settled Devotion But why do I say seeming when 't is next to impossible that such lively and favoury Representations of the Love of God should proceed from one that is not intimately acquainted with the Mysteries and Secrets of it or that there should be any such Knowledge without the most hearty and affectionate Sense of it which alone is able to teach and make it known For contrary to the Method of other Sciences ' t is Practice here that begets Theory and those only who have their Hearts thoroughly warmed and animated with the Love of God can either know or describe its Properties Madam I am very sensible what Obligations I am under to you for the Privilege of your excellent Correspondence though I can never hope that my Thanks should ever equal either the Pleasure or the Advantage I have received by it or that I should be ever able to express the Value I set upon your Letters either as to their Ingenuity or their Piety The former of which might make them an Entertainment for an Angel and the latter sufficient if possible to make a Saint of the blackest Devil I am sure for my own Part I have particular reason to thank you for them having received great spiritual Comfort and Advantage by them not only Heat but Light intellectual as well as moral Improvement For as many Discourses as there are upon the Subject to my Knowledge I never met with any that have so inlightened my Mind inlarged my Heart so entered and took Possession of my Spirit and have had such a general and commanding Influence over my whole Soul as these of yours And I question not but that they would have the same Effect upon other Readers if they were but exposed to their View and would help to fan and blow up that divine Fire which our Saviour came to kindle upon Earth but which the Neglect of careless Men has let almost go out And indeed never was there more need of such warm quickning Discourses than in this cold frozen Age of ours wherein the Flame of divine Love seems not only to burn with a blue expiring Light but to hang loose and hovering just ready to fly away and be extinct Some have not the Knowledge of God was the Complaint of St. Paul and the chief Character of his Time But that of ours is Want of the Love of God and which equally redounds to our Shame Perhaps more since the natural Capacity of our Wills is greater and more extensive than that of our Understandings and he that knows but little may yet love much But to our Shame the Reverse of this is now true There is a great deal of Knowledge now adays and but little Love Knowledge indeed is now in its Meridian diffusing at once a very bright and universal Light but the Love of God is declining and just ready to set Strange that our Heads should be so full of Life and Spirits and yet that the Pulse of our Hearts should beat so low But the Ends of the World are come upon us and a double Prophecy must be fulfilled viz. That in the later Days Knowledge shall increase and that the Love of many shall wax cold O divine Love whither art thou fled or where art thou to be found How little art thou understood and how much less art thou considered and practised What Discoveries of thee have been made by the Son of God and yet what a Riddle art thou still to the World What a Divine Teacher hast thou had and yet how few are thy Disciples How charming and ravishing are thy Pleasures and yet how very few hast thou inamoured by them While in the mean time Covetousness and Ambition have their numerous Altars and Votaries and sensual Love is continually spreading its Victories and leading in triumph its inglorious Captives O God that thou shouldst be so infinitely lovely and yet so little beloved That ever Mortal Beauties should be suffered to vye with thine that thy Creatures should fall in love with one another and in the mean time neglect thee thou infinite thou only fair who alone art worthy to have and who alone canst reward their Passion What a just Indignation must every true Lover of God conceive at this strange Disorder and how willing and ready will he be to help it by promoting and propagating as far as he can the Love of God in the World For this is one great Effect and Sign of the Love of God and the only one I would have added to those you have mentioned that whereas the Lovers of created Beauties are jealous of them and willing to ingross them to themselves being conscious of their Incapacity to suffice for many those that truly love God are desirous to have others love him too to multiply his Votaries and to make the whole World if they can offer up their Sacrifices upon the same divine Altar There cannot be a greater Pleasure to a true Lovers of God than to see him loved by others nor a greater Grief than to think what vast Numbers of evil Spirits there are in Hell and wicked Men upon Earth who either hate him or imperfectly love him And what would not such a Soul do what would she not suffer to gain Proselytes to the Love of God and promote the Power and Interest of it in the World that so God might be loved in Earth as he is in Heaven And how would it rejoyce her to find her Endeavours succeed to find that by careful fanning and blowing she has at length lighted the Fire under the Sacrifice and that by her zealous Endeadeavors it burns and consumes and sends up to Heaven a grateful Fume What Satisfaction would she take and how comfortably would she warm her self at the Fire which she has kindled And truly Madam I know no better Fuel wherewith to kindle and nourish this sacred Fire than such Discourses as yours which therefore I think are too useful to the Publick not to be due to it Treasures you know ought not to be concealed and so great is the Disorder when they are that Ghosts oftentimes think it worth while to come into our World on purpose to have them disclosed To be plain and free I do verily think nothing can be more conducive next to the Breathings of the holy Spirit and the Writings by him inspired to promote the Love of God than your Divine Discourses nothing more effectual to inlarge its Empire in the Hearts of Men which is so excellent an End that I can hardly see how you can possibly dispense with your self from serving it when you have it so far in your power But I shall not assume to be your Casuist You know best what your Opportunities and what your Obligations are Only this if you communicate your Letters you will be a general Benefactor to Mankind who will be highly obliged to thank you and which is more to bless God on your Behalf But if you
Capacities of the Mind The Boundlessness of Desire is a plain Indication to me that it was never made for the Creature for what is there in the whole Compass of Nature that can satisfie Desire What but he who made it can replenish and content it I need not bring Arguments for the Proof of this every one has Experience enough to confirm it For after all our Researches after that which is good for the Sons of Men where is the happy Person who has not been defeated in his Hopes or frustrated in his Enjoyments Though he has obtained his Object has he satisfied his Desire For how amiable soever created Good may appear at a Distance a closer Inspection and intimate Knowledge declares it to be vain and empty and a very improper Quarry for the Soul of Man Indeed the Soul of our Neighbour has the most plausible Pretence to our Love as being the most Godlike of all the Creatures but since 't is as indigent as our own how can it supply our Wants or consequently be the proper Object of our Desires And if you will forgive a Remark which perhaps is not so solid as the Subject requires I am apt to think that that Bashfulness and Unwillingness we feel in our selves to declare Love though never so pure and so refined from base and low Designs and which shews it self in most but especially in the best and most generous Tempers proceeds from hence The Soul blushes to declare her Indigence and to go out of her self to seek for Happiness in that which is not cannot be the proper Object of her Desires 'T is true a Sister Soul may give somewhat better Entertainment to our Love than other Creatures can but she is not able to fill and content it She must seek her own Felicity abroad and if she cannot be her own Good there is little Reason to expect she should be ours And being I have heard some Object against your Account of the first and great Commandment that it is prejudicial to the second and because I am of a quite contrary Opinion and think nothing does more effectually secure and improve it I will therefore offer to your Consideration and Correction such Meditations as I have had about it It were I confess a strong Prejudice against your Way of stating the Love of GOD if it were in any Measure injurious to the right Understanding and due Performance of the Love we owe to our Neighbour For since the Precepts of the Gospel are an exact and beautiful System of Wisdom and Perfection every one of whose Parts are so duly proportioned to the other that the Result of all is perfect Harmony and Order I must needs conclude that when such a Sense is put upon one Precept as causes it to clash and interfere with another it can't be the genuine Meaning of it And if I can't make over the whole of my Desire to GOD without defaulking from that Portion of Love he has assigned my Neighbour I must of Necessity set the Signification of that Precept to a lower Pitch and find out some other Medium to interpret the first and great Commandment But there 's no Necessity for this So far is your Account of the Love of GOD from being prejudicial to the Love of our Neighbour that if I think right 't is the only solid and sure Foundation it can rest upon For if I may lawfully bestow any Share of my Desire on my Neighbour why not on the rest of GOD's Creatures that are useful and beneficial to me provided my Love be not inordinate but contain it self within those Bounds that Reason and Religion have prescribed For those who contend for a Love of Desire towards our Neighbour won't deny but that that Desire may be inordinate and in that Respect unlawful and therefore according to them it is not the bare desiring but the Excess and Irregularity of that Desire that makes it peccant But does not Reason plead as much for the Lawfulness of desiring one Creature as another And what Arguments can be fetched from thence for the Love of our Neighbour that will not be as concluding for the Love of other Creatures in their Degree and Proportion If it be alledged that we have a Command to love our Neighbour but none to love other Creatures this seems to me a begging of the Question for the Matter in Debate is Whether that Command ought to be understood of Love of Desire or Love of Benevolence But if we once permit our Desire to stray after the Creature we open a Bank to all that Mischief Malice and Uncharitableness that is in the World And indeed what can be so destructive to the Love of our Neighbour as these Desires For the Creature being finite and empty too and therefore unable to satisfie the Desire of a rational Soul how is it possible but that a Multitude of Lovers who all desire the same thing which is very far from being able to satisfie one much less all of them should cross each other in these Desires and Pursuits and consequently destroy that Peace and mutual Benevolence which ought to be cherished among rational Beings and to which the Precepts of the Gospel so strictly engage us But the Divine Nature is an inexhaustible Ocean of Felicity in which every one of us may satisfie his most inlarged Desires without the least Diminution of its Fulness We need not grudg nor envy each other's Portion for here is enough for us all And therefore the Soul that centres all her Love on GOD has no Temptation to those Sins that obstruct her Benevolence to her Neighbour She does not make Gold her Hope nor the fine Gold her Confidence and therefore can very readily part with it to supply her Brother's Necessities She does not place her Felicity in the Pomps and Pleasures of this Mortal Life and therefore does neither envy him who possesses them nor seeks by injurious Practises to deprive him of them And as she has no Pleasure no coveting no Ambition but to partake of the Divine Nature so the Excellency of that Good on which she feeds assimilates her into its own Likeness and inspires her with such a generous and diffusive Benignity that she is willing to spend and be spent for the good of others and in Imitation of the Divine Philanthropy expands her self in Acts of Kindness and Beneficence as uncircumscribedly and universally as the Capacity of her Nature will permit What has been said I hope is sufficient to authorize me without Suspicion of Injustice to withdraw my Heart from my Neighbour and fix it entirely on him who has Merit enough to deserve and Kindness enough to embrace and requite the highest and most arduous Degree of Love I can possibly bestow on him But it may further be considered that our Saviour commands us to love our Neighbour as our selves and to love one another as he has loved us Now our Love to our selves is a
Love of Benevolence and consequently such a Love to our Neighbour does fully discharge the Obligation of that Command Nor does it appear that our Saviour loved with a love of Desire as he was GOD he could not and as he was Man he need not for a Love of Benevolence will answer all the End of his coming into the World The Scripture 't is true mentions some happy Favourites who had a greater Interest in his Love than others We read that IESUS loved Lazarus and of the Disciple whom IESUS loved but there is no Necessity to understand this of a Love of Desire and whatever other Reason may be assigned for this particular Kindness I am apt to think the main Design of it was for our Example that as our blessed Lord has left us a Pattern of every Virtue so he might especially recommend to us that most noble and comprehensive one Friendship which next to the Love of GOD has the Precedency of all the rest I am therefore very far from designing any Prejudice to Friendship by what I have offered here I rather intend to assert and advance it For he who permits his Desires to run after his Friend will in the End neither please himself nor advantage his Friendship How often do we force the Almighty to deprive us of these dear Idols that have usurped our Hearts That so he may convince us how improper it is to permit our Souls to cleave to any Creature which allowing it to be able to entertain us at present can give no Security for the future And therefore he who would secure his Felicity and have the Current of his Delight perpetual must not suffer his Love to fix on any object but that which is the same Yesterday to Day and for ever Besides the Defects which we find in Friendship owe their Original to this misplaced Desire 'T is this that knowing the Narrowness of Humane Nature makes us endeavour to monopolize a worthy Person to our selves whereby we do him a great Injury by contracting and limiting his Benevolence This is it that hoodwinks our Souls and makes us blind to our Friend's Imperfections for where-ever Love sixes it either finds or fancies Excellency and Perfection To discover a Defect embitters its Delight wakes it out of its pleasant Dream and is an uneasie Monitor that it ought not to rest here since what is defective is so far not good and consequently not lovely But he who will not see his Friend's Infirmities is not like to inform him of them and so frustrates the great Design of Friendship which is to discover and correct the most minute Irregularity and to purifie and perfect the Mind with the greatest Accuracy What is it but Desire that creates those Jealousies and Disquiets which sometimes creep into this refined Affection For pure Benevolence delighting in doing good and having no Regard to the receiving it would not be disgusted at the Kindness which is shewn to a third Person but rather rejoyce at the Exercise of its Friend's Virtue From Desire proceeds that unbecoming Excess of Grief which is apt indecently to transport us when GOD translates our Friend from our Bosom into his own A generous and regular Friendship after it has paid that Tribute of Tears which Nature and the Worth of the Person requires will rather prompt us to sympathize with and rejoyce in his Happiness than to regret and complain of our own Loss There is yet another Indecency that would be prevented were our Love only benevolent and that is that strong Antipathy which usually succeeds Affection whenever it comes to a Rupture as 't is odds but it may considering the great Weakness of Humane Nature and how seldom a Man is in every Stage of his Life consistent with himself for a rightly constituted Friendship will incline us by all the Arts of Sweetness and Endearment to win upon the Offender who has so much the greater need of our Benevolence by how much he does the less deserve it Our Kindness when he no longer returns it is the more excellent and generous because more free And though it cann't be called Friendship when the Bond is broke on one side yet there may be a most refined and exalted Benevolence on the other After all methinks Benevolence is the most great and noble Kind of Love and I wonder what should make us so fond of Desire and so unwilling to withdraw it from the Creature since so placed it is a continual Reproach to us and perpetually upbraids us with our Weakness and Indigence To need and desire nothing out of himself is the Prerogative and Perfection of the Divine Nature And though a Creature need not blush to languish after GOD's Fulness and to thirst for this Fountain of Living Water yet methinks it should to long after broken Cisterns Creatures as dry and empty as it self did we therefore consult either our Honour or our Interest we should without Reluctancy banish the Creature from our Hearts abandoning all other Desires but that which has all the Pleasure and Advantage of Love without any of its Pain and Imperfection And thus Sir I have endeavoured in this and my last to point out though very imperfectly some of the Prerogatives of Divine Love And I hope 't will appear from the Utility as well as from the Reasonableness of the thing that we ought to fix the whole of our Love on our Maker And in Truth if we think it reasonable to love GOD at all I know not how we can with Safety permit our Hearts to love any thing else For though we may fancy that the Love of the Creature is not contradictory but subordinate to the Love of GOD yet Love being the most rapid of all Motions if once our Desire be set a moving in vain do we think to stop and circumscribe it and therefore as it is unjust so it is unsafe to give it the least Tendency towards any Object but him who is the only proper and adequate one I am exceedingly pleas'd with M. Malbranch's Account of the Reasons why we have no Idea of our Souls and wish I could read that ingenious Author in his own Language or that he spake mine However I have some Queries to make about the Matter but must refer it to another Opportunity You tell me I must not expect a Definition of Pleasure all I desire is only such an Account as we have of some other things which strictly speaking are not capable of a Definition that Notion which I have entertained of Pleasure is That it is that grateful Relish or Sensation which every Faculty enjoys in the regular Application of it self to such Objects as are agreeable to its Nature Or if you please Pleasure I take to be the Gratification of Natural Appetites according to and not exceeding the Intention of Nature and I pray be so kind as to tell me wherein I Mistake whereby you will further engage me to be Sir Your very
