her the text of the gospel with promise to submit my understanding unto the Light of the Holy Spirit entirely to my power She said Sir that Submission is the preparation requisit For if you would act the Doctor or wise learned man you should put opposition unto the Light of the Holy Spirit source of all Wisdom You must always believe and maintain that he is more wise than all the Doctors that ever were in the world and that we learn more by a little ray of his Light than by an hundred years of most assiduous study Therefore render all your Wisdom Ignorances and become as an Infant newly born again that you may receive these new Intelligences which shall give you more light than ever all the Old Fathers together have had because they have never discovered the hidden Treasures because the time was not yet come Every one spoke according to his thoughts and not as it was really because it was a closed Book which none was worthy to open but Jesus Christ himself since he was killed and put to death There is not hitherto any thing accomplished of all the Holy Scriptures but that death which shall disclose the marvellous things of God which have remained hidden until now and begin to be revealed unto them who shall be humble of heart but the wise shall perish with their wisdom Therefore do I exhort you Sir unto Simplicity and Submission that you may receive the Light which begins to soring in our time and see the new heavenly Jerusalem descend adorned as a Bride unto the day of her Nuptials The League and alliance of God with men shall then be accomplished The Earth shall then be renewed All Creatures shall leave their Malignities which shall be confined unto the center of the Earth to torment the Bodies and Souls of all them who would not submit their wills unto God They shall receive there pains according to their sins being over-whelmed with those Malignities which these sins have caused CONFERENCE XXVI Declareth the Necessity of becoming a Child to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven renouncing all Worldly Wisdom and all Human Abuses I asked her How it were possible to leave all Sciences humanly acquired to become a Child when one is an Aged Man SHe said Sir except you do it you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven It is Jesus Christ who saith it and he cannot lie but he urgeth that necessity of becoming Children by Threatenings of not entering into the Kingdom of heaven which were the greatest evil that can befal man It were better never to be born than not to be saved and seeing we cannot be saved without becoming Children we must do it at any rate Would you Sir esteem more the Honour of the World or your acquired Science than the Kingdom of heaven That were very lamentable seeing all the things of this world do but pass as the Bird which cutteth the Air and leaveth no trace of its way after it so we when we shall be passed through this world there shall remain nothing of our Sciences or Studies nor of our Honour and Reputation all endeth with us and if there remain in the spirit of others any reputation that we were wise and learned that is insensible unto us after death If we have pleased our selves therein in our life the sufferings of these complacencies attend us in the other world and instead that it should be a happiness to us that we have been wise it is a great misery to us to have lost the Kingdom of Heaven by the same wisdom Forsake all these human Considerations Sir and become a Child though you be aged You must make the more haste lest time and life escape Never consult flesh and blood for they deceive and corrupt us Let us consult only our divine Soul which is reasonable and it shall tell you that nothing is better nor more reasonable than to abandon our free will unto God who hath given us it and to submit it unto his government as a little Child that on that depends our eternal Happiness and that nothing else can save us because without that Dependance there is no Salvation I said unto her That I knew most clearly that truth that there was no Salvation without the Dependance of God asking how I could now ignore Sciences formerly acquired seeing I could not make my self not to have them She said Sir nothing can hurt you if all be submitted unto God You cannot ignore what you know by means of your Studies but you can well submit all these Sciences unto God and account them as Ignorances as in effect they are Apply no more your spirit unto the study of Sciences and believe them to be all vain in respect of the Wisdom of God You shall know that you are abandoned unto his will when you seek no more any thing upon Earth neither Learning nor Wisdom nor desire to know any thing else but what may render you acceptable unto God For he that is abandoned unto him without Deceit moves himself no more but for what regards his Glory all the rest toucheth him no more If he is wise or ignorant it is indifferent unto him Wisdom serves him for what regards the Glory of God and in no wise to rule upon Earth knowing well that he who is abandoned unto God without Sciences is as great as he who is so with much Learning and even as we may well be Poor of Spirit in possessing Riches so can we possess much learning and withal be simple of Spirit when we have submitted all our Learning unto God he serves himself of it as he pleaseth but so long as we will rely on and make account of them we are not yet become Children to have entry into the Kingdom of Heaven And seeing God sheweth