of other intelligent beings ad infinitum For as you see he would not have so soon an answer seeing 't is no easie matter to find an ultimate in an infinite There must be then an intelligent being that learns in himself and by its self in what moment the thorn pricks us And this intelligent being can be no other than God that is to say a being whose power is infinite and whose will alone is the cause of things For after all there is none but him whose will is efficacious that can see in himself and by himself the existence and the motion of Bodies For it being impossible he should be ignorant of his own will he only can discover within himself the number figure and scituation of bodies and generally whatever happens to them It follows then that all other intelligent beings are enlightned by the Creator And as you see or as you will clearly see if you think on it seriously you should not know that you have a body and that there are others about you if you had not learnt it of him who knows it by himself Do you understand these things Erastus Erast I do plainly Theodorus This is your argument What causes pain is neither the Soul that feels nor the Thorn that pricks but a superior power This power ought at least to know the moment when the thorn pricks he cannot know it from the thorn seeing bodies cannot give any light to spirits they being neither visible nor intelligible by themselves and no relation being to be found between a body and a spirit He can know it then but by himself that is to say by the knowledge of his own will which creates and moves the thorn and whose power is infinite since it is able to create There is then a God and if there was no God I should not be pricked I should feel nothing see nothing and know nothing Theod. Very well But what think you of these reasons Aristarchus Arist Think I think that both you and your echo Erastus talk in the clouds The ground of your proof is that that there is no relation between bodies and spirits From whence you conclude that an Angel cannot see a body immediately and by himself To which I answer that that spirits may know bodies it is sufficient that they penetrate them Theod. What do you mean by penetrating them Certainly Erastus doth not understand you But without asking you explications that perhaps would puzzle and displease you doth your soul penetrate your body your heart or your brain the principal part where she resides Arist I believe it doth Theod. Pray tell me then how your brain is composed or that principal part wherein your soul resides Arist I do not understand Anatomy Theod. How You don't understand Anatomy Must you search in Books or in the head of other men which you do not penetrate to know how the brain which your soul penetrates is compos'd What signifies it then to a spirit to penetrate a body Arist I must confess I have nothing to answer Yet methinks if a spirit penetrates a body he ought to know that body But perhaps there is something that hinders it which I do not understand Theod. If it were so Aristarchus this something would be the God whom we seek I will lose no time to prove it to you For I will not prove the existence of God by imaginary effects You may think on it at your leisure But I rather advise you to make a serious reflection on the things I have told you now and then I hope you will visibly find that there is a God I mean a Being whose Will is Power and Power Infinite since it is able to create You will find that this God doth not walk about the Heavens as the Libertines will have it but that his providence extends it self to all things and that he acts incessantly in us That it is he that gives us the pleasing and painful sentiments we have of sensible objects and that consequently he may make us happy or miserable In short you will know God in the most useful manner for morality You will even confess that God hath made nothing but may serve to demonstrate his existence though 't is more conducing to morality to demonstrate it by something that passes within us One of the reasons why you are not easily brought to be of my mind is that you have perhaps never seriously thought on the things of which we have been speaking For I do not perceive that my proofs are remote or hard to be understood I will be judg'd of it by Erastus And I believe we ought to agree on that point that hereafter you may be prepared on the subjects on which we shall treat Arist It belongs to you Theodorus to set rules for every thing For you know that my resolution is to seek none but such truths as are essential and may make us wiser and more happy I need say no more to you Theod. To this effect Aristarchus I will tell you the course I intend to keep in our Conferences Observe it well that you may think on it at leisure and prepare your self to make me all the Objections you can I believe I have sufficiently demonstrated that there is a God who acts incessantly in us and who may make us happy or unhappy by pleasure and by pain of which he alone is the true cause and therefore I will bring no other proofs of it and will content my self with resolving your difficulties But I will prove to you that the design of God in creating man hath been that man might know and love him that God hath preserved man but to that end In short that that design is so unalterable that sinners and the damned themselves execute it in one sense and that they shall sooner cease to be than they shall wholly cease to know and to love God When I have establisht as a principle that since God acts always for himself we cannot be happy if we resist his will nor unhappy if we obey it I will demonstrate how God will be known and be loved how we can resist his orders and what is yet more â—trange how we are capable to offend him I will show that our nature is corrupted that sin dwells in us that the spirit is a slave to the flesh In short I will explain the cause and the effects of the corruption of nature how our disorders strange us from God and make us his enemies as also our want of a Mediator and Redeemer I will explain the qualities our Redeemer and Mediator ought to have to reconcile us to God and to satifie his justice that Jesus Christ possesses them all and none but him What may cure the blindness of the mind and the malice of our heart That those remedies are to be found in the precepts of the Gospel and the grace of Jesus Christ In fine I will show that none but a God
tell freely what you think of it Erastus Is there any danger or folly in saying that God alone is our light That he alone is the perfection and nourishment of the mind and that we depend from him all manner of ways not only that we may become more happy but also more understanding and perfect Erast I am afraid that Aristarchus will say I am full of fantastick notions if I say that I see all things in God as if I affirmed that one may see God even in this life because whatever is in God is God Theod. There is a difference between seeing the essence of God and seeing the essence of things in God For though we see nothing but God when we see the essence of things in God we see God but by relation to Creatures we see the perfections of God but as they represent another thing than God So that though we see God and can see nothing but him since he preserves spirits for himself only it may in one sense be said that we see nothing but the Creatures For tho God sees nothing but himself 't is certain that he sees the Creatures when he sees what is in himself that represents them Thus though we see God but by an immediate and direct sight we see in God that which represents them for the Creatures are invisible in themselves There is no corporeâ—… nor spiritual Creature can act immediately in the soul and cause it self to be seen by it God shows us whatever we see but 't is in his substance that he shows it us for the Divine Substance alone can give us life enlighten and make us happy We are made to be nourished with that substance and to live by it and if the spirit hath some life I mean if it hath some knowledge for the knowledge of truth is the life of the soul it receives it from and in that substance Whatever God hath done Erastus he hath done it after his Image or according to his Image he hath made the Animals Plants and even the Insects according to the Image or living Idea he hath of them For he hath made all things by his Son by his Word according to the uncreated Wisdom in which all things live But he hath not only made man according to his Image or Wisdom but also for his Wisdom and to contemplate the Eternal Wisdom that includes the Ideas of all things An Impertinent Philosopher Averrois found this fault in the Religion of Christians that they Eat him whom they adore condemning our Communion with the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ whom we receive after we have Worshipped him * Pontificius Loquitur He did not know that the Wisdom of the Father the Word that enlightens and nourishes our Spirit desired to teach us in a sensible manner and by the real Manducation of his Body that he is really our Life and Nourishment and that he hath made our Spirit to know and to love him For our Spirit ought to love but what gives it Life nourishes makes it more perfect and is above it since only this can be his true good If it is certain that our thinking faculty comes from God 't is certain that it is made for God since God Acts only for himself as Aristarchus owns But if we do not see things in God how can it be said that God hath only made and doth only preserve us for himself for after all if Bodies are the immediate object of our Knowledge our Spirit is partly made to see them In what sense can it also be said that God preserves the spirits of Devils and the Damned but for himself if the spirit of those wretches doth not see God in some manner You will tell me they are Dead and that is true in some sense but they perhaps know some truth and if the knowledge of truth is the life of the Soul they are not intirely dead nor annihilated they have yet some union with the eternal Wisdom whose light penetrates into the very abyss They nourish themselves with the word if they have some life left because he alone is life but they are not the happier for it for they wish themselves dead They nourish themselves with a truth they do not rellish they seek darkness and annihilation and wish that this remainder of union with God that enlightens and preserves them maybreak and dissolve it self for ever Arist What do you tell us here Theodore Doth the spirit see nothing but God What! Do we see Errour in God Do the Philosophers see all their Chymera's in God And doth the Father of lies receive from God Theod. Errour cannot be seen Aristarchus 'T is neither visible nor intelligible Truth is a relation that is And what is may be seen There is a relation of equality between two times two and four and this relation may be seen because it is There is a relation of inequality between two times two and five and this relation of inequality may be seen because it is So truth is visible or intelligible but errour is not One cannot see that two times two is five or a relation of equality between two times two and five for there is no such relation of equality One cannot see that two times two is not four nor a relation of inequality between two times two and four for there is no such relation of inequality And thus when men mistake themselves they do not see the relations which they suppose they see When a man mistakes himself he may well see things in God though after an imperfect manner but he doth not see the relations that are between things for those things are and those relations are not I will not here explain the cause of our errour and our different ways of falling into it It hath been done already Erast I own Theodorus that we see in God the eternal truths and immutable laws of Morality A finite and changeable spirit cannot see in himself the eternity of those truths nor the immutability of those laws 't is in God he sees them But he cannot see in God transitory truths and corruptible things since there is nothing in God but what is Immutable and Incorruptible Theod. Yet Erastus God sees all the changes that happen in the world and 't is in himself only he sees them It follows then that he sees in himself whatever is subject to change or corruption though there is nothing in him but is perfectly Immutable and Incorruptible But all this may be explained thus God hath in himself the Idea for example of Extent since he sees it and hath made it and this Idea in Incorruptible 'T was his will there should be extended beings and those beings were produced 'T was also his will that those extended parts should be incessantly moved and communicate naturally their motions to one another Now this communication of motions which cannot be unknown to God it being impossible he should not