once to be thought that God who is an infinite Good infinitely desirable infinitely deserving of our highest Affections nay of our whole Love and withall infinitely able to satisfie and reward it should Command us to Love or Desire a Creature and a Creature as vain and infirm and insufficient as much a Shadow as our selves and that immediately after he had in such Emphatick Terms required us to fix our Love upon himself Is it I say to be thought that GOD when he had laid it upon us as a Duty to repose our selves upon his own Stable Centre should immediately after require us to lean upon that which cannot sustain its own weight That when he had commanded us to come and quench our mighty Thirst at his own ever springing Fountain with whom as the Psalmist speaks is the Well of Life he should in the very next Breath send us away to a Cistern and that too a broken one That he should first call us to himself and then as if he alone were not able to suffice for us and to satisfie those inlarged Appetites which he had given us should call in the Creatures to bear part of the Expence and send us from himself to them Are these Thoughts worthy of GOD But besides let me Appeal to any of those who contend for Love of Desire as the Love of the Second Commandment Do they ever feel any Remorse of Conscience for having been wanting in Love of Desire towards their Neighbour or does their Conscience ever upbraid them for having thereby fail'd in their regard towards the Second Commandment or do they ever think it necessary to Repent for having been defective in this kind of Love Our Conscience indeed does often upbraid to us our Desire of Creatures as you very well remark from our Bashfulness and Unwillingness to own our selves to be in Love but never that I know of does it Reproach us for our Indifferency towards them or prompt us to Repent of it And indeed it would be a strange kind of Repentance for a Man to fall upon his Knees and Confess to GOD as a Sin that he had withdrawn all his Desires from his Creatures and fix'd them wholly upon him that he did not desire them as his good though at the same time he wish'd them and was ready to do them all the good he could I dread to speak the Language of such a Penitent when I consider what an absurd Command he Fathers upon God For can we imagin that GOD will charge that person as guilty of the Second Commandment who intirely loves him and bears a hearty good-will to his Fellow Creatures merely because he does not also desire them as his good Is it not enough to wish and do well to them For tell me Madam what you think of this supposition I will suppose a Man to place his whole Affection upon GOD and so to love him with all his Heart Soul Mind and Strength as to withdraw his Love from all the Creatures and not in the least to desire any of them as his goods only to desire good to them all to do them good as far as he has opportunity and to endeavour to unite them to the true good I further suppose him to persevere in this Disposition of Mind to the very last and then ask whether you can think that such a Person has any thing to answer at the Bar of GOD's Justice for the Breach of the second Commandment or whether you think God will damn and eternally separate such an one from his Presence as defective in his Measures of Charity merely for not making Creatures his good and the Object of his Desire But I need not put such a Question to you who I am perswaded at the first Proposal of it will be so far from judging such a Person to be a just Object of God's Displeasure that you will conclude he has all that is necessary to recommend him to his highest Favour and to qualifie him to partake of his Sovereign Happiness But 't is a Question very proper to be put to my Adversaries who must either say that God will damn a Person of this Character or which therefore appears to be certainly the right that Love of Desire is not the Love required of us in the second Commandment but only Love of Benevolence which whoever has does by that alone sufficiently satisfie the Intention and Obligation of that Law Besides does not the Command sufficiently explain it self For as you very judiciously remark our Saviour commands us to love our Neighbour as our selves which by the Way seems to me not only an absolute Measure but a relative Character put in on purpose to distinguish it from the Love of God But now as you will resume our Love of our selves is not Love of Desire but Love of Benevolence Most undoubtedly so for whoever reflects upon the Love of himself will presently perceive that 't is not a desiring of himself as his good but a desiring of some good to himself as appears from that vulgar Expression Charity begins at home and from the Vice of Self-love by which we mean a craving and seeking after more than comes to a Man's Share without having Regard to the Community or a greedy Pursuance of ones own private Interest in Opposition to that of the Publick Your other Remark is no less important that our Saviour does also command us to love one another as he hath loved us that is say you not with Love of Desire but that of Benevolence For as God he could not love us with Love of Desire and as Man he need not since Love of Benevolence would answer all the Ends of his coming into the World to which I add that neither need he as Man because as such he was personally united to the supreme good with which Union I cannot conceive how the Desire of any Creature should be consistent For as God himself cannot desire any thing out of himself because of his own Fulness so neither can he that enjoys God desire any thing out of him because of the Fulness of GOD. The Enjoyment of GOD does certainly put a final Period to all Desire and utterly quench the most flaming Thirst of a Creature and how then can he whose Desire is satisfied desire any further or if he does how then is it satisfied For which reason by the way I think it necessary to conclude that the blessed in Heaven finding all possible good in the Enjoyment of GOD cannot desire any thing out of him but that all Love of the Creature does utterly cease and is for ever silenced in that Region of Happiness and that GOD is all in all to those that enjoy him But now we cannot suppose any of the blessed Spirits so united to GOD in Heaven as our Saviour was while upon Earth who therefore must be supposed to love Mankind with Love of Benevolence only as being capable of no other and consequently to
requires that which is free The first he makes his own by natural Instinct the last by Commands by Benefits and Obligations by his own Example by bestowing upon us the Power to love by directing this Love towards himself and by all the Reason in the World We are therefore to cast both these Loves into one and the same Chanel and make them both flow in one full Current towards GOD. We are to make GOD the only Object of our Love of Choice as he has made himself the only object of our natural Love and so joyning this double Motion together to employ the whole Force of our Nature upon him and love him with all our Power from whom we have all the Power that we have to love And how happy is that Man that can do so that can thus order and regulate the Master and Leading Passion of his Nature that can thus love the Lord his GOD with all his Heart Soul and Mind How to be envied is that Man who can thus disingage his Affections from the Creature who can thus recollect fix and settle his whole Love upon GOD It may seem that he is not so and if we will hearken to the fallacious Reports of our Senses and Imaginations they will tell us that this is to enter into a dry barren disconsolate and withering Condition and will represent it as a State of horrible Privation as a dismal Solitude But if it be a Solitude 't is such an one as that of Moses upon the holy Mount when he withdrew from the People to enjoy the Converse of God as that of our Saviour when he tells his Disciples that they should all desert and leave him alone and yet that he was not alone because his Father was with him Happy Solitude when the Creatures retire from us and leave us to the more full and free Enjoyment of God and thrice happy he that enjoys this divine Retreat that can force the Creatures to withdraw command their Absence and wholly empty his Heart of their Love that it may be the more free for the Reception and Enjoyment of him who is able to fill the largest Room he can prepare for him there How ravishing and lasting are his Delights how solid and profound is his Peace how full and overflowing are his Joys how bright and lucid are the Regions of his Soul how intire and undisturbed are his Enjoyments what a settled Calm possesses his Breast what a Unity of Thought what a Singleness and Simplicity of Desire and what a firm stable Rest does his Soul find when she thus reposes her full Weight upon GOD How loose and disingaged is he from the World and how unconcerned does he pass along through the various Scenes and Revolutions of it how unmoved and unaltered in all the several Changes and Chances of this mortal Life While others are tormented with Fears and Cares and Jealousies unsatisfied Desires and unprosperous Attempts while they are breaking their own and one anothers Rests for that which when they have it will not suffer them to sleep while they are tortured with their Lusts and with those VVars which are occasion'd by them while they are quarrelling and contending about the things of the VVorld hunting about after Bubbles and Shadows beating up and down after Preferments at once climbing up and falling down from the Heighths of Honour pursuing hard in the Chase of Pleasure all the way along complaining of Disappointments and yet strange Inchantment still laying in a Stock for more In one VVord while they are thus suffering the various Punishments of an irregular and misplaced Affection so that the whole VVorld seems to be like a great troubled Sea working and foaming and raging till all below be Storm and Tempest his Breast in the mean while like the higher Regions of the Air enjoys a heavenly Calm a divine Serenity and being wholly unhinged and dislodged from the Creature and intirely bottomed upon another Center upon the infinite Fulness and Sufficiency of GOD he has no more Part in any worldly Commotions than the Inhabitants of the Air have in an earthly Earthquake nor is any further concerned in the Afflictions of those below him but only to wonder at their Folly and to pity their Misery Then as to his moral State must not the Life of such an one needs be as innocent and virtuous as 't is pleasant and happy 'T is the Love of the Creature that is the general Temptation to Sin and what St. Iames observes of VVars and Fightings is as true of all other immoral Miscarriages and Disorders that they proceed from our Lusts. And how pure and Chaste then must his Soul be that is thoroughly purged of all created Loves and in whom the Love of GOD reigns absolute and unrival'd without any Mixture or Competition How secure must he needs be from Sin when he has not that in him which may betray him to it The Tempter may come but he will find nothing in him to take hold of the VVorld may spread round about him a poisonous Breath but it will not hurt him the very Cleanness of his Constitution will guard him from the Infection He has but one Love at all in his Heart and that is for GOD and how can he that loves nothing but GOD be tempted to transgress against him when he has nothing to separate him from him and all that is necessary perhaps all that is possible to unite him to him VVhat is there that should tempt such a Man to Sin and what Temptation is there that he has not to incite him to all Goodness and what a wonderful Progress must he needs make in it VVhither will not the intire Love of GOD carry him and to what Degrees of Christian Perfection will he not aspire under the Conduct of so divine so omnipotent a Principle If Obedience be the Fruit of Love then what an intire Obedience may we expect from so intire a Love and how fruitful will this Love of GOD be when there are no Suckers to draw off the Nourishment from it when there is no other Love to check and hinder its Growth The Man that harbours Creatures in his Bosom and divides his Heart betwixt GOD and them will be always in great Danger of being betrayed by them and though he should with great Care and habitual VVatchfulness preserve for GOD a greater Share in his Affections which is the utmost such an one can pretend to yet he will have such a VVeight constantly hanging upon his Soul that he will be never able to soar very high or arrive at any Excellency in Religion But what is there on the other side that can hinder him who has emptied his Heart of the Creatures and devoted it intirely to GOD from reaching the highest Pitch of attainable Goodness How orderly then and regular will be his Thoughts how refined and elevated his Affections how obedient and compliant his Passions how pure and sincere his
adore and love their Maker It were not worth while to live in the World were it not to love GOD and pay our Devoirs to him and could the Atheists and Hypothesis possibly be true our greatest Wisdom wou'd be with all Expedition to hasten out of it But though the Account you give of the Love of GOD be so accurate and entertaining yet I don 't in the least wonder that you comprehend this sacred Theory so fully and explain it so efficaciously since the great Evidence of divine Love has assured us that he will manifest himself to them that love him they shall see him whilst the blind World has no Vision of his Beauty they only can declare the Sweetness of this hidden Manna who taste and feed on and are intimately acquainted with it Nor need you wonder at my Prolixity which you are pleased to encourage and commend because it is an Evidence that whatever my Understanding be my Will is right and though I am very sensible the one is too defective to deserve Commendations for its Notions yet you are pleased to overlook its Imperfections on account of the Honesty and Regularity of the other Love you know is talkative as its Thoughts are ever busied in contemplating so is its Tongue in displaying the Beauties of its Object it wou'd have all the World admire that which it doats on and every thing he sees or hears serves to excite the dear Idea in a Lovers Mind This we may observe when the Object is finite and perhaps unworthy of our Choice and well may the Observation hold when our Hearts are united to infinite Perfection when all the beauteous things that surround us are but faint Shadows of our Beloved's Excellencies when our Loftiest Praises are no better than Detractions and the highest Pitch of Love we can possibly skrew up our Souls unto infinitely unworthy of him were it possible to offer more When therefore in my solitary Musings I entertain my self with these agreeable Contemplations I fancy the whole intellectual World is offering up it self a flaming Sacrifice to GOD and that there is no Contention among intelligent Beings but who shall with greatest Ardor love praise and serve the glorious Author of their Happiness Whatever it is I am sure it ought to be so For who can forbear to admire Beauty when plainly represented to his Eye Or to be ravished with harmonious Numbers when they briskly strike his Ear Who is so dull as not to desire what is lovely and relish what is good Why then is he not affected nay why is he not transported when caressed by all that is good and all that is lovely When the Fruition of Beauty and Harmony and Goodness in the Abstract are offered to him Why we shoud with-hold our Hearts from GOD when it is not more our Duty than our Interest and Happiness to offer them to him I confess I cannot yet discern And though much has been said to account for this Absurdity yet I must needs own it still employs my Wonder For why should even our Affections oppose the Love of GOD since it does not deprive them of any real good why should they not rather close with it since its only Design is to satisfie and perfect them Our very lower Appetites will find more true Satisfaction in the Service of GOD and Reason than in their own irregular and exorbitant Sway. Sure I am that a Man may be much happier by withdrawing his Heart from the Creature than he can be in cleaving to it Nay let it look never so much like a Paradox 't is impossible for him to be in any Degree happy whilst misplaced Affections do so far prevail as to denominate him an irregular Lover and wicked Man So true is that saying I have somewhere met with that there is no Joy but in GOD and no Sorrow but in an evil Conscience But admitting the Creature were able to entertain us what wise Man wou'd think much to relinquish a lesser for a greater good or shew any Inclination for lower Delights when courted to the Enjoyment of the highest Why then do we relish any other Pleasure Since there is as much Difference betwixt this and all other Delights as between the Quintessence and the Faeces the kindly Work of Nature and the preternatural Operations of Medicine Other Loves even the very best have somewhat of Grossness in them which offends even whilst they please and have always their Pleasure mixed with Pain whereas Divine Love is so connatural to the true Taste and Relish of the Soul that although the Sentiments it excites are highly ravishing and entertaining though they fill every Faculty with a full Tide of Joy they are withal so pure and undisturbing that they are Sweets that know no Bitter Joys without Allay Pleasures that have no Sting such as I would fain describe but that I am not Mistris of Eloquence enough to express them But whatever it be in which a Man finds the greatest Delight let him abstract from it all that is uneasie and disgusting let him double and treble the Joy let his working Fancy exalt it to the utmost Heighth and perhaps it may afford him some faint Idea of this delightful Love which yet Experience will convince him falls as short of it as artificial Fruits do of the natural and true All which does only encrease my wonder why there are so few Votaries to this only real Bliss For why a Man shou'd reject his Happiness is a Question we can never answer but that he does is what we daily see Well then may it repent GOD that he has made Man since Man has made himself such an absurd irrational Creature Well may the Divine Goodness passionately exclaim O that they were wise O that there were such an Heart in them since 't is impossible even to an Almighty Power to make him happy who is resolved he will not be so And herein methinks appears the Devil's greatest Master-piece that he can give such a false Representation of things and so much to our Disadvantage as to put us upon the violent Pursuit of good where we can never find it and to blind us so that we may not discern it where it is and our own most notorious Folly in being so wretchedly imposed on by him For certainly the Ways of Vice are as toilsome and uneasie as they are foolish and absurd they are not only unprofitable but unpleasant too the Consideration of which is the reason why I was so desirous of a Definition of Pleasure from your accurate Pen. For Pleasure as I take it is the grand Motive to Action and after all the Thoughts I have employed about the matter I am not able to conceive how there can be any such thing as Pleasure in ought but Virtue nor consequently what Inducement to any other Course 'T is as irrational to look for Pleasure from eccentrick Actions as to expect Harmony from an Instrument unstrung and out
