our Affiance which strictly and intimately unites us by its lively Faith to the Eternal Goodness and Power renders them as it were in some manner united and dependent upon us This Eternal Goodness and this Eternal Power have so great an Inclination to communicate and expand themselves that they only wait for our lively Faith or our Affiance to put themselves into our Hands as it were and to be obedient to our Desires The love of Holy Concupiscence for God But it is above all the Duty of Love whether it be of Complacency and Preference or of Union and Holy Concupiscence which springs and flows sensibly from the Knowledge we have been acquiring of the Sovereign Source of Beauty and of Felicities which that Eternal Essence contains to which we so certainly see that we are able to aspire and to drink eternally of it since at this very hour wherein he doth nothing but make us Combate and keep us in Trial and in Exercise to see if we render our selves worthy of being Rewarded He makes us feel so indubitably the Pleasures and the Delights which he contains and He discovers to us so many Charms and so many Beauties in his Sovereign Nature Brutish Men remove themselves far from God by Pleasure and Pleasure is a Rivulet that flows from that pure and eternal Source by which our Heart ought naturally to mount up again to God The present Pleasure which wholly essentially and immediately comes from God ought to bring us back again to him God doth not give it us but to draw to himself our Hearts to which he hath not given Motion but for Pleasure He hath not given us Love but for Good and Pleasure and he makes us see that the Source of Good and Pleasure is in Him There are some who conceive the Love of Union or of this Holy Concupiscence which I here speak of and whereupon I Establish Duty as a Disorder and Irregularity of Self-love which Reverses the Order of the Essential Relation which all Creatures ought to have to God but this is not rightly to comprehend the Free and Voluntary Relation by which we ought to relate our selves to God We do not only relate our selves to God by the Confession of our Dependence and of His Supereminent Excellence over us by which we do acknowledge that we deserve to be Annihilated by him We do no less relate our selves to him by that which we do from the Source of Pleasure and Happiness which we acknowledge in Him only It is no less agreeable for him to be the Source of Happiness and of Pleasure which is as it were the Accomplishment the Perfection and the Crowning of our Being than to be the Source and the Principle of the Foundation of our Being The Love of Union or of this Sacred Thirst which I call Holy Concupiscence doth no less Honor to God than the Love of the most pure and the most disinteressed Complacency God is not so much God by any other way if we may be permitted to say so than in being the only and essential Source and necessary Principle of Happiness and of Pleasure St. Austin saith That Felicity is in God the Summit of his Divinity because his Infinite Felicity is that which is most Divine and most Eminent in Him and we may say That the Advantage of containing and shutting up in Himself Felicity and Pleasure is if we may be permitted to enhance upon the Expression of St. Augustin the Act and the Summit of that very Summit of his Divinity This Love then of Union and of Holy Concupiscence is not only not Evil and Imperfect but it is positively Infinitely Perfect and the greatest Honor that can be rendred to the Supream Being and all the Motions of our Heart ought to be continual and uninterupted Acts thereof Our Heart and our Will in general is not as hath been said but the Love of Good and of Pleasure And as it is God who is the Good and the Pleasure or at least the Source and the Principle of Pleasure since it is He only that causeth it and since it is in Him and by Him that we ought only to Hope for our Soveraign Pleasure All the Pantings of our Heart and all its Agitations for Pleasure ought to be turned and directed towards Him Our Heart ought continually to regard nothing but Him and to search after nothing but Him All its Motion ought to Center in Him This Torrent or this River ought to have this perpetual Course it ought to Flow in this Channel and it ought not to suffer one single Rill or one drop of its Waters to be lost Its Course and its Motion ought never to stand still or be turned aside or diverted from that bound and Center or go never so little out of
thereupon we must see if there be any place into which our Souls do pass We must see what they Know and how they know it whether they have Joys and Pleasures Grief and Sadness whether they retain or lose the Idea's of this Life whether they have any Reminiscence or Memory and whether they conserve the Habits of Arts and Sciences what are the Faculties whether Perceptive or Sensible and Appetitive that they use whether they conserve Liberty whether c. To have a neat Idea of the manner How our Souls Are out of the Body We must exactly Illustrate all these things Let us begin with the place into which they pass That when our Souls go out of the Body they do not pass into a true Corporeal Place by a Local Transport or Passage properly so called As we have acknowledged in Our Souls a Nature wholly Spiritual and since we have demonstrated that Spirits are not in places where we conceive them to be by a Co-extension and a Local and Corporeal Circumscription and that so they have not properly any Place at all no more than the Supream Essence and are not said to be in the Places wherein we say they Are but by a pure Relation of Operation and Activity as Thomas Aquinas teaches So when we ask in what place do the Souls pass when they go out of the Body and out of the Visible World We must take a great deal of care not to degrade our Souls by conceiving them as if they ought to pass into a certain New Space and a certain Corporeal Circumscription by a Local Transportation or Passage properly so called as if they were a Material Substance We have said that our Souls are not in our Bodies by Co-extension or by Local Circumscription but by a pure Relation of the Reciprocal Dependence and Activity which is between Them and the Bodies and when we ask Where is it that our Souls Are and Whither do they go when they go out of our Bodies We do not look for a Corporeal Space or a part of the Extent which composes the World or which is out of the World with which they have an agreeableness and in which they are shut up and contained This would be well enough if they were Material and Corporeal When we say That our Souls go out of our Bodies we ought not to conceive That they cease from being shut up in our Bodies from Corresponding with our Bodies from Penetrating our Bodies from Occupying or filling the Space and the Extent of our Bodies by the Immediation of their Substances or by the Reduplication of their Presence as they speak in some Schools Chymerically in my Opinion but only that they cease from having that Relation that they had with the Body of a Mutual Dependence and of a Mutual Activity for we must Reason concerning the Souls going out of the Body as concerning the Presence of the Soul within the Body and as we have said That the Soul is not present with the Body and united to the Body but by a Relation of Empire and Servitude both at the same time which the Soul hath with the Body and the Body with the Soul which makes the Soul have the power of determining the Motions of the Body and the Servitude of receiving almost all her Knowledges and all her Sentiments generally by the Body or by the Occasion of the Body so when we say that the Soul goes out of the Body we ought not to conceive any thing else but that she ceases to have that Relation with the Body We must not conceive a Local Passage a Local Motion a Local Transportation properly so call'd of our Souls by a Succession of divers Correspondencies to divers Corporeal Spaces for all that is to Imagine and not to conceive by Intellection which is the only manner whereby the Soul is conceived and all that belongs to the Soul and the manner how our Souls go out of the Body we must conceive precisely the End of their Empire over the Body and the End of their Captivity and of their Dependence upon the Body By this only they cease to be in the Body that they have no longer the Power of determining its Motions nor the Subjection of Receiving by it or having their Thoughts dependently of it The Idea's which we commonly have thereupon are all contradictory chymerical and monstrous they are Manichean Idea's by which we conceive Spirits as true Bodies And we must always remember that which can never be too much reiterated against the Custom which we have of being desirous to Imagine every thing That Bodies are Bodies and Spirits Spirits That Bodies have a Local Dimension a Co-Extension and a Local Circumscription that they have a certain Bulk that they do or may fill Essentially a Space and a certain Extension But that Spirits have none of all that neither Dimension nor Bulk nor Space nor Extension they have no more Dimension Bulk nor Extension than they have Colour and Figure From whence it follows That it is not by a Local Transportation properly so call'd that our Souls go out of our Bodies because that is not done but by a Progress of Motion and of Correspondence to divers Spaces and by a new Union which they contract with some other Body or new Corporeal Space CHAP. III. That our Souls going out of our Bodies go not properly but into God WE have conceiv'd clearly after what manner our Souls go out of our Bodies by that which hath been said which makes us conceive how the Physical and Substantial Union which was between these two so disproportion'd and so distant Natures is dissolv'd and broken since the Efficacy of that Puissance which attexes the Spirits to the Body doth suspend the Act and the Empire thereof and gives them no more any Relation of Dependence upon the Bodies but we have not learn'd whither they go and we must form a just Idea of it Our Imagination labors and takes a great deal of pains about it because she would at what Price soever attribute to our Souls all the Passions or Corporeal Qualities and Proprieties She would shut them up in a certain Space and in a certain Dimension She forgets what we have said That Spiritual Natures are not shut up in any Space or in any Place The Heathens Imagin'd Elysian Fields for the Souls that were Innocent and an Hell after their fashion for the Guilty Those amongst Us who imitate them do conceive likewise a Local Passage and Transportation after the fashion of Bodies into certain new Spaces by a successive progress of Motion But the Idea which we have conceiv'd of our Souls as of a Nature wholly Spiritual must redress that which is too gross in these Idea's which are wholly Material and we must conceive that our Souls in going out of the Body do go immediately as the Scripture saith without any Local or Corporeal Passage into God who as St. Augustin saith Is more the true
A Discovery of Divine Mysteries OR THE NATURE and EFFICACY OF THE Soul of Man Considered in all its Faculties Operations and Divine Perfections and how it governs in Divine and Secular Affairs of Life In Three Parts I. Of the Preference due to the Soul above the Body by Reason of its Spiritual and Immortal Nature and how it operates on Things in Heaven and Earth II. How the Soul of Man moves and operates in Religious Duties and Moral Actions whether towards God towards our selves or towards Man And of our Duty of Gospel Self-denyal which results from the manner how our Souls operate in our Bodies under the visible Empire of God III. Concerning our Duties of Time and Eternity of the present Life and of the Life to come of the present World and of the World to come which results from the manner how our Souls ought to be out of our Bodies first of all and then in our Spiritualiz'd Bodies after the Universal Resurrection With many other Curious Matters Being a Compleat Body of Divine and Moral Philosophy By C. B. D. D. Fellow of the Royal Society LONDON Printed for Eben Tracy at the Three Bibles on London-Bridge 1700. TO THE READER THO' the World be full of Discourses Treatises and Essays of Morality yet we have believ'd it might not be unnecessary to Expose these New Essays to the Publick View Either because one cannot enough propose to Mankind their Duties or else because the greatest part of those Essays Treatises and Discourses which have appear'd already and of which some have so justly pleas'd the Relish of the Age are if well regarded no more than onely Paintings and Descriptions or at best but Incitements not Convictions and Establishments of Duties For they suppose that the Principles of Religion Morality and Duties are setled and acknowledg'd they presuppose them but they prove them not they persuade them to those who already do believe them but if there be some who do not believe them as there are too too many who doubt thereof or at least who are not sufficiently persuaded of them they do neither persuade nor convince Them in the least We believe that we have Discover'd the precious and inestimable Treasure of an entire Conviction of Religion and Morality in the Incultivated and Neglected Field of the Natural Knowledge of our Souls and the no less precious Treasure of that Knowledge of our Souls in the Attention and Reflection upon every ones Proper and Indubitable Sentiment and we have believ'd that we ought to render the Discovery Publick This is what we have done And tho' in all this Essay which is indeed no other than a meer Essay because it is only an Idea which we rough-draw and an Overture which we make but do not fully accomplish by Vnfolding and Pressing on in a particular and compleat Delineation all our Duties and all their Circumstances there needs nothing more Than that every one should apply his proper Sentiment and the clear Idea's which he finds in Himself by Attention and Reflection upon this Indubitable Sentiment which he hath in Himself Nevertheless because there are few Persons who are accustom'd to Reflect and Reason upon Matters so remote from their Senses and the Carnal Relish of Human Passions which stir up Attention in Reading the greatest part of other Books we foresaw that this Essay might appear too strong to some Spirits who can only digest Matters that are very easie who are not accustom'd to mount up to the Principles of Things who Relie upon the Credit of Authors and who are not at all Curious to see what we propose to them in First Notions and Clear Idea's But besides that we believ'd that an Age so Enlightned as Ours is would require an Instruction as strong and that there are Spirits who would willingly be thus Fundamentally Instructed and that it would be convenient to Impress this Relish upon others to the end that they may be rais'd up to a more Perfect Knowledge of God and themselves We do also hope that the meanest Capacities may here learn how to Know their Souls and by their Souls their Duties S. Paul would have all the Faithful apply themselves to Augment and Encrease Light and Knowledge in themselves And if there be any Knowledge which is useful and necessary to be Encreased and brought to Perfection it is without doubt The Knowledge of our Soul which is the most Essential Science which we have to acquire and the true Science of God and of Salvation as the Divine Apostle speaks since we can Know nothing Fundamentally neither of our Heavenly and Eternal Hope nor of our Present State upon Earth nor of our Essential Relation with the Eternal Nature and Essence from whence proceed all our Duties but in Proportion as the Knowledge of our Soul Encreaseth We see very Exact and very Religious Observers of Duties who oftentimes Know not why they perform them and tho' they do not do amiss in being so yet they would do much better in Being and Knowing why they are so because whatsoever a Man is Knowingly and by the Conviction of Reason he is much more solidly so for himself and much more profitably so for others We have believ'd that we ought to give a Compleat Science and Knowledge of the Soul to the end that all the World might thereby Instruct themselves in their Duties either for a particular Edification or for the Instruction and Edification of others And we are persuaded that all those who will give themselves the pains of Reading with some Attention and of adding to that Reading some little Reflection upon themselves to Remark what we Observe of the Natural and Universal Sentiments of all Mankind which is the perpetual Light of this Treatise will find that we have render'd this Matter otherwise so obscure and difficult of it self most Intelligible and Proportion'd to the Capacity of the whole World THE CONTENTS PART I. OF the Preference due to the Soul above the Body from the Reason of its Spiritual and Immortal Nature Page 1. Chap. 1. The Curiosity which we ought to have how to know our Souls ibid. The Dignity of our Souls 6 The Perception and Certainty which all of us have of our Souls 8 Chap. 2. That our Souls undoubtedly are Spiritual Natures and altogether distinct from Bodies upon the account of their Intelligent Nature 11 Why and how we conceive of God and Angels as Spirits 12 This is the common Doctrin of the Schools 14 Chap. 3. The manner of our conceiving that Knowledge which is in Beasts causes a Confusion which must necessarily be rectified 16 Four different Opinions which make four different Degrees of Knowledge in Beasts 19 Chap. 4. A general Discussion of the Opinion which gives to Beasts a Knowledge like to ours 21 Chap. 5. Whether Beasts have a true Reason like to ours 25 Chap. 6. Whether Beasts have any Reasoning inferior to Reason 33 Chap. 7. Whether Beasts have any sort
the 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
be generally susceptible of an infinite number of divers Modifications of which it hath an essential Certainty as often as it makes them in it self or suffers or receives them from any thing else As we have no Idea nor Experience of any sort of true Knowledge but that of our own so we have naturally no Certainty nor near or immediate Idea but of our own Spirit And tho' we form to our selves an Idea of some Spirit without us and of some Intelligent Nature it is only grounded upon that Idea which we have of our selves or of that Intelligent Nature which as I have said we find and prove to be in us for we know neither God nor Angel but by an Idea which we draw and which we form and build upon that Idea which we have of our selves Why and how we conceive of God and Angels as Spirits The Idea which we have of an Angel is no other than an Idea of an Intelligent Nature such as is in us but separated and disengag'd from the Servitude and Union of Bodies and by consequence enfranchiz'd from the Imperfections and Miseries tied to their Dependence such as we find in our selves The Idea which we have of God is in like manner no other than an Idea of an Intelligent Nature such as is in us but exempt from all the Imperfections which are in us It is an Idea of a Nature Intelligent and existing by it self with a Power Wisdom and Sanctity or Infinite Justice whereas we conceive of our selves just as we are under an Idea of a Created Intelligent Nature Imperfect Defective and Dependent in a thousand manners but this difference doth not at all hinder but that this Great and August Idea of the Supreme Spirit may be apprehended under the Idea of that Intelligent Nature which we find and prove in our selves We do not know that God knows otherwise than we were it not that he must of necessity know by Himself essentially all things without a Cloud without Obscurity without Uncertainty and all at one View Whereas we only know successively and dependently of a Superior Power which gives us Ideas and Perceptions as he pleases As we know no other Spirit than God Angel and Man and as we conceive neither God nor Angel nor Man as Spirits but under an Idea of a Knowing Nature and knowing with that kind of Knowledge which we find in us it follows That the Idea under which we conceive a Spiritual Nature is the Idea of that Knowing Nature which is in us And indeed it is impossible to have any clear and positive Idea of a Spirit which hath not for its Basis and Foundation either Knowledge or a Knowing Faculty for all other Definitions and Notions which are given of a Spiritual Substance have nothing Positive but consist in Negations This is the common Doctrin of the Schools Thomas Aquinas and the Scholiasts do commonly teach That we know neither God nor Angels but after the manner I have been speaking of For this is what they would say when they teach That we do not know either God or Angels but as they term it per alienam speciem that we know them not but by a borrow'd and copied Idea that we have no proper original and immediate Idea of them for these are their Expressions And tho' we had not these Authorities the Experience which we all of us have of the manner how we form to our selves the Notion and Idea of God and Angels by Reasoning and by Abstractions and by Precision or separation of the Imperfection which we know to be in us would not permit us to doubt but that the sole Idea and the sole Notion which we have of a Spiritual Nature is the Notion or Idea of an Intelligent Nature We know by an indubitable Experience that there are in the World two sorts of Natures a Knowing Nature and a Nature not knowing And to distinguish these two Natures of which we find in our selves Ideas and Notions altogether distinct by our Apprehension and Experience not to be doubted of we have given to the one the Name of Spiritual Nature and to the other the Name of Corporeal Nature Here you see the Truth of the Matter So if we would follow the Ideas and the Pure Lights of Nature which are always Infallible there would be no need here of making any Effort of Reasoning to manifest the Spiritual Nature of our Souls which we so surely find to be Intelligent But by the misfortune of a deadly Prejudice generally establish'd by a precipitate and an inconsiderate Judgment from our Infancy whereby is form'd an almost universal Error which hath taken place of Truth we have so confounded obscur'd and involv'd this lively and pure Light of Nature and of the Idea of Body and Spirit or of Spiritual and Corporeal Nature as it is absolutely necessary to stop here in order to regulate that Confusion which hath been cast upon these Ideas CHAP. III. The manner of our conceiving that Knowledge which is in Beasts causes a Confusion which must necessarily be rectified WE understand already that it is the Judgment which we have made of Beasts when upon the appearance of some exterior Movements like ours and of some Vital and Natural Functions we have judg'd that they had Knowledge like us which hath caused that Confusion which we are now about to rectifie I am no way desirous to change the Language of Men I will never say that Fire is not hot nor that Beasts do not know after their fashion provided Men do not confound their manner of Knowing with ours That Beasts know I grant and let People talk as much of it as they will provided they allow that they have no Idea of that Knowledge which they give them Beasts without doubt know after their manner since they fly from and pursue Objects as they are agreeable or disagreeable to them And it would be a very sad thing and contrary to the current Style of the Language of Men if we should not permit that to be call'd Knowledge in the best sense Let not then any one believe that I will here make any Innovation in the Language of Men or at all proceed in the Method of that New Philosophy which changes all Ideas and common Expressions into Paradoxes and Riddles Let Animals know with all my Heart after their manner which is to fly from or to pursue without knowing for all that what they do by an Instinct altogether blind in respect to them but most clear in respect of the Workman which gave it them and who conducts them the things which are good or ill for them and to be thereby capable of a thousand several Movements occasion'd by the different Impressions which come to them from without and from the divers Fermentations which arise in them from the Mass of Blood and the Humors which are within them But if we look upon Beasts to be entirely Corporeal as Moses would have us to
