the Body is Time so our Future State out of the Body is Eternity and there is the Principal clear Light by which we ought to Judge of the difference of our Present and of our Future State All may Change and all ought to have an End in out Present State but nothing ought to Change nor have an End in our Future State whether it be Happy or Unhappy This is as every one may see a fruitful Source and abounding with strong and pressing Consequences which ought to penetrate Us and to cause a General and Universal Change in our Idea's Our Present State which is called Time is likewise called the Present Life and our Future State the Life to come because that tho' in the two States it is only the same Soul which in each State is essentially Living yet it is very much to the purpose that we distinguish these two Lives by their divers Objects and Conditions altho' there be but one and the same Foundation of Life in the two States The Present Life doth not Exercise it self but upon the false and perishable Objects of Time and its deceitful and deceiving Oeconomy The Future Life Exercises it self upon Objects wholly True and wholly Solid The Present Life is a perpetual alternativeness of real Cares and Torments and of false Shadows of Repose of effective Business and of seeming Riches of the agitations and Fevers of the Passions and lucid Intervals of Reason a Theater of Eternal Mutations a Chain enterlinck'd with short and transitory Felicities and long and durable Miseries a rapid and precipitous Torrent which amongst some slender and false Pleasures and some but always bitter drops of Pleasure rouls on with cruel Pains and tormenting Briers A vehement and impetuous Whirlwind of hurry and Ambition Which after having much tormented and agitated the Body and the Soul after having raised a thousand Storms in the Heart and in the Spirit is dissipated into Air and Smoak The Future Life on the contrary is either but one Day all Uniform all united to everlasting Triumphs and Felicities or one eternal Night of Horror and Despair In fine Our Present State is also called the Present World and our Future State the World to come because our Present State ties us and affixes us to the Visible and Corporeal World much more sensibly than to the Spiritual and Intelligible World and our Future State ought to break off our Union and our Relation to the Visible World and to unite us wholly and solely to God and to the pure Spirits which make together with God that which we call the Intelligible World And all these Idea's ought equally to make us undervalue our Present State for such as it is and infinitely to esteem our Future State for that which it ought to be for whether we conceive our Present State under the Idea of Life under the Idea of Time or under the Idea of the Present and Visible World and on the contrary Whether it be that we conceive our Future State under the Idea of Eternity under the Idea of a Future Life or under the Idea of the World to come the one appears infinitely Precious and Essential and the other infinitely Despisable They ought moreover to make us conceive clearly the Crime and the going astray of our Love of Time of the Present Life and World and that of our indifference and forgetfulness for the Future Life the World to come and for Eternity There are some who wonder that the Gospel should be a perpetual Condemnation of the World And who would that the Divine Redeemer had more complaisance for our Appetites and our Inclinations thereto and that he had not found it so ill that we should love an Appearance so amiable and which hath so many Charms and Enchantments But they need only consider what this Love or the Love of the World is upon which he lets fall his so terrible Condemnations and Curses 'T is this World the Gospel condemns and thunders out so many Anathema's and Curses against It is this Love of Time of Life and of the present World which blinds which besots and enchants Men and makes them forget the World to come or the future State of Souls out of Bodies It is not at all that Assemblage of Elements which makes the World that is condemn'd It is not that Society of Men whether Natural Civil or Politick which is sometimes also call'd the World which is render'd Criminal But it is the Corruption of Hearts blinded and enchanted by the Figure of this transitory World from whence is form'd that over-ruling love of Vanity which makes Eternity to be forgotten which is that impure and detestable World which the Man-God High-Priest of future Happiness and Father and Monarch of the Age to come hath necessarily cry'd down to recall Men from this wandring of Vanity to the Essential Station of Eternity He could not but condemn the World in every Part in that Sence in its Conceits in its Opinions in its Maxims in its Customs in its Prosperities and in its Goods in its Joys and in its Pleasures because there could nothing flow from so impure a Source but what must be impure But this is not a Place to enlarge upon it it is enough to have compris'd the Judgment which we ought to make of our two States and the Preference which we ought to give to the one above the other we must now see the Obligations which come to us from thence CHAP. XV. The General Order betwixt Time and Eternity the present and the future Life and the present World and the World to come which follows from the Knowledge which we have been now acquiring THERE is without doubt a real Order of Duties between Time and Eternity the present Life and the future the present World and the World to come We will not take notice of it but it is certain that Time is indebted to Eternity the present Life to the future the present World to the World to come our present State to the future State Time is indebted to Eternity for it Is not but for the sake of Eternity And that which it owes to Eternity is that it ought to refer all unto it The Order of Time is that it should be carry'd back to the Point of Eternity All that is done in Time and which is not carry'd back to Eternity States with an absolute Power and with a Sovereign Authority to gain Battels to Conquer Provinces to make all the Neighbouring Thrones and Kingdoms shake around us to give what Motion and Impression we will to the Universe to reduce to an effective Reality that Idea of an Universal Monarchy the Vision and Chimerical Ambition of which we have reproached in the last Age in our Neighbors We believe that it is something very fine and it is true that nothing in Human Affairs is greater but even That if it be not in the Order of Eternity or if it be not made for
is a Burthen to them and they would if it were in their power shorten it and hasten its End Some Men naturally Couragious and Magnanimous until the Celestial Light of the true Religion had instructed them and made them see that they ought to wait till God withdraws them from the present Trial have been found so transported and so inflam'd with the Desire and Love of this new and Immortal Life that they have not had patience to wait the Course of Nature to let it bring them thither but they have violently launch'd out of it like furious Madmen And one cannot say that this was the Effect of Education or of some Opinion and Human Invention with which the Infancy of Men is and hath been prepossess'd for besides that Education neither can be nor hath been the same every where and that no Human Invention or Opinion hath ever been able to establish it self into an universal Prepossession how happy soever it hath been this Pretension is contrary to the Evidence and Notoriety of the most constant Experience of the World which is That independently of Education and before all sort of Instruction this Idea of Eternity and this Desire of Immortality was found and is always found in Nature of the same Date if I may so say as the Sentiment of the Divinity And as there the Character of that which is call'd Instinct or natural Inspiration is and that nothing from elsewhere is more assur'd in the World than this Maxim and this constant Truth That natural Instinct is never False that it hath always a Real Object and that it never deceives for this is a Reflection which is too Essential to omit here or not to repeat it again That the Instinct of Nature is never False as appears in all the Instincts of Animals themselves of which there is not one single one that is False since it is not at all a Fault that it makes them to fly from or pursue the things which it inspires them to fly from or pursue nor can it ever be a Fault because Instinct is an Inspiration and a Determination of Nature and by consequence of that Truth and of that Infallible and Eternal Wisdom which is the Author of Nature which can never inspire or give to Men false Desires nor determine in Beasts Motions useless and deceitful It follows That this new and Immortal Life of our Souls of which Nature gives us so indubitable an Instinct must be the most True and the most Real thing of the World My Hope and my Certainty are built upon an hundred other immovable Foundations of Natural Conviction and Celestial Revelation but tho' there was only this certain Experience of Natural Instinct which cannot be disputed since this Idea and this Desire of this new and Immortal Life hath indisputably its Principle in Nature and cannot come from an universal Error that Education might cause in all Men and that it is certain that these are not the Reasonings of Philosophers who have invented this so Religious an Opinion as that Ancient speaks but it is all pure Nature that gives it I shall not for my part be less persuaded of this Immortal Life of our Souls after the short Passage of this Life than of the present Life because in fine I find the Instinct of it in my first and most natural Sentiments and because I can never believe that Nature which do's not deceive our Senses when she carries them towards their Objects do's deceive our Hearts and our Desires when she gives them the clear and lively Instinct of an Immortal Life for our Souls after this Life St. Augustin hath observ'd That that which we call Instinct and Nature in Corporeal Natures and in Spiritual Natures is God himself The Instinct saith he which operates in Men and in Animals is God himself And he hath very good Reason to speak after that manner because that Instinct in Corporeal Nature are those extraordinary Motions which it makes from time to time as if it had Knowledge Reason and Foresight altho it cannot have either Foresight or Reason or Knowledge And Instinct in Intellectual Nature are the Desires and the Ideas which it finds in it self without acquiring them by the Senses or by Reasoning and Reflection And as it is from God immediately that these Motions in the One and these Ideas and Desires in the Other do proceed so it is with Reason that this Holy Doctor saith That the Instinct which operates in Men and in Animals is God himself which hath likewise been very well observ'd by Thomas Aquinas So that Instinct is Infallible as God himself and if by Instinct it is that we know the Life to come it is indubitable and certain by this Victorious Reason That Instinct never deceives as it may easily be seen in Corporeal Nature For as St. Augustin very solidly further observes we cannot convince the Instinct of Deceitfulness and Error in any part even of Corporeal Nature in which it might be able to deceive in things of no moment Let us Regard it Do's it for example deceive the Hart when it makes him run after he is wounded to the Herb that heals him Do's it deceive the Ant when it makes her fit and furnish her Magazens to purpose Do's it deceive the Lamb whin it makes it fly the Wolf or the Chickens or other Birds when it makes them shun the Kite It is apparent it never deceives and if by Instinct it is that we know the Life to come the Life to come must needs be indubitable There is no Instinct in Nature if the Natural Idea which all Nations have had of the Life to come in all Times and in all Places of the World be not most certain and most indubitable There is no Man saith St. Chrysostom very well who hath not this Natural Idea of the Life to come because there is no Man who independently of all Reflection and of all Education do's not Fear or Hope something according as he is either Good or Wicked in that Dream-like dark Time to come in the which the present Life is lost to our Eyes This Idea saith Lactantius of a Life to come must needs be a Natural Idea since Men who see themselves generally die have never been able to believe themselves entirely mortal were they possess'd with what sort of Opinion or Religion soever were they Greeks or were they Jews were they Romans or were they Barbarians were they Heathens or were they Christians they have never been able to believe themselves entirely Mortals they have always believ'd or rever'd their Deaths which hath been the true beginning of Idolatry they have always fear'd or hop'd for something after Death which they could never as much as have thought of if the Idea of a Life to come had not been Natural It is so Natural that nothing is able to efface it out of Nature neither Error of Opinion nor Corruption nor Education nor any sort of
