its Channel Our Heart doth never turn aside from God who is its bound and its Center but it wanders and it never wanders from God but it Revolts and commits an extream Out rage upon Him In Loving God thus we are able to Love every thing that we are pleased to Love as St. Augustin says Because that in loving him after this manner whatsoever we shall Love it will be Him that we shall principally Love it will be Him that we shall Love with a Final and Central Love if I may be permitted to say so with the Holy Fathers but not loving God after this manner We cannot love any thing without a Fault without Impiety and without Sacriledge to any other Objects whatsoever that our Love is tied without him and out of him it is a Prophanation of the most Sacred Thing of the World Since it is the Prophanation of the invincible and insurmountable Motion of Attraction by which God draws us to himself under the confused Idea of Good which he would have us to render distinct and neat in acknowledging that it is He alone that is the Good whereby our necessary and invincible Love of Good is rendred a free and a deserving Love because this Sovereign Being is so Good that He is willing to make it deserving for our applying our selves to distinguish that He alone is the Good that it is He alone who gives us Pleasure and can make in us Contentment And since we have made the distinction let us not be deceived by false Idea's of false Goods which the rash Judgments of our Passions and of our Senses propose to us and make us place amongst their Objects The Love of Complacency And it is not only this Love of this Holy Concupiscence which we owe to God We owe him also an infinite Love of Complacency wholly disinteressed and wholly pure We ought to Love this Eternal and Sovereign Beauty for its own sake and if we Reflect upon the manner how she discovers her self to Us in the manner whereby she Acts continually in our Souls as hath been Explained We shall see that as it is God that we Love by that confused Motion of our Heart by which we Love and search after Pleasure so it is only Him likewise that we Love by the Natural Love that we have for Order for Truth and for Justice and generally for all Duty for it is God who is this Order this Truth and this Justice which we Love when as wholly Irregular as we are we Love Order and Duty in spight of our selves and when we hate and condemn the disorder and violation of Duty which we commit This Truth this Justice and this Order which makes it self thus to be beloved by all Spirits and all Hearts in all parts of the World is nothing else but God himself This is the Sovereign Beauty of Nature and of the Supream Essence the Lively and Eternal Source of Order of Equity and of Duty the Eternal and Substantial Truth which not discovering it self but by Rays as it were escaping out and all obscured by the Clouds of our inordinate Desires thro' which these pass even to our Eyes makes this Sovereign Adoration of Love from all Hearts to be rendred to it That Beauty which we have in Vertue and in Duty is nothing else but the weak Glimmerings of the ineffable Beauty and Charm of the Supream Being Every thing that we Love whether it be in the Abstracted Idea of our Duties or in the real Charms of the Creatures is nothing but the Splendor and the Rays or to say better The Shaddow of that Charm of Sovereign Beauty and Perfection which gloriously Shines in the Supream Nature Nature commences equally in us the Love of Complacency and the Love of Union or of Holy Concupiscence which all Created Spirits owe to God As it is God whom we Love necessarily under the confused Idea of Happiness of Contentment and of Pleasure so it is him whom we Love invincibly under the Idea's and under the Names of Truth of Justice of Beauty of Vertue of Duty or of Equity for that Truth that Justice that Beauty and that Equity that All-Intelligible and All-Invisible Light of Truth of Equity and of Duty which Shines in all places of the World that makes it self be Seen Loved and Adored invincibly by all Hearts in all Ages and in all People Civilized and Barbarous cannot chuse but be at least the Glimmering of an Eternal and an Infinite Light wholly Intelligible and wholly Invisible which subsists Eternally and Essentially by it self and makes a part and one even of the Principal Grounds of that Sovereign Nature and Perfection which we call the Supream Nature and Being And as we perceive that this Glimmering and these Glances of this Original Beauty is so amicable by it self that as corrupt as we are we cannot hinder our selves from Loving it so it is easie for us to comprehend That this Sovereign Nature from which it flows together with that Almighty Charm whereof we resent so strong and so invincible an Empire continually deserves well our Complacency and to be Loved only and Sovereignly for it self Thus it is That in Reflecting upon the manner how the Eternal Beauty gives a glimpse of it self to our Souls thro' the Bodies which obscure it and which are as it were Vails and Walls betwixt the Souls and it We are able and we ought to lift up our selves above all Corporeal and sensible Beauties and Images for to despise them and to mount up to the Eternal Beauty to Adore and to Love it only But if all our Duties towards God spring so Naturally from these Idea's which the knowledge of our Souls gives us of Him those which we owe to our selves and which we owe to other Men do no less flow from thence CHAP. XXIV Duties towards our Selves and towards other Men and first of Temperance and of the Crime of Incontinence YOU see there how all our Religious Duties towards God do spring and flow from that fruitful Principle of the Visible Empire with which God who holds our Souls in our Bodies Acts perpetually in them Let us see now how those for which we are indebted to our selves do thence arise and spring likewise We have included them all a long while ago under the Term and Name of Temperance and Temperance includes all in Effect It means every thing that we owe to our selves whether for the Body or for the Soul and who sees not that it springs from what hath been said concerning the Assembly of the Soul and the Body That God for such Noble Ends condemns all Dissoluteness which dishonors and degrades both the one and the other There are some who are hard to be convinced of the Disorder and of the Crime of certain Incontiniences But let them conceive well the Design of God in the Union which He makes of Souls and Bodies and in the End of the Instincts and Motions of Pleasure which
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
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
and Actions the love of Pleasure and of sensible Good which is The Pleasure which we have from the Occasion of our Bodies This Experience is also indubitable for no Man can hinder himself from loving Good and Pleasure and every one that reflects upon it will find and perceive it in himself a Man will find that he is able to deprive himself of one Pleasure when he is in view of another but he will never find his Heart without the love of Pleasure It is an Empire of Nature or to say better of the Master of Nature which we can no ways resist Our Souls are indubitably push'd on continually by a greater Force towards Pleasure and from thence is form'd in Us that Propensity towards Good but which carrying us towards sensible Good is become by Sin the Matter and living Source of a thousand Passions which Rule over us We love our Bodies and the Pleasures which we have from their Occasion by an Invincible Empire altho' we see that this Love is oftentimes in many of its Acts quite contrary to our Duty and to the Order of the Supreme Will and of Reason The Body enticeth us by our Concupiscence against our Conscience and against our Reason and Nature hath equally plac'd in Us Concupiscence and Conscience Passion and Reason You see here Six Remarkable Experiences which I have been observing concerning the Empire and Dominion which our Souls suffer in our Bodies on the part of the Author of Nature to which we might add others but since these here are sufficient to give us a great and clear sight and to prepare us to understand the manner how our Souls are in our Bodies and thereby our Duties of Dependance and of Religion of Fear and of Love towards God and our Obligations of Justice and of Charity towards Mankind and of Temperance towards our selves therefore I will let the others alone without using them and so pass on to let you observe That as the Author of Nature Commands us and Rules over us indubitably in all these manners in our Bodies so He Serves us also and Obeys us and if I may be permitted to say so we Command Him in our Turn and we are Obey'd with an exact Regularity CHAP. III. Experiences of the Power which Governs Nature and which comes to the Assistance of our Souls in a moment I. WE find First That when we Move our Bodies we do no more precisely than to Will them to Move for we do not feel that there goes any kind of thing from Us but the Desire to Move