Truth doth not always answer our expectation for we do not know how to make our addresses We often ask it questions without knowing what we ask as when we go about to resolve questions whose terms we do not understand We ask it questions and then leave it not waiting for its answers as when Impatience seizes us and our Imagination is displeas'd that we think on things that have no relation to the good of the body We ask it questions and strive to corrupt it as when our Passions move us and we will have its answers to agree with our opinions In short we ask it questions we hear its answers and do not understand them as when our prejudices prepossess our mind and it is fill'd with false Ideas and our Imagination is utterly spoil'd by an infinite number of dark and confus'd notions that continually represent all things to us with respect to our selves Then God speaks and the body also reason and imagination the mind and the senses there arises a confused noise and nothing can be heard Darkness mixes it self with Light and nothing can be seen For we cannot always discern what God tells us Immediately and through himself to unite us to truth from what he tells us through our body to unite us to sensible things The various Imployments of your Life have fill'd your mind with a great number of prejudices that have imprinted on it a certain Character much esteem'd in the world which is but as a Seal that fastens those prejudices on our minds You have read much the Books of certain Scepticks who are proud of doubting of all things and yet speak of them peremptorily and I fear that like them you will have me hereafter prove you common notions and receive as principles opinions altogether unknown to the greatest part of mankind It is also much to be fear'd that your travels have too much disperst your thoughts and given your mind too much of the Court-air to let you hear with attention some things altogether unknown amongst Travellers and Military men You do not believe at present that your Studies and Travels have corrupted your reason and prepossess'd you with many unreasonable opinions You have some cause not to believe it and I will not undertake to convince you of it yet But that hereafter we may reconcile our differences let us take for a third a young man whom the conversation of the World hath not yet spoilt that Nature alone may speak in him and we may find who of us two is prepossess'd Methinks Erastes who heard us t'other day would be very fit for this I observ'd by his countenance that he often consulted within himself to examine our sentiments with those of his Conscience and always approv'd of the most reasonable tho he us'd to stand as it were amaz'd and surpriz'd without judging of any thing when ever he heard you relate certain things which you have read in Books Arist You do him a great deal of honour at my cost but I can find no fault with it that young man is so lovely that besides the tye of blood I have all the reason in the world to be glad of the esteem you have of his Wit I freely consent But here he comes in very good time Erastes Gentlemen will you be pleas'd to do me the same favour you did me lately Will you give me leave to stay here Arist With all our hearts Erastus we were thinking to send for you I have just now told you my resolution Theodorus and you approve of it Let us Philosophize I pray you but let it be after a Christian and solid manner Instruct me of the Truths that are essential and most capable of rendering us happy How would you prove that there is a God for I believe that 't is by this we ought to begin Theod. The Existence of God may be prov'd a thousand ways for there is nothing but may serve to demonstrate it and I wonder how a person of your parts so well read in Antiquity and so accomplisht every way seems not to be convinc'd of it Arist I am convinc'd of it by Faith but I must confess I am not fully convinc'd of it by Reason Theod. If you speak as you think you are convinc'd of it neither by reason nor by Faith For do you not know that the assurance of Faith comes from the authority of a God that speaks and who can never deceive us If then you are not convinc'd by reason that there is a God how will you be convinc'd that he hath spoke Can you know that he hath spoke without knowing that he is And can you know that the things which he hath reveal'd us are true without knowing that he is Infallible and never deceives us Arist I do not examine things so narrowly and the reason why I believe it is because I will believe it and that I have been told so all my life But let us see your proofs Theod. Your Faith hath much of the man in it and your answers shew much Indifference I design'd to give you the most simple and natural proofs of the Existence of God but I find by the disposition of your mind they would not be the most convincing You must have sensible proofs Here are many things about us which of them shall I make use of to prove you that there is a God Shall it be this Fire that delights us this Light that illuminates us the nature of Words by whose means we discourse together for as I told you just now there is nothing but may serve to shew the existence of its Author provided we consider it with all possible attention God acts incessantly in and by all his works 'T is he that illuminates us by this outward light that delights us by the warmth of this fire and discourses with us when we think we converse together God neither produces nor preserves any creature but which may cause those to know him who make good use of their reason I will convince you of it presently In the mean time Erastus take heed that neither of us prepossess you Answer me Aristarchus What doth Fire do in you Arist It warms me Theod. Then Fire causes a pleasure in you Arist I own it Theod. What causes in us some pleasure makes us in some measure happy Arist It is true Theod. Then what makes us in some manner happy is in some manner our good and in some manner above us and deserves in some manner love and veneration What think you of it Erastus is Fire in some manner above you Can Fire act in you Can it cause in you a pleasure it hath not it feels not it knows not and cause it in you that is to say in a Spirit in a being infinitely above it Erast I do not think so Theod. See then Aristarchus what you have to answer Arist You conclude too fast And I see what you drive at I distinguish Fire
truth he could not bear a little while before Arist I give you thanks for this advice Theodorus and will certainly make good use of it the Impatience which is excited within me by the hopes of being serviceable to my friend obliges me to break off our Conversation I must satisfie my self Theod. I commend your zeal and the sincerity of your friendship be of good heart Aristarchus I wish you may return satisfy'd and you Erastus be careful to have in your mind the things that we have said and to discourse about them with Aristarchus as soon as he comes back DIALOGUE III. Of the Order of Nature in the Creation of Man Theod. WEll Aristarchus you have converted your man Erastus told me just now all that past between you and him I even know that he desires to be your Disciple and to have an account of our following conferences Be pleas'd then for his sake to apply your self so that you may demonstrate all things to him with some exactness Arist You take the right way to ingage me for I am extreamly sensible to friendship and methinks my desire to know truth is doubled by the design I have to impart it to my friend Let us go on then I beseech you I am perswaded that there is a God that is to say a Being infinitely perfect whose wisdom and power have no bounds and whose providence extends it self not only to us but even to the atoms of matter I remember your proofs and am convinc'd of them Theod. I can demonstrate nothing of true Religion nor of true Morality till I know what God designs in the creation and preservation of our being Arist You must seek some other principle Theodorus My friend is a Cartesian his Philosophy doth not admit final causes and tho he is now convinc'd that there is a God he will not fail to tell me that we ought not to presume so much of our selves as to believe that God hath been pleas'd to make us privy to his counsels Theod. Your friend will never say this to you if he be a good Cartesian The knowledge of final Causes is of little or no use in Natural Philosophy as Descartes pretends But it is absolutely necessry in Religion Can you obey God if you do not know his will and can you hope to please him and that he will make you happy except you be obedient to him â—… may be you imagine that we can know nothing of Gods design on men by Reason but you are mistaken Do not think too much on your friend Pray think on what I am going to tell you You are perswaded that God is wise and ascribe to him all the perfections whereof you have some Idea God therefore loves most what is most lovely and so must love himself more than all things and be to himself the end of all his actions And by consequence the end of the Creation and preservation of our being It follows then that the faculty by which we know that is to say our Mind and that whereby we love which is our will 〈◊〉 made and preâ—…ved to know and to love God supposing as you do not doubt it they have been made to know and to love Do you find any darkness in what I have told you Pray think on it 't is the ground of all we shall â—ay hereafter Arist All this seems to me as evident as the most certain principles of Natural Philosophy Theod. It hath even more certainty the communication of motion is certain as experience teaches us nevertheless this communication might not be and it will in all likelihood cease after the resurrection that our bodies may be incorruptible but it shall never cease to be the will of God that we know and love him Since then this seems to be plain to you how can it happen that there be men that neither know nor love God since God preserves them but to know and love him Do you think it possible to resist God and that God hath any love for Spirits who have no knowledge of him nor any love for him Do you think God preserves them and do you not know that if God should cease to love them they should be no more Arist I begin to doubt of your principle for you draw some very sad consequences from it Theod. 'T is very strange Aristarchus you should doubt of things of which you have an evidence Will you always forget that light ought to be preferred to darkness and that clear truths are not to be forsaken because we find some difficulty in clearing some dark objections Learn to distinguish truth from what seems to be so and observe that what I objected to you just now is true in one sense and false in another For there is no man but knows and loves God in one sense as you will see it hereafter Therefore stick firmly to this truth that God hath made and preserves spirits but to know and love him And this truth being granted since it is evident endeavour to discover how it may be conceiv'd that all spirits know and love God for that is of the greatest consequence I will put some questions to Erastus that I may insensibly lead you to that truth Do you think Erastus that Spirits can see Bodies Or rather do you think that this material and sensible world can be the immediate object of the mind Do you think that bodies can act in the mind make themselves visible to the mind or enlighten it Erast I do not think it Theod. What then do you see immediately when you see the material and visible world Erast I see If I may say so the Intelligible World Theod. How when you look upon the Stars do you not see the Stars Erast When I look upon the Stars I see the Stars when I look upon the Stars of the material world I see the Stars of the intelligible world and judge that those material Stars are like those of the intelligible world I see For the Sun that I see is sometimes bigger and sometimes less and is never bigger than an intelligible Circle of two or three foot diameter but the material Sun is always the same and according to the sentiment of some Astronomers about thirty thousand times bigger than the Earth 't is not then this Sun I see when I am looking upon it Theod. But Erastus where is this intelligible world which you see Do you think to include it within your self Do you think your soul comprehends in an intelligible manner all the beings that God can make and you can see Can your Soul whose bounds are too narrow whose perfections are finite and who certainly doth not include all things see all things by reflecting on herself Erast I do not think it but I dare not tell you my opinion I imagine that there is none but God that includes the intelligible world and that we see in God whatever we see Theod. But why are you afraid to
actually dividing the capacity he hath to think and lessning the knowledge of his duty without being removed by it out of God's presence in short without weakning by little and little his love and his fear insomuch that actual pleasure seems a Reason or sufficient Motive to love what is not worthy of our love Adam ought to have remained fixt and unmoveable in the presence of God and not have suffered the capacity of his spirit to be divided by all those pleasures that were in perfect subjection to his Will and used only to warn him of what he was to do for the preservation of his life and as he should so he could have done it And had he made a good use of his Free-will during the time prescrib'd for a Reward he should have been confirm'd in his Righteousness not only by a more clear knowledge of God's continual operation on him but by a sensible knowledge which invincibly fixes on God all Spirits naturally desiring to be happy For the Saints do not only see by a Far-fetch'd and Metaphysical Sight that God alone is capable of acting in them and making them happy But they also feel it by an â—nspeakable comfort which God diffuses in them which â—enetrates them and unites them with him so strongly â—hat they cannot forsake him to love any thing else I speak of those things according to the present â—nowledge of human understanding and do not preâ—end always to certifie the truth or existence of things when I answer to what may be objected to me my â—tmost Design is to prove their Possibility Arist This is sufficient Theodore But how would â—ou explain the Transmission of Original Sin and the â—eneral Disorder of human Nature For it is our Soul â—hat hath sinn'd and is corrupt How comes it to â—e possible that coming from the hands of God they â—row corrupt as soon as they are united to Bodies Theod. Our Soul is made to love God She keeps â—n the Order of her Creation when she loves him that â—s to say when the motion which God gives her carries â—er towards him in the Sense that I explain'd it to you yesterday On the contrary she strays from the Order when having a motion sufficient to reach to God she stops at some particular good and thus hinders God's Act in her I do not believe it can be conceiv'd that she can be orderly or disorderly another way If then I demonstrate that by reason of the Union which Children have with their Mother the Soul of Children is by necessity turn'd towards Bodies that their Soul loves only Bodies and all her motion confines it self to some sensible thing from the moment she is form'd I shall have demonstrated the cause of the general disorder of Nature and how we are all born in Sin I prove it thus There is no Woman but hath in her Brain some Impression that represents to her sensible things either because she actually sees Bodies or receives her nourishment from them You do not doubt of this for after all we must at least eat to live and we cannot eat but our Brain receives some Impression of it since we remember it There happens also no Impression in the Brain without being follow'd by some Emotion in the Spirits which doth incline the Soul to the love of the thing that is present to the mind at the time of that Impression that is to say to the love of this or that Body for Bodies only can act on the Brain See the 7th Chapter of the 2d Book of the