you read these things curiously or much at a time you should pause and consider what you find there profitable for your soul I would not altogether stop the curiosity you have to read my Writings or those of others who treat of solid Virtue For that Curiosity is necessary at the beginning for you cannot learn if you be not curious to know We must know before we can love If then you knew not the Truths which I write you could not practise them So we may give liberty to that curiosity to know good things You must not read only to nourish or satisfie it but to learn the truth You cannot discover it too much though some natural satisfaction mix it self it shall not hurt you provided you rest not on that pleasure They tell us that Mary Magdalene went to Jesus Christ because they said to her that he was a beautiful man and spoke well Notwithstanding that vain curiosity led her to the knowledge of the truth But after her first curiosity vanishing she gave her self to the practice of the Truths which she had heard from him Do you the same My Son Search curiously the Books which treat of solid Virtue and neglect no occasion to find them seeing they serve as means to know the will of God and because God often speaks to the soul by the means of a good Book moving the heart to the affection of eternal things and contempt of temporal you must only discern whether you read divine things for your own satisfaction or if you do it only to enlighten your soul in the knowledge of the Truth of God If it is for the last there is no evil that you give your self to long reading Stay your self only on the matters which move your heart to the Love of God without going further until you have found means to practise it well I did that in my young years when first I saw the New Testament and when I understood thereby what a Gospel Life was I closed the book for twenty years and exercised my self to practise what is contained in it And so I found the Light of the Holy Spirit without using Books to instruct me In which you may imitate me when you have sufficiently read what may avail to the perfection of your soul Which she wishes to you who remains Your Well-affectioned in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON Holstein near Gottorp Castle May 5. 1672. St. Vet. THE XV. LETTER The Devil incites to Good that he may bring Evil out of it To the same Discovering to him a seventh Wile of the Devil by which he carries us out of our selves that comparing our works with those of others we may from our Virtue contract vain-glory And an Eighth by which he incites us to immoderate Macerations and Mortifications of the Body And finally a Nineth in which he excites us to immoderation in spiritual good works toward our Neigbour as unseasonably to Instruct Convert Reprove or Correct him My Son I Must discover to you yet another Device of Satan by which he does gain several well enclined persons even such as have a good will who are not only resolved to labour for the knowledge of true Virtue but would also put it in practice For when he cannnot amuse them by fine speculations and curious searches to be capable of talking well of spiritual things because they have discovered that to talk well of and understand well a Virtue is but Vanity when it is not put in practice and that so they have absolutely resolved to fall to the practice in the exercise of good works Then comes he to tempt by virtue it self and by the practice of good works He endeavours to intrude Vain-glory upon true Virtue and secretly justles in Self-esteem and Contempt of others with good works None is exempt from that Vanity at the beginning of their conversion For all men carry in them an inclination to Pride when they come into the world and also every one must combat and oppose it if he would attain to Salvation But this Pride is harder to be discovered when it furrs it self into Virtue lurking in the heart without appearing outwardly as does that which proceeds from plenty of Riches and the honours which men give For that Vanity shews it self sufficiently outwardly for he that is proud of his Riches will shew to the world his Riches and Liberality by Prodigality in several things as in Moveables Cloaths Meat and Drink willing in every thing the best and dearest to satisfie his vain-glory and must also be served with Pages and Servants So that his outward Actions discover sufficiently the Pride of his Heart but spiritual Pride keeps it self hidden even under a cloak of Humility For we see ordinarily beginners in virtue give themselves to Fasting Watching and Prayer to humility in their Cloathes to ly on hard Beds and other Macerations of their Body and also to exercises of Works of Mercy spiritual and corporal Into which the Devil easily intrudes himself for if he can gain nothing by vain-glory in our good works because the man overcomes it by the Grace of God He attaques us by Excesses in them and moves us to fast to excess that it may ruin our health or unfit it for necessary labour and to obliege us after to substantious or delicate food and so precipitate us again into delicacy Lo how the Devil attempts to sway us from one extreme to another and especially him that is not well acquainted with his wiles He hath brought some to death by excess in fasting and maceration of the body I know that is rare in the time we live in when none will embrace penitence most part loving sensuality Yet among the small number of Penitents the Devil insinuates himself causing them to exceed For when he can no more make them fall by ease and sensualities he does it by excess in good Works And Prayer being the best of all he causes them to tye themselves to a number of vocal Prayers to over-charge them and disquiet them when they have not time to wait and fulfil these ordinary Prayers which makes the man sorrowful and dissatisfied thinking he does not please God when he does not fulfil all his ordinary prayers by custom and in that thought he is sad and pensive and uneasie to them he converses with The Devil draws his advantages from excess in prayer for it hurts the head when too vehement and brings often confusion in their affairs and housholding I have known Women so addicted to their prayers and devotions that they neglected their families to go to Church frequently at solemnities and Devotions and with all they thought they did well without discovering the cunning of the Devil who made them sin instead of doing good For God is a God of Order and not of Confusion and he says expresly that our Prayers should not be as those of the Pharisees who use many words seeing the Lord knows what we have need of
