them believe they are good Christians tho' really in their Hearts they have not one of the Qualities of the Spirit of Jesus Christ For instead of loving Poverty they love the Wealth of this World instead of loving Sufferings they love their Pleasures their Ease and their Contentments and instead of being willing to be despised they desire to be honoured and so of all the rest And in L'Antichrist Decouvert A. B. has made appear beyond all Exception that the Spirit of Antichrist prevails among all the Parties of Christendom and that thereby the Devil has with more Cunning and more irreclaimably possest Men with his Spirit and especially the Well-meaning so that the Harlots and openly Wicked will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven sooner than they because their Wickedness being manifest they are by the Grace of God more readily converted whereas in these the Spirit of the Devil being converted with the Mask of Jesus Christ he still makes them believe that they are guided by the Spirit of God when they are really acted by the Spirit of Antichrist 12. That the Degeneracy of Christendom proceeds from the Degeneracy of its Guides and Pastors is but too evident to be denied and the Evil is more sad and irremedible that they cannot endure to have it told them The Corruption of the other States of Christendom may be spoken of without exciting so much of Mens Indignation but if the Corruption of the Pastors be touch'd a Man must look for nothing but Rage and Resentment This cannot be spoken of but presently it is a Combination against the Priesthood as our Lord was accused as designing to destroy the Law because he exposed the Corruption of the Scribes and Pharisees All Protestants do generally grant that the Degeneracy of Christendom before the Reformation was chiefly owing to the Degeneracy of its Clergy and we being as far from True Christianity now as formerly there is Ground to think the Matter is not much mended We see what a strange Change the Holy Lives and Doctrine of a few simple Men wrought in the Conversion of many Thousands to the Faith and Spirit of Jesus Christ in the Primitive Church and how little is to be seen of this now The reason of this Difference is not because of their working Miracles for these serve only to confirm the Truth of a Doctrine which being once confirmed there is no more need of them but they are as effectual in all After-ages to those who are firmly perswaded of them so that to such as think they would be bettered if they saw such Miracles is applicable that of Jesus Christ If they believe not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded tho' one should rise from the Dead Neither can this Difference be imputed to the greater Prevalence of Wickedness now the World being highly corrupted also at that time and that to no small Degree It is to be attributed then to the Difference of the Spirit by which they were animated from that by which the Pastors of the Church are now generally led The things of God are not known but by the Spirit of God and where God finds pure and self-denied Souls he delights to communicate himself to them and to make them the Organs of conveying his Light and Spirit unto others who are not capable of receiving it immediately themselves Mens Minds are generally so extraverted and turned towards sensible things that they cannot be affected with the things of the Spirit of God unless they be conveyed to them by means that may affect their Senses and this is the reason of the great Necessity and Usefulness of the Pastoral Office For this Cause the Word was made Flesh and dwelt among Men full of Grace and Truth And when he ascended into Heaven he sent the Comforter who led his Apostles into all Truth and by their means conveyed the same Light and the same Spirit into others and they were filled with the Holy Ghost so that it was not so much they who spoke and acted as the Spirit of God by them and there their Doctrine and Lives had a wonderful effect in the Converting of others even as one Flame kindles another they had a living not a dead and barren Knowledge of Divine Things their fervent Charity did animate all their Words and Actions and there was nothing impossible to such a Faith and such a Charity this made them pray fervently to God for his Divine Grace to others and he would not deny the Requests of such ardent Charity And his holy Spirit encreasing the Vertue and Efficacy of their Prayers and Labours did inseparably join his powerful Operations to awaken convert and purifie the Hearts of others This made St. Paul say When ye received the Word of God ye received it not as the Word of Men but as it is in Truth as the Word of God which effectually worketh also in you that believe And Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the Epistle of Christ manifested by us written not with Ink but with the Spirit of the living God not in Tables of Stone but in fleshly Tables of the Heart This wrought the Conversion at one time of 3000 and again of 5000 at one Sermon of St. Peter This made the Officers who were sent to apprehend Jesus Christ say Never Man spoke like this and the Evangelists of our Lord 's preaching That he taught as one having Authority and not as the Scribes and they were astonish'd at his Doctrine For his Word was with Power or to speak with St. Paul in the Evidence and Demonstration of the Spirit and of the Power of God that is they made the Operations of the Spirit of God to be felt in the Heart Moreover they taught Men by their Deeds as well as their Words the Holiness of their Lives and their Abstraction from all earthly things did procure Belief to all they said and let the World see that they bid others do nothing but what they firmly believed and heartily set about themselves So that the whole Body of the Church was sound when to be a Minister of Jesus Christ it was required only to embrace an Evangelical Life and to give Evidence of the sincere Love they bear unto Jesus Christ and of being led by his Spirit But wicked and worldly Men crept into the Church and their number increasing they got themselves in to be the Pastors of it then under an outward Cover of Piety and Religion Men were turned away from an Evangelical Life and led to Damnation Then the Pastoral Office was turned into a Trade whereby Men might gain Honour or Greatness or Wealth in the World or at least their Living Then Men fitted themselves for the Pastoral Office not by Humility and Purity of Heart but by Study and Learning then the Pastors becoming generally void of the Spirit of God were deprived of the true and living Knowledge of the things of God and
Antich Decouv Part 2. p. 66 67. she says That Jesus Christ True Man is also True God that his Humanity is most strictly and inseparably united with his Divinity which is the True God and the Eternal Word that created all things and and saves in Christ In the Third Part p. 26 27. she tells how Antichrist has led some to deny the Divinity of Jesus Christ and not to pray to him and shews that he as God and Man can save us immediately if we will follow him that he is the True Eternal God who alone can save as being God and he is our Mediator our Master our Physician as Man who is become our Pledge and Surety to obtain our Deliverance so that they are wretched Creatures who say they will not pray to Jesus Christ since the Salvation of all Men depends on him and without him no Body can be sav'd VII They affirmed that she denied the Merits of Jesus Christ or any Satisfaction made by him for the Sins of Men and this Calumny they have of late renew'd affirming that she falls in with the vile Socinian Heresies and even outdoes them What Socinian has ever taught That Man by his Sin would have perishâ—d eternally and never have obtain'd Pardon had it not been for Jesus Christ true eternal God and true Man and for his Merits the Force and Dignity of which proceed from his Vnion with the Divinity and that he has also obtain'd for Men Time Grace and Means to enjoy this Pardon and the Effect of those Merits and that he cloath'd himself with our Mortality and satisfied for our Sins on his part that we in imitating him might enjoy the Pardon and Recovery which his Merits have purchas'd for us And yet this is the Substance of the Doctrine of A. B. upon this Head as appears through all her Writings as in Temoign de Verite Part 1. p. 201 202 she says Your Preachers say that I reject the Merits of Jesus Christ tho' in truth I esteem them more than any Body in the World I believe I cannot be sav'd but by the Merits of Jesus Christ yea that none was ever sav'd from the Beginning of the World but by the Merits of Jesus Christ for if Jesus Christ had not merited Pardon for all Men with God his Father after Adam had sinn'd all Men had remain'd in a Lost Estate as the Devils have done because they had no Intercessor with God to obtain Pardon for their Sins as Men have had who having Jesus Christ for their Brother obtain'd by his Means the Remission of their Sins I mean not that Jesus Christ has not also satisfied for the Sins of Men since Adam seeing for them expresly he cloath'd himself with our Mortality and came into the World to Redeem us from Eternal Death into which all Men had wilfully precipitated themselves and sunk themselves into a Forgetfulness of God living according to the Motions of corrupt Nature as the Beasts which Jesus Christ perceiving he came from the Bosom of his Father unto the Earth to recal them He comes to shew them the State in which they were and how they had abandon'd their God to delight in other things than in him and by what means they might recover the Grace of God to attain to Salvation And he himself does before them the Works that they ought to do after his Example And because they had turn'd away from the Love of God to love the Goods and Riches of this World Jesus Christ came in Poverty that Men might embrace it after his Example And because Men had forgotten God through the Esteem they had of themselves Jesus Christ came in all Humility and Sufferings to give them an Example And because Men had left off their Obedience to God to follow their own Wills Jesus Christ came to shew that he is Obedidient even to the Death of the Cross that he might teach Men how they ought to be subject and obedient even to Death And Jesus Christ has done all this with many other things for the Love he bear to Men and that by such Means he might draw them to his Father that he might live with them to all Eternity giving himself thus in Sacrifice for the Redemption of his Brethren But this Sacrifice was not offered for Men who do not believe in him and do not the Works that he did nor for those who will needs wilfully continue in their Sins after having known the Law of the Gospel c. And in Antichr decouv Part 2. p. 76. They have says she sometimes argued against me that I deny the Satisfaction of Jesus Christ But I believe this is because I do not hold that Jesus Christ has satisfi'd for Men after the Manner that they hold it to wit that Jesus Christ has satisfied for all Men and that they shall be saved by his Sufferings without being obliged to suffer themselves which is a great Error because the Sufferings of Jesus Christ will never be applied to any but those who shall follow his Life and Doctrine But because on the one hand Men are apt to pervert the Doctrine of the Merits and Satisfaction of Jesus Christ to encourage the Indulging of their corrupt Nature and others to despise it and think they can save themselves I think it will not be unacceptable to shew how she discovers the Evil of both as in many of her Writings so particularly in Antechr decouvert Part 3. p. 45 46 c. Those Persons says she she speaks of those who despise Jesus Christ and think they can save themselves without him perish thro' Pride as well as they who say that Jesus Christ has satisfied all for them All of them fall into the same Sin of Pride and Ingratitude tho' by different Ways The one is proud to believe that he shall be saved by his own Works and he is also very unthankful that he will not acknowledge what Jesus Christ has done for him requiting his Benefits with Contempt and Irreverence And the others commit the same Sin of Pride in presuming that they are God's Elect and his Children to whom Salvation appertains tho they do not labour to obtain it and they â—â—ll also into the Sin of Ingratitude in that they will nor render unto Jesus Christ what he has paid for them They now that he was their Pledge and Surety yea that he effectively paid the Penalties due to their Sins yet they will not use any Endeavours to make Restitution to him Would it not be a great Ingratitude for a Person to say to him who had paid his Debt as his Pledge and Surety That knowing his Debt is paid he resolves to live in Idleness without taking Care to return the same Payment to him who had paid it for him Such a Person would be look'd upon by us as wicked and unthankful while we think our selves the Children of God in doing the same things to the Person of Jesus Christ We
