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-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
hour to any thing that is not of God we are for that hour turned from God to the creatures which is sin since we do in that what God hath forbid viz. We cease to love him with all our heart For we ought to love him always without interruption and therefore is it we must refrain our senses and give them laws that they take no other liberty but to follow the will of God We may well use these five natural senses and employ them to the Glory of God who gave them for we cannot be without seeing hearing smelling feeling and tasting but we must not take pleasure in these for our proper satisfaction we must employ them only on things necessary and those that may serve to the Glory of God and the good of our Neighbour For example man is made up of Soul and Body he hath need to employ all his five natural senses for the conservation of the one and th' other he must see and behold all things that may serve him for the perfection of his soul and hear touch taste and feel them loving them as the means of his salvation He must also look upon all things that he needs for entertaining his body to which his natural senses can afford him much help for he must see things necessary as a House to Dwell in Cloathes to cover him food to nourish him all that must be lookt on He must hear the means to obtain them smell them that he take nothing hurtful in his aliments touch and taste them for that same end For all things necessary are good and it can never be sin to use them for necessity But it is always evil to use them to satisfie our sensual pleasures or self-self-love because that is an affection we carry to our selves and our affection and love ought to be to God alone not to things so base and vile which we may well use but never love seeing God will have our heart entirely Which was figured by the earthly Paradise where God placed man at the beginning of the world He gave him a full liberty to eat of all sorts of Delicious fruit but reserved that of one only tree of which he forbad man to eat and that to let us understand that God does permit us to use all the Creatures which he hath created for us provided we keep our affection for himself only so he forbids us to place it on any thing else as marks the first Command to love God with all our heart that is that our heart ought not to be Divided and parted to something else but be altogether to him But men do not penetrate that as they ought they perswade themselves that it is allowable to love divers other things with God in which they grievously deceive themselves while the Command of God expresses punctually viz. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart if then it had been permitted to love other things with God he had not added with all thy heart We make questions and Disputes upon so many Mysteries of our faith and so many degrees of virtue and we leave behind the principal piece in which consists all faith and virtues For what shall it profit a man to have penetrated all the secrets of Nature and even all the Doctrines of Deep and mysterious Theology if with all that he fulfil not the Command of Loving God with his whole heart and have his heart Divided into many divers affections all his knowledge will profit him nothing we must then fulful that first Commandment to love God with all our heart I know well there are several glosses to explain how we must love God with all our heart one says we must love him above other things and where we have an ounce of love to our Money Honour Pleasures Parents or even our self we must have a pound for God and that so we fulfil that first Command and love God with all our heart Others say we must love him so that if the case were we must lose God or our goods parents or any other thing that we should lose all rather than quit God Others say it is impossible to fulfil that Command And so every one attempts to extinguish in the spirit of man the knowledge of the necessity of loving God with our whole heart which is much to be lamented and afflicts the heart seeing so many men prefer the Glosses and Sentiments of men to so express Ordinances of God He had added in vain the words with all your heart if we might put a part of our affections or of our heart in the creatures Yet God never did any thing in vain If he had not intended to show that men ought to love him with all their affections indivisibly he had not added with all your heart Consider a little my Son with your self by his grace if God does not well Deserve that we love him with all our heart Our being and all that we have is from him that whole heart with which he will be loved he gave it us should not that be great ingratitude to refuse him the heart he gave us himself to the end it might be for himself alone He gives us to enjoy so many Creatures provided we keep our Heart for him which is the only forbidden fruit Is not that the least God could demand of man in bestowing so many benefits on him Ought not man of himself to offer unto God his Heart with all other things although he were not commanded Whatever we have or can have comes immediately from him and consequently all ought voluntarily to be offered unto him without constraint Moreover on whom can we better bestow our heart than on God and who can render it more happy than he If we bestow it on our Parents or Friends they cannot render it happy and content even in this world If we place it in the Riches Honours and Pleasures of this world all these cannot satiate it seeing they are like salt-water the more our heart Drinks the more it is parched And therefore man is very unprovident to place his affections in any other thing than in God There is nothing but him that can satisfie and render us happy and content seeing in God alone is all sorts of Good and out of him all sorts of Evil. Never rest then my Son on mens Discourses for they are Liars and Deceivers and their glosses are invented only to flatter their looseness and that of others who have no internal Light So they say it is impossible to keep that Command of loving God with all our heart and they say so because they have no will to do it But God can never command things impossible beside mans spirit can easily comprehend that it is not impossible to love God with all our heart for there is nothing more natural to man than love and there is no object more lovely than God All that we see and know in nature hath some
not have being nor existence For although man be above all the other creatures yet he cannot give light nor heat to the sun nor sustain the Waters in the firmament nor fructtifie the earth All that must needs be from a supreme cause whom he may know by his operations his understanding can see clearly even by his bodily eyes in contemplating the beautiful order which is in all nature we need but consider the distinction of Seasons the production of Herbs Plants Beasts and of men And though we cannot see the author of all these things yet we can see his works palpably and visibly The savage Pagans did both know and confess that there is a God Author of Nature and there are Christians at present so unnatural that they dare say they know not God because they see him not with their fleshly eyes And from that they will argue that they cannot love him because they know him not They render themselves in that like to the Beasts which have no spirit to perceive other than natural things and see them as though they subsisted by themselves But men having a spirit more noble than beasts comprehend even by their natural spirit that there is a God Author of Nature which engaged some Pagans to set up Altars to the Unknow God Some other of them at the Death of our saviour Jesus Christ said Either nature is a dissolving or the God of Nature suffers These things ought to make the Christians of this time blush for shame who say They cannot love God whom they see not So they shall be more punished in Hell than the Pagans that have applyed their spirit to know God by nature Whereas on the contrary these Christians do not at all study to know him neither by Nature nor by Grace which they have received in the Evangelical Law beside that which God gave to Moses These brutish Christians must neither believe nature nor the Law of God to say they cannot love God with all their heart whom they do not know For though they knew not God by his works which yet they see and touch they should at least know him by the Law of God which would not enjoin to love God if he were not Seeing then there is a God there is consequently an Object amiable above all things and man being full of love ought to be easily carryed to love him for love is always carryed to good and beautiful things so that nothing should be more easie to him than to love God who is the source of all Good and Beauty But all the difficulty man finds now to love him with all his heart comes hence that he doth not apply his spirit to discover and meditate the works and marvelous things of God and so cannot know nor love him but he gives himself to regard the earthly creatures in themselves and attributes to themselves the little of good and beauty that is in them and by that means carrys his affections to love the gross Objects which are visible and sensible to his stupid senses It is difficult for such persons to love God they cannot love heavenly Objects while they regard only earthly ones as they cannot comprehend eternal things because they contemplate only transitory And that is not because of their incapacity seeing God hath made them capable of loving him but because by their free will they choose to love the vile creatures more than him and it is that vitious choise makes them say that it is impossible to love God and themselves make that impossibility They are like persons who staying in a valley full of Snow complain that they are cold and that they cannot be warmed among that Snow which is very true but if they would walk a little to get out of that Snow and get up to the Mountain they should well feel that it is full easie to become warm where the sun bestows his rays It is even so with earthly men who please themselves in the Snow of worldly lustres they say and think it is impossible to be warmed by the Love of God which is also very true so long as they remain in the affections of the pleasures of this valley of tears For nothing can warm them in the love of God while there all is but Snow which cools them He that hath his pleasures in carnal things cannot have them in spiritual and he that puts his affections in perishing goods cannot have them in eternal ones and he that takes his pleasures here in sensualities cannot have them in spiritual things seeing all these things are contraries which can never abide together So long then as a man feels himself cold in the Love of God it is a token that he lives yet in affection to the things of this valley of Snow which are quenchers of the Love of God He cannot then feel in himself other than an impossibility or at least great difficulty to love God with his whole heart But if they would quit their affection to this valley of misery and mount up to the consideration of eternal things they should soon feel the Sun of Righteousness warm our Soul and the Love of God fill our heart which would not only find Facility therein but also Sweetness Pleasure Honour and Profit seeing in effect there is nothing more pleasant than to love God For me I have experienced that all love to the Creatures is bitter and that the Love of God only is sweet and pleasant for when I loved Riches they gave me aboundance of trouble to preserve them when I loved Honours I found there many bitter and piercing displeasures when I was not esteem'd or honour'd as I wished so that sometimes one Sleight caused me more pain than a hunderd Honours had given me contentment When I loved the pleasures and delights of this life I found there great bitterness because there is none of these pleasures that carry not its own pain with it for the pleasures of the taste breed poverty and diseases and are insatiable they never satisfie no more than those of the flesh which resemble Salt-water the more one drinks the more drought I have remarked that in several carnal persons who after having ruined their Body and Health in satisfying their concupiscence used all means to cure their infirmities and that to the end they might wallow yet more in their nasty pleasures And when I have loved any human Creature it was always painful for me to satisfie and please them and the fear of offending or loosing them was unto me a continual anxiety So that there is nothing but God alone whom it is easie and sweet to love Nothing is more pleasant for all other Loves have Grief mixed with their greatest Pleasures we see young people marry with joy there is nothing but mirth Plays and Dances but the Wedding is scarce over and sometimes sooner when we see them sad and afflicted pensive and melancholy Diseases attacque them the Care of
