Pleasure we may taste in Eternity if we live in such a manner as may render us worthy of having our Fidelity recompensed Our Soul is something that is great noble and admirable by the Ideas which it is capable of receiving and it is yet more great and more noble if you will by the Pleasure and Felicity which it is capable of having God who hath the Treasures of Knowledge and Wisdom hath infinite Riches of Goodness and Oceans of Felicities and of Pleasures and our Soul which is capable of receiving all the Idea's which God contains in the Treasures of his Knowledge and Wisdom can also taste all the Pleasures which he contains in the Riches of his Goodness Such is the nature of our Souls they are not only undoubtedly Spiritual by their Intelligent Nature but they are in some manner infinite in Dignity and in Nobleness they are admirable Copies and Images of the Supreme Nature they carry a thousand Characters of his Grandeur and their Celestial Origine and that which augments and enhances all this Merit is that they are undoubtedly as Immortal and Eternal as Spiritual CHAP. XI That our Souls are undoubtedly Immortal by reason of their Knowing Nature YES as undoubtedly Immortal and Eternal because being Natures altogether distinct and altogether different from Body and all Corporeal Nature it is impossible that Death which only cuts and makes this havock upon Bodies should have any Prey upon them or give them the least Stroke If God who hath drawn them out of his Heart will not employ his Almighty Power to annihilate and destroy them in that moment that Death breaks the Structure and Harmony of Body which will appear hereafter that he cannot be willing to do there is no It is thus that Diseases and Old Age causes us to die and the violent Accidents of Fire and Sword or Falls and Ruines do the same It is the Body that Diseases Old Age and violent Accidents do all attack it is its Structure that they break and ruine for they do not touch the very Ground and Matter of the Body Death doth not touch the Substance of the Body and its Matter it only touches the Disposition of its Organs it is That only that it destroys It 's true that when the Brain can no longer serve to the Universal Cause and to the Eternal Wisdom and Power which holds our Souls united to the Bodies for an Occasional and Determinate Cause to determine it to give us Idea's and Perceptions of other Bodies which are round about Ours and which act upon them which is properly the Chain and Knot which holds our Souls united to our Bodies then It retires our Souls from our Bodies and they cease to Be in our Bodies We commonly conceive that our Bodies die because our Souls do retire themselves but this is to conceive things very ill It is not that our Bodies die because our Souls retire themselves but on the contrary our Souls retire themselve because our Bodies die because the Structure that render'd them fit to serve for a Lodging to our Souls comes to be broken and destroy'd Death is nothing precisely but this ruining of the Harmony of the Body which obliges God to withdraw the Soul And who do's not see that it being so Death is so far from being able to destroy the Soul that it cannot do any thing unto it It cannot so much as cause the least alteration in it all that it doth precisely to it is to take from it its Union with the Body it disunites the two Parts but it doth not destroy nor annihilate any of them the Body remains Body every Part remains in its Nature the Body remains ruin'd and the Soul returns separated Death can do nothing unto our Souls which are not a Material Structure it destroys the Souls of Beasts because their Soul results from the Organization and Harmony of a Material Structure and from a certain degree of Heat and quickness in their Blood which keeping their Members dispos'd and their Nerves well extended keeps them at the same time dispos'd to receive the Impressions of exterior Bodies which act upon them and to move themselves in a thousand manners according as He hath destin'd them who hath ordain'd and directed to his Ends their particular Structure But Death can do nothing to our Souls which are evidently natures wholly Immaterial and Spiritual in which there is neither Structure nor Harmony of Parts Diseases cannot at all attack our Souls they have no Blood nor Humors to be enflam'd and set afire Old Age cannot make them die because they know not what it is to grow old Fire and Sword cannot kill them as Jesus Christ hath said they have no Parts that the Sword can divide or that Fire can consume or dry up Let us say something boldly Though Death should be able to prey upon our Souls as it doth upon our Bodies it would not cease to be certain that Death could not in the least annihilate them for it cannot annihilate even our Bodies which are given as a Prey to it and upon which it exercises all its cruelties and rigour Do not our Bodies remain Bodies after our Death they change indeed the Name and Form but they subsist in the Ground of their Corporeal Nature Doth not their Matter remain always What is there in the World more constant and what greater and stronger Argument would you have of the Immortality and Eternity of our Souls Would you have the Corporeal Part to be Eternal That Nature so base and so vile and This Nature so noble so admirable so divine which we have made you acknowledge to be in you would you have this to have an end and to return into nothing That Death should not be able to annihilate the Body which is given it to destroy and yet that it should annihilate our Souls upon which it neither hath nor can make any Prey Nothing is so certain and so evident in the World as this is That all the Bodies of the Universe and all created Powers cannot destroy a Spiritual Nature nor so much as endamage and alter it That only Power which made our Souls out of nothing can make them thither to return again and we are assur'd by the infallible Prejudgment of his Wisdom that this Sovereign Power neither ought or can ever be willing to employ his Infinite Power upon such an Essay or to make such a Trial of it He that created the Souls could absolutely annihilate them if he would but he cannot be willing to it but for some Benefit either of his Glory or of the common Good of the Universe or of some singular Advantage of the Perfection of some one of his Creatures of which he would do himself Honor. And it is impossible for him to find any such Utility by annihilating our Souls who necessarily acknowledge his Sovereignty over them so long as they endure For every Intelligent Nature hath Essentially some Sentiment
the Members every one to the Movement for the which it is destin'd when they themselves come to be determin'd That neither our Souls do come of themselves to lay hold on the Body nor do's the Body cause the Soul to descend but it is God who assembles them together There you see how I conceive the Body And whereas we have conceived the Soul as a Nature purely Spiritual capable of Perceiving of Knowing and of Willing We have no more to do than to see how this Spiritual Nature can become united to that Terrestrial Structure Whereupon the first thing that is to be conceiv'd is That neither the Body can lay hold on the Soul or draw it to it for to subject it and for to shut it up Nor can the Soul on its side neither be driven by any Inclination to become pour'd upon the Body nor become ty'd there of it self by its Choice and Good liking as being to be so ill match'd We must therefore comprehend before all things that these two Parties and these two so far distant Natures do neither of themselves by consent and by an appointed Rendezvous assemble nor by Chance do they meet together but that it is the Infinite Power which Governs the World and which would have it be adorn'd by the Beauty of this so rare and singular a Work which as Faith teacheth and all the World conceiveth brings them together and assembles them and makes all the Union that is between them St. Augustin most solidly observes That God makes three Functions for our sakes That of the Creator of the Matter of our Bodies and of the Substance of our Souls That of the Author of the Structure and Organisation of our Bodies And lastly That of the Principle of the Union of the two Parties and of the two Natures which compose Us Creator Fictor Unitor He is as essentially the efficient and immediate Principle of the Union of our Souls and of our Bodies as he is of the Structure of the Body and of the Creation of the Soul There is no other Power in the World that can shut up this Immaterial Immortal and Eternal Nature within that Terrestrial and Carnal Structure This is a certain Truth we read it in our own proper Sentiments and in the infallible Light of the notion of the Soul and of the Body and there is nothing in the World more undoubtable than this Principle That it is God that unites our Souls to our Bodies and I believe no Man will disagree with it and the Question is not Whether he doth it but How he doth it CHAP. IX How God can assemble and unite the Soul and the Body GOD cannot without doubt Unite these two so opposite Natures but in such a manner that they may be United and Assembled so that we must see first of all how a Spirit and a Body may be Assembled and United Men fall into a thousand Errors upon this matter and all these Errors happen because they will apply the Idea which they have of the Union of two or more Bodies to the Union of the Soul and Body which is the greatest mistake in the World and the entire Subsersion of Reason and good Sense for it is evident that the Union of a Spirit with a Spirit cannot be conceived by the Idea of the Union of a Body with a Body so likewise the Union of a Spirit with a Body cannot be comprehended by the Idea which we have of the Union of two Bodies We must shun this defect and disorder and give attention to this certain and infallible Rule That Union being a Relation of one thing to another it follows that she must change the Nature and the Idea according to the Nature of the Things which are United and thus to conceive an Union of a Spirit and a Body we must comprehend wherein and whereby these two Natures may be united How two Spirits may be united That we may well form an Idea thereof We must first of all conceive the Union of two Spirits for when we shall have comprehended how two Spirits may be united we shall with much more ease comprehend the Union of a bound dy a Spirit If we give good attention thereto we shall find that there being nothing in a Spiritual Nature but Knowledge Sentiment and Will for there is nothing precisely but That which we know in Spiritual created Natures It is impossible to conceive the Union of two Spirits otherwise than by the Union of their Thoughts of their Sentiments and of their Wills Things cannot be united but by that which is in them and there being nothing in Spirits but this triple ground of the Faculty of Thinking or of Knowing of the Faculty of Perceiving which is it self a manner of the Faculty of Knowing And lastly Of the faculty of Willing and freely determining themselves It is clear that two Spirits cannot be united but by the Faculties and by the Acts and Faculties of Thinking Perceiving and of Willing That which makes precisely the Union of two Spirits But this is not enough to have found and conceived that two Spirits cannot be united but by their Faculties of Thinking of Knowing and of Willing we must see also wherein the Union of the two Faculties of Thinking and the two Faculties of Perceiving and of the two Faculties of Willing may consist Wherein then may this Union consist It cannot without doubt consist but in the mutual respective and reciprocal dependence of the Faculties and their Acts If we conceive that an Angel thinks necessarily as often as another Angel thinks that he hath a Sentiment of Pleasure and of Pain of Joy or of Sadness as often as the other is sad or rejoyces That he hath a motion of love or of hatred as often as the other loves or hates We shall conceive without doubt these two Angels united and united in an Hypostatical Union or in Unity of Person and in a Substantial and Physical Union especially if this dependence of Thought of Sentiment and of Will be of the one side mutual and reciprocal and on the other not voluntary and arbitrary but necessary and forced caused by a Superior Power which leaves them not the liberty of breaking the Band of this mutual dependence This mutual and not arbitrary dependence caused by that Empire and that Physical Action of a Superior Power will so unite these two Spirits that it will be no longer a simple Angel but a Compositum wholly Spiritual of two Angels which will make no more than one single Whole in two individual Substances altogether distinct Such a mutual dependance makes precisely all the Physical Union that can be betwixt two Spirits since cutting off all other Ideas by that alone these two Angels will be comprehended to be united and not conceiving That though we may conceive other Things between these two Angels It will however be impossible to conceive them United for it is impossible to conceive any other Thing
