Bodies either to the Right or the Left forwards or backwards above or below and all manner of ways We must needs see with what Volubility what Agility and with what Quickness we move our Tongues our Feet and our Hands And all this is done without our knowing how by meer Empire as hath been said hereupon When we have studied Anatomy and Physic we know that they are the Muscles and the Nerves which serve to these Motions but before we had ever known that we had Nerves and Muscles we spoke we danced we leaped all one and since we have acquir'd this Knowledge we neither speak nor walk the better for it nor do we make e're the more use of it to make our Movements once more I say it is purely an Empire which our Will exercises upon that Portion of the Common Matter of the World out of which the Creator hath form'd us the Place of our Trial and our Prison Now I say That this Empire or Command is an evident Mark of the Spirituality in our Souls first because it is already a Mark of a Nature Spiritual and Superior to all that there is of Body and to all that there can be had of Material in the World to have the Power of Willing because to Will is an Act no less essentially Spiritual than to Know for all that is Corporeal may be conceiv'd under some Corporeal Image and it is impossible to conceive either the Act or the Faculty of Willing under any Form or Image Corporeal or Material In the second place To Will and especially to Will and to have the Power of Willing as we experience in Us is a farther Mark of a Spiritual Nature because there is in this Ground of Liberty by the which we find that we have the Power of Willing and Desiring something Infinite and Immense for Our Will and our Desires have no Limits our Faculty and our Liberty of Willing is truly Infinite whether it be because there is not any thing but what we can Desire and Will whether it be because we effectively carry continually in the Bosom of this Liberty an Infinity of Desires and Wills or lastly whether it be because we can always conceive new Ones and it is plainly apparent no Corporeal Nature can be capable of such a Character of Immensity In the third place This Power and this Empire which we have of removing our Body by Command and by Will only is an evident Character of a Nature Spiritual and Superior to Body for two Reasons by the Reason that to Command is a Character and an Act of Superiority and as so the Nature that commands is Superior to that which obeys from whence it follows That the Soul which commands is of a Nature Superior to Body which obeys and by the Reason that this so Efficacious a manner of Empire and Authority is a lively Image of the Sovereignty of God which cannot be within a Corporeal Nature St. Augustin had well penetrated into this Reason when he said That by it we carry sensibly in Us a lively Resemblance of the Supreme Sovereignty and of the Infinite Power with which He created the World In effect by this Empire which we exercise over our Bodies we have in our selves the lively Idea of it and altogether resembling it in that kind of Almightiness with which we make our selves obey'd by the Members of our Bodies God said Let the Earth come out of Nothing and it came out by that alone that it was said to it Come out He said Let the Light be made and there was Light by the infinite Efficacy of that Sovereign Will. And we our selves say Let the Tongue speak Let the Foot advance Let the Hand be lifted up c. and so by the incomprehensible efficacy of this Command the Tongue speaks the Foot advances and the Hand is lifted up We do not seek here whether this Efficacy or this Force comes Effectively from ourselves for this is not a place for such a re-search But tho' it should not come from us the Empire which we exercise with that Vertue and that Efficacy which is undoubtedly in us is a Character incontestably Spiritual and not only Spiritual but Divine It is impossible to conceive that a Body can have such an Empire and this Empire marks essentially the Nature in which it resides with an admirable Tract of resemblance of the Supreme Power Our liberty of Thinking is a certain Character of the Nature and Spiritual Essence in our Souls If this Empire which we exercise over our Bodies be so certain a Conviction to us of the Spiritual Nature and Quality of our Souls of their Celestial Dignity and their Divine Quality what will it be if we consider the two other sorts of Empire and Liberty which we exercise over our selves If we find the Empire over the Motions of our Body to be so fine how much more fine shall we find that of the Thoughts of our Spirit and the Desires of our Heart We have the power to extend perpetually our Knowledges without any limits and to an Infinity by Reflection by Speculation of Principles by Reasoning and by Consequences Nothing can give bounds to our Thoughts and nothing can stop their Knowledge If we endeavor to extend them by the bright Light of Reasoning and Reflection we have before us a vast and an infinite Field of Truth and tho' we have of our selves but one Spark of Light which is that which we call the Ground of our Reason to wit that Light which makes us acknowledge and acquiesce to the Truth that is to say to the Relations and Conveniences or to the Oppositions and Contrarieties of things