to do so even with great Conviction and Sbame that God hath replenished my spirit with several most rare Graces and unknown Lights which will render me so much the more damnable before him if he have not Mercy on me I own that all the knowledges which God hath for so many years and does continue dayly to pour into my Soul as that of the new Jerusalem of the conversion of Jews and Pagans of the destruction of Antichrist of Satan reigning in all States and Conditions Sects and Religions under the name of Christ the vanity of human literature or that which they call Theologie whether studying or composing Books which I see by the Light of Faith to be meer delusions of Satan and so many other secrets which God speaks often in the ear of my Soul are all nothing in respect of the holiness it must be filled with that it may see God And that if it have not the last though it did divinely possess all these others Satan might well entertain it therein and even teach it more provided he might keep it always captive under one or more sins It was upon that very foundation that I did passionatly love and study human Literature in which Satan would willingly have nourished me and entertained my spirit all my life in detaining me thereby from the search and from the true adoration of God in the Soul So I was already in the profession of the Ministry even for some years that I had not any true knowledge of God and most ignorant of true Religion These things could get no entry into my Vnderstanding finding it so full of prejudices in favour of the reformed religion and against all other Sects as also addicted to Books and worldly Sciences This is it that made me leave the Romish Church in which I was born and lived to the age of 22. or 23. years apprehending that I should perish if I died in it believing also that the Reformed Church was altogether holy I was abused or imposed on therein From one Babylon which I left I 'm come into another If I were yet in that of my Nativity I would no more leave it but with my Soul and Spirit and would sanctifie my self there as well as in so many other Sects which I perceive now to be all but works or Idols of mens hands So many Pantings Prayers Studies and other things which I have employed to attain to the quality of Minister I had employed them to the sanctifying of my soul Also I know that the charge of Pastor which I have exercised more than these ten years is a charge meerly politique and human and that has nothing Divine nor of God but vain in the persons exercising it and in them that yield themselves the subjects of it And although for some years I have preached Truths unknown unto me and also which men cannot nor will not know to wit that God is a Spirit and that he is to be worshipped as such Yet I find it is a subtil Deceit to pretend to sanctifie men without being holy our selves and that these good wills do not always come from the holy Spirit hence I am perswaded that as long as Ministers are not holy God will not work any thing by them and that I do firmly believe that God hath at present in his Anger cursed the Ministers and Ministry of the Reformed Churches I say farther that it is impossible for a good man to exercise it after God without partaking with mens sins This is one of the reasons that oblige me to write to you and because I believe you give no counsel but after God's mind I desire your advice herein and wish God give me Grace to follow it namely the Ministry being both in me and in others such as I have just now described it if I should continue in it or not that is I desire to know by you what is Gods will concerning me many reasons oblige me to leave it off and I cannot tell what other points of conscience do yet retain me in it If it were God's will that I should forsake it it would be in the desire of coming as near unto you as I could especially if I were assured to be in the least usefull to aid you as much in the glorifying of God I mean in carrying that new and everlasting Gospel unto the World as I should hope you would be unto me for my souls welfare Another reason obliging me to write to you is that notwithstanding so many Graces that God hath put into my Soul yet I am not satisfied in my Conscience I am yet wrathful and am carnal in Marriage These two sins have very sore and often afflicted my Soul even I dare not promise unto God that I will not commit them any more for I have promised too often to him and have fallen therein too too often again My Soul has been in great sorrow for it and has learnt thereby to put it self below all gross sinners also God would so humble me thereby that I never reprove sin or sinners nor ever speak of them but I fall into greater my self It is in this and in other things that you shall judge proper that I desire you would give me some rules to lead my Life after God in the things of God and in the things of the World would to God it may be to my Salvation But there is enough said and asked for the first time I am in the bottom of my Soul and desire to be yet more Mrs Your most Humble most Obedient and most Obliged Servant ANTONI GRELLOT Minister of the French Church of Outreberg At Outreberg in the Electoral Palatine the 6-16 Novemb. 1677. She received a Letter from a Gentleman of London the stile and genius giving reason to expound the R. B. that subscribes it to be the famous and honourable Robert Boyle A Vowing her writings most praise-worthy and of so sweet an odour that he caused translate them into English with design to cause print them in that Language and signifying his most ardent desires to know of her State and her other writings so far as God should encline her heart and so rejoyce extremely his spirit because with her a Lover of the holy Truth and of the life of which she gives testimony unto others and to him wishing her all good and loving her in the Love which is life it self R. B. The Inscription To the most noble Virgin Antonia Bourignon in her Lodging Amsterdam See the veneration with bleeding regret of that just penetrating Spirit Sir George Makenzie Late Lord Avocat to his Majesty in a Treatise De imbellicitate ratiocinationis humanae published last year by Grevius at Vtrecht page 49. having said that we should employ our reason in warring against Vice and in attaining to Virtue and that there is nothing more just adds TAnta est ratiocinationis hujus efficacia ut etiam in aetatis diluculo infantes
they would willingly be great and rich that they may have Means to please their Senses and these Pleasures ruin Soul and Body For since Nature was corrupted by sin all the senses of man are become brutish and insolent and know no more what is good or evil for them intemperate without order or measure and therefore the Scripture says that the Eye is never satisfied with seeing nor the Ear with hearing to show how our senses are disordered and insatiable the more the eye sees the more it would see and so the ear hear and they are never satisfied It is the same with the Feeling Smelling and Taste the other three senses For whenever a man gives himself to satisfie his senses he is never fully satisfied nor content For in every place he may find something that smells unpleasantly and though he carry about Musk and Civet that will not hinder that he breath not in the bad Exhalations and Vapours of the Air caused by the corruption and filth of the bodies of Men and Beasts although he had but the stink of his own body since all that proceeds out of it is nasty and putrid which cannot satisfie his smell which desires always good smells and agreeable and in loving that we can never be content nor satisfied And yet less can we satisfie the sense of feeling it being insatiable They would have fine Linnen Silks soft Beds smooth Coverings and other things agreeable to the touch which is not content with things that are sufficient But the sense of Taste exceeds all the others in disorder and intemperance For he that will satisfie his taste and delicacy renders himself miserable and in continual dissatisfaction For when he hath one food that is good he desires another as better the Wine is too sharp or stale for him the Beer is too sweet for his delicate taste he longs always for what he hath not and what he cannot get so insolent are mans natural senses that they often tyrannize over the spirit with a thousand tortures of Desires Intemperances Lusts Excess and Gluttony which bring Diseases Poverty and Death And yet they call him happy who hath the means to satisfie his senses without discovering that they are corrupted by sin and therefore they beget all sorts of Evils which she prays you to discover who wisheth your good Holstein near Gottorp Castle 15. Febr. 1672. St. vet ANTONIA BOURIGNON THE VI LETTER Humility is attained by Knowing our selves To the same who is admonished to learn Humility by knowing the truth of our Corruption and Sin which is the disorder of our natural senses My Dear Child I Cannot entertain you too much of the Corruption of man and the Miseries to which he is subject during this miserable life to prevent your ever placing your affections on it but that you may learn the Humility of Heart which Jesus Christ teaches which will follow upon the knowledge of your self but you shall never attain it unless you examin in retail the miseries and infirmities of your body and spirit since it is that knowledge which should teach you the Humility of Heart which Jesus Christ requires For if you remain in the general ignorance of men you shall never attain to it you will always think you deserve Honour and Esteem seeing others like your self honoured and esteemed and that they also take their pleasures and sensualities more than you do But trust me my Dear Child that conduct proceeds from the blindness of their minds and from the profound darkness in which they are without perceiving it and they blind one another still more by their practice for one thinks he is as good as the other and that he may do what another doth and so one follows another blindfoldly and thinks he doth but what is suitable for an honest man to do But however great the number of blind are that will not help you in particular and that broad way will always lead to perdition tho many tread it The great number of miserables will not lessen your condemnation on the contrary it will augment your pains and miseries far from any ways mitigating them Therefore is it that you must not regard if others be blind and know not themselves esteeming themselves and following their sensualities for you shall not give an accompt for them There shall only your own works follow you at Death and according to them shall you be judged God affords you now the occasion of Discovering the truth of all things beware of neglecting it but bless the Lord for it is a great mercy he shows you beyond so many thousands of persons who perish for want of knowing themselves and for having never discovered the truth of things as they are before God They amuse themselves to look one to another without penetrating into the state of man and what he is whence he is and whither he tends though it is a thing of so great import on which our eternal salvation depends Therefore I exhort you to lay to heart the knowledge of your self seeing that must rule all your actions and make you become humble of heart as Jesus Christ teaches us to be The truth of all things should deliver you from all evil that is also the mistress of virtues for if you possess the Truth of God that shall teach you all virtues and deliver you from all vice for the cause why man is vicious and not virtuous is because he knows not the truth of things and takes the Shadow for the Body the Bark for the Wood and so goes from evil to worse For if he knew truly what sin is and what virtue he would deliver himself from the one to attain the other since he would see clearly that sin is a meer Tyrant which tortures Soul and Body and that virtue is beautiful good sweet and pleasant And so he could not retain himself from hating sin and loving virtue seeing that is good and equitable but for lack of knowledge of things they love what they should hate and hate what is lovely and to show you what sin is know that in it self it is nothing but a disorder of corrupted nature For when God created man he was well ordered temperate and regular in all his natural functions and he might enjoy the pleasure of all his senses without doing evil because all that God made was good and he created beautiful things to please his sight and all the melodies of Beasts Men and all melodious things to afford pleasure to the hearing and all Flowers and pleasant smells for his smelling and all smooth and agreeable things for his feeling and all good and savory things to afford pleasure to his Taste so that he could allowably enjoy the Pleasures of all his five natural senses because all the other Creatures were created for the pleasure and recreation of Man who was so perfect that he used all these things only for his recreation with just order weight and measure
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-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
