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
of other intelligent beings ad infinitum For as you see he would not have so soon an answer seeing 't is no easie matter to find an ultimate in an infinite There must be then an intelligent being that learns in himself and by its self in what moment the thorn pricks us And this intelligent being can be no other than God that is to say a being whose power is infinite and whose will alone is the cause of things For after all there is none but him whose will is efficacious that can see in himself and by himself the existence and the motion of Bodies For it being impossible he should be ignorant of his own will he only can discover within himself the number figure and scituation of bodies and generally whatever happens to them It follows then that all other intelligent beings are enlightned by the Creator And as you see or as you will clearly see if you think on it seriously you should not know that you have a body and that there are others about you if you had not learnt it of him who knows it by himself Do you understand these things Erastus Erast I do plainly Theodorus This is your argument What causes pain is neither the Soul that feels nor the Thorn that pricks but a superior power This power ought at least to know the moment when the thorn pricks he cannot know it from the thorn seeing bodies cannot give any light to spirits they being neither visible nor intelligible by themselves and no relation being to be found between a body and a spirit He can know it then but by himself that is to say by the knowledge of his own will which creates and moves the thorn and whose power is infinite since it is able to create There is then a God and if there was no God I should not be pricked I should feel nothing see nothing and know nothing Theod. Very well But what think you of these reasons Aristarchus Arist Think I think that both you and your echo Erastus talk in the clouds The ground of your proof is that that there is no relation between bodies and spirits From whence you conclude that an Angel cannot see a body immediately and by himself To which I answer that that spirits may know bodies it is sufficient that they penetrate them Theod. What do you mean by penetrating them Certainly Erastus doth not understand you But without asking you explications that perhaps would puzzle and displease you doth your soul penetrate your body your heart or your brain the principal part where she resides Arist I believe it doth Theod. Pray tell me then how your brain is composed or that principal part wherein your soul resides Arist I do not understand Anatomy Theod. How You don't understand Anatomy Must you search in Books or in the head of other men which you do not penetrate to know how the brain which your soul penetrates is compos'd What signifies it then to a spirit to penetrate a body Arist I must confess I have nothing to answer Yet methinks if a spirit penetrates a body he ought to know that body But perhaps there is something that hinders it which I do not understand Theod. If it were so Aristarchus this something would be the God whom we seek I will lose no time to prove it to you For I will not prove the existence of God by imaginary effects You may think on it at your leisure But I rather advise you to make a serious reflection on the things I have told you now and then I hope you will visibly find that there is a God I mean a Being whose Will is Power and Power Infinite since it is able to create You will find that this God doth not walk about the Heavens as the Libertines will have it but that his providence extends it self to all things and that he acts incessantly in us That it is he that gives us the pleasing and painful sentiments we have of sensible objects and that consequently he may make us happy or miserable In short you will know God in the most useful manner for morality You will even confess that God hath made nothing but may serve to demonstrate his existence though 't is more conducing to morality to demonstrate it by something that passes within us One of the reasons why you are not easily brought to be of my mind is that you have perhaps never seriously thought on the things of which we have been speaking For I do not perceive that my proofs are remote or hard to be understood I will be judg'd of it by Erastus And I believe we ought to agree on that point that hereafter you may be prepared on the subjects on which we shall treat Arist It belongs to you Theodorus to set rules for every thing For you know that my resolution is to seek none but such truths as are essential and may make us wiser and more happy I need say no more to you Theod. To this effect Aristarchus I will tell you the course I intend to keep in our Conferences Observe it well that you may think on it at leisure and prepare your self to make me all the Objections you can I believe I have sufficiently demonstrated that there is a God who acts incessantly in us and who may make us happy or unhappy by pleasure and by pain of which he alone is the true cause and therefore I will bring no other proofs of it and will content my self with resolving your difficulties But I will prove to you that the design of God in creating man hath been that man might know and love him that God hath preserved man but to that end In short that that design is so unalterable that sinners and the damned themselves execute it in one sense and that they shall sooner cease to be than they shall wholly cease to know and to love God When I have establisht as a principle that since God acts always for himself we cannot be happy if we resist his will nor unhappy if we obey it I will demonstrate how God will be known and be loved how we can resist his orders and what is yet more â—trange how we are capable to offend him I will show that our nature is corrupted that sin dwells in us that the spirit is a slave to the flesh In short I will explain the cause and the effects of the corruption of nature how our disorders strange us from God and make us his enemies as also our want of a Mediator and Redeemer I will explain the qualities our Redeemer and Mediator ought to have to reconcile us to God and to satifie his justice that Jesus Christ possesses them all and none but him What may cure the blindness of the mind and the malice of our heart That those remedies are to be found in the precepts of the Gospel and the grace of Jesus Christ In fine I will show that none but a God
tell freely what you think of it Erastus Is there any danger or folly in saying that God alone is our light That he alone is the perfection and nourishment of the mind and that we depend from him all manner of ways not only that we may become more happy but also more understanding and perfect Erast I am afraid that Aristarchus will say I am full of fantastick notions if I say that I see all things in God as if I affirmed that one may see God even in this life because whatever is in God is God Theod. There is a difference between seeing the essence of God and seeing the essence of things in God For though we see nothing but God when we see the essence of things in God we see God but by relation to Creatures we see the perfections of God but as they represent another thing than God So that though we see God and can see nothing but him since he preserves spirits for himself only it may in one sense be said that we see nothing but the Creatures For tho God sees nothing but himself 't is certain that he sees the Creatures when he sees what is in himself that represents them Thus though we see God but by an immediate and direct sight we see in God that which represents them for the Creatures are invisible in themselves There is no corporeâ—… nor spiritual Creature can act immediately in the soul and cause it self to be seen by it God shows us whatever we see but 't is in his substance that he shows it us for the Divine Substance alone can give us life enlighten and make us happy We are made to be nourished with that substance and to live by it and if the spirit hath some life I mean if it hath some knowledge for the knowledge of truth is the life of the soul it receives it from and in that substance Whatever God hath done Erastus he hath done it after his Image or according to his Image he hath made the Animals Plants and even the Insects according to the Image or living Idea he hath of them For he hath made all things by his Son by his Word according to the uncreated Wisdom in which all things live But he hath not only made man according to his Image or Wisdom but also for his Wisdom and to contemplate the Eternal Wisdom that includes the Ideas of all things An Impertinent Philosopher Averrois found this fault in the Religion of Christians that they Eat him whom they adore condemning our Communion with the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ whom we receive after we have Worshipped him * Pontificius Loquitur He did not know that the Wisdom of the Father the Word that enlightens and nourishes our Spirit desired to teach us in a sensible manner and by the real Manducation of his Body that he is really our Life and Nourishment and that he hath made our Spirit to know and to love him For our Spirit ought to love but what gives it Life nourishes makes it more perfect and is above it since only this can be his true good If it is certain that our thinking faculty comes from God 't is certain that it is made for God since God Acts only for himself as Aristarchus owns But if we do not see things in God how can it be said that God hath only made and doth only preserve us for himself for after all if Bodies are the immediate object of our Knowledge our Spirit is partly made to see them In what sense can it also be said that God preserves the spirits of Devils and the Damned but for himself if the spirit of those wretches doth not see God in some manner You will tell me they are Dead and that is true in some sense but they perhaps know some truth and if the knowledge of truth is the life of the Soul they are not intirely dead nor annihilated they have yet some union with the eternal Wisdom whose light penetrates into the very abyss They nourish themselves with the word if they have some life left because he alone is life but they are not the happier for it for they wish themselves dead They nourish themselves with a truth they do not rellish they seek darkness and annihilation and wish that this remainder of union with God that enlightens and preserves them maybreak and dissolve it self for ever Arist What do you tell us here Theodore Doth the spirit see nothing but God What! Do we see Errour in God Do the Philosophers see all their Chymera's in God And doth the Father of lies receive from God Theod. Errour cannot be seen Aristarchus 'T is neither visible nor intelligible Truth is a relation that is And what is may be seen There is a relation of equality between two times two and four and this relation may be seen because it is There is a relation of inequality between two times two and five and this relation of inequality may be seen because it is So truth is visible or intelligible but errour is not One cannot see that two times two is five or a relation of equality between two times two and five for there is no such relation of equality One cannot see that two times two is not four nor a relation of inequality between two times two and four for there is no such relation of inequality And thus when men mistake themselves they do not see the relations which they suppose they see When a man mistakes himself he may well see things in God though after an imperfect manner but he doth not see the relations that are between things for those things are and those relations are not I will not here explain the cause of our errour and our different ways of falling into it It hath been done already Erast I own Theodorus that we see in God the eternal truths and immutable laws of Morality A finite and changeable spirit cannot see in himself the eternity of those truths nor the immutability of those laws 't is in God he sees them But he cannot see in God transitory truths and corruptible things since there is nothing in God but what is Immutable and Incorruptible Theod. Yet Erastus God sees all the changes that happen in the world and 't is in himself only he sees them It follows then that he sees in himself whatever is subject to change or corruption though there is nothing in him but is perfectly Immutable and Incorruptible But all this may be explained thus God hath in himself the Idea for example of Extent since he sees it and hath made it and this Idea in Incorruptible 'T was his will there should be extended beings and those beings were produced 'T was also his will that those extended parts should be incessantly moved and communicate naturally their motions to one another Now this communication of motions which cannot be unknown to God it being impossible he should not