which as we have seen cannot be destroy'd by Death which does not act but upon Bodies It is an ancient Reasoning of the Holy Fathers and even of the profane Philosophers That God punishing here sensibly some few of the Crimes of Men and not punishing them all there need be another Life where he finishes the Justice which he begins here And this Reasoning carries the most sensible Conviction in the World since we see so visibly the Hand of God to extend it self upon the Wicked which is according to St. Augustin that which the Kingly Prophet calls the Lightnings of the Supreme Justice which fore-run the Clap of Thunder Apparuerunt fulgura ejus orbi terrae vidit commota est terra His Lightnings appear'd to the Globe of the Earth the Earth saw and it was moved But tho' we had never seen such miraculous Examples of the Heavenly Justice upon the Wicked we should see enough to be convinc'd of the Immortal Conditions of our Souls from the so indubitable Sentiment that Conscience gives us of an Eternal Uprightness and Holinevs which ought to recompense us or to punish us because there must be nothing certain in the World if this be not That this natural Sentiment and this clear Idea of the Supreme Justice and Holiness cannot Deceive us Reason and all that is call'd Light and Certainty whether Natural or Supernatural must needs be nothing but Illusion and Chimera if Good and Evil can remain without Reward and Punishment because God must needs be only a Wisdom and Sanctity indolent and insensible of the Order and Disorder of the World with the Conduct of which he is charg'd if he ought not at last signally to evidence his Justice and if Natural Reason and Light is any thing as he cannot be a disarm'd and an useless Power so he is not assuredly a Sleepy Wisdom and an Indolent and Idle Sanctity He cannot leave either Vertue without a Reward or Vice without Punishment and tho' he neither punishes Crimes nor rewards Vertue in this Life it follows necessarily that this Sentiment and this Idea which Conscience gives us of a Justice which prepares a Reward for Vertue and a Punishment for Crimes in another Life is an Idea most true and which hath a real and most effective Object and that there is a new Life for our Souls after the present Life wherein they receive the Price of their Vertues and the Recompence of the Fidelity and the Constancy of their Trial and the pain of their unfaithful dissolute Prevarications through which they abandon the Interest of God and his Service for the little and trifling Interest of the false and frenetick Pleasures of their Passions With all these Certainties and all these Convictions we ought to see more sensibly the Future Life into the which our Souls enter in going out of the Body than we do the Present Life for it glitters and shines more lively in the midst of us than the Sun shines or glitters in the midst of the World But we must take care that we do not apprehend it after the same manner We are commonly full of Incredulity of the World to come and of the Immortal Condition of our Souls it is the just Punishment of our Disorders and the natural Effect of our Exorbitant Desires Tho' God should not concern himself and tho' He should not spread over his Darknesses He that makes the Day and Night of Grace as well as the Light and Darkness of Nature over our Criminal Desires to blind the Carnal Souls who forgetting the Advantage of their Spiritual and Immortal Nature plunge themselves wholly into sensual and earthly Pleasures our own exorbitant Desires are Veils thick enough to rob us of that Light how resplendent soever it may be The Incredulity of the Life to come and of the Immortal Condition of our Souls cannot be in Us but by these two Principles If it is so common it is because the inward Eye is so troubled and obscur'd by the disorder of carnal and terrestrial Passions and that this natural Blindness of Passions is augmented by a Veil of Darkness that God puts upon impure and terrestrial Hearts I know not how Libertines apprehend it but if they would in the lucid Intervals of their Reasoning never so little reflect upon themselves and upon the Light which they smother it is sure that it is impossible but that they must conceive that their Libertinism and their Incredulity is not only an Estate of Obscurity and natural Blindness but an Effect of the Hand of God which is upon them This is effectually the Effect of the utmost Disorder of the Spirit and of the uttermost abandonment of God for how should one be ignorant of the Life to come and of the Immortal Condition of our Souls if one had had either any spark of Natural Light of good Sense and Reason or any Ray of Grace or Celestial Illumination Let the Libertines speak and let them tell us upon what they found their Impious and Sacrilegious System upon what Principle and upon what Reason they believe that their Souls die with their Bodies Let them speak they would be in a great deal of Pain to do it for this furious and frenetic Judgment by which they bloody their Hands with the Parricide of their Souls if one may be allow'd to say so hath not any Foundation nor any Principle There are some to whom the Immortality of the Soul is not incredible but because they cannot as they say comprehend what the Soul will be when it shall be no longer in the Body but these themselves here do no ways conceive how their Soul is in the Body and People who do not doubt but that their Soul is and that it is the thing of the World which hath so much effective Reality altho' they do not know how it is do doubt that their Soul can be any thing out of the Body under pretext that they do not conceive how it will be then There are some who stupifie themselves on set purpose to judge that their Soul is no more any thing after this Life not by any Reason that they have to form this Judgment but because that the fear of finding at their going out of this Life an Implacable Judge who they well see ought to punish their Licentiousness and Disorder if there remains any thing of them after their Death makes them desire that there should remain nothing of them and makes them prefer the horror of the Nothingness of this sad and vast Darkness to the Beauty and Light of that Immortal and Resplendent Life of Joys and Felicities which Reason and Religion equally discover to us at the end of the short Career of this Life There are in fine some who make the same Judgment without knowing why they make it they judge without Reason and without Principle contrary to all Reason and all Principles I say against all Lights all Reasons and all Principles for I
doth not say that they shall change Nature and that by an impossible Conversion and Metamorphosis they shall become Knowing Natures and shall cease to be Extended Substances He means that the Bodies shall be no more a Charge to the Souls that they shall be to them no more an Obstacle or Hindrance in any thing and that they shall only serve to do Honor to the glory of the Creation and of the Redemption We will first of all take away from Bodies that which we call Gravity which is nothing else but an Impulsion wholly exterior towards the Center of the Earth which happens to them at present from the Impression of the Creator by reason of their Terrestrial Nature and Composition We will restore to them their natural Indifference to Motion and to Rest For Bodies of themselves have not any Motion neither of Lightness nor of Weight they neither ascend nor descend they neither move themselves Perpendicularly nor Horizontally as they say At this present as they are part of the Visible and Corporeal World which ought wholly to subsist upon that indivisible Point which is called its Center which sustains all Bodies without being sustained of any thing They must be moved and driven continually towards the Center and middle of the Earth which doth not sustain it self upon its self but by that Impulsion of all its Parts and of all that which we call Terrestrial Bodies which from all parts tend towards this middle and the same indivisible Point but then being no longer Parts of the Terrestrial World they no longer follow the Laws of that Motion which moves Corporeal and Terrestrial Nature they will neither have Levity nor Gravity but a Perfect and Sovereign Agility that is to say an entire Indifference for all sorts of Motion which will cause them without any Resistance to be carried every where where the Souls would have them We will fix in these Resuscitated Bodies such a Degree of Heat and Motion in the Blood as shall be necessary to entertain the natural Movements with a certain Agility and Disposition for the Animal and Voluntary Motions which the good Constitution of a healthful Body requires This Heat will be sufficient to make the Blood and Humors to flow but not to escape or dissipate the least of the Parts either fluid or solid Parts of the Body from whence it will happen That there will not be any Dissipation and that Nourishment which is only to repair the Dissipation will be never necessary Those Inclinations which are now placed in Man for the Propagation of Species will cease by this Reason and this Principle because in these Bodies fixed in an Immutable Situation of Parts and which never take Nourishment there will not be any excess of Superfluous Matter by which those natural Ebullitions and Fermentations are made which give occasion to those Desires and to those Inclinations which we now have for the Propagation of Species Erunt sicut Angeli Dei neque nubent neque nubentur Almost in the same manner the Senses will have all their Functions and altho' the Souls ought to be enlightned and affected with Idea's and Sentiments upon the Occasion of their Bodies thus Spiritualized in proportion as they themselves shall be affected by the Corporeal Impression of other Bodies which shall act upon them however that will not at all hinder but that the Union of the Souls with God and of God with the Souls shall be near and immediate because that independently of these Corporeal Impressions He will Act continually in them The Bodies are now an essential Occasional Cause of all the natural Action of God in the Souls but then they shall be the Cause Occasional not Essential God will Act by himself immediately in them enlightning them and diversly modifying or affecting them without any Regard of the Body in a thousand manners The Bodies shall be no longer neither a Wall nor a Vail between God and the Souls nor a Channel of Communication between the Souls and God He will Act in them independently of the Disposition of the Body which is now the essential Condition of his natural Action in us Then when the Holy Souls shall be re-united to their Bodies They will not at all fail as hath been said to have the whole Spectacle of the Visible World altho' there be but one part of the Visible World whose Species comes to be retracted in the Material Eyes They will not at all fail to have the Pleasure of Melodies altho' there be not any Symphony which strikes their Corporeal Ears Civitas non egebit Sole neque Lunâ nam Claritas Dei illuminabit eam Such will be our Souls in their Spiritualiz'd Bodies after the Universal Resurrection there remains nothing more for us to do after this last Illustration than to make use of these Knowledges to reform our Idea's and correct our Judgments about Eternity and about Time about the Present Life and the Future about the Present World and the World to come And thereby to comprehend the whole Extent of our Duties CHAP. XIV What is Time and Eternity the Present World and the World to come the Present Life and the Future Life IT is easie for us after all that hath been Illustrated concerning that Future State of our Souls in the New and Immortal Life which they ought to Commence in going out of the Body It is easie for us I say to comprehend what is Time and Eternity the Present World and the World to come the Present Life and the Future Life That which we Men call Time is taken either by Relation to the Duration of the Abode of every Soul in its Body or by Relation to the Duration of the whole present Oeconomy of the Visible World destined to the Trial of the Souls in the Bodies and in whatsoever signification Men take Time in the Opposition which Men make of it to Eternity It signifies precisely a State of Instability of Change and of Vicissitude and a State which ought to have an End for these are the two things which enter essentially into the Idea of that which is called Time Vicissitude and End The space of the Duration that our Souls are in our Bodies is called Time for those two Reasons because it ought to have an End and because in the Interim so long as it endures it holds us exposed to a thousand Changes and to a thousand Vicissitudes and above all to the Vicissitude of being able to pass from Good to Evil and from Evil to Good from Sin to Vertue and from Vertue to Crimes or Vice You see here exactly what Time is and Eternity ought to be conceived by Opposition for Eternity is on the contrary The immutable and interminable State and Order of things As much as Time includes Instability and End so much do's Eternity exclude them both Time speaks Change and End Eternity speaks the being always the same and never ending Thus as our present State in
