defect Fire is good in that it warms and enlightens but evil in that it burns and smoaks Water is good in that it refreshes and quenches thirst but evil in that it is crude and cold the Air is good for respiration and to purge bad vapours but evil in that it hath tempests the Earth is good for producing fruits but evil in that it is miery and that it produces pricking Thorns and Thistles Gold Silver and other Metals are good in that they serve mens commodities but evil for their heaviness and obscurity all the Plants and Fruits of the Earth have something of good and something of evil and also all beasts of the Earth the Air and the Water and man especially is composed of Good and Evil So that there is nothing amiable but God alone since there can never be evil in him and out of him nothing good to be loved all being accompanied or mixt with evil Evil is not an object of Love nor worthy of our affection Man then is created to love and there 's nothing more natural to him than love He must needs love something For he may be as soon without life as without love for there 's nothing but death puts an end to the love of earthly things but the love which is in his nature can never end It is created of God who is eternal it shall also endure eternally but that love can have divers objects one loves good things another evil a-third things mixed of good and evil Now he that loves good things loves God since there is nothing good beside him and all the good that is in the Creatures comes from him He that loves evil things loves the Devil seeing there is nothing evil but what comes from him For God hath not created evil nor any thing evil it is the Devil alone who hath produced all evils in separating himself from all good and is by consequence fallen into all evil which is nothing else but the privation of all good And he that loves the creatures loves an object composed of good and evil for God created them all good but the Devil by his subtil malice hath insinuated the evil into the good when he gained man's will who consented to that mixture of good and evil For God had created man free so he would not hinder him to use that liberty which he had once given him And therefore man is free during this life which is his time of tryal where he may choose one of these three Objects viz if he will love God or the Devil or earthly Creatures Now there is no doubt but God is the most lovely Object who hath nothing of evil Wherefore then should it be impossible to love God with all our heart as he hath commanded there is nothing so lovely as him and beside that love brings us all sorts of good for God is as powerful as lovely and can render man happy in time and in eternity O what Quiet Joy and contentment even in this world hath a person that loveth God and how much shall these Goods be augmented in Eternity What disquiet Grief and Trouble inwardly hath a man that loves the Devil for let him do all the evil he can he is never pleased nor content his Conscience can never be in quiet and his joy can be only false and apparent because of the sadness which sin infallibly brings For evil blinds the Soul fills the Heart with dark and melancholy thoughts dulls the Spirit and tortures the Conscience as soon as the pleasure of the evil is over And after these temporal evils he must look for greater and eternal ones because he hath loved the devil who can give nothing but torments having nothing else in his power So that evil Object is as little profitable as lovely It is the same with the Creatures while we cannot love them without the evils which they carry mixed with the good which God had put in them And all the creatures of whatever nature have no power to render us happy neither in this life nor in that to come For if we love Riches which are so much loved now adays we are their Slaves because of the travail we must use to get them and the care and disquiet to preserve them nor can they afford us more than a little nourishment for our bodies and Cloaths to cover us which the poor can have also and with less trouble and if they think themselves happy because they can satisfie their taste in eating and drinking deliciously that is only a greater misery causing infirmities and diseases from which they that live soberly are free And if we love some human Creature we are yet more miserable seeing we so sell our liberty and become subject to the passions and inclinations of another So that there is no happiness for the man that loves the creatures seeing they have no power to make us happy in this world and far less in eternity And therefore there is nothing but the Love of God which is profitable and amiable for man and no other Object we must then conclude from thence that it is very possible to love him and beside that it is profitable and necessary both for our temporal and eternal happiness which I pray you to believe Your Well-affectioned in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON In Holstein near Gottorp Castle April 20. 1672. St. Vel. THE IX LETTER That it is easier to Love God than any thing else To the same to whom is shown that it is most Easie Profitable Honourable Sweet and Pleasant to Love God and keep his Commands for him that will deny himself It is Blasphemy to say that it is impossible to love God with all our heart My Dear Child NEver suffer your self to be perswaded that it is impossible to Love God with all our heart as these Ignorants falsly say for there is nothing more easie sweet pleasant honourable and profitable than to love God with all our heart First it is most easie seeing man is created to love Love is the strongest passion he hath in his nature so that he can no more be without love than without life consequently it is very easie to follow that natural inclination where there in no need to do any violence seeing the bent and inclination of man tends thither of it self and that its easie to follow a Love which is engraven in all both soul and body No person then need doubt that it is most easie for him to love But some doubt if it is easie to love God being he is an object invisible to nature and we cannot love what we Know not but with great difficulty That sentiment is altogether brutish and cannot be in the mind of a reasonable man who by his reason can see that there is a God Author of all things and that there is no creature that hath not its origine from a supreme cause who is its Author and Creator or else they could
himself and search the means for his own satisfaction Now God had given man five natural Senses that he might prove all that God had created for him provided he praised and thanked the Creator for so many good things but he began to use his senses to please himself and attribute to himself the Favours and Graces God had bestowed on him as if they had been his own and he the Soveraign independent on God for he pleased himself to see so many beautiful creatures and attributed them to himself and also to hear the pleasant Melody which God produced in nature pleasing himself in hearing them without referring them to God the same did he in smelling taking his contentment in all the good Odours which God had made to show unto man his liberality giving him not only the things neeful for the sustenance of his being but also Delectable things to procure him pleasure as are the objects of Sight Hearing and Smell and man could well have subsisted without the pleasures of these but God would oblige him to love him by excess of benefits and so created so many good and beautiful Creatures only for pleasure to man having created all sorts of delicious fruits for his nourishment and so many other creatures to satisfie his feeling that he might lack nothing for sustenance and pleasures which he could use at pleasure provided he blessed the Lord who had made them for him But ingrate man falls from that acknowledgment of his God and takes all his gifts for his proper satisfaction and so he left the Love of God and hath turned to love himself which hath necessarily rendred him an enemy to God for such ingratitude is insupportable though it were but committed by one man to another For what man would be satisfied to have desired the friendship and fidelity of another having with that aim bestowed his goods on him in abandance and procured him all sorts of pleasures and recreations that he might faithfully keep friendship if that ingrate Wretch forsook his Benefactor to take his pleasure in these same goods which he had so freely received how much more then should God resent the ingratitude of man while he places his love and affection in the things which God hath so liberally bestowed on him to oblige him to love him and yet man hath forsaken him and pleases himself only in self-love That you ought to consider well My Child that you render not your self guilty before that great Majesty and Discover if you be not obliged to embrace voluntarily Adam's penitence since you have fallen so often in the same sin in quitting the love and Dependance of your God to love your self and Depend on your proper will So resolve to renounce your five natural senses which are assuredly actuated by the devil for since he got power over Adam's spirit he hath after had it over that of all men and will have it so long as they continue to live in their corrupt nature from which I pray God Deliver you and I remain forever Your Well-wisher in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON Holstein near Gottorp Castle 18. Febr. 1672. St. vet THE VIII LETTER It is easier to love God than any other Thing To the same to whom is shown that we must renounce the evil use of our senses and that the right use of them ought to be referred to God also that it is possible equitable reasonable and necessary to love God with all our heart My Son I Will not believe that you are one of those evil advised persons who say there is little evil in following the motions of corrupt nature God created Nature say they and cannot be offended that we follow it Several of my Aquaintance have been of that mind they were given to Lasciviousness and told me That God would not punish them for that seeing himself had given them such a Nature and that it was needful to use it to multiply the world So flattering themselves in their Sins to satisfie their senses and more say they God hath given all these to man and we cannot be without Seeing Hearing Smelling Feeling and Tasting That 's all true but they had not light enough to discern the miserable state into which man is fallen by Sin from that happy one into which God had created him For then in that state man could enjoy the Pleasures of his five Senses provided he loved and blessed God But since he hath fallen into sin he can no more enjoy them without offending God because all the pleasure he now takes in his five Senses is only to satisfie himself for his own Glory and Advantage but before sin was the satisfaction of his Senses served only to bless praise and glorify the Lord for the Benefits and Mercies he received of him So that he no sooner saw these beautiful things but his heart was elevated to praise God who had given him these beautiful Objects these Melodies fragrant Odours delicious Tastes and Feelings So that whatever he saw or perceived good or pleasant was to him matter of blessing God and magnifying him for his Benefits But since man is fallen into sin the same things are to him matter of offending God for if he sees any beautiful thing he covets it to satisfie himself and that Self-love retires him from the Love of God and that is it which makes sin seeing he hath commanded us to love him with all our heart so that we cannot love these beautiful things without infringing that Command seeing all our heart cannot be in the Love of God when a part of it is upon beautiful things fine odours melodies delights of the taste and feeling For that 's a heart divided into as many parts as there are Different things it loves and consequently far from being intire in the Love of God as he hath commanded us But men are so blind and do so blind one another that every one perswades himself that he loves God while he loves only himself It is as if they thought to please God with words in saying with their mouth that they love him but they deceive themselves for as long as they will satisfie their five natural senses they will not love God seeing these being corrupt will engender all sorts of sin and consequently the Death of the Soul Notwithstanding no man values these evils and they think it is allowable to satisfie their senses and so follow them often as much as they can without believing they do evil and not apprehending that there is nothing more Deceitful than the Heart of Man which often flatters it self to its own destruction But you my Child be more wise learn the truth of things without yielding your self to be Deceived by false appearances Never believe that it is allowable to take any pleasure out of God and far less that there is no evil in following your five natural senses since that cannot be without sin for though we give our affections but for an
cleared that the Devil cannot draw man to sin nor do him any hurt except man give his own Consent My Son IN my former I set before your eyes how the Devil tempts men many ways and insinuates himself into Virtue it self that he may direct our good works to his own honour and glory which very often comes to pass But I fear lest by yet another sort of tentation he catch you which you could not discover if you were not forewarned of it To wit when you have well considered the power and wiles of the Devil and find in your experience that it is he who incites you to do evil It is to be feared that you will lay the blame upon the Devil because sometimes you do evil against your will For mans heart is so proud that he will not confess his fault and so seeks for the cause of his sins without himself Which you may the rather do because I have deduced to you at length that all evils come from the Devil and all good from God but though that be most true we must not therefore imagin that the Devil of himself can ever force us to do evil For he is a miserable impotency who hath no power over our souls hearts and wills but so much as we give him The Devil may well represent evil to our spirit and incite our wills to follow it and incite our corrupt nature but he can never force us so long as our will remains firmly resolved not to consent to evil The Devil is as a chained Dog who can go no further than his Chain permits him and God will give him no more power than the will of man desires For though he permitted him to tempt Job by the loss of his Goods Children Friends and Health he did not permit him to cause him to fall into sin And although Job cursed the day of his Nativity he did not herein offend God nor fall into any sin For he cursed only the malediction which sin brought into human nature which all men have reason to do in feeling the pains and sufferings which sin hath caused to us For before sin man was not subject to any Evil and he enjoyed all Good without mixture of evil He was not annoyed with hunger or thirst heat or cold he had no labour to weary him he needed no sleep nor had any alteration in soul or body was not subject to diseases nor death So that man had enjoyed all sorts of delights in this world and the time of tryal being over confirmed in Grace he had lived eternally happy and blessed But sin hath deprived him of all that happiness and hath reduced