but it would soon revive if they granted to their nature eases and pleasures But the soul that is regenerated in Jesus Christ knows well that Nature must be kept under subjection and restraint during this short life which is a time of penitence where we must suffer if we will enjoy after Which shews that those who say they may enjoy all beautiful and good things here praising God are very ignorant and deceived by the Devil For they think themselves to be regenerated in the Spirit of Jesus Christ which is false seeing his Spirit doth not teach that we should taste the Pleasures of this life and use all that 's good and pleasant But he teaches penitence and renouncing our selves to be poor in Spirit to forsake all that we have to watch and be sober All that is not to enjoy whatever is good and pleasant For Jesus Christ teaches to take the least and to choose the lowest place If then these persons had but attained however little of the Spirit of Jesus Christ they would be far from saying that they have overcome the corruption of their nature and are renewed in the Spirit of Jesus Christ while they do things quite contrary to what he did and taught For if it were permitted to the Regenerate to take their pleasure and to enjoy whatever is good and pleasant in nature doubtless Jesus Christ would have done so seeing there was never any person regenerated and had overcome the corruption of Nature so perfectly as he And yet he speaks of nothing but suffering becoming poor bearing the Cross and denying our selves These imprudents must think themselves more perfect than he seeing they say they may well taste all what is good and pleasant in nature provided they thank God Notwithstanding our Lord deprived himself of all these things to give us example Do you not see my Son that it is a cunning device of Satan to deceive them that aspire unto Virtue For he fills their Spirit with presumption assoon as he hath got them to digest some curious speculations of the spiritual life They imagin that they are already regenerated in the Spirit of Jesus Christ although they live altogether according to the corrupt nature of the old Adam Such persons are very far from true Virtue And it is to be feared that they shall never arrive at it seeing they think themselves in it already but they are far from it and they had better never have begun to be virtuous than to take up false Virtues These sins are worse than others because of their Hypocrisie They think themselves virtuous and they are yet full of Vices and Sins I despair more of these apparent devout persons than of the persons of the World who have any Fear of God for they have the beginning of Virtue which th'others have not who cannot fear God believing themselves regenerated in the Spirit of Jesus Christ They fancy themselves to be in Assurance and they are in the midst of Perils and Dangers of losing their souls by Presumption and the Delusion of the Devil who attempts always to turn aside them that desire to follow true virtue He first by some inward Consolation and sweetness endeavours to fix them on it by self-love for corrupt nature loves to be comforted But the new Beginner no sooner takes his pleasure in these sensible Sweetness and Consolations but he falls The reason is that he will not mind his duty in resisting the corruption of his nature when he is fastned to these sensibilities But will think he hath already overcome it when he feels delight and consolation in Spiritual things whereas before he felt none but in natural things And that makes him believe that he is already at the height of Perfection though he be not yet at the first degree which is the Tears of Penitence and regret for offending God and the desire to walk henceforth in his Fear which is the beginning of all Virtue But the Devil diverts that Fear and perswades them that they are already virtuous because they desire to become so And so does the Devil amuse those that begin and he would willingly keep them all their life with Sweetness inward Consolations which the Devil can give and also man 's own Nature For as soon as they with-draw from the Vanity of the World they find great quiet since it is a Slavery to serve the World There they torture and rack their understanding by care to maintain themselves well in honour and reputation to be well cloathed and adorned and to be followed and esteemed What Diligence must not a Worldly Person use to please men What Fear of incurring Disgraces How must he dissemble and suffer to have mens Favour and keep it How much toil to gain sufficiently to maintain him honourably What Device and Cunning must he use to get Esteem and to avoid Contempt In fine he that serves the World hath nothing but toil and disquiet but he that hath resolved to quit it to serve God begins to be loosed from the weighty yoak of pleasing the World and to find himself in much more quiet and contentment Which is pleasant to nature but if it please and fix it self upon these Pleasures it will not advance in Virtue but live in self-love instead of the love of God And in that the Devil forwards Nature mightily in augmenting these sweetnesses and inward Consolations to fix the person the more to them God bestows also Sweetness and consolations upon them that begin to draw them the more easily from Earthly Affections to the Love of himself by sensible Consolations which the soul finds in his service But whencesoever they come we must never rest thereon nor take pleasure in any thing that is not God For all Sin came into the World by man's loving the Creatures and taking his pleasure in them And when we take pleasure in Inward Consolation we turn from God in loving that sensibility It is permitted to feel and perceive them since God gives them sometimes but we cannot addict our selves to them without sinning no more than to other things beside God For our whole heart ought to be employed in the Love of God only I know well the Devil attempts to turn us from that Love by all sorts of occasions and he no sooner sees one retire from the Love of the World Riches Honours and Pleasures but he attacques them by the affection of Virtue and inward consolations to with-draw their Hearts thereby from that pure Love of God Be then upon your guard my Son lest the Devil ensnare you under pretext of Virtue Which Care she wisheth you who remains Your Well-affected in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON Holstein near Gottorp Castle May 3. 1672. st vet THE XIV LETTER The Devil Transforms himself into an Angel of Light To the same to whom is discovered a fifth and sixth Artifice of the Devil by which he causeth men to apply themselves to the knowledge of
13 th of January 1616. of honourable Parents As her Spirit and Tongue began to be loosed from the Sleep and silence of Infancy the first Expression she was capable to give of what impression her Soul received was a grain of admirable and divine Wisdom which fructified unto everlasting Life At the age of four years her Parents having instructed her piously in the Gospel and Life of Jesus Christ she asked still Where are the Christians Let us go to the place where Christians live Where are they whom Jesus Christ taught Take me to them that live as Jesus Christ O most profound and divine They in their worldly Wisdom would undeceive her saying that there in Flanders they were Christians and followed Christ She said That could not be for Christ commended Poverty they were altogether for Riches Christ despised honours and Pleasures choosing meanness and trouble but they were earnest for what he rejected and shunned his choice that they lived no ways like Christ O Great God! Out of the mouth of Babes and sucklings thou hast perfected Praise Thy Words and thy Entertainments enlighten and make wise even Little Children when great Doctors growing old in their Studies with all their Followers are in Darkness blind and naked without knowing it Lo a little Child her eyes and mouth scare opened discerning a worldly Life from a Christian and far beyond the old Philosophy Studied procedure seeking a man among men most natively tattling out where are the Christians amidst Christians men fight and dispute and write and preach and what not who shall have the best Religion and Christianity most pure and flourishing Lo God will bring them to agreement and how he sets a Girle of four years old amidst them and puts in her little Mouth these stammering words where are the Christians Let us go to the Country where Christians live words duely considered of a profound divine Wisdom of more saving light and profit than millions of lifeless Sermons and volums of rational Speculations and this is the Grain of Seed which fructified unto all the fruit of her life which was only a continued urging advancing pressing and increasing that first Thought and Desire It is true in the Old and New Testament that God will perfect his Praise out of the mouth of Babes but in the World we must expect the Truth and Praise of God from a mouth that can speak Latin or even Greek and Hebrew and for the more assurance there must be a great many of these wise Heads assembled to make a Synod or Council not to sleight our Theological Doctoralities and Masterships by giving heed to this babe So they laughed her iterated and earnest Demands to silence yet neither that nor the ruder treatment she met with as it encreased were so far from extinguishing that divine spark God had kindled in her that they served still to encrease its flame for this first repulse made her turn more in to God in her own heart detecting the Vanity of worldly things she sought of him the Grace to live as Christians did and even then every thing was to her occasion of turning to him with different prayers suitable to him who was her only Councellour and Companion until her sister much addicted to the Vanities of the World would needs have her follow she said to every body she had no spirit to converse and accommodate her self to others and by that artifice the Devil prevailed so far as to make her follow the company and mode of the Youth of the World only to please them to shew that she had spirit enough to appear brisk in which she succeeded so well or rather so ill that quickly she obscured her sister gaining the favour and goodliking of all and pleasing her Parents extreamly being of a meek humble affable and jovial Humour and a good Spirit that her Father employed her in his affairs which she managed with a great deal of dexterity and industrie But all this cost her the loss of that communion she had formerly with God as familiar as one Child with another Yet God had pity on that poor Creature wandring from him he gave her often inward invitations even amidst her divertisments and will you then leave me for another shall you find a Lover more perfect and faithful than I am This pierced her heart so as to make her flow into Tears but upon occasions she would charm her serious thoughts and the habit of Vanity and Tentations got the ascendant on her at length God sent more assistance to his call by filling her spirit with the terrible thoughts of Death Judgment and Eternity Sometimes she would regret rent her cloaths and detesting her vanity throw away all her Ornaments of Folly again she would yield to the tentation of company and Divertisments In these conflicts God fortified her she became pierced with so great fear of the Judgment of God that she durst not shut her eyes because of her sins which she thought were so great that no body ever had committed the like not that she had done any evil or unhonest thing after the world whose honesty is consistent with turning away from God and going to all the Devils provided regularly and in form with approbation and priviledge but because she had left her sweet Entertainments with God for worldly Divertisments after she had received so many Graces from him she saw that so great a sin that Hell and all the pains of Hell were not sufficient to punish her ingratitude God seeing her correspond to the tracts of his divine Mercy redoubled them on her that she was swallowed up of contrition passing the whole nights on her knees crying from the bottom of her Soul Lord what wilt thou have me to do Ah! Lord what shall I do that I may be acceptable to thee My God my God! where art thou what shall I do that I may find thee again After she had tasted long and deep of that bitter desolation wherein the soul finds it self as abandoned and rejected of God which they that have tasted call the Pains and Sorrows of Hell as Job and David and other Saints God began to heal The first return she had of God into her Soul was in answer to that continual Prayer Lord what wilt thou have me to do the whole of the Gospel these words Forsake all earthly things separate your self from the affection of the Creatures renounce and deny your self Her Vicissitudes of Desolation and Consolation succeeded until God purified her from all task or stain of her vain conversation and usually these inward piercing afflictions were preparatives to some particular Graces or favours of God And it is incredible what floods of Tears and of Contrition it cost her before she recovered her former Familiarity with God and her no less incredible strict severe Austerity in a mortifying Life which she continued many years by a principle of justice and its first mover was the love