is enlightned or may be enlightned is in It an indubitable Character of a Nature not only Spiritual but truly Celestial and Divine But above all this Empire which we have over our Hearts is an Argument and a sensible Conviction to us of the Spiritual Nature of our Souls The Empire of our Desires is another certain Proof of the Spirituality of our Souls It is a constant Experience That neither Plants nor Metals nor Beasts in whom we place Desire or to say better to whom we give the Name of Desires to their violent Sympathies and Antipathies which carry them diversly to embrace or to shun one another have either the power to command their Desires to suspend them to pass them by or to check them The Loadstone seeks the Pole with a Desire the most vehement one can frame an Idea of it carries it self towards it with an indefatigable Motion and yet who ever saw that the Loadstone exercis'd over it self that Empire of stopping or checking this Motion Beasts have all of them their Instincts and their rapid Motions towards certain Objects to which Men also give the Name of Desires and yet we have never seen an Animal that could command his Instinct or his Desires We easily check the Motion which carries the Horse to the Mare by Barriers but never did a Horse thereupon command his Desires We easily stop the hungry Dog who runs eagerly to his Food and so turn him away from it but he himself do's never check the Motion of his Hunger Animals follow their Instincts and their Desires like Metals and Plants by an invincible Necessity which trains them on As the Mill goes as long as it hath Water or Wind and a Clock as longs as it hath Line and Weight so Animals go as far as their Instincts drive them and they have no more power to check themselves in their pretended Desires than Clocks and Mills in their Motions But we we experience in Us an Empire a Sensible Superiority over own Desires we curb them we turn them by we resist them we cast them off and we confront them and command them with a real Authority It is true that this Liberty is extremely enfeebled in the greatest part of us by natural Corruption by evil Education by wicked Imagination by the Custom and Habit of Vice by our want of Attention and Application to our selves We see well enough that the power of checking our Passions hath been in our Nature as it were absolute and despotick and that it hath at present lost something because we have need of Dexterity and Industry to resist them and because we have not always force enough to suppress them at their first onset But this Disorder of our Nature doth not hinder but that we are sensible of its Nobility and its true Empire over its proper Desires And tho' there were only almost dead Sparks of Liberty which are in the most corrupted and and in those that are most govern'd by their Vices and tho' there were no Wise Men to whom it made its Power visible as it does there would yet be enough of that deadned Spark of slavish and captive Liberty to acknowledge in it the advantage of our Spiritual Nature because it is certain that this Empire of our Soul over its Desires is an evident and an indubitable Character of a Spiritual Nature St. Augustin says That the only Contrariety of our Desires is an assured Argument of the Spirituality of our Souls because that in fine says he there would not be in us a combat of Desires if we were not composed of two Parts of a Corporeal one by reason of which we have Corporeal Desires and of a Spiritual one which causes us to have Desires quite opposite But it is not so much from this opposition of our Desires as from the Empire that we exercise over them that I will here draw the Conviction of this Advantage and of this Excellency of our Soul This Empire makes us evidently see two things The one That we are thereby imprinted with the lively Resemblance of that Wisdom and Sovereign Liberty of the Eternal Nature and Essence which the Grecian Fathers commonly express'd by that particular Name which their Language only furnishes to express the being Sovereignly Masters of our selves The other That we have an Order essentially in our Nature from whence is form'd that light and that force of Reason which makes us condemn our Desires that are contrary to our Duty And these two things make us undoubtedly see the Nature and the Spiritual Quality of our Souls because it is impossible that this double Resemblance of the Supreme Nature which is a Sovereign Spirit should be found in a Corporeal Nature CHAP. XIII We have an indubitable Certainty of the Immortal Condition of our Souls by the Desires and Instincts of Immortality and Eternity which we have THERE might be a great many Reflections added here to that which hath been just now said concerning the Empire of our Reason over our Heart and over our Desires to draw from thence convincing Arguments of the Indubitable Spiritual Quality of our Souls but because I am unwilling to tire the Readers Patience in holding him too long upon this Speculation I chuse rather to suppress them and to remark the Certainty of the Immortal Quality and Condition of our Souls which we shall be able to find by seriously reflecting upon it in that Ground of Liberty or Will which we experience in Us and by which I am going to let you see that we have a certain and an indubitable Conviction of our Spiritual and Immortal Nature The Desires of Immortality which our Soul resents in it self and which arise from the Ground of Will which I have call'd Liberty are an assured Proof and an indubitable Argument of its Effective Eternity and by consequence of its Immortality for without dispute there is in our Nature an Idea and a Desire of Eternity which hath its Principle in Nature's self and precedes all our Reasonings and all our Reflections and which Acts and Operates in Us before we have receiv'd any Instruction from other Men. Before Men do Reason and Reflect without Study and without Instruction by the movement of Nature thro' all the Habitable Earth they do not only find and perceive in themselves a confus'd Idea of Eternity and a Desire of Immortality but they distinctly conceive a New and an Immortal Life after this here in the which they either hope or fear something for themselves and for their Neighbors and Friends and into which they carry even their Desires and their Thoughts of Vengeance against their Enemies They do not only thus conceive a new and Immortal Life for their Souls from whence issu'd in all Nations whether Civiliz'd or Barbarous the Religious Rites concerning the Dead with Expiations Lustrations and Sacrifices but they perceive by Intervals their Hearts push'd on thither by redoubled Desires and Sighs so vehement that the present Life
Prepossession not even then when there was a positive System of Libertinism made to say That the Life to come is nothing but a Chimera and an Illusion For as Tertullian observes these Atheists themselves and these Libertines who have destroy'd the Divinity and the Life to come in their Heart and in their Spirit do find in themselves this Natural Idea and feel and see the Instinct of It operate since it is certain that as often as they find themselves oppress'd under a greater force they have no other Consolation than to think that they shall be comforted and reveng'd by a Superior Power in the other Life which he conceives to be his Duty until some Interest or some Passion rises up which opposes it and there is no Man who doth not more or less resent the Satisfaction of having done his Duty and the Pain of having fail'd in it so long as Nature is Master of it self and hath not at all been corrupted by the Habit and Corruption of Vice which hardens it at last and renders it insensible There is not a Perception or Sentiment so well marked in Nature as that is from thence we have seen that there arise in Men two diverse Grounds equally admirable a Ground of Vertue and a Ground of Joys and Felicity which bear a thousand Characters of a Nature not only Immaterial and Spiritual but incontestably Celestial and Divine It is from this natural Ground of Conscience supported by Grace that we have seen and do yet see to issue Faithfulness Integrity Constancy Magnanimity Justice Continence Courage Shunning of Pleasures Patience in Labours Victory over all the Passions The effective accomplishment and the inflexible and unsurmountable love of all Duties Invincible to all Interests and to all the Charms of Concupiscence and Inexpugnable to the victorious force of the most delicate Temptations There is to say truth little of such Vertue in the World because there are very few who do not suffer their Conscience to be subjugated to and stifled by Concupiscence but these are two indubitable Experiences That the Seeds and the Births the Inclinations and the Principles of it are together with the Idea and the Light of it in all Peoples Hearts and that there are some People in whom all these Vertues are real and mounted to a Sovereign degree of an invincible and constant love of Duty Libertines would make us believe That Vertue is but a vain Name and a fine Phantôme with which the Imaginations of Men flatter and please themselves but that it never had any Reality in the Hearts and in the Lives of Men. This Idea favours their Libertinism and they would willingly establish it to save them the shame and the reproach of their Disorders which would appear to them excusable if Duties were nothing but Chimera's and Vertues but such Phantômes but they cannot make good that Pretension the World hath always had True Vertues in its greatest Corruption and False and counterfeit Vertues have born witness to the Idea which is of them in Nature which hath marked them with so sensible a Mark of Spirituality and with so August and bright a Character of Divinity Few Men have improv'd the Seeds of Conscience so far as to the perfection of all Vertues and all Duties but there never was any Man who hath not found in himself the Principles and the Seeds of Vertues and Duties To which we must add the second Ground of Joys and Felicities which have always accompany'd the former for never did Man follow and practise Vertue but he found in it a Ground of pure Joys and unalterable and uncorruptible Felicities as on the contrary never did any Man violate Conscience and Duty but he found a Ground of Misery and Calamity in his own Heart which was his Judge and his Executioner and in his own Irregularity which was his first Torment The Nero's and the Domitians were not able neither with their Arms and Sovereign Power under which they made the whole Universe tremble neither with their obstinate determination to Evil neither with their hardening and abandoning themselves to Crimes to guard and defend themselves from the penetrating force of that Just and Imperious Power which wounds impure and disorderly Souls with a thousand invisible Arrows from whence springs a mortal Sadness and a mortal Pain That Conscience is not in the Soul of Man an Effect of Education or of some Opinion with which it was imprinted and prepossess'd in the Infancy There are some who to deliver themselves from the pain which their Conscience gives them and to abandon themselves to Disorder with more liberty and impunity would persuade themselves that all That which we call Conscience is nothing but the Effects of certain Opinions with which our Infancy hath been prepossess'd and imprinted upon by the Authority and by the Empire which our Education hath exercis'd over us But there is nothing in the World so foolish so rash and so insupportable for Conscience is without dispute before Education and is also independent of it for the Ground of its Idea and of its Instinct of Good and Evil. It is true that Education may prepossess the natural Ground of Conscience with some Opinions and Opinions very false which Superstition doth and the Character which is call'd Scrupulous but the Errors with which this natural Ground of Conscience may have been prepossess'd do only invincibly prove the Ground of Conscience For as Teriullian says if there was not in Nature an Idea of Good and Evil it were impossible that one should err and deceive ones self by the evil application of that Idea If there was not an Idea of Good and Evil one should never deceive himself by acknowledging for Good that which is Evil and for Evil that which is Good or that which is Indifferent all would have appear'd Indifferent and above all there would neither have been Certain Idea of Good and Evil of which all Men are agreed how different soever their Education may be and how opposite soever their Preposessions were nor it would not be impossible to imprint what Idea one would of Good and Evil. For if Conscience was not a thing natural in Man if Man had not a natural Idea and a natural love of Duty one might then make Men thereupon believe all that one would one might make them believe that Injustice Ingratitude and Treachery are things commendable and estimable and yet notwithstanding nothing is more impossble For as one can never make a Man believe that a Square hath but three Corners and that Two and Two make Five so one can never make him believe that Ingratitude is an Ornament to the Nature of Man that Injustice merits a Reward that Treachery is a Vertue an honest and commendable Quality and on the contrary that Justice Fidelity and Gratitude are things condemnable and wicked Men make Laws according to their Fancy they establish them by Caprice and by Authority they make themselves obey'd by the