him to all sorts of suffering and misery Which Job considering in the midst of his miseries he had reason to curse the day of his birth when he saw himself in inevitable miseries You must consider that Job did not curse the day that God created him in on the contrary he blessed him for all because he was his faithful Servant and so he desired to satisfie divine Justice for all his sins which he had committed Now because he so desired God permitted the Devil to tempt him in divers manners that Job's faithfulness might be manifest before all men and the Devil himself But they that understand not the way of God judge that Job was impatient which is false For his soul rejoyced in that God pleased to use him as a mirrour of patience to confound the Devil who could never make him fall into sin though he essayed it so many several ways God knew that Job's heart was submitted to his holy will and that he offered himself continually to him to be proved in what manner it pleased him And because of these wishes God permitted that the Devil might tempt him Now if the Devil had had power over man he had not needed to ask God's permission to tempt Job for he would have done it of himself without any permission But he hath no power over man save what he by his own free will gives him Besides God can never do any evil to man nor permit that it befall him without the consent of his free will So if we commit sin it is of our own free will as also when we damn our selves for God can never damn any person without doing the greatest evil that ever was which cannot proceed from God who can never do any evil But it is our sins that damn us and not God for if there were no sin there should be no damnation and sin depending on man's free will we must not attribute our damnation either to God or to the Devil seeing God gives us always Grace in aboundance to save us and the Devil hath no power to damn us So that man alone is truly blameable for the sins which he commits and ought never to attribute the fault to the Devil because he cannot wrong us if we will not He may well bark as the chained Dogs but he cannot bite us unless we approach him And therefore my Son you ought never to believe that the Devil is the cause of your evil doing though all evils come from him he cannot effect them in us without our consent He may well afflict our Body or Spirit when we desire to purge our Souls by suffering Then God suffers him to tempt us by the most salutary things As he may permit the Devil to bring to poverty a Good Man when he sees that he would forget himself by Worldly Goods God loving his Soul so takes away his Riches as the occasion of the Damnation of his Soul Sometimes also he takes away his Honour or his Health lest these should hinder the perfection of his Soul And it is not always directly mans will that these things should be taken away from him for he complains sometimes of it but when God takes them away it is always with the indirect will and consent of man For example the person does not desire to be poor afflicted or sick but desires that God send him every thing that is necessary for his salvation And God regarding that good will removes from him whatever might hinder the advancement of the desired Salvation And that is a fatherly Love which God bears to Man and not a Punishment as the natural sense takes it and complains of it But it is truely what the person desired in the bottom of his soul viz salutary things And the Prophet even prays God That he would constrain his rebellious will By which we may see that God never afflicts a person without his will and consent direct or indirect Because he created him altogether free he cannot be touched to good or evil no more by God than by the Devil who can never cause man to sin against his will direct or indirect But man does not always know the indirect will he hath to sin and for that says or believes that it is the Devil that makes him sin against his will
illustrare adultisque ad subtilia ineptis persuadere valeat Cujus exemplum paucis ab hinc annis nobis tulit Flandria in virguncula infante septimum aetatis annum nondum egressa quae cum vitam hanc spatio brevem curriculo miseram satis cerneret mortales tantopere ea capi obstupuit cum Jesum Christum vitam immortalem suis acquisivisse audivisset enixe continuo parentes rogavit ut se in Christianorum regiones ducerent cum autem ipsi Christum in Flandria coli responderent hoc incredibile exclamavit Christum enim paupertatem laudasse illis autem nummos numen esse illum dignitates sprevisse illos autem has ambire flendo arguebat et Quis talia fando Temperet a lachrymis That is Such is the efficacy of this reasoning that it is able to illuminate infants in the dawning of their age and to perswade aged people that are not apt or disposed for subtil thoughts whereof Flanders hath a few years ago furnished us an example in an infant Girle not past the seventh year of her age who when she perceived well this life to be of a short continuance and miserable course was astonisht that mortals were so much taken with it and having heard that Jesus Christ had purchased Eternal Life for his Followers she earnestly and continually asked her Parents that they would take her into the country of the Christians and when they answered that Christ was worshipped in Flanders she rejected that as incredible and argued with tears Christ commanded Poverty but they loved money as their God he despised Honours but they coveted them and who could relate or speak of these things without weeping I add one A. de H. which may be something of a Directory to those in the like case with the Writer a renowned Phisitian in the Town of Middleburg in Zealand whose former Writings communicated to the world give testimony how just and penetrating his spirit is when he had well begun to make the matter in question the object of its consideration gives his rawest thoughts in a plain familiar Letter to Mr. P. thus Reverend SIR AFter by your counsel and recommendation I began to read Mrs. Antonia Bourignons Writings I felt as it were a fighting against them and they seemed to me not to deserve so much praise yet considering that your esteem must depend on a well-grounded knowledge because you knew the Gentle-woman you conversed with her and have accurately examined her writings Hence I began to read more attentively whence immediatly a sublim wisdom laying open man's interiour displayed it self The numerous difficulties that occurred in the beginning do evanish as my reading is with more attention Yet I cannot as yet assent unto all perhaps because I have read only few of them and have put fewer of them into practise without which these vritings seem not understandable as also the intelligence of Holy Scripture is promised only to them who obey the will of God That seems to me the greatest difficulty that practice may keep pace with knowledge which to overcome we must seek strength from the Father of Lights which is seldom done according to his will Our corrupt Nature lays many obstacles in the way and the seducing world strengthens it especially in the Art to which I have perhaps without God's conduct addicted my self in which a thousand distractions do dayly occur an Act so uncertain and so filled with Deceipts that I doubt if it may be exercised with a safe Conscience before I would demonstrate and amend its Errors but I know not the source of Errours Sin And in vain is the redress of Evil sought from him who is in Evil. I readily assent to Mrs. Antonia Bourignon that Christians must live otherwise than men do now adays Thoughts of this sort Sir have exercised me since I read your Divine Oeconomie and Mrs. Bourignons Writings and had given me occasion to speak with you if my intended Journey into Holland had succeeded but that being hitherto hindered I would give you these lines to the end you may give me counsel to the reading of these Writings with the greatest fruit and to overcome the corruption of my nature I willingly grant there are so many wholsome Counsels in them that it may seem superfluous to desire more If you think so I am content and recommending my self to your Prayers that God would perfect the work he has begun in me I shall remain Reverend SIR Yours in Christ A. de H His succeeding Letters so much breathed out conviction of Sin Righteousness and Judgment as might stumble worldling hearts But why it were a work beyond a Volum to alledge all that might be adduced of the mighty power and efficacy of her Writings in allarming the Consciences enlightening the Minds and inflaming the Desires to the overturning of the Works of Darkness and contempt of all worldly things to seek only eternal ones and all such as it were to attribute robbery to another power than that of the adorable Majesty of our God and that in all ranks and sorts of persons of different Countries Professions Capacities and Tempers and of all Religions and Sects and generally all that seek God in Truth and sincerity in whatever circumstances have to the measure of that Truth and Sincerity joyned hands embraced approved and acquiesced in the substantial essence of the words and way of Eternal Life here every where and only recommended many of which have been and are impartially speaking the most sound and profound Spirits of the age at least in the European World and as far as the Latin Tongue serves to propagate the communication of Thoughts and that as well in the general quality of a solid judgment and penetrating spirit as in the specification by determining the same to particulars Subjects and Studies whether Theologie or Law or Phisick or Philosophy in all of which some sufficiently attested to the literate World capable of its greatest attempts yet in them God hath reserved that Candour that they would not be disobedient to the heavenly Call but counted all loss and dung for the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ though alas the number of such is lamentably small in all sorts In fine Let whosoever is weary and heaven loaden come resolutely absolutely and constantly hither and he shall assuredly by divine assistance find rest to his Soul and the peace which the world cannot give nor take away even amidst all outward Adversities yea and inward tentations beyond the reach of all the Rhetorique in the world yea and all the force and cunning of Earth and Hell to unstable the Foundation either means or end if he continue faithful under Christs Yoak To pass further to a Brief touch of a few of the many Memorable things in her Life from her own Manuscripts and from the faithful and judicious record of her Life continued ANtonia Bourignon was born in the City of Lisle in Flanders on the
life were with incomparable Purity Evidence Clearness and Solidity in that Soul which thou didst sanctifie and are yet in her holy Writings In truth the way that is there recommended as necessary to Salvation is the only and the true way there is no danger to abandon our selves wholly and entirely in it for it is the very Truth it is the Truth it self It is the pure Truth There is none Lord there can be none other in Heaven nor in Earth There is none other way unto eternal life than that which thou hast put into the Mouth in the Writings and in the Life of thy most holy hand-maid Antonia Bourignon I praise and bless and thank thee O my God that thou gave me to know the same and hast opened and enclined the ear of my heart thereto Give me Grace to love to observe and to maintain that heavenly Truth unto Death Happy he that should lose a thousand lives for so worthy a subject Happy he who shall never for any consideration leave the practice of it Let me by thy divine Grace be of that number that after this short life of Tryal that most certain and most infallible mean make me enjoy my soveraign End which is to have the happiness ever to adore and praise thy great Majesty O Jesus eternal God Creator Saviour and redeemer of the World while with the Father and holy Spirit thou shalt reign Gloriously in all eternity Amen Revelation Ch. 3. He that hath Ears to hear Let him hear THE PREFACE OF THE PUBLISHER THis Treatise consists of two parts whereof the one may be called Extructive which builds or establishes and the other Destructive which destroys or everts For the first ten Letters are adapted to the planting of Virtue and all the rest to evert and root out what may hinder its increase To recommend Virtue is taken the precept of him who is the Master and Example of it by which is made an introduction shewing what Virtues we must in the first place embrace and by what meanstend to them which is by Obedience and renouncing our own will unto the Meekness Lowliness and Humility of Heart of Iesus Christ see Let. 1 2 3. the Nature of which Humility is explained and the means conducing to the attainment of it viz the knowledge of our Corruption and the Miseries which our Bodys and Souls ly under Let. 4 5 6. Which ought to produce in us the effect of renouncing our natural senses and being content with what is of meer necessity we should flee all Pleasure and proper Satisfaction Let. 7 8. which emptying of our selves will be accompanied with the Love of God which incontinently possesses the Heart from which vitious affections are expelled because of the near relation and sympathy between them as between the Creature and its natural Element In which Love consists the Essence and Complement of all Virtue and all Good Let. 8 9 10. Concerning the overturning and resisting the Impediments and Tentations of Satan is treated Let. 11. whether they be offered to our Imagination or Sensibility even spiritual Let. 12 13. or to the Understanding making us rest in the naked knowledge of the Truth Let. 14. Or exciting us to external acting or internal with Vain Glory or by Dejecting us through immoderate mortifications or in unseasonable good works spiritual or corporal toward our Neighbour Let. 15 16. Or in regard of the Devil accusing him too much or too little of our sins Let. 17 18. Whether these Tentations affect the will whose godly fervour Satan would extinguish by Grief Spiritual Negligence and Self-love as shew Let. 19 20 and to the end There is briefly represente the whole subject handled in this divine Treatise which is more specially noted at the beginning of each Letter that you may kind Reader view as in a Table and beter retain in your memory the divine Instructions therein delivered Moreover you may with us well admire the infamous audacity of some as the Church-men in Holsatia whereby some years ago they caused that these so wholsome instructions while under the Press in the German and Low Dutch Tongues were taken away by force and violence and rent While I consider these obscure enemies of the truth that Scripture offers it self to me that Every one that Doth and will do evil hateth the Light and cometh not to the Light lest his deeds be reproved and this is the Condemnation that Light is come into the world and men Love Darkness rather than Light because their Deeds are Evil. It is far otherwise with him who doth and will do the Truth for he cometh to the Light that his Deeds may be made manifest because they are wrought in God Joh. Ch. 3. I pray the God of Truth that he graciously please to instruct and lead you in the way of Truth that you never refuse to come to the Light Farewell TO THE READER Friendly Reader I Cannot abstain from imparting unto you these twenty four letters which I have written to one of my particular Friends where I shew him what Solid Virtue is because it is a matter so necessary for the present time when we see false virtue reign or such as is only apparent to the eyes of men and while so many persons deceive themselves perswading themselves that they have true Virtue whereas they have nothing but fine Speculations They think themselves Humble when they can talk well of Humility and think they have the Love of God when they desire to have it notwithstanding they have in effect only the Love of themselves and it is but Deceit and Falshood when they say they have the Love of God They do not so much as know the corruption of their Nature seeing they think they may follow that corruption without sinning provided they do no evil reproveable before men and have a will to do well and love God Which notwithstanding is not sufficient to be saved for good desires without effect are nothing before God They are indeed Foundation stones serving to the building of true Virtue For without good Desires we cannot do good Works We must first have the desire and after put it in execution which is wanting to many persons of a good will who content themselves to be of a good will and hope with that all shall go well without considering that the holy Scripture says to all in general Depart from evil and do Good Now the Evil is in our corrupt nature which no person ought to ignore yet few depart from that corruption and most love and follow it thinking they do well which is a great abuse and presumption of spirit for we cannot do good except we depart from evil and he that does not resist that corrupt Nature and renounce it cannot acquire true Virtue which few persons comprehend and thence is it that they have only apparent Virtues and no real ones Therefore is it that I have resolved to cause print these twenty four