the diversity of their Idea's it is no less by that of their Proprieties and Effects for nothing of that which Corporeal Nature do's can be done by an Intelligent Nature or by Knowledg For Example A Knowing Nature or Knowledge cannot Immediately and Formally as they say by it self alone neither heat nor moisten nor dry nor exclude Bodies by Impenetrability nor in a word perform many of those Effects proper to Extent or Corporeal Nature And on the contrary Corporeal Nature on its part can never what Perfections soever one may fancy to happen to it by the Almighty Power of the Creator be so much as conceiv'd and imagin'd as capable of Self-perception of Reflecting of Reasoning of Loving of Hating of Desiring For who can conceive for Example that Marble can be rais'd up to the perfection of being sensible of the Stroaks of the Mallet and Chizel as we perceive otherwise that which wounds us that which hurts us with a proper and true Sentiment of inward Pain Who can imagine that Gold can be capable of having in the Crucible a Sentiment of Burning like to that which we have when we burn our selves We must say the same thing of Properties for nothing of that which agrees with our Knowing part can be agreeable to our Corporeal part and nothing of that which is found in the Corporeal can be seen in the Knowing For Example It is impossible to give a Figure Shape and Bulk to a Thought The Act of Reasoning of Loving of Hating of Deliberating can never have either Bulk or Figure Parts or Colour And on the contrary no Body can ever have the Agility of Thought its Vastness its Light and no Body can have the Idea or Perception of it self or form in it self the Images of all those things which compose the visible World or the least thing which it contains and it follows evidently from all this That nothing is clear and certain in the Light of Nature if this be not That the Intelligent Nature which is in us is of a nature altogether distinct and diverse from Corporeal Nature and being so I do not see that there can be any difficulty to say That the Knowing Nature that is in us is essentially Spiritual for what can that be but Spiritual which is not Corporeal In the main there is no great matter for the Name provided that the Thing be indubitable for what signifies it at the bottom whether our Soul hath or hath not the Name of Spiritual provided that we do acknowledge that it is of a Nature altogether distinct from Body and infinitely more Excellent than any thing that there can be had of Body and which it will always have though we would deny it the Name of Spiritual But because this Name is affected and determin'd by the constant usage of the Language of Men to Immaterial Natures and distinct from Body it is indubitable that the Knowing Nature ought to be call'd Spiritual The word Spiritual Nature is a Galimophry which signifies nothing if it do's not signifie that Knowing Nature of which we have the Idea and the Experience in our selves There is nothing real and positive in the World which answers to that word but a Knowing Nature such as is in Us. It is to express a Knowing Nature that the Name of a Spiritual Nature was invented as the Name of Triangle hath been made to express a Figure that hath three Corners That of a City to express a certain number of Houses disposed into Streets and shut up within the compass of Walls under the same Laws and Policy That of Animal to signifie that which hath a natural and interior Principle of Motion and Growth That of Body that which is susceptible of Extent and Division The Name of Spirit and Spiritual Nature hath been made and invented to express this sort of Knowing Nature and Men have never given the Naâ—â— of Spiritual Nature but to things which they have conceived under the Idea of a Nature Knowing after that manner We have already observed that Men have not conceived either God or Angels but under the Idea of Knowing Natures and it is certain that it is for that Reason that we conceive them as Natures more Spiritual that we conceive them endow'd with a greater perfection of Knowledge For we conceive God more Spiritual than an Angel or than Man because we conceive Him as the Sovereign and Eternal Source of Knowledge who hath Essentially the Idea of all things possible through that Eternal and Substantial Thought which the Scripture calls his Word by the which declaring all that He is and all that he can and the manner how he can and ought to do all things He is to himself first of all his Model and his Notional Wisdom as they say and Exemplar and then his Verue and his infinite Efficacy and Omnipotency by which every thing that doth know knoweth every thing lives that hath life every thing that hath motion is moved and every thing that hath a Being doth exist And as this Idea includes not only more Knowledge but a Knowledge infinitely more efficacious and more excellent than that of Man or Angel we do therefore conceive This Spiritual Nature to be much more Spiritual Thus it is out of doubt that the Knowing Nature that is in us is essentially a Spiritual Nature and ought to bear that Name from whence it follows That as long as we have a certainty that our Soul is a Knowing Nature so long we have an assurance that our Soul is a Spiritual Nature distinct from Body And this is not here a thing which We divine as They do who place a true and proper Knowledge in Beasts This is the chief certainty which we have this of the Knowing Nature of our Souls We may doubt by an Hyperbolical and Metaphysical Doubt whether we have a real Body because speaking absolutely God is able having only regard to the Efficacy and Power with which he can act in us to give us what Idea's and Sentiments he pleases God is able to give us the Idea's and even the Sentiments of a Body altho' there were not any Body in the World just as we have them now so as it may come to pass in Dreams to believe that we have things which have not any reality But we cannot at all doubt whether there be in us a Part or Nature Knowing because we find that our Soul hath essentially the perception and the certainty of her self in her Existence and in the Idea's which the Supreme Power who rules over her upon the occasion of her Body clears up and in the Modifications whereby that Power affects her CHAP. IX The double immense and infinite Ground of Knowledge that is in our Souls is a new and certain Proof of their Spiritual Nature THE simple Notion of this Intelligent Nature which we find in us without more unfolding it and leaving it in that first general Idea which it gives elevates our
Souls above all Corporeal Natures and makes them essentially Spiritual but if we unfold a little the general Notion to consider it a little nearer in every thing it contains and includes it will give us a Conviction of the Spiritual Quality and Immortal Conditions of our Souls altogether new and more sensible for we do not only find and perceive that we have that Certainty of our selves which makes the Foundation or as it were the first Basis of our Knowing Nature but we have besides by the most undoubted Opinion of the World a double infinite Foundation of Knowledge for without speaking of our active Faculty of Knowing or Thinking which is that Ground of Knowledge by which we Reflect and Reason we have in our passive Faculty of Knowing a double Infinite Ground of Knowledge one Infinite Ground of the passive Faculty to be enlighten'd with Ideas and Lights altogether new and another Infinite Ground to be affected and penetrated with new Sentiments which is that sort of Knowledge by which we have an intimate Sentiment of Pleasure and Pain and generally of all the Modifications wherewith God can affect us as Sweet and Bitter White and Black Heat and Cold and the other Sensations which we know and a thousand others which God can cause in us which we do not know We have in the Ground of our Knowledge this double immense Capacity of Knowledge one immense Capacity of receiving Ideas and Lights which God may be pleas'd to give us for there is nothing which God may be pleas'd to give us an Idea and a Light of but we have essentially the Certainty the Perception the lively and animated Image of so soon as it shall please him to give us the knowledge of it We have not of our selves the Idea and Light of any thing for God essentially is the Light of all Spirits and the Living Source of Knowledge and Understanding upon whom depends all Knowing Natures for every thing that they can know out of themselves We have no Idea of any particular thing but in the proportion that he gives it us but as poor as we are and void of Ideas and Lights by our selves so rich are we by this Ground of the Infinite Capacity of our Knowing Nature which is an immense Capacity and without Limits of passive Illumination ora Faculty of receiving all the Ideas and all the Lights of God The same thing may be said of Sentiment as of Ideas and Light As we cannot illustrate nor form by our selves the Idea of any thing out of Us so we cannot cause in Us any of these Sentiments or these agreeable or disagreeable Modifications accompanied with Pain or Pleasure which we see occasion'd in Us without Us by that so ruling and so absolute Power which prevents our Deliberation and which without hearing our Desires makes Us rejoyce or afflicts Us by those different Sensations of which we have the Experience every moment We make not these Sentiments in Us we perceive them not to say we suffer them we have not any of them of our selves this is a second Emptiness or a second Indigence which is in Us. But this Emptiness bears the Character of Infinite Grandeur because it is accompanied with an Immense Capacity of Sentiment for we are capable by this second Ground of Knowledge of a thousand and a thousand sorts of divers Pleasures without Bounds or Limits and of a thousand and a thousand sorts of Pains always new which God can cause to come out of the Treasure of his Goodness or his Wrath. This is what we experience in Us with an indubitable certainty and which do's not permit Us to doubt of the Spirituality of that Knowing Nature which we call our Soul because there is There a double Character of Spirituality which sensibly elevates our Souls above all Corporeal Natures CHAP. X. That Libertines cannot maintain this monstrous Opinion That the Soul of Man is Corporeal LIbertines may indeed suppress the Name of Spiritual Nature and the Name of Soul to say that there is nothing in them but Body and Matter for we cannot force People to call things by their Names but they cannot but acknowledge in Themselves That Knowing Nature which we call our Soul They may say when they reflect not on what they say That it is their Body that knows for one cannot oblige People that are obstinate in confounding the Names of things to speak exactly and properly to distinguish them they may yes without doubt when they do not reflect on it maintain That it is their Body that knows but it is certain that they can never reflect on it but they find there cannot be a greater Incompatibility than what they say and that there is in them a Nature or a Part that Knows and a Nature that do's not Know and that the Nature which Knows is altogether distinct and diverse from that which doth not Know They conceive in spite of themselves that they have two Parts and two Natures in them one that knows and one that do's not know and if they call that Nature and Part which Knows Body how would they I pray call that Part and that Nature which do's not know and which is incapable of knowing The little Reflection and Attention which they make upon Matters in their Opinion of so little consequence makes them confound and reverse all things they confound and reverse the most clear and most distinct Ideas of Nature if one surprises them without letting them perceive that one will draw Consequences against their Libertinsm and that one demands of them whether an Idea of Knowing Nature be not altogether distinct in their Spirit from the Idea of Corporeal Nature they will say Yes But if one goes on further to make them see their Spiritual Nature whose Ideas do wound and condemn their Disorder they say rashly and stupidly That it is their Body that knows tho' one sees Impiety and Libertinism pitifully destroying and defeating it self as often as one obliges it to Reasoning and Reflecting upon it self Thanks to that Light which it hath pleased God in these latter Times to spread over Philosophy which he hath purg'd from the Relicks of Paganism none dare any more say that Body knows We have seen Systems ridiculous and equally full of Ignorance and Presumption reigning in some Schools where they parted Knowledge between the Soul and the Body Some would have that in all Sensations there are two one which is truly Spiritual in the Soul and the other of which nevertheless never any Man had the Experience for they suppos'd it and divin'd it by meer Capriciousness and Fancy which is purely Corporeal in the Body Others pretended that all Sensation was purely Corporeal and that there was in us no other Spiritual Knowledges than those of Universal Notions and of Objects purely Intelligible and Spiritual These Chimerical Imaginations are fallen of themselves We have shewn that there is not in Man two Principles of Knowledge nor
Pleasure we may taste in Eternity if we live in such a manner as may render us worthy of having our Fidelity recompensed Our Soul is something that is great noble and admirable by the Ideas which it is capable of receiving and it is yet more great and more noble if you will by the Pleasure and Felicity which it is capable of having God who hath the Treasures of Knowledge and Wisdom hath infinite Riches of Goodness and Oceans of Felicities and of Pleasures and our Soul which is capable of receiving all the Idea's which God contains in the Treasures of his Knowledge and Wisdom can also taste all the Pleasures which he contains in the Riches of his Goodness Such is the nature of our Souls they are not only undoubtedly Spiritual by their Intelligent Nature but they are in some manner infinite in Dignity and in Nobleness they are admirable Copies and Images of the Supreme Nature they carry a thousand Characters of his Grandeur and their Celestial Origine and that which augments and enhances all this Merit is that they are undoubtedly as Immortal and Eternal as Spiritual CHAP. XI That our Souls are undoubtedly Immortal by reason of their Knowing Nature YES as undoubtedly Immortal and Eternal because being Natures altogether distinct and altogether different from Body and all Corporeal Nature it is impossible that Death which only cuts and makes this havock upon Bodies should have any Prey upon them or give them the least Stroke If God who hath drawn them out of his Heart will not employ his Almighty Power to annihilate and destroy them in that moment that Death breaks the Structure and Harmony of Body which will appear hereafter that he cannot be willing to do there is no It is thus that Diseases and Old Age causes us to die and the violent Accidents of Fire and Sword or Falls and Ruines do the same It is the Body that Diseases Old Age and violent Accidents do all attack it is its Structure that they break and ruine for they do not touch the very Ground and Matter of the Body Death doth not touch the Substance of the Body and its Matter it only touches the Disposition of its Organs it is That only that it destroys It 's true that when the Brain can no longer serve to the Universal Cause and to the Eternal Wisdom and Power which holds our Souls united to the Bodies for an Occasional and Determinate Cause to determine it to give us Idea's and Perceptions of other Bodies which are round about Ours and which act upon them which is properly the Chain and Knot which holds our Souls united to our Bodies then It retires our Souls from our Bodies and they cease to Be in our Bodies We commonly conceive that our Bodies die because our Souls do retire themselves but this is to conceive things very ill It is not that our Bodies die because our Souls retire themselves but on the contrary our Souls retire themselve because our Bodies die because the Structure that render'd them fit to serve for a Lodging to our Souls comes to be broken and destroy'd Death is nothing precisely but this ruining of the Harmony of the Body which obliges God to withdraw the Soul And who do's not see that it being so Death is so far from being able to destroy the Soul that it cannot do any thing unto it It cannot so much as cause the least alteration in it all that it doth precisely to it is to take from it its Union with the Body it disunites the two Parts but it doth not destroy nor annihilate any of them the Body remains Body every Part remains in its Nature the Body remains ruin'd and the Soul returns separated Death can do nothing unto our Souls which are not a Material Structure it destroys the Souls of Beasts because their Soul results from the Organization and Harmony of a Material Structure and from a certain degree of Heat and quickness in their Blood which keeping their Members dispos'd and their Nerves well extended keeps them at the same time dispos'd to receive the Impressions of exterior Bodies which act upon them and to move themselves in a thousand manners according as He hath destin'd them who hath ordain'd and directed to his Ends their particular Structure But Death can do nothing to our Souls which are evidently natures wholly Immaterial and Spiritual in which there is neither Structure nor Harmony of Parts Diseases cannot at all attack our Souls they have no Blood nor Humors to be enflam'd and set afire Old Age cannot make them die because they know not what it is to grow old Fire and Sword cannot kill them as Jesus Christ hath said they have no Parts that the Sword can divide or that Fire can consume or dry up Let us say something boldly Though Death should be able to prey upon our Souls as it doth upon our Bodies it would not cease to be certain that Death could not in the least annihilate them for it cannot annihilate even our Bodies which are given as a Prey to it and upon which it exercises all its cruelties and rigour Do not our Bodies remain Bodies after our Death they change indeed the Name and Form but they subsist in the Ground of their Corporeal Nature Doth not their Matter remain always What is there in the World more constant and what greater and stronger Argument would you have of the Immortality and Eternity of our Souls Would you have the Corporeal Part to be Eternal That Nature so base and so vile and This Nature so noble so admirable so divine which we have made you acknowledge to be in you would you have this to have an end and to return into nothing That Death should not be able to annihilate the Body which is given it to destroy and yet that it should annihilate our Souls upon which it neither hath nor can make any Prey Nothing is so certain and so evident in the World as this is That all the Bodies of the Universe and all created Powers cannot destroy a Spiritual Nature nor so much as endamage and alter it That only Power which made our Souls out of nothing can make them thither to return again and we are assur'd by the infallible Prejudgment of his Wisdom that this Sovereign Power neither ought or can ever be willing to employ his Infinite Power upon such an Essay or to make such a Trial of it He that created the Souls could absolutely annihilate them if he would but he cannot be willing to it but for some Benefit either of his Glory or of the common Good of the Universe or of some singular Advantage of the Perfection of some one of his Creatures of which he would do himself Honor. And it is impossible for him to find any such Utility by annihilating our Souls who necessarily acknowledge his Sovereignty over them so long as they endure For every Intelligent Nature hath Essentially some Sentiment