say he is our Pledge and by his Sufferings has paid the Penalty due to our Sins having died to redeem us while we will suffer nothing nor share in his Pains being well pleased to have our Debts paid with the Goods of another It is on the other hand a great Boldness in those who think they shall be saved by their own Merits without the Merits of Jesus Christ For if Jesus Christ had not merited for them the Grace to do well they were not capable of having so much as one good Thought or Desire of doing one good Work So that all the Grace they have of doing any Good comes from the Merits of Jesus Christ tho' by Ignorance they despise it as poor blinded ones who can discern nothing thro' the Weakness of their Sight For if Jesus Christ had not come to bring Light to the World no body would have perceived his own miserable State and if he had not interceded with his Father no body would have had the Grace to receive his Light so that without Jesus Christ all Men would have remained lost thro' their Blindness and would never have been able to comprehend by what Means they ought to return to God if Jesus Christ had not come to teach them by Word and Deed. And if he had only taught them by Word as the other Prophets no body would have followed him since they believe even yet that it is impossible to imitate Jesus Christ and to follow the Evangelical Life But he himself has put it in Practice before Mens Eyes that after his Example they must endeavour to satisfie the Justice of God by the Union of his Sufferings and of his Charity which are Sacrifices more agreeable to God his Father than our unclean Offerings and our Works defiled with Sin If one had mortally offended his Equal he durst not of himself procure Peace and the Pardon of his Offence but he would interpose some Mediator who were a Friend of the offended Person to satisfie his just Wrath. But they who would be saved by their good Works have too much Pride to take Jesus Christ as Mediator but with an up-lifted Head they address to God whom they have so often offended that they rather draw down his avenging Hand upon their Heads than the Pardon of their Sins for God resists the Proud and gives his Heart to the Humble If they join'd their good Works to the Humility of Jesus Christ they might peradventure receive the Mercy of God by his Son Jesus Christ but standing up as the Pharisee who thanked God for his good Works they shall no more be justified than he was when he went out of the Temple Because he who is not cloathed with Jesus Christ is not admitted to his Father since before his Coming into the World all Men were Enemies to God So that he who is not cloathed with Jesus Christ cannot be acknowledged for his Friend far less for his Son seeing the Spirit of Jesus Christ is the only Son in which he takes Pleasure and not in another He therefore who thinks to go to God without the Mediation of Jesus Christ will be rejected as unworthy and rash because Jesus Christ is the only Door of Salvation They are Thieves who would enter by the Windows into the Kingdom of Heaven for that only belongs to the Disciples of Jesus Christ In which those greatly deceive themselves who believe that they may enter into it while they despise him or reject his Merits which have opened the Door to all those who will follow and imitate him Yet not to those who esteem Jesus Christ and his Merits but with all this will not embrace Penitence under a Pretext that Jesus Christ has satisfi'd wholly for their Sins comprehending even those which they shall commit in time to come as well as those which they have committed in time past In which Error are the most part of those who are called Christians yea amongst others the most perfect We hear nothing more ordinary in their pious Discourses than to say God is Good he will save us and Jesus Christ died to give us Entry into Paradise And with these fine Discourses every one thinks they are sure of Paradise even tho' they live and die in their natural Motions and Sentiments which is a great Mistake for God tho' he be good will save no body but him who shall satisfie his Divine Justice The Merits of the Death and Suffering of Jesus Christ will never be applied but to Souls which are regenerated in the Spirit of Jesus Christ For he has not suffered but for those who from a natural Life shall enter into a spiritual one For Jesus Christ says that all Righteousness must be fulfilled Now it were not just that they who have forsaken a Dependance upon God to depend upon their own Wills should enjoy the Merits of Jesus Christ without being converted and embracing his Spirit since he came not but to bring Sinners to Repentance and he who continues to persevere in his natural Life cannot repent and so cannot enjoy the Merits of Jesus Christ since it is not for those that he has suffered or merited but only for those who by Ignorance or Frailty have quitted their Dependance upon God and delight themselves in the Creatures without thinking they ought to delight themselves in God alone They lived in the Darkness of Death without knowing it Therefore Christ had Compassion on them and offered himself to his Father promising unto him that they should be converted and do Penitence provided he brought them the Light of Truth by which they might get out of their Darkness and their Errors In this Jesus Christ was our Pledge and answered for our Penitence with which we must be saved and not otherwise Therefore they form to themselves imaginary Ways in the Air who think that Jesus Christ is come to save us in speculative Way or by some incomprehensible Mysteries seeing our Redemption is accommodated to our Capacity But the Devil to divert us from taking the straight Way thro' which Jesus Christ walked blinds our Eyes with imaginary Things that we may never come to the Knowledge of the straight Truth making some believe that they cannot be saved by the Merits of Jesus Christ and others that his Merits will save them even though they use no Endeavours to imitate and follow him Many other Passages might I bring out of her Writings but these may shew her Sentiments in this Matter The Sum of her Sentiments comes to this That Man turning away his Heart and his Affections from God thereby all Communion between God and Man ceas'd and so Man was plung'd into an irrecoverable State of Sin and Misery as well as the fallen Angels if there had been none to interpose for him with God for whose Sake he should shew him Mercy there being nothing now in Man that could move God to have any Regard for him That Jesus Christ true God and
to his Image we must suffer with him if we would reign with him His was meritorious and expiatory and exemplary ours is absolutely necessary for our Purification By his he obtain'd Pardon and Grace for us and chang'd the Eternal Punishment we deserved into a Temporal Penitence for our Purification and Recovery and to say we cannot undergo this Penitence is to have no Faith in his Merits to believe that it is enough that he did undergo this for us is the greatest Indignity done him and the greatest Cheat that we can put upon our Souls it is to belie and be false to our Surety and our Pledge It is like Bankrupts to swagger and rant it out with our Creditor's Goods because our Surety has paid the Debt for us It is to make Jesus our Slave to suffer all manner of Afflictions Poverty Reproach and Pain for us that we may go to Heaven in the pleasant and broad Way of Honours Wealth and Pleasures It is to be well pleas'd that the Physician has provided wholsome and necessary Physick for our Recovery and has taken it himself for our Direction and Encouragement but tho' we be sick to Death we will not taste it our selves because of the Bitterness of it believing that we shall Recover nevertheless because the Physician has taken it Jesus Christ led this Life of Penitence for us in his visible and mortal Body that he might shew us how ready he is still to undergo it in every one of us by his Spirit 8. God has no need of this our Penitence but we stand in need of it to recover the Love of God He does not covet our Wealth or Honours or Friends or Ease in that he requires of us to be poor in Spirit to deny our selves to take up our Cross and follow Christ to forsake all things since he created all things for Man and would be well pleased he could enjoy them still But Man is become so miserable that he cannot enjoy these things without setting his Heart upon them and turning it away from God and therefore Jesus Christ has given this his Gospel-Law without which no body can recover the Love of God It is a sad Mistake then to think that there is no necessity of good Works but only by way of Gratitude and Thankfulness to God as if he had need of our Acknowledgments or as if we could make him Presents of our Good Works to thank him which cannot be said but in Contempt of the Riches of God who possesses all in himself and seeks nothing without himself and needs not that we should give him any thing all the good Works that Men can do are for no other End but to resist and overcome the Evils of their Corruption And they are as necessary for our Salvation as Bread is for the Life of the Body for we cannot be saved without subduing our Corruption and no Body can do this but by the means of such good Works and such Penitence as stifles and mortifies the Vices and Sins which this Corruption has brought into the Soul 9. It is a Pride to glory in our Penitence since it is enjoined us for our Sins it ought rather to fill us with Humility and Confusion for in the Beginning it was not so God created us to live in all sorts of Delights without any Pain All this beautiful World was created to serve for Pleasures to the Body of Man and God himself was the Delight of his Soul But Sin only has changed that excellent Order and made Man subject to that over which he ought to rule because he had withdrawn his Subjection from God Our Sins have occasioned the Law of Penitence which Jesus Christ came to teach us by Word and Deed. This Penitence does not consist in Undergoing Pennances chosen by our selves and after our Fancy by which the Devil would drive us headlong and excite us to Vain-glory and which usually make Men presumptuous believing themselves to be better than others and that God is obliged to them for their good Works as the Pharisee All this proceeds from Self-love but true Penitence consists in taking patiently whatsoever God permits to befall us either to our Body Estate or Mind and willingly to suffer it in the Spirit of Penitence to satisfie for our Sins for every Moment there falls out Occasions of Suffering and and Submission so that we need not seek for them It is necessary that we practise this Resignation of our Will to God for accomplishing the saving Penitence which he has enjoined us and for the Exercise of all sort of Vertues 10. Since then the Justice of God could not permit that Pardon and Grace should be given to sinful Man but upon Condition that he turn away from Sin to God and in order to that live a Life of Penitence and co-operate with the Spirit of Suffering Self-denial and Mortification which God will communicate to him if he sincerely desire to be saved it is necessary that Man satisfie this Duty which is so just before God and which the Justice of God requires as well as the Nature of the thing it self This is that which she calls Man's Satisfying God's Justice on his Part this is that from which the Satisfaction of Jesus Christ does not procure us a Dispensation for then he had neither been just to God nor us but he merited the Acceptance of it at God's Hands and Grace and Strength for us to perform it and taught us how to undergo it If People are nice and captious and will needs carp at Words and Expressions as Satisfaction and the Satisfying the Justice of God while they understand what is meant by them no body will contend with them about them provided they grant the Truth and Reality of the thing that no body will be saved by the Merits and Satisfaction of Jesus Christ without the Mortification of their corrupt Nature and the Recovery of the Love of God It is good Consideration which is now generally assigned why God thought not fit as Governour of the World to pardon Rebellious Man without the Intervention of an expiatory Sacrifice in the Life and Death of Jesus Christ that Men might thereby see the Evil of Sin and God's infinite Hatred and Abhorrence of it and so might be diverted from continuing in it or returning to it It is for the very same Reason that God thought not fit to pardon Man for the Sufferings of Jesus Christ unless he also follow him in a Life of Penitence and Sufferings for we are not so sensible of what others suffer neither does it breed in us such an Abhorrence of that which has occasioned their Sufferings as when we suffer the like Pains and Evils our selves without which we have as superficial a Sense of them as of the Actings on a Theatre And therefore to give us the more lively Sense of the Sufferings of Jesus Christ and to enflame our Love to him