our selves and the Act of the Determinative Faculty of the Will by the which we give a Command to the Body to Move it self and because we know too well from other things our Dependence our Weakness and our limited Power to be able to believe that we have a Power to Operate any thing out of Us by our Will alone since That is the Character of an Infinite Power as we have already said Upon this indubitable Experience which we have that doing nothing but to Will our selves to Move we do Move our selves nevertheless effectively we therefore conclude that there must be an Assisting Power which moves our Bodies in the moment that we would have it And as this Power is Immense and Infinite since It Operates through all in the same time moving all the Bodies of Men when they will and that It is also indubitably Enlightned Wise and Unchangeable since It doth not move them but in the instant that we Will and by the inviolable Rule of a certain Disposition in our Nerves and in our Members from whence it comes to pass That those that have the Palsey cannot move themselves tho' they would We conclude therefore that this can be nothing but the Power of the Author of Nature from whence we infer That the Author of Nature intermeddles between our Souls and our Bodies and that He takes Part and Interest in their Union and in the manner how these Natures and these Spiritual Substances Are in the Terrestrial and Mortal Habitations of our Bodies II. Another Experience of the same from the diversity of delectable and painful Sentiments We find in the Second place under this new Consideration That this same Enlightned Immense and Immutable Power doth continually serve our Souls in our Bodies for to advertise them in an instant of every thing that is done in them and to advertise them of it to their Advantage too For so soon as there is any Impression or any Alteration made or caused within the Body which of it self tends to the dissolution and destruction of it or even but to the incumbrance and hindrance of its Functions so soon the Soul is in an instant advertis'd thereof by a sad and painful Sentiment which she finds her self suddenly transpierc'd with as with a sharp pointed Instrument which she finds her self attacked with without knowing whereby or how it entred And on the contrary if there be any Motion made in her Body which tends of it self either to its good Disposition or to the Conservation of a Humane Species the Soul soon in a moment finds her self penetrated and tickl'd with an agreeable Sentiment which we call Pleasure and Delight without knowing in like manner either how or where it entred It is likewise in the same manner with indifferent Impressions which do neither good nor hurt to the Body the Soul is in like manner in an instant advertis'd by this Illuminating Immense and Immutable Power but not by the Sentiment of Pleasure or of Pain which would be false if instead of Impressions indifferent to the Body She should give Sentiments which might affectionate and determine it to Love or to Hate But Sentiments indifferent such as are White Black Dry and Moist and Images and Idea's indifferent also which leave the Soul the liberty of approaching or withdrawing it self from those Objects upon whose Occasion she hath them I call this Power Immense because It Operates through all at the same time within both Poles and in the two Hemispheres I call it Illuminating because it neither gives salsly nor unseasonably neither Idea's nor Sentiments And I call it Immutable because it do's not give them but by inviolable and immutable Rules from which it never swerves III. A Third Experience That God Acts as an Universal Cause in the manner that he Acts upon our Souls and upon our Bodies We find in the Third place That this Power which Acts in Us as well to Obey and Serve us as to Rule over us Acts not between our Souls and our Bodies between whom it Acts without ceasing as appears by all these Experiences which we have already remarked as a Particular and a Free Cause but as an Universal and Necessary Cause because we experience that it Acts not from the occasion of the same Immutable Laws by which it hath resolv'd to entertain a Commerce between the Soul and the Body and that this Power Acts
Heaven to favour our Ignorance for this is no ways to have recourse to Miracles thus to reduce things to their Essential Principle and to their Necessary and Immediate Causes on the one Part and on the other Part to the common and universal Experience of all Men and to the most constant Idea's of Religion which is what we are doing here when having caus'd to be observ'd that we receive the Sentiments and Idea's of particular Bodies by the only Passive Faculty of the Soul and by a Superior Power which Rules over us and which Enlightens us and having demonstrated that we cannot at all be Knowing Beings by our selves since that is the Priviledge of God alone but that we are Essentially Knowing by an Exterior and Superior Irradiation and Illumination and that this Illumination and Irradiation cannot come to us neither from other Bodies nor from our own by reason of the Impossibility that there is that a Body can be United to a Spirit to Act upon it and Enlighten or Affect and Modifie it we say that it comes from God from God the Author of our Being and the Necessary Cause and Principle of the Union and of the Meeting together of the two different and disproportion'd Parts which Compose us This is neither to have recourse to Miracle nor to call to God to descend to the help of Humane Weakness and Ignorance but on the contrary this is to mount up again to the true Principle of all the particular Idea's and all the Sentiments which we have of Bodies and of things Corporeal upon the Occasions of our Bodies This is to reduce the confus'd Idea of the Union which God makes of our Souls and Bodies to a clear and neat Idea This is to acknowledge the true Principle of our Light and to cut off all the false Idea's by the which we have been accustom'd either to make Our Selves God in Figuring to our selves that we have of our selves Pleasure and Pain and the Idea's of things or to make Gods of all the Bodies which environ us in believing that They are those which Enlighten and Illuminate us or which at the same time make us Happy by Pleasure and Unhappy by Pain and Dolor Not to be willing that we should refer to God the Action which unites our Souls to our Bodies is Not to be willing that we should refer to him the Creation of Souls and the Existence of the World And as the Passage which the Body makes in the Soul by Corporeal Impressions is either the necessary continuance or the very Act of the Union of our Souls and of our Bodies not to be willing that it is God who doth This Immediately is Not to be willing that it should be him who by himself Immediately unites both our Bodies and our Souls which is a Species of Atheism The happy Fecundity of this Principle for Morality Thus we are able to felicitate our selves and to rejoyce our selves in having found out together with the clear Idea and Notion of the manner how our Souls have their Idea's and their Sentiments upon the Occasion of the Body the Discovery of our Intimate Union with God and of our perpetual Dependence upon him of a continual Action of him in us of a living Source of Lights and of Pleasures which are in him and of a fruitful and of an abounding Source of the Duties of Love and Fear of Dependence and of Gratitude which ought to keep us continually united to him Let others study God in the visible World and Morality in the Books of the Doctors I will for my part neither study the one nor the other but in my own Soul and in the manner whereby she perceives and whereby she knows every thing that she doth know out of her self Let others make Efforts of Imagination and prescribe to themselves a thousand Practices for to keep themselves continually present to God I for my part will desire no more than my Principle and a moderate Attention to that which passes continually in me never to lose the sight of God but to have him always present Let other search into imperfect Reasonings for the Motives of the Love and the Fear which they owe to God for my part I will only reflect upon the Pleasures which I have in the very Acts even of the Animal Life for to see in God a Source of infinite Felicities and by consequence an immense and an infinite Loveliness for what should I more naturally love than that Living Source of Pleasure since it is nothing but Pleasure that I love But this is not all I will besides only reflect upon the Equality with which God Enlightens every moment all Men to conceive that he is the Father and the common Center in whom we are all united and in whom we ought all of us to love one another to honor one another and to support one another and to observe Fidelity and Justice towards one another There are moreover I see in this Knowledge of my Soul Incitements to Duty as well as Duties themselves Let others seek to fright their Concupiscences by the dreadful Paintings of