to neglect the Business and the Duties of Life and of the Republic but even to hasten on their own Deaths It is not to be questioned here whether this Prudence were not a little too Precautious it is not our business our business is to Remark the Effect which the Notion of a Knowing Nature hath produced to make Men believe That their Souls subsist and live after their Death The Conviction hereof is effectively Lively and Sensible by that alone independently of all the Regards of Religion and it is incredible how much Force and Evidence it receives from all the Foundations and Circumstances of Religion of which this New Life which our Souls ought to have out of our Bodies is as it were the Point in View and the only and perpetual Object All the Old and all the New Testament All the Law and all the Gospel Moses and Jesus Christ The Prophets and the Apostles All the Miracles and all the Mysteries have no other Essential Termination and End than this New and Immortal Life of our Souls after our Death Both the Old and the New Testament under the Names of the New World the Future World the Age to come the Life Everlasting the Heavenly Jerusalem do not speak almost of any thing else And these cannot be Fables and Fictions for if they were nothing else but Fables then this Sovereign Power which hath been manifested to the World with a thousand Characters of Wisdom of Holiness of Truth and of Goodness by that Miraculous Train of Prodigious Events which make what we call the Holy History and the Body of Religion must have laboured for above these Six thousand Years to deceive the Word and to laugh at Mankind which is the most impossible thing in the World The Conviction then which is lively and penetrating independently of Religion is yet much more so by Religion The Faithful knows much better than the Philosopher That when this House of Clay which he Inhabits at present shall fall and crumble into Dust He shall pass out of this Melancholy and obscure Habitation into a New and an Heavenly Habitation not made with Mens hands into the proper Habitation and the Eternal Palace where God himself dwells The Philosopher knows it because he knows That the Souls of Men departing from the Body do pass into a New Life full of Darkness or of Light of Happiness or of Misery according as they have rendred themselves worthy in their Bodies either of the Love or the Anger of Him who is essentially the Life and by consequence the Punishment or the Reward of all Intelligent Natures according as they have deserved that He should Act in them and Reward or Punish them Socrates having already the Mortal and Deadly Draught in his Hand spake after this manner Says the Roman Orator and Philosopher That it did not seem to him that they led him to Death but that he was going to mount up to Heaven Cato was Transported with Joy at the sight and at the presence of Death The Wise Man saith Plutarch goes with Pleasure out of the Darkness of the Earth to enjoy in Heaven an Immortal Light with the Gods Have Courage saith this Other Let not Death affright Us since after Death we shall either be Gods or like Gods Let us not fear that our Bodies will bury our Souls under their Ruins When the Heavens shall fall and Corporeal Nature shall entirely perish and disappear There is a necessity that the Spirit which Animates Us and which is the Foundation of our Being must subsist and remain under those Ruins without being hurt or endamaged by them Such is the Conviction and Certainty of the Philosopher But the Faithful is much more enflamed and Transported with this so animated and so lively Certainty and Persuasion He sees with St. Stephen the Heavens open over his Head and he is taken and wrapt up thither like St. Paul with unspeakable Joys and Extasies He hath this Certainty and this Persuasion so lively and so animated by two divers Principles He hath it by the Impression of Faith and of Grace which makes him See and Feel if I may say so this New Life without Reasoning by way of Supernatural Inspiration and Illumination and He hath it when he will Reflect and Reason by an evident Conviction which the Reflection upon the Mysteries and Miracles of Christianity and upon all Religion give him of it for tho' there were none but that Historical single Fact of the Mystery of the Incarnation of God the truth of which is incontestably Established by so many Miracles and so many sensible Convictions it would be impossible to call into doubt that New and Immortal Life of this New State we are speaking of into which our Souls must enter when they go out of our Bodies because it is not possible to conceive That if there was no other for Men but this present Life that God would have become Man upon the Earth to undergo all that Train of humbling and dolorous Mysteries which he hath undergon Since it is certain That if there was no other Life for Men there would be no advantage neither for God nor for Men in those Mysteries which do no wise Regard the present Life but only the Life to come God can do nothing in Vain and in vain would He have bin Born as he was Born in vain would He have Lived as he did Live in vain would He have Died as he did Dye if He had not been Born if He had not Lived and if He had not Dyed to Redeem Men from Eternal Death and to give them that Happy and Immortal Life which the First Man had lost them God Incarnate came not to make this Present Life neither more agreeable nor more fortunate or more happy to Us He came not to spread abroad Treasures and Riches to give Honors and great Employments to Distribute Dignities to give Pleasures to the Senses and to the Cupidinous Desires of this Present Life St. Paul calls him the High Priest of Goods to come and the Prophets who Prophecied of Him called Him the Father of the Ages to come and King of the Future World but I must not enlarge here any more upon this on the contrary I must shut it up and return to the Point we proposed to Illustrate in this Third Part which is The manner how our Souls Are to be out of our Bodies CHAP. II. What is to be Illustrated in this Third Part concerning the Future State of our Souls out of our Bodies and first whether our Souls when they go out of our Bodies do pass into a true Corporeal Place THAT which we already said Teaches Us That our Souls Are and Subsist out of our Body That they Live and have Essential Acts and Proprieties inseparable from their Knowing Nature but we do not learn from thence How our Souls Are out of the Body which is however what we have proposed to Illustrate To satisfie our Curiosity
saith Thomas Aquinas Because by reason of much loving the Present Life we come saith he to hate the Future and to wish that there were none at all and when we are gone as far as to hate it we shall easily come not to believe it at all and when the Future Life is once become a Fable Divinity soon after will be but a Chimera only This excessive Love then of the Present Life is a great Disorder and Irregularity and this Irregularity is mounted in us even to the last Period and to the highest Degree I call it a Love enchanted of the Present Life for it is a Love of Charm and of Enchantment It is a Fury and a Rage a Madness and a Frenzy of Love The Future Life allures us to it by a thousand Charms it glitters before us I will not say like a Sun but like an Immensity of Light which ought to carry as much Ardor into our Hearts as Conviction into our Spirits it opens her Bosom to us and lends us an assisting Hand Instinct and Religion Grace and Nature the Law and the Gospel Heaven and Earth all of them shew our Future Life in a happy Immortality all sparkling with Joys with Felicities and with Glories The sweet and ineffable Impression of Grace and the Holy Spirit The lively sparkles of Heavenly Regeneration which operate in us by a thousand secret Incitements The Example of the truly Faithful who groan without ceasing with St. Paul in Expectation of their Deliverance from their Bodies and of the manifestation of the Future Life and of the Glories of the Children of God do sollicite and impel us and do call upon us The World it self by its Contradictions and the Present Life by its Pains and its Disgusts do render the Love and the desire of the Future Life necessary to us to