you Sir that there is no Salvation without dependance on him put your self promptly therein without considering if you have Sciences or any thing else For as the Proverb is God makes Mercury of all wood we must not regard our selves but his will who desires that all men of whatever conditions hold themselves under his Dependance remitting their free wills into his power without using the same themselves I said unto her That absolutely and irrevocably I abandoned my self unto God to be a true Child but that I had yet some repugnancy to renounce the Church She said Ha Sir you must never renounce the Holy Church but rather die but you must only renounce the abomination which is crept into the Romish Church of these days Do you not see that she hath falsified her faith unto her lawfull Husband Jesus Christ and hath not remained faithful unto him I should be glad that you could shew me one only point of the Doctrine of Jesus Christ that she observes or one only thing that she practiseth that is not contrary to the Life and Doctrine of her
Letters which treat of Virtue that they who aspire unto it may see the state wherein they are and also if they have acquired any degrees of it or if their Virtues be only imaginary I do not present this matter of true Virtue to all in general since many should find it too difficult to be observed for such as yet love themselves or the things of the earth cannot have all their mind bent to acquire this Virtue nor tend to the spiritual diligence which it requires But I speak to the free and generous souls who have abandoned the world to follow Jesus Christ and such will easily understand me for none is better disposed to understand me than he that will practise true Virtue And others who have not that desire may content themselves to know the Commands of God in general seeing they aspire not to a greater perfection So I say to them as St. John to the soldiers Use no Violence nor fraud to any person and be content with your Wages He said so to them because he found them not disposed for greater perfection And every one is free to tend to what degree of perfection he will So St. John chooses of two Evils the least in councelling the Soldiers to be content with their Pay and do no Violence but if these Soldiers had tended unto Christian-perfection doubtless St. John had counselled them to cease from being Soldiers and to forsake all that they possessed as Jesus Christ did to the young man in the Gospel after he said he had kept the Commands of God I say the very same to them to whom I present this matter of true Virtue in these twenty four Letters which is but the beginning of my designs to shew wherein it consists in every thing To these namely who will follow it and to none other seeing that were to cast Pearls before Swine or the Childrens Bread unto Dogs Those are souls yet earthly and attached to the honours pleasures and goods of this life and consequently are not in a disposition to put true Virtue in practice It seems enough to them not to transgress grossly and externally the Commands of God because they know no other Evils but what are expressed in these Commands But the souls who have abandoned the world to follow Jesus Christ and to revive in his spirit must labour with all their force to acquire this true Virtue in renouncing the corruption of their nature And they may well be assured that they can never arrive at a truely Christian Life unless they have overcome the inclinations of that corrupt nature Therefore must we labour with diligence in the mortification of our senses that we may carry the Victory over that Corruption which sin hath brought unto human nature without that our Virtue is false or only apparent and in no wise Virtue before God For if you shew me a person sober and chast and upright in his business who imparts his Goods to the Poor who fasts at appointed times with many other good Deeds and yet follows the motions of corrupt nature I esteem nothing all these Virtues if there is not a renounciation of his corrupt nature and he hath not entirely renounced his own will for all these things together come not near the Victory which is in mastering the motions of corrupt nature And St. Paul names yet greater Virtues than these I have named when he says If I had the Gift of Prophecy and Faith that could remove Mountains and gave all my Goods to nourish the Poor I am nothing if I want Charity Now Charity is nothing else but the love of God which we cannot obtain but in renouncing self-love and hating the Corruption of our nature for we can never do good except we first depart from evil and all sorts of evil are contained in the corruption of our nature since it is fallen into sin So that we can never arrive at true Virtue but by renouncing that corruption nor at the Charity of which the Apostle speaks without having overcome it So I say with him unto all that would attain to true Virtue that all other good actions shall be nothing until we have surmounted and overcome the corruption which sin hath brought unto humane nature since all sorts of evil spring thence and therein can no good be found Though the blindness of men makes them presume that they can do all well yet they do altogether evil so long as they act according to the motions of corrupt nature And it is only arrogance and presumption of spirit that they think themselves wise and willing to do all good For if man were wise he would always distrust himself nor dare undertake any thing fearing to do