Grace only by Jesus Christ the Sacrifice once offer'd on the Cross and now glorified and consummated in God the High Priest of good Things to come the Head of the Church and the Architect of the eternal Temple It clearly denotes that the general Law of the Order of Grace is that God would Save all Men in and by his Son A Truth which S. Paul repeats upon all occasions as being the Foundation of the Religion which we profess It may be I have not light on the proper Word to express clearly that which Faith teaches us concerning Jesus Christ But let not any one therefore be offended with me I am willing to be Taught and shall never contend with Heat and Obstinacy for Terms When any one will give me better I will make use of them But I think that the clearest are the best For we should consider that Words are design'd only to express our Thoughts So that those Words which clearly express false Conceptions are in themselves preferable to those which express the most solid Thoughts confusedly Especially when Men make use of them as I do with a design to explain and prove clearly those Truths which Philosophers themselves do not very well comprehend V. But I desire that the World would do me that Justice or have so much Charity for me as to believe that my introducing some Ideas which I make use of in this Treatise proceeds neither from a resentment against any Persons nor from a desire of justifying my own Notions or ways of Expression I believe that those who have not done me Justice had no design to injure me and that if they judg'd a little too hastily of my Opinion from Terms which they do not understand it was their love to Religion which prompted them to it A Love which cannot be too great and which is hard to be kept within Bounds when it is so fervent as I know it to be in some of my Adversaries The Reader will pardon this short Digression I return to my Subject VI. God never acts without Reason and there are but two general Reasons which determine him to act Order which is his inviolable Law and those general Laws which he hath establish'd and which he constantly observes that so his Actions may bear the Character of his Attributes Therefore seeing that nothing happens in the Creatures which God doth not do and that as to Sinners the immutable order of Justice doth not require that God should do any good to them the Sinner cannot obtain any Good much less Grace without having recourse to the occasional cause which determines the true cause to communicate it to Men. So that there is a kind of necessity that we should know distinctly and precisely what is that occasional cause that so we may make our applications to it with confidence and obtain those assistances without which as I have shew'd it is not possible so much as to form a resolution of sacrificing our predominant Passion to the Law of God VII When a sick Man is in fear of Death and is fully satisfied that there is but one certain Fruit which can restore him to his Health again his Fear is sufficient to make him use some endeavours to get that Fruit. The first Man was immortal only because he knew that the Fruit of the Tree of Life could preserve vigour and give Immortality and that it was in his power to Eat of it So when we are in fear of Hell and know distinctly that Christ is the Tree of Life whose Fruit gives Immortality or to speak clearly and unequivocally to Philosophers when we know that Christ is the occasional cause of Grace the actual fear of eternal Death is sufficient to make us call upon him and pray that he would with relation to us form such desires as may determine God the true cause to deliver us from our Miseries VIII I say once again for we cannot imprint this Truth too deeply in our Minds that Jesus Christ as Man is alone the occasional cause of Grace and it is more certain that his desires procure for us the Spirit which quickens us than it is that to Morrow the Sun will diffuse its Light or the Fire its Heat and Motion The Fire hath sometimes respected the Bodies of Martyrs the Sun is often eclips'd and every Night leaves us in Darkness But Christ never pray'd in vain For if before he had compleated his Sacrifice by which he merited the Glory he now possesses speaking to his Father Joh. 11.42 he said of himself I knew that thou hearest me always Certainly now that he is entred by his Blood into the Holy of Holies and is ordain'd a High Priest of true Goods it would be a very great infidelity to want confidence in him But it may be objected that the Fire communicates its Heat by the necessity of natural Laws and that we cannot come near it without feeling its action whereas on the contrary it depends on the Will of Christ whether he will Pray for those which call upon him This difference is true But what Shall we doubt of the goodness of Christ Can we forget that he bears the Character of the Saviour of Sinners Shall we distrust the promises which he hath made us in so many places of his Gospel Heb. 4.14 15 5 9. Let us remember that we have in him a High Priest who hath experienc'd our Miseries and sympathizes with our Infirmities That he desires nothing so much as to finish his great Work the eternal Temple of which we should be living Stones Luk. 15.7 and that as he saith himself there is