light more and more divine and saving mysteries which ript up all his hellish Heresies and Mysteries of Iniquity to the gnawing of his malicious spirit and all the like instruments of his fury while the Bread of Life was aboundantly dispensed to hungry souls whom it shall nourish unto Eternal Life when all the Wicked shall be cut off and the Meek shall inherit the Earth For the more particular Account of her divine Pilgrimage see the History of her Life and take here a short Bill of that heavenly chear now dispensed in her Writings that took up the spare hours of her many diversions at Amsterdam The funerall of false Theologie in the first part of which she shews the Confusion the Ignorance Corruption Insensibility and foundamental Errors of Christians and even of Conductors and modern Divines In the second their Presumption Envy Pride Obstinacy and Head strongness In the third that all their Theorie and Practices are no more but Pharisaical without divine Faith In the fourth that the Devil has great power over men over the wicked and even over the best whom by these other he turns away from following God and engages them to co-operate to the Evil of others and makes them draw back after they have abandoned the World That is a work of singular efficacy and profit Scarce did ever man read it without being touched in his soul even the most wicked who became pale and as struck dead with it Upon occasion of some converse she had with some Cartesian Philosophers she composed The Holy Perspective wherein she shews that Men and particularly Christians have lost the Light of God which is true and divine Faith to be led by corrupt Reason and by a false or most faint Light they draw from nature so perverse brutish carnal and gross as it is become by sin that this is it that has destroyed all Christian-religion and brought it to the Blindness and Darkness wherein it is immersed and that God may restore it its first state there is no other way but to abandon that false Guide of Reason and to resign our selves to God that he may himself revive in us that divine Light of Faith which we have extinguished The New Heaven and New Earth in which is shewn in what Glory the World and Man were created how they have miserably faild from it how they entertain and even encrease their Misery and by what means they ought to return into the disposition God requires to restore them to their first Glory and renew all the world God showed her in Spirit the Glory and Beauty of the first World not supportable by corporal Eyes All was bright transparent shining with Light and unspeakable Glory God's last Mercy in which by a reason enlightened by Faith not perverted by human Studies and Prejudices she leads every man of good judgment to a conviction of the spiritual things which Faith discovers and unto which every man's Reason when conducted by a person that is illuminated by Faith renders so convincing Testimonies that they who will yield themselves to its Touch are moved and pressed to ask of God a saving and divine Knowledge of them by the Light of Faith With all these are intermixed many other divine Lights and profound Mysteries which God had reserved to this end of the last hour able to enlighten to quicken to inflame to strengthen to encourage and to ravish any that have not renounced all interest in heavenly things If any find difficulties in her Writings consider that she having no further human Learning than that having learnt it she did once read the New Testament and finding it the same with what God spake in her Soul she closed the Book to apply seriously to the doing of it seeking no more reading meditation conferring or other study than that of purifying her soul from earthly Affections and sins in following Jesus Christs Doctrine and Example She could not speak after the Rules and with the Cautions of human Literature far less by the pedantry of the Schools it were then most cruel injustice to judge her by them Again we must not suppose when she treats of a matter what she does not mention in that place that she denies it nor require her to treat so fully more than her scope there requires as the Scholastiques who handling a matter at their tour adduce all they can relating to it In the Third place to understand her Writings as all others divinely inspired the Key is a good Will Humility and Prayer to a Malign a Corrupt Proud Self-wise and Self-powerful Reader no entry in them no favour from them but that of Death And the center end and aim of these Writings being the Love of God by renouncing our selves the Creatures and sin the Devil the World and the Flesh the farther we are from this the greater discord and contradiction between these Writings and our corrupt hearts and blind spirits and if ever we will be reconciled it must be by valuing loving esteeming and submitting to them as they are conducive to these ends and the difficulties will all quickly evanish this way the Disciples of Christ of Prophets and Apostles entered into their Masters Doctrine To conclude with the zealous and sincere Author of her Life LOrd thou hast yet manifested the words of eternal Life in these last days and our ears have heard and our hands have handled the word of life which thou hast put into her these words of Life which are originally in thee we have seen and heard them and we bear testimony that thou hast manifested them to us and our testimonie is most true before thee and before whosoever will open the eyes of his Conscience to consider it in thy divine Presence Yes Lord my God Creator and Inspector of my Heart who hast given me to love thy divine Truth more than the Sciences and the Advantages of Egypt thou knowest that I hate lying and falshood and that I would not for any consideration recommend untruth I cannot deny that I have obtained of thy Grace to discern the Truth from Falsehood and that I have done it in this Work thou knowest O Lord. Thou knowest my God that if after all possible application of spirit I could find in the intentions in the end the Writings and the Practice of Antonia Bourignon thy Creature any thing contrary to thy Glory that rendered thee less worthy of the infinite and eternal Adoration Love and Praises due unto thee if any thing favouring Corruption and Sin and that might contradict thy holy Image and the Doctrine and Life of thy Christ if any thing dangerous for mens Salvation thou knowest I would abhor that that I would detest it that I would curse it Is it not true O Searcher and Judge of my Thoughts that this disposition is most really in the bottom of my Soul Is it not in the deepest and final sincerity of my heart that I protest openly that the words of eternal
better temperament For that nature is nothing as to Grace and sometimes he that hath more of Fire will be more Virtuous then he that hath more of Water seeing in case he serve himself of that natural heat to love God he will love him so much the more and if he employ his Anger to defend Justice and Virtue he will do much more good than a phlegmatick person who ordinarily loves only his ease It is the same with them that in the intemperature of their nature have contracted more Air than other Elements for they will always be more subtil to discover Evil and more prompt to do good when they will apply themselves to the search of true Virtue As he that hath more of Earth then other Elements will be more posed and grave and if he apply himself to the service of God he will be more constant and persevering in it than the other three And so every one may be agreeable to God in the state and condition wherein he is produced provided he apply the Talent which he hath received to the Glory of God and the Salvation of his Soul Therefore says David Let all spirits praise the Lord. That â—s not as if he would say that the Devils and wicked men praise the Lord seeing these blaspheme him but he gives to understand that all spirits that will become true Christians praise the Lord though they be all of divers natural complexions seeing God is no Respecter of Persons and does not regard whether we have more of Fire or of Water or Earth or Air in our natures but with what affection every one will love and serve him Which I regard also in writing of Solid Virtue I mean not to make it heavy and difficult I would only make it known to them that will follow and practise it because I love such So I cannot leave them in ignorance nor let them perish amidst their good will for want of knowing wherein true Virtue consists That is it which hath engaged me to deduce that matter at length lest these souls which are so dear to me should perish by ignorance as many have already who thought they had acquired true Virtue while they had only apparent ones or curious Speculations of Virtue not knowing that it consists in the overcoming of corrupt nature in true Humility and voluntary Poverty Though Jesus Christ hath so much taught it by Word and Works yet it is not followed in the practice for want of good Explication and the Light of the Truth Which God having given me I will willingly impart it to others in sending to light this first part of true Virtue And with time and opportunity I shall present more to the Glory of God and the Salvation of souls who aspire after true Virtue and Perfection What I offer them at present is with good heart as a Present come from heaven which shall shew them the light of the Truth and manifest the deceits of false Virtue as also the means to arrive at that which is solid and true This First Part discovers amongst other things how the Devil attempts always to divert Souls from true Virtue by so many Wiles and different means And finally it is a School where you may learn To deny your self take up your cross and follow Jesus Christ As he hath taught unto all that would be his Disciples in the perfect sense and true explication Receive it therefore with as good heart as I present it you by Christian Charity Who remain Friendly Reader Your well-affected in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON INDEX Of the Contents of the First Part. Letter I. WE must learn of Jesus Christ Meekness Lowliness and Humility of Heart Written to one desirous of True Virtue also all the following are addressed to the same shewing that to attain thereto we must have submission and Obedience by which we may begin to learn Meekness Lowliness and Humility of Heart Page 1. II. We must learn of Jesus Christ Meekness Lowliness and Humility of Heart Showing wherein Meekness and Lowliness consists which are fruits of the holy spirit and cannot be obtained unless we renounce our own will submitting to the Will of God p. 10. III. Men can sufficiently know the Will of God if they would perform it Shewing him that perswaded himself that the Will of God is not manifest in every thing that we might accomplish it denying our own that it may be known and is sufficiently manifested in the Commands of God which Jesus Christ proposes so clearly saying Learn of me for I am Meek and Lowly and humble of Heart p. 18. IV. Humility is acquired by the knowledge of our selves Shewing what Humility of Heart is what the Marks of it and how we should endeavour to attain it by the knowledge of the Infirmities and Miseries of our Souls and Bodys and blindness of our Minds p. 25. V. Humility is acquired by knowing Ones self Shewing that the true Knowledge even of things most esteemed by men ought to serve to humble them such as the Honours Riches and Pleasures of this Life That all these are vain disquieting unsatisfying and hurtful p. 32. VI. Humility is acquired by knowing Ones self Admonishing to Learn Humility by knowing the Truth of our corruption and Sin which is the disorder of our Five Natural Senses p. 40. VII He that serves the Lusts of his Senses thereby actually renounces the Love of God Exhorting to the Effects of Humility the renouncing of our Senses shewing that none can follow them but he thereby renounces the Love of God which is the End of our Creation and the Essence of true Virtue p. 47. VIII It is Easier to Love God than any thing else Shewing that we must renounce the abuse of our Senses and that the right use of them should be referred to God that it is possible reasonable and necessary to love God with all our Heart p. 57. IX It is easier to Love God than any thing beside him Shewing that it is most easie sweet profitable and honourable to love God and keep his Commands for him that will deny himself but that it is Blasphemy to say That it is impossible to love God with all our Heart p. 65. X. The Love of God is easie and renders all things easie Shewing that the Love of God is in it self most easie to be acquired whence the difficulties proceed which we find them and how they should be removed That this love admirably makes the inconveniences of this life and the keeping of the Commands of God and the Councels of the Gospel easie and pleasant p. 74. XI We must always proceed in Virtue whatever Impediments occur Giving encouragement in the Way of Virtue although the beginning be difficult because of the Tentations by which the Devil vexes them that have resolved to embrace true Virtue p. 83. XII The Devil the Enemy of True Virtue opposes it by all manner of Devices That it is necessary to know the