Bodies either to the Right or the Left forwards or backwards above or below and all manner of ways We must needs see with what Volubility what Agility and with what Quickness we move our Tongues our Feet and our Hands And all this is done without our knowing how by meer Empire as hath been said hereupon When we have studied Anatomy and Physic we know that they are the Muscles and the Nerves which serve to these Motions but before we had ever known that we had Nerves and Muscles we spoke we danced we leaped all one and since we have acquir'd this Knowledge we neither speak nor walk the better for it nor do we make e're the more use of it to make our Movements once more I say it is purely an Empire which our Will exercises upon that Portion of the Common Matter of the World out of which the Creator hath form'd us the Place of our Trial and our Prison Now I say That this Empire or Command is an evident Mark of the Spirituality in our Souls first because it is already a Mark of a Nature Spiritual and Superior to all that there is of Body and to all that there can be had of Material in the World to have the Power of Willing because to Will is an Act no less essentially Spiritual than to Know for all that is Corporeal may be conceiv'd under some Corporeal Image and it is impossible to conceive either the Act or the Faculty of Willing under any Form or Image Corporeal or Material In the second place To Will and especially to Will and to have the Power of Willing as we experience in Us is a farther Mark of a Spiritual Nature because there is in this Ground of Liberty by the which we find that we have the Power of Willing and Desiring something Infinite and Immense for Our Will and our Desires have no Limits our Faculty and our Liberty of Willing is truly Infinite whether it be because there is not any thing but what we can Desire and Will whether it be because we effectively carry continually in the Bosom of this Liberty an Infinity of Desires and Wills or lastly whether it be because we can always conceive new Ones and it is plainly apparent no Corporeal Nature can be capable of such a Character of Immensity In the third place This Power and this Empire which we have of removing our Body by Command and by Will only is an evident Character of a Nature Spiritual and Superior to Body for two Reasons by the Reason that to Command is a Character and an Act of Superiority and as so the Nature that commands is Superior to that which obeys from whence it follows That the Soul which commands is of a Nature Superior to Body which obeys and by the Reason that this so Efficacious a manner of Empire and Authority is a lively Image of the Sovereignty of God which cannot be within a Corporeal Nature St. Augustin had well penetrated into this Reason when he said That by it we carry sensibly in Us a lively Resemblance of the Supreme Sovereignty and of the Infinite Power with which He created the World In effect by this Empire which we exercise over our Bodies we have in our selves the lively Idea of it and altogether resembling it in that kind of Almightiness with which we make our selves obey'd by the Members of our Bodies God said Let the Earth come out of Nothing and it came out by that alone that it was said to it Come out He said Let the Light be made and there was Light by the infinite Efficacy of that Sovereign Will. And we our selves say Let the Tongue speak Let the Foot advance Let the Hand be lifted up c. and so by the incomprehensible efficacy of this Command the Tongue speaks the Foot advances and the Hand is lifted up We do not seek here whether this Efficacy or this Force comes Effectively from ourselves for this is not a place for such a re-search But tho' it should not come from us the Empire which we exercise with that Vertue and that Efficacy which is undoubtedly in us is a Character incontestably Spiritual and not only Spiritual but Divine It is impossible to conceive that a Body can have such an Empire and this Empire marks essentially the Nature in which it resides with an admirable Tract of resemblance of the Supreme Power Our liberty of Thinking is a certain Character of the Nature and Spiritual Essence in our Souls If this Empire which we exercise over our Bodies be so certain a Conviction to us of the Spiritual Nature and Quality of our Souls of their Celestial Dignity and their Divine Quality what will it be if we consider the two other sorts of Empire and Liberty which we exercise over our selves If we find the Empire over the Motions of our Body to be so fine how much more fine shall we find that of the Thoughts of our Spirit and the Desires of our Heart We have the power to extend perpetually our Knowledges without any limits and to an Infinity by Reflection by Speculation of Principles by Reasoning and by Consequences Nothing can give bounds to our Thoughts and nothing can stop their Knowledge If we endeavor to extend them by the bright Light of Reasoning and Reflection we have before us a vast and an infinite Field of Truth and tho' we have of our selves but one Spark of Light which is that which we call the Ground of our Reason to wit that Light which makes us acknowledge and acquiesce to the Truth that is to say to the Relations and Conveniences or to the Oppositions and Contrarieties of things with this Spark we shall be able by Attention and Reflection to run thro' all this vast Field and acquire to our selves if I may be permitted to say so as it were the property and possession of all Truth We shall be able to lift up ourselves above the Heavens to know the Order the Structure the Harmony and the Periodick Motions of them We shall be able to measure the height and the extension of them We shall be able to reduce the Motions of them to their Principles We shall be able to see how the Lightning the Rain-bow the Thunder and the other Meteors in the Air are form'd We shall be able to penetrate into the Bowels of the Earth to see the diversity of Metals and Minerals there formed and to see how it sustains it self in the midst of Air without being supported but by its proper Center We shall be able to enter into the vast Ocean of the proper Nature of God We shall be able when he pleases to reveal them to us to know the adorable Mysteries Nothing can give bounds to our Curiosity nor to our Knowledge And this without doubt is a certain and infallible Character of a Spiritual Nature for Bodies are essentially Finite as well as Blind and an infinite Light wherewith a Nature
would fain have them tell us how they conceive God and how they conceive themselves if they do not conceive in themselves this Nature and this Immortal Part of which we have given the Conviction How they conceive the Knowing and the Intellectual Nature which they find in them and the Corporeal Nature with which they see themselves environ'd I would fain have them tell us from whence they believe comes the Order the Structure the Arrangement and the so well contriv'd Disposition of the visible World What they think of those lively Resentments of the Natural Instinct and of Conscience What they judge of all that Train of Mysteries and Miracles which makes the Body of that which we call the Holy History or the History of Religion O God! what shame and Confusion ought we to have in our selves to feel so great a disorder in the Spirit And how ought one fear to see himself abandon'd of God to this Disorder which is a frightful Anticipation of the Utter Darkness of Hell On the contrary what Consolation the Wise and Regular Spirits who study in themselves the Knowledge of the Soul what Consolation ought they to have since they so undoubtedly acknowledge in themselves their Spiritual Nature and Immortal Condition upon so many diverse Principles St. Paul said that there are two things upon which is built the Certainty and the Hope of our happy Immortality if we are faithful to God but he will pardon me there are a hundred Principles in our selves and a hundred Foundations out of our selves of it Every thing gives a Testimony of our Life to come and of the Immortal Condition of our Souls Sense and Reason Nature and Grace the Ancient Law and the New Law Jesus Christ and Moses God and Devil Body and Spirit Concupiscence and Conscience our Ideas and our Desires our Fears and our Hopes all things when we know how to use them and to reflect upon them CHAP. XVI That it is easie not only to give our selves a Conviction of the Spiritual Nature of our Souls but to give a neat Idea of them WE have as we have seen in our indubitable Sentimment a certain Conviction of the Spiritual Nature and of the Immortal Condition of our Soul so it lies only on our part to have a lively and neat Idea of it and to make it to us an inexhaustible Ground of Comfort and an admirable Principle and clear Light of Morality I say it lies only on our part for without entring into the Question Whether we can have so just and so exact an Idea of our Soul as to deduce from thence all its Proprieties and all its Attributes as we deduce from an Idea of extended Matter every thing that can happen to it and agree with it because I will remove from this Writing every thing that carries any Air of Contest and of the useless Spirit of Curiosity I believe it my Duty to undeceive here those who say that they cannot comprehend a Soul or form a Notion or Idea of it they believe that it is the most difficult thing in the World and at this rate almost all Men judge But what is there more ordinary than for Men to err and deceive themselves and to be infinitely strangers to Attention and Reflection upon themselves which alone is able to conduct us to a neat and distinct Knowledge of our selves It is difficult for them who never deliberately and seriously reflect upon themselves to conceive the Soul separately to distinguish it from the Body and to consult the Idea of the Spiritual Nature and the Corporeal Nature which we find all neat and all distinct in that interiour Ground of Reason and Light which so infallibly and so surely enlightens us as often as we re-enter a little profoundly into our selves to consult and study it But there is at the bottom no true difficulty to conceive our Souls and to make our selves a neat and distinct Notion of them if we would but give our selves the trouble of commanding a serious Attention and Reflection upon our selves to apply our selves separately to distinguish what we conceive therein as Body and what we conceive therein as Spirit and to learn the two manners of conceiving things which are effectively in us to wit the manner of conceiving by Imagination and the manner of conceiving by pure Intellection or Conception Two things are the occasion that we do not know our Souls that we have not at all a clear and distinct Idea of them The one is That we do not apply our selves thereto The other is That tho' we do apply our selves thereto we do not at all conceive the two manners of Conceiving which are in us we do not conceive at all that there is a manner of Conceiving by pure Intellect and Spiritual Notion we will as hath been before observ'd conceive our Soul by Imagination we will give it a certain Figure a certain Shape a certain Colour and a Form entirely Corporeal for as this manner of Conceiving by Imagination is most easie and as it is made in us even almost without us and as it gives us no trouble at all whereas we must have a great deal to conceive things by pure Intellection we so strongly accustom our selves to it that we come to persuade our selves that there is nothing real but what we conceive after that sort yet in the mean time there is nothing more certain than this double manner of Conceiving and than the two kinds of Beings of Natures and of Objects which are the Matter and the Subject upon which this double Knowledge or this double manner of Conceiving exercises it self It was one part of the Error of the Manichees not to believe any thing real but what was Corporeal But there are undoubtedly things which are no ways Corporeal which are if we will more real than Corporeal ones for our Acts for Example of Imagining of Willing and of Reasoning are the thing of the World which we can the least look upon as a thing chimerical and not real Nothing is more real than our Acts and our Faculties of Thinking for what is there that we can have a greater certainty of who do's not know who do's not perceive that he Thinks that he Imagines that he Reflects that he Reasons and that he Desires and who can ever conceive any of these things under a Corporeal Image and Form God also is without doubt something of real Good for who can doubt that that Principle of Order of Being and of Intelligence which hath given Being and Order to the visible World hath an Effective Reality And yet in the mean time we cannot conceive him under any Corporeal Form and we conceive on the contrary that he Subsists without being connexed to any Basis or Terrestrial or Corporeal Mass There are therefore two Orders of things and by relation to these two Orders there are two manners of conceiving things We know and we conceive things Corporeal under a
Corporeal Image with a certain Bulk a certain Figure and a certain Colour and this is called To Imagine And we conceive things Spiritual and Intelligible without any Corporeal Form and this is called To know by pure Notion and by pure Intellection As we conceive for Example the Thought or the Act of Knowing or Thinking God Angels Universal Notions and all the Idea's of Duties These two manners of Conceiving are incontestable by the Experience of all Men and that which occasions the difficulty which a Man commonly hath of knowing his Soul is because it cannot be known but by Intellection and because even then when a Man will give himself the time and take the pains to re-enter into himself and to suspend the Pleasure of abandoning the Soul to Sense and Imagination instead of supporting as hath been said already the Intellect he immediately puts himself into a desire of conceiving the Soul which is an Object altogether Spiritual under a Corporeal Image and Form and that by Imagination The Question is to conceive it by Inteâ—ection and he will at any rate Imagine it it is a Spirit and he will make it a Body St. Augustin makes this Confession of himself That he was a long time abandon'd to this Empire of Imagination which fill'd him full of darkness he could not conceive his Soul but as a Wind an Air and a subtle Fire But when he had made a more serious Reflection upon himself he said that he saw how grosly he deceiv'd himself in conceiving that his Soul was a Wind an Air and a Fire since it was evident that his Soul was none of all that because it was impossible but that that which conconceived the Air the Wind the Fire and all things should be something more than those things which it conceived and that it was nothing of all that but that it was that which conceived all those things That every one feels and perceives his Soul and that altho' he be ignorant it is only because he knows not that he knows it St. Augustin made himself an Idea and a Notion of his Soul by that Reflection and thenceforwards he cut off and suspended all the Acts and all the Exercises of the Imagination when he would Reason concerning God concerning Angels and concerning Humanc Souls See here we have found a good Guide and a good Master let us follow his Principles and his Examples He attained to have the most perfect Idea of the Soul that one can possibly have of it and we shall attain it likewise with him he hath learnt us to know our Soul with the greatest ease in the World Let us reflect like him upon our selves and upon our proper Faculty of Imagining of Seeing of Perceiving and when we shall have well Reflected we shall find that we have not need of making any Effort for to know our Souls that we have nothing to do but to cut off all the Corporeal Images which can present themselves to us and to shut up our selves into that which we perceive of our selves which is that we have in us something that Perceives that Knows that Reasons that Loves that Hates c. And when we have well setled and fixed our Thoughts thereon we shall say that we have found our Soul that we hold it that we touch it that we see it For effectively there is That which is our Soul there is no Man who may not know it and who cannot frame a Notion and an Idea of it because there is no Man who doth not perceive it and who by the reflection upon his own Sentiment cannot frame a clear Idea and Notion of it but we do not at all perceive that we know it because we Imagine which is another thing we go to see for the Idea or Notion of it out of our selves we run over all Nature and a thousand Countreys that lie perdue out of Nature a thousand chimerical Imaginations to find an Idea and a Notion of the Soul which can content the Imagination we seek afar off for that which is at hand we search after that which we Have and we seek out of our selves for that which we have in the first and most interior Sentiment which we have of our selves we are like him who having heard speak of the Sun and not at all knowing that it was That so beautiful and so luminous Body which lightens and which warms all the visible World that bore that Name enquir'd of every body for the Sun and search'd for it every where We know necessarily what the Soul is we perceive it but till we have reflected on it we do not know that we know it If we had nothing to do but to reflect we should then have this clear and distinct Idea of our Soul That our Soul is that which we Experience makes us Perceive makes us See makes us to Love and to Hate which makes us have Pleasure and Pain and all the Certitude which we have of our selves and of the things which are out of us From whence we form this Notion That our Soul is a Knowing Nature and Substance and indubitably distinct from the Body Mistress of its Thoughts and Desires and sensible of Order and Duty by which we are capable and susceptible of Idea's and Sentiments without bounds and without end according as the Supreme Nature which rules over us with so sensible and so evident an Empire will please to give us them and tho' there were in our Nature but this single Character of our Dependence of which all our Sentiments and all our Knowledges carry the Idea to our Understanding it would be impossible to be ignorant and not to acknowledge that we are under the Hand of a Master who can make us Sovereignly happy or unhappy when he pleaseth CHAP. XVII Some Essential Reflections to Establish the Order of the Preference of the Soul above that of the Body THIS is the just Idea and Notion of our Soul in the which we must cull out and separate Eight or Nine Things which mark it out by August and altogether Illustrious Characters and which are so many Principles and Lights of Morality by the which we ought to Establish the Order of our Duties in relation to our Souls and our Bodies which is the First Part of this Idea and of this Moral Essay which we have propos'd to give you That all the good and ill Fortune are in our Souls We must first of all observe in that Notion which we have made of our Soul by our reflection upon our Sentiment and upon the inward and indubitable Experience that we have of our selves That the Soul is in Us Our Principal Part the Ground both of our Being and to apprehend it aright all our Being since the Ground of our Being ought not to be apprehended only in relation to the most noble Part but to That which causes in Us the good or ill Fortune For to Be is not estimable but in relation to
Scars The Ills of the Body are after the same manner they are false Evils because they have the Appearance of rendring the Soul unhappy but they cannot do it since under all Bodily Evils the Soul can be happy by or thro' her own proper Goods Now Vertue is the only Good of the Soul and Vice its only Evil for the Pleasure and the Pain which she Now hath cannot bear the Name either of Good or Ill to speak exactly but the Resemblance only of Good or Evil. The Painful passing away of Time is a Resemblance of a true Evil which is an Eternal Ill and the Pleasant passing away of Time is the Resemblance of a true Good which is the Sovereign and Unspeakable Pleasure of Eternity Vertue hath not only the Resemblance of Good but it Is Good of or by it self for besides the making a Man happy and contented it makes him Good Commendable Estimable and worthy of the Love and of the Esteem of God the Source of all Felicity who knows no other Good than Vertue for God do's neither esteem nor allow those things for Goods which We call Goods Places of great Trust Honors Reputation Riches Credit He looks upon these things as they are as Dirt and Dung and as an Object of Abomination to his Divine Eyes Vertue only merits his Complacencies and obtains them and Vertue only adorns our Souls and possesses the Place of Riches of Nobility of Beauty and of Agreement That the Passions are the Fevers of the Soul Sixthly In the sixth place we may observe That the Passions are to our Souls how agreeable soever they may seem to be the same that Fevers and Diseases are to our Bodies For they are the Excess of Sensual Love contrary to that All-spiritual and All-reasonable Love of Order and Duty which turns away the Soul from her natural Motion towards her Sovereign Good and drives her on towards false and seeming Goods as a Fever is an Heat against Nature contrary to that Natural Ground of Living Heat which entertains Briskness and Motion united in the Blood Those Desires which our Souls conceive by Occasion of the Body and Sensual Good which is Its proper Good are real Fevers and real Frensies in the Soul And if when she is at quiet she would reflect well upon it she would find the same by an indubitable Sentiment forasmuch as she would find that these Heats and Emotions of the Passions turn her out of the Way and End of Sovereign Good and of Reason and throw her aside into Precipices and Abysses wherein she not only wanders and loses her self but she wounds murders and Embloodies her self if I may say so by a thousand deep Scars from whence spring a thousand Remorses like black and livid Blood which empoyson all her Joys and corrupt all her Pleasures Seventhly We may observe in the seventh place That Our Soul hath Essentially a certain Sentiment of her Limitation and Dependence on the one part and on the other of a Superior and Over-ruling Power on which she depends for our Souls do Naturally and Essentially feel in themselves Religious Duties They are as Tertullian says Naturally Christians because besides their feeling in themselves their Weakness and Imperfection which makes them sensible of their Dependence they feel besides above them that Eternal and Immense Power which Holy Job felt as it were an exceeding great Weight upon his Head under which his whole Being trembled bent and was of no force as well as that of the most sublime Intelligences sub quo curvantur qui portant orbem under which they stoop who bear the World That the Soul hath Essentially in her Disorders the Apprehension of a Superior Justice which wounds her Eighthly In the eighth place we may observe That the Soul which feels God so Essentially by her first Sentiment and who so necessarily discovers him in Her and in all things that she sees out of her self for as Tertullian saith God discovers himself to Us by all that is in Us and all that is without Us doth feel especially in her Disorder that Eternal Sanctity which wounds her and threatens her and which she feels again on the other part when she is in Order and in the place of her Duty comforting and sustaining her thro' Hope and altho' she should not feel it by this kind of Sentiment of Conscience the most penetrating that can be she would necessarily feel it by the Sentiment of Reason which essentially feels a Principle of Order in the World to which all Created and Emanated Reasons are subjected and to which they must give an Account of the Violations of Order which they do commit from whence is form'd an indefaceable Sentiment of God as an Avenger of Order in the Intellectual Part and in the Understanding even after the Passions and the Habits of Vice have defac'd that of the Heart which is That which is more commonly express'd by the name of Conscience or of Sensibility of Order and Duty We must observe Ninthly That in the Ground of the Natural Capacity of our Souls besides that immense Capacity of Pleasure or Felicity and in like manner that immense Capacity of Grief and Calamity which we have acknowledg'd in Us Our Souls have moreover an Insatiability of Desires and Pleasures which comes to them like all the rest from the Ground of their Spiritual Nature by the which they make as it were in an Instant and Moment a Digestion if I may be permitted to say so of all that they can get and possess here below of Goods and Things that are agreeable and do as soon conceive a new Hunger and new Appetites Every One experiences in himself this Insatiable Hunger and Thirst of his Soul with a lively and pressing Pricking which pushes her on without ceasing towards some Better thing and a vehement and rapid Motion which carries her on after a kind of confus'd Idea of Contentment and Felicity which she perpetually believes she can overtake and as it were be joyn'd with and which she can never be joyn'd with or overtake Effectively but by the hope of a Future Life which Grounds and Establisheth the Testimony of Conscience and an unspeakable Consolation of Heavenly Grace and Impression which is not known to all the World but which is known to all those who having understood the Price of their Soul their Spiritual Nature and Immortal Condition have apply'd themselves to Cultivate it CHAP. XVIII That all these Knowledges are so many Lights and Principles of Morality and Duty EVery One will find all these things in his own proper Sentiment and in the Notion of the Spiritual Nature of his Soul if he gives himself never so little trouble to reflect upon it and unfold it and That should not only compleat in Us the Conviction of her Spirituality seeing that it is impossible to conceive in a Substance Corporeal and Material so many Attributes so many Advantages and so many Characters so undoubtedly Spiritual
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