whereby two Spirits may be united we must not here imagine Embracings Penetration Minglings Extensions or Adjustments of Magnitude or of Quantity Wherein the union of a Spirit and a Body may consist It is in that precisely that the Union of two Spirits can consist and it is easie to conceive thereupon the Idea of the Union of a Body and of a Spirit for if we conceive a Mutual and Reciprocal Dependence caused by the Physical Action of a Superior Power between the movements of that Structure of Bone of Flesh and of Nerves which we call Humane Body And between the Thoughts the Sentiments the Wills or desires of a Spirit we conceive this Spirit and this Body united and as making no more than one single VVhole and one single Person Whatsoever other Things we may fancy to our selves we can never thereby at all conceive a Spirit united to a Body but in the moment that we have conceived that Thing only we have conceived them United For what is it to be United but to be One but to become one and the same Whole And who sees not that all This Results from the Mutual Dependence of the Operations of a Soul and of the Motions of the Body Let Us not then go about to make impossible Efforts of Imagination for to conceive the Union of the Soul with the Body by a kind of a Co-extension or Local Circumscription of the Soul with the Body by a Kind of Mingling of Penetration of Confusion and Immediation by an adjustment of Figure and Magnitudes c. All this would be well between Body and Body but concerning the Union of a Spiritual Nature with a Corporal Structure of Flesh of Bones of Muscles of Nerves all these material Ideas ought to be removed and banished a great way off God was pleased to do himself honor by this admirable Composition of Spirit and of Body and having found that it was agreeable to his Dignity of Universal Cause to tie together the determination of Ideas by the which he was willing that we should by little and little and successively be Enlightned to the diversity of Impressions which should be made upon our Brain by the divers Objects which should strike upon it and to tie together the Determination of divers Sentiments by the which he was willing that we should be Advertised by way of Instinct of that which should be good or evil to our Body to divers Impressions which should affect it he hath Established this mutual Relation That when these Impressions are received in the Body there is so soon and at the same time by his infinite Efficacy conformable Sentiments and Ideas which are determined in the Soul and on the contrary as often as there is in the Soul Thoughts and Sentiments or Wills that require that the Body should be moved if its Structure be well disposed the Motion is by the same Efficacy of his infinite Power determined in the Body The Creator hath thought fit to conserve thereby the Dignity of the Universal Cause and to unite our Souls to all the Visible World in tying Them to a particular Body by a Physical and Substantial Union Our Souls lose something thereby even very much of their Natural Liberty but they conserve some Character of their Grandeur by the Immensity by which their Union with the Body renders them present to all the Immensity of the Universe since by the contiguity of all Bodies which compose the World without any interruption of vacuity they continually receive a Thousand and a Thousand divers Ideas from all its parts in proportion as they come which they continually do by their Motions or by their Fluxes Either to strike or to affect some one of the Parts of our Body This Decision ought to pass for a Demonstration I will not stay here to prove that it is God the Author of Nature or acting as Universal Cause who makes and who entertains by his continual Action this Mutual Dependence and this Reciprocal Relation Since besides that I have already let you see clearly That it is He alone who can be the immediate and efficient Principle and Cause of the Union of our Souls and of our Bodies because the Body can neither subject the Soul to be united to it nor can the Soul be willing to submit to the Body which humbleth and constraineth it I have moreover proved very evidently That none but God alone can give to the Soul the Sentiments and Ideas which she hath from the occasion of the Impressions which are made upon the Body by other Bodies which environ Us and which Act perpetually upon Us. This continual Action of the Author of Nature who Enlightens Us by the Ideas which we receive upon the occasion of that Impression of exterior Objects and who affectionates Us to the Conservation of the Body by the agreeable or disagreeable Sentiments which he gives Us for to make Us know by way of Instinct that which is profitable or hurtful to the Conservation of our Bodies and of Human Species This Action I say joyned to that by which he Moves our Bodies when our Thoughts and our Wills require it is properly the Action by the which He unites our Bodies to our Souls and our Souls to our Bodies This is the active or actual Union This is what the Schools call the Unitive Action of God which joyned to the immutable Decree and Will by the which he hath determined to continue it so long as the Structure of the Body shall subsist makes in the Soul and in the Body that Estate of Union which we call Passive and formal Union Against them who say that this is to have recourse to a Miracle And you must not come here again to say that it is a manner very easie to explain every thing by a Miracle and to call God to the support of our Ignorance For so far it is from being contrary to Rules to make God the Author of our Union with the Body That this is the first Rule of good Reasoning That we acknowledge the Cause and the Principle in the Effect and to see that God alone can unite two Natures so opposite and disproportionate as are Spirit and Body as he only can Create them Moreover so far it is from having recourse to Miracles That it is on the contrary to reduce the Thing to all Common Laws to say that it is God the Author of Nature the necessary Principle of this Union who that he may conserve this Dignity of Universal Cause establishes in the divers Modifications of a certain Part of the Body the occasional Cause of the Idea's and of the Sentiments of the Soul which is the most Regular manner of Acting The most Natural and most conformable to his ordinary manner of Acting and by consequence the most contrary to Miracle which is not but when God changes his ordinary manner of Acting and departs from his general Will. The Action whereby God preserves the Union
He gives for the Propagation of the Human Species and they will see that not only this Pleasure hath in its Intention an Essential Relation of one Sex to another this will make them conceive the horrors of those Monstrous Impurities which the Civil and Politic Laws do no less condemn than Religion and Nature but that it ought likewise so necessarily to be Enclosed within the Sacred Bed and Holy Society of Mariage That from the moment it breaks off and goes out from thence it becomes Criminal and Sacrilegious If we did well comprehend That it is God that raises up the Bodies to an Honor of Alliance with the Souls and that he doth it to make them serve for a Trial and for a Matter to their Triumph and to their Recompence We should not only clearly conceive the Disorder of all kinds of Inconveniences and of all Intemperances of which there is not any one but which in defiling our Bodies violates the most Holy and the most Religious of all Consecrations But we should livelily conceive that Obligation of the Sanctification of Souls and Bodies which St. Paul Preaches continually and which he requires to be so perfect that St. Gregory had reason to say That it goes as far as to impose upon us the Obligation of Spiritualizing our Bodies almost as much in this Life as they ought to be in the other It is the same thing with the Duties for which we are accountable one to another they spring all of them from the same Principle and from the same Knowledge Let us but say a word or two of them in general There are two sorts of Duties from Man to Man there are general ones and particular ones The general are those which bind us equally to all Men The particular ones are those which are limited and determined to Particulars We are accountable to all Men for Justice for Charity for Civility and for good Behaviour for a certain Honor due to the Impression of the Divine Resemblance and to the Regards of Natural Equality And we owe Friendship to our Friends Piety to our Parents Acknowledgments to our Masters Obedience to our Superiors And all these Duties flow with an indubitable Clearness and Evidence from the Knowledge which we have acquired of the manner how our Souls are in our Bodies essentially united to God by themselves and accidentally by their Bodies to all the Visible World and to all the Bodies of Civil and Natural Society As to Common Duties it cannot be but that we seeing into the manner how our Souls are in our Bodies wholly united equally in God wholly animated with one and the same Influence with Divine Life marked with one and the same Resemblance with him and equally impelled by the same Love of Duty It cannot be I say But that we must be obliged to Love and to accomplish all the extents of Juslice of Truth of Charity and of Civility or of mutual and reciprocal Respect towards all Men who under all the Differences of unequal Conditions and Fortunes do conserve the Honor of Natural Equality and the Divine Resemblance The Duty of Blood and of Alliances And as to particular Duties whether they be those which immediately proceed from our Bodies as those of Piety which makes the Alliance betwixt Parents and Children Husbands and Wives Brothers and Neighbours or those which proceed immediately from the Soul as the Acknowledgment which obliges us to our Benefactors and the Obedience which submits us to our Superiors as having the Sovereignty and the Character of Gods Authority They do all of them equally spring from the same Knowledge because in Regard of the Relations which we have one to another by the Body it is indubitable That the Bodies entring as they do into the Order of Providence by which God prepares us to the Order of Eternity by the present Trial of Time He Wills that we should follow all the Duties which occur to us from their Occasion And He Wills by consequence That we should be more entirely United to those from whom we hold our Bodies or who hold their Bodies from Us. The Bodies are the Knot and the Ligament of our Union with the Visible World as hath been said and they are there by the Knot and the Ligament of Natural and Civil Society and as the one and the other doth not subsist but by the particular Societies of Families and of Alliances which compose them For as Rivulets form Rivers and Rivers the Ocean the particular Societies of Families began to form Towns and Burroughs and those Towns and Burroughs which proceed from thence do form States and Commonwealths whereof is made the Universal Society which is Govern'd by the Common Law which is call'd Jus Gentium or The Law of Nations besides the particular Laws of every Country and of every State So it cannot be that particular Societies who are the Basis and the Foundation of all the Civil and Political World should not have their Laws their Policy and Equity as well as the Universal Society and by consequence their Duties to which it is necessary we should be oblig'd in proportion to the divers Degrees of Relation which it gives us one to another From whence arises the Duties of Citizen to Citizen of Brother to Brother of Neighbor to Neighbor of a Son to his Father of a Servant to his Master and of a Master to his Servant The Crime of Superstition There are some People and it is a Disorder very common and very much spread abroad who make no account of these Duties and they are for the most part People that are otherwise nice and scrupulous concerning the Commendable but not Essential Practices of certain Popular Institutions or Devotions They would believe themselves very guilty if they should have omitted or violated them and yet they do not at all believe that they hurt their Consciences in violating or omitting the Duties of Friendship of Fidelity of Charity of Proximity of Paternal Piety and of those other Natural Duties which arise in us from these Relations which have been Explain'd And yet in the mean time there is no Religion without an Effective Accomplishment of all these Duties which have all of them their Principle and their Source in God We cannot worship God in Spirit and in Truth as he would have us worship him if we do not love and embrace in him all those Obligations And the pretended Religion of these false Worshippers is nothing but Superstition and Illusion equally vain and criminal I say Superstition for Superstition is not only as some conceive the worshipping of false Divinities the false worshipping of the true Divinity is no less a Superstition than the worshipping of false Divinities and all that pretended Piety which despises the least of Natural Duties and which do's not prefer them to those Devotions Practices Customs and Humane Institutions howsoever authoris'd and approv'd of by the Church is a real Superstition For it is so
