unfortunate Treatise of Nature and Grace which tho' it were written only for those who had a distinct conception of the Truths which I had before sufficiently explain'd as I then declar'd underwent so furious a Censure that those very Heresies were charg'd upon me which I had there overthrown in their first Principles CHAP. XII Of the Imagination This Term is obscure and confus'd What it is in general Several sorts of Imagination Its effects are dangerous Of that which the World calls Wit That quality is very opposite to the Grace of Christ It is fatal to those who possess it and to those who esteem and admire it in others tho' they have it not themselves I. THo' the Senses are the first original of our Disorders or the foundation of that union of the Soul and Body which now separates the Soul from God yet it is not sufficient to regulate the use of them that Grace may operate in us with its full Strength but we must also silence our Imagination and Passions The Imagination doth depend indeed on the Senses as well as the Passions but it hath its particular Malignity When it is stir'd up by the Senses it produces of it self extraordinary effects And many times tho' the Senses do not actually move it it acts by its own Strength Nay sometimes it disturbs all the Ideas of the Soul by the Phantoms which it produces and enrages the Passions by the violence of the Motions which it excites But for fear lest some Persons may not clearly comprehend these Truths I must give a more distinct explication of them II. This Term Imagination is very much us'd in the World But yet I can hardly believe that all those who pronounce the Word distinctly joyn a distinct Idea to it I have said already and say again for there is no harm in reflecting on it more than once that the commonest Words are the most confus'd and that Men's ordinary Discourse is many times nothing but an empty sound of Words without Sense which they hear and repeat like Echo's If a Conversation doth but entertain them agreably and serves them to communicate their Affections and to create a mutual esteem of one another they are satisfied with it They make the same use of Words as they do of a Man's Air and outward Behaviour They unite themselves to one another by the Senses and Passions and many times Reason hath no other share in the Society than to promote their unjust Designs For Truth is of no use in this World Those that employ themselves in the search of it are Enthusiasts singular and dangerous Persons who must be shun'd like an infectious Air. Thus Words whose chief use should be to represent the pure Ideas of the Mind generally serve only to express Ideas of Sense and those motions of the Soul which are but too apt to communicate themselves by the outward demeanour the Air of the Face the Tone of the Voice and the Posture and Motion of the Body III. Imagination is one of those Terms which Use hath made current without clearing the signification of it For common Use explains only those Words that excite sensible Ideas Those by which it expresses pure and intellectual Ideas are all of them either equivocal or confus'd Thus the Imagination not being sensible but only by its Effects and the nature of it being hard to understand every one makes use of the same Word without having the same Idea nay perhaps many People have no Idea of it at all IV. The Imagination may be consider'd in a twofold respect either as to the Body or as to the Soul In relation to the Body it consists of a Brain capable of Impressions and of animal Spirits fit to make these Impressions We may conceive the animal Spirits to be whatever we will Fancy them provided we understand them to be Bodies which by their motion are capable of acting in the substance of the principal part of the Brain In relation to the Soul the Imagination consists of Images that answer to the Impressions and of Attention capable of forming these Images or sensible Ideas For it is our Attention which as the occasional cause determines the course of the Spirits whereby the Impressions are form'd to which Impressions the Ideas are annex'd And all this in consequence of the Laws of the union of the Soul and Body V. These Images or Impressions which are form'd as well by the strength of the Imagination as by the action of Objects dispose the Brain the Store-house of the Spirits in such a manner that the course of these Spirits is determin'd toward certain Nerves some of which run to the Heart and other Viscera and cause there Fermentation or Refrigeration or in short produce different Motions according to the quality of the Object which is present to the Senses or the Imagination The rest of the Nerves answer to the external Parts and by them the Body is plac'd in such a Position and dispos'd to such a motion as the present Object requires VI. The course of the animal Spirits toward those Nerves which answer to the internal parts of the Body is accompanied with Passions on the part of the Soul Which Passions arising originally from the action of the Imagination do by the great abundance of Spirits which they send up to the Head fortify the Impression and Image of the Object which produc'd them For the Passions excite support and strengthen the Attention the occasional cause of that course of the Spirits whereby the Impression of the Brain is form'd which Impression determines another course of the Spirits toward the Heart and other parts of the Body to keep up the same Passions all this proceeds also from the admirable constitution of the Laws of the union of the Soul and Body This is sufficient to give a slight Idea of the Imagination and of the relation it hath to the Passions I have handled this matter more at large in another place But this I think is sufficient to make attentive Readers understand in some measure what I mean by Imagination in general VII In particular by a defil'd and corrupt Imagination I understand a Brain which hath receiv'd some Impressions so deep as to carry the Soul and thereby the Body to Objects unworthy of and unbecoming the dignity of Man's Nature and by purity of Imagination I mean a sound and entire Brain without any of those vitious Impressions which corrupt the Mind and Heart By a weak and tender Imagination I mean a Brain whose principal part on which the course of the Spirits depends is easy to be penetrated and shaken By a nice and curious Imagination I understand a Brain whose Fibres are of so fine and curious a Texture that they receive and preserve the least Impressions made between them by the course of the Spirits By a strong and lively Imagination I mean that the animal Spirits which form the Impressions are too much agitated in
A TREATISE OF Morality In Two Parts Written in French by F. MALBRANCH AUTHOR of The Search after Truth And Translated into English By JAMES SHIPTON M. A. LONDON Printed for Iames Knapton at the Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard 1699. THE Author's LETTER TO MONSIEUR **** SIR I Have sent you the Treatise of Morality which you desire of me with so much importunity It is divided into two Parts In the First I have examin'd wherein Vertue doth precisely consist and laid down the means of acquiring and preserving it The Second contains the Duties of it I know not what Censure you will pass on this Book you Sir who are so nice a Judge for I confess to you that there are many things in it which I have not explain'd with that exactness which you require of Authors But I desire you to consider two Things The First is that having no clear Idea of the Soul you understand what I mean the greatest part of the Terms of Morality can express only its Sensations The Second is that Books ought to be proportion'd as far as it is possible to the Capacity of the generality of Mankind and that if I had been too nice and scrupulous in explaining the signification of the Terms which I make use of I should have extremely tir'd the Attentions of my Readers for People are soon weary of reading a Book that doth not raise agreable Sensations in their Mind Perhaps I may think it necessary hereafter to add some Illustrations which may clear those Difficulties which the common Phrase of Speech cannot remove The success that this Treatise meets with will determine my Resolution in that Point I am c. THE CONTENTS OF THE FIRST PART CHAP. I. VNiversal Reason is the Wisdom of God himself All Men have some Communication with God True and False Just and Vnjust is the same in respect of all intelligent Beings and of God himself What Truth and Order is and what we must do to avoid Sin and Error God is essentially Just he loves the Creatures according as they are amiable or as they resemble him We must be Perfect to be Happy Vertue or the Perfection of Man consists in a Submission to the immutable Order and not in following the Order of Nature The Error of some of the Heathen Philosophers in this Matter grounded upon their Ignorance of the simplicity and immutability of the Divine Conduct Page 1. CHAP. II. There is no other Vertue but the Love of Order and Reason Without this Love all Vertues are false We must not confound Duties with Vertue We may discharge our Duties without Vertue 'T is for want of consulting Reason that Men approve and follow damnable Customs Faith serves or conducts to Reason For Reason is the supreme Law of all intelligent Beings p. 12. CHAP. III. The Love of Order doth not differ from Charity Two sorts of Love one of Vnion and the other of Benevolence The former is due only to Power or to God alone The latter ought to be proportion'd to persoâ—â—â— Merit as our Duties to relative Self-love enlightned is not contrary to the love of Vnion The love of Order is common to all Men. The Species of the love of Order natural and free actual and habitual Only that which is free habitual and ruling renders us just in the sight of God So that Vertue consists in nothing but a free habitual and ruling Love of the immutable Order p. 21. CHAP. IV. Two fundamental Truths belonging to this Treatise I. Acts produce Habits and Habits Acts. II. The Soul doth not always produce the Acts of its ruling Habit. The Sinner may avoid committing any particular Sin and the just Man may lose his Charity because there is no Sinner without some love for Order and no just Man without Self-love We cannot be justified in the sight of God by the strength of Free-will The means in general of acquiring and preserving Charity The method us'd in the explication of these means p. 23. CHAP. V. Of the Strength of the Mind Our Desires are the occasional Causes of our Knowledge The Contemplation of abstract Ideas is difficult The Strength of the Mind consists in an acquir'd Habit of enduring the Labour of Attention The way to acquire it is to Silence our Senses Imagination and Passions to Regulate our Studies and to Meditate only on clear Ideas p. 40. CHAP. VI. Of the Liberty of the Mind We should suspend our Assent as much as we can which is the great Rule By the Liberty of the Mind we may avoid Error and Sin as by the Strength of the Mind we free our selves from Ignorance The Liberty of the Mind as well as the Strength of it is a Habit which is confirm'd by use Some instances of its Vsefulness in Physicks Morality and Civil Life p. 51. CHAP. VII Of Obedience to Order The means of acquiring a firm and ruling Disposition to obey it It cannot be done without Grace How far the right use of our Strength and Liberty contributes toward it by the Light it produces in us by the contemptible Opinion it gives us of our Passions and by the Purity which it preserves and establishes in our Imagination p. 61. CHAP. VIII The Means which Religion furnishes us with to gain and preserve the Love of Order Jesus Christ is the occasional Cause of Grace we must call upon him with confidence When we come to the Sacraments the actual Love of Order is chang'd into habitual in consequence of the permanent desires of Christ The Proof of this Truth being essential to the Conversion of Sinners The fear of Hell is as good a Motive as the desire of eternal Happiness We must not confound the Motive with the End The desire of being Happy or Self-love should make us conformable to Order or obedient to the Law of God p. 71. CHAP. IX The Church in its Prayers Addresses its self to the Father by the Son and why We should Pray to the Blessed Virgin Angels and Saints but not as occasional causes of inward Grace The Angels and even the Devils have power over Bodies as occasional causes By this means the Devils may tempt us and the Angels promote the efficacy of Grace p. 83. CHAP. X. Of the Occasional Causes of the Sensations and Motions of the Soul which resist the Efficacy of Grace either of Light or Sense The Vnion of the Soul with God is immediate not that of the Soul with the Body An Explication of some general Laws of the Vnion of the Soul and Body necessary for the right understanding the rest of this Treatise p. 91. CHAP. XI What kind of death we must die to see God to be united to Reason and to deliver our selves from Concupiscence It is the Grace of Faith that gives us this happy death Christians are dead to Sin by Baptism and alive in Christ by his Resurrection Of the Mortification of the Senses and the use we should make of it We should
Bodies and by their means in the Souls wihch are united to them certain effects which may promote the efficacy of Grace and keep Men from those Stumbling-blocks which the Devils continually lay in their way For as the Psalmist saith Psal 91.11 12. He hath given his Angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways They shall bear thee up in their Hands lest thou dash thy Foot against a Stone XIII So then we may pray to the Angels and desire their protection against that roaring Lion who as St. Peter saith walketh about seeking whom he may devour Eph. 6.12 Or to use St. Paul's words Against those Principalities and Powers against the Rulers of the Darkness of this World those Princes of the World full of Darkness and Error against spiritual Wickedness in high places those evil Spirits which are scatter'd through the Air For we wrestle not against Flesh and Blood only But we must not look upon the Angels as distributive Causes of Grace nor give them that Worship which is due to Christ alone Col. 2.18 19. Be not deceiv'd saith St. Paul by those who in a voluntary Humility pay a superstitious Worship to Angels who meddle with those things which they do not understand being dazled by the vain Imaginations of their fleshly Mind and not keeping themselves united to the Head from which the whole body of the Church receives the Spirit which gives it Growth and Life v. 15. even to Jesus Christ who having spoil'd Principalities and Powers which he had vanquish'd by his Cross made a shew of them openly triumphing over them in it CHAP. X. Of the Occasional Causes of the Sensations and Motions of the Soul which resist the Efficacy of Grace either of Light or Sense The Vnion of the Soul with God is immediate not that of the Soul with the Body An Explication of some general Laws of the Vnion of the Soul and Body necessary for the right understanding the rest of this Treatise I. IN the Fifth Sixth and Seventh Chapters I have spoken at large of the occasional Cause of Light and in the two last I have endeavoured to shew what is the occasional Cause of the Grace of Sense and what we must do to obtain it And therefore seeing there is nothing beside Light and Sense which determines the Will or the tendency which the Soul hath toward Good in general all that now remains in relation to the Means of acquiring or preserving the habitual and ruling Love of the immutable Order is to explain the Laws of the Union