Joy in Heaven over one Sinner that repenteth And in those Thoughts let us approach with Confidence the Throne of his Grace the true Mercy-seat Let us ask and we shall receive Let us seek and we shall find let us knock and we shall at last have leave to enter Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be Sav'd Joel 2.32 The Scripture teaches us these Truths IX So then supposing that a Man fears the terrible Judgments of the living God believes in Christ and calls upon him as his Saviour and that in fine he hath receiv'd from him sufficient Strength to form that noble resolution of renouncing his predominant Passion That which he ought to do in this case is to come without delay and throw himself at the Feet of the Priest that by the Sacrament of Penance he may receive absolution of his Sins and justifying Charity which Sinners receive by this Sacrament when they come to it in the motion which the Holy Ghost inspires tho' he doth not yet dwell in them X. To prove the Truth of what I here assert I say that Christ after his Resurrection appear'd to his Apostles and said to them Peace be unto you Joh. 20.21 As my Father hath sent me even so send I you And when he had said this he breathed on them and
addresses them to the Son she considers him as equal to the Father and consequently calls upon him not simply as he is Man but as he is God and Man This appears from the ordinary conclusions of our Prayers Through Christ our Lord or through Jesus Christ our Lord or who livest and reignest one God c. For since God alone is the true cause who by his own power can do all that we desire it is necessary that the greatest part of our Prayers and all our Worship should be refer'd to him But as he never acts but when the occasional causes which he hath appointed determine the efficacy of his Laws it is fit that the manner of our calling upon him should be conformable to this Notion of him III. If Jesus Christ as Man did not intercede for Sinners it would be in vain for them to call upon him For since Grace is not given to Merit the immutable Order of Justice doth not oblige God to grant it to Sinners who Pray for it It must therefore be the occasional cause which obliges him to do it in consequence of the Power given to this cause by the establishment of the general Laws of the Order of Grace Because as I said before God never acts but when the immutable Order requires it or when the occasional or particular Causes oblige him to it But tho' Christ alone as Man be the particular cause of the good Things which we receive yet if the Prayers of the Church were always Address'd directly to him this might give Men some occasion of Error and induce them it may be to Love him as he is Man with that kind of Love which is due only to the true Power and to Worship him even without regard to the divine Person in which his humane Nature subsists Now Adoration and Love of Union which are Honours belonging to Power are due to the Almighty alone For Christ himself challenges our Adoration and this kind of Love only as he is at the same time both God and Man IV. Therefore the Church hath very great reason to Address her Prayers to God the only true Cause but through Christ who is the occasional and distributive Cause of the good Things which we Pray for For tho' Sinners never receive Grace but when Christ Prays for them by his Desires either Actual or Habitual Transient or Permanent yet we must always remember that it is God alone who gives it as the true Cause that so our Love and Devotion may be ultimately refer'd to him alone Nevertheless when we apply our selves to the true and general Cause it is the same thing as if we did it to the particular and distributive Cause Because Christ as Man being the Saviour of Sinners Order requires that he should be acquainted with their Prayers and he is so far from being Jealous of the Honour which we give to God that he himself as Man always acknowledges his Impotence and Subordination and will never hear those who like the Eutychians look upon his humane Nature as transform'd into the Divine and so take from him the qualities of Advocate Mediator Head of the Church and High Priest of the true Goods Thus we see on one side that to make our Prayers effectual it is not absolutely necessary that we should know the Truths which I have here explain'd so precisely and distinctly and on the other that the Churches proceeding agrees perfectly with the fundamental Vertue of Religion and Morality namely that God alone is the final Cause of all Things and that we cannot have access to him but by Jesus Christ our Lord. This I think will easily be granted V. But the case of the Blessed Virgin Angels and Saints hath somewhat more difficulty in it Nevertheless the sense of the Church is that they know our Necessities when we call upon them and that being in favour with God and united to Christ their Head they may by their Prayers and Desires sollicite him to deliver us from our Miseries Nay it seems to be beyond Dispute from the example of S. Paul and all the Saints who constantly recommended themselves to one another's Prayers For if the Saints on Earth as yet full of Imperfection can by their Prayers be beneficial to their Friends I see no sufficient reason to deny the