they will become no less for this Saying and if there are none at least some will be awakened out of their Security and endeavour to become so If A. B. had said that God by an unchangeable Decree from all Eternity had predestinated the greatest part of the World to Damnation it might then indeed be said that she is void of Charity to God and Man But when she declares that God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to Repentance and yet that all Men were living in a Contradiction to the Life and Spirit of Jesus Christ she could not do them a more charitable Office than to warn them of their Danger Will they say the Psalmist was uncharitable and damn'd all the World because he tells us the Lord look'd down from Heaven upon the Children of Men to see if there were any that did understand and seek God they are all gone aside they are altogether become filthy there is none that doeth Good no not one Every Man ought to weigh the Truth or Falshood of this Saying as to himself and see if he can make this particular Exception to the general Saying There is no True Christians upon Earth let him set at the Foot of it Except I my self And if his Conscience dare not write down this Exception he has reason to thank the Charity that put him to the Trial without regard whether it be true or false as to others which will avail him nothing so long as it holds as to himself And as to the other part of the Prejudice that God will make her and her Writings the Mean of the Renovation of the Gospel Spirit She says It is God who enlightens Understandings who warms Wills with his Love who produces Charity in Souls in short who is the only Giver of all Good without any Creatures being able to cause to be born in the Soul of another the Spirit of Regeneration which is to live again to God and to die to ones self This is a Masterpiece of the Works of God much more rare and precious than the Body of Man and nevertheless he will not do it but by the means of Creatures who shall be subject to him and will hear his Voice who will make others Partakers of the Light which God communicates to them that by it they may be enlightned and know their Errors and the Way to become True Believers The Understanding the Speech and the Hand of such spiritual Mothers is the Matter with which God will beget his True Children making them comprehend his Truths by the Words Writings and Actions of those who shall receive the Word of God immediately who are few in number because Men are now so diverted in the Affairs and Business of this World that they cannot hear the Voice of God tho' he speak continually to their Heart And to supply their Weakness and the Wandrings of their Spirit his great Goodness causes to speak and write by sensible and visible Objects the things which may render all those True Believers who truly desire to become so And that her Writings are of this Nature full of Divine and Saving Truths Simple and Solid Milk for Babes and Meat for strong Men suted for all Capacities and all Ages they manifest themselves as the Light does to those who are not Blind And as to their reproaching her that being a Woman yet she would presume to instruct the World when St. Paul would not suffer a Woman to speak in the Church and therefore calling her in Contempt and Old Wife she said That for her being a Woman she could not hinder it since no Body forms themselves they must ask God if they would know why he created her a Woman and not a Man that she her self had been displeas'd at it but since God made her know it was his Pleasure she was content for she lov'd rather to be a little Atom in the Will of God than a whole World in her own Will And when she began to teach by her Writings it was by an express Command of God which she long resisted for which she begs Pardon for she could not resolve on this because she was a Woman who has never so much Authority in matter of Doctrine as a Man But she came over all humane Respects and expos'd her self to all their Mockeries She says If the Truths of God must be rejected because they are dictated by a Woman all the Great and Learned that ever were in the World ought also to be rejected seeing all are equally come of a Woman Why should they then despise their Origin since God does not despise it but makes use of them to operate his greatest Marvels and always Figures the Church his Spouse by a Woman Women are as capable of receiving the Graces of God as Men there being no difference between their Souls and the bodily difference respecting Nature only in which even Woman ought to be more regarded than Men seeing when God would needs become Man he would have a Woman for his Mother but not a Man for his Father and he has done his greatest Wonders by the means of Women What Triumphant Victory did Judith obtain against Holofernes and Esther in the Deliverance of God's People And whereas it is said it is not permitted Women to teach the Apostle she says ordains the aged Women to teach the younger and to instruct their Children and Family in the fear of God and both in the Old and New Testament we read of many Women-Prophetesses foretelling things to come And the Apostle says it is an honour to a Woman to prophesie with her Head covered She says they ought to let God speâ—k by a Woman if it be his Pleasure since he spoke in former Times to a Prophet by a Beast that he bestows his Graces and Wisdom on whom he pleases and Man ought not to ask him why he does so That before God it is not Man or Woman that signifies any thing but the Spirit of Righteousness and Truth That they ought not to regard whether she be Man or Woman but whether what she says be Just and True That she writes by an express Command of God doing this as secretly as she can shut up in her Chamber That Men are now less dispos'd to receive his Divine Light than Women since their Hearts are blown up with Pride to apply all Glory and Authority to themselves instead of referring it to God and cannot endure that a simple Woman as she should speak of Divine Things least their Learning should be less esteem'd So those Great Philosophers will not let God do his Marvels by the means of a Virgin but will oblige him to operate by Great Divines not remembring that he has said * He has chosen the weak things of the World to confound the things that are mighty and the foolish things of the World to confound the wise and base things of the World and
till she forsook the World the Things of the World and Self that she might love God only and be resign'd to his Will in every thing In which Resolution she persevered so faithfully even to the end of her Life that she would rather have died a Thousand times than have desired any Creature or followed her own Will in any thing never undertaking any thing till she was first perswaded that it was the Good-will of God As appears every where in the Writings of Antonia Bourignon particularly in the Account of her inward and outward Life and the Continuation of it where this is sufficiently demonstrated Which Testimony tho' given by her self is nevertheless true as I have made appear in the Seventh Section IX Moreover this Testimony is confirm'd by many Good and Iâ—ous Men who knew Antonia Bourignon from her Infancy and did narrowly observe her Conversation Many such Testimonies are to be met with in that Treatise of A. B. which is called The Testimony of the Truth It is worthy of Observation that these Testimonies seem to have been published by the Providence of God that it might be evident to every one that A. B. led a Pious and Holy Life and that the Mouths of malicious Slanderers might be stopped not only by Two or Three Witnesses by whose Mouth every Truth is established but by such a Cloud of Witnesses who assure us that the Thoughts and Words of Antonia Bourignon were serious and pious even from her early Infancy so that observing the change that Man is subject to throughout all his Life and that he must part with all at Death while he seems to propose to himself in every thing that he undertakes an abiding and perpetual Good this made her conclude that we were not created for this wretched Life but for an abiding eternal and blessed Life of which she became so desirous that she counted all bodily Delights Recreations Pleasures fine Cloaths and all other perishing things as Dung and Loss for the Love of those good things which were Eternal and would never fail And about the Fourth Year of her Age having learned that our Lord Jesus Christ and his Apostles did lead a Life wholly free of all earthly and temporal Cares and Desires that they might only care and seek for those things which are above and are eternal she look'd on such a Life as most reasonable and worthy of a Man but observing that the Life of Christians now adays was altogether contrary to that kind of Life hence she concluded that they were not True Christians and begging that her Parents would have her to the Country where the Christians liv'd she vehemently thirsted to go thither that she might lead a truly Christian Life And tho' they endeavour'd to perswade her that she liv'd amongst Christians yet she could not believe this especially when advancing more in Years she found that the best among all the Parties of Christendom did still love and seek after earthly things so that their Deeds were directly opposite to the Deeds of Jesus Christ and of the First Christians While in the mean time our Saviour says expresly That the Disciple ought to be like his Master and that he who believes in him shall do the Works that he did yea greater Works than these as the Children of Abraham do the Works of Abraham X. As Antonia Bourignon grew in Years the Love of God and her Neighbour did encrease in her of which she gave infallible Proofs on all Occasions for observing that the Conversation of Men was an effectual Mean to withdraw us from God and to deprive us of his Love she therefore lived as solitarily as was possible not that she was Melancholly or Brainsick for such also seek to be Solitary but that applying her self to the Contemplation of God and of his Perfections she might the better continue in his Love She was otherwise of a chearful sociable and ingenuous Temper and understood well how they ought to carry themselves who desire to be lov'd by the World as appear'd in the time that she applied her self to the Conversation of the World XI Moreover she denied her self as to Meat Drink Apparel c. all things that were not absolutely necessary for the support of Life and this both that she might not adhere to any Creature and that she might bestow on the Poor and the Sick what she had beyond her Necessity And that Antonia Bourignon did these things not that she might be seen of Men like unto the Hypocrites but only from the Love of God and her Neighbour and things Eternal appears from hence that she did all these things in secret as much as was possible entering into her Chamber and shutting the Door pray'd to her Father in Secret and gave Alms her Lefthand not knowing what her Right-hand was doing She shew'd such a chearful Countenance that none but her pious Mother knew that she fasted XII That the Deeds and Actions of Antonia Bourignon did proceed from the Love of God appears also from this that she persever'd in them constantly to the end of her Life except that short time in which she engag'd her self â—n the Vanities of the World and no Reproaches Persecutions hard Usages with which she wrestled throughout all her Life did ever make her sâ—acken nor yet the Deceit fair Words and feign'd Sanctity of Hypocrites and Impostours who continually endeavour'd by many ways to distract her and to withdraw her from the Love of God So that she had received the Gift of Fortitude from the Holy Spirit to such a Degree that she would not have done any thing against the Will of God nor omitted that which she knew to be agreeable to the Will of God no not for the whole World And tho' she greatly desired Solitude because there she had learned to converse with God and to hear him in a profound Silence yet when the Glory of God or the Salvation of her Neighbour did require that she should converse with Men she willingly left that Solitude For she ever observed this Rule to prefer the Glory of God and the Salvation of her Neighbour to her own Profit being always ready not only to lay down her Life for her Neighbour but being content also to be blotted out of God's Book and with St. Paul to be an Anathema for her Christian Brethren XIII Antonia Bourignon finding that Virginity was most acceptable to God and an effectual Mean of persevering in the Love of God she therefore from her Childhood begg'd of God that she might be the Spouse of Jesus Christ earnestly desiring never to be married to any Man This she obtain'd so perfectly from God that she never entertain'd a Thought contrary to it tho' she was oft-times sought in Marriage by Persons who could have afforded her many worldly Advantages and her Parents were solicitous to have her married Yea her Father contrary to her Will promised her in Marriage to