Place of Spirits than the Sea is the Place for Fishes and the Air the Place for Birds The Body saith the Wise-man returns to the Earth from whence it was taken and the Soul returns to God who made it and from whom it issu'd out that is to say It hath no more immediate Union but with God alone which occasions us to say very exactly That she goes into God We have said That our Souls have an Essential Union with God in whom they live and to whom they are much more united by all their Parts and by all the Faculties of their Being than the Beams are united to the Sun than a River is united to its Spring than the living Branch is united to its Root We have said That all Knowing Created Natures do depend as immediately upon God in all the Acts of their Life and by consequence in all the Acts of their Perceptive and Appetitive Faculties as they depend upon him for the Foundation of their Being as well as all other Created Natures that is to say That as they cannot come out of nothing but by the Almighty and Efficacious Action of his Eternal Essence so they can neither Think nor Will but by the continual Action of his Supream Influence We have said That as God is the sole Being Existing by himself so he is the sole Living Being and by consequence the sole Thinking and Willing Being by himself and from thence arises a Relation and an Essential Union of all Created Spirits with the Supream Spirit and of the Supream Spirit with the Created Spirits All the Rivers drink of the Sea saith that Ancient all the Branches suck up perpetually the the Juyce and the Sap of the Root the Beams draw perpetually their Heat and Light from the Sun and all Living Beings drink perpetually of that Living and Eternal Spring of Life and all Spirits of that Living and Eternal Source of Knowledge It is the Natural Estate of all Spiritual Natures to have this immediate Union with God but this Supream Spirit being willing to do Honor to his Almightiness and to his Wisdom being willing to make the Idea of all kinds of Creatures possible to proceed from himself and to render it Real and Effective to make the World thereby compleat and finish'd and being willing to assemble together Corporeal and Spiritual Nature in one single Whole and being willing perhaps thereby to put Pure Spirits into the Places of the Fall'n Angels and to triumph over the Rebellious Ones in causing himself to be Serv'd in Bodies by Inferior Spirits would have it that this Immediate Union which the Created Spirits have Essentially with Him should be in some manner suspended and interrupted or at least obscur'd and diminish'd in regard of those whose Fidelity and Obedience he was willing to make Trial of in the Body The Union of Bodies interrupts and suspends the Immediate Union of our Souls with God Our Souls naturally like other Created Spirits ought not to have any Dependence upon any Bodies for to have the Idea's of things they ought only to depend immediately upon God and by consequence ought only to have Union with Him But this Supream Spirit having been pleas'd for the Reasons we have said for many others which we conceive and for more yet apparently which we do not conceive that our Souls should have their Thoughts and their Sentiments their Desires and their Affections upon the Occasion of the Body to the End that That should be a continual Subject of Victory and of meritorious Exercise He hath thought fit that for a time this Immediate and Essential Union of all Created Spirits with the Eternal Essence should become in our Souls Mediate if I may be permitted to say so and that the Essential Union of God and of all Created Spirits should not Operate in them but by an Accessory Union with this Matter Organiz'd or dispos'd into a certain Structure of Bones of Flesh and of Nerves which we call Human Body This Union of our Souls with our Bodies is not as we have said but this precisely That our Bodies by the diverse stirrings up the diverse Agitations and the diverse Configurations of the Brain which they receive from Bodies which environ them or from the natural Course of the Blood or from their proper Humors are the Occasion and Condition of the Determination of the Idea's and Sentiments which the Supream Spirit gives us that is to say That the Body is the Occasional Cause which Determines the Influence of the Essential Union which we have with God and thereby it is in some manner betwixt us and God it diminisheth in some manner our Essential Union with him because it hinders if I may be permitted to say so the Immediation of him Without That we could not say that our Souls were in our Bodies they would be immediately in God because the Place of the Souls and of all Spirits is intirely their Relation of Dependence and of Activity and our Souls in that case would have no Relation and Dependence but upon God only It is for that Reason that the Scripture speaks to us of the Union of our Souls with our Bodies or of our present Life not only as it were of a Wall between God and us but as it were of a Banishment as it were a Voyage and a Running away or Departure which we make from God Peregrinamur à Domino saith St. Paul and this is Effectively as it were a kind of Departure from God and by consequence a Banishment a Voyage a Running away from him because it is a Suspension and an Interruption of the Essential and Immediate Union which all Spirits have necessarily with him Our Souls going out of the Body are immediately united to God Now since our Souls entring into Bodies do go out from God according to the Expressions of the Divine Word which are exact and just when we know how to comprehend and penetrate them we must say likewise That our Souls going out of the Body return to God and in God as the Scripture Effectively saith it God is on both sides the Term of the Voyage It is from him we part in ceasing to be united immediately to him by reason of the Intervention of Body through which the Action of the Influence of his Divine Life in us doth pass and it is to him that we return in Dying and in going out of the Body because our Dependence on the Body ceaseth by Death and Death beating down the Wall which was between God and us the Union of God to us and of us to God becomes Pure and Immediate God is the Term we arrive to as well as that from whence we parted we are come out of him and we enter again into him that is to say That as before our Souls are united to our Bodies they have no Union with any thing but with God and by consequence they are nowhere but in God so after the same manner so
that Will which remains in the Reprobate Souls do's not Operate there as it doth in Holy Souls They are driven and moved essentially by an invincible Love towards Good and instead of Good which they seek for with so much vehemence They see nothing before them but Pains Despair and Misery They launch out and throw themselves perpetually towards the Good by Efforts and Movements inconceivable and He in whom they see the Source of Good and as it were all the Treasure and all the Foundation of Good Repulses them and throws them back again and in the same time wounds and transpierces them with a thousand deadly Darts They are Eternally thirsting after Pleasure and they have Eternally nothing but Grief Pain and Despair for their Portion so that the Will placed in them to be the Beginning and the Seat of their Happiness is found to be the Eternal Principle and Seat of their Unhappiness and Despair It would be to no purpose to lose time in saying That all the agreeable Passions will be in the Holy Souls and all the afflicting ones in the Reprobate that is comprehended of it self as also That these Passions will be in the Appetitive Faculty independently of the Body as we have said That the acts of Perceiving Imagining and Remembring will be in the Perceptive Faculty So there remains nothing more to finish this last Illustration and to draw from thence the so-essential Instruction of our Duties of Time and of Eternity of the Present Life and the Future Life of the Present World and the World to come of all our Present Condition and of all our Future State Than to remark that this Estate of the Souls out of the Body will not be changed in the main at bottom but only in some Circumstances not essential by the Re-union of the Bodies which will be made by the Universal Resurrection CHAP. XIII That this State of the Souls out of the Body will not be changed in the main or at Bottom by the new State of the Universal Resurrection but only in some accessory Circumstances ALthough we do not at all find in the Sentiment or in the precise Idea which we have of our Souls the Certainty and the Conviction of their Future Re-union with the Bodies which Faith teaches us ought to be made by the Universal Resurrection it is for all that certain That considering all the Train and all the Concatenation of the Mysteries and Principles whereof the Divine System of Religion and of Christianity is formed considering also the honor of the Divine Attributes which require That God should be jealous of his Glory and of the happy Event and Success of his Designs It is altogether evident That God who hath been pleased to Assemble the two kinds of Natures which only are known to Us whether as Existing or as Possible viz. To wit Corporeal Nature and Spiritual Nature into one single Compositum and one single Whole or Hypostasis to make thereof the Master-piece of the Visible World and as it were an Epitome an Abridgment or a curious Recapitulation of all his Works ought necessarily to Re-place it and to Re-establish it such as he formed it and designed it at first He ought to do it either for his own honor and glory as Creator to the end That Man may eternally subsist in this admirable Composition of Body and of Spirit who holding equally of the Visible and Corporeal World and of the Intelligible and Spiritual World makes as it were a Third and a kind of One altogether singular which infinitely exalteth his Wisdom and his Power or else for the honor and glory of the Redemption and of the Man-God who would eternally remain Imperfect and Defective if things were not Re-established upon the foot of the first Plat-form and of the first Design of the Creation and by consequence if the Bodies were not re-placed with the Souls because the Man-God would not be altogether a Repairer and a Restorer if he did not re-place Man such as he was at first Created and Designed and his Triumph over Sin over Death and Satan would not be compleat and finished if the half of Men should remain in the Jaws of Death Considering then all this Train of the Divine System of Religion it is without doubt most clear and certain That the Universal Resurrection ought to be a Circumstance of that glorious Solemnity of Justice which God ought then to make at the Consummation of Ages for the Consecration of his Eternal Temple for the Overture and Commencement of his Immortal Reign for the Solemn Coronation of his Predestined for the compleat Triumph of the Man-God for the Justification of all his Providence and the Declaration of all his Designs It is I say indubitable and constant That then at the end of the present Oeconomy and then when God will put an end to the Vicissitudes of Time and to the liberty of Revolt and of License which he gives at present to his Creatures then when he will fix all things in an Immutable and Eternal Order then when he will give a beginning to the New World He will then Re-establish all the Bodies and Re-unite every Soul to that which she animated during the present Life But in the mean time as we cannot say That our Souls find in themselves the Sentiment of their future Re-union with their Bodies so we will not speak of it here but as a Truth of Faith because we proposed to our selves to decide nothing concerning Them but what we should find Established either by our own proper Sentiment and our indubitable Experience or by a clear Light of Evidence arising from the Notion which we have made our selves of it as of a knowing Nature sensible of Order and Duty no less than of Pleasure and Pain and of all that is done in Her but this Truth presupposed and elsewhere sufficiently justified to the Idea of the Divine Attributes and in all the Train of the Principles of Religion and of Christianity VVe may speak with assurance of the manner how our Souls will be in their Resuscitated Bodies He who calls Himself the Resurrection and the Life the First-Born amongst the Dead the Father of the Ages to come He in whom we are all raised up again in Mystery and in Figure according to St. Pauls Expression and by whom we all of us ought to be raised up again effectively at the Last Day He tells us that we shall be then even in our Bodies like the Angels disfranchised from the Businesses and the Inclinations which we have upon the Occasion of the Body St. Paul also teaches us That our Bodies shall be Spiritualized and we may upon this Principle decide with certainty That the Re-union of Bodies doth not at all change the Foundation of that State of the Soul out of the Body the manner and circumstances whereof we have been Illustrating When St. Paul saith That our Bodies shall be Spiritualized by the Resurrection he