of the Soul and Body or the occasional Causes of all those lively and confus'd Sensations and those indeliberate Motions which unite us to our Body and by that to all the Objects which are about us For to make us love Order and to acquire Vertue it is not sufficient to obtain the Grace of Sense which alone can stir the Soul and put it in Motion toward the true Good but we must also manage our selves so that this Grace may work in our Hearts with its full Efficacy For this end we must carefully avoid the occasional Causes of those Sensations and Motions which resist the Operation of Grace and sometimes render it altogether ineffectual This is the most general Principle of all that I shall say in the First Part of this Discourse II. The Soul of Man hath two essential and natural Relations one to God the true Cause of all that passes within him the other to his Body the occasional Cause of all those Thoughts which relate to sensible Objects When God speaks to the Soul it is to unite it to himself when the Body speaks to it it is only for the Body to unite the Soul to sensible Good God speaks to the Soul to enlighten and render it perfect the Body only to darken and corrupt it in favour of it self God by the Light conducts the Soul to its Happiness the Body by Pleasure involves the whole Man in its ruin and throws him headlong into Misery In a word tho' it is God that doth every thing and tho' the Body cannot act upon the Soul no more than the Soul can upon the Body but as an occasional Cause in consequence of the Laws of their Union and for the Punishment of Sin which without medling with those Laws hath chang'd the Union into a Dependence yet we may say that it is the Body which darkens the Mind and corrupts the Heart for the Relation which the Soul hath to the Body is the Cause of all our Errors and Disorders III. Notwithstanding we should be throughly convinc'd of this and never forget it that the Soul can have no immediate Relation but to God alone and that it cannot be united directly to any thing but to him for the Soul cannot be united to the Body but as it is united to God himself It is certain for very many Reasons that if I feel for instance the pain of a Scratch it is God that acts in me tho' in consequence of the Laws of the Union of the Soul and Body for those Laws derive their force from the Operation of the Divine Will which alone is capable of acting in me But the Body by it self cannot be united to the Soul nor the Soul to the Body They have no Relation to one another nor any one Creature to another I speak of Relations of Causality such are those which depend on the Union of the Soul and Body It is God that doth every thing his Will is the Union of all Unions the Modifications of Substances depend on him alone who gives and preserves their Being This is an essential Truth which I think I have sufficiently prov'd in another place IV. But tho' the Soul cannot be united immediately to any Thing but God yet it may be united to the Creatures by the Will of God who communicates his Power to them in making them occasional Causes for the production of certain Effects My Soul is united to my Body because on one side my Will is made the occasional Cause of some changes which God alone produces on it and in the other because the changes which happen in my Body are made occasional Causes of some of those which happen in my Soul V. Now God hath establish'd these Laws for many Reasons which are unknown to us But of those which we do know one is that God in following them acts in a uniform and constant manner by general Laws by the most simple and wisest ways in a word he Acts in such a manner as admirably bears the Character of his Attributes Another Reason is because the Body of Man is his proper Sacrifice for it seems to Sacrifice it self by Pain and to be Annihilated by Death The Soul is in a State of Probation in the Body and God who desires in some measure to be merited and to proportion Rewards to Merits doth by the Laws of the Union of the Soul and
Body a simple general uniform and constant Method furnish us with various ways of Sanctifying our selves and Meriting the true Goods I have explain'd these Truths elsewhere but it is necessary to remember them here VI. This kind of Union of the Soul with God which hath no Relation to the Creatures is look'd upon by many People as a groundless Imagination For the Operation of God not being sensible we think we answer and reprove our selves when it is the universal Reason which answers and reproves us in the most secret part of our selves It is certain that he who knows not what Truth and Order is knows not this Union tho' perhaps it may act in him as he who doth not love Truth nor obey Order breaks the Union tho' perhaps he knows it VII But as for that kind of Union of the Soul with God which relates to the Creatures we believe it real but we have a wrong Notion of it For we imagine that we receive from the Objects that which comes from God alone The Cause of this Mistake is the same with that of the former The Divine Operation not being visible we attribute to the Objects which strike our Senses all that we feel in their Presence tho' they are no otherwise present to the Soul than as God who is more present to us than we are to our selves represents them to us in his own Substance which is the only intellectual Substance the only Substance capable of acting on us and of producing in us all those Sensations which render intellectual Ideas sensible and make us judge confusedly not only that there are Bodies but also that they are those Bodies which operate on us and make us happy which is the most general Cause of all our Miscarriages VIII We would always be happy and never miserable Actual Pleasure causes actual Happiness and Pain Misery Now we feel Pleasure and Pain in the presence of corporeal Objects and believe those Objects to be the true Causes of them So that there is a necessity almost that we should fear and love them Nay tho' we are convinc'd by Metaphysical and certain Demonstrations that God alone is the true Cause yet this doth not give us Strength enough to slight and disregard them when we actually enjoy them For the judgments of the Senses work more powerfully on us than the most solid Reasons because it is not Light so much as Pleasure which stirs the Soul and puts it in Motion IX So then it is evident that to preserve a ruling Love of the immutable Order we must on the one hand use all our endeavours to strengthen this kind of Union of the Soul with God which hath no Relation to sensible Objects and on the other we must slacken as much as we can that kind of Union which relates to Bodies Substances inferiour to ours which are so far from being able to make us perfect that they have no power to act on us nor corrupt us but only because the Sin of our first Parent hath brought in Concupiscence which consists wholly in the Loss we have sustain'd of the power to stop or suspend the Laws of the Communication of those Motions by which the Bodies that are about us act on that Body which we animate and by that on our Mind in consequence of the Laws of the Union of the Soul and Body X. Christian Meditat 13 14 c. I think I have sufficiently prov'd already at least as to some Persons that since all the Motions of the Soul depend on Light and Sense to excite in us that Motion which carries us toward God and keeps us united to him it is necessary that we should continually exercise our selves in the Labour of Attention the occasional Cause of Light and frequently call upon Jesus Christ the occasional Cause of the Grace of Sense I shall now examine the Means whereby we may diminish the Union that is between Us and the Creatures and hinder them from having any share with God in our Mind and Heart For we are so plac'd between God and corporeal Objects that we cannot move toward them without departing from God and the breaking off our Correspondence with them is sufficient to unite us to God through the continual influence which Christ sheds on his Members XI That which I shall say of this matter is not so necessary for those that have read and consider'd the Principles which I have laid down in the Search of Truth And if all Men were capable of so much Reason as to think methodically or at least had so much Justice as to believe that an Author hath thought of the Subject he treats of more than they I should not be oblig'd to repeat in general what I have already said or prov'd in other places and in various manners No body reads Apollonius or Archimedes that hath not learnt Euclid because he can understand nothing of Conical Sections without knowing the common Elements of Geometry and in Geometrical matters when a Man doth not understand a thing he knows he doth not understand it But in matters of Morality or Religion every one I know not why thinks himself sufficiently capable of comprehending whatever he reads So that everyone takes upon him to judge without considering that Morality for instance I mean Morality demonstrated or explain'd by Principles is to the Knowledge of Man what the Science of curve Lines is to that of strait Lines XII Wherefore I think it requisite in this place to suppose certain Principles which I have prov'd elsewhere and which are necessary for the sequel of this Discourse This will perhaps illustrate many Things which I have said and which I very much fear have not well been understood but these suppositions are not design'd for those who have consider'd the Principles which I have elsewhere explain'd or fully comprehend what I have said hitherto They may go on to the next Chapter and save themselves a needless Labour XIII First then I take it for granted that to have a right Notion of the Union of the Soul and Body we must not confound the Ideas of these two Substances as most do who join them together by extending the Soul to all the parts of the Body and attribute to the Body all the Sensations which belong to the Soul The Union of the Soul and Body consists in the mutual and reciprocal Action of these two Beings in consequence of the Operations of the Divine Will which alone can change the modifications of Substances The Soul thinks and is not exended The Body is extended and doth not think Therefore the Soul cannot be united to the Body by Extension but only by Thinking nor the Body to the Soul by Sensation but only by Situation and local Motion The Body is wounded but the Soul feels it The Soul fears an Evil and the Body flies from it The Soul would move the Arm the Arm immediately moves it self and the Soul sees and feels
it Thus there is a mutual Correspondence between certain Thoughts of the Soul and certain Modifications of the Body in consequence of those natural Laws which God hath establish'd and which he condantly observes Herein consists the Union of the Soul and Body The Imagination may raise other Ideas of all this But this Correspondence is undeniable and is sufficient for my purpose So that I neither do nor ought to build on uncertain Foundations XIV Secondly I suppose it to be known that the Soul is not join'd immediately to all the parts of the Body but only to one part which answers to all the rest and which I call without knowing what it is the Principal Part so that notwithstanding the Laws of the Union of the Soul and Body a Man may have his Arm cut off and yet have no thought arise in his Soul Correspondent to it but it is not possible that the least change should happen in the Principal Part of the Brain without causing also some alteration in the Soul This is verified by Experience for sometimes parts of the Body are cut off without being felt because then the Motion of the Amputation doth not communicate it self to the Principal Part. As on the contrary those that have lost an Arm often feel a real pain in that very Arm which they have not because there is the same Motion in the Principal Part of the Brain as if the Arm was hurt XV. The first Man before his Sin had an absolute power over his Body at least he could when he pleas'd hinder the Motion or Action of Objects from communicating it self to the principal part of the Brain from the Organs of the Senses which might be touch'd by those Objects and this he did probably by a kind of revulsion somewhat like that which we make in our selves when we would fix our Attention on those Thoughts which disappear in the presence of sensible Objects XVI But I suppose in the Third place that we have not now that power and therefore to obtain some Liberty of Mind to think on what we will and love what we ought it is necessary that the principal part should be calm and without agitation or at least that we should still be able to stop and turn it which way we please Our Attention depends on our Will but it depends much more on our Senses and Passions It is a very difficult thing not to look upon that which touches not to love that which pleases that which touches I say and pleases the Heart The Soul is never sooner tir'd than when it fights against Pleasure and makes it self actually Miserable XVII Fourthly I suppose it to be known that the principal part is never touch'd or shaken in an agreeable or disagreeable manner but it excites in the animal Spirits some Motion proper to carry the Body toward the Object which acts upon it or to separate it from it by flight so that those Motions of the Fibres of the Brain which relate to Good or Evil are always follow'd by such a course of the Spirits as disposes the Body rightly with relation to the present Object and at the same time those sensations of the Soul which are correspondent to those agitations of the Brain are follow'd by such motions of the Soul as answer to this course of the Spirits For the impressions or motions of the Brain are in respect of the course of the Spirits what the sensations of the Soul are in respect of the Passions and these Impressions are to the Sensations what the motion of the Spirits is to the motion of the Passions XVIII Fifthly I suppose that Objects never strike the Brain without leaving some marks of their Action nor the animal Spirits without leaving some Tracks of their Course that these Tracks or Wounds are not easily clos'd up or effac'd when the Brain hath been often or forcibly struck and when the Course of the Spirits hath been violent or hath often begun again in the same manner That Memory and corporeal Habits consist in nothing else but those Tracks or Impressions which cause in the Brain and other parts of the Body a particular facility of obeying the Course of the Spirits and that by this means the Brain is hurt and the Imagination polluted when we have had the enjoyment of Pleasures without apprehending the danger of Familiarity with sensible Objects XIX Lastly I suppose that we conceive distinctly that when many of these Tracks have been made at the same time we cannot open any one of them without opening all the rest in some Measure whence it comes to pass that there are always many accessory Ideas which present themselves confusedly to the Mind having a Relation to the principal Ideas to which the Mind particularly applies it self There are also many confus'd Sensations and indirect Motions that accompany the principal Passion which moves the Soul and carries it toward some particular Object There is nothing more certain than this connection of Impressions with one another and with the Senses and Passions Any one that hath but the least Knowledge of the Nature of Man and will make but the least reflection on the inward Sense he hath of what passes within himself may discover more of these Truths in an Hour than I can tell him in a Month provided he doth not confound the Soul with the Body in making the Union betwixt them and carefully distinguishes the Properties of which the thinking Substance is capable from those which belong to the extended Substance And I think it necessary to Advertise the Reader That this kind of Truths is of very great importance not only for the distinct Conception of what I have hitherto said and shall hereafter say but generally for all the Sciences that have any Relation to Man Having handled this Subject at large in the Search of Truth particularly in the Second Book I thought not to have said any thing of it here and if these Suppositions seem obscure to the Reader and do not give him light enough to comprehend clearly what I shall say in the remaining part of this Treatise I must refer him to that Book for I cannot persuade my self to give a long Explication of the same thing over and over CHAP. XI What kind of death we must die to see God to be united to Reason and to deliver our selves from Concupiscence It is the Grace of Faith that gives us this happy death Christians are dead to Sin by Baptism and alive in Christ by his Resurrection Of the Mortification of the Senses and the use we should make of it We should unite our selves to corporeal Objects or separate our selves from them without loving or fearing them But the surest way is to break off all Correspondence with them as far as is possible I. DEath is a compendious way to be deliver'd from Concupiscence and to break off at once that unhappy Union which hinders us from being reunited to our Head