Eternal Judgment for my part I need only a simple View and a moderate Reflection upon the Pains and Dolors which we resent upon the account of our Bodies by the efficacious Impression of that Power which keeps our Souls united to our Bodies For if to affectionate us to the preservation of our Bodies and to remove far from us the things which are hurtful to them it penetrates us with such lively Dolors what will those be wherewith it will transpierce our impure and rebellious Souls which shall render themselves deserving of his Anger And what Pains must he have establish'd to oblige us to watch after the conservation of our Souls since he takes so much pains to make us watch for the preservation of these miserable Bodies which are only a vile and despicable Garment of the Soul But let us not any farther enlarge here upon these Moral Consequences whose solid Principles and Foundation we shall discover in its proper place Let us advance and after having made clear the manner how our Souls have Idea's and Sentiments upon the occasion of our Bodies and after having cut off many Idea's and many Prepossessions full of Error with which it was impossible to conceive the manner how our Souls Are and Operate in our Bodies we must now endeavour to conceive it CHAP. VIII How our Souls Are in our Bodies THAT Evidence which we have of the manner how we have Sentiments and Idea's begins to give a Light to our Eyes which makes us see the manner how our Souls are in our Bodies and we have another Light which will completely let us see it and as it were touch it and This is the Experience of the manner how we move our Bodies We have a continual Experience That our Souls have Power to move our Bodies for there is nothing more certain in the
Acts voluntary and Acts involuntary Grief is involuntary Despair is not WE observe in Us in the third place Operations or Acts voluntary and Operations and Acts involuntary For we Experience that there are Things which we do with the Will and by the Will and Things which we do not do neither by the Will nor with the Will as are for Example the Acts of all kind of Pains for our Soul doth in such manner receive Pain by the invincible Empire of Nature that is to say of that Power which governs Nature and which rules over it that she doth cause it in receiving it It is in our Soul that Grief is made and there is nothing made in her to which she doth not contribute and concur and it is in spite of her that she concurs to cause Grief in her self Grief is altogether involuntary but it is not the same with the proper and true Passion of Despair as some have been pleased to say for the Despair of the Soul which sees and perceives the Impossibilities of avoiding Evil and of attaining the Good which she pursues This dejection and this discouragement accompanied with this profound Sadness and with this cruel Sentiment of Privation is truly and properly voluntary because the Will is that Motion by which our Soul is driven on invincibly towards Good to unite it to her self and to be united to it This is the love of Good in general and we ought to call properly voluntary every thing that comes from this love of Good and from the Motion which carries and drives us towards it as its certain that from thence comes Despair as well as all the other resentments of the Appetite for we should not be so afflicted penetrated and overwhelm'd with the privation of Good if we did not love it This is that which made St. Augustin say That the Eternal Despair of the Reprobates in Hell is a true love of the Sovereign Good CHAP. XIII Acts Free and Acts Necessary The Empire of God over Us. WE observe in the fourth place Acts Free and Acts Necessary for I distinguish betwixt Free Acts and Voluntary Acts every Thing that is Free is Voluntary but every Thing that is Voluntary is not Free. The Will is the necessary and invincible Motion of our Soul towards Good This is that necessary love and that invincible determination which we have for Good in general by the which we shun Evil and every thing that hurts and afflicts us and we pursue sometimes one particular Good and then another as they more or less immediately concern Us. You see there precisely what the Will is as hath been already said and to speak exactly nothing is Voluntary but what is made in Us by the determination or flowing of this Motion or of this general love of Good and every thing that is done by this Motion is truly and properly Voluntary From whence it comes to pass that all the Passions are Voluntary But there is something more wanting to make an Action Free. Liberty is commonly confounded with the Will but this is only by the ignorant Vulgar or by those who will not give themselves the trouble to reflect upon the diversity of the Operations of the Soul Liberty to say truth is accompanied with the Will which is that which gives occasion to the Confusion which men make of these two Terms But the Will is not precisely Liberty Liberty is precisely that Empire which we have of being able to determin our selves of which we have spoken in the beginning of this Treatise and often times we have not that Liberty in the Acts which flow from that Charm by the which the Supream Being draws Us to him under the confus'd Idea of Good which is that we call the Will There are Acts Voluntary which are not at all Free tho' all that are Free are Voluntary and after this Observation we must come to observe the difference of our Free Acts and of our Necessary Acts for the difference of them is Essential and Important All the Acts of the Passions and of the Sensations and all those of the Imagination and of the Memory are properly Necessary altho' often Voluntary They are never Free immediately and in themselves They may be Free in a manner afar off in the Will which being able to prevent them and to avoid them in removing the Objects afar off or in shutting their Entry into their Senses yet do's not do it but they can never be Free properly and formally in themselves because it do's not at all depend upon our Liberty or upon our Will to be sensible or not to be sensible of Heat or Cold Green or Gray when the Objects of them are applied and are present to the perceptive Faculty of the Soul We may easily shut our Eyes and not let that reflective Light to enter in from the Superficies of the Object which Engraves it self in our Retina We may easily shut our Eye-lids and our Ears we may stop our Nostrils and not put the Meat into our Mouths But we cannot hinder the Impression of Light if once it is enter'd into our Eyes nor that of Odor or Savor if they have affected those Nerves which are proper to carry the Impression of them to the Brain We must necessarily have a living and penetrating Sense thereof The perception and certainty of an intimate and of an animated Experience which affects Us and penetrates Us to the bottom of our Soul and which some express very well by the term of a lively and intimate modification of the Soul There is in Nature a Power which handles Us at its pleasure and which Rules over Us with an invincible Efficacy it enters into the perceptive and appetitive Faculty of our Soul as it were vi armis It makes in Us without Us and in spite of Us a thousand Idea's a thousand Sentiments a thousand Passions and a thousand different Resentments It is not only not in our power to cause in Us Heat or Cold White or Black the Idea of a Man or the Idea of a Lyon But it is not then in our power to shut the entry to these Sentiments or to these Idea's so long as the exterior Organs of our Senses are open to the Corporeal Impressions of the Objects which environ Us we cannot either suspend Pleasure or Pain or any other Sentiments or any of the Idea's which we have upon the occasion of exterior Bodies which Act upon Ours Nor can we make that that which causes Pain should produce pleasure in Us or what gives Us the Sentiment of Green should give Us that of Yellow We cannot at all change the qualiity of our Sentiments nor of our Idea's There is nothing Free in Us in that respect all is Necessary all is Forced all comes from an Empire and from a Power invincible and inflexible God hath been pleased to imprint in Us the Sentiment of his Likeness by the Liberty which he hath given Us