doth not say that they shall change Nature and that by an impossible Conversion and Metamorphosis they shall become Knowing Natures and shall cease to be Extended Substances He means that the Bodies shall be no more a Charge to the Souls that they shall be to them no more an Obstacle or Hindrance in any thing and that they shall only serve to do Honor to the glory of the Creation and of the Redemption We will first of all take away from Bodies that which we call Gravity which is nothing else but an Impulsion wholly exterior towards the Center of the Earth which happens to them at present from the Impression of the Creator by reason of their Terrestrial Nature and Composition We will restore to them their natural Indifference to Motion and to Rest For Bodies of themselves have not any Motion neither of Lightness nor of Weight they neither ascend nor descend they neither move themselves Perpendicularly nor Horizontally as they say At this present as they are part of the Visible and Corporeal World which ought wholly to subsist upon that indivisible Point which is called its Center which sustains all Bodies without being sustained of any thing They must be moved and driven continually towards the Center and middle of the Earth which doth not sustain it self upon its self but by that Impulsion of all its Parts and of all that which we call Terrestrial Bodies which from all parts tend towards this middle and the same indivisible Point but then being no longer Parts of the Terrestrial World they no longer follow the Laws of that Motion which moves Corporeal and Terrestrial Nature they will neither have Levity nor Gravity but a Perfect and Sovereign Agility that is to say an entire Indifference for all sorts of Motion which will cause them without any Resistance to be carried every where where the Souls would have them We will fix in these Resuscitated Bodies such a Degree of Heat and Motion in the Blood as shall be necessary to entertain the natural Movements with a certain Agility and Disposition for the Animal and Voluntary Motions which the good Constitution of a healthful Body requires This Heat will be sufficient to make the Blood and Humors to flow but not to escape or dissipate the least of the Parts either fluid or solid Parts of the Body from whence it will happen That there will not be any Dissipation and that Nourishment which is only to repair the Dissipation will be never necessary Those Inclinations which are now placed in Man for the Propagation of Species will cease by this Reason and this Principle because in these Bodies fixed in an Immutable Situation of Parts and which never take Nourishment there will not be any excess of Superfluous Matter by which those natural Ebullitions and Fermentations are made which give occasion to those Desires and to those Inclinations which we now have for the Propagation of Species Erunt sicut Angeli Dei neque nubent neque nubentur Almost in the same manner the Senses will have all their Functions and altho' the Souls ought to be enlightned and affected with Idea's and Sentiments upon the Occasion of their Bodies thus Spiritualized in proportion as they themselves shall be affected by the Corporeal Impression of other Bodies which shall act upon them however that will not at all hinder but that the Union of the Souls with God and of God with the Souls shall be near and immediate because that independently of these Corporeal Impressions He will Act continually in them The Bodies are now an essential Occasional Cause of all the natural Action of God in the Souls but then they shall be the Cause Occasional not Essential God will Act by himself immediately in them enlightning them and diversly modifying or affecting them without any Regard of the Body in a thousand manners The Bodies shall be no longer neither a Wall nor a Vail between God and the Souls nor a Channel of Communication between the Souls and God He will Act in them independently of the Disposition of the Body which is now the essential Condition of his natural Action in us Then when the Holy Souls shall be re-united to their Bodies They will not at all fail as hath been said to have the whole Spectacle of the Visible World altho' there be but one part of the Visible World whose Species comes to be retracted in the Material Eyes They will not at all fail to have the Pleasure of Melodies altho' there be not any Symphony which strikes their Corporeal Ears Civitas non egebit Sole neque Lunâ nam Claritas Dei illuminabit eam Such will be our Souls in their Spiritualiz'd Bodies after the Universal Resurrection there remains nothing more for us to do after this last Illustration than to make use of these Knowledges to reform our Idea's and correct our Judgments about Eternity and about Time about the Present Life and the Future about the Present World and the World to come And thereby to comprehend the whole Extent of our Duties CHAP. XIV What is Time and Eternity the Present World and the World to come the Present Life and the Future Life IT is easie for us after all that hath been Illustrated concerning that Future State of our Souls in the New and Immortal Life which they ought to Commence in going out of the Body It is easie for us I say to comprehend what is Time and Eternity the Present World and the World to come the Present Life and the Future Life That which we Men call Time is taken either by Relation to the Duration of the Abode of every Soul in its Body or by Relation to the Duration of the whole present Oeconomy of the Visible World destined to the Trial of the Souls in the Bodies and in whatsoever signification Men take Time in the Opposition which Men make of it to Eternity It signifies precisely a State of Instability of Change and of Vicissitude and a State which ought to have an End for these are the two things which enter essentially into the Idea of that which is called Time Vicissitude and End The space of the Duration that our Souls are in our Bodies is called Time for those two Reasons because it ought to have an End and because in the Interim so long as it endures it holds us exposed to a thousand Changes and to a thousand Vicissitudes and above all to the Vicissitude of being able to pass from Good to Evil and from Evil to Good from Sin to Vertue and from Vertue to Crimes or Vice You see here exactly what Time is and Eternity ought to be conceived by Opposition for Eternity is on the contrary The immutable and interminable State and Order of things As much as Time includes Instability and End so much do's Eternity exclude them both Time speaks Change and End Eternity speaks the being always the same and never ending Thus as our present State in
the visible World the Common Matter which suffic'd to make the other Living Creatures was not at all sufficient for the making of Man Man cannot be made like Beasts by a sole Construction and Organization of his Body for the Body being fram'd it would not have been for all that a Man it would have been a Beast as Brutish as the rest if God had not sought out a Soul for it in His own Heart and in His own Essence There needed nothing but a well-placing of Matter and an altogether Earthly Structure of Organs animated by a Blood a little set on fire to cause a Body to eat and walk and to make it a living Creature like the rest But to make a Man who far above the Life of Beasts hath a Life of Knowledge Understanding and Reason who hath that Empire over himself which we call Liberty and that Natural Rightness which we call Conscience there was a necessity of searching for the Principle of this excellent Life out of all the Extent of Matter and the Region of Bodies and the Creator could find it no where but in Himself For this is what that Expression of the Holy Writer means And he breathed into him the breath of life He grafted upon this Material and Terrestrial Structure which of it self could have no other than the Life of Beasts which had been given to the Common Matter of the World in Animals a lively Image and an admirable Resemblance of his Eternal Essence And from the Conjunction of this Terrestrial Structure and this Celestial and Divine Nature which he pour'd into it Man became Man after His Image and was rais'd up in the middle of the World as a Living Statue to be reverenc'd by all the Universe The Perception and Certainty which all of us have of our Souls This is the History and Genealogy which Moses gives us of our Soul in which he appears no less a Philosopher than a Prophet And altho' he should never have given it us we should not have forborn to climb up to that Source or Origin of our Nobility by the inward Experience and Certainty which we all of us have of our selves since there is no body that doth not feel and perceive in himself this Celestial and Divine Part added and ingrafted upon this Terrestrial Matter with a thousand Characters and a thousand Attributes undoubtedly Celestial and Divine For who is there that doth not perceive in himself a Principle of Knowledge without Bounds which gives a kind of Immensity to his Soul Who is there that doth not perceive in himself a Principle and a Ground of an Empire over himself and over the visible World in the Foundation of his Liberty which raises up a Man into a kind of Equality or at least a Resemblance of Sovereignty with God Who doth not perceive in himself a Ground of Justice or Love of Order of Vertue and Duty which makes him like to the Eternal Justice from whence flows all the Order all the Beauty of the World both Moral and Natural Who doth not perceive in himself a Ground of Conscience whereby every one is punish'd or rewarded upon the spot according as he hath done well or ill in which Man bears in himself a lively Image of that Supreme Justice which continually judges the Universe and which will one day solemnly manifest its Judgment by a manifest Recompence of the Good and an awful Punishment of the Wicked Men have essentially this Perception and this Experience of themselves Some have it more clear and lively others more confus'd stupid and dead if I may so say according as they have more or less Attention or Reflection upon themselves but it is certain that they all of them have it It is apparent that the ancient Philosophers and the ancient Poets who were themselves the Philosophers of their time had not at all read the Book of Genesis when they made our Souls to descend from Heaven and confounded them with the Supreme Nature and said that they were a Portion of It more particularly applied to animate our Bodies than the rest of the Universe It is not any Tradition that hath given Men these Ideas it is the natural perception and inward experience and certainty which the Soul essentially hath of it self And if Men were not diverted and carried away on the one side by their Passions and on the other side over-rul'd to that degree as they are by the Empire exercis'd over them by the Imagination which dulls and obscures them so as hath been said there would be no need of writing Books to let them know the Nobility and Dignity the Imaterial Nature and the Spiritual and Immortal Quality of their Souls Every one would be his own Master and his own Book to himself But seeing that the Passions on one side take from us the Attention and Reflection upon our selves and that the Imagination on the other side presents us with Corporeal Images as soon as we apply our selves to conceive things Spiritual and Immaterial it is necessary to awaken and help this natural Sentiment and to support the feeble and weak Effort of the Understanding and Reason to unmingle our Soul from that Confusion with the Body which the Imagination causes For that purpose we must begin to own its Spiritual and Immortal Nature of which it can accumulate a thousand Proofs but not to weary the Spirit by too much Speculation we will close it up in Three only drawn from one triple indubitable Sentiment which every one hath and upon which every one may easily reflect For every one finds in himself a Principle of Knowledge a Principle of Liberty and a Principle of Conscience or Love of Order and Justice And these are the three evident Convictions of the Spiritual and Immortal Nature of our Souls which sparkle within us Let us treat of them in order and explain them one after another CHAP. II. That our Souls undoubtedly are Spiritual Natures and altogether distinct from Bodies upon the account of their Intelligent Nature IF we should follow the Light of our natural Ideas there would be no need here of any Effort of Reason or any Train of Discourse for the natural Idea which we have of a Spirit or a Spiritual Nature is no other than an Idea of an Intelligent Nature such as we find and perceive in us by that intimate and inseparable Experience which we have of our selves For we must observe and which admits of no difficulty that as we do not know Bodies but by the Experience which we have of them so we know not Spirits but by that Spirit which we have in our selves and by that Idea which we have of our Soul which we know not but under the Idea of a knowing Substance which we experiment and perceive in us to be capable of divers Matters of knowing perceiving and willing of loving of hating of being afflicted and rejoycing of having Pain and Pleasure and in fine to