know his will that causes it is the principle of the mutability corruption and generation of all different bodies Thus God sees in himself the corruption of all things though he is incorruptible for whilst he sees in his wisdom the incorruptible Ideas he sees in his will all corruptible things since nothing happens but is done by him Now I will tell you how we see all those things in God All ideas and immutable truths we see in him As for transitory truths we do not know them in the will of God as God himself doth for his will is unknown to us But we know them by the sentiment God causes in us at their presence Thus when I see the Sun I see the Idea of a circle in God and have in my self the sentiment of light which denotes to me that this Idea represents something that is created and actually extent But I have this sentiment from none but God who certainly can cause it in me since he is Almighty and sees in the Idea he hath of my Soul that I am capable of sentiment Thus in all our sensible knowledge of corruptible things there is pure Idea and sentiment the Idea is in God the Sentiment in us but God alone is the true Cause of both The Idea represents the Essence of the thing and the sentiment only makes us believe that it exists since it disposes us to believe that the thing causes it in us because it is then present to our mind and not the will of God which alone causes that sentiment in us Arist I own that God can enlighten us and show us in himself all the Ideas we have of things But why should you have your recourse to this last refuge At least explode the sentiments of Philosophers upon that subject that I may the better convince my friend for without doubt I shall find him prepossessed with some opinion or other differing from yours Theod. It hath been done already by the Author of the Inquiry after Truth * Lib. 3. But if your friend finds fault with me for having a recourse to God and the first cause to explain some certain things you may tell him that there are two kinds of natural effects The Particular and the General it is ridiculous to have recourse to the general cause to explain particular effects but 't is as much amiss to seek some particular cause to explain the general For example if I am asked why Linnen becomes dry when 't is exposed to fire I will not answer like a Philosopher if I say that God will have it so for 't is sufficiently known that whatever happens is by his will 'T is not the general cause is demanded but the particular cause of a particular effect I ought then to say that the small particles of the fire or the agitated wood striking against the linnen impart their motion to the particles of water that are in it and loosen them from the linnen and I shall have given the particular cause of the particular effect But if one ask'd me why the particles of the wood agitate those of the water or why bodies communicate their motion to those they meet I should not be a Philosopher did I seek some particular cause of that general effect I ought to have recourse to the general cause that is to the Will of God and not to some particular faculties or qualities Now 't is acknowledged that the effect is general and that consequently we must have recourse to the general cause when thesame effect hath no necessary connexion with what seems to be its cause as it happens in the communication of motion for the mind sees no necessity why a body that presses upon another should push it forwards rather then recoil it self If then your friend pretends to explain to you the nature and original of Ideas by the scientific terms of innate or visible species of external or internal senses of the common apprehensions of the active or passible intellect you may let him know that when a body changes its situation or figure there is no necessity that there be a new thought in a spirit And that therefore we must go to the general cause which alone can reconcile things that have no necessary relation with one another I will lose no time in solving all the difficulties you or your friend may find concerning what I have told you now You will perhaps find them solv'd in the third book of the Inquiry after Truth Let us come to the will of man I will explain it to you God only making and preserving us for himself incessantly moves us towards him that is to say towards good in general or towards what we conceive to include all good He even moves us towards particular good without removing us from himself because he includes that good in the infinity of his being For as spirits see none but him in the sense that I have explained he may incline us towards whatever we see though he hath made us for himself alone But we ought to observe that he inclines us invincibly and necessarily towards good in general because as the love of good in general can never be bad it was not to be free But as the love of particular good though good in it self may be bad it was to be in our power to consent to or withstand its motion Arist But how can the love of particular good be bad Theodorus We only love what we see we see nothing but God therefore we love nothing but God when it seems we love the Creatures how then can our love be bad Theod. We love nothing but God Aristarchus for God preserves us only to love him But our love is bad when it is not regulated Or rather our love is always good absolutely and in it self but it is not relatively good Our love is always good in it self for we can never love what seems bad to us We can love but what we believe to be good and lovely since 't is God that makes us love and that we love none but him because we love nothing but what we see in him But our love is bad relatively because we love too much those things that are least lovely in short because instead of loving God in himself we love him with relation to his Works for loving only what we see we love God but only as he represents a vile creature and not according to what he is in himself God allows us to love what is in him that represents a creature for that is good but he will not have us to fix there the motion of our love He would have us to love whatever he includes He would be belov'd according to the Idea of Being in general of Being infinitely perfect and soveraignly lovely which Idea hath no relation but to himself and represents nothing that is out of him Nothing but the Idea of the infinite good ought to stop the motion of
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
actually dividing the capacity he hath to think and lessning the knowledge of his duty without being removed by it out of God's presence in short without weakning by little and little his love and his fear insomuch that actual pleasure seems a Reason or sufficient Motive to love what is not worthy of our love Adam ought to have remained fixt and unmoveable in the presence of God and not have suffered the capacity of his spirit to be divided by all those pleasures that were in perfect subjection to his Will and used only to warn him of what he was to do for the preservation of his life and as he should so he could have done it And had he made a good use of his Free-will during the time prescrib'd for a Reward he should have been confirm'd in his Righteousness not only by a more clear knowledge of God's continual operation on him but by a sensible knowledge which invincibly fixes on God all Spirits naturally desiring to be happy For the Saints do not only see by a Far-fetch'd and Metaphysical Sight that God alone is capable of acting in them and making them happy But they also feel it by an â—nspeakable comfort which God diffuses in them which â—enetrates them and unites them with him so strongly â—hat they cannot forsake him to love any thing else I speak of those things according to the present â—nowledge of human understanding and do not preâ—end always to certifie the truth or existence of things when I answer to what may be objected to me my â—tmost Design is to prove their Possibility Arist This is sufficient Theodore But how would â—ou explain the Transmission of Original Sin and the â—eneral Disorder of human Nature For it is our Soul â—hat hath sinn'd and is corrupt How comes it to â—e possible that coming from the hands of God they â—row corrupt as soon as they are united to Bodies Theod. Our Soul is made to love God She keeps â—n the Order of her Creation when she loves him that â—s to say when the motion which God gives her carries â—er towards him in the Sense that I explain'd it to you yesterday On the contrary she strays from the Order when having a motion sufficient to reach to God she stops at some particular good and thus hinders God's Act in her I do not believe it can be conceiv'd that she can be orderly or disorderly another way If then I demonstrate that by reason of the Union which Children have with their Mother the Soul of Children is by necessity turn'd towards Bodies that their Soul loves only Bodies and all her motion confines it self to some sensible thing from the moment she is form'd I shall have demonstrated the cause of the general disorder of Nature and how we are all born in Sin I prove it thus There is no Woman but hath in her Brain some Impression that represents to her sensible things either because she actually sees Bodies or receives her nourishment from them You do not doubt of this for after all we must at least eat to live and we cannot eat but our Brain receives some Impression of it since we remember it There happens also no Impression in the Brain without being follow'd by some Emotion in the Spirits which doth incline the Soul to the love of the thing that is present to the mind at the time of that Impression that is to say to the love of this or that Body for Bodies only can act on the Brain See the 7th Chapter of the 2d Book of the Inquiry after Truth In short there is no Woman but hath in her Brain some steps and vestiges or some motion of Spirits which makes her think and carries her to sensible things Now when the Child is in his Mother's Womb he feels the same Impression and Emotion of Spirits with his Mother therefore in that state he knows and loves Bodies The daily Instances we have of Children that fear or abhor those things that frighted their Mother whilst they were with Child sufficiently shews that they have had the same Impression and consequently the same Idea's and Passions as their Mothers since they sometimes never saw since they were born those things which they so much abhor And those Instances even shew us that the Impressions and Agitations are greater and consequently the Idea's and Passions more lively in Children than in their Mothers since they remain affected with them and oftentimes their Mothers no more remember it I perceive Erastus that you wonder to hear me say that Children see imagin and desire the same things with their Mothers Erast I must own that this amazes me but it seems to me demonstrated however there being holy Women and full of the love of God how come their Children to be Sinners Theod. It is because the love of God doth not communicate itself like the love of Bodies the reason whereof is that God is not sensible and that there are no steps in the Brain that by the institution of Nature do represent God nor any of those things that are purely intelligible A Woman may well represent to herself God in the Form of a Reverend old Man but whilst she thinks on God her Child shall think on an old Man when she loves God her Child will love old Men and this love of old Men doth not a justify All the Vestiges in the Brains of Mothers communicate themselves to Children But the Idea's that are join'd to those Vestiges by the Will of Man or by the Identity of Time and not by Nature do not communicate themselves to them for Children in the Womb are not as knowing and holy as their Mothers Erast But Theodore Children are not free I own they love Bodies but they cannot hinder themselves from loving them How then are they Sinners How are they corrupt Theod. Their Sin is not of their own chusing nor free and voluntary yet they are corrupt For all Spirits that are averse from God and inclin'd towards corporeal Beings do not follow God's Orders if it be true that God will be loved more than Bodies Concupiscence is not a Sin in virtuous persons because there is in them a love of choice that opposes it Concupiscence doth not reign in them but it reigns in Children their natural love is bad and they have no other When two sorts of loves are to be found in a heart God regards only that love which is free so Dreams are not sinful in pious Men because the love of choice that went before leaves in the Soul a disposition that carries and turns her towards God But in a Child who was never turned towards God nothing but his Nature and what God has fixt in him by the Decree of his first Will can be good he is a Child of wrath and must of necessity be damned For it cannot be conceived that God will ever reward the disposition of his heart except you also conceive that God
rewards disorder Era. But Theodore Was not what you call Disorder put into the Child by God himself Since it is by the Decree of his Will that upon certain motions of the Brain certain thoughts should result in the Soul and the communication that is between the Brain of the Mother and that of the Child was established by God The. I own it Erastus however it is not amiss It was requisite that the Vestiges in the Brain and the motions of the Spirits should be attended with the thoughts and agitations of the Soul for the Reasons I have already told you the chief whereof is That Bodies do not deserve the application of a Spirit that is made for none but God It was necessary that Adam should be told by preingaging Sentiments by short and unquestionable Proofs that such and such things were good for his Body It was fit also that the impressions on the Mother's Brain should communicate themselves to that of the Child for the full conformation of his Body Those things are most wisely establisht Disorder is only found in Desire It is good that there result in the Soul certain thoughts when certain impressions form themselves in the Brain but it is not good that those impressions prompt us to the love of sensible things and do not vanish when we desire it or that our Body be not submitted to us Now the Sin of the first Man hath caused this for he became unworthy by his Sin that God should suspend the communication of motions for his sake so not being able to hinder the impression of the Bodies that act on us from reaching as far as the chief part of the Brain which is the seat of the Soul we have of necessity the sentiments and motions of Concupiscence tho God doth nothing else in us but deprive us of the power to hinder the natural communications of motions that is to say without acting in us For Concupiscence precisely as such is nothing it is in us only a want of power over our Body which want proceeds from our Sin only since it would be just without it that our Body were submitted to us Erast I perceive plainly Theodorus that the union of our Spirit with our Body proceeds from God and that our being Slaves to our Body proceeds from Sin All that is plain But you Aristarchus are you persuaded of the Sentiments and Proofs of Theodorus Arist I dare not assent to them for I fear to be mistaken Erast Perhaps it is because Theodorus speaks of the transmission of original Sin as of a thing not impossible to be explained and you have hitherto believed it to be unexplainable this may have prepossessed you Or it may be your Sceptical Friends have so often laught at the simplicity of those that believe what the Church teaches that your imagination hath been formerly somewhat spoilt by it For my part I remember that some time ago I was half stunned by the reflection of the amazement that appeared in the looks of one of those false learned at the appearance of an imaginary difficulty But remembring what Theodorus tells me continually not to suffer my self to be imposed upon by the Air and sensible impression of Men I retired within my self and could not help laughing at my pannick fear Arist Do you think Erastus that I am so much a Fool as to let