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
add nothing to our souls and cannot have the recompense of eternal life They may indeed be a mean to attain to true virtue when our design is to aspire and arrive at it but the misery is that many rest at these means and external virtues as if that were the end And so they think they have virtue indeed whereas they have it only in shadow not in reality And therefore is it that I teach you what true virtue is and particularly what is that meekness which J. Ch. says we must learn of him It is nothing else but a peace quiet and tranquillity of Spirit which resides in the bottom of our soul and all these are Spiritual qualities which cannot be seen or felt but by their outward operations But the essence of that virtue of meekness is a divine quality and you cannot judge by the outward actions if one possesses it for one may well learn to speak mildly without having the mildness which J. Ch. says we must learn of him We may learn meek words like a Perroquet and speak so perhaps for civility or by hypocricy for I have known persons that appeared most meek in their carriage who inwardly were wicked and arrogant And therefore we must not amuse our selves at that outward mildness which is often deceitful and but natural for there are persons so faint-hearted that they fear to speak a harsh word left it give themselves trouble by as harsh an answer and that Sillyness makes them mild and calm both to good and evil And yet such dare believe that they have the virtue of meekness when it is only a vice of sloath and injustice which makes them yield to the sin of others instead of resisting it with diligence and courage but they will not take so much trouble It is not then that false meekness which I exhort you unto my Child for so you should not learn that which J. Ch. teaches but I would gladly make you comprehend what is that true meekness that you might love and follow it It is then an inward peace a quiet of conscience and tranquillity of Spirit which dwells in the bottom of our soul behold what that meekness which J. Ch. recommends to learn of him contains Himself practiced that meekness all the time of his mortal life and you may observe from that if there be at present any souls possessed by his Spirit that is who have effectually those three qualities in their souls for otherways they cannot be possessed of the Holy Ghost Observe well in me If I have peace in my soul quiet of conscience and tranquillity in my Spirit And if you discover in me these qualities believe assuredly that you may obtain them also for God refuses not his graces to them that ask and desire them and he will be loath to refuse that of meekness when J. Ch. says that we must learn it of him for he will not command us to learn that which is impossible God is just and therefore he hath not taught us any thing by Jesus Christ but what he will readily give us That Spirit of meekness and gentleness is the Holy Spirit which J. Ch. says shall not be refused to any bringing us this comparison to the purpose who is he of you who when his son asks bread will give him a stone or if he demand fish will give him a serpent And he Draws this conclusion If you then being evil know to give good things to your children how much more shall not your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him All the evil consists in that we do not desire him and that desire cannot be great in us as long as we do not know him Many say that the Holy Spirit does not work in souls now adays as he did in the days of J. Christ rand his Apostles because they do not see him in form of a dove as he appeared at the baptism of J. Chr. or as tongues of fire as on the Apostles at Pentecost which is a very feeble argument For the Holy Ghost is not limited to times being an eternal God who gives his gifts and bears his fruits at all times and will do to all eternity seeing he can never be barren nor idle operating always in the souls that are disposed thereto and if we see not now these tongues of fire that dove or other external signs it is because we need them no more now the gospel law and the doctrine of Jesus Christ being sufficiently confirmed at least there is no Christian as I believe that calls it in question Moreover these external forms added nothing to the souls of those that received the Holy Ghost but served only to convince the hard-heartedness of the incredulous And therefore true believers have no need to see external figures to believe that the Holy Spirit dwells yet in the soul of him that is thereto disposed They can well examin it themselves knowing but what the Holy Spirit is what are his gifts what his graces and what his fruits of which the meekness we must learn of Jesus Christ is one And though it be declared in divers places of Scripture yet it is all the same thing For J. Ch. says Learn of me for I am meek and lowly and St. Paul puts among the twelve fruits of the Holy Spirit goodness and benignity which is the same thing pronounced in different words and is in substance the peace quiet and tranquillity of Spirit residing in the soul that hath these three internal qualities These signs are assured testimonies of the habitation of the Holy Spirit For the natural Spirit cannot give true peace nor true quiet nor true tranquility of Spirit as give the meekness and lowliness which J. Christ says we must learn of him I suppose by these My Child you comprehend sufficiently what is that meekness and lowliness which J. Ch. teaches And also that you have remarked enough that I possess it in my soul seeing you see me in inward peace quiet of conscience and tranquility of Spirit without notable change but yet you know not how you may come to feel the effects of that meekness of J. Ch. in your soul I know certainly you love them so far as you know them but you know not how to attain to them Which I shall also teach you if you will give good attention and follow my counsel for it is very easie to obtain the meekness which J. Ch. teaches if you will empty your soul of what hinders it and absolutely become a disciple of J. Ch. and follow his doctrines And if you feel not in your soul true inward peace quiet of conscience and tranquility of Spirit you may believe you have not yet learnt of J. Ch. his meekness and lowliness and so you must embrace the means to attain to it The first and fundamental means is absolutely to will and desire it which I believe by the grace of God you do In the
seems to have some pleasure in it seeing there are persons that have no greater pleasure in the world than to eat and drink well and that sense adds somewhat to mans body Yet it is more replenisht with miseries than the other four because it hurts more both the soul and body of man seeing it causes so many diseases and even death by its excesses and also so many souls damn themselves in striving to satisfie the pleasure of Taste which leads them to several other sins and withdraws them assuredly from the love of God who requires to have our affections alone For he is a jealous God and notwithstanding we place them in things vile and corruptible as are meat and drink For what is more naughty than meat and drink They have scarce past the throat but they become putrid and corrupt and especially the more fine and delicate corrupt more than the courser And for all that people love them bestowing pains and travail to attain them which is a gross blindness of mind from which I pray God preserve you that your love may remain in God only and you may know the truth of all salutary things in the desire whereof I remain Your Well-wisher in Jesus Christ ANTONIO BOURIGNON Holstein near Gottorp Castle 17. Febr. 1672. St. vet THE VII LETTER He that serves the Lusts of his Senses by that same Renounces the Love of God To the same exhorting him to the effects of Humility by the Renouncing of his senses showing him that no man can follow them unless thereby he renounce the Love of God which is the end of our Creation and the essence of true Virtue My Dear Child I Deduced to you in my last how vain and miserable are the Pleasures of the Senses and have shewed you the truth of several things that you might arrive to the Humility of heart which Jesus Christ requires It is much to understand well these things but also you must set about the practice and embrace in good earnest the mortification of your senses following the truths you have known otherways it s a small matter to know the Truth if you put it not in practice knowledge is very good for you cannot practise what you know not but if that knowledge be not fruitful it cannot serve for our Salvation We must needs put to our hand and war against our corrupt nature otherways we must die the eternal Death after the temporal Which may easily be conceived since mans nature is corrupted by Adams sin and hath quitted dependance on God to depend of it self It must then of necessity remain in that corruption and sin until every man for his own particular have overcome that corruption and disobedience which he hath contracted against God or else he abideth in death and dies damned eternally For although Adam had not sinned all men in general and every one in particular could have sinned and corrupted his way by leaving dependance on his God and that because all the men that were or shall be are all created free and can continue in the dependance of God and also recede from it if they please for God forces no person So that he that is arrived to the use of Reason hath the same liberty to sin and retire from dependance on God that Adam had before his sin yet with this difference that Adam at the beginning had not in his nature that frailty and inclination to sin and evil which men have who proceeded from him after his sin for they have contracted that frailty and inclination to evil from their first father and also the infirmities of body which we see in all men and feel in our selves for no person is exempt from the evils which sin hath caused in man's nature Though it is free to all men to follow that inclination to evil which they feel in themselves as also they can by the Grace of God overcome their infirmities and the corruption of their five senses in not following them but fighting against them And it is in that that Jesus Christ says we must take the Kingdom of Heaven by Force and the Violent take it so That is not that we should fight by force to gain the Kingdom for God created it for us and he gives it us freely but it is that we must resist with force the corruption of our nature that we may enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and so that we approve not in us the sin which Adam committed and do not of our own proper will retire from dependance on God Therefore it is the Scripture says Our Life is a continual Warfare For we must continually combat the corruption of our senses without that we can never return to dependance on God from which Adam's sin hath withdrawn us seeing our senses being corrupted beget all sorts of evil and there needs no more but to follow them and their inclination to turn us away from God and remain in the way of damnation For no sooner loose we the reins to our Sight but it pleases it self to behold beautiful or curious things and no sooner have we considered them but we covet them And if we yield to the sense of Hearing the Heart delights in it and the Affection is drawn to it It is even so with Smelling where the sensitive part takes pleasure And if we please our selves in Taste all our care and study are put to search means to satisfie it and that sense is more insatiable than any other and precipitates into all sorts of sins Moreover it excites the sense of feeling for he that pleases his taste seeks also to satisfie his feeling with pleasure and satisfaction Even all the five senses are moved only by the love we carry to our selves and desire of affording our selves pleasure All these things with-draw us assuredly from God and dependance on him and he hath commanded us to love him with all our heart So that he wills not that we fix our heart on things so frail and vile as are the Sight Hearing Smelling Taste and Feeling For it is unworthy of a divine Soul which God hath given us capable of loving an eternal God who desires and commands that we love him with all our heart So that the man that hath affection for his senses quits voluntarily the dependance of God seeing he does not submit himself to his will who demands that we should love him with all our heart And that is from the disorder which the devil hath caused in man's nature when he made it turn the affection upon the creatures which is due to God alone In which consisted the first sin which man committed and thence all other sins draw their origin For nothing can be evil or sin but what is committed against the will of God and there is nothing but that can be evil as nothing can be good but what is done by his will So the Devil laboured violently from the beginning of the world to pervert