with this Spark we shall be able by Attention and Reflection to run thro' all this vast Field and acquire to our selves if I may be permitted to say so as it were the property and possession of all Truth We shall be able to lift up ourselves above the Heavens to know the Order the Structure the Harmony and the Periodick Motions of them We shall be able to measure the height and the extension of them We shall be able to reduce the Motions of them to their Principles We shall be able to see how the Lightning the Rain-bow the Thunder and the other Meteors in the Air are form'd We shall be able to penetrate into the Bowels of the Earth to see the diversity of Metals and Minerals there formed and to see how it sustains it self in the midst of Air without being supported but by its proper Center We shall be able to enter into the vast Ocean of the proper Nature of God We shall be able when he pleases to reveal them to us to know the adorable Mysteries Nothing can give bounds to our Curiosity nor to our Knowledge And this without doubt is a certain and infallible Character of a Spiritual Nature for Bodies are essentially Finite as well as Blind and an infinite Light wherewith a Nature
that the natural order and connexion of these Species cannot be observ'd and kept but are confusedly and tumultuously excited and stirr'd up by a tumultuous and irregular agitation of the Organ in which they reside There are divers sorts of Follies there are the Furious and the Peaceable there are the Rejoycing and the Melancholy and there are general ones and particular ones which are fastned to one single Object And all these diversities do proceed from the diverse manner whereby the Brain is disorder'd and it would be easie to Explain them particularly if there was occasion It is sufficiento say that in what manner soever Folly subsists it is the greatest Humiliation of our Nature and that which gives us the best Prospect of the Misery of the Servitude of our Souls in the present Estate of Union with the Body since they lose by Folly the Empire and the Liberty of their Thoughts being forc'd to follow the fantasticalness the perplexity the disorder and the confusion of the irregular Motion of the Brain either too much dry'd and burnt up by Choler and Melancholy or too much overflow'd or too much moistned by Phlegm without being able either to suspend or stop them or to hasten or advance them This lets us see the Limitation even of our Spiritual Nature which is Finite even in the most Divine Perfection that she possesses for this disorder of the loss of the Empire and of the Liberty of Thoughts happens in Man because he doth not possess as God doth an Infinite Liberty that is to say an Infinite Empire but only a Finite Liberty or a Finite Empire over himself For it is this which makes that God as the Universal Cause doth not respect this Liberty of Man but determines in his Soul Thoughts conformable to the Agitations of his Brain which is the Occasional Cause by which he is determin'd in this Quality of Universal Cause to give Thoughts and Idea's to the Soul God concurs with Fools as he doth with Natural Causes for the making of Monsters he follows the Motion of the Brain as a Necessary Cause Raving doth not differ from Folly but by the Intervals which it hath and because it is only an Accident and a transient Symptom of a Fever which too strongly agitates the Brain Frensie is but a violent Raving and both the one and the other let us see that there must be a Superior Power who with an absolute Empire Determines our Thoughts from the Occasion of the Motions of our Brain and Confirms by a sensible Argument all that we have said concerning the Union of our Souls with our Bodies and concerning the continual Action by which we believe that God Determines our Thoughts and our Sentiments from the Occasion of divers Impressions which are made on our Bodies either by External Objects or by the Fermentation of their proper Humors If we reflect seriously upon it we shall see that it is not at all possible to think that the Soul in these States of Folly and Frensie should make in her self her Thoughts We shall be persuaded that she receives them from that Superior Power which unites her to the Body and which Acting as an Universal Cause hath no regard to the incongruity of these Thoughts as it hath no regard to the incongruity of Monsters in the Motions which it gives to the common Matter of the Universe by its inviolable and infallible Laws but makes the Fortune of the Disorder and of the Disranging of the Harmony of the Body to follow and run upon the Soul not ceasing to determine her Thoughts according to the Occasion which that part gives her thereof and that common Center of the Organizanization which it hath establish'd for the occasional Cause of its Essential Concourse or of the Action by which it Enlightens us God Determines the Thoughts in Madmen and in Fools by the immutable Laws which he hath Establish'd in the Union of Bodies with Souls which is To give Idea's upon the Occasion of the Corporeal retracement of Objects which are made in the Brain without having regard either to the Order or to confusion of the Thoughts Visions The Illusions of the Imagination by which Men believe they see by Intervals Things which in effect they do