who is our life shall appear then shall ye also appear with him in Glory VII Of all the Exercises proper to promote the Efficacy of Grace there is no one more necessary than that of the Mortification of the Senses for it is our own Body alone that unites us to all other Bodies It is chiefly by the Senses that the Soul stretches it self as I may say to all the parts of the Body and by the Imagination and Passions it is carried abroad and extends it self to all the Creatures But as Objects are presented to the Mind by the Senses the Imagination and Passions suppose and depend on them For it is certain that the corporeal Image of a sensible Object I do not here speak of Mathematical Figures is nothing but the Impression and Motion which that Object hath made in the Brain by means of the Senses which Impression is renewed by the Action of the Imagination or the Course of the Spirits And as for the Passions they cannot be excited but by the Motion of the animal Spirits which always supposes that the Brain the Magazene of these Spirits is shaken either by the Senses or the Imagination So that he who mortifies his Senses attacks the very Foundation of the Union of the Soul with the Body or rather of its dependence on it he weakens the animal Life and diminishes the weight of Sin Concupiscence he promotes the Efficacy of Grace which alone can reunite us to our first Principle Finally he procures himself that kind of Death without which as the Scripture speaks it is not possible to see God VIII The most capacious of all the Senses that which ministers to all the rest and without which the Imagination and Passions would be but faint and languishing is the Sight We need but reflect a little on our selves and on the use we may make of our Eyes to be convinc'd that they expose us daily to a thousand Dangers One indiscreet look is certainly sufficient to throw us into Hell It made David fall into an Adultery which afterwards engag'd him in a Murder Eve suffer'd her self to be seduc'd by the Devil because she ventur'd to look fixedly on the forbidden Fruit and found it pleasant to the Eyes Gen. 3.6 If they had distrusted their Senses as fallacious and rejected their Testimony they had both of them preserv'd their Innocence I think it not much to my present purpose to enlarge on the mischievous effects of the Sight and from thence to prove the necessity of shutting our Eyes in many Cases I rather choose to examine Things in their first Principles and to shew the use we may lawfully make of all our Senses in general which I shall confine within the straitest Bounds that can possibly be set to it IX One of the Principles which I think I have demonstrated several ways in the First Book of the Search of Truth is this That our Senses are given us only for the preservation of our sensible Being In relation to this end they are perfectly well regulated but with respect to the use which the World makes of them there is nothing more false deceitful and irregular To prove this we must consider that we are compos'd of a Soul and a Body and that we have two sorts of Good to look after that of the Soul and that of the Body The Good of the Soul is found out by the Light for it is the true Good That of the Body is discover'd by Sense for it is a false Good or rather no Good at all If Men knew sensible Objects only as they are in themselves and without a sensible perception of that which is not really in them they could not possibly seek after them and fill themselves with them without regret and a kind of detestation and if they had a sense of the true Good different from what it really is and without knowing the true Nature of it they would love it sensually and not meritoriously For the Soul neither can nor ought to live but by the intellectual Substance of Reason and the Body cannot receive Nourishment and Growth but from Bodies Intellectual Goods do not suit with the mechanical Frame of the Body and sensible Goods disorder the Soul Thus Light and Evidence are to the Goods of the Soul what Sense and Instinct are to those of the Body This I think cannot be denied X. The reason of all this is that God created the Soul only for himself He did not make it that it should employ it self about sensible Objects nor that it should preserve and govern by Reason the Body which it Informs If we would know distinctly and rationally the infinite Relations that are between the Bodies which surround us and that which we animate if we would know for instance when we ought to eat how much and what kind of Food is precisely necessary to preserve our Health and Life we must do nothing else but study Physicks and certainly we should not live very long at least Children would not because they want Experience But Hunger informs us of the necessity of Food and thereby regulates the quantity of it pretty near the matter Once it did it truly and exactly and would do so still if we would eat the Fruits of the Earth just as God provides them for us The Taste is a short and unquestionable Tryal whether such and such Bodies are proper for Nourishment or not Without knowing the Texture of a Stone or a strange Fruit we need only present it to the Tongue the faithful Door-keeper at least before Sin of all that ought to enter into the House to be assur'd whether it will make any disturbance within The same may be said of all the other Organs of our Senses Nothing is quicker than the Touch to inform us that we are burnt when we touch a hot Iron without our Knowledge Thus the Soul leaving the Government of the Body to the Senses may apply it self to the search of the true Good contemplate the Perfections and works of its Maker study the Law of God and govern all its motions by that The Senses should only inform it with respect and cease to interrupt it when it imposes Silence on them Thus it was once but the Sin of our first Parent hath chang'd that admirable Order and the union of the Soul and Body remaining still the same the Soul is reduc'd to a dependence on the Senses and is check'd and controul'd by them because as I have often said it hath lost the power to command them XI The Senses then were ordain'd to furnish us with short and certain ways to distinguish Bodies with respect to the preservation of our Health and Life Therefore we may make use of them to unite our selves by the Body to sensible Objects or to separate our selves from them this is agreable to Order I say to unite or separate our selves Not to love or fear them For Love and Hatred are Motions of
For the fuller the Brain is of Spirits the more rebellious the Imagination is the Passions are the more violent the Body speaks in a higher Tone which never speaks but in favour of the Body to unite and subject the Soul to the Body and to separate it from him who alone is able to give it that perfection it is capable of We should therefore endeavour to silence our own Imagination and be upon our guard against those that please and excite it We should as much as is possible avoid the Conversation of the World For when the Lust either of Pride or Pleasure is actually provok'd Grace cannot operate in us with its full efficacy XXII Man is subject to Two sorts of Concupiscence one of Pleasure and the other of Grandeur This is a thing not sufficiently taken notice of When a Man enjoys sensual Pleasures his Imagination is polluted and carnal Concupiscence exerts and fortifies it self In like manner when he goes abroad into the World and seeks to advance himself in it when he procures Friends and gains Reputation the Idea which he hath of himself stretches and grows larger in his Imagination and the concupiscence of Pride gains new and greater Strength There are some impressions in the Brain naturally form'd for maintaining civil Society and advancing a Man 's private Fortune as there are others relating to the preservation of his Life and the propagation of his Species We are united to other Men by a thousand Relations as really as we are to our own Body and every union with the Creatures disunites us from God in the State we are now in because the impressions of the Brain are not subject to our Wills XXIII All Men are well enough convinc'd of the pravity of carnal Concupiscence they have some fear and abhorrence of it and in some measure avoid every thing that may provoke it But there are very few that seriously reflect on the concupiscence of Pride or apprehend the danger of raising and augmenting it Every one rashly throws himself into the Conversation of the World and embarks without fear on that tempestuous Sea as S. Augustine calls it We suffer our selves to be govern'd by the Spirit that reigns in the World we aspire to Greatness and pursue Honour For indeed how is it possible to remain unmov'd in the mid'st of that Torrent of People that surrounds us who insult and domineer over us if they leave us behind them In fine we get a Name but it is such a Name as makes a Man the more a Slave the more Pains he hath taken to deserve it a Name which straitly unites us to the Creatures and separates us from the Creator a Name illustrious in the esteem of Men but a Name of Pride which God will destroy CHAP. XIII Of the Passions What they are Their dangerous effects We must moderate them The conclusion of the first Part. I. THE Senses Imagination and Passions go always in company together We cannot examine and condemn them apart That which I have said of the Senses and Imagination naturally reaches the Passions also So that the Reader may easily judge what I am going to say by what I have already said For I shall only explain a little more at large what I have been already oblig'd to say in part by reason of the close union that is between all the parts of our Being II. By the Passions I do not mean the Senses which produce them nor the Imagination which excites and keeps them up But I mean those notions of the Soul and animal Spirits which are caus'd by the Senses and Imagination and act reciprocally on the cause which produc'd them For all this is nothing but a continual circulation of Sensations and Motions which mutually produce and fortify one another If the Senses produce the Passions the Passions in return by the Motion which they excite in the Body unite the Senses to sensible Objects If the Imagination stirs up the Passions the Passions by a Counter-motion of the Spirits raise the Imagination and each of them is reciprocally supported or produc'd anew by the effect of which it is the Cause so admirable is the oeconomy of Man's Body and the mutual Relation of all the parts which compose it But this matter deserves a fuller Explication in respect of the Consequences which we should draw from it III. The Passions are Motions of the Soul which accompany that of the Spirits and the Blood and produce in the Body by the mechanical Frame and Constitution of it all the dispositions necessary to support and keep up the Cause from whence they arise At the sight of any Object which moves the Soul we will suppose that Object to be some Good the animal Spirits which come from the Brain to the other parts of the Body divide themselves into two Branches or Courses One of these Courses runs or hath a tendency to run to the external parts the Legs and Arms or if they are unserviceable then to the Lungs and Organs of the Voice in order to dispose us and those that are with us to unite us to the Object The other part of the Spirits goes into the Nerves belonging to the Heart Lungs Liver and other Viscera to proportion the Fermentation and Course of the Blood and Humours to the quality of the present Good By this means the Impression which the presence of any Good or the Imagination forms in the Brain and which determines the two Courses of the Spirits is preserv'd and maintain'd by new Spirits with which the latter Course endeavours to supply the Brain by the repeated and violent Shocks wherewith it shakes the Nerves that encompass the Vessels containing the Humours and Blood the Matter of which the Spirits are continually made IV. The Nerves which are distributed into the Limbs being full of Spirits from their origine in the Brain even to their extremities and the Impression of the Object forcibly driving the Spirits into all the parts of the Body to give them a violent and extraordinary Motion or put them into a forc'd Position the Blood must of necessity ascend up to the Head speedily and in great abundance by the Action of the Nerves which surround and compress or dilate the Vessels wherein it is contain'd For if the Brain did not send a sufficient quantity of Spirits into the Members of the Body we could not long preserve the Air Posture and Motion necessary for the acquisition of Good and the avoidance of Evil. Nay we should fall into Swounings and Faintings for this constantly happens when the Brain wants Spirits and when the Communication which it hath by their means with the other parts of the Body is interrupted V. Thus the Body is an admirable Machine compos'd of an infinite number of Pipes and Cisterns which have all innumerable communications with one another The wonderful operation of this Machine depends wholly on the Course of the Spirits which is differently determin'd by the
