our love and we are so free in the love of finite good that we even feel the secret reproaches of our reason when we fix our selves on it Because he that made us for himself speaks to us that we may turn to him and give no bounds to the motion of love which he incessantly produces in us All the motion that the soul hath towards good comes from God and God only acting for himself all the motion of the soul hath no other end nor bound than God in the Institution of Nature God presenting to spirits no other Idea but himself since he hath made spirits for himself All the motion of our wills is towards him since wills move themselves towards those things only which the spirit perceives But men thinking that they see creatures in themselves the consent they give to the motion that God imprints in them ends in the creatures and it may be said with a great deal of truth that the free will of men or their consent to the motion they receive from God tends to the creatures though the natural motion of their love can tend only to God By this you see Aristarchus that God preserves spirits for himself only that the faculties they enjoy to know and love know and love none but him that sinners do not overturn the laws of nature that they are inviolable and that this general principle of Religion and Morality viz. That God hath made us for himself is undeniable Arist But if the order of nature is that we know and love God and if we cannot resist that order since the motion of our love for the creatures tends of necessity towards the Creator how can it be said that we really offend God Theod. It may be said for many reasons God incessantly moves spirits towards good either general or particular for all good is to be beloved He invincibly moves them towards general good but 't is otherwise with the impression he gives them towards particular good God doth not limit towards that good the act which he produces in them For if we observe it duely we sufficiently perceive that in the very time when we fix on some finite good we have some motion to go further if we will So we offend God by stopping his act and not letting him act in us according to the full extent of his act The reason why God moves us towards good is because it moves us towards him and he moves us towards himself because he loves himself 'T is then the love of God to himself that produces our love in us Therefore our love ought to be like to that which God bears to himself But it is not like it when it concenters in a particular good it is then unworthy of the cause that hath produced it and it may be said to be displeasing to him Order is certainly the essential and necessary Will of God according to which and by which he wills whatever he wills for God loves order he wills nothing but order his will always follows order But a creature who loves more those things that are less lovely thwarts order withdraws himself from it and even overthrows it as much as he is capable of it He resists then to the will of God and so deserves to come into the order of his justice since he leaves that of his goodness which is the first and most natural God alone can act in the soul and cause in her some pleasure And by his decree or general will that makes the order of nature 't was his desire that pleasure should attend certain motions in the body So those that produce in their body these motions without reason even against the secret reproaches of their reason oblige God in consequence of his general will to renumerate them by pleasing sentiments even in the very time when they ought to be punished They therefore use violence against his justice and offend him But they only use this violence by the love they have for particular good So this love offends God For all those who love their pleasure without minding the true cause that produces it offend that cause since God never causes pleasure with an intent that we should fix on it but rather that we may love the cause that produces the pleasure and that we may unite with the thing that determines that cause to produce it You see therefore Aristarchus that God is offended when we fix the motion of love he causes in us on particular good But though you might not see it you cannot doubt but it is so for when we confine our love to some particular good we feel an inward check in the secret of our reason and a just check is a mark of infidelity against him that causes it those checks or reproaches can proceed but from a general cause since they are generally to be found in all mankind and must therefore be just since they are caused by a just God and this just God is offended when we confine our love to particular good This single Argument is sufficient for 't is unnecessary to seek metaphysical proofs of a thing whereof we are convined by inward sentiments that is by a light which strikes through the blindest and by a punishment that stings the most hardened sinners Arist I believe all this and I pray you to go on Theod. If you believe all this Aristarchus you may see your friend ask him at first if he desires to be happy Show him that none but God can act and cause in him that pleasure he loves so much and that renders him the more happy the greater it is Let him know that God is just that he will be obey'd that it cannot be conceived he should make truely happy those who do not follow his orders nor unhappy those that follow them that so we ought to use all our endeavours to know the Will of God and ought to obey it with all the fidelity imaginable You are sensible that men must be either stupid or out of their senses not to see those things and that those that see them and are not affected with them must either be mad or desperate but do not tell him so take heed above all things you do not awaken his passions and principally his pride for he would conceive nothing of what you might tell him make him understand as much as you can that God acts only for himself That he hath made our spirit only for himself That he hath given some motion to our heart only to incline it towards him That therefore we ought not to make an ill use of the motion of love which God causes in us by loving any thing besides him or without relation to him Make him understand that God is his true good not only by being alone capable to make him happy but also because none but God can make him more perfect not only as he is the cause of pleasure but also as he is
how he is the beginning and end of all things Those holy persons that read the Scripture with an intention to find Christ never fail to find him there for he is in every place of it But they have not the spirit of this world but that of God whereby they know the greatness of the Gift that God hath imparted to them The outward and sensible Man is not capable of the things which the Divine Spirit teacheth us for the eye hath not seen the ear hath not heard nor the heart of man ever understood what God hath prepared for those that love him I do not only speak of those false learned who deny the corruption of Nature the necessity of Grace and the Divinity of Christ yet assume the quality of Christians I also speak of those who live in the bosom of the Church but have little love for Religion It is impossible they should be very well learned in the knowledge of Christ seeing they do not love him and do not study the Scriptures professing the Christian Religion perhaps only because it is that of their Parents Arist You have told us a great many things both to day and yesterday since I have seen my Friend I imagin that he wants me as I do to know what he will think of these things I must leave you to go to him Theod. Do Aristarchus make him sensible of the general corruption of Nature and the enmity that is between God and man and endeavor to demonstrate plainly to him the necessity of Christ's satisfaction If you find that he receives your Sentiments as he ought and is willing to be instructed immediately fall on the praises of our Redeemer and stir him up to the love of his Saviour by the consideration of the chief obligations he hath to him Tell him That Christ is the Way the Truth and the Life That he is our intelligible light that enlightens us in the deepest recess of our Reason and our sensible light that instructs us by Miracles by Parables and Faith That he alone is the food of the Soul That his light is the sole producer of Charity and that none but him can give us the holy Spirit whereby we become the children of God Tell him that he hath been predestinated before all time to be our King and Chief our Pastor and Law-giver That God receives our Prayers through him only That we are made clean only by his blood and enter into the Holy of Holies only through his Sacrifice In short That Christ is all things to us that in him we are new creatures and new men that have not been condemned in Adam that without Christ we are nothing have right to nothing but are sold to Sin Slaves to the Devils and the eternal objects of God's wrath Use all your endeavors to make him think on Christ to unite him to and make him esteem and love Christ and conclude with these words of St Paul at the end of one of his Epistles If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maran-atha 1 Cor. 16.22 DIALOGUE VI. The Truth of the Christian Religion proved by other Reasons Arist AH Theodorus how unsatisfy'd am I in my Friend Theod. Yes Aristarchus I can easily see it the Air of your Countenance does not rejoice those that examin it 't is not an Air of Triumph or of Victory that might please those who take part of it But how cou'd he resist you Arist As I was well persuaded of the truth of the Christian Religion by the proofs of original Sin and the necessity of a Mediator so I imagined I cou'd convince him by proposing the same proofs but I know not to what I should attribute the ill success of my words when I spoke to him instead of persuading him I provoked him and he rejected all that I proposed to him with a kind of scorn he would not so much as agree with me in common Notions but continually said that my Reasons were the Reasons of Philosophy Such Answers grieved me I strove to convince him and continued to repeat the same things hoping that at last he would reflect but all my Efforts were entirely lost 'T is something strange Theodorus that a Man can't convince others of the same thing that he himself is fully convinced of for it appears to me that all Men ought to see the same things Theod. If all Men were equally attentive to inward truth they would all equally see the same things but your Friend is not like you he is taken up with a multitude of things and his pride has now for many years kept him unconversant even with himself so that abstracted proofs and reasonings built upon Notions which have no dependance of the senses persuade him not because these proofs don't touch him and because he has many confused reasons which hinder his application to them When a Man has discovered a Geometrical Demonstration he can convince all Men of it to whom he clearly proposes it because that these things are sensible that they freely apply themselves to them that there 's no reason why they should not believe them that they are not prepossess'd by the authority of Men that deny them and that when they see these kinds of truth they see them after a sensible manner But 't is not the same with certain truths which are contrary to our inclinations there we think not seriously and we have many reasons not to believe them It 's necessary Aristarchus that I demonstrate to you the truth of the Christian Religion by more sensible proofs than those of our preceding Conferences it may be your Friend will more willingly hearken to them Do you take his place and object whatever you can imagin against what I shall offer I only suppose that God hath made our Souls to know and love him 'T is what your Friend assents to You have heard Aristarchus of one Moses the famous Legislator of the Jews to whom God gave the Ten Commandments upon Mount Sinai Do you believe what the Scripture says of him Arist But what if he was a Cheat an Impostor Theod. Very well Aristarchus you suppose your self under your Friend's character but you know that he must have an excessive bold spirit I would say the most ignorant and most transported of bold spirits who dares say that Moses was a Cheat you do much honour to your Friend Arist I know what I say Theod. Well then if you know him so well speak for him I will engage him in your person You have reason Aristarchus and ought not to oppose a Sentiment that is universally received by all reasonable persons unless you have good proofs that they are deceived Arist There is much prejudice Theod. Right but this common Reason does not justifie you nor will it justifie the most extravagant doubts that may be raised but I may tell you that there was never any Man that could be more unreasonably accused of Imposture
things yet whose Love is not lively being suffer'd by them to languish for want of Nourishment and weaken'd extreamly by that Concupiscence which incessantly wars against it so that the Ideas which according to the Laws of Nature present themselves to their Minds in Temptation dissipate and vanish in a moment they are of no substance nor consistence But the Ideas which according to the Laws of Nature are excited in the motions of the Passions are sensible Thus Erastus lest the Righteous should fall God must either give them a greater Light than that which should ensue from their love according to the Laws of Nature or awaken and fortifie their love by a preingaging delectation But because he does it if he pleases and as much as he pleases this not being in course of Nature a thing to which he is oblig'd the Light of the Righteous and the Disposition of their Hearts as sufficient as it is does not always give them the victory in the time of Temptation Erast 'T is a very sad thing that even the Righteous Theod. It is true Erastus but the Righteous can pray God has obliged himself by his Promises which he keeps as inviolably as the Laws of Nature to give them continually actual and efficacious help if they have need of it The Righteous are Members of Christ they are animated with the Spirit of Christ 't is as we may say Christ that prays in them and God can refuse nothing to his Son For the Righteous obtain nothing that they ask unless they ask it in the Name of Christ and in order to preserve the Spirit of Christ within them Erast But Theodorus when a Righteous Man through negligence lets his love decay when he lets the Light and Life of the Spirit dye in him God knows his wants God loves him for every Righteous Man is loved of God why then does he stay till he pray to him Why does he not grant before he demands Why does he not protect and defend him Theod. God does not always stay till the Righteous pray to him but often gives them help which they ask not of him and if he does command them to ask it of him it is because he will be lov'd and ador'd for it God knows our wants better than we do our selves and if he commands us to pray to him 't is to oblige us to think on him and to look upon him as the only Being that is able to fill us with good things 't is to excite and awaken our love towards him and not to learn of us either our wants or the motives he has to relieve us He is resolv'd to be gracious to us upon his Sons account and if it is his will that we pray to him for it in his Sons Name 't