fear of Punishments when they have the Power in their Hands but it is remarkable That Men who make Laws and can make themselves be obey'd cannot make themselves believe but that when they only make unjust and tyrannical Laws People only pay an exterior Obedience to their Commands but the Heart and Spirit cries out and demands Justice from Him whom all Men naturally feel over their Heads as a Protector of Justice and an Avenger of Oppression and unjust Authority We receive unjust Laws but we do not believe them just for all that But as to the natural Laws of Duty and Conscience all Men receive them and believe them by an invincible determination of a superior Light which equally perswades them alike And this is the infallible Character of natural Idea and Light for there is none but the natural Light that convinces us with that invincible force Conscience is then in us undoubtedly natural And as certain as it is an essential Companion of our Nature and a Propriety inseparable from our Soul from whence arise in us by the help of Grace all Moral and Christian Vertues so certain it is that our Souls are Spiritual Natures because it is impossible to conceive that a Corporeal Nature can be the Subject of Magnanimity of Justice of Fidelity of Continence and of Truth and that a Corporeal Nature can have either the Light of Order and of Duty or the Inclination or the Determination of Duty or the Pleasure of the performance and the Pain of the violation of Duty Duty Order Justice have no Bodies they are things totally Spiritual and Intelligible how then can a Body or a Corporeal Nature have the Idea or the Sentiment of them Moreover this Light of Order and Duty which enlightens us and which pierces us and which we feel ingrafted and as it were pour'd into our Soul is not the Idea or the Rule of one single Duty it is the Idea and the Rule of all our Actions and by consequence of a thousand sorts of Duties so this is further a Certainty and an infallible Character of its Spirituality For how can a Material and Corporeal thing be the Rule of so many diverse Actions and so many different Duties The only Name of Ruling Human Actions imports essentially the Idea of Spirituality For with all my heart let a Man make a Rule a Square and a Compass of Gold of Steel and of what Matter he will to measure out a Building or the Compartments of a Garden or of a Walk but how can one conceive a Corporeal Rule let it be made of what Matter soever we can imagine which can be proper to compass and put into order and set to rights Human Actions The Rule is then indubitably Spiritual and if this Rule is Spiritual if this Idea of Duty which enlightens us cannot be Corporeal our Soul who is the Subject wherein it resides cannot but be a Spiritual Nature because it is as impossible to conceive that a thing Spiritual can be within a Material Subject as that a Material thing can be within a Spiritual Subject It is infallible That every thing that do's Spiritual Acts is Spiritual and that every thing that is the Basis and the Subject of Spiritual Proprieties and Faculties is all of it likewise Spiritual because it is impossible that a Corporeal Principle should produce Spiritual Acts and that a Material Subject should be the Seat of a Spiritual Attribute or of an Immaterial Perfection And this is it which ought to put a full end to the Conviction which we have of our Spiritual and Immortal Nature in our principal Part which we call our Soul since it is certain our Soul is not only the Principle of a thousand sorts of Spiritual Acts for every thing that is call'd Willing Thinking Reflecting Judging is essentially a Spiritual Act because it is impossible to conceive either Knowledge or Will or Desire and the Act of Willing under a Corporeal Image but the Subject of a thousand Perfections all Immaterial and Spiritual if it were not but the Conscience alone which assisted by Grace is in us the living Source and the Seat of Justice of Fidelity of Gratitude of Friendship of Constancy of Magnanimity of Truth of Uprightness of Incorruptibility of an hundred sorts of Moral Vertues and of an hundred sorts of Christian Vertues more Excellent than the Moral ones of Humility of Continence of Despising Misprising the World of continual Union with God of the Ardor of Eternity of Mortification and of Self-denial of an hundred such like Dispositions all Celestial and all Divine which can have neither for Principle nor for Subject a Nature that is Corporeal CHAP. XV. That our Souls are indubitably Immortal by a Certainty that the Sentiment of the Conscience gives us thereof SUCH is the Certainty which we have by the Sentiment of Conscience of our Spiritual Nature and this so indelible Sentiment of Conscience which we all of us naturally have is not only an indubitable Argument and Assurance of the Spiritual Nature of our Souls but it gives us also more sensibly if we will unstaggering Certainty of our Immortal Condition because it gives us Essentially by way of Instinct the Sentiment of a Justice which ought to be exercis'd over them by an Eternal Power after the going out of this Life which Essentially imports the Idea of a new and an Everlasting Life of which an Eternal Principle of Order and Justice ought to determine the manner according as we shall be found to have done well or ill and according as we shall be found worthy of Punishment or Recompence in the Ballance of the Supreme Justice and Holiness We have already observ'd That the Instincts of Nature are never false and that they have always some real Object and if there were nothing else but that alone we would not doubt but that there is for our Souls a new and an Everlasting Life after this Present Life since the Instinct that Câ—â—science hath in our Souls of that Justice which ought to be exercis'd upon them after Death is the most clear and the most indubitable Instinct that is in all Nature But independently of that Infallibility of the Instinct the Idea of the Supreme Being which we find in Us by the Sentiment of Conscience with a Resentiment so lively and so penetrating and at the same time so certain and so ineffaceable under the Idea of an Eternal and Sovereign Justice which ought to punish the Ill and recompense the Good doth infer so necessarily that of an Eternal Power infinitely clear and vigilant which watches over the Lives of Men to observe the Good and the Evil of them that seeing as we see that it do's not punish nor recompense in this Life all the Goods and all the Ills it is impossible for us to suspend our Belief but that it ought to exercise after Death its Punishments and Rewards in the so Incorruptible and Immortal Grounds of our Souls
which as we have seen cannot be destroy'd by Death which does not act but upon Bodies It is an ancient Reasoning of the Holy Fathers and even of the profane Philosophers That God punishing here sensibly some few of the Crimes of Men and not punishing them all there need be another Life where he finishes the Justice which he begins here And this Reasoning carries the most sensible Conviction in the World since we see so visibly the Hand of God to extend it self upon the Wicked which is according to St. Augustin that which the Kingly Prophet calls the Lightnings of the Supreme Justice which fore-run the Clap of Thunder Apparuerunt fulgura ejus orbi terrae vidit commota est terra His Lightnings appear'd to the Globe of the Earth the Earth saw and it was moved But tho' we had never seen such miraculous Examples of the Heavenly Justice upon the Wicked we should see enough to be convinc'd of the Immortal Conditions of our Souls from the so indubitable Sentiment that Conscience gives us of an Eternal Uprightness and Holinevs which ought to recompense us or to punish us because there must be nothing certain in the World if this be not That this natural Sentiment and this clear Idea of the Supreme Justice and Holiness cannot Deceive us Reason and all that is call'd Light and Certainty whether Natural or Supernatural must needs be nothing but Illusion and Chimera if Good and Evil can remain without Reward and Punishment because God must needs be only a Wisdom and Sanctity indolent and insensible of the Order and Disorder of the World with the Conduct of which he is charg'd if he ought not at last signally to evidence his Justice and if Natural Reason and Light is any thing as he cannot be a disarm'd and an useless Power so he is not assuredly a Sleepy Wisdom and an Indolent and Idle Sanctity He cannot leave either Vertue without a Reward or Vice without Punishment and tho' he neither punishes Crimes nor rewards Vertue in this Life it follows necessarily that this Sentiment and this Idea which Conscience gives us of a Justice which prepares a Reward for Vertue and a Punishment for Crimes in another Life is an Idea most true and which hath a real and most effective Object and that there is a new Life for our Souls after the present Life wherein they receive the Price of their Vertues and the Recompence of the Fidelity and the Constancy of their Trial and the pain of their unfaithful dissolute Prevarications through which they abandon the Interest of God and his Service for the little and trifling Interest of the false and frenetick Pleasures of their Passions With all these Certainties and all these Convictions we ought to see more sensibly the Future Life into the which our Souls enter in going out of the Body than we do the Present Life for it glitters and shines more lively in the midst of us than the Sun shines or glitters in the midst of the World But we must take care that we do not apprehend it after the same manner We are commonly full of Incredulity of the World to come and of the Immortal Condition of our Souls it is the just Punishment of our Disorders and the natural Effect of our Exorbitant Desires Tho' God should not concern himself and tho' He should not spread over his Darknesses He that makes the Day and Night of Grace as well as the Light and Darkness of Nature over our Criminal Desires to blind the Carnal Souls who forgetting the Advantage of their Spiritual and Immortal Nature plunge themselves wholly into sensual and earthly Pleasures our own exorbitant Desires are Veils thick enough to rob us of that Light how resplendent soever it may be The Incredulity of the Life to come and of the Immortal Condition of our Souls cannot be in Us but by these two Principles If it is so common it is because the inward Eye is so troubled and obscur'd by the disorder of carnal and terrestrial Passions and that this natural Blindness of Passions is augmented by a Veil of Darkness that God puts upon impure and terrestrial Hearts I know not how Libertines apprehend it but if they would in the lucid Intervals of their Reasoning never so little reflect upon themselves and upon the Light which they smother it is sure that it is impossible but that they must conceive that their Libertinism and their Incredulity is not only an Estate of Obscurity and natural Blindness but an Effect of the Hand of God which is upon them This is effectually the Effect of the utmost Disorder of the Spirit and of the uttermost abandonment of God for how should one be ignorant of the Life to come and of the Immortal Condition of our Souls if one had had either any spark of Natural Light of good Sense and Reason or any Ray of Grace or Celestial Illumination Let the Libertines speak and let them tell us upon what they found their Impious and Sacrilegious System upon what Principle and upon what Reason they believe that their Souls die with their Bodies Let them speak they would be in a great deal of Pain to do it for this furious and frenetic Judgment by which they bloody their Hands with the Parricide of their Souls if one may be allow'd to say so hath not any Foundation nor any Principle There are some to whom the Immortality of the Soul is not incredible but because they cannot as they say comprehend what the Soul will be when it shall be no longer in the Body but these themselves here do no ways conceive how their Soul is in the Body and People who do not doubt but that their Soul is and that it is the thing of the World which hath so much effective Reality altho' they do not know how it is do doubt that their Soul can be any thing out of the Body under pretext that they do not conceive how it will be then There are some who stupifie themselves on set purpose to judge that their Soul is no more any thing after this Life not by any Reason that they have to form this Judgment but because that the fear of finding at their going out of this Life an Implacable Judge who they well see ought to punish their Licentiousness and Disorder if there remains any thing of them after their Death makes them desire that there should remain nothing of them and makes them prefer the horror of the Nothingness of this sad and vast Darkness to the Beauty and Light of that Immortal and Resplendent Life of Joys and Felicities which Reason and Religion equally discover to us at the end of the short Career of this Life There are in fine some who make the same Judgment without knowing why they make it they judge without Reason and without Principle contrary to all Reason and all Principles I say against all Lights all Reasons and all Principles for I