comfort us under our present Pains and Miseries And yet notwithstanding we have the deadly weight upon our heart which inclines us and fixes us to the Earth and to this miserable Life we are not able to raise our selves up to desire Celestial Beauties and the Eternal Delights we are more ready to say Let God take care of Heaven for himself and let him leave the Earth for us We see here what sort of Creatures we are it is impossible to make the least Ray or Spark of the Love of the Future Life to enter into our hearts St. Paul notwithstanding teaches us That the Present World is but a Shadow of the World to come and the Present Life upon that account cannot be but the Shadow of the Future that is to say there is the same difference between the Present Life and the Future Life as there is between a Body that is all real and all effective and between the Shadow which is only a void and an empty Figure All the Shadows here below that is to say all the Joys and all the Felicities of this Life which are only Shadows here are in the Future Things real All that is here a Figure is there Reality The Honors the Pomps and the Glories the Abundance the Pleasures are There true Pomps true Honors true Glory true Abundance true Pleasures Conceive the Difference saith St. Chrysostom between the Shadow and the Sun conceive how great are the Beauties of that Planet which animates all the Beauty of the World above that drowsie Obscurity which hath only a pure Nothingness of Privation for the Body and the Foundation of its Being and when you have comprehended that do not believe that you have comprehended the advantage of the Future Life above the Present Life St. Paul said very well That to die is gain Mori lucrum We gain without doubt because that instead of a World of Shadows of Figures of Illusions of Vanities of Dreams of pure Nothings cloath'd with the Painted Superficies of Being or rather with the simple and false Appearance we enter into the Possession of a World where all is Real all Solid all Effective and all Immortal The Condemnation of our violent Desires for the Establishment of our Present Fortunes and of our deadly Indifference for the sort of Event of our Eternal Predestination which is decided in this Present Life We have acknowledged by the State of Trial in which we have seen our Souls are at present their uncertain and doubtful State of Alternativeness of the formidable coming of Eternity in which they ought to enter in going out of Time and out of the Present Life We have acknowledged that we are here as it were suspended and ballanced betwixt two Extreams of two different Eternities of which we have the Lot to decide by our Vigilance and by our Application to Sanctifie our selves and to prepare our selves for that Impression of Glory and Sovereign Felicity which God will really give to all those whom he shall find prepared and disposed for it by a faithful and constant Co-operation with his Grace and there follows from thence a Condemnation equally just and formidable of our violent Desires for our present Fortunes and of our brutal Indifference for that of Eternity which we are to make for our selves and for which we cannot rely and repose our selves upon any one else If our Lot of Eternity was cast upon us after the manner as some conceive it if it was a Destiny which ought to be effected without us and if we were only to expect the Event and the infallible and inevitable Execution of it there would not be any Thing to reproach us thereupon we might in the mean time wholly employ our selves about our present Fortunes But besides That even then when God hath a particular Cause in the Predestination of some few and that he Charges himself with the success of their Salvation which I believe he do's for a certain number he do's not at all save even these Priviledged Persons without their Co-operation It is certain That in regard to the generality of Men he do's not concur to their Predestination and their Salvation but as Universal Cause and that the Success of it is left to the Vigilance of every one Thus our Souls do themselves before-hand decide by the good or ill usage of Time of the Present Life and of Grace the Alternativeness of the Immutable State of Happiness or Unhappiness in which they are to be fixed and established when they depart hence Thus It is certain That all the Occupations all the Designs and all the Enterprizes of Men which have not for their End the great Object of that building of our House of Eternity which the Scripture frequently mentions which we ought to be building every moment of this Present Life as it were by so many Stones that we are to raise one upon another to the end that our Souls may find their Habitations ready prepared It is certain once again That all our Occupations all our Cares all our violent Desires all our Designs and all our Enterprizes are things not only vain and
A Discovery of Divine Mysteries OR THE NATURE and EFFICACY OF THE Soul of Man Considered in all its Faculties Operations and Divine Perfections and how it governs in Divine and Secular Affairs of Life In Three Parts I. Of the Preference due to the Soul above the Body by Reason of its Spiritual and Immortal Nature and how it operates on Things in Heaven and Earth II. How the Soul of Man moves and operates in Religious Duties and Moral Actions whether towards God towards our selves or towards Man And of our Duty of Gospel Self-denyal which results from the manner how our Souls operate in our Bodies under the visible Empire of God III. Concerning our Duties of Time and Eternity of the present Life and of the Life to come of the present World and of the World to come which results from the manner how our Souls ought to be out of our Bodies first of all and then in our Spiritualiz'd Bodies after the Universal Resurrection With many other Curious Matters Being a Compleat Body of Divine and Moral Philosophy By C. B. D. D. Fellow of the Royal Society LONDON Printed for Eben Tracy at the Three Bibles on London-Bridge 1700. TO THE READER THO' the World be full of Discourses Treatises and Essays of Morality yet we have believ'd it might not be unnecessary to Expose these New Essays to the Publick View Either because one cannot enough propose to Mankind their Duties or else because the greatest part of those Essays Treatises and Discourses which have appear'd already and of which some have so justly pleas'd the Relish of the Age are if well regarded no more than onely Paintings and Descriptions or at best but Incitements not Convictions and Establishments of Duties For they suppose that the Principles of Religion Morality and Duties are setled and acknowledg'd they presuppose them but they prove them not they persuade them to those who already do believe them but if there be some who do not believe them as there are too too many who doubt thereof or at least who are not sufficiently persuaded of them they do neither persuade nor convince Them in the least We believe that we have Discover'd the precious and inestimable Treasure of an entire Conviction of Religion and Morality in the Incultivated and Neglected Field of the Natural Knowledge of our Souls and the no less precious Treasure of that Knowledge of our Souls in the Attention and Reflection upon every ones Proper and Indubitable Sentiment and we have believ'd that we ought to render the Discovery Publick This is what we have done And tho' in all this Essay which is indeed no other than a meer Essay because it is only an Idea which we rough-draw and an Overture which we make but do not fully accomplish by Vnfolding and Pressing on in a particular and compleat Delineation all our Duties and all their Circumstances there needs nothing more Than that every one should apply his proper Sentiment and the clear Idea's which he finds in Himself by Attention and Reflection upon this Indubitable Sentiment which he hath in Himself Nevertheless because there are few Persons who are accustom'd to Reflect and Reason upon Matters so remote from their Senses and the Carnal Relish of Human Passions which stir up Attention in Reading the greatest part of other Books we foresaw that this Essay might appear too strong to some Spirits who can only digest Matters that are very easie