But he hath been pleased to give Us and imprint in Us also continually the Sentiment of our Subjection and Dependence He hath been pleased to make Us see his Sovereign Empire and his Infinite Power with the Character of his Immensity expanded thro' All and thro' All operating by that perpetual Empire which he exercises at the same time in all the parts of the World in making the same Idea's the same Sentiments and the same Passions continually to enter into the Souls of Men at such time as the same Impressions are made in their Brains either by the external Actions of Objects or by the fortuitous Course or the irregular Motion of the Blood of the Spirit and of the Humors If we should seriously reflect upon these two sorts of Operations of Acts Free and of Acts Necessary which we experience in Us as it will be impossible for Us not to know our Spiritual Nature so it will be impossible for Us to be ignorant of our Dependence and we should have the heart as well penetrated with Religious Sentiments with which we ought to be penetrated towards God as the Spirit instructed or enlightned with the clear and indubitable Idea of our Spiritual Nature and of the Essential Union which she hath with God CHAP. XIV Acts of Conscience Acts of Concupiscence Acts of Reason Acts of Passion WE observe in Us in the fifth place Acts of Conscience and Acts of Concupiscence Acts of Reason and Acts of Passion for I am not willing to separate things which do so much resemble one another Conscience is that sensibility of Duty which we have explained and described elsewhere Reason saith and includes more than Conscience for Reason is that Ground of the Superior Light which doth not only Regulate Duties but the Conduit also of all sorts of Affairs Conscience imports Reason every Act of Conscience is an Act of Reason but every Act of Reason is not an Act of Conscience Concupiscence and Passion are almost like Reason and Conscience Every Act of Passion is an Act of Concupiscence but every Act of Concupiscence is not an Act of Passion Concupiscence is the Will enticed to the side of Sensible Objects It is the love of Good in general essentially imprinted in Man and grounded in the Essence of the Soul turn'd out of the way by the Empire of Sense to the side of Sensible Good The Soul loving Good in general and Spiritual and Rational Good in particular conserves the Name of the Will and is otherwise called the Rational Appetite and this same Soul loving Sensible Good is called Concupiscence or the Sensitive and Material Appetite which is in us an Universal Ground of all sorts of Evil Desires and Evil Inclinations and the true Matter of that which we call Passions This love of Sensible Good is called simple Concupiscence when it is not extraordinarily over-heated and set on Fire by the lively Impression of some Object which is that which makes it turn into Passion It is simple Concupiscence when the Brain is not Imprinted with any Corporeal Image that presents to the Soul the lively Idea of some Part or of some kind of sensible Good It is Passion when the Impression of any Object hath caused to spring up in the Soul a more lively and more touching Idea than usually of what kind soever it may be of sensible Good This Corporeal Image retraced in the Brain with Tracks better marked more deep doth dilate the Vessels which make the commerce betwixt the Heart and the Brain it spreads its Rays thro'-out all the Body it diffuses there a Blood more fired and it causes an Universal Motion with a thousand different Characters according to the diversity of the Passion This Ground of Sensibility for sensible Good This Ground of the Appetitive Faculty This Ground of Love of Good in General turned into sensible Love is the Ground of all the Passions of Ambition of Avarice of the love of Pleasures of tender Friendship and not only of the Passions but of all their Acts and of all their divers Estates of their Joys and of their Sorrows of their Hope and of their Fears of every Sentiment of the Soul that is called Passion The Soul is subjected to this misery by the General Law of her Union with the Body to have necessarily a love for every thing that is presented to her under the Idea of a sensible Good or of the Good of the Body and capable of causing her to have agreeable Sentiments This is the General Law of the Union and of the punishment of God since sin which hath diminished to the Soul the Empire which she had over the Body hath augmented the Effect of the General Law of the Union Concupiscence is natural and essential to Man so far as to a certain Degree And it is in this Sense that St. Agustin says That the love of sensible Good might have been to Man in his State of Innocence or if you please of pure Nature but that Degree of Concupiscence in which we are born Children of Wrath which is a domineering Concupiscence cannot be in Man but by the punishment of his Revolt which makes it just that he should find and resent in himself by the Revolt from his Sensible Love against his Reason and his Conscience the disorder of his Revolt against God It is by the Law of the Union of the Soul with the Body that the Soul sees her Love of Good in General turn to the side of Sensible Good That she conceives the most lively Sparkles of it as often as any disposition makes the Blood and the Spirits to flow more lively thro' all the Body upon the occasion of some Sensible Good which hath been Mark'd in the Brain with most profound Tracks But it is by the punishment of sin that the Soul hath not command enough over the Fibres to hinder them from conceiving too much Motion or to stop the vehement Course of the Blood and Spirits which give to the Imagination that so Tyrannical force which it exercises over Reason Men distinguish the ground of Love into concupiscible and irascible Appetite But this is but one and the same Appetite which is diversly moved and determined by Goods conceived as easie and by Goods conceived as hard to be acquired that is to say that the Soul doth otherwise pursue after Goods where she sees not any difficulty and otherwise those Goods in which she sees difficulty the which excite in her bold and couragious Motions from whence comes the Passions of Boldness or Courage of Hope and Expectation A fruitful Overture of Morality You see here generally what Concupiscence is and its Passions It might be useful to descend into the particulars of all the divers Motions and of all the divers Acts whether of Concupiscence or of Passions and to explain how we Love and how we Hate how we Attend and how we Desire how we Rejoyce and how we are Sad how we are
raised up by Courage and how we are depressed by Fear and Despair but it suffices to say in general for the end of the Design of this Essay That the Soul suffers these divers Agitations according to the Images of Sensible Good which are diversly Engraved in our Brain and in those Parts of it where is the Seat and the Organ of that which we call the Internal Sense or Common Sense and Imagination three Names to signifie one and the same thing This ought to make Us comprehend how we ought to watch over our selves for to keep our Imaginations pure by the usage of Mortification by the frequent Suspension from the commerce of the World and by the practice of Retirement of holy Reading and of Meditation And how we ought to fear the deadly Poysons of Pleasure which add by their usage a new Concupiscence besides that of Nature and that of the Punishment and the Curse of God Acts of Conscience You see here once more what Concupiscence is in Us and the Passions We do too much experience their Acts and we cannot likewise but perceive in us Acts of Conscience and of Reason contrary to those of Concupiscence and of Passion Concupiscence or the Sensitive and Material Appetite never Reigns so in us but that the Rational Appetite doth in some measure oppose its Dominations The Love of Good in general doth not so suffer it self to be carried away to the side of Sensible Good but that there remains some Activity and some force in it to drive the Soul to the side of Spiritual and Rational Good Conscience and Reason shine always a little in the midst of the greatest darknesses of disorder and corruption Spiritual and Rational Celestial and Eternal Good make an Interview one with the other and the Soul always remains sensible of it She takes pleasure in it as St. Paul says Then even when she is enticed away by Sensible Love The Law of the Spirit doth always a little contradict that of the Flesh This is an Eternal Combate and from thence came the Acts of Conscience and of Reason which are always seen in Us sensibly as well as those of Concupiscence and of Passion to serve for a witness to God and for the Justifications of his Judgments CHAP. XV. Confused Idea's or Sentiments and clear and distinct Idea's or Notions VVE observe in Us in the sixth place The Acts of a confused Idea or of pure Sentiment without any distinct Image of the Object which determines them and Acts of distinct Idea's For there are Things which we do not know but by a Sentiment or an Idea confused and there are some who speak thus and give the Name of a confused Idea to Acts of pure Sentiment and we must give leave to every one to speak as he pleases and accommodate our selves to the relish of all the World when it doth not embroil or confound any thing as this here There are Things then which we do not know but after this manner and such are all the Sensible Qualities of Bodies for we know not either Light or Savor nor Odor Sound or Color at least by the Acts by which we perceive them but by pure Sentiment without any neat Idea We are able well enough to attain by reasoning to Form in us a neat and distinct Idea of all those Things on the Parts of the Objects which determin in us the lively Sentiment thereof which Sentiment penetrates and