Inquiry after Truth In short there is no Woman but hath in her Brain some steps and vestiges or some motion of Spirits which makes her think and carries her to sensible things Now when the Child is in his Mother's Womb he feels the same Impression and Emotion of Spirits with his Mother therefore in that state he knows and loves Bodies The daily Instances we have of Children that fear or abhor those things that frighted their Mother whilst they were with Child sufficiently shews that they have had the same Impression and consequently the same Idea's and Passions as their Mothers since they sometimes never saw since they were born those things which they so much abhor And those Instances even shew us that the Impressions and Agitations are greater and consequently the Idea's and Passions more lively in Children than in their Mothers since they remain affected with them and oftentimes their Mothers no more remember it I perceive Erastus that you wonder to hear me say that Children see imagin and desire the same things with their Mothers Erast I must own that this amazes me but it seems to me demonstrated however there being holy Women and full of the love of God how come their Children to be Sinners Theod. It is because the love of God doth not communicate itself like the love of Bodies the reason whereof is that God is not sensible and that there are no steps in the Brain that by the institution of Nature do represent God nor any of those things that are purely intelligible A Woman may well represent to herself God in the Form of a Reverend old Man but whilst she thinks on God her Child shall think on an old Man when she loves God her Child will love old Men and this love of old Men doth not a justify All the Vestiges in the Brains of Mothers communicate themselves to Children But the Idea's that are join'd to those Vestiges by the Will of Man or by the Identity of Time and not by Nature do not communicate themselves to them for Children in the Womb are not as knowing and holy as their Mothers Erast But Theodore Children are not free I own they love Bodies but they cannot hinder themselves from loving them How then are they Sinners How are they corrupt Theod. Their Sin is not of their own chusing nor free and voluntary yet they are corrupt For all Spirits that are averse from God and inclin'd towards corporeal Beings do not follow God's Orders if it be true that God will be loved more than Bodies Concupiscence is not a Sin in virtuous persons because there is in them a love of choice that opposes it Concupiscence doth not reign in them but it reigns in Children their natural love is bad and they have no other When two sorts of loves are to be found in a heart God regards only that love which is free so Dreams are not sinful in pious Men because the love of choice that went before leaves in the Soul a disposition that carries and turns her towards God But in a Child who was never turned towards God nothing but his Nature and what God has fixt in him by the Decree of his first Will can be good he is a Child of wrath and must of necessity be damned For it cannot be conceived that God will ever reward the disposition of his heart except you also conceive that God
also by what he said to me Yesterday when I was come back from my Friend's Would you have me give you some account of it Theod. You will oblige me we are always very fond of knowing the last Words of those that leave us Arist Erastus never exprest himself with more Eloquence and Happiness of Thought He told me among other Things that Man is not only united to his own Body but also to all those that surround him that our Passions diffuse our Soul into all sensible Objects as our Senses diffuse it through every part of the Body and that those who launch into the wide World continually running after Riches Pleasures and Honours dissipate and lose themselves by being disperst as it were out of themselves While they fancy that they enlarge their own Being they weaken themselves and become Slaves to those whom they would command And while they encrease their Power on the Bodies that surround them they lose that which they have on the Truth that penetrates them Let me consider said he how Man comes to be sensible Out of his Brain certain Nerves are emitted whose infinite number of Branches are disperst over all the Parts of his Body These Nerves or Fibres which correspond to the Seat of the Soul agitate her as soon as they are stirred they disperse her through all the Parts into which they insinuate themselves and whatsoever happens in the Body breaks her Quiet and disturbs her Now let me examine the Condition which that Man is in who is led by his Passions and fasten'd to every Thing Out of his Heart some Bonds may in one sense be said to be emitted and thence their strings are disperst through all sensible Objects These Strings are no sooner stirr'd by the Motion of those Objects but his Heart is also mov'd If these Objects are remov'd at some distance his Heart must follow or be torn In short his Soul disperses her self by the Means of these Tyes through whatever surrounds him just as she diffuses her self by the Means of Nerves over every Part of the Body When a Man inconsiderately gives himself up to the Commerce of the World the Tyes of his Heart fasten him to a Thousand Objects which only serve to make him wretched and if he be mad enough to have a real Love for those Objects or to be pusst up with his new Greatness he is said he to me like those who would be proud of a Dropsie or of Wens or Bunches that swell their Body to a bigger Bulk than ordinary Do you think continued he that the Souls of Gigantic Men are greater than those of other Men They have indeed a larger Body and can put a greater Mass of Matter into Motion but if you examine them well you 'll find that their Motions are more irregular The very Horses and Elephants are stronger than they and more bulky and if these Men measur'd the Greatness of their Soul by that of their Body they would make themselves universally ridiculous Yet it were a juster Thing to measure the Greatness of the Soul by that of the Body than by that of Riches and Honours For after all our Body is more our own than our Wealth and we are more united to it than we are to our Clothes our House or our Lands How foolish and vain then are not Men when they pretend to grow greater by being disperst out of themselves Truely cry'd he Imaginary Greatness makes Men become very miserable Creatures Every thing offends them every thing disturbs them every thing holds them fast And can Men in a perpetual Hurry and as it were wounded in every Part be able to Think Can they be able to cleave to Truth for which alone they are made with which alone they can be nourish'd and through which alone they can grow more wise and more happy They are commonly mad stupid thoughtless Creatures void of Light and Understanding Do you think added he that the Voluptuous and those who continually strive to extend their Slavery by enlarging the Bounds of their Commands do so much as know that they are not made for Bodies nor for a Time and that they are not on Earth barely to live there Alas they know nothing of this they do not perceive that Bodies are inferiour to them uncapable of acting on them and altogether unworthy of their Love As they have not yet felt the Sting of Death they cannot strictly be said to know they shall dye Their Tongues indeed say they must and they believe it but they do not know it They think they shall be no more but they do not know they shall dye What vast difference is there not between seeing and seeing 'T is but a very little while since I know that I am not made for Corporeal Beings that the Figure of this World passeth away that the true Good of Spirits is a Spiritual Good and even since I know what it is to dye Nay as my Understanding is but small I have too been obliged to think with my utmost application to comprehend these Truths Before this I thought of Death what my Eyes discover'd to me of it and scarce any thing more And if I had not been in a greater Capacity of applying my self to thinking than those who are in the Hurry of Business or a hunting after Pleasure I must confess I had not known what I believe is unknown to great Numbers of Men. The application of the Mind produces Light and discovers Truth The sight of Truth gives perfection to the Mind and regulates the Heart Such an application is then necessary But can a Man when he is pull'd and drawn on all sides struck and wounded every where thrust back when he would get forwards dragg'd forwards when he would go back and continually disturb'd and misus'd can such a Man I say think with application Can a Man who fears every thing yet desires hopes for and runs after every thing think on what he does not see Truth is distant and not sensible nor is it a Good which we find our selves press'd to love We must seek it if we would find it But we may still put off the Search for it never wholly leaves us On the contrary Bodies cause themselves to be felt every Moment press us to love them and continually oblige us to cleave to them for they are transitory and leave us as soon as they have tempted us So because Opportunity when lost is not easily recover'd Men are quickly determin'd to enjoy them but as for Truth they put off from time to time the applying of themselves to it because it never leaves them nor causes it self to be felt and for that reason it does not press them to love it How happy are those added he who wait for Eternity in Deserts and who finding themselves too weak to preserve the Freedom of their Mind and the purity of their Imagination against the Efforts and Malignity of sensible Objects have bravely
Injustice My Being is in a manner the Being of God and my Time is properly God's Time for I am more God's than my own or rather I am not at all my own nor do I subsist by my self and yet I neither live nor employ God's Time but for my self Alas how do I deceive my self O my God all that Time which I do not employ for thee I cannot be said to employ it for my self and I can neither seek nor find my self but by seeking and finding thee The Second Consideration MAN in himself is nothing but Weakness and Infirmity He cannot desire Good in general but by vertue of a continual Impression from God who does incessantly turn and force him towards himself for God is that indefinite and universal Good which comprehends all other good things Man is also not able by himself to desire any Particular Good but only so far as he is capable of determining the Impression which he receives from God Man is utterly unable to do Good but through a new supply of Grace which illuminates him by its Light and attracts him by its Sweetness for by himself he is only able to Sin He could not so much as move his Hand if God did not communicate to his Blood and to the Aliment by which he is nourished a part of that Motion which he has spread through the whole Mass of Matter and afterwards determine the Motion of the Spirits according to the different Acts of the impotent Will of Man by guiding them towards the Pipes of the Nerves which the Man himself does not so much as know A Man indeed may desire to move his Hand but 't is God alone that can and knows how to move it For if Man did not eat and if that which he eats were not digested and agitated in his Entrails and Heart to be afterwards turn'd to Blood and Spirits without expecting the Orders of his Will or if these Spirits were not guided by a knowing Hand through a Million of different Tubes it would be in vain for Man who is ignorant of his own Body to desire to put it into Motion The Elevation of the Soul to GOD. O GOD let me never forget that without thee I can neither desire nor do any thing not even so much as move the smallest Member of my Body Thou O God art all my Strength in thee do I place all my Hope and Confidence Do thou cover me with shame and confusion and fill me with inward remorse if ever I shall be guilty of so much Ingratitude and Presumption as to lift up that Arm against thee which owes even that Motion which I seem to give it rather to the invincible Power of thy Will than to the feeble Efforts of mine The Third Consideration MAN in himself is nothing but Darkness He does not produce in himself those Ideas by which he perceives all things for he is not his own Light and since Philosophy teaches me that the Objects cannot form in the Mind those Ideas by which they are represented it must be acknowledg'd that 't is God alone who enlightens us He is that great Sun which penetrates all things and fills them with his Light and that Great Master who instructs every Man that comes into the World All that we see we see in him and in him we may see all that we are capable of seeing For since God includes the Ideas or likenesses of all Beings and we also are in him for in him we live move and have our Being 't is certain that we see or may successively see all Beings in him He is that intelligible World in which all Spirits are and in which they perceive the Material World which is neither visible nor intelligible by it self The Elevation of the Soul to GOD. O GOD to whom I owe all my Thoughts thou Light of my Soul and of my Eyes without whom the Sun himself in all his Glory would be invisible to me make me ever sensible of thy Power and my Weakness thy Greatness and my Meanness thy Light and my Obscurity and in a word what thou art and what I am The Fourth Consideration MAN by himself is insensible and in a manner Dead The Body cannot act upon its own Soul A Sword indeed may pierce me and cause some alteration in the Fibres of my Flesh but I perceive clearly that it cannot make me suffer Pain A harmonious sound may first shake the Air and then the Fibres of my Brain but my Soul cannot be shaken by it My Soul is far above my Body neither is there any necessary Relation between those two Parts of my self On the other hand I find that Pleasure Pain and all my other Sensations are produced in me without any dependency upon me and oftentimes even in spight of all my endeavours to the contrary And therefore I cannot doubt but that there is a Being different from my Soul which inspires it with Life and Sensation and I know no other Power but that of God which is able to act thus upon his Creatures 'T is he then who is the Soveraign of the Soul and can only punish or reward it The Elevation of the Soul to GOD. O GOD since I live but by thee make me also to live only for thee and may I be insensible of all things but the love of thee O God make me sensible that none of all the Creatures can either hurt me or do me good That there is not one among them all that can make me feel either Pleasure or Pain That I ought neither to scar nor love them That thou alone O my God deservest both my love and fear because thou art only able to reward me with the Joys of thy Elect or punish me with the Torments of the Reprobate O my chaste Delight thou Author of Nature and cause of all the Pleasures that I feel thou knowest that these very Pleasures instead of uniting me to thee who alone canst make me sensible of them chain me like a wretched Slave to the Earth Grant I beseech thee that I may never more be so violently assaulted by them in the use of those things which thou hast forbidden Scatter a holy dread and a wholesome bitterness on the Objects of my Senses that I may be able to disengage my self from them and let me feel in thy love those unutterable delights of thy Grace which may unite me closer to thee Grant that the sweetness which I taste in loving thee may augment my love and that my love may renew the sense that I have of thy sweetness May I grow thus in Charity till at last being full of thee and empty of my self and every thing else I may re-enter and lose my self in thee O my All as in the Fountain of all Beings May that Word God shall be All in All be entirely accomplished on me and may I find my self and all things else in thee Of MAN Considered as the Son of a