have some Grace from God keep it hid until it be God's will that you should discover it otherwise you put your self in peril of committing several sins while you shall not perceive it For there can easily slip into your heart some Vain-glory when you have received any particular Grace and even when you have only the desire of forsaking the World the better to serve God that can give you to esteem your self more than another heware also of publishing it before you have done it It is best to do and be silent for to speak of these things gives satisfaction to your nature for it is much pleased to speak of good things so it is best not to give it matter of vain complacency but to suffer the good Seed which God hath cast into your Soul to spring up secretly until it bud and send forth branches outward springing from the root within and in the end bear fruit whereof every one may gather without your loss or hurt Which will come when you have overcome all human considerations and Vain-glory and then shall true Virtue appear sufficiently in all your works without needing to make your trade to teach others Then shall your actions teach them and works are much more effectual Sermons than Words For it happens often that they that speak well do evil And for that words effect nothing in the Souls of others though good unless they know that these words come from his heart that pronounces them and then they have more force to work in the Souls of others but to speak of divine things and of Virtue without the practising of them is as tinkling Brass sounding or as a Perroquet that speaks without reason and beside the uselesness of these words to others they endanger their own soul by Vain-glory. For the Ignorant esteem for Virtue virtuous words and praise them as if it were reality though they be not at all estimable for the Devil himself can speak well of divine things as sometimes persons whom he possessed have said unto me I heard a Story how one time the Devil took the form of a Human Body and a Religious Habit and in that equipage came and presented himself to a Monastery where there was kept a great Solemnity and because of the Feast a great concourse of people Now the preacher of the convent fell suddainly sick whereat the Prior was much vexed having no person to preach but at that instant it was that the Devil came in his Religious Habit and knokt at the Gate and asked liberty to lodge in the Convent and when he presented himself before the Prior to have his Blessing as do ordinarily the Religious Strangers he askt the reason of his sadness Who answered It was because of the suddain sickness befallen the Preacher that was to preach at that hour and that he feared the Murmur and Scandal which that might cause because there was no Preacher to supply the want The Devil answered That he would willingly make the Sermon which rejoyced much the Prior thinking God had sent him that Minister in his Necessity The Devil then going up unto the Chair preached so powerfully and so wisely of the judgment of God of the State of the Blessed and that of the Damned that most of the Hearers wept with compunction and were astonished to hear so clear a deduction of all these things But a simple Religious Person of that Convent had a Revelation from God that it was the Devil whereof he advertised the prior who having ended his Functions caused the preacher to come before him and conjured him by God to tell who he was He answered that he was the Devil The prior askt how it was possible that he could preach so beautiful Truths and so profitable for the salvation of Souls To which he answered I reap my advantage by that for those that have heard me speak these Truths can find no more cloak of ignorance I have declared to them the State of the Blessed and that of the Miserable and the just judgments of God and they were all moved But they are so addicted to self-love and the love of earthly things that they will not put into practice what I have taught them but on the contrary will follow their old Customs and forget the Truths which I have preached to them and after that he vanisht like smoak in presence of the Prior and some other of the Religious leaving a noysom Stink behind him This history shews enough that the Devil can well speak the truth and good things when he sees he can make his advantage of it and therefore should we not esteem it a Virtue to be able to talk well of good things Virtue consists only in the practice and so imagin not that you shall do well to study much that you may speak advantagiously of Virtue that would be but Vanity without Profit But endeavour to study well the knowledge of true Virtue to the end you may put it into practice and your practice shall teach others Never read any thing to learn to talk well but read the Books which teach the practice of Virtue such as is that of Thomas a Kempis or other such like For the high and difficult questions cannot make you holy but will inspire your heart with Vanity and Pride Now seeing we ought to evite even the shadow of evil we must consequently beware of reading Unprofitable things or elevating matters of Controversie and hidden Mysteries seeing all these things do no more but fill our Spirit with wind not bringing any profit to the soul but much hurt For as a Vessel filled with some liquor cannot receive any other thing without mixing with what is in it or spilling it over It is the same with our understanding when it is replenished with curious studies of whatever matter For then the light of the Holy Spirit cannot be poured into it pure It is mixed with our proper thoughts and so there is nothing but confusion And in that Confusion as in troubled water the Devil fishes and dissipates quite that Light And therefore it is that so few souls receive purely the light of the Holy Spirit They are not empty but filled with fine speculations of Mystique things Others have their minds filled with Medecine Others with Astrology and so of other studies They cannot comprehend why they should not have the Light of the Holy Spirit as well as some other particular souls which they see and know to possess it But they need not be astonisht at that for the Holy Spirit cannot enter into a soul filled with something else It must be altogether void of it 's own Curiosities before it can be disposed to receive the wisdom of the Holy Spirit It should then desire to know nothing beside what God wills that it should know and consequently should not apply it self to read any Book but such as enlightens the understanding in the knowledge of true Virtue Neither must