affects us intimately at their presence For Example We are well able to convince our selves by many Reflections that it is nothing but Light according as it is diversly reflected and modified which causes the Sentiments of the diversity of Color which we have We may convince our selves that as it is nothing but the division of the Flesh and the Fibres that is the immediate Object of Pain when a Thorn pricks us so it is nothing also but a gentle Titillation of the Tongue and Palate that is the immediate Object of the Sentiment of Savor But the Idea which we make to our selves by our Reasoning and by our Reflection is quite another thing so is that which gives us the Impression of the Object by the Act which we call Sentiment It is certain that our Sensations do not by themselves give us the Idea of any of their Objects We perceive White Black Light Heat Cold Bitter Sweet without knowing what White is or Black Light Heat Cold Bitter or Sweet but only that we perceive them after such and such a manner which we are not able to make others comprehend who never perceived them On the contrary we have Acts of a near Idea and of a clear and distinct Image by the which we are able to make those comprehend that which we know and perceive who never did perceive any thing of the like For this is the difference of Knowledges by Idea and of Knowledges by Sentiment Strive for Example To make a Man who never felt Pain to comprehend what Pain is We may say the same of Pleasure of White of Black of Green of Yellow of Sweet of Bitter of Heat and Cold You shall Reason to all Eternity before you shall be ever able to make that confused Idea which you have of those things after your Sentiments to pass into the Spirit of any Man though of the most easie and most ready Conception but for the Things which we know by clear Idea as all those Things which we imagine or which we conceive by pure Intellection so soon as we have conceived the Idea of them we are able to Communicate them to others and Instruct them of it For Example We have seen a Square or Triangle a Man a Beast a House because it is by neat and distinct Idea's that we have seen these things we are able to describe them to Paint them to make them be comprehended as we have conceived them either by Imagination or by Intellection This is therefore a most remarkable difference of our Operations That we have Knowledges by Idea either of Imagination or of Intellection and Knowledges by pure Sentiment or confused Idea Upon which there is this to be observed That these last are indubitably the Modification of the Soul which she receives from Him who exercises in her that Empire of which we have so often spoken by the which she is Advertised of that which is good for or hurtful to the conservation of the Body by pure Instinct without being properly instructed or enlightned from the Nature and the Essence of the Things upon whose occasion she receives them He that keeps the Souls united to Bodies could have been able to dispose of the Soul for the conservation of the Body if he had been contented for Example to give them by Idea the distinct Knowledge of the disranging of the Fibres which is caused by that excessive Action of Heat which is called Burning and yet the Souls would have been far from being that way disposed to be
us than the perpetual Miracle by which and with which we have seen that God Operates in our Bodies according to the Desires of our Souls I say the Miracle not that that Action by which God transports and moves our Members and our Bodies where we will in the moment that our Souls desire ought to be regarded as a true and proper Miracle since we do not at all call that a Miracle which is made in consequence of the Laws of Nature or the General Will of God But because there is nothing more Divine in all the Miracles that can be than that Regularity whereby the Desires of our Wills are follow'd by the Effective Motion of our Members and of our whole Body at such time as they are not hindred by any Relation or by any Obstruction of the Nerves or by any Dislocation or Fracture of the Bones we may say that this is a perpetual Miracle of Nature which perpetually Preaches to us this Divine Affiance of that Evangelical Faith of which one single Spark like a Grain of Mustard-Seed is able to remove Mountains For as this Eternal Power by the Effect and the Engagement of his General Will by which he makes and entertains the Union of Souls and Bodies applies himself to move and transport our Bodies as we will according to the Laws and the Rules of that Union which he hath resolv'd never to depart from to Act as an Universal Cause as it seems fit to his Greatness and worthy of his Sovereign and Infinite Wisdom So when we unite our selves to him by an entire and perfect Affiance we unite our selves to his Almightiness and we make him sure to do every thing that we expect from him without Doubt and without Uncertainty according to the Sacred Oracles of the Gospel And thus it is that the Saints under the New Law and the Prophets under the Old Law have dispos'd of the Heavenly Almightiness to make it do Wonders and Miracles the Historical Fact of which is the most establish'd and the most incontestable thing in the World almost as we do make use of the Members of our Bodies and the things whereof we have the most free disposition Our Affiance which strictly and intimately unites us by its lively Faith to the Eternal Goodness and Power renders them as it were in some manner united and dependent upon us This Eternal Goodness and this Eternal Power have so great an Inclination to communicate and expand themselves that they only wait for our lively Faith or our Affiance to put themselves into our Hands as it were and to be obedient to our Desires The love of Holy Concupiscence for God But it is above all the Duty of Love whether it be of Complacency and Preference or of Union and Holy Concupiscence which springs and flows sensibly from the Knowledge we have been acquiring of the Sovereign Source of Beauty and of Felicities which that Eternal Essence contains to which we so certainly see that we are able to aspire and to drink eternally of it since at this very hour wherein he doth nothing but make us Combate and keep us in Trial and in Exercise to see if we render our selves worthy of being Rewarded He makes us feel so indubitably the Pleasures and the Delights which he contains and He discovers to us so many Charms and so many Beauties in his Sovereign Nature Brutish Men remove themselves far from God by Pleasure and Pleasure is a Rivulet that flows from that pure and eternal Source by which our Heart ought naturally to mount up again to God The present Pleasure which wholly essentially and immediately comes from God ought to bring us back again to him God doth not give it us but to draw to himself our Hearts to which he hath not given Motion but for Pleasure He hath not given us Love but for Good and Pleasure and he makes us see that the Source of Good and Pleasure is in Him There are some who conceive the Love of Union or of this Holy Concupiscence which I here speak of and whereupon I Establish Duty as a Disorder and Irregularity of Self-love which Reverses the Order of the Essential Relation which all Creatures ought to have to God but this is not rightly to comprehend the Free and Voluntary Relation by which we ought to relate our selves to God We do not only relate our selves to God by the Confession of our Dependence and of His Supereminent Excellence over us by which we do acknowledge that we deserve to be Annihilated by him We do no less relate our selves to him by that which we do from the Source of Pleasure and Happiness which we acknowledge in Him only It is no less agreeable for him to be the Source of Happiness and of Pleasure which is as it were the Accomplishment the Perfection and the Crowning of our Being than to be the Source and the Principle of the Foundation of our Being The Love of Union or of this Sacred Thirst which I call Holy Concupiscence doth no less Honor to God than the Love of the most pure and the most disinteressed Complacency God is not so much God by any other way if we may be permitted to say so than in being the only and essential Source and necessary Principle of Happiness and of Pleasure St. Austin saith That Felicity is in God the Summit of his Divinity because his Infinite Felicity is that which is most Divine and most Eminent in Him and we may say That the Advantage of containing and shutting up in Himself Felicity and Pleasure is if we may be permitted to enhance upon the Expression of St. Augustin the Act and the Summit of that very Summit of his Divinity This Love then of Union and of Holy Concupiscence is not only not Evil and Imperfect but it is positively Infinitely Perfect and the greatest Honor that can be rendred to the Supream Being and all the Motions of our Heart ought to be continual and uninterupted Acts thereof Our Heart and our Will in general is not as hath been said but the Love of Good and of Pleasure And as it is God who is the Good and the Pleasure or at least the Source and the Principle of Pleasure since it is He only that causeth it and since it is in Him and by Him that we ought only to Hope for our Soveraign Pleasure All the Pantings of our Heart and all its Agitations for Pleasure ought to be turned and directed towards Him Our Heart ought continually to regard nothing but Him and to search after nothing but Him All its Motion ought to Center in Him This Torrent or this River ought to have this perpetual Course it ought to Flow in this Channel and it ought not to suffer one single Rill or one drop of its Waters to be lost Its Course and its Motion ought never to stand still or be turned aside or diverted from that bound and Center or go never so little out of