who are not accustom'd to mount up to the Principles of Things who Relie upon the Credit of Authors and who are not at all Curious to see what we propose to them in First Notions and Clear Idea's But besides that we believ'd that an Age so Enlightned as Ours is would require an Instruction as strong and that there are Spirits who would willingly be thus Fundamentally Instructed and that it would be convenient to Impress this Relish upon others to the end that they may be rais'd up to a more Perfect Knowledge of God and themselves We do also hope that the meanest Capacities may here learn how to Know their Souls and by their Souls their Duties S. Paul would have all the Faithful apply themselves to Augment and Encrease Light and Knowledge in themselves And if there be any Knowledge which is useful and necessary to be Encreased and brought to Perfection it is without doubt The Knowledge of our Soul which is the most Essential Science which we have to acquire and the true Science of God and of Salvation as the Divine Apostle speaks since we can Know nothing Fundamentally neither of our Heavenly and Eternal Hope nor of our Present State upon Earth nor of our Essential Relation with the Eternal Nature and Essence from whence proceed all our Duties but in Proportion as the Knowledge of our Soul Encreaseth We see very Exact and very Religious Observers of Duties who oftentimes Know not why they perform them and tho' they do not do amiss in being so yet they would do much better in Being and Knowing why they are so because whatsoever a Man is Knowingly and by the Conviction of Reason he is much more solidly so for himself and much more profitably so for others We have believ'd that we ought to give a Compleat Science and Knowledge of the Soul to the end that all the World might thereby Instruct themselves in their Duties either for a particular Edification or for the Instruction and Edification of others And we are persuaded that all those who will give themselves the pains of Reading with some Attention and of adding to that Reading some little Reflection upon themselves to Remark what we Observe of the Natural and Universal Sentiments of all Mankind which is the perpetual Light of this Treatise will find that we have render'd this Matter otherwise so obscure and difficult of it self most Intelligible and Proportion'd to the Capacity of the whole World THE CONTENTS PART I. OF the Preference due to the Soul above the Body from the Reason of its Spiritual and Immortal Nature Page 1. Chap. 1. The Curiosity which we ought to have how to know our Souls ibid. The Dignity of our Souls 6 The Perception and Certainty which all of us have of our Souls 8 Chap. 2. That our Souls undoubtedly are Spiritual Natures and altogether distinct from Bodies upon the account of their Intelligent Nature 11 Why and how we conceive of God and Angels as Spirits 12 This is the common Doctrin of the Schools 14 Chap. 3. The manner of our conceiving that Knowledge which is in Beasts causes a Confusion which must necessarily be rectified 16 Four different Opinions which make four different Degrees of Knowledge in Beasts 19 Chap. 4. A general Discussion of the Opinion which gives to Beasts a Knowledge like to ours 21 Chap. 5. Whether Beasts have a true Reason like to ours 25 Chap. 6. Whether Beasts have any Reasoning inferior to Reason 33 Chap. 7. Whether Beasts have any sort
two sorts of Sensation We have shewn that there is nothing precisely but the same Soul which reasons and speculates the most abstracted Objects and which at the same time is sensible of Heat and Cold Bitter and Sweet We have shewn that nothing is more contradictory and chimerical than to maintain That the Perception of Heat and Cold of Sweet and Bitter of White and Black and generally of every thing which Men call Sensible Qualities is a corporeal Act in the Soul and that the Act of Speculating Intelligible Objects and Universal Notions is a Spiritual Act there being nothing more monstrous than to conceive in a Subject undoubtedly Spiritual this Medley of Spiritual and Corporeal Acts. We have shewn that all Knowledge doth belong to the Soul and that the Body is incapable of having any Certainty or any Idea either of it self or of that which is done in it These are no more Philosophers which we have to combate withal upon this Subject these are none but Atheists and Libertines Fools and Brute Beasts who cannot maintain the Combate because as hath been said they are disarm'd by themselves and forc'd to confess that nothing is more impossible than to conceive That a Body Thinks Reasons Deliberates and Reflects There cannot be in effect a Paradox more enormous there cannot be a greater Contradiction there cannot be a Thought more monstrous than to say That a Body Knows It is as if one should say that a Thought is Green or Yellow that the Act of Reasoning is Cold or Hot that an Abstraction of Metaphysical Speculation is Square or Eight-corner'd as if one should make Birds to fly in the Sea and Elephants in the Air as if one should place Ice in the Fire and the Sweetness of Sugar or Honey in Wormwood or Gall. This is to unnature things this is to mingle subvert and confound every thing this is to bring Heaven and Earth together this is to embroil all the Universe this is to destroy all neat Ideas this is to take away and abolish the Distinction of Things this is to re-plunge the World into its first Chaos and into the first Darkness which cover'd it before the Light which enlightens it had made visible the Distinction and Diversity of its Parts We need not wonder that Libertines are willing to confound the Ideas of Body and Spirit It is the Genius of that frenetick Fury of Libertinism and Debauchery which carries them on not to be able to suffer the Light which manifests these Disorders They represent to us in History furious Men beginning by extinguishing Flambeaus by shunning the Day and the Light as it were to conceal the horror of their Rage and Fury under the horror of Night and Darkness but these by their good will would destroy the Light of Distinction of a Part that knows and a Part that do's not know Thanks to the most constant and to the most indubitable of all Experiences wee feel it we touch it we see it they cannot make us doubt but that there is in Us a thing that Knows and a thing that do's not Know and since We have seen that That which Knows is of a Spiritual Nature it is impossible for Us to doubt but that we have in us a Part that is Spiritual This Spiritual Part is our Soul for it is this Knowing Part that we call the Soul We do not only perceive that it is distinct from the Body but we perceive that it hath an Infinite Nobleness above the Body It hath not any Bulk nor any Extension it is a Being wholly Indivisible and yet in the mean time it contains and embraces the whole Universe It is a Nature Singular Determin'd and Individual and it is all the Natures Heaven Earth the Sea Trees Birds all that is seen in the World by a lively Expression which it makes of them in it self or which it receives Intelligendo fit Omnia All things are made by Understanding This is very much that this Knowing Part which we experience in Us hath by this Perfection of its Knowing Faculty that Species of Immensity by which we see it lodge as it were in its Bosom the Heavens the Earth and the Seas and to contain all the Universe and that admirable Power and Efficacy of transforming it self into all sorts of Natures and of becoming every thing it knows and conceives by the lively and animated Expression which it makes thereof in it self But its Grandeur is not shut up in that alone its Nobility appears yet more in its immense and infinite Capacity of Reasoning and extends its Knowledge and its Light upon all sorts of Objects and all sorts of Truths For whether it be that it is its essential Property as a Spiritual and Reasonable Nature and the Act of Reason to see into things whereby is made known to it all the Relations which they have and which Truth doth or whether it is God who over and above the Idea which He gives of things causes it moreover to see the Relation of them in the Eternal Idea which he hath of them I will not go about to decide here God sees nothing but what the Soul of