man from the will of God who had created him to delight himself with him and willed for that that he should love him with all his heart There cannot be delight but with what is beloved and therefore will God be loved of man with all his heart and that he place his affections in nothing else but in him only The Devil no sooner perceived that but he enticed him by the five natural senses which are as the five windows of our heart to withdraw his heart and affections from God and to place them on visible and sensible things The Devil then first moved Adam's heart to regard the beautiful Creatures which God had created for him he moved also his sense of hearing to give attention to the false perswasions of that old Serpent who made him believe that he should know Good and Evil if he did eat the fruit of the Tree which God had forbid him to eat of He moved him to put his Hand to touch that Apple his Smelling to smell it and his Taste to eat it and by that means the Devil carryed Adam's Heart and affection to the Creatures and turned him away from the Love he owed to God If the Devil could have drawn man's Heart directly to love him he had done it but because he is an invisible spirit he could not move the five natural Senses of man to love him And therefore he served himself of visible and sensible creatures to get himself indirectly loved by man that by moving man to self-love and to use all the other Creatures to satisfie his self-love and consequently withdraw him from the love of God which he hath done with too much success seeing he hath caused Adam and all that were to proceed from him to disobey against God and so made him abandon that dependance that he would no more depend but upon his own will and love nothing but himself Behold the miserable fall into which the Devil caused all men to fall into in Adam And they all in general are born in that misery and disobedience since the fall of Adam and come into the world with that evil inclination to love themselves and follow the corruption of their senses which breeds all sorts of sins because they are now moved by an evil spirit which is the Devil whence no good can proceed for the privation of all good is the possession of all evil So that he that hath rejected the love of God and would not renounce himself hath deprived himself of all sort of good seeing there is no other good but God and is fallen into all sorts of evil that is to say into the privation of all sorts of Good God never created any evil but man produced it when he deprived himself of the Love of God in which alone consists all sorts of Good And that is the thing they call sin which signifies to turn away and desert God who is all good and in the privation of him is all evil So that he that hath withdrawn his affections from God to place them in the love of himself or of any other creature hath abandoned all Good and embraced all sorts of Evil. For there can be no other evil but the privation of all good into which man engages himself when he carrys his love and affections to any thing else than God And what Adam did once by the instigation of the Devil men do it for their own particular as often as they set their affections on any thing beside God only Observe a little my Child how often you have fallen into the same sin with Adam and loved any other thing than God alone and also if you are not actually addicted to your self-love and retired from the love of your God but I am not surprised at it because you never knew that sin consisted in that and no person hath taught you it for the men of this time are ignorant of that truth as well as you and they that are esteemed the most virtuous are full of self-love though they think themselves free from sin so far does the heart of man deceive it self But for your part be wiser for though all men should go to perdition you must endeavour to save your own Soul The great number of damned would not diminish your torments if you should be damned with them but rather augment them by the augmentation of crys blasphemies and noysomeness of Fire and Brimstone which shall augment in Hell with proportion to the number of damned And therefore I counsel you to leave that common tract of the blindness of men which esteem nothing sin but the material things which they have prescribed one to another to be evil Things which God regards little seeing he is a pure Spirit whom not only these gross material things offend as they decifer sins as Drunkenness Robbery Whoredom and other material sins blameable before men but God is offended to see the heart of man cleave to and love things so vile since he created him to love his God only who will delight himself with him And yet man deserts God to delight himself in the satisfaction he takes in eating drinking and cloathing and recreation with any other creature Which hugely displeases God and man becomes his enemy by disobedience while he acts against the designs God had in creating him after his own image and likeness to take his delights with him notwithstanding man against the intention of God delights in himself and the Creatures that are less than himself For whatsoever is created under Heaven is much below man who is as the head and principal of all the works of God and was established over all the other inferiour works of God being made as a little God in his divine nature which is enclosed in his Humanity But the Devil envious of his happiness from the instant of his creation strove to make him lose that part of the divinity which God had bestowed on him he rendered him sensual and earthly to make him leave the love of divine and heavenly things which alone he ought to have loved and by that means he had enjoyed all the other creatures at pleasure as master and Lord of all that was subjected to him But the proud Devil could not suffer man in dominion over the other Creatures he being rejected and banisht from the friendship of God deprived of all good and replenisht of all evil so he by Rage and Envy attempted to destroy man with himself and make him companion of his miseries and seeing man composed of a body and a spirit he insinuated into his spirit endeavouring to unite himself with him under pretext of procuring good to him and so made him imagin that he should know all things as God if he would eat the fruit God had forbid him to eat of and these thoughts being entred into Adam's spirit gained his affection and made him forget the Love and Obedience which he owed to God beginning to love
their Affairs and Houshold disquiets them Fortune is against them and in the end their Pleasures terminate in divers Griefs the Pleasures of the Flesh in Pains those of the Pallate into Diseases Honour into Contempt and Slights even as Haman's Pleasure when invited to the Queens Banquet changed into Grief when he saw that Mordecai would not render him the honour he desired so do all earthly pleasures terminate in Displeasure and sadness So that we can find no other true pleasure in the world but to love God only which is full pleasant and also honourable for what Honour is man capable of approaching unto that of loving a God so mighty who created Heaven and Earth and all other things and sustains them by his almighty power and who can give unto men eternal Salvation If we count it Honour that we love a King a Prince or other Person in Authority how much ought we to think us honoured that we may love a God who is incomprehensibly good and wise and what Honour is it for a small Worm of the Earth such as man is that he may love God who desires to be loved of him and even commands him to love him with all his heart As if God delighted to honour man by requiring to be loved of him And the honour of loving God is so considerable that it passes all that man is capable of in heaven or on earth Moreover it is also Profitable for him seeing that love can render him happy in this world and to all eternity Whereas all the Creatures together cannot procure us the one nor the other What profit can we draw from the Creatures who are unable to give us a Day yea an hour or even a moments life What could they then to give us Eternal Life All the advantage men can Draw one from another is a little Money Honour or Pleasure which vanish and most part ends in pain and grief as I have before shown And therefore we cannot truely call Pleasures the Advantages and Profits that men cause one to another No more ought we to esteem Honours which are but a blast of wind which vanishes in the air of a small Disgrace and so leaves nothing in the person honoured but a piercing grief that he is no more honoured What profit is it for a man to get of his fellow a little more money It is only a more weighty charge to bear in this world where the richest are the most miserable for they can never have more of their Riches but a little necessary nourishment and cloathing to cover them all the rest is superfluous to them and should serve others seeing he must not take for himself but for pure necessity What 's over gives only the Disquiet Care and Trouble of Dispensing or bestowing it So that a Lacquey is happier than his Master he hath no care but for himself but the Master must care for himself and all under him and see that nothing be wanting to them or else his servants will upbraid or despise him Is not that a poor advantage a little money that men can afford and yet he that receives it is obliged to a thousand thanks and beside to take a more honourable state which brings him more Care and Disquiet than he had before he was so rich That testifies that nothing in this world can advantage man or give him true Honour Pleasure or Content And so there is nothing but God can render man happy in this life and that to come seeing all the advantages men reap one from another serve but for their damnation Their Pleasures retire the Soul from God their Honours cause them to fall into Pride and their Riches into Avarice which leads them to the broad way of damnation and notwithstanding they fancy themselves happy for having the good will of men which is cause of their eternal misery But so great is their blindness that they cannot see these miseries however evident They perswade themselves that they are Happinesses that their Disquiets are Peace and their Displeasures Contentments For how many persons are there in the world who study all the Days of their life to perfect themselves in some Science to be esteemed of men how many that labour travail and put themselves in several hazards to gain a little money and how many that expose riches and life too to preserve their honour Although all these things be vain yet they love and esteem them often more than they do God for we see them not do for him what they do for the Creatures they render to them painful and hard services and imagin to themselves that there is more difficulty to love God than to love the World Notwithstanding the Love of God is easie sweet pleasant honourable and profitable as I have shown but the love of the world is disquieting sad without repose honour or profit for time and for eternity Which you may remark my Child by the reasons I have above deduced to you which should open your eyes to discern Falshood from Truth that you may never give place to the false perswasions which the blinded Christians would establish They say it is impossible to love God with all our heart and so blaspheme against him For God could not command an impossibility but all that he commands is good easie and pleasant And if you consider narrowly his ten commands you shall find but two of action viz. That of loving God and the other to honour Father and Mother The other eight are but prohibitions to do evil as not to kill steal bear false witness and the rest Is it then impossible to abstain from committing these evils that these blinded minds say it is impossible to keep the Commands of God Believe not these falshoods but constrain your self to get out of that valley of Snow which is the Riches and Pleasures of this life and ascend to the Mount of Consideration of things eternal and you shall find it pleasant to love God to which you shall have the helping hand of her who is Your Well-affectioned in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON Holstein near Gottorp Castle 25. April 1672. st vet THE X. LETTER The Love of God is easie and renders all things easie To the same to whom is shown that the Love of God is in its self most easie to attain whence proceed the difficulties that occur in it and how to be removed that this love wonderfully lightens the incommodities of this life and renders the observing the commands of God and the Gospel-advices easie My Dear Child BElieve firmly that the words of Jesus Christ are true viz. That his Yoak is easie and his Burthen is Light and take his counsel in taking his yoak which you shall feel to be such if you will take it on I experience it daily more and more believe that you shall experience it as I do if you continue in the resolution to follow Jesus Christ and become his true disciple I
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
pleasure in or consent thereto Although you should be tormented all the days of your life by evil thoughts that shall not make you lose the Grace of God so long as they displease you Yet you have cause to humble your self before God for your former sins for if you had never sinned and willingly given entry to evil thoughts the Devil would not have had the power to cause you to have them after against your will But what is past is no more in your power it remains only that you strive for the time to come never more to return to them Remain then faithful to God and persevere in your good resolution which you have taken to find true Virtue Never weary in that search it deserves well that you endure some trouble for even the worldlings endure yet much more in the service of the world For what Disquiets Cares and Travails does not a Merchant suffer to gain a little Money What pains must not a Gentleman take to preserve his Honour what Fatigue and Toil hath the Labourer and Tradesmam to gain their Food which you have in the service of God without trouble Will you not suffer a little Tentation of the Devil to arrive at true Virtue which is to buy at a very easie rate For all that the Devil can do to you is inconsiderable in respect of the joy which attends you in Heaven if you endure with perseverance he may well disturb your Spirit with divers Tentations but can never cause you to fall into sin without that your own will consent to him For when you have rendred your will to God he will keep it well and not permit that the Devil gain to make it consent unto Evil. And what more the Devil can do is but a small matter He should have no power over your will if he had not had so formerly so he could not have troubled you so often For I perceive often his contradictions against me by you against your will He knows that I belong to God and follow his will which he contradicts to his power but he cannot hinder that I know and practise it and so hinder that you should follow it and causes you to contradict it often in small things because he cannot obtain that you should oppose it in great things He gains always a little when he cannot gain much I know well that is against your will and what comes to pass against it comes assuredly from the Devil for a man cannot be contrary to his own proper will what he wills he desires and what he desires effects it so far as he can And therefore it is the Devil that does in him whatever he does against his own will If you comprehended well that my Son you would resist him more and would no more cause me so much pain by the contradictions you make to the Will of God which by his Grace I know in things great and small and it you must follow to your power But you have not yet sufficiently discovered the subtil Snares of that old Serpent nor overcome your self nor human considerations which are the Chains that yet hinder your flight to God but do not lose courage If I have overcome the world you may also overcome it and shall become master of the Devil and of your self God is not partial