evil since that is in him and there cannot proceed out of a vessel other than what is in it When Man was newly created by God in the state of innocence he was full of all good and all sorts of good proceeded from him but since he is fallen into sin he is filled with all evil and there can nothing proceed out of him but all evil That is a general rule and by it ought every one to regulate his life if he would be saved for there is no exception seeing all men have been corrupted by Adam's sin and consequently are filled with evils none excepted It is true mens natures differ in manners and conditions one is Meek another Harsh one is Proud another Humble but that is from their natural temperament because man being composed of four Elements Water Fire Earth and Air his Manners naturally are disposed with proportion to the element which predomines in him For every one hath in his nature divers dispositions He that in the forming of his body hath contracted more of Fire than of the other Elements will be more cholerique and luxurious because the Fire hath more power in him than the Air Water or Earth Another who in his formation hath contracted more of Water will be more dull in his Manners slow in comprehending any thing and less couragious He that in his formation hath received more of Earth than of other Elements shall be more heavy lazy and rude in his Manners Finally he that in his Formation hath contracted more of Air than other Elements will be in his manners more light and inconstant and more active in spirit and prompter to good or evil and by these natural temperaments all men are of divers complexions and different manners according as they have contracted of their Parents the intemperature of the Elements of which their body is formed But in respect of Grace they are all of a like nature and are by sin all fallen into the same corruption one as well as the other and so they all need to combate that corruption since they are all equally corrupted by sin which they must master if they would be saved without going to perswade that one is better than another because he hath in his nature a
will not promise that you shall have in his service sensual Pleasure or worldly Riches and vain Contentment but I promise you assuredly Quiet of Conscience Tranquillity of Spirit an inward Peace and contentment in your Soul Which are things far more estimable than the vain Pleasures and impure Contentments and aboundance of the Riches of this world which can never satisfie our souls being they are spiritual and cannot consequently be satisfied with material things Therefore is it that there was never any man perfectly content and satisfied in this world unless he loved God with his whole heart There is no other but such an one who can be entirely content for only the Love of God is capable fully to satisfie our souls for they are little divinities which cannot be fully contented out of God from whom they proceeded Therefore must you my Child labour to attain to that love for when you have truely found it you shall have all things and you shall reign over all the world having in contempt all that is not God And you have no violence to use with God to obtain his love seeing he gives it liberally and freely to all that desire and ask it and even compels men by an express Command which he hath given them but you must do a little violence to your self to obtain that love because your affections are carried to other things than him so you must reclaim them and constrain them to return to their God and in that you shall have so many combats as you have habitudes to love other things than God If you be then strongly addicted to self-love or Love of other Creatures your combats shall be so much the greater But the business deserves suffering well seeing after we shall enjoy so great Good temporal and eternal we should spare nothing to gain such a Treasure the Pain shall pass swiftly and the Joy endure eternally And therefore you must suffer willingly to retire your affections from earthly things and place them in God alone I have sufficiently shown you in my last that that is good pleasant honourable and profitable It remains for you now to put it in practice Examin once what it is that you love beside God and then detest that love and withdraw from it your heart If you love objects without your self flee from them as the enemies of your good loose from them your heart and desire no more to see them And if your Affections be occupied in Self-love remove them from an object so little lovely to place them in God who only merits your affections and nothing else Protest then against that natural inclination of Self-love and yield no more any thing to that nature but things purely necessary for it is your greatest enemy to which you must not furnish Arms to fight against you the better You must know that corrupt nature wars against the Love of God as far as you yield to it So give it the least satisfaction you can even till you have overcome it withdraw then from it your Affections you must restrain it as a Horse with Bridle that it kick not nor attempt but to serve the master you love Behold the means to render you free to love God with your whole heart for as soon as your affections are retired from all Creatures they will be assuredly carryed to love God their Creator because the Love of God is the element of our Soul in which only it can live recreate and repose it self That Love of God is the true center of our Souls whither