is that we may love him and his Son 'T is love that prays 't is respect 't is the disposition of the Mind and Heart For we cannot pray to God without actually believing a great many things concerning him and us without actually hoping in him and actually loving him But acts stir up and even beget habits therefore 't is principally to awaken in us our Faith our Hope and our Love that God commands us to pray to him But when our Faith is lively our Hope firm and our Love ardent it is not possible according to the very Laws of Nature we should want a lively and efficacious Light For as you say 't is impossible that what we love should be snatch'd away from us without exciting in us a desire to preserve it and this desire is naturally follow'd with a prospect of the means to preserve it Besides the Joy we find in the possession of what we ardently love is of great force For the Righteous possess God by the fore-taste of their hope and this fore-taste accompanied with light is able to make them overcome the strongest Temptations because it makes them embrace with Joy the means that the Light offers them Thus Prayer is the nourishment of the Soul and by it it receives new strength by it it thinks on God and comes into his presence unites its self to him that is its whole strength and even it receives of God through Christ the delectation of Grace to counterballance those preingaging Pleasures which it receives also of God for 't is God alone that acts in it but which are involuntary and rebellious by reason of Adam's disobedience And you ought to observe Erastus that the Righteous have always in them the strength to pray seeing it is Love that prays and consequently strength to obtain an increase of their Love seeing that God has obliged himself by his Promises to grant them their Prayers Nay they can easily make use of this strength they have to pray at all times in which they have liberty of Spirit and need of Prayer especially if they live in a retirement and deny themselves sensual Pleasures For as the Righteous love God it is easie for them when they have liberty of Mind and perceive that any thing sets them at a distance from God to make some attempt to return to him again And this effort is an efficacious Prayer which is rewarded according to the greatness of the effort They may fly to Christ think on his Counsels and Examples and if they cannot easily imitate his Life they may at least desire to do it they may strengthen their hope and raise their love by praying with Faith and Humility in the prospect of the Merits of Christ Arist They may do what you say if they think upon it But if they do not think upon it certainly they cannot do it for none can do what you say with out thinking on it Theod. They alwayes think upon it Aristarchus when it is necessary because being righteous they love God For those that love God have him still present when there is danger of losing him because we cannot have that which we love snatch'd away from us and not desire to preserve it I suppose in the mean time that they preserve the Liberty of their Minds by putting away Sensual Pleasures for sometimes the Imagination is so taken up and troubled by the Action of Bodies that are about us and by the Motion of the Spirits which the Passions raise in us that we may lose God easily enough and without making all the Reflections which I believe necessary to preserve and fortifie Love Erast Thus Theodorus we should always return to the Counsels of Christ There is nothing more necessary for the Righteous as well as for Sinners than to remove from the Noisie World and Violent Pleasures and I believe that those who set no Bounds to their Pleasures nor to their Passions can hardly continue in this Presence of God which bears up and fortifies their Love I fancy that the Hurry Music Pomp Magnificence and other Allurements that are at Publick Places would very much perplex my Mind if I should resort thither for they say
himself in the Pleasures which St. John disclaim'd as contrary to the ways through which Christ comes to dwell in us Arist I must needs own to you Theodorus that all the Heroes whom I have hitherto set before my self as living Exemplars to walk by are more generous and communicative than St. John the Baptist since they are not afraid of being sociable nor of complying with the World injoying certain Pleasures which they term Civil and Gentleman-like Recreations I don't know whether they allow themselves this freedom as knowing themselves strong enough to overcome them but I think my self obliged in Conscience to let Erastus know that I never fail'd to become a slave to a great many Pleasures when like these Heroic Gentlemen I was not afraid to enjoy them Erast I would not make the Opinion of the Multitude the Rule of my Conduct I know we ought to follow a Rule and be guided by Reason since to act only by a Principle of Imitation has more of the Brute in it than of the Man I thank Theodorus for putting me in mind of this If we set our selves a Pattern to imitate 't is that its Example may excite us resolutely to do what we know Reason directs us to perform For as all Men are apt to err and to sin no Man can be to us an infallible Rule Reason ought to correct the defects of the Exemplar Theod. Reason ought also to make choice of these Exemplars For many times our Imagination dazzled by the deceitful lustre of false Vertues makes us admire a Heroe instead of a Saint and because 't is much more pleasant and easie to live like the first than like the latter that we may justifie our conduct we are very ready to set before our selves such Exemplars as suit with our humours Erast The surest way is to imitate such Exemplars as God prescribes us to follow since God cannot deceive us Our Saviour's Precepts are undoubtedly the best and St. John's Conduct is altogether consonant with them we must then walk after him Methinks Reason obliges me to retire like him to Desarts that I may avoid the Contagion which rages in the World and prepare for the Grace of Christ For after all Reason has convinc'd me that St. John is a good Pattern to imitate the Holy Ghost sets him before us in the Scripture and our Saviour highly commends him for his holiness of Life What do you think Theodorus do you believe I ought to imitate him Theod. I don't know Erastus but if you ought not to follow him I know you ought to follow Christ As St. John prepar'd us for Grace but did not bestow it he was to show us an Example of the greatest austerity 'T was his Duty to take out of the Scale all the Weights in general that make it have a propensity to cleave to the Earth because he could not give us the weight of Grace to make the Scales even As the precursor of the Author of Grace he was to remove by his Preaching and Example all the impediments that kept us from receiving Christ For this Reason it was fit he should with the greatest strictness imaginable forbid us the use of Worldly injoyments this was his Duty But Christ teaches us to make use of these things The weight of his Grace sets us free because it sets the Scales even again With that Grace we may live in the World without becoming slaves to it because it hinders us from loving the World We may injoy the things of this World because by the means of his Grace we enjoy them without Pleasure as enjoying them not or rather because the Pleasure which attends Grace is stronger than that which we find in the use of these things But we must take great care that the liberty which is given us by the Grace of Christ do not give us occasion to live according to the Flesh We may be sav'd without hating the World and if while we live in the World we love it and become slaves to its Pomp Reason teaches us that we ought to forsake it for we cannot overcome it without Christ and if his Grace dwelt in us we should feel within our selves a Power able to overcome the World We may use certain Pleasures on some occasions but never without fear and horrour and if we use them without fear and horrour we ought to avoid them Charity obliges us to live with the rest of Mankind for Grace does not destroy Civil Society But the same Charity obliges us to settle such a Communion with them as may not end with this Life I own that Christ did not come to send Peace on Earth he came not to send Peace but a Sword He came to set a Man at variance against his Father and the Daughter against her Mother and the Daughter in law against the Mother in law Matth. 10.34,35 If there be five in one house he is come to divide them and to set three against two and two against three Luke 12.52 He came to set Man at variance even with himself If any man hate not his own life and does not bear his Cross and come after Christ he cannot be his Disciple nor worthy to be call'd a Christian But our Saviour came to do these things only that he might reunite us to God reconcile us to our selves and even in this Life begin a fellowship that is to last eternally Do you think Aristarchus you whose Heart is so susceptible of Friendship that 't is possible you should here below have a real love for a person except you love him as a Christian You may indeed love him well enough so far as Civil Society which depends on the relation which Bodies have to one another requires it but you are neither in a condition to know him such as he is nor even to know your self Do you fancy you see your Friend when you behold a certain disposition of matter which is call'd a Face or when you hear the sound of words that move the Air I don't believe you do But if you do not see your Friend what is it you love then when you think you love him Certainly you either must love your self and then your Love is selfish or you love your Friend's Face and then your Love is unworthy your Friend or else you love your Friend's Vertue and upright Principles and in that case your Friendship is just but then 't is a Christian Friendship for thus you love God in your Friend or your Friend as he has a relation to God you love him because he belongs to God lives according to God's Commands and makes his own Will conformable to that of God And yet Sir your Friendship is still imperfect because you don't know what you love As you don't see your Friend's Mind in a clear and distinct manner you cannot really love him for if you saw him inwardly you would perhaps abhor him Arist You make me wish that my Friend
is convincing and taste alone hath made all mankind agree in that If the mind saw in bodies but what is in them without having a sentiment of what is not in them their use would be very painful and inconvenient to us for who would take the pains to examine with care the nature of all things that are about us to cleave to or leave them What should tell us when we ought to sit down to dinner and when rise from it What should place us at a reasonable distance from the fire And should we not often doubt whether we burnt or warm'd our selves In short would it not happen sometimes that we should be the cause of our own death by Inadvertency by Grief or even out of desire of making near discoveries in Anatomies Therefore it is most reasonable that God incline us to seek the good of the body and shun its contrary by the foregoing sensations of Pleasure and Pain For after all if men were oblig'd to examine the Configuration of a Fruit those of all the parts of their bodies and the different relations which result from the one to the other to be able to judge if in the present heat of their blood and a thousand other dispositions of their body this Fruit were good to nourish them 't is obvious that such things as are altogether unworthy of the application of their minds would wholly fill its capacity and that also unprofitably enough since they would not be able to preserve themselves any considerable time by that only way Arist I must confess this conduct is very wise and most worthy its Author But yet we feel some pleasure in the use of sensible things why then must we not love them Theod. Because they are not lovely you are a rational creature and your reason doth not represent to you bodies as your good If sensible objects did contain in themselves what you feel when you use them if they were the true cause of your Pleasure and Grief you might love and fear them but your reason doth not tell you so as I yesterday prov'd it to you You may use them but not love them you may eat of a fruit but not settle your Love upon it Likewise you ought to avoid Fire or a Sword but ought not to fear them * See the 8th Chapter of the 6th Book of the Inquiry after Truth We must love and fear what is able to cause pleasure and pain that 's a common notion which I do not contradict But we must take heed not to confound the true efficient cause with the occasional I say it once more we must love and fear the efficient cause of pleasure and of pain and we may seek or avoid their occasional causes provided we do not do it against the positive orders of that efficient cause and do not force it in consequence of its natural Laws to work in us what is against its precepts And we must not imitate the voluptuous who make God an instument of their sensuality and oblige him in consequence of his first will to reward them with a sentiment of pleasure in the very moment when they offend him for that 's the greatest Injustice can be committed Believe me Aristarchus the good of the body cannot be belov'd but by Instinct but the good of the mind can and ought to be belov'd by reason The good of the body can be belov'd but by Instinct and with a blind Love because the mind cannot even perceive so clearly that the good of the body is a real good for the mind cannot see what is not It cannot clearly perceive that Bodies are above the Spirit that they can act in it punish or reward it and render it more happy and more perfect but the good of the mind ought to be lov'd by reason God will be lov'd with a Love of choice with a reasonable Love a meritorious Love a Love worthy of him and worthy of us we see clearly that God is our good that he is above us that he can act in us that he can reward us and render us not only more happy but also more perfect than we are is it not this sufficient to make a Spirit love God And thus we see that God was not to make man love him by the instinct of Pleasure when he created him he was not to make use of this kind of art nor implore any force against the Liberty of a reasonable creature to lessen the merit of his Love For the first man ought to have adhered to God and could do it without the help of a preingaging pleasure though now Pleasure is commonly necessary to remedy the blindness which sin has brought upon us and to withstand the continual attacks of Concupiscence against our Reason I 'le say it again Aristarchus that you may remember it It was necessary that the antecedent pleasure and not the light of reason should incline us to the good of the body since reason cannot even represent to its self the bodies that are about us as a good But there was no need that God should make use of preingaging pleasure as of a kind of art to cause himself to be beloved by the first man since it was sufficient that he should enlighten his reason he being the sole and only good of Spirits Arist I grant all these things are very well imagin'd but there is still in your System a difficulty that puzzles me For methinks you confound Concupiscence with the institution of Nature and making God the Author of the pleasure we feel in the use of sensible things you also make him Author of Concupiscence since it is nothing else but that pleasure considered as striving against our reason Theod. This institution of Nature is thus Aristarchus God hath made the Soul and the Body of man and 't was his pleasure for the preservation of his work that as often as there should be in the body some certain motions there should result in the Soul some certain sentiments provided those motions did communicate themselves as far as a certain part of the Brain which I shall not specifie but because the will of God is efficacious there never hapned any motions in that part of the Brain but there followed some sensations and because the will of God is unchangeable this was not changed by the sin of the first man Yet as before man had sinned and whilst all things were in perfect good order it was not just that the body should hinder the Spirit from thinking on what is desired It follows that man had necessarily such a power over his body that he did as it were separate the principal part of his brain from the rest of his body and did hinder its usual communication with the sensitive Nerves as often as he desired to apply himself to truth or to some other thing than the good of the body And by those means it was in Adam's power first to make use