nor an Accepter of Persons He bestows his Grace upon all them that seek and desire it in truth I wish you these desires and remain Your Well-affected in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON Holste in near Gottorp Castle 27. April 1672. St. vet THE XII LETTER The Devil the Enemy of true Virtue Opposes it with all manner of Devices To the same to whom is shewn that it is necessary to know the Wiles of the Devil with which he opposes true Virtue that we may evite them which are shown in this and the following Letters as 1. That the Devil insinuates himself into what is sensual in man 2. That he suits himself to the impulses and inclinations of every one leaving the rest in quietness My Son I Spake much to you in my last of the tentation of the Devil because it is as necessary for you to know in order to your salvation as it is to know true virtue For if you know only the good you shall easily fall into the evil even without perceiving it and so shall sometimes follow evil thinking that you do well But since I have undertaken to teach you all things necessary to salvation I must speak to you of the malice of the Devil and how he tempts men to lead them to perdition as he hath already led many even such as have never discovered that is was the Devil who incited them to do evil and so have suffered themselves to be seduced insensibly by him though they have been persons well enclined yet have they been lost by ignorance For ignorance does not excuse before God Every one is obliged to know what he ought to do and leave that he may please the Lord. If then I should now speak to you only of the beauty and excellency of virtue and you knew not the Wiles of Satan whereby he attempts to hinder men to arrive at it doubtless you should never enjoy it he would stop you in the way by one means or other So that I judge it more necessary that you know the Malice of the Devil and the power he hath over men when he is unknown to them than to teach you the Deepest Mysteries of Divinity For all sciences together could not make you holy but the Malice of the Devil should lead you to Damnation if you knew it not Therefore I pray you to apply diligently your spirit to comprehend that all sorts of Evil come from the Devil as all sorts of Good comes from God There is only these two things that are good and evil So that whatsoever is good in Heaven or on Earth in all the Creatures in every place proceeds immediately from God and all that is evil in every thing comes from the Devil For he being by his sin separated from God is fallen into all evils There is no good but in God alone and in the privation of good consists all evil All that is infallible Evil then is no real thing and God never gave it a being but all good things come ever from God whence it follows that the privation of all good is all evil So that the Devil being seperated from God who is all good is consequently fallen into all evil which is nothing else but a privation of all good That miserable Nothing is the Devil who by his free will would separate himself from all good and it is that separation which makes all evil There can be no other evil but the want and deprival of all good seeing God never created Evil. Now nothing can have a being but what God created and having never created evil it cannot be other thing but a cursed
Nothing which we call evil And that evil is in its essence in the Devil as Good is in God without mixture for there can be no Evil in God and there can be no Good in the Devil But we find a mixture in the other Creatures which have partaken of Good from God and evil from the Devil and so they can be mixed of these two things and are good or evil in proportion as they partake of the one or the other God gave unto man all sorts of Goods in aboundance since he had the power to give them And the devil that impotence hath given nothing to man but so much evil as he hath obtained consent from the free will of man and no more for he is nothing but miserable impotence And to know that the Malice of the Devil and the Sin of Man are but nothings you need but consider what we see and touch in nature For we see assuredly that Hunger and Thirst is but the want of Meat and Drink Cold is but the privation of Heat and Death the privation of life and so is it with all other sorts of evils which befal man which are only the privation of the Goods which he needs for his sustenance temporal and eternal For though we say that there are in Hell pains and Torments Fire Ice Sadness Bitterness and all sorts of Pains All these are nothing in effect but the privation of the goods which man should have had to be happy viz. all sorts of Contentments in God all Pleasure all Satisfaction and Delight Refreshment Peace and Joy eternal But the privation of all these things makes the Torments and Sufferings of Hell without need that there should be material Fire Ice or Famin. It is enough that the soul of man be deprived of all good to suffer all sorts of evil We may see that yet more clearly in a new born Infant if it be left without the good of assistance it is reduced to all sorts of evil and will die without our touching it to do it any evil for we deprive it of life in depriving it of assistance It is the same with the malice of the Devil and the Sin of man They are only privations of Good which notwithstanding cause Pains and Torments incomprehensible to mans soul And all that is represented to us by fire Hunger and other Torments of Hell which is nothing in regard of the reality of the Pains and Torments which a soul suffers that is deprived of the Grace of God For that soul is not only fallen into the Cold of Ice and Heat of Fire but also into all other sorts of Torments because the privation of the Grace of God is the possession of all sorts of evil and seeing that Grace causes us all sorts of Good its privation must needs throw us into all evil Now whatsoever lives in nature generates always because there is in it a bent and inclination to produce its like Herbs and Plants yield their seeds and sprigs or branches nothing remains unfruitful that lives in nature every kind produces its like to its power Beasts produce after their kinds men produce human Creatures spirits spirits every one according to their nature The good spirits which are the Angels of God produce always good spirits the evil which are the Devils produce evil The one and th' other of these spirits attempt to produce in the souls of men their own sort And as men are the noblest of all the Creatures there is neither Angel nor Devil hath power over him but so far as man gives them The good Angels always incite men to good the evil who are the Devils to evil And that by the desire that each of these spirits hath to render men like to themselves the Devil endeavours to render the souls of men devilish and the good Angels to render them Angelical Man in the mean while remains free to yield himself to be begotten unto good or evil for none of these spirits can force man they can but incite him Every one attempts to render him of his own party but since the Devil hath corrupted man's nature he hath also more power over it than the good Angel which hath not advanced it to good as the Devil to evil All the good in man comes from God only and not from the Angel who being a pure spirit hath not power but over the spirit of man in representing to him good things but the Devil as a subtil spirit hath insinuated himself into the spirit of man by means of the human nature And as the vital spirits in man are in his blood dispersed throw his whole body so does the spirit of the Devil mix and disperse it self with the vital spirits of man and works much more upon his nature than the good Angel who cannot joyn with the corruption of that nature because he is a spirit altogether pure but the Devil is impure and accords well with the impurity of our corrupted nature And therefore he is always more united with us than the good Angel who does not delight but in the pure spirit of man For he finds nothing conform to his Angelick nature but the spirit of man because our human nature is too gross and earthly to be united with the Angelick Nature But the Devil as an impure Beast wallows freely in the flesh and blood that he may gain the soul of man He so mixes himself with the blood of man that he easily moves all the parts of his body to do evil but man knows not that it is the Devil For he is so united to corrupt nature that though we feel his motions we think that they proceed but from our own nature Which is because man cannot comprehend that the Devil should so mix with flesh and blood since he is only a Spirit without Body as he is truely but the Devil hath that subtilty to joyn himself to the vital spirits of man to move the flesh to Luxury Wrath and other vicious Passions You may see that my Son by your proper experience For if you mark well the disposition of your sentiments you shall find that you have been often carryed away with vicious passions even against your will and that you have perceived them with regret which cannot proceed from your self for your will cannot contradict it self If you had naturally a will to the pleasure of the flesh it would not displease you but contrariwise you would take pleasure in it and be glad that you might effectuate it But when that carnal thought or desire displeases you and you regret it that is a token that it comes from a spirit which is without you and yet is in you without that you know how he is there Yet you see well by the operations which he does there that that proceeds not from your own will which cannot desire what displeases it but it complains with St. Paul where he says the Good that I would I do not
of Corruption which the great one hath engendered there And when it obeys that Corruption it obeys the Devil himself For the Corruption of Nature and the malice of the Devil are the same thing even as a man's Child is another man Men are grosly ignorant in that they think they are not tempted of the Devil when they do not feel in themselves preter-natural evils and they call the Malice of their Nature a Fragility without having ever seriously considered whence that natural wickedness comes to them God never created evil but he made man altogether perfect and with an inclination and will to Good without knowing any thing of evil and therefore of necessity the wickedness and inclination to evil which man feels in his nature must come from the Devil and it self may be called a Devil seeing there is no other evil but him as there is no other good but God So that they that follow the inclinations of their corrupt Nature march quietly to eternal Damnation And the Devil does not drive such with tentations but stands afar off to see them go on knowing well that they shall become dayly worse if they but follow simply the inclinations of their corrupt nature Which few are aware of but they will find themselves deceived at Death for during their life they think it is no evil to follow their natural inclinations yea say some God created Nature and cannot be offended that we follow it That is one of the greatest Tentations and is a sentiment which opens a door to all sorts of evils It is true God created nature and wills that man use it but the Devil hath so corrupted Nature that man can no more use and follow it without sinning since it is corrupted Man cannot even do any natural function now without sinning against God and that as long as he hath not overcome the corruption of his nature For if the natural man eat and drink he does it with affection now that affection ought to be carryed to God alone so he sins when he turns it elsewhere and when he gives his affection to see hear smell taste or feel he loves something else than God But he ought to love him with all his heart and not place his affections on other things beside him alone and so long as man puts his affection on eating drinking cloathing or lying c. he is turned from all good which is God and turned to all evil which is the privation of all good It is the same if we love our Riches Honours and Pleasures for we are turned from God unto the love of our selves when we love the Pleasures of the flesh and not those of the spirit and that exchange of affection causes us to fall into all evil seeing it deprives us of all good If then we will depart from all evil and possess all good we must of necessity resist and overcome the inclinations of corrupt nature otherwise we shall insensibly fall into all sorts of sin For it is enough to carry us to Hell to follow corrupt nature And therefore my Son you must die to your self first if you would arrive at true Virtue seeing as long as corrupt nature is not entirely mortified in you you cannot live in the spirit of Jesus Christ because for that you must become a new creature and detest that old corruption which the Devil hath intruded into the Works of God for it s that is our Enemy and causes us all sorts of Evil. Notwithstanding the ignorant think it a happiness when they can follow their natural inclinations although it is in effect the source of all Evils Which you may well see by the reasons which I have formerly deduced For although God hath created Nature and ordained that it should be sustained by aliments and also re-produce it self by generation yet he would always have the Heart and Affections of man to himself entirely without parting God willingly permits that man eat and drink and generate and use his five natural Senses for his necessity but he will also that we place not our Affections and Heart on these which he requires to be preserved for himself only indivisibly We may then well use all these things but not fasten our heart on 'em For when in the beginning man was created in Grace he did eat drink generate and use his five natural senses because he could do all that with thanksgiving to God When he tasted of good things he praised God who had made them so savoury for him when he saw beautiful things he praised their Author in admiring those Beauties If he smelled good Odours or heard pleasant Melody or touched smooth and pleasant things he rejoiced in God blessing him in that he had not only given him the things necessary for entertaining his life but also for Pleasure and Delight All these things then served man only to bless their Creator and glorifie him in his Creatures And man desired not Generation but to encrease the Praises and thanksgiving which they owed unto God Behold how man used all these things well before the devil had corrupted his Nature but since he is turned from God to carry his affections to himself as he does at present he desires not generation but for his own satisfaction and not for augmenting the Glory of God but to wallow in concupiscence for they have more inclination to enjoy the Pleasures of the Flesh than to produce Children to glorifie God And when men enjoy the pleasures of their senses and use the beautiful and good creatures it is more to satisfie themselves than to bless and magnifie God who gives them So esteeming more the gift than the giver From all which we see that what served unto man for blessing when he was in Grace serves now as a means of sinning and losing the Grace of God Yet we find men so blinded with self-love that they perswade themselves they can see hear smell taste and feel all that is good and pleasant and praise God in the mean while which is but falshood For since man's Nature was corrupted it no more refers any thing to God but in all these things pleases it self and uses them as if it were worthy of them as it was before sin But that is a gross Error for corrupt nature cannot seek the Glory of God it seeks only its own and hath no intention to bless and praise God for what it posesses This desire of satisfying the five senses is common to all that live according to corrupt nature none excepted Therefore those that say that they know to use good and pleasant things in praising God do but flatter themselves For to do that they must have overcome corrupt nature which they have not yet done since we see them search after good and pleasant things for their satisfaction But if they had overcome corrupt Nature they would no more satisfie it in any thing For that corruption is never so mortified in this life