which result from the manner how our Souls Are and Operate in our Bodies under the Visible Empire of God CHAP. I. How we may with Assurance know the manner how our Souls Are in our Bodies AFTER having acknowledg'd That there is in Us a Nature indubitably Spiritual and Immortal which we call Our Soul and which we find to be a Knowing Free and Reasonable Nature knowing and loving Order and Duty and in whom we may be illuminated by the Idea's of all particular Natures and by the Light of all universal Notions and render'd happy or unhappy by the inward Sentiment or Perception of a thousand sorts of piercing Modifications with which we may be affected by the Power and Efficacy of the Supreme Nature which Rules over Us. The first Thought then that presents it self to our Understanding is That we are Compounded of a Spiritual Celestial Divine and Immortal Nature and of a Corporeal Material and Terrestrial Nature and as this Thought immediately causeth to arise in Us a Curiosity of desiring to know how these Natures so opposite can assemble and meet together how they can joyn together how these Celestial Natures Are in the Terrestrial Habitation of our Bodies and how they Operate there so this is what now presents it self to be clear'd up to the end that the Knowledge which we shall acquire of it may serve as a Foundation and Principle to the Morality of our Duties of Love of Religion of Fear and Thanksgiving towards God of Temperance towards our selves and of Charity of Fidelity and of Justice towards all others and also that of our Duties of Self-denial of Mortification and of Crucifying our Flesh and our Senses according to the Divine Precept and Rule of the Gospel without which we cannot any ways acquit our selves of our Duties That we may arrive to a sure Knowledge of the manner how our Souls Are and Operate in our Bodies which is what we are now in search after we must observe the Method which we have prescrib'd us viz. To follow always the two great Lights of our clear Notions on one part and of our proper Sentiment on the other by the which we may be able infallibly to Encrease and to Ascertain our Knowledge Reason with which the Nature of Man is enriched is that Natural Faculty which we have of Perceiving what Men call True or False and of enlarging by that Discernment our Knowledge and our Certainty by the Exercise and the Application of that Faculty upon Matters which lie before us and of which we may have any Experience or any certain Knowledge We may be able to Reason about all Matters in which we can have or catch if it may be permitted to say so one only clear Idea and one certain Knowledge and in Reasoning on we may be able by little and little most certainly to know them all entirely and at the bottom because that clear Idea and that certain Knowledge which the Evidence of Principles and the Experience of the thing usually gives is as a bright Light by which we may be able to illuminate all the Matter which That hath enlightned and made us to see tho' but one single Point of and if I may so say one single indivisible Feature for there is not any Matter which hath not as it were a hundred Faces and a hundred Features a hundred Umbrages and a hundred different Appearances which are only seen successively and one after another but yet which are infallibly seen when with a bright Light of a deliberate and serious Reflection we have but patience to turn our selves round about to take a view of it on all Sides in all its Reverses and in all its Shapes and different Appearances At first Men knew but one Propriety of Extension or of Quantity and of Matter and some few Proportions of Numbers and from thence they drew all the admirable Knowledges of Geometry and of Algebra all that belongs to the Mathematicks and all the Theory and Practice of those marvellous Arts and Sciences which serve to so many Advantages and so many Beauties in the World It is the admirable fruitfulness of Human Reason thus to extend encrease and multiply its Light and from a little Sparkle to make a great Day and as it were an Immense Brightness She hath no need but of one little Glimpse but of one single Principle but of one clear Notion and but of one assur'd Experience in every sort of Matters to be able afterwards to enlighten and illuminate all Extension She is like him who requir'd but one fix'd Point out of the Earth or without the World to remove Them she requires but one single known and clear'd Point in her Matter to know it all by little and little with Assurance And as we have already acquir'd this certain Knowledge of our Soul That She is indubitably a Nature and a Substance Spiritual and Immortal which hath nothing of Corporeal so it is easie for us with this bright Light and with a perpetual Attention by reflecting upon our own proper Sentiment and upon the Experience which we have of our selves to come to an entire Illustration of the manner how our Souls Are and Operate in our Bodies which is That which we are enquiring after to give a solid Foundation to this Moral Edifice which we are building up It is to That which we must apply our selves and never forget the Rule we have prescrib'd us Of never losing sight of the clear Notion of the Spiritual Nature of our Souls and the Light of our own Experience Let us see then after having taken these Outworks contrary to the thoughts of those who might look upon my Enterprise of Illustrating the manner how our Souls Are in our Bodies as Rash and Presumptuous and perhaps as Visionary and Chymerical Let us see I say what our indubitable Sentiment teaches us concerning the manner how our Souls Are and Operate in our Bodies CHAP. II. General Experiences of a Power Superior to our Souls and to our Bodies which Acts in our Souls and in our Bodies WE may reduce all that it teaches us to two general Heads It teaches us That our Souls are rul'd over and commanded and at the same time serv'd and obey'd in our Bodies by a Power Infinite which equally causeth these two Functions towards them of serving them with a Sovereign Regularity and a Sovereign Exactness and of Ruling over them with an Invincible Empire I. The First Experience that we have That God Acts upon us as a Sovereign Ruler after the manner wherein our Souls are in our Bodies We find First by the most certain Sentiment that we can have That our Souls have not the Liberty and the Power to separate themselves from their Bodies The Body is a Vestment wholly Exterior with which they are Invested and a Vestment which they find often incommodious because that besides that it is only a Vestment which is wholly a Stranger to them They Resent also
by a Superior and an Invincible Force all the Evils which happen to it in spite of them And as there often happens some by reason of divers Disorderings which the Universal Motion of Nature and the particular Motion of the Matter which Composeth it causeth in it so it cannot be but that this Vestment of Material and Corruptible Flesh must oftentimes become a trouble to them It is often incommodious and we would often Divest it yet in the mean time we find that we are no-wise Masters of it but that we must carry it along in spite of Us until That secret and invisible Power which hath Cloth'd us with it without Consulting us shall Disrobe us and take it off from us without taking our Advice and without regarding our Desires II. The Second Experience of the same Empire in the Sovereign Domination with which our Souls are sent into our Bodies without Consulting them We find in the Second place That our Souls have not at all the Choice of the Bodies wherein they inhabit but that they are sent in thither by that Power which we see Governs Nature and which we call GOD without any regard for our Inclinations or for our Appetites for we choose neither the Form the Shape the Structure and the Composition and Constitution of our Bodies nor the Matter out of which they are Form'd nor any of the Accidents which determine the Diversities and the Differences of them If our Souls might choose themselves Bodies there would be none Crooked Deform'd Ill-shap'd Unsound or Ill-constituted in any manner they would all be Beautiful all Healthful all Strong and of a Rich and Gentile Shape and Carriage Nothing is more indubitable than the Sentiment that we have That we choose neither our Bodies nor the Time and Place of our Birth but that it is a greater Force an Absolute and Sovereign Power which sends us into such a Body in such a Time and in such a Place as best pleaseth him III. A Third Experience of the same thing in Diseases over which our Soul hath no Empire We find in the Third place That our Souls which are not at all Mistresses of the Choice and of the Quality of their Bodies are not likewise Mistresses neither of the Disposition which is agreeable to them nor of the Indisposition which incommodes them They are neither Mistresses of Health nor Sickness Health and Sickness are in Us by an Invincible and an Almighty Empire of Nature Fevers Apoplexies Collicks and Dysenteries neither ask our Leaves to attack us nor our Agreement to march off IV. A Fourth Experience of the same in Pleasure and Pain We find in the Fourth place That Pleasure and Pain are after the same manner in Us by that Invicible Force of the Power which Rules over Us together with all Nature for we find that we cannot hinder either the one or the other or suspend or turn aside the lively and penetrating Impression of them so often as certain Objects work in Us or as there are Motions caused in Us in the Material part of Us which we call our Body We may easily enough sometimes turn away and suspend the Action of other Bodies upon Ours and stop its proper Motions but the Action and Impression being once made it is impossible to suspend or turn away either the Pleasure or the Pain so long as the Power which Guides Nature and which Rules over us affixeth them to it Do's the violent Heat of a Fever burn our Bodies our Souls have not at all the Power to suspend in themselves the burning and afflicting Pain and Sentiment Do the delicious Juices of our Viands water the Tongue and Palate in their Porous and Spongy Substance if I may be permitted to say so Do agreeable Odors strike the Nerves destin'd to carry them to the Brain Is the inward Organ of the Hearing shaken by the Air melodiously beaten with an harmonious Symphony Light and Day have they retraced Colours in the Retina in the bottom of our Eyes and together with the Figures of Bodies the Spectacle of the Visible World It is then impossible that the Soul should suspend the Pleasures of that charming Spectacle of the Visible World of that Symphony of those Odors and of those delicious Tasts V. A Fifth Experience of the same in the Idea's which we receive We find in the Fifth place That our Souls do by a like Empire receive the Idea's of all particular Bodies and of all Their Impressions upon Us for it is indubitable that it is the Empire of Nature or to say better of Him who governs Nature that determines and that maketh in Us all those Images of the things which we have from the Occasion of their Impressions upon our Inward and Outward Senses We do not make properly those Images by the Active Faculty of our Soul we receive them only by her Passive Faculty This is what every one doth Experience for we do when we please all that we do by the Active Faculty of the Soul which is essentially free We Reflect we Reason we Compare things as we please and when we please because these here are the Acts of the Active Faculty of the Soul But we do not see after the same manner the Sun or the Moon when we please we remember well enough that we have seen them we recall an Idea of Remembrance thereof which obeys us at the very same time and moment when we will but That lively Image and That animated Representation which we have of them by their Presence and by their Impression upon our Senses it is certain that That doth not depend upon our Active Faculty it is certain that we cannot cause it of our selves but that we must Receive it I employ and summon in here for This the indubitable Sentiment of every Man by which it is seen that we receive the Idea's and the Images of all the particular Bodies which Compose the World by a sensible and visible Empire and Dominion which Acts and Operates in our Souls in proportion as these Bodies Act and Operate upon our Material and Exterior Senses We Experiment That the lively and animated Images of the things which we receive from the Occasion of the Impression which is made in our Bodies and carried into our Brains are entirely as Pleasure and Pain and as the Sentiments of Heat and Cold of Bitter and Sweet and such like which it is indubitably certain we receive and do not cause in Us. VI. We find in the Sixth place That by the same Invincible Empire we love Good and Pleasure or Happiness and Contentments in general from whence comes besides the love of Order and Duty which we look upon as a Good by it self and as a necessary means to arrive to the Sovereign Good which we know by a secret Instinct and a certain confus'd Idea of Nature ought to be the Recompence of the love of Order and of the Real and Effective Order of our Lives
exactly and in an Instant as often as these Immutable Laws require it be the Consequence of it Good or Evil. This Experience is Indubitable for the Power which Acts in Us do's not cease to determine in our Souls the agreeable Pleasures and Resentments which by its Immutable Laws ought to accompany the Motions which are profitable either to the good Disposition of the Body or to the Conservation of the Species altho ' the Disorder of unbridled Concupiscences should follow thereupon which so often ruine both Soul and Body and it is after the same manner with all the other agreeable Sentiments which this Power causes in us This Power regards not the Good or the Evil which may happen thereupon for particular Interests but only the general Good of its Universal Ends for the guidance of the Universe Nothing is more Indubitable and all these so certain and so sure Experiences joyn'd to the infallible Knowledge which we have already acquir'd of the particular Nature of our Souls will make us Easily comprehend how our Souls Are in our Bodies and how they Operate there CHAP. IV. False Idea's which we must avoid by the Light of these Experiences and first That of Believing that our Souls are united to our Bodies by any Sympathy Proportion or Inclination WE ought above all things to cut off by this double Light of these Indubitable Experiences and of the Knowledge which we have already acquir'd of the Spiritual Nature of our Souls all the Idea's which we shall find to have been evidently contrary to them and we shall find however a many such that are very common We find First That our Souls are not at all United to our Bodies as most Men do conceive by any Inclination or by any Sympathy which is betwixt them because such an Idea is contrary to the Spiritual Nature of our Souls as it is taken in it self This common Idea That our Soul hath a certain Proportion with our Bodies which is turn'd into a Sympathy and a violent Inclination whereby It is dispos'd to unite it self to the Body and by the same Reason according to the Opinion of some It is effectively thereby united to the Body is a false Imagination which had its Rise from that Idea and that constant Truth That the Soul is the True Form of the Humane Body as Humane according to the Definition of the Council of Vienna as it is effectively so by the Determination of the Creator who created it to be united to the Body for under pretence That it is truly the proper Form of a Man or of an Humane Body since it makes the substantial and specifick difference of that Compositum of Body and Spirit which we call Man just as Material Forms are in Material Compounds and are that which make the Essential difference and that which doth constitute and determine the Species of them They went about to Conceive it as if by its own Nature before the Determination of the Creator it had been an Imperfect and Incomplete Substance as a Man may say by Analogy to Material Forms having essentially Need of the Body to exercise its Faculties and its Functions If the Question had been but of the Souls of Beasts This Idea had been Just because the Soul of a Beast which is that last Perfection of the Structure and of the Organization of the Body design'd to move it self and to nourish it self by a natural and interior Principle which Aristotle hath very well express'd by his famous Definition Actus primus Corporis Organici Potentiâ vitam habentis is not effectively a Form but wholly Material whose Nature is essentially imperfect and insufficient to Exist and to Operate by it self as Thomas Aquinas teaches us That the Soul is not as Corporeal Forms tho' it be the Form of a Man But speaking of the Soul of Man of this new Nature joyn'd to the perfect Organization of the Structure of the Body which Aristotle himself says comes from without as Moses hath tanght us we ought to cut off every Idea and every Resemblance of a Corporeal Form and of a Substance by consequence Imperfect or as a Man may say Incomplete in it self which might have need of a Chief Head and by its Nature of the Assistance and of the Company of the Body or which might have an Inclination by which she should desire and search after the Body The difference between a Soul and an Angel One conceives but very ill the difference of an Angel and the Soul of Man by this Idea That an Angel is a perfect Substance in it self and by it self That the Soul of Man is Essentially an Imperfect Spiritual Substance which hath an Essential Relation to the Body an Essential Inclination for the Body an Essential Proportion with the Body All these Conceptions and Idea's are repugnant to the Spiritual Nature of the Soul because no Spirit can ever have any Relation to or Dependence upon the Body neither any Proportion with the Body or any Inclination for the Body but by the free and voluntary Disposition of Him who equally Governs Spiritual and Corporeal Natures Let it be taken for granted that the Soul of Man by the Empire of the Creator should be render'd dependent upon the Body that it should be destin'd to suffer a Probation in the Body to see by what means it would render it self worthy of Eternity Let her have Pleasures upon the account of the Body Let her henceforwards please her self in the Body after she is once united to it But that she should of her own accord of her own Nature and that antecedently as they say by her proper and essential Inclination by her Nature and by her Essence that she should I say require a Body that she should desire a Body that she should have any Proportion or any Sympathy with the Body is the most unreasonable Thought that ever was or could ever enter into the Mind of Man since besides that it is so far from the Soul to have need of the Body or to have an Inclination of it self for the Body its Spiritual Nature convinces us that it cannot chuse but have a strangeness for the Body which essentially bounds limits and keeps back its Knowledge and renders it a dependent Slave The Opinion of the Ancient Fathers upon all that hath been said concerning the Disproportion betwixt Souls and Bodies This is what we see in its Spiritual Nature and the Scripture and the Fathers do give us entirely the same Idea's So far is the Scripture from proposing the Body an Assistant to the Soul and as a supervening Perfection that on the contrary it proposes it to us as our Prison and as our Chain and as our Captivity and our Fetters And the Ancient Doctors until the Ninth Age spoke of this Matter agreeable to the Scripture An Angel and Man saith S. Gregory of Nice S. Gregory of Naziance and S. Augustin differ without doubt for an Angel is a Spirit
which God makes trial of out of the Body and whose Thoughts and Affections he hath not subjected to the Dispositions of a Body and Man is a Spirit which God makes trial of in the Body to which he subjects it before he crowns it with Eternity But the Soul of Man if God had not dispos'd of it after that manner would have had no need of a Body So far were the Ancient Doctors from conceiving our Souls as to have any need of Bodies or as having of themselves that ardent Desire of being united to the Body which somewould fain have attributed to them that they on the contrary have believ'd that which Experirience makes us see and perceive so clearly That the Union of Souls with Bodies is a hard and a difficult Empire which God doth Exercise over them and which if he should not sweeten the rigor and the difficulty of it by the Pleasures of agreeable Sentiments which he hath annex'd to the Acts and Operations of Souls in Bodies it would be for them not a Trial but a Hell They carry the Matter much further for they maintain That if God should not nor ought to Spiritualize Bodies that is to say to take away from Souls the Dependence which their present State gives them upon Bodies he would not raise them up again because he would not put the Just Souls whose approv'd Fidelity deserv'd to be Crown'd into Bodies which should constrain them and which enslave their Thoughts which is what Spiritualiz'd Bodies cannot bear because the Spiritualization of Bodies will consist in this precisely That they should no longer exercise an Empire over the Souls and that they should be no longer a Charge an Obstacle and an Incumbrance to them Even in the present State of Union which requires that the Souls should by the Empire of the Creator have an Affection for the Conservation of the Body and by consequence that they should Love the Body because it is as it were a Charm by which they are blinded to sweeten the pain and the rigor of their Prison The Just and Holy Souls know well that they are Captives and Prisoners they groan with S. Paul under the weight of their Fetters and their Chains and sigh with him for a deliverance from their Bodies Let us cut off then these gross and Material Idea's by the which we conceive our Souls as having this base Inclination of desiring of their own accord so improper a Match by an Union with the Body do not let us degrade them after that manner nor let us conceive in them any other Relation to Body or any other Inclination for Body but that which the Almighty Empire of the Creator gives them who being willing to have the Pleasure of receiving a free and a voluntary Service and the Honor of a Worship from them in seeing them combat for Order and Duty for his Eternal Law and for his Love against the diverse Inclinations which they have in their State of Union upon the occasion of this Terrestrial Nature sends them for a Trial into the Body to the end that he might have an occasion to Crown their Fidelity and their Combats CHAP. V. That the Body cannot in any manner Act upon the Soul to Illuminate or Affect it Physically and Immediately by it self AFter having cut off that common Idea of the Vulgar Opinion of the Inclination which the Soul of it self hath for the Body we must also remove that Belief That the Body can in any manner Act upon the Soul by any Physical Action be it from Immediation of Substance be it from an Efflux of their Parts or Species or Images as it is vulgarly conceiv'd We ought I say to banish this Imagination and this Chimerical Vision for if we consult the Idea which we have of Corporeal Nature we shall see That Body and Matter can never Act be it by themselves immediately or be it by Parts deriv'd from them or by Species or Images reflected from them but in Driving but in Dividing and diversly Figuring as they themselves cannot but be Mov'd diversly Driven Figur'd Situated and Divided For it is impossible to conceive in Bodies any other Active Faculty or any other Passive Faculty And as the Nature of the Soul is a Spiritual and Immaterial Nature in which there is not any Part or any Extension we shall evidently and clearly see that nothing of all That can have place in her We shall see That not being capable of being either Touch'd nor Driner Divided nor Figur'd or in any other manner that can be Modifi'd by the Action of Bodies Nothing is more Chimerical or more ridiculous than to conceive that there is any Physical Actions of Bodies upon Souls and by consequence that it is impossible that our Bodies or any others should produce and determine Immediately and Physically by themselves the Idea's and Sentiments which we have upon their occasion This is what ought to be seriously observ'd to undeceive us of that common Opinion and Prepossession That it is the Juice of the Meat which we eat which determines causes and produces Physically and Immediately in our Souls the Pleasure of Tasting That it is the Smell or subtil Exhalations and Evaporations of odoriferous Bodies which produce Physically in Them the Pleasure of the Smelling That they are the Pulsations of the Air melodiously beaten upon that distended Skin at the Entry of the Ear which we call the Tympanum which produce in us Physically and Immediately by themselves the Pleasure of Harmonious Sounds That they are the Beams of Light reflected from all the Points of Objects which being carried by the Optick Nerve even to the Center of the Brain do either Physically produce there the Representation of the Objects which the Soul hath upon that occasion or determine at least Physically the Soul to make it self Images of Objects wholly Spiritual and wholly Immaterial which she receives and which she hath in her self by their presence Therein lies the vulgar Opinion and the common Prejudice of believing That External Bodies by the Impression which they make upon our Bodies do either produce Effects in us or determine us Physically by their Interposition to frame to our selves the Sentiments and Idea's which we have upon their occasion But this common Opinion is indubitably a common Error combated equally by the Sentiment which every one hath of a Superior and Exterior Force which sends and detains the Soul in the Body and which Acts perpetually in them upon the occasion of the Body And by the Notion of a Spiritual Nature which do's not at all admit that we should conceive any Action or any Physical activity of Bodies upon Spirits and by consequence neither of ours nor any other Bodies upon our Souls That our own Bodies cannot Act Physically and Immediately by themselves upon our Souls whose Spirituality renders them inaccessible to all sorts of Impressions of Bodies There are some who not carrying far enough the clear Light of