LETTERS Concerning the Love of GOD Between the Author of the Proposal to the LADIES AND Mr. IOHN NORRIS Wherein his late Discourse shewing That it ought to be intire and exclusive of all other Loves is further cleared and justified PUBLISHED By J. NORRIS M. A. Rector of Bemerton near Sarum LONDON Printed for Samuel Manship at the Ship near the Royal Exchange in Cornhil and Richard Wilkin at the King's Head in St. Paul 's Church-Yard 1695. Imprimatur October 7. 1694. C. Alston TO THE Truly Honourable LADY The LADY CATHERINE IONES IN DUE Acknowledgment of her Merits AND IN Testimony of that Iust And therefore Very Great and Vnseigned VENERATION Which is paid to her Ladiships Vertues THESE LETTERS Are most Humbly Dedicated and Presented TO THE READER THE Letters herelaid open to thy View are a late Correspondence between my self and a Gentlewoman and to add to thy Wonder a young Gentlewoman Her Name I have not the Liberty to publish For her Person as her Modesty will not suffer me to say much of her so the present Productions of her Pen make it utterly needless to say any thing unless it be by way of Prevention to obviate a Diffidence in some who from the surprizing Excellency of these Writings may be tempted to question whether my Correspondent be really a Woman or no. To whom my Answer is that indeed I did not see her write these Letters but that I have all the moral and reasonable Assurance that she did write them and is the true Author of them that can be had in a thing of this Nature And I hope my Credit may be good enough with those that know me to be believed upon my serious Word where there is no other Satisfaction to be given The Subject of this Correspondence is the best and greatest that the Thought of an intelligent Creature can possibly exercise it self about the Love of GOD. And 't were much to be wished that this were made more the Subject not only of our Conversations and Letters instead of those many empty and impertinent Foxmalities that usually fill and ingross them but even of our Books and more elaborate Composures which I think would be better imployed in laying good Foundations for the Love of GOD and raising the low-sunk Practice of it than in curious Researches of his Nature and an eternal Contention and tedious Chicane about the Trinity Men may wrangle for ever about these abstruse Theories and sooner dispute themselves out of Charity than into Truth but our Wills have at present a larger Capacity than our Understandings and our Love of GOD may be very flaming and seraphick when after the greatest Elevation and Soar of Thought our Conceptions of him are but faint and shadowy and we see him but in a Glass darkly But if we would even make this Glass more transparent 't is Love that must clarifie and refine it An affectionate Sense of GOD will discover more of him to us than all the dry Study and Speculation of Scholastick Heads the Fire of our Hearts will give the best and truest Light to our Eyes and when all is done the Love of GOD is the best Contemplation However I am sure it is the best Practice Love is not only the shortest and most compendious Way to Perfection but the greatest Heighth and Pitch of it The more we have of Love the nearer Advances we make to GOD who is Love it self and who breaths forth from him essential and substantial Love the more fit we are to taste the Sweetness of Divine Communion and religious walking with him here and the better prepared to relish and enjoy the fuller Display of his sovereign Excellence hereafter Heaven is but a State of the most perfect and comsummated Love and therefore the best thing we can practice upon Earth is to tune our Hearts to this Divine Strain to set them as high as we can for sure the best Preparation for Love must be Love it self But whatever other Qualifications are requisite a Heart once truly touched with this divine Passion cannot long want them Love will draw along after it all other Virtues will perfect and improve them and will at least hide those Faults of them which it cannot correct For this is that universal Excellency which supplies the Defects of other Works but which if wanting such a necessary and vital Part it is nothing else can supply or compound for Neither Tongues nor Prophecy nor Knowledge nor Faith nor Alms nor even Martyrdom it self signifie any thing without Charity The Heart is the Sacrifice that GOD demands and unless that be offered the richest Oblation will find no Acceptance Other Gifts and Graces whether intellectual or moral come indeed from Heaven but they often leave us upon Earth Love only elevates us up thither and is able to unite us to God 'T is this indeed that gives us the strictest Union on with him in this Life By Faith we live upon GOD by Obedience we live to him but 't is by Love alone that we live in him And so St. John God is Love and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him A Passage that makes highly for the Privilege of Love and which I cannot mention without calling to mind a most Divine Remark which the Port Royal Abrege de la Morale des Epistres c. Tom. 4. Pag. 112. in their late Abstract of the Morality of the New Testament has upon it O great God you are all Love in your self and all Love for Man and Man dares deliberate whether he should love you and to inquire when and how far he is obliged to do it If to love GOD be to possess him and to be possessed by him what an Emptiness is there in that Heart which does not love God or of what is it full if not of Vanity and Indigence it self But I may be concerned to plead as well as to recommend the Greatness of our Subject which indeed is so sublime and vast has such immense Dimensions such Heighths and Depths in it that there needs no other Apology than the Theme we treat of to excuse the Defectiveness of our Meditations upon it If there be any Argument that will oppress a Writer with its Weight dazzle him with its Glory and make every thing that he shall think or say upon it appear little it is this certainly of the Love of God which is a Theory of too exalted a Nature for any humane Pen and such as Angels alone are fit to write upon They that contemplate the Face of GOD can tell it may be in some Measure how lovely he is and the very Transport of their high Passion would furnish them with Expression but 't is hard for a Soul that sees only his Back-parts to give any tolerable Representation of his Beauty and for a Spirit that dwells and converses upon Earth to speak the Language of Heaven There are Mysteries in the Love of God as
well as in other Parts of Religion which to the Minds of Men arm'd as they are with sensible Prejudices will appear very difficult and which the most purged and illuminated Spirits will not presently comprehend and which even those that do will not easily explain so as to make them intelligible to others Practice and Experiment will go furthest here but after all we must be often forced to cry O the Depth St. Paul seems to have been sensible of this when he prayed for his Ephesians that being rooted and grounded in Love they might be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the Breadth and Length and Depth and Heighth and to know the Love of Christ which passes Knowledge This perhaps may be chiefly meant of the Love of God to us but 't is as true of our Love to him which has its Dimensions too a Depth which we can hardly sound and a Heighth which we can hardly reach Some it may be will be ready to say here that we have reached beyond it by carrying the Measures of Divine Love to too great a Heighth But let me only desire them to consider besides what they will find for the Iustification of our Measure in the following Papers that the Love here discoursed of and recommended is the Love of a God that is of all that is good of all that is perfect of all that is lovely of all that is desirable in short of all that truly is and can any Love be too great or too high for such an Object Or rather does he not deserve infinitely more than we or any of his Creatures can bestow upon him What can an infinite good be loved too much or is any Degree of Love too high for him who is infinitely lovely and who infinitely loves himself Is the Heart of Man too great a Sacrifice for a God though it were intirely offered and wholly burnt and consumed at his Altar Especially since he himself demands it all requiring us to love him with our whole Heart Soul and Mind And would we present him with less What do we think the whole too great for him that we thus mince and divide it But does not our Conscience secretly reproach us when we do so Yes it continually upbraids to us the Love of Creatures and is always like a faithful Advocate pleading in the Behalf of God and asserting his sovereign Right And why then should it be thought such a Stretch of the Love of God to make it intire and exclusive of all other Loves Can we love God too much or Creatures too little Or is it such a Paradox to make the Church speak to Christ in the same Language wherein he condescendes to speak to her my Love my undefiled is but one But after all is this such a rare and unheard of Conclusion that God ought to be the sole and intire Object of our Love to be so stared at as I find it is and lookt upon as such a Singularity No certainly nothing more ordinary in Books of Piety and Devotion than to meet with Expressions of this Kind St. Austin's Devotional Tracts are full of them and so are our modern Writers who commonly run upon the same Strain as may be seen at large for 't is endless to make particular Quotations here in all those Books that are written after the mystical and spiritual Way particularly in the Works of the great Spanish Seraphick St. Theresa especially in her Pensées Sur L'Amour de Dieu in Cardinal Bona's via Compendii ad Deum Chrestien Interieur Thomas a Kempis of the Imitation of Christ and the great French Poet Corneille in a Book of Divine Poems upon the same Subject where he has this memorable Passage O Qu' heureux est Celuy qui de Coeur d' esprit Scait gouster ce que C'est que d' aimer Jesus Christ Et joindre à cest amour le mépris de soy-mesme O qu' heureux est Celuy qui se laisse Charmer Aux Celestes attraits de sa Beaute supréme Jusqu ' à quitter tout ce qu' il aime Pour un Dieu qu' il faut seul aimer Ce doux saint Tyran de nostre Affection A de la jalousie de l' Ambition Il veut regner luy seul sur tout nostre Courage Il veut estre aimé seul ne scauroit Souffrir Qu'autre amour que le Sien puisse entrer en partage Ny du Coeur qu' il prend en Ostage Ny des Voeux qu' on luy doit offrir Monsieur Jurieu has also a great deal to the same Purpose in his Book of Christian Devotion and I might name several among our own Writers but there is one that delivers himself so full and home to the Business that I need mention no more but shall only present the Reader with a Passage out of him It is Bishop Lake who in his seventh Sermon upon those Words Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart c. Matth. 22. and 37. the very Text we build upon expresses himself thus In the Question of Perfection Divines require a double Perfection one partium the other graduum There is a Perfection of the Parts in Man which must be seasoned with the Vertue and the Vertue in those Parts must arise unto its full Pitch This Text requires both these Perfections in Charity The Perfection on of the Parts of Man are intimated in the Enumeration of the Heart Mind Soul and Strength unto which all our inward and outward Abilities may be reduced So that there is no Power or Part of Man that must not be qualified with the Love of God But of this Perfection I have spoken when I shewed you the Seat of Love I made it plain unto you that there was to be in our Charity a Perfection of Parts That with which we have now to do is the Perfection of Degrees The Text will tell us that it is not enough for every of those Parts to have the Love of God in them they must also be wholly taken up therewith And this Perfection is noted by the Word all which is added to Heart Soul Mind and Strength A Commandment is the sooner admitted if the Reasonableness of the ground thereof be first discovered I will therefore first discover the ground upon the Reasonableness whereof this great Measure is required The ground is twofold one in GOD another in us The ground that is found in God is taken from the Preface of this Text as Moses has delivered it and St. Mark repeated it The Preface is hearken O Israel the Lord thy God is one But one therefore the intire Object of our Love He will not give this his Glory to any other neither will he indure any Corsival herein The Beginning the Middle and the End of this Object is only he that is Alpha and Omega the first and last Had we many Lord Gods then
I must needs confess one of yours overballances them all whatever People may say of Temptation to do good seems to me the only irresistible one And indeed could I be convinced any thing I have writ would serve the Ends of Piety I should despise the Censure of the wou'd-be-Criticks and reckon that would more than compensate all other Inconveniencies And perhaps a little Censure is necessary to correct that Vanity your too good Opinion may have raised in me and which I desire you would be less expressive of for the future T is enough for me to obtain the inward Esteem of any vertuous and deserving Person the greatest Kindness they can shew is to acquaint me with such Faults as lessen and obstruct it But if those excellent and elaborate Discourses that are abroad have so little Effect on the Generality of Mankind how can I expect my crude Rapsodies should have any Pardon me that I express so mean an Opinion of any thing you are pleased to commend I would not do it in any other Case But all Men will not see with your Eyes whose Candor has bribed your Judgment and I am obliged to you as Homer and Virgil are to their Commentators for discovering Beauties in them which they themselves perhaps never so much as dreamt of Have you indeed been affected with my Letters 'T is not through any Force of theirs but the Goodness of your own Temper For Hearts so full of Love to GOD like Tinder catch at every Spark But alas there is too much dry Wood in the World to expect that such a languid Flame should kindle it Your Letters indeed would be extremely useful and I think they are intire enough by themselves nor do they need a Foil so that I cannot imagine to what Purpose mine will serve unless it be to decoy those to a Perusal of them who wanting Piety to read a Book for its Usefulness may probably have the Curiosity to inquire what can be the Product of a Womans Pen and to excite a generous Emulation in my Sex perswade them to leave their insignificant Pursuits for Employments worthy of them For if one to whom Nature has not been over liberal and who has found but little Assistance to surmount its Defects by employing her Faculties the right way and by a moderate Industry in it is inabled to write tolerable Sense what may not they perform who enjoy all that Quickness of Parts and other Advantages which she wants And I heartily wish they would make the Experiment so far am I from coveting the Fame of being singular that 't is my very great Trouble it should be any bodies Wonder to meet with an ingenious Woman If therefore you over-rule me and resolve to have these Papers go abroad it shall be on these Conditions first that you make no mention of my Name no not so much as the initial Letters and next that you dedicate them to a Lady whom I shall name to you or else give me leave to do it For though none can be less fond of Dedications or has so little Ambition to be known to those who are called great yet out of the Regard I owe to the glorious Author of all Perfection I cannot but pay a very great Respect to one who so nearly resembles him And where can a Discourse of the Love of GOD be more appositely presented than to a Soul that constantly and brightly shines with these Celestial flames One whom now we have duly stathe Measures I may venture to say I love with the greatest Tenderness for all must love her who have any Esteem for unfeigned Goodness who value an early Piety and eminent Vertue All true Lovers of GOD being like excited Needles which cleave not only to him their Magnet but even to one another A Lady whom for the good of our Sex I would endeavour to describe were I capable to write the Character of a compleat and finished Person but it requires a Soul as bright as lovely as refined as her Ladyships to give an exact Description of such Perfections A Lady who dedicates that Part of her Life intirely to her Maker's Service which the generality think too short to serve themselves Who in the Bloom of her Years despising the Temptations of Birth and Beauty and whatever may withdraw her from Mary's noble Choice has made such Advances in Religion that if she hold on at this rate she 'll quickly outstrip our Theory and oblige the World with what was never more wanted than now an exact and living Transcript of Primitive Christianity So good she is that even Envy it self has never a But to interfere with her Praises and though Women are not forward to commend one another yet I never met with any that had seen or heard of her who did not willingly pay their Eulogies to this admirable Person and if Praise be due to any Mortal doubtless she may lay the greatest Claim to it But not to relie wholly on Report I my self have observed in her so much Sweetness and Modesty so free from the least Tincture of Vanity so insensible of that Worth which all the World admires such a constant and regular Attendance on the publick Worship of GOD Prayers and Sacraments such a serious reverent and unaffected Devotion so fervent and so prudent so equally composed of Heat and Light so removed from all Formality and the Extremes of Coldness aud Enthusiasme as gave me a lively Idea of Apostolical Piety and made me every Time I prayed by her fancy my self in the Neighbourhood of Seraphick Flames But my Expression are too flat my Colours too dead to draw such a lovely Piece Would to GOD we would all transcribe not this imperfect Copy but that incomparable Original she daily gives us that Ladies may be at last convinced that the Beauty of the Mind is the most charming Amiableness because most lasting and most divine and that no Ornaments are so becoming to a Lady as the Robe of Righteousness and the Jewels of Piety I am Sir Your much obliged Friend and Servant July 17 1694. Postscript to the Preface THo' Authorities go but a very little way with me in Questions whose Determinations depends upon Measures of Reason yet finding that the great and general Objection that lies against the present Conclusion is the pretended Singularity of it I think it convenient to set down a very signal Passage which since the writing the Preface I have met with in the late Continuation des Essais de morale Part 2. Tom. 1. Pag. 59 where upon that Text of St. Peter I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims abstain from fleshly Lusts c. the excellent Moralist has these Words But what is the Extent of these carnal Desires which St. Peter forbids us It is easie to mark it out For all that which is not God is carnal according to the Scripture because it is a Consequence of the Corruption of the Heart which having