my self be imposed on Erast You are too wise to do so Aristarchus but you are not yet wise enough not to receive some impression by the bold way and commanding Air of so many People that come to see you It is impossible to be always upon our guard and compare incessantly Mens words with the answers of inward truth and you shall give me leave to tell you that I even observed but two days ago by your countenance that you are a Man born for company that you are very full of complaisance and very easily embrace the Sentiments of others yet the business was of moment Arist I remember it it is true I was moved that person spoke to me in a very strong and lively manner but I soon came to my self Theod. Perhaps it is because the thing nearly concerned you and you were not then about a Philosophical Question or certain Points of Religion that have nothing common with the Senses Arist It is true but really I will no longer believe Men upon their word Theod. No you do not believe them upon their word for words being arbitrary persuade only as far as they enlighten the mind but the Air persuades naturally and by impression It persuades insensibly and without letting us even know what it is that we are persuaded of for all it can do by it self is to agitate and trouble I say it to you Aristarchus you confusedly believe above a million of things which you do not know and which the Commerce you have with the World hath heapt on your memory But be not vext at it there is no man but hath a very great number of those confused Notions for we are all sensible There is no man made for Society but is fastned to other men and receives in his brain the same impressions as those who speak to him with some emotion and force and those impressions are attended by those confused judgments whereof I am speaking Do not imagine that none but Children see and desire what their Mother sees and desires as I told you just now when I explained to you the propagation of original Sin All men live by opinion they commonly see and desire things as those they converse with proportionately to the need they have of their help Children are so strongly united with their Mothers that they see nothing but what she sees But men are capable to see and think of themselves they are not so narrowly united to other men seeing they can live alone they can think alone but seeing they cannot live conveniently out of Society they never think easily and without pain but when they suffer themselves to be persuaded by the air and way of those who speak to them Is it not true Aristarchus that there are some Persons who have prepossessed you against what I have said to you now of original Sin not as Erastus thinks by laughing at those things for you are too well converted to have still any deference for the silly banters of the false learned but rather gravely and piously inspiring you with a secret aversion for some Sentiments that seem new and are too clear for such as are not used to see the light I know it Aristarchus and plainly perceive that nothing but the disorder which they have caused in your mind by the darkness of their terms and the decisive and scientific air of their quality hinders you from assenting to what I have told you now But let not this make you uneasy there is a great number of others distinguisht by the same outward marks of Piety and Learning that approve what
but also the desire And sometimes the Imagination does so augment all things that the pleasure it produces excites the Concupiscence after a more strong and lively manner than that we enjoy even in the use of Bodies Persons who have too quick and delicate an Imagination may sometimes cure the hurt they have received in a contagious discourse by tasting the pleasures which are represented to them or of which they form'd themselves too great an Idea And there are certain bashful lazy and judicious persons and of a certain disposition of mind hard to describe to whom it is convenient sometimes to shew the world to give 'em a dislike of it But Erastus this is rare and 't is extremely dangerous to be familiariz'd with sensible things You have an horror for Tobacco you are pleas'd not to be subject to the necessity of always having some with you yet if you were to be with Men who frequently use it their discourse and manner would engage you by degrees to use it your self and Use would subject you to it as well as others for I know some who can't be without it that could not endure it heretofore Erast. It is true Theodorus that the great Secret to resist Concupiscence is to have continually an eye to the purity of our Imagination and to take heed that it leave not footsteps in the Brain which may carry us to the love of sensible things thus to remedy the beginning of our Irregularities The Councels of JESVS CHRIST which only tend to deprive us of the use of sensible things are admirable but they are very uneasie methinks Philosophy furnishes us with a Remedy more commodious than that of the Gospel 't is this Philosophy teaches me that all Bodies which are about me can't act in me and that 't is God only that causes in me the pleasure and grief which I feel in their use this being granted I can enjoy Bodies without loving them for as I only ought to love that which is truly capable of making me happy to excite in me the love of God I have only to remember in the use of sensible things that 't is God who makes me happy by their means Thus I ought not to shun Bodies on the contrary I ought to seek them that so by exciting pleasure in me they may continually make me to think of God who is the cause of it Whence comes it that the Blessed love God constantly and that they can't leave off loving him if it is not that they see him and that they are ty'd to him by a preingaging pleasure Well then I see God by Philosophy I perceive him in every thing if I eat I think of God because 't is God that makes me eat with pleasure I 'm not careful to love good entertainment as there 's nothing but God which acts in me I only love him Theod. You Erastus are free from sin and confirm'd in grace for who shall disunite you from God the most violent pleasures tie you more strongly to him and pains can only produce in you a fear and respect for him but do you your self often make use of your own Remedy and have you never acted contrary to the remorse of your Conscience Erast. I am very sensible Theodorus that this Remedy of my Philosophy is not soveraign but pray explain to us the defects of it Theod. I will When you taste of Fruit with pleasure your Reason tells you that there is a God whom you see not who causes in you this pleasure your Senses tell you on the contrary that this Fruit which you see which you hold in your hands 〈◊〉 which you eat is that which causes in you this pleasure which of these two speaks higher your Reason or your Senses As for me I find that the noise of my Senses is so great that I even think no of God in that moment but perhaps Erastus is such a Philosopher that his Senses are silent as soon as he pleases and that they never speak to him without first obtaining his Licence If so your Remedy is good for you for the privation of Bodies is not absolutely necessary to those who have no Concupiscence Adam could taste of pleasures without becoming their Slave tho he had done better to have let them alone Then let those who feel no Concupiscence in them and whose Body is intirely subject to the Spirit make use of your Remedy 't is good for them they are just by themselves they descend in a right Line from the Pre-Adamites Neither did Christ come for them he came not to save the Just but Sinners He came for us who are Sinners Children of a sinful Parent sold and subject to Sin and who always feel in our Bodies the Rebellion of our Senses and Passions When the obligation we have to preserve our health and life constrains us to enjoy some pleasure then we must make a necessity of Virtue and make use of your Remedy if we can remembring that these are not the Objects which cause in us this pleasure but God only we must thank him for them and pray to him that he would defend us from the malignity of sensible Objects we must use them with fear and with a kind of horror for without the grace of JESVS CHRIST that which gives life to the Body gives death to the Soul you know the Reasons of it Erast. But why Pleasure in itself is not ill I receive it then it does me no harm I thank God for it and love him the more it unites me to God who is the Author of it then it does me good Theod. The love of God which the enjoyment of Pleasure causes in you is much interested I 'm much afraid Erastus that in loving God as the Author of your Pleasure you love your self instead of loving God But I wish that this love be not ill I also wish that you have the power of raising your self up to God in the time that you enjoy some Pleasure but this Pleasure makes traces in the Brain these traces continually agitate the Soul and in the time of Prayer or some other necessary business they disturb the Action blind the Mind and stir up the Passions Thus when you would even make a good use of Pleasure at the moment that you should taste it the trouble that it disperses thro' the Imagination has so dangerous Consequences that you had better have been depriv'd of it Think you Erastus that there has been a Race of Mankind so very stupid as to get drunk for the honor of God and to bring him into one's mind for the pleasure of drunkenness and do you observe that the pleasure which is found in the excessive use of sensible things is such as can't be pray'd for to God without remorse Hence it is that this pleasure was not ordain'd by Nature to carry us directly to God but for the use of Bodies so far as they shall be necessary for the preservation
in my soul a knowledge of instinct nor any other I cannot tell if you are satisfied Arist But little truly Theod. Shall I tell you why you are not well satisfied 'T is because Erastus hath made a clear and evident answer to an Objection that was not so If you clearly understood what you object Erastus would answer you both clearly and quickly If hereafter you desire to receive from him more satisfaction than you have had hitherto consider well what you intend to ask him He cannot answer you speedily and clearly when he doth not understand you and you do not even understand your self He uses all his endeavours not to answer but when he hath consulted inward truth and had its answer but it never answers him when he doth not know what he asks Yet you would have him give you an answer and that speedy too If he made you any he would deceive you for it would be his answer and not Truths you should receive I will still put some questions to him that you may observe the method I think is proper to go about it and that his answers may instruct you of the Truth we seek I have obliged my self Erastus to prove the existence of God by the effects which fire seems to produce in us but to do it 't is of the greatest consequence to know that 't is not the soul that causes in her self her own sensations See if you have not still some other proof I do not say more solid but more able to convince Aristarchus Think on it Why do you sometimes suffer a pain Do you delight in it Erast I understand you Theodorus I am not to my self the cause of my happiness nor of my misery If I was the cause of the pleasure I feel seeing I love it I should always produce some in me And on the contrary if I was the cause of the pain I suffer seeing I hate it I would never produce it in my self I perceive that there is a superiour cause that acts on me and may make me happy or unhappy Since I cannot act on my self and that bodies produce not in me the sensations which I feel as we said just now Arist You have it not right Erastus you love your Body you either know or feel that there happens some good or ill to it you either rejoyce or are afflicted at it The one is your pleasure and the other your pain Erast What ever Aristarchus says to me puzzles me and throws me into darkness I beg of you Theodorus to disperse it Theod. I do not wonder at it Erastus Whatever he tells you is false or full of obscurity yet seems probable enough Will you never retire within your self Aristarchus How can you conceive I pray you that Erastus loves his body Whatever is within Erastus that is able to love is better than the body of Erastus Erastus knows it His Body cannot act on his Soul he knows it his Body cannot be his Good he knows that too it cannot be properly said then that he loves it But here lies the riddle Erastus loves pleasure more than his body and he resents pleasure when his body is well dispos'd 'T is that obliges him to mind his body and to defend it when any thing offends it Do you think the Drunkards love their body when they gorge it with Wine Do you think the Libertines love their body when they ruine their health Is it not rather because they love the present pleasure Do those who mortifie their body love it when they tear it or do you believe they hate it What is it then they love but the pleasures they hope one day to enjoy What do they hate on the contrary but the everlasting torments they fear to suffer Thus you may see that Erastus doth not cause in himself his pleasure because he finds or is sensible that the body he loves is well dispos'd For he doth not even know that his body is in a good state by any other thing than by the pleasure he hath by it It is true that when we feel by pleasure or by pain that our body is well or ill dispos'd we are affected with joy or grief but if you think on it seriously you will easily perceive that this grief and joy that are the effects of our knowledge differ mightily from those antecedent pains and pleasures of which we speak Therefore they must have some other cause than our selves Do you grant it Arist I am now convinced of it Theod. Now this cause must be superior and always present to us since it acts within us This cause can punish or reward us make us happy or unhappy since pleasure delights us and pain displeases and makes us uneasie If then this Cause were God we should know that God doth not only rule the motions of the heavens But that he hath a hand in our concerns rules whatsoever passes in us and that in order to our happiness we ought to fear him love him and follow his orders For since he makes continual applications to us he requires something from us and if we do not perform what he requires from us 't is not likely that he should reward us and make us happy Arist I own it But how would you prove that it is not some Angel or Demon that hath the Government of us and acts on us How would you prove that there is a Being infinitely powerful and who includes in his being all the perfections imaginable This seems to me very difficult Theod. It is difficult by the method I have taken but when we acknowledge a superior power that acts in us we have not much difficulty to consider him as Soveraign and to allow him all the perfections of which we have some idea Nevertheless I must endeavour to convince you fully Mind me also Enastus As soon as we are prick'd with a Thorn we feel pain This pain doth not proceed from the Thorn nor from the Soul you grant all this it proceeds then from a superior power This power ought to know the moment when the Thorn pricks our body that he may in the same moment produce the pain in our soul But how shall he know it Think on it He cannot know it from us for we know nothing of it yet Nor from the Thorn for the Thorn cannot act on the spirit of that power nor represent it self to him for the Thorn is neither visible nor intelligible by it self there being no relation between bodies and intelligent beings Whence then shall this superior power learn the moment when the Thorn pricks us If you tell me that he shall know it from some other intelligent being I will ask you the same questions of the second intelligent being and if you fly to a third you will get no more by it Yet in the very instant when we are pricked we feel pain The superior cause must then have learnt that the Thorn pricks us without the help