in God as in a Rageing Sea which dashes against them and tosses them and threatens them perpetually with its Storms and Tempests And this is All in my Opinion that we can desire to know upon the Principal Head of that which Regards the State of our Souls out of our Bodies Let us conceive with all my heart That there is above those Heavens which we know a Heaven wholly Enlightned and abounding with Joy and overwhelmed with Pleasures wherein the Holy Souls are involved And let us conceive on the other side a Place replenished with Flames and Darknesses with Horror and all manner of Despair which the Criminal Souls do fall into All this is most True and these Places are most Real and Effective but it is in God in whom the Holy Souls do find this Enlightned Heaven and in whom the Criminal Souls do find these Flames and these Darknesses these Despairs and these Horrors It is God who by an Immediate Union of his Almighty Activity causeth in Them this Light and these Darknesses these Sadnesses and these Joys these Pleasures and these Pains all the Paradice and all the Hell Erit Deus Omnia in Omnibus it is by an Immediate Union of God with Them and They with God that they are in Heaven and in Hell Since it is by this Union that they have this Lively Idea thereof which renders these Places present to them CHAP. VII That which makes the Difference between the Present and Future State of the Soul IT follows from what hath been said That that which makes the Essential Difference of the manner how our Souls are in our Bodies and of the manner how they are out of our Bodies is That when they are in the Body then they have but Successively the Idea's and the Knowledges of Things from the Occasion of different Impressions which come and arrive to the Brain by the Action of other Bodies which are round about Us and that they have not also the Sentiments and the several Movements of the Appetite but from the Occasion of divers Dispositions of Bodies and when they are parted from the Body they receive immediately from God these Idea's and these Sentiments which is requisite for the Disposition of Vice or Vertue which we otherwise call Merit of Demerit in which they find themselves when they are parted from the Body Now the Body by the divers Impressions which it receives from other Bodies or by the divers Dispositions which are raised formed in it by the Ebullition of the Blood by the Course of the Spirits and by the divers Excesses or Fermentations of Humors is the Occasional Cause of all these Idea's and of all the Sentiments of the Soul because that the Supream Being by which it Lives it Perceives Thinks and Wills for to conserve the Dignity and good Order of its Greatness in acting as Universal Cause was pleased to tye the Determination of these Idea's and Sentiments to those Dispositions of the Body which result from the Laws of Motion by which He moves all the Corporeal Nature and by which he composes and conserves the Visible World with an infinite Wisdom which alone was able to produce so many Prodigious Effects with so much Order and so much Harmony from two or three Immutable Laws by which He moves the Matter of the Universe That in this New State of the Soul out of the Body God is not determined to Act in Them but by a necessary and immutable Love of Order and by their Vertuous or Criminal Disposition God doth not Act but as an Universal Cause with our Souls so long as they are in the Body He doth but follow the Law of Motion of the common Matter of the Visible World which diversly affecting our Bodies necessarily determines him by Vertue of his Immutable Decree to give to the Souls those Idea's and those Sentiments which answer the different Impressions wherewith the Body is affected but when the Soul is out of the Body God doth lay aside the Character of Universal Cause as to this purpose He no longer follows in respect of them the Laws of the Motion of the Universe Souls part with the World in parting with the Body They have no longer any Relation with the Body nor by consequence with the Visible World from that very instant that they have no more to do with their particular Bodies So long as they are in the Body they are united to all the Visible World because that their Thoughts and their Sentiments do depend upon the Laws of the Motion which moves all the Matter of the World it being that which gives them an Essential Relation to all the Parts of it because there is not any one of them which may not be an Occasion of the Determination of these Idea's and Sentiments but after Death all that ceases there is a new Order of things there are no more the same Laws God afterwards follows none but the Law of his Eternal and Inflexible Justice to Punish or to Reward the Souls according as they have made themselves deserving It is no more the Motion of the Universe and the particular Disposition of every ones Temperament which results from it which determins the diversity of our Idea's and Sentiments It is only the Pure and Holy Disposition or the Impute and Criminal Disposition of our Souls which determins the Sovereign and Eternal Justice and Equity to give us the Idea's and Sentiments proper to Reward or Punish our Irregular or our Vertuous Disposition God hath no longer Reason to be willing to mannage and conserve the Dignity and Character of Universal Cause He hath no longer Reason to mannage and conserve the Liberty of our Souls The time of our Trial is ended The time of Merit is past There is no more question to see whether they will make themselves worthy that is over They are fixed in an Immutable State That is Eternity There is no more Vicissitudes or Diversifications no more Instability or Changes no more an Alternativeness or a Passage from Evil to Good and from Good to Evil from Vice to Vertue and from Vertue to Vice The Tree lies where it falls And as the State of the Soul is fixed by this State of Immutability which is properly That which we call Eternity so God fixeth himself to Love or to Hate to Punish or to Reward He Acts thenceforwards as a particular Cause because that He immediately takes in the Ground of His Eternal Love of Order the determination of all these Idea's and Sentiments which he gives to our Souls That is all the Light which we can give to our First Curiosity concerning the State of our Souls out of our Body by which we see that they are not properly but in God and that it is He only who is the Cause and Occasion of all their Idea's and Sentiments We must now proceed and endeavour to Know all that belongs to this State by clear and infallible Lights CHAP. VIII How
the Just Souls See and Know God out of the Body and how the Criminal Souls do also See and Know Him TO this purpose we would willingly Know in the first place What those things Are which the Soul Knows out of the Body and it is easie to Resolve it by those Principles which we have setled For since we have said That there is not at all any other Occasional Cause of the Idea's and Sentiments of the Soul when it is once out of the Body than the Irregular and Vitious Disposition and the Regular and Vertuous Disposition of the Soul on one one part and on the other the Necessary and Eternal Love which God hath for Order so it is certain That this Sovereign Wisdom this Essential Life of all Intelligent Natures dispenseth his Lights and his Darknesses by his Sovereign Equity and that so he Acts otherwise in the Just Souls than in the Souls which are Criminal and Reprobate As to the Just Souls They have as it were a true Immensity of Knowledge First of all They Know God and See Him I say They see Him for it is not a simple Knowledge Abstractively such as we have at present that is to See to Perceive to Touch and if I may say so to Tast as the Holy Writ saith But this is to See by a kind of Vision which we call Intuitive which is not at all a simple or bare View of Speculation or a pure Contemplation of Reasoning but this is a lively and penetrating Impression of the whole Substance of the Divinity which renders it self present and intimate to the Soul by an intimate and penetrating Sentiment just as the Material Objects do now render themselves present to us by the Immediate Action whereby they strike upon and advertise our Senses This is to see God as it were by Sensation This