rather than the other marvellous things he did on earth He does not bid them learn to raise the dead to heal the sick or to do other miracles But expresly to learn of him to be meek lowly and humble of heart And therefore is it my Child that I counsel you to labour to acquire that meekness since it is good wholsome and taught by J. Chr. himself who practised it and tells that we should learn it of him I know very well that you will find some little repugnancy to it and that you must do violence to your nature seeing it inclines always more to harshness than to meekness but we must take the kingdom of heaven by force for it is written that the violent take it by force Eternal life deserves well a little suffering and also the violence which we must use to resist our evil habits for these sufferings are but of short continuance whereas the eternal joy they purchase shall never end These considerations may well make the greatest afflictions we can endure in resisting our selves appear but light Therefore resolve with your self to overcome that passion of anger it is it which torments you most and giveth the devil most advantage against your soul Watch over your self therefore that you may resist it upon occasion for the first motions of anger are not in your power because of the evil habit which your parents have not correcterd in your youth and so it is become as natural to you and is stirred up almost at every occasion You ought therefore to use continual prayer to resist these continual motions The sin is not to feel them but to consent to them and therefore when you feel the motions of anger give not place to them but return in to your self and pray to God for strength to resist them In that case hold your peace because you would not speak meekly as Jesus Christ teaches you should and when others speak what you are unwilling to hear with-draw rather than answer them So shall you by little and little overcome that inclination and become meek and gentle As for humbleness of heart it consists in submitting willingly to the will of others in all good or indifferent things And believe assuredly that so long as you find a repugnancy to yield to anothers will it s a token that your heart is not humble since it would have another to yield to it and will not yield to him An humble heart always distrusts it self and desires rather to obey than to command it submits always its opinion to that of others and will not contend to maintain its own esteeming it the least of any and therefore yields willingly to every body in matters good or indifferent My Child if you had that humility of heart which J. Ch. requires you would be happy and content for nothing would ever arrive against your will which being submitted to God would always receive every thing from his hand although they came by wicked men or the devil himself which could not hurt you when you refer them to God And the devil will not long vex a humble heart for humility displeases him he flyes from the humble because he cannot gain upon them and he searches out the proud because they are more liker himself As the birds of one feather flock together Therefore if you will be free from the devil be humble of heart for so soon as you 've learnt that vertue he will insensibly flee from you and at length strive no more against you but you must have a true humility of heart not consisting in humble outward actions but in the inward motions of your heart which from the bottom ought not to desire to be esteemed and honoured far less followed and obeyed but a humble heart honours and esteems others and obeys them willingly seeing there 's nothing gives more quiet to man than obedience for he that has no more to do but obey needs not devise in his mind what to do or speak he hath but to hear what is said to him and follow it Living so as a Child without care except that of pleasing God which should yield great quiet outward and inward I suppose no body even naturally can desire to command at least without he have a proud and arrogant heart desiring dominion over others for submission and obedience is pleasant and agreeable and we find by experience that he who takes his own will hath often regret and dissatisfaction after and is discontent for doing so Which flows thence that our proper will is corrupted by sin and so produces all sorts of noxious corruption to him that follows it How many have ruined and made themselves miserable for all their life by following their own will One hath engaged himself in some marriage to his hurt another follows the wars taken some charge or undertaken some business which hath empoverish't and rendred them miserable yea and by grief and melancholy caused their death And all this because they would follow their own will without taking counsel or submitting to any person And such are forced to suffer and endure the adversities which their own wills have caused but he that can find a disinteressed person and obeys him according to God is most happy and content As the proverb is He that plays the fool by counsel does it well That is not that any folly is good but to show that he who submits his will to God and the gospel councels does always well alhough men should judge it folly as most part do at this day judge it to follow these councels expresly according to the letter So it is folly to human sence to despise the goods riches and pleasures of this life to become humble and mean with Jesus Christ but he that playes the fool at that rate fool 's well Not that I would counsel you my Child to be submissive and obedient in matters of importance to men that live yet after their proper wills as well as you for that would oft times be evil the corrupt will of another being evil as well as yours Yet it will be profitable for your perfection to obey them in things indifferent or of small consequence when they do hurt to no person And thereby you shall overcome your own corruption and shall accustom your self to submit to what is well-pleasing to God voluntarily for habit changes into nature and he that accustoms himself to submit to men for his own perfection it will be easie and pleasant to him to submit to God for the same doing it without any repugnance of his nature which being accustomed to obey in indifferent things will find pleasure to obey in good things and hence your heart may find always quiet and contentment But so long as you shall be unexercised in this obedience and submission of your Spirit you will have troubles and debates in your self and shall not be loved of others nor united in the same will with
them as God hath commanded us saying be united together in one will which we do not yet observe for our wills are as diverse as there as different persons of us which testifies a pride of heart in all far from observing the counsels which J. C. teaches viz. to learn of him who is meek and lowly and humble of heart that lesson ought to be well kept and practised upon every occasion We have subject enough for being an assembly of persons that endeavour after perfection there is no fear of doing evil in obeying one another as it often happens in the world where we cannot submit to any person without offending God seeing they are all full of sins and evil inclinations which we must resist rather than obey for many well-enclined persons have lost themselves by endeavouring to please the wicked and by that means had part in their sins We are by the grace of God free of that danger seeing all our company are persons of a good will and labour for the perfection of their souls so that you cannot do it to yield to them in indifferent and principally in good things Examin always if what they counsel or propose be good and when you cannot assuredly find that it is such examin if it is evil if it may do hurt or bring prejudice to any body and if you think so you must excuse your self from yielding with all the mildness you can and so you shall irritate no body though you follow not their will But if you resist them with harsh and piercing words designing to correct or rebuke them you had better hold your peace as speak But I 'm unwilling to believe that such cases will happen in our company because I trust none of them will ever give himself to evil things they may well afford occasion one to another to exercise patience for being all imperfect every one hath his own failing which Christian-charity ought to support and that should perfect you together for if you had nothing to bear with in your brother you should never know how far you have advanced in virtue seeing the heart of man is deceitful and flatters it self always and knows not it self till the emergents and occasions offer which try how much meekness and humility it hath which it would not know other ways And consequenly you should love the opportunities of suffering that you may be exercised in Christian perfection You will not always have so much opportunity as now while all the brethren are yet so imperfect and humility of heart so little put in practice So let not the present occasion escape for what is past is not in your power and what 's to come is uncertain There is only the present moment we have to use for perfecting our selves Look not to the failings of others for every one must labour for his own advancement and not render an accompt of his brother Do so as having nothing else to do but to perfect your soul and fulfil the will of God for there is only that which concerns you for if all the men in the world were Saints and you not their virtues would not in the least profit you and also if you be virtuous and all others vicious that will not diminish your virtue for God will not require an accompt of others from you but will judge every one according to his works So that when you have overcome your self you overcome all the world and nothing can let your perfection for even the faults of others will serve you as a means to exercise your patience and become meek mild and humble of heart as J. Ch. counsels And the virtues of others will excite you to greater virtue so that you shall rule over every one for he that hath overcome his passions is king over all the earth and hath subjected all things to himself not being moved for whatsoever happens Behold a blessed state and yet easie to be attained provided they embrace the means They may overcome one passion at once and so get over them all in the end I counsel you to begin with obedience seeing with it you may overcome divers of your passions at once For I shall frequently order you things which your nature has a repugnancy against and if you perform them without gain saying you shall so overcome its corruption although they be but small inconsiderable matters you obey in for it is the fault of that corruption not to yield willingly to another and would always be in the right and thinks it hath reason in all it imagins which proceeds from the haughtiness of heart that would always have deference and will yield to none It thinks always it self wiser and clearer-sighted than another And from that you must disengage it and oblige it to submit to every one in things good or indifferent As for me I did so and have thence found great advantages for the perfection of my soul I submitted always my self to whomsoever I conversed with and have endeavoured from the beginning to discover their inclinations that I might conform my self to them and I did it so absolutely that sometimes I perceived not the evil that was in them to oppose it but since that God has given me more light I obey not men but in things that are good or indifferent And I exhort you my dear Child to do the same that you may become by little and little agreeable to your heavenly father Which is the earnest desire of her who loves your soul to render it unto God unto whom it belongs In Holstein near Gottorp Castle this 12. Jan. 1672. old stile ANTONIA BOURIGNON THE II. LETTER That all Christians ought to learn of Jesus Christ Meekness Lowliness and Humility of heart Shewing wherein consists meekness and lowliness which are fruits of the Holy Spirit and cannot be obtained unless we renounce our own will submitting to the will of God My Dear Child I Perceive you have not yet comprehended the words of J. Christ where he says that we must learn of him to be meek and lowly and humble of heeart Therefore you must know what that meekness is otherwise you cannot love it for one cannot have a perfect love for what he does not at all know and the reason why true virtue is so little loved is because it is so little known many think it is a visible material and bodily thing and thence is hypocrisie bred in mens hearts who perswade themselves that they are virtuous because of doing some external good works whereas there is nothing of the essence of virtue in them for true virtue is a Spiritual thing which should possess the hearts of men and it cannot be seen nor felt but by the operations it produces springing from the bottom of the heart and if these operations proceed not from that bottom but are only studied or practised to please men or for our proper satisfaction they are but moral and temporary virtues which