is convincing and taste alone hath made all mankind agree in that If the mind saw in bodies but what is in them without having a sentiment of what is not in them their use would be very painful and inconvenient to us for who would take the pains to examine with care the nature of all things that are about us to cleave to or leave them What should tell us when we ought to sit down to dinner and when rise from it What should place us at a reasonable distance from the fire And should we not often doubt whether we burnt or warm'd our selves In short would it not happen sometimes that we should be the cause of our own death by Inadvertency by Grief or even out of desire of making near discoveries in Anatomies Therefore it is most reasonable that God incline us to seek the good of the body and shun its contrary by the foregoing sensations of Pleasure and Pain For after all if men were oblig'd to examine the Configuration of a Fruit those of all the parts of their bodies and the different relations which result from the one to the other to be able to judge if in the present heat of their blood and a thousand other dispositions of their body this Fruit were good to nourish them 't is obvious that such things as are altogether unworthy of the application of their minds would wholly fill its capacity and that also unprofitably enough since they would not be able to preserve themselves any considerable time by that only way Arist I must confess this conduct is very wise and most worthy its Author But yet we feel some pleasure in the use of sensible things why then must we not love them Theod. Because they are not lovely you are a rational creature and your reason doth not represent to you bodies as your good If sensible objects did contain in themselves what you feel when you use them if they were the true cause of your Pleasure and Grief you might love and fear them but your reason doth not tell you so as I yesterday prov'd it to you You may use them but not love them you may eat of a fruit but not settle your Love upon it Likewise you ought to avoid Fire or a Sword but ought not to fear them * See the 8th Chapter of the 6th Book of the Inquiry after Truth We must love and fear what is able to cause pleasure and pain that 's a common notion which I do not contradict But we must take heed not to confound the true efficient cause with the occasional I say it once more we must love and fear the efficient cause of pleasure and of pain and we may seek or avoid their occasional causes provided we do not do it against the positive orders of that efficient cause and do not force it in consequence of its natural Laws to work in us what is against its precepts And we must not imitate the voluptuous who make God an instument of their sensuality and oblige him in consequence of his first will to reward them with a sentiment of pleasure in the very moment when they offend him for that 's the greatest Injustice can be committed Believe me Aristarchus the good of the body cannot be belov'd but by Instinct but the good of the mind can and ought to be belov'd by reason The good of the body can be belov'd but by Instinct and with a blind Love because the mind cannot even perceive so clearly that the good of the body is a real good for the mind cannot see what is not It cannot clearly perceive that Bodies are above the Spirit that they can act in it punish or reward it and render it more happy and more perfect but the good of the mind ought to be lov'd by reason God will be lov'd with a Love of choice with a reasonable Love a meritorious Love a Love worthy of him and worthy of us we see clearly that God is our good that he is above us that he can act in us that he can reward us and render us not only more happy but also more perfect than we are is it not this sufficient to make a Spirit love God And thus we see that God was not to make man love him by the instinct of Pleasure when he created him he was not to make use of this kind of art nor implore any force against the Liberty of a reasonable creature to lessen the merit of his Love For the first man ought to have adhered to God and could do it without the help of a preingaging pleasure though now Pleasure is commonly necessary to remedy the blindness which sin has brought upon us and to withstand the continual attacks of Concupiscence against our Reason I 'le say it again Aristarchus that you may remember it It was necessary that the antecedent pleasure and not the light of reason should incline us to the good of the body since reason cannot even represent to its self the bodies that are about us as a good But there was no need that God should make use of preingaging pleasure as of a kind of art to cause himself to be beloved by the first man since it was sufficient that he should enlighten his reason he being the sole and only good of Spirits Arist I grant all these things are very well imagin'd but there is still in your System a difficulty that puzzles me For methinks you confound Concupiscence with the institution of Nature and making God the Author of the pleasure we feel in the use of sensible things you also make him Author of Concupiscence since it is nothing else but that pleasure considered as striving against our reason Theod. This institution of Nature is thus Aristarchus God hath made the Soul and the Body of man and 't was his pleasure for the preservation of his work that as often as there should be in the body some certain motions there should result in the Soul some certain sentiments provided those motions did communicate themselves as far as a certain part of the Brain which I shall not specifie but because the will of God is efficacious there never hapned any motions in that part of the Brain but there followed some sensations and because the will of God is unchangeable this was not changed by the sin of the first man Yet as before man had sinned and whilst all things were in perfect good order it was not just that the body should hinder the Spirit from thinking on what is desired It follows that man had necessarily such a power over his body that he did as it were separate the principal part of his brain from the rest of his body and did hinder its usual communication with the sensitive Nerves as often as he desired to apply himself to truth or to some other thing than the good of the body And by those means it was in Adam's power first to make use
of his taste to discern the things that were useful to the preservation of the body and then to eat on without taste and pleasure because the pleasure be felt in the use of sensible things never overruled his desires it only modestly warn'd of what he was to do for the good of his body Adam therefore could think on what he would and one may say that even when he slept his Spirit was awake For after all it cannot be believed that in the state of Original Righteousness there should be such a great disorder in the most admirable work of God that the spirit should be as slave to the body This is the institution of Nature Now you shall hear its Corruption The first man by degrees stranging himself from from the presence of God by suffering the capacity of his Spirit to be fill'd with sensible pleasures or the sentiments of his own excellency or with some other Ideas which by reason of the narrowness of his Spirit did blot out the remembrance of his Duty and Dependance fell at last into a disobedience to Gods command and then lost the power he had over his body For it is not just that a Sinner should reign over any thing and that God should suspend the Laws of the Communication of motions in favour of a wicked and rebellious man * I do not speak here of the Concupiscence which consists in the difficulty we find to put our selves in the presence of God and in the unvoluntary inclination we have to think always upon our selves For the motions of sensible Objects communicating themselves as far as the brain and also leaving there some deep Impressions it is necessary according to the first will of the Author of Nature that there should result in the Soul some sentiments and motions which carry her even in spight of her self to sensible things Arist All this is very well but why doth God continue to be willing that the impressions of the brain and the agitations of the animal spirits should be followed by sentiments and sensible motions since that hinders us now from loving him and applying our selves to the Truth for which we are made Theod. But why Aristarchus will you have the will of God to depend from that of the first man You have seen that the institution of Nature is admirably well ordered and would you have this Institution alter'd on the account of the mutability of Adam's will Do you not know that the inconstancy of the will is a mark of a narrow Understanding and that God is too just to repent All what God has will'd he wills it still and because his will is efficacious he doth it God had rather for some time be subservient to the injustice of men and even in one sense to reward them by the pleasure they feel in their Debaucheries than to alter the order of things which he hath most wisely establisht And men are so unworthy of God after the rebellion of their first Father that 't is just in one sense that God remove them from him continually and in a manner reward them when they go from him but it is a transitory reward a deceitful reward the price of sin that fattens the Victim for the Sacrifice and prepares sinners for the day of the Lord for that day when the Judge and Saviour of the world will hurry the impious in the fire everlasting to satisfie the divine justice as he will raise with him the elect to an Eternal Glory to exalt the Goodness and Mercy of his Father Therefore Aristarchus the Will of God which forms and rules so wisely all things was not to depend from that of the first man It was necessary that this will should subsist and that he whose wisdom has no bounds should re-establish in a manner worthy of himself the order of things which Free-will had overthrown He hath done it Aristarchus by his 〈◊〉 Will which makes the order of Grace by the 〈◊〉 design of his Son's Incarnation by that great work of Mercy which surpasses all his other works and 〈◊〉 him infinitely more honour than all that 〈◊〉 of Nature which is admir'd with so much 〈◊〉 and represents in so lively a manner the infinite wisdom of its Author Erast Give me leave Theodorus to offer to you the greatest difficulty I find in all the things you have told us now God is infinitely wise he hath foreseen from all Eternity whatever was to fall out in the order of things he was to establish he hath foreseen the sin of the first man before he was form'd why then did he make him Or why did he make him free or why did he not bind and fasten him to his duty by preingaging Pleasures In short why did he establish an order that was to be overthrown and a Nature that was to grow corrupt I grant that he hath repaired the corruption of Nature by the wisest method imaginable but would it not have been wiser to have made one uncapable of Corruption I beg of you to tell me if these things may not justly make us doubt whither an infinite intelligent being rules all Theod. But supposing I did not give you an answer Erastus what could you directly infer from my silence but that I do not know the designs of God I have evidently demonstrated to you by arguing only upon clear Ideas that there is a God and that none but him acts really in us Believe what you have seen and do not wilfully blind your self by opposing to the light of truth some objections which can rise but from the darkness of our minds When we see evidently a thing we must not cease to believe it as soon as some difficulty we cannot solve is offer'd to us Nevertheless Erastus though I do not flatter my self to know God's designs I 'le endeavour to satisfie you in few words for I will not engage my self to say to you whatever may be thought upon that subject God made man because it was his will and it was his will because man is better than nothing and that he is more capable of honouring him than nothing God made man free because the will of man is made to love good but man being able to love but what he sees if God had not made him free or if God did infallibly and necessarily carry him towards all that hath the appearance of a good or towards all that man being apt to err may consider as a good it might be said that God is the cause of sin and of the disorderly motions of the will God made man free and left him to himself without determining him by preingaging pleasure because God will be loved by reason since we are rational Creatures He will be lov'd with an Understanding Love with a Love worthy of him and worthy of us a meritorious Love and which he may remunerate for other reasons which I have already told you He foresaw that man would cease to