is to perceive Him Present by a lively and an indubitable Experience of His Ineffable Nature and His Beatific Vision just as we perceive the Presence of Things whereof we have the most lively Idea and the most certain and most indubitable Experience This Intuitive Knowledge or Vision of God is not at all the indubitable Knowledge and Sentiment of His Existence only but it is the clear and distinct Knowledge and Idea of All his Attributes in general and of all his Perfections in particular it is a clear and distinct View of all the marvellous Table and of all the Charming Spectacle of the Beauties of this Supream Nature and especially the delicious and ineffable Sentiment of his Goodness and of his Love by which he pours if I may say so all the Joys and all the Felicities of his Heart into these Sanctified and Happy Souls Moreover These Just Souls in thus Knowing God do at the same time no longer Know themselves by that confused Sentiment by which they at present disentangle themselves as it were by main strength and force of Reason from the Body but by a clear and distinct Sentiment and by an Idea equally neat and lively all Shining and all Bright whereby they see themselves with all their Nobleness and with all the Characters of Resemblance which they have with God just as they now see a Picture exposed to their View almost like their Corporeal Image which the Nature of the Soul doth exclude CHAP. IX How the Just Souls See and Know the Visible VVorld and what they Know of the Politic and Civil VVorld IT is not only God and Themselves that they Know They also distinctly see in God all the visible World because besides that the Scripture do's in a manner speak to us of it It is a Knowledge which is naturally inherent in every created Spirit unless God for a time suspends this Knowledge for Reasons of his Providence as he now do's to our Souls which he makes Trial of in the Body and to whom he doth not give these Knowledges as we said before but Successively from the Occasion of the different Impressions made upon our Bodies by the divers parts of the Visible World which present themselves to our Senses one after another It is in Order That Spirits being Superior to Bodies by Reason of their Knowing Nature should Know Bodies Also when the Disposition of the present Oeconomy which requires That God should not Enlighten the Souls but Successively as we said before and from the Occasion of the Immutable Laws of the Motion of the Universe When I say this present Disposition shall cease the Illumination of God being no more annexed to these Vicissitude 〈…〉 of the Universe and of the 〈…〉 of Bodies received in our Material Senses will give in an Instant at once an Idea of all Corporeal Nature and of all the Visible World in its Whole and in its Parts in its Immensity or in its Extent in its agreeable Variety in its Order and Symmetry to all Souls which have not deserved his Anger and instead of this Light he needs but only to spread Darknesses upon the Criminal and Rebellious Souls The Scripture tells us of Holy Souls as if they had the pleasure of walking upon the Globes of the Heavens and to be in the midst of the Stars to walk upon the Sun and upon the Moon and after this manner of speaking it accommodates it self to our gross manner of conceiving the most Spiritual Things under Corporeal Forms But we need conceive by all these Expressions no more than what we have said of a clear and distinct Idea of all the Visible World which God gives to the just Souls they walk after their manner upon the Arches of the Heavens they march upon the Sun and Moon c. because that the lively Idea which they have of all the Visible World makes all the parts thereof present and as it were subjected and placed under their Feet They are at the same time at both the Poles of the World they fill its whole Extent they are in both the Hemispheres their Horizon is not at all a limited Horizon which never permits us to see here but a little Portion of the Universe It is not bounded but by the Bounds of Nature We do not at present see Bodies but only those parts of them which reflect the Light upon us We do not see the Sun the Moon the Stars and the Terraqueous Globe of the Earth and Seas but only one side of them but the pure Souls immediately enlightned by God as they Are They see at the same time the whole Globe of the Sun all the Face of the Moon both the Hemispheres of the Earth There is no Antipodes to them They see All at one View all the fair Prospects of Nature and all the Beautiful Table of the Visible World For besides That their Knowledge is Universal in this respect so it is not at all Successive but all at once So much for the Natural World VVhat the Souls out of the Body Know concerning the Civil and Politic World As to the Civil and Politic
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
saith Thomas Aquinas Because by reason of much loving the Present Life we come saith he to hate the Future and to wish that there were none at all and when we are gone as far as to hate it we shall easily come not to believe it at all and when the Future Life is once become a Fable Divinity soon after will be but a Chimera only This excessive Love then of the Present Life is a great Disorder and Irregularity and this Irregularity is mounted in us even to the last Period and to the highest Degree I call it a Love enchanted of the Present Life for it is a Love of Charm and of Enchantment It is a Fury and a Rage a Madness and a Frenzy of Love The Future Life allures us to it by a thousand Charms it glitters before us I will not say like a Sun but like an Immensity of Light which ought to carry as much Ardor into our Hearts as Conviction into our Spirits it opens her Bosom to us and lends us an assisting Hand Instinct and Religion Grace and Nature the Law and the Gospel Heaven and Earth all of them shew our Future Life in a happy Immortality all sparkling with Joys with Felicities and with Glories The sweet and ineffable Impression of Grace and the Holy Spirit The lively sparkles of Heavenly Regeneration which operate in us by a thousand secret Incitements The Example of the truly Faithful who groan without ceasing with St. Paul in Expectation of their Deliverance from their Bodies and of the manifestation of the Future Life and of the Glories of the Children of God do sollicite and impel us and do call upon us The World it self by its Contradictions and the Present Life by its Pains and its Disgusts do render the Love and the desire of the Future Life necessary to us to comfort us under our present Pains and Miseries And yet notwithstanding we have the deadly weight upon our heart which inclines us and fixes us to the Earth and to this miserable Life we are not able to raise our selves up to desire Celestial Beauties and the Eternal Delights we are more ready to say Let God take care of Heaven for himself and let him leave the Earth for us We see here what sort of Creatures we are it is impossible to make the least Ray or Spark of the Love of the Future Life to enter into our hearts St. Paul notwithstanding teaches us That the Present World is but a Shadow of the World to come and the Present Life upon that account cannot be but the Shadow of the Future that is to say there is the same difference between the Present Life and the Future Life as there is between a Body that is all real and all effective and between the Shadow which is only a void and an empty Figure All the Shadows here below that is to say all the Joys and all the Felicities of this Life which are only Shadows here are in the Future Things real All that is here a Figure is there Reality The Honors the Pomps and the Glories the Abundance the Pleasures are There true Pomps true Honors true Glory true Abundance true Pleasures Conceive the Difference saith St. Chrysostom between the Shadow and the Sun conceive how great are the Beauties of that Planet which animates all the Beauty of the World above that drowsie Obscurity which hath only a pure Nothingness of Privation for the Body and the Foundation of its Being and when you have comprehended that do not believe that you have comprehended the advantage of the Future Life above the Present Life St. Paul said very well That to die is gain Mori lucrum We gain without doubt because that instead of a World of Shadows of Figures of Illusions of Vanities of Dreams of pure Nothings cloath'd with the Painted Superficies of Being or rather with the simple and false Appearance we enter into the Possession of a World where all is Real all Solid all Effective and all Immortal The Condemnation of our violent Desires for the Establishment of our Present Fortunes and of our deadly Indifference for the sort of Event of our Eternal Predestination which is decided in this Present Life We have acknowledged by the State of Trial in which we have seen our Souls are at present their uncertain and doubtful State of Alternativeness of the formidable coming of Eternity in which they ought to enter in going out of Time and out of the Present