things and entirely resign'd unto him It is not for those Scessers then that I have written this Abridgment but for those who desire in the Simplicity of their Hearts to be helped on in the way to Eternal Life Jesus Châ—ist is the way and we are made believe that his Life is unimitable The first Christians followed him in a Life of Poverty Reproach and Pains in which now we think he neither can nor ought to be followed Here 's an Instance of are in this last Age of the World who as she declares to all that 〈◊〉 is no Salvation without following the Example aâ—◠〈◊〉 of Jesus Christ so she made him her constant Pattern and this her great Work from the Eighteenth Year of her Age to her Death and thereby encourages and invites 〈◊〉 all to deny our selves and take up our Cross and follow him Give her then of the Fruit of her Hands and let her own Works praise her in the Gates AN APOLOGY FOR M. ANT. BOVRIGNON PART IV. CONTAINING An Abridgment of her LIFE To which are added Two Letters concerning the Preface to the Snake in the Grass and Bourignianism Detected by different Hands I. MRs. Antonia Bourignon was born in the Town of Lisle in Flanders the 13th of January 1616. baptiz'd in the Parish of St. Maurice and nam'd Antonia her Father was John Bourignon an Italian by Nation and her Mother Margaret Becquart born near to Lisle they lived in a married State Thirty One Years having Four Daughters of which Antonia was the Third and One Son all of which died in their Childhood except the eldest Daughter who lived till the Thirty Sixth Year of her Age and was twice married She died Anno 1647. Her Mother in July 1641. Her Father married again in October being more than Sixty Years Old and died April 1648. And Antonia remained the only Heiress of her Mother her Sister having died without Children II. When she came into the World her Mother thought she had borne a Monster because her whole Forehead was covered with black Hair even to her Eyes and her upper Lip was fastned to her Nose and so her Mouth stood open they conceal'd her for some Months and the Hair fell off of it self and the Lip was untied by a Surgeon and she encreast in Comliness yet her Mother could not forget the Aversion she had conceiv'd and could not love her as she did her other Children but slighted her from her Infancy and could hardly look upon her the other Children also treated her rudely without her Father's knowledge who then loved her best of all his Children But his Affairs kept him still abroad except at Meals III. This rough Treatment made her retire from childish Plays and be much alone God then drew her powerfully to himself as soon as she had any use of Reason all her Thoughts were serious and her Reasonings seem'd not to proceed from a Child and having been instructed by her Parents when about Four Years of Age of the First Principles of Christianity and of all that Jesus Christ had done and suffered for Men she was desirous to be inform'd in what Country the Christians lived and profest a great desire to go thither and when her Parents mock'd her and told hâ—â— she was in the Country of Christians she said that could not be for Jesus Christ was born in a Stable and liv'd in Poverty whereas they all love to have fine Houses and fine Furniture and much Wealth and therefore she concluded they were not Christians and that she would go into the Country where the Christians do live but no Body understood this Language but turn'd it into Raillery and so she was constrain'd to hold her Peace IV. Finding so little Satisfaction in the World she turned her self unto God by Prayer and he being always ready to be found of them that seek him with their whole Heart especially little Children she from her Infancy had daily Conversation with God he speaking inwardly to her Heart and she thought this Divine Conversation was a thing common to all Then every thing serv'd her for an Occasion to Address to God Thus for Instance remarking that her Father was surly to her Mother and oft-times transported with Anger against her after having endeavour'd to appease him by her childish Embraces she would retire apart and considering how hard a thing it was to be married to a troublesom Husband would say to God My God my God grant I may never marry and she beg'd that instead of being married he would give her the Grace to become his Spouse Her Prayer was so well-pleasing to God that he granted her the full Accomplishment of it giving her from her Infancy the Gift of Chastity and Continence in so perfect a manner that she often said she never had in all her Life even by Temptation or Surprize the least Thought unworthy of the Chastity and Purity of the Virgin State V. Her Sister was much addicted to the Vanities of the World and could not look upon her Retiredness and Aversion from them without Indignation and Displeasure and among her Companions she made all this pass for an Effect of Stupidity and Dulness This made her quit her first Simplicity to follow for some time the Vanities of the World not that her Heart was set upon them but to shew that she had enough of Spirit and was not a Fool as her Sister would make them believe Thus the Devil laid Snares for her to entrap her and the sweetness of her Humour gain'd her the Love of the Young People they converst with beyond her Sister Thus she continu'd to Dress to frequent their Company to recreate her self with them in their Plays Dances and other youthful Divertisements tho' in all Honesty if that may be call'd Honesty which turns away the Heart from God however it past for such in the World Thus she greatly pleas'd her Parents particularly her Father who deny'd her nothing whereby she might appear with Advantage in the World Her Parents were anxious to have her married being Rich and having but Two Daughters and many Young Men would have had her for their Wife but she could never resolve to marry having an Aversion to it Yet she took Pleasure in the Conversation of the Youth till they urg'd her to marry and then she withdrew from them and would discourse with them no more She began also to take Pleasure in the Praises and Esteem of Men because they said she was fair and lovely whereas her Mother had still call'd her ugly and despis'd her on all Occasions VI. But as the World took place in her Soul God withdrew from it by degrees so that she felt no longer that Devotion or Pleasure in Prayer or Solitude which formerly gave her so much Contentment This made her Melancholly and the more she endeavoured to divert it by Company the more it encreast For her Soul was never at rest
then as to the Substance and Essence of the Truths tho' it may be as to Faults of Speech through its own Weakness and Ignorance which Faults come from it self and not from the Holy Spirit And yet it is not the Will of God that it should be taken up about the Correcting of these Faults both because this would divert its immediate Attention from God and make it lose the Divine Light and withal his immediate Force and Power is seen in its Weakness Again in the 17th p. of his Narrative when he cites a part of this 18th Conference of the 2d Part of the Light of the World to prove that she pretended to know all matters of Fact whatsoever he leaves out that which serves to qualifie the Meaning of it All that is needful in this says she is to disingage our Soul from earthly Affections and to resign it to the Will of God then he goâ—verns and illuminates it in such sort as that it cannot be ignorant of any thing that it ought to know For as for simple Curiosities we ought never to ask or desire them but only that which is well-pleasing to God or profitable to our Neighbours the Knowledge of which things God does not deny to Souls who are faithfully dedicated to him Thus the Spirit of God made known to Peter the matter of Fact of Ananias and Saphira and to Elijah that of Gheazi where is there Occasion from this for all the Narrators idle Jests in the 19th and 20th p. of the Narrative 3. The Doctor starts a great many Questions upon a false Supposition p. 31. it being already told in the English Preface to the Light of the World that not M. de Cort but M. A. B. did write all the Conferences of the Light of the World which are now published 4. I am sorry that he seems to have drunk in the Hetetodox Sentiments of his new Friends and to declare himself so much Pelagian as to deny all kind of Vnion betwixt a regenerate Soul and God For one of the Articles of his Impeachment of A. B. seems to import no less for he accuses her because she asserts that there was some kind of Union betwixt her and God and that he dwelt with her in some ineffable and incomprehensible manner I thought that all God's Woorks had been incomprehensible and that if he dwell in any Soul it is in an ineffable manner And Jesus had said if any Man love me he will keep my Words and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our Abode with him and St. Paul declares that Christ lived in him and that if any Man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his I thought all this did import some kind of Union betwixt a regenerate Soul and God If any will please to read the half Sentence if you knew me you should also know God in the Original it self they will see how far she is from his Insinuations of Parallelling her self with Jesus Christ or making her self equal with God If says she I should say things contrary to the Gospel do not believe me For you ought not to believe any thing because I say it to you but only because it is really true And if you knew me you should also know God because he is one and the same Spirit in all things So far as you shall discern Righteousness Goodness and Truth in any Person so far shall you discern God living in them and no farther The Doctor wilfully mistakes her Meaning in the other Passage he cites Light of the World Part 2. Conference 17. p. 128 129 and keeps out of the midst of it that which clears it most She makes not a Distinction betwixt a Doctrine as from of a prophetical Spirit and as immediately from God as he would insinuate but that what God thought fit to declare more darkly by the Prophets now about the time of their Accomplishment he declares them more manifestly with such Clearness and Reasons as bring along with them their own Evidence And that he communicates now a Light not of prophecying things to come but of shewing the approaching and present Accomplishment of what has been foretold already The Prophecies says she of the Antient Prophets will all of them very shortly be fulfilled there is no need of any longer having obscure Prophecies because we are fallen into the last Times wherein all the Prophecies shall cease and we shall see them all entirely accomplished and we shall not receive any more new ones because the King of all the Prophets will himself govern his People and will give an entire Accomplishment to all that has been prophesied of him so tho' Sir you shall not need to say that you hold these Truths from a Prophet because the Work does always bear witness who the Workman has been Thus A. B. in the midst of the Passage which the Doctor has cited No doubt when the Doctor began this Narrative he resolved to be Ingenuous and to curtail no Passage that might qualifie her Meaning But when he writes against A. B. it will not do with him Naturam expellas furcâ licet usque recurret 5. M. Poiret being still alive the Narrator should have dealt by him as a prudent Man and a Christian Pastor he should have pleased to tell him his Fault and endeavour'd to restore him in the Spirit of Meekness if there were any Defects and Errors I am perswaded he would have found him easily convinced of them for he is none of the crack'd whimsical bigotted Heterodox and Blasphemous Fouls which he and his Friend represent him to be He is a Protestant Minister whom Providence has discharged from the exercising of his Office by the Dissolution of his Congregation through the Miseries of Wars he has a sound Mind a solid Head a clear Understanding a penetrating Reason and Judgement a cheerful Temper and a sincere Mind He is not wedded to any Party or Person farther than they are united to the Truth as it is in Christ Jesus he values the Writings of A. B. because they contain the true Doctrine of Jesus Christ rescued from the false Glosses of corrupt Nature and because her Life and Spirit were conformable to her Writings he most firmly believes and adheres to all the Articles of the Christian Faith and labours to have them transcribed in his Heart and Life and values no other Sentiments nor Reasonings but as they tend to promote the Interests of Christ's Gospel The unjust and unaccountable Representations given of him by the Narrator and his Friend have made me give you this Character of him and that this is a true one his Writings are irrefragable Evidence which whosoever disparages betrays only the wrong set of his own Heart and Understanding As for that Letter which has given Occasion to the Doctor 's hasty Excommunication of him and made him inconsiderately rank him with Mahomet Ebion