zealous Friends who Sacrifice their Kindred their Life and their eternal Salvation to the Passions of their Friends VI. We must not then confound Vertue with Duties by reason of a similitude of Names it is this that deceives Men. There are some who imagine they follow Vertue when they follow only a natural Inclination they have to perform some certain Duties and because they are not guided by Reason they are in truth Vicious in excess when they fancy themselves to be Heros in Vertue But the greatest part of Mankind being deceiv'd by this confusion of Terms and the splendour of Names rely upon and value themselves without Reason and often judge ill of the most Vertuous Persons because it is impossible that good Men should follow the Rules of Order any long time without failing according to outward appearance in some essential Duty For in short to be Prudent Good-natur'd and Charitable in the Eyes of the World a Man must sometimes commend Vice or at least hold his Tongue when he hears it commended To be esteem'd Liberal he must be Prodigal If he be not Rash he shall hardly be accounted Valiant and if he be not Superstitious or Credulous let his Piety be never so great he may perhaps pass for a Libertine in the Opinion of others VII It is certain that Universal Reason is always the same Order is immutable and yet Morality changes according to Places and Times It is a Vertue among the Germans to drink hard and a Man can have no conversation with them if he be not drunk It is not Reason but Wine that unites their Societies settles their Agreements and makes their Bargains 'T is reckon'd Bravery in a Gentleman to shed the Blood of him that gives him the Lie Duelling was for a long time a lawful Action amongst the French and as if Reason was not worthy to determine their Differences they decided them by Force They prefer'd the Law of Brutes or Chance before the Law of God himself Nor must we imagine that this Custom was in use only amongst the Men of the Sword it was in a manner general and if the Clergy did not fight themselves out of respect to their Character they had their Champions who represented them and maintain'd their Quarrel by shedding the Blood of their Adversaries Nay they imagin'd that God approv'd this manner of proceeding and whether their Differences were decided by the Sword or by Lot they did not doubt but that God sat as Judge in the Cause and gave it in favour of him that had Right on his side And indeed if we suppose God to act by particular wills where is the Impiety of believing either that he favours Injustice or that his Providence doth not extend to all things VIII But without going to seek for damnable Customs in the past Ages let any one by the Light of Reason judge of those that are at present kept up among us or let him only observe the Conduct of those very Persons who are appointed for Guides to others Without doubt we shall often find that every one of them hath his particular Morality his own private Religion and his favourite Vertue that one talks of nothing but Penance and Mortification another esteems only the Duties of Charity and a third cries up nothing but Meditation and Prayer From whence can this diversity proceed if the Reason of Man be always the same From hence no doubt that they leave off consulting Reason and suffer themselves to be guided by Imagination its Enemy in stead of observing the immutable Order as their inviolable and natural Law they frame to themselves Ideas of Vertue conformable at least in some things to their own Inclinations For there are some Vertues or rather Duties which have a relation to our Tempers or Humours there are shining and glittering Vertues proper for fierce and lofty Souls low and humble Vertues which are fit for timorous and fearful Minds and soft and effeminate Vertues if I may so call them which suit very well with Laziness and Inactivity IX It is true they agree that Order is the inviolable Law of Spiritual Beings and that nothing is regular if it be not conformable to it But they maintain a little too stifly that they are not capable of consulting this Law and tho' it be graven upon the Heart of Man so that he need only retire into himself to be instructed in it they think like the gross and carnal Jews that it is as hard to discover it as to climb up into Heaven or go down into Hell as the Scripture speaks X. I must confess that the immutable Order is not easie to be found it dwells within us but we are always roving abroad Our Senses unite our Soul to all the parts of our Body our Imagination and Passions extend it to all the Objects which surround us and often carry it into a World that hath no more reality than imaginary Spaces this is undeniably so But then we should endeavour to silence our Senses Imagination and Passions and not fancy that we can be reasonable without consulting Reason But this Order by which we ought to be govern'd is a Form too abstracted to serve as a Model for grosser Spirits I grant it Let us then give it a Body let us make it sensible let us cloath it in several Dresses to render it agreeable to carnal Men let us if I may so speak incarnate it yet so as it may be always known again Let us accustom Men to distinguish true Vertue from Vice from seeming Vertues and from simple Duties which a Man may often perform without Vertue and not set before them Phantoms or Idols which attract their Admiration and Respect by the sensible Splendour and Pomp that surrounds them For in short if we are not guided by Reason if we are not animated by the Love of Order how exact soever we may be in the performance of our Duties we can never be solidly Vertuous XI But say they Reason is corrupted it is liable to Error it must submit to Faith Philosophy is but a Servant we ought to distrust the Light which that affords All equivocal Terms Man is not his own Light Religion is the true Philosophy It is not I confess the Philosophy of the Heathens nor that of those great Talkers who speak to others before Truth has spoke to them Reason is immutable incorruptible infallible and ought always to govern God himself follows it In a word we ought never to shut our Eyes against the Light but we should accustom our selves to distingush it from Darkness or false Glares from confus'd Sensations from sensible Idea's which appear bright and shining Lights to those who are not accustom'd to distinguish Truth from Probability Evidence from Instinct and Reason from its Enemy Imagination Certainly Understanding is preferable to Faith for Faith will have an end but Understanding will remain for ever Faith is indeed a very great good but it
discover it self sensibly as Concupiscence doth we cannot be assur'd of the state we are in Therefore we ought always to distrust our selves without desponding and to Labour even till Death to destroy Self-love and Concupiscence which continually renews it self and to fortify the love of Order which is weakned or destroy'd when we cease to keep a watch over our selves XVIII For the right understanding of what follows we must observe that the acts of Love are of two sorts natural or purely voluntary Acts and free Acts. All Pleasure infallibly produces in the Soul the natural motion of Love or makes us love the Object which causes or seems to cause that Pleasure with a natural necessary or purely voluntary Love But every Pleasure doth not produce a free Love for free Love is not always conformable to the natural Love This Love doth not depend upon Pleasure alone but upon Reason upon Liberty upon the Power which the Soul hath to resist any Motion that presses it It is the consent of the Will which makes the essential difference of this species of Love Now these two different acts of Love produce two different Habits The natural Love begets in the Soul a disposition toward natural Love And the love of Choice leaves in it a Habit of that Love For when a Man hath consented several times to the love of any Good he hath an inclination or facility to consent to it again XIX We must know then that every disposition of Love whether natural or free corrupts the Soul and renders it odious to God if the object of it be a Creature but if it be applied to the Creator it makes the Soul righteous and acceptable to God Provided nevertheless that the disposition of natural Love be alone in the Heart for if there be two Habits of Love of different kinds in the Heart God doth not regard the natural Love but only that which is free XX. For Example an Infant at his first coming into the World is a Sinner and deserves the wrath of God because God loves Order and the Heart of that Infant is irregular or turn'd toward the Body by an habitual disposition of a natural necessary or merely voluntary Love †See l. 2. c. 1. of the Search after Truth and the Notes upon that Chap. which he derives from his Parents without any consent on his part Adam at the first instant of his Creation was Just because his Heart was dispos'd to love God tho' he had not as yet acquir'd a habit of consenting to that Love So that a natural disposition or habit when it is alone corrupts or justifies the Soul For when there is but one habitual Love in the Heart if that love be Good there is nothing in it but what is amiable in the Eyes of him who loves Order and the contrary if that Love be evil But when there are two habits of Love of different kinds God hath no regard but to that which is free It is probable that the Just have a much greater facility and natural disposition to love the Goods of the Body than the true and real ones The Pleasures of Sense being almost continually before them and the preventing delight of Grace much more rare they are more strongly disposs'd by this sort of Habit which is a natural consequence of Pleasure to love sensible Objects than the true Good This is evident by what happens to them in Sleep or when they are not upon their Guard but act without Reflection For then they most commonly follow the motions of Concupiscence But these irregularities do not corrupt them because the Habit of Vertue is not chang'd for those acts which are not free cannot change free Habits but only the Habits of the same kind From what hath been said it is plain that the love of Order which justifies us in the sight of God must be an habitual free and ruling Love of the immutable Order And therefore where I speak of the love of Order in the sequel of this Discourse I generally understand by it this kind of habitual Love and not an actual not an habitual natural Love not a love which is not predominant nor any other motion or disposition of the Soul CHAP. IV. Two fundamental Truths belonging to this Treatise I. Acts produce Habits and Habits Acts. II. The Soul doth not always produce the Acts of its ruling Habit. The Sinner may avoid committing any particular Sin and the just Man may lose his Charity because there is no Sinner without some love for Order and no just Man without Self-love We cannot be justified in the sight of God by the strength of Free-will The means in general of acquiring and preserving Charity The methodus'd in the explication of these means I. THat I may give a clear explication of the means of acquiring or preserving the ruling Love of the immutable Order I shall lay down two fundamental Truths belonging to the first Part of this Treatise First that Vertues are generally acquir'd and fortified by Acts. Secondly that when we act we do not always produce the acts of the ruling Vertue What I say of Vertue must be also understood of all Habits good or bad and even of the Passions which are natural to us II. Every one is sufficiently convinc'd by his own Experience that those Habits which have a relation to the Body are form'd and preserv'd by Acts. Thus it is universally agreed that by the acts of Dancing Playing on an Instrument or speaking a Language those Habits may be acquir'd Most People are persuaded that Men get a Habit of Drunkenness by drinking much that the company of Women makes a Man soft and effeminate and that those who converse with Souldiers become generally Stout or Brutish But there are few who seriously consider that the Soul it self by its own Acts gets such Habits as it cannot easily get rid of A Mathematician is apt to imagine that it is in his own power not to love the Mathematicks and to give over the Study of them An ambitious Man foolishly persuades himself that he is not a slave to his Passion And every one believes that tho' he be in a miserable subjection to some vitious Habit he is able whenever he pleases to break the Chains that hold him in Captivity It is upon this Principle that Men still delay their Conversion for seeing there is nothing more requir'd to Conversion than to despise those Enjoyments which they own to be vain and contemptible and to love God who certainly alone deserves to be lov'd every one persuades himself that he hath and always shall have Reason and Strength enough to form and put in Execution a Design so just and reasonable III. Besides as the Will is never forc'd we imagine that whatsoever we will we will just so only because we will We do not consider that the acts of the Will are produc'd in us in consequence of our inward Dispositions which Dispositions being
must avoid every thing that takes up any room in the Mind unprofitably And as there is nothing that possesses it more than that which touches strikes and agitates it it is evident that we must carefully avoid all Objects that please our Senses and excite our Passions The Senses and Passions being certain Modifications of the proper substance of the Soul all intellectual Ideas which do not modify it must of necessity disappear in the presence of sensible Objects tho' we strive never so much to retain them and to discover their Relations Besides we are perswaded that it is in our own power to recal these intellectual Ideas but Experience assures us that our Wills are not the occasional causes of our Senses And therefore we readily lay hold of those Sensations by which we enjoy those Delights that pass away and cannot be recall'd and neglect the pure Ideas whereby we discover the Truth which remains fix'd and which we can contemplate whenever we please For we must resolve speedily as to those Goods which fly away from us but we may defer the examination of those that are stable and always present In short we would always be actually happy We would never be actually Miserable Actual Pleasure makes us actually Happy and actual Pain actually Miserable Therefore every Sensation which participates of Pleasure or Pain possesses the Mind Every motion of the Soul which hath actual good or evil for its Object governs the Will So that we must use very strong endeavours to contemplate Truth when our Senses are affected and our Passions stir'd And since we find by Experience that these endeavours are at that time very insignificant it is impossible but that the Soul being spent and tir'd must be discontented and discourag'd And therefore those who treat of Prayer give us this weighty Admonition to labour incessantly in mortifying our Senses and not to meddle with those things which do not concern us and which may in the sequel by our indiscreet engaging in them excite in us a Thousand troublesom Motions IX The next thing we have to do is to avoid as much as we can all those Sciences and Occupations which have nothing but shew and outward splendor those Sciences in which the Memory only is employ'd those Studies and Occupations in which the Imagination is too much exercis'd When a Man's Head is full he is content with his imaginary Riches and being swell'd with Pride he scorns the labour of Attention or if he owns the necessity of it it will cost him too much Pains to remove all those false Ideas which his Memory furnishes him with And when the Imagination is too much exercis'd the evidence of Truth doth not make a lively impression on us For it is certain that there is nothing more opposite to Reason than an Imagination too well furnish'd too nice too active or rather a malignant and corrupted Imagination For the Imagination ought always to be silent when Reason Speaks but when we have us'd our selves to employ it much it continually interrupts and opposes it And therefore we see that those Men of Sense I speak of and your great Wits as they fancy themselves have not much Piety or Religion for indeed there are no Men more blind than they All the Light in them is extinguish'd by Pride for being always highly conceited of themselves and satiated or rather having no Appetite to Truth they cannot bring themselves to think of earning by the Sweat of their Brow the Bread of the Soul a Nourishment