and entirely owing to our selves and since there is nothing truly and absolutely the Object of the hatred of a Rational Creature but Sin because nothing but that is its true and proper Evil consequently GOD's being the Author of Pain can be no just bar to our Love much less any motive to our Hatred or Aversion I consider further that though Man does naturally desire Pleasure in all his Capacities and therefore Indolence is necessary to perfect Felicity yet since there is no such thing as perfect Happiness or perfect Misery in this World that which has a greater degree of good than of evil in it may properly enough be call'd a good admitting therefore that sensible Pain is disagreeable to the lower Faculties of the Soul yet being it is designed by GOD to better and improve the Spirit of the Mind and has a tendency to do good to our better part if we our selves do not wilfully obstruct its operations misapply and abuse those opportunities it gives us I see no reason but we may reckon it a good and therefore Eligible For though Pain as you say does not formally and directly do us a good yet if it cannot hinder us of enjoying Pleasure methinks we have no just Cause to fly it as an Evil. For what though my Body suffer a little Hunger or Thirst or Cold or the like shall I put that petty inconveniency in competition with that most delicious Pleasure my Mind does or may at the same time enjoy in Acts of Love and Contemplation Nay even with that Pleasure which these very inconveniencies occasion the entire Resignation of my Will to GOD and the Joy that arises from that delightful Thought that I am capable of suffering something for his sake and in Conformity to his Will And as it were but a bad bargain to gain the whole World by suffering the least mulct or damage in our Souls so I am perswaded that the greatest sensible Calamity no not Death it self is worthy to be put in the ballance with the very least spiritual advantage For alas Sir as you truly say this World is a mere shew a shadow an emptiness so little Reason have our Pretenders to Wit to discredit every thing that is not the Object of Sense that in right estimate Spirits are the only Realities and nothing does truly and properly occasion good or evil to us but as it respects our Minds And I believe on these Principles 't were easie to demonstrate that Martyrdom is the highest Pleasure a rational Creature is capable of in this present State a strange Paradox to the World But I am confident none to Mr. Norris who does not use to think after the vulgar rate But whilst I talk of Pain I forget how much you suffer by this tedious Scribble If I have said any thing to the purpose 't is because I have your excellent Letter before me Ordinary Writers I can penetrate at the first View but every Period of yours dilates my Mind calls it forth to pursue its recondite Beauties in a Train of useful and delightful Thoughts I have brought in my unwrought Ore to be refined and made currant by the Brightness of your Judgment and shall reckon it a great Favour if you will give your self the Trouble to point out my Mistakes it being my Ambition not to seem to be without Fault but if I can really to be so and I know no way more conducive to that end than the Advantage of such an Instructor Permit me to add a Word or two more which is of greater Concernment to me because of practical Consideration you have fully convinced me that GOD is the only proper Object of my Love and I am sensible 't is the highest Injustice to him and Unkindness to my self to defraud him of the least Part of my Heart but I find it more easie to recognize his Right than to secure the Possession Though I often say in your Pathetick and Divine Words No my fair Delight I will never be drawn off from the Love of thee by the Charms of any of thy Creatures yet alas sensible Beauty does too often press upon my Heart whilst intelligible is disregarded For having by Nature a strong Propensity to friendly Love which I have all along encouraged as a good Disposition to Vertue and do still think it so if it may be kept within the due Bounds of Benevolence But having likewise thought till you taught me better that I need not cut off all Desire from the Creature provided it were in Subordination to and for the sake of the Creator I have contracted such a Weakness I will not say by Nature for I believe Nature is often very unjustly blam'd for what is owing to Will and Custom but by voluntary Habit that it is a very difficult thing for me to love at all without something of Desire Now I am loath to abandon all Thoughts of Friendship both because it is one of the brightest Vertues and because I have the noblest Designs in it Fain wou'd I rescue my Sex or at least as many of them as come within my little Sphere from that Meanness of Spirit into which the Generality of 'em are sunk perswade them to pretend some higher Excellency than a well-chosen Pettycoat or a fashionable Commode and not wholly lay out their Time and Care in the Adornation of their Bodies but bestow a Part of it at least in the Embellishment of their Minds since inward Beauty will last when outward is decayed But though I can say without boasting that none ever loved more generously than I have done yet perhaps never any met with more ungrateful Returns which I can attribute to nothing so much as the Kindness of my best Friend who saw how apt my Desires were to stray from him and therefore by these frequent Disappointments would have me learn more Wisdom that to let loose my Heart to that which cannot satisfie And though I have in some measure rectified this Fault yet still I find an agreeable Movement in my Soul towards her I love and a Displeasure and Pain when I meet with Unkindness which is a strong Indication of somewhat more than pure Benevolence for there 's no Reason that we should be uneasie because others won't let us do them all the good we would And though your Distinction be very ingenious That we may seek Creatures for our good but not love them as our good yet methinks 't is too nice for common Practice and through the Deception of our Senses and Hurry of our Passions we shall be too apt to reckon that our good whose Absence we find uneasie to us Be pleased therefore to oblige me with a Remedy for this Disorder since what you have already writ has made a considerable Progress towards a Cure but not quite perfected it Thus you see Sir what a Trouble you have brought upon your self by your obliging Condescentions to Worthy Sir Your most humble and thankful
Innocence so it makes the best Provision for our Pleasure The Soul of Man may as well cease to be as cease to love something or other it must desire but so long as it moves towards the Creature it may amuse its Cravings but can never satisfie them How often will the Objects of our Love be wanting How often will the Objects of our Love be wanting How often will they be unkind And suppose them as present and as kind as we can wish them shall we not be as sick of our Fruitions as we were of our Desires For what is there in the Creature but Emptiness Vanity and Vexation But the Object of Divine Love is always essentially present nothing can hide him from us but our own Neglect if we do but fix the Eyes of our Understanding on and direct the Motions of our Will towards him we may always contemplate and enjoy his Beauty may always asswage our Thirst at this Fountain and feast our hungry Souls upon his never-failing Charms which though they will still draw us on to pursue a further Enjoyment because of their infinite Amability and Perfection yet all along they will satisfie and fill our Souls with unspeakable Delight though they don't extinguish all Desire yet they will remove all Emptiness and at once replenish our Faculties and enlarge them But these ravishing Delights which the enamoured Soul feels in every Approach to her Divine Lover are better felt than expressed and when we have once tasted of these most sapid Pleasures we shall for ever disdain the muddy Streams of sensual Delights Thus the Love of GOD defends us from the Uneasiness of Pain and Grief as well as from the Evil of Sin and makes us happy in all our Capacities It is so Divine a Cordial that the least Drop of it is able to sweeten and outweigh all the Troubles of this present State and render the most Calamitous Condition not only easie but joyous For it gives an Anticipation of those Joys in which it will at last invest us brings down Heaven into our Bosoms e're it carries us up thither and were it but largely shed abroad in our Hearts we should be out of the Reach of Fortune might slight and trample on all Afflictions Though the Arrows of Pain and Grief should ruffle our Skin they could not touch our Hearts or they might touch but could not hurt us Finally to what Heights of Piety will not this Divine Principle elevate the amorous Soul For what can be too difficult to do to acquire a more perfect Enjoyment of what we love What can be too hard to suffer for the sake of that Object that hath won our Heart 'T is nothing else that cramps our Endeavours and slackens our Industry after one of the brightest Crowns of Glory but the dividing our Love between GOD and Mammon If a foolish ill-grounded Passion can many times excite the Soul in which it dwells to do things beyond it self If the Love of dirty Clay or popular Breath can reconcile us to Fatigues and Distresses and many things very uneasie to our Animal Nature shall not the most rational and becoming Love that Love which is the End and Perfection of our Beings which is secured from Disappointment Jealousie and all that long Train of Pain and Grief which attends Desire when it moves towards the Creature set us above all Difficulties render our Obedience regular constant and vigorous refine and sublimate our Natures and make us become Angels even whilst we dwell on Earth In the last Place for the Proposals I am to make When you think we have sufficiently examined the Subject we are upon I desire the Favour of you to furnish me with such a System of Principles as I may relie on and to give me such Rules as you judge most convenient to initiate a raw Disciple in the Study of Philosophy least for want of laying a good Foundation I give you too much Trouble by drawing Conclusions from false Premises and making use of improper Terms I have no more to add but my repeated Thanks for that great Condescention you continue to shew to Worthy Sir Your most obliged and humble Servant December 12. 1693. LETTER VI. Mr. Norris's Answer Madam IT deserves neither your Thanks nor your Admiration that I should endeavour to be particularly civil to a Person of your extraordinary Worth and Accomplishments which indeed appear so great and so beyond what I ever yet found or could imagine as at the same time to command and lessen the highest Respect and Deference that can be shewn to you Your Hypothesis as you now explain and rectifie it runs clear and unperplext and has nothing in it but what equitably understood challenges my full Consent and Approbation The Defect of it before lay partly in your supposing GOD not to be the Author of mental Pain and that because you made mental Pain to be all one with Sin and partly in your supposing sensible Pain of which you allow'd GOD to be the Author not to be in it self a real Evil. But now both these Faults are mended and all is right and as it should be For whereas before when you confounded mental Pain with Sin you pleaded thus against our hating and for our loving GOD notwithstanding the Pain which he is acknowledged to inflict upon us mental Pain is truly an Evil but such as GOD does not cause sensible Pain GOD does cause but then that is not truly an Evil. Now distinguishing mental Pain from Sin and substituting Sin in the room of mental Pain you make your Apology for the Love of GOD run thus Sin which is truly an Evil GOD does not cause and as for mental and sensible Pains whereof GOD is the true Cause they are not truly and properly Evils By which latter Clause I presume you mean not as you seem'd to do at first that they are not truly and properly Evils in their own formal Natures and as simply in themselves considered for so 't is evident that they are Evils as being as such against the Happiness and Well-being of a thinking and self-conscious Nature but only as in that particular Supposition Juncture or Circumstance wherein they are inflicted by GOD who having a thorough comprehensive View of our whole Condition and so knowing what upon all Considerations is best for us thinks it adviseable sometimes to molest and trouble our Repose with mental or sensible Pain not for their own sakes or that he is delighted in them as such any more than we our selves are but in order to our Good and as they are necessary Means to avoid some greater Evil. In which respect both Pain and Grief though evil in their inward formal Natures do relatively considered so far put on the Nature of Good as to be truly eligible and would not fail to be actually willed and chosen by us for our selves as by GOD for us if we had the same Views and Prospects of things
of interpreting the first and great Commandment in the strictest Notion all along subjoyning such Remarks as offer themselves and seem not to me altogether forreign to the Subject For the first I think it very unreasonable to love the Creature because it can never answer the End of Love We desire only in order to Happiness nothing being desirable any further than as it promotes that End but the Love of the Creature is more apt to hinder than advance our Happiness which is the End of loving and therefore in all reason Creatures ought not to be thought desirable It may perhaps be objected that this is metaphysical Nonsence for the Creature is so necessary in order to our good that whilst we are in the World we are so far from being happy that we cannot so much as subsist without it I do not deny this provided the Creature be used only as an Occasion of our good and with that Indifferency that is due to it But if we rest in it as our End and desire it as the true Cause of our Pleasure it is so far from being our good that it certainly becomes our evil in that it deludes our Expectations shrinks under us when we have laid the Weight of our Souls upon it and causes us to fall into Air and Emptiness That the Creature cannot make us happy is evident from all those Topicks that declare its Vanity its Uncertainty and Inability to fill the Capacities of the Soul For let a Man grasp as much of the Creature as possibly he can he will still find an Emptiness in his Soul something that is still wanting to compleat his Bliss which is the Reason why we are always upon the Hunt after Variety of Enjoyments like a Boy at the Foot of a Hill who fancies if he were at the Top he should touch the Sky but when he comes there finds it as much out of his Reach as ever So true is that Conclusion of the wise King who had both the fullest Enjoyment of temporal things and the best Capacity to judge of them of any we know of that all is Vanity and Vexation of Spirit And therefore unless Reason require us to place our Felicity in that which will certainly be our Vexation it cannot be reasonable to love the Creature and consequently if Love be not an unreasonable Passion and if it be fit to love at all 't is highly reasonable to love GOD and him only But if abstracted Reasons can't perswade us to the intire Love of GOD let it further be considered that this is the best way to secure to us that which we are so very fond of even the Enjoyment of the Creature It is most certain that the Divine Benignity does neither grudge nor envy nor arbitrarily deny us any thing that has a true Tendency towards our Satisfaction and therefore when he deprives us of those occasional goods that minister to our Ease and Pleasure 't is only that he may more fully secure our Interest in our true and only good by removing those things that stood between us and it which eclipsed our View withdrew our Affections and hindred us in the Enjoyment of it And therefore to fix our Love warmly and entirely on GOD is the most likely Way to be sure of possessing all that is good in other things For the Crosses and Disappointments that we meet with are mainly designed to divert us from our vain Pursuit after the Shadow of good and to direct us towards the Substance to show us experimentally since we will not sufficiently attend to what Reason suggests the Emptiness and Unsatisfactoriness of all created good that so we may more directly pursue and inseparably cleave to the uncreated I may add that if we have any Generosity in us any Sense of the Dignity of our Nature we cannot but acknowledge that 't is little and low and unbecoming the Soul of Man to place the least Degree of its Happiness in any Creature whatsoever Since the Soul is capable of enjoying the first and sovereign good and since he freely offers himself to her Embraces 't is as injurious to her Honour as to her Happiness to stoop to a Creature and to degrade her self to such mean Enjoyments The next thing to be done is to add somewhat to the Reasonableness of interpreting the great Commandment in the strictest Notion That our Saviour's meaning was that we should love the Lord our GOD with all the Force and Energy of our Souls exclusively of all other Loves may be presumed from the great Aptitude there is in such a Love to promote the Design of Religion in general and of the Christian Religion in particular which is to retrieve the original Rectitude and Perfection of Humane Nature or rather to improve it to new draw and perfect in our Souls that beautiful Image of our Maker which by our Sins and Errors we have defaced in a word to makes us as Godlike as is consistent with the Capacity of a Creature and I know not any thing that does so effectually conduce to this as the intire Love of GOD. The End of Love is to unite its self to its Object every Motion it makes is in order to that End and since Heterogeneous Substances can never cordially unite since without Similitude of Disposition there can be no Union therefore Love does ever endeavour after Likeness it would if it were possible have an Identity of Essence and as far as the Nature of things will admit incorporate with the beloved Object Hence nothing is so excellent at Imitation as Love nothing does so easily assimilate which by the way is one reason why we ought not to love the World because of the Danger of being conformed to it If then we love GOD intirely we shall with all the Powers of our Soul endeavour to be like him and according to the Degree of our Love so will be the Nearness of our Resemblance For we cannot make GOD like our selves if therefore we desire a Union we must be conformed to the Divine Nature Love as the wise Man long since observ'd surpasses all things for Illumination And wherefore does it so but because it fixes the Eyes of our Mind upon its Object makes them keen and piercing causes our Thoughts to dwell upon its Beauties for they will always be busied about what we love And as Love is very sagacious in finding out every little Punctilio that will recommend it to its beloved so it is most restless and unwearied in the Practice of all Endearments It will regulate all its Operations by his Models imitate all his imitable Perfections that so it may most powerfully recommend it self by that which is the great Band of Affection Similitude of Nature Since therefore the Love of GOD has such an Aptness to promote the great Design of the Christian Religion 't is but reasonable to think that our Lord upon this very Account did so highly magnifie and so strictly