not see are a kind of short and transient Folly and they are made by a deep and lively retracement of some particular Species which so occupie the Organ of the internal Sense that the other Species there remain as it were all of them defaced from whence it happens that the Imagination of it is livelily determined And as this is the effect of lively and strong Imaginations to represent Things absent as if they were just present and as if they actually struck the Senses so it happens from thence that Men do believe they see that which they do not see because they judge that the Image that they have of it is determined by the presence of the Object not minding that it comes from the Imagination only and thus it is that there are a thousand sorts of Illusions and vain and chymerical Visions in certain Spirits which we call feeble or weak tho' indeed they are too strong because that these sorts of Illusions proceed not but from an excessive force of the Imagination the which is a true and real weakness of Reason since the Imagination is never excessively strong but Reason is thereby as much weak because the Power of Reason is to rule over the Imagination to redress to correct it to suspend its Operations and to consider it nearly to see wherein it exceeds The supernatural Visions which come from God are when God as a particular Cause makes a miraculous and supernatural Impression in the Imagination that is to say which doth not at all come from the necessary consequences of the Course of the natural Motion of the Blood of the Humors and of the Spirits and those which come from good and evil Angels are made by the Natural Empire that Angels have over Bodies by vertue whereof they stir up Images in the Brain which determin God as an Universal Cause by the Law of the Union of the Soul with the Body to give Idea's and Thoughts of which the Corporeal Images are the occasional Cause for be it what it will an Angel or a Devil which retrace a certain Object in our Brain God gives us necessarily the Idea of it by that immutable Law of Union which we have often explained which is no other but the confused Idea which Philosophers commonly express by the Term of Concourse which they conceive as the Universal Influence and perpetual and necessary Action of the Creator acting as an Universal Cause and animating by his Intimate Co-operation and by the most efficacious influence of his Life and of his Power the whole Universe reduced to a clear and distinct Idea under the name of the Action by which God makes and entertains the Union of the Souls with Bodies The
that the Vertue and the Habit of Continence should be establish'd without that the Images of Pleasure which were engraven in the Brain by deep Traces and Impressions come to be as it were defac'd by new Images and new Impressions which give to the Soul the power and the liberty of suspending and turning away the Thoughts of Pleasure and of determining the Motions of the Spirits and of the Nerves to a side opposite to that which would cause the impure Blood and Humors to flow into those places where Concupiscence is set on fire It is almost the same thing with all other Vertues they have need that the Imagination should be subjected to them and as the Organ of the Imagination is Corporeal so there is no Vertue whose Habit doth not subsist partly in the Organ of the Imagination for to keep it tame and submiss So it is out of question that all the Habits whether of Sciences or of Vertues are partly in the Body There will be some who perhaps will maintain that they are There entirely but the surest way is to say that they are partly in the Body and partly in the Soul In the Body for the Sciences it is the Order the Connexion and the Enchaining of Corporeal Species which serve to that which we call Memory And for the Vertues it is the Imagination purifi'd or the Brain imprinted with Corporeal Traces and Images which make us think more strongly upon the Duties of Vertue than upon Pleasures which are contrary to it And in the Soul it is for the Sciences the train of Consequences well form'd in their Principles and the facility which Reason hath there to exercise it self and to employ it self there And for the Vertues it is the natural love of Uprightness fortifi'd above the Instinct of Conscience by the reflection and by the taste of Reason from whence is form'd in the Soul a Disposition of force against the Pleasures which Concupiscence may oppose against it How Grace Operates upon the Body This is a sure Decision and may be apply'd to Supernatural Vertues for supernatural Vertues as well as Natural have need that the Imagination should be purifi'd Grace can enter immediately thro' the Soul tho' for the most part she immediately enters by the Imagination but whether she enters immediately by the Soul or that she doth not she Acts necessarily at least by a Counter-blow upon the Body that is to say upon the Organ of the Imagination And it is impossible that our Heart should be pure and innocent if our Imagination is impure and defil'd or over-rul'd by the Images of the World of Vanity and of Pleasure from whence is form'd a Principle of Christian Morality very fruitful and very remarkable which makes us see at once the indispensible necessity of the constant and continual