know his will that causes it is the principle of the mutability corruption and generation of all different bodies Thus God sees in himself the corruption of all things though he is incorruptible for whilst he sees in his wisdom the incorruptible Ideas he sees in his will all corruptible things since nothing happens but is done by him Now I will tell you how we see all those things in God All ideas and immutable truths we see in him As for transitory truths we do not know them in the will of God as God himself doth for his will is unknown to us But we know them by the sentiment God causes in us at their presence Thus when I see the Sun I see the Idea of a circle in God and have in my self the sentiment of light which denotes to me that this Idea represents something that is created and actually extent But I have this sentiment from none but God who certainly can cause it in me since he is Almighty and sees in the Idea he hath of my Soul that I am capable of sentiment Thus in all our sensible knowledge of corruptible things there is pure Idea and sentiment the Idea is in God the Sentiment in us but God alone is the true Cause of both The Idea represents the Essence of the thing and the sentiment only makes us believe that it exists since it disposes us to believe that the thing causes it in us because it is then present to our mind and not the will of God which alone causes that sentiment in us Arist I own that God can enlighten us and show us in himself all the Ideas we have of things But why should you have your recourse to this last refuge At least explode the sentiments of Philosophers upon that subject that I may the better convince my friend for without doubt I shall find him prepossessed with some opinion or other differing from yours Theod. It hath been done already by the Author of the Inquiry after Truth * Lib. 3. But if your friend finds fault with me for having a recourse to God and the first cause to explain some certain things you may tell him that there are two kinds of natural effects The Particular and the General it is ridiculous to have recourse to the general cause to explain particular effects but 't is as much amiss to seek some particular cause to explain the general For example if I am asked why Linnen becomes dry when 't is exposed to fire I will not answer like a Philosopher if I say that God will have it so for 't is sufficiently known that whatever happens is by his will 'T is not the general cause is demanded but the particular cause of a particular effect I ought then to say that the small particles of the fire or the agitated wood striking against the linnen impart their motion to the particles of water that are in it and loosen them from the linnen and I shall have given the particular cause of the particular effect But if one ask'd me why the particles of the wood agitate those of the water or why bodies communicate their motion to those they meet I should not be a Philosopher did I seek some particular cause of that general effect I ought to have recourse to the general cause that is to the Will of God and not to some particular faculties or qualities Now 't is acknowledged that the effect is general and that consequently we must have recourse to the general cause when thesame effect hath no necessary connexion with what seems to be its cause as it happens in the communication of motion for the mind sees no necessity why a body that presses upon another should push it forwards rather then recoil it self If then your friend pretends to explain to you the nature and original of Ideas by the scientific terms of innate or visible species of external or internal senses of the common apprehensions of the active or passible intellect you may let him know that when a body changes its situation or figure there is no necessity that there be a new thought in a spirit And that therefore we must go to the general cause which alone can reconcile things that have no necessary relation with one another I will lose no time in solving all the difficulties you or your friend may find concerning what I have told you now You will perhaps find them solv'd in the third book of the Inquiry after Truth Let us come to the will of man I will explain it to you God only making and preserving us for himself incessantly moves us towards him that is to say towards good in general or towards what we conceive to include all good He even moves us towards particular good without removing us from himself because he includes that good in the infinity of his being For as spirits see none but him in the sense that I have explained he may incline us towards whatever we see though he hath made us for himself alone But we ought to observe that he inclines us invincibly and necessarily towards good in general because as the love of good in general can never be bad it was not to be free But as the love of particular good though good in it self may be bad it was to be in our power to consent to or withstand its motion Arist But how can the love of particular good be bad Theodorus We only love what we see we see nothing but God therefore we love nothing but God when it seems we love the Creatures how then can our love be bad Theod. We love nothing but God Aristarchus for God preserves us only to love him But our love is bad when it is not regulated Or rather our love is always good absolutely and in it self but it is not relatively good Our love is always good in it self for we can never love what seems bad to us We can love but what we believe to be good and lovely since 't is God that makes us love and that we love none but him because we love nothing but what we see in him But our love is bad relatively because we love too much those things that are least lovely in short because instead of loving God in himself we love him with relation to his Works for loving only what we see we love God but only as he represents a vile creature and not according to what he is in himself God allows us to love what is in him that represents a creature for that is good but he will not have us to fix there the motion of our love He would have us to love whatever he includes He would be belov'd according to the Idea of Being in general of Being infinitely perfect and soveraignly lovely which Idea hath no relation but to himself and represents nothing that is out of him Nothing but the Idea of the infinite good ought to stop the motion of
actually dividing the capacity he hath to think and lessning the knowledge of his duty without being removed by it out of God's presence in short without weakning by little and little his love and his fear insomuch that actual pleasure seems a Reason or sufficient Motive to love what is not worthy of our love Adam ought to have remained fixt and unmoveable in the presence of God and not have suffered the capacity of his spirit to be divided by all those pleasures that were in perfect subjection to his Will and used only to warn him of what he was to do for the preservation of his life and as he should so he could have done it And had he made a good use of his Free-will during the time prescrib'd for a Reward he should have been confirm'd in his Righteousness not only by a more clear knowledge of God's continual operation on him but by a sensible knowledge which invincibly fixes on God all Spirits naturally desiring to be happy For the Saints do not only see by a Far-fetch'd and Metaphysical Sight that God alone is capable of acting in them and making them happy But they also feel it by an â—nspeakable comfort which God diffuses in them which â—enetrates them and unites them with him so strongly â—hat they cannot forsake him to love any thing else I speak of those things according to the present â—nowledge of human understanding and do not preâ—end always to certifie the truth or existence of things when I answer to what may be objected to me my â—tmost Design is to prove their Possibility Arist This is sufficient Theodore But how would â—ou explain the Transmission of Original Sin and the â—eneral Disorder of human Nature For it is our Soul â—hat hath sinn'd and is corrupt How comes it to â—e possible that coming from the hands of God they â—row corrupt as soon as they are united to Bodies Theod. Our Soul is made to love God She keeps â—n the Order of her Creation when she loves him that â—s to say when the motion which God gives her carries â—er towards him in the Sense that I explain'd it to you yesterday On the contrary she strays from the Order when having a motion sufficient to reach to God she stops at some particular good and thus hinders God's Act in her I do not believe it can be conceiv'd that she can be orderly or disorderly another way If then I demonstrate that by reason of the Union which Children have with their Mother the Soul of Children is by necessity turn'd towards Bodies that their Soul loves only Bodies and all her motion confines it self to some sensible thing from the moment she is form'd I shall have demonstrated the cause of the general disorder of Nature and how we are all born in Sin I prove it thus There is no Woman but hath in her Brain some Impression that represents to her sensible things either because she actually sees Bodies or receives her nourishment from them You do not doubt of this for after all we must at least eat to live and we cannot eat but our Brain receives some Impression of it since we remember it There happens also no Impression in the Brain without being follow'd by some Emotion in the Spirits which doth incline the Soul to the love of the thing that is present to the mind at the time of that Impression that is to say to the love of this or that Body for Bodies only can act on the Brain See the 7th Chapter of the 2d Book of the Inquiry after Truth In short there is no Woman but hath in her Brain some steps and vestiges or some motion of Spirits which makes her think and carries her to sensible things Now when the Child is in his Mother's Womb he feels the same Impression and Emotion of Spirits with his Mother therefore in that state he knows and loves Bodies The daily Instances we have of Children that fear or abhor those things that frighted their Mother whilst they were with Child sufficiently shews that they have had the same Impression and consequently the same Idea's and Passions as their Mothers since they sometimes never saw since they were born those things which they so much abhor And those Instances even shew us that the Impressions and Agitations are greater and consequently the Idea's and Passions more lively in Children than in their Mothers since they remain affected with them and oftentimes their Mothers no more remember it I perceive Erastus that you wonder to hear me say that Children see imagin and desire the same things with their Mothers Erast I must own that this amazes me but it seems to me demonstrated however there being holy Women and full of the love of God how come their Children to be Sinners Theod. It is because the love of God doth not communicate itself like the love of Bodies the reason whereof is that God is not sensible and that there are no steps in the Brain that by the institution of Nature do represent God nor any of those things that are purely intelligible A Woman may well represent to herself God in the Form of a Reverend old Man but whilst she thinks on God her Child shall think on an old Man when she loves God her Child will love old Men and this love of old Men doth not a justify All the Vestiges in the Brains of Mothers communicate themselves to Children But the Idea's that are join'd to those Vestiges by the Will of Man or by the Identity of Time and not by Nature do not communicate themselves to them for Children in the Womb are not as knowing and holy as their Mothers Erast But Theodore Children are not free I own they love Bodies but they cannot hinder themselves from loving them How then are they Sinners How are they corrupt Theod. Their Sin is not of their own chusing nor free and voluntary yet they are corrupt For all Spirits that are averse from God and inclin'd towards corporeal Beings do not follow God's Orders if it be true that God will be loved more than Bodies Concupiscence is not a Sin in virtuous persons because there is in them a love of choice that opposes it Concupiscence doth not reign in them but it reigns in Children their natural love is bad and they have no other When two sorts of loves are to be found in a heart God regards only that love which is free so Dreams are not sinful in pious Men because the love of choice that went before leaves in the Soul a disposition that carries and turns her towards God But in a Child who was never turned towards God nothing but his Nature and what God has fixt in him by the Decree of his first Will can be good he is a Child of wrath and must of necessity be damned For it cannot be conceived that God will ever reward the disposition of his heart except you also conceive that God
