A discovery of divine mysteries, or, The nature and efficacy of the soul of man considered in all its faculties, operations and divine perfections, and how it governs in divine and secular affairs of life ... with many other curious matters : being a compleat body of divine and moral philosophy / by C.B., D.D., Fellow of the Royal Society.

That God Acts perpetually in Us, in our Percep∣tive Faculty, and in our Appetitive Fa∣culty.

After this particular Account, I do not see that one could wish for any thing more, to be

fully instructed of the manner how our Souls Are, and Operate in our Bodies; unless it be that there is this general Reflection, to spread over all that hath been said, That it is God who is indubitably our Light and our Life, who Operates in Us, in all these divers Acts of our Perceptive Faculty, and of our Appetitive Fa∣culty, in the same manner, that he perpetually Acts in our Spirits and in our Hearts; in our Spirits by the Act of his continual Illumination, and in our Hearts by that of his insurmounta∣ble and invincible Attraction; for that which we call in Us the Heart and the Will, or the Appetitive Faculty, is but a vehement and an invincible Desire, by which God draws us to himself, under the confused Idea of Good, of Pleasure, and of Happiness, which are not to be found but in him: And as all the Acts of the Perceptive Faculty, are but only different Mo∣difications of his Eternal Illumination, which Operate in Us in an hundred divers manners; So all these divers Acts of our Appetitive Fa∣culty, all these divers Resentments of our Pas∣sions, are but the divers Modifications of that Desire, and of that Motion, of that Attraction, and of that Ardor so enflamed with Pleasure, and with Soveraign Good, by which he perpe∣tually draws us to himself, which is the Principle of that Insatiability of Desires, and of that per∣petual Emptiness of Heart, which nothing can satisfie and fill, till it be filled by Himself; Him of whom St. Paul hath so well said, That

a time will come, and that He shall be All in All. Erit Deus Omnia in Omnibus.

It is in God that we See and Perceive, all that we See and Perceive; And it is in God that we Love and we Desire, all that we Love, and all that we Desire; It is from God that we receive all our Light, and it is in God that all the Motions of our Heart do center. We know not at all that it is He that searcheth us, but it is He who is the true Object, and the true End of all our Pursuits, as He is the Principle and the Mo∣ver of them: It is He that drives us on, and who Stimulates Us in all our Desires; and it is He who is the Center and Term of all our Desires.

Our Poor Soul goes groping through all the Bodies, which environs it, searching for a Pleasure and Contentment, which should sa∣tisfie it; and it is God who is that Soveraign Pleasure, which makes the Soul thus search af∣ter it. Our Soul regards God, by all its Being, and by all its Motion, and God regards the Soul, as it were, by all the Rays of his Infinite Essence; She holds fast to God on every side, if we may be permitted to say so; & God ties Him∣self to her by a thousand Regards of his Puissance of His Bounty, and of His intimate and continual Influence. We cannot separate our Souls from God, nor God from our Souls; We can know nothing clear of them, but as far as we see and know God wholly united, and wholly applied to her; and that we do not see them all turned towards God, either to receive from Him their

Light, or to dart themselves towards him, to the end, they may find in Him their Satisfacti∣on and their Joy, their Contentment and their Soveraign Felicity: The Body doth a little in∣terpose betwixt them, but this is it which com∣pleatly gives us Knowledge of our State upon Earth.