Intentions how generous and noble his Undertakings what a forward Zeal will he have for GOD's Glory how chearful vigorous and constant will he be in his Service with what Angelick Swiftness will he perform what GOD requires of him or whatever he thinks will be pleasing to him and how will he run the Way of his Commandments when his Heart is thus set at Liberberty At Liberty not only from this or that particular Incumbrance this or that Lust or Passion but from the whole Body of Sin the intire Weight of Concupiscence But Madam while I thus set out the Reason and Advantage of the intire Love of GOD I still make further way for your Question how comes it to pass that we are so backward to a Love which is both so reasonable in it self and so pleasant and profitable to us You might have inlarged your Question with another since Men are backward not only to pay that intire Love which they owe to GOD but even to acknowledge the Debt and are not only loath to obey the Command but even to understand it will use a thousand Arts and Devices to shift off and evade the genuine Force of it and rather than fail will say that though GOD in the most plain and express Terms calls for our whole Love yet he means only a Part of it Strange and amazing Partiality and Presumption But of this general Backwardness to receive the Sense of this plain Command as plain as Thou shalt have no other Gods but me I have already hinted an Account in the former Part of this Letter and as to the Backwardness of putting it in Practice that has been so excellently and fully accounted for by your better Hand that there is nothing left for mine to add upon this Part of the Subject And indeed scarce upon any other I shall therefore conclude all with a very pertinent Passage out of one of the Prayers of St. Austin in the 35th Chapter of his Meditations Reple semper quaeso Cor meum inextinguibili dilectione tui continuâ recordatione tuâ adeo ut sicut Flamma urens totus ardeam in tui amoris dulcedine quem aquae multae in me nunquam possint extinguere Fac me Dulcissime Domine amare te desiderio tui deponere pondus Omnium carnalium desideriorum terrenarum Concupiscentiarum gravissimam Sarcinam quae impugnant aggravant miseram animam meam ut post te expedite in odore unguentorum tuorum currens usque ad tuae Pulchritudinis Visionem efficaciter satiandus merear pervenire Duo enim Amores alter honus alter malus alter dulcis alter amarus non se simul in uno capiunt pectore ideo si quis praeter to aliud diligit non est Charitas tua Deus in eo Amor dulcedinis Dulcedo amoris Amor non crucians sed delectans Amor sincere caste què permanens in saeculum saeculi Amor qui semper ardes nunquam extingueris dulcis Christe bone Iesu Charitas Deus meus accende me totum igne tuo amore tui Suavitate Dulcedine tuâ Iucunditate exultatione tuâ voluptate concupiscentiâ tuâ quae sancta est bona casta munda tranquilla est secura ut totus dulcedine amoris tui plenus totus Flammâ Charitatis tuae succensus diligam te Deum meum ex toto Corde meo totisque medullis praecordiorum meorum habens te in Corde in Ore prae Oculis meis semper ubiquè ita utnullus pateat in me locus adulterinis Amoribus Fill always I beseech thee my Heart with an unquenchable Love of thee with a continual Remembrance of thee that so as a burning Flame I may burn all over in the Sweetness of thy Love which may not be quenched even by many Waters Make me sweetest Lord to love thee and through the Desire of thee to lay down the Weight of all carnal Desires and the most heavy load of earthly Concupiscences which fight against and weigh down my miserable Soul so that running expeditely after thee in the Odor of thy Ointments I may be worthy to arrive to the effectually satisfying Vision of thy Beauty For two Loves one good and another bad one sweet and another bitter cannot dwell together in the same Breast and therefore if any one love any thing besides thee thy Love O God is not in him O Love of Sweetness O Sweetness of Love that dost not tormont but delight Love that for ever remainest sincere and chast Love that does always burn and art never extinct sweet Christ good Iesus my God my Love kindle me all over with thy Fire with the Love of thee with thy Sweetness with thy Ioy with thy Pleasure and Concupiscence which is holy and good chaste and clean quiet and secure that being all full of the Sweetness of thy Love all on fire with the Flame of thy Charity I may love thee my GOD with my whole Heart and with all the Power of my inward Parts having thee in my Heart in my Mouth and before my Eyes always and every where that so there may be no Place in me open to adulterous Loves You see Madam that St. Austin here most expresly prays for the very same thing for which I argue the most intire Love of GOD and who is there that can justly scruple to say Amen to this Divine Prayer of his I for my own Part assent to it most heartily and so beseeching the holy Spirit the great Dispenser of Charity to shed this intire Love of GOD into the Hearts of you and me and all good people that so we may love him as a GOD with a Love truly worthy of him I leave you to the Correction of these my Thoughts and to the Enjoyment of your own which whether you will further communicate upon this Subject that so the same Hand may conclude which begun it I leave you to consider while I justly thank you for the Advantage of your past Correspondence and assure you that I cannot express how very much I am thereby obliged to continue Madam Your most faithful Friend and humble Servant J. NORRIS Bemerton May 25. Your Definition of Pleasure is right as far as it goes but that is no further than what we call a nominal Definition LETTER XI To Mr. Norris SIR THough I intimated in my last that I had concluded my Meditations on this Subject yet I find like its divine Object it has no Bounds And besides the natural Vastness of the Argument your convincing and pathetick Discourses so rouze my Understanding so chafe my Affections and enlarge my Thoughts that I have once more resumed this noble this pleasing this perfective Theme which is the Solace of my Heart the Entertainment not only of my Leisure but of my most busie and best employed Hours For what have we to do what is it that deserves to be the Business of rational Creatures but to
might we have many Objects of our Love The Object can no more be multiplied than he can Take all the Parts of his Title asunder and you shall find Oneness and Intireness therein After a particular Examination of and Descant upon which he proceeds I suppose if you have well heeded what I have said you will acknowledge that there is a fair ground in the Lord our God why he should challenge all our Love Let us come now and look upon our selves and see what ground thereof we can find there When the Question was moved unto Christ whether the Iews ought to pay Tribute to Caesar or not he called for the Coin and asked whose Image and Superscription it bare And when they answered him Caesar's he replied give unto Caesar those things which are Caesar's But he addeth to our Purpose that upon the same grounds they must give unto GOD those things which are GOD's If the Image and Superscription were a just ground why Coin should be paid unto Caesar where GOD's Image is found there is as good a Reason that that should be rendred unto him Now God's Image is found in us by Nature for we were made according to his Image so that all which we receive from him we owe unto him by the Law of Creation A second way is God's Image in us by Grace For our Regeneration is but a second Creation wherein we are reformed unto that Image according to which God at first created us All then is due unto God a second time by the Law of our Redemption so that whether we look upon our Heart our Mind our Soul or Strength it may be demanded of us Quid habes quod non accepisti What hast thou c. And if we have received it all the Exaction is but reasonable Si totum exigit a te qui totum fecit refecit te Surely St. Paul thought so when he wills the Corinthians to glorifie God with their Bodies and with their Souls adding this reason for they are God's Well then we have found fair grounds of this Measure For if God be such and such to us as you have heard the only lovely thing and all that can be beloved and we are all his and all that we have is due unto him both by Nature and by Grace then ought we with all to express our Love towards him But what is it to love him with all Surely it is to love him sine divisione sine remissione None of our Abilities must be divided none of them must be slack in doing this Work First of the Division we must not divide our Hearts that is as the Scripture speaks have a Heart and a Heart a Heart for God and a Heart for the World c. Again all Division of our Abilities is a plain abandoning of the Love of God for no Man can serve two Masters as Christ tells us c. God will have all or none c. Again says he What is the Use of all this but to make us see how little we perform of this Commandment and how little Cause we have to boast of the best that we do therein VVho is he that can deny that his Abilities are divided and that he loves more things than God yea most things more than God c. You see here is a great Man that not only expresly delivers the same Conclusion but endeavours to prove it too Whether his way of reasoning be conclusive or no I leave the Reader to judge All that I am at present concerned to remark is that the Conclusion it self is far from being such a Novelty or Singularity as many imagin and object No it is frequently to be met with and all that I have here and elsewhere done is only to reduce a common Conclusion into clear and distinct Principles such as are founded in the Nature and Reason of Things So that if what I advance be no Truth yet I am sure it is no Paradox which is enough to fence me from Prejudice and I am content that Reason should decide the rest When I have desired the Reader to be so just to me as not to meddle with these Papers till he has first carefully perused the Discourse to which they relate and which contains the Principle upon which they proceed I have nothing more to say here unless it be to give some account of the Reasons of our communicating a private Correspondence to the Publick concerning which I shall leave the Reader to satisfie himself out of the Two ensuing Letters which contain my Proposal of a Publication with the Reason and Manner of my Correspondents Compliance The Letters are as follows Madam SInce we have now both of us concluded our Parts and so sealed up our Divine Subject with a double Seal it would be a little indecorous to break it open again especially for me who cannot think ' it Prudence to travel on even in so pleasant a Road after my Guide has left me to proceed further in a Subject where you think fit to end or to vitiate with any Additions of mine the Relish of an Argument upon which you have left such a pleasing and delicious Farewel No Madam let it stand as you have left it for though it should not be absolutely finished as indeed who can say of such an immense Subject that it ever is yet 't is most just and fit that where-ever you please to end there should be the Conclusion after which as in Apelles's Venus there can be no adding without Presumption I shall not therefore be guilty of it only give me leave to lament a little that you conclude so soon your Meditations and my Pleasures For methinks I could eternally hear your Discourse upon this ever fruitful ever ingaging and entertaining Theme which as great as it is receives such an Advantage from your Management as might recommend it to those dull cold Spirits whom its own natural Excellency would never affect The very Tunings and looser Touches of a sweet and well toned Instrument are pleasant and what then is the Harmony when it comes to be played on by a Masterly Hand And how is the musical Hearer grieved when he sees the melodious Artist unstringing it and laying it aside But Madam there are some Pleasures that are always short if Time be their Measure and were your Discourses here never so prolix I should still think and be ready to complain they were done too soon so great and noble is the Subject and so admirable both your Thoughts and Expressions upon it such Choiceness of Matter such Weight of Sense such Art and Order of Contrivance such Clearness and Strength of reasoning such Beauty of Language such Address of Style such bright and lively Images and Colours of things and such moving Strains of the most natural and powerful Oratory and all this seasoned with such a Tincture of Piety and seeming to come from a true inward vital Principle of the most sincere and
a sufficient and proper reason why he should be the Object of our Love notwithstanding that Pain which is also but after a different manner caus'd by him As to what you suggest to the contrary namely That the Author of our Pain has as good a Title to our Love as the Author of our Pleasure 'T is true he that is the Author of our Pain has as good a Title to it as the Author of our Pleasure because they are both one and the same but not as he is the Author of our Pain He has a Title to our Love not for that but notwithstanding that 'T is his being the cause of our Pleasure that makes him the proper Object of our Love which he is notwithstanding his being also the Author of Pain But then say you if his doing us good be the reason of his being the Object of our Love then something else does us good besides that which causes our Pleasure namely Pain the Cause of our Sensations Pain as well as Pleasure being the Object of our Love I answer Pain may in some sense be said to do us good as it may occasion to us some good that exceeds its own proper Evil. But formally and directly it does not do us good as not making us while actually under it Happy but Miserable Nor is there need that upon our Supposition it should God being sufficiently lovely to us as the Author of our Pleasure to which we need not add the advantage that may accrue by Pain or suppose Pain to be in it self as Beneficial as Pleasure 't is enough if the Evil of the former does not frustrate the Obligation that arises from the good of the latter As I have shewn you that it does not But after all Madam there is one thing I must further offer to your Consideration viz. That your Objection whatever force it may have is not peculiarly levell'd against me but lies equally against all those who make the loveliness of God to consist in his Relative Goodness or in his being our Good who I think are the most at least the most considerable Those of the common way say God is to be lov'd because he is our Good or the Author of our Good which Notion I think right but only add to it That he is the only Author of our Good and therefore the only Object of our Love In which Argument I suppose these Men would not deny the Consequence as being the same with their own but only the minor Proposition But now if it be an Objection against my Notion That God is also the Author of Evil then the same will no less conclude against the common way proving as much that God ought not to be lov'd at all as that he ought not to be lovd only I say it proves one as well as the other though I think if you will attend to what I have offer'd you will find that it proves neither Madam I have said all that at present occurs to my Thoughts upon this occasion and I think as much as is necessary and have now only to thank you for the great Favour of your Letter assuring you that whenever you shall be pleas'd to do me that Honour again you shall have a speedier Answer from Madam Your very humble Servant J. NORRIS Bemerton Oct. 13. 1693. Postscript ONE consideration more When you speak of GOD's being the cause of Pain either you mean as to this Life or as to the next If as to the next that has nothing to do with the Duty that we owe him here If as to the present Life the pain that God inflicts upon us here is only Medicinal and in order to our greater good and consequently from a Principle of Kindness And I think setting aside my other Considerations there will be no more pretence for not loving or hating God for this than for hating our Physitian or Surgeon for putting us to pain in order to our Health or Cure LETTER III. To Mr. Norris SIR YOU see how greedily I embrace the advantageous Offer you made me in the Close of your excellent Letter for which I would return some Acknowledgments but that I want Expressions suitable to its Value and my Resentments Nor is there any thing in it from which I can with-hold my Assent but that too favourable Opinion you seem to have conceiv'd of a Person who has nothing considerable in her but an honest Heart and a Love to Truth I am therefore exceeding glad to find this noble and necessary Theory That God is the sole Object of our Love so well establish'd And though any one of the three Principles you argue from in your Printed Discourse is a sufficient ground for that Conclusion though it may be singly infer'd both from God's being the Author of our Love and from the Obligation we are under of conforming to his Will as well as from his being the true Cause of our Pleasure yet joyntly they are irrefragable and I have nothing more left to wish but that it were as easie to perswade Men to fix the whole weight of their Desire on their Maker as it is to Demonstrate that they ought to do it For when all is said and all conclusions are tried there is no rest no satisfaction for the Soul of Man but in her God she can never be at Ease nor in Pleasure but when she moves with her full bent and inclination directly towards him and absolutely and entirely depends on him Yet I am very well pleas'd that I made the Objection which you have so well resolv'd because it has procur'd me a clear and accurate account of what before I had only in confuse and indistinct Notion and has begun a Correspondence which if it may be continued I shall reckon the greatest advantage that can befall me For though by observing the Rules you have already enrich'd the World with I may possibly find out Truth yet I can't be assur'd I 've done so being too apt to suspect my own Notions merely for being my own but if they can pass so exact a Touchstone as your Judgment I shall without hesitancy subscribe to them So far am I from thinking that GOD's being the Author of our Pain is any just Impediment to our entire Love of him that I 'm almost perswaded to rank it among the Motives to it For though Pain considered abstractedly is not a Good yet it may be so circumstantiated and always is when GOD inflicts it as to be a Good To the pious Man it is so both intentionally and eventually and though inflicted as a Punishment on wicked Men it is however materially good being as you observe an Act of GOD's Justice And I think it is an unquestionable Maxim that all our Good is wholly and absolutely from GOD and all our Evil purely and intirely from our selves Whatever Methods GOD uses to draw us to himself I am fully perswaded are good in themselves and good for us