Saints in Heaven this Power Only we must observe That they are not occasional causes of inward Grace For this Power was given to Christ alone as the Architect of the eternal Temple the Head of the Church the necessary Mediator in a Word as the particular or distributive cause of the true Goods VI. So then we may Pray to the Blessed Virgin to Angels and Saints that they would move the love of Christ on our behalf And probably there are some certain times of Favour for each particular Saint such as are the Days on which the Church celebrates their Festivals It is possible also that as natural or occasional Causes they may have a Power of producing those effects which we call Miraculous because we do not know the Causes of them such as the curing of Diseases plentiful Harvests and other extraordinary changes in the position of Bodies which are Substances inferiour to Spirits and over which it should seem that Order requires or at least permits them to have some Power as a reward of their Vertue or rather as an inducement to other Men to admire and imitate it But tho' this be not altogether certain as to Saints yet I think it cannot be doubted as to Angels This Truth is of so great Importance on several Accounts that I think it necessary to give a brief explication of it from the manner of God's proceeding in the execution of his Designs VII God could not act but for his own Glory and not finding any Glory worthy of himself but in Jesus Christ he certainly made all Things with respect to his Son This is so evident a Truth that we cannot possibly doubt of it if we do but reflect a little on it For what â—elation is there between the Action of God and the product of that Action if we separate it from Christ by whom it is Sanctified What proportion is there between an unhallow'd World which hath nothing of Divinity in it and the Action of God which is wholly Divine in a Word between Finite and Infinite Is it possible to conceive that God who cannot act but by his own Will or the Love which he bears to himself should act so as to produce nothing worthy of himself to create a World which bears no proportion to him or which is not worth the Action whereby it is produc'd VIII It is probable then that the Angels immediately after their Creation being astonish'd to find themselves without a Head without Christ and not being able to justify God's design in Creating them the Wicked ones imagin'd some Worth in themselves with relation to God and so Pride ruin'd them Or supposing
Man to the holy Trinity are but shadows and imperfect Draughts which can never come up to the Original of all Beings who by an incomprehensible property of Infinity communicates himself without Division and forms a Society of three different Persons in the unity of the same Substance But tho' the Image of God which we bear be very imperfect in respect of our Original yet there is nothing more great and noble for a mere created Being than this faint resemblance We labour for our Perfection only as we maintain and keep it up we secure our Happiness no further than we fashion our selves according to our Model All our true Judgments and regular Motions all the Duties which we pay to the Wisdom Power and Love of God are so as many Steps by which we advance toward the Fountain of all Good and an habitual Disposition to frame these Judgments and excite these Motions is the real Perfection of Man who essentially depends on the supreme Good and was made for no other End but to find his Perfection and Happiness in doing his Duty V. Now as the three Persons in the Trinity are but one God one and the same Substance so all those Duties which seem to relate particularly to any one of the Persons give equal Honour to the other two Every Regular Motion honours the Power of the Father as its Good the Wisdom of the Son as its Law and the mutual Love of the Father and the Son as its Principal and Original On the contrary every Sin or every Love of the Creatures dishonours the true Power opposes the universal Reason and resists the holy Spirit So that we cannot absolutely separate the Duties which we owe to the Power of God from those which we owe to his Wisdom and to the Substantial and Divine Love and therefore I have been forc'd in the three foregoing Chapters to repeat the same things after different manners VI. Tho' all the Duties which Spiritual Beings owe to God who is a pure Spirit and will be worship'd in Spirit and in Truth consist only in true Judgments and Motions of Love conformable to those Judgments yet Men being compos'd of a Soul and a Body living in Societies with one another educated in the same outward Religious Worship and thereby tied to certain Ceremonies they are oblig'd to an infinite number of particular Duties which have all of them a necessary Relation to those which I have already set down in general All these external Duties are arbitrary and indifferent at least in their first Foundation and Original but the spiritual Duties are in themselves absolutely necessary We may dispense with outward Duties but we can never dispense with the others they depend on an inviolable Law the immutable and necessary Order Outward Duties of themselves do not sanctify those that render them to God they receive their Worth