Injustice My Being is in a manner the Being of God and my Time is properly God's Time for I am more God's than my own or rather I am not at all my own nor do I subsist by my self and yet I neither live nor employ God's Time but for my self Alas how do I deceive my self O my God all that Time which I do not employ for thee I cannot be said to employ it for my self and I can neither seek nor find my self but by seeking and finding thee The Second Consideration MAN in himself is nothing but Weakness and Infirmity He cannot desire Good in general but by vertue of a continual Impression from God who does incessantly turn and force him towards himself for God is that indefinite and universal Good which comprehends all other good things Man is also not able by himself to desire any Particular Good but only so far as he is capable of determining the Impression which he receives from God Man is utterly unable to do Good but through a new supply of Grace which illuminates him by its Light and attracts him by its Sweetness for by himself he is only able to Sin He could not so much as move his Hand if God did not communicate to his Blood and to the Aliment by which he is nourished a part of that Motion which he has spread through the whole Mass of Matter and afterwards determine the Motion of the Spirits according to the different Acts of the impotent Will of Man by guiding them towards the Pipes of the Nerves which the Man himself does not so much as know A Man indeed may desire to move his Hand but 't is God alone that can and knows how to move it For if Man did not eat and if that which he eats were not digested and agitated in his Entrails and Heart to be afterwards turn'd to Blood and Spirits without expecting the Orders of his Will or if these Spirits were not guided by a knowing Hand through a Million of different Tubes it would be in vain for Man who is ignorant of his own Body to desire to put it into Motion The Elevation of the Soul to GOD. O GOD let me never forget that without thee I can neither desire nor do any thing not even so much as move the smallest Member of my Body Thou O God art all my Strength in thee do I place all my Hope and Confidence Do thou cover me with shame and confusion and fill me with inward remorse if ever I shall be guilty of so much Ingratitude and Presumption as to lift up that Arm against thee which owes even that Motion which I seem to give it rather to the invincible Power of thy Will than to the feeble Efforts of mine The Third Consideration MAN in himself is nothing but Darkness He does not produce in himself those Ideas by which he perceives all things for he is not his own Light and since Philosophy teaches me that the Objects cannot form in the Mind those Ideas by which they are represented it must be acknowledg'd that 't is God alone who enlightens us He is that great Sun which penetrates all things and fills them with his Light and that Great Master who instructs every Man that comes into the World All that we see we see in him and in him we may see all that we are capable of seeing For since God includes the Ideas or likenesses of all Beings and we also are in him for in him we live move and have our Being 't is certain that we see or may successively see all Beings in him He is that intelligible World in which all Spirits are and in which they perceive the Material World which is neither visible nor intelligible by it self The Elevation of the Soul to GOD. O GOD to whom I owe all my Thoughts thou Light of my Soul and of my Eyes without whom the Sun himself in all his Glory would be invisible to me make me ever sensible of thy Power and my Weakness thy Greatness and my Meanness thy Light and my Obscurity and in a word what thou art and what I am The Fourth Consideration MAN by himself is insensible and in a manner Dead The Body cannot act upon its own Soul A Sword indeed may pierce me and cause some alteration in the Fibres of my Flesh but I perceive clearly that it cannot make me suffer Pain A harmonious sound may first shake the Air and then the Fibres of my Brain but my Soul cannot be shaken by it My Soul is far above my Body neither is there any necessary Relation between those two Parts of my self On the other hand I find that Pleasure Pain and all my other Sensations are produced in me without any dependency upon me and oftentimes even in spight of all my endeavours to the contrary And therefore I cannot doubt but that there is a Being different from my Soul which inspires it with Life and Sensation and I know no other Power but that of God which is able to act thus upon his Creatures 'T is he then who is the Soveraign of the Soul and can only punish or reward it The Elevation of the Soul to GOD. O GOD since I live but by thee make me also to live only for thee and may I be insensible of all things but the love of thee O God make me sensible that none of all the Creatures can either hurt me or do me good That there is not one among them all that can make me feel either Pleasure or Pain That I ought neither to scar nor love them That thou alone O my God deservest both my love and fear because thou art only able to reward me with the Joys of thy Elect or punish me with the Torments of the Reprobate O my chaste Delight thou Author of Nature and cause of all the Pleasures that I feel thou knowest that these very Pleasures instead of uniting me to thee who alone canst make me sensible of them chain me like a wretched Slave to the Earth Grant I beseech thee that I may never more be so violently assaulted by them in the use of those things which thou hast forbidden Scatter a holy dread and a wholesome bitterness on the Objects of my Senses that I may be able to disengage my self from them and let me feel in thy love those unutterable delights of thy Grace which may unite me closer to thee Grant that the sweetness which I taste in loving thee may augment my love and that my love may renew the sense that I have of thy sweetness May I grow thus in Charity till at last being full of thee and empty of my self and every thing else I may re-enter and lose my self in thee O my All as in the Fountain of all Beings May that Word God shall be All in All be entirely accomplished on me and may I find my self and all things else in thee Of MAN Considered as the Son of a