fear of Punishments when they have the Power in their Hands but it is remarkable That Men who make Laws and can make themselves be obey'd cannot make themselves believe but that when they only make unjust and tyrannical Laws People only pay an exterior Obedience to their Commands but the Heart and Spirit cries out and demands Justice from Him whom all Men naturally feel over their Heads as a Protector of Justice and an Avenger of Oppression and unjust Authority We receive unjust Laws but we do not believe them just for all that But as to the natural Laws of Duty and Conscience all Men receive them and believe them by an invincible determination of a superior Light which equally perswades them alike And this is the infallible Character of natural Idea and Light for there is none but the natural Light that convinces us with that invincible force Conscience is then in us undoubtedly natural And as certain as it is an essential Companion of our Nature and a Propriety inseparable from our Soul from whence arise in us by the help of Grace all Moral and Christian Vertues so certain it is that our Souls are Spiritual Natures because it is impossible to conceive that a Corporeal Nature can be the Subject of Magnanimity of Justice of Fidelity of Continence and of Truth and that a Corporeal Nature can have either the Light of Order and of Duty or the Inclination or the Determination of Duty or the Pleasure of the performance and the Pain of the violation of Duty Duty Order Justice have no Bodies they are things totally Spiritual and Intelligible how then can a Body or a Corporeal Nature have the Idea or the Sentiment of them Moreover this Light of Order and Duty which enlightens us and which pierces us and which we feel ingrafted and as it were pour'd into our Soul is not the Idea or the Rule of one single Duty it is the Idea and the Rule of all our Actions and by consequence of a thousand sorts of Duties so this is further a Certainty and an infallible Character of its Spirituality For how can a Material and Corporeal thing be the Rule of so many diverse Actions and so many different Duties The only Name of Ruling Human Actions imports essentially the Idea of Spirituality For with all my heart let a Man make a Rule a Square and a Compass of Gold of Steel and of what Matter he will to measure out a Building or the Compartments of a Garden or of a Walk but how can one conceive a Corporeal Rule let it be made of what Matter soever we can imagine which can be proper to compass and put into order and set to rights Human Actions The Rule is then indubitably Spiritual and if this Rule is Spiritual if this Idea of Duty which enlightens us cannot be Corporeal our Soul who is the Subject wherein it resides cannot but be a Spiritual Nature because it is as impossible to conceive that a thing Spiritual can be within a Material Subject as that a Material thing can be within a Spiritual Subject It is infallible That every thing that do's Spiritual Acts is Spiritual and that every thing that is the Basis and the Subject of Spiritual Proprieties and Faculties is all of it likewise Spiritual because it is impossible that a Corporeal Principle should produce Spiritual Acts and that a Material Subject should be the Seat of a Spiritual Attribute or of an Immaterial Perfection And this is it which ought to put a full end to the Conviction which we have of our Spiritual and Immortal Nature in our principal Part which we call our Soul since it is certain our Soul is not only the Principle of a thousand sorts of Spiritual Acts for every thing that is call'd Willing Thinking Reflecting Judging is essentially a Spiritual Act because it is impossible to conceive either Knowledge or Will or Desire and the Act of Willing under a Corporeal Image but the Subject of a thousand Perfections all Immaterial and Spiritual if it were not but the Conscience alone which assisted by Grace is in us the living Source and the Seat of Justice of Fidelity of Gratitude of Friendship of Constancy of Magnanimity of Truth of Uprightness of Incorruptibility of an hundred sorts of Moral Vertues and of an hundred sorts of Christian Vertues more Excellent than the Moral ones of Humility of Continence of Despising Misprising the World of continual Union with God of the Ardor of Eternity of Mortification and of Self-denial of an hundred such like Dispositions all Celestial and all Divine which can have neither for Principle nor for Subject a Nature that is Corporeal CHAP. XV. That our Souls are indubitably Immortal by a Certainty that the Sentiment of the Conscience gives us thereof SUCH is the Certainty which we have by the Sentiment of Conscience of our Spiritual Nature and this so indelible Sentiment of Conscience which we all of us naturally have is not only an indubitable Argument and Assurance of the Spiritual Nature of our Souls but it gives us also more sensibly if we will unstaggering Certainty of our Immortal Condition because it gives us Essentially by way of Instinct the Sentiment of a Justice which ought to be exercis'd over them by an Eternal Power after the going out of this Life which Essentially imports the Idea of a new and an Everlasting Life of which an Eternal Principle of Order and Justice ought to determine the manner according as we shall be found to have done well or ill and according as we shall be found worthy of Punishment or Recompence in the Ballance of the Supreme Justice and Holiness We have already observ'd That the Instincts of Nature are never false and that they have always some real Object and if there were nothing else but that alone we would not doubt but that there is for our Souls a new and an Everlasting Life after this Present Life since the Instinct that Câ—â—science hath in our Souls of that Justice which ought to be exercis'd upon them after Death is the most clear and the most indubitable Instinct that is in all Nature But independently of that Infallibility of the Instinct the Idea of the Supreme Being which we find in Us by the Sentiment of Conscience with a Resentiment so lively and so penetrating and at the same time so certain and so ineffaceable under the Idea of an Eternal and Sovereign Justice which ought to punish the Ill and recompense the Good doth infer so necessarily that of an Eternal Power infinitely clear and vigilant which watches over the Lives of Men to observe the Good and the Evil of them that seeing as we see that it do's not punish nor recompense in this Life all the Goods and all the Ills it is impossible for us to suspend our Belief but that it ought to exercise after Death its Punishments and Rewards in the so Incorruptible and Immortal Grounds of our Souls
Happiness of which it is the Basis and so long as it is indubitable that that Part by which and in which we can and we ought to be Essentially either happy or unhappy is not only our Principal Part but the whole true Ground of our Being so long it is clear and certain that our Soul is all the true Ground of our Being because we find that it is in the Soul that all our Sentiments Essentially are that is to say Joys and Pleasures on the one part and Pains and Griefs on the other and by consequence Happiness or Unhappiness for it is the Soul which alone hath Essentially the Certainty and Sentiment of All that we perceive and if the Soul hath Pleasure she takes no care at all of the Body in what Estate soever it may be she is content and when she is content we are contented also That the Soul hath Pleasures and Pains independently of the Body We must observe in the second place That the Soul in which alone is Pleasure and Joy Grief and Sadness or Pain hath two sorts of Pleasures and two sorts of Pains Pleasures which she hath in her self and by her self as are those of Duty and of Conscience and Pleasures which she hath and which she receives from without upon the occasion of the Body by that Power and Empire of Nature which rules over us And Pains on the other Hand which she hath in her self such as are the invisible Wounds of secret Fears and of Mortal Sadness with which God pierces her through when He pleases and those of the Disorder and Irregularity of her Desires and of her Passions and Pains which she hath and which she receives from without upon the occasion of the Body The Essential Difference of the Pleasures and the Pains which the Soul hath by reason of the Body and of the Pleasures and the Pains which She hath independently of the Body Thirdly We must observe in the Third place That the Pleasures and the Pains which the Soul hath by her self and of her self independently of the Disposition of the Body by the Order by the Duty by the Vertue and by the Impression of Grace and of the Celestial and Eternal Hope or by the Irregularity and Disorder and Fear of Celestial Judgments have this Advantage above the Pleasures and the Pains which the Soul hath only upon the occasion of the Body That the Pleasures and the Pains which the Soul hath as ubjected to and occasion'd by the Body do never go so near to the bottom of the Heart and Soul as to render it entirely happy or unhappy because that together with the Pleasures of the Body the Soul may have Pains which may make it insensible of those Pleasures and with the Pains of the Body the Soul may have Pleasures which may render it invulnerable and insensible of the Pains of the Body For it is a constant Experience That the proper Pleasures of the Soul do Heal and take away all the Griefs and all the Pains of the Body and that the proper Pains of the Soul do dull and blunt likewise the edge of all the Pleasures of the Body In such a manner that the Soul being sick in her Conscience can never be cur'd by any Pleasures or any Delights of the Body which can only suspend and lessen for some short Intervals the Attention of the Soul to her proper Ills and her interior Wounds and that the Soul void of solid Goods can never be fill'd and satisfied by any Goods or by any Pleasures of the Body and on the contrary the Soul being very sound in her Conscience and being very quiet in the Testimony which she hath in her self can never be disturb'd in her Happiness by the Pains and Contradictions of the Body She can suffer Poverty and Disease but She cannot lose her Satisfaction and her Happiness She is contented in her self and the Ills of the Body cannot reach that inaccessible Place of the Heart where She rejoyceth in her self in Order and Duty on one part and on the other in a firm and sure expectation of Consolation and Recompence which she waits for from above That the Pleasures and the Pains which the Soul hath not but upon the account of the Body are only as it were to shew the Pleasures and the Pains of Eternity Fourthly We must observe in the fourth place That Pleasures and Pains be they those which are immediately in the Soul or be they those which are not in Her but upon the Bodies account are only in her for to shew if I may so say the Pleasures and Pains which ought to be the Recompence or the Punishment of Vertue or of Vice and which ought to give us the Manner of the New Estate into which we are going thro' this present Life of which we have so indubitable a Certitude by a thousand Assurances and by the sole Instinct of Nature as we have observ'd already since it gives Us an Idea which cannot be false and a Desire which cannot deceive and so Our Souls have essentially in the Grounds of their Spiritual Nature an Infinite Ground of Happiness and an Infinite Ground of Misery which the Pains and the Joys of this Life are only for to give us an Idea of For it is certain that the Power which we find rules over Us both by Pleasure and by Pain being as it is essentially Just and oblig'd to Reward or Punish Us according to our Deserts ought necessarily to Recompense Us by a thousand sorts of unspeakable Joys and unimaginable Pleasures and to punish us after this Life by a thousand sorts of Pains and Dolors in like manner So that indeed We carry in our Souls a Ground of Immense and Infinite Happiness or Misery of which the Alternative and the Manner is decided and determin'd by Vice and by Vertue and we are as much assur'd that this Immortal and Eternal Life which we are to begin after having finish'd This here will be fill'd with unspeakable Joys and Pleasures infinitely more touching and piercing than these which we taste at present as we are that we have at present Transitory Joys and Pleasures That Vertue is the proper and true Good of the Soul and Vices its Evils Fifthly In the fifth place we must observe That All that We call Good and Evil to wit the Good and the Evil which are only so upon the account of the Body are only false Goods and false Evils The Pleasures of Sense for Example are only false Goods and Pleasures because they promise to make the Heart happy they make a Shew of a certain Felicity which they display to our hungry Hearts and in stead of that Felicity which they promise and of which they have given so false and so deceitful a shew they leave the Soul very unhappy by leaving it empty and hungry on the one part and on the other part wounded murther'd and embloodied if I may so say with a thousand mortal
