Spirit in the Regulation of thy Love And what can God do more with the safety of his own Wisdom and of thy Liberty And lest thou should'st fancy that 't is either in vain or unnecessary to apply thy self to the Study of Regular Love 6. Consider yet further My Soul that the great Mystery of godliness is nothing else but a Mysterious Expedient for the promotion of Regular Love. As it proceeded from Love so does it wholly tend to the Regulation of it 'T was to attone for the Irregularities of Love that the Son of God became a Sacrifice to his Father To attone for it so far that all the Lapses and Misapplications of our Love should be forgiven provided we return to the Regularity of Love for the future Had he not done so much to return to Regular Love had been in vain and had he done more it had been Needless But herein is the Mystery of Godliness that by the wise dispensation of God the matter is so order'd that Happiness is attainable by the Order of Love and not without it And can there be a stronger ingagement O my Soul to perswade thee to the Study of Regular Love or to convince thee that God is not less concern'd for the Harmony of the Moral than of the Natural world for the Order of Love than for the Order of Motion Be wise then O my Soul and consult the Ends of God the Harmony of the World and thy own Eternal Happiness And that these thy Considerations may be the more effectual apply thy self with all possible elevation of spirit to the God of Light and Love. THE PRAYER O God of Order and Beauty who sweetly disposest all things and hast establish'd a Regular course in the visible World who hast appointed the Moon for certain Seasons and by whose decree the Sun knoweth his going down let the Moral world be as Regular and Harmonious as the Natural and both conspire to the declaration of thy Glory And to this End grant that the Motion of our Minds may be as orderly as the Motion of Bodyes and that we may move as regularly by Choice and free Election as they do by Natural instinct and Necessity O God of Light and Love warm and invigorate my Light and direct and regulate my Love. In thy Light let me see Light and in thy Love let me ever Love. Lord I am more apt to err in my Love than in my understanding and one Errour in Love is of worse Consequence than a thousand in Judgment O do thou therefore watch over the Motions of my Love with a peculiar governance and grant that I my self may keep this Part with all diligence seeing hence are the issues of Life and Death O Spirit of Love who art the very Essence Fountain and Perfection of Love be thou also its Object Rule and Guide Grant I may Love thee and what thou love'st and as thou love'st O Clarify and refine inlighten and actuate my Love that it may mount upward to the Center and Element of Love with a Steddy Chast and unfullied Flame make it unselvish universal liberal generous and Divine that loving as I ought I may contritribute to the Order of thy Creation here and be perfectly Happy in loving thee and in being lov'd by thee Eternally hereafter Amen Letters Philosophical and Moral to D r Henry More with the Doctor 's Answers Advertisment to the Reader THe Publication of this Correspondence was almost extorted from me by the importunity of some friends who would not endure to think that any Remains of so great and extraordinary a Person should be lost And truely when I consider'd how curious and busy some men are in recovering a few broken Fragments of some old dull Author that had scarce any thing to recommend him but only that he lived a great while ago I began to think there was some force in the Argument and that I should be unkind to the world as well as to the Memory of my deceased Friend should I detain in obscurity such rich Treasures of excellent Theory as are contain'd in these Letters To the publishing of which I was yet the less unwilling to consent because of that near Relation which some of them have to the Matter of some part of this Book which may receive some further Light from what is herein contain'd But there is more in the business yet I had formerly in a Discourse at first printed by it self and dedicated to the Doctor but now inserted in my Collection of Miscellanies lately publish'd laid down an Hypothesis concerning the Root of Liberty which whether for its novelty and singularity or because not well understood underwent a great deal of Censure at its first appearing And the Excellent Dr. himself was pleased to animadvert upon it And I think has urged all that can be said against it But I think I have sufficiently vindicated the truth of the Notion and was therefore willing it should now appear to the world in its full strength and evidence which could not have been more abundantly confirm'd to me than in its being able to stand the shock of so severe a Speculatist Epistola prima ad Clarissimum Virum Henricum More Vir eximie QUum eruditionem tuam Humanitatem ex scriptorum tuorum genio pari passu ambulare animadvertam insuper in ipso Libri tui Vestibulo te Coram profitentem audiam te non tibi soli laborare sed etiam pro omnibus iis qui exquirunt sapientiam eousque mihi nativus exolevit pudor ut ad te ignotum licet Oraculi vice de quibusdam Arduis sciscitatum mitterem Duo igitur