and Value only from the spiritual Duties which accompany them but all the Motions of the Soul which are govern'd by true Judgments do immediately and of themselves honour the Divine Perfections VII Thus for instance it is a Duty indifferent in it self for a Man to pull off his Hat when he comes into a Church But to enter into the presence of God with respect and with some inward Motion of Religion is not an arbitrary but an essential Duty He that for some particular Reason cannot be uncover'd at Mass may be cover'd at the Celebration of it Women are excus'd from this Duty and provided it be known that it is not done out of contempt but upon necessity commonly their needs no dispensation for it None but those that have wrong Notions of things cenforious and weak People will find fault with it but no one that is present at that Sacrifice can be excus'd from offering up to God the Sacrifice of his Mind and Heart Praises and Motions which honour God He that prostrates himself before the Altar is so far from meriting and honouring God by that outward Duty that he commits a heinous Crime if he designs by that Action only to gain the Esteem of the World But he who tho' he be unmov'd outwardly is nevertheless inwardly agitated with Motions agreeable to the Knowledge which Faith and Reason give him of the Divine Attributes honours God draws near and unites himself to him He conforms himself to the immutable Law by Regular Motions which leave behind them a Habit or Disposition of Charity and thereby truly purifies and sanctifies himself But there are many People whose Religion is not spiritual they go no farther than the outside which makes an Impression on them and often determines them to do that by imitation which they had no design to do of themselves VIII Certainly it is a disrespect to the universal Reason to separate our selves from it by the use of Wine or to run away from our selves where Reason inhabits and where it gives its Oracles and suffer our selves to be carried by our Passions into a World where the Imagination reigns In a word to depart voluntarily and without any necessity from the presence of our Good and of our Reason is a Motion which dishonours the Divine Majesty it is Irreligious and Impious But the generality of People do not judge of things after this manner they judge of a Man's inward Sentiments by his outward Actions and Behaviour they imagine it a great Crime to do some Actions in a holy Place tho' perhaps they are not indecent in themselves and yet never consider that nothing is more indecent than to neglect the essential Duties of a rational Creature in any place whatsoever A Man that is Religious even to Superstition passes for a Saint with them but the Christian Philosopher is counted no better than a Heathen if he will not abandon Reason to agree with their Notions and religiously observe their Customs IX Indeed the Philosopher doth ill if he neglects the external Duties Mat. 18.6 and thereby offends the Weak and Simple It were better for him that a Mill-stone were hang'd about his Neck and that he were Drown'd in the depth of the Sea Every Man ought to testify his Faith by visible Actions and thereby incline other Men who are always affected with the outward Behahaviour to such Motions as give honour to God In every thing that relates to God we should with all Humility assume the air and posture of Adoration Any other is at least Foolish and Ridiculous But it is Impious to use such outward Actions as are superstitious and lead Men's Minds to Judgments and Motions which dishonour the divine Attributes They are excusable perhaps in such as have but a confus'd Idea of God But he that is better instructed in Religion and hath a more particular knowledge of the divine Perfections ought not to do any thing out of any humane Consideration that contradicts his own Light X. The greatest part of Christians have a Jewish Spirit Joh. 17.3 their Religion is not
miserable Object of his Glory and Pleasures IX A Parent therefore that would preserve to his Children the inestimable right which they have acquir'd by Baptism to the inheritance of Christ must be always watchful in removing out of their sight all Objects that may tempt them He is their guardian Angel and should take up out of their way every Stone that may make them fall It is his Duty to instruct them in the Mysteries of Faith and by Faith to lead them by degrees to the understanding of the fundamental Truths of Religion to fix in them a firm hope of the true Goods and a generous contempt of humane Greatness He should shape their Mind to Perfection and teach them to exercise the faculties of it He should govern them by Reason for there cannot be a more perfect Law than that which God himself inviolably follows But he must begin with Faith For Men especially the younger sort are too sensual too carnal too much abroad to consult the Reason which dwels within them It must shew it self without cloth'd with a Body to strike their Senses They must submit to a visible Authority before they can contemplate the evidence of intellectual Truths Again a Father should never grant his Children any thing that they ask themselves and never deny them any thing that Reason asks for them for Reason should be the common