Speculation Hitherto I have courted Truth with a kind of Romantick Passion in spite of all Difficulties and Discouragements for knowledge is thought so unnecessary an Accomplishment for a Woman that few will give themselves the Trouble to assist them in the Attainment of it Not considering that the meliorating of one single Soul is an Employment more worthy of a wife Man than most of those things to which Custom appropriates the Name of Business and Affairs But now since you have so generously put into my Hand an Opportunity of obtaining what I so greedily long after that I may make the best Improvement of so great an Advantage I give up my self entirely to your Conduct so far as is consistent with a rational not blind Obedience bring a free and unprejudiced Mind to receive from your Hand such Gravings and Impressions as shall seem most convenient and though I can't engage for a prompt and comprehensive Genius yet I will for a docible Temper The Esteem I have for those necessary and useful Rules you have already prescribed shall appear by my strict Observation of them For indeed the Span of Life is too short to be trifled away in unconcerning and unprofitable Matters and that Soul who has any Sense of a better Life can't chuse but desire that every Minute of her Time may be employed in the regulating of her Will with the most critical Exactness and the extending her Understanding to its utmost Stretch that so she may obtain the most enlarg'd Knowledge and ample Fruition of GOD her only Good that her Nature is capable of I will therefore pass on to explain a little what I asserted in my last next add a few Thoughts concerning Divine Love and in the last place a Proposal or two for the better Prosecution of those you have already made Now in order to the first I am very well satisfied that GOD is the Cause of Mental as well as Bodily Pain if by mental Pain you understand Grief my Mistake lying in this that I confounded Sin and mental Pain 'T is indeed evident that Sin and Grief are two distinct things yet I cannot form to my self any Idea of Sin which does not include in it the greatest Pain and Misery For as Sin is the meritorious Cause of all Misery so it seems to me that the Punishment of Sin is concomitant to the Act Misery is inseparable from Sin and the Sinner is ipso facto punished When therefore I said that mental Pain is the same with Sin I meant no more than this that as a musical Instrument if it were capable of Sense and Thought wou'd be uneasie and in pain when harsh discordant Notes are plaid upon it so Man when he breaks the Law of his Nature and runs counter to those Motions his Maker has assign'd him when he contradicts the Order and End of his Being must needs be in Pain and Misery And as the Health and Perfection Ease and Pleasure Good and Happiness or whatever you will call it of a Creature consists in its Conformity to the End of its Creation and the being in such Circumstances as are agreeable to its Nature from which when in the least it deviates it loses both its Beauty and its Pleasure so the Soul of Man being made on purpose for the Contemplation and Love of GOD whensoever it ceases to pursue that End must needs be put out of the Order of its Nature and consequently depriv'd of all Pleasure and Perfection whilst it stands rightly affected towards GOD it cannot be destitute of Pleasure but whatsoever sets it in Opposition to him does by that Act deprive it of all Delight So that my Hypothesis will lie thus That although GOD only has Power to modifie the Soul of Man and to affect it with Pain and Grief yet since these are rather Uneasinesses than Evils strictly so call'd nothing according to my Notion being the proper Evil of Man but Sin of which more anon since they are design'd by GOD as Mediums to good and are if not formally yet at least consequentially Occasions of Pleasure since the wilful and affected Ignorance of the Understanding and Pravity of the Will or in other Words Sin is the true and proper Evil of a Man because Sin only is absolutely and directly opposite to the Essence of Goodness and seeing GOD can no way be said to be the Author of Sin consequently his being the Cause of our uneasie Sensations can be no just Bar to our Love much less any Motive to our Aversion As for the Distinction of the Soul into inferiour and superiour Part I am as little satisfied with it as you can be and do confess to you ingeniously that I have no clear Idea of that which is properly my self nor do I well know how to distinguish its Powers and Operations For the usual Accounts that are given of the Soul are very unsatisfactory that in your Letter being the best I have met with and therefore for want of better Expressions I made use of this Distinction which I did the more readily because I learned it from your Christian Blessedness P. 158. All the remaining Difference therefore lies in this Question whether Sin be the only Evil And in order to the removing it I shall first shew you my Design in affirming that it is and then the Reasons that incline me to it and when I have done so I will refer all to your better Judgment First for what I aim at I have observ'd that most of the Folly and Mischief that is in the World proceeds from false Notions of Pain and Pleasure and Mistakes concerning the Nature of good and evil For would Men be perswaded that GOD is their only good so they might enjoy him they would not much regret the Absence of other things neither would they so greedily pursue the Shell of Pleasure nor fix their Hearts on sensible Objects which can never satisfie And were they but convinced that nothing is so evil as Sin they would not choose Iniquity rather than Affliction As therefore your Account of Pleasure does rectifie the Errors of our Love so I could wish that our Aversions were better regulated than they usually are and that Sin which though it be not the efficient is yet the moral Cause of all our Evils and Displeasures were so represented as that it might appear the only proper and adequate Object of our intire Hatred and Aversion This is my Design Now for the Reasons besides what are already intimated which incline me to think that Sin is the only Evil. I grant that whatever is contrary to the Pleasure and Good of Man in any of his Capacities may in some Sense be call'd an Evil and in this Latitude no doubt but that both mental and sensible Pain are Evils But because when we speak of Evil we usually understand something that in its own Nature is the proper Object of our Aversion evil as evil being no way eligible and
since mental and bodily Pain are not so far evil but that in some Circumstances they may become eligible which yet they could not be without assuming the Nature of good and therefore they are not pure and absolute Evils And further though 't is easie in our Contemplations and Retirements to distinguish between greater and lesser Evils to compare and weigh them together and to allot to each its due Proportion of Choice or Aversion yet since good and evil do frequently present themselves to our Minds in common Conversation and Business when we have neither Time nor Appetite to abstract and consider but are determin'd by this short and obvious Sillogism Evil is not eligible but such a thing is Evil therefore it is not to be chosen Whereas perhaps that which we refuse as evil suppose bodily or mental Pain though formally and in the greatest Latitude of the Word it be an Evil yet comparatively and pro hic nunc it may be a Good and so the proper Object of our Choice To avoid which common Occasion of Mistake and because the Nature of Man has so strong an Aversion to every thing that bears the Name of Evil I wou'd rather call Grief and Pain Uneasinesses than Evils and wholly appropriate the Name of Evil to Sin which is essentially and absolutely Evil and the only entire Object of a rational Creatures Hatred and Aversion But not to contend about Words admitting that Pain and Grief are Evils it is but in a comparative and lower Sense if they were essentially Evil they could not in some Circumstances become good which you your self allow them to be occasionally and consequentially and as they may be a Means to avoid a greater Evil. Whereas the very Essence of Sin is evil it can never in any Circumstance be eligible which is a Sign it is never good We may not commit a lesser Sin under Pretence to avoid a greater but we may nay we ought to endure the greatest Pain and Grief rather than commit the least sin For not to dispute what Good GOD may bring out of the Sins of Men or how he does it which are Questions I will not now meddle with I have always thought that the least moral Evil is not to be chosen no not in order to the greatest Good as I think may be inferred from the Apostles arguing Rom. 3. 8. there is a certain Peculiarity of Evil in Sin which though you will not allow it the only Evil yet at least renders it an Evil paramont to all other Evils and excludes it from the least degree of Eligibility For though Pain and Grief put the Soul into uneasie Circumstances yet they don't withdraw her from her true Good they rather excite her more strongly to cleave to him and that Trouble which sensible things occasion and which she feels through the Disorder of her own Thoughts stirs her up to fix more firmly on him whose Comforts in this Case are her only Refreshment whereas Sin quite alienates the Soul from her only true Good and thereby deprives her of the sole Prop she has to rest on and consequently puts her in the most wretched helpless and evil Condition Every thing but Sin has something of good in it because every thing else proceeds from GOD but Sin is all over perfect Deformity an uncompounded Evil and a direct Contradiction to Order and Perfection and consequently to Pleasure and therefore is or ought to be set at the greatest Opposition to the Nature of Man and to be the proper Object of his intire Hatred and Aversion This is the Point I drive at and if it may be gained am very indifferent whether it be by mine or some other Way of arguing But before I proceed to the next Particular I have two Requests one is That you would please to oblige me with a Definition of Pleasure and the other That you would a little explain the Idea of Pain for I don 't well understand your Meaning when you say That Pain anticipates all Thought or Reflection I did suppose it to be an uneasie Thought and how then can it anticipate all Thought The Bodily Impression indeed prevents Thought but that is not properly the Pain but the Occasion of it Now in the next place to gratifie your Desire which falls in so much with my own Inclinations That I should further communicate my Thoughts concerning divine Love a Subject on which 't is easie to be endless and yet impossible to say too much I take it to be the Sum and Substance of all Religion to which all other Duties are reducible which are but so many different Modifications of this Soul that animates the Christian Life And therefore such Discourses as serve to lay its Foundation deep and raise its superstructure high such as bring it Fuel by rational Motives and fan its Flame by devout and relishing Expressions do the Work of Religion all at once for were this Divine Principle but once firmly rooted in our Hearts and suffered to display it self in all its necessary Effects and Consequences 't would supercede all other Instructions and be instead of a Thousand Monitors The Love of GOD is both the best Preservative against Evil in its greatest Latitude and the strongest Impellent to good 'T is the best Antidote against Sin in that it disarms Temptations of all their Force they cannot fasten upon the Soul that entirely loves its Maker He who believes GOD to be his only Good if he attend at all to that Conviction can never wilfully sin against him For Sin being a Disconformity to GOD a willing something contrary to his Nature and Will 't is not possible for a Man to chuse that which he believes to be contrary to his only Good and which will therefore consequently deprive him of it And it being nothing else but the false Appearance of some seeming Good that inclines a Man to chuse amiss he who considers GOD as his only Good and loves him with an Entireness of Affection has shut up all the Avenues of his Soul from that Syren apparent Good and is not capable of being bewitch'd by it Indeed if we allow the Creature to be in any degree our good 't is hard to keep our selves from desiring it and if we permit Desire we can never be secure from irregular Love that Shame and Misery of Mankind it being easier not to desire at all than to desire with Moderation For Love is an insinuating Passion and where-ever 't is admitted will spread and make its Way And though the Charms of the Creature be infinitely unworthy to rival those of the Creator yet they have this Advantage that they perpetually press upon the outward Man and constantly present themselves to our Senses so that if we allow them the least Share in our Hearts 't is odds but that at last they wholly withdraw it from him who only has a Right to it And as the Love of GOD secures our
humble and thankful Servant February 15. 1693. LETTER VIII Mr. Norris's Answer Madam I Am no less pleased than your self that my great Argument for the intire Love of GOD taken from his being the only true Cause of our good is so well discharged of that Difficulty which you urged against it because as I told you in my first I think it the only material one to which it stands exposed and because it has received from your skilful Hand the utmost Advantage it was capable of So that now I cannot but conclude the Bottom I go upon to be very sound not expecting to be attacked by a stronger Objection or by one better managed The same occurred to my own Thoughts while I was composing my Discourse but I thought it would be time enough to consider it when it came to be objected and I have since met with a little flying Touch of it in a modern Philosopher of very considerable Note Monsieur Regis a Cartesian who in the 16 th Chapter of his Metaphysicks contends upon this very Ground that GOD is not the Moral Good of Man GOD says he is not the Moral Good of Man neither because he produces those things which are agreeable to him nor because he causes those Pleasures which he feels Not the first because GOD would then be the moral good of all other Creatures as well as Man because he does as much produce what in agreeable to them as what is so to Man Not the second because GOD would then be no less the moral evil of Man than his moral good because he does no less produce the Pain which he suffers than the Pleasure which he enjoys From which without adding a Word more as if this had been a most clear and incontestable Demonstration he positively concludes that GOD is not the moral good of Man Not only that he is not so for this Reason as the Cause of our Pleasure as your Objection runs but that he is not so at all For he concludes that if he be so it must be upon one or other of the forementioned Accounts which since he is not therefore he will not allow him to be so at all A strange Paradox by the way but what Force there is in the Proof of it may be determined from the Measures premised The other Difficulty against the intire Love of GOD taken from its Inconsistency with the Love of our Neighbour which you say you have heard some urge against my Account of the first and great Commandment is indeed in one respect more pressing than the former though easier to be resolved because it is directly levelled not against the Reason only of the Proposition but the Truth of it But I wonder to hear of this Objection as pertinent as it is since I thought I had already laid in a sufficient Caution against it in the Discourse it self For 't is most certain that the most intire Love of GOD enjoyn'd in the first Commandment does by no means exclude the Love of our Neighbour injoyned in the second in case these two Loves be of two different Kinds the former suppose Love of Desire and the latter Love of Benevolence there being no manner of Repugnancy between the desiring none but GOD and the wishing well to Men and 't is only the joyning these two different Ideas under one common Name Love that makes it seem as if there were To love none but GOD and yet to love others besides GOD do indeed seem to be contradictory Propositions but 't is all because of the Equivocation of the Word Love which when applied to GOD in the first Commandment signifies desiring him as a good and when applied to Men in the second signifies not desiring them as a Good but desiring good to them And cannot I thus love GOD only and my Neighbour too and so fulfil both Commands Cannot I desire but one thing only in the World and yet at the same time wish well to every thing else 'T is plain that I may and that the Intireness of my Love to GOD does no way prejudice my Love to my Neighbour supposing the latter Love to be of a different Kind from the former Those therefore that will have one of these to be exclusive of the other ought first to prove that the Word Love used in both commands is taken according to the same Sense in both that by Love of our Neighbour is meant Love of Desire as well as by the Love of GOD without which their Objection is precarious and instead of proving they do but beg the Question And I should be glad to see any of our Objectors prove what hitherto they are pleased to presume that by Love of our Neighbours is intended Love of Desire If they on the other hand demand what Proof I have that the Love of our Neighbour here is not Love of Desire I answer first that according to all the Laws of Dispute I may reasonably take leave to suppose that it is not till my Objectors prove that it is Since my Account of the first Commandment does not overthrow the second but only upon Supposition that Love of our Neighbour there signifies Love of Desire they that lay that to my Charge ought in all Logick and Conscience to prove that it has that Signification till which time I may fairly suppose that it has not and that the rather because they themselves cannot pretend that Desire is the only thing that is called by the Name of Love but must needs allow that there is also a Love of Benevolence and that these two have very distinct Idea's But not to infist upon a Privilege I do not need I answer again that all those Arguments whereby I prove that GOD only ought to be loved with Love of Desire do also implicity prove that that is not the Love wherewith we are to love our Neighbour and consequently that that is not the Love intended in the second Commandment but only Love of Benevolence For since there are but these two Sorts of Love and since which is the very Foundation of the Objection the intire Love of GOD is not consistent with the Love of our Neighbour as Love signifies Desire if I prove that GOD only ought to be loved with Love of Desire as I think I have done then it must follow either that our Neighbour ought not to be loved at all which is manifestly absurd or that Love of Benevolence is the Love that must fall to his share and that which consequently is enjoyned in the second Commandment And I wonder how it should enter into so many Men's Heads as it does to imagin that any other Love than this was here intended For though it were otherwise never so lawful and allowable to love our Neighbour with Love of Desire and he otherwise never so capable of it yet is it imaginable that this should be made the matter of a Command and required of us as a Duty Is it