sunt ut apud virum horarum quam parcissimum Compendio agam quae animum meum suspensum tenent In Enchiridio tuo Metaphysico demonstrare satagis immobile quoddam extensum à Mobili materia distinctum existere Quod demonstrationum tuarum nervis adductus non solum Concedere paratus sum sed etiam firmissime Credo Illud tantum me male habet quod dimensionem istam incorpoream quam spatii nomine designare solemus in infinitum porrigas undequaque immensam statuas Hoc equidem ut admittam nondum à facultatibus meis impetrare potui Quum enim spatium illud sit Quantitas permanens cujus omnes partes quotquot sunt vel esse possunt simul existunt contradictoria mihi videtur affirmare quisquis illud infinite extensum dixerit Infinitum enim esse tamen secundum omnes partes actu existere repugnant Nam secundum omnes partes actu existere est certis limitibus claudi Eodem modo ac quilibet numerus quantuscunque assignetur continetur sub certa specie numeri proindeque finitus concludi debet Fateor aliter se rem habere in quantitate successiva cujus partes existunt aliae post alias quae quoniam post quantamcunque appositionem incrementi ulterius capax est suo modo cenferi possit
understand you right in short this You distinguish of Sensuality as it signifies Concretely and immorally either as to Measure or other Circumstance Or as 't is Simply the Perception of the pleasure of the sixth Sense Which last that which I meant in my inquiry you acquit from all Moral Turpitude Now I confess I am and ever was perfectly herein of your judgment and that among other reasons because of the Divine Institution of Matrimony Only there is one thing that still sticks with me I find my self still intangled in one of my Difficulties which tho in your Answer you take notice of it appears to my apprehension the most considerable of all 'T is this that if there be no Moral Turpitude in the simple perception of Venereal pleasure then all Abstracted acts of it such as voluntary pollutions lascivious embraces c. must be accounted lawful which are yet condemn'd by all Moral and Divine writers The reason of the Consequence is because there seems to be nothing in such abstracted acts besides the simple Peception of the pleasure of the sixth Sense For as for excess Captivation of Spirit too sensitive applications and the like these are merely accidental and equally incident to the same acts in all other Circumstances This is the short of the Difficulty which I need not persue in more words to a person of your exquisite Conception Sir I humbly crave your sense in this point the only thing not clear'd in your Answer which if you please to vouchsafe me you will no less ingage the Affections than inform the Iudgment of most worthy Sir Your most real and highly Obliged Friend and Servant J. Norris D r More 's Answer Sir IT is now above a Month since I received yours But Indisposition of Body and several unexpected Occurrences have hindred me from writing till now If my memory fail me not I intimated to you in my last that I would read over again that Sermon which you was pleased to dedicate to me and signify to you more of my mind touching it Wherefore to be as good as my word I will take notice of a Passage or two before I answer this present Letter You fall pag. 10. upon a very subtile Subject viz. What it is in which our pretense to free Agency may be safely grounded whether in the will or understanding And in order to decide the point in hand you do with good judgment declare against talking of the will and understanding as faculties really distinct either from one another or the Soul her self But tho you begin thus hopefully yet methinks you run your self into an unnecessary nooze of Fatality by granting the Soul necessarily wills as she understands you know that of the Poet. Video meliora proboque Deteriora sequor And for my part I suspect there are very few men if they will speak out but they have experienced that truth Else they would be in the state of sincerity which over few are But now that you would salve the Phenomenon of free Agency pag. 11. by making it depend upon the degrees of Advertency or Attention which the Soul uses and which to use either more or less is fully and immediatly in her own power this is an Invention ingeniously excogitated to escape the difficulty you have cast your self into by admitting the Soul necessarily wills as she understands and necessarily understands as the Object appears to her For thus indeed we were frozen up in a rigid Fatality and Necessity But this does not cast the ground of free Agency upon the Soul as Intelligent more than as Volent if so much For unless she will exert her Advertency or Attention how can she to any degree advert or attend to the Object So that the ground of free Agency will be still resolved into the Soul not as Intelligent but as Volent and willing to understand the nature of every Object she is concerned to speculate Moreover though the Soul be willing to exert her Advertency or Attention to the Object this alone seems but a defective Principle as to the redeeming us into the ability and freedome of closing with what is best as discerning it to be so For as the eye let it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never so much