but that is only an excuse for their sin 'T is true the Devil can tempt man against his will but cannot make him sin against his will he may trouble his spirit and make him remember what he should forget And forget what he ought to mind But if the person be well upon his guard and will not do evil he shall discover easily that that comes from the Devil being against his will and so will betake himself to continual Prayer to God which Jesus Christ hath so much recommended to us as most necessary for our salvation Since we have continually an Enemy to combat we must continually have Arms to defend us and that will be necessary all the days of our life That is it which the Apostle counsels us To pray always without ceasing Because we have always need of divine succour and help against the continual Assaults which the Devil gives us For it is his business and employ to do the most evil he can And as a Merchant accounts himself happy to gain much Money by his Trafick or an Artist by his Labours so also the Devil accounts himself happy in gaining many souls to himself that he may exercise on them his Cruelty and Malice And therefore he never ceases for his part to labour and invent new snares to catch the soul of man And when we shut the door of our heart to him on one side he attempts to enter by some window on the other So that all human wisdom is not able to discover all the Subtilties of Satan who being a most subtil spirit surpasses in subtilty the capacity of man's spirit And therefore is it that he must of absolute necessity use continual Prayer to discover the tentations of the Devil which he cannot know without a divine Light and yet less hath he power to resist them without the assistance of God Whom he ought continually to invocate and call for help without intermission Seeing the Devil never sleeps and watches over us when we rest But the strength of Faith and Hope in God can make us overcome the Devil and despise him as but miserable impotence Seeing he can never make us fall into any sins without the consent of our own will which refusing him he can in no wise hurt man although he should tempt him with all his might during all his life These tentations serve only for greater and true virtues to the man because he passes the time of his tryal in testifying his faithfulness to God while he does not consent to the tentations the devil offers And I account it a much happier state to be tempted than not to be so while we resist the tentations seeing they purge our souls and satisfie the Justice of God who hath in Justice enjoyned penitence for our sins which we must needs accomplish during the time of our tryal which God hath limitted since the creation of man And if we will not voluntarily suffer the tentations of the Devil now we must suffer aboundantly more sensible pains after our death when the soul being separated from this mortal body feels more vividly the separation from his God than it does when joyned with its mortal body which diverts the sense of that separation by its five natural senses which seeing hearing tasting smelling and feeling gross and earthly things are suspended and amused that he cannot feel so lively the separation of his soul from God and so charms his great misery with the amusements of earthly things Which are nothing but truely Charms and Bewitchings for though we see by experience that never any person in the world was fully satisfied and content with earthly things although enjoying all they could demand of them so love we them and that love ruins us from the Love of God without that we feel the pain of it But after death all these gross and earthly things being ended as to us thence shall we feel vividly the absence of God because not diverted more with other things and that shall endure until the time of our tryal shall be past which God alone knows how long it shall endure But it is most certain that he that will not voluntarily endure the tentations of the Devil in this present mortal life shall assuredly suffer them more sensibly after death seeing no evil shall remain unpunished and no good without recompense And he that does the good of resisting the Devil in not following his tentations must expect an everlasting Reward and therefore methinks not to be tempted in this mortal life is the greatest of all tentations Since it deprives us of the good of satisfying the Justice of God and oblieges us to suffer afterward more sensible pains And therefore my Son be not offended to feel the tentation of the Devil but resist it valiently for the Glory is in the combat and not in Idleness and Rest seeing while we feel not tentation it is a sign that the Devil holds us in a lethargique sleep to cause us to die an eternal death insensibly and without pain But when he combats us with all his forces it is a sign that he does not hold us and that he fears to lose us Therefore take courage and pray God with an humble heart that he may give you strength to overcome the Enemy But never say it is the Devil makes you do evil but smite on your Breast and confess your guilt since the Devil cannot compel you to do evil but only your perverse will when it consents to his tentations For if the Devil could speak when you say that it is he made you do evil and sin he would give you the lie and say that it was not he that made you sin but that it was your own will without the consent of which you cannot sin You may well sin without the Devil for his malice hath entered into us by Adam's first sin but the Devil cannot bring forth sin in us without our consent You are always free to do evil though the Devil do not tempt or compel you because your nature was corrupted by the first sin and thence all men from Adam bring with them in their nativity that corruption and inclination to evil But when man is arrived to the use of reason he ought thereby to discern good from evil and choose which he will follow Yea he hath a natural instinct which makes him discern evil from good for we see often a Child without any Discretion be ashamed for having done evil and his countenance testifies sufficiently that he knows when he commits evil And therefore we ought never to believe that we cannot discern good from evil to make choise for that is but to flatter our selves For lo the wickedest man in the world however blinded in his sins knows assuredly well enough when he does evil but he hath no will to change his wickedness into good or he hath not the courage to resist the Devil and that because he hath given him so
much power over his spirit Otherwise man hath in him a good judgment beyond any other creature and by that judgment he can assuredly know and discern good from evil And it is free for him to choose the good and hate the evil by an absolute act of his will which the Devil cannot hinder And moreover he hath power to resist the Devil by faith and hope in God who never fails to come to the relief of a man who asks and desires it And therefore my Son you must never say that the Devil made you do any evil which were to make you his slave and testifie your subjection to him as are the Sorcerers who have given him their souls and promised to obey him For such have truely oblieged themselves to do all the evil he pleases and when they do it not he beats and abuses them But you being a Child of God and voluntarily subject to him you must nor fear that the Devil can constrain you to sin against your will and so never attribute to him the fault you commit your self It is true the Devil first incites good persons to sin but they should despise him and not follow him yea and mock at his tentations But we must always watch over his surprisals and never sleep in the way of true virtue Believe then the Apostle's counsel where he says My Brethren be sober and watch for that very reason because the Devil goes about us like a roaring Lion seeking to Devour us We must resist him couragiously and not say I was not thinking of the Devil when I fell into evil For he desires willingly that we do evil without thinking on it That is his best recreation For it does not fall out that good persons do evil but while they sleep and think not of evil Then is it that the Devil acts most in us and causes that we think not of it till after the evil is committed But our negligence or Sleepiness will not find excuse before God seeing we are oblieged to watch always if we would arrive at true Virtue To which she exhorts you who careth for your soul Holstein near Gottorp Castle May 13. 1672. St. Vet. ANTONIA BOURIGNON THE XVIII LETTER The Good and Evil Spirit are known by their Fruit. To the same giving him the signs to know whether it is the Good or Evil Spirit that moves us shewing also a twelfth Artifice of the Devil by which he causes us to impute our Vices to our natural propensions without suspecting him to lurk therein that he may remain unknown My Son I see yet one difficulty which occurs to your Spirit to wit How you should discover when the Devil insinuates himself into your good Actions and how you shall know that it is he that moves you to do good that he may catch you or to cause that what you do with a good intention turn to his Honour For you protest that you will not obey him nor follow his tentation in any thing when you discover and know that he tempts you Believe me my Son that is most easie to discern provided you have an absolute will to resist the Devil It is very good and most easie to discover if it is the good or evil spirit who moves us in all our actions and words to do or say any thing small or great because these two spirits have their qualities and conditions quite different and work in us quite contrary operations and dispositions So that you may as it were feel with your finger if it is a good or an evil spirit which moves you to say or do any thing by the dispositions you shall feel in your Soul For the good spirit produces in our souls Charity Joy Peace Patience Long-suffering Goodness Bounty Meekness Chastity Faith Continence and Modesty And the evil spirit on the contrary produces therein Self-love Sadness Trouble Impatience Rashness Wickedness Fretting Pride Despair Intemperance Inequality Unconstancy and Impurity which are all things contrary to the fruits of the good Spirit And as the tree is known by its fruit so may we know the evil spirit by the fruit he produces in our souls And therefore we must always examin if our enterprises or the will or intentions we have to do or leave undone any thing produce in our souls Charity Peace Faith Joy and the rest And then we may be assured that our enterprises and wills are from God seeing they bring unto us the fruits of his spirit But if on the contrary we feel in our souls Self-love Sadness Impatience and the rest we may well be assured that our desires and enterprises are excited by the Devil Which is a firm and sure rule We need not then amuse our selves at fine speculations to discover if we be moved by the Devil to do or leave undone any thing while we feel in our selves the effects of a good or an evil spirit For the Devil will never incite to Charity seeing it is a divine Quality which the Devil hath not in his power and which unites souls to God But he draws from self-love all manner of advantage and declines the soul from the love of God For he that loves himself covets Pleasures honour and Riches and all that is not God and so he is sad and is not in the capacity to acquire true Virtue for he hath not courage to resist the tentation of the Devil but suffers himself rather to be overcome by dark melancholy Thoughts But the good Spirit banishes these thoughts by the joy which it brings to the Soul And although there were all sorts of occasions of Sadness externally even for our sins that good Spirit comforts and rejoyces the bottom of the soul amidst the most sensible Troubles and Pains When we have then inward joy in the midst of sufferings it is an assured testimony that the holy Spirit dwells in us Which hath often rejoyced me in the midst of Suffering and Persecutions I felt therein a great joy in the bottom of my Soul in lamenting my sins and I thanked God that he gave me these Tears of Repentance But the Devil gives only counterfeit and external joys which afflict and grieve the heart when they are over that is the cause why we see worldly persons always search after new Recreations and Divertisements For th' one is no sooner gone but Melancholy and Sadness seises the heart who would so divert himself and for that he hunts insatiably after new divertisments without finding withal true Contentment which we cannot have but by the joy of the Holy Spirit and that joy is not to be found among the Divertisments of the World I was astonisht to hear one day of a person who would re-establish Israel that he searcht for a great House with a Garden to divert himself and walk therein as also that he must sometimes go to walk in the field or go in a Barque of Pleasure or Boat to divert himself which gave me enough to