not so much as see or know even themselves only which gave occasion of that Expression of the Schoolmen Videntur ut quò non ut quod non cognita faciunt cognoscere We may then presuppose that it is not at all these Tables whereon the Soul sees the Object and this being presupposed we have no more to do than to search into the manner how the Soul hath by the occasion of these dead and Corporeal Images and Impressions those living and animated Idea's and Images which she hath in her self and by which she is render'd formally and actually Knowing having in her self a lively Representation or an inward Sentiment of the Objects which render themselves present by the Material Impression which is receiv'd in the Body That Men do not commonly Explain how the Passage of the Material Impressions of Corporeal Objects make a Passage into the Spiritual Substance of the Soul One may say That here are the Limits or if a Man may be permitted to say so the Pillars of Humane Intelligence there hath appear'd nothing neither hath there been any thing in Nature more inaccessible than the Knowledge and the clear Notion of the manner how this Passage is made and this Transmission from the Corporeal into the Spiritual Region and than the manner how the Corporeal Impressions of the Senses whether Interior or Exterior do become Spiritual Idea's and Perceptions in the Soul Men have said almost nothing thereupon but enormous and monstrous Contradictions But we need not despair of arriving at a clear Notion and an indubitable Certainty thereof how dark soever this Mystery may be wrapped up if we follow that Rule which prescribes to us to go always notwithstanding the resistance of Prejudices thither where the Evidence and clearness of Principles and Consequences calls us and leads us on In following on the one part the double shining Light of the Experience which we have of a Superior Light and Power which rules over us and which enlightens us and of the Certainty we have made our selves of the Spiritual Nature of our Souls And on the other part in following the infallible Principle of this certain Truth That it is God alone who Essentially unites things Spiritual and Corporeal and who alone can unite our Bodies and our Souls we shall carry a certain and an infallible Light in this so dark and so obscure a place and we shall come to have a clear Idea of that which we search after That it is the Author and the Principle of the Union of the Soul and of the Body which makes the Commerce between the Soul and the Body and by consequence between the Soul and the Corporeal Objects We find that these Corporeal Images and these Material Impressions do not pass into the Soul to render it actually and formally Knowing by themselves for this would be a Repugnancy with a Witness if it were only in this because a Corporeal thing cannot be the enlightning and illuminating Form of a Spiritual Nature We find that these Images and these Corporeal Impressions do not quit their quality and material Essence to change themselves by a Chimerical and an Impossible Metamorphosis to Spirituals We find that these Corporeal Images are not the Tables and Glasses to which the Soul doth apply her self and towards which she turns her self to contemplate and see in them the Objects which are render'd present to the Body in drawing upon them their Idea and Representation We find that these Images or Corporeal Impressions which the Exterior Objects do engrave in our Brains are no other thing than the Occasional Cause of the Action by which He who unites the Body and Soul doth Instruct Us and Enlighten Us who in the Quality of the First Cause concurs Essentially with all Second Causes and who in the Quality of an Universal Cause hath been pleas'd to render in Men the Concourse of his Illumination and the Essential Irradiation of his Life by which He makes to live all that liveth dependent of divers Impressions which are brought and receiv'd within our Brains for to conserve his Character of Universal Cause in such a manner that these Images serve to no other purpose than to determine the Author of Nature who is necessarily the immediate Cause and immediate Principle of the Union of the Soul and of the Body and by consequence of our Corporeal Impressions and of our Spiritual Faculties to give as an Essential Cause of all the Light and of all the Life which is in created Beings the Idea's and the Sentiments of things at that moment that the general Course of the Universal Movement of Corporeal Matter and of Nature or the free and accidental Determination of some particular Cause doth make in that Structure of Bone of Flesh and of Nerves which we call Human Body any Impression which is carried to the Center of all that Structure which is the Brain This is the Formal Act of the Power which unites the Soul to the Body and the Body to the Soul This is the Active and Formal Union of the Soul to the Body This is It which is the immediate and necessary Principle and Cause which makes the Commerce betwixt the Body and the Spirit This is It which makes the Passage to the Corporeal Species and Images from the Corporeal to the Spiritual Region This is It which Spiritualizeth our Phantômes not by a Chimerical and Impossible Metamorphosis but by an Infallible and an Omnipotent Efficacy of his Action as First Cause and as Cause Universal by which from the occasion of divers Impressions made in the Body He gives to Souls the Idea's and Sentiments which ought to correspond and accompany them in the Intention of the End of his Workmanship It would be very surprising if this Idea should appear New to those Understandings who know that it is an Idea so common and so necessary To regard God as the immediate Author and necessary Cause of the Union of our Souls and of our Bodies for when it shall be known that God is the immediate and necessary Principle and Cause of this Union it ought not to appear strange or new That it is God who makes and who entertains this Commerce which is the essential and necessary continuance thereof and that he continually Acts after this manner upon our Souls from the occasion of the Impressions of Bodies seeing that the Action by which he makes this Union which ought necessarily to be renew'd reiterated and continu'd every moment cannot consist but in this everliving Commerce between the Soul and between the Body as shall be prov'd hereafter In sum all is thereby clear and easie all of a piece and made very plain Thereby we do not only ascend to the true Principle and immediate Cause of the Union of our Souls and of our Bodies but we clearly conceive thereby how this Union so incomprehensible and so admirable is made how it is He that is the First Tie and Essential Band
thereof And He is at the same time the Light and the Life of all Spirits as He Acts perpetually in Us and doth not less Animate the little World which is the Assembly of the Body and Spirit whereof Man consists than the Universal World which is the Assembly of all Corporeal Natures Thereby doth subsist our dependence upon Him in all the Acts of our Life as well as in the Foundation of our Being which depends every moment upon the continuation of that Action by which he at first Created us Happy it is that the Notion which we have made of the manner whereby we know all things which are without us should lead us back and unite us so intimately to the Source of our Being and that we cannot know how our Knowledges and Sentiments are form'd in us without knowing likewise together with the dependence that all our Life and all our Being hath from Him the Immensity the Excellency and the Superiority of his infinite Essence above all created Beings The blind and ignorant Pride of Humane Understanding will not perhaps suffer in some People that we should humble it after this manner and that we should thus bring it back again to God It will revolt it may be against the Evidence of the things which I have been speaking of and it will perhaps chuse much rather not to comprehend at all how the Corporeal Impressions of Objects become in our Souls Spiritual Images and Sensations than to comprehend it after a manner which gives it so lively an Idea of its Dependence and its Nothingness But we must not suffer it peaceably and quietly to enjoy the Pleasure of its affected Ignorance of its criminal Independency we must convince it not only that there is no other means of Explaining the manner how we have by reason of Corporeal Impressions the Idea's and Sentiments of things but we must also necessarily make it acknowledge That this perpetual Action of the Illumination and Irradiation of God in us as an Essential Act of his Supream Sovereignty over us is the inseparable Character of our Essential Dependence and the necessary continuance of the Function by which he unites the Souls to Bodies so as Faith teaches it CHAP. VII A Proof of what hath been decided That it is God as Author of the Union of the Soul and Body who gives to the Soul the Sentiments and Idea's of things from the occasion of Corporeal Impressions which are made upon the Material Senses THIS continual Action of God in us whereby he Acts perpetually in us in the Quality of the First and Universal Cause Enlightning us and affecting us with several Sentiments by reason of divers Impressions which are made either by a Cause from within or by a Motion from without in our Brain ought necessarily to be acknowledg'd by two or three sorts of Proofs and different Reasons equally convincing The first Proof by the Essential Union of our Souls with God First of all We have the indubitable Sentiment and Experience thereof For if we rereflect well upon our own Sentiment we shall find equally two Unions in us an Union of our Bodies with all the visible World and an Union of our Souls with a Nature Knowing Immense Infinite and Unchangeable which with an Eye always vigilant and always attentive to all the Movements of our Brains penetrates us continually with a thousand lively Sentiments and enlightens us with a thousand Idea's upon their Occasion Our Bodies are undoubtedly united to all other Bodies and by consequence to all the visible World Because there is not one single Motion made about them which doth not come to them through some one of their Parts or through some one of the Organs which the provident Wisdom of the Creator hath disposed so diversly to receive their different Motions If the Sun or any other Luminous Body be mov'd in the middle of that imperceptible Matter which it drives in straight Lines from all sides our Eyes receive in the instant and in the moment the Impression of it by the necessary Effect of the continuation of Motion or of the effort of Motion which is imprinted in that Matter because they find themselves so dispos'd to let it pass thro' the different Humors whereof they are compos'd and to receive it in that thin and subtil Web which is form'd in the bottom of our Eyes about the Extremities of the Optick Nerves and which is call'd the Retina If there be a Shock of two solid Bodies in the Air or any vehement Fomentation of Exhalation as it happens in Thunder from whence arise redoubled Trepidations in this fluid Matter like to those Circles which are describ'd upon the Superficies of Water one after the other and one against another this Motion comes to strike in our Bodies that which is called the Tympanum in the Organ of Hearing It is generally in the same manner with all other Bodies some of them are united to our Bodies by the subtile Vapours which they emit from them as are Odours others by an Immediation as they say of the Superficies of their Parts and there is not any one single one of them which doth not Act upon our Bodies after their manner But if our Bodies are so naturally united to all other Bodies by Contiguity which communicates the Motion of one to the other our Souls are yet more sensibly united to a Superior and an over-ruling Nature which imprints on them Idea's and Sentiments as it pleases by General Wills and universal and immutable Laws which it almost never departs from but in those extraordinary Occasions in the which it Acts as a particular Cause and works that which we call a Miracle We cannot be ignorant or insensible of this Empire which the Author and Master the Sovereign and the Lord of Nature Exercises over us for the Reasons which have been already observ'd and which S. Augustin had so well div'd into that he said That a reflective and an attentive Man would much rather doubt of the Union of his Body with the visible World to which it is tied by all its Parts than of that Union of his Soul with God since the Action thereof is never interrupted but it is sensible and visible for we know nothing if we do not know that it Acts in us and that it Rules us either by a lively and an involuntary Sentiment or by the Light wherewith it penetrates us since it is impossible not to acknowledge God in this Principle so Enlightning and so Vigilant of the one Part and on the other so Efficacious and so Commanding who Presides over all our Knowledges and over all our Sentiments and who makes them in us in spite of us with so admirable and so illuminating a Wisdom and so much the better as causing in us undoubtedly all the Pleasure and all the Pain which we resent by the occasion of our Bodies We see plainly that he is the Sovereign Arbiter as well as the