three years he doubtless took great pleasure to teach three or four of us young Men who came to hear him since he wou'd fatigue himself every Morning to repeat the miserable Reasons which he plunder'd out of Aristotle's Problems Now he reads no more for we hearing him no longer with admiration he speaks no more with pleasure He even has much aversion for all Discourses of Learning and as he is a little troublesom we have found out the secret to get rid of his Company by proposing some Question to him to have it resolv'd Theod. This Example Erastus was not needful to convince us that Persons who are wedded to some sensible thing do not search after Truth for its sake You see that we are well enough convinc'd of it You may observe the weakness of other Men and how their Vanity renders 'em miserable provided that you suppose your self in their person for we are all very near one as the other But Erastus we never ought to inspire into any one a Contempt of or Estrangement from a Person unless we are certain I say certain that he is dangerous and contagious Otherwise we must speak in general terms You would perhaps by your judicious Reflection give us to understand that you are witty we already know it but we knew not that you would have it known 'T is a hard thing to accuse others of Vanity without condemning one's self of the same thing or something else equivalent Thus Erastus you may constantly observe continually criticize but think and correct your self and if you would not condemn your self hold your peace You freely grant Aristarchus that the Councels of JESVS CHRIST are necessary to acquire that perfection of the Mind which consists in the knowledg of Truth Nevertheless JESVS CHRIST came not to make us Philosophers his Councels as I told you yesterday tend only indirectly and by reason of their universality to make us wise But if he gave not to his Disciples many Precepts of Logic to reason justly yet he taught them all necessary Rules to live well and gave them also all necessary power to follow them 'T is for this end that JESVS CHRIST is come his design is to remedy the disorder of Sin to reunite us to God by separating us from the Body to save us and raise us up to himself in Heaven We shall eternally remain such as we shall be in the moment that our Soul shall leave our Body If we love God in this moment we shall love him always for the motion of Spirits is only unconstant and meritorious for this life But all human Sciences are in themselves unprofitable to regulate this moment upon which depends our Eternity they merit us not the Assistances of Heaven for this moment they incline not our hearts towards God Thus JESVS CHRIST was not to guide us directly to this perfection of the Mind which is barren for Eternity and which ceases at the moment of Death he was to recommend to us a privation from sensible Good to the end that our hearts may be fill'd with his love being empty of every thing else and to the end that adhering to nothing in the moment that commences Eternity our love may carry us towards God who is the source of all happiness Let us not then any more consider the Councels of JESVS CHRIST with respect to the knowledg of Truth but with respect to this perfection of Mind which consists in the love of real Good in Charity which remains for ever which alone merits Eternity and without which all Virtues are but imaginary Let us examin the Morality of the Gospel with relation to the Rule of Manners but let us examin it with all possible strictness that there may be no Subject for a second Enquiry let us not be convinc'd less of our Duties by Reason than we are by Faith Certainly if the things which I have prov'd concerning JESVS CHRIST in the preceding Conferences are true there remains no doubt about the truths of Morality we must renounce our own Wills we must bear his Cross we must weep fast and suffer JESVS CHRIST hath said it If he is God if he is Wise 't is evident that his Councels are very advantageous to us But because we can't be too much convinc'd of the truth of these Propositions which are so incommodious and which offend us so sensibly we must endeavor to discover by our own Reason that there is no other remedy for our Evils Perhaps we shall do like those that are dangerously hurt who to preserve a miserable life present their own Bodies to the Surgeons to be cut and burnt they believe these Men upon their word and confide in their Operations and expose themselves to a great pain in an uncertain prospect of a Good which in itself is very inconsiderable What then should hinder us from imitating them when the evidence of Reason concurs with the certainty of Faith If we refuse to believe in JESVS CHRIST if we fear not Eternity if we hearken to out Senses and Passions yet it may be that Reason join'd to Faith will effect our Conviction And it may be that by continually condemning our laziness it will excite in us a profitable Inquietude Let us therefore examin those things in their Principle We ought only to love what is lovely No Thing is lovely but what is good but no Thing is good with respect to us if it be uncapable of doing us good if it be uncapable of rendring us more perfect and happy for I speak not here of a kind of Good which consists in the perfection of every thing Now no Thing is capable of rendring us more perfect and happy if it be not above us and capable of acting in us But all Bodies are below us they can't act in us they can't produce in us either pleasure or light then they are not to be belov'd What think you Erastus Erast When I ask my Reason I freely rest upon this but when I make use of my Senses I doubt it Yet as my Reason answers me more distinctly than my Senses as it is preferable to my Senses and as it never deceives me tho' my Senses always do when I make use of them to judge of Truth I believe that sensible Objects are uncapable of rendring me more perfect and happy Theod. Then you ought not to love Bodies Erast 'T is true this is evident Theod. But don't you love them Erast Much Theodorus I follow not my Reason I follow my Senses my Pleasure Theod. Thus Erastus To love sensible things it 's sufficient to taste Pleasure in the use of 'em Pleasure captivates the Heart it acts more powerfully upon you than your reason since you love because of pleasure such things as you know by reason are unworthy of your Love Erast I have for a long time known what you now tell me Theod. I don't doubt it 't is not to teach you what I now tell you but
but also the desire And sometimes the Imagination does so augment all things that the pleasure it produces excites the Concupiscence after a more strong and lively manner than that we enjoy even in the use of Bodies Persons who have too quick and delicate an Imagination may sometimes cure the hurt they have received in a contagious discourse by tasting the pleasures which are represented to them or of which they form'd themselves too great an Idea And there are certain bashful lazy and judicious persons and of a certain disposition of mind hard to describe to whom it is convenient sometimes to shew the world to give 'em a dislike of it But Erastus this is rare and 't is extremely dangerous to be familiariz'd with sensible things You have an horror for Tobacco you are pleas'd not to be subject to the necessity of always having some with you yet if you were to be with Men who frequently use it their discourse and manner would engage you by degrees to use it your self and Use would subject you to it as well as others for I know some who can't be without it that could not endure it heretofore Erast. It is true Theodorus that the great Secret to resist Concupiscence is to have continually an eye to the purity of our Imagination and to take heed that it leave not footsteps in the Brain which may carry us to the love of sensible things thus to remedy the beginning of our Irregularities The Councels of JESVS CHRIST which only tend to deprive us of the use of sensible things are admirable but they are very uneasie methinks Philosophy furnishes us with a Remedy more commodious than that of the Gospel 't is this Philosophy teaches me that all Bodies which are about me can't act in me and that 't is God only that causes in me the pleasure and grief which I feel in their use this being granted I can enjoy Bodies without loving them for as I only ought to love that which is truly capable of making me happy to excite in me the love of God I have only to remember in the use of sensible things that 't is God who makes me happy by their means Thus I ought not to shun Bodies on the contrary I ought to seek them that so by exciting pleasure in me they may continually make me to think of God who is the cause of it Whence comes it that the Blessed love God constantly and that they can't leave off loving him if it is not that they see him and that they are ty'd to him by a preingaging pleasure Well then I see God by Philosophy I perceive him in every thing if I eat I think of God because 't is God that makes me eat with pleasure I 'm not careful to love good entertainment as there 's nothing but God which acts in me I only love him Theod. You Erastus are free from sin and confirm'd in grace for who shall disunite you from God the most violent pleasures tie you more strongly to him and pains can only produce in you a fear and respect for him but do you your self often make use of your own Remedy and have you never acted contrary to the remorse of your Conscience Erast. I am very sensible Theodorus that this Remedy of my Philosophy is not soveraign but pray explain to us the defects of it Theod. I will When you taste of Fruit with pleasure your Reason tells you that there is a God whom you see not who causes in you this pleasure your Senses tell you on the contrary that this Fruit which you see which you hold in your hands 〈◊〉 which you eat is that which causes in you this pleasure which of these two speaks higher your Reason or your Senses As for me I find that the noise of my Senses is so great that I even think no of God in that moment but perhaps Erastus is such a Philosopher that his Senses are silent as soon as he pleases and that they never speak to him without first obtaining his Licence If so your Remedy is good for you for the privation of Bodies is not absolutely necessary to those who have no Concupiscence Adam could taste of pleasures without becoming their Slave tho he had done better to have let them alone Then let those who feel no Concupiscence in them and whose Body is intirely subject to the Spirit make use of your Remedy 't is good for them they are just by themselves they descend in a right Line from the Pre-Adamites Neither did Christ come for them he came not to save the Just but Sinners He came for us who are Sinners Children of a sinful Parent sold and subject to Sin and who always feel in our Bodies the Rebellion of our Senses and Passions When the obligation we have to preserve our health and life constrains us to enjoy some pleasure then we must make a necessity of Virtue and make use of your Remedy if we can remembring that these are not the Objects which cause in us this pleasure but God only we must thank him for them and pray to him that he would defend us from the malignity of sensible Objects we must use them with fear and with a kind of horror for without the grace of JESVS CHRIST that which gives life to the Body gives death to the Soul you know the Reasons of it Erast. But why Pleasure in itself is not ill I receive it then it does me no harm I thank God for it and love him the more it unites me to God who is the Author of it then it does me good Theod. The love of God which the enjoyment of Pleasure causes in you is much interested I 'm much afraid Erastus that in loving God as the Author of your Pleasure you love your self instead of loving God But I wish that this love be not ill I also wish that you have the power of raising your self up to God in the time that you enjoy some Pleasure but this Pleasure makes traces in the Brain these traces continually agitate the Soul and in the time of Prayer or some other necessary business they disturb the Action blind the Mind and stir up the Passions Thus when you would even make a good use of Pleasure at the moment that you should taste it the trouble that it disperses thro' the Imagination has so dangerous Consequences that you had better have been depriv'd of it Think you Erastus that there has been a Race of Mankind so very stupid as to get drunk for the honor of God and to bring him into one's mind for the pleasure of drunkenness and do you observe that the pleasure which is found in the excessive use of sensible things is such as can't be pray'd for to God without remorse Hence it is that this pleasure was not ordain'd by Nature to carry us directly to God but for the use of Bodies so far as they shall be necessary for the preservation
of life We must love God because Reason informs us that every thing is center'd in him that deserves our love God will be lov'd with a clear love with a love which flows from pure light and not with a confus'd Sentiment such as Pleasure is God is so lovely that those who see him as he is would love him in the midst of the most cruel Torments and we do not love him as he deserves when we love him because 't is he only who can create agreeable Sentiments in us A Friend reproves us because he should do it we offend our selves when we punish our selves for our Irregularities do we therefore cease to love our selves or our Friend No doubtless we endeavor perhaps to shun the Reproof which our Friend thinks himself oblig'd to give us but if we see that he only does what he ought to do we are unreasonable if we cease to have an intrinsic respect and love for him If then a person could conceive that God ows that to his Justice which he inflicts upon him to make him sensible of the highest pains he always would suffer patiently without ceasing to love God He should not love these pains in themselves but he should love the Author of them who if he did not inflict them would be less lovely because he would be less just and less perfect A Criminal who hath brib'd his Judge loves and esteems him much less than if he had punisht him provided that this Criminal who is not just enough to hate the Crime in himself would be reasonable enough to hate it in another Accordingly the blessed might suffer the pains of the damned without hating God for altho' the pleasure they enjoy keeps them united to God inseparably yet they love not God for the sake of the pleasure which they receive from him they would even love him in their Torments For after all pleasure is not so much instituted to make us love the Author of it as to unite us to him since as reasonable Creatures Reason alone ought to stir up our love Pleasure should carry us to the cause of it and true Good should be capable of producing it because true Good should recompence all those who truly love But pleasure which is the recompence and attraction of the love of the Iust is not their end for the Just would then love themselves instead of their good God deserves love in himself and the pleasure which is found in the use of Bodies instead of inviting is to love him as we ought to do and even the sweetness which is tasted in love sets us at a distance from him if resting upon this sweetness we love him not for himself for then we love our selves instead of him Erast. I observe that there 's nothing more dangerous than to make use of sensible pleasures and I am am now convinc'd that they increase Concupiscence by the impressions which they make in the Brains and carry the mind not to God who is their Author but to Bodies which seem to produce them and that tho' absolutely speaking they may induce us to think of God who is their Author yet they excite in us nothing but an interested love a love which is more like Self-love than true Charity Arist. But Theodorus the Law of Nature does not only oblige us to love God but also Men and if we have not some Correspondence with them by means of the Body what other Reason will induce us to love them 'T is Interest which forms Societies 'T is Pleasure which unites different Sexes and there are whole Nations that can't maintain Peace and Commerce but by the means of Wine To drink together is sufficient to put away Enmity amongst some Men. A glass of Wine must be drunk to drive on a Bargain Thus you see it is profitable for Men to enjoy Pleasure together to preserve that Union and Charity amongst them which is commanded them Theod. I believe you have a mind to make your self merry Aristarchus What! do you believe that there 's any thing besides Truth and Justice which can strictly unite us together do you believe that a Peace concluded in drink betwixt Drunkards would be so solid as that which reasonable Men make in the sight of Justice and by a Motive of Charity Certainly all the Bonds which are made by Interest are unserviceable towards the fulfilling of the Precept of loving our Neighbor The Appearances are sav'd and Men are treated with Civility but cordial Love is wanting when Interest lies at the stake We must love other Men for God for as it is he that should terminate all the motions of our heart he can only reunite all minds in himself But the Commerce which we may have with Men by means of the Body are only proper to create a division amongst us for sensible Goods are not like those of the mind one can't possess them without sharing them It 's enough for a Man to desire an enjoyment of his Friend's Estate to make him unhappy and become his Enemy It 's the Love of temporal advantage which begets Wars and breeds Division in Families Persons would enjoy these Goods but can't without depriving those of them that possess them Thus 't is evident that a contempt of sensible Goods and a privation of Pleasures are as useful for the preservation of Peace amongst them as to continue a strict Union with God Arist. 