of which they have no manner of Relish X. A Man must labour with the Soul to maintain the life of the Soul this is absolutely necessary But nothing is more servile than to employ the labour of the Soul in getting Mony or Honour That a Mechanick should labour with the Body to maintain the life of the Body to get Bread this is conformable to Order at least while his Body is at Work he may feed his Mind and employ it in good Thoughts But for a Magistrate a States-man a Merchant to lavish away the strength of his Mind in getting those Goods that are many times of no use for the life of the Body and always dangerous to that of the Soul is a very great Folly And therefore we should in the third Place avoid all such Employments as deprive us of the liberty of the Mind except God engages us in them by an extraordinary Vocation For if Charity or the Laws of the Community in which we live oblige us to them and we take upon us no more than we are able to bear God will make up in us an equivalent to that which we might have obtain'd by the labour of Meditation And even then we shall find time enough to examine our selves in relation to our Duties if we are not govern'd by Ambition or Interest in the exercise of our Calling XI Every Man knows well enough what things are apt to agitate and distract his Mind at least he may be inform'd by consulting Experience or that inward Sense which he hath of himself And therefore I shall not dwell any longer in setting down particularly what we must do to make Meditation easy to us It is only the Body which makes the Soul dull and heavy This is the ground of our Stupidity Now all sensible Objects work upon us only by means of the Body Therefore it is evident that to hearken without Pain to the Answers which Truth pronounces within us we have nothing to do but to silence our Senses Imagination and Passions or in a Word to still that confus'd Noise which the Body makes in us Now every Man knows by his own Experience that the Body is quiet enough when nothing stirs it from without or hath not too much stir'd it before For since it retains a long time those impressions and motions which it hath receiv'd from sensible Objects I confess that the Imagination remains polluted and hurt when we have been so indiscreet as to be too familiar with Pleasure Notwithstanding the Wound will close up of it self and the Brain will return to its former state if we carefully avoid the action of all Objects that strike our Senses which we are always able to do at least in some measure with those necessary Helps which I all along suppose Let us do what we can on our part and we shall be so far from being out of love with Meditation that we shall find our selves so well rewarded that we shall not repent of our Pains provided nevertheless that we observe the following Rule without which notwithstanding all our Meditation we shall never be rewarded with a clear view of Truth My Design here is not to teach the Art of Thinking nor to deliver all the Rules by which the Mind ought to regulate every step in takes in the search of Truth The Subject of this Discourse is Morality a Science necessary for all Mankind and not Logick which only they who
would be capable of discovering Truth in all manner of Subjects are oblig'd to study throughly XII The only Rule which I would have carefully observ'd is to meditate only on clear Ideas and undeniable Experiments To meditate on confus'd Sensations and doubtful Experiments is lost labour this is to contemplate nothing but Chimeras and to follow Error The immutable and necessary Order the divine Law is also our Law This ought to be the principal Subject of our Meditations Now there is nothing more abstracted and less Subject to Sense than this Order I grant that we may also be guided by Order made sensible and visible by the actions and precepts of Jesus Christ Yet that is because that sensible Order raises the Mind to the knowledge of the intellectual Order for the Word made Flesh is our Model only to conform us to Reason the indispensable Model of all intelligent Beings the Model by which the first Man was form'd and according to which we are to be reform'd by the foolishness of Faith which leads us by our Senses to our Reason and to the contemplation of our intellectual Model XIII A Man that is thrown down on the Ground supports himself with the Ground but 't is in order to rise again Jesus Christ accommodates himself to our Weakness but 't is to draw us out of it Faith speaks to the Soul only by the Body it is true but it is to the end that a Man should not hearken to the Body that he should retire into himself that he should contemplate the true Ideas of things and silence his Senses Imagination and Passions That he should begin upon Earth to make the same use of his Mind that he shall do in Heaven where Understanding shall succeed Faith where the Body shall be subject to the Soul and Reason shall have the sole Government For the Body of it self speaks to the Soul only for it self this is an essential Truth of which we cannot be too fully convinc'd XIV Truth and Order consist in nothing else but in the relations of Greatness and Perfection which Things have to one another But how shall we discover these Relations evidently when we want clear Ideas How shall we give to every thing the Rank which belongs to it if we measure nothing but with relation to our selves Certainly if we look upon our selves as the Center of the Universe a Notion which the Body is continually putting into us all Order is destroy'd all Truths change their nature a Torch becomes bigger than a Star a Fruit more valuable than the safety of our Country The Earth which Astronomers consider but as a Point in respect of the Universe is the Universe it self And this Universe is yet but a Point in respect of our particular Being At some certain times when the Body speaks to us and the Passions are excited we are ready if it were possible to sacrifice it to our Glory and Pleasures XV. By clear Ideas which I make the principal Object of those who would know and love Order I mean not only those between which the Mind can discover the precise and exact Relations such as are all those which are the Object of Mathematical Knowledge and may be express'd by Numbers or represented by Lines But I understand in general by clear Ideas all such as produce any Light in the Mind of those who contemplate them and from which one may draw certain Consequences So that I reckon amongst clear Ideas not only simple Ideas but also those Truths which contain the Relations that are between Ideas I comprehend also in this Number common Notions and Principles of Morality and in a word all clear Truths which are evident either of themselves or by Demonstration or by an infallible Authority tho' to speak nicely these last are rather certain than clear and evident XVI By undeniable Experiments I mean chiefly those matters of Fact which Faith informs us of and those of which we are convinc'd by the inward Sense we have of what passes within our selves If we will be govern'd by Examples and judge of Things by Opinion we shall be deceiv'd every Moment for there is nothing more equivocal and more confus'd than the Actions of Men and many times nothing more false than that which passes for certain with whole Nations Further it is a very fruitless thing to meditate upon that which passes within our selves if we do it with a Design of discovering the nature of it For we have no clear Ideas of our own Being nor of any of its Modifications and we can never discover the nature of any Beings but by contemplating the clear Ideas by which they are represented to us But we cannot meditate too much upon our inward Sensations and Motions to discover their Connexions and Relations and the natural or occasional causes which excite them for this is a thing of infinite consequence in relation to Morality XVII The knowledge of Man is of all the Sciences the most necessary for our purpose But it is only an experimental Science resulting from the reflection we make on that which passes within us This Reflection doth not discover to us the nature of those two Substances of which we are compos'd but it teaches us the Laws of the union of the Soul and Body and is serviceable to us in establishing those great Principles of Morality by which we ought to govern our Actions XVIII On the contrary the knowledge of God is not at all Experimental We discover the Divine Nature and Attributes when we can contemplate with Attention the vast and immense Idea of an infinitely perfect Being for we must not judge of God but according to the clear Idea we have of him This is a thing not sufficiently taken notice of For most Men judge of God with a relation to themselves they make him like themselves a great many ways they consult themselves instead of consulting only the Idea of an infinitely perfect Being Thus they take away from him those divine Attributes which they cannot easily conceive and attribute to him a Wisdom a Power a Conduct in a word Sentiments resembling at least in some measure those which are most familiar to them And yet the knowledge of our Duties supposes that of the Divine Attributes and our Conduct can never be sure and well grounded if it be not built upon and govern'd by that which God observes in the execution of his Designs XIX The Knowledge of Order which is our indispensable Law is compounded of both these clear Ideas and inward Sensations Every Man knows that it is better to be Good than Rich a Prince or a Conqueror but every Man doth not see it by a clear Idea Children and ignorant People know well enough when they do ill but 't is because the secret Check of Reason reproves them for it and not always because the Light discovers it to them For Order consider'd speculatively and precisely only as it contains the Relations
of Perfection enlightens the Mind without moving it if it be taken only for the Law of God the Law of all Spiritual Beings and consider'd only so far as it hath the force of a Law for God loves Order himself and irresistibly wills that we should love it or that we should love every Thing in proportion to its being amiable Order I say as it is the natural and necessary Principle and Rule of all the Motions of the Soul touches penetrates and convinces the Mind without enlightning it So that we may discover Order by a clear Idea but we know it also by Sensation for since God loves Order and continually imprints on us a Love and Motion like his own we must necessarily be inform'd by the sure and compendious way of Sensation when we follow or forsake the immutable Order XX. But we must observe that this way of discovering Order by Sensation or Instinct is often render'd uncertain by Sin which hath introduc'd Concupiscence because the secret influences of the Passions are of the same nature with that inward Sensation For when we act contrary to Opinion and Custom we often feel such inward Checks as very much resemble those of Reason and Order Before Sin enter'd into the World the Sense of inward Reproof was a sign that could not be mistaken for then that alone spoke with Authority but since that time the secret inspirations of our Passions are not subject to our Wills So that they are easily confounded with the inspirations of inward Truth when the Mind is not enlightned Hence it is that there are so many People who seriously and in good earnest maintain abominable Errors A false Idea of Religion and Morality which agrees with their Interests and Passions appears Truth it self to them and being convinc'd by a pleasing Sense within them which justifies their excess they drive on their rash and indiscreet Zeal with all the Motion of Self-love XXI There is nothing then more certain and secure than Light we cannot six our Attention too long on clear Ideas and tho' we may suffer our selves to be animated by the inward Sense yet we must never be guided by it We must contemplate Order in it self and permit this Sensation only to keep up our Attention by the Motion which it excites in us otherwise our Meditations will never be rewarded with a clear prospect of Truth we shall be disgusted every moment and being always inconstant doubtful and perplex'd we shall suffer our selves to be blindly led by our Fancy XXII Indeed when our Heart is corrupted we are not in a Condition to contemplate Order as it is in it self we consider with Pleasure only those imaginary Relations which things have to our selves and neglect those real Relations which they have to one another We may then love the Mathematicks but it is because they bring us Reputation or Profit and because they examine only the Relations of Greatness whereas Order Consists in the Relations of Perfection The Evidence of Truth is always agreeable when it doth not clash with our Self-love but naturally we do not love a Light which discovers our hidden Disorders a Light which condemns punishes and covers us with Shame and Confusion Order the Divine Law is a terrible threatning and inexorable Law No Man can think upon it without fear and horror when he will not obey it all this is true But yet tho' the Heart be corrupted Self-love enlightned may sometimes stop or diminish the Motion of the Passions We do not love Disorder for Disorder's sake and a Man may desire his Conversion when he hopes to heighten his Pleasures by it After all I suppose the necessary helps for I confess that without the assistance of Grace we cannot labour in our Conversion as we ought nor so much as have one good Thought which may contribute to the Cure of our Distempers CHAP. VI. Of the Liberty of the Mind We should suspend our Assent as much as we can which is the great Rule By the Liberty of the Mind we may avoid Error and Sin as by the Strength of the Mind we free our selves from Ignorance The Liberty of the Mind as well as the Strength of it is a Habit which is confirm'd by use Some instances of its Vsefulness in Physicks Morality and Civil Life I. WE cannot discover Truth without the Labour of Attention because this Labour alone is rewarded with Light Before a Man can support and continue the Labour of Attention he must have gain'd some Strength of Mind and some Authority over the Body to impose Silence on his Senses Imagination and Passions as I have shew'd in the foregoing Chapter But how great Strength of Mind soever he hath acquir'd he cannot Labour incessantly and if he could yet there are some Subjects so obscure that the Mind of Man cannot penetrate into them Therefore to keep him from falling into Error it is not sufficient to have a strong Mind to endure Labour but he must also have another Vertue which I cannot better express than by the Equivocal Name of Liberty of Mind by which a Man witholds his Assent till he be irresistibly forc'd to give it II. When we examine any very compounded Question and our Mind finds it self surrounded on all sides with very great Difficulties Reason permits us to give over our Labour but it indispensably requires us to suspend our assent and to judge of nothing when nothing is evident To make use of our Liberty as much as we can is an essential and indispensable Precept both of Logick and Morality For we ought never to believe till Evidence obliges us to it we ought never to love that which we may without Remorse hinder our selves from loving I speak of Man only as he is Rational or as he governs himself only by Reason For the Faithful as such have other Principles than Light and Evidence The Statesman the Burgher the Religious the Souldier have each of them Principles of their own and it is reasonable that they should follow them tho' they do not clearly and evidently see that they are conformable to Reason But when Faith gives no determination we should believe nothing but what we see Where Custom prescribes no Rules we should follow only Faith and Reason and tho' human Authority doth determine and Custom authorizes any thing yet if we know clearly and evidently that their Determinations are false and erroneous we had better renounce every thing than Reason I say Reason and not our Senses our Imagination or the secret inspirations of our Passions which I desire may be taken notice of I speak also of Authority subject to Error and not of the infallible Authority of the Church which can never be contrary to Reason For Jesus Christ can never contradict himself Truth incarnate can never be contrary to Truth intellectual nor the Head which governs the Church to universal Reason which enlightens all Spiritual Beings III. The Strength of the Mind is to