require the same kind of Love from Men to one another But there needs no Argument from without to prove this to be his meaning The Text you refer to Iohn 13. 34. sufficiently speaks its own Sense A new Commandment I give unto you that ye love one another As I have loved you that ye also love one another Wherein 't is plain that our Saviour refers to that signal Instance of his Benevolence in his undertaking the Work of our Redemption and in Proportion requires the same sort of Love from his Disciples that if Occasion were they should be ready to lay down their Lives for the Salvation of their Brethren as he had done for them which is the natural Sense of the Words and made to be so by the best Expositors that I know of upon the Place But besides does not the Scripture always express our Love towards our Neighbour as a Love of Benevolence only Love says the Apostle Rom. 13. 10. worketh no ill to his Neighbour that is does not hurt or injure him but do him all good Which Character shews it to be truly meant of Love of Benevolence I say truly And that 't is meant of that only as being of it self intirely commensurate to the full Extent of Charity is evident from the Words that follow therefore Love is the fulfilling of the Law Of what Law Not to be sure of the first Table For our Love to our Neighbour though never so perfect cannot satisfie our Obligation to GOD. It must be therefore of the second Table which being thus fulfilled by Benevolence can require no other Love than that This is Demonstration Again when the same Apostle reckons up the Fruits of Charity does he make any mention of Desire does he not describe them all by the Expressions of Benevolence He says it suffers long and is kind that it envies not vaunts not it self is not puffed up does not behave it self unseemly seeks not her own is not easily provoked thinks no evil rejoyces not in Iniquity but in the Truth that it bears all things believes all things hopes all things and indures all things but it seems the Apostle had forgot to put in Desire or else he thought it no Part of Christian Charity And I must confess that I am of the latter Opinion And as the Scripture always speaks of Brotherly Love and Charity in Terms importing Benevolence so whenever it speaks of the opposite Vice does it not always describe it by contrary Characters Does it ever describe it by want of Desire No but by want of good Will by Anger Wrath Envy Bitterness Malice and such like Terms And by what Measure of Love it is that Christ will proceed in his Judgment of the World whether by Love of Benevolence or by Love of Desire I shall leave to be determined by what he says himself concerning that matter in the 25th Chapter of St. Matthew From all which put together I think nothing can be more clear and certain than that the Love intended and required in the second great Commandment of the Law is not Love of Desire but only Love of Benevolence And I cannot imagine what besides the Equivocation of the Word Love should make the World run so generally upon a contrary Notion unless it be that Clause in the Commandment And the second is like unto it whence perhaps it has been concluded that because the first is meant of Love of Desire therefore the second must be so too But he must be either much prejudiced or very dull-sighted that does not see that by like unto it is only meant of equal Authority and Obligation in Opposition to the Pharisaic Partiality towards the Precepts of the Law Well then the Result of the present Considerations is this since that most intire Love of GOD I stand for in the first Commandment does not at all interfere with the Love of our Neighbour in the second supposing that by Love there we are not to understand Love of Desire but only Love of Benevolence and since as I have shewn Love of Benevolence is the Love there solely intended I may now with Assurance conclude that the Account I have given of the first Commandment as high as it is is no way injurious to the second the thing that is generally laid to my Charge But you go further undertaking to show that my Account of the Love of GOD is so far from being prejudicial to that of our Neighbour that it is the only true solid Foundation it can rest upon I thoroughly approve what you say upon this Part but shall not offer to add any thing to it because indeed you have said all I promised in my last that in my next I would add something to the Reason of our loving GOD so intirely but having fallen upon a Vein of other Thoughts and those of no slight Importance must beg you to let me be in your Debt for this untill another Opportunity as also for what you further desire concerning Pleasure In the mean time I leave you to that of your own Meditations more of which upon this great Subject will be highly grateful to Madam Your very humble Servant J. NORRIS Bemerton March 23. LETTER IX To Mr. Norris SIR YOU have so clearly removed the Objection made against the intire Love of GOD on account of its being prejudicial to the Love of our Neighbour that I hope we shall hear no more of that matter And truly when our Objectors have once felt as they will for certain sooner or later the Disquiet and Uneasiness we may well refer them to their own Experience for a full Conviction of the Unreasonableness of such Desires As far as I can perceive the Objection is founded upon Supposition That all Human Love is a Love of Desire a Love that arises from and terminates in that insatiable Desire we have of our own Happiness Which methinks is a very great Reproach to Humane Nature which as bad as it is is not uncapable of a pure and disinteressed Benevolence Had they duly attended to what you have writ in you Theory of Love Part 1. Sect. 5. They would have discerned the Falseness of their Supposition But though all other Arguments should fail my own Experience would assure me that there is such a thing as unmixed Benevolence for there are some Persons in the World to whom I could perform the highest Services without any the least Intuition of Reward or Prospect of bettering my own Being And now to proceed in our most excellent Subject though I am very sensible how much I depretiate it by my unkilful Management yet that I may give occasion to your better Meditations and because of the just Deference I pay you I am contented in Compliance with your Desire rather to discover my Ignorance than be wanting in my Respect I will therefore first declare what I think may be added to the Unreasonableness of loving the Creature and secondly what to the Reasonableness
enforce it And indeed since Love does so powerfully influence all our Motions since all our Endeavours all our Operations and Varieties of Acting tend to nothing else but the Accomplishment of some Desire 't is but fit and decorous that all our Desires should fix on him whose we are and for whose Glory we were created To the Reasonableness of the Love of GOD we may further add the Necessity of it and that upon a double Account First because this is the only Vital Principle of Holiness the only effectual Means of securing our Obedience and consequently of preparing us for the Enjoyment of GOD. There is no way of uniting our selves to GOD but by keeping his Commandments for then and not otherwise do we dwell in him and be in us Since therefore Obedience is necessary in order to Happiness that which is the only true Principle of Obedience must be of equal Necessity And that without Love there can be no true Obedience and where-ever Obedience is found 't is a certain Criterion of Love is plainly evident from our Saviour's discoursing in the 14. and 15. Chapters of St. Iohn so that to derive universal Obedience from the Love of GOD or to argue from that Obedience to the intire Love of GOD is as sound a Way of Argumentation as to prove any other Effect by its Cause or Cause by the Effect It were easie to show how every particular Duty is necessarily consequent to the Love of GOD how it is founded upon and does naturally spring from it But I shall not here enter into the Detail I will only take notice of the Management of our Thoughts because on them depends our Words and Actions and derive the Necessity of the intire Love of GOD from the Impossibility of governing our Thoughts as we ought without it Now this is most certain that what we love will be uppermost in our Minds there is no better Diagnostick to discover our Love than by observing what is the most frequent Subject of our Thoughts For Thought seems to me to be nothing else but the Determination of the Soul to some certain Object which she desires either to contemplate or enjoy a forming in her self the Images and Representations of what she delights in or contriving how she may obtain it and remove what stands betwixt her and it And therefore where-ever the Weight of our Desire rests the Stream of our Thoughts will follow t is to no Purpose to drive them away for though we may for a while put a Force on them they will insensibly steal back again So that if we mean to keep our Hearts with all Diligence the only way to secure our outward Demeanour we must above all things take care to regulate our Desire since it is by this that we fall into Destruction If therefore our Hearts be too busie about any thing in this World I know no other Way to cure that Disorder but by rectifying our Desire Let us cease to love it and we shall easily restrain our Hearts from being inordinately busied about it It is not so much the Force of Temptations alas All that the World and the Devil can offer to bribe our Hearts is paultry and inconsiderable it is not so much the unavoidable Infirmity of our Nature which has not such an Aversion to GOD as we pretend but it is the Defect of our Love our wilful misplacing that Divine Affection our voluntary hankerings after the Creature that sets us at Distance from the Creator For let any one who has been intimately acquainted with the Movements of his own Heart tell me whether he does not find that all the strong Gusts of Temptation blow from the Quarter Whilst he duly contemplates the divine Perfections looks on GOD as his true and only good and desires him accordingly is not his Obedience prompt and ready does not his Mind move with Alacrity and unwearied Vigor and are not all its Motions regular and pleasing But no sooner does his Desire step into a By-path and he suffer himself to doat on the Creature but all is unhinged and falls into Disorder the Wheels of his Chariot move slowly his Thoughts wander his Devotion languishes his Passions grow unruly his Intentions corrupt and his good Actions become lame and broken Let us not therefore complain of our Listlessness in the Worship of GOD our Coldness and Wandrings in his Service how much Labour it costs us to raise up our Hearts to Heaven and put them in a right Tune but rather let us complain of our want of Love for that is the true Cause of all this Untowardness all our Sins and Infirmities our moral Mistakes and Imperfections proceed from nothing else but this let us once banish our Idols from our Hearts whatever they are and we shall quickly find that all will be well again For in vain do we search for Rules to regulate our Manners and prescribe Remedies to cure our Infirmities which do but baffle our Industry and reproach our Skill our Prescriptions will do us but little Service till we have reformed our Love the Misapplication of which is the true Source of all our Disorder the corrupt Root of all our Faults If therefore we would come up to our holy Religion if we would be those wise and excellent Creatures that GOD designs we should let us above all things fix our Love on its proper Object put it in a regular Motion and then do but allow it Scope and faithfully pursue its Tendencies and we need not be afraid of doing amiss we should run the Race that is set before us with Chearfulness and Vigor in a direct Line and with an unwearied Constancy For when Love is arrived at its Zenith when GOD is all in all then and not till then shall we be consummate and the greater Progress we make in this Love whilst we stay on Earth the nearer Approaches do we make to Perfection Could we love GOD as intirely as he loves himself we should then be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect One way whereby the Love of GOD mightily facilitates our Obedience and secures the Performance of it is this it reduces our Duty to a very narrow Compass For it is not the Difficulty but the Multiplicity of our Tasks which is the Cause that some of them are neglected We cannot say of any particular Duty that it is impossible and yet through the Shortness of our Views and Narrowness of our Powers it frequently happens that some of our Devoirs are unperformed But though a Man cannot attend to many things at once yet sure he can to this one to love the Lord his GOD with all his Heart c. that is to move towards him with all the Force of his Nature And though I cannot say this will secure him from all pitiable Infirmities yet I dare venture to affirm it will from all imputable Transgressions and keep him asfree from Sin as is consistent with the Imperfection
Byass on her and force her into a By-path Custom as the Philosopher well observed is no small matter It is the most difficult thing imaginable to recall our Thoughts and withdraw the Stream of our Affections from that Channel in which they were used to flow Which is a further proof of the great Necessity that lies upon us betimes to cut off all Desire from the Creature to shut up all the Avenues of our Souls from created good even from those dearest Idols that bear the nearest Resemblance to our Maker to whom our Benevolence is due though they ought not to usurp our Desire By this Time I have sufficiently tired you and therefore must not stay to enlarge upon the Usefulness and consequently the Value of that Book of yours you were pleased to send me I can only return my Thanks for it and all your other Favours as it becomes Sir Your much oblig'd and humble Servant St. Philip and St. Iames 1694. LETTER X. Mr. Norris's Answer Madam HAving been so happy in my last as to give you no less Satisfaction concerning the second Difficulty arising from the seeming Inconsistency of the intire Love of GOD with the Love of our Neighbour than concerning the first suggested from the Causality of GOD in reference to Pain as well as Pleasure I shall now resume that Thred of my Discourse which in the last save one I begun but by Occasion of the Objection crossing my Way was forced to interrupt and proceed to add to what both you and my self have already offered such further Improvement as I think necessary in order to the fuller Establishment of the intire Love of GOD. The Truth and Reasonableness of which Notion the more I think of it seems to me so very evident that as I cannot with-hold my Assent from it my self so were it not a matter of Practice wherein our Passions and Interests are concerned as well as Theory that imploys our vnderstandings I should strangely wonder at all rational and considerate Persons that can But this in great measure silences my Admiration For this is the great Disadvantage that all Truths of a moral Nature lie under in Comparison of those that are physical or mathematical that though the former be in themselves no less certain than the latter and demonstrated with equal Evidence yet they will not equally convince nor find a parallel Reception in the Minds of Men because they meet with their Passions and Lusts and have oftentimes the will and affections to contend with even after they have gained upon their Understandings whereas the other being abstract and indifferent Truths and such wherein they are wholly disinteressed stand or fall by their own Light and never fail to be received according to the Degree of Evidence which they bring with them Were I to deal only with the rational Part of Man I should think that half of what has been said would be enough to convince that but considering the Nature of the Truth I advance and what a strong Interest is made against it in the affectionate Part of humane Nature I cannot expect to find the generality of Men overforward to receive it But then on the other side neither shall I for the same Reason think their Backwardness any Objection or measure the Truth of the Proposition by the Number of its Adherents For when all is done Men will believe no further than they like and were the Notion never so self-evident or my Arguments for it never so convincing and demonstrative the mere Opposition that it carries to the Passions and lower Interests of Men would I doubt not be enough to make it a Paradox For what to have our Hearts that have been for may Years even from the first Pulses of them cleaving and fixing and adhering to the World taking Root in it and incorporating with it by a thousand little Strings and Fibres pluckt up and torn away from it all at once and our Hands that had taken such fast hold of it at one Blow forced from its sweet Embraces To be at once intirely divorced from all sensible Objects to have all our Idols demolished and our high Places taken down to be divided from the whole Creation and to have all the Ties broken which by a numerous Union linked us to it to be forced to undergo a mystical Death a spiritual Crucifixion to be crucified to the World and to have the World crucified to us in one Word to die to the Body and World wherein we live and withdraw our Love from the Objects of Sense that we may place it all upon a spiritual and intellectual good who can expect that these things should down with the generality of Mankind or that a Doctrine that encounters such a strong Tide of Prejudices should find many Disciples in a sensual and unmortified World The other Precepts of Morality cross only some particular Interests of Man and fight only against some of his straggling Passions but this engages with the whole Body of Concupiscence and at once encounters the whole Interest of Prejudice all the Force that is or can be raised in humane Nature Which when I consider however convinced of the Truth of what I contend for in the Recess of my Mind I cannot hope by the clearest and strongest reasoning to reconcile the generality of the World to a Notion so opposite to the Passions Customs and Prejudices of it Only there may be here and there some liberal and ingenious Spirits who have in great measure purged themselves from the Prejudices of Sense disingaged their Hearts from the Love of sensible Objects and so far entered into the Methods of true Mortification as to be capable of Conviction and of having their Minds wrought upon by the Light and Force of Reason And if we have not yet said enough between us to convince such as these I would desire them further to consider That the natural Tendency of the Will being from the Author of our Natures must needs be right it being impossible that GOD should put a false Bias upon the Soul and that therefore 't is the Perfection and Duty of every rational Creature to conform those Determinations of his Will that are free to that which is natural or in other Words to take Care that the Love of his Nature and the Love of his Choice conspire in one that they both agree in the same Motion and concenter upon the same Object Thus far I think I advance nothing but what is clear and unquestionable We are therefore only concerned to consider what is the natural Inclination of the Will or what that Object is to which it naturally tends and stands inclined To this the general Answer is easie and such as all Men will acquiesce in who will be ready to confess that the natural Motion of the Will is to good in general And that this is the true natural Term of its Motion is plain because the Wills of all Men how different