Practice and Observation of all the Gospel as it would be easie to justifie it by an exact and particular Examination hereof if we had propos'd here any other thing than to give Overtures and Principles There needs no more to be said of it for to have a sure Discernment of the Acts of the Body and of the Acts of the Soul and there is no more Question but to observe the proper Differences of the Operation of the Soul Let us follow them one after another CHAP. XI Operations depending and Operations independing upon the Body WE observe Secondly in us in the proper Operations of the Soul Operations which do depend upon the Body and Operations which do not depend upon the Body For we Experience that there are Acts in us which we have independently of all Disposition of the Body as the Acts of the Will which is the necessary and invincible love of Good in general but it is not after the same manner neither with those of the Liberty of our Heart which is the Power that we have to determine our selves to Love or to Hate to Flie or Pursue freely Nor with those of the Conscience which do commonly presuppose Liberty Nor with those of Reasoning which do all of them alike suppose a certain Disposition of a just Organization and of a just Temperament in the Body without the which we can neither exercise our Determinative Faculty which is call'd Liberty nor the Sensibility of Duty which we call Conscience nor our Active Faculty of Thinking which we otherwise call the Faculty of Reasoning from whence it happens that Sleeping or falling into Ravings thro' Diseases or thro' Madness we lose the very entire and very free usage of these Faculties Whereas being Fools or Mad Well or Ill Sleeping or Waking we love always alike that which is Good in general would all be happy and content There is only This Movement of our Will which is entirely independent of the Disposition of the Body all the rest do more or less depend upon it I say more or less because there are divers Degrees of the Dependence which the Operations of the Soul have upon our Bodies The Acts of Perception of Imagination of Reminiscency and of Passionating ones self depend thereupon much more than the Act of Understanding or of Reasoning and the Acts of Liberty and of Conscience which are the Faculties we have the most independent on the Disposition of the Body The Acts of Perceiving of Imagining c. depend much more upon the Disposition of the Body than these three Faculties of Intellection or Reason of Liberty and of Conscience because these three Faculties do not depend upon it but indirectly and occasionally or accidentally inasmuch as their Acts cannot be exercis'd in all their Perfection if the Imagination be not calm and sedate For the Soul hath no need of a certain positive Disposition of the Body or of a certain Determination which should happen to her from it for to determine her to conceive by pure Intellection and to be sensible of Duty but only of not being troubled diverted and transported by foolish and confus'd Thoughts which she conceives thro' the disorder of the Organ of the Imaginative Faculty This ought to make us comprehend how the Passions are pernicious since they all of them take away the Scepter and the Empire from Reason to give it to the Imagination and that they give to this Faculty already rebellious and impure and unruly enough of it self a rapid and untameable Motion which infinitely augments its unruliness But to Perceive to Imagine to Remember to Passionate it self the Soul hath need of being necessarily determin'd by a certain Disposition and a certain Configuration of the Brain which ought to precede her Act of Imagining of Perceiving of Passionating and of calling to Mind by Memory properly so called This hath given place to the division of the Organical Faculties and of the Inorganical Faculties of the Soul for we have believed that we might call those Organical which do not Operate but upon the occasion and by the determination of a particular Disposition of the Body CHAP. XII
Reprobated Souls is a Union of Wrath of Enmity and of Implacable Vengeance They are in God and God say the Holy Fathers is their First and True Hell if it may be permitted to use an Expression so strong Not that there is not an Hell or a Corporeal Place wherein the Bodies of the Wicked Are to be shut up after the Resurrection and where we are to conceive their Souls before hand but we must say that they are in such a Place where God keeps the Fire of His Wrath continually Burning and they are there Effectively after the manner that Spirits are in Corporeal Places as really as it is possible God gives them perpetually the Idea thereof and by the Occasion of that Idea he Impresses on them a dolorous Sentiment of real Burning that is to say The same Sentiment which we have upon the Occasion of Elementary Fire when by its too great Activity it Disranges Agitates and violently Scorches up the Fibres of those Parts of our Bodies upon which it Acts and the Vertue and Efficacy of His Power by his Irrevocable Decree fixeth them there and is a Chain which no force can break and which no length of Duration can wear out but it is always truly said That it is in God who contains Hell as well as Heaven as St. Augustin further saith And who unites Impure Souls to Fire