if it be vitiated in it self cannot rightly discern the condition of the visible Object it fixes its sight upon so the mind of man let him set himself never so diligently to contemplate any Moral or Intelligible Object if she be made dim by Moral corruptions and impurities will not be able or free to close with what is best in the Circumstances that lye before her being held captive by the vices the Party has not yet purifyed himself from Wherefore the true ground of our being able and free to chuse what is best consists rather in the purity of the Soul from vice than in Advertency and Attention to the Object while the mind is vitiated and obscured for want of due purification Which the best Philosophers and Christians have alwaies declared to be requisite to true Illumination And that notable Instance of Martyrdome which you bring in to illustrate the case methinks may be made rather to illustrate and confirm what I drive at Viz. that there is something of greater weight than Advertence or Attention that will enable a man to witness to the truth with his blood For notwithstanding the mere being notionally convinced that sin or such a sin as the denying of Christ is the greatest evil in the world though he never so closely attend to this truth in the Notion thereof if the old man or carnal mind be still alive in him that crafty Serpent will not fail to suggest such evasions or Tergiversations as will excuse him from suffering and that it may be though he do firmly believe the Torments of Hell and Joyes of Heaven after this life For the Mercy of God and future Repentance and Violence of the Temptation or pretense of making amends some other way and I know not how many other such slim Insinuations may be fool the Unregenerate man from ever adventuring to suffer Martyrdome But he that is to a due degree Regenerate and made as S. Peter speaks Partaker of the Divine nature The Spirit of life in the New Birth being awakened in him and the Love of God in him perfected this New Nature in him into which he is born from above having rather quicker sensations than the Animal Nature it self this is the thing indeed that will secure the crown of Martyrdom to him nor will he be liable to be imposed upon by the Carnal mind to listen to such Evasions and Tergiversations as I mentioned before but had rather dye a thousand natural Deaths than wound and pain that life and spirit into which he is regenerate Wherefore no fear of pain from man can shake him the Love of the Lord Jesus and of his life into which he is regenerate being stronger than Death and
frame as the other is of the Natural this is the Spring and Ferment of the Soul that gives her Life and Energy and without which she would be utterly torpid and unactive Love is the first and Mother Motion that both prevents and actuates all the rest 'T is from her that all the Inclinations and Passions of the Soul take their rise and did we not first love we should neither Hope nor Fear nor hate nor be Angry nor Envy nor be any other way affected Nay we Love and Desire before we can Apprehend Judge Reason or Discourse nay our Love is then Commonly most impetuous and high-set we love long before we know what 't is to Love nay before we know whether we love or no even as soon as we receive the Breath of Life And as 't is the First so it is also the Last Motion 'T is the Vltimum Moriens of the Intellectual as the Heart is of the Natural Structure This is the Motion that out lives and sees the Funeral of all the other Operations of the Soul. For when either Age or sickness by disturbing the Crasis of the Body has also untuned and disorder'd the Facultys of the Soul when the man can no longer understand nor Discourse nor Remember when all his Rational Facultys are as 't were benumm'd and death-struck yet still he Loves and inclines towards Happiness with as much weight as ever for Love is strong as Death and as Importunate as the Grave many waters cannot quench Love neither can the Floods drown it 10 Again we may consider that as by the Pulsation of the Heart the Arterial blood is transmitted to the Brain whereby are generated those Animal Spirits which are the Instruments of Motion throughout the Body and which very Animal Spirits do again return and assist the Motion of the Heart by Contracting its Muscular Fibres and so straitning its Ventricles to expel the blood contain'd in them into the Arteries the same Reciprocation may we observe in the Motion of Love. That Moral Gravity and Gravitation of the Soul impress'd on her by the universal Good acting attractively upon her and whereby she stands inclined to good in general first moves the understanding which as the Schools allow is moved by the will quoad exercitium actus tho' not quoad specificationem And then the understanding Moves the will as to particular and actual Volitions concerning particular Goods For as to these we will nothing but what we first know and judge pro hic nunc fit to be will'd Which by the way may give great light to that intricate and perplex'd Controversy whether the will moves the understanding or the understanding the will. For they both move one another tho' in different respects Even as the Heart by its Motion sends Spirits to the Brain and is by