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
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
Sentiment which we have of our selves there is nothing that we experiment and that we find so indubitably in us but the same Experience which we have that we move our Bodies when we please provided that they have on their part no Obstacle or Impediment which resist it makes us perceive and see that this Power which we exercise by the precise Empire of our Will is not at all a Power or a Force which we have in our Soul and in our Will The admirable Efficacy wherewith we see that we move our Bodies only by the Will which is a manner of Almightiness and the Character by which we conceive the Infinite Power of God who alone made all things by his Will ought to make us acknowledge that it is not by our own proper Power that we effectually remove our Bodies by the Will only for if we conceive that it is the sole Efficacy of our Will which causeth in us these Motions at what instant we please we should attribute to our selves a kind of Almightiness or at least an Infinite Power for to Act and Operate out of our selves by the Will only and by a pure Empire is as hath been said a true Character of an Infinite Force and Vertue And there needs nothing more to make us conceive That it is not at all by our own proper Vertue and Force that we move our Bodies tho' it may be by our Will And it is unquestionable that the Force and Vertue which always moves them at that instant when we please cannot be but God himself for that Force and that Vertue is a Force and Vertue which is Almighty Immense and at the same time always Vigilant and Attentive to Enlighten our Desires and our Wills to Obey him exactly And there is none but God alone who can have all these Characters and all these Attributes of Force of Immensity of Infinite Light or Vigilance There is nothing more certain and we have it by the same unquestionable Certainty That God who from the Occasion of the Impressions made by the External Objects or by the Internal Humors upon the Body Acts perpetually upon our Souls to Enlighten them and to Affect them with the divers Sentiments wherewith they are Affected Acts also perpetually upon our Bodies for to move them upon the Occasion of the Desires or of the Will of the Soul and if it should so fall out that from this alone should result the Union of our Souls and our Bodies it would be easie for us to conceive the manner how our Souls Are in our Bodies Let us see then if we can make it appear That from this double Action of God from his Action upon the Souls upon the Occasion of the Body and from his Action upon the Bodies upon the Occasion of the Souls the Union of these two Parts of our Being doth result We have if you take notice of it cut off many false Idea's which a Man commonly hath of the Inclinations of the Proprieties and of the Faculties of our Souls of their Proportion with the Body and of the manner how they move their Bodies And that is not done without design or to no purpose for with so many false Idea's so evidently contrary to the Idea which our Interior Sentiment gives us of our Souls and of their Spiritual Nature it were impossible to conceive the manner how they Are in our Bodies and how they Operate there but if we continue to follow the living Light which hath conducted us hitherto which is the Notion of our Soul as of a Spiritual Nature whereof we have so intimately the Certainty and the Experience of that Supream Power which Acts perpetually upon the Soul from the Occasion of the Body and upon the Body from the Occasion of the Desires and the Wills of the Soul it will be easie for us to form a just and exact Idea thereof That our Souls are not in our Bodies but as they are united to our Bodies We commonly conceive the manner how our Souls Are in our Bodies under the Idea of Union and tho' we have not been accustom'd to say of one onely of the united Parts that it is in the other and that we do not speak very regularly when we say that the most noble and ruling Part is in the less we must not change the Language of Men we must let them say that our Souls are in our Bodies tho' they are but united there and the Body is rather contained than containing since the Soul is the principal Part and that which keeps the uppermost place in the Assembly which unites them We must let People speak as they please but we must here nevertheless cut off the false Idea's which spring up and are form'd upon the occasion of these Popular Expressions The Word of Union of the Soul and Body gives occasion at first if we do not take heed to it to the Imagination of conceiving the Soul after a Corporeal manner for as we see none but Corporeal Unions so we go about at first to conceive the Soul united to the Body as if she her self were Body And as we conceive the things which we say are in others limited by their Circumference and adjusted to their Extent and to their Grandeur we go about also at first to conceive the Soul as shut up within the Circumference of Body but we must cut off all these Idea's because they are Acts of the Imaginative Faculty by which we would conceive the Soul under a Corporeal Form and Image She who is only Intelligible and no ways Imaginable But that we may go surely in the way of Truth and of just and true Idea's of things we must remember that when we speak of our Souls we remove far from us all Corporeal Idea's Thus we will say that the Soul is in the Body but we will take care not to conceive it for all that as truly and properly contain'd in the Body We will say that she is united to the Body but we will not conceive her as pour'd into and mingl'd with the Body or as adjusted to its Extent by a Co-extension and Immediation of Greatness of Figure or of Substance But see here how we ought to conceive it Let us first of all consider what the Body is What the Body is The Body is a Portion of the common Matter of the World united by an intimate Contiguity to all the rest of the visible World dispos'd and rang'd through a marvellous meeting together of Bones of Nerves of Membranes of Cartilages of Arteries of Veins of Muscles of Bowels and of Flesh in a Structure full of Harmony whereby all the Parts are united to one common Center which is the Brain wrapt up in Membranes and distributed and divided into its diverse Compartments proper to receive and to retain the Traces and the Impressions which the other Bodies which environ it make perpetually upon it and proper likewise to determine all the Muscles and all
or Material Imagination That all the Soul is in all the Body and all of it in all the Essential and Integral Parts of the Body as God is all in all the World and in all the Parts of the World not by that Co-extension and and Local Chimerical Presence which gross Spirits do imagine but by the Intimate Presence of his Sovereign Essence Essentially Operating in all the World and in all the Parts of the World We must say the same of the Soul that it is in all the Body by the Relation of its Dependence and Activity But this do's not hinder but that we may say That she is more properly and more particularly in the Brain since it is by that Part that the Action of the Soul upon the Body immediately commences and that all the Action of the Body upon the Soul terminates wholly in that Part as it sensibly appears by that which interrupts and suspends the Action of the Soul upon the Body and the Action of the Body upon the Soul For as often as it happens that the Action of the Body upon the Soul is interrupted it is because there is some relaxation or some obstruction in some of the Nerves which hinders the Motion from being continu'd in the Part affected of the Body as far as the Brain and when the Action of the Soul upon the Body is interrupted as when the Soul would move the Paralytick Foot but cannot at all move it It is likewise because the Motion which begins always by the Brain or by the determination of the Nerves which have their Origine in the Brain or if you will by that most subtile Portion of the Blood which we call Animal Spirits cannot be continu'd so far as to that diseased Part. But after having Explain'd the manner how our Souls Are in our Bodies which gives us so lively an Idea of our Dependence upon the Supream Being and upon all his Divine Attributes we must now see how our Souls Operate in our Bodies and observe all the Differences of our diverse Operations for the clearing every thing that may have any difficulty and require Day and Light for the better apprehending the Sovereign Perâ—â—◠〈◊〉 of the Supream Nature the which Operates continually in us and Rules over us so many ways in all our diverse Operations and the Essential Subjection and Limitation of all created Natures which do in so many ways depend upon this Supream Nature CHAP. X. What the Soul doth in the Body and what it doth not WE observe first of all That there are in Us the Operations or Acts of the Body and the Operations or Acts of the Soul for there are things which the Body doth in Us and things which the Soul doth in the Body This is a certain Rule That the Soul doth not do any thing which she doth not perceive that she doth and that she doth every thing that she perceives that she doth Thus we may say with Assurance That our Souls do not make the Digestion in Us the Circulation of the Blood the Natural and purely Animal Respiration in Us the Separation of the Chyle which is the prepar'd Juyce of concocted and digested Victuals in the Stomach together with the Faeces or gross Matter which is discharg'd into the Bowels the Motion of the Heart of the Veins and of the Arteries the Ebullitions and Fermentations of the Blood and of that Matter which provokes carnal Concupiscence It is moreover certain That the Souls do not make neither the Preparation of Spirits either Vital or Animal nor the Continuation of the Motion or of the Impression of External Objects which are carry'd by the Nerves as by little well stretch'd Chords from all the Circumference of the Body to the most Integral part of the Brain as to the common Center of all its Structure and all its Organization nor the retracement of Objects which is made in the bottom of the Eye in the Retina or that which is made in that part of the Brain which is the Organ of that which we call the Common and Internal Sense It is sure that they do not make the Relaxation of the Muscles and of the Nerves which cause the Tympanum to be relaxed with all the Nerves which serve to Hearing and the Optick Nerves which serve to the Sight from whence Sleep comes That they do not cause Fevers the Stone the Gout the Cholique the Bloody-Flux Palsies Obstructions Apoplexies and Diseases in general Our Souls do nothing of all this these are the Acts of the Body or its Alterations and its Passions for altho' the Perception and the Sentiments of the Soul do accompany some one of these Effects she feels and perceives them in such a manner that she perceives at the same time that they go before and precede her Sentiments and her Perception and that being so she doth not at all Cause them Much better doth she perceive that she hath Essentially the Empire over every thing that she doth and that she hath none at all over all these things That our Souls do not Operate out of themselves but by Will and cause not in Us neither Heat nor Digestion nor any Corporeal Effect There are some who conceive our Souls as the Physical and Immediate Causes of that Heat for Example which Concocts and Digests the Meat in our Stomach and which keeps in our Blood that degree of ardor and quickness which is necessary to the end that it may spread abroad the Nourishment and maintain Motion in all the Body They conceive the Soul of Man as having formally the Vegetable Faculty which nourishes and which causes the Body to increase by the which as Thomas Aquinas says we are rather Plants than Men And this is what they express by that common manner of Speaking when they say that our Souls are not only Reasonable but Vegetable or Vegetating But as we ought not to conceive or say any thing of our Souls but that which we find included and contain'd in the Idea and Notion which give us the Sentiment which we have of them and that this is a certain sure Rule by which we ought to guide our Opinions and our Judgments Not to Judge but according to our Light not finding at all in that Idea of our Soul which gives us that intimate Sentiment which we have of it that our Soul hath any such Vertue to do it Immediately and notwithstanding any other Vertue and Faculty that she may have for it we do not at all believe that it ought to be attributed to her We experience in our Soul no other Power nor no other Vertue upon Body than that of being able to move that Structure of Bone of Flesh and of Nerves which we call our Body and thereby other Bodies to which we do apply it So likewise she hath not the Power to make and determine all the Motions of the Body She can do nothing and she doth nothing as hath been already said
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
raised up by Courage and how we are depressed by Fear and Despair but it suffices to say in general for the end of the Design of this Essay That the Soul suffers these divers Agitations according to the Images of Sensible Good which are diversly Engraved in our Brain and in those Parts of it where is the Seat and the Organ of that which we call the Internal Sense or Common Sense and Imagination three Names to signifie one and the same thing This ought to make Us comprehend how we ought to watch over our selves for to keep our Imaginations pure by the usage of Mortification by the frequent Suspension from the commerce of the World and by the practice of Retirement of holy Reading and of Meditation And how we ought to fear the deadly Poysons of Pleasure which add by their usage a new Concupiscence besides that of Nature and that of the Punishment and the Curse of God Acts of Conscience You see here once more what Concupiscence is in Us and the Passions We do too much experience their Acts and we cannot likewise but perceive in us Acts of Conscience and of Reason contrary to those of Concupiscence and of Passion Concupiscence or the Sensitive and Material Appetite never Reigns so in us but that the Rational Appetite doth in some measure oppose its Dominations The Love of Good in general doth not so suffer it self to be carried away to the side of Sensible Good but that there remains some Activity and some force in it to drive the Soul to the side of Spiritual and Rational Good Conscience and Reason shine always a little in the midst of the greatest darknesses of disorder and corruption Spiritual and Rational Celestial and Eternal Good make an Interview one with the other and the Soul always remains sensible of it She takes pleasure in it as St. Paul says Then even when she is enticed away by Sensible Love The Law of the Spirit doth always a little contradict that of the Flesh This is an Eternal Combate and from thence came the Acts of Conscience and of Reason which are always seen in Us sensibly as well as those of Concupiscence and of Passion to serve for a witness to God and for the Justifications of his Judgments CHAP. XV. Confused Idea's or Sentiments and clear and distinct Idea's or Notions VVE observe in Us in the sixth place The Acts of a confused Idea or of pure Sentiment without any distinct Image of the Object which determines them and Acts of distinct Idea's For there are Things which we do not know but by a Sentiment or an Idea confused and there are some who speak thus and give the Name of a confused Idea to Acts of pure Sentiment and we must give leave to every one to speak as he pleases and accommodate our selves to the relish of all the World when it doth not embroil or confound any thing as this here There are Things then which we do not know but after this manner and such are all the Sensible Qualities of Bodies for we know not either Light or Savor nor Odor Sound or Color at least by the Acts by which we perceive them but by pure Sentiment without any neat Idea We are able well enough to attain by reasoning to Form in us a neat and distinct Idea of all those Things on the Parts of the Objects which determin in us the lively Sentiment thereof which Sentiment penetrates and affects us intimately at their presence For Example We are well able to convince our selves by many Reflections that it is nothing but Light according as it is diversly reflected and modified which causes the Sentiments of the diversity of Color which we have We may convince our selves that as it is nothing but the division of the Flesh and the Fibres that is the immediate Object of Pain when a Thorn pricks us so it is nothing also but a gentle Titillation of the Tongue and Palate that is the immediate Object of the Sentiment of Savor But the Idea which we make to our selves by our Reasoning and by our Reflection is quite another thing so is that which gives us the Impression of the Object by the Act which we call Sentiment It is certain that our Sensations do not by themselves give us the Idea of any of their Objects We perceive White Black Light Heat Cold Bitter Sweet without knowing what White is or Black Light Heat Cold Bitter or Sweet but only that we perceive them after such and such a manner which we are not able to make others comprehend who never perceived them On the contrary we have Acts of a near Idea and of a clear and distinct Image by the which we are able to make those comprehend that which we know and perceive who never did perceive any thing of the like For this is the difference of Knowledges by Idea and of Knowledges by Sentiment Strive for Example To make a Man who never felt Pain to comprehend what Pain is We may say the same of Pleasure of White of Black of Green of Yellow of Sweet of Bitter of Heat and Cold You shall Reason to all Eternity before you shall be ever able to make that confused Idea which you have of those things after your Sentiments to pass into the Spirit of any Man though of the most easie and most ready Conception but for the Things which we know by clear Idea as all those Things which we imagine or which we conceive by pure Intellection so soon as we have conceived the Idea of them we are able to Communicate them to others and Instruct them of it For Example We have seen a Square or Triangle a Man a Beast a House because it is by neat and distinct Idea's that we have seen these things we are able to describe them to Paint them to make them be comprehended as we have conceived them either by Imagination or by Intellection This is therefore a most remarkable difference of our Operations That we have Knowledges by Idea either of Imagination or of Intellection and Knowledges by pure Sentiment or confused Idea Upon which there is this to be observed That these last are indubitably the Modification of the Soul which she receives from Him who exercises in her that Empire of which we have so often spoken by the which she is Advertised of that which is good for or hurtful to the conservation of the Body by pure Instinct without being properly instructed or enlightned from the Nature and the Essence of the Things upon whose occasion she receives them He that keeps the Souls united to Bodies could have been able to dispose of the Soul for the conservation of the Body if he had been contented for Example to give them by Idea the distinct Knowledge of the disranging of the Fibres which is caused by that excessive Action of Heat which is called Burning and yet the Souls would have been far from being that way disposed to be