follow him and stop at some particular good do you think that he fixes you on it by the pleasure you find in it Erast What are you affraid of Aristarchus Is it not plain that God alone can act in us hath not Theodorus demonstrated it to you why do you hesitate will you already leave Principles plainly demonstrated for an objection you cannot solve will you prefer darkness to light Yes 't is God Theod. Softly Erastus I esteem the firmness of your mind but I like the disposition wherein I find Aristarchus better in this case he fears to fail in point of respect towards God and that there may be something hard and violent in the consequence I would draw Erast I have thought on your System Theodore and can explain all this without saying any thing hard or displeasing What you just now did object to Aristarchus plainly evinces original sin the disorder of nature the enmity that is between God and man the necessity of a Mediator Lawgiver and Restorer in short it seems to me that I have a glimpse of the Christian Religion in that Principle Arist You go very fast Erastus I pray you Theodore demonstrate that the proof of original sin is to be found as Erastus pretends in those things you told me just now Theod. How Aristarchus do you not see it Do you not remember the system which I explained to you two days ago But 't is no matter I ask you Is it not a disorder that a spirit who is made for none but God should suffer when he loves God Arist But you say that it is God that makes him suffer Theod. I own it But is it not a disorder that God who hath made spirits for none but himself and gives them no motion but towards himself should repel them from him push them back and use them ill when they come near him and cause in them sentiments of pleasure when they turn from him and fix on some particular good Arist This is not only a disorder but a contradiction This cannot be God doth not contradict nor oppose himself Theod. But Aristarchus Is it not certain that God makes and preserves us for none but himself Is it not also most certain that God alone acts in the Soul and gives her sensations of pleasure or pain when she cleaves to bodies or when she deprives her self of them Is it not God that moves us to love him and also to love bodies if the pleasure we feel at their appearance may be reckoned a sufficient reason for a rensonable spirit to love then Arist It is true But how Theod. I have already explained it to you But yet can this disorder this fight of God against himself give me leave to use these expressions for a while this want of uniformity we imagin to be in Gods Actions proceed from God God made man for himself and even preserves him for himself only but when a man quits the body to unite himself to God by the force of meditation when a man walks in the ways of vertue to come near God he feels pain and this pain proceeds from none but God Doth not this show that God is angry with us and that we have displeased him If God will have us to run after him and to follow and seek him is it possible he can reject and push us back and make us resent pain when we really follow him unless at the same time there be some Enmity between us and him Why doth he repel us when we follow him but because we are unworthy to come near him And how are we unworthy to come near him since he is the end of our Creation unless it be because we are no more such as God had made us and he doth not care for us as we are now and we want a Restorer and a Mediator Arist I doubt you have not well demonstrated yet the Enmity which you believe to be between God and men You say that God repels us when we would come near him because he makes us have a sense of pain in the practice of vertue and the inquiry after truth But I have two things to object to you First that if it seems that God repess and molests us by Sentiments of pain on the other side he comforts us in the deepest recess of our reason for we feel an inward joy in the practice of vertue which makes us know sufficiently that God is our good and if God did not desire we should love him he would not reward us with this inward comfort nor create in us those bitter checks and reproaches that make us uneasie in the injoyment of sensible good Secondly God doth not repel and thrust us from him when we run after him he only gives us notice by sentiments of pain to seek somewhere else than in him the good of the body And as meditation is not conducible to our health we ought to feel some pain in its practice that we may leave it off for all sensible pleasures or pains are only warnings to the body and you ought not to think that God will have us love or hate any thing for the sake of the pleasures or pains we receive in the use of them God will have us to seek or avoid them for the preservation of the Body as you said two days ago but he will not have us love or fear them Theod. Whatever you have said now is true Aristarchus but it doth not overthrow what I had establisht before I own that God comforts us by an inward joy when we love him and that he torments us by knawing checks when we love the good of the body After all what doth this prove nothing else but that God will have us to love him and that he hath made us for himself It is a certain mark that the enmity between God and men is not full and general but it is not a sure sign of a perfect friendship Sinners have offended God there is enmity between them and God you do not doubt it and yet God recalls them to him by checks and reproaches Yet this doth not shew that he loves them perfectly but only that the enmity is not entire and absolute for it cannot be such without causing their destruction And do not imagine that these checks alone such as the Heathens felt them could make them come back reconcile and rejoin themselves to their principle This call was only to justifie God's conduct and condemn that of Sinners For in all likelihood it is to be found even amongst the Damned who will be eternally recalled and eternally repelled and condemned those checks being a condemnation of their malice None return but such as are called back in Jesus Christ for nothing but his grace can make this Call efficacious without the grace of Christ sensible attractions have a greater power than this inward call God pushes us back more than he draws us to him and if he will have us
body or more noble than it or else you ought to begin again and say that Beasts have some other Felicity than that of drinking and eating and of enjoying their Body Arist This Reason convinces me but what would you conclude from thence Theod. Thus Aristarchus you believe that the Jews were Men as we are and that they had a Soul I would say a Substance which thinks perceives wills and reasons and is distinct from the Body your Friend whose place you take being a Cartesian does not doubt of this Arist 'T is true he proves demonstratively that the Existence of the Soul is more certain than that of the Body Theod. This being granted Aristarchus I say that Judaism as to the Letter is not a Religion which God has established for Men and that it could not render the Jews either more perfect or more happy because Moses propounded no other Felicity to the Jews than the enjoyment of the Body and that this sort of happiness is only proper for Beasts if it is true that Beasts have a Soul After Moses had propounded this carnal and ceremonial Law to the Jews which was a shadow of things to come Deut. 28. he promised that if they would observe it their Land should be fruitful that they should have great Families and numerous Flocks that they should be Masters over their Enemies and that God would preserve them as a People which he had chosen But if they would not observe it he told them that they should want all the necessaries of life and foretold those temporal Evils which are come upon them In fine he promised no other recompence or punishment no other happiness or misery than the enjoyment or privation of Bodies it seems there was no Hell no Paradise no Eternity for the Jews Arist But whence comes that 'T is certain the Jews were very gross and carnal Theod. 'T is not Aristarchus that the Jews were gross and carnal but because Moses being only the Figure could only promise good things in a Figure and could not bring them into the inheritance of Children The chief Priests according to the Law of Moses entered into the Sanctuary made with hands which was only a Figure of the true one They entered there with the blood of He-Goats and Calves which could not purifie the Conscience therefore the Law of Moses could not justifie men it gave them no part in eternal happiness therefore Moses was not to promise them any such thing that was the propriety of Jesus Christ who is entred with his own blood into Heaven the true Sanctuary and who hath purchased eternal Salvation as being the onely High-Priest of good things to come Can you think that the Jews were more carnal than the Heathens Can you imagin that Moses was more gross than Poets who make mention of their gods after so unworthy a manner But the Heathens thought of another life The Poets speak of the Elizian Fields and of Hell as places destined for the recompence of Virtue and the punishment of Vice There is no Motive more strong no Idea more terrible no Recompence more agreeable than that of Eternity and the most barbarous Nations are capable of being smitten shaken and carried on to the exercise of Virtue by this thought that they would be eternally rewarded for it yet Moses reckons a great number of Blessings and Cursings without mentioning Eternity Arist 'T is because he did not believe there were Spirits he believed not the Immortality of the Soul Theod. This Consequence is very just and did I not know that the Law of the Jews and their Covenant with God was a Figvre of the New Covenant I perhaps might think my self obliged by the deference I owe to the Books of Moses to be of the sentiment of the Sadducees for only this Party appears reasonable as I have already said for I have not yet spoken any thing that overthrows it But as your Friend is a Cartesian he is too much convinced of the Immortality of the Soul and that Beings which think are distinguisht from matter that cannot think to draw the same Consequences as you do Arist 'T is true this must convince him Theod. Nevertheless he was not convicted of it I could wish that the Body were our true happiness but is this happiness capable of recempencing those who fulfil the precept of loving God with all their heart with all their soul and with all their might This might perhaps be a sufficient reward to the Roman Virtue for happiness must be proportionable to its Virtue But is this worthy of God Is this sufficient to make those truly happy who truly love him You see plainly Aristarchus that they are not Why then did Moses enjoin us to love God with all our might And why did he only promise us the enjoyments of our Bodies for the recompence of this love unless it be that the love of God is indispensibly above all things and that Moses was not to promise the happiness he could not give This seems to me sufficient to convince you that Judaism was but the shadow and figure of Christianity that the Old Covenant only represented the true reconciliation of God with Men and that the Priests according to Aaron's Order the Sacrifices and Ceremonies of the Law ought to be abrogated by the Sacrifice of the Lamb without spot which takes away the sins of the world which worthily satisfies the Justice of God which introduces us into the Holy of Holies and promises the true happiness to all those who are members of that Body whereof he is the Head Thus you see that I have no design to become a Jew unless you believe me stupid enough to look upon the Body as my proper good the Body I say which can't be the happiness of Brutes if they have a Soul distinct from their Body and more Noble than it But as for you Aristarchus you have now a design to turn Turk I speak to you as you take upon you the character of your Friend you are for a Paradise where you would always be indulging your self in sensual pleasure you would have many Women to satisfie those Passions which are even here below called brutish and shameful * Chap. of Order Chap. of Judgment Chap. of Mercy c. the great Mahomet promises them as fair as new laid Eggs and as beautiful as Oriental Pearls they shall have black rolling Eyes Arist Enough Theodorus the Turkish Religion is certainly unworthy of reasonable Men it is even unworthy of Beasts if they have a Soul more Noble than their Body And I acknowledge that the Alcoran destroys itself by its own Principles as well as Judaism does in the Letter For in fine 't is certain that the enjoyments of the Body are not worthy of the Soul That those who love them become not thereby more perfect That those who enjoy them are thereby often ashamed And that the promises of Moses not to mention those of