those very Spirits assisted in her Motion This indeed is a wonderful instance of Resemblance and the more I consider it the more strange I think it and full of Mystery 11 Again as by the Continual Reciprocation of the Pulse there is caused a Circulation of the Blood which is expell'd out of the Heart into the Arteries out of these into the parts which are to be Nourish'd from whence 't is imbibed by the Capillary Veins which lead it back to the Vena Cava and so into the Heart again and same may in proportion be applied to Love. This is the Great Pulse of the Body Politic as the other is of the Body Natural 'T is Love that begets and Keeps up the great Circulation and Mutual Dependence of Society by this Men are inclined to maintain Mutual Commerce and intercourse with one another and to distribute their Benefits and Kindnesses to all the parts of the Civil Body till at length they return again upon themselves in the Circle and Reciprocation of Love. 12 And if we further Meditate upon the Motion of the Heart we shall find that it is not only an apt Embleme of Love in General but that it also Mystically points out to us the two great Species of Love Concupiscence and Benevolence The Motion of the Heart we know is Double Dilatation and Contraction Dilatation whereby it receives blood into its Ventricles and Contraction whereby it expels it out again And is it not so also in this great Pulse of the Soul Love Is there not here also the like double Motion For we desire good which answers to the Dilatation and immission of the Blood and we also wish well to which answers to the Contraction and Emission of it 13 I know not what some may think of this and I know there are a sort of men in the world that never think themselves and look with Scorn and Contempt upon such Notions as are not to be found out without more than Ordinary Thinking But for my part I must needs own that I stand amazed at this wonderful Harmony and Correspondence and that I am thereby the more Confirm'd in that Celebrated Notion of the Platonists that as the Soul is the Image of God so the Body is the Image of the Soul and that this Visible and Material is but the Shadow or as Plotinus will have it the Echo of the Invisible and Immaterial World. SECT IV. Of the First Great Branch of Love viz. Love of Concupiscence or Desire with the several Kinds of it 1 WE have Consider'd the Nature of Love in general and have shewn it to Consist in a Motion of the Soul towards Good whence we took occasion to represent the Analogy between Love and Physical Motion which we find to be exact and Apposite even to Surprise and admiration We have also discover'd the double Motion of this Mystical Pulse and accordingly have branch'd out Love into two General Parts Love of Concupiscence and Love of Benevolence I come now to treat of each of these severally 2 And first of Love of Concupiscence or Desire The general Idea of which I conceive to be A simple Tendency of the Soul to good not at all considering whether it wills it to any Person or Being or no. Not that there is or can be any desire without wishing well to For as I observ'd before these are always inseperable Concomitants but their Ideas being very distinct I think I may very well abstract from the one when my business lies only to consider the other 3 Concerning this Love of Desire I further consider that the Primary and Adequate object of it is the same that is of all Love namely good in general or God. For we desire good as good or good in Common before we desire this or that good in particular And when we do desire any particular good 't is still for the sake of the universal good whereof it partakes and according to the degree of this Participation either real or apparent so we measure out and dispence our Love. So that good in general is the Primary and Adequate object of Desire 4
But now this general or universal good being variously participated by Particular Beings hence it comes to pass that our Desire has many Subordinate and Secondary objects which it tends to with more or less Inclination according as the Marks and Footsteps of the universal good appear in them more or less discernable For the universal good is so Congenial and Connatural to the Soul as always acting upon it and attracting it to it self that we love every thing that carries the least image or semblance of it 5 There is this difference only between the love of the universal and the love of Particular goods Our love to the universal good is Natural necessary and unavoidable We have no more Command over this love than we have over the Circulation of our Blood or the Motion of our Pulse For God is the Centre of Spirits as the Earth is of Bodys and in our love of him we are as much determin'd as Fire is to burn or a stone to descend And the Blessed in Heaven Love him with the highest degree of Necessity and Determination But now we are not thus determin'd to the Love of Particular goods I say not thus determin'd For it must be acknowledg'd that there is a sort of determination even here also For good being desirable as good and consequently in every degree of it so far as we consider any thing as good we must needs Love it with a Natural Inclination that which the Schools term a