'T is true Theodorus that to avoid a quarrel with any Body there 's no better means than to yield our Possessions to those that desire them of us but the Command of Jesus Christ in this matter is very inconvenient and I do not see that even the most perfect follow it Theod. I confess it Aristarchus there are many occasions on which we should not too rigidly pursue this Command but we must always be disposed to it if there be necessity 'T is not the difficulty that we find in this Command and in the rest which ought to hinder us from practising them on the contrary they are so much the more useful as they tend more to satisfy the * Pontificius loquitur Justice of God and to merit the Favor of our perfect re-union with him We are all Sinners and deserve to suffer and these instructions of Privation being painful they have this advantage that they cleanse us from our Sins in making us partakers in the Sufferings of CHRIST In our misery we have all of us need of the assistance of Heaven but CHRIST teaches us to merit them when our Sufferings being join'd to his our Sufferings are meritorious with his Thus the Inconveniency you find in the Precepts of CHRIST bring their Recommendation along with them If the trouble which attends the privation of sensible Objects were not necessary to satisfy God nor merit his Assistance of which we have the greatest need I confess there would be a fault in the Evangelic Councils nevertheless there would be none better for
Eternal Wisdom this is the Advice which he gives not only to the Apostles but to all Mankind in general And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also he said unto them Whosoever will come after me let him deny himself c. The Elevation of the Soul to GOD. O LORD whose Will is ever effectual and all whose Decrees are unchangeable it is of thy bounty that we feel Pleasure in the use of sensible things but ungrateful Man loves that false good and despises the true cause of his Happiness or rather he is ignorant that thou O Lord alone art able to operate in him It was wisely ordered by thy Providence that Man should be able to discern by short and evident Proofs whether he should use or avoid the Bodies that surround him that he might not be obliged to turn from thee nor to six his Mind upon thy Creatures But he has abused thy Mercy to his own destruction for thou O God art not in all his thoughts He imagines that matter is the cause of all the Pleasure which he feels and therefore yields himself a slave to it and makes it the only Object of his Thoughts and Affections Thus what thou hadst appointed to preserve the Righteous Man in his Rightcousness serves now to harden the Wicked in their Wickedness Is it just thou shouldst work a Miracle for a sinful wretch O God No Lord let thy Decrees remain fixt for ever and woe be to those that tempt thee Let Men shun Poyson if they would avoid Death They can discern that Poyson for thou hast taught them to know and avoid it But O thou Just and Merciful God who dealest Righteously with thy Creatures how shall we be able to hate Pleasure How hate what thou causest us to love It is just that we suffer as Sinners but can we love Pain which thou seemest to make us hate by an invincible Impression O Lord whose Wisdom is infinite enable us perfectly to understand that thou art not contrary to thy self and that thy Wills do not imply contradiction that Pleasure in it self is not absolutely bad and that the true cause that produces it really deserves and ought to be belov'd and respected belov'd with all our Heart and Soul and respected so as not to be constrain'd in consequence of his Will to gratifie us when absolutely speaking be should punish us O Lord who hidest thy self from our mortal Eyes cause thy strength and the efficacy of thy will to exert themselves and do thou clearly and incessantly convince us that the Bodies which are on all sides about us are absolutely incapable of doing us either good or harm Perhaps Men will love none but thee when they come to know that thou alone art able to do them good and perhaps they will fear none but thee when they shall have rightly understood that thou alone hast sufficient strength and power to cause them to suffer Pain But I beseech thee O my God to deal with me in a more safe and merciful manner I know that thy Creatures are not my good yet I love them I am convinc'd that whatever is round me cannot penetrate me yet my Heart insensibly opens it self and expects to receive from the vilest of thy Creatures what thou alone art able to give me Therefore O Lord be pleased out of thy infimte Mercy to deal with me in a more safe manner than thou dost with those who follow the Dictates of their Love Oh set me apart from thy Creatures since they turn my Heart from thee Draw my Eyes from fixing themselves on sensible Objects since I mistake them for thee or rather since I love them instead of thee This is the surest means to remedy the disorders in my Heart All my Philosophy is not sufficient to regulate my Love and can only serve to accuse and confound me before thee It teaches me that I make use of the Order to overthrow the Order that I misemploy thy Gifts by promoting what is ill and that I make use of the immutability of thy Decrees meerly to reward Rebellion and other Crimes It plainly shows me my Impiety and Injustice but leaves me plung'd in it I am stricken with horrour when I think on my self yet I cannot forbear loving my self So I procure those Pleasures to my self which make me happy at least while I enjoy them O God how stupid and sensless am I not I love my self for a Moment and ruine my self for a whole Eternity But I have a feeling sence of that Moment and I have none of Eternity 'T is true I think on it and the Thought disturbs my Joy but alas Pleasure though never so weaken'd by my Reflections easily draws after its self a Heart which it has already put into motion Deprive me then O my God of all the Objects that flatter my Senses and disorder my Reason While as being the Author of Nature thou makest me seel Pleasure in the use of those Objects do thou as thou art the Author of Grace make me loath and abhor them And I beseech thee out of the abundance of thy Mercies that at such times as Pains are voluntary thou mayst make me suffer those which my Crimes deserve O God who canst not let sin remain impunished make me continually return to the observance of the Order Form me upon the model of thy Son crucifie me with him and let his Cross that is only folly and weakness to the Eyes of Man be all my Strength all my Wisdom and all my Joy O Jesus who wast nail'd on the Cross for my sins I am thine nail and fix me there with thee crucifie my Flesh with its Passions and unruly Desires destroy this body of Sin or by thy Grace deliver me from the stress of it that continually presses upon my Mind We are baptized in thy Death We are dead to all the things of this World We are even buried with thee through Baptism Our old Man according to thy great Apostle was crucified with thee that the body of sin might be destroy'd And wilt thou O Lord suffer this Old Man to live again and this Body of Sin to subsist O Saviour of the World do thou finish the work which thou hast begun Continue to suffer in thy Members Do thou in our Flesh sinish the Sacrifice which thou hast begun in Abel which thou didst continue in the Patriarchs and Prophets and to which thou wilt not put an end but by the Death of the last Member of thy Body that is to be the last Saint whom thou wilt give to thy Church O thou Blessed Spirit of Christ thou Love of the Father and of the Son diffuse thy Charity through our Hearts drive the servile fear of Slaves out of our Minds and fill us with that Fear that is found in the Children and which gives a Right to the Inheritance of our Father Come O thou Spirit of Comfort soften the bitterness and distaste which we find in Repentance make us partake of the Sufferings of Christ that we may also be made partakers of his Glory But give us at the same time some of that Heavenly Fire which thou didst shower down on the Apostles that Fire which kindled in them an ardent Zeal to preach the Cross of Christ without Fear and to suffer joyfully the shame of Whipping the stress of Torments and Death it self for Christ Jesus Amen FINIS
truth he could not bear a little while before Arist I give you thanks for this advice Theodorus and will certainly make good use of it the Impatience which is excited within me by the hopes of being serviceable to my friend obliges me to break off our Conversation I must satisfie my self Theod. I commend your zeal and the sincerity of your friendship be of good heart Aristarchus I wish you may return satisfy'd and you Erastus be careful to have in your mind the things that we have said and to discourse about them with Aristarchus as soon as he comes back DIALOGUE III. Of the Order of Nature in the Creation of Man Theod. WEll Aristarchus you have converted your man Erastus told me just now all that past between you and him I even know that he desires to be your Disciple and to have an account of our following conferences Be pleas'd then for his sake to apply your self so that you may demonstrate all things to him with some exactness Arist You take the right way to ingage me for I am extreamly sensible to friendship and methinks my desire to know truth is doubled by the design I have to impart it to my friend Let us go on then I beseech you I am perswaded that there is a God that is to say a Being infinitely perfect whose wisdom and power have no bounds and whose providence extends it self not only to us but even to the atoms of matter I remember your proofs and am convinc'd of them Theod. I can demonstrate nothing of true Religion nor of true Morality till I know what God designs in the creation and preservation of our being Arist You must seek some other principle Theodorus My friend is a Cartesian his Philosophy doth not admit final causes and tho he is now convinc'd that there is a God he will not fail to tell me that we ought not to presume so much of our selves as to believe that God hath been pleas'd to make us privy to his counsels Theod. Your friend will never say this to you if he be a good Cartesian The knowledge of final Causes is of little or no use in Natural Philosophy as Descartes pretends But it is absolutely necessry in Religion Can you obey God if you do not know his will and can you hope to please him and that he will make you happy except you be obedient to him â—… may be you imagine that we can know nothing of Gods design on men by Reason but you are mistaken Do not think too much on your friend Pray think on what I am going to tell you You are perswaded that God is wise and ascribe to him all the perfections whereof you have some Idea God therefore loves most what is most lovely and so must love himself more than all things and be to himself the end of all his actions And by consequence the end of the Creation and preservation of our being It follows then that the faculty by which we know that is to say our Mind and that whereby we love which is our will 〈◊〉 made and preâ—…ved to know and to love God supposing as you do not doubt it they have been made to know and to love Do you find any darkness in what I have told you Pray think on it 't is the ground of all we shall â—ay hereafter Arist All this seems to me as evident as the most certain principles of Natural Philosophy Theod. It hath even more certainty the communication of motion is certain as experience teaches us nevertheless this communication might not be and it will in all likelihood cease after the resurrection that our bodies may be incorruptible but it shall never cease to be the will of God that we know and love him Since then this seems to be plain to you how can it happen that there be men that neither know nor love God since God preserves them but to know and love him Do you think it possible to resist God and that God hath any love for Spirits who have no knowledge of him nor any love for him Do you think God preserves them and do you not know that if God should cease to love them they should be no more Arist I begin to doubt of your principle for you draw some very sad consequences from it Theod. 'T is very strange Aristarchus you should doubt of things of which you have an evidence Will you always forget that light ought to be preferred to darkness and that clear truths are not to be forsaken because we find some difficulty in clearing some dark objections Learn to distinguish truth from what seems to be so and observe that what I objected to you just now is true in one sense and false in another For there is no man but knows and loves God in one sense as you will see it hereafter Therefore stick firmly to this truth that God hath made and preserves spirits but to know and love him And this truth being granted since it is evident endeavour to discover how it may be conceiv'd that all spirits know and love God for that is of the greatest consequence I will put some questions to Erastus that I may insensibly lead you to that truth Do you think Erastus that Spirits can see Bodies Or rather do you think that this material and sensible world can be the immediate object of the mind Do you think that bodies can act in the mind make themselves visible to the mind or enlighten it Erast I do not think it Theod. What then do you see immediately when you see the material and visible world Erast I see If I may say so the Intelligible World Theod. How when you look upon the Stars do you not see the Stars Erast When I look upon the Stars I see the Stars when I look upon the Stars of the material world I see the Stars of the intelligible world and judge that those material Stars are like those of the intelligible world I see For the Sun that I see is sometimes bigger and sometimes less and is never bigger than an intelligible Circle of two or three foot diameter but the material Sun is always the same and according to the sentiment of some Astronomers about thirty thousand times bigger than the Earth 't is not then this Sun I see when I am looking upon it Theod. But Erastus where is this intelligible world which you see Do you think to include it within your self Do you think your soul comprehends in an intelligible manner all the beings that God can make and you can see Can your Soul whose bounds are too narrow whose perfections are finite and who certainly doth not include all things see all things by reflecting on herself Erast I do not think it but I dare not tell you my opinion I imagine that there is none but God that includes the intelligible world and that we see in God whatever we see Theod. But why are you afraid to