by many others by many of the Practical Writers of Christianity and what needs so much adoe about the Writings of this Woman We ought not to deny to others their just Praise and I wish that not only many but all the Practical Writers of Christianity did breath the same Spirit But because other Writings are good and useful we ought not therefore to despise these if they be so too In things convenient for the Body the Providence of God affords not only what is simply necessary but Plenty and Abundance and what is distasteful to one Palate will relish with another and promote their Health And why should our Eye be Evil because God is Good If he be pleas'd to afford us Plenty and Variety of Spiritual Entertainment tending to mortifie our Corrupt Nature and to bring us to the Love of God and some of it does not please our Taste why should we be so peevish and ill natur'd as not only to throw all away that comes from that hand but decry it as rank Poison and forbid any to touch it as they would escape Damnation when it may be all the Evil lies in the Malady and Distemper within us which it comes to remove and what we will not use nor relish may prove very savoury and healthful to the Souls of others It is strange to see the Disposition of Men. The Poets and Plays both Ancient and Modern tho' they flow from and greatly tend to cherish the Corruption of Humane Nature yet the Learned do Study and Esteem them but Writings of this Nature whose only Aim is to perswade Men to love the Life of Jesus Christ in their respective Communions without setting up a New Sect or Party and to tell them they do it not meets with nothing but Reproach and Contempt upon a Pretence there are in them some Sentiments different from the ordinary tho' they are most consistent with the Essentials of Christianity and are declared not to be necessary to Salvation As if we would hate and persecute our best Friend because his Cloaths differed from ours in their Fashion Some peculiar Characters of her Writings and Sentiments XVI NOW as that which I have mentioned is the great Design of those Writings and for that Reason they ought to be as readily entertain'd as we do other good Practical Books so there are some things observable in them in the Prosecution of that great Design of the Renovation of a Gospel Spirit which in my Esteem do merit a particular Consideration I shall mention some of them And First that which has been already touch'd her making so clear a Distinction between the Essentials and Accessories of Religion and her laying so little Stress upon the last tho' she declares that she had particular Discoveries in them seems to me a particular Character of her Spirit They who set up for a peculiar Knowledge in Divine things or to reform the Corruptions of the Church or to be Guides and Directors of others they presently insert all their little Opinions and Doctrines into their Confessions of Faith make them Articles of their Creed Shibboleths of their Party so that none can be of their Communion who do not profess to believe them and they are more zealous for their particular Forms and Confessions than for the Gospel and Laws of Jesus Christ and are ready to esteem or despise others according to their Zeal or Coldness for these and thus tho' a Man be proud and covetous and malicious and his Spirit quite contrary to that of Jesus Christ yet if he be zealous for their peculiar Doctrines and Forms of such a Party he shall in his own and their Esteem pass for a good Christian they imagining that God lays as great a Stress on their Doctrines and Forms as they do themselves while they call them the Cause of Christ the Jewels of his Crown c. thus most heinously taking God's Name in Vain Others again who pretend to divine Revelation are still upon Mysteries and Visions But A. B. does most clearly and distinctly represent wherein the Essence of Christianlty consists makes that the Butt of all her Writings shews what are the Accessory Truths and tho' she pretends to particular Discoveries in them yet tells they are not Articles of Faith nor necessary to Salvation that they who see no Clearness in them nor Benefit by them may let them alone and tho' we should believe them never so firmly yet without a gospel-Gospel-Life and Spirit there was no Salvation XVII 2. The Writings of A. B. do clearly shew the Relation that the several Parts and Duties of Christianity have to one another and the Place that every one holds in Relation to the Whole and this is of no small moment to direct us aright in our Endeavours after a Christian Life and Spirit We may know many of the Parts and Duties of the Christian Religion and seem much Occupied about some of them and yet never make any Advances in a Christian Life all that is directed by Wisdom is done for a fit and proper End and fit and seasonable Means are employed for attaining of that End We see the Footsteps of infinite Wisdom even in the Motions of the brute Creatures The Birds in the Spring gather proper Materials and build their Nests and lay their Eggs and hatch their Young if they should be taken up only about gathering Sticks without putting them to any further Use the Wisdom of their Maker in the Forming of them would not thereby appear Now God has given Man an Understanding whereby he may discern a proper End for his Actions and suitable Means by which to accomplish it We see in all Trades and Arts they have their proper Ends and their peculiar Means to attain to them and if the respective Masters or Apprentices should be still occupied about some of the remoter Means of their Calling without ever directing them to the Attainment of the End of it or should think to attain the End without the Use of the necessary and immediate Means we would think they had lost their Wits If they who pretend to rebuild an House busie themselves only in providing some of the Materials and contriving Models and reading Books of Architecture and hearing Discourses about it and lay some Stones of it upon an old runious Foundation without ever doing more or if they think to get the House built without ever digging deep to lay a good Foundation or using the other consequent necessary Means of Building such but build Castlâ—s in the Air. Now tho' Men are not so absurd and unreasonable in other things yet they are so in Religion They are taken up with some of the remoter Duties of Religion without ever aiming at the End of it or they think to attain the End without using the necessary Means for the Attainment of it and become thereby so darkned in their Minds as not to perceive what Relation the Parts and Duties of
her Thoughts and withal that she had written her Thoughts lately on the same Matter which he having obtain'd the Sight of after Importunity and with a Promise to restore it within three Days he read it with Feeling and Admiration and returning it said You have said more things and more forcible on this Subject in one Sheet than I have done in all my Book which has cost me so much Time Pains and Expences and therefore I condemn it never to see the Light It is the 4th Chapter of the fore-cited Book XXVIII 13. Those Writings are worthy of our Regard in that they tend to discourage and remove out of the Christian World the Disputing and Controversal Divinity and to take Men off from the Spirit of Controversie which has banished the Life and Spirit of Christianity from among Men. Some are ready to say that her Writings tend rather to multiply Controversies than to remove them in that they advance so many new Doctrines and Opinios which were never formerly heard of But these need give no Occasion of Dispute she declares they are not Matters of Faith are not necessary to Salvation they who are perswaded of the Truth of them and find them helpful to increase their Love and Admiration of God will receive them without disputing about them and they who are not perswaded of the Truth of them may let them alone and so there needs no Dispute and no Body will contend with them about them But those Writings tend to take Men off from this Spirit they make so clear a Difference between the Essentials and the Accessories of Religion so plainly describe the first that all cannot but be convinc'd of them and they shew that the last ought not to be any Subject of Debate and Contention They make appear that the Doctrine of Jesus Christ is to be learn'd by Simplicity and humble Prayer and not by Controversie and Debate and that none are more capable of understanding it than they who are led by the Spirit they shew that there is nothing more contrary to the Spirit and Great End of Christianity than the Spirit of Controversie That they who are led by it cannot endure that others should differ from them in some Sentiments about Religion even tho' they agree in the Essentials and Fundamentals of it but presently they prosecute him with all the Spite and Rancour they are capaple of as the Enemies of God and Religion and do all they can to inspire the same Spite and Aversion against them in all on whom they have Influence They assix on them hateful Names accuse them of Crimes they were never guilty of Blasphemy Idolatry c. they treat them with Contempt and Scorn make them pass for mad and distracted the Good in them or the Truth that appears in their Writings they conceal and are griev'd at it and make it pass for what they call in Scorn Flights of Devotion or the Effects of a warm Imagination and they rejoice when they meet with any thing that can expose them or make them hateful they cannot easily believe any thing that is Good in them but very readily Evil they do not consider the great Tendency of their Life and Writings but cull out some Instances and Passages of both which may separately seem hâ—rsh and they assix on them the hardest Sence they are capable of and from these draw Consequences and form odious Pictures of them from them they can endure no hard Words without Rage and Displeasure but against them they insult and triumph In a Word this Spirit is the compleat Reverse of that Charity which S. Paul describes It suffers little is unkind envious rash puffed up behaves it self unseemly seeks it self is easily provoked thinketh Evil rejoiceth in Iniquity but rejoiceth not in the Truth bears with nothing believes nothing hopes nothing endures nothing Now all things being diffusive of themselves this Evil exerting it self in the Writings and Discourses of Men spreads like a Contagion and our corrupt Nature being more susceptible of Evil than Good is soon seized with the Malignity Hence cometh that Hatred Variance Strife Evil-speaking those Revilings Calumnies Sects Schisms Wars Fightings Persecutions c. which have made the Christian World so much the Sport of the Devil and the By-word of the rest of Mankind Now one would think that by this time Men might be so generally out of Love with the Humour of Controversie so offended with the Trickâ— of laying the Stress of Christianity on things wherein it does not consist and so sensible of the Mischiefs that both have done to Religion throughout all Christendom that those Writings would be generally acceptable which tend to sweeâ—en Mens Minds towards one another to lessen a Concern for Sects and Parties to give a clear View of the Essentials of Christianity and plainly to distinguish them from the Accessories and Circumstantials and to lead Men to the Mortification of their corrupt Nature and the Recovery of the Love of God as those Writings most certainly do XXIX 14. The Manner after which those Writings were composed is something singular and extraordinary It cannot be denied but that they are writ with much Clearness Solidity and Force in all the things that may be useful for the Salvation of Man yet they are not the Effect of Study and the reading of other Books for she read none and did not derive her Knowledge either from learned Men or Books reckoning their Learning a Straying from the right Way and that as the Writing-Master would needs have a Double hire from those who had learn'd to write an ill Hand to wit one hire for unteaching them so ill a Habit and another to teach them to write well because he must be at more Pains with such than with those who had learn'd none at all so she was with the Learned who came to learn from her in Christ's School she had a double Labour one to unteach them the imaginary Wisdom which they had embraced join'd with Presumption and Rashness and the other to make them receive the true Doctrine of the Holy Spirit Humility and the Lowness and Simplicity of a Child And as her Writings were not the Result of Study and human Learning so neither were they the Effect of Meditation and human Reasoning We must think before we write and take Time to order our Thoughts and consider our Words we must blot out and mend and add to our first Draughts But when she put Pen to Paper she wrote as fast as her Hand could guide the Pen and what was once written was witten without blotting out or Change And when she returned to any Writings that she had laid by unfinish'd tho' for some Months or Years she did not apply her self to read them over but having read only five or six of the last Lines to see how the Period ended she immediately wrote on with her former Swiftness her Sentiments flowing from her as Water