Scars The Ills of the Body are after the same manner they are false Evils because they have the Appearance of rendring the Soul unhappy but they cannot do it since under all Bodily Evils the Soul can be happy by or thro' her own proper Goods Now Vertue is the only Good of the Soul and Vice its only Evil for the Pleasure and the Pain which she Now hath cannot bear the Name either of Good or Ill to speak exactly but the Resemblance only of Good or Evil. The Painful passing away of Time is a Resemblance of a true Evil which is an Eternal Ill and the Pleasant passing away of Time is the Resemblance of a true Good which is the Sovereign and Unspeakable Pleasure of Eternity Vertue hath not only the Resemblance of Good but it Is Good of or by it self for besides the making a Man happy and contented it makes him Good Commendable Estimable and worthy of the Love and of the Esteem of God the Source of all Felicity who knows no other Good than Vertue for God do's neither esteem nor allow those things for Goods which We call Goods Places of great Trust Honors Reputation Riches Credit He looks upon these things as they are as Dirt and Dung and as an Object of Abomination to his Divine Eyes Vertue only merits his Complacencies and obtains them and Vertue only adorns our Souls and possesses the Place of Riches of Nobility of Beauty and of Agreement That the Passions are the Fevers of the Soul Sixthly In the sixth place we may observe That the Passions are to our Souls how agreeable soever they may seem to be the same that Fevers and Diseases are to our Bodies For they are the Excess of Sensual Love contrary to that All-spiritual and All-reasonable Love of Order and Duty which turns away the Soul from her natural Motion towards her Sovereign Good and drives her on towards false and seeming Goods as a Fever is an Heat against Nature contrary to that Natural Ground of Living Heat which entertains Briskness and Motion united in the Blood Those Desires which our Souls conceive by Occasion of the Body and Sensual Good which is Its proper Good are real Fevers and real Frensies in the Soul And if when she is at quiet she would reflect well upon it she would find the same by an indubitable Sentiment forasmuch as she would find that these Heats and Emotions of the Passions turn her out of the Way and End of Sovereign Good and of Reason and throw her aside into Precipices and Abysses wherein she not only wanders and loses her self but she wounds murders and Embloodies her self if I may say so by a thousand deep Scars from whence spring a thousand Remorses like black and livid Blood which empoyson all her Joys and corrupt all her Pleasures Seventhly We may observe in the seventh place That Our Soul hath Essentially a certain Sentiment of her Limitation and Dependence on the one part and on the other of a Superior and Over-ruling Power on which she depends for our Souls do Naturally and Essentially feel in themselves Religious Duties They are as Tertullian says Naturally Christians because besides their feeling in themselves their Weakness and Imperfection which makes them sensible of their Dependence they feel besides above them that Eternal and Immense Power which Holy Job felt as it were an exceeding great Weight upon his Head under which his whole Being trembled bent and was of no force as well as that of the most sublime Intelligences sub quo curvantur qui portant orbem under which they stoop who bear the World That the Soul hath Essentially in her Disorders the Apprehension of a Superior Justice which wounds her Eighthly In the eighth place we may observe That the Soul which feels God so Essentially by her first Sentiment and who so necessarily discovers him in Her and in all things that she sees out of her self for as Tertullian saith God discovers himself to Us by all that is in Us and all that is without Us doth feel especially in her Disorder that Eternal Sanctity which wounds her and threatens her and which she feels again on the other part when she is in Order and in the place of her Duty comforting and sustaining her thro' Hope and altho' she should not feel it by this kind of Sentiment of Conscience the most penetrating that can be she would necessarily feel it by the Sentiment of Reason which essentially feels a Principle of Order in the World to which all Created and Emanated Reasons are subjected and to which they must give an Account of the Violations of Order which they do commit from whence is form'd an indefaceable Sentiment of God as an Avenger of Order in the Intellectual Part and in the Understanding even after the Passions and the Habits of Vice have defac'd that of the Heart which is That which is more commonly express'd by the name of Conscience or of Sensibility of Order and Duty We must observe Ninthly That in the Ground of the Natural Capacity of our Souls besides that immense Capacity of Pleasure or Felicity and in like manner that immense Capacity of Grief and Calamity which we have acknowledg'd in Us Our Souls have moreover an Insatiability of Desires and Pleasures which comes to them like all the rest from the Ground of their Spiritual Nature by the which they make as it were in an Instant and Moment a Digestion if I may be permitted to say so of all that they can get and possess here below of Goods and Things that are agreeable and do as soon conceive a new Hunger and new Appetites Every One experiences in himself this Insatiable Hunger and Thirst of his Soul with a lively and pressing Pricking which pushes her on without ceasing towards some Better thing and a vehement and rapid Motion which carries her on after a kind of confus'd Idea of Contentment and Felicity which she perpetually believes she can overtake and as it were be joyn'd with and which she can never be joyn'd with or overtake Effectively but by the hope of a Future Life which Grounds and Establisheth the Testimony of Conscience and an unspeakable Consolation of Heavenly Grace and Impression which is not known to all the World but which is known to all those who having understood the Price of their Soul their Spiritual Nature and Immortal Condition have apply'd themselves to Cultivate it CHAP. XVIII That all these Knowledges are so many Lights and Principles of Morality and Duty EVery One will find all these things in his own proper Sentiment and in the Notion of the Spiritual Nature of his Soul if he gives himself never so little trouble to reflect upon it and unfold it and That should not only compleat in Us the Conviction of her Spirituality seeing that it is impossible to conceive in a Substance Corporeal and Material so many Attributes so many Advantages and so many Characters so undoubtedly Spiritual
but it should moreover kindle in Us a thousand glittering Days of clear and indubitable Duties from whence we should draw That part of Morality which is the Order of Duties and Obligations between our Souls and our Bodies which we have propos'd as the First thing in the Idea and Essay which we give of it All the Order of our Duties between our Souls and our Bodies springs from that Notion of the Spiritual and Immortal Nature of our Souls and of the Advantages which follow and accompany it for it appears by that Notion and by every thing which we have been discovering of her Followers and her Companions and as it were Appanages That they have an Incomparable Essence and Dignity and in some manner Infinite a lively Resemblance of the Supreme Nature a Richness a Nobleness a Ground or a Capacity of Felicity and Vertue Immense and without Bounds which lies upon our part to replenish with a real Light Vertue and Felicity by the which we may from that time be Sovereignly happy in our selves in expecting that the Supreme and Eternal Nature the Living and Eternal Source of Duties and their Rewards will in Recompence of the Fidelity of our Trial make us partakers of all Joy and Felicity It appears that St. Augustin had reason to say That our Souls do immediately touch God That God only is above their Spiritual and Immortal Nature and that every thing that is not either an increated Nature or a Spiritual Nature like them is Essentially below them It appears that God had reason to Reclaim them if I may so say and to pursue them in their wandring to bring them back to himself in the manner that he hath done that he had reason to follow them even into the Flesh and into this visible World where they were so visibly gone astray and lost as having been sent thither to fight for him and to render themselves worthy to obtain the Crown of Reward It appears that they could not be Redeem'd at a Price too dear It appears that they make up all our Being and that our Bodies are only the Matter of the Victories and Combats and that he was pleas'd to joyn our Souls to them to Try them and to Recompense and Crown them It appears that our Souls are All and that our Bodies are Nothing and by consequence that the Goods and Ills of our Souls are our true Goods and our true Ills and that the Goods and Ills of the Body are only false and seeming Goods and Evils And from hence who do's not see that there follows an evident and sensible Order by which we ought to guide our selves in relation to our Souls and to our Bodies quite contrary to that we follow which makes our Lives to be a Confusion and Disorder full of Horror The Order of Duties between our Souls and our Bodies It follows from this Knowledge which we have of the Spiritual and Immortal Nature of our Souls That by how much we ought to love esteem cultivate and preserve our Souls by so much we ought to despise disregard and in some sense hate our Bodies It follows That we ought to quite alter or change all our Conduct and to turn on the Souls side all the Impressions and all the Sensibility which we have for the Body It follows That we ought to correct and change all our Idea's and all our Maxims all the Body and all the Method of our Lives the End the Object and the Motive of all our Actions the Bent the Course and the Motion of all our Inclinations and the general and particular View of all our Designs and to make in our selves a World altogether New if it may be allow'd to say so in putting the Soul in the place which the Body now occupies and the Body in that of the Souls All these Consequences have a clear and immediate Evidence For from hence follows clearly I. The Order of the Esteem which we ought to have of our Souls and of the Esteem which we ought to have of our Bodies II. The Order between the Pleasures of the Soul and between the Pleasures of the Body which are those that the Soul hath by the Bodies Occasion for as hath been said and shall be more fully Explain'd the Body hath neither Pleasures nor Pains but we call Pleasures of the Body those which the Soul hath by the Occasion of the Body III. The Order between the Riches of the Soul which are Vertue Grace Religious Exercises or the Works of Piety Charity and Justice together with the precious Treasure of the Testimony of Conscience and Eternal Hope and between the Riches of the Body which are the Succors and Commodities for the Necessities the Businesses the Eases and the Agreements of the Body for the short time of the Voyage and Journey of Eternity IV. The Order between the Care of the Body and between the Care and Cultivation of the Soul whether in Relation to Men and the Civil Life for Policy Ability and Capacity and the Sciences or whether in Relation to God to a Christian Life and to Hope Everlasting V. The Order between the Health of the Soul which is free and sound Reason and Conscience exempt from Vice and Passions and between the Health of the Body VI. The Order between the Beauty of the Body and the Beauty of the Soul which is a Noble and Generous Inclination Uprightness and Love of Duty together with the glorious Brightness of Vertue and as it were the Colour of Grace VII The Order between the Sensibility of the Soul whether for the Goods or the Ills of the Soul and between the Sensibility of the Bdoy All this flows and follows clearly from what hath been just now made clear and establisht concerning the Spiritual and Immortal Nature of the Soul and this would be a fair Field of Morality to any Man that would exactly and regularly pursue and explain all the aforemention'd Particulars but what hath been said is but an Essay and an Idea which we give you we shall not enlarge upon it here we shall only say That the Foundation of all our Duties is to comprehend well the Difference of the Price and the Value of the Soul and the Price and Value of the Body for if this Difference be once well understood and well div'd into all the rest will follow and appear of its self And to penetrate well into this Difference we need only first of all to compare what the Soul is in it self by the Difference of the Spiritual and Immortal Nature of it and what the Body is by its proper Difference of its Perishable and Mortal Matter And in the Second place we ought to compare what the one and the other are by their Attributes and their Accidents or by such things to which the one and the other do serve for a Basis Foundation and Support Let us not say any thing of the Foundation of the Body of that Filth and Corruption