the original of light Endeavour to persuade him that God alone is the life and nourishment of the soul That all bodies are invisible by themselves and altogether uncapable of producing any sentiment in our souls That all good is included in God in an intelligible manner in a manner fit to act into the mind to shew it self and cause it self to be felt by it In short that God alone is the true good of the mind all manner of ways and that we ought to love and adore none but him Raise in him a desire to hear you by things on which perhaps he never thought and such as may by their novelty stir up in him a salutary curiosity But above all things endeavour to make him very sensible of his unjustice towards God whilst he follows his passions And that being a sinner and consequently unworthy of being rewarded by the delightful sentiments of pleasure he obliges God in consequence of his immutable orders to affect him with delight in the very moment he offends him Death shall corrupt his body and then God remaining unchangeable in his decrees will avenge during a whole eternity the wrongs he shall have done him by compelling him in a manner not only to be subservient to his disorders but even to reward him for his disobedience In short make him sensible of the necessity there is to repent and strive to inspire in him a saultary horror of all those criminal pleasures that bewitch the senses and corrupt the heart and reason That retiring within himself the confused noise of his passions may not hinder him from hearkning to the secret checks of inward truth and thus he may understand what you shall tell him afterwards DIALOGUE IV. Of the Disorder of Nature caused by Original Sin Theod. WELL what satisfaction have you had of your last visit to your Friend Arist None at all My Friend becomes ill-humoured when ever I speak to him nay sometimes he grows angry and flies out in a passion This troubles me very much Theod. But doth he laugh no more at what you say Arist No. Theod. Be of good heart then your Friend mends and I hope will recover He begins now to feel his wounds since he laughs no more when they are drest Should you wonder to see a man grow ill-humoured and angry if another filled him with wounds confusion and shame why then would you have your Friend insensible You have told him perhaps some truths that oblige him to leave his pleasure to shake off the Old Man to be in a disposition to repent and appear full of confusion and shame in the sense of his unfortunate Friends who will laugh at his change He hath had a prospect of all those things within himself and they have scar'd him If he be vext 't is because you have wounded him and I believe that you have offended him by Convincing him Can any thing grieve and mortifie a worldly man more than the thoughts of being obliged to change altogether his way of living and approve by his own example a manner of life which his Friends ridicule and he himself hath laught at with them all his life-time Perhaps your Friend finds himself obliged to this He is willing to breakhis bonds but he tears himself to pieces his heartis divided and you wonder at his pain and impatience Know my dear Aristarchus that if your Friend heard you without being moved it would show that he is not affected with your words that they do not reach his heart that he is not convinced by that conviction which stirs us to action begins our conversion and makes us suffer because it strips us of the Old Man So I would have you be joyful not because you have filled your Friend with sadness but because his sadness is in all likelihood the sadness that inclines us to repentance Arist You revive me extreamly Let us go on I pray you in our conferences that I may strengthen my self in the knowledge of the proofs of Religion and Morality to convince my Friend fully You prov'd me t'other day that God hath made us to know and love him Pray what consequence do you draw from that principle For I grant that God will not have us to fix on particular good the motion of Love that he incessantly causes in us that we may love him incessantly not with respect to his works which being below us are unworthy of our Love but in himself and according to the idea we have of him as a Being infinitely perfect Theod. All the Precepts of Christian Morals depend upon that Principle You believe it already but you shall see it clearly when I shall make use of it to justifie the counsels which the Eternal Wisdom hath given us in the Gospel I will show you now that this principle is the ground of the Christian Religion that owns the need of a Restorer and Law-giver able to illuminate the Spirit and give a new strength to the Soul of a Mediator between God and Men who may offer a Sacrifice and establish a Worship worthy of God and able to satisfie his justice You own that God will be loved with all our strength that is to say that all the motion of love he creates in us end towards him and that we love creatures only for him and not him with respect to creatures But do you love him always after that manner do you find no difficulty in the practice of his Love do you feel no pain to follow this motion to its utmost or no pleasure to stop it In short do you not find often that the ways of vertue are hard and painful and those of vice smooth and pleasing Arist I am not more perfect than St. Paul I sometimes delight in the love of God according to the inward man but I feel in my body another law that fights against the law of my spirit I suffer when I practice vertue I receive some pleasure in the enjoyment of sensible things in spight of all my opposition and am so much a slave to my body that I cannot even apply my self without pain and reluctancy to things that have no relation to the body Theod. But whence proceeds this pain you resent in doing well and this pleasure you have in doing ill You are not the cause of your own pleasure nor pain for if you were seeing you love your self you would never produce pain in your self and would still be injoying some pleasure Neither is it your body not those that are about you for all bodys are below you and it cannot be conceived that they may act in you or make you happy or unhappy None but God can act in the Soul But do you think that God afflicts you when you do well or that he rewards you when you do ill Do you think that God who desireth that you may love him with all your strength throws you back when you run after him But when you cease to
Mahomet are unworthy of Mankind for even the Heathen Philosophers themselves went thus far Christ would have us despise these Goods altho' the Law promises them and he declares those to be happy who are deprived of them and who are miserable and cursed according to the Law Thus I am satisfy'd that the promises of the Law were only figures for those amongst the Jews who had Charity could not desire the accomplishment of these promises as their true good but perhaps the Law in it self was good Theod. You perceive not that there must be a relation betwixt the good which the Law promises and the Law itself and that if the Law justifies really and by itself the recompences of the Law must be good in themselves and make a truly just Man happy But Men can't be just themselves and only desire these Rewards The just then could not trust in the Sacrifices and Ceremonies of the Law they were to expect the Messiah that could promise them such a happiness as they might lawfully wish it There were two sorts of Jews under the Law Jews after the Spirit and Jews after the Letter Those who had the Spirit of the Law were Christians for Christ is the end of the Law and those were circumcised with the circumcision of the heart and had put off the old man explaining the whole Law its Ceremonies and Promises by their relation to the Messiah and that eternal happiness which they expected from him They were not scandaliz'd when Isaiah spoke on the behalf of God to the Jews according to the flesh Isa 1.10,11 Hear the word of the Lord ye Princes of Sodom hearken to the Law of our God ye People of Gomorrah What have I to do with this multitude of Sacrifices chat ye offer to me saith the Lord All this is an abomination to me I love not the sacrifice of your Rams nor the fat of your Flocks nor the blood of Beeves Lambs and He-Goats They sung with joy in the same Spirit with Christians Psal 50. For thou desirest not Sacrifice else would I give it thou delightest not in burnt-offerings Lord do good in thy good pleasure unto Sion build thou the walls of Jerusalem then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness with burnt-offerings and whole burnt-offerings then shall they offer bullocks upon thine Altar In fine they sighed incessantly towards Heaven to draw down the true Messiah who was to deliver them from their sins But the Jews according to the flesh gloried in the shameful signature of the circumcision of their bodies they were uncircumcised in heart they had a vail which hid the end of the Law from them They placed their confidence in their Sacrifices and Ceremonies in the Ark and in the Temple of the Lord in Moses Abraham and their other Patriarchs They were full of Zeal and Fury against the true Israelites and continually persecuted the Prophets which had the Spirit of the Law and which reproved their Vices The Jews after the Spirit were true Christians they were always ready to acknowledg and receive Jesus Christ whenever he should come for the Moral of the New Testament is wholly conformable to the disposition of their heart since they acknowledg that the goods of the senses were unworthy of their love And as they explain'd not holy Scripture according to the Letter but according to the mystical Sense and with relation to the Messiah whom they expected so the proofs which the Apostles took out of the Old Testament to justifie the quality of Christ were entirely conformable to their Spirit Thus Christ and his Apostles were heard by those amongst the Jews who were moved by Charity but the carnal Jews who had their heart vail'd could not nay even would not comprehend the proofs which the Apostles gave of the Truth they preacht Arist But must it not be confessed that the proofs which the Apostles drew from the Old Testament to confirm the New were very weak Theod. They were no proofs or at best extravagant ones to the carnal Jews and those who know not distinctly that the Old Testament is only for the use of the New that Abraham Joseph Joshua David Solomon are only in the Scripture because of CHRIST and that whatever hapned to the Jews were but figures of things to come Yes Aristarchus if the literal Sense of the Scripture is the chief end then St Paul and the Apostles prove nothing nay they are mad Men and fanatical But he must be the most stupid and rash of all Men who can imagin that St Paul had not common Sense that he would render himself so very ridiculous to wrest passages of Scripture to convince the Jews how unprofitable their Sacrifices and Ceremonies were For after all if we can't believe that the Letter of the Law rather administers death than life after what I have already said I see not but that we must believe at least that there were some Men amongst the Jews who search'd into the Law for another Sense besides the literal since St Paul does not make use of the literal Sense to convince them of the Messiah's coming Do not you know that even the Jewish Commentators who are the declared Enemies of CHRIST refer most of the passages to the Messiah which the Apostles do to CHRIST altho' these passages might often be understood of David Solomon or others for as the truth is we must consider these persons as figures of CHRIST The Letter of the Scripture does by Divine Providence contain so many things which appear unworthy of God and even contrary to Reason that those who are not entirely stupid find themselves obliged to abandon it I have proved this to you by the Rewards which Moses proposed to the Jews which as you your self have freely granted are not only unworthy of such who love God above all things but in general of all other Beings which are more noble than Bodies Thus we can't reasonably doubt but that the Jews who from the times of the Apostles expected the Messiah and who believed him near at hand were very much disposed to receive him in that capacity which the Apostles had described to them provided the love of sensible things hindred them not from following him God always disposes things after such a manner that those who love him do always find him he leaves such footsteps after him that those who feel the inward motions of Charity do highly acknowledg him And if false Prophets back their Lyes with Miracles 't is because God tempts Men to discern those who love him for those who love him are not deceived CHRIST is so concealed in the Scriptures that those who love him not do not find him there He is not only come to enlighten the blind but also to blind the wise He is come to reprove the glory of the world for this is an abomination before God In fine he is come to preach the Gospel to the poor the simple and ignorant