Velleity or Voluntas Naturae or a loving a thing Secundum quid according to a certain respect But it being possible that this Lesser Particular good may in some circumstances come into Competition with a greater Particular good or with the greatest of all the universal good and so upon the whole become evill 't is not necessary nor are we determin'd to love it absolutely thoroughly and efficaciously but may nill and decline it Absolutely tho' still we retain a Natural Love or Velleity towards it as before 6 For the case is the same here as 't is in Evill We necessarily hate evill as evill and the greatest evill we hate Absolutely as well as necessarily But for particular and lesser evills tho' we necessarily hate them too by a Natural Aversion as far as we Consider them as evill yet 't is not necessary that we should always hate them Absolutely but may in some Circumstances Absolutely will them as a means either to avoid a greater evil or to obtain a greater good And in the same proportion as any evil less than the greatest tho' it be necessarily nill'd and declined in some respect may yet be Absolutely will'd and embraced so any Particular good tho' it be in some respect necessarily lov'd may yet Absolutely be nill'd and refused 7 Indeed the Excellent Monsieur Malebranche in his Treatise of Nature and grace asserts this non Determination of our Love to Particular goods in more large and unlimited terms when he tells us that the Natural Motion of the Soul to good in general is not invincible in respect of any Particular good And in this non Invincibility he places our Liberty or Free will. But in my Judgement this Proposition of his must either be Corrected or better explain'd For without this our Distinction it will not hold true Our Love to Particular good is Invincible Secundum quid or as to a certain respect but Absolutely and simply speaking it is not Invincible And if in this Absolute non Invincibility he will have our Liberty or Free will to consist I readily agree with him and do think the Notion to be very sound and good 8 And thus the Difference between our Love of the universal and our Love of Particular goods is clear and apparent Our Love to the universal good is Primary and Immediate but our Love to Particular good Secondary and Mediate Our Love to the universal good is invincible Absolutely and Simply we will it necessarily and we will throughly but our love to Particular good is invincible only in some certain respect We do not always love it thoroughly and effectually tho' we must always love it In short our love to the universal good is like the Motion of our Blood within our veins which we have no manner of empire or Command over but our Love to Particular good is like the Motion of Respiration partly necessary and partly Free. We cannot live without Breathing at all and yet we can suspend any one turn of Respiration in particular but yet not without a natural inclination to the Contrary And so in like manner we can't live without loving some particular good or other but when we point to this or that particular good there is not one but what we may nill and refuse Absolutely and simply tho' yet in some respect we must love it too with a Natural Love. 9 Thus far I have Consider'd the general nature of this First great Branch of Love Love of Concupiscence or Desire I come now to the Kinds of it For the right distribution of which I consider first that any Motion of the Soul is specify'd from the Quality of the Object or Term to which it tends Now the Object of Desire being good it follows that the Kinds of Desire must receive their distinction from the Kinds of good Now good is Relative and the Relation that it implies is a Relation of Convenience either to the Soul or Body that is either to the Soul Directly and Immediately or Indirectly and by the Mediation of Bodily sensations So that all good is either Intellectual or sensual and consequently the same Members of Divisition will be the adequate Distribution of Desire That is an Intellectual Desire whose Object is an Intellectual good and a sensual Desire is that whose Object is a sensual good 10 But I further observe that this same denomination of Intellectual and sensitive may be taken from the Nature of the part moved as well as from the quality of the Object The Appetitive Faculty in man is double as well as the Cognoscitive and consists of a Superiour and Inferiour of a Rational and sensitive part For as in the Cognoscitive part there is Pure Intellect whereby Ideas are Apprehended without any Corporeal Image and Imagination whereby objects are presented to our minds under some Corporeal Affection so also in the Appetitive there is a pure and mere act of Tendency or Propension to the agreeable object which answers to Pure Intellect and is what we call Will or Volition and there is also such a propension of the Soul as is accompany'd with a Commotion of the Blood and Spirits and this answers to Imagination and is the same with what we usually term the Passion of Love. And 't is in the divided Tendency or Discord of these two wherein consists that Lucta or Contention between the Flesh and Spirit That which our B. Lord intimated when he sayd The Spirit truly is willing but the Flesh is