Life We have acknowledged that we are here as it were suspended and ballanced betwixt two Extreams of two different Eternities of which we have the Lot to decide by our Vigilance and by our Application to Sanctifie our selves and to prepare our selves for that Impression of Glory and Sovereign Felicity which God will really give to all those whom he shall find prepared and disposed for it by a faithful and constant Co-operation with his Grace and there follows from thence a Condemnation equally just and formidable of our violent Desires for our present Fortunes and of our brutal Indifference for that of Eternity which we are to make for our selves and for which we cannot rely and repose our selves upon any one else If our Lot of Eternity was cast upon us after the manner as some conceive it if it was a Destiny which ought to be effected without us and if we were only to expect the Event and the infallible and inevitable Execution of it there would not be any Thing to reproach us thereupon we might in the mean time wholly employ our selves about our present Fortunes But besides That even then when God hath a particular Cause in the Predestination of some few and that he Charges himself with the success of their Salvation which I believe he do's for a certain number he do's not at all save even these Priviledged Persons without their Co-operation It is certain That in regard to the generality of Men he do's not concur to their Predestination and their Salvation but as Universal Cause and that the Success of it is left to the Vigilance of every one Thus our Souls do themselves before-hand decide by the good or ill usage of Time of the Present Life and of Grace the Alternativeness of the Immutable State of Happiness or Unhappiness in which they are to be fixed and established when they depart hence Thus It is certain That all the Occupations all the Designs and all the Enterprizes of Men which have not for their End the great Object of that building of our House of Eternity which the Scripture frequently mentions which we ought to be building every moment of this Present Life as it were by so many Stones that we are to raise one upon another to the end that our Souls may find their Habitations ready prepared It is certain once again That all our Occupations all our Cares all our violent Desires all our Designs and all our Enterprizes are things not only vain and
himself and by which he Enlightens us in the Body and out of the Body by all the Idea's which he gives us There is the Wisdom which being once Incarnate by a Personal Union with a singular Humanity to be the Light of the World is Incarnated in some manner a thousand and a thousand times every moment by a Transient and Accidental Union with all Created Spirits to be their Actual Light This is that Eternal and Universal Idea from whence do spring all the particular Idea's which Enlighten us and it is certain that the Souls see either in it or by it for I will not here decide this Point all that which they see and all that which they know either in their present State of Union with the Body or in that of their Liberty and Separation from the Body And this lively and Eternal Idea from whence all the rest do arise serves instead of Memory and Species to Souls separated and disengag'd from Body for all that which we would that they should Recollect The Acts of Intellection Since the Souls have out of the Body the Exercise of the Faculties of Perceiving of Imagining and of Recollecting which they do not Exercise here but dependent upon the Body there is no doubt but that they Exercise by a greater Reason the Acts of the Inorganick Faculties Thus we may say without difficulty That they compare one thing with another That they conceive the Nature of Bodies by pure Intellection That thty form Universal Notions That they draw Consequences from thence That they Extend their Knowledge of Intellection I say Intellection for as to those Idea's whether confus'd or distinct which appertain to the Passive Faculty of the Soul whether Sensitive or Imaginative the Soul cannot Extend them or Augment them of her self either in the Body or out of the Body She hath no more as to that than what she receives but as to the Knowledge of Intellection it is certain That the Soul can perpetually Extend them Encrease them and Augment them in the Body and out of the Body I do not at all doubt but that Holy Souls have an Ineffable Pleasure in perpetually Extending their Knowledge of Intellection by Consequences and Lights always New which they draw from their Light and their Knowledge already acquir'd They always find something to discover in the Immense Spaces of Truth They always find something to be Enlightned of the Perfection of the Supream Essence which they always see All-entire and All expos'd to their Eyes and which they never know so perfectly but that there always remains something to be known and discover'd It is a Sea of which they can never sound the Bottom and in which they always make a Progress They always Drink of this Eternal and lively Spring and they are always Thirsty They Drain from thence every moment by a full and entire Knowledge of the Intuitive Vision but they always find it full and inexhaustible to Reason and Intellection They always find something to be known in the Foundation of its infinite Incomprehensibility and they do there always know something that 's New and something yet to be known The Reprobate Souls do also find by the Exercise of their Reasonings a thousand and a thousand new Despairs in their State of Reprobation and Misery The Prophets say that they always remain awake to the end that they may see always Evigilabunt ut videant semper and that do's well enough express the Exercise of the Active Faculty in unhappy Souls After having given an Account of the Perceptive Faculties we ought to take care to know how the Appetitive Faculties are out of the Body We are able to say in a very few words all that one can wish to know thereof and all that can certainly be decided of them CHAP. XII How the Will is in Just Souls and in those that are Reprobate THE Will which is that invincible and insurmountable Movement which pusheth on All-knowing Natures towards Good Is without doubt and Operates perpetually in Just Souls and in Reprobated Souls but it Is there and it Operates there very diversly The Just Souls have found the Good they sought They are arriv'd to the Term which they have so long pursu'd They embrace it They possess it They lose themselves They plunge themselves They drown themselves and They ingulph themselves in it They are arriv'd to the Place of their Repose to the Center of their Desires to the Port of their Wishes They have nothing more to follow or to search after In this fortunate State they possess and they taste with an inexplicable Tranquillity and an incomprehensible Satiety the Sovereign Good They are contented they are at quiet But this Tranquillity and this Satiety do's not lull them asleep nor ever cloy them The Will satisfi'd and arriv'd to its Term do's not cease proceeding on always It Operates and stirs up it self eternally in a most happy Repose These Holy Souls are always satiated and always a Hungry always at quiet and always stirr'd up They Will and Desire always that which they have they would always have more of it and being intimately and immediately united to the Sovereign Good and to all his Joys they are always still vehemently desirous of being more united to it Thus the Will hath its Exercise in Holy Souls and it hath it in all its Perfection without any of the Imperfections to which it is at present subject It is no more floting and wavering between the false Images of Good which the Imagination and the Senses present to it in the present State and between the true and solid Goods which Instinct and Reason which Philosophy and Religion propose to it It is happily drawn in by the Evidence or to say better by the presence and enjoyments of the Sovereign Good That kind of Liberty of being able to ballance it self between true and false Goods which we so illy conceive as a great perfection of Liberty in Man is an Imperfection which the Will is delivered from It cannot be turned aside by any Image of false Goods which do now in so deadly a manner turn aside our Wills it is a Repose an Acquiescency and an Eternal Satiating of the Soul in God and in the Assemblage of all the Goods which it finds in God which do not at all leave it the liberty of loving false Goods This is a perpetual Attraction always insurmountable and invincible This is a Charm always Almighty and a strong and robust Chain by which God draws them carries them away by force and fastens them to his Sovereign Beauty and to his Sovereign Delights The Will in the Reprobate Souls It is not at all after the same manner with Reprobate Souls The Will it is true remains in them They conserve that Movement which draws all Created Spirits and even the Increated towards Good for the Will is also in God but it is not in Him as the love of Good is in us but