Man may see if it pleases him to enlighten it and when he hath once enlightned it it can go of it self by its Faculty of Reasoning to a thousand and a thousand new Truths which it discovers by its proper Speculation It Contemplates the Eternal Order and reads in that Uncreated Light all the Rules of Duties It sees all the Proportions and Disproportions of things it hath no limits to its Knowledge It can know God and can plunge it self into the Abyss of his Perfections and his Mysteries it can even enjoy all his Delights and with him partake of his Felicity We find that it is sensible of a thousand Pleasures even in this Estate of Trial and Combat where it is kept in this Valley of Tears and this Earthly Inheritance of Thorns It is susceptible of a thousand sorts of agreeable Sentiments even in its present Estate by the which it is penetrated and fill'd with true and ineffable Felicity We must not believe that this Sensibility or this Capacity of feeling Pleasure is limited to those Pleasures only which we experience at present As its Knowledge by Idea's and by Lights is not bounded and limited to the Idea's which it hath at present since it is certain that we may be enlightned with a thousand sorts of new Idea's which now we have not so its Knowledge or the Faculty of Knowing by Perception is in the same manner infinite and without bounds This which at present gives us by the occasion of the Body a thousand several agreeable Sentiments with which we feel our selves so sweetly penetrated will be able always to give us new ones and greater during all Eternity These at present are Tastes of Felicity which we are made to feel and taste which ought to make us comprehend by these Foretastes what kind of
Corporeal Images of the Objects which we Imagine And the other that is to say The Intellection do's not depend thereupon but inasmuch as it takes occasion from Objects known by Imagination to exercise it self even upon Bodies which as much Bodies as they are do not cease to be Intelligible there being this Difference between things Imaginable and things Intelligible That the Imaginable are Imaginable and Intelligible at the same time but the Intelligible cannot in any manner be Imagin'd Thus as to the rest we call the Acts of the Imagination Corporeal Knowledges And tho' that there is this Difference between Knowledges by Imagination and Knowledges by Intellection that That which we Imagine is represented under a certain Figure and a certain Bulk or Bigness and with certain other Corporeal Proprieties and that which is known by pure Intellection is represented and known without any thing of the like We must not for all that go about to fancy That to Imagine is a Corporeal Act in the Soul To say truth to Imagine doth presuppose some Retracement of a Corporeal Image in the Brain but the Act of Imagination in it self is wholly Spiritual altho' it represents things after a Corporeal manner and with a Corporeal Form This is not only evident by the Reason above related That every thing which is in the Soul is Essentially Spiritual every Modification of the Soul and every Vital Act being by reason of the Immanence Essentially Spiritual But moreover because it is evident that the Act of Imagining tho' it represent Essentially a Figure and a Bulk yet hath neither Figure nor Bigness And so far are the Images which the Souls make or receive in Imagining from having any Figure or any Bigness or occupying any Space that thousands of them may meet together at the same time in one Soul without justling one another and without constraining or incommoding one another which they could not do if they were Corporeal for Bodies justle incommode and drive away one another St. Augustin did with reason admire that the Heavens the Earth and the Sea should be Lodg'd together at the same time in his Head and he drew from thence this just Consequence That of necessity these Images by which our Soul Figures to it self the Extent of these vast Bodies can be no ways Corporeal nor can they have in them any Extension and that they are no less Spiritual than the Soul in which they are engraven because it is certain that they penetrate one another and agree together whereas if they were Corporeal they would knock against one another and drive one another out and could not be Lodg'd together at the same time in the same place CHAP. XVII Acts of Sensation and Acts of Imagination Folly Frensie Visions WE have in the Eighth place Acts of pure Sensation which come from the Determination of present Objects and Acts of pure Imagination which come and are in us out of the present Objects as are the Imaginations of Dreams of confus'd Thoughts Ravings of sick Persons Folly and Frensie and all that which we call Visions whether those which are only Illusions of the Internal Sense or those which are sometimes given from God or by Daemons or good Angels What pure Sensation is The Knowledges which we have of present Objects by their immediate Impression are call'd Sensations These Knowledges are not in us but from the occasion of the Impression which is made immediately by the Objects upon our External Organs by which it is communicated to the Brain by the continuation of Motion which follows the Nerves the which from all the Extremities of the Body terminate in the Brain This Motion carry'd to the Brain doth engrave there a certain Corporeal Image of the Object and that moment that this Corporeal Image is engraven in the Brain He who holds the Soul united to the Body gives to the Soul an Intelligible Idea of it with a lively and penetrating Resentment and an intimate Certainty of this Image the which is sometimes accompanied with a confus'd Sentiment either of Pleasure or of Pain of Bitter or of Sweet of Heat or of Cold c. And sometimes it is only a simple Certainty of the presence of the Object and a pure Image which represents it Sympathy and Antipathy When the Sensation by which one Man doth see and understand another is made with a confus'd Sentiment of Pleasure and with a certain Agreement which carries a Desire of being united to him and which makes a Man pleas'd with him That is call'd Sympathy And when on the contrary this Sensation is made with a confus'd Sentiment of disagreement and strangeness That is call'd Antipathy You see there the general Idea of Sensation which are the Knowledges that we have by the Determination of present Objects As for those Acts that are in us without any Determination of present Objects such as are the Acts of Dreams and the other above expressed they are all of them the Acts of the Imagination which are never in us but by the occasion of a certain Disposition of our Brain which remains from the Impression of past Objects or which is determin'd by the Course of the Spirits and of the Humors as in Folly or Frensie or by some Exterior or Superior Cause as in the Visions and in the Illusions of the Imagination caus'd by good Angels or by Daemons Dreams Folly Frensie and the diversity of Temperaments and of Genius's It is easie to comprehend thereby Dreams Folly Ravings Frensie the Illusions of the Imagination and Visions If the Brain comes to be dry'd to a certain degree and the Blood hath receiv'd a Motion a little more agitated than ordinary and which is not requir'd in a good Constitution and Disposition of the Organ of the Internal Sense which we call Common Sense it must necessarily be that the Impression of former Objects which remains still there and which are there again retrac'd de novo should be embroil'd confounded and mingl'd in a thousand confus'd and precipitous manners according to the confusion and precipitation of the Motion of the Blood and Animal Spirits on the one part and on the other of the Fibres of that part of the Brain which is the Organ of the Internal Sense and from thence comes necesssarily that kind of Folly which consists in a disorder and a fantastick confusion of Thoughts without dependence without order and without connexion For that which we call Good Sence and Judgment is nothing but the Power and the Faculty which the Soul hath to order and regulate our Thoughts to suspend and stay them that she may consider and maintain their connexion and dependence And she loses this Faculty and this Power when the Motion of the Blood of the Humors and of the Animal Spirits or of the Fibres of the Brain to which are annex'd the Species of things that is to say the Impressions which remain of the Objects is disorder'd and embroil'd in such sort