they fall of themselves so soon as they are disengaged of other affections which are all vain It is as with a Stone thrown into the Air which will not rest till it fall on the Earth which is its center unless it be retained with bonds or other thing It is the very same with man's Soul which is thrown into the air of the Vanities of this world It cannot find rest there if we did not retain it by Force by Baits and Allurements of Affection for earthly things doubtless it would presently fall into the Love of God which is its center and element where it can rest and recreate it self to satisfaction because the Soul hath nothing more suitable to its nature than God from whom it proceeded and it can never repose till it be returned to him and when it is compelled to remain out of its element it is as a Fish which by Nets and Lines is forced out of the water which is to it very disagreeable and causes to it Death if it be not quickly returned into the water The same happens to the Soul when it suffers it self to be entangled in the nets of earthly Affections it must quickly die because it cannot find there an element suitable to its divine nature and so it languishes withers and dies an eternal death unless it break the nets of earthly Affections to return to its element which is the Love of God You must my Son labour that you may break all the bonds of earthly Affections and so soon as you feel affection for any thing that is not God rescind it quickly for it is a chain which retains you out of your element and though it should be painful for you to loose your heart from any thing to which it enclines these Pains shall quickly change into Consolations for you shall no sooner be returned into the Love of God but you shall bathe in ease and pleasure as fish newly returned to the water which is its element It is for that Jesus Christ says that his yoak is easie and his Burthen Light He calls a Yoak our natural inclinations because we must constrain and retain them and they are troublesom and grievous to bear For if we follow them we precipitate our selves into a thousand Evils seeing nature being corrupted by sin enclines always to evil And these evils are often troublesom and weighty to bear I know well that to us it seems grievous that we may not in any thing follow our natural inclinations but if we take on that Yoak for the Love of God it will become light and easie to us as Jesus Christ hath taught No person can dispence or excuse himself from bearing it since our first Father Adam laid it on the shoulders of all his Posterity all men in general and every one in particular are charged with the miseries which sin brought upon human nature They are all subject to Heat Cold Intemperance of the Air Hunger Thirst Infirmities and Diseases of the Body to Ignorance and Inconstancy of Spirit and the disorderly motions of Passions for sin hath brought all these things upon man's nature which God created altogether perfect but since all men have pertaken of Adam's Sin they are also subject to his Penitence That is the Yoak which God hath given man to satisfie his divine Justice So that all men coming into the world must bear that Yoak will they or not
encline to and you shall follow assuredly the Spirit of God So shall you carry the victory over that evil spirit who troubles you now Ply and submit your understanding under the Holy Spirit and never believe your self wiser than him in any thing For men are now abandoned to the spirit of error and their best Sciences are but Ignorance their Wisdom Folly And although you think sometimes to have reason to contradict me do it not And after you shall see that your reason cannot be better than mine which you may experiment while I remain Your well-affected in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON Holstein near Gottorp Castle May. 19. 1672 St. vet THE XX. LETTER Spiritual Diligence is necessary to Salvation To the same to whom is shewn a Fourteenth snare of the Devil more pernicious than the rest viz. Spiritual Negligence He is moved to Spiritual Diligence by consideration of the diligence usually bestowed on temporal things which the Children of this World administer with more Care and Prudence than the Children of Light do Spiritual Things My Son I Perceive it appears some what difficult to you to watch continually so narrowly over all your Words and Actions But believe me if you do it not the Devil will assuredly surprise you in every thing And you shall obey him without knowing it For he is a most cunning spirit who watches always without rest And therefore it is necessary despising all difficulties to resolve absolutely for the combat if you will obtain salvation and tend to true Virtue For without fighting there is no Victory and except you apply your spirit to watch diligently over all your actions and words you shall fall into all sorts of evil And therefore is it that they call Negligence a mortal or capital sin Now Negligence is not understood to be a mortal sin as signifying the want of bodily travail and labour for many persons are not oblieged to bodily labour having other occupations of Body and Spirit more profitable and necessary sometimes than bodily Labour And when they apply themselves to those good and useful things they fall not into that sin of Negligence which is called mortal for every one ought to occupy himself in different things according to his condition or disposition A sick person cannot labour bodily and sometimes also not in Spirit