in my soul a knowledge of instinct nor any other I cannot tell if you are satisfied Arist But little truly Theod. Shall I tell you why you are not well satisfied 'T is because Erastus hath made a clear and evident answer to an Objection that was not so If you clearly understood what you object Erastus would answer you both clearly and quickly If hereafter you desire to receive from him more satisfaction than you have had hitherto consider well what you intend to ask him He cannot answer you speedily and clearly when he doth not understand you and you do not even understand your self He uses all his endeavours not to answer but when he hath consulted inward truth and had its answer but it never answers him when he doth not know what he asks Yet you would have him give you an answer and that speedy too If he made you any he would deceive you for it would be his answer and not Truths you should receive I will still put some questions to him that you may observe the method I think is proper to go about it and that his answers may instruct you of the Truth we seek I have obliged my self Erastus to prove the existence of God by the effects which fire seems to produce in us but to do it 't is of the greatest consequence to know that 't is not the soul that causes in her self her own sensations See if you have not still some other proof I do not say more solid but more able to convince Aristarchus Think on it Why do you sometimes suffer a pain Do you delight in it Erast I understand you Theodorus I am not to my self the cause of my happiness nor of my misery If I was the cause of the pleasure I feel seeing I love it I should always produce some in me And on the contrary if I was the cause of the pain I suffer seeing I hate it I would never produce it in my self I perceive that there is a superiour cause that acts on me and may make me happy or unhappy Since I cannot act on my self and that bodies produce not in me the sensations which I feel as we said just now Arist You have it not right Erastus you love your Body you either know or feel that there happens some good or ill to it you either rejoyce or are afflicted at it The one is your pleasure and the other your pain Erast What ever Aristarchus says to me puzzles me and throws me into darkness I beg of you Theodorus to disperse it Theod. I do not wonder at it Erastus Whatever he tells you is false or full of obscurity yet seems probable enough Will you never retire within your self Aristarchus How can you conceive I pray you that Erastus loves his body Whatever is within Erastus that is able to love is better than the body of Erastus Erastus knows it His Body cannot act on his Soul he knows it his Body cannot be his Good he knows that too it cannot be properly said then that he loves it But here lies the riddle Erastus loves pleasure more than his body and he resents pleasure when his body is well dispos'd 'T is that obliges him to mind his body and to defend it when any thing offends it Do you think the Drunkards love their body when they gorge it with Wine Do you think the Libertines love their body when they ruine their health Is it not rather because they love the present pleasure Do those who mortifie their body love it when they tear it or do you believe they hate it What is it then they love but the pleasures they hope one day to enjoy What do they hate on the contrary but the everlasting torments they fear to suffer Thus you may see that Erastus doth not cause in himself his pleasure because he finds or is sensible that the body he loves is well dispos'd For he doth not even know that his body is in a good state by any other thing than by the pleasure he hath by it It is true that when we feel by pleasure or by pain that our body is well or ill dispos'd we are affected with joy or grief but if you think on it seriously you will easily perceive that this grief and joy that are the effects of our knowledge differ mightily from those antecedent pains and pleasures of which we speak Therefore they must have some other cause than our selves Do you grant it Arist I am now convinced of it Theod. Now this cause must be superior and always present to us since it acts within us This cause can punish or reward us make us happy or unhappy since pleasure delights us and pain displeases and makes us uneasie If then this Cause were God we should know that God doth not only rule the motions of the heavens But that he hath a hand in our concerns rules whatsoever passes in us and that in order to our happiness we ought to fear him love him and follow his orders For since he makes continual applications to us he requires something from us and if we do not perform what he requires from us 't is not likely that he should reward us and make us happy Arist I own it But how would you prove that it is not some Angel or Demon that hath the Government of us and acts on us How would you prove that there is a Being infinitely powerful and who includes in his being all the perfections imaginable This seems to me very difficult Theod. It is difficult by the method I have taken but when we acknowledge a superior power that acts in us we have not much difficulty to consider him as Soveraign and to allow him all the perfections of which we have some idea Nevertheless I must endeavour to convince you fully Mind me also Enastus As soon as we are prick'd with a Thorn we feel pain This pain doth not proceed from the Thorn nor from the Soul you grant all this it proceeds then from a superior power This power ought to know the moment when the Thorn pricks our body that he may in the same moment produce the pain in our soul But how shall he know it Think on it He cannot know it from us for we know nothing of it yet Nor from the Thorn for the Thorn cannot act on the spirit of that power nor represent it self to him for the Thorn is neither visible nor intelligible by it self there being no relation between bodies and intelligent beings Whence then shall this superior power learn the moment when the Thorn pricks us If you tell me that he shall know it from some other intelligent being I will ask you the same questions of the second intelligent being and if you fly to a third you will get no more by it Yet in the very instant when we are pricked we feel pain The superior cause must then have learnt that the Thorn pricks us without the help
know his will that causes it is the principle of the mutability corruption and generation of all different bodies Thus God sees in himself the corruption of all things though he is incorruptible for whilst he sees in his wisdom the incorruptible Ideas he sees in his will all corruptible things since nothing happens but is done by him Now I will tell you how we see all those things in God All ideas and immutable truths we see in him As for transitory truths we do not know them in the will of God as God himself doth for his will is unknown to us But we know them by the sentiment God causes in us at their presence Thus when I see the Sun I see the Idea of a circle in God and have in my self the sentiment of light which denotes to me that this Idea represents something that is created and actually extent But I have this sentiment from none but God who certainly can cause it in me since he is Almighty and sees in the Idea he hath of my Soul that I am capable of sentiment Thus in all our sensible knowledge of corruptible things there is pure Idea and sentiment the Idea is in God the Sentiment in us but God alone is the true Cause of both The Idea represents the Essence of the thing and the sentiment only makes us believe that it exists since it disposes us to believe that the thing causes it in us because it is then present to our mind and not the will of God which alone causes that sentiment in us Arist I own that God can enlighten us and show us in himself all the Ideas we have of things But why should you have your recourse to this last refuge At least explode the sentiments of Philosophers upon that subject that I may the better convince my friend for without doubt I shall find him prepossessed with some opinion or other differing from yours Theod. It hath been done already by the Author of the Inquiry after Truth * Lib. 3. But if your friend finds fault with me for having a recourse to God and the first cause to explain some certain things you may tell him that there are two kinds of natural effects The Particular and the General it is ridiculous to have recourse to the general cause to explain particular effects but 't is as much amiss to seek some particular cause to explain the general For example if I am asked why Linnen becomes dry when 't is exposed to fire I will not answer like a Philosopher if I say that God will have it so for 't is sufficiently known that whatever happens is by his will 'T is not the general cause is demanded but the particular cause of a particular effect I ought then to say that the small particles of the fire or the agitated wood striking against the linnen impart their motion to the particles of water that are in it and loosen them from the linnen and I shall have given the particular cause of the particular effect But if one ask'd me why the particles of the wood agitate those of the water or why bodies communicate their motion to those they meet I should not be a Philosopher did I seek some particular cause of that general effect I ought to have recourse to the general cause that is to the Will of God and not to some particular faculties or qualities Now 't is acknowledged that the effect is general and that consequently we must have recourse to the general cause when thesame effect hath no necessary connexion with what seems to be its cause as it happens in the communication of motion for the mind sees no necessity why a body that presses upon another should push it forwards rather then recoil it self If then your friend pretends to explain to you the nature and original of Ideas by the scientific terms of innate or visible species of external or internal senses of the common apprehensions of the active or passible intellect you may let him know that when a body changes its situation or figure there is no necessity that there be a new thought in a spirit And that therefore we must go to the general cause which alone can reconcile things that have no necessary relation with one another I will lose no time in solving all the difficulties you or your friend may find concerning what I have told you now You will perhaps find them solv'd in the third book of the Inquiry after Truth Let us come to the will of man I will explain it to you God only making and preserving us for himself incessantly moves us towards him that is to say towards good in general or towards what we conceive to include all good He even moves us towards particular good without removing us from himself because he includes that good in the infinity of his being For as spirits see none but him in the sense that I have explained he may incline us towards whatever we see though he hath made us for himself alone But we ought to observe that he inclines us invincibly and necessarily towards good in general because as the love of good in general can never be bad it was not to be free But as the love of particular good though good in it self may be bad it was to be in our power to consent to or withstand its motion Arist But how can the love of particular good be bad Theodorus We only love what we see we see nothing but God therefore we love nothing but God when it seems we love the Creatures how then can our love be bad Theod. We love nothing but God Aristarchus for God preserves us only to love him But our love is bad when it is not regulated Or rather our love is always good absolutely and in it self but it is not relatively good Our love is always good in it self for we can never love what seems bad to us We can love but what we believe to be good and lovely since 't is God that makes us love and that we love none but him because we love nothing but what we see in him But our love is bad relatively because we love too much those things that are least lovely in short because instead of loving God in himself we love him with relation to his Works for loving only what we see we love God but only as he represents a vile creature and not according to what he is in himself God allows us to love what is in him that represents a creature for that is good but he will not have us to fix there the motion of our love He would have us to love whatever he includes He would be belov'd according to the Idea of Being in general of Being infinitely perfect and soveraignly lovely which Idea hath no relation but to himself and represents nothing that is out of him Nothing but the Idea of the infinite good ought to stop the motion of