our love and we are so free in the love of finite good that we even feel the secret reproaches of our reason when we fix our selves on it Because he that made us for himself speaks to us that we may turn to him and give no bounds to the motion of love which he incessantly produces in us All the motion that the soul hath towards good comes from God and God only acting for himself all the motion of the soul hath no other end nor bound than God in the Institution of Nature God presenting to spirits no other Idea but himself since he hath made spirits for himself All the motion of our wills is towards him since wills move themselves towards those things only which the spirit perceives But men thinking that they see creatures in themselves the consent they give to the motion that God imprints in them ends in the creatures and it may be said with a great deal of truth that the free will of men or their consent to the motion they receive from God tends to the creatures though the natural motion of their love can tend only to God By this you see Aristarchus that God preserves spirits for himself only that the faculties they enjoy to know and love know and love none but him that sinners do not overturn the laws of nature that they are inviolable and that this general principle of Religion and Morality viz. That God hath made us for himself is undeniable Arist But if the order of nature is that we know and love God and if we cannot resist that order since the motion of our love for the creatures tends of necessity towards the Creator how can it be said that we really offend God Theod. It may be said for many reasons God incessantly moves spirits towards good either general or particular for all good is to be beloved He invincibly moves them towards general good but 't is otherwise with the impression he gives them towards particular good God doth not limit towards that good the act which he produces in them For if we observe it duely we sufficiently perceive that in the very time when we fix on some finite good we have some motion to go further if we will So we offend God by stopping his act and not letting him act in us according to the full extent of his act The reason why God moves us towards good is because it moves us towards him and he moves us towards himself because he loves himself 'T is then the love of God to himself that produces our love in us Therefore our love ought to be like to that which God bears to himself But it is not like it when it concenters in a particular good it is then unworthy of the cause that hath produced it and it may be said to be displeasing to him Order is certainly the essential and necessary Will of God according to which and by which he wills whatever he wills for God loves order he wills nothing but order his will always follows order But a creature who loves more those things that are less lovely thwarts order withdraws himself from it and even overthrows it as much as he is capable of it He resists then to the will of God and so deserves to come into the order of his justice since he leaves that of his goodness which is the first and most natural God alone can act in the soul and cause in her some pleasure And by his decree or general will that makes the order of nature 't was his desire that pleasure should attend certain motions in the body So those that produce in their body these motions without reason even against the secret reproaches of their reason oblige God in consequence of his general will to renumerate them by pleasing sentiments even in the very time when they ought to be punished They therefore use violence against his justice and offend him But they only use this violence by the love they have for particular good So this love offends God For all those who love their pleasure without minding the true cause that produces it offend that cause since God never causes pleasure with an intent that we should fix on it but rather that we may love the cause that produces the pleasure and that we may unite with the thing that determines that cause to produce it You see therefore Aristarchus that God is offended when we fix the motion of love he causes in us on particular good But though you might not see it you cannot doubt but it is so for when we confine our love to some particular good we feel an inward check in the secret of our reason and a just check is a mark of infidelity against him that causes it those checks or reproaches can proceed but from a general cause since they are generally to be found in all mankind and must therefore be just since they are caused by a just God and this just God is offended when we confine our love to particular good This single Argument is sufficient for 't is unnecessary to seek metaphysical proofs of a thing whereof we are convined by inward sentiments that is by a light which strikes through the blindest and by a punishment that stings the most hardened sinners Arist I believe all this and I pray you to go on Theod. If you believe all this Aristarchus you may see your friend ask him at first if he desires to be happy Show him that none but God can act and cause in him that pleasure he loves so much and that renders him the more happy the greater it is Let him know that God is just that he will be obey'd that it cannot be conceived he should make truely happy those who do not follow his orders nor unhappy those that follow them that so we ought to use all our endeavours to know the Will of God and ought to obey it with all the fidelity imaginable You are sensible that men must be either stupid or out of their senses not to see those things and that those that see them and are not affected with them must either be mad or desperate but do not tell him so take heed above all things you do not awaken his passions and principally his pride for he would conceive nothing of what you might tell him make him understand as much as you can that God acts only for himself That he hath made our spirit only for himself That he hath given some motion to our heart only to incline it towards him That therefore we ought not to make an ill use of the motion of love which God causes in us by loving any thing besides him or without relation to him Make him understand that God is his true good not only by being alone capable to make him happy but also because none but God can make him more perfect not only as he is the cause of pleasure but also as he is