than any other virtue seeing it begets of it self several others and banishes several vices which cannot abide in an humble heart as Pride Presumption Avarice Pomps and Vain Glory and many other sins which proceed from Pride of Heart but when it becomes humble then are all these vices banisht And to know what that Humility of Heart is essentially you are to believe that it is a perfect knowledge of ones self For he that knows himself well can never be proud nor have an esteem of himself He will not glory in the Praises and Honours of Men He will not desire Riches to be adorned or served for an humble heart believes that it deserves nothing and the least things content and satisfie it An humble Heart is not in wrath for being abased or despised because he seeth in knowing himself that he deserves nothing but is worthy of all contempt And whereas that is not practised among men it is because they know not themselves and so esteem themselves worthy of Esteem and Honour Riches and service and that makes them Proud For if they observed well whence they are what they are and what shall become of them it were impossible that they should in the least esteem themselves on the contrary they would see that they deserve all sort of Contempt because they are as to the Spirit frail ignorant and unconstant and as to the body full of Miseries Infirmities and Diseases liable to death and corruption All these things should not Give matter of exalting himself to man's understanding or to make him esteem himself in any wise but rather ground to humble and abase himself before God and Men because of his infirmities and miseries and yet we see they make themselves great are arrogant esteem much of themselves and in fine believe themselves worthy of all sorts of Honours Pleasures Riches and services every one advancing himself with all his power all that proceeds from thence that men know not themselves for if they did they would be ashamed to glory in their miseries folly and ignorance For man hath nothing else in himself and all these defaults are annexed to his corrupt nature If you open but the eyes of your understanding you shall see abundantly the miseries of your spirit and how it is agitated by divers motions and intemperate passions Also as soon as you open the eyes of the body you see the bodily miseries under which all men lye and if you reflect whence the body of man proceeds and of what substance it is formed you shall find that he proceeds of an unclean and putrid matter and from those members of his parents bodys which are the most shameful And thence he hath no subject to glory or esteem himself in his origin seeing it is from so vile and base things which ought to give him occasion of confusion and humility And even beasts have more estimable qualities than men as to the body For he would presently be stifled in the filth accompanying his nativity if he were not delivered by the assistance of others and he would presently starve with hunger and other necessities if care were not taken to sustain him whereas the beasts can help themselves so soon as they come into the world And if man will look forward into his life he shall find that it is but a mass of miseries linked one to another What feebleness is in man's body He can endure neither too much heat nor too much cold a little over in exercise and he is wearied he must rest and sleep or he looses his strength and health he must be cloathed and alimented cleaned and cherished whereby his understanding is occupied in care travail and disquiet all the days of his life to relieve the infirmities of his body And how many sorts of diseases afflict the body of man They are almost innumerable and they say thaâ— the Eye alone is liable to fifty sorts what then oâ— all the other members When every one hath its particular ones beside the disordered motions of thâ— passions as of Fear Terror Sadness Melancholy Anger Jealousie and such other sorts of evils to which man is subject during this miserable life where he hath no subject of glorying and esteeming himself but great reason to abase himself in the view of so many miseries to which his sin hath reduced him which gives him good cause of submission and humility before God and Men feeling himself miserable and infirm both in soul and body for the Spirit hath its diseases as well as the body for do but take heed to yourself and you shall find your spirit agitated by various superfluous desires and useless thoughts which carry it away often against its intention as the Apostle testifies that it is not in the power of man to order his thoughts which every one may feel For when we would fix our heart on prayer or other good exercise it wavers here and there that we cannot retain it So that we may truly say that it is not in man's power to contain his thoughts So infirm is his Spirit that his Reason hath not the force to stay the course of his thoughts which often sway the reason whither it would not So that man's Spirit is captivated under the tiranny of his disordered passions which often lead him into great evils even contrary to his will whereof the Apostle says I approve not what I do because what I would not that I do and what I would that I do not To prove how many evils the spirit of man is subject as well as his body and that there is no subject of glorying in the one or th' other seeing they are equally infirm and miserable changeable and inconstant For what mutations feel we not in our spirit the variety and changing in one day of Joy Sadness Hopes Displeasures and Desires are scarce numerable how many diverse thoughts we love at one time what we hate at another what we desire one day dissatisfies us another so that we know not our selves sometimes what we would be at and are often afflicted for having what we had desired And if one should write all the thoughts and desires which pass in the spirit of a man himself would be ashamed of his inconstancy and instability and would be far from haughtiness for the qualities of his spirit no more than for those of his body but would see ground of humility for his miseries for there is nothing can elevate the heart of man in an esteem of himself but a blast of wind which the Devil inspires into his spirit to precipitate him into the sin of Pride by sottish imaginations which proceed from that air which is in effect nothing wherewith he is filled For even all the sciences of man's understanding are but figures formed of that wind as we see figures in the air by the Clouds appearing sometimes as if we saw Mountains moving or Houses and Armies all which notwithstanding are but
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
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
and the Evil that I would not that I do and that to show us that there is in us an evil spirit who is the Devil who often acts in us contrary to our will Which is but too true and what every one may experiment in himself provided he will examin himself narrowly For though the Devil be an invisible spirit yet he renders himself visible by his operations And since there is no other Evil but the Devil we must conclude that all the Evils we do against our will proceed from him only For he endeavours always to cause us to sin and to lose the grace of God that he may have us Companions of his miseries by causing us to lose all good which consists in the Grace of God to cause us to fall into all sorts of Evil which is the privation of all sorts of Good The Devil is in that state and so attempts to beget others miserable as himself and that with as much Care Labour and Desire as men can bestow to beget their like Behold the cursed instrument which acts always in man to make him lose the Grace of God Which you must know my Son if you will arrive at true Virtue For if the Devil remain unknown to you he will gain you by one means or other it is all one to him provided he catch men and he hath divers sorts of Snares proper for the condition of every one He spies out the inclinations of every man that he may attaque him where he is weakest When he sees one addicted to covet the Riches of this world he will give him prosperity that he may fix his heart thereon If that succeed then hath he gained the man seeing his affections cannot be unto God so long as as they are in his money Not that the Devil can give men Riches for he is but a poor Wretch who hath nothing but miseries but he hath power over the minds of many men whom he moves to labour and give profit to such as he hopes to gain by addictedness to Riches So that he brings forth occasions to make them prosper by his adherents Now they that know not the Wiles of the Devil think that it is the Blessing of God when they so prosper The Devil so blinds their understanding that they discover not even that these Prosperities cause them to fall into several sins For he that is rich becomes ordinarily proud he exceeds in Pomp Vanity Delicious Fare Idleness Luxury and divers other Excesses which he could not commit before he was rich So it is easie to conjecture that it could not be by the Blessing of God he acquired these Riches But men are at present so blind in that point that they attribute to God what the Devil does to draw them to Hell one by oneway and another by another For he is so subtil that he will be loath to tempt one by things contrary to their inclination If he sees one liberal and that covets not the Riches of the World he will make him exceed in Liberality in giving prodigueing and neglecting what is necessary for himself and so he will make him give his Riches to them that will offend God by what he gives them And if he see another Addicted to Luxury Blasphemies or Drunkenness he is often content with some of these sins and lets him do well in other things For it is enough to the Devil if he hold us bound by one only sin wherein we have our affections that is enough to keep us out of the Graces of God seeing we must not with-draw our heart to place it in any thing but in God alone Yet the Devil always incites man to do all the evil he can But there are many who would not give themselves to many Vices though they be addicted to some one Such sorts of persons are not much molested by tentations of the Devil but he lets them rest quietly in the sin to which he sees them most addicted without tempting them by others When then he hath no hope to carry men to greater Evils he contents himself to keep their souls fast by one Chain until Death that he may after drag them to hell with him The misery is that men will not be aware for they that are not addicted to many sins have always hopes of their salvation I confess says one I'm enclined to Luxury but I bestow much on the poor and will wrong no man Another says It is true I 'm given to Drinking but I am kind and obliging to my neighbour A third It 's true I love Riches and Honours but I also attend the Service of God I go frequently to Church and to Solemnities and Devotions A fourth says I 'm given to feeding and delicacy but I hate no person And so with a thousand Excuses they think to evite damnation and to abtain salvation while they are not addicted to many Vices and Sins But the Devil derides all these Excuses he would have of all sorts of persons in Hell them that commit more sorts of sins and those also that are addicted to one or two sorts For there are in Hell all sorts of states and degrees even as there is in the world where one is of higher condition than another Those that have here committed more sins shall be in greater damnation in Hell than others I pray God deliver you from that unhappiness and remain Your Well-affected in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON Holstein near Gottorp Castle 29. April 1672. St. vet THE XIII LETTER Whatever is Sensible to Nature is not the Work of Grace or Virtue To the same to whom is shewn a third Artifice of the Devil whereby he perswades men that they may satisfie their senses in the state of Regeneration and praising God And a fourth by which he affixes their minds to the spiritual sweetness and Delights wherewith they that desire to follow Virtue are affected My Son I Have not yet sufficiently detected to you the Devils cunning craftiness although I have shown you how he useth to tempt men by the things they are most enclined to which I hope you now understand well But you know not yet how he tempts spiritual persons and them that seek after true Virtue he uses more endeavour to gain these than for them of the world for these he leaves to do as they please knowing well that they need but follow their corrupt Nature to damn themselves without his tempting of them much For the corruption of nature comes from the Devil and we need but follow it to become little Devils as if we but follow the Light of God we shall become little Gods for the good spirit and the evil also beget always their like when joyned and united to the soul of man They produce always fruits of their own nature When man 's will then joyns with the Corrruption of his Nature it needs no other Devil from without to tempt it having in it self that little Devil
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