for Righteousness sake And by consequence the Doctrine of the learned now adays is altogether Antichristian that is to say contrary to that of Jesus Christ Not that their words are dissonant for they read the same Gospel which Jesus Christ and his Apostles taught but they gloss and explain so the words of the Gospel that they bring forth a quite perverse sence Notwithstanding they live in quiet though all their actions manners and desires be quite contrary to the Gospel Doctrine For every one now idolizes his own proper will And Jesus Christ said That we must renounce it Methinks all Christendom is become at present the people of Ephesus which adored the great Diana with this difference that Christians now adays adore the Corruption of the flesh whereas those adored a Statue of gold or Silver For we see these learned strive who can best find out subtil Inventions by which they may flatter men in their sins or perswade them that they may well follow the motions of their corrupt nature and withall attain to Salvation So that every one follows that Doctrine without perceiving that it is evil That is the reason why every one adores that Diana of corrupt nature as a Goddess And so they bestow all their time and goods to nourish honour and satisfie corrupted nature And more they think there is no evil in so doing while the ministers and learned do the same and promise Salvation to the people that live in that Idolatry But they ought to teach in effect the mortification of their senses the corruption of their natures how much it is ruined by sin and finally the necessity of denying our selves to be saved as Jesus Christ taught by word and works But these savage Pastors will not teach so unto their flocks and will yet less put it in practice themselves Yea nor will not suffer another to teach these Christian Truths It is for that they pursue me every where and would gladly exterminate me because I have written of true Virtue The same befel St. Paul by them of Ephesus who would exterminate him when he taught the truth Saying one to another That they should lose their gain if they suffered Paul to continue preaching Jesus Christ That he would ruin the worship of the great Diana and cause that the Goldsmiths should gain no more in the Workmanship of the Image of Diana It goes just so with these learned ones who are as the masters of the great Diana of corrupt nature which every one adores for his own particular But the Learned are the Masters to gain Money by the worship and adoration of corrupt nature So they speak and teach the people such things as please their corruption and endeavour to please men that they may receive advantages of them which they will not lose When then I begin to speak of true Virtue they are all allarmed against me as they of Ephesus were against St. Paul But these learned take also the Judges to their assistance and persecute me that I should be banisht or be discharged to write or speak of true Virtue Some wish me dead others burnt others that I were thrown in the midst of the Sea that I might speak no more of solid Virtue and so their gain and trade be not diminisht and their shops become unfrequented that is that they sell no more their frivolous Discourses to please men It is that which at last allarm'd them so at Flensburg whither I had gone about some business for the Ministers no sooner had any suspicion that I was in their Town but they preached in divers Churches that I am an arrant and pernicious person that I have a devilish Doctrine and finally no person should lodge me So that I behoved to come out secretly lest I should be massacreed by the Rable and Children whom the preachings of the Ministers had animated against me For they had spoken of me with great spite and horrours proclaming publickly that my Doctrine is worse than that of the Jews Adding beside that my doctrine is a mass of all the old Heresies that ever were in the world Yet I will not teach any thing by my Writings or Discourse but what Jesus Christ taught And if there is any thing contrary to that in them I detest and revoke it as I have often offered to revoke all that they would shew me to be contrary to the holy Scripture But it is not for Errors they persecute me or any evil in my Writings seeing they can shew me nothing such therein They persecute me then because I declare truely what is true Virtue and how a true Christian should live to be a Disciple of Jesus Christ I know well they mask these things saying that there are Errors in my Writings But no person shews me these errors They know not what to say to contemn the truths which I maintain For the Learned said first that I bring nothing of new and that they taught and preached tho same things twenty years agot But when they saw in the Book entituled The testimony of the Truth particulars and truths more clear in divine Mysteries than those they learnt in the Schools they say presently that they are Errors and that never any person wrote such things So that it behoved that God should regulate all according to their studies And should not give any new Graces to men now adays But that he should measure his Light by the rule of their scholastique doctrine and should not send the Holy spirit promised by Jesus Christ who shall teach all Truths Men then resist that Holy spirit and will not hear of other Truths but those they have learnt in the Schools It is every lamentable to see men such enemies of their eternal Happiness in rejecting the Light of the Truth which comes in this last time as the Prophets of God have fore-told That he will pour out his Spirit on all flesh and that your Sons and Daughters shall prophecy and the Old Men see Visions Now because I repeat the same things with many others from God they would kill me as was done to the ancient Prophets they think to hinder by that that true Virtue should be known and far more practised But though they should kill me the Spirit of God shall not die for that And rhe Truth shall always be true For if I should not speak it the Dead would speak or the Stones to declare it unto men And tho these Ministers put me to death God hath yet more than a hunderd millions of persons whom he can use to declare the same Truths which I advance And therefore my Son I exhort you to retain them well and put them in practice for though I were not in the world you must nevertheless save your own soul cost what it will if you will enjoy God to all eternity Which she wishes you with all her heart who loves your Happiness Husum Febr. 5. 1684. St. vet ANTONIA BOURIGNON The