Erastus all Spirits are essentially united to God nor can they be entirely separated from him without ceasing to be But what ought to be their Union with God that they may be as happy and perfect as it is possible for them to be Erast It is plain that this Union ought to be the narrowest that can be for none but God is the sovereign good of Spirits Theod. Thus Erastus we become more perfect the greater and the stronger the Union which we have with God is The damned have but just so much Union with God as is necessary to keep them in being But the blessed are united to God in so perfect a manner that they do not only receive from him a being but also its perfection Let us see therefore Erastus wherein consists this kind of Union with God whereby we receive all the perfection whereof we are capable in this life Erast I have learn'd in the Conferences which I have had with you and by the perusal of the Book of the Inquiry after Truth Chap. 8. of the last Book that God alone is the true cause and true mover as well of Bodies as of Spirits and that natural causes are only occasional causes which determin the true cause to act in consequence of his eternal Will I am persuaded that I can be united to the Bodies that are about me and to that which I animate and move only because I am united to God Dialog 1. for all Bodies cannot by themselves act in my Soul nor make themselves visible to her as she likewise hath not by herself the strength to move any Body since she doth not even know what must be done to stir an Arm. Thus Theodorus if I speak to you and understand you if my Spirit unites itself to yours or my Body to your Body God alone is the true cause of it he is the Bond of all the Unions which I am able to have with all his Works I can be immediately united to none but him since none but he can immediately act in me and I only act through his means But Theodorus I may be united to God and fix my self to him and in that have no relation to any other but him and I may also be united to God with relation to some other thing but God For when I think on abstracted Idea's of things I am united to God by my thought since I see those things only through the means of the Union that I have with God * Dial. 3. But this Union doth not bind me to Creatures On the other side when I feel sensible good it is only by the Union that I have with God and because he acts in me * Dial. 2. For all Bodies are insensible by themselves but this second Union which I have with God fastens me to sensible things for God unites among themselves all his Works and he alone can be the Bond of all Unions I therefore believe that our Union with God upholds our Being and that we should not exist without it But I am persuaded that the Union which fastens us to none but God and hath relation to none but him is that which gives the utmost perfection of which we are capable Theod. Do you not remember Erastus that the Author of the Book of the Inquiry after Truth demonstrates That our Senses never represent things to us as they are in themselves but only according to their relation to our selves and that therefore all sensible knowledg is useful for the preservation and conveniency of our lise but altogether unprofitable for the perfection of the Mind and the knowledg of Truth Erast I do remember it Theodorus and shall never forget it for it was that which persuaded me that of all our Knowledg and Notions none but those that are purely intellectual make us more perfect and indeed we can be said to see in God things as they are only through those forts of Notions When we have a sentiment of things we do not see them in themselves we have no knowledg of them and even in reality they are not the sensible Objects that we do feel but our very selves for our Sensations belong to us and not to those Objects to which we generally use to attribute them How then could our Senses lead us to the knowledg of Truth since we do not know Truth but when we see things such as they are Theod. If you remember also what that Book saith of the Errors of our Imagination and Passions you ought to grant that not only the Imagination and Senses hinder us from discovering Truth but also that our Passions carry and remove us from the true Good In a word that all the thoughts and motions of the Soul that excite themselves in us by reason of some changes that happen in our Body disunite us from God to unite us to Bodies For after all it is necessary that the Soul who ought to mind the preservation of her Body be warn'd to think on it when some new Accident happens to it Erast I grant all these things Theod. Let us suppose then that there never happens any change in the Brain but that the Soul receives some thought which takes it off from the light of truth and the love of true good and disunites her from God to unite her to Bodies If it is certain that the perfection of the mind consists in the knowledg of truth and in the love of true good in one word in an Union with God which hath relation to none but him I ask you In the state which we are in wherein we cannot hinder the communication of motion nor the bodies that are about us from penetrating and agitating ours what are we to do to tend continually towards our perfection do not consult the Gospel now consult only your reason Erast It is plain that we ought by flight to avoid being acted by those Bodies that are about us that we ought to mortify our Senses and keep shut as much as we can all the passages at which sensible Objects come in and disturb our Reason When we cannot stay the motion of those Bodies that are capable of offending us we never fail to step aside to avoid being struck by them Thus when we are not able to stop the action of sensible Objects we ought to avoid them by flight in the same manner as we use to preserve our selves from contagious distempers by change of Air. Let an Insect but prick us we immediately lose sight of the most solid truths let a Fly but buz in our Ears and our mind will be presently fill'd with darkness What shall we do then to hold this truth which still gets away and preserve this light which vanishes from us Must we kill all the Insects and drive away all the Flyes this can never be We must then remove somewhere else for after all it is impossible that the Sensations that divide your thinking Faculty should
three years he doubtless took great pleasure to teach three or four of us young Men who came to hear him since he wou'd fatigue himself every Morning to repeat the miserable Reasons which he plunder'd out of Aristotle's Problems Now he reads no more for we hearing him no longer with admiration he speaks no more with pleasure He even has much aversion for all Discourses of Learning and as he is a little troublesom we have found out the secret to get rid of his Company by proposing some Question to him to have it resolv'd Theod. This Example Erastus was not needful to convince us that Persons who are wedded to some sensible thing do not search after Truth for its sake You see that we are well enough convinc'd of it You may observe the weakness of other Men and how their Vanity renders 'em miserable provided that you suppose your self in their person for we are all very near one as the other But Erastus we never ought to inspire into any one a Contempt of or Estrangement from a Person unless we are certain I say certain that he is dangerous and contagious Otherwise we must speak in general terms You would perhaps by your judicious Reflection give us to understand that you are witty we already know it but we knew not that you would have it known 'T is a hard thing to accuse others of Vanity without condemning one's self of the same thing or something else equivalent Thus Erastus you may constantly observe continually criticize but think and correct your self and if you would not condemn your self hold your peace You freely grant Aristarchus that the Councels of JESVS CHRIST are necessary to acquire that perfection of the Mind which consists in the knowledg of Truth Nevertheless JESVS CHRIST came not to make us Philosophers his Councels as I told you yesterday tend only indirectly and by reason of their universality to make us wise But if he gave not to his Disciples many Precepts of Logic to reason justly yet he taught them all necessary Rules to live well and gave them also all necessary power to follow them 'T is for this end that JESVS CHRIST is come his design is to remedy the disorder of Sin to reunite us to God by separating us from the Body to save us and raise us up to himself in Heaven We shall eternally remain such as we shall be in the moment that our Soul shall leave our Body If we love God in this moment we shall love him always for the motion of Spirits is only unconstant and meritorious for this life But all human Sciences are in themselves unprofitable to regulate this moment upon which depends our Eternity they merit us not the Assistances of Heaven for this moment they incline not our hearts towards God Thus JESVS CHRIST was not to guide us directly to this perfection of the Mind which is barren for Eternity and which ceases at the moment of Death he was to recommend to us a privation from sensible Good to the end that our hearts may be fill'd with his love being empty of every thing else and to the end that adhering to nothing in the moment that commences Eternity our love may carry us towards God who is the source of all happiness Let us not then any more consider the Councels of JESVS CHRIST with respect to the knowledg of Truth but with respect to this perfection of Mind which consists in the love of real Good in Charity which remains for ever which alone merits Eternity and without which all Virtues are but imaginary Let us examin the Morality of the Gospel with relation to the Rule of Manners but let us examin it with all possible strictness that there may be no Subject for a second Enquiry let us not be convinc'd less of our Duties by Reason than we are by Faith Certainly if the things which I have prov'd concerning JESVS CHRIST in the preceding Conferences are true there remains no doubt about the truths of Morality we must renounce our own Wills we must bear his Cross we must weep fast and suffer JESVS CHRIST hath said it If he is God if he is Wise 't is evident that his Councels are very advantageous to us But because we can't be too much convinc'd of the truth of these Propositions which are so incommodious and which offend us so sensibly we must endeavor to discover by our own Reason that there is no other remedy for our Evils Perhaps we shall do like those that are dangerously hurt who to preserve a miserable life present their own Bodies to the Surgeons to be cut and burnt they believe these Men upon their word and confide in their Operations and expose themselves to a great pain in an uncertain prospect of a Good which in itself is very inconsiderable What then should hinder us from imitating them when the evidence of Reason concurs with the certainty of Faith If we refuse to believe in JESVS CHRIST if we fear not Eternity if we hearken to out Senses and Passions yet it may be that Reason join'd to Faith will effect our Conviction And it may be that by continually condemning our laziness it will excite in us a profitable Inquietude Let us therefore examin those things in their Principle We ought only to love what is lovely No Thing is lovely but what is good but no Thing is good with respect to us if it be uncapable of doing us good if it be uncapable of rendring us more perfect and happy for I speak not here of a kind of Good which consists in the perfection of every thing Now no Thing is capable of rendring us more perfect and happy if it be not above us and capable of acting in us But all Bodies are below us they can't act in us they can't produce in us either pleasure or light then they are not to be belov'd What think you Erastus Erast When I ask my Reason I freely rest upon this but when I make use of my Senses I doubt it Yet as my Reason answers me more distinctly than my Senses as it is preferable to my Senses and as it never deceives me tho' my Senses always do when I make use of them to judge of Truth I believe that sensible Objects are uncapable of rendring me more perfect and happy Theod. Then you ought not to love Bodies Erast 'T is true this is evident Theod. But don't you love them Erast Much Theodorus I follow not my Reason I follow my Senses my Pleasure Theod. Thus Erastus To love sensible things it 's sufficient to taste Pleasure in the use of 'em Pleasure captivates the Heart it acts more powerfully upon you than your reason since you love because of pleasure such things as you know by reason are unworthy of your Love Erast I have for a long time known what you now tell me Theod. I don't doubt it 't is not to teach you what I now tell you but
to make you think of it But pray tell me do you love the Game of Piquet or Omber Erast Very much Theod. Do you love Hunting Erast I have not yet been at it but I imagine that there 's no great pleasure to course a Hare for three of four hours together in the Wind Rain or Sun Arist You know not what you say Erastus there 's no greater pleasure in the World Theod. Take heed Erastus Aristarchus judges not of Hunting as you do he loves it and you love it not But would you love it Does your Reason represent it as if it were worthy of your love Erast No Theodorus neither my Reason nor my Senses for what pleasure can it be to pursue a miserable Beast a whole day together I pity the Passion of Aristarchus Theod. I advise you then never to go to it for if you did you perhaps would come back more passionate than Aristarchus he was once as you are without any desire to hunt before he had tasted the pleasure it may be he had even an aversion for it but by little and little he was so accustomed to it that he could not refrain from it Erast I believe it and will never go for I would not be ruined in Horses and Dogs Theod. But Erastus why play you Why do you lose your time unprofitably Will you ruine your 〈◊〉 by play rather than Hunting Erast I can't help it Theod. Then 't is with you as with Aristarchus you condemn one another and have compassion for one another Arist 'T is true Erastus and I are not over wise thus to follow the Motions of our Passions altho I see well that he runs the Risque of losing at Cards and I of falling off my Horse Theod. What should have been done then to reclaim Erastus from gaming and Aristarchus from hunting For as things now are there only remains in human apprehension a violent Remedy Erast When Aristarchus perceived himself agitated by the pleasure of the Chace he should have forthwith left it He should resemble me his Imanation should not be filled with these Vestiges which continually renew the object of his Passion 't is the Pleasure that is found in the use of sensible things which is the Cause of Passions and which agitates the animal Spirits but when the animal Spirits are strongly agitated they impress deep Vestiges in the Brain they even break thro' their violent Course all the Fibres which resist them Thus as soon as we taste pleasure we must examine and see if it be advantageous that the Vestiges of the Object which cause this pleasure perfect their form if the Object which causes this pleasure is unworthy of our Application and Love we must deprive our selves of it and also shun the pleasure which enslaves us by the Vestiges it impresses in our Brain 'T is this I believe which we ought to do to hinder our Concupiscence from a continual growth Theod. But Erastus when you actually taste of pleasure can you easily quit the Object that causes it When Aristarchus was in the heat of the Chase the first time he went thither do you think he was in a Condition to reflect upon himself Did not the Sound of the Horn the Noise and running of the Dogs the motion of the Horse and above all this the pleasure that he found in all these different motions take up his mind Did not his Passion carry him as well as his Horse to the Death of the Hare or Stag And do you believe that he could then think of your Remedy Or if he had thought do you believe that he would have been willing to have made use of it Or that he could have resisted the Passion which agitated him The Philosophical Remedies which you have laid down are not proper