understand that the Holy Spirit had not yet brought forth his fruits in his soul though he was accounted a Saint For then should he not have needed human Divertisments to be joyful by As for me I know by experience that I have more joy and contentment in my soul in Solitude and far from human divertisments than I have in mens conversation or amongst the most divertising Objects Which gives assurance that my joy proceeds from the Holy Spirit It must needs be that it comes not from human means for it were my Consolation never to come out of my Closet and to hear nothing but in my own heart and inner man But the Joy which proceeds from the evil Spirit terminates and ends always in Sadness and Melancholy with an earning after new Divertisments to divert that Sadness so that it is most easie to Discover if it is the good or evil spirit which dwells in our souls by the Dispositions and operations which we feel in them when we have the desire to do or say any thing we need not so much go to consider if it is in appearance good or indifferent to know if it comes from God as to examin the disposition which that desire brings into our soul to wit if it is in Peace and waits for the effect of its desires with Patience and Long-suffering For that is a sign the Spirit of God hath given us that desire and that it is his will that we effect it but if we perceive that that desire to do or say any thing marr our Peace and disturb our Spirit with impatience and attempt to precipitate us before the time of fulfilling our desires That is a sign that it comes from an evil spirit And if the desire or thing is good in it self it is a sign that the Devil would mix and insinuate himself into that good work to reap his Glory thence However we must not cease to do or speak what is good in it self but we must be on our guards that we suffer not the Devil to insinuate himself in it We must then use continual Prayer to have God's succour and Assistance and Strength to overcome the tentation which the Devil offers us while we are doing good We must never cease from doing Good Works because of the tentation of the Devil For he would gladly always hinder them if he could But we must examin well the inward disposition of our Souls to discover if the Devil does not insinuate himself therein that we may purifie our intentions and beware that the Devil find no advantage therein And if you will know my Son when it is God that inspires any thing to you remark always if it is accompanied with Goodness Benignity Faith Continence and Chastity For God never gives inspirations that are not accompanied with these conditions But the Devil often gives inclinations to do good with Fretting Malice Despite Dispair Inconstance Levity and Impurity I have seen sometimes persons that gave to the Poor by Despite and Fretting upbraiding and reproaching them without any faith of an eternal Reward I have seen others assist at publique Devotions with insolence and lightness And now adays almost all marry by incontinence and impurity All these things though good in themselves are induced and excited by the evil spirit since they tend to an evil end though good in appearance And therefore must we always be upon our guard and watch against so powerful an Enemy who attempts to surprise us in all our actions both good and indifferent that he may render them evil therefore we must study well to discern the good spirit from the evil Which we may do seeing there are assured marks to know them Never say then My son that you know not if it is God or the Devil who moves you to do or omit any thing but rather acknowledge with Humility of heart that you are not vigilant enough and diligent to discover that evil spirit who dazles your understanding that you should not know him For every word you speak or action you do you may discover if it comes of the Devil provided you make a serious reflection upon your self But the misery is that we are distracted and wandering and the Devil makes us forget what we should remember and puts in our mind what we should forget that he may bring confusion in all our behaviour Remark well that Advertisment and you shall find by experience that it is but too well grounded for since the Devil can no more make you fall into manifest sins he will always endeavour to make you contradict the holy spirit which you do not yet know well You have indeed resolved in general to obey him and follow him as you have done in abandoning the World in loosing your affections from earthly goods and desiring to follow Jesus Christ in his Lowness and Humility All that proceeds from the Spirit of God who hath governed you in the most important things and the Devil could not hinder it But now he attacques you in small things and of little import that he may hinder you to do the will of God in every thing and often he gains your will to make it contrary to the will of God in common and ordinary things For if you reflect upon your self you shall find there a certain opposition to whatever I propose to you which comes often even contrary to your will yea you are vexed that you should have so opposed or contradicted me Yet on the first occasion you do it again which cannot proceed of your self since you are displeased at it Now it is a firm and true Rule that whatever Evil we do against our will comes of the Devil and not of our selves I know that Spirit of contradiction which you have against what I desire comes not of your own will For you would gladly obey me in every thing seeing you know that I never desire any evil But you cannot in effect obey me in things good and salutary which comes assuredly of the Devil who is a spirit directly contrary to the Spirit of God which governs me For he moves as soon as I speak and brings some contradiction or opposition to what I propose he is troubled enraged and frets and would cause among us Thunder and Lightning as Heat and Cold do which occur in the air Which you do often and know not to help it because you have not sufficiently Discovered that it is the Devil does it in you against your will For you alledge sometimes reasons as if you would sustain his Quarrel and shew that you have reason to contradict me which you could not do if you believed that I have the Spirit of God from whom no evil can proceed But the Devil makes you forget that and excite in you a spirit of contradiction to which your nature is also enclined which is the cause you Discover not sufficiently that it is the Devil and attribute it to your natural inclination
other but live at ease without fighting they remain in quiet amidst the danger of their Enemies And which is strange when any would waken them out of that Lethargique Sleep they are grieved and dissatisfied notwithstanding that Sleep will assuredly procure them eternal Death if they do not awake to fight their Enemies We cannot hinder that these Enemies assail us every where but they are unwilling to be discovered because an Enemy discovered is half vanquisht And therefore my Child you ought to rejoyce rather than be sorrowful that God permits that I now discover so many wiles of the Devil For you cannot make that he be not wicked and that all manner of malice proceeds not from him nor can you hinder that he tempt men since our first parents have given him that power and if they had not done it we give him dayly the same power over us which he got over them by the consent of our will to his tentation It being so we must fight or render to him which were lamentable For we were created true Children of God after his Image and Resemblance And we should become by our Sloath Children of the Devil which you must never suffer but endeavour to discover the evil and resist it to your power And bless God also that he sends you his Light that you may know it and beware of it without afflicting your self so much because the Devil hoth power to tempt men For tentations purifie the soul and render it agreeable to God He takes pleasure to see us fight his and our Enemies And he gives us strength and aid if we persevere constantly yea he hath prepared for us Triumphant Lawrels and Eternal Rewards of Victory Therefore you must not give place to that feebleness of spirit to languish because the Devil hath power to tempt men since it is not in you to take it from him he hath too long possessed it For since he made himself the Enemy of God he hath had power to do in himself all the evil he pleased although his evil cannot hurt man unless he consent For man hath full liberty to resist him as the Devil hath full liberty to tempt us If that were not true he could never have tempted Adam our first Father who was altogether holy and perfect at his Creation and had not in his beginning given any occasion to the Devil to tempt him But the Devil being created free as well as man he had power to do all the evil he pleased in himself For he would even be equal with God which is a greater evil than to tempt Adam in his innocence And that of tempting men now is yet far less seeing they are corrupted by the first Sin And it is yet less when he tempts them that have so often consented to him with deliberate will And therefore my Son you have no ground to fret because the Devil hath power to tempt you but you ought truely to regret that you have by your past sins given him so much power over your soul Resolve now to war against him with manly courage and hinder that he get more power over your soul by resisting his tentations for that is a holy and salutary Resolution But that Grief which you conceive because the Devil hath power to tempt you and others comes from him He makes us always desire things impossible and such as are not in our power that he may afflict and discourage us For he knows well that a grieved and discouraged person is not well fitted to resist his tentations and that in that state he can easily lead him from one evil to another And therefore he often causes vain griefs such as is that which proceeds from that the Devil hath so much power to tempt men and also the disturbing grief for our sins past which are no more in our power These are Extremities into which the Devil attempts always to precipitate us It is true we ought to regret that we have willingly given the Devil so much power over us and more lament our by past sins but we must not therefore rest in these griefs seeing they would mar the Graces of God in us It is better to go to God by love and amendment of life than by Melancholies which proceed from the Devil for before his entry there was nothing but all joy in the world and in the heart of man So that sadness is truely a quality of the Devil and so man ought to Despise it if he seeks after true virtue He ought indeed to have a sincere regret from his heart that he hath offended God and beg pardon of him as often as he remembers his sins but he ought never to suffer himself to be overcome of grief since what 's past is not in his power And though he should destroy himself he can never make that what is past should not be He ought then for penitence of his by-past sins endeavour a true conversion to God departing from evil to do good detesting sin to embrace true virtue Which is a true contrition much more solid than tears and immoderate sadness which the Devil ordinarily gives them that begin Of which you must beware my Child for God would be served with a ready and joyful heart And he says that he treats with the converted sinner as if he had never offended him You should then rejoyce for the Grace God hath given you to forsake the World and to turn from Vanity unto the Truth which you now discover and not afflict your self because the Devil hath so much power to tempt men seeing that power cannot be exercised but on those that give or have given him their full consent and that all things turn to good to them that fear God When the Devil tempts you remember that he cannot hurt you without your own consent and your resisting his tentation renders you agreeable to God For your soul must be proved as Gold in the Furnace which grows still the purer by continuing in the fire Even so is a soul purified by long tentation if it remain firm in resisting and nothing can hurt it but sin from which if it abstain it carries the victory over its enemies and all they can do against it are but false allarms which try its Fidelity and Vigilancy And therefore we must not desire that the devils power should be taken from him but earnestly pray to God for strength to resist him and fight until death For Jesus Christ in the prayer which he left to Christians hath not asked to be free from tentation but only not to be led to follow the tentation and to be delivered from evil And since there is no other evil but sin we pray only to be delivered from it and not from tentation which is often profitable and salutary for us yea sometimes necessary to our frailty For our nature is so feeble and corrupted that it could not remain faithful to God out of tribulations
rendet our selves its Slaves And though there were no other Devil but the Corruption of mans Nature we behoved notwithstanding to combat it continually seeing that Corruption is as much an Enemy of our Salvation as the Devil If you will my Son examin well your own self you shall find by experience that you do not one single action which though good in it self is not defiled with self-love and self-seeking and that you speak not one word which you aim not for your own advantage or praise or to excuse and justifie your self For Self-love searches always his own ease and satisfaction and will not have the blame in any thing Yea it would appear innocent in the most manifest faults it commits It speaks to excuse them reasons to maintain its opinions or what it hath fancyed or undertaken to maintain In fine it employs all the forces of body and spirit to disown its guilt So proud is that corrupt nature that it will not be blamed in any thing if it can evite it Now all these things are manifest sins which rob our heart of the Love and Honour of God to make us love and esteem our selves And so infring the Command To Love God with all our Heart while we love our own glory and esteem our selves with all our heart I have often declared that the ressence of sin consists in that man retires his affections from God to place them in any thing else beside him So we must conclude that man falls so often into sin as he turns to love himself And he falls so often into the love of himself as he will justifie or excuse himself since there is nothing just or excuseable in his corrupt nature It is by sin become altogether evil and cannot of it self do any Good spiritual or temporal But is filled with all sorts of evils from which no good can proceed That is a truth to which all the world would readily acquiesce if they were disengaged of self-love for then should they see that they are slow to all good and bent to all evil That they are ignorant impotent and in short all that we do in this life is only to be esteemed or to evite the contempt and humiliations that may befal us Which proceeds from that Pride of Life which sin hath planted in the bottom of the hearts of all men that come into the world They bring with them that pride which makes them live in continual sins if they do not resist it continually by Spiritual Diligence and watch not over all their Words and Actions to limit and regulate them by the Law and Will of God Which cannot be done without that Spiritual Diligence which ought to rule all our words and actions if we would attain to Salvation Which she wishes you who loves your soul ANTONIA BOURIGNON Husum Jan. 27. 