the Spirit that is to say the Spiritual Nature pierces penetrates and enlightens all things If we consider the advantage which Reason and the proper Intelligence of our Spiritual Nature gives us of being able surely to Enlarge our Knowledges by the infallible Consequences which we draw from things we have already known for those which we do not know as yet We shall find that there is nothing more Natural and less Rash than to endeavour to decide by the clear Idea which we have of our Soul and by the Notion no less clear which we have of the Supream Nature which alone is able to be the Cause of the divers Conditions of the Soul of the Estate wherein it ought to place our Souls after they shall have finished their Trial in the Body and that this Eternal Justice shall have fixed upon them his Anger or his Love according as they shall have render'd themselves worthy by their Obedience and Fidelity or by the obstinacy of their Disorder and Revolt This double Notion which we have so clear and so distinct of God and of our Spiritual Nature joyned to that which we have of our present State as of a State where our Obedience and Fidelity are put to a Trial and where the Eternal Justice hath his Eyes open to see our Combat with the Flesh and with our Senses We form a sure Light by which we are able to enter march safely into that obscurity and those darknesses And since we have a Taper in our hands lighted by those Idea's so clear and so certain of the Knowledges which we have already acquired why then should we not carry it into that dark and unknown Country which is of so great Importance to us to discover and know Since we have Wind and Sails enough to carry us over to this New World why then should not we go thither to make a Map of it Since our Reason may be illuminated above the Darkness of the Night of our Senses and of our Imagination why should not we illuminate the Blind who being once Enlightned will no more resist the Light of Divine and Heavenly Revelation which they often esteem when they are not Enlightned by Reason but as a Fable and a Fiction Then let us not fear to attempt this Discovery and Explain how our Souls are to be out of the Body since we are able to speak of it with some certainty The certainty of a New Estate of a New and Immortal Life for our Souls after this Present Life We are able to speak most certain and make as St. John did a Description and a Topography of this World to come and of this Heavenly Jerusalem VVe do not only know by the evident Conviction of the Spiritual Nature of our Souls That they are not at all destroyed and annihilated by Death which is not an advantage to the Spiritual Nature because there is nothing even in the most Corporeal Nature which is most Frail most Perishable and most subject to Corruption and the most liable to Death that Perishes entirely But we know with the same Certainty That the Soul subsists with all its Foundation of Life which we see it hath which is the advantage and essential Distinction of the Spiritual Nature For there is this Difference between a Spiritual or Knowing Nature and a Nature Corporeal That the Corporeal Nature may be deprived of Life but not of its Being for its Life is distinct from its Being in the Body for the Life of the Body is but a Motion which it hath there by its Structure its Organization and its inward and natural Composition which it may lose and doth every day lose without losing the Foundation of its Being And in preserving all the Basis of its material Substance which always remains and subsists notwithstanding any Change which may happen to it in its Structure and its outward and sensible Form But in Knowing or Spiritual Nature the Life and Being are but one and the same thing Since Knowledge and Sensibility or the Acts of the Appetitive Faculty which are the Basis and the Foundation of their Being are also essentially the Foundation of their Life For in Spiritual Nature to Live is not to Eat Walk or to be Moved but to Know to Perceive to Will to have Joy and Sadness Pain and Pleasure Those of the Heathen Philosophers who had some Glimmering of a true Idea of the Spiritual Nature but not under the Name of Spiritual Nature but only of a Knowing Nature did so well perceive That the Knowing Nature was Essentially Living that we see they all of them Established thereupon the Certainty of the Immortality of Mans Soul because indeed say they This Matter whereof the Soul of Man is formed is a Matter essentially Knowing and by consequence Living if it is Air or Fire it is not only an Air and a Fire that is most subtil but an Air and a Fire of a singular Nature an Air and a Fire essentially Knowing and by consequence Living Thus though the Souls of Men should be this Air and this material Fire say they as some do imagine yet for all that they would not cease to be Immortal because they would be always Essentially Living We see this System in all the Books of the Ancient Philosophers and we see at the same time That this Notion of the Soul as a Nature essentially Knowing whereof we have a certainty by a Conviction so lively and so full of Sentiments convinced all these Ancient Sages not only That Death doth not touch the Life of our Souls not only that it doth not destroy them But on the contrary That Death makes the Life of them perfect because it breaks their Prison and takes away from their Thoughts and their Views the Wall which stops them and the Vail which blinds them And their Conviction was so great thereupon that they did not speak with less Certainty and Pleasure of this New and Immortal Life of our Souls after Death than we speak to one another of some Neighbouring Provinces or of some New Discoveries They did no more doubt of this New Life than we do of Italy or of Spain For to speak of Canada and the American Isles would be too little to express the Certainty They did not only speak of it with Assurance and without incertainty They spoke of it with Incredible Joys and Transports They longed to arrive at the happy end of their Voyage They conceived ardent desires for Death They did more than all this they advanced it further And we know That in a Famous Common Wealth of Grece they were obliged to Prohibit and Suppress a Book that had been Writ upon the Immortality of the Soul because it did so livelily Impress upon their Spirits the Conviction of their Immortality that they were fearful lest it should Depopulate the Earth and cause the Race of Mankind to be destroyed because they saw it had carried a great many of them not only
to neglect the Business and the Duties of Life and of the Republic but even to hasten on their own Deaths It is not to be questioned here whether this Prudence were not a little too Precautious it is not our business our business is to Remark the Effect which the Notion of a Knowing Nature hath produced to make Men believe That their Souls subsist and live after their Death The Conviction hereof is effectively Lively and Sensible by that alone independently of all the Regards of Religion and it is incredible how much Force and Evidence it receives from all the Foundations and Circumstances of Religion of which this New Life which our Souls ought to have out of our Bodies is as it were the Point in View and the only and perpetual Object All the Old and all the New Testament All the Law and all the Gospel Moses and Jesus Christ The Prophets and the Apostles All the Miracles and all the Mysteries have no other Essential Termination and End than this New and Immortal Life of our Souls after our Death Both the Old and the New Testament under the Names of the New World the Future World the Age to come the Life Everlasting the Heavenly Jerusalem do not speak almost of any thing else And these cannot be Fables and Fictions for if they were nothing else but Fables then this Sovereign Power which hath been manifested to the World with a thousand Characters of Wisdom of Holiness of Truth and of Goodness by that Miraculous Train of Prodigious Events which make what we call the Holy History and the Body of Religion must have laboured for above these Six thousand Years to deceive the Word and to laugh at Mankind which is the most impossible thing in the World The Conviction then which is lively and penetrating independently of Religion is yet much more so by Religion The Faithful knows much better than the Philosopher That when this House of Clay which he Inhabits at present shall fall and crumble into Dust He shall pass out of this Melancholy and obscure Habitation into a New and an Heavenly Habitation not made with Mens hands into the proper Habitation and the Eternal Palace where God himself dwells The Philosopher knows it because he knows That the Souls of Men departing from the Body do pass into a New Life full of Darkness or of Light of Happiness or of Misery according as they have rendred themselves worthy in their Bodies either of the Love or the Anger of Him who is essentially the Life and by consequence the Punishment or the Reward of all Intelligent Natures according as they have deserved that He should Act in them and Reward or Punish them Socrates having already the Mortal and Deadly Draught in his Hand spake after this manner Says the Roman Orator and Philosopher That it did not seem to him that they led him to Death but that he was going to mount up to Heaven Cato was Transported with Joy at the sight and at the presence of Death The Wise Man saith Plutarch goes with Pleasure out of the Darkness of the Earth to enjoy in Heaven an Immortal Light with the Gods Have Courage saith this Other Let not Death affright Us since after Death we shall either be Gods or like Gods Let us not fear that our Bodies will bury our Souls under their Ruins When the Heavens shall fall and Corporeal Nature shall entirely perish and disappear There is a necessity that the Spirit which Animates Us and which is the Foundation of our Being must subsist and remain under those Ruins without being hurt or endamaged by them Such is the Conviction and Certainty of the Philosopher But the Faithful is much more enflamed and Transported with this so animated and so lively Certainty and Persuasion He sees with St. Stephen the Heavens open over his Head and he is taken and wrapt up thither like St. Paul with unspeakable Joys and Extasies He hath this Certainty and this Persuasion so lively and so animated by two divers Principles He hath it by the Impression of Faith and of Grace which makes him See and Feel if I may say so this New Life without Reasoning by way of Supernatural Inspiration and Illumination and He hath it when he will Reflect and Reason by an evident Conviction which the Reflection upon the Mysteries and Miracles of Christianity and upon all Religion give him of it for tho' there were none but that Historical single Fact of the Mystery of the Incarnation of God the truth of which is incontestably Established by so many Miracles and so many sensible Convictions it would be impossible to call into doubt that New and Immortal Life of this New State we are speaking of into which our Souls must enter when they go out of our Bodies because it is not possible to conceive That if there was no other for Men but this present Life that God would have become Man upon the Earth to undergo all that Train of humbling and dolorous Mysteries which he hath undergon Since it is certain That if there was no other Life for Men there would be no advantage neither for God nor for Men in those Mysteries which do no wise Regard the present Life but only the Life to come God can do nothing in Vain and in vain would He have bin Born as he was Born in vain would He have Lived as he did Live in vain would He have Died as he did Dye if He had not been Born if He had not Lived and if He had not Dyed to Redeem Men from Eternal Death and to give them that Happy and Immortal Life which the First Man had lost them God Incarnate came not to make this Present Life neither more agreeable nor more fortunate or more happy to Us He came not to spread abroad Treasures and Riches to give Honors and great Employments to Distribute Dignities to give Pleasures to the Senses and to the Cupidinous Desires of this Present Life St. Paul calls him the High Priest of Goods to come and the Prophets who Prophecied of Him called Him the Father of the Ages to come and King of the Future World but I must not enlarge here any more upon this on the contrary I must shut it up and return to the Point we proposed to Illustrate in this Third Part which is The manner how our Souls Are to be out of our Bodies CHAP. II. What is to be Illustrated in this Third Part concerning the Future State of our Souls out of our Bodies and first whether our Souls when they go out of our Bodies do pass into a true Corporeal Place THAT which we already said Teaches Us That our Souls Are and Subsist out of our Body That they Live and have Essential Acts and Proprieties inseparable from their Knowing Nature but we do not learn from thence How our Souls Are out of the Body which is however what we have proposed to Illustrate To satisfie our Curiosity