by a Superior and an Invincible Force all the Evils which happen to it in spite of them And as there often happens some by reason of divers Disorderings which the Universal Motion of Nature and the particular Motion of the Matter which Composeth it causeth in it so it cannot be but that this Vestment of Material and Corruptible Flesh must oftentimes become a trouble to them It is often incommodious and we would often Divest it yet in the mean time we find that we are no-wise Masters of it but that we must carry it along in spite of Us until That secret and invisible Power which hath Cloth'd us with it without Consulting us shall Disrobe us and take it off from us without taking our Advice and without regarding our Desires II. The Second Experience of the same Empire in the Sovereign Domination with which our Souls are sent into our Bodies without Consulting them We find in the Second place That our Souls have not at all the Choice of the Bodies wherein they inhabit but that they are sent in thither by that Power which we see Governs Nature and which we call GOD without any regard for our Inclinations or for our Appetites for we choose neither the Form the Shape the Structure and the Composition and Constitution of our Bodies nor the Matter out of which they are Form'd nor any of the Accidents which determine the Diversities and the Differences of them If our Souls might choose themselves Bodies there would be none Crooked Deform'd Ill-shap'd Unsound or Ill-constituted in any manner they would all be Beautiful all Healthful all Strong and of a Rich and Gentile Shape and Carriage Nothing is more indubitable than the Sentiment that we have That we choose neither our Bodies nor the Time and Place of our Birth but that it is a greater Force an Absolute and Sovereign Power which sends us into such a Body in such a Time and in such a Place as best pleaseth him III. A Third Experience of the same thing in Diseases over which our Soul hath no Empire We find in the Third place That our Souls which are not at all Mistresses of the Choice and of the Quality of their Bodies are not likewise Mistresses neither of the Disposition which is agreeable to them nor of the Indisposition which incommodes them They are neither Mistresses of Health nor Sickness Health and Sickness are in Us by an Invincible and an Almighty Empire of Nature Fevers Apoplexies Collicks and Dysenteries neither ask our Leaves to attack us nor our Agreement to march off IV. A Fourth Experience of the same in Pleasure and Pain We find in the Fourth place That Pleasure and Pain are after the same manner in Us by that Invicible Force of the Power which Rules over Us together with all Nature for we find that we cannot hinder either the one or the other or suspend or turn aside the lively and penetrating Impression of them so often as certain Objects work in Us or as there are Motions caused in Us in the Material part of Us which we call our Body We may easily enough sometimes turn away and suspend the Action of other Bodies upon Ours and stop its proper Motions but the Action and Impression being once made it is impossible to suspend or turn away either the Pleasure or the Pain so long as the Power which Guides Nature and which Rules over us affixeth them to it Do's the violent Heat of a Fever burn our Bodies our Souls have not at all the Power to suspend in themselves the burning and afflicting Pain and Sentiment Do the delicious Juices of our Viands water the Tongue and Palate in their Porous and Spongy Substance if I may be permitted to say so Do agreeable Odors strike the Nerves destin'd to carry them to the Brain Is the inward Organ of the Hearing shaken by the Air melodiously beaten with an harmonious Symphony Light and Day have they retraced Colours in the Retina in the bottom of our Eyes and together with the Figures of Bodies the Spectacle of the Visible World It is then impossible that the Soul should suspend the Pleasures of that charming Spectacle of the Visible World of that Symphony of those Odors and of those delicious Tasts V. A Fifth Experience of the same in the Idea's which we receive We find in the Fifth place That our Souls do by a like Empire receive the Idea's of all particular Bodies and of all Their Impressions upon Us for it is indubitable that it is the Empire of Nature or to say better of Him who governs Nature that determines and that maketh in Us all those Images of the things which we have from the Occasion of their Impressions upon our Inward and Outward Senses We do not make properly those Images by the Active Faculty of our Soul we receive them only by her Passive Faculty This is what every one doth Experience for we do when we please all that we do by the Active Faculty of the Soul which is essentially free We Reflect we Reason we Compare things as we please and when we please because these here are the Acts of the Active Faculty of the Soul But we do not see after the same manner the Sun or the Moon when we please we remember well enough that we have seen them we recall an Idea of Remembrance thereof which obeys us at the very same time and moment when we will but That lively Image and That animated Representation which we have of them by their Presence and by their Impression upon our Senses it is certain that That doth not depend upon our Active Faculty it is certain that we cannot cause it of our selves but that we must Receive it I employ and summon in here for This the indubitable Sentiment of every Man by which it is seen that we receive the Idea's and the Images of all the particular Bodies which Compose the World by a sensible and visible Empire and Dominion which Acts and Operates in our Souls in proportion as these Bodies Act and Operate upon our Material and Exterior Senses We Experiment That the lively and animated Images of the things which we receive from the Occasion of the Impression which is made in our Bodies and carried into our Brains are entirely as Pleasure and Pain and as the Sentiments of Heat and Cold of Bitter and Sweet and such like which it is indubitably certain we receive and do not cause in Us. VI. We find in the Sixth place That by the same Invincible Empire we love Good and Pleasure or Happiness and Contentments in general from whence comes besides the love of Order and Duty which we look upon as a Good by it self and as a necessary means to arrive to the Sovereign Good which we know by a secret Instinct and a certain confus'd Idea of Nature ought to be the Recompence of the love of Order and of the Real and Effective Order of our Lives
to my self the Figure of him there needs a great deal more than the single Advertisement of the presence of the Object Tho' then we should conceive that the Soul should be Stirr'd Advertis'd and Determin'd by the Physical Action of the Body which is incompatible with the Spiritual Nature of the Soul it is certain that we cannot conceive for all that that the Soul can make to it self the Images of things as she hath them it is an Impression wholly Immaterial and wholly Spiritual which she receives by her Passive Faculty And as Wax which hath a Capacity of receiving the Impression of the Seal hath not for all that the Power of imprinting it upon it self or to make in it self that Figure which it receives thereof the Soul also which in this respect hath nothing above the Wax but that its Knowing Nature gives it essentially an inward Certainty and Experience of every thing which is made in her self can well receive those Images of things wherewith she finds her self Imprinted but she cannot make them her self This Doctrine is the common Doctrine of the Schools when they speak of Angels All the Schoolmen do hold That Angels cannot make to themselves the particular Idea's of things and that they ought to receive from God the Species of the things which they know without which they would remain eternally without the Idea of any thing out of themselves but only with an inseparable Sentiment of themselves and with a Light of Reason by which Reasoning upon their Dependency whereof they essentially have the Sentiment they know the Supreme Being by an abstractive Knowledge and Idea To the end that the Angels might see the visible World it was needful That God should imprint in them the Idea which is that we call a Species in relation to Angels and in relation to separated Souls for a Species and an Idea are the same thing in respect of Spirits God alone who is a Knowing Being by himself as he is an Existent Being by himself God alone hath Essentially of himself and by himself his Eternal and Subsistent Idea by which he knows and can distinctly see all things possible Present and to Come The created Spirits who are not Thinking Beings by themselves much less Spirits Knowing by themselves and in themselves the things which are Exterior to them have need to receive the Idea's of particular things to the end they may have a Knowledge of them If they had by themselves the Idea of one sole particular thing out of themselves there would not be any Idea which they might not have for what a Man by Himself hath all That he can always have God hath all Perfection because he hath it by Himself and the Soul of Man would have been ignorant of nothing and would have had the Idea's of all things if she had had the Power by her self to form an Idea of the least thing CHAP. VI. How a Corporeal Impression received into the Sense passeth into the Soul THE Soul then hath no Power of giving to it self neither the Idea nor Knowledge nor Sentiment of any particular thing and she cannot receive them of any body but it is the Author of Nature and of our Particular Being rather than of the rest of Nature the Life of every thing that lives and the Light of every thing that is enlightned who gives us all the Sentiments and all the Idea's which we have from the occasion of our particular Bodies and of others which environ us And to clear this Point so obscure and so difficult and at the same time so important and so necessary in order to make us comprehend our dependence upon God it is necessary that I should Observe That all the World agree and ought necessarily to agree about two things upon this Subject Propositions Essential and Certain The One That we do not know nor see nor seel any Bodies which environ us but by reason of the Impression which they make either Immediately by themselves upon our Bodies and upon our Senses or Mediately if I may be permitted to say so by their thin and subtil Particles or by their Species or the Images which they send us from them by the Light which results from all the Points of their Superficies which regard us That this Impression ought to be carried and arrive through the Exterior Senses as far as the Brain which is the Seat and Organ of the Senses which we call Internal where all the Rays of the exterior Impression ought to be terminated and that this Action or Impression carried to the Brain ought to engrave and imprint it self there to the end that the Soul may be advertis'd of the presence of the Object and that she may thence receive the Spiritual Image in her self The Other is That this Corporeal Impression which we otherwise call a Corporeal Species or Phantôme which ought necessarily to precede the Act of Knowing which ought to come to the Soul is not that which makes in the Soul her Knowledge nor even that which determines her Physically forasmuch as that Impression being Corporeal it always keeps its Impossibility and its Disproportion of being able to unite it self to the Soul of being able to Act upon the Soul of being able to arrive as far as the Soul of being able to affect the Soul of being able to enlighten it or of being able to modifie it in any manner by it self and to render it Knowing These Impressions Images or Phantômes cannot Act but upon the Body they are like the Seal which doth not Act but in Figuring the Matter and Imprinting the Cutts of the Graver wherewith the Seal it self is Imprinted They can Imprint and Engrave themselves where they find Body and Matter but they cannot pass from the Region of the Body they must necessarily acquiesce where the Body terminates they cannot pass within the Soul That is another Country not for them That is not the soft Substance of the Fibres of the Brain That is a Nature wholly Spiritual where no Seal can Imprint it self There is nothing more certain A Point unanimously acknowledg'd All the Philosophers both Ancient and Modern do agree in this Principle That they are not the Corporeal Species Images or Impressions engraven in our Brain which render our Souls formally Knowing Thus the Presupposition is indubitable and one may yet suppose it as certain and unquestionable altho' some have believ'd and maintain'd it with much vehemency That these Images of Objects so engraven in the Brain are not at all as Tables within which the Soul sees things Another Presupposition that the Soul doth not see the Objects in the Passages of the Brain or the Species as in Pictures and that she neither sees nor feels them This is a thing which we know by an indubitable Sentiment That so far are these Corporeal Images and Species from being as Tables which we bring near to the Soul and in which she sees things that we do