have some Grace from God keep it hid until it be God's will that you should discover it otherwise you put your self in peril of committing several sins while you shall not perceive it For there can easily slip into your heart some Vain-glory when you have received any particular Grace and even when you have only the desire of forsaking the World the better to serve God that can give you to esteem your self more than another heware also of publishing it before you have done it It is best to do and be silent for to speak of these things gives satisfaction to your nature for it is much pleased to speak of good things so it is best not to give it matter of vain complacency but to suffer the good Seed which God hath cast into your Soul to spring up secretly until it bud and send forth branches outward springing from the root within and in the end bear fruit whereof every one may gather without your loss or hurt Which will come when you have overcome all human considerations and Vain-glory and then shall true Virtue appear sufficiently in all your works without needing to make your trade to teach others Then shall your actions teach them and works are much more effectual Sermons than Words For it happens often that they that speak well do evil And for that words effect nothing in the Souls of others though good unless they know that these words come from his heart that pronounces them and then they have more force to work in the Souls of others but to speak of divine things and of Virtue without the practising of them is as tinkling Brass sounding or as a Perroquet that speaks without reason and beside the uselesness of these words to others they endanger their own soul by Vain-glory. For the Ignorant esteem for Virtue virtuous words and praise them as if it were reality though they be not at all estimable for the Devil himself can speak well of divine things as sometimes persons whom he possessed have said unto me I heard a Story how one time the Devil took the form of a Human Body and a Religious Habit and in that equipage came and presented himself to a Monastery where there was kept a great Solemnity and because of the Feast a great concourse of people Now the preacher of the convent fell suddainly sick whereat the Prior was much vexed having no person to preach but at that instant it was that the Devil came in his Religious Habit and knokt at the Gate and asked liberty to lodge in the Convent and when he presented himself before the Prior to have his Blessing as do ordinarily the Religious Strangers he askt the reason of his sadness Who answered It was because of the suddain sickness befallen the Preacher that was to preach at that hour and that he feared the Murmur and Scandal which that might cause because there was no Preacher to supply the want The Devil answered That he would willingly make the Sermon which rejoyced much the Prior thinking God had sent him that Minister in his Necessity The Devil then going up unto the Chair preached so powerfully and so wisely of the judgment of God of the State of the Blessed and that of the Damned that most of the Hearers wept with compunction and were astonished to hear so clear a deduction of all these things But a simple Religious Person of that Convent had a Revelation from God that it was the Devil whereof he advertised the prior who having ended his Functions caused the preacher to come before him and conjured him by God to tell who he was He answered that he was the Devil The prior askt how it was possible that he could preach so beautiful Truths and so profitable for the salvation of Souls To which he answered I reap my advantage by that for those that have heard me speak these Truths can find no more cloak of ignorance I have declared to them the State of the Blessed and that of the Miserable and the just judgments of God and they were all moved But they are so addicted to self-love and the love of earthly things that they will not put into practice what I have taught them but on the contrary will follow their old Customs and forget the Truths which I have preached to them and after that he vanisht like smoak in presence of the Prior and some other of the Religious leaving a noysom Stink behind him This history shews enough that the Devil can well speak the truth and good things when he sees he can make his advantage of it and therefore should we not esteem it a Virtue to be able to talk well of good things Virtue consists only in the practice and so imagin not that you shall do well to study much that you may speak advantagiously of Virtue that would be but Vanity without Profit But endeavour to study well the knowledge of true Virtue to the end you may put it into practice and your practice shall teach others Never read any thing to learn to talk well but read the Books which teach the practice of Virtue such as is that of Thomas a Kempis or other such like For the high and difficult questions cannot make you holy but will inspire your heart with Vanity and Pride Now seeing we ought to evite even the shadow of evil we must consequently beware of reading Unprofitable things or elevating matters of Controversie and hidden Mysteries seeing all these things do no more but fill our Spirit with wind not bringing any profit to the soul but much hurt For as a Vessel filled with some liquor cannot receive any other thing without mixing with what is in it or spilling it over It is the same with our understanding when it is replenished with curious studies of whatever matter For then the light of the Holy Spirit cannot be poured into it pure It is mixed with our proper thoughts and so there is nothing but confusion And in that Confusion as in troubled water the Devil fishes and dissipates quite that Light And therefore it is that so few souls receive purely the light of the Holy Spirit They are not empty but filled with fine speculations of Mystique things Others have their minds filled with Medecine Others with Astrology and so of other studies They cannot comprehend why they should not have the Light of the Holy Spirit as well as some other particular souls which they see and know to possess it But they need not be astonisht at that for the Holy Spirit cannot enter into a soul filled with something else It must be altogether void of it 's own Curiosities before it can be disposed to receive the wisdom of the Holy Spirit It should then desire to know nothing beside what God wills that it should know and consequently should not apply it self to read any Book but such as enlightens the understanding in the knowledge of true Virtue Neither must
good works that he may have esteem and satisfaction in himself And by that he renders the good work evil or he causes the merciful persons to be much esteemed and honoured that he may make them fall into vain-glory The Devil hath also the art to disquiet our spirit by the care of merciful works both spiritual and corporal And I was exercised my self with that Temptation For in my youth I took care of the poor sick I visited them frequently I helpt and served them to my power And also I assisted all sorts of poor and necessitous persons I endeavoured to reconcile them that were at variance and to engage the slothful to labour and in short I laid these rhings so much to heart that I sustained the cause of all sorts of afflicted that askt my aid And I was grieved to send any away unrelieved I but I found my self at length so occupied that my spirit had no more recollection and I was so importuned by these poor that I behoov'd to abstain from helping them more and that partly to recover commerce with God which I had lost by the voluntary distraction which these poor gave me And partly because I discovered daily their Wickedness and Deceits For aboundance sought my help only that they might live more at their ease and to commit more sins as in effect they did I gave often Alms which the Poor used in Drunkenness Gluttony and Luxury and they became idle and lazy For when they had not so great necessity to labour they neglected to undertake any work for their entertainment because the Alms gave them it with less care and pains Also I found them Liars and Deceitful for they often feigned Necessities Diseases or Infirmities when there was no such thing And so I saw my assistance gave them more matter of sinning They studied to lie cunningly to get wherewith to live in idleness But when my design was to do all that I could for the Glory of God and found that these Works of Mercy turned to that of the Devil by the inward indisposition of those I would have assisted now I cannot do any Work of Mercy spiritual or corporal before I know if it shall be for the Glory of God or not For I love far rather to cease than to do evil not that I fear Doing evil upon my part in assisting my Neigbour in all sorts of occasions generally and without exception of persons For I know that God regards always our intentions and sees whether they be upright and aim at his Glory or at our own But my fear is in regard of the Poor who receive our assistances unworthily and employ our benefits only to the honour of the Devil And it is so that I understand that Works of Mercy are done to his Honour I know that seemed strange to you my Son but you had not well considered my reason For if you will examin the state of men now adays you will find it so corrupt that it is impossible more to exercise Works of Mercy without sinning in those to whom they are done For most part are Covetous Unjust Deceiveas and filled with all sorts of sins And assisting and sustaining them we co-operate to their sins Which we can do in nine manners as I have elsewhere shewn viz. in councelling assisting defending contributing not hindering when able not accusing to them that would hinder it partaking praising or flattering evil Now all these ways of sinning are in part committed when we assist the wicked which we know to be such For if you know that one covets earthly goods and give him of them you co-operate to that Covetousness whether the person be poor or rich the quantity of Goods makes nothing to the sin which is committed within the heart and it is it which cleaves to the goods of this world instead of cleaving to God And sin is nothing else but that turning from and abandoning God If then we turn from him for much money or for little that does not diminish the sin of Concupiscence in the heart It is the same with a proud person for if you give him goods or ptofits you maintain his pride and become partaker of his sin which shall be charged on you Also if you give to a Glutton or a Sloathful Person you contribute to all the sins which he shall commit with your gifts You sin also if knowing a Liar or Thief or unfaithful Person you praise him instead of declaring his wickedness to others for you render your self guilty of all the evils which he shall do because others are not advertised and aware of his wickedness Which were it not dissembled or excused could not hurt so many persons who are deceived because they are ignorant of it and so they yield to him without knowing that they do evil And therefore my Son I would advertise you that you let not your self be deceived ignorantly and for not knowing the subtil crafts of the Devil For so he makes himself to be honoured and brings his own glory out of mens best actions when he can no more bring them to evil actions It is all one to him if he ensnares us by things good or evil He does as he that would draw one out of the water for it is all one if he get hold of his Hand or his Arm he takes hold where he can most easily And when he cannot draw him so he draws by his Feet Head or Hair without considering much if he takes him by the one or the other The same does the Devil with our souls which are in peril of drowning in the raging sea of this world God will save them by true Virtue and the Devil Draws contrariwise with all his might For when he sees he cannot draw them to him by manifest sins he draws them by Virtue it self and by Works of Mercy which are done most part to his honour and glory unless we be strictly on our guard and discover his deceits that we may evite them So we must purifie our intentions and seek nothing in all our good works but the Glory of God alone resisting all the tentations the Devil can make us protesting against vain-glory and all human considerations And so it is that we may evite all sorts of Excess and Confusion and proceed always with discretion to regulate our good works Behold the means to do them not to the honour of the Devil For I would not say that we should cease from good works we cannot do too many if we do them with discretion But we must labour that the Devil or Sin be not mixed with them as it ordinarily happens because men are not wary enough lest the Devil should mix himself into things that are good and holy in themselves He was not wanting to tempt Jesus Christ during his Fast in the Wilderness although nothing could be more holy and perfect than that retreat whither the Spirit of God had led him that he might
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
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
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