neither because of his Infirmity and so he falls not into the mortal sin of Negligence for he may by acting resignation to the will of God be more diligent than one that labours both in Spirit and Body A good Master of a Family labours often more in eying and watching over his Servants than he that delves the Ground An Artist labours more by ordering well the Building of a House than the Workman that builds it And so with other persons who perform their duty every one in his state and vocation So that we must not believe that that sin of Negligence is committed by them that labour not corporally but by all them that neglect to watch over their souls and to discover the tentation of the Devil Seeing such neglect their eternal Happiness and consent tacitly to the tentation of the Devil which is certainly a mortal sin and causes Eternal Damnation that is it wherefore this Negligence is accounted among capital sins and ought to be called Mortal since it causes Death to the Soul For he that through Negligence does not resist the Devil he leaves his soul a prey to him And he that searches not all means to find true Virtue shall never obtain it but dying without it shall never come to eternal Happiness And therefore you must of necessity have spiritual Diligence if you would be saved For it were but flattering of your self to think that God will receive your Excuses when you shall say I did not know that the Devil had so much Subtilty and Power over us to tempt us or if you should think to excuse your self before God by your Frailty and Weakness you could not abstain from sin and could not attain to true Virtue because you could not find the way For all these Excuses and false Reasons God will not accept because he searches the Reins and tryes the Consciences and sees the least motions of our wills And he knows without needing witnesses what Diligence we have given to watch over our Souls and what Diligence to evite sin and follow true Virtue For God is not as men who amuse one another by the false Philosophy which they 've learnt in the Schools which serves only to maintain wickedness and excuse the malice of their likes They invent smooth words to make wickedness appear Truth and please themselves with these fine words and suffer themselves to be perswaded that Falshood is Truth when adorned with the fine terms and words of their false Philosophy But God regards the Essence and Reality of the thing and sees even to the bottom of our Souls and so he knows if we have done all Diligence in earnest to discover the deceits of the Devil and find the means to arrive at true Virtue and finding that we have done neither the one nor th' other we are condemned without place for Excuses And so my Child you must not be deceived Think not to find Excuses before God when you have lived in spiritual Negligence for he will not accept them He hath given you a Body and Spirit and that to apply them both diligently to eschew evil and follow good But the misery is that men now adays are fallen into so profound an ignorance that they employ body and soul in Care and Diligence to acquire the things of the earth and render themselves by that means incapable of having spiritual Diligence for when a Vessel is filled with dung there can be nothing that is good put in it Alas what are all the Cares of the business and affairs of the world other than Dung which hath filled your Spirit You were a diligent Merchant and your care and diligence hath heaped up money to you but now what will you do with that money you cannot expend it for Meat and Drink and Cloathing nor can you carry it with you at Death and if you leave it to your Relations they shall thereby become more vicious and proud So that every way you must acknowledge that your spirit hath been always filled with the dung of cares and diligence for earthly things And it is no wonder that so you could not discover the wiles of the Devil nor the means which advance unto true Virtue because your Diligence was employed about other things But now when the Goodness of God hath discovered to you the truth of these things you must endeavour to use that Diligence to discover the tentations of the Devil and the means to arrive at Virtue which formerly you used in your temporal affairs I believe you would not then let slip any occasion wherein you saw any profit without accepting it and that you suffered
though he committed no other sin for it is of our Souls that the Scripture says in the perfect sense The Ground that is not laboured shall bring forth Thistles and Bryars because the ground of our Souls became cursed by sin and being fallen into that Curse it can no more bear any wholsom fruit without bestowing on it a great Diligence We must trench and till it with the iron of penitence to tilk the Tares and bad Weeds of Corruption which have sprung up in the earth of our souls For if these be not rooted out they shall suffocate always the good grain of true Virtue which should thereby be stifled though sowed in good quantity in our souls we must maintain it by a continual Diligence otherwise it will bear no fruit we must watch over our Enemies we must always resist the inclinations of that corrupt nature and finally we must continually study the knowledge of our selves For he that knows not himself is ignorant of all and cannot arrive at the Virtue to be Meek and Lowly and Humble of Heart which Jesus Christ says we should learn of him No other means can be found than that he that knows not the Miseries Ignorance and Malediction wherein sin hath brought us cannot be meek He shall on the contrary be fierce and arrogant and presume to be worthy of honour and esteem which shall also take away and hinder his Meekness toward his Neighbour and also his Humility of Heart For he that knows not himself thinks he hath need of no person and consequently will not be meek nor kind toward his Neighbour and yet less Humble of Heart which comes for want of knowledge of his Misery and the miserable estate into which sin hath reduced him and so he cannot humble himself according to the Doctrine of Jesus Christ which is so good and salutary unto which I exhort you my Son that you follow it to your eternal Happiness And I am Your well-affected in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON Husum Feb. 3. 