at such a time Erastus to hinder our Concupiscence that it should not encrease Erast 'T is true Theodorus the most certain of all Remedies is that of privation Pleasure poysons us we must not taste it this the most short and sure Rule b He that commits Sin becomes the Slave of it Joh. 8.34 I find that reason perfectly agrees with the Gospel nevertheless I remember that I have cured my Imagination and resisted my Passion by the use of things which according to what you have said should encrease it Thus About three or four years ago I freely believed every thing that I heard One day there came an Officer hither who said that travelling with an Englishman that could not forbear smoking it hapned that this Englishmans Horse fell down and broke his Masters Leg who being upon the ground and thinking rather on his Pipe than Leg he put his hand into his Pocket and taking out his Pipe whole he cry'd out with Joy Well well my Pipe is not broke This Relation struck me and I imagin'd the smoke of Tobacco was the most agreeable thing in the World so that I perceiv'd my self urg'd with a violent Passion to try it but it happen'd to me as to many others that I had no sooner tasted it but had a horror for it Thus Theodorus your Remedy which is to deprive us of sensible things is not general for the use of Tobacco has cured me of the Passion I had for it and when I had not us'd it I was desirous of it Theod. But Erastus don't you see that we must be depriv'd of all that is capable of sullying the Imagination The Commerce we have with those who speak of Bodies as true Goods is capable of impressing traces in the Brain which carry us to the love of Bodies as well as the very use of Bodies A Drunkard who speaks of Wine as of his God who despises those who know not how to drink and who places amongst his bravest Actions the Victories which he hath got at the Table against the greatest Debauchees of the Province such a Drunkard in his gay humor easily persuades a young Man that 't is a fine quality to drink as much Wine as two Horses can drink Water 'T is for this that in all places where Men speak of drinking much as of a Vertue all the World drinks to excess for even those who don't at first delight in drinking doing as others to avoid being the Subject of their Companions Ralleries they are by degrees so accustom'd to Wine that they can't be without it Thus Erastus as Concupiscence does principally reside in the traces of the Brain which incline the Soul to the love of sensible things it must be depriv'd of all things which produce these traces not only of the actual use of Bodies which is of no use to the preservation of health and life but also of the Conversation of Debauchees who speak with esteem of the objects of their passions 'T is pleasure Erastus which agitates the Spirits and which produces dangerous traces not only that which we enjoy by our Senses but that also which we enjoy by Imagination not only the taste
things yet whose Love is not lively being suffer'd by them to languish for want of Nourishment and weaken'd extreamly by that Concupiscence which incessantly wars against it so that the Ideas which according to the Laws of Nature present themselves to their Minds in Temptation dissipate and vanish in a moment they are of no substance nor consistence But the Ideas which according to the Laws of Nature are excited in the motions of the Passions are sensible Thus Erastus lest the Righteous should fall God must either give them a greater Light than that which should ensue from their love according to the Laws of Nature or awaken and fortifie their love by a preingaging delectation But because he does it if he pleases and as much as he pleases this not being in course of Nature a thing to which he is oblig'd the Light of the Righteous and the Disposition of their Hearts as sufficient as it is does not always give them the victory in the time of Temptation Erast 'T is a very sad thing that even the Righteous Theod. It is true Erastus but the Righteous can pray God has obliged himself by his Promises which he keeps as inviolably as the Laws of Nature to give them continually actual and efficacious help if they have need of it The Righteous are Members of Christ they are animated with the Spirit of Christ 't is as we may say Christ that prays in them and God can refuse nothing to his Son For the Righteous obtain nothing that they ask unless they ask it in the Name of Christ and in order to preserve the Spirit of Christ within them Erast But Theodorus when a Righteous Man through negligence lets his love decay when he lets the Light and Life of the Spirit dye in him God knows his wants God loves him for every Righteous Man is loved of God why then does he stay till he pray to him Why does he not grant before he demands Why does he not protect and defend him Theod. God does not always stay till the Righteous pray to him but often gives them help which they ask not of him and if he does command them to ask it of him it is because he will be lov'd and ador'd for it God knows our wants better than we do our selves and if he commands us to pray to him 't is to oblige us to think on him and to look upon him as the only Being that is able to fill us with good things 't is to excite and awaken our love towards him and not to learn of us either our wants or the motives he has to relieve us He is resolv'd to be gracious to us upon his Sons account and if it is his will that we pray to him for it in his Sons Name 't is that we may love him and his Son 'T is love that prays 't is respect 't is the disposition of the Mind and Heart For we cannot pray to God without actually believing a great many things concerning him and us without actually hoping in him and actually loving him But acts stir up and even beget habits therefore 't is principally to awaken in us our Faith our Hope and our Love that God commands us to pray to him But when our Faith is lively our Hope firm and our Love ardent it is not possible according to the very Laws of Nature we should want a lively and efficacious Light For as you say 't is impossible that what we love should be snatch'd away from us without exciting in us a desire to preserve it and this desire is naturally follow'd with a prospect of the means to preserve it Besides the Joy we find in the possession of what we ardently love is of great force For the Righteous possess God by the fore-taste of their hope and this fore-taste accompanied with light is able to make them overcome the strongest Temptations because it makes them embrace with Joy the means that the Light offers them Thus Prayer is the nourishment of the Soul and by it it receives new strength by it it thinks on God and comes into his presence unites its self to him that is its whole strength and even it receives of God through Christ the delectation of Grace to counterballance those preingaging Pleasures which it receives also of God for 't is God alone that acts in it but which are involuntary and rebellious by reason of Adam's disobedience And you ought to observe Erastus that the Righteous have always in them the strength to pray seeing it is Love that prays and consequently strength to obtain an increase of their Love seeing that God has obliged himself by his Promises to grant them their Prayers Nay they can easily make use of this strength they have to pray at all times in which they have liberty of Spirit and need of Prayer especially if they live in a retirement and deny themselves sensual Pleasures For as the Righteous love God it is easie for them when they have liberty of Mind and perceive that any thing sets them at a distance from God to make some attempt to return to him again And this effort is an efficacious Prayer which is rewarded according to the greatness of the effort They may fly to Christ think on his Counsels and Examples and if they cannot easily imitate his Life they may at least desire to do it they may strengthen their hope and raise their love by praying with Faith and Humility in the prospect of the Merits of Christ Arist They may do what you say if they think upon it But if they do not think upon it certainly they cannot do it for none can do what you say with out thinking on it Theod. They alwayes think upon it Aristarchus when it is necessary because being righteous they love God For those that love God have him still present when there is danger of losing him because we cannot have that which we love snatch'd away from us and not desire to preserve it I suppose in the mean time that they preserve the Liberty of their Minds by putting away Sensual Pleasures for sometimes the Imagination is so taken up and troubled by the Action of Bodies that are about us and by the Motion of the Spirits which the Passions raise in us that we may lose God easily enough and without making all the Reflections which I believe necessary to preserve and fortifie Love Erast Thus Theodorus we should always return to the Counsels of Christ There is nothing more necessary for the Righteous as well as for Sinners than to remove from the Noisie World and Violent Pleasures and I believe that those who set no Bounds to their Pleasures nor to their Passions can hardly continue in this Presence of God which bears up and fortifies their Love I fancy that the Hurry Music Pomp Magnificence and other Allurements that are at Publick Places would very much perplex my Mind if I should resort thither for they say
Eternal Wisdom this is the Advice which he gives not only to the Apostles but to all Mankind in general And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also he said unto them Whosoever will come after me let him deny himself c. The Elevation of the Soul to GOD. O LORD whose Will is ever effectual and all whose Decrees are unchangeable it is of thy bounty that we feel Pleasure in the use of sensible things but ungrateful Man loves that false good and despises the true cause of his Happiness or rather he is ignorant that thou O Lord alone art able to operate in him It was wisely ordered by thy Providence that Man should be able to discern by short and evident Proofs whether he should use or avoid the Bodies that surround him that he might not be obliged to turn from thee nor to six his Mind upon thy Creatures But he has abused thy Mercy to his own destruction for thou O God art not in all his thoughts He imagines that matter is the cause of all the Pleasure which he feels and therefore yields himself a slave to it and makes it the only Object of his Thoughts and Affections Thus what thou hadst appointed to preserve the Righteous Man in his Rightcousness serves now to harden the Wicked in their Wickedness Is it just thou shouldst work a Miracle for a sinful wretch O God No Lord let thy Decrees remain fixt for ever and woe be to those that tempt thee Let Men shun Poyson if they would avoid Death They can discern that Poyson for thou hast taught them to know and avoid it But O thou Just and Merciful God who dealest Righteously with thy Creatures how shall we be able to hate Pleasure How hate what thou causest us to love It is just that we suffer as Sinners but can we love Pain which thou seemest to make us hate by an invincible Impression O Lord whose Wisdom is infinite enable us perfectly to understand that thou art not contrary to thy self and that thy Wills do not imply contradiction that Pleasure in it self is not absolutely bad and that the true cause that produces it really deserves and ought to be belov'd and respected belov'd with all our Heart and Soul and respected so as not to be constrain'd in consequence of his Will to gratifie us when absolutely speaking be should punish us O Lord who hidest thy self from our mortal Eyes cause thy strength and the efficacy of thy will to exert themselves and do thou clearly and incessantly convince us that the Bodies which are on all sides about us are absolutely incapable of doing us either good or harm Perhaps Men will love none but thee when they come to know that thou alone art able to do them good and perhaps they will fear none but thee when they shall have rightly understood that thou alone hast sufficient strength and power to cause them to suffer Pain But I beseech thee O my God to deal with me in a more safe and merciful manner I know that thy Creatures are not my good yet I love them I am convinc'd that whatever is round me cannot penetrate me yet my Heart insensibly opens it self and expects to receive from the vilest of thy Creatures what thou alone art able to give me Therefore O Lord be pleased out of thy infimte Mercy to deal with me in a more safe manner than thou dost with those who follow the Dictates of their Love Oh set me apart from thy Creatures since they turn my Heart from thee Draw my Eyes from fixing themselves on sensible Objects since I mistake them for thee or rather since I love them instead of thee This is the surest means to remedy the disorders in my Heart All my Philosophy is not sufficient to regulate my Love and can only serve to accuse and confound me before thee It teaches me that I make use of the Order to overthrow the Order that I misemploy thy Gifts by promoting what is ill and that I make use of the immutability of thy Decrees meerly to reward Rebellion and other Crimes It plainly shows me my Impiety and Injustice but leaves me plung'd in it I am stricken with horrour when I think on my self yet I cannot forbear loving my self So I procure those Pleasures to my self which make me happy at least while I enjoy them O God how stupid and sensless am I not I love my self for a Moment and ruine my self for a whole Eternity But I have a feeling sence of that Moment and I have none of Eternity 'T is true I think on it and the Thought disturbs my Joy but alas Pleasure though never so weaken'd by my Reflections easily draws after its self a Heart which it has already put into motion Deprive me then O my God of all the Objects that flatter my Senses and disorder my Reason While as being the Author of Nature thou makest me seel Pleasure in the use of those Objects do thou as thou art the Author of Grace make me loath and abhor them And I beseech thee out of the abundance of thy Mercies that at such times as Pains are voluntary thou mayst make me suffer those which my Crimes deserve O God who canst not let sin remain impunished make me continually return to the observance of the Order Form me upon the model of thy Son crucifie me with him and let his Cross that is only folly and weakness to the Eyes of Man be all my Strength all my Wisdom and all my Joy O Jesus who wast nail'd on the Cross for my sins I am thine nail and fix me there with thee crucifie my Flesh with its Passions and unruly Desires destroy this body of Sin or by thy Grace deliver me from the stress of it that continually presses upon my Mind We are baptized in thy Death We are dead to all the things of this World We are even buried with thee through Baptism Our old Man according to thy great Apostle was crucified with thee that the body of sin might be destroy'd And wilt thou O Lord suffer this Old Man to live again and this Body of Sin to subsist O Saviour of the World do thou finish the work which thou hast begun Continue to suffer in thy Members Do thou in our Flesh sinish the Sacrifice which thou hast begun in Abel which thou didst continue in the Patriarchs and Prophets and to which thou wilt not put an end but by the Death of the last Member of thy Body that is to be the last Saint whom thou wilt give to thy Church O thou Blessed Spirit of Christ thou Love of the Father and of the Son diffuse thy Charity through our Hearts drive the servile fear of Slaves out of our Minds and fill us with that Fear that is found in the Children and which gives a Right to the Inheritance of our Father Come O thou Spirit of Comfort soften the bitterness and distaste which we find in Repentance make us partake of the Sufferings of Christ that we may also be made partakers of his Glory But give us at the same time some of that Heavenly Fire which thou didst shower down on the Apostles that Fire which kindled in them an ardent Zeal to preach the Cross of Christ without Fear and to suffer joyfully the shame of Whipping the stress of Torments and Death it self for Christ Jesus Amen FINIS