affectionated for the conservation of the Body they would rather often times have made use of that Knowledge to suffer It to be destroyed and to deliver themselves from their Servitude if there had not been a Pain that is to say an afflicting Modification in the Soul annexed to that Alteration and that disranging of the Conjunction and of the legimitate Situation of the Fibres which compose the Flesh and the Nerves This here is the Secret and the Mystery of confused Operations and Knowledges or of pure Sentiments This is the Ligament of the Soul and the Body The Secret which the Creator hath found to associate the two Natures The Soul would never have been willing to apply the Body to the Act of Eating if the Sensible Modification of Pleasure which God gives the Soul upon the occasion of Eating had not been annexed to the Titillation of the Fibres of the Tongue and of the Palate which is caused by Salts and the Juices of Meats which insinuate themselves therein and moisten them It hath pleased him who hath thought fit to keep us in this Trial of Body to sweeten to us the Prison of it and it is by these Sensible Modifications he principally doth it There are a hundred kinds of them and there 's no doubt but God can multiply them yet more if he pleases as well those that are delightful as those that are afflicting and dolorous and it is certain that though we have them not now but upon the occasion of the Body yet they are independent of the Body and God can send them into Souls separated from the Body and into the Angels if he pleases altho' we do not know that he causes it in the Angels but when he punishes the Rebellious ones in Hell who are effectively burnt not by an Action of Fire which alters their Substances for that is impossible but by the Almighty Action of God who upon the occasion of material Fire destined to Act upon the Bodies of Men doth imprint upon them that Pain which we resent upon the occasion of Fire and which we call the Pain of Burning Moreover these Modifications of the Soul which render it certain of the good or ill Qualities of the Body not instructed knowing nor enlightned from their Composition are divers in the Sentiments which they give of themselves but all alike and all the same in the Genus and Species of Modification in as much as there are certain Passions of the Soul which intimately affect penetrate and modifie it These have all of them this in common that they have indeed an Object out of the Soul but that this Object is only an Object of Determination or of Occasion not an Object of Representation which they express and represent for the Heat and the Cold that we feel have not as we have already said any thing like them as far as we conceive out of us And that Modification wherewith we are intimately affected when we say we are Hot or Cold is no ways the Image and Representation of that which is in the Organ affected by the external Object or in the external Object it self This is not an Idea this is a pure Sentiment This is not a Representation which the Soul makes to it self but a certain Modification or Passion so determined as that she is affected against her Will that she hath it And we must say the same thing of Green and of Yellow of Bitter and of Sweet as of Hot and Cold There is indeed something far out of the Soul which otherwise affects the Retina or the Organ of Sight in that which is called Green than in that which is called Yellow But the Sentiment of Green and of Yellow have not any thing which represents that which is in the Object upon the occasion whereof we have it There is no Likeness betwixt the Green wholly Spiritual which I have in Me by my Sentiment and that material Green which is out of Me in the Object called Green CHAP. XVI Acts of Imagination and Acts of Intellection Libertinism and Heresie VVE have in the seventh place Knowledges of Imagination and Knowledges of Intellection of which it hath been so often spoken of but we must not fail to observe the difference of them because that one of the fruitful Principles of our Errors is to confound Objects Imaginable with Objects Intelligible or to apply the Imagination where we ought to make use only of the Intellection and to make use of the Intellection where we ought to employ the Imagination To desire to know by Imagination that which cannot be known but by Intellection is the Principle of the Essential Errors of Libertinism of Impiety and of Irreligion For thereby it is that there are some who are ignorant of God of Spirits of the Immortality and Spirituality of the Soul of Eternity of Paradise because not at all distinguishing the Intellection from the Imagination and not being able to believe things of which they cannot form to themselves the Idea they fancy that they cannot have an Idea but of things which they can Imagine or conceive with a Corporeal Image which represents some Bigness or Figure They believe that Figure and Extension are the Essential Attributes of things Real so that not being able to form to themselves any Corporeal Image of God of Spirits of Spiritual Souls of Paradise and of Eternity they fall into the Unhappiness of Libertinism and Incredulity whereas if they gave attention that there are things purely Intelligible which cannot be the Object of the Imagination as not being able to be conceiv'd under any Bulk and any Figure or Corporeal or Material Form but what ought to be conceiv'd by pure Intellection they will conceive the Idea of all those things at least a feeble and imperfect one And if this be the Principle of the Essential Errors against Religion To desire to know all by Imagination To desire to Explain and to know by Intellection the Visible and Corporeal Nature is a Principle of the Errors of Philosophy which reduces the Explication of Corporeal Nature to idle and abstracted Terms of Forms and of Qualities without descending to a more particular Examination of the Composition of Bodies which we call Mixt which are made of the Assembly of the Elements For as not being willing to comprehend and know things Spiritual but by the Imagination we must of necessity be ignorant of them so not being willing to Explain Corporeal things but by Idea's Intelligible we leave them eternally in those empty and abstracted Terms which give not any particular and distinct Idea of them It is of Importance therefore to Remark this Division of our Knowledges of Intellection and of our Knowledges of Imagination The Difference is That the One depends altogether upon the Body that is to say The Knowledge by Imagination which is not in Us but from the occasion of a certain Disposition of the Brain and of a certain Retracement of the
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
soon as their Union with the Body ceaseth they begin to be nowhere but in God only because they have no more Relation but with God only there is nothing of an Intervention there is no more of a Partitionary Occasion and Condition between God and the Soul which determines or suspends the Influence of his Divine Action in us and by which we receive all the Idea's and all the Sentiments that we have CHAP. IV. What this Immediate Union is which our Souls have with God when they go out of the Body which makes us say that they go to God THUS it is that we ought to Conceive the Place where our Souls Are after they are gone out of the Body We must Conceive that they Are in God not only as S. Augustin saith as the World is in God For saith he you must Answer to him who shall Ask you where the World is That it is in God since there is no other Place out of the World where the World can be and since it is God alone who penetrates and environs it by the Immensity of his Operation but because Spirits have no other Place than their Relation of Dependence and Activity and that after the going out of the Body our Souls do no more depend either upon any Corporeal Nature or upon any Spiritual Nature which ought to be the Occasion or Condition of the Idea's with which they ought to be Enlightned or of the Sentiments with which they ought to be Affected but immediately from God only who gives them as he pleases to them It is God therefore who immediately Enlightens them it is God immediately who without being Determined by any thing Exterior Determines all the Sentiments which they have This is it which makes us evidently see the necessary Consequence and Connexion of the incontestable Principles which have been hitherto Establish'd for we must say nothing of our Souls nor of any Matter whatsoever but that which we know of it by a Certain Light And as we have no such Light by which we can judge that our Souls when they go out from the Dependence upon the Body ought to enter into another Servitude and another sort of Dependence upon any Created Nature so we have not any Reason to Conceive any other Relation of Dependence in our Souls which they ought to have when they are gone out of the Body than that which they have Essentially with God and by consequence we ought to say in Terms purely Natural That it is in God only that our Souls Are that moment that they go out of the Body We say it by the only Lights of Reason and we ought extreamly to rejoyce that Philosophy is agreed here with the Divine Word which gives us entirely the same Idea This Notion of the Immediate Union of our Souls with God Establish'd and Prov'd by Scripture For besides that the Scripture saith we return to God and into God it saith expresly also That our Habitation shall not be after this Life in Houses made with Hands or in Corporeal Spaces for this is what St. Paul means when he calleth it Domum non manufactam à Deo aeternam He tells us That there will be no more Sun and Moon which we might have need of because the Brightness of God will Enlighten us Civitas non eget Sole neque Luna ut luceant in ea nam Claritas Dei illuminabit eam Nox non erit illic non egebunt lumine lucernae neque lumine Solis quoniam Dominus Deus illuminabit illos It saith That after this Life we shall dwell with God and God with us Ecce Tabernaculum Dei cum hominibus habitabit cum eis It is very full of these sorts of Expressions and if we will reduce them to neat Idea's we shall find that they mean nothing else than what we have said That after the going out of our Bodies there is no more any thing betwixt God and our Souls to suspend or to diminish the Essential Union of them or to be the Occasional Cause of his Operation and of his Influence in Us but that it is only He immediately who determins our Thoughts our Idea's and all the Essential Acts of our New Life for this is what St. John means when he saith That in this New Life and New Estate after our Death it is God himself who shall Enlighten Us without our having any need either of the Sun or the Moon or of any other sort of Light which is at present but the Occasional Cause of his Illumination by which we See How we must understand That Holy Souls Ascend into Heaven and Criminal Souls Descend into Hell We must therefore conceive our Souls to be united immediately to God that moment that they go out of the Body and we must cut off all the Idea of any Corporeal Place in which we might conceive them to be after the fashion of Bodies For when the Scripture makes us conceive That the Saints are carried up into Heaven before the Corporeal Resurrection after which there will be a real Local Transportation of Bodies it would only make us conceive That God who Unites these Holy Souls to Jesus Christ and to His Glory makes himself and all Heaven wherein he Reigns to be as present to them as the Objects which we now see feel and perceive more nearly are at present to Us. We should very illy conceive Heaven wherein Jesus Christ Reigns in Body and in Soul if we should conceive it as including and containing God and discovering and manifesting Him to the Saints we must on the contrary saith St. Augustin Conceive Heaven and Jesus Christ also to be in God who contains All and who is contained of Nothing who manifests and discovers All and whom Nothing neither manifests nor discovers and Holy Souls are not in Heaven but in as much as they are in God in whom and by whom they are united and present to Heaven and to Jesus Christ by the lively and distinct Idea which they have of His glorious Presence like to those Idea's which the most present Objects give Us by their immediate Impression by which they strike our Senses For we must not go about to imagine That they are in Heaven by any sort of Extension or Corporeal Dimension and Local Circumscription after the manner of Bodies How the Souls of the Wicked are in God And we must Reason after the same manner concerning the Souls of the Wicked They are most really in Hell but this is because they are in God who fastens them there and unites them to the Fire of his Wrath as He doth the Souls of the Just to Jesus Christ and to that part of the Heavens where He Reigns There is indeed this great Difference That the Immediate Union which is between the Souls of the Just and God is an Union of Love of Tenderness and of Favour or good Liking and the Immediate Union which is between God and the
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
himself and by which he Enlightens us in the Body and out of the Body by all the Idea's which he gives us There is the Wisdom which being once Incarnate by a Personal Union with a singular Humanity to be the Light of the World is Incarnated in some manner a thousand and a thousand times every moment by a Transient and Accidental Union with all Created Spirits to be their Actual Light This is that Eternal and Universal Idea from whence do spring all the particular Idea's which Enlighten us and it is certain that the Souls see either in it or by it for I will not here decide this Point all that which they see and all that which they know either in their present State of Union with the Body or in that of their Liberty and Separation from the Body And this lively and Eternal Idea from whence all the rest do arise serves instead of Memory and Species to Souls separated and disengag'd from Body for all that which we would that they should Recollect The Acts of Intellection Since the Souls have out of the Body the Exercise of the Faculties of Perceiving of Imagining and of Recollecting which they do not Exercise here but dependent upon the Body there is no doubt but that they Exercise by a greater Reason the Acts of the Inorganick Faculties Thus we may say without difficulty That they compare one thing with another That they conceive the Nature of Bodies by pure Intellection That thty form Universal Notions That they draw Consequences from thence That they Extend their Knowledge of Intellection I say Intellection for as to those Idea's whether confus'd or distinct which appertain to the Passive Faculty of the Soul whether Sensitive or Imaginative the Soul cannot Extend them or Augment them of her self either in the Body or out of the Body She hath no more as to that than what she receives but as to the Knowledge of Intellection it is certain That the Soul can perpetually Extend them Encrease them and Augment them in the Body and out of the Body I do not at all doubt but that Holy Souls have an Ineffable Pleasure in perpetually Extending their Knowledge of Intellection by Consequences and Lights always New which they draw from their Light and their Knowledge already acquir'd They always find something to discover in the Immense Spaces of Truth They always find something to be Enlightned of the Perfection of the Supream Essence which they always see All-entire and All expos'd to their Eyes and which they never know so perfectly but that there always remains something to be known and discover'd It is a Sea of which they can never sound the Bottom and in which they always make a Progress They always Drink of this Eternal and lively Spring and they are always Thirsty They Drain from thence every moment by a full and entire Knowledge of the Intuitive Vision but they always find it full and inexhaustible to Reason and Intellection They always find something to be known in the Foundation of its infinite Incomprehensibility and they do there always know something that 's New and something yet to be known The Reprobate Souls do also find by the Exercise of their Reasonings a thousand and a thousand new Despairs in their State of Reprobation and Misery The Prophets say that they always remain awake to the end that they may see always Evigilabunt ut videant semper and that do's well enough express the Exercise of the Active Faculty in unhappy Souls After having given an Account of the Perceptive Faculties we ought to take care to know how the Appetitive Faculties are out of the Body We are able to say in a very few words all that one can wish to know thereof and all that can certainly be decided of them CHAP. XII How the Will is in Just Souls and in those that are Reprobate THE Will which is that invincible and insurmountable Movement which pusheth on All-knowing Natures towards Good Is without doubt and Operates perpetually in Just Souls and in Reprobated Souls but it Is there and it Operates there very diversly The Just Souls have found the Good they sought They are arriv'd to the Term which they have so long pursu'd They embrace it They possess it They lose themselves They plunge themselves They drown themselves and They ingulph themselves in it They are arriv'd to the Place of their Repose to the Center of their Desires to the Port of their Wishes They have nothing more to follow or to search after In this fortunate State they possess and they taste with an inexplicable Tranquillity and an incomprehensible Satiety the Sovereign Good They are contented they are at quiet But this Tranquillity and this Satiety do's not lull them asleep nor ever cloy them The Will satisfi'd and arriv'd to its Term do's not cease proceeding on always It Operates and stirs up it self eternally in a most happy Repose These Holy Souls are always satiated and always a Hungry always at quiet and always stirr'd up They Will and Desire always that which they have they would always have more of it and being intimately and immediately united to the Sovereign Good and to all his Joys they are always still vehemently desirous of being more united to it Thus the Will hath its Exercise in Holy Souls and it hath it in all its Perfection without any of the Imperfections to which it is at present subject It is no more floting and wavering between the false Images of Good which the Imagination and the Senses present to it in the present State and between the true and solid Goods which Instinct and Reason which Philosophy and Religion propose to it It is happily drawn in by the Evidence or to say better by the presence and enjoyments of the Sovereign Good That kind of Liberty of being able to ballance it self between true and false Goods which we so illy conceive as a great perfection of Liberty in Man is an Imperfection which the Will is delivered from It cannot be turned aside by any Image of false Goods which do now in so deadly a manner turn aside our Wills it is a Repose an Acquiescency and an Eternal Satiating of the Soul in God and in the Assemblage of all the Goods which it finds in God which do not at all leave it the liberty of loving false Goods This is a perpetual Attraction always insurmountable and invincible This is a Charm always Almighty and a strong and robust Chain by which God draws them carries them away by force and fastens them to his Sovereign Beauty and to his Sovereign Delights The Will in the Reprobate Souls It is not at all after the same manner with Reprobate Souls The Will it is true remains in them They conserve that Movement which draws all Created Spirits and even the Increated towards Good for the Will is also in God but it is not in Him as the love of Good is in us but
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
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
which is done in it self whereas the Unknowing Nature which we perceive in that part of us which we call Body neither hath nor can ever have the Certainty and Perception Sentiment or Idea either of it self or of any thing else either within it or without it Of such a Nature are for Example Marble Gold Diamond Wood Plaister Wax and generally all Bodies which can never have the Perception and Certainty either of their own Existence or of the Impressions which are made upon them by the Seal or the Saw the Chizel or the Crucible the Hammer or the Mallet A Looking-glass may serve for a very sensible Example to give a lively and neat Idea of the difference of Natures that are Knowing and of Natures Not-knowing For the Looking-glass receives in it the Image of the Body which is oppos'd to it and which is plac'd before it for this Image which is receiv'd in the Looking-glass for it must needs be receiv'd there since we see it there and since it reflects it upon the Eyes of all those who regard it gives no certainty at all of the Sentiment and Idea of it self to the Glass The Looking-glass hath the Impression of this Image as Wax hath the Impression of the Seal but the Looking-glass neither feels nor perceives this Image which is imprinted on it any more than the Wax doth the Seal and in that lies the Character of all Material things and all Corporeal Natures As Knowing things have essentially an Idea or an intimate certainty and Experience of themselves and of what is done in them so Unknowing and Corporeal Natures on the contrary essentially never have them This is that which we call to Know and to be a Knowing Nature as we are and nothing is clear and certain in the World if a Knowing Nature taken in this sense be not a Spiritual Nature and which can have nothing that is Corporeal and is necessarily distinct from all Body Nothing is clear if this is not for besides that the Act of Knowing is undoubtedly Spiritual and Immaterial it being impossible to conceive it under a Corporeal Form because it hath neither Figure Bulk nor Colour and an Act essentially Spiritual cannot proceed but from a Principle purely Spiritual It is impossible for one to frame to himself another Idea or another Notion of a Spiritual Nature than that of a Nature that is Knowing or that hath for its Ground and Basis the Faculty or Vertue of Knowing It is impossible to have a Notion of a Spiritual Nature that doth not include Knowledge in it or which hath it not for its Basis and Foundation And when we have conceived a Knowing Nature we have essentially conceiv'd a Nature that is Spiritual Let one take away and cut off all that one will let one despoil a Nature of all other Attributes and of all other Notions yet if we conceive it to be Knowing we have conceiv'd it to be a Spirit And let a Man assemble all that he pleases and accumulate as many Notions as he is able to conceive or imagine yet unless he places a Knowledge there he will never conceive a Spirit which is an evident conviction that an Idea of a Spiritual Nature is no other than an Idea of a Knowing Nature that is to say That a Spiritual Nature and a Knowing Nature are but one and the same thing It is effectually but one and the same thing as Corporeal Nature and Nature extended or capable of Extension are but one and the same For it is a certain Rule Where the Notions and the Idea's are the same the Things must be the same also Corporeal Nature for Example and Nature extended or capable of extension are the same thing because when we conceive Corporeal Nature we conceive a Nature which is the Basis of Length Breadth and Thickness and by consequence susceptible of Figure Colour and Motion Now so it is that it is entirely after the same manner with a Nature Knowing such as it is in Us which is that only of which we have the Idea and with a Spiritual and an Immaterial Nature the Names are different but the Notions and Idea's are the same When I conceive the Knowing Nature that is in Us I conceive a Nature which hath a Certainty of it self and of that which is done in it either by a lively and distinct Idea or by a Sentiment confused though inward and penetrating And when I conceive a Spiritual Nature I find nothing real and positive in my Idea but the same thing that is a Nature whose Property it is to be able to have an Idea or Certainty of it self and of that which shall be done in it For when I conceive a spiritual Nature and that I examine my Conception and my Idea to see what they contain I find nothing positive and effective precisely but that I defie even all the Men of the World to give me another Idea of a spiritual Nature which expresses something that is positive and real for it is of an Idea and Notion positive not of an Idea of negation by which some define a Spirit which I am speaking of here for to conceive of things by Negations is not to conceive what they are but what they are not and to conceive a Spirit for Example as some do by Negation and exclusion of Visibility and Extension this is not to conceive a Spirit but to conceive that a Spirit excludes Extension from its Nature and to comprehend not what it is but what it is not to wit that it is not a Body I speak therefore of a positive Notion and I say that it is is impossible to give of it or conceive of it any other by which a Man may define and conceive a Spirit than thus of that Knowing Nature which we find and which we know to be in us A Spiritual and a Knowing Nature then are but one and the same thing and the Knowing and the Corporeal are undoubtedly two things for as we acknowledge that a Man is not a Lion that a Triangle is not a Square that White is not Black that Bitter is different from Sweet and Heat from Cold because we experiment that the Idea's and the Notions of them are altogether different and diverse so we must by this infallible Rule acknowledge that the Knowing Part in Us is not at all the Corporeal part because White is not more sensibly distinct from Black by its Idea than the Knowing Nature which we find and perceive so undoubtedly in Us is distinct from Corporeal Nature since it is certain that there is nothing of that which we know of Corporeal Nature in that Intelligent or Knowing Nature which we perceive in us and nothing of that Intelligent Nature in the Corporeal Nature but the common Notion of Nature as the common Notion of Colour is found in White and in Black But if the distinction of our Knowing Nature and of our Corporeal Nature be so well setled by