shall consume them as Bread God will not defend them and he is with us therefore let us not fear them Thus we ought to animate all well-disposed Persons and let them see that the Ways and the End of Christianity are very possible with the Grace of God If this Method had been taken the Doctrine of Christian Perfection and its Practice would not have been so strange and so rare a thing XV. I shall here mention another Accusation as having Relation to this from which she clearly vindicates her self and that is That they said she believed herself impeccable and that her Friends did so at least that she never actually sinned no not in Thought and that she derived no Guilt and Corruption from Adam She vindicates herself from this Accusation in a Letter to Serrarius In the eighth Place you accuse me says she very falsely in saying that I say or that I believe I am impeccable and cannot fall any more for in Effect I have no other Fear but that of not abiding faithful to my God and I cannot endure those who say or believe that there is a State of Perfection in this World in which Persons are impeccable I look on this as a great Errour and Self-presumption Is it possible that I should hold my self what I blame so much in others I say God ought to be served with Fear and Trembling and I never demand of others what I do not first my self If I say that God ought to be served with Fear I still do it first and I am sure if God did withdraw his Grace from me I should fall presently You have been present several times when I related to many how I fell after that I had been from my Youth prevented by the Grace of God yet being grown up I let my self be carried away to follow the Vanities of the World and resisted the Inspiration of God which drew me to the contrary and because of this Resistance I deserved that God should withdraw from me and I began to please my self in the Pleasures and Divertisements of the World and the Praises of Men so that this Fall was the Cause that I gave my self to great Mortifications of Body to Watchings Tears and Prayers for the Space of about 7 Years This Story was told many times to your Disciples and in your Presence Now if I relate so freely how I fell so basely from so exalted a State of Grace in which God had put me how could I say or believe that I could not fâ—ll any more or think my self impeccable since what a Person has done once they may do many times The State of Integrity in which I was before my Fall might rather have rendred me impeccable than that in which I live after it I do not believe that ever any Creature on Earth can be impeccable during this miserable Life where there are so many Stones of Stumbling a S. Peter the Apostle a David according to God's own Heart a Solomon filled with the Holy Spirit with so many others have committed gross Faults and great Faults after having received great Grace from God Should I be so Ignorant as to believe that I could not fall any more or fail of the Grace of God I may do it assuredly every Moment if I should withdraw my Conversation with God to converse with my Senses for God forces no Body having given to all Men Free-will with which they shall act to all Eternity and as long as this Will abides fix'd in God it is impossible that the Person fall but if this Will withdraw it self from a Dependance on its God it falls easily even tho' it had been exalted as high as a Seraphim For this Cause I said I have no other Fear in the World but that of not abiding faithful to God because I know that so long as I shall be united to him I cannot fall but if I withdraw my self from him I shall fall at the first Step as an Infant that cannot walk And yet you dare say that I call my self impeccable and when I ask where I have said or written such things You tell you draw it from my Writings by Consequences But I would gladly ask you if in case I had drawn by Consequences out of your Letters or Words that you are a wicked Man would it be lawful for me to go and publish it from Town to Town as you do the ill and abusive Consequences that you say you draw from my Writings without letting me know where how in what Place and by what Words I may have given Matter for drawing of such Consequences directly contrary to the true Sentiments that I profess I know not with what Conscience you can do this and say that it is for Good that you may warn Persons that I believe my self impeccable and that I exalt my self and so forth but tho' indeed there were in me any such thing it would neither be good nor necessary to advertise so many Persons of it For First my Imperfections cannot defile them it is I that must account for them to God and my Words cannot wound them because all those whom you sent to me are Persons who have their Five Senses and a good enough Judgment to discern if what I say be Good or Evil and to take only that that may serve them for Good lâ—tting the rest alone so that it is not necessary for you to go tell them the Faults which your Fancy has imagin'd Your procedure is very contrary to that of Jesus Christ who said to the People speaking of the Pharisees Hypocrites do what they bid you but do not as they do You will grant I say very good things as the Truth is but you would annihilate that Good by the Evil that you untruly say is mine The Evil that was in these Pharisees was not powerful enough to discredit the Good that was in their Words but you make my imaginary Sins mount to so high a degree that they are capable of discrediting all the Good even that which you confess to be there If you were Just you would make a right Judgment of what you ought to do and leave and if you had Goodness you would procure to all those Persons the Good that they might receive by the Light which God gives me and if you had Truth you would not perswade them to believe a Lie in this that I say I am impeccable Thus as on the one hand she evidently shews the Duty and Possibility of obeying the Commands of God and of tending to Perfection by his Grace only so she as plainly shews her Abhorrence of the Presumption of being impeccable in whatsoever state in this World XVI Another Sentiment which gave no small Offence was that she says When Jesus Christ took on him our Mortality his inferiour Will or Self-will was Evil so that he behov'd never to follow but always to resist it This they cry out on as a Blasphemy
and extraordinary XX. 2. It is objected against her being led by the Spirit of God that many have had Visions and Revelations and yet not from God but that they have been acted either by the Heat of their own Imagination or by Illusions from the Devil who can transform himself into an Angel of Light and work upon the Fancies and Imaginations of corrupt Men so as to make his Illusions pass for Immediate Communications from God and therefore she may be reckoned among the Enthusiasts and Visionaries with which the World abounds Enthusiast is a Word which at first had a Good meaning viz. one truly led by the Spirit of God but now generally it is taken for one who falsely pretends to it and is not And of such there are several sorts of false Enthusiasts in the World tho' all of them do not go under that Name 1. Many there are who indulging still their corrupt Nature and being strongly acted by their own Imagination or by Impulses of the Devil pretend to Divine Inspiration and vent impious absurd and corrupt things as inspir'd by God By their Fruits ye shall know them Others are become Idolaters of their Reason make it their God But the most ordinary false Enthusiasts are they who least of all will own the Name those I mean who pretend to be Embassadours from God and that to resist them is all one as to resist the Spirit of God and that their Sermons and Explications of the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the Word of God tho' in the mean time they have not the Spirit of Jesus Christ are far from being enlightned by him venting their own Notions Passions Errors and Wranglings for the Word of God wresting it to speak as they would have it and in the mean time hating and persecuting those who are truly taught of God and calling them by the odious Names that belong to themselves True Divine Inspiration so far as we can conceive it from the Representations of those who have been truly and immediately Illuminated of God may be considered under these Two general Heads 1. Either God communicates himself his Light and Truth immediately to the Soul without the Intervention of any sensible Idea or Image Or 2. He makes use of sensible Images to affect the Soul and that after different manners by Dreams Visions Voices c. and it is in these especially and not in the former that the Devil labours to ape God and to delude Souls or that Men are deluded by their own warm Imaginations and the Devil's Illusions or their own Fancies pass for Divine Visions c. Now that the Motions and Sentiments of A. B. were not the Effect of such an Enthusiasm seems evidently to appear from her own Writings It is best to hear her self That I may satisfie says she to a great Lawyer the Question so oft proposed by you how I understand and speak with God I shall tell you in Simplicity what I can say of it God is a Spirit the Soul is a Spirit they communicate in Spirit they are not verbal Discourses but spiritual Notices Intelligences Spirituelles which nevertheless are more intelligible than the best Eloquence of the World God makes himself to be understood by the Soul by inward Motions which the Soul understands and comprehends according as it is freed of earthly Idea's and in so far as the Faculties of the Soul do cease the Motions of God are so much the more intelligible unto it The Notices of God are infallible when the Soul is free of all Images and in a Forgetfulness of all created things but they are doubtful when it acts by Imaginations and seek Sensibilities or any other thing that is not purely God The Saints themselves have in this Point committed Mistakes by Visions vocal Words Extasies or other Sensibilities to which the Imagination contributes God is a Spirit the Soul purified is transform'd into him and has no need of Words nor of Sight to understand him more than we need an Eye or a Tongue to understand our own Conceptions It is hard to declare how this is done it must be hard also to believe it and in Effect it is subject to Deceptions and Illusions of the Devil or the Imagination if these inward Notices and Knowledge be not declared by a Person whose Life and Words are conformable to the Gospel as being inspir'd by one and the same Spirit The rest of this Letter is transcrib'd above There is nothing more Difficult for Man's Understanding than to discern Spirits to know if they are of God or of the Devil or from Nature to discern this a Divine Light is necessary for the same things which the Spirit of God operates that of the Devil or of Nature may do also If the Spirit of God make a Soul say that which is to its Praise by a Spirit of simple Truth that of the Devil will make the same things be spoken through pure Pride that of Nature to get Esteem being so subtile in its Flatteries that it will sometimes utter things to its Contempt that it may appear Humble before those who hear them The same thing may be Holy Diabolical or Humane according to the inward Intention and Motion of the Soul that operates which God alone knows evidently in which so many deceive themselves who presume to discern Spirits and to guide Souls by their own natural Light These are the Blind who lead the Blind and both fall into the Ditch I entreat you to remark that the Holy Spirit is not visible to be seen by the Eyes of the Body where he resides but he manifests himself sufficiently by the Operations which he produces in those Souls which possess him They are adorn'd with all his Gifts and Fruits which are sure Marks of his Operations for neither the Devil nor Nature can work such Effects no more than natural Fruits can be brought forth without the Trees by which Fruits we discern the Trees so ought we to discern Souls that are filled with the Holy Spirit for to regard only the Bark which are the outward Actions and Words there is occasion of being greatly deceived for the Devil covers himself with the Garment of seeming Vertue and Sanctity and under this deceives the most Pious and the most Learned The Twelve Fruits and the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit and the Eight Beatitudes have always their Operations in the Person who possesses the Holy Spirit who cannot reside any where without them more than the Sun can be without Light so that it is in vain to seek other Signs whereby to discern this Spirit since these only are the true Oneâ— So that we may know if a Person be animated by the Holy Spirit or by the Devil or by Nature by the Operation of his Works we need only consider them with a single Eye with a pure Intention without Curiosity or Affectation and then we cannot be deceived for God
considered with the same Spirit that dictates them at least with a single Eye for to an evil Eye they look as the Cloud which guided the Israelites did appear to the Egyptians tho' it was all Light to the first yet to the last it was all Darkness and Confusion XXIV 6. It is farther objected If these Communications are from God how comes it that they have not their Accomplishment according as it was promâ—s'd to her The Apostle foretold that in the last Days there should come Scoffers walking after their own Lusts and saying Where is the Promise of his Coming For since the Fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were since the Beginning of the Creation For the removal of this Prejudice there is adduc'd an excellent Passage of a Devout Author which I shall transcribe here likewise since it gives so great Light in this Matter The Visions and Words of God says that Author tho' they are always true and certain in themselves yet are not always so after our way of understanding them and that for Two Reasons the one proceeds from the Imperfection of our way of understanding them and the other from the Reasons and Grounds upon which the divine Words and Visions are establish'd for oft-times they are Comminations and of a conditional Nature or Condition for Example that such shall amend such a thing shall be done tho' nevertheless the divine Word to take it in the Letter is absolute and does not express this Condition These two things I prove by Authorities of Holy Scripture First it is evident that the Word of God is not always and does not always come to pass after our way of understanding it because of the weakness and imperfection of our Understanding For God being Immense and Profound it is no wonder that in his Words and Revelations there is ordinarily a sense and meaning far beyond our common way of conceiving them and which shall be so much the more true and certain in themselves the less probability and certainty they seem to us to have We find very often in the Scripture that the Ancients found many of the Divine Words and Prophecies to fall out quite otherwise than they conceiv'd and hop'd for after their gross way of understanding them For Example God said to Abraham after he had led him into the Land of the Canaanites I will give thee this Land Gen. 13. 15 17. and he often repeats this to him nevertheless Abraham waxed Old and God did not give it to him therefore when God said to him the same Words once again Abraham seeing no effect of them ask'd him Lord whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it Gen 15. 