sweet and gay which dilate the Heart the Spleen the Brain and make the Blood and Spirits flow easily through every part and thereby occasion agreeable and joyful Thoughts do determin the Disposition of the Brain and the rest of the Body to be the occasion of the Reflections and Motions of Joy and Sadness Spiritual Joys and Sadnesses We have on the contrary Spiritual Joys and Sadnesses which are the true Passions or true Resentments of the Rational or Spiritual Appetite for altho' they are formed with much more Deliberation and Reflection than Corporeal Joy and Sadness they are truly Spiritual Passions because the Resentment that forms them is not an Act of the active or determinative Faculty of the Soul but of that kind of Power and passive Faculy from whence spring up all the Resentments of the Appetite Natural and Supernatural Joy and Sadness Spiritual Joy is sometimes a Joy purely Rational and which comes from the Knowledge of the sweetness of Repose of the good Order of Affairs and of the Society and Fidelity of Friends and sometimes it is a Celestial and Divine Joy as is that Joy which the Conscience and the Sentiments of Grace gives and of Eternal Hopes which St. Paul calls the Peace of God and the Joy of the Holy Ghost or in the Holy Ghost Penitence We must say the same thing of Sadness for there is also a Spiritual Sadness which doth not at all reach up to God but which regards nothing but the Natural State and there is a Holy and Supernatural Sadness which is caused by Penitence that lively Sentiment and that lively and penetrating Resentment of the unworthiness of Sin from whence flow those Sacred Tears which render the Soul so pure and so fair before God for they are like a vehement Fire which consumes in us all the Matter and all the Impurity of Sin But let Us generally remark the difference of our Natural and of our Supernatural Operations CHAP. XX. Acts Natural or Natural Operations and Acts Supernatural or Operations of Grace THERE is in the eleventh place a most essential and most important Division and Difference to be observed of which the Experience is constant and indubitable from our Operations and Acts which ought not here to be forgotten to wit the Distinction and the Difference of our Natural Acts or our Natural Operations and of our Supernatural Acts or our Supernatural Operations For there is incontestably in Us in all our Faculties besides their Natural Acts Operations Supernatural which make an Impression there of that almighty Vertue and of that invisible Force from above which we commonly call Grace This Eternal and Soveraign Power which Rules over us and which Acts continually in us enlightning us by all the Idea's and all the Images which we have of things penetrating us with a thousand divers Sentiments sometimes of Pleasure and sometimes of Pain is called Nature when by reason of the communication of Motions of the Corporeal Impressions which arrive as far as the Brain it Acts in us by the general Wills and the immutable Laws of its Natural Providence which have no other end but the beauty and the conservation of the visible World But when by other views and for other respects when for the final Building of its Eternal Temple when for the formation of its Eternal Court if we may be permitted to say so when for the accomplishment of the favourable Decrees of its Predestination freely made for the Consummation of its Elect which is the Object of a Providence entailed and combined in a thousand manners upon the former when in this View it Operates in Us for to correct the Corruption or to aid the weakness and insufficiency of Nature for our Sanctification it changes its Name and is called Grace Thus there is in us Nature and Grace or the Operations of Nature and the Operations of Grace and Grace is almost no less visible than Nature The Libertines those Foolish and Rash and at the same time Gross and Carnal Spirits who judge of every thing by their Senses under pretence that Grace is neither to be seen nor to be felt though it is felt inwardly as sensibly as the most Corporeal Objects and tho' it hath by the inward Sentiment an indubitable Evidence I say the Gross and Carnal Libertines will affirm That all that we say of Grace is nothing but a Dream and a Chimera because they pretend that Grace is a Fancy which hath no other Reality than that which the Fanatical Imagination of some superstitious and sick Spirits hath given it But the Judgment and Decision of such People ought not at all to put us to a stand but on the contrary it rather makes for the Truth and effective Reality of Grace that it should be called in Question by these Fanatic Enemies of all Truth Grace makes it self appear at all times in the World and especially since the accomplishment of the Mystery of God in the Flesh encompassed with a Light and a Brightness so evident that we may as well doubt whether there be a World as to doubt there hath been brought in by Christianity a New Light of the Mysteries and Precepts of Morality and Divine Truths We may also as soon doubt of that which is called Nature as of that which is called Grace or of a Supernatural Principle which contrary to the impure and corrupt Inclinations of Nature always inclined towards the Earth doth turn and elevate our Hearts and our Spirits towards God towards Eternity and towards Heaven and makes us find ineffable Tastes and unspeakable Delights in Humiliation and Sufferings and in the greatest Abnegation and the greatest Crucifixion of the Senses Christianity is Established in the World by a Force and a Vertue indubitably Heavenly and Divine which Operates more Miracles in the Spirit and in the Hearts of Men than in the Corporeal Nature whereof she appears so highly and so indubitably a Mistriss since she hath changed the Laws of it in all its Parts as she pleased with an Empire the most Absolute that ever was This Force and this Verture so unquestionably Heavenly and Divine which hath raised the Dead and imprinted the Marks of its Soveraign Power and Omnipotent Empire upon all Visible and Corporeal Nature hath Acted and Operated with the same Power and the same Empire upon the Hearts and upon the Spirits and it continues to Act and to Operate after the same manner And as its Operation is called a Miracle when it Acts and Operates extraordinarily upon Corporeal Nature so it is called Grace when it Acts and Operates upon our Souls for our Sanctification and our Salvation Grace then is incontestably something that is as Real as Nature and there are in us by consequence most real Operations of Grace which is of Importance to observe and to distinguish well and to keep unmixt by the inward and indubitable Sentiment which we have of it Grace Operates in Us in
soon as their Union with the Body ceaseth they begin to be nowhere but in God only because they have no more Relation but with God only there is nothing of an Intervention there is no more of a Partitionary Occasion and Condition between God and the Soul which determines or suspends the Influence of his Divine Action in us and by which we receive all the Idea's and all the Sentiments that we have CHAP. IV. What this Immediate Union is which our Souls have with God when they go out of the Body which makes us say that they go to God THUS it is that we ought to Conceive the Place where our Souls Are after they are gone out of the Body We must Conceive that they Are in God not only as S. Augustin saith as the World is in God For saith he you must Answer to him who shall Ask you where the World is That it is in God since there is no other Place out of the World where the World can be and since it is God alone who penetrates and environs it by the Immensity of his Operation but because Spirits have no other Place than their Relation of Dependence and Activity and that after the going out of the Body our Souls do no more depend either upon any Corporeal Nature or upon any Spiritual Nature which ought to be the Occasion or Condition of the Idea's with which they ought