our love and we are so free in the love of finite good that we even feel the secret reproaches of our reason when we fix our selves on it Because he that made us for himself speaks to us that we may turn to him and give no bounds to the motion of love which he incessantly produces in us All the motion that the soul hath towards good comes from God and God only acting for himself all the motion of the soul hath no other end nor bound than God in the Institution of Nature God presenting to spirits no other Idea but himself since he hath made spirits for himself All the motion of our wills is towards him since wills move themselves towards those things only which the spirit perceives But men thinking that they see creatures in themselves the consent they give to the motion that God imprints in them ends in the creatures and it may be said with a great deal of truth that the free will of men or their consent to the motion they receive from God tends to the creatures though the natural motion of their love can tend only to God By this you see Aristarchus that God preserves spirits for himself only that the faculties they enjoy to know and love know and love none but him that sinners do not overturn the laws of nature that they are inviolable and that this general principle of Religion and Morality viz. That God hath made us for himself is undeniable Arist But if the order of nature is that we know and love God and if we cannot resist that order since the motion of our love for the creatures tends of necessity towards the Creator how can it be said that we really offend God Theod. It may be said for many reasons God incessantly moves spirits towards good either general or particular for all good is to be beloved He invincibly moves them towards general good but 't is otherwise with the impression he gives them towards particular good God doth not limit towards that good the act which he produces in them For if we observe it duely we sufficiently perceive that in the very time when we fix on some finite good we have some motion to go further if we will So we offend God by stopping his act and not letting him act in us according to the full extent of his act The reason why God moves us towards good is because it moves us towards him and he moves us towards himself because he loves himself 'T is then the love of God to himself that produces our love in us Therefore our love ought to be like to that which God bears to himself But it is not like it when it concenters in a particular good it is then unworthy of the cause that hath produced it and it may be said to be displeasing to him Order is certainly the essential and necessary Will of God according to which and by which he wills whatever he wills for God loves order he wills nothing but order his will always follows order But a creature who loves more those things that are less lovely thwarts order withdraws himself from it and even overthrows it as much as he is capable of it He resists then to the will of God and so deserves to come into the order of his justice since he leaves that of his goodness which is the first and most natural God alone can act in the soul and cause in her some pleasure And by his decree or general will that makes the order of nature 't was his desire that pleasure should attend certain motions in the body So those that produce in their body these motions without reason even against the secret reproaches of their reason oblige God in consequence of his general will to renumerate them by pleasing sentiments even in the very time when they ought to be punished They therefore use violence against his justice and offend him But they only use this violence by the love they have for particular good So this love offends God For all those who love their pleasure without minding the true cause that produces it offend that cause since God never causes pleasure with an intent that we should fix on it but rather that we may love the cause that produces the pleasure and that we may unite with the thing that determines that cause to produce it You see therefore Aristarchus that God is offended when we fix the motion of love he causes in us on particular good But though you might not see it you cannot doubt but it is so for when we confine our love to some particular good we feel an inward check in the secret of our reason and a just check is a mark of infidelity against him that causes it those checks or reproaches can proceed but from a general cause since they are generally to be found in all mankind and must therefore be just since they are caused by a just God and this just God is offended when we confine our love to particular good This single Argument is sufficient for 't is unnecessary to seek metaphysical proofs of a thing whereof we are convined by inward sentiments that is by a light which strikes through the blindest and by a punishment that stings the most hardened sinners Arist I believe all this and I pray you to go on Theod. If you believe all this Aristarchus you may see your friend ask him at first if he desires to be happy Show him that none but God can act and cause in him that pleasure he loves so much and that renders him the more happy the greater it is Let him know that God is just that he will be obey'd that it cannot be conceived he should make truely happy those who do not follow his orders nor unhappy those that follow them that so we ought to use all our endeavours to know the Will of God and ought to obey it with all the fidelity imaginable You are sensible that men must be either stupid or out of their senses not to see those things and that those that see them and are not affected with them must either be mad or desperate but do not tell him so take heed above all things you do not awaken his passions and principally his pride for he would conceive nothing of what you might tell him make him understand as much as you can that God acts only for himself That he hath made our spirit only for himself That he hath given some motion to our heart only to incline it towards him That therefore we ought not to make an ill use of the motion of love which God causes in us by loving any thing besides him or without relation to him Make him understand that God is his true good not only by being alone capable to make him happy but also because none but God can make him more perfect not only as he is the cause of pleasure but also as he is
the original of light Endeavour to persuade him that God alone is the life and nourishment of the soul That all bodies are invisible by themselves and altogether uncapable of producing any sentiment in our souls That all good is included in God in an intelligible manner in a manner fit to act into the mind to shew it self and cause it self to be felt by it In short that God alone is the true good of the mind all manner of ways and that we ought to love and adore none but him Raise in him a desire to hear you by things on which perhaps he never thought and such as may by their novelty stir up in him a salutary curiosity But above all things endeavour to make him very sensible of his unjustice towards God whilst he follows his passions And that being a sinner and consequently unworthy of being rewarded by the delightful sentiments of pleasure he obliges God in consequence of his immutable orders to affect him with delight in the very moment he offends him Death shall corrupt his body and then God remaining unchangeable in his decrees will avenge during a whole eternity the wrongs he shall have done him by compelling him in a manner not only to be subservient to his disorders but even to reward him for his disobedience In short make him sensible of the necessity there is to repent and strive to inspire in him a saultary horror of all those criminal pleasures that bewitch the senses and corrupt the heart and reason That retiring within himself the confused noise of his passions may not hinder him from hearkning to the secret checks of inward truth and thus he may understand what you shall tell him afterwards DIALOGUE IV. Of the Disorder of Nature caused by Original Sin Theod. WELL what satisfaction have you had of your last visit to your Friend Arist None at all My Friend becomes ill-humoured when ever I speak to him nay sometimes he grows angry and flies out in a passion This troubles me very much Theod. But doth he laugh no more at what you say Arist No. Theod. Be of good heart then your Friend mends and I hope will recover He begins now to feel his wounds since he laughs no more when they are drest Should you wonder to see a man grow ill-humoured and angry if another filled him with wounds confusion and shame why then would you have your Friend insensible You have told him perhaps some truths that oblige him to leave his pleasure to shake off the Old Man to be in a disposition to repent and appear full of confusion and shame in the sense of his unfortunate Friends who will laugh at his change He hath had a prospect of all those things within himself and they have scar'd him If he be vext 't is because you have wounded him and I believe that you have offended him by Convincing him Can any thing grieve and mortifie a worldly man more than the thoughts of being obliged to change altogether his way of living and approve by his own example a manner of life which his Friends ridicule and he himself hath laught at with them all his life-time Perhaps your Friend finds himself obliged to this He is willing to breakhis bonds but he tears himself to pieces his heartis divided and you wonder at his pain and impatience Know my dear Aristarchus that if your Friend heard you without being moved it would show that he is not affected with your words that they do not reach his heart that he is not convinced by that conviction which stirs us to action begins our conversion and makes us suffer because it strips us of the Old Man So I would have you be joyful not because you have filled your Friend with sadness but because his sadness is in all likelihood the sadness that inclines us to repentance Arist You revive me extreamly Let us go on I pray you in our conferences that I may strengthen my self in the knowledge of the proofs of Religion and Morality to convince my Friend fully You prov'd me t'other day that God hath made us to know and love him Pray what consequence do you draw from that principle For I grant that God will not have us to fix on particular good the motion of Love that he incessantly causes in us that we may love him incessantly not with respect to his works which being below us are unworthy of our Love but in himself and according to the idea we have of him as a Being infinitely perfect Theod. All the Precepts of Christian Morals depend upon that Principle You believe it already but you shall see it clearly when I shall make use of it to justifie the counsels which the Eternal Wisdom hath given us in the Gospel I will show you now that this principle is the ground of the Christian Religion that owns the need of a Restorer and Law-giver able to illuminate the Spirit and give a new strength to the Soul of a Mediator between God and Men who may offer a Sacrifice and establish a Worship worthy of God and able to satisfie his justice You own that God will be loved with all our strength that is to say that all the motion of love he creates in us end towards him and that we love creatures only for him and not him with respect to creatures But do you love him always after that manner do you find no difficulty in the practice of his Love do you feel no pain to follow this motion to its utmost or no pleasure to stop it In short do you not find often that the ways of vertue are hard and painful and those of vice smooth and pleasing Arist I am not more perfect than St. Paul I sometimes delight in the love of God according to the inward man but I feel in my body another law that fights against the law of my spirit I suffer when I practice vertue I receive some pleasure in the enjoyment of sensible things in spight of all my opposition and am so much a slave to my body that I cannot even apply my self without pain and reluctancy to things that have no relation to the body Theod. But whence proceeds this pain you resent in doing well and this pleasure you have in doing ill You are not the cause of your own pleasure nor pain for if you were seeing you love your self you would never produce pain in your self and would still be injoying some pleasure Neither is it your body not those that are about you for all bodys are below you and it cannot be conceived that they may act in you or make you happy or unhappy None but God can act in the Soul But do you think that God afflicts you when you do well or that he rewards you when you do ill Do you think that God who desireth that you may love him with all your strength throws you back when you run after him But when you cease to