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
is continual As to the rest let us not fear that God is too much Employed and hath too many Affairs than continually to entertain This Union by his perpetual Action multiplied and diversified into so many Manners in determining so many Sentiments and Thoughts or Idea's on one part in the Souls and so many Motions on the other part in the Bodies to the Souls liking for this Supream Agent who Animates and who Essentially moves the Universe who gives Life to every Thing that Lives Motion to every Thing that is Moved Thought to every Thing that Thinks and Light to every Thing that is Enlightned is in no wise incumbred by so much Action It is on the contrary his Essence and his Nature to Act thus continually and to be Equally the Soul of the Corporeal as well as of the Intelligible World to be equally applyed to the one and to the other To the one for to Entertain and direct its Motions to the other for to Englighten all its Thoughts and to Determin its Sentiments or its sensible Modifications Pater meus usque modo operatur As God conserves Things by a new Creation renew'd every Instant or to say better always continued so he Entertains the Union of Souls and Bodies by that continual Application which he hath of Acting on one part on the Souls in Enlightning them diversly from the occasion of Impressions which external Objects or the internal Course of the Animal Spirits make continually in our Brains and on the other part upon Bodies in determining their Motions according to the occasion of the Thoughts of the Sentiments and of the Wills of the Soul Union can be nothing else Let us not fear then Let us not at all fear that God is fatigued with so grand an Exercise nor that it is unworthy of him to be thus always Employed upon Nature and upon his Workmanship since it is on the contrary not only his Pleasure and his Glory but the Essential Act of his Supream Nature also But let Us comprehend that no other Idea can make Us conceive the Union of our Souls with our Bodies For let us not believe that the Body and the Soul can be united like two Liquors or like two Metals which are melted one with the other Let us not conceive that this Union can be made like the Union of Bodies to Bodies which are made either by an unctuous or viscous humor which binds the Parts of them together or by Nails Pegs and Joynts Let Us not imagine here any Thing that is material Let Us cut off every Thing which presents it self Corporeal to our Spirit Let Us conceive precisely this mutual and necessary Dependence and having conceived thereby the Union of our Souls and of our Bodies We shall find that we have comprehended the manner how our Souls are in our Bodies They are not there by a Local and Corporeal Circumscription They are not there as Liquor is in the Vessel as the Bird is within the Nest or in his Cage or as the Body is in the Air which environs it They are there as God is in the World in which we must so conceive Him as that we must conceive Him saith St. Augustin much more containing than contained Let us remember that tho the Nature of the Soul is a Spiritual Nature which doth as essentially exclude Local Extention and by consequence all sorts of Idea's of Local Presence such as we commonly conceive under the Corporeal Immages of Immediation of Proportion and of Co-extention of Substances as it doth essentially include the Grounds and the Acts of the knowing Faculty Bodies have their proper fashion of Being within Places and Spirits have theirs likewise There is nothing of likeness between the one and the other And from the moment that you shall conceive the manner how a Spirit is within a Place by any thing resembling the manner how do you conceive that Bodies are in their Places Say and hesitate not that you deceive your selves since you confound the Things of the World which are most distinct and by confounding Them you subvert and destroy both Corporeal and Spiritual Nature The Doctrin of Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas saith very well that Spirits are not in Bodies or in a Corporeal Spirit but in two manners Either by the Action which they exercise upon certain Bodies or certain Corporeal Spaces Or by the Action which they suffer and which they receive upon the Occasion of certain Bodies which is the manner how the Devils are in the Fire of Hell whose Motion they determine by the Empire of their Will upon the Occasion where of they are penetrated with an intimate Sentiment of Burning by the Supream Power and Justice which punishes them This Idea of Thomas Aquinas is just and exact and it is thus we ought to conceive that our Souls are in our Bodies They are not there but because they have the greatest part of their Thoughts and of their Idea's and all their Sentiments of Pleasure and of Pain by the Occasion of the Body and because that they Act upon the Body by the Action of their Will which removes them and moves them in the manner that hath been said already They are no otherwise in the Body Every thing that we shall conceive beyond this will be False Contradictory Impossible and Chimerical they will only be Corporeal Images of which there is not any one that can agree to the Soul and to the manner how she is in the Body For it is with the manner how the Soul is in the Body as it is with the Soul it self we cannot comprehend it as often as we conceive it by Imagination what Corporeal Image soever we may make of it under what Material Form soever we may conceive it it is not at all the Soul that we do conceive And it is the same with the manner how the Soul is in the Body From the moment that we imagine it it is no more That which we imagine it for to imagine is to conceive under a Corporeal Form and Image and it is impossible to conceive any thing Corporeal in the Soul either in the Foundation and Substance or in the Accidents of it The manner how the Soul is in the Body is altogether as Spiritual as is the Substance of the Soul And all these Idea's which conceive the manner how the Soul is in the Body with any Resemblance with the manner how Bodies are in Corporeal Spaces are False Chimerical and Monstrous Idea's because they conceive the Soul as Corporeal In what part the Soul is and whether it be in all the Body If it be demanded after this In what part of the Body the Soul is or Whether she is in all the Body The Question will not be difficult to resolve because there needs no more than to apply the Principle of Thomas Aquinas of the manner how Spirits are in Places because it will make us easily to comprehend without any Corporeal Image
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
thereupon we must see if there be any place into which our Souls do pass We must see what they Know and how they know it whether they have Joys and Pleasures Grief and Sadness whether they retain or lose the Idea's of this Life whether they have any Reminiscence or Memory and whether they conserve the Habits of Arts and Sciences what are the Faculties whether Perceptive or Sensible and Appetitive that they use whether they conserve Liberty whether c. To have a neat Idea of the manner How our Souls Are out of the Body We must exactly Illustrate all these things Let us begin with the place into which they pass That when our Souls go out of the Body they do not pass into a true Corporeal Place by a Local Transport or Passage properly so called As we have acknowledged in Our Souls a Nature wholly Spiritual and since we have demonstrated that Spirits are not in places where we conceive them to be by a Co-extension and a Local and Corporeal Circumscription and that so they have not properly any Place at all no more than the Supream Essence and are not said to be in the Places wherein we say they Are but by a pure Relation of Operation and Activity as Thomas Aquinas teaches So when we ask in what place do the Souls pass when they go out of the Body and out of the Visible World We must take a great deal of care not to degrade our Souls by conceiving them as if they ought to pass into a certain New Space and a certain Corporeal Circumscription by a Local Transportation or Passage properly so called as if they were a Material Substance We have said that our Souls are not in our Bodies by Co-extension or by Local Circumscription but by a pure Relation of the Reciprocal Dependence and Activity which is between Them and the Bodies and when we ask Where is it that our Souls Are and Whither do they go when they go out of our Bodies We do not look for a Corporeal Space or a part of the Extent which composes the World or which is out of the World with which they have an agreeableness and in which they are shut up and contained This would be well enough if they were Material and Corporeal When we say That our Souls go out of our Bodies we ought not to conceive That they cease from being shut up in our Bodies from Corresponding with our Bodies from Penetrating our Bodies from Occupying or filling the Space and the Extent of our Bodies by the Immediation of their Substances or by the Reduplication of their Presence as they speak in some Schools Chymerically in my Opinion but only that they cease from having that Relation that they had with the Body of a Mutual Dependence and of a Mutual Activity for we must Reason concerning the Souls going out of the Body as concerning the Presence of the Soul within the Body and as we have said That the Soul is not present with the Body and united to the Body but by a Relation of Empire and Servitude both at the same time which the Soul hath with the Body and the Body with the Soul which makes the Soul have the power of determining the Motions of the Body and the Servitude of receiving almost all her Knowledges and all her Sentiments generally by the Body or by the Occasion of the Body so when we say that the Soul goes out of the Body we ought not to conceive any thing else but that she ceases to have that Relation with the Body We must not conceive a Local Passage a Local Motion a Local Transportation properly so call'd of our Souls by a Succession of divers Correspondencies to divers Corporeal Spaces for all that is to Imagine and not to conceive by Intellection which is the only manner whereby the Soul is conceived and all that belongs to the Soul and the manner how our Souls go out of the Body we must conceive precisely the End of their Empire over the Body and the End of their Captivity and of their Dependence upon the Body By this only they cease to be in the Body that they have no longer the Power of determining its Motions nor the Subjection of Receiving by it or having their Thoughts dependently of it The Idea's which we commonly have thereupon are all contradictory chymerical and monstrous they are Manichean Idea's by which we conceive Spirits as true Bodies And we must always remember that which can never be too much reiterated against the Custom which we have of being desirous to Imagine every thing That Bodies are Bodies and Spirits Spirits That Bodies have a Local Dimension a Co-Extension and a Local Circumscription that they have a certain Bulk that they do or may fill Essentially a Space and a certain Extension But that Spirits have none of all that neither Dimension nor Bulk nor Space nor Extension they have no more Dimension Bulk nor Extension than they have Colour and Figure From whence it follows That it is not by a Local Transportation properly so call'd that our Souls go out of our Bodies because that is not done but by a Progress of Motion and of Correspondence to divers Spaces and by a new Union which they contract with some other Body or new Corporeal Space CHAP. III. That our Souls going out of our Bodies go not properly but into God WE have conceiv'd clearly after what manner our Souls go out of our Bodies by that which hath been said which makes us conceive how the Physical and Substantial Union which was between these two so disproportion'd and so distant Natures is dissolv'd and broken since the Efficacy of that Puissance which attexes the Spirits to the Body doth suspend the Act and the Empire thereof and gives them no more any Relation of Dependence upon the Bodies but we have not learn'd whither they go and we must form a just Idea of it Our Imagination labors and takes a great deal of pains about it because she would at what Price soever attribute to our Souls all the Passions or Corporeal Qualities and Proprieties She would shut them up in a certain Space and in a certain Dimension She forgets what we have said That Spiritual Natures are not shut up in any Space or in any Place The Heathens Imagin'd Elysian Fields for the Souls that were Innocent and an Hell after their fashion for the Guilty Those amongst Us who imitate them do conceive likewise a Local Passage and Transportation after the fashion of Bodies into certain new Spaces by a successive progress of Motion But the Idea which we have conceiv'd of our Souls as of a Nature wholly Spiritual must redress that which is too gross in these Idea's which are wholly Material and we must conceive that our Souls in going out of the Body do go immediately as the Scripture saith without any Local or Corporeal Passage into God who as St. Augustin saith Is more the true