upon my Heart and for that Reason it is upon It that I strike all my blows I subject my Senses I chastise my Body I make a continual Violence upon my Inclinations for to do otherwise were to beat the Air and to lose both Time and Labour Co-operation then is essential to Salvation which is the most essential Duty of the Order of Time and of Eternity and by consequence of our Present State And this Duty ought more to employ us than the care of our Fortunes and the other interests of our Pasions it ought not to give us one moment of Truce it ought to keep us always in Breath it is for that reason that our Saviour expresses it by the Name of Vigilance it ought effectively to be a perpetual Application to Watch and to stir up our Heart to prepare it and put it into a State capable of receiving this Impression of its proper Glory and its proper Felicity which God would make upon those amongst us whom he shall find disposed to finish and consummate his Divine Resemblance which Nature and Grace began and which his Glory only finisheth CHAP. XVII The Duty of a lively and ardent Desire of a Future Life ALtho' the Co-operation of Salvation doth essentially import a Disesteem of the Present Life and a lively and ardent Desire of the Future yet notwithstanding these two Duties are different in their Foundations since the Duty of Co-operation of Salvation ceasing we do not cease however to be obliged to endure the Present Life with some sort of Impatience and to Sigh after the Future with an ardent and expressive Desire It is Essential to observe and to remark That we ought effectively to be enflamed with a lively and ardent Desire of the Life to come by a true Obligation and a true Duty which we cannot omit or violate without rendring our selves infinitely culpable towards God and worthy of all his Anger and all his Vengeance Here is an Obligation very New for almost all Men who do so love the Present Life that they cannot so much as only comprehend that they can love and desire the Future but this Obligation which appears New to the Carnal Tast of our Terrestrial Love is of the same Date in the Soul of Man as the Obligation of Regarding and seeking God only as the Sovereign Good for since it is but in this Future Life that God is possessed it follows that in as much as we are obliged to have this Love of that Holy Thirst and of that Sacred Concupiscence for God that love of Union and of Possession and of Joy the Duty of which hath been already Established so much are we obliged to Love and Desire with an ardent and impressed Desire the Life to come St. Augustin perfectly understood this Principle for it is for that Reason that he said That he that findeth himself well in this World and would always continue here hath not the least spark of the least perfect Love which all Men ought to have for God And it is upon this Principle that all the other Holy Doctors have decided the same thing They have not only determined that it is an essential Duty in the Heart of Man To Groan and Sigh after the Life to come but they have remarked that therein is the most inseparable Character of the Divine Predestination and of the Impression which the Holy Ghost makes in them to whom he bears witness of the Eternal Election and Adoption of the Heavenly Father Those that are Predestinated say they are the bemoaning and desolate Turtle-Doves who sigh without ceasing after the Celestial Spouse who do's not receive these chast Birds to his chast Embraces but in the Life to come They are the Citizens of the Heavenly Country who look upon themselves as banished upon Earth They are the true Israelites who could find nothing good and agreeable in Babylon and who could not propose to themselves any other Pleasure than that of returning to their dear Jerusalem They are the tender and passionate Children who can find no pleasure out of the Presence and House of their Father They are the judicious Travellers who regard the Places where they pass as Places which they ought not to place their Hearts upon as Places whereat their Hearts ought not to stop since they cannot Rest there themselves They are say the Fathers Stones out of their Quarry and a Fire out of its Sphere They continually throw themselves forwards towards him who allures them with a Charm so sweet in this New Life Their Hearts continually say that which the Lips only Pronounce in the Person of Reprobates in the Prayer which our Saviour the King of the Age to come teacheth us Let thy Kingdom come Such are those who are Predestinated the Citizens and the Children of the Kingdom of Heaven Filii Regni They do not long but after the Future Life which is their Kingdom and that of their Heavenly Father The Reprobates on the contrary they love only the Present Life they do not at all know of any other Goods or other Pleasures than those of the Earth The Dove that went out of the Ark returned to the Ark again because she found no place where she could rest her Feet but the Ravens did not return at all because loving Corruption their Impure Tast engaged them to all the dead Bodies which they found in the way He that is Predestinated groans here because he Suffers and he Suffers because he is separated from God and from His Eternal Delights The Reprobate on the contrary do's wallow in Joys he esteems himself happy he is contented with his false Prosperity because he doth not at all think of God and his Immortal Felicities He hath his Satisfaction and Consolation in this World which obliges the King of the World to come to dart out his Curse and his Compassion upon him in these Terms so violent and so terrible Woe be to you that you have had your Consolation in this World To Love then and to desire the Future Life to Sigh after the coming of the Eternal Kingdom and to return without ceasing from the midst of Babylon towards the Heavenly Jerusalem is an indispensable Duty of the Love of God and of that proper Charity which we owe to our selves and if we do not find in us this Love of the World to Come and this Character of the Divine Predestination we ought to begin there by the Co-operation which we ought to contribute to our Salvation to apply our selves without ceasing to contemplate the Beauty and the Charms of the Eternal World and the advantages of the Future Life above the Present to the end that perpetual Contemplation may purifie our Imaginations that so we may hate our Earthly Tast and imprint the Celestial one upon us which will cause that we shall cease to be those Earthly Men of whom St. Paul speaks upon whom remains the Curse of Adam and that we shall become those
Heavenly Men who being thenceforwards drawn after the lively resemblance of the New Man shall eternally be the perfect Images of his Glory and of his Sovereign Felicity in Heaven CHAP. XVIII A Recapitulation of Moral Consequences drawn from what hath been Established concerning our Souls for the Conviction of our Duties and the Condemnation of our Disorders WE had proposed to add here for a Fourth Part a Recapitulation of all the Moral Consequences which might be drawn from what hath been cleared concerning our Souls in Relation to our Duties and to our Disorders and to have given it by way of an Alphabetical Table And therein to have let you see a Conviction of all our Duties and a solid Establishment of all our Obligations the Shame and Disorder of all our Passions the Rule of all our Sentiments and generally an Universal Conduct for all our Life to come But we were afraid That would have excessively encreased the Volume And we are therefore determined to close up all with a general Consideration of the little esteem which we have for our Souls and with the Condemnation of Five principal Disorders in our Lives which we believe have deserved a particular Reflection How unreasonable we are to make so little an Account of our Souls after so much that hath been already said of them We have shewed that there is in our Souls a Spiritual Nature a Heavenly Origin an Immortal Condition a Divine Quality an Essential Union with God an Everlasting State of Misery or Happiness after a short Trial in this Life We have shewed That they come from God that they are always essentially in God that it is but for a little moment of Time that their Union with the Body suspends their immediate Union with God and that thus they ought quickly to return to God and remain everlastingly in Him We have seen that They are imprinted with so many glorious and eminent Tracts of the Divine Resemblance which have rendred them worthy to be if I may be permitted to say so reclaimed and redeemed so dearly at the Price of the annihilation of all the greatness of a God at the Price of a thousand sorts of Revilings and Humiliations and of all the Merit of his Blood and Life We have seen how they ought to lay aside the deceitful Garment of the present Felicity of the Body as a Theatrical Habit how they ought to change Opinions Tasts and Ideas how all the Spectacle of Time ought to be Effaced and how that of Eternity ought to discover it self to our Eyes how they are to be happy in all the proper licity of God or unhappy according to the Extent of his Power and his Anger And there is not one of these Idea's and of these Circumstances which ought not to serve us for a Light to Enlighten in us a thousand Duties and which on the contrary is not a clear Light to let us see in our selves a thousand Disorders wherewith we ought to be penetrated with Confusion and to Reproach our selves who carrying in us that Foundation of Reason and that Light of the Spirituality of the Eternity and of the Divine Quality of our Souls which we do we ought to guide otherwise than we do our Relishes and our Sentiments our Opinions and our Maxims our Desires and our Affections all our Actions and all our Life Oh the Folly and Disorder Oh the Vanity and Illusion Oh the Charm and Enchantment Oh the Fury and Frensie of Man who bearing an Eternal and Immortal Soul in his Hands doth not know the Price nor the Fragility of the Treasure which he carries but continually strikes it against a thousand Rocks Our Souls are Immortal and Eternal their Nature is not at all Frail and Mortal they ought to last Eternally like God but as their Being and their Nature is durable and solid so is their Happiness and so is their Lot of Eternity nice and uncertain There is no Glass so brittle there is not one moment of the Day wherein we do not strike them against Rocks and Marbles against all the Occasions of Sin and Ruine which present themselves We do not only hurt them so senselesly and inconsiderately but we Stake this Treasure so inestimable and so infinite against the smallest Pleasures which the furious and implacable Enemy of our Souls can propose and offer to us No King did ever Stake his Kingdom and his Throne upon the Chance of one Dye What do I say No King No Man did ever Stake his Fortune and his Hope tho' never so mean And We do not We continually Stake to Nothingness to Shadows Eternal Thrones and Kingdoms Immortal Hopes and Fortunes David would not have the Pleasure to quench the burning Thirst wherewith he was inflam'd at the peril of the Life of some few of his Soldiers How said he shall I Drink at so dear a Price Shall I hazard Souls for my Thirst And yet We We have no Desire tho' never so senseless we have never so little Thirst which we will not content at the Price of the Eternal Loss of our Souls or at least of the evident danger of that Irreparable Loss What shall we call Fury and Phrensie if this be not O the Folly then and the Disorder O the Madness and Phrensie of our Thoughts and of our Desires of our Relishes and of our Passions if we do not henceforwards guide them by the Knowledge which we have of the Heavenly Origine of the Spiritual Nature of the Immortal Condition of the Divine Quality and of the Everlasting State after this Life of the Immutable Felicity or Misery of our Souls and of all the other Advantages which we have shew'd to be in them Five Moral Consequences in Relation to Five Principal Circumstances concerning the Nobility of our Souls We might draw a thousand particular Instructions and a thousand strong Condemnations of our Disorders from all these Knowledges but since we only intend here to open a Way as it were to the end that every one may be Instructed by himself in his Particular and draw those Consequences which are proper to himself we will only draw Five of them from hence against Five of our most common Disorders which we do not acknowledge for Disorders only which we shall make to Answer to the Five Principal Circumstances of the Dignity and of the Excellence which we have shew'd to be in our Souls We shall draw from the Principle of the Celestial Origine and of the Essential Dependence of our Soul and of our Union with God from the Principle that they proceed from God that they live in God and that they ought necessarily in a short time to retvrn to God the Consequence of a terrible Condemnation of our forgetfulness and of our going astray from God whereof we are so little afraid and wherein we do not acknowledge even the Disorder and the Irregularity We shall draw from the Principle of the Spiritual Nature of our Souls