rewards disorder Era. But Theodore Was not what you call Disorder put into the Child by God himself Since it is by the Decree of his Will that upon certain motions of the Brain certain thoughts should result in the Soul and the communication that is between the Brain of the Mother and that of the Child was established by God The. I own it Erastus however it is not amiss It was requisite that the Vestiges in the Brain and the motions of the Spirits should be attended with the thoughts and agitations of the Soul for the Reasons I have already told you the chief whereof is That Bodies do not deserve the application of a Spirit that is made for none but God It was necessary that Adam should be told by preingaging Sentiments by short and unquestionable Proofs that such and such things were good for his Body It was fit also that the impressions on the Mother's Brain should communicate themselves to that of the Child for the full conformation of his Body Those things are most wisely establisht Disorder is only found in Desire It is good that there result in the Soul certain thoughts when certain impressions form themselves in the Brain but it is not good that those impressions prompt us to the love of sensible things and do not vanish when we desire it or that our Body be not submitted to us Now the Sin of the first Man hath caused this for he became unworthy by his Sin that God should suspend the communication of motions for his sake so not being able to hinder the impression of the Bodies that act on us from reaching as far as the chief part of the Brain which is the seat of the Soul we have of necessity the sentiments and motions of Concupiscence tho God doth nothing else in us but deprive us of the power to hinder the natural communications of motions that is to say without acting in us For Concupiscence precisely as such is nothing it is in us only a want of power over our Body which want proceeds from our Sin only since it would be just without it that our Body were submitted to us Erast I perceive plainly Theodorus that the union of our Spirit with our Body proceeds from God and that our being Slaves to our Body proceeds from Sin All that is plain But you Aristarchus are you persuaded of the Sentiments and Proofs of Theodorus Arist I dare not assent to them for I fear to be mistaken Erast Perhaps it is because Theodorus speaks of the transmission of original Sin as of a thing not impossible to be explained and you have hitherto believed it to be unexplainable this may have prepossessed you Or it may be your Sceptical Friends have so often laught at the simplicity of those that believe what the Church teaches that your imagination hath been formerly somewhat spoilt by it For my part I remember that some time ago I was half stunned by the reflection of the amazement that appeared in the looks of one of those false learned at the appearance of an imaginary difficulty But remembring what Theodorus tells me continually not to suffer my self to be imposed upon by the Air and sensible impression of Men I retired within my self and could not help laughing at my pannick fear Arist Do you think Erastus that I am so much a Fool as to let my self be imposed on Erast You are too wise to do so Aristarchus but you are not yet wise enough not to receive some impression by the bold way and commanding Air of so many People that come to see you It is impossible to be always upon our guard and compare incessantly Mens words with the answers of inward truth and you shall give me leave to tell you that I even observed but two days ago by your countenance that you are a Man born for company that you are very full of complaisance and very easily embrace the Sentiments of others yet the business was of moment Arist I remember it it is true I was moved that person spoke to me in a very strong and lively manner but I soon came to my self Theod. Perhaps it is because the thing nearly concerned you and you were not then about a Philosophical Question or certain Points of Religion that have nothing common with the Senses Arist It is true but really I will no longer believe Men upon their word Theod. No you do not believe them upon their word for words being arbitrary persuade only as far as they enlighten the mind but the Air persuades naturally and by impression It persuades insensibly and without letting us even know what it is that we are persuaded of for all it can do by it self is to agitate and trouble I say it to you Aristarchus you confusedly believe above a million of things which you do not know and which the Commerce you have with the World hath heapt on your memory But be not vext at it there is no man but hath a very great number of those confused Notions for we are all sensible There is no man made for Society but is fastned to other men and receives in his brain the same impressions as those who speak to him with some emotion and force and those impressions are attended by those confused judgments whereof I am speaking Do not imagine that none but Children see and desire what their Mother sees and desires as I told you just now when I explained to you the propagation of original Sin All men live by opinion they commonly see and desire things as those they converse with proportionately to the need they have of their help Children are so strongly united with their Mothers that they see nothing but what she sees But men are capable to see and think of themselves they are not so narrowly united to other men seeing they can live alone they can think alone but seeing they cannot live conveniently out of Society they never think easily and without pain but when they suffer themselves to be persuaded by the air and way of those who speak to them Is it not true Aristarchus that there are some Persons who have prepossessed you against what I have said to you now of original Sin not as Erastus thinks by laughing at those things for you are too well converted to have still any deference for the silly banters of the false learned but rather gravely and piously inspiring you with a secret aversion for some Sentiments that seem new and are too clear for such as are not used to see the light I know it Aristarchus and plainly perceive that nothing but the disorder which they have caused in your mind by the darkness of their terms and the decisive and scientific air of their quality hinders you from assenting to what I have told you now But let not this make you uneasy there is a great number of others distinguisht by the same outward marks of Piety and Learning that approve what
how he is the beginning and end of all things Those holy persons that read the Scripture with an intention to find Christ never fail to find him there for he is in every place of it But they have not the spirit of this world but that of God whereby they know the greatness of the Gift that God hath imparted to them The outward and sensible Man is not capable of the things which the Divine Spirit teacheth us for the eye hath not seen the ear hath not heard nor the heart of man ever understood what God hath prepared for those that love him I do not only speak of those false learned who deny the corruption of Nature the necessity of Grace and the Divinity of Christ yet assume the quality of Christians I also speak of those who live in the bosom of the Church but have little love for Religion It is impossible they should be very well learned in the knowledge of Christ seeing they do not love him and do not study the Scriptures professing the Christian Religion perhaps only because it is that of their Parents Arist You have told us a great many things both to day and yesterday since I have seen my Friend I imagin that he wants me as I do to know what he will think of these things I must leave you to go to him Theod. Do Aristarchus make him sensible of the general corruption of Nature and the enmity that is between God and man and endeavor to demonstrate plainly to him the necessity of Christ's satisfaction If you find that he receives your Sentiments as he ought and is willing to be instructed immediately fall on the praises of our Redeemer and stir him up to the love of his Saviour by the consideration of the chief obligations he hath to him Tell him That Christ is the Way the Truth and the Life That he is our intelligible light that enlightens us in the deepest recess of our Reason and our sensible light that instructs us by Miracles by Parables and Faith That he alone is the food of the Soul That his light is the sole producer of Charity and that none but him can give us the holy Spirit whereby we become the children of God Tell him that he hath been predestinated before all time to be our King and Chief our Pastor and Law-giver That God receives our Prayers through him only That we are made clean only by his blood and enter into the Holy of Holies only through his Sacrifice In short That Christ is all things to us that in him we are new creatures and new men that have not been condemned in Adam that without Christ we are nothing have right to nothing but are sold to Sin Slaves to the Devils and the eternal objects of God's wrath Use all your endeavors to make him think on Christ to unite him to and make him esteem and love Christ and conclude with these words of St Paul at the end of one of his Epistles If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maran-atha 1 Cor. 16.22 DIALOGUE VI. The Truth of the Christian Religion proved by other Reasons Arist AH Theodorus how unsatisfy'd am I in my Friend Theod. Yes Aristarchus I can easily see it the Air of your Countenance does not rejoice those that examin it 't is not an Air of Triumph or of Victory that might please those who take part of it But how cou'd he resist you Arist As I was well persuaded of the truth of the Christian Religion by the proofs of original Sin and the necessity of a Mediator so I imagined I cou'd convince him by proposing the same proofs but I know not to what I should attribute the ill success of my words when I spoke to him instead of persuading him I provoked him and he rejected all that I proposed to him with a kind of scorn he would not so much as agree with me in common Notions but continually said that my Reasons were the Reasons of Philosophy Such Answers grieved me I strove to convince him and continued to repeat the same things hoping that at last he would reflect but all my Efforts were entirely lost 'T is something strange Theodorus that a Man can't convince others of the same thing that he himself is fully convinced of for it appears to me that all Men ought to see the same things Theod. If all Men were equally attentive to inward truth they would all equally see the same things but your Friend is not like you he is taken up with a multitude of things and his pride has now for many years kept him unconversant even with himself so that abstracted proofs and reasonings built upon Notions which have no dependance of the senses persuade him not because these proofs don't touch him and because he has many confused reasons which hinder his application to them When a Man has discovered a Geometrical Demonstration he can convince all Men of it to whom he clearly proposes it because that these things are sensible that they freely apply themselves to them that there 's no reason why they should not believe them that they are not prepossess'd by the authority of Men that deny them and that when they see these kinds of truth they see them after a sensible manner But 't is not the same with certain truths which are contrary to our inclinations there we think not seriously and we have many reasons not to believe them It 's necessary Aristarchus that I demonstrate to you the truth of the Christian Religion by more sensible proofs than those of our preceding Conferences it may be your Friend will more willingly hearken to them Do you take his place and object whatever you can imagin against what I shall offer I only suppose that God hath made our Souls to know and love him 'T is what your Friend assents to You have heard Aristarchus of one Moses the famous Legislator of the Jews to whom God gave the Ten Commandments upon Mount Sinai Do you believe what the Scripture says of him Arist But what if he was a Cheat an Impostor Theod. Very well Aristarchus you suppose your self under your Friend's character but you know that he must have an excessive bold spirit I would say the most ignorant and most transported of bold spirits who dares say that Moses was a Cheat you do much honour to your Friend Arist I know what I say Theod. Well then if you know him so well speak for him I will engage him in your person You have reason Aristarchus and ought not to oppose a Sentiment that is universally received by all reasonable persons unless you have good proofs that they are deceived Arist There is much prejudice Theod. Right but this common Reason does not justifie you nor will it justifie the most extravagant doubts that may be raised but I may tell you that there was never any Man that could be more unreasonably accused of Imposture
body or more noble than it or else you ought to begin again and say that Beasts have some other Felicity than that of drinking and eating and of enjoying their Body Arist This Reason convinces me but what would you conclude from thence Theod. Thus Aristarchus you believe that the Jews were Men as we are and that they had a Soul I would say a Substance which thinks perceives wills and reasons and is distinct from the Body your Friend whose place you take being a Cartesian does not doubt of this Arist 'T is true he proves demonstratively that the Existence of the Soul is more certain than that of the Body Theod. This being granted Aristarchus I say that Judaism as to the Letter is not a Religion which God has established for Men and that it could not render the Jews either more perfect or more happy because Moses propounded no other Felicity to the Jews than the enjoyment of the Body and that this sort of happiness is only proper for Beasts if it is true that Beasts have a Soul After Moses had propounded this carnal and ceremonial Law to the Jews which was a shadow of things to come Deut. 28. he promised that if they would observe it their Land should be fruitful that they should have great Families and numerous Flocks that they should be Masters over their Enemies and that God would preserve them as a People which he had chosen But if they would not observe it he told them that they should want all the necessaries of life and foretold those temporal Evils which are come upon them In fine he promised no other recompence or punishment no other happiness or misery than the enjoyment or privation of Bodies it seems there was no Hell no Paradise no Eternity for the Jews Arist But whence comes that 'T is certain the Jews were very gross and carnal Theod. 