1674. THE XXII LETTER Spiritual Diligence is necessary to Salvation To the same Exhorting him to Spiritual Diligence because without it none can persevere in the Service of God nor overcome his Corrupt Nature and Self-love My Son I Cannot over much explain the worth and necessity of Spiritual Diligence since it does occasion your eternal Salvation and all the good things we attain in this life and that which is to come Consider well that necessity that you may apprehend it and put it into practice since thereupon depends your eternal happiness For though you had acquired several other Virtues yet the Devil could easily ensnare you by Spiritual Negligence and suffer you to do well for a time that he might ensnare you after He hath not been able to hinder you to forsake the world to give your self to the Service of God seeing that was your absolute resolution Neither could he hinder that you have detested sin and undertaken to follow true Virtue But he attends you in the passage that he may stop your course and hinder your perseverance by divers tentations and by occasions which he will excite to withdraw you from your good purpose He will excite men of good will to render your resolution suspect even upon pious pretext Hee 'l make you sometimes doubt if you should not do better to remain in the world and make your Light to shine to others to enlighten them again he will represent to you if you had not better yet merchandise that you might assist your Neigbour out of your superfluity or by your good Example For the Devil tempts by all sorts of means and when he cannot bring us to evil actions he insinuates himself into our good works yea even into our good intentions and mixes therein some of his venom a little when he cannot much He gives sometimes a weariness in the way of Virtue and makes appear burthensom what is in it self light giving the Soul a backwardness or difficulty in well doing or in overcoming it self Also he takes away the Hope of surmounting our imperfections and arriving at true Virtue that he may render our souls slack and lazy because they see not the means whereby to arrive at true Virtue So that he confounds our spirits that they may not discover the truth of things as they are before God but that they should occupy themselves always with apparent Virtues and curious Speculations And therefore is it we have need of continual Prayer and spiritual Diligence if we would persevere in the service of God otherwise the Devil would gain us by the one or other way Let us then watch always that he make not our first Fervour cool and slacken our good resolution of embracing solid Virtue He will attempt even when we have obtained true Virtue to lead us into Spiritual Negligence perswading us that we may well rest at ease seeing we have acquired it and that we cannot advance further I have known such persons as said to me That they were arrived at the highest degree of perfection to which they could attain And they said so because they had read all they could read And so they judged that to read more was but to repeat what they had already read and understood Which was to me a great Pride and a Spiritual Negligence which the Devil had planted in their heart to make them perish by that Negligence For not to advance in Virtue is to fall back and recoil seeing man never attains that perfection that he ought It is written in the holy Scripture Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect To teach us that we should tend to the perfection of God and never rest in the way of Virtue but always tend to a higher degree of perfection even to the last moment of our life to follow the nearer the perfection of our heavenly father But the Devil envious of our happiness endeavours to his power to divert us He serves himself of spiritual Negligence when he cannot prevail by evil desires and actions It is alike to him by what means he ensnare our souls provided he can in the
End of the First Part of the Treatise of Solid Virtue EXTRACTS OF SOME OF THE WORKS OF Mrs ANTONIA BOURIGNON Belonging to some Most Essential MATTERS of Christianism and Health LETTER I. Of Toleration That it ought never to go the length of communicating with Sin directly or indirectly Of the Essential and of the Perfection of Christianity Of Religions Worships and Ceremonies and their use This Letter was written to one of her Intimate's Mr. Van de Velde and is the second of Light arising in Darkness 3. part Sir 1. I Know you seek the Perfection of your Soul and that you aspire after God I know also that he hath imparted of his Grace to you and particularly taught you his will in some things but I know also that you have not yet received the Holy Spirit which should teach us all Truths seeing you discern not yet well Evil from good and love all indifferently by a natural goodness as did Adam who knew very well the Consolation and Quiet which a Soul finds in entertaining it self with God but knew not what Evil was because he had never proved it He was created in Pleasures and Delights and conversed with his God in peace without apprehending the Evil which might come upon him in abandoning God to please himself with the Creatures And therefore did he so easily fall into sin before he perceived the Mischiefs and Miseries it would cause him 2. And almost the same is befallen you my dear Brother for when you enjoyed sweet entertainment with God you remained in the sensualities of corrupted nature by which you have insensibly lost commerce with God because so soon as he sees one take pleasure in any thing else but himself he retires by little and little and leaves the Soul to live to it self which precipitates it self often into divers Evils because our proper will engenders death since it was corrupted by sin 3. You did love Good and do yet love it but you have not enough hated Evil because you did not well know it perswading your self that you did well enough when you supported it in others not perceiving that we can sin in another nine ways the First is in Consenting thereto 2d in Councelling it 3d. in Tolerating it 4th in Assisting it 5th in Defending Evil 6th in Commanding it 7th in Partaking with it 8th in not Hindering it when in our power 9th in Hiding it from him that would hinder it 4. All these are not enough considered and we easily fall into them without considering it Although we desire to please God the Devil often surprises us by sins without us when he perceives that he cannot prevail to get us to commit them in our selves for he hath as much power over us by the sins which we commit in another as by them we commit in our selves seeing they shall both alike be imputed to us and if I did not advertise you of it you might easily fall into them without perceiving it For example you converse with persons that are avaritious proud or stained with any other sins they ate subject and inferiour to you as your Wife and Children or your Men or Maid-servants or Hirelings or whoever they be over whom you have authority notwithstanding lest you should displease them or lose their friendship you consent to their committing of sin without Daring or willing to resist it All these sins which are committed with your consent shall assuredly be imputed as if you had committed them your self To councel to do evil that you will not so long as you fear God but for suffering it in others I doubt you do it sometimes because you have not enough of hatred to sin as when you see one deceive in selling to or labouring for you and yet continue to buy of him or employ him in labour that is assuredly to suffer the evil which he commits 5. It were better to be in necessity without dealing with them that sell or labour by Avarice Fraude or Deceit for the Soul is more precious than the Body which ought rather to endure its necessities than to supply them to the prejudice of its soul which is assuredly defiled by suffering the sins of another and yet more by assisting and helping evil as he that would give goods to one that is Avaricious Gluttonous Proud Slothful or a Drunkard would assist him to go on in his sins and commit more with the Gifs and assistances he affords him and if we defend or excuse the Evil of another we also become guilty of the same for we ought never to excuse or defend it lest we so maintain the Evil-doer in his sins to commit which our corrupt Nature needs no encouragment and whoever affords it is partaker of the sin of the other Although it is commonly said That we should excuse the Faults of other and assist Sinners that is a false Theologie very hurtful to the Upright who are often deceived by Evil for lack of knowing it 6. Also you are not in hazard to command Evil so long as you fear God neither would you ever partake with manifest sin as with Robbery for God hath delivered you by his Grace from Avarice Yet you must take care to hinder evil when in your power or else the omission would render you partaker of the Evil committed and even so when you do not declare it to them that would hinder it All these sins or part of them may be committed by good men who aspire after Perfection particularly when they are of a good disposition naturally they take all in good part I have sometimes slipt into some such Faults by too much natural goodness or human regard but after God shewed me clearly these sins which we commit in another which I impart to you because I love your perfection as much as my own by a true Christian Charity seeing that you aspire unto its perfection which I will also shew wherein it consists for the darkness of this world is at present so great that the souls that are well enclined know nor whither they walk in regard of perfection taking often the false for true and imperfect for perfect and that because they have now taught so many divers means to perfection that one knows not which to take for the surest One says we must go frequently to Church and frequent the Sacraments Another places Christian Perfection in entering into some Religious Fraternity or Convent Others in fastings and Macerating the Body All these things were Good if well used but these are not the end nor that wherein Christian perfection consists For these may be performed by them that shall never attain to salvation because no external thing perfects the soul nor can they defile it They are only the means whereby we more easily attain to virtue or by abuse fall more easily into sin 8. Every Soul in particular ought to use the external means which excites them most to Christian Virtue and evite also things
that engage them unto sin for it is written Whoso loveth hazard shall perish in it So that he that feels himself so weak in Chastity that he hath not the force to look upon Woman without lust he ought not to look upon one and he that drinks drunk when he hath Wine ought also to abstain from it and so of all other things though in themselves they be not evil because of our infirmity they cause Evil as others occasion Good and Virtue in our Soul when these means of perfection are used for their end 9. For example if you find by a true experience that you are more united to God in going to Church or frequenting the Sacraments you are obliged to use these means as much as possible For every one ought always to seek his own further perfection but if those means effect nothing in your soul you should not use them and if you return better into God in being shut up in your Closet you are obliged to remain there and not divert your self by going to Church and if your Soul feels more union with God in Solitude than when you seek that union by frequenting the Sacraments you ought to keep you solitary and there feast inwardly with your God for a Good Conscience is a Continual Feast where the soul reposes and recreates it self with his God And therefore it hath not always need of external means to excite it self to that Union 10. For often God prevents it with a spiritual joy and Contenrment without that it knows whence that Joy had its origin for God is a Spirit no ways tyed to material things neither to Time Places nor any means whatsoever he being a Spirit and the Soul a Spirit they comunicate in spirit and he that hath need to seek God in different Religions and Fellowships is not very far advanced in the Knowledge of God and knoweth not yet the place where he feedeth at Noon nor where he resteth at Night for if he knew that he would not run from one Religion to another to find God but would remain fixed in himself because the Center of our Hearts is the Palace of Honour where God rests and takes his delights All the Fraternities and Religions in the world cannot give that Union with God we must find it in our selves and though the perfectest Societies may well serve as means to lead us to Christian-perfection yet they cannot save us without the inward Virtues 11. One boasts that he is a Catholique another that he is Reformed others will be spiritual because in Orders or of the Reformation of Menno Truely my dear Brother all those things are not Good and can yield no perfection to our Souls to build our salvations upon any Religions is to deceive our selves seeing none of them can save us without having in our Souls true Christian perfection 12. If the Rules or Statutes of any Religion serve us as Means by which we experiment that they Unite us to God we are obliged to embrace and follow them for we must esteem the means as one would esteem the Sheath of a Sword of grear price but never esteem the Sheath so precious as the Sword which is within seeing it can never serve us to fight against our Enemies nor make them retire from us The Devil the World and the Flesh are our three sworn Enemies which continually attacque our Souls whom we must fight with the sword of Faith and the Buckler of Charity for if we think to overcome them with the outward Sheath of our Religions the Devil should laugh at us we should laugh at a Souldier who would fight his Enemy with the Sheath of his Sword It is yet more ridiculous to see how Christians would gain the Kingdom of Heaven by their Religions which cannot save them without the Love of God and Charity to their Neighbours 13. It is nothing but Amusements and Folly to fix themselves upon such an Order or such a Religion or to believe that they shall be saved for being enrolled in the most perfect Order or Religion in the world If you think to be saved for being of the Catholique Religion without a living Faith Hope in God and Charity to your Neighbour you are deceived for no person is truely Catholique but he that is in the communion of the Saints seeing to be Catholique is nothing else than to be UNITED in heart and will with all the souls that are UNITED in the Spirit of JESUS CHRIST Behold what makes the communion of Saints and the Assembly of Catholiques But if you see and feel that the rules of the Catholiques lead you unto God you must observe them faithfully and rather die than slip from them for as it is certain that he that loves peril shall perish therein so is it certain that he who embraces faithfully the means of his Perfection shall be perfected by reason of the infirmity of our nature it must always be aided and sustained by the means that can strengthen it 14. But if our souls were arrived at UNION with God they should no more need to use any means because then Love is a law unto it self and that union overcomes all the motions of corrupt nature to which we have then no more need to resist by Fastings or other Macerations of the Body which means are good for those that have given loose reins to their sensuality in eating and drinking or have allowed their Body other carnal Pleasures the habit of such ordinarily not yielding but by doing things quite contrary because our Nature is as an undaunted Horse which is not tamed but furious and unruly which we cannot tame after we have let him follow his liberty but by the bridle and spurs of Mortifications of the flesh 15. See there my dear Brother how you may learn to regulate well your Soul and discern wherein perfection consists that you take not apparent Virtue for real for ours is that dangerous time whereof Jesus Christ prophecyed saying that we must take heed and that many false Christs and false Prophets shall arise and shall do great Signs and Miracles I know you are fallen into evil insensibly and by little and little have lost entertainment with God by ignorance and for not having enough hated evil nor known the sins which you can commit in another but you must resume courage and begin anew considering more narrowly in what consists Christian perfection that as Adam did no more fall into sin after he knew the Evil it had brought on him so you fall no more into the sensualities of Nature but follow the conduct of the motions of the Holy Spirit as Adam did when he knew them for his whole life was a continual penitence and regret for having deserted Entertainment with God 16. And if you have that perfect regret it will be impossible for you to relapse again into natural sensualites seeing that they have interrupted yout Communion with God that regret will purge