But it is needless to prove here that to procure our own Death is a Crime which will be so far from reuniting us to God that it will for ever separate us from him It is lawful to despise Life and even to wish for Death that we may be with Christ as St. Paul does Having a desire to be dissolv'd Phil. 1.23 and to be with Christ But we are oblig'd to preserve our Health and Life and it is the Grace of Christ that must deliver us from Concupiscence or that Body of Death which joyns us to the Creatures The same Apostle cries our O wretched Man that I am Rom. 7.24 who shall deliver me from this Body of Death The Grace of God through Jesus Christ II. It is certain Exod 33.20 that we must die before we can see God and be united to him for no Man can see him and live saith the Scripture But we truly die so far as we quit the Body as we separate our selves from the World and silence our Senses Imagination and Passions by which we are united to our Body and by that to all those that surround us We die to the Body and to the World when we retire into our selves when we consult the inward Truth when we unite our selves and are obedient to Order Job 28.21 The eternal Wisdom is hid from the Eyes of all Living But those who are Dead to the World and to Themselves who have crucified the Flesh with its disorder'd Lusts who are crucified with Christ and to whom the World is crucified Blessed are the pure in Heart for they shall see God Mat. 5.8 1 Cor. 13.12 in a word those who have a clean Heart a pure Mind and an unspotted Imagination are capable of beholding Truth Now they see God but confusedly and imperfectly in Part through a Glass in a Riddle but they see him truly they are closely and immediately united to him and shall one day see him Face to Face for we must know and love God in this Life to enjoy him in the next III. But those who live not only the Life of the Body but also the Life of the World who live in the enjoyment of Pleasures and spread themselves as it were over all the Objects that are about them can never find out Truth Job 28.13 For as the Scripture saith Wisdom doth not dwell with those that live Voluptuously Non invenitur in terra suaviter viventium We must then procure our selves not that Death which kills the Body and puts an end to Life but that which brings the Body under and weakens Life I mean the Union of the Soul with the Body or its dependence on it We must begin and continue our Sacrifice and expect from God the Consummation and Reward of it For the Life of a Christian here on-Earth is a constant Sacrifice by which he continually offers up his Body his Concupiscence and Self-love to the Love of Order and his Death which is precious in the Sight of God is the day of his Victories and Triumphs in Jesus Christ raised from the dead the forerunner of our Glory and the model of our eternal Reformation IV. Rom. 6.6 St. Paul tells us That our old Man is already crucified with Christ for by the Sacrifice which Christ hath offer'd on the Cross he hath merited for us for us I say particularly who have been washed in his Blood by Baptism all the Graces necessary to balance and even to diminish by degrees the weight of Concupiscence so that Sin no longer reigns in us but by our own Fault Let us not therefore think to excuse our Slothfulness by imagining that we are not able to resist the Law of the Flesh which continually rebels against the Law of the Mind The Law of Sin would have an absolute Dominion over the Motions of our Heart if Christ had not destroy'd it by his Cross But we who are dead and buried to Sin by Baptism Rom. 6.4 v. 11. who are justified and rais'd to life again in Jesus Christ glorified who are animated by the influence of our Head by the Spirit of Christ and by a Power wholly Divine we I say ought not to believe that Heaven forsakes us in our Combats and that if we are overcome it is for want of Succours Christ never neglects those that call upon him 't is impious to believe it for all the Scriptures say Act. 2. â—1 Rom 10.13 Joel 2.34 That whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be sav'd V. It is certain that we could never be glorified and seated in Heaven with Jesus Christ we could not have eternal Life abiding in us we could not be Heirs of God and Joint-heirs with Christ Citizens of the holy City and adopted Children of God himself all which things the Apostles say of Christians if God were not faithful in his Promises if he suffer'd us to be tempted above our Strength 1 Cor. 10.13 which St. Paul also forbids us to believe But we may truly say That we are already glorified in Christ c. because in effect it depends only on our selves to preserve by Grace the Right which the same Grace gives us to future Blessings and it is a kind of brutish stupidity in a Man which one would think should astonish a rational and spiritual Being to lose infinite Happiness by his own Fault and incurr eternal Damnation through his own Negligence VI. This Truth being suppos'd as undeniable let us awaken our Faith and Hope let us search after the Means to secure our Salvation and let us Act in such sort that the Grace which God cannot infuse into us with any other design but to sanctify and save us may effectually sanctify us and make us worthy to enjoy the true Good Ye are dead saith St. Paul 〈…〉 and your life is hid with Christ in God Mortify therefore your Members which are upon the Earth We are dead to Sin because living in Christ our Head we should and by his influence may kill the old Man it lies in our own power to do it But to put this Design in execution according to the Advice which St. Paul here gives we must labour all our life in the Mortification of our Senses we must endeavour with the utmost Diligence to keep our Imagination pure and undefil'd we must regulate all the Motions of our Passions by Order in a word we must diminish the weight of Sin which by the actual Efforts of Concupiscence provok'd and stir'd up is able to balance the strongest Graces and to separate us from God Mortify therefore your Members which are upon the Earth If we do what depends on us Grace will work in our Heart with its full Efficacy we shall die in the sense of St. Paul and our life being hid with Christ in God shall appear with Glory when Christ himself shall appear cloth'd with Majesty and Honour Col. 3.4 When Christ
the Soul which should never be determin'd by confus'd Sensations they ought to be guided by Reason and not by Instinct It is indifferent to the Body whether the Soul loves Bread or not If we Eat it without loving it the Body will nevertheless be nourish'd by it and if we love it without eating it the Body will be never the stronger but the Soul will thereby be corrupted and disorder'd For every motion of the Soul which instead of tending towards him who continually imprints this Motion on it that it may love him alone tends toward Bodies dead inferiour and impotent Substances is blind irregular and sensual These are not abstracted Chimeras but necessary Truths immutable Laws and indispensable Obligations XII But what Can we unite our selves to Bodies without loving them Can we fly from our Enemy without fearing him Yes without doubt we may For I speak principally of free and voluntary Motions which certainly we may hinder from following the natural Motions But supposing we could not What then must we conclude from thence but that the Heart of Man is so Corrupted that his Disease is incurable and that he cannot make use of his Senses without inflaming and renewing his Wounds and consequently that the mortification of the Senses is the most necessary thing in the World in that condition to which Man is reduc'd For after all can it be doubted that God acts only for himself that he imprints no motion on the Soul but for himself alone that all love of corporeal Objects is Vitious and Irregular in a Word that we are indispensably oblig'd to love God with all our Heart with all our Soul and with all our Strength XIII When the Soul is penetrated with the presence of God and beholds him Working continually in the Objects which strike the Senses when the Mind is actually convinc'd of the impotence of the Creatures in general and applies it self to govern the Heart according to the Light it hath receiv'd without doubt it may at that instant unite it self to Bodies or separate it self from them without loving or fearing them Indeed this time of Reflection cannot last long The Mind is soon tir'd with attention to its Duty and when the Senses come to be touc'h with any Object that pleases them the Soul being struck with the first appearance of Good and contented with it constantly follows by its own Motion that of the Humours and Blood All Pleasure excites and determines the natural motion of the Soul and because Man would always be happy the free motion of the Will readily conforms it self to the natural Motion which is excited by the Senses We must resist if we would not follow that Motion But we are soon tir'd with resisting we lose our beloved ease and become Miserable when we cease to follow the attraction of Pleasure which makes us happy XIV It is better to get out of a Stream which carries us away with it if we cease but one Moment to strive against it than to remain there in continual action at least this is the surest way It is better to break off as far as we can the correspondence which we maintain by the Senses with sensible Objects than to expose our selves to innumerable Dangers by relying on our own Strength which is vain and deceitful The Imagination may magnify it the Pride of Man may defend it but Experience overthrows it Faith condemns it and makes it weak and despicable At least let us take the safest course The thing in question is Eternity the dreadful alternative of the Felicity of the Saints or the punishments of the Devils for infinite Ages We may successfully stop the Passages by which this dangerous Correspondence between the Senses and false Goods is maintain'd The motion of our Hands and Feet is subject to our Will It is in our own Power to bend our Eyes downward to turn our Head and Fly Thus we may avoid the Blow level'd at us by a murtherous Object But if we stand to receive it it wounds the Brain it defiles the Imagination it penetrates and corrupts the Heart Whatever effects the force of that Blow produces in the Brain and in the Nerves which excite the Passions they are in no wise subject to our Will So that we may without much difficulty prevent the Mischief by the mortification of our Senses but we cannot cure it without infinite Conflicts How happy should we be if we would learn so much Wisdom by costly Experience as to hinder it from spreading and throwing us headlong into Hell XV. Let us endeavour then to convince our selves throughly that our Senses are false Witnesses which constantly give their Testimony against us in favour of our Passions That if we are permitted to hearken to them for the good of the Body nothing is more dangerous than to consult them for the good of the Soul That if it be very ridiculous to go to prove by Reason that Gold for instance or precious Stones are not proper for Nourishment it is also contrary to Order and good Sense to examine by the Tast whether Wine be an Object worthy of our Love and Application That the motions of the Soul should be govern'd by Light and the motions and position of the Body by Pleasure and Instinct That Light never deceives and that it leaves the Mind at liberty without driving it forcibly toward the Good which it presents that so the Mind may love it with Freedom and Reason that Pleasure on the contrary is always deceitful that it takes away or abridges the liberty of the Mind and carries it naturally not toward God the true Author of that Pleasure but toward the sensible Object which seems to be the cause of it Let us remember these Principles and draw this consequence from them that the mortification of the Senses is the most necessary exercise for him that designs to live by Reason to follow Order to labour for Perfection and to secure to himself a solid Happiness and an eternal Felicity XVI Having prov'd at large in the first Book of the Search of Truth that our Senses generally speaking deceive us in every thing I think I need not insist any longer on demonstrating what I have here laid down I rather fear that those who have read and consider'd my other Writings will find Fault with me for repeating the same things over and over But this Treatise being design'd for all sorts of People it could not be avoided For all these Truths have a connexion and relation to one another We must know the Nature of Man and his Diseases at least in some measure before we can comprehend the Remedies of them and understand Morality by Principles If I should lay down as known all those Truths which I have elsewhere prov'd every Reader would not understand what I meant by them many perhaps would be afraid of them as dangerous and this Book would in all probability have the same Fate with the