Truth doth not always answer our expectation for we do not know how to make our addresses We often ask it questions without knowing what we ask as when we go about to resolve questions whose terms we do not understand We ask it questions and then leave it not waiting for its answers as when Impatience seizes us and our Imagination is displeas'd that we think on things that have no relation to the good of the body We ask it questions and strive to corrupt it as when our Passions move us and we will have its answers to agree with our opinions In short we ask it questions we hear its answers and do not understand them as when our prejudices prepossess our mind and it is fill'd with false Ideas and our Imagination is utterly spoil'd by an infinite number of dark and confus'd notions that continually represent all things to us with respect to our selves Then God speaks and the body also reason and imagination the mind and the senses there arises a confused noise and nothing can be heard Darkness mixes it self with Light and nothing can be seen For we cannot always discern what God tells us Immediately and through himself to unite us to truth from what he tells us through our body to unite us to sensible things The various Imployments of your Life have fill'd your mind with a great number of prejudices that have imprinted on it a certain Character much esteem'd in the world which is but as a Seal that fastens those prejudices on our minds You have read much the Books of certain Scepticks who are proud of doubting of all things and yet speak of them peremptorily and I fear that like them you will have me hereafter prove you common notions and receive as principles opinions altogether unknown to the greatest part of mankind It is also much to be fear'd that your travels have too much disperst your thoughts and given your mind too much of the Court-air to let you hear with attention some things altogether unknown amongst Travellers and Military men You do not believe at present that your Studies and Travels have corrupted your reason and prepossess'd you with many unreasonable opinions You have some cause not to believe it and I will not undertake to convince you of it yet But that hereafter we may reconcile our differences let us take for a third a young man whom the conversation of the World hath not yet spoilt that Nature alone may speak in him and we may find who of us two is prepossess'd Methinks Erastes who heard us t'other day would be very fit for this I observ'd by his countenance that he often consulted within himself to examine our sentiments with those of his Conscience and always approv'd of the most reasonable tho he us'd to stand as it were amaz'd and surpriz'd without judging of any thing when ever he heard you relate certain things which you have read in Books Arist You do him a great deal of honour at my cost but I can find no fault with it that young man is so lovely that besides the tye of blood I have all the reason in the world to be glad of the esteem you have of his Wit I freely consent But here he comes in very good time Erastes Gentlemen will you be pleas'd to do me the same favour you did me lately Will you give me leave to stay here Arist With all our hearts Erastus we were thinking to send for you I have just now told you my resolution Theodorus and you approve of it Let us Philosophize I pray you but let it be after a Christian and solid manner Instruct me of the Truths that are essential and most capable of rendering us happy How would you prove that there is a God for I believe that 't is by this we ought to begin Theod. The Existence of God may be prov'd a thousand ways for there is nothing but may serve to demonstrate it and I wonder how a person of your parts so well read in Antiquity and so accomplisht every way seems not to be convinc'd of it Arist I am convinc'd of it by Faith but I must confess I am not fully convinc'd of it by Reason Theod. If you speak as you think you are convinc'd of it neither by reason nor by Faith For do you not know that the assurance of Faith comes from the authority of a God that speaks and who can never deceive us If then you are not convinc'd by reason that there is a God how will you be convinc'd that he hath spoke Can you know that he hath spoke without knowing that he is And can you know that the things which he hath reveal'd us are true without knowing that he is Infallible and never deceives us Arist I do not examine things so narrowly and the reason why I believe it is because I will believe it and that I have been told so all my life But let us see your proofs Theod. Your Faith hath much of the man in it and your answers shew much Indifference I design'd to give you the most simple and natural proofs of the Existence of God but I find by the disposition of your mind they would not be the most convincing You must have sensible proofs Here are many things about us which of them shall I make use of to prove you that there is a God Shall it be this Fire that delights us this Light that illuminates us the nature of Words by whose means we discourse together for as I told you just now there is nothing but may serve to shew the existence of its Author provided we consider it with all possible attention God acts incessantly in and by all his works 'T is he that illuminates us by this outward light that delights us by the warmth of this fire and discourses with us when we think we converse together God neither produces nor preserves any creature but which may cause those to know him who make good use of their reason I will convince you of it presently In the mean time Erastus take heed that neither of us prepossess you Answer me Aristarchus What doth Fire do in you Arist It warms me Theod. Then Fire causes a pleasure in you Arist I own it Theod. What causes in us some pleasure makes us in some measure happy Arist It is true Theod. Then what makes us in some manner happy is in some manner our good and in some manner above us and deserves in some manner love and veneration What think you of it Erastus is Fire in some manner above you Can Fire act in you Can it cause in you a pleasure it hath not it feels not it knows not and cause it in you that is to say in a Spirit in a being infinitely above it Erast I do not think so Theod. See then Aristarchus what you have to answer Arist You conclude too fast And I see what you drive at I distinguish Fire
causes heat but it doth not cause pleasure Pleasure is a sentiment of the Soul which the Soul causes in it self When its body is well dispos'd the Soul rejoyces at it and its joy is its pleasure but Fire causes the heat we feel for as it contains it in it self it can disperse it without Theod. Can you conceive Erastus that your Soul causes in it self its pleasure and causes it when it knows its body is well dispos'd Can you know what changes happen now to your body Doth the pleasure you receive when you warm your self delay its coming till you find out what passes in your hands Doth it stay also for the orders of your Soul and do you feel that this depends from you as an effect depends from its cause Do you also apprehend well that Fire really contains this heat you feel This heat you only feel when your hands are out of the Fire for whilst your hands are in the Fire which according to Aristarchus contains heat you do not feel it but a very great pain which perhaps is not in the Fire When you retire within your self to consult your Reason do you well conceive that Matter is capable of any modifications differing from Motion and Figure Do you believe that it is by heat that Fire separates the particles of Wood when it burns it That by heat it agitates the particles of Water when it makes it boyl That by heat it purifies Metals when it melts them Extracts Water out of Mud when it drys it Drives with violence Cannon-balls and overthrows by Mines the Walls of Cities and the highest Towers In short have you ever found in Fire some effect that may prove it is possess'd of heat Erast I confess I cannot easily understand how this heat I feel is capable of producing any of the effects you have now mention'd And I cannot even see any relation between this heat and any of the effects of Fire I have sufficiently experienc'd by its effects that Fire hath motion but I have not found yet that it hath heat Theod. You will do well Aristarchus to consider on what Erastus said now In the mean time hear the answers he will make me If I held this Thorn hard upon your hand Erastus what should I do to it Erast As it is sharp I imagine you would make a hole in it Theod. What else should I do to it Erast If I ought to speak but what I know you would do nothing else to it Theod. But what should you feel Erast Perhaps I should feel some pain Theod. This Perhaps is very Judicious But if I drew this Feather over your Lips what should I do to them Erast You should move their fibres Theod. What else should I do to them Erast Nothing else Theod. But what should you feel Erast I don't know Theod. Try Erast I feel a kind of a troublesome pleasure which may be called Titillation Theod. What think you Aristarchus of the answers of Erastus Are they true Can any false consequence be directly deduced from them He speaks but what he understands from that Inward Master whom he faithfully consults Mark how he applys himself Let us go on Erastus What doth this fire produce in your hand Erast Hold Sir I have seen them lay much Wood in the Chimney this Wood is no more there Then 't is gone Arist 'T is burnt 't is annihilated Erast That 's a story annihilated I did not see it go out it must then have gone in invisible particles It could not go from thence without changing its place that is to say without motion The Wood then is continually divided and its particles move themselves from the Chimney towards my hands Those particles are bodys they strike against my hands I have it Theodorus Fire without doubt moves the fibres of my hands Theod. Is that all Erastus Erast 'T is all I know I say nothing but what I see Am I to blame Theod. But pray do you feel nothing Erast I feel some heat Theod. Come nearer the fire yet nearer a little more what do you feel Erast Some pain Theod. 'T is enough Whence proceeds this heat that pleases you and this pain that scorches you This heat that makes you more pleased and more happy this pain that disturbs you and makes you in some manner unhappy Erast I do not know it Theod. Do you believe that fire is above you and can make you happy or miserable Erast No certainly I only believe here what I see I see that Fire can move variously the Fibres of my hand for bodies may methinks act on bodies but they cannot communicate sensations which they have not Can a Thorn infuse pain by the little hole it makes in the flesh Can a Feather spread titillation on my Lips when it goes over them No Theodorus I do not believe that any one of all the bodies about me is able to make me more happy or unhappy Theod. Well said Erastus I am sure you will never worship the Fire nor even the Sun You are already wiser than those famous Chaldeans illustrious Brachmanes and ancient Druids who worship'd the Sun Erast How Were there ever men mad enough to esteem the Fire or the Sun as Deities Theod. Yes Erastus Not some Men or some Nations but almost all Nations and the most famous too as the Greeks the Persians the Romans and several others You may be informed by Aristarchus who hath read learned Books he will talk with you whole days together of the different manners in which several Nations have worshipped Fire and the Sun Erast I do not much care to know the follies of others Be pleas'd to go on with your Questions Theod. I will presently Erastus But by the way Aristarchus have you compared your answers with those of Erastus Have you observ'd how he applies himself how he consults the Master that teaches him in the deepest recess of his reason he never answers but after him he warrants nothing but what he sees and for that reason I defie you to draw directly any false consequences from his answers But if you mind it those that you made me before to the same questions may in a manner justifie the Religion of those who place Fire or the Sun among the Gods For if Fire or the Sun can reward and punish you make you happy or unhappy they must be above you they must have power over you and you ought to pay submission to them for it is an inviolable Law that inferiour things shall be subservient to superiour I need tell you no more of it I only assure you that the Pagans never reasoned like Erastus and that in all likelihood they argu'd like you since we see by their Religion that they have followed the same thred of consequences I have drawn now from your Answers Observe it Aristarchus when God speaks when inward Truth answers there is no creature but guides us to the Creator You 'll understand this