7 8. Then God made known to him that it was not his Person that should possess that Land but his Children and Posterity and that not till after 400 Years Abraham thereby understood that God's Promise was most true in it self because God giving it to his Children and that out of Love to him this was to give it to himself Abraham was therefore mistaken in his way of conceiving it and if he had acted at first according to his way of understanding that Promise he might have really deceived himself the Promise not being expresly annext to that time And they who had seen Abraham die without possessing that Land after that God had promis'd it to him might have remain'd confounded and believed that it was false This also befell Jacob when Joseph made him come from Canaan to Egypt with all his House to save him from the general Famine God appear'd to him in the way and said to him Fear not Jacob go down into Egypt I will go with thee and I will surely bring thee up again Gen. 46. 3 4. Yet this came not to pass as we would have taken it after our way of conceiving things for we know Jacob died there It was in his Posterity that this was to be accomplish'd and it was long after that God brought back his Race Now he who had known whilst Jacob liv'd that God had made this Promise to him would without doubt have believ'd and thought that Jacob going down to Egypt in Life must by the Favour of God come out of it in Life also Yet he would have been mistaken and would have wonder'd to see him die in Egypt without seeing any Accomplishment of what he might have hoped for We may therefore be mistaken in the Words of God which yet are most true in themselves We read in the History of the Judges that all the Tribes of Israel being assembled to fight against Benjamin and to punish a Crime to which they had consented God having appointed who should fight first they were so perswaded of the Victory that having been defeated with the loss of 22000 of their Men they were greatly astonish'd at it and wept before the Lord till Midnight for they couldnot conceive how having look'd on the Victory as so certain they should be so greatly defeated And having ask'd if they should fight again And God having answered them Yes they reckon'd at this time the Victory to be altogether certain But being put to flight again with the loss of 18000 Men they were so amazed that they knew not what to think of it when they saw that with 40000 and withal the express Command of God they could not stand before 26000. But they were mistaken in their way of conceiving God's Word who would needs chastise and humble them by allowing them to fight yet without promising them the Victory except at the third time when they overcame but with much pains and a stratagem which they behov'd to make use of After this and many other ways it falls out that Souls deceive themselves as to the Revelations and Word of God taking it too literally God's main design when he speaks is to shew and give the Spirit which is contain'd and hid under these Words which Men after their way of conceiving do not so easily comprehend for it is much more ample than the Letter beyond its Bounds and Extraordinary So that whosoever will tie himself to the Letter of God's Word and to the Appearances of the divine Visions do what he will he cannot miss to be much mistaken and to come short of and be confounded as to the full and true meaning because he has followed his way of conceiving and has not given place to the Spirit emptying himself of his own Sentiment the Letter kills says St. Paul but the Spirit quickneth On this Occasion therefore we ought to loose our selves from the Letter and yield to a Faith which will make our Sentiments pass for Darkness For this Faith finds the Spirit which Sense cannot comprehend For this Cause the Sayings and Predictions of the Prophets did not succeed to many of the Children of Israel according to their Hope for they took them too much in the Letter and because they came not to pass as they
greatest Evidences that can be given to those who were not Eye-Witnesses nor have experienc'd that Efficacy of her Writings themselves XXVII And seeing by the Testimony of her greatest Enemies these Writings are valued and esteem'd by some who have the Reputation of being Men of Sense Learning and Probity and that there are others highly deserving that Character still alive who were Witnesses of her Life and Spirit and have found so much of the Divine Power accompanying those Writings as has made them abandon the Love and Care of all Temporal things to mind and prepare for Eternity And seeing they are known to be Men of no Hypochondriack nor Enthusiastick Spirit do not pretend to immediate Revelations themselves are not led by the heat of Fancy or Imagination but were addicted to all the sorts of rational Learing and to the mechanical Philosophy wherewith the World now abounds this may so far Counter-ballance the Prejudices raised by some other Men of Reputation for Learning and Parts who never read those Writings till they came to them with an evil Eye with a design to expose ridicule and confute them this I say may so far Counter-ballance that Prejudice as to encline People not to throw them away as unworthy of their notice but impartially to weigh and consider what they say XXVIII And I am the more bold and earnest to perswade this because they contain the matters of the greatest Importance in the World They encourage no New Sect nor Schism set up no New Creeds teach no Disobedience to Superiours Civil or Ecclesiastick no Contempt of the Holy Scriptures or Divine Ordinances they do not teach Men to distinguish themselves from the rest of the World by a Preciseness in Words Gestures Apparel or other outward indifferent things But they clearly manifest the horrid Corruption of our Nature the indispensable necessity of the Love of God to be saved the only means to recover it by following the Life and Doctrine of Jesus Christ how contrary all Men walk to this and yet flatter themselves with their false Glosses on Christ's Life and Doctrine and the great and universal Judgments that God is now to bring upon the World as he did in the Days of Noah its Wickedness being as Universal and at as great a Height With many other important Truths which I cannot now repeat And as they are of such Weight and Moment so they are so clearly and rationally represented as to convince our natural Reason XXIX It needs divert none from laying to Heart those great and necessary Truths because they may meet with other accessory things which they cannot relish they are told they may lay them aside suspend their belief of them they may be sav'd without them And whereas it is replied That they being declared to be revealed by the Spirit of God we ought to believe them It is answered That it is not necessary to Salvation to believe that those Writings are Divinely inspir'd many may believe the Divine Essential Truths contain'd in them because of their Agreement with the Holy Scripture and labour to form their Lives and Hearts accordingly and yet not be perswaded that she had immediate Revelation besides the same Spirit that declares even those accessory Truths declares also that they are not necessary to Salvation and that they who do not relish them and are not bettered by them may let them alone Even as God of his infinite Bounty has provided not only for the Necessities of Man's Life but also variety of Entertainment of which some is agreeable to some Palates and naufeous to others It is not needful that every Man should eat of all sorts of Food but it is fit he take that only which is most convenient for his Health not despising other Food because he cannot relish it for it may be very agreeable and healthful to others however he may let it alone God grant us all the Spirit of divine Charity and a sound Mind and that whereto we have already attain'd the Essential Truths we all acknowledge we may walk by the same Rule and mind the same things And then if in any thing we be otherwise minded God will reveal this unto us Advertisement IN Opposition to all the Prejudices rais'd against the Writings of A. B. this may be a favourable one for them that whereas her Enemies do all they can to frighten People from looking into them and would have them to know no further of them than what they think fit to put into their Narratives those on the other hand who give good Characters of them aim at nothing thereby but to perswade People impartially to read and consider the Writings themselves and not to trust them upon their Words no more than those who bespatter them even as we Protestants perswade the People to read the Holy Scriptures and those of the Roman Church do all they can to hinder them as being conscious that they make against them And as thus the Intention of these Witnesses is much more Candid and Just than the other so their Testimony will by all impartial Judges be esteem'd no less Weighty The one are Eye-Witnesses and the other only upon Conjecture Inferences or Hearsay and they who thrust in to be Evidences upon no better Grounds give occasion to suspect them as false Witnesses and to put them to the Oath of Calumny e'er they be admitted And as they had far the Advantage of knowing the Truth of what they declare beyond these others so their Ability to make a right Judgment and their Probity is unquestionable of these I shall instance only in two The one is the great Anatomist and Naturalist Dr. Swammerdam whose Writings are well known and esteem'd by all Enquirers into the History of Nature and it is certain that that Genius does not lead to a Brainsick Enthusiasm but after that he had seen some of the Writings of A. B. and convers'd with her he was fully perswaded in his Conscience that she was led by the Spirit of God and found the happy Effect of it upon own his Heart and Spirit The other is Dr. Ant. de Heyde known also to the World by some curious Enquiries and Observations in the History of Nature and in Physick who for many Years had no small Contempt and Aversion for A. B. and her Writings so that it was the force of Truth only and no favourable Prepossession that brought him to esteem them who has now abandon'd all earthly things to follow his Master Jesus Christ and such powerful a Mean they were for this End appears from this following Account which he permits to be communicated to the World being heartily desirous to contribute for the Good of those who labour under the same Indispositions A DISSERTATION OF Dr. Ant. de Heyde Famous Physician of Middleburg in Zealand CONCERNING The Sanctity and Divine Illumination of Antonia Bourignon Translated from the Original Latin M. S. Quest 1. If A. B. did
that A. B. was Holy and in the Love of God and that to such a Degree that this Love seem'd to flow from her into them and other well-disposed Souls because many are brought by her to abandon their own Wills and the Creatures that they may Love God only and subject themselves wholly to his Will And I am perswaded that her Writings will have such Operations in all those who shall read them with a sincere and hearty desire to find the saving Truth and to endeavour to walk in it in so far as they know it Unless they be so far possest with Prejudices as that they will admit of nothing for Truth but what is consonant to their formerly receiv'd Opinions looking upon every thing that differs from them or seems contrary unto them as Lies and Error This is as if one looking always through a coloured Glass by which all Bodies would appear to him of the same Colour should imagine and affirm that other Men who look with the naked and single Eye are perfectly mistaken when they say that they see clearly that every Body has its own distinct Colour XVIII Unto these Four Evidences of the Sanctity of A. B. this Fifth ought to be added to wit the wonderful Works that A. B. did and the extraordinary Divine Lights that God communicated to her To reckon up all these we behov'd to narrate her whole Life and to adduce all her Writings which are full of such wonderful Works and Light Therefore let every one that loves the Truth apply to these Writings and which soever he shall be pleas'd to peruse he will by them be sufficiently convinc'd of this matter But that some Instance of this may be given it is to be considered that this ought to be look'd upon as a great Miracle in A. B. that she so generously fought against her corrupt Nature that she wholly subdued it not by her own Strength which could do nothing but Evil but by the Grace of God through which the weakest can do all things This Miracle ought to be more esteemed than raising the Dead giving Sight to the Blind and such like which serve only for this present Life and therefore may be performed by Men who are not Holy But to overcome corrupt Nature is an infallible mark of Holiness for the obtaining of which all other Miracles ought to be done otherwise they avail nothing but on the contrary do much hurt Among the innumerable Divine Lights communicated to Antonia Bourignon this is the chief that she had explain'd the Truths of the Gospel more clearly and efficaciously than any has done hitherto demonstrating that an Obedience to them is absolutely necessary for Salvation and rescuing them from the Glosses and false Expositions by which the Learned have so perverted the Truths of the Gospel that almost every Christian promises Salvation to himself although he do not walk according to these Truths XIX Since then it seems to appear sufficiently