'T is not Aristarchus that the Jews were gross and carnal but because Moses being only the Figure could only promise good things in a Figure and could not bring them into the inheritance of Children The chief Priests according to the Law of Moses entered into the Sanctuary made with hands which was only a Figure of the true one They entered there with the blood of He-Goats and Calves which could not purifie the Conscience therefore the Law of Moses could not justifie men it gave them no part in eternal happiness therefore Moses was not to promise them any such thing that was the propriety of Jesus Christ who is entred with his own blood into Heaven the true Sanctuary and who hath purchased eternal Salvation as being the onely High-Priest of good things to come Can you think that the Jews were more carnal than the Heathens Can you imagin that Moses was more gross than Poets who make mention of their gods after so unworthy a manner But the Heathens thought of another life The Poets speak of the Elizian Fields and of Hell as places destined for the recompence of Virtue and the punishment of Vice There is no Motive more strong no Idea more terrible no Recompence more agreeable than that of Eternity and the most barbarous Nations are capable of being smitten shaken and carried on to the exercise of Virtue by this thought that they would be eternally rewarded for it yet Moses reckons a great number of Blessings and Cursings without mentioning Eternity Arist 'T is because he did not believe there were Spirits he believed not the Immortality of the Soul Theod. This Consequence is very just and did I not know that the Law of the Jews and their Covenant with God was a Figvre of the New Covenant I perhaps might think my self obliged by the deference I owe to the Books of Moses to be of the sentiment of the Sadducees for only this Party appears reasonable as I have already said for I have not yet spoken any thing that overthrows it But as your Friend is a Cartesian he is too much convinced of the Immortality of the Soul and that Beings which think are distinguisht from matter that cannot think to draw the same Consequences as you do Arist 'T is true this must convince him Theod. Nevertheless he was not convicted of it I could wish that the Body were our true happiness but is this happiness capable of recempencing those who fulfil the precept of loving God with all their heart with all their soul and with all their might This might perhaps be a sufficient reward to the Roman Virtue for happiness must be proportionable to its Virtue But is this worthy of God Is this sufficient to make those truly happy who truly love him You see plainly Aristarchus that they are not Why then did Moses enjoin us to love God with all our might And why did he only promise us the enjoyments of our Bodies for the recompence of this love unless it be that the love of God is indispensibly above all things and that Moses was not to promise the happiness he could not give This seems to me sufficient to convince you that Judaism was but the shadow and figure of Christianity that the Old Covenant only represented the true reconciliation of God with Men and that the Priests according to Aaron's Order the Sacrifices and Ceremonies of the Law ought to be abrogated by the Sacrifice of the Lamb without spot which takes away the sins of the world which worthily satisfies the Justice of God which introduces us into the Holy of Holies and promises the true happiness to all those who are members of that Body whereof he is the Head Thus you see that I have no design to become a Jew unless you believe me stupid enough to look upon the Body as my proper good the Body I say which can't be the happiness of Brutes if they have a Soul distinct from their Body and more Noble than it But as for you Aristarchus you have now a design to turn Turk I speak to you as you take upon you the character of your Friend you are for a Paradise where you would always be indulging your self in sensual pleasure you would have many Women to satisfie those Passions which are even here below called brutish and shameful * Chap. of Order Chap. of Judgment Chap. of Mercy c. the great Mahomet promises them as fair as new laid Eggs and as beautiful as Oriental Pearls they shall have black rolling Eyes Arist Enough Theodorus the Turkish Religion is certainly unworthy of reasonable Men it is even unworthy of Beasts if they have a Soul more Noble than their Body And I acknowledge that the Alcoran destroys itself by its own Principles as well as Judaism does in the Letter For in fine 't is certain that the enjoyments of the Body are not worthy of the Soul That those who love them become not thereby more perfect That those who enjoy them are thereby often ashamed And that the promises of Moses not to mention those of
I do not know how I came to persuade my self that I should be guilty of want of respect towards the words of the Gospel should I speak any more to him about the Truths of Religion so that I stood before him without saying any thing But if my mind did not express itself by the sound of my voice my heart spoke sufficiently by the air of my face and my Friend might well imagin that I was not come to see him so early merely to bid him good morrow On the other side he being in the main a Man of a civil and mild disposition I cannot doubt but that he repented himself of the Answers he had made me and had pondered on those things which I had told him with a strength and plainness sufficient as I thought to convince him if he had any ways reflected Withal seeing me so early come to see him after the many expressions he had used which ought to have made me decline his Society for a long time being of the temper that I have mentioned he could not help being moved by my zeal and sorry for his want of attention In short whether he was shaken by my former Reasons or touched by some sentiments of Friendship and Gratitude he began after he had been some moments silent with an acknowledgment of his fault and of his sorrow After this he prayed me to repeat once more the proofs that I had offered to him of the Christian Religion assuring me that he had thought on them seriously and that he had found much solidity and light in them how imperfectly soever he remembred them I at first was somewhat unwilling to comply with his desire still remembring the words of Christ but seeing him persist in his demand with heat and eagerness I believed that he was disposed to hear me Accordingly I gave him the satisfaction he desired and he hath received without difficulty the same things that he had rejected with scorn Theod. You see even by this Aristarchus that it was convenient that Christ should cause himself to be expected during many Centuries and hide himself in the Scriptures for those who do not care to find him We easily receive what we desire and find with pleasure what we seek with passion Your Friend could not see two days ago that Truth which you proposed to him because he did not seek it but he hath discovered it because he desired it and hath found it with pleasure if he hath sought it with eagerness If Men do not know God 't is because they do not care to know him and if they do not see the truth of the Christian Religion 't is because the love of sensible things prepossesses them and makes them hate a Religion that destroys it All our Passions justifie themselves and speak incessantly for their conservation and those that hearken to the dictates of their Passions find themselves so strongly moved with compassion towards them that for their sakes they despise the Laws which condemn those Criminals to death For indeed nothing is more despicable than the Christian Religion if we believe our Passions The Gospel hath nothing that appears pleasing it preaches nothing to us but self-denial and Christ doth by the example of his life and death condemn the conduct of those who fix their minds on sensible things Those therefore who esteem nothing besides the objects of their Senses who blindly follow the motions of their Passions voluptuous Men or to use the words of Christ Swine are uncapable of understanding the truth of Religion and enjoying true happiness The Kingdom of God is a Pearl for which they will not sell all what they possess they do not know the value of it Therefore Christ will not have us to propose future happiness to those Wretches nor explain sacred Mysteries to them they being uncapable and unworthy of them We are only to threaten them in the Name of God and make them afraid by the Idea of Eternity or even by the fear of temporal Ills. But when they grow penitent deprive themselves of worldly pleasures and cease to be Swine it is necessary we should explain to them the Mysteries of Religion and the Secrets of the Gospel for being then become Sheep they hear and can discern the voice of the true Pastor of their Souls For this Reason and several others which you will perhaps understand by the Sequel of our Discourses I did not much approve of the design you had to relate all things to your Friend I was asraid for you and had no hopes of him But God who disposes of our hearts hath rewarded your Charity and Zeal and you ought to return your thanks to him for 't We have hitherto discoursed of the Proofs that concern the Truth of Religion and I believe that what I have said is sufficient to persuade reasonable persons that there is no other Religion in the world besides the Christian able to re-establish the Order which Sin hath reversed that none besides God-man could satisfie God's Justice reconcile us and give us an access to him and in a word pay to God a worship worthy of him It is time to shew you that Christian Morality is perfectly conformable to Reason and that in the state to which Sin hath reduced us nothing more useful to re-establish the order of things can be prescribed than the precepts and counsels of Christ concerning Prayer and the privation of sensible things for I suppose no others I entreat you to observe carefully whatever we shall speak of hereafter for you ought rather to instruct your Friend in those things which respect the government of our manners than in such speculative truths as are above the capacity of a carnal and sensible Man I will put some Questions to Erastus for I have not said any thing to him this good while Do you remember Erastus what we have said concerning the End and Order which God proposed to himself when he created Man and are you convinced of it Erast I remember it and am convinced of it I believe that God acts for none but himself that when he makes a Spirit it is that this Spirit may know him and that when he makes a Will it is that this Will may love him This Order seems to me so necessary that I do not believe that God preserves any Spirit but what in some manner knows and loves him I believe that the Union which Spirits have with God by their knowledg and love cannot altogether be dissolved without annihilating them For what kind of being were that Spirit that should know and love nothing But all Spirit that knows and loves knows and loves only by the means of the Union which he hath with God since he is not to himself his light and that the motion which he hath towards good in general and which makes him capable of loving private good doth not proceed from himself nor from any thing below him Theod. That 's true
Erastus all Spirits are essentially united to God nor can they be entirely separated from him without ceasing to be But what ought to be their Union with God that they may be as happy and perfect as it is possible for them to be Erast It is plain that this Union ought to be the narrowest that can be for none but God is the sovereign good of Spirits Theod. Thus Erastus we become more perfect the greater and the stronger the Union which we have with God is The damned have but just so much Union with God as is necessary to keep them in being But the blessed are united to God in so perfect a manner that they do not only receive from him a being but also its perfection Let us see therefore Erastus wherein consists this kind of Union with God whereby we receive all the perfection whereof we are capable in this life Erast I have learn'd in the Conferences which I have had with you and by the perusal of the Book of the Inquiry after Truth Chap. 8. of the last Book that God alone is the true cause and true mover as well of Bodies as of Spirits and that natural causes are only occasional causes which determin the true cause to act in consequence of his eternal Will I am persuaded that I can be united to the Bodies that are about me and to that which I animate and move only because I am united to God Dialog 1. for all Bodies cannot by themselves act in my Soul nor make themselves visible to her as she likewise hath not by herself the strength to move any Body since she doth not even know what must be done to stir an Arm. Thus Theodorus if I speak to you and understand you if my Spirit unites itself to yours or my Body to your Body God alone is the true cause of it he is the Bond of all the Unions which I am able to have with all his Works I can be immediately united to none but him since none but he can immediately act in me and I only act through his means But Theodorus I may be united to God and fix my self to him and in that have no relation to any other but him and I may also be united to God with relation to some other thing but God For when I think on abstracted Idea's of things I am united to God by my thought since I see those things only through the means of the Union that I have with God * Dial. 3. But this Union doth not bind me to Creatures On the other side when I feel sensible good it is only by the Union that I have with God and because he acts in me * Dial. 2. For all Bodies are insensible by themselves but this second Union which I have with God fastens me to sensible things for God unites among themselves all his Works and he alone can be the Bond of all Unions I therefore believe that our Union with God upholds our Being and that we should not exist without it But I am persuaded that the Union which fastens us to none but God and hath relation to none but him is that which gives the utmost perfection of which we are capable Theod. Do you not remember Erastus that the Author of the Book of the Inquiry after Truth demonstrates That our Senses never represent things to us as they are in themselves but only according to their relation to our selves and that therefore all sensible knowledg is useful for the preservation and conveniency of our lise but altogether unprofitable for the perfection of the Mind and the knowledg of Truth Erast I do remember it Theodorus and shall never forget it for it was that which persuaded me that of all our Knowledg and Notions none but those that are purely intellectual make us more perfect and indeed we can be said to see in God things as they are only through those forts of Notions When we have a sentiment of things we do not see them in themselves we have no knowledg of them and even in reality they are not the sensible Objects that we do feel but our very selves for our Sensations belong to us and not to those Objects to which we generally use to attribute them How then could our Senses lead us to the knowledg of Truth since we do not know Truth but when we see things such as they are Theod. If you remember also what that Book saith of the Errors of our Imagination and Passions you ought to grant that not only the Imagination and Senses hinder us from discovering Truth but also that our Passions carry and remove us from the true Good In a word that all the thoughts and motions of the Soul that excite themselves in us by reason of some changes that happen in our Body disunite us from God to unite us to Bodies For after all it is necessary that the Soul who ought to mind the preservation of her Body be warn'd to think on it when some new Accident happens to it Erast I grant all these things Theod. Let us suppose then that there never happens any change in the Brain but that the Soul receives some thought which takes it off from the light of truth and the love of true good and disunites her from God to unite her to Bodies If it is certain that the perfection of the mind consists in the knowledg of truth and in the love of true good in one word in an Union with God which hath relation to none but him I ask you In the state which we are in wherein we cannot hinder the communication of motion nor the bodies that are about us from penetrating and agitating ours what are we to do to tend continually towards our perfection do not consult the Gospel now consult only your reason Erast It is plain that we ought by flight to avoid being acted by those Bodies that are about us that we ought to mortify our Senses and keep shut as much as we can all the passages at which sensible Objects come in and disturb our Reason When we cannot stay the motion of those Bodies that are capable of offending us we never fail to step aside to avoid being struck by them Thus when we are not able to stop the action of sensible Objects we ought to avoid them by flight in the same manner as we use to preserve our selves from contagious distempers by change of Air. Let an Insect but prick us we immediately lose sight of the most solid truths let a Fly but buz in our Ears and our mind will be presently fill'd with darkness What shall we do then to hold this truth which still gets away and preserve this light which vanishes from us Must we kill all the Insects and drive away all the Flyes this can never be We must then remove somewhere else for after all it is impossible that the Sensations that divide your thinking Faculty should