two sorts of Sensation We have shewn that there is nothing precisely but the same Soul which reasons and speculates the most abstracted Objects and which at the same time is sensible of Heat and Cold Bitter and Sweet We have shewn that nothing is more contradictory and chimerical than to maintain That the Perception of Heat and Cold of Sweet and Bitter of White and Black and generally of every thing which Men call Sensible Qualities is a corporeal Act in the Soul and that the Act of Speculating Intelligible Objects and Universal Notions is a Spiritual Act there being nothing more monstrous than to conceive in a Subject undoubtedly Spiritual this Medley of Spiritual and Corporeal Acts. We have shewn that all Knowledge doth belong to the Soul and that the Body is incapable of having any Certainty or any Idea either of it self or of that which is done in it These are no more Philosophers which we have to combate withal upon this Subject these are none but Atheists and Libertines Fools and Brute Beasts who cannot maintain the Combate because as hath been said they are disarm'd by themselves and forc'd to confess that nothing is more impossible than to conceive That a Body Thinks Reasons Deliberates and Reflects There cannot be in effect a Paradox more enormous there cannot be a greater Contradiction there cannot be a Thought more monstrous than to say That a Body Knows It is as if one should say that a Thought is Green or Yellow that the Act of Reasoning is Cold or Hot that an Abstraction of Metaphysical Speculation is Square or Eight-corner'd as if one should make Birds to fly in the Sea and Elephants in the Air as if one should place Ice in the Fire and the Sweetness of Sugar or Honey in Wormwood or Gall. This is to unnature things this is to mingle subvert and confound every thing this is to bring Heaven and Earth together this is to embroil all the Universe this is to destroy all neat Ideas this is to take away and abolish the Distinction of Things this is to re-plunge the World into its first Chaos and into the first Darkness which cover'd it before the Light which enlightens it had made visible the Distinction and Diversity of its Parts We need not wonder that Libertines are willing to confound the Ideas of Body and Spirit It is the Genius of that frenetick Fury of Libertinism and Debauchery which carries them on not to be able to suffer the Light which manifests these Disorders They represent to us in History furious Men beginning by extinguishing Flambeaus by shunning the Day and the Light as it were to conceal the horror of their Rage and Fury under the horror of Night and Darkness but these by their good will would destroy the Light of Distinction of a Part that knows and a Part that do's not know Thanks to the most constant and to the most indubitable of all Experiences wee feel it we touch it we see it they cannot make us doubt but that there is in Us a thing that Knows and a thing that do's not Know and since We have seen that That which Knows is of a Spiritual Nature it is impossible for Us to doubt but that we have in us a Part that is Spiritual This Spiritual Part is our Soul for it is this Knowing Part that we call the Soul We do not only perceive that it is distinct from the Body but we perceive that it hath an Infinite Nobleness above the Body It hath not any Bulk nor any Extension it is a Being wholly Indivisible and yet in the mean time it contains and embraces the whole Universe It is a Nature Singular Determin'd and Individual and it is all the Natures Heaven Earth the Sea Trees Birds all that is seen in the World by a lively Expression which it makes of them in it self or which it receives Intelligendo fit Omnia All things are made by Understanding This is very much that this Knowing Part which we experience in Us hath by this Perfection of its Knowing Faculty that Species of Immensity by which we see it lodge as it were in its Bosom the Heavens the Earth and the Seas and to contain all the Universe and that admirable Power and Efficacy of transforming it self into all sorts of Natures and of becoming every thing it knows and conceives by the lively and animated Expression which it makes thereof in it self But its Grandeur is not shut up in that alone its Nobility appears yet more in its immense and infinite Capacity of Reasoning and extends its Knowledge and its Light upon all sorts of Objects and all sorts of Truths For whether it be that it is its essential Property as a Spiritual and Reasonable Nature and the Act of Reason to see into things whereby is made known to it all the Relations which they have and which Truth doth or whether it is God who over and above the Idea which He gives of things causes it moreover to see the Relation of them in the Eternal Idea which he hath of them I will not go about to decide here God sees nothing but what the Soul of Man may see if it pleases him to enlighten it and when he hath once enlightned it it can go of it self by its Faculty of Reasoning to a thousand and a thousand new Truths which it discovers by its proper Speculation It Contemplates the Eternal Order and reads in that Uncreated Light all the Rules of Duties It sees all the Proportions and Disproportions of things it hath no limits to its Knowledge It can know God and can plunge it self into the Abyss of his Perfections and his Mysteries it can even enjoy all his Delights and with him partake of his Felicity We find that it is sensible of a thousand Pleasures even in this Estate of Trial and Combat where it is kept in this Valley of Tears and this Earthly Inheritance of Thorns It is susceptible of a thousand sorts of agreeable Sentiments even in its present Estate by the which it is penetrated and fill'd with true and ineffable Felicity We must not believe that this Sensibility or this Capacity of feeling Pleasure is limited to those Pleasures only which we experience at present As its Knowledge by Idea's and by Lights is not bounded and limited to the Idea's which it hath at present since it is certain that we may be enlightned with a thousand sorts of new Idea's which now we have not so its Knowledge or the Faculty of Knowing by Perception is in the same manner infinite and without bounds This which at present gives us by the occasion of the Body a thousand several agreeable Sentiments with which we feel our selves so sweetly penetrated will be able always to give us new ones and greater during all Eternity These at present are Tastes of Felicity which we are made to feel and taste which ought to make us comprehend by these Foretastes what kind of
fear of Punishments when they have the Power in their Hands but it is remarkable That Men who make Laws and can make themselves be obey'd cannot make themselves believe but that when they only make unjust and tyrannical Laws People only pay an exterior Obedience to their Commands but the Heart and Spirit cries out and demands Justice from Him whom all Men naturally feel over their Heads as a Protector of Justice and an Avenger of Oppression and unjust Authority We receive unjust Laws but we do not believe them just for all that But as to the natural Laws of Duty and Conscience all Men receive them and believe them by an invincible determination of a superior Light which equally perswades them alike And this is the infallible Character of natural Idea and Light for there is none but the natural Light that convinces us with that invincible force Conscience is then in us undoubtedly natural And as certain as it is an essential Companion of our Nature and a Propriety inseparable from our Soul from whence arise in us by the help of Grace all Moral and Christian Vertues so certain it is that our Souls are Spiritual Natures because it is impossible to conceive that a Corporeal Nature can be the Subject of Magnanimity of Justice of Fidelity of Continence and of Truth and that a Corporeal Nature can have either the Light of Order and of Duty or the Inclination or the Determination of Duty or the Pleasure of the performance and the Pain of the violation of Duty Duty Order Justice have no Bodies they are things totally Spiritual and Intelligible how then can a Body or a Corporeal Nature have the Idea or the Sentiment of them Moreover this Light of Order and Duty which enlightens us and which pierces us and which we feel ingrafted and as it were pour'd into our Soul is not the Idea or the Rule of one single Duty it is the Idea and the Rule of all our Actions and by consequence of a thousand sorts of Duties so this is further a Certainty and an infallible Character of its Spirituality For how can a Material and Corporeal thing be the Rule of so many diverse Actions and so many different Duties The only Name of Ruling Human Actions imports essentially the Idea of Spirituality For with all my heart let a Man make a Rule a Square and a Compass of Gold of Steel and of what Matter he will to measure out a Building or the Compartments of a Garden or of a Walk but how can one conceive a Corporeal Rule let it be made of what Matter soever we can imagine which can be proper to compass and put into order and set to rights Human Actions The Rule is then indubitably Spiritual and if this Rule is Spiritual if this Idea of Duty which enlightens us cannot be Corporeal our Soul who is the Subject wherein it resides cannot but be a Spiritual Nature because it is as impossible to conceive that a thing Spiritual can be within a Material Subject as that a Material thing can be within a Spiritual Subject It is infallible That every thing that do's Spiritual Acts is Spiritual and that every thing that is the Basis and the Subject of Spiritual Proprieties and Faculties is all of it likewise Spiritual because it is impossible that a Corporeal Principle should produce Spiritual Acts and that a Material Subject should be the Seat of a Spiritual Attribute or of an Immaterial Perfection And this is it which ought to put a full end to the Conviction which we have of our Spiritual and Immortal Nature in our principal Part which we call our Soul since it is certain our Soul is not only the Principle of a thousand sorts of Spiritual Acts for every thing that is call'd Willing Thinking Reflecting Judging is essentially a Spiritual Act because it is impossible to conceive either Knowledge or Will or Desire and the Act of Willing under a Corporeal Image but the Subject of a thousand Perfections all Immaterial and Spiritual if it were not but the Conscience alone which assisted by Grace is in us the living Source and the Seat of Justice of Fidelity of Gratitude of Friendship of Constancy of Magnanimity of Truth of Uprightness of Incorruptibility of an hundred sorts of Moral Vertues and of an hundred sorts of Christian Vertues more Excellent than the Moral ones of Humility of Continence of Despising Misprising the World of continual Union with God of the Ardor of Eternity of Mortification and of Self-denial of an hundred such like Dispositions all Celestial and all Divine which can have neither for Principle nor for Subject a Nature that is Corporeal CHAP. XV. That our Souls are indubitably Immortal by a Certainty that the Sentiment of the Conscience gives us thereof SUCH is the Certainty which we have by the Sentiment of Conscience of our Spiritual Nature and this so indelible Sentiment of Conscience which we all of us naturally have is not only an indubitable Argument and Assurance of the Spiritual Nature of our Souls but it gives us also more sensibly if we will unstaggering Certainty of our Immortal Condition because it gives us Essentially by way of Instinct the Sentiment of a Justice which ought to be exercis'd over them by an Eternal Power after the going out of this Life which Essentially imports the Idea of a new and an Everlasting Life of which an Eternal Principle of Order and Justice ought to determine the manner according as we shall be found to have done well or ill and according as we shall be found worthy of Punishment or Recompence in the Ballance of the Supreme Justice and Holiness We have already observ'd That the Instincts of Nature are never false and that they have always some real Object and if there were nothing else but that alone we would not doubt but that there is for our Souls a new and an Everlasting Life after this Present Life since the Instinct that Câ—â—science hath in our Souls of that Justice which ought to be exercis'd upon them after Death is the most clear and the most indubitable Instinct that is in all Nature But independently of that Infallibility of the Instinct the Idea of the Supreme Being which we find in Us by the Sentiment of Conscience with a Resentiment so lively and so penetrating and at the same time so certain and so ineffaceable under the Idea of an Eternal and Sovereign Justice which ought to punish the Ill and recompense the Good doth infer so necessarily that of an Eternal Power infinitely clear and vigilant which watches over the Lives of Men to observe the Good and the Evil of them that seeing as we see that it do's not punish nor recompense in this Life all the Goods and all the Ills it is impossible for us to suspend our Belief but that it ought to exercise after Death its Punishments and Rewards in the so Incorruptible and Immortal Grounds of our Souls
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
nor of the Foundation of the Soul of that Nature so Celestial and so Divine whereof every one can sufficiently form to himself an Idea by what hath been said already but let us cast an Eye upon the Attributes and Accidents of the one and of the other What then are the Accidents and the Attributes what are the Goods and the Advantages which the Body supports and sustains or which it is capable to receive and sustain It doth sustain Transitory Riches It doth sustain I know not what Illusion of Beauty and Charms of the Eyes and the Senses for a time It doth sustain I know not what Pleasures which always leave the Soul after they are past troubled and wounded on one part and on the other confus'd and asham'd of it self It sustains I know not what Phantômes of Grandeur and of Temporal Felicity which for a moment surpriseth the Spectators and Those that enjoy them and which at an instant disappear not leaving any Character or Footstep of them but only by the Regrets and the Despairs of the Privation and of the Despoiling whereby the Soul remains as it were dismantled and torn in pieces And on the contrary what Goods and what Advantages doth not the Soul sustain and import in it self What Goods and what Advantages can't she sustain and receive O the rich and precious Basis ô the rich and precious Foundation ô the Noble and August Grounds of Riches of Beauties of Lights and of Felicities Men esteem these Material and Corporeal Riches but what are they in comparison of the Riches wherewith the Soul may be enriched Men esteem the Beauty of the Body which tho' it cover from the Eyes of Men the Filth and stinking Exhalations and the future Food for Worms do's yet discover to the Eyes of God a monstrous Deformity from which he turns his Face and the Infection and the Corruption of a Vanity of a Pride and Self-Idolatry which lies hid in our Souls from whence ariseth that noisom Exhalation whereof St. Augustin speaks which ascends and mounts up even to God But what is all this superficial painted Gaiety and this Illusion of the Eyes to the Price of the Essential Beauty of Vertue and of Grace Men esteem the Felicity of the Body but what signifies all this vain Structure which like the Statue of the Babylonian King's Dream hath no other Basis than a little Earth and Clay upon which the Stone of the Sepulcher was to fall and to demolish and if it may be permitted to say so to shatter it into a thousand pieces what signifies this Chimaera to the Price of a solid and an Eternal Reality of an Immortal Felicity and of an Eternal Grandeur for the Soul to make use of as a Basis to rest it self upon Bodies with all that they sustain will tumble down into their Ruines and return into the Confusion of the common Chaos The Souls see all these Ruines fall by their sides and all these Vicissitudes with all their Ages pass away under their Feet And upon these Grounds or as St. Paul saith upon this Foundation of Eternity the Souls are capable of being reinvested with all the Puissance with all the Grandeur and with all the Felicity of God and to be transform'd as St. August saith as it were into so many little Divinities O then the Grandeur and Nobleness ô the inestimable Price and Merit of the Soul And of which the Divine Redeemer hath Divinely said That it availeth a Man nothing to gain the whole World if he lose his own Soul In Effect the Soul being sav'd All is sav'd and the Soul being lost All is lost After the Soul is lost there remains nothing but an Eternal Foundation of Misery a lamentable Foundation of being depriv'd of all Good and of being replenish'd with all Misery a vast and an infinite Capacity of Grief a Basis of an Immortal Nature and Substance which do's not subsist but to be an Eternal Basis an Immortal Ground and a lamentable Principle of Evils and Despairs Men lose and Men sacrifice the Soul for the Body But besides That in losing the Soul they also necessarily lose the Body for suppose they could save the Body what can it give us in Recompence for the loss of the Soul which is the Ground and the Basis of our Happiness Let the Bodies speak for themselves and let them tell us the Pleasures which they can give us in their Dark Regions after they have made a shipwrack of our Souls But perhaps our Souls having once been lost may be Redeem'd again but who do's not know that with Pain God Redeem'd them once O the inestimable Price ô the Incomprehensible Merit of our Souls which nothing can Redeem from the Everlasting Curse after they shall have been once deliver'd to it From thence easily flows all that Order or Preference which we have said is due to the Soul but as much as the Necessity and the Obligation of this Duty and of this Order of Preference is evident and incontestable so much it is despis'd violated and subverted For who is there that doth Justice to his Soul or to say better Who is there who do's not in a thousand manners every day degrade and dishonor her Who do's not preserve the Body on all Occasions We fear the least Incommodity of the Body but we apprehend not the greatest and the most deadly Diseases of the Soul We fear the Ugliness and the Deformity of the Body tho' it be never so little but we have no horror for the monstrous Disgraces of the Soul How many Women do we see who cannot endure themselves if they have their Breath tainted or hot tho' never so little whose Souls are all afire by the Heats of a thousand sorts of Earthly and Carnal Concupiscence We fear and shun Poverty for the Bodies sake we esteem nothing so much as its Riches but we give our selves no trouble either for the Poverty or the Riches of the Soul How many Christian Ladies do we see who very often appear to be Devout and believe themselves to Be so who would not that there should be the least Corner of their Houses which was not properly Furnish'd and Adorn'd who yet have their Souls all naked and despoil'd of all Grace and Vertue They cause their Walls and their Thresholds to be Gilded but they never labor to Enrich and Deck their Souls with the Beautiful and Divine Colours of Humility Patience Self-denial and Christian Mortification The Soul is undervalu'd and forgotten in general they sacrifice it every moment to the Body and this Order of Preference which is so lawfully due cannot be more subverted But this is not a place to go on with the Invective let us pass unto other Duties The end of the First Part. A MORAL ESSAY Upon the Soul of Man PART II. Of our Duties of Religion and of Morality whether towards God whether towards our Selves whether towards Man and of our Duty of all Gospel-Self-denial