to be Enlightned or of the Sentiments with which they ought to be Affected but immediately from God only who gives them as he pleases to them It is God therefore who immediately Enlightens them it is God immediately who without being Determined by any thing Exterior Determines all the Sentiments which they have This is it which makes us evidently see the necessary Consequence and Connexion of the incontestable Principles which have been hitherto Establish'd for we must say nothing of our Souls nor of any Matter whatsoever but that which we know of it by a Certain Light And as we have no such Light by which we can judge that our Souls when they go out from the Dependence upon the Body ought to enter into another Servitude and another sort of Dependence upon any Created Nature so we have not any Reason to Conceive any other Relation of Dependence in our Souls which they ought to have when they are gone out of the Body than that which they have Essentially with God and by consequence we ought to say in Terms purely Natural That it is in God only that our Souls Are that moment that they go out of the Body We say it by the only Lights of Reason and we ought extreamly to rejoyce that Philosophy is agreed here with the Divine Word which gives us entirely the same Idea This Notion of the Immediate Union of our Souls with God Establish'd and Prov'd by Scripture For besides that the Scripture saith we return to God and into God it saith expresly also That our Habitation shall not be after this Life in Houses made with Hands or in Corporeal Spaces for this is what St. Paul means when he calleth it Domum non manufactam à Deo aeternam He tells us That there will be no more Sun and Moon which we might have need of because the Brightness of God will Enlighten us Civitas non eget Sole neque Luna ut luceant in ea nam Claritas Dei illuminabit eam Nox non erit illic non egebunt lumine lucernae neque lumine Solis quoniam Dominus Deus illuminabit illos It saith That after this Life we shall dwell with God and God with us Ecce Tabernaculum Dei cum hominibus habitabit cum eis It is very full of these sorts of Expressions and if we will reduce them to neat Idea's we shall find that they mean nothing else than what we have said That after the going out of our Bodies there is no more any thing betwixt God and our Souls to suspend or to diminish the Essential Union of them or to be the Occasional Cause of his Operation and of his Influence in Us but that it is only He immediately who determins our Thoughts our Idea's and all the Essential Acts of our New Life for this is what St. John means when he saith That in this New Life and New Estate after our Death it is God himself who shall Enlighten Us without our having any need either of the Sun or the Moon or of any other sort of Light which is at present but the Occasional Cause of his Illumination by which we See How we must understand That Holy Souls Ascend into Heaven and Criminal Souls Descend into Hell We must therefore conceive our Souls to be united immediately to God that moment that they go out of the Body and we must cut off all the Idea of any Corporeal Place in which we might conceive them to be after the fashion of Bodies For when the Scripture makes us conceive That the Saints are carried up into Heaven before the Corporeal Resurrection after which there will be a real Local Transportation of Bodies it would only make us conceive That God who Unites these Holy Souls to Jesus Christ and to His Glory makes himself and all Heaven wherein he Reigns to be as present to them as the Objects which we now see feel and perceive more nearly are at present to Us. We should very illy conceive Heaven wherein Jesus Christ Reigns in Body and in Soul if we should conceive it as including and containing God and discovering and manifesting Him to the Saints we must on the contrary saith St. Augustin Conceive Heaven and Jesus Christ also to be in God who contains All and who is contained of Nothing who manifests and discovers All and whom Nothing neither manifests nor discovers and Holy Souls are not in Heaven but in as much as they are in God in whom and by whom they are united and present to Heaven and to Jesus Christ by the lively and distinct Idea which they have of His glorious Presence like to those Idea's which the most present Objects give Us by their immediate Impression by which they strike our Senses For we must not go about to imagine That they are in Heaven by any sort of Extension or Corporeal Dimension and Local Circumscription after the manner of Bodies How the Souls of the Wicked are in God And we must Reason after the same manner concerning the Souls of the Wicked They are most really in Hell but this is because they are in God who fastens them there and unites them to the Fire of his Wrath as He doth the Souls of the Just to Jesus Christ and to that part of the Heavens where He Reigns There is indeed this great Difference That the Immediate Union which is between the Souls of the Just and God is an Union of Love of Tenderness and of Favour or good Liking and the Immediate Union which is between God and the
in God as in a Rageing Sea which dashes against them and tosses them and threatens them perpetually with its Storms and Tempests And this is All in my Opinion that we can desire to know upon the Principal Head of that which Regards the State of our Souls out of our Bodies Let us conceive with all my heart That there is above those Heavens which we know a Heaven wholly Enlightned and abounding with Joy and overwhelmed with Pleasures wherein the Holy Souls are involved And let us conceive on the other side a Place replenished with Flames and Darknesses with Horror and all manner of Despair which the Criminal Souls do fall into All this is most True and these Places are most Real and Effective but it is in God in whom the Holy Souls do find this Enlightned Heaven and in whom the Criminal Souls do find these Flames and these Darknesses these Despairs and these Horrors It is God who by an Immediate Union of his Almighty Activity causeth in Them this Light and these Darknesses these Sadnesses and these Joys these Pleasures and these Pains all the Paradice and all the Hell Erit Deus Omnia in Omnibus it is by an Immediate Union of God with Them and They with God that they are in Heaven and in Hell Since it is by this Union that they have this Lively Idea thereof which renders these Places present to them CHAP. VII That which makes the Difference between the Present and Future State of the Soul IT follows from what hath been said That that which makes the Essential Difference of the manner how our Souls are in our Bodies and of the manner how they are out of our Bodies is That when they are in the Body then they have but Successively the Idea's and the Knowledges of Things from the Occasion of different Impressions which come and arrive to the Brain by the Action of other Bodies which are round about Us and that they have not also the Sentiments and the several Movements of the Appetite but from the Occasion of divers Dispositions of Bodies and when they are parted from the Body they receive immediately from God these Idea's and these Sentiments which is requisite for the Disposition of Vice or Vertue which we otherwise call Merit of Demerit in which they find themselves when they are parted from the Body Now the Body by the divers Impressions which it receives from other Bodies or by the divers Dispositions which are raised formed in it by the Ebullition of the Blood by the Course of the Spirits and by the divers Excesses or Fermentations of Humors is the Occasional Cause of all these Idea's and of all the Sentiments of the Soul because that the Supream Being by which it Lives it Perceives Thinks and Wills for to conserve the Dignity and good Order of its Greatness in acting as Universal Cause was pleased to tye the Determination of these Idea's and Sentiments to those Dispositions of the Body which result from the Laws of Motion by which He moves all the Corporeal Nature and by which he composes and conserves the Visible World with an infinite Wisdom which alone was able to produce so many Prodigious Effects with so much Order and so much Harmony from two or three Immutable Laws by