Law the general Rule of all our Wills He should accustom them to obey as well as consult it He should make them give a reason either a good or a plausible one for every thing that they ask and then he may gratify their desires tho' they are not so agreable to Reason if he is satisfied that their intent was to obey Reason He should not chide them too much for fear of discouraging them But this is an indispensable Precept never to act but according to Reason The Soul should will nothing of it self For it is not its own Rule or its own Law It doth not possess Power it is not Independent It ought not to will but with a dependence on the immutable Law because it cannot think act nor enjoy Good but by a dependence on the divine Power This is what young People ought to know But it is perhaps what the old ones do not know It is certainly what all Men do not practise X. We should take care not to burden the Memory of Children with a great number of Actions which are of little use and serve only to confound and agitate a Mind which hath as yet but very little Strength and Capacity and is but too much disturb'd and shaken already by the action of sensible Objects But we should endeavour to make them clearly comprehend the certain Principles of solid Sciences We should use them to contemplate clear Ideas and above all we should teach them to distinguish the Soul from the Body and to know the different properties and modifications of these two Substances of which they are compos'd We should be so far from confirming them in their Error of taking their Senses for Judges of Truth by talking to them of sensible Objects as of the true causes of their Pleasure and Pain that we should be always telling them that their Senses deceive them and should use them in their Presence like false Witnesses that clash with one another to discover their Cheats and Illusions XI Children dye at ten Years old as well as Men at Fifty or Threescore What then will become of a Child at his Death whose Heart is already corrupted who is swell'd with esteem of his Quality and full of the love of sensual Enjoyments What Good will it do him in the other World to understand perfectly the the Geography of this and in Eternity to know the Epochas of Times All our knowledge perishes in Death and the knowledge of these things leads to nothing beyond A Lad knows how to Decline and Conjugate he understands Greek and Latin it may be perfectly well nay perhaps he is already well vers'd in History and acquainted with the Interests of Princes he promises much for this World for which he is not made but what signify all these Vanities with which his Mind and Heart is sill'd Are there solid rewards in Heaven for empty Studies Are there places of Honour destin'd for those that make a correct Theme Will God judge Children by any other Law than the immutable Order than the Precepts of the Gospel which they have neither observ'd nor known Is it the Duty of Fathers to breed up their Children for the State and not for Heaven for their Prince and not for Jesus Christ for a Society of a few Days and not for an eternal Society But let them take notice that those that are best skill'd in these vain Sciences are they that do most mischief to the State and raise the greatest Tempests in it I do not say but they may learn those Sciences But it should be then when their Mind is form'd and when they are capable of making a good use of it and the instructing of them in essential Truths should not be put off to a time when they shall be no more or at least not in a condition to Tast Meditate and Feed upon them XII The labour of Attention being the only way that leads to the understanding of Truth a Father should use all means of accustoming his Children to be Attentive Therefore I think it proper to teach them the most sensible part of the Mathematicks Not that these Sciences tho' preferable to many others are in themselves of any great value but because the Study of them is of such a Nature that a Man makes no progress in them any farther than he is Attentive For in reading a Book of Geometry if the Mind doth not labour by its Attention it gets nothing Now People should be us'd to the labour of the Mind when they are young For then the parts of the Brain are flexible and may be bent any way It is easy then to acquire a habit of being Attentive in which Part I. Chap. V. as I have shewn the whole strength of the Mind consists And therefore those that have accustom'd themselves from their youth to meditate on clear Principles are not only capable of learning all the Sciences but are also able to judge solidly of every thing to govern themselves by abstracted Principles to make ingenious discoveries and to foresee the consequences and events of Enterprises XIII But the Soâ—…nces of Memory confound the Mind they disturb its clear Ideas and furnish it with a Thousand probabilities on all sorts of Subjects which Men take up with because they know not how to distinguish between seeing in part and obscurely and seeing fully and clearly This resting on probabilities makes them wrangle and dispute endlesly For as Truth alone is one indivisible and immutable so that alone can closely and for ever unite Men's Minds Besides the Sciences of Memory do naturally