by few things he could unite himself to God in a manner close enough to receive from him all the necessary lights This made him extremely learned Had he still disengag'd himself more from his Senses less immers'd himself in the World and yet more carefully apply'd himself to seek after Truth it is certain that he would have carried the Sciences of which he hath treated much further and his Metaphysics would not be such as he hath left them to us in his Writings Arist But Theodorus now that so many able Men have wrote of Philosophy Mathematics and other Learning methinks it is enough if we read their Works Those learned Persons whereof I was just now speaking to you know Des Cartes as well as Des Cartes could know himself My Friend whom I have a mind to convert understands him so throughly that nothing can be mention'd out of that Author but is known by him nay and the very place where it lies yet he never meditates reads a Book in three days and knows it all Therefore I judg that Retirement is not necessary for Learning Theod. Not for that Learning which resides in Memory and doth not enlighten the Mind Do you think that those Persons who so easily remember other Mens Opinions can see the truth of them Do you think that your Friend knows Des Cartes or rather do you think that he sees what Des Cartes saw If you do you are much mistaken I will grant to you that your Friend knows all the words which Des Cartes hath us'd better than Des Cartes himself did or that he can better relate Des Cartes's Opinion than Des Cartes himself could have done it In short I will believe if you will that he is fitter to make a Man a Cartesian to enlighten the minds of those that hear him and make them receive Des Cartes's Sentiments than Des Cartes himself was yet for all this I do not believe that he truly knows Des Cartes Des Cartes's Philosophy is in his memory and imagination and for that Reason he speaks pertinently of it but I do not believe that it is in his mind and for that Reason he neither sees nor approves those Sentiments that are the necessary Consequences of it It seems as a Paradox that a Man who doth not know a Truth should sometimes be more capable of persuading another of it than he who exactly knows it and discover'd it himself yet if you consider that we instruct others only by Words you will easily perceive that those that have any force of imagination and a happy memory often can remembring what they have read explain themselves more clearly than those who are accustom'd to meditation and who discover Truth by themselves Thus Aristarchus do not imagin that those who speak pertinently to you concerning some certain Truths see them perfectly for it is not always so many times this happens yet those Truths are only in their memory or else they see them by an imaginary sight for that sight furnishes expressions lively and that seem to signify much tho' they signify nothing distinct only to those whom they move to retire within themselves There is much difference between seeing and seeing between seeing after having read and seeing after having meditated And to find out those that see distinctly and perfectly possess a Truth from those who do not possess it there needs truly to propose to them some question that depends from it for then those that see clearly speak clearly but the others always speak in such a manner as discovers their want of light Examin your learned Men Aristarchus according to this method and you will find that the most learned are the most ignorant that they have the less penetration and the greatest rashness that they cannot so much as discern Truth from what seems to be such that they speak without conceiving what they say and that often in the very instant that you admire them what is most to be admired in them is nothing but an effect of that memory which like a Watch goes of itself and whose springs unbend themselves by the action of the imagination In short you will see after all that almost all their knowledg is destitute of light and evidence of that intellectual light and evidence that is darkned by the slightest sensation and dissipated by the smallest motion and that therefore Retirement a privation of sensible things the mortification of the senses and passions are absolutely necessary for the perfection of the understanding as also for the conversion of the heart But this doth not justify the Morals of the Gospel for Christ did not come to teach us the Mathematics Philosophy and such other Truths which by themselves are unuseful enough for our Salvation All knowledg of Truth rendring the mind in some manner more perfect it was necessary that Christ's directions should be proper to purchase it But the true perfection of the mind and the shortest way to learn generally all Sciences being an Union with God not the natural Union which is incessantly interrupted by the motions of Concupiscence but the Union which a clear sight and a continual love make indissolvable It was necessary that Christ's Precepts should put us in the way whereby we may attain to that Union You will see at our next Interview that the Christian Religion alone can lead us to it In the mean time I leave you with Erastus to meditate on the things which we have said now DIALOGUE VIII That Christian Morality is absolutely necessary for the Conversion of the Heart Theod. WEll Aristarchus are you convinc'd that Retirement from Business a Privation of Pleasures in a word that a mortification of the Senses and Passions is absolutely necessary for the discovery of secret abstracted and sound Truths whose knowledg puffs not up the Heart For I well know that the Commerce of the World engages the Mind in the Study of such Sciences as render a Man famous and that Concupiscence gives us a Passion for all Truths which are useful to make a Man considerable in the World Arist Yes Theodorus I am convinc'd Truth in itself appears so mean a thing to Men toss'd with Passion or join'd to some sensible Object that they can't but despise it and tho' there are many that seek after it 't is I confess out of design and hope to draw some advantage from it The brightness and glory which environs the Learned sparkles and dazles us our secret Pride awakes and stirs us up But the pure light of Truth is not lively enough to make us perceive it when we are preingaged with other things Erast I have known some Men who probably read in the Morning for a matter of Talk in the Afternoon for as soon as they had left the little Company that applauded them they have had such an horror for Books and every thing call'd Learning that they cou'd not abide to hear it spoke of You remember Mr. F. for
may be worthy the Friendship I have for him I am going to endeavour his Conversion I have a world of things to say to him Theod. As he is capable of knowing and loving God he cannot but be worthy your Friendship for now nothing but that can recommend us to the love of one another since we don't perfectly know each other We begin even in this Life to love God and our Neighbour but because we are not to have a clear sight of God nor of our Neighbour till we are in Heaven our Charity cannot be perfect till we are there Go Sir see your Friend But you Erastus pray what do you think on Erast Aristarchus thinks on his Friend and I think on my self I don't know Theodorus whether I shall be here to morrow or no. Methinks I ought to make a good use of the Truths you have taught me I leave you for I am now too much disorder'd you doubtless perceive it well enough I recommend all things to your Prayers The Tenth and Last DIALOGUE Arist I Have a great deal of News to tell you Theodorus my Friend at last is converted but we have lost Erastus Theod. Pray what 's become of him Arist I just now discover'd it His Mother and I wondring that he was not at home at Dinner-time I went up into his Chamber to look for him and found this Letter seal'd up on his Table For Aristarchus I Am convinc'd Aristarchus by Reason and by Faith by a clear Light and an infallible Authority by the intelligible words of inward Truth and by the sensible words of incarnate Truth in short by all that can convince a Rational and Christian Soul that the most safe and usual way to come to God is to seclude our selves from the World and deprive our selves of all sensual things But I ought to take the greater care for the more the business is of consequence the more 't is necessary difficult and dangerous I ought therefore Aristarchus to retire to some place where I may be shelter'd against the persecution of those who would have me apply my self to some studies that are necessary to qualifie a Gentleman for some Employments to which I do not find my self to have a particular Call 'T is true indeed I do not find my self to have a particular and extraordinary call for the design I have But there needs no particular Call when Reason alone and the general vocation of Christians is sufficient Without doubt those who engage in the affairs of this World ought to have a particular Call to that way of living for Reason and our general vocation teach us to do otherwise But as the World goes now methinks a Man needs but to have common Sense and to believe the Gospel to do what I have done However as I would not engage in a particular Course of Life without a particular Call I 'll be still ready to return to you when 't is necessary But I declare I would think my self guilty of a less fault should I without a particular Call presume to conform my self to the way of living of the Religious Persons with whom I intend to live than if without a Call I enter'd into the Bonds of Matrimony or took an Employment that would tye me to too many things All my Relations persecute me every one according to his humour and ambition They have ends which I neither have nor would have Besides I would gladly break off the Society which I have with some infectious Wits who perhaps will abhor me at my coming back In short I believe I ought seriously to mind what is most essential Anthimus and Philemon are very fit to finish what Theodorus hath begun So I am now going to them you know they have wish'd for my coming a long while I beg that you will not impute my withdrawing my self without any previous leave or notice to a want of Friendship for you or of Dutifulness to my Mother Far from this I did it because the Natural Affection which I ought to have for her and you is too violent I dreaded the Consequences of it in the performance of a Design which I was resolved to fulfil for fear of being wanting in that which I owe to God but at last I perswaded my self that as my Mother and you have a very great esteem for the Persons to whom I am now going you will both of you forgive the omission of a peice of Formality which I could not keep merely out of too deep a sense of Love for you I did not dare write to my Mother at first but I beseech you dearest Cozen perswade her to admit of the Assurances of my Duty and Submission I know that next to God I owe all things to her As for Theodorus I pray you to tell him that I 'll continually meditate on the Principles which he discover'd to me and that I love Truth extremely By this he 'll easily know that I 'll seldom be without thinking of him Arist What think you of all this Theodorus Theod. If you would know Sir what I think of Erastus I must needs tell you that I never knew a more just and penetrating Mind a purer and clearer Imagination a sweeter and more honourable Temper a more upright and generous Heart and in short that I never saw a more accomplisht young Man than Erastus As for his Conduct if you blame any thing in it do but Answer what his Letter says in his Justification Finding himself here holden by Tyes that inslave him he breaks them publickly not being able to get free otherwise He is afraid of not being able to preserve the Purity of his Imagination the Freedom of his Mind and the Love of True Good among Persons who use to take all Things upon Trust without examining the Truth and who by their imposing Ways and infectious Behaviour are continually like to make some 〈◊〉 Impressions on his Mind You see that even some of his Relations persecute and seduce him They endeavour to bring him in to the World for their own Credit and they would have him to become considerable there that his Advancement may promote theirs and his Glory reflect some upon them But Erastus is convinc'd by the Strength of Reason that Wealth Pomp and Greatness disorder the Minds of those that enjoy them he is also convinced of it by the Authority of Christ Would you not have him be guided by his Light and Faith Would you have him grasp a Phantasm that vanishes court a Stage-Greatness and feed himself up with Illusions and Chimaera's Either let them prove to him that he follows a false Light and that Christ is a Seducer or else let him alone Arist Do not think Theodorus that I have the least Thing to object against his Conduct I will rather follow him than disturb him in his Design He is in the Right I am fully convinced of it not only by what we said in our former Conferences but
also by what he said to me Yesterday when I was come back from my Friend's Would you have me give you some account of it Theod. You will oblige me we are always very fond of knowing the last Words of those that leave us Arist Erastus never exprest himself with more Eloquence and Happiness of Thought He told me among other Things that Man is not only united to his own Body but also to all those that surround him that our Passions diffuse our Soul into all sensible Objects as our Senses diffuse it through every part of the Body and that those who launch into the wide World continually running after Riches Pleasures and Honours dissipate and lose themselves by being disperst as it were out of themselves While they fancy that they enlarge their own Being they weaken themselves and become Slaves to those whom they would command And while they encrease their Power on the Bodies that surround them they lose that which they have on the Truth that penetrates them Let me consider said he how Man comes to be sensible Out of his Brain certain Nerves are emitted whose infinite number of Branches are disperst over all the Parts of his Body These Nerves or Fibres which correspond to the Seat of the Soul agitate her as soon as they are stirred they disperse her through all the Parts into which they insinuate themselves and whatsoever happens in the Body breaks her Quiet and disturbs her Now let me examine the Condition which that Man is in who is led by his Passions and fasten'd to every Thing Out of his Heart some Bonds may in one sense be said to be emitted and thence their strings are disperst through all sensible Objects These Strings are no sooner stirr'd by the Motion of those Objects but his Heart is also mov'd If these Objects are remov'd at some distance his Heart must follow or be torn In short his Soul disperses her self by the Means of these Tyes through whatever surrounds him just as she diffuses her self by the Means of Nerves over every Part of the Body When a Man inconsiderately gives himself up to the Commerce of the World the Tyes of his Heart fasten him to a Thousand Objects which only serve to make him wretched and if he be mad enough to have a real Love for those Objects or to be pusst up with his new Greatness he is said he to me like those who would be proud of a Dropsie or of Wens or Bunches that swell their Body to a bigger Bulk than ordinary Do you think continued he that the Souls of Gigantic Men are greater than those of other Men They have indeed a larger Body and can put a greater Mass of Matter into Motion but if you examine them well you 'll find that their Motions are more irregular The very Horses and Elephants are stronger than they and more bulky and if these Men measur'd the Greatness of their Soul by that of their Body they would make themselves universally ridiculous Yet it were a juster Thing to measure the Greatness of the Soul by that of the Body than by that of Riches and Honours For after all our Body is more our own than our Wealth and we are more united to it than we are to our Clothes our House or our Lands How foolish and vain then are not Men when they pretend to grow greater by being disperst out of themselves Truely cry'd he Imaginary Greatness makes Men become very miserable Creatures Every thing offends them every thing disturbs them every thing holds them fast And can Men in a perpetual Hurry and as it were wounded in every Part be able to Think Can they be able to cleave to Truth for which alone they are made with which alone they can be nourish'd and through which alone they can grow more wise and more happy They are commonly mad stupid thoughtless Creatures void of Light and Understanding Do you think added he that the Voluptuous and those who continually strive to extend their Slavery by enlarging the Bounds of their Commands do so much as know that they are not made for Bodies nor for a Time and that they are not on Earth barely to live there Alas they know nothing of this they do not perceive that Bodies are inferiour to them uncapable of acting on them and altogether unworthy of their Love As they