Everlasting in the manner as hath been said that properly and chiefly the Reprobate Souls Are as well as the Holy Souls They are only but Accessorily if I may so say either in Heaven or in Hell within these Material Places and Spaces of which God gives them that lively Idea which renders Them present to them CHAP. VI. Whether Jesus Christ be the Occasional Cause of these Idea's and Sentiments of Holy Souls out of the Body THAT which we have been saying concerning the Fire of Hell might give Occasion here to some to Imagin That it is not perhaps so certain as we would have them believe it to be That the Union of Souls with God and of God with the Souls is Immediate from the Moment that they go out of the Body because They may Imagine That as God unites Impure Souls to Hell Fire Establishing it as the Occasional Cause of that particular Torment and of that That Pain of Burning with which he Afflicts them with so he Establishes also an Occasional Cause of the agreeable Idea's and Sentiments which he gives to the Saints And there are some who would willingly conceive That the Soul of Jesus Christ might very well be the Occasional Cause of all the Ineffable Pleasures of Holy Souls so much the rather because the Analogy of the Divine Conduct inspires us to acknowledge an Occasional Cause of their Joy and their Felicity as there is an Occasional Cause of the Torment of the Reprobates But this ought not to shake a Truth so well Established and Proved as is that of the Immediate Union of God with our Souls and of our Souls with God from the Moment that they go out of our Body This Union is without doubt Immediate and without the Intervention of any thing and without Dependence upon any Occasional Cause for the Foundation and Essentiality of this New State For tho' there may be some Occasional Cause of the Accessory Pain of Reprobated Souls and of the Accessory Felicity of Holy Souls yet it is certain That there is none at all for their Essential Pain and their Essential Felicity St. Paul speaks it expresly of Holy Souls when he says That God shall be all in them Erit Deus Omnia in Omnibus The whole Scripture says so likewise when it says We shall see God Face to Face for these Expressions do import an Immediate Union of God with us Since it would not at all be to see him Face to Face but to see him thro' a Veil if we did only receive from him Idea's and Lights upon the occasion of some Things that was extraneous to Him Let then the Adorable Humanity of Jesus Christ be with all my heart an Occasional Cause of a thousand Joys and a thousand Accessory Felicities to Holy Souls as St. John says it expresly enough in the Description he makes us of our State out of our Bodies under the Name of the New City or of the Heavenly Jerusalem where the Holy Lamb gives a thousand Pleasures But as to the Foundation of this New State as to the Lights and Idea's the Sentiments and the Joys which constitute it and are the Essence of it they depend not upon any Occasional Cause they come from the Immediate Union of God with the Holy Souls Independently of all Exterior Occasional Determination God penetrates them with His Glorious Light and with the Intimate Impression of His Beatifick Presence and he fills them full with his Ineffable Joys and Pleasures How Impure Souls are united to Hell Fire We need only say The same thing in Proportion of Reprobate Souls Let then the Action of the Terrible Element which God makes to be Serviceable to His Anger be the Occasional Cause of the Accessory Pain of the Wicked for as the Impurity of the Reprobate Souls is a perpetual Object of Horror wherewith the Sovereign Purity of the Divine Eyes is sensibly hurt so it is not improbable That the Terrible Element which naturally Cleanses and Purifies all things should be likewise Employed as an Occasional Cause to a Particular Action by which the Eternal Sanctity applies it self to make them feel the Horror of their Impure State But that do's not at all hinder but that for the Ground of this unhappy State it should be intirely Independent of all sort of an Occasional Cause for it is certain That God is immediately united to the Reprobates by his Anger as He is immediately united by His Love to the Just Souls God is the Principal Fire which burns them and His Anger is the Fire and Brimstone that Feeds their Chief and Principal Torment We commonly conceive very ill That which we call The Pain of the Damned when we conceive it as a simple Privation or a Partition Wall betwixt God and the Reprobated Souls There may well be an Eternal Wall of Separation but there is also an Eternal and Immediate Union There is a Wall of Separation betwixt Gods Goodness and Sinners that is a Wall which stops all the Influences of Mercy of Grace and of Glory but it is likewise an Union which nearly attracts all the Characters of his Anger and his Vengeance God also makes himself to be felt as nearly and as immediately to the Reprobates as to the Saints The Unhappy see God Face to Face but it is only his Terrible Face which they see It is not that Illuminating Face which Enlightens the Just and wherein he promised to Moses to let him see and find All Good It is a Face Sparkling with Thunder which penetrates them with Fear and covers them with Horror and Darkness They are Eternally