causes heat but it doth not cause pleasure Pleasure is a sentiment of the Soul which the Soul causes in it self When its body is well dispos'd the Soul rejoyces at it and its joy is its pleasure but Fire causes the heat we feel for as it contains it in it self it can disperse it without Theod. Can you conceive Erastus that your Soul causes in it self its pleasure and causes it when it knows its body is well dispos'd Can you know what changes happen now to your body Doth the pleasure you receive when you warm your self delay its coming till you find out what passes in your hands Doth it stay also for the orders of your Soul and do you feel that this depends from you as an effect depends from its cause Do you also apprehend well that Fire really contains this heat you feel This heat you only feel when your hands are out of the Fire for whilst your hands are in the Fire which according to Aristarchus contains heat you do not feel it but a very great pain which perhaps is not in the Fire When you retire within your self to consult your Reason do you well conceive that Matter is capable of any modifications differing from Motion and Figure Do you believe that it is by heat that Fire separates the particles of Wood when it burns it That by heat it agitates the particles of Water when it makes it boyl That by heat it purifies Metals when it melts them Extracts Water out of Mud when it drys it Drives with violence Cannon-balls and overthrows by Mines the Walls of Cities and the highest Towers In short have you ever found in Fire some effect that may prove it is possess'd of heat Erast I confess I cannot easily understand how this heat I feel is capable of producing any of the effects you have now mention'd And I cannot even see any relation between this heat and any of the effects of Fire I have sufficiently experienc'd by its effects that Fire hath motion but I have not found yet that it hath heat Theod. You will do well Aristarchus to consider on what Erastus said now In the mean time hear the answers he will make me If I held this Thorn hard upon your hand Erastus what should I do to it Erast As it is sharp I imagine you would make a hole in it Theod. What else should I do to it Erast If I ought to speak but what I know you would do nothing else to it Theod. But what should you feel Erast Perhaps I should feel some pain Theod. This Perhaps is very Judicious But if I drew this Feather over your Lips what should I do to them Erast You should move their fibres Theod. What else should I do to them Erast Nothing else Theod. But what should you feel Erast I don't know Theod. Try Erast I feel a kind of a troublesome pleasure which may be called Titillation Theod. What think you Aristarchus of the answers of Erastus Are they true Can any false consequence be directly deduced from them He speaks but what he understands from that Inward Master whom he faithfully consults Mark how he applys himself Let us go on Erastus What doth this fire produce in your hand Erast Hold Sir I have seen them lay much Wood in the Chimney this Wood is no more there Then 't is gone Arist 'T is burnt 't is annihilated Erast That 's a story annihilated I did not see it go out it must then have gone in invisible particles It could not go from thence without changing its place that is to say without motion The Wood then is continually divided and its particles move themselves from the Chimney towards my hands Those particles are bodys they strike against my hands I have it Theodorus Fire without doubt moves the fibres of my hands Theod. Is that all Erastus Erast 'T is all I know I say nothing but what I see Am I to blame Theod. But pray do you feel nothing Erast I feel some heat Theod. Come nearer the fire yet nearer a little more what do you feel Erast Some pain Theod. 'T is enough Whence proceeds this heat that pleases you and this pain that scorches you This heat that makes you more pleased and more happy this pain that disturbs you and makes you in some manner unhappy Erast I do not know it Theod. Do you believe that fire is above you and can make you happy or miserable Erast No certainly I only believe here what I see I see that Fire can move variously the Fibres of my hand for bodies may methinks act on bodies but they cannot communicate sensations which they have not Can a Thorn infuse pain by the little hole it makes in the flesh Can a Feather spread titillation on my Lips when it goes over them No Theodorus I do not believe that any one of all the bodies about me is able to make me more happy or unhappy Theod. Well said Erastus I am sure you will never worship the Fire nor even the Sun You are already wiser than those famous Chaldeans illustrious Brachmanes and ancient Druids who worship'd the Sun Erast How Were there ever men mad enough to esteem the Fire or the Sun as Deities Theod. Yes Erastus Not some Men or some Nations but almost all Nations and the most famous too as the Greeks the Persians the Romans and several others You may be informed by Aristarchus who hath read learned Books he will talk with you whole days together of the different manners in which several Nations have worshipped Fire and the Sun Erast I do not much care to know the follies of others Be pleas'd to go on with your Questions Theod. I will presently Erastus But by the way Aristarchus have you compared your answers with those of Erastus Have you observ'd how he applies himself how he consults the Master that teaches him in the deepest recess of his reason he never answers but after him he warrants nothing but what he sees and for that reason I defie you to draw directly any false consequences from his answers But if you mind it those that you made me before to the same questions may in a manner justifie the Religion of those who place Fire or the Sun among the Gods For if Fire or the Sun can reward and punish you make you happy or unhappy they must be above you they must have power over you and you ought to pay submission to them for it is an inviolable Law that inferiour things shall be subservient to superiour I need tell you no more of it I only assure you that the Pagans never reasoned like Erastus and that in all likelihood they argu'd like you since we see by their Religion that they have followed the same thred of consequences I have drawn now from your Answers Observe it Aristarchus when God speaks when inward Truth answers there is no creature but guides us to the Creator You 'll understand this
at first in the state he ought to be in yet foresees that Man shall cease to love him and shall dishonour him do you conceive that he will make him Yet Aristarchus we are made and God is wise He hath made us to honour him and the honour we can pay unto him is not worthy of him But besides this in stead of honouring him as much as we can we dishonour and disobey him and prefer the love of the body to the love of God he hath foreseen the corruption of our heart before its formation Where lieth then his wisdom How will you justify it What think you of a Workman who working for himself makes a work that is of no use to him Remember what you said of a Workman who makes a piece of work and exposes it tho he knows that some one or other will break it God is wise Aristarchus but what hath he done This he hath done he hath predestinated Jesus Christ from all Eternity to be the head of his works that Christ and all Creatures through him may pay to him an honour worthy of him He hath placed Man in the state he ought to be placed in for the Reasons that have been told you Dialog 2. He hath foreseen his Fall and permitted it that it might advance his great End Thus his Wisdom is justified and he becomes if I may say so more rich and powerful than he was He commands his Son who is his equal and judges and punishes him for us he fully revenges and satisfies himself for our sins But he receives from him and from us through him such honours as are worthy of his greatness and majesty Now what do you think of what Theodorus said to you Arist Methinks he proves well enough his Assertion However all he hath said now supposes in God a plurality of persons for no one doth pay an honour or an atonement to his own self Theod. You mistake the Point utterly Aristarchus far from this because no one doth pay an honour or an atonement to his own self I prove and do not suppose in God a plurality of persons To convince you of it there needs only to reassume what Erastus said God acts only for his glory but all the Creation cannot pay him an honour worthy of him it cannot therefore be supposed that he will make any Creatures unless it be to declare that a pure Creature can yield him some glory It follows then that since he hath been pleased to make us he hath done it in order to his glory But we cannot contribute to it unless he join with us Now as you have well observed it a person cannot honour himself therefore there is in God a plurality of persons It is then necessary that a Divine Person and principally that by whom all things were made sanctify by his dignity all other Creatures The Son ought to offer to the Father a Kingdom over which the Father may reign with honour the Son ought to erect to him a Temple whereof he himself is the Chief Stone establish a Priesthood whereof he himself is the High Priest and assemble a Church whereof he is the Head In a word he ought to make his work worthy of him for whose honour he hath made it And if we suppose that God who never acts but for his glory resolved to produce something out of himself seeing no one can honour his own self we must admit in God plurality of persons Besides God hath from all Eternity foreseen the disorder that was to arise in his Work he could have prevented it yet hath not done it Then the reparation of his Work must needs be a greater honour to him than its first Creation since God's rule and motive in his operations is always his own glory However the disorder of Nature and the shame of Sin dishonour God much more than the punishment and satisfaction of Creatures honour him the offence of Sinners being infinite by the dignity of the person that is offended and it being impossible that God can be satisfied unless he be our own Mediator But as you have wisely said none can pay an atonement to themselves and therefore there must be a plurality of persons in God It is necessary that a Divine person and chiefly that person by whom God made all things repair the disorder that is hapned in his work and satisfy God for that same work if God will preserve it For after all God who suffered Sin for his glory must have designed a Sacrifice capable of yielding him more honour than Sin can bring him dishonour So we must conclude that there is in God a plurality of persons since he hath not made Creatures capable of honouring him as he deserves and especially since he suffers such Crimes as no Creature can expiate Erast But pray what do you think of the damned they cannot satisfy God's Justice and yet he doth not annihilate them Theod. It is true Erastus God did not make them to be annihilated but he would not have made them or would not keep them in being without Christ for their punishment tho' eternal is still too slight to satisfy the Justice of a revenging God The damned should suffer at least according to their whole capacity yet they do not for there are degrees of pain among them tho' their Souls being equal their capacity to suffer must be equal But Christ by his quality bears what is wanting to honour perfectly the Divine Justice and in the deformity which those miserable Wretches cause in the beauty of the Universe there is this order at least that the inequality of their punishment bears a proportion with that of their offences However it would be better for them not to be than to have such a miserable being it is plain that Christ who merits the conservation of their existence and upholds them in the order of his Iustice is rather their Judge than their Saviour Thus Erastus all things subsist in Christ he preserves his work after he hath cleansed it from the filthiness of sin and reconciles through his blood all Creatures with God as to what concerns the preservation of their being But if he gives peace to Heaven and Earth he no less kindles an everlasting War in Hell Thus you see Aristarchus how all the several parts of Religion prove and maintain one another What I have told you is not a Circle without Principles for my Principles are that we are made that Nature is corrupt and that God acts only for his glory You do not deny them Arist No Theodorus I am convinced But I have some reluctancy to do it for what you tell me seems new to me Theod. Yes Aristarchus what I tell you is new to the generality of Mankind and to such Christians as do not sufficiently understand the mystery of the Religion they profess Christ is not known among worldly Men they do not think on his greatness neither do they know