have not yet felt the Sting of Death they cannot strictly be said to know they shall dye Their Tongues indeed say they must and they believe it but they do not know it They think they shall be no more but they do not know they shall dye What vast difference is there not between seeing and seeing 'T is but a very little while since I know that I am not made for Corporeal Beings that the Figure of this World passeth away that the true Good of Spirits is a Spiritual Good and even since I know what it is to dye Nay as my Understanding is but small I have too been obliged to think with my utmost application to comprehend these Truths Before this I thought of Death what my Eyes discover'd to me of it and scarce any thing more And if I had not been in a greater Capacity of applying my self to thinking than those who are in the Hurry of Business or a hunting after Pleasure I must confess I had not known what I believe is unknown to great Numbers of Men. The application of the Mind produces Light and discovers Truth The sight of Truth gives perfection to the Mind and regulates the Heart Such an application is then necessary But can a Man when he is pull'd and drawn on all sides struck and wounded every where thrust back when he would get forwards dragg'd forwards when he would go back and continually disturb'd and misus'd can such a Man I say think with application Can a Man who fears every thing yet desires hopes for and runs after every thing think on what he does not see Truth is distant and not sensible nor is it a Good which we find our selves press'd to love We must seek it if we would find it But we may still put off the Search for it never wholly leaves us On the contrary Bodies cause themselves to be felt every Moment press us to love them and continually oblige us to cleave to them for they are transitory and leave us as soon as they have tempted us So because Opportunity when lost is not easily recover'd Men are quickly determin'd to enjoy them but as for Truth they put off from time to time the applying of themselves to it because it never leaves them nor causes it self to be felt and for that reason it does not press them to love it How happy are those added he who wait for Eternity in Deserts and who finding themselves too weak to preserve the Freedom of their Mind and the purity of their Imagination against the Efforts and Malignity of sensible Objects have bravely
Carry me up with thee O my God and unite me to thee Crucifie and sacrifice me with thee that I may partake of that Power which is so terrible to my Home-bred Enemies to the World and to Hell it self Of MAN Considered as a SINNER The Seventh Consideration IT is extreamly difficult to represent the inward Dispositions of Mind that a Sinner ought to have for neither the lowest humiliation nor the highest self-abhorrence nor even annihilation it self are sutable to so mean wicked and empty a thing or rather nothing Annihilation would be a Blessing to a Sinner who is reserved for the Wrath that is to come And he cannot abhor himself as he ought for 't is God alone that can hate him as much as he deserves Man as a Child of Adam is indeed a Reprobate but he is not subject to the Punishment of the Damned he ought indeed to live in perpetual sorrow as being deprived of his soveraign good but he does not deserve the extremity of Torments The Children of a Criminal may be justly deprived of all the Favours which their Father received but they do not deserve an equal Punishment God may with Justice withdraw his Presence from the Sons of Adam he may deny them his particular Favours and refuse to be their Recompence and even may if he pleases annihilate them since they are his Creatures But it does not seem agreeable to the Divine Justice to punish them with the utmost severity only because they are the unhappy Children of a rebellious Father But the Case is altered when we consider Man as a Sinner himself And God might very reasonably exert all his Wisdom and Power to satisfie his Justice if the Sinner were capable of being made the Object of the entire Vengeance of an angry God For since the Greatness of Offences is measured by the Dignity of the Person that is offended 't is plain that every Offence that is committed against God is infinite and deserves an infinite Punishment if Man were capable of suffering it Thus a Sinner considered without Christ is something worse yet than a Damned Soul that is consider'd with the Satisfaction of Christ For if we consider the Satisfaction of Christ it is not necessary that damned Souls should suffer according to their utmost capacity of suffering Neither in effect do the Damned suffer all that they are able to endure for their Punishment is unequal as well as their Guilt tho' their capacity of suffering be the same and they deserve to suffer to the utmost all that they are able to bear And therefore the condition of a Sinner without Christ is more deplorable than that of the Damn'd for he is a Blemish to the Beauty of the Universe and overturns the established Order of Things as much as 't is possible he should overturn it Such a Sinner is even more worthy of Hatred than all the Damn'd and Devils together for the Death of Christ being sufficient to supply the defects of the satisfaction which the Damn'd make to the Justice of God that Sacred Justice is fully satisfied and God is Glorified in the Punishment of the Damned notwithstanding all their Malice and Spight and even their Malice it self as the due reward of their Sins serves to glorifie the Divine Justice But a Sinner without Christ is a Monster whom God neither can nor will endure he is not capable of being comprehended in any order neither of Mercy nor of Justice There is nothing that is Good in such a Sinner 'T is impossible to think on him without horrour and those who love Order that inviolable Law of Spiritual Motion can see nothing more worthy hatred and detestation than such a Creature I can neither hate nor humble my self enough as I am a Sinner Even my Repentance deserves to be rejected for my Groans and Tears serve only to renew the remembrance of my Offences In vain do I lift up my voice to Heaven God hears not the Cries of Sinners he laughs at their Calamities and delights in their just Punishments As a Creature God hears me as a Son of Adam he despises me but as a Sinner he cannot think on me without making me the Object of his most rigorous Justice and punishing me according to the utmost extent of my capacity of lussering How miserable then is the condition of a Sinner But let us not any longer consider him without a Redcemer The Elevation of the Soul to GOD. O Jesus who camest into the World not to call the Righteous but Sinners to Repentance who didst take upon thy self all the marks of a Sinner and condescend to be look'd upon as a Sinner and as a Friend to Publicans and Sinners thou whose ardent desire it was to suffer for Sinners and by the hands of Sinners a Death which was appointed for the vilest Sinners O Jesus the Saviour of Sinners be thou my shield to protect me against the Arrows of the Wrath of God and stop the Arm of thy Father which is ready to fall heavily upon me Joyn thy Groans to mine and mingle thy Tears with mine that they may not any longer be the object of the scorn and abomination of my God I do not ask thee to raise me from the ground to wipe away my Tears or to restore my first Robes I am not in a state of Innocence and desire not to live but in Sorrow and Humiliation Yes Lord I will remain prostrate on the ground with my Face cover'd with Dust and Tears and thus together with thee bear that shame and confusion which I justly deserve for my offences The Eighth Consideration THE Condition of Man as a Child of Adam and even though we consider him as redeem'd by Christ does necessarily require a separation and abstinence from all the Pleasures of Sense and Objects of Concupiscence for every Child of Adam how righteous and holy soever he may be suppos'd to be does always feel a weight that draws him to the Earth and counter-ballances the effort of the weight of Grace upon his Soul Now since the weight of Grace does not depend on us and acts so much the more vigorously upon us as the weight of Concupiscence is less 't is plain that all Mankind is under a very strict obligation to diminish the last of these weights by carefully avoiding sensual Pleasures which Naturally incline us to the love of those Objects that seem to cause them and by so doing stir up and strengthen the motions of Concupiscence in us Besides Mortification and a depriving our selves of Worldly Pleasures are not only useful to cooperate with Grace and remove such things as might obstruct its efficacy but are even many times necessary qualifications to deserve Grace and in all appearance the shortest way to obtain it nor do they ever fail of doing it when they proceed from a Motion of the Spirit of God and are practised with due perseverance When we consider that an unchangeable Order is the Essential
to make you think of it But pray tell me do you love the Game of Piquet or Omber Erast Very much Theod. Do you love Hunting Erast I have not yet been at it but I imagine that there 's no great pleasure to course a Hare for three of four hours together in the Wind Rain or Sun Arist You know not what you say Erastus there 's no greater pleasure in the World Theod. Take heed Erastus Aristarchus judges not of Hunting as you do he loves it and you love it not But would you love it Does your Reason represent it as if it were worthy of your love Erast No Theodorus neither my Reason nor my Senses for what pleasure can it be to pursue a miserable Beast a whole day together I pity the Passion of Aristarchus Theod. I advise you then never to go to it for if you did you perhaps would come back more passionate than Aristarchus he was once as you are without any desire to hunt before he had tasted the pleasure it may be he had even an aversion for it but by little and little he was so accustomed to it that he could not refrain from it Erast I believe it and will never go for I would not be ruined in Horses and Dogs Theod. But Erastus why play you Why do you lose your time unprofitably Will you ruine your 〈◊〉 by play rather than Hunting Erast I can't help it Theod. Then 't is with you as with Aristarchus you condemn one another and have compassion for one another Arist 'T is true Erastus and I are not over wise thus to follow the Motions of our Passions altho I see well that he runs the Risque of losing at Cards and I of falling off my Horse Theod. What should have been done then to reclaim Erastus from gaming and Aristarchus from hunting For as things now are there only remains in human apprehension a violent Remedy Erast When Aristarchus perceived himself agitated by the pleasure of the Chace he should have forthwith left it He should resemble me his Imanation should not be filled with these Vestiges which continually renew the object of his Passion 't is the Pleasure that is found in the use of sensible things which is the Cause of Passions and which agitates the animal Spirits but when the animal Spirits are strongly agitated they impress deep Vestiges in the Brain they even break thro' their violent Course all the Fibres which resist them Thus as soon as we taste pleasure we must examine and see if it be advantageous that the Vestiges of the Object which cause this pleasure perfect their form if the Object which causes this pleasure is unworthy of our Application and Love we must deprive our selves of it and also shun the pleasure which enslaves us by the Vestiges it impresses in our Brain 'T is this I believe which we ought to do to hinder our Concupiscence from a continual growth Theod. But Erastus when you actually taste of pleasure can you easily quit the Object that causes it When Aristarchus was in the heat of the Chase the first time he went thither do you think he was in a Condition to reflect upon himself Did not the Sound of the Horn the Noise and running of the Dogs the motion of the Horse and above all this the pleasure that he found in all these different motions take up his mind Did not his Passion carry him as well as his Horse to the Death of the Hare or Stag And do you believe that he could then think of your Remedy Or if he had thought do you believe that he would have been willing to have made use of it Or that he could have resisted the Passion which agitated him The Philosophical Remedies which you have laid down are not proper at such a time Erastus to hinder our Concupiscence that it should not encrease Erast 'T is true Theodorus the most certain of all Remedies is that of privation Pleasure poysons us we must not taste it this the most short and sure Rule b He that commits Sin becomes the Slave of it Joh. 8.34 I find that reason perfectly agrees with the Gospel nevertheless I remember that I have cured my Imagination and resisted my Passion by the use of things which according to what you have said should encrease it Thus About three or four years ago I freely believed every thing that I heard One day there came an Officer hither who said that travelling with an Englishman that could not forbear smoking it hapned that this Englishmans Horse fell down and broke his Masters Leg who being upon the ground and thinking rather on his Pipe than Leg he put his hand into his Pocket and taking out his Pipe whole he cry'd out with Joy Well well my Pipe is not broke This Relation struck me and I imagin'd the smoke of Tobacco was the most agreeable thing in the World so that I perceiv'd my self urg'd with a violent Passion to try it but it happen'd to me as to many others that I had no sooner tasted it but had a horror for it Thus Theodorus your Remedy which is to deprive us of sensible things is not general for the use of Tobacco has cured me of the Passion I had for it and when I had not us'd it I was desirous of it Theod. But Erastus don't you see that we must be depriv'd of all that is capable of sullying the Imagination The Commerce we have with those who speak of Bodies as true Goods is capable of impressing traces in the Brain which carry us to the love of Bodies as well as the very use of Bodies A Drunkard who speaks of Wine as of his God who despises those who know not how to drink and who places amongst his bravest Actions the Victories which he hath got at the Table against the greatest Debauchees of the Province such a Drunkard in his gay humor easily persuades a young Man that 't is a fine quality to drink as much Wine as two Horses can drink Water 'T is for this that in all places where Men speak of drinking much as of a Vertue all the World drinks to excess for even those who don't at first delight in drinking doing as others to avoid being the Subject of their Companions Ralleries they are by degrees so accustom'd to Wine that they can't be without it Thus Erastus as Concupiscence does principally reside in the traces of the Brain which incline the Soul to the love of sensible things it must be depriv'd of all things which produce these traces not only of the actual use of Bodies which is of no use to the preservation of health and life but also of the Conversation of Debauchees who speak with esteem of the objects of their passions 'T is pleasure Erastus which agitates the Spirits and which produces dangerous traces not only that which we enjoy by our Senses but that also which we enjoy by Imagination not only the taste