proportion to the consistence of the Fibres of the Brain By a large and spacious Imagination I understand such an abundance of Spirits as is able to keep wide open a great many Tracks or Impressions of the Brain at once By a regular and well order'd Imagination I mean a Brain whose principal part which should obey the attention of the Mind hath none of its Fibres broken by the Passions or any other accident By an Enthusiast or visionary I mean one whose attention doth indeed determine the course of the Spirits but cannot moderate their force nor stop their motion He thinks on what he pleases but he sees nothing as it is For the Impressions being too large or too deep nothing appears to him in its natural shape Whatever he saith must always be taken with some allowance or deduction In this sense every Man is an Enthusiast in respect of some Things Those that know them best are the Wisest By a senseless and stupid Man I mean one whose Attention can neither stop nor determine the course of the Spirits By a contagious and headstrong Imagination I understand such an abundance of animal Spirits and those so agitated that they diffuse over all the Body especially the Face an Air of Confidence which persuades others All Men when they are mov'd with any Passion and Enthusiasts at all times have this kind of Imagination VIII The substance and disposition of the Fibres of the Brain being different in different Persons and in the same Persons at different Ages and the animal Spirits being more or less subtle in greater or less quantity more or less agitated it may easily be judg'd that there are a great many more sorts of Imaginations than those I have here mention'd and that we have not Terms enough to denote exactly the differences of them For this word Imagination is a comprehensive Term expressing not only many Ideas but also an infinite number of Relations arising from the comparison of these Ideas which relations make the particular character of the several sorts of Imaginations The Brain of it self in such or such a disposition consider'd without the relation it hath to the motion abundance or solidity of the Spirits doth not make such or such a particular sort of Imagination but the relation which arises from the quality of the Spirits compar'd with the substance of the Fibres of the Brain For a Man that hath a great abundance of Spirits very much agitated and very solid hath not therefore a lively and spacious Imagination if the Fibres of his Brain are too solid too moist too much interwoven one within another c. IX These things being granted I say that the Imagination produces as dangerous effects as the Senses and consequently that it is necessary to keep it silent if we desire that Grace should operate in us with all its efficacy X. For First the Imagination as well as the Senses speaks only for the good of the Body for naturally whatsoever comes to the Soul by the Body is only for the Body This is a great and Fundamental Principle XI Secondly the Imagination when it is heated continually interrupts the Soul It often forces the Mind to answer and discourse with it to the prejudice of Reason Besides we may easily avoid the action of sensible Objects and by that means make our Senses silent For it is in our own Power to shut our Eyes or betake our selves to Flight But we cannot easily dispel the Phantoms rais'd by the Imagination the Mind cannot avoid contemplating whatever passes in the Brain XII Thirdly the Senses represent sensible Objects near enough to the Life But the Imagination extends and enlarges them in such a manner that the Mind is sometimes charm'd and sometimes terrified with them A Man whose Heart is corrupted by the irregular desires which the Imagination of its self hath stir'd up in him sometimes finds him self cur'd by the accomplishment of those Desires The actual enjoyment of the Object of his disorders delivers him at least for some time from a Passion which ow'd all its force and vehemence to the Imagination XIII Fourthly the Senses joyn us only to certain Objects that lie round about us and are within their Sphere But the Imagination makes the Mind a Slave to every thing It unites it to the past present and future to Realities and Chimeras to possible Beings and to those which neither God himself can create nor the Mind comprehend It forms dreadful Phantoms and then is scar'd at them It raises delightful Apparitions and is pleased with them It alters and destroys the nature of all Beings and forms a Thousand extravagant Designs in a World of its own making compos'd of Realities and Fictions XIV Lastly the Imagination without going so far as downright Madness disturbs and dissipates all the true Ideas and corrupts the Heart by innumerable ways It would be too long to set down the different effects of the several kinds of Imagination But that which is most opposite to the efficacy of the Grace of Christ is that which in the Language of the World is call'd Wit for the better the Imagination is furnish'd the more dangerous it is subtilty delicacy vivacity and spaciousness of Imagination great qualities in the Eyes of Men are the most prolifick and the most general causes of the blindness of the Mind and the corruption of the Heart What I here assert being a Paradox I must not expect to be believ'd without Proof XV. The Soul is rational only by Reason It is regular only by Order It derives its perfection wholly from the immediate and direct union it hath with God On the contrary its union with the Body fills it with Darkness and puts it in disorder Because in our present Condition we cannot strengthen this union without weaking that which is opposite to it Now it is by the Imagination that the Soul dilates and spreads it self over the Creatures for it is united to Truth only by pure Ideas free from all imaginary and fantastical Appearances So that the more strength vivacity and extent the Imagination hath the more the Mind employs it self about sensible Objects all this I have said before Now when the Imagination is beautiful easy clear and sprightly the Images which it forms are lively animated and delightful always drawn to the Life and even beyond it Thus he who by the strength of his Imagination raises a great variety of different Objects in his Mind who makes his Phantoms always appear in a fashionable Dress and puts them into certain regular and harmonious Motions which give an agreeable agitation to the whole Brain He I say is charm'd with his own productions and instead of contemplating things as they are in themselves and as their Ideas represent them delights continually in seeing his own Farces acted and applauds the Fictions of his own Brain XVI It is natural for all Men to seek Admirers and the Man of Wit never fails of them
union of the Soul with Reason discovers to Man all the Ideas which enlighten him and leads him as I may say into the Country of Truth the Habitation of the Soul to shew him the Beauties and Wonders of it But the occasional cause of the presence or absence of Ideas being only the different desires of our Will we inconsiderately attribute to our selves the Power of doing that which proceeds from the sole operation of God in us And even the endeavour which accompanies our Attention that painful endeavour the certain Mark of impotence and dependance an endeavour often fruitless an endeavour which God excites in us to punish our Pride and make us deserve his Gifts this sensible and confus'd endeavour I say persuades us like that which we make to move the parts of our Bodies that we our selves are the Authors of that Knowledge which accompanies our Desires For having no perception at all of the operation of God and having an inward Sense of our own Attention we look upon this Attention to be the true cause of those effects which constantly and faithfully attend or follow it for the same reason as we attribute to our own Wills the power of moving Bodies and the sensible Qualities wherewith we are affected to the Objects which occasion them V. He that by the motion of his Body approaches toward sensible Objects or withdraws himself from them feeling the Bodies which he meets with in that Motion strike upon him easily believes that he himself is the cause of the removal of his own Body but certainly he never thinks that he gives Being to those Bodies that surround him But he that by the application of his Mind leaves the Body as it were and unites himself wholly to Reason imagines that the Truths he contemplates are of his own production He fancies that he gives a Being to the Ideas he discovers and that he forms as I may say out of his own Substance that intellectual World in which he loses himself Because the things which he then beholds do not affect his Senses he imagines they have no real Existence but in himself For People judge of the reality of Beings as they do of the solidity of Bodies by the impression they make on their Senses VI. It is certain that Man is not his own Wisdom and his own Light There is an universal Reason which enlightens all spiritual Beings an intellectual Substance common to all intelligent Natures an immutable necessary and eternal Substance All spiritual Beings contemplate it without disturbing one another They all possess it without prejudicing one another They all feed of it without diminishing any thing of its abundance It communicates it self whole and entire to them all and entire to every one of them For all of them may as it were grasp the same Idea at the same time in different places they may all possess it equally they may all penetrate or be penetrated by it VII But two Men cannot eat the same Fruit nor embrace the same Body they cannot at a distance from one another hear the same Voice nor many times see the same Objects The Creatures are all particular Beings and therefore cannot be one general and common Good He that possesses these particular Goods deprives others of them and thereby provokes their hatred or envy against him But Reason is a common Good which unites those that possess it in a perfect and durable Friendship It is a Good that is not divided by possession it is not confin'd to space nor becomes the worse for using Truth is indivisible wisd 6.12.7.10 infinite eternal immutable and incorruptible Wisdom never fadeth away The Light that cometh from her never goeth out VIII Now this general and immutable Wisdom Prov. 8. this universal Reason is the Wisdom of God himself by which and for which we are made For God created us by his Power that he might unite us to his Wisdom and thereby give us the Honour of entring into an eternal Society with him of conforming our Thoughts and desires to his and by that means of becoming like him as far as a created Being is capable of it Wisd 7.27 28. Wisdom remaining in her self maketh all things new saith the wise Man and in all Ages entring into holy Souls she maketh them Friends of God and Prophets For God loveth none but him that dwelleth with Wisdom We have no way of access to God no Society with him but by his Son his Word the universal and intellectual Reason which was incarnate in the fulness of time and made visible to enlighten gross and carnal Minds and to lead them by the Senses by Faith and by a sensible Authority to Knowledge and Understanding But still it is Reason still Wisdom Light and Truth For he that rejects the universal Reason rejects the Author of Faith who is that very Reason made sensible and proportion'd to the weakness of Men who now hear only by their Senses Without doubt nothing is more agreeable to Reason than that which Faith teaches us The more we think on it the more we are convinc'd provided that Faith conduct all the steps of the Mind and the Imagination do not cross it in its way and by vain Chimeras or humane Thoughts dispel the Light which Faith diffuses in us IX Now to find out our Duties toward God as he is Wisdom or the universal Reason of intelligent Beings it is not sufficient to be throughly convinc'd of the union of the Soul with God but we must also carefully examine the Laws of the union of the Soul and Body For we are so situated between God and Bodies that as the union between the Soul and Body is augmented and strengthned so the union of the Soul with God is weakened and diminish'd and on the contrary the less the Body acts on the Soul the more the Soul is at liberty to consult the inward Truth I shall not here set down the particular Laws of the union of the Soul and Body they may be learnt elsewhere But we must remember in general that our Senses cause our Soul to extend it self to our own Body and make it attentive to the necessities thereof and that our Imagination and Passions stretch to all those that are about us That the Body never speaks to the Soul but for the Body and that it insolently draws us away from the Presence of our inward Master who never speaks to us but for the good or perfection of our Being In a Word that our union with Reason is now so weak and tender that the least Sensation which strikes us breaks it intirely tho' we endeavour never so much to retire into our selves and to retain our Ideas which scatter and disappear X. The Judgments which we ought to form in honour of the universal Reason are these 1. There are not more Wisdoms or more Reasons than one 2. No Man is Wisdom and Light to himself or any other nor one
Mind to the true Power a respect or outward submission to an occasional Cause and a simple esteem of any thing in respect of the excellency of its Nature or the perfection which it doth or may possess IX That kind of Honour which consists in a submission of the Miâ—â— to the true Power is due to God alone 〈…〉 none but God directly and absolutely in the Powers which he hath ordain'd And tho' we are oblig'd exactly to pay to our lawful Superiors those outward honours and submissions which humane Laws and Customs have establish'd yet all the submission of the Soul must be refer'd to God alone It is mean and abject to fear the most excellent of created Beings It is God alone whom we must fear in it Nevertheless we should esteem every thing proporticnably to the excellence of its Nature or the perfection which it possesses or is capable of possessing So that the love of Benevolence respect or relative and outward Submission and simple Esteem are as I take it the Three general Heads to which all the Duties that we owe to Men may be reduc'd X. There is this difference between the Duties which Religion obliges us to pay to God and those which Society requires us to pay to Men that the principal Duties of Religion are inward and spiritual because God searches the Hearts and absolutely speaking hath no need of his Creatures whereas the Duties of Society are almost all external For besides that Men have no other way to know our inward Sentiments of them but by outward and sensible marks they all stand in need of one another either for the preservation of their Life or their particular instruction or innumerable other things which absolutely require a mutual assistance XI Therefore to expect from other Men inward and spiritual Duties which are due to God alone a pure and uncompounded Spirit the searcher of Hearts the only independent and self-sufficient Being is a diabolical Pride this is to affect Dominion over spiritual Substances to attribute to our selves the quality of searcher of Hearts and in a Word to exact that which is no way our due and which is wholly useless to us For what signifies our inward adoration to other Men or what good can theirs do us If they faithfully perform what we desire of them what can we complain of If they respect God himself if they love and fear him in our Person certainly we attribute to our selves power and independence if we are not satisfied with this Servants Col. 3.22 saith S. Paul obey in all things your Masters according to the Flesh not with Eye-service as Men-pleasers but in singleness of Heart fearing God It is God that they must fear v. 23. And whatsoever you do do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto Men to God who hath the power of rewarding and not unto Men whose Wills are of themselves altegether ineffectual v. 24. Knowing as the Apostle goes on that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the Inheritance For ye serve the Lord Christ Ye are bought with a Price 〈…〉 7.23 be not ye the Servants of Men. XII There is so strict an union between the Soul and the Body and such a mutual relation betwixt the Motions of these two Substances that it is very difficult to draw near by the motion of our Body to any Object which is the occasional cause of Pleasure without uniting our selves to it by the motion of our Love as if it were the true cause of that Pleasure So likewise when the Imagination being dazled with the splendour which envirous the Great falls down and prostrates it self before them it is difficult for the Soul not to follow that Motion or at least not to bow and lower it self It should indeed prostrate it self but then it must be before the power of the invisible God which it must honour in the Person of the Prince where that Power visibly resides XIII When the Body feeds on a delicious Fruit the Soul which finds it self in some measure happy by the Pleasure it enjoys should then be affected with Love but that Love should be address'd only to God who alone doth and can act on it But our Senses being grown rebellious by Sin dislurb our Mind they insolently withdraw us from the presence of God and fix all our