1674. St. vet THE XXIV LETTER Men are Idolaters of their own Corruption and Enemies of Virtue To the same advertising him that the continuation of that Subject is interrupted by the Devils exciting the Wise of this World Enemies of Virtue and Friends of corrupt Nature to distract the mind of the Writer by their disputes Lies and Calumnies and all manner of Persecutions My Son I have yet many things to say to you of solid Virtue but the time is wanting to me at present seeing my Enemies are all earning to hinder it I doubt not but it is the Devil our common Enemy who will not suffer that we speak of solid Virtue Beside he keeps men at present in spiritual Negligence with apparent Virtues and they take them for solid and true ones therefore would he make them rest in the Love of themselves without arriving at solid Virtue Now while he cannot hinder that I should discover it because God discloses it to me he endeavours to his power to hinder its being published He induces divers persons to write against me to take up my time in answering them and to entertain me with matters of Contention instead of that of solid Virtue Which bereaves me of my time and gives me the displeasure of leaving this Treatise of solid Virtue Yet I must apply my self to repel the Calumnies and Lies which they have dispersed against me in divers places As some in England have also done So I was obliged to write a Large advertisment against them for if I did not give testimony to the truth against so many fall accusations and sies which they 've made I should be guilty of the sin which these false accusations produce and should be the cause that good persons did not follow the Truths which I propagate from God For so many false reports would render them suspect the rather when I am not attacqued by the common people but by the ministers and learned which are esteemed worthy of credit These wise and learned strive at present to kill the spirit of Jesus Christ as such like before killed his body you have seen the defamatory treatise which John Berckendal in name of the Ministers of Calvins Reformation in Altena hath composed against me And I was obliged to give testimony to the truth against so many falshoods by a great Teatise whereto are joyned the testimonies of a great many persons yet alive and worthy of credit That work hindered me from writing more to you of solid Virtue though I know that to be very profitable and necessary for you and for all that desire and aspire at becoming true Christian as you do There are at present so many persons deceived by apparent Virtues and who learn always and never come to the knowledge of the Truth They think they are already in true Virtue whereas they are yet altogether in the love of themselves Therefore is the Devil so angry when I write of true Virtue lest the Deceit of the false be discovered by the true But the Devil cannot hinder me to know it since God discovers it to me so he attempts to bereave me of the time to write it that neither you nor other souls that aspire after it should know it That is the cause why he incites divers persons to write against me that so I may not have time to write of solid Virtue He labours to occupy me always in opposing Slanderers But he deceives himself for among the refutations of the calumnies of my Enemies I intermix always something of solid Virtue It ought to be unto you My Son a Discipline to regulate well your life and become a true disciple of Jesus Christ Examin well then all that comes from my pen and you shall always find therein more and more enlightning and wholsom instruction which you shall find principally in the 23 Letters which I have written last to you concerning the words of Jesus Christ Learn of me for I am meek and lowly and humble of heart all that matter shall suffice for aliment to your soul until I can write more unto you which I shall do when I have answered two treatises which the Disciples of Labadie have composed against me I have not yet had leisure to read them but I conjecture that they shall be as the rest full of Errors and Calumnies And that because all they that follow the motions of corrupt nature are in error and falshood and are not in quiet nor at peace with the Truth because these are two contraries which always exclude one th' other And therefore is it that all these learned Schollars oppose the doctrine which I advance It is not such as they have learnt in the Schools besidâ— neither will they approve any thing but what maintains them in Honours Profit Eases and Commodities of this life To which the Doctrine of Jesus Christ is quite contrary For it speaks of nothing but poverty Contempt sufferings and Persecution