which He moves the Matter of the Universe That in this New State of the Soul out of the Body God is not determined to Act in Them but by a necessary and immutable Love of Order and by their Vertuous or Criminal Disposition God doth not Act but as an Universal Cause with our Souls so long as they are in the Body He doth but follow the Law of Motion of the common Matter of the Visible World which diversly affecting our Bodies necessarily determines him by Vertue of his Immutable Decree to give to the Souls those Idea's and those Sentiments which answer the different Impressions wherewith the Body is affected but when the Soul is out of the Body God doth lay aside the Character of Universal Cause as to this purpose He no longer follows in respect of them the Laws of the Motion of the Universe Souls part with the World in parting with the Body They have no longer any Relation with the Body nor by consequence with the Visible World from that very instant that they have no more to do with their particular Bodies So long as they are in the Body they are united to all the Visible World because that their Thoughts and their Sentiments do depend upon the Laws of the Motion which moves all the Matter of the World it being that which gives them an Essential Relation to all the Parts of it because there is not any one of them which may not be an Occasion of the Determination of these Idea's and Sentiments but after Death all that ceases there is a new Order of things there are no more the same Laws God afterwards follows none but the Law of his Eternal and Inflexible Justice to Punish or to Reward the Souls according as they have made themselves deserving It is no more the Motion of the Universe and the particular Disposition of every ones Temperament which results from it which determins the diversity of our Idea's and Sentiments It is only the Pure and Holy Disposition or the Impute and Criminal Disposition of our Souls which determins the Sovereign and Eternal Justice and Equity to give us the Idea's and Sentiments proper to Reward or Punish our Irregular or our Vertuous Disposition God hath no longer Reason to be willing to mannage and conserve the Dignity and Character of Universal Cause He hath no longer Reason to mannage and conserve the Liberty of our Souls The time of our Trial is ended The time of Merit is past There is no more question to see whether they will make themselves worthy that is over They are fixed in an Immutable State That is Eternity There is no more Vicissitudes or Diversifications no more Instability or Changes no more an Alternativeness or a Passage from Evil to Good and from Good to Evil from Vice to Vertue and from Vertue to Vice The Tree lies where it falls And as the State of the Soul is fixed by this State of Immutability which is properly That which we call Eternity so God fixeth himself to Love or to Hate to Punish or to Reward He Acts thenceforwards as a particular Cause because that He immediately takes in the Ground of His Eternal Love of Order the determination of all these Idea's and Sentiments which he gives to our Souls That is all the Light which we can give to our First Curiosity concerning the State of our Souls out of our Body by which we see that they are not properly but in God and that it is He only who is the Cause and Occasion of all their Idea's and Sentiments We must now proceed and endeavour to Know all that belongs to this State by clear and infallible Lights CHAP. VIII How
Principle of Happiness and Unhappiness which is the most Essential Character and Attribute of that which we call Divinity or Supream Nature Tho we should not have this so assur'd Experience of the Union which our Souls have with God by the continual Irradiation of his Divine Life and Influence in us the which agrees so well with this Idea which Faith gives That it is God who is the Immediate Cause of the Union of our Souls and our Bodies for we must observe by the way that it would be an Impiety to doubt of it since not only God according to Faith Created our Souls but he Infuses them also as they say and unites them to our Bodies we could not possibly be ignorant of it if we gave any attention to his Supream Sovereignty over us and to our Essential Dependence upon Him in all the Acts of our Life as well as in all the Foundations of our Being and by consequence in all our Knowledges Can the Sun-beam shine when it is separated from the Sun And can the created Spirit either subsist one moment or have the least Light or the least Spark of Life or of Knowledge without the Irradiations of the Supream Being The Ancients said very well when they said That all things were full of God That God was the Soul of the World the Life of every thing that Lives and the Being of every thing that Is and doth Subsist They had much better than Us conceiv'd the Supream Nature when they said that It was the Circumference and Center of a Circle That it was the Sun and its Rays That it contain'd All and replenish'd All And that its Action was the Life and the Motion of all things God is Effectively and Essentially apply'd to all the Parts of the Universe and that there is not one onely thing from which he withdraws himself for one only Minute Natural Evidence persuades us no less than the Divine and Heavenly Authority of S. Paul That every thing that Lives every thing that Moves every thing that Is Lives Moves and Is in Him In ipso vivimus movemur sumus But tho' he should not continually apply himself to all the other Parts of the Universe yet it must needs be that he should apply himself to Spiritual Natures and to every thing that is call'd Spirit or Knowing and Spiritual Nature for that also the Scriptures and the Holy Fathers do teach us That He is the Father that is to say the Lively and Essential Source of all Light and by consequence of all Knowledge the Sun of Intelligence and the Life of all Spirits Exposition of this Principle by S. Augustin St. Augustin by the force of this Natural Evidence Divinely said That we are so Essentially united to God that we may say we are much more in God even by our Bodies not only than we are in the Air or within any other Corporeal Space whatsoever but than we are in our selves because in fine saith he It is certain that God not only contains and environs our Bodies better than any Corporeal Space but he continually gives them their Being and their Motion by his Action and by his Almighty Influence a thousand times more than the Illumination of the Sun gives Light and Splendor to its Rays But this which the Holy Doctor says of our Bodies hath much greater force in it when he saith it of our Souls for tho' it be true that our Bodies are in God in whom all things are Essentially it is much more so that our Souls are in Him because they are ty'd to him by a thousand times more Dependences than the Body since they continually receive Life from him through all the Acts of all their diverse Faculties which are without number If a Man demands says he Where is the place of the Soul That is a Question which our gross and curious Imaginations make who being desirous to conceive all things after a Corporeal manner would determine a certain Space and a certain Extent to Souls But it would be very well says he to answer them and to say to them for to undeceive them of this Manichean Idea That they are in God that they Live they See they Perceive and they Imagine in God for it is certain that they do not any thing of all this but by the Immediate and Physical Influence and the continual and Essential Irradiation of his Divine Life which he communicates to them without ceasing And because the Life of God and of every Spirit is to See to Know and to Love it is certain That every thing that Thinks every thing that Seeth every thing that Loveth and every thing that Knoweth doth Think See Love and Know in him and by him by whom is every thing that is by whom is moved every thing that moves and by whom liveth every thing that lives For byreason that He is the First Being or Principle of Being it must needs be that every thing that Is receiveth without ceasing its Being from him by a perpetual and never-interrupted Communication of this Supream Essence By the reason that He is the Principle of Life or