receiveth every thing which human wisdom hath diverted having found so many Studies and Arguments to favour our proper will that all men believe it to be lawful to follow it without offending him who pleased to reserve it for himself Sir these are all blind who lead the blind and all fall into the ditch Be you never of that band but believe in the Light which God sheweth you I have spoken TRUTH unto you not affecting to be believed or followed but only to tend and aim at your Salvation All that I have told you is necessary for you if you will use it well because we cannot love God without knowing him nor follow Virtue without comprehending it we cannot also evite the Deceit without discovering it nor escape the Paws of the Devil without turning away therefrom make good use of all these things and you shall be happy in this world and in the other I doubt not but my manner of speech may have given you pain and difficulty because they do not accord with your Philosophy Theology or other Scholastique Sciences But believe that I have never made profession of any human Sciences I love rather to be ignorant of than to know them and if I could learn in a quarter of an hour all the Sciences of the Schools I would not employ so little time thereto because I know that human Sciences are great Impediments unto the Holy Spirit and also that the time is come when God shall destroy the Wisdom of the Wise and bring to nothing the Prudence of the Prudent and so I cannot use fine Discourses but such only as make known the native Truth the words the terms may well be debated and controlled but never the true sense which is true I will not dispute with the Wise seeing God shall shortly overcome them by the effects of my words nor also polish my Language because the simple nativeness pleaseth God more than the rhetorical Eloquences subject unto vanity for he that speaks that he may speak elegantly is filled with vain-glory willing to renounce which I seek only simple words that may express my conceptions I believe Sir that you have sufficiently understood me and that I can say no more to you to co-operate unto your Salvation there remains no more but to put it in practice Which you shall do more easily in solitude or the desert than elsewhere because of the corruption of men which are great letts unto us and also the power which the Devil hath at present over their spirits to bewitch them that are yet sound and entire Flee then Sir that you may evite all these dangers lest you might be diverted from your good proposal and should look back as Lot's Wife who was changed into a Statue of Salt Yet a little Penitence and after God will deliver you to enter into the joy which shall never end That is it I wish unto you in giving you Adiew I was grieved to hear that she would leave me praying her not to withdraw seeing I would follow what she had taught me which was nothing else but Self-denial and Dependance upon God She said unto me Sir it shall be more pure that you remain alone for I am only a Creature as you are and we must cleave unto the Creator alone without interruption he shall conduct you at his pleasure provided you be abandoned unto his will you need no more instructions of any person I have told you more than sufficient to conduct you unto union with God It should be hereafter only repetitions of things foresaid which should bereave your time and mine which it is better to employ in the practice than in repetitions Leave me in my liberty and take you also yours God hath not created us together He shall save us though separated in body True Union consists in a conformity of will with God and not in particular Conferences I must confess I have often distracted my self from entertainments with God to speak to you of so many divers things but I judged them necessary for your Salvation therefore have they not been grievous unto me but now when you know the truth of many things it is not necessary to speak more unto you God shall always teach you enough provided you continue faithful unto him He hath never refused what men ask for their Salvation You must have no more any other pretensions Let the World be overturned Let the Romish Church perish Let the Elements be moved against sinners all that cannot touch you provided you keep you firmly united with God Leave willingly every thing to find that union If I be with you or not it is a small matter provided you be with God that should suffice because he alone can save you and none else There is always mixture when a Creature cleaves to its like I have often despised them who hold themselves addicted to persons although it were under some pious pretext I will not do my self what I despise in others I said unto her That she had promised to explain to me the 24. Chapter of St. Matthew that she should at least give me it before she left me She said Sir I do not willingly fail of my Promise give me the text of that Chapter and I shall explain it unto you word by word wishing that all men of good-will might see it that they might discover that it is of this present time that that chapter speaks Every one reads it without understanding it notwithstanding there are pleasant advertisments to beware of this dangerous time wherein we live at present These are not Fables made at pleasure but Truths proceeded out of the mouth of Jesus Christ himself which every one ought well to apprehend and follow the councels which he gives They are most salutary and most proper for escaping the evils to come which hang over our heads I must give it in writing for an eternal remembrance that men may observe if all that it contains shall not be effected in our time Do not oppose what you shall find contrary to your studies or old impressions because the Holy Spirit shall give perfect and unheard of intelligences of the Holy Scriptures because we are arrived in the fulness of time If you will receive them with Humility of Heart you shall understand all things in perfection but you must become a Child and cease from being a Wise Man because God reveals his secrets only unto little ones and hides them from the great and wise of the earth We must not resist the Holy Spirit and say such a Father explaineth it so or otherwise because the fulness is always more than a part You shall find what I say more clear than whatever the Holy Fathers have said because the time of the fulfilling of every thing is come but we must render simple our understanding as little Children or otherwise we cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven I brought unto
lawful Husband who descended from heaven unto the Earth to teach her them as well by his Works as by his Words all which things are despised by her who should be his lawful Spouse I have often spoken to you of her Excesses and Adulteries will you yet hold her for the Holy Church while the Devil hath placed his throne in her what weakness of spirit to feel repugnancy to forsake so evil a thing upon frivolous perswasions that it is holy while God hath given us an understanding and reason it is for no other end but that we may discern evil from good that we may not perish blindly and now you would change Gods designs in stifling your understanding and reason to follow evil blindly and seeing it so openly evil you form some foolish imagination that it is yet good That must come only from a meer bewitching of spirit because reason even natural discovers sufficiently unto us that the Romish Church at present is not the Spouse of Jesus Christ because she doth not in any thing follow her husband and that two things so alienated cannot make confederacy How can you have repugnance to leave her who hath forsaken her God If Beasts and insensible Creatures and all the Elements have arisen against man when he did forsake the Dependance of his God how should man so reasonable not arise against that Church which hath forsaken the Dependance of her God to will no more dependance but upon her self we should rather have repugnancy to remain under her than to forsake her or otherwise we have less resentments of the offence done unto our Creator than the Beasts and elements or inanimate things which have always resented the injury done unto their Creator yea at the death of Jesus Christ the Stones did rent and the Sun was darkened Have you less affection for God Sir then these stones in not resenting the continual injuries which that Church doth unto God If a beautiful Angel is become a Devil for having desired in his heart to be equal unto God what shall become of her which preferreth her self unto the same God without willing to him in any thing I regret yet your blindness in that point Sir and cannot believe that your repugnancy cometh from your reason but some habitual sensibility which you have unto the Church For if your Understanding did apply it self to discover the origin of that repugnancy it should see clearly that it cometh from the pious affection which you have for the Church but that you do not take it where it is because men are deluded in that as in other things by terms and words of men and when they hear Rome named the Holy Church that word engenders in us affection for her without penetrating if she be that of which they speak when we would deceive a Child and keep him in fear of his Father we put his Cloak and Hat upon a Fagot in some place somewhat obscure which the Child perceiving he believeth that it is truely he and feareth and respecteth him But if he drew near and lift up the Cloak he should see that he was deceived and that what he held for his Father is only some Wood. Verily Sir in the Darkness wherein we live at present they do the very same with us covering Rome with the Cloak of the Holy Church and cloathing it with the Head of Jesus Christ we fear and respect it as if it were our true Mother the Holy Church authorised by Jesus Christ and his lawful Spouse but when we draw near and lift up that Cloak we shall see that there is nothing but Wood instead of Sanctity which cannot be profitable unto us except to warm us in the Winter Verily Sir we must not be so much Children in what regards our eternal Salvation We must not walk blindly in a matter so important If men apply all their spirit to make a Hose or a Shoe why should they not apply it more to save their Soul It is good to have the simplicity of the Dove in regard of God for he that hath abandoned himself unto him hath no more but to suffer himself to be conducted as a little Child but we must have the Prudence of the Serpent to beware of men who can deceive or be deceived and when they say to us behold the Holy Church we must observe narrowly if it is truely her or if it is a Fagot covered with her Mantle It is for that only that God hath given us an understanding that we may always discern true good from false especially in the matter of our Salvation because all other things are vain and perishing unworthy of a serious application of spirit seeing it ought not to be applyed but unto things eternal for which we are created and our misery proceeds from that we make more serious searches to discover the turns and courses of the affairs of the world than those of our Salvation In which the Scripture hath reason to say that the Children of this world are more prudent than the Children of the Kingdom because before engaging in any State Office or Traffique they will always ponder if it be truely advantagious and profitable and they will be loath to rely upon the Words of men and believe blindly that a thing is good before they have first experienced it If they have so much providence for what regards the Earth how much should we have for what regards Heaven we found our Salvation blindly upon what they tell us that Rome is our Mother the Holy Church and we do not sound that affair which concerns us so much to know if truely she hath the quality of our true Mother and if she is confederated with our true Father who is immutable in all his qualities unto which that Spouse must always be conform We must see if she whom they call our Mother hath the Spirit and Practice of our Father and if we find nothing like it we must renounce her and account her deceitful and lying unworthy of our affection FINIS THE ARMS OF THE CITY OF RYSEL ON THE RIVER OF LYSSE IN FLANDERS (a) Ps 8. (b) Ps 119. (a) Ep. 1 2 3. (b) Ep. 4 5 6. (c) Ep. 7 8. (d) Ep. 8 9 10. (e) Ep. 11. (f) Ep. 12 13. (g) Ep. 14. (h) Ep. 15 16. (i) Ep. 17 18. (k) Ep. 19 20 21 22 23 (l) Ep. 24. * 1 John 12 15. * Which is solidly proved in the 2. part of Solid Virtue letter 6. * Of Religions and external pious exercises †An excellent Rule and Comparison * True Catholiques and their Worship (a) Math. 6. v. 2 3. (b) Rom. 6. v. 4. (c) Heb. 9. v. 27. (d) 1 Cor. 1. v. 19. (e) Mark 10. v. 15. (f) Is 5. v. 13. (g) Ps 37. v. 5. (h) Ezek. 18. v. 23. (i) Rom. 11. v. 29. (k) Luk. 15. v. 24. (l) Deut. 32. v. 6. (m) Prov. 23. v. 26. (n) John 3. v. 8. (o) Ps 8. v. 7. (p) Gen. 3. v. 17 19. (q) Prov. 8. v. 31. (r) Cant. 2.4 (ſ) Luk. 10 42. (t) Ps 81. v. 14 17 (u) Math. 6. v. 26. (w) Ps 73 v. 23 24. (x) Ps 73. v. 25 26. (y) Luk. 15. v. 18. (z) Ps 18. v. 5 7. (a) Ps 37. v. 5 6 7. (b) Is 65. v. 3. (c) Ps 34. v. 15. (d) Is 58. v. 13. (e) Ecl. 12. v. 8 9.12 (f) Matth 3. v. 9. (g) Joh. 15. v. 6. (h) Math. 15. v. 24. (i) Is 29. v. 14. (k) Gen 19. v. 26. (l) Is 58. v. 13 14. (m) Ps 46. v. 3. c. (n) Luk 21. v. 36. (o) Ps 25 v. 14. Math. 11 v. 25. (p) 1 Cor. 8. v. 12. (q) Math. 18. v. 3. 1 Pet. 2. v. 2. (r) Math. 13. v. 44. (ſ) Rev. 5. v 1 9. (t) Is 29. v. 14. (v) Rev. 21. v. 2. (w) Ibid v. 3. (x) Rev. 20 v. 14 15. (y) Math. 18 v 3 (z) Gal. 1. v. 16. (a) Eccl. 37. v. 17 18. (b) Ps 73. v. 25 26 (c) 2 Thes 2. v. 4 (d) Math. 27. v. 51. (e) Math. 10. v. 16. (f) 1 Cor 20. v. 15. (g) Luk. 16. v. 8.
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