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
that Will which remains in the Reprobate Souls do's not Operate there as it doth in Holy Souls They are driven and moved essentially by an invincible Love towards Good and instead of Good which they seek for with so much vehemence They see nothing before them but Pains Despair and Misery They launch out and throw themselves perpetually towards the Good by Efforts and Movements inconceivable and He in whom they see the Source of Good and as it were all the Treasure and all the Foundation of Good Repulses them and throws them back again and in the same time wounds and transpierces them with a thousand deadly Darts They are Eternally thirsting after Pleasure and they have Eternally nothing but Grief Pain and Despair for their Portion so that the Will placed in them to be the Beginning and the Seat of their Happiness is found to be the Eternal Principle and Seat of their Unhappiness and Despair It would be to no purpose to lose time in saying That all the agreeable Passions will be in the Holy Souls and all the afflicting ones in the Reprobate that is comprehended of it self as also That these Passions will be in the Appetitive Faculty independently of the Body as we have said That the acts of Perceiving Imagining and Remembring will be in the Perceptive Faculty So there remains nothing more to finish this last Illustration and to draw from thence the so-essential Instruction of our Duties of Time and of Eternity of the Present Life and the Future Life of the Present World and the World to come of all our Present Condition and of all our Future State Than to remark that this Estate of the Souls out of the Body will not be changed in the main at bottom but only in some Circumstances not essential by the Re-union of the Bodies which will be made by the Universal Resurrection CHAP. XIII That this State of the Souls out of the Body will not be changed in the main or at Bottom by the new State of the Universal Resurrection but only in some accessory Circumstances ALthough we do not at all find in the Sentiment or in the precise Idea which we have of our Souls the Certainty and the Conviction of their Future Re-union with the Bodies which Faith teaches us ought to be made by the Universal Resurrection it is for all that certain That considering all the Train and all the Concatenation of the Mysteries and Principles whereof the Divine System of Religion and of Christianity is formed considering also the honor of the Divine Attributes which require That God should be jealous of his Glory and of the happy Event and Success of his Designs It is altogether evident That God who hath been pleased to Assemble the two kinds of Natures which only are known to Us whether as Existing or as Possible viz. To wit Corporeal Nature and Spiritual Nature into one single Compositum and one single Whole or Hypostasis to make thereof the Master-piece of the Visible World and as it were an Epitome an Abridgment or a curious Recapitulation of all his Works ought necessarily to Re-place it and to Re-establish it such as he formed it and designed it at first He ought to do it either for his own honor and glory as Creator to the end That Man may eternally subsist in this admirable Composition of Body and of Spirit who holding equally of the Visible and Corporeal World and of the Intelligible and Spiritual World makes as it were a Third and a kind of One altogether singular which infinitely exalteth his Wisdom and his Power or else for the honor and glory of the Redemption and of the Man-God who would eternally remain Imperfect and Defective if things were not Re-established upon the foot of the first Plat-form and of the first Design of the Creation and by consequence if the Bodies were not re-placed with the Souls because the Man-God would not be altogether a Repairer and a Restorer if he did not re-place Man such as he was at first Created and Designed and his Triumph over Sin over Death and Satan would not be compleat and finished if the half of Men should remain in the Jaws of Death Considering then all this Train of the Divine System of Religion it is without doubt most clear and certain That the Universal Resurrection ought to be a Circumstance of that glorious Solemnity of Justice which God ought then to make at the Consummation of Ages for the Consecration of his Eternal Temple for the Overture and Commencement of his Immortal Reign for the Solemn Coronation of his Predestined for the compleat Triumph of the Man-God for the Justification of all his Providence and the Declaration of all his Designs It is I say indubitable and constant That then at the end of the present Oeconomy and then when God will put an end to the Vicissitudes of Time and to the liberty of Revolt and of License which he gives at present to his Creatures then when he will fix all things in an Immutable and Eternal Order then when he will give a beginning to the New World He will then Re-establish all the Bodies and Re-unite every Soul to that which she animated during the present Life But in the mean time as we cannot say That our Souls find in themselves the Sentiment of their future Re-union with their Bodies so we will not speak of it here but as a Truth of Faith because we proposed to our selves to decide nothing concerning Them but what we should find Established either by our own proper Sentiment and our indubitable Experience or by a clear Light of Evidence arising from the Notion which we have made our selves of it as of a knowing Nature sensible of Order and Duty no less than of Pleasure and Pain and of all that is done in Her but this Truth presupposed and elsewhere sufficiently justified to the Idea of the Divine Attributes and in all the Train of the Principles of Religion and of Christianity VVe may speak with assurance of the manner how our Souls will be in their Resuscitated Bodies He who calls Himself the Resurrection and the Life the First-Born amongst the Dead the Father of the Ages to come He in whom we are all raised up again in Mystery and in Figure according to St. Pauls Expression and by whom we all of us ought to be raised up again effectively at the Last Day He tells us that we shall be then even in our Bodies like the Angels disfranchised from the Businesses and the Inclinations which we have upon the Occasion of the Body St. Paul also teaches us That our Bodies shall be Spiritualized and we may upon this Principle decide with certainty That the Re-union of Bodies doth not at all change the Foundation of that State of the Soul out of the Body the manner and circumstances whereof we have been Illustrating When St. Paul saith That our Bodies shall be Spiritualized by the Resurrection he
a Consequence of the clear and sensible Conviction of the Disorder of our foolish and Idolatrous love of our Body which we believe to be so lawful and so innocent We shall draw from the Principle of our Immortal Condition the Consequence of an evident Conviction of the Disorder of our bewitching love of the present Life whereof we have so little Remorse We shall draw from the Principle of the Divine Quality of our Souls which is the Honor of the Divine Resemblance which Nature begins in them by Conscience and by the Seeds of Vertue and which Grace and Glory do finish the Consequence of the Condemnation of that little care which we have to cooperate to the Honor of the Divine Resemblance We shall draw from the Principle of the Alternativeness of the immutable State of Felicity and Misery which must succeed the present Fortune and which we have presently to decide by the good usage of Time and of this Life the Conviction of the outragious Folly of our violent Transports and of our fury of Ambition for the present Fortunes which we regard as the only Prudence and the only Wisdom of this Life The Condemnation of our Forgetfulness and of our Wandring from God First of all How condemnable are we for forgetting God since it is true That our Souls do not only come from God but they live Essentially in him and that after this short Interruption of their Immediate Union with him which makes the present Life they ought to return and eternally remain in him How great is the Disorder in your Opinion of this Forgetfulness The Scripture saith That the Stars being incapable of Sentiments and of Knowledge have a perpetual Acknowledgment for him who gave them Light and for that Reason to testifie it to him they send him back perpetually their Light and are continually turn'd towards him as if it were to tell him that for Him only they desire to shine that it is for Him only that they do shine Lucent ei qui fecit illas Here is an Idea and a Lesson which they give us of the continual Application and perpetual Return which we ought to have towards God for perceiving and acknowledging his Presence his Divine Illumination and his Influence in us But we are far enough from following this Lesson our Heart and our Spirit do turn themselves equally from him they equally lose themselves in useless Thoughts and plunging themselves and advancing farther and farther into this Land of Forgetfulness and this Region of Darkness they do not so much as once a Day no not perhaps once a Week once a Month once a Year call to mind their Divine Origine and their Celestial Dependence Obstupescite Coeli super hoc here would the Prophet Esay say All Nature saith the same thing with the Prophet and would rise and Arm her self against this so monstrous Ingratitude and this so monstrous Insolence There is not betwixt Man and Man the like Example of Injustice of Brutality and of Rashness It would be very much that the Heart only should forget God and should wander from him in searching as she doth her Happiness and her Pleasure out of him which is the greatest Wandring that can be But it is not the Heart alone that for gets God and wanders from him the Spirit it self the Spirit who could have quitted it self at so easie a rate of the Duty of its Dependence and its Acknowledgment the Spirit forgets him the Spirit effaces his Idea the Spirit turns it self wholly from him it revolts entirely And tho' the Spirit receives continually a Light and Thought from God it is by him that she Perceives all that she perceives it is by him that she Thinks all that she Thinks and it is by him that she Knows all that she Knows and yet so far is she from acknowledging and perceiving it that she believes that she is a Light to her self and she doth not at all believe that she oweth any thing to God for it If the the Sun did never Set or were never under a Cloud we should not at all believe that it was by it we had the Light we should believe that the Light by the help of which we see all things were in our Eyes and because God doth continually Enlighten us because that this Sun never Sets because that this Sun is always ready to Enlighten us every instant we believe that we have in our selves the Light and the Idea's where with He Enlightens us The Dog lifts up his Head to him who gives Bread to him the Spirit of Man doth not at all lift up his Thoughts towards him who continually gives him all his Light and all his Life O Ingratitude O Revolt What Judgment do you think doth God make of those Men who live in Courts in Palaces and in great Offices of all sort of Profession who pass their Days their Weeks their Months their Years all their whole Life without any true Remembrance or any true Sentiment of him and of the continual Dependence which we have of the perpetual Irradiation of his Eternal Essence With what Eyes do you think doth he look upon them What Violence do you think doth he offer himself in not hastning the end of their Lives and the beginning of his Vengeance Yet He never spoke with more Resentment than Laboravi sustinens He never thunder'd or demanded Justice from Heaven or Earth with more vehemence He never demanded it with a greater Indignation Let us see if there be any thing like this amongst Men from a Subject to a King from Children to their Parents from Husbands to their Wives from Servants to their Masters or amongst the most savage Beasts towards those who take care to feed them But if you conceive thereby how Criminal our forgetfulness of and our wandring from God is you will apprehend how unhappy it is by the Anger with which God will receive those ungrateful Souls who forget him when they shall return to him The Rivers which flow from the Sea return to the Sea The Bodies which came from the Earth return to the Earth And our Souls which came from God return also necessarily to God They are as it were Portions of himself which he recalls and would have reunited to the Whole if we may be permitted to say so after the Ancient Fathers Exivi à Patre veni in mundum saith Jesus Christ iterum relinquo mundum vado ad Patrem I am come out from my Father and I am come into the World and I must again leave the World and go to my Father He said it for himself and for us equally He being come from God ought to return to God being sent from God to the Earth ought to return to God And our Souls which in the same manner are sent into the Body and into the Visible World to be there try'd ought to return to God they came from God and they return to God and