the original of light Endeavour to persuade him that God alone is the life and nourishment of the soul That all bodies are invisible by themselves and altogether uncapable of producing any sentiment in our souls That all good is included in God in an intelligible manner in a manner fit to act into the mind to shew it self and cause it self to be felt by it In short that God alone is the true good of the mind all manner of ways and that we ought to love and adore none but him Raise in him a desire to hear you by things on which perhaps he never thought and such as may by their novelty stir up in him a salutary curiosity But above all things endeavour to make him very sensible of his unjustice towards God whilst he follows his passions And that being a sinner and consequently unworthy of being rewarded by the delightful sentiments of pleasure he obliges God in consequence of his immutable orders to affect him with delight in the very moment he offends him Death shall corrupt his body and then God remaining unchangeable in his decrees will avenge during a whole eternity the wrongs he shall have done him by compelling him in a manner not only to be subservient to his disorders but even to reward him for his disobedience In short make him sensible of the necessity there is to repent and strive to inspire in him a saultary horror of all those criminal pleasures that bewitch the senses and corrupt the heart and reason That retiring within himself the confused noise of his passions may not hinder him from hearkning to the secret checks of inward truth and thus he may understand what you shall tell him afterwards DIALOGUE IV. Of the Disorder of Nature caused by Original Sin Theod. WELL what satisfaction have you had of your last visit to your Friend Arist None at all My Friend becomes ill-humoured when ever I speak to him nay sometimes he grows angry and flies out in a passion This troubles me very much Theod. But doth he laugh no more at what you say Arist No. Theod. Be of good heart then your Friend mends and I hope will recover He begins now to feel his wounds since he laughs no more when they are drest Should you wonder to see a man grow ill-humoured and angry if another filled him with wounds confusion and shame why then would you have your Friend insensible You have told him perhaps some truths that oblige him to leave his pleasure to shake off the Old Man to be in a disposition to repent and appear full of confusion and shame in the sense of his unfortunate Friends who will laugh at his change He hath had a prospect of all those things within himself and they have scar'd him If he be vext 't is because you have wounded him and I believe that you have offended him by Convincing him Can any thing grieve and mortifie a worldly man more than the thoughts of being obliged to change altogether his way of living and approve by his own example a manner of life which his Friends ridicule and he himself hath laught at with them all his life-time Perhaps your Friend finds himself obliged to this He is willing to breakhis bonds but he tears himself to pieces his heartis divided and you wonder at his pain and impatience Know my dear Aristarchus that if your Friend heard you without being moved it would show that he is not affected with your words that they do not reach his heart that he is not convinced by that conviction which stirs us to action begins our conversion and makes us suffer because it strips us of the Old Man So I would have you be joyful not because you have filled your Friend with sadness but because his sadness is in all likelihood the sadness that inclines us to repentance Arist You revive me extreamly Let us go on I pray you in our conferences that I may strengthen my self in the knowledge of the proofs of Religion and Morality to convince my Friend fully You prov'd me t'other day that God hath made us to know and love him Pray what consequence do you draw from that principle For I grant that God will not have us to fix on particular good the motion of Love that he incessantly causes in us that we may love him incessantly not with respect to his works which being below us are unworthy of our Love but in himself and according to the idea we have of him as a Being infinitely perfect Theod. All the Precepts of Christian Morals depend upon that Principle You believe it already but you shall see it clearly when I shall make use of it to justifie the counsels which the Eternal Wisdom hath given us in the Gospel I will show you now that this principle is the ground of the Christian Religion that owns the need of a Restorer and Law-giver able to illuminate the Spirit and give a new strength to the Soul of a Mediator between God and Men who may offer a Sacrifice and establish a Worship worthy of God and able to satisfie his justice You own that God will be loved with all our strength that is to say that all the motion of love he creates in us end towards him and that we love creatures only for him and not him with respect to creatures But do you love him always after that manner do you find no difficulty in the practice of his Love do you feel no pain to follow this motion to its utmost or no pleasure to stop it In short do you not find often that the ways of vertue are hard and painful and those of vice smooth and pleasing Arist I am not more perfect than St. Paul I sometimes delight in the love of God according to the inward man but I feel in my body another law that fights against the law of my spirit I suffer when I practice vertue I receive some pleasure in the enjoyment of sensible things in spight of all my opposition and am so much a slave to my body that I cannot even apply my self without pain and reluctancy to things that have no relation to the body Theod. But whence proceeds this pain you resent in doing well and this pleasure you have in doing ill You are not the cause of your own pleasure nor pain for if you were seeing you love your self you would never produce pain in your self and would still be injoying some pleasure Neither is it your body not those that are about you for all bodys are below you and it cannot be conceived that they may act in you or make you happy or unhappy None but God can act in the Soul But do you think that God afflicts you when you do well or that he rewards you when you do ill Do you think that God who desireth that you may love him with all your strength throws you back when you run after him But when you cease to