of tune As therefore the Love of GOD is the Sum of our Duty so by consequence 't is the Heighth of our Pleasure the Joy of the whole Man and were we not strange unaccountable Creatures it wou'd be the Business of our Lives the End of all our Actions I will not therefore search for Arguments to enforce this Love after those incomparable ones you have so well inculcated which are indeed unanswerable and not to be opposed by any thing but that which is as unconquerable as 't is unaccountable wilful Folly for if we are resolved not to practise the Wonder is the less that we are averse to admit the Truth of this Theory Certain it is would we but make the Tryal our own Experience would supersede the Trouble of Dispute The Fruition of so perfect and all-sufficient a Being wou'd convince us that he who is altogether and infinitely lovely is worthy of all our Love For after all the Arguments we can urge after all the Swasives we can offer there is none like to that of the Psalmist O taste and see that the Lord is gracious Wou'd we but open our Souls wide to receive his Influences we shou'd need no more Conviction that 't is he and he only who can replenish and content them and therefore 't is he only who ought to possess them And were I writing to the World to Persons not sensible of their Obligations I wou'd desire them only to open their Eyes to fix their Thoughts steddily on the Divine Beauty and then tell me if there be any thing fit to rival him or if that Creature be worthy of his Love who can divide the least Grain of his Affections from him or can discern Amability in any thing besides him I wou'd intreat them if they will not be active in kindling this Divine Fire to be passive at lest not to skreen themselves from his Beams nor put a wilful Bar to exclude the natural Operations of his Excellencies for this stubborn Will of Man weak as he is does often check Omnipotence and then let me ask them if they do not feel the Rays of his Goodness sweetly insinuating into every Part clearing up the Darkness of their Understandings warming their benummed Affections regulating their oblique Motions and melting down their obstinate ingrateful disingenuous Wills Do they not feel these Cords of a Man as himself is pleased to call them these silken Bands of Love these odoriferous Perfumes drawing them after him uniting them to him by the most potent Charms Can they any longer refrain from crying out Thou hast overcome O Lord thou hast overcome ride on triumphantly lead my Soul in Triumph as thy own Captive thy Love has conquered and I am thine intirely and for ever And blessed is the Man that is so overcome He never lived till now nor knew what Pleasure meant some Shews of it might tantalize and abuse him but now he is delivered from that Enchantment and has free Access to the Ocean of Delight he may now take full Draughts of Bliss without fear of want or Danger of Satiety He may what shall I say He may be as happy as his Nature will permit and has nothing to hinder him from being infinitely so but that he is finite and a Creature And now if our happy Man be so sensible of his Bliss that he is desirous by all means to confirm and secure it I know no better way than by frequently contemplating the infinite Loveliness and Love of GOD. For as it was this that begat Love so this must preserve and continue it nor is it possible it should ever go out so long as he supplies it with this Fuel And if for the greater Security of his Happiness and that he may not deceive himself in a matter of so vast Importance since most Men will take it very ill to have it said that they are not Lovers of GOD and yet there are but few who really are so if on this Consideration he be inquisitive after the genuine Properties of Divine Love besides what has already more loosely been hinted at the great comprehensive and inseparable Effect of it is universal Obedience as I intimated in my last But to be more particular a flaming Love to GOD will create the greatest Indifference imaginable towards the World and all things therein For since all those Tyes are broke that glewed us to it we are no longer moved or affected by it I need not tell you Sir that a passionate Lover is careless to all things but the Object of his Desire if that smile no matter who frowns on him Those Objects which other Persons pursue with Eagerness enjoy with Complacency and lose with Regret are unmoving and cold to him he is not sensible of their Charms nor are the Avenues of his Soul open to any thing but what he loves Other things he beholds at a distance they may slightly touch and pass away but cannot penetrate But where-ever his Beloved is interessed his Soul is all on fire he does not pursue his Service with a languid and frozen Application but with the Diligence and Zeal of Love He will not for the petty Interests that self proposes connive at the Injuries that are offered to his better self He will not see his Beloved affronted his Laws contemned and his Designs opposed and tamely stand by and hold his Peace nor does he regard what himself may suffer but only what Service he can reasonably hope to do and never is chary of any of those things we usually call our own whether Fortune or Fame or Life it self but only deliberates how he may reserve them for the most opportune Season of expending them freely in his Beloveds Service There 's nothing bitter and uneasie in Love the greatest Labours are Delights for what so grateful to a Lover as the Difficulty of a Service because it eminently recommends that Passion which could surmount it On which account Love by making Religion our Business and Interest our Joy and Pleasure takes off that Uneasiness which though really we do not find we however fancy to be in it by viewing it only in the unpleasant Prospect of mere Task and Duty Again Love cuts off all narrow and illiberal Thoughts gives the most genteel and generous Temper to the Soul it extinguishes all Jealousies and Suspitions tormenting Cares and desponding Fears it has a Salve for every cross Event and a Sagacity to read GOD's Kindness in such Providences as are vulgarly resolved into his Displeasure Hence it is the Parent of the most intire Resignation and exact Conformity A true Lover neither questions GOD's Revelations nor disputes his Commands deliberates no further than to obtain a good Assurance that such and such things are really his Will and Pleasure He does not only submit to his Dispensations how disagreeable soever to Flesh and Blood and his own Expectation this a Man must of necessity do and therefore I cannot discern wherein the
Virtue of a bare Submission consists such a passive Obedience to GOD is like the new Notion some have got of passive Obedience to their Governors a being content to suffer when we know not how to help it but our Divine Amorist has an intire Complacency in whatever GOD allots he in a manner goes forth to meet it chuses justifies and rejoyces in it But I must not omit what the holy Scripture makes a peculiar Character and special Effect of Divine Love and that is the Love of our Neighbour That it is so needs no Proof being expresly affirmed by our Lord himself and his beloved Disciple let us inquire a little into the Reason why it is so which seems to be this GOD by the Prerogative of his Nature his infinite Beneficence and Love to us having a Right to all our Love whether it be Love of Desire or Love of Benevolence but withal being no proper Object of the latter by reason of his infinite Fulness has therefore thought fit to devolve all his Right to that Love on our Neighbour and to require as strict a Payment of it to his Proxy as if he were capable of receiving it himself By this Notion we may fairly understand St. Iohn's reasoning in his 1 st Epist. Chap. 4. 20. a Text which those Expositors that I have met with give methinks but a crude Interpretation of And besides the Love of GOD pressing us to such an exact Imitation of him as I shewed in my last and GOD being in nothing more imitable than in his Charity and Communicativeness our Love to him will require us to transcribe this most lovely Pattern and to do all the good we can to those whom he is constantly pursuing with his Benefits It likewise teaches us the true Measure of Benevolence which is to bestow the greatest Share of our Love on those who are dearest to GOD and do most resemble him I cannot forbear to reckon it an irregular Affection and an Effect of Vitious Self-love to love any Person merely on account of his Relation to us All other Motives being equal this may be allowed to weigh down the Scale but certainly no Man is the better in himself for being akin to me and nothing but an overweaning Opinion of my self can induce me to think so I should therefore chuse to derive the Reasons why we are in the first place to regard our Relations rather from Justice and the Rules of Oeconomy than from Love For since the Abilities of Man are finite and determinate and he cannot universally extend any Act of Benevolence but Prayers and Wishes 't is therefore reasonable he should begin to communicate his Benefits to those within his own Verge and District whose Wants he is best acquainted with and can most conveniently supply whose Benefits to him are presumed to require this Return or else their Necessities bespeak him the fittest Author of their Relief I further observe that Resignation and Charity are the Tests by which GOD explores every Man's Love By the one he tries the prosperous by the other the afflicted He therefore who has this Worlds good and with-holds his Assistance from his Brother who needs it and he who because he has not the good things of this World murmurs and grudges at their Dispensation and envies them that have cannot be said to have the Love of GOD in him In the last place a true Lover of GOD is always consistent with himself one Part of his Life does not clash and disagree with the other He that has many Loves has by consequence many Ends whence it is that we too often see many who in the main are good People lash out into some particular Irregularity which like a Fly in a Box of Oyntment marrs the Sweetness and destroys the Loveliness of their Virtue and brings a Reproach on Religion it self The vulgar and Men of carnal Appetites partly out of Ignorance and partly to lighten as they fancy their own Crimes being too prone to reflect that Dash of secular Interest that time-serving or over-great Solicitude for the World or perhaps their too great Opinion of themselves or Censoriousness on others which zealous Pretenders to Piety are sometimes apt to slip into even on that unblemished Beauty whose Livery they wear which I am sure gives no Allowance to such unsuitable Mixtures however her Votaries happen to admit them But when we act by this one grand Principle the Love of GOD our Lives are uniform and regular wherein the great Beauty of Piety consists For I am apt to think that be Mens Pretences what they will that Life only is truly religious which is all of a Piece when a Man having deliberately bottomed on well-chosen and solid Principles without Fear or Favour acts constantly and steddily according to them To conclude this Divine Love is the Seal of our Adoption the Earnest of the Spirit in our Hearts it being impossible that the Soul that truly loves GOD should ever fail of enjoying him 'T is the Antipast of our Happiness here and the full Consummation of it hereafter Thrice happy Soul that canst look through the Veil and notwithstanding that thick Cloud of Creatures that obscures thy View discern him that is invisible live in the Light of his Countenance all the Time of thy sojourning here and at last pure and defecate with a Kiss of thy Beloved breath out thy self into his sacred Bosom And now Sir I have done for what have I further to add since I cannot sufficiently express how much I think my self obliged to you As for all your other Favours so particularly that you give me Occasion to declare my self Worthy Sir Your most unfeigned Friend As well as humble Servant Iune 21. 1694. APPENDIX Two Letters by way of Review To Mr. Norris YOu 'll wonder Sir that I look back upon a finished Subject but because you have in these Letters answered most of the Objections that are made against your printed Discourse and because I am very desirous your Hypothesis should appear in its full Light though in my first I conceded one of the main things you contend for viz. That GOD is the only efficient Cause of all our Sensation yet since very many object against this Proposition and something has offered it self to my Thoughts perhaps not altogether Impertinent give me leave to examine the matter a little furrher And methinks the main Stress of the Objections lies in these two Points First That this Theory renders a great Part of GOD's Workmanship vain and useless Secondly That it does not well comport with his Majesty For the first That this Theory renders a great Part of GOD's Workmanship vain and useless it may be thus argued Allowing that Sensation is only in the Soul that there is nothing in Body but Magnitude Figure and Motion and that being without Thought it self it is not able to produce it in us and therefore those Sensations whether of Pleasure or Pain which we
separated us from the Love of God has made the Soul willing to fill that Emptiness which she feels in her self by the Possession of Creatures Whether these Objects are spiritual or Corporal the Desires which we have of them are always carnal in the Language of Scripture For which reasen it is that St. Paul puts Dissentions and Emulations among the Works of the Flesh. So that it is a no less carnal Lust to desire Glory and Reputation and all that serves in order to it than to desire the Pleasures of the Body because these Objects are no more our true good than the other God does no more permit that we should part our Love between him and Reputation between him and the 〈◊〉 of Men than between him and feasting and other Bodily Pleasures For 't is always the Division of a thing which was all due to him 'T is always a Debasement of the Soul which being made for Good stoops beneath and degrades her self in being willing to enjoy a Creature either equal or inferiour to her self God is great enough to be the only and intire Object of our Heart and 't is to injure him to divide it because 't is in effect to declare to him that he does not deserve it all You see here is the Judgment of a whole Society of great Men no less than the illustrious Port Royal of France in as clear and express Terms as can be to our purpose 'T were infinite to appeal to all those Writers who have either directly asserted this Conclusion or occasionally let fall Expressions that favour and insinuate it There is hardly a Book of Morality or Devotion extant whererein Passages of this Nature are not to be found I do not say there are many that offer to deduce this Conclusion from Principles but that it is generally held and upon all Occasions alluded to and glanced at which is enough to shew the irresistible Prevalency of the Truth and to skreen them from the prejudice and imputation of Novelty and Singularity who undertake upon a rational Ground to clear and defend it ERRATA PAge 44. Line 7. dele ◠l. 8. read from enjoying pleasures that do very much out-weigh it and is it self an Occasion and Medium to p. 49. l. 9. after pretend add 〈◊〉 p. 50. l. 6. f. that r. than p. 180. l. 15. d. that p. 192. 1. 6. f. the r. this p. 286. l. 5. r. pleases LETTERS Philosophical and Divine TO Mr. IOHN NORRIS With his Answers LETTER 1. To Mr. Norris SIR THough some morose Gentlemen wou'd perhaps remit me to the Distaff or the Kitchin or at least to the Glass and the Needle the proper Employments as they fancy of a Womans Life yet expecting better things from the more Equitable and ingenious Mr. Norris who is not so narrow-Soul'd as to confine Learning to his own Sex or to envy it in ours I presume to beg his Attention a little to the Impertinencies of a Womans Pen. And indeed Sir there is some reason why I though a Stranger should Address to you for the Resolution of my Doubts and Information of my Judgment since you have increased my Natural Thirst for Truth and set me up for a Virtuso For though I can't pretend to a Multitude of Books Variety of Languages the Advantages of Academical Education or any Helps but what my own Curiosity afford yet Thinking is a Stock that no Rational Creature can want if they know but how to use it and this as you have taught me with Purity and Prayer which I wish were as much practis'd as they are easie to practise is the way and method to true Knowledge But setting Preface and Apology aside the occasion of giving you this trouble is this Reading the other day the Third Volume of your excellent Discourses as I do every thing you Write with great Pleasure and no less Advantage yet taking the liberty that I use with other Books and yours or no bodies will bear it to raise all the Objections that ever I can and to make them undergo the severest Test my Thoughts can put 'em to before they pass for currant a difficulty arose which without your assistance I know not how to solve Methinks there is all the reason in the World to conclude That GOD is the only efficient Cause of all our Sensations and you have made it as clear as the Day and it is equally clear from the Letter of the Commandment That GOD is not only the Principal but the sole Object of our Love But the reason you assign for it namely Because he is the only efficient Cause of our Pleasure seems not equally clear For if we must Love nothing but what is Lovely and nothing is Lovely but what is our Good and nothing is our Good but what does us Good and nothing does us Good but what causes Pleasure in us may we not by the same way of arguing say That that which Causes Pain in us does not do us Good for nothing you say does us Good but what Causes Pleasure and therefore can't be our Good and if not our Good then not Lovely and consequently not the proper much less the only Object of our Love Again if the Author of our Pleasure be upon that account the only Object of our Love then by the same reason the Author of our Pain can't be the Object of our Love and if both these Sensations be produced by the same Cause then that Cause is at once the Object of our Love and of our Aversion for it is as natural to avoid and fly from Pain as it is to follow and pursue Pleasure So that if these Principles viz. That GOD is the Efficient Cause of our Sensations Pain as well as Pleasure and that he is the only Object of our Love be firm and true as I believe they are it will then follow either that the being the Cause of our Pleasure is not the true and proper Reason why that Cause should be the Object of our Love for the Author of our Pain has as good a Title to our Love as the Author of our Pleasure Or else if nothing be the Object of our Love but what does us Good then something else does us Good besides what causes Pleasure Or to speak more properly the Cause of all our Sensations Pain as well as Pleasure being the only Object of our Love and nothing being Lovely but what does us Good consequently that which Causes Pain does us Good as well as that which Causes Pleasure and therefore it can't be true That nothing does us Good but what Causes Pleasure Perhaps I have express'd my self but crudely yet I am persuaded I 've said enough for one of your Quickness to find out either the strength or weakness of this Objection I shall not therefore trouble you any further but to beg Pardon for this and to wish you all imaginable Happiness if it be not absurd to wish Felicity to one who