the Essential and Original Life it must needs be That every thing that lives receives continually a Life from Him by a like Influence and by a like Communication of his Life and by consequence That every thing that Thinks and Knows Thinketh and Knoweth by Him since to Think and Know is the Life of Spirits This is the solid Metaphysick of S. Augustin and this is also the Theology of S. Thomas who hath so often made use of these Arguments under the Name and Notion of a First Agent of a First Cause and of an Essential Principle of Life And this is the same common Notion of all the Doctors that ever were under the more consu'd Name and Idea of Concourse because it is certain that this Action of God which we call his Concourse cannot be in relation to the Passive Faculty by which our Soul hath the Idea's and Sentiments of Corporeal Objects but a Vision and a Chimera if it be not that Action by which I say That in the Quality of a First and Universal Cause on the one Part and on the other of a Particular Cause of the Union of our Souls and Bodies He determines in us our Sentiments and gives us our Idea's from the Occasion of the Impressions which either Actions from without on the part of the Bodies which are round about us cause upon our Brains or the Determination of the Circulation of the Blood of the Humors and of the Spirits within us which oftentimes are the Occasion of the Action of the Supream Cause without the intervening of any thing from without That this is not to have recourse to a Miracle but to Explain what sort of Commerce there is betwixt the Soul and the Body There is no need of opposing here that This is to have recourse to Miracle or to make God descend from
Heaven to favour our Ignorance for this is no ways to have recourse to Miracles thus to reduce things to their Essential Principle and to their Necessary and Immediate Causes on the one Part and on the other Part to the common and universal Experience of all Men and to the most constant Idea's of Religion which is what we are doing here when having caus'd to be observ'd that we receive the Sentiments and Idea's of particular Bodies by the only Passive Faculty of the Soul and by a Superior Power which Rules over us and which Enlightens us and having demonstrated that we cannot at all be Knowing Beings by our selves since that is the Priviledge of God alone but that we are Essentially Knowing by an Exterior and Superior Irradiation and Illumination and that this Illumination and Irradiation cannot come to us neither from other Bodies nor from our own by reason of the Impossibility that there is that a Body can be United to a Spirit to Act upon it and Enlighten or Affect and Modifie it we say that it comes from God from God the Author of our Being and the Necessary Cause and Principle of the Union and of the Meeting together of the two different and disproportion'd Parts which Compose us This is neither to have recourse to Miracle nor to call to God to descend to the help of Humane Weakness and Ignorance but on the contrary this is to mount up again to the true Principle of all the particular Idea's and all the Sentiments which we have of Bodies and of things Corporeal upon the Occasions of our Bodies This is to reduce the confus'd Idea of the Union which God makes of our Souls and Bodies to a clear and neat Idea This is to acknowledge the true Principle of our Light and to cut off all the false Idea's by the which we have been accustom'd either to make Our Selves God in Figuring to our selves that we have of our selves Pleasure and Pain and the Idea's of things or to make Gods of all the Bodies which environ us in believing that They are those which Enlighten and Illuminate us or which at the same time make us Happy by Pleasure and Unhappy by Pain and Dolor Not to be willing that we should refer to God the Action which unites our Souls to our Bodies is Not to be willing that we should refer to him the Creation of Souls and the Existence of the World And as the Passage which the Body makes in the Soul by Corporeal Impressions is either the necessary continuance or the very Act of the Union of our Souls and of our Bodies not to be willing that it is God who doth This Immediately is Not to be willing that it should be him who by himself Immediately unites both our Bodies and our Souls which is a Species of Atheism The happy Fecundity of this Principle for Morality Thus we are able to felicitate our selves and to rejoyce our selves in having found out together with the clear Idea and Notion of the manner how our Souls have their Idea's and their Sentiments upon the Occasion of the Body the Discovery of our Intimate Union with God and of our perpetual Dependence upon him of a continual Action of him in us of a living Source of Lights and of Pleasures which are in him and of a fruitful and of an abounding Source of the Duties of Love and Fear of Dependence and of Gratitude which ought to keep us continually united to him Let others study God in the visible World and Morality in the Books of the Doctors I will for my part neither study the one nor the other but in my own Soul and in the manner whereby she perceives and whereby she knows every thing that she doth know out of her self Let others make Efforts of Imagination and prescribe to themselves a thousand Practices for to keep themselves continually present to God I for my part will desire no more than my Principle and a moderate Attention to that which passes continually in me never to lose the sight of God but to have him always present Let other search into imperfect Reasonings for the Motives of the Love and the Fear which they owe to God for my part I will only reflect upon the Pleasures which I have in the very Acts even of the Animal Life for to see in God a Source of infinite Felicities and by consequence an immense and an infinite Loveliness for what should I more naturally love than that Living Source of Pleasure since it is nothing but Pleasure that I love But this is not all I will besides only reflect upon the Equality with which God Enlightens every moment all Men to conceive that he is the Father and the common Center in whom we are all united and in whom we ought all of us to love one another to honor one another and to support one another and to observe Fidelity and Justice towards one another There are moreover I see in this Knowledge of my Soul Incitements to Duty as well as Duties themselves Let others seek to fright their Concupiscences by the dreadful Paintings of Eternal Judgment for my part I need only a simple View and a moderate Reflection upon the Pains and Dolors which we resent upon the account of our Bodies by the efficacious Impression of that Power which keeps our Souls united to our Bodies For if to affectionate us to the preservation of our Bodies and to remove far from us the things which are hurtful to them it penetrates us with such lively Dolors what will those be wherewith it will transpierce our impure and rebellious Souls which shall render themselves deserving of his Anger And what Pains must he have establish'd to oblige us to watch after the conservation of our Souls since he takes so much pains to make us watch for the preservation of these miserable Bodies which are only a vile and despicable Garment of the Soul But let us not any farther enlarge here upon these Moral Consequences whose solid Principles and Foundation we shall discover in its proper place Let us advance and after having made clear the manner how our Souls have Idea's and Sentiments upon the occasion of our Bodies and after having cut off many Idea's and many Prepossessions full of Error with which it was impossible to conceive the manner how our Souls Are and Operate in our Bodies we must now endeavour to conceive it CHAP. VIII How our Souls Are in our Bodies THAT Evidence which we have of the manner how we have Sentiments and Idea's begins to give a Light to our Eyes which makes us see the manner how our Souls are in our Bodies and we have another Light which will completely let us see it and as it were touch it and This is the Experience of the manner how we move our Bodies We have a continual Experience That our Souls have Power to move our Bodies for there is nothing more certain in the