Thoughts on that impotent matter which we hold in our Hands and crush between our Teeth They make us believe that the Fruit it self contains and communicates that grateful Tast which delights us and because the power of God doth not appear visible to our Eyes we see nothing but the Fruit to which we can attribute the cause of our present Happiness Our Senses were given us only for the preservation of our sensible Being What matter is it then to them from whence the Fruit comes so they have it or from whence the Pleasure proceeds so they enjoy it XIV So likewise when we are in the presence of our Sovereign our Imagination soon dissipates all those abstract Ideas of an invisible Power The divine Law the immutable Order Reason is a Fantom which vanishes and disappears when the Prince Commands or when he speaks with Authority The Majesty of the Prince the sensible splendor of Greatness that Air of respect and awe which every one doth and ought to put on so shake the Brain of an ambitious Man and indeed of most Men whose Passions are then excited that there are but few People who have so much constancy and resolution as to consult the divine Law to think on the power of the invisible God to retire into themselves and to hearken to the Judgments pronounc'd within them by him who presides immediately over all spiritual Beings XV. This strict union of the Soul and Body which Sin hath chang'd into a dependnece is the cause that there is nothing more dangerous than the Conversation and Business of Courts and that a Man ought to have a particular call and strong and extraordinary reasons to make him engage in it The Societies which are generally form'd there are such whose beginning and end is Ambition and Pleasure and being govern'd not by Reason or Faith but by inconsistent and irregular Passions they break every Day and plunge Men in the greatest Miseries Therefore such as have not Courage and Constancy enough to perform their Duties to God in the presence of their Prince in the hurry and perplexity of Business or when they have too many People looking on them in a Word such as suffer themselves to be dazled stunn'd and born down by the Conversation of the World whatever it may be ought to avoid it and to place themselves in a Station where they may without constraint honour and love the true Power conform themselves to the divine Law and render to God the inward and spiritual Duties These are indispensable Duties and certainly we owe nothing to our Neighbour which may hinder us
miserable Object of his Glory and Pleasures IX A Parent therefore that would preserve to his Children the inestimable right which they have acquir'd by Baptism to the inheritance of Christ must be always watchful in removing out of their sight all Objects that may tempt them He is their guardian Angel and should take up out of their way every Stone that may make them fall It is his Duty to instruct them in the Mysteries of Faith and by Faith to lead them by degrees to the understanding of the fundamental Truths of Religion to fix in them a firm hope of the true Goods and a generous contempt of humane Greatness He should shape their Mind to Perfection and teach them to exercise the faculties of it He should govern them by Reason for there cannot be a more perfect Law than that which God himself inviolably follows But he must begin with Faith For Men especially the younger sort are too sensual too carnal too much abroad to consult the Reason which dwels within them It must shew it self without cloth'd with a Body to strike their Senses They must submit to a visible Authority before they can contemplate the evidence of intellectual Truths Again a Father should never grant his Children any thing that they ask themselves and never deny them any thing that Reason asks for them for Reason should be the common Law the general Rule of all our Wills He should accustom them to obey as well as consult it He should make them give a reason either a good or a plausible one for every thing that they ask and then he may gratify their desires tho' they are not so agreable to Reason if he is satisfied that their intent was to obey Reason He should not chide them too much for fear of discouraging them But this is an indispensable Precept never to act but according to Reason The Soul should will nothing of it self For it is not its own Rule or its own Law It doth not possess Power it is not Independent It ought not to will but with a dependence on the immutable Law because it cannot think act nor enjoy Good but by a dependence on the divine Power This is what young People ought to know But it is perhaps what the old ones do not know It is certainly what all Men do not practise X. We should take care not to burden the Memory of Children with a great number of Actions which are of little use and serve only to confound and agitate a Mind which hath as yet but very little Strength and Capacity and is but too much disturb'd and shaken already by the action of sensible Objects But we should endeavour to make them clearly comprehend the certain Principles of solid Sciences We should use them to contemplate clear Ideas and above all we should teach them to distinguish the Soul from the Body and to know the different properties and modifications of these two Substances of which they are compos'd We should be so far from confirming them in their Error of taking their Senses for Judges of Truth by talking to them of sensible Objects as of the true causes of their Pleasure and Pain that we should be always telling them that their Senses deceive them and should use them in their Presence like false Witnesses that clash with one another to discover their Cheats and Illusions XI Children dye at ten Years old as well as Men at Fifty or Threescore What then will become of a Child at his Death whose Heart is already corrupted who is swell'd with esteem of his Quality and full of the love of sensual Enjoyments What Good will it do him in the other World to understand perfectly the the Geography of this and in Eternity to know the Epochas of Times All our knowledge perishes in Death and the knowledge of these things leads to nothing beyond A Lad knows how to Decline and Conjugate he understands Greek and Latin it may be perfectly well nay perhaps he is already well vers'd in History and acquainted with the Interests of Princes he promises much for this World for which he is not made but what signify all these Vanities with which his Mind and Heart is sill'd Are there solid rewards in Heaven for empty Studies Are there places of Honour destin'd for those that make a correct Theme Will God judge Children by any other Law than the immutable Order than the Precepts of the Gospel which they have neither observ'd nor known Is it the Duty of Fathers to breed up their Children for the State and not for Heaven for their Prince and not for Jesus Christ for a Society of a few Days and not for an eternal Society But let them take notice that those that are best skill'd in these vain Sciences are they that do most mischief to the State and raise the greatest Tempests in it I do not say but they may learn those Sciences But it should be then when their Mind is form'd and when they are capable of making a good use of it and the instructing of them in essential Truths should not be put off to a time when they shall be no more or at least not in a condition to Tast Meditate and Feed upon them XII The labour of Attention being the only way that leads to the understanding of Truth a Father should use all means of accustoming his Children to be Attentive Therefore I think it proper to teach them the most sensible part of the Mathematicks Not that these Sciences tho' preferable to many others are in themselves of any great value but because the Study of them is of such a Nature that a Man makes no progress in them any farther than he is Attentive For in reading a Book of Geometry if the Mind doth not labour by its Attention it gets nothing Now People should be us'd to the labour of the Mind when they are young For then the parts of the Brain are flexible and may be bent any way It is easy then to acquire a habit of being Attentive in which Part I. Chap. V. as I have shewn the whole strength of the Mind consists And therefore those that have accustom'd themselves from their youth to meditate on clear Principles are not only capable of learning all the Sciences but are also able to judge solidly of every thing to govern themselves by abstracted Principles to make ingenious discoveries and to foresee the consequences and events of Enterprises XIII But the Soâ—…nces of Memory confound the Mind they disturb its clear Ideas and furnish it with a Thousand probabilities on all sorts of Subjects which Men take up with because they know not how to distinguish between seeing in part and obscurely and seeing fully and clearly This resting on probabilities makes them wrangle and dispute endlesly For as Truth alone is one indivisible and immutable so that alone can closely and for ever unite Men's Minds Besides the Sciences of Memory do naturally
be not continually quicken'd and spur'd on But we should never correct them without enlightning them and letting them know what it is that is requir'd of them and not then neither except they can perform their Duty with more ease than bear the Punishment which is inflicted on them And as no one can determine his choice without some Motive we should put them in a condition to be able to choose with Pleasure and to do that willingly which is worth nothing if it be not voluntary The Springs of their Mind should be set in order as well as those of their Machine and the fear of Evil should only serve to carry them toward Good to bring them near to the Light and make them behold and love the beauty of Order It is this kind of correction which Men are made to suffer in the presence and for the honour of that Reason which they have cast off that enlightens the Mind and gives understanding and not inhumane and brutish Punishments which are sit only to manage Brutes to train up Horses and Dogs and to teach Men to make their own Will the inviolable rule of their Actions XI Inferiors are oblig'd to pay a ready and exact Obedience not only to the Commands of their Superiors which are express'd and signified to them but also to their Will when it is clearly known tho' it be not signified And tho' he that stays for an express Order from his Superior before he obeys him and performs his Will doth not hereby shew any disrespect to his Person or any opposition to his Authority yet he doth not sufficiently respect in him the divine Power and Majesty But a Minister who by the asendent he hath over his Prince by his alliances and creatures draws all the Authority to himself and reduces his Master to such a condition that he is afraid to command him deserves to be treated like a Rebel An insolent Servant who by the knowledge he hath of his Master's concerns or of the weakness of his Mind deprives him of the liberty of signifying his Pleasure to him is many times more guilty of Disobedience than a lazy and negligent Servant who doth not perform the Orders that are given him A Son who by the rigorous constitution of his Mind and Body or by the Reputation and Fortune he hath gain'd in the World is got into such a Post that his Father who is in a low Condition weak and impotent dares not impose any Command on him violates the Duties of filial Obedience if he knows his Father's Will and doth not perform it A Wife who by her untoward and ungovernable Temper is grown so formidable to an easy good-natur'd Husband that he dares not discover his Mind to her is more Disobedient tho' she exactly performs every thing that he bids her Eph. 5.33 than one that fears and reverences her Husband according to the Apostles Precept tho' she do not always obey his Commands An inferior Clergy-man who by the Credit he hath gotten in the World or by his Personal Qualifications stops the Mouth of his Superiors and doth not do that which he certainly knows they require of him is guilty of Disobedience In a word he that withdraws himself in any manner whatsoever from the Obedience which he ows to others leaves his Post and rebels against Authority And tho' he may secure himself from the Censures of Men and the Laws of those that do not penetrate and search the Hearts yet he shall not escape the Judgment of the righteous Judge who unfolds all the turnings and windings of Self-love He that obeys Men as Men and not as God himself according to the Precepts of Religion and Reason cannot possibly fulfil all the Duties of Obedience as on the contrary he that desires to please God in obeying the Commands of Men is so happily guided and influenc'd by that desire that he performs easily and naturally every thing that the most enlightned Mind can impose on him CHAP. XII Of our Duties toward our Equals We should give them the place they desire in our Mind and Heart We should express our inward Dispositions in favour of them by our outward Air and Behaviour and by real Services We should yield them the Superiority and Pre-eminence The hottest and most passionate Friendships are not the most solid and durable We should not make more intimate Friends than we can keep I. THE greatest part of the Duties which we pay to other Men consist only in certain sensible Marks whereby we give them to understand that they hold an honourable place in our Mind and Heart Those who are satisfied that we have a particular esteem for their Worth and Qualifications cannot but feel some Emotion and Pleasure which must unite them to us And there is no Man but must be touch'd with a sensible Displeasure which will separate himself from us if he finds that we do not give him that place in our Mind which he desires how great respect soever we outwardly shew him For the place of spiritual Beings doth not lye among Bodies their Habitation their Seat their place of Rest hath no relation to that magnificence which strikes the Senses and is only the work of Men's Hands The Soul dwels with Honour in the very Souls of those that Honour it and rests with Pleasure in the Heart of an affectionate Friend What Glory what Honour is it then to possess the esteem of the universal Reason What rest and satisfaction will theirs be whom God shall take into his Heart and treat them as his Friends The vaniry of Men should raise in us these Thoughts and the Seeds of Pride which we all have in us should make us aspire to the Happiness of getting an honorable Place a fix'd and immoveable Seat in all intelligent Beings united to Reason and in Reason it self and of being our selves a sacred Temple where God himself may reside for ever For God who is a pure Spirit deth not dwell with Pleasure in material Temples tho' never so Costly and Magnificent II. It is the eternal Wisdom the immutable Order of Justice that should regulate these spiritual Places which are to be fill'd by substances of the same kind But as long as we are upon Earth subject to Error and Sin we deserve none of them at least we do not know which of them we deserve Therefore we ought always to take the lowest and expect to be remov'd higher according to the degree of our Vertue and Merit But Men never trouble themselves about the place which they hold in the divine Reason the indispensable Rule of that which they ought to possess in created Minds and labour only to advance themselves to a place which they do not deserve They hide their Imperfections they shew only their best side they endeavour by seducing others to get an empty Name to themselves and when they have or fancy they have deceiv'd them they entertain with extreme delight the