But he hath been pleased to give Us and imprint in Us also continually the Sentiment of our Subjection and Dependence He hath been pleased to make Us see his Sovereign Empire and his Infinite Power with the Character of his Immensity expanded thro' All and thro' All operating by that perpetual Empire which he exercises at the same time in all the parts of the World in making the same Idea's the same Sentiments and the same Passions continually to enter into the Souls of Men at such time as the same Impressions are made in their Brains either by the external Actions of Objects or by the fortuitous Course or the irregular Motion of the Blood of the Spirit and of the Humors If we should seriously reflect upon these two sorts of Operations of Acts Free and of Acts Necessary which we experience in Us as it will be impossible for Us not to know our Spiritual Nature so it will be impossible for Us to be ignorant of our Dependence and we should have the heart as well penetrated with Religious Sentiments with which we ought to be penetrated towards God as the Spirit instructed or enlightned with the clear and indubitable Idea of our Spiritual Nature and of the Essential Union which she hath with God CHAP. XIV Acts of Conscience Acts of Concupiscence Acts of Reason Acts of Passion WE observe in Us in the fifth place Acts of Conscience and Acts of Concupiscence Acts of Reason and Acts of Passion for I am not willing to separate things which do so much resemble one another Conscience is that sensibility of Duty which we have explained and described elsewhere Reason saith and includes more than Conscience for Reason is that Ground of the Superior Light which doth not only Regulate Duties but the Conduit also of all sorts of Affairs Conscience imports Reason every Act of Conscience is an Act of Reason but every Act of Reason is not an Act of Conscience Concupiscence and Passion are almost like Reason and Conscience Every Act of Passion is an Act of Concupiscence but every Act of Concupiscence is not an Act of Passion Concupiscence is the Will enticed to the side of Sensible Objects It is the love of Good in general essentially imprinted in Man and grounded in the Essence of the Soul turn'd out of the way by the Empire of Sense to the side of Sensible Good The Soul loving Good in general and Spiritual and Rational Good in particular conserves the Name of the Will and is otherwise called the Rational Appetite and this same Soul loving Sensible Good is called Concupiscence or the Sensitive and Material Appetite which is in us an Universal Ground of all sorts of Evil Desires and Evil Inclinations and the true Matter of that which we call Passions This love of Sensible Good is called simple Concupiscence when it is not extraordinarily over-heated and set on Fire by the lively Impression of some Object which is that which makes it turn into Passion It is simple Concupiscence when the Brain is not Imprinted with any Corporeal Image that presents to the Soul the lively Idea of some Part or of some kind of sensible Good It is Passion when the Impression of any Object hath caused to spring up in the Soul a more lively and more touching Idea than usually of what kind soever it may be of sensible Good This Corporeal Image retraced in the Brain with Tracks better marked more deep doth dilate the Vessels which make the commerce betwixt the Heart and the Brain it spreads its Rays thro'-out all the Body it diffuses there a Blood more fired and it causes an Universal Motion with a thousand different Characters according to the diversity of the Passion This Ground of Sensibility for sensible Good This Ground of the Appetitive Faculty This Ground of Love of Good in General turned into sensible Love is the Ground of all the Passions of Ambition of Avarice of the love of Pleasures of tender Friendship and not only of the Passions but of all their Acts and of all their divers Estates of their Joys and of their Sorrows of their Hope and of their Fears of every Sentiment of the Soul that is called Passion The Soul is subjected to this misery by the General Law of her Union with the Body to have necessarily a love for every thing that is presented to her under the Idea of a sensible Good or of the Good of the Body and capable of causing her to have agreeable Sentiments This is the General Law of the Union and of the punishment of God since sin which hath diminished to the Soul the Empire which she had over the Body hath augmented the Effect of the General Law of the Union Concupiscence is natural and essential to Man so far as to a certain Degree And it is in this Sense that St. Agustin says That the love of sensible Good might have been to Man in his State of Innocence or if you please of pure Nature but that Degree of Concupiscence in which we are born Children of Wrath which is a domineering Concupiscence cannot be in Man but by the punishment of his Revolt which makes it just that he should find and resent in himself by the Revolt from his Sensible Love against his Reason and his Conscience the disorder of his Revolt against God It is by the Law of the Union of the Soul with the Body that the Soul sees her Love of Good in General turn to the side of Sensible Good That she conceives the most lively Sparkles of it as often as any disposition makes the Blood and the Spirits to flow more lively thro' all the Body upon the occasion of some Sensible Good which hath been Mark'd in the Brain with most profound Tracks But it is by the punishment of sin that the Soul hath not command enough over the Fibres to hinder them from conceiving too much Motion or to stop the vehement Course of the Blood and Spirits which give to the Imagination that so Tyrannical force which it exercises over Reason Men distinguish the ground of Love into concupiscible and irascible Appetite But this is but one and the same Appetite which is diversly moved and determined by Goods conceived as easie and by Goods conceived as hard to be acquired that is to say that the Soul doth otherwise pursue after Goods where she sees not any difficulty and otherwise those Goods in which she sees difficulty the which excite in her bold and couragious Motions from whence comes the Passions of Boldness or Courage of Hope and Expectation A fruitful Overture of Morality You see here generally what Concupiscence is and its Passions It might be useful to descend into the particulars of all the divers Motions and of all the divers Acts whether of Concupiscence or of Passions and to explain how we Love and how we Hate how we Attend and how we Desire how we Rejoyce and how we are Sad how we are
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
its Channel Our Heart doth never turn aside from God who is its bound and its Center but it wanders and it never wanders from God but it Revolts and commits an extream Out rage upon Him In Loving God thus we are able to Love every thing that we are pleased to Love as St. Augustin says Because that in loving him after this manner whatsoever we shall Love it will be Him that we shall principally Love it will be Him that we shall Love with a Final and Central Love if I may be permitted to say so with the Holy Fathers but not loving God after this manner We cannot love any thing without a Fault without Impiety and without Sacriledge to any other Objects whatsoever that our Love is tied without him and out of him it is a Prophanation of the most Sacred Thing of the World Since it is the Prophanation of the invincible and insurmountable Motion of Attraction by which God draws us to himself under the confused Idea of Good which he would have us to render distinct and neat in acknowledging that it is He alone that is the Good whereby our necessary and invincible Love of Good is rendred a free and a deserving Love because this Sovereign Being is so Good that He is willing to make it deserving for our applying our selves to distinguish that He alone is the Good that it is He alone who gives us Pleasure and can make in us Contentment And since we have made the distinction let us not be deceived by false Idea's of false Goods which the rash Judgments of our Passions and of our Senses propose to us and make us place amongst their Objects The Love of Complacency And it is not only this Love of this Holy Concupiscence which we owe to God We owe him also an infinite Love of Complacency wholly disinteressed and wholly pure We ought to Love this Eternal and Sovereign Beauty for its own sake and if we Reflect upon the manner how she discovers her self to Us in the manner whereby she Acts continually in our Souls as hath been Explained We shall see that as it is God that we Love by that confused Motion of our Heart by which we Love and search after Pleasure so it is only Him likewise that we Love by the Natural Love that we have for Order for Truth and for Justice and generally for all Duty for it is God who is this Order this Truth and this Justice which we Love when as wholly Irregular as we are we Love Order and Duty in spight of our selves and when we hate and condemn the disorder and violation of Duty which we commit This Truth this Justice and this Order which makes it self thus to be beloved by all Spirits and all Hearts in all parts of the World is nothing else but God himself This is the Sovereign Beauty of Nature and of the Supream Essence the Lively and Eternal Source of Order of Equity and of Duty the Eternal and Substantial Truth which not discovering it self but by Rays as it were escaping out and all obscured by the Clouds of our inordinate Desires thro' which these pass even to our Eyes makes this Sovereign Adoration of Love from all Hearts to be rendred to it That Beauty which we have in Vertue and in Duty is nothing else but the weak Glimmerings of the ineffable Beauty and Charm of the Supream Being Every thing that we Love whether it be in the Abstracted Idea of our Duties or in the real Charms of the Creatures is nothing but the Splendor and the Rays or to say better The Shaddow of that Charm of Sovereign Beauty and Perfection which gloriously Shines in the Supream Nature Nature commences equally in us the Love of Complacency and the Love of Union or of Holy Concupiscence which all Created Spirits owe to God As it is God whom we Love necessarily under the confused Idea of Happiness of Contentment and of Pleasure so it is him whom we Love invincibly under the Idea's and under the Names of Truth of Justice of Beauty of Vertue of Duty or of Equity for that Truth that Justice that Beauty and that Equity that All-Intelligible and All-Invisible Light of Truth of Equity and of Duty which Shines in all places of the World that makes it self be Seen Loved and Adored invincibly by all Hearts in all Ages and in all People Civilized and Barbarous cannot chuse but be at least the Glimmering of an Eternal and an Infinite Light wholly Intelligible and wholly Invisible which subsists Eternally and Essentially by it self and makes a part and one even of the Principal Grounds of that Sovereign Nature and Perfection which we call the Supream Nature and Being And as we perceive that this Glimmering and these Glances of this Original Beauty is so amicable by it self that as corrupt as we are we cannot hinder our selves from Loving it so it is easie for us to comprehend That this Sovereign Nature from which it flows together with that Almighty Charm whereof we resent so strong and so invincible an Empire continually deserves well our Complacency and to be Loved only and Sovereignly for it self Thus it is That in Reflecting upon the manner how the Eternal Beauty gives a glimpse of it self to our Souls thro' the Bodies which obscure it and which are as it were Vails and Walls betwixt the Souls and it We are able and we ought to lift up our selves above all Corporeal and sensible Beauties and Images for to despise them and to mount up to the Eternal Beauty to Adore and to Love it only But if all our Duties towards God spring so Naturally from these Idea's which the knowledge of our Souls gives us of Him those which we owe to our selves and which we owe to other Men do no less flow from thence CHAP. XXIV Duties towards our Selves and towards other Men and first of Temperance and of the Crime of Incontinence YOU see there how all our Religious Duties towards God do spring and flow from that fruitful Principle of the Visible Empire with which God who holds our Souls in our Bodies Acts perpetually in them Let us see now how those for which we are indebted to our selves do thence arise and spring likewise We have included them all a long while ago under the Term and Name of Temperance and Temperance includes all in Effect It means every thing that we owe to our selves whether for the Body or for the Soul and who sees not that it springs from what hath been said concerning the Assembly of the Soul and the Body That God for such Noble Ends condemns all Dissoluteness which dishonors and degrades both the one and the other There are some who are hard to be convinced of the Disorder and of the Crime of certain Incontiniences But let them conceive well the Design of God in the Union which He makes of Souls and Bodies and in the End of the Instincts and Motions of Pleasure which
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
in God as in a Rageing Sea which dashes against them and tosses them and threatens them perpetually with its Storms and Tempests And this is All in my Opinion that we can desire to know upon the Principal Head of that which Regards the State of our Souls out of our Bodies Let us conceive with all my heart That there is above those Heavens which we know a Heaven wholly Enlightned and abounding with Joy and overwhelmed with Pleasures wherein the Holy Souls are involved And let us conceive on the other side a Place replenished with Flames and Darknesses with Horror and all manner of Despair which the Criminal Souls do fall into All this is most True and these Places are most Real and Effective but it is in God in whom the Holy Souls do find this Enlightned Heaven and in whom the Criminal Souls do find these Flames and these Darknesses these Despairs and these Horrors It is God who by an Immediate Union of his Almighty Activity causeth in Them this Light and these Darknesses these Sadnesses and these Joys these Pleasures and these Pains all the Paradice and all the Hell Erit Deus Omnia in Omnibus it is by an Immediate Union of God with Them and They with God that they are in Heaven and in Hell Since it is by this Union that they have this Lively Idea thereof which renders these Places present to them CHAP. VII That which makes the Difference between the Present and Future State of the Soul IT follows from what hath been said That that which makes the Essential Difference of the manner how our Souls are in our Bodies and of the manner how they are out of our Bodies is That when they are in the Body then they have but Successively the Idea's and the Knowledges of Things from the Occasion of different Impressions which come and arrive to the Brain by the Action of other Bodies which are round about Us and that they have not also the Sentiments and the several Movements of the Appetite but from the Occasion of divers Dispositions of Bodies and when they are parted from the Body they receive immediately from God these Idea's and these Sentiments which is requisite for the Disposition of Vice or Vertue which we otherwise call Merit of Demerit in which they find themselves when they are parted from the Body Now the Body by the divers Impressions which it receives from other Bodies or by the divers Dispositions which are raised formed in it by the Ebullition of the Blood by the Course of the Spirits and by the divers Excesses or Fermentations of Humors is the Occasional Cause of all these Idea's and of all the Sentiments of the Soul because that the Supream Being by which it Lives it Perceives Thinks and Wills for to conserve the Dignity and good Order of its Greatness in acting as Universal Cause was pleased to tye the Determination of these Idea's and Sentiments to those Dispositions of the Body which result from the Laws of Motion by which He moves all the Corporeal Nature and by which he composes and conserves the Visible World with an infinite Wisdom which alone was able to produce so many Prodigious Effects with so much Order and so much Harmony from two or three Immutable Laws by which He moves the Matter of the Universe That in this New State of the Soul out of the Body God is not determined to Act in Them but by a necessary and immutable Love of Order and by their Vertuous or Criminal Disposition God doth not Act but as an Universal Cause with our Souls so long as they are in the Body He doth but follow the Law of Motion of the common Matter of the Visible World which diversly affecting our Bodies necessarily determines him by Vertue of his Immutable Decree to give to the Souls those Idea's and those Sentiments which answer the different Impressions wherewith the Body is affected but when the Soul is out of the Body God doth lay aside the Character of Universal Cause as to this purpose He no longer follows in respect of them the Laws of the Motion of the Universe Souls part with the World in parting with the Body They have no longer any Relation with the Body nor by consequence with the Visible World from that very instant that they have no more to do with their particular Bodies So long as they are in the Body they are united to all the Visible World because that their Thoughts and their Sentiments do depend upon the Laws of the Motion which moves all the Matter of the World it being that which gives them an Essential Relation to all the Parts of it because there is not any one of them which may not be an Occasion of the Determination of these Idea's and Sentiments but after Death all that ceases there is a new Order of things there are no more the same Laws God afterwards follows none but the Law of his Eternal and Inflexible Justice to Punish or to Reward the Souls according as they have made themselves deserving It is no more the Motion of the Universe and the particular Disposition of every ones Temperament which results from it which determins the diversity of our Idea's and Sentiments It is only the Pure and Holy Disposition or the Impute and Criminal Disposition of our Souls which determins the Sovereign and Eternal Justice and Equity to give us the Idea's and Sentiments proper to Reward or Punish our Irregular or our Vertuous Disposition God hath no longer Reason to be willing to mannage and conserve the Dignity and Character of Universal Cause He hath no longer Reason to mannage and conserve the Liberty of our Souls The time of our Trial is ended The time of Merit is past There is no more question to see whether they will make themselves worthy that is over They are fixed in an Immutable State That is Eternity There is no more Vicissitudes or Diversifications no more Instability or Changes no more an Alternativeness or a Passage from Evil to Good and from Good to Evil from Vice to Vertue and from Vertue to Vice The Tree lies where it falls And as the State of the Soul is fixed by this State of Immutability which is properly That which we call Eternity so God fixeth himself to Love or to Hate to Punish or to Reward He Acts thenceforwards as a particular Cause because that He immediately takes in the Ground of His Eternal Love of Order the determination of all these Idea's and Sentiments which he gives to our Souls That is all the Light which we can give to our First Curiosity concerning the State of our Souls out of our Body by which we see that they are not properly but in God and that it is He only who is the Cause and Occasion of all their Idea's and Sentiments We must now proceed and endeavour to Know all that belongs to this State by clear and infallible Lights CHAP. VIII How
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
Heavenly Men who being thenceforwards drawn after the lively resemblance of the New Man shall eternally be the perfect Images of his Glory and of his Sovereign Felicity in Heaven CHAP. XVIII A Recapitulation of Moral Consequences drawn from what hath been Established concerning our Souls for the Conviction of our Duties and the Condemnation of our Disorders WE had proposed to add here for a Fourth Part a Recapitulation of all the Moral Consequences which might be drawn from what hath been cleared concerning our Souls in Relation to our Duties and to our Disorders and to have given it by way of an Alphabetical Table And therein to have let you see a Conviction of all our Duties and a solid Establishment of all our Obligations the Shame and Disorder of all our Passions the Rule of all our Sentiments and generally an Universal Conduct for all our Life to come But we were afraid That would have excessively encreased the Volume And we are therefore determined to close up all with a general Consideration of the little esteem which we have for our Souls and with the Condemnation of Five principal Disorders in our Lives which we believe have deserved a particular Reflection How unreasonable we are to make so little an Account of our Souls after so much that hath been already said of them We have shewed that there is in our Souls a Spiritual Nature a Heavenly Origin an Immortal Condition a Divine Quality an Essential Union with God an Everlasting State of Misery or Happiness after a short Trial in this Life We have shewed That they come from God that they are always essentially in God that it is but for a little moment of Time that their Union with the Body suspends their immediate Union with God and that thus they ought quickly to return to God and remain everlastingly in Him We have seen that They are imprinted with so many glorious and eminent Tracts of the Divine Resemblance which have rendred them worthy to be if I may be permitted to say so reclaimed and redeemed so dearly at the Price of the annihilation of all the greatness of a God at the Price of a thousand sorts of Revilings and Humiliations and of all the Merit of his Blood and Life We have seen how they ought to lay aside the deceitful Garment of the present Felicity of the Body as a Theatrical Habit how they ought to change Opinions Tasts and Ideas how all the Spectacle of Time ought to be Effaced and how that of Eternity ought to discover it self to our Eyes how they are to be happy in all the proper licity of God or unhappy according to the Extent of his Power and his Anger And there is not one of these Idea's and of these Circumstances which ought not to serve us for a Light to Enlighten in us a thousand Duties and which on the contrary is not a clear Light to let us see in our selves a thousand Disorders wherewith we ought to be penetrated with Confusion and to Reproach our selves who carrying in us that Foundation of Reason and that Light of the Spirituality of the Eternity and of the Divine Quality of our Souls which we do we ought to guide otherwise than we do our Relishes and our Sentiments our Opinions and our Maxims our Desires and our Affections all our Actions and all our Life Oh the Folly and Disorder Oh the Vanity and Illusion Oh the Charm and Enchantment Oh the Fury and Frensie of Man who bearing an Eternal and Immortal Soul in his Hands doth not know the Price nor the Fragility of the Treasure which he carries but continually strikes it against a thousand Rocks Our Souls are Immortal and Eternal their Nature is not at all Frail and Mortal they ought to last Eternally like God but as their Being and their Nature is durable and solid so is their Happiness and so is their Lot of Eternity nice and uncertain There is no Glass so brittle there is not one moment of the Day wherein we do not strike them against Rocks and Marbles against all the Occasions of Sin and Ruine which present themselves We do not only hurt them so senselesly and inconsiderately but we Stake this Treasure so inestimable and so infinite against the smallest Pleasures which the furious and implacable Enemy of our Souls can propose and offer to us No King did ever Stake his Kingdom and his Throne upon the Chance of one Dye What do I say No King No Man did ever Stake his Fortune and his Hope tho' never so mean And We do not We continually Stake to Nothingness to Shadows Eternal Thrones and Kingdoms Immortal Hopes and Fortunes David would not have the Pleasure to quench the burning Thirst wherewith he was inflam'd at the peril of the Life of some few of his Soldiers How said he shall I Drink at so dear a Price Shall I hazard Souls for my Thirst And yet We We have no Desire tho' never so senseless we have never so little Thirst which we will not content at the Price of the Eternal Loss of our Souls or at least of the evident danger of that Irreparable Loss What shall we call Fury and Phrensie if this be not O the Folly then and the Disorder O the Madness and Phrensie of our Thoughts and of our Desires of our Relishes and of our Passions if we do not henceforwards guide them by the Knowledge which we have of the Heavenly Origine of the Spiritual Nature of the Immortal Condition of the Divine Quality and of the Everlasting State after this Life of the Immutable Felicity or Misery of our Souls and of all the other Advantages which we have shew'd to be in them Five Moral Consequences in Relation to Five Principal Circumstances concerning the Nobility of our Souls We might draw a thousand particular Instructions and a thousand strong Condemnations of our Disorders from all these Knowledges but since we only intend here to open a Way as it were to the end that every one may be Instructed by himself in his Particular and draw those Consequences which are proper to himself we will only draw Five of them from hence against Five of our most common Disorders which we do not acknowledge for Disorders only which we shall make to Answer to the Five Principal Circumstances of the Dignity and of the Excellence which we have shew'd to be in our Souls We shall draw from the Principle of the Celestial Origine and of the Essential Dependence of our Soul and of our Union with God from the Principle that they proceed from God that they live in God and that they ought necessarily in a short time to retvrn to God the Consequence of a terrible Condemnation of our forgetfulness and of our going astray from God whereof we are so little afraid and wherein we do not acknowledge even the Disorder and the Irregularity We shall draw from the Principle of the Spiritual Nature of our Souls
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