from what has been said that A. B. was Holy and in the Love of God it will be now fit to consider the Second Question proposed to wit If she was moved by the Spirit of God to write and to enlighten others For answer to this Question there needs nothing be adduc'd but what has been said as to the First Question For it A. B. was Holy and in the Love of God she would not have committed so great a Sin as to pretend that she was moved to write by the Spirit of God if it was false or if she was not certain that it was most true But that I may answer something in particular to this Second Question it is to be considered how we may be assured that any Writing is endited by God In order to this let us enquire how it appears that the Holy Scriptures were written by Men led by the Spirit of God as all Christians do believe XX. That we may proceed aright in this Enquiry it is to be remarked that God gives unto Men Breath and Life and all Things for in him we live and move and have our Being Nevertheless he has given to all Creatures the Faculty whereby to continue in their Being or to exist For God is Eternal and his Gifts are without Repentance therefore his Works do never perish besides they are endued with a Power of multiplying themselves and producing their like It is true many things perish but these are not the Works of God but Corruption and Vanity brought into the World and yet coming into it by Sin and Lust But besides these Faculties of preserving themselves and producing their like God gave to Man the Liberty of turning himself to God that he might be govern'd and ruled by him or of acting by the Strength already given him without asking new Strength from God If he do so he departs from God the Author of all Light and Good and then such a Man of necessity becomes Miserable and is sunk in Darkness as appear'd in the Fall of Adam and is to be seen daily in those who follow their own Wills that is who act by the Strength once given them and will not ask new Strength from God nor yield up themselves to be govern'd by him But if a Man yield up himself to God and ask help from him in every thing he goes about he will find God ready to help him Even as one in a very close Chamber is in the Day-time immediately enlightned by the Sun how soon he permits the Windows of the Chamber to be opened and the more Windows there are opened he receives the greater Light XXI From what has been said it appears that when we say that the Holy Scripture is endited by God we understand thereby that the Holy Men who committed it to Writing did so wholly deny their own Strength whether innate unto them or acquired by Diligence Learning and Meditation that they willingly acknowledged that thereby they could do no good nor any thing that was acceptable to God but did so entirely yield up themselves to be govern'd by God that they no longer lived to themselves but God did live and operate in them Now that we may be assured that the Holy Scriptures were penned by such Men we must examine what Operation the Holy Scriptures have in our Souls When then we experience that the Thoughts of our Hearts are manifested by them which can be done by none but God who alone knows the Heart and if this Holy Scripture be a powerful Mean for loosing our Hearts from the Love of Temporal things and drawing them to the Love of God and of things Eternal For the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any Two-edged Sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of the Soul and Spirit the Joynts and Marrow and is a discerner of the Thoughts and Intents of the Heart overthrowing every Imagination and Thought that exalts it self against God So that an Unbeliever perceiving
without deriving Vain glory from them This befals all those who live still in the Sentiments of corrupt Nature But I am says she by the Grace of God arrived at that State that the Praises and Reproaches of Men are all one to me and I make no more reckoning of the one than of the other because of the small Esteem I have of the Judgment of Men who often praise that which they ought to despise and despise that which they ought truly to esteem If says she M de Cort has said in his Preface that I have more Light than all the Authors that he had ever read this does not infer that he would place me above the Prophets Apostles or Jesus Christ himself as you alledge but he would only declare that he received more Light by my Discourses than by reading of all the Authors he had ever seen yea even the Scripture it self since it is obscure in some places whereas our daily Conferences gave him more Clearness and my Practice made him penetrate the true Sence of the Scriptures in which he had read many things whereof he understood nothing at all If the Author had not been hasty to condemn her but had calmly heard and considered what she had to say for her self he would not perhaps have past so hard a Censure but would have been convinc'd that the most humble may speak well of themselves and suffer others to do so too and that without the least Tincture of Pride or Vain-glory. If we would first set our selves to cast out the Beam out of our own Eye we should then see clearly to take the Beam out of anothers VI. The Second Accusation that she overturn'd Priesthood and the Ordinances is evinced to be as palpable a Mistake as the former in the Second Part Of the Apology pag. 154 155 c. It was no fair dealing in the Author to pick out some few Words of a Passage and not relate the whole as it is in p. 54. of the First Part of the Light of the World And whereas you ask says she whether all these outward Devotions which are now in use in Christendom are good and saving I doubt it very much for Christ taught no such Varieties of Devotions as we see now adays but he taught solid inward Vertues as Faith Hope and Charity these are the Instructions of Jesus Christ but they who are at present call'd Churchmen teach no other thing but to resort to Churches to frequent Sacraments and to say a great many vocal Prayers by rote and number and with these outward things they make them believe that they are True Christians which cannot be since Christianity consists in an inward spiritual Life for it is Divine and not Humane Which Words might have born a more favourable Construction than the overturning of all Priesthood and the Ordinances of the Gospel they being truly levelled against the Corruptions of the Ordinances and might have been so understood especially if the Author had considered that A. B. had never yet been without the Bounds of the Roman Communion whose Churchmen all Protestants do accuse of laying the Stress of Religion too much upon the Varieties of their outward Devotions and Ceremonies And when it is told that A. B. has written an express Apology for Pastors the Pastoral Office and the Publick Ordinances it is I must say a singular way of answering to reply that those Enthusiasts are all Contradictions to themselves and opposite to one another as if one could not blame the Abuses of the Priesthood and outward Devotions and yet stand up for the Office of Pastors and the Ministry without a Contradiction Sure the Holy Scripture is a good President which establisheth these and yet condemns the Abuses of them in a thousand Places calling the Pastors Deceivers Dumb Dogs Hirelings Hypocrites Thieves Wolves and many other Names of this nature God abhors his own Institutions when corrupted Church-men have their Corruption as well as others and to flatter them in them is but to sow Pillows to their Arm-holes When the Pastoral Office is turn'd into a Trade whereby Men chiefly propose to get a Living and Reputation in the World when the great End of it is despised and the Duties of it done superficially in order to these other Ends This is a Priestcraft that should be decried and they who have the greatest love to Christianity will be most forward to do it and it is in this Respect only that A. B. condemns the Abuses of the Priesthood and the outward Ordinances and not the Function and the Offices themselves VII The Author's Third Point of her Vncharitableness and damning all the World is cleared in the Apology A. B. declares that God would have all Men to be saved and that no Body can be saved without being regenerated into the Spirit of Jesus Christ the Spirit of Charity Humility and Poverty and without leading his Life and that in the mean time all generally have strayâ—d out of the Paths of his Life and are Strangers to his Spirit If this be a certain Truth then to cry aloud and give warning of this is an Act of the greatest Charity If mortal and pestilential Diseases had overspread the whole Earth and the Contagion were universally derived from Parents upon the Children and the most part were insensible of their Disease and could hardly be perswaded that they were sick if notwithstanding it should please God to raise up a skilful and infallible Physician who had provided certain and undoubted Remedies taken them first himself and left plain Directions how to use them and great numbers at first by following his Rules and Example had fully recovered their Health If yet in process of Time the generality of Men few or none excepted left off to follow the Precepts would not be confined to such strict Rules of Physick as to Air Diet Company Self-will c. as if they were all contagious and thought the Physician 's Rules and Example unpracticable but yet made a Fashion of honouring him and proceeded so far as to restrain the grossest outward Eruptions which would make them loathsome to their Neighbours tho inwardly they still laboured under mortal Diseases and could hardly be convinced of it Would it be thought want of Charity in any to give loud Warning of this to the World If any had recovered or were upon the recovering Hand would they think themselves greatly injured by any who should say that now there were none in Health and they did not see how any could recover after the manner the lived now They would rather think it might well be said so the Number being so few that they might be called none at all and this might perhaps excite and awaken some of those who remained still insensible of their State to take the true Measures for their Recovery That this is a true Figure of the Spiritual State of the World at present is but too evident
must be owned that she consulted Men and Books very little for she had both in great Contempt And yet within Eight Lines he says That her sublime Thoughts were suggested by her Conversation with others by Sermons which she heard and by Conferences with Confessors Priests and Learned Men. The Doctor who is so ready to fasten Contradictions upon others would do well to clear himself of them here he seems to contradict himself with his Pen in his Hand O but says he no matter how she came by them unless they be Solid and True But if they be both Solid and True it is certainly worth the while to consider both them and the Source of them His Calumny of her despising the Scriptures is already answered It had been good the Doctor had given us a Specimen of the fine Thoughts of the metaphysical mean Person of his Neighbour Parish he has been unkind to his Acquaintance there that he never let them know of this fine Wit he might have given a Narrative of him in Bourignianisin detected As for the Singular Talents of his Weaver he may meet with such in every Parish XXVIII One of his great Talents in his Narratives lies in making long Common Places and then giving such a turn to some Expression of A. B. or of her Friends as may amuse the Reader and make him think that they act or write contrary to the Vertues or Divine Truths about which he has been preaching or are guilty of the absurd things he has been exposing and when he comes to the Application he speaks not Truth in one Article but hâ—s the Art of darkning and confounding things instead of putting them in a true Light this appears in his XXV Article as well as in all the former It is not true that the Appearance of Comets is given as a Reason for having Mrs. A. B. in so high esteem for they were not mentionâ—d as Signs of her but as Presages of the approaching Judgments of God which she also declared concerning which the Author of the Vie continuè had good Reason to regret that the Devil should prevail so far as to get Books and Sermons published to efface our of Mens Hearts the Fear of God's Judgments which might arise from the Considerations of such wonderful Appearances by tâ—lling that Comets are Natural things and so there is no Reason to be apprehensive of them as if the greatest 〈◊〉 were not inflicted by natural Means as that Author there considers to excellent Purpose And as A. B. does in the Place cited on the Margent Many Signs says she have appeared in Heaven in the Sun in the Stars fearful Comets menacing great Evils which did affright some at first But so soon as the Devil had leisure to make his Adherents study to find out Reasons shewing that these were but Natural things he made the Fear of these Threatnings of God sent as the Fore-runners of his Justice to evanish out of their Minds c. It seems Men mock now at God's Warnings calling them Natural things The Deluge was made by a Natural Rain and the last Plagues will be made by Pestilence War Famine and Fire all Natural things But the Devil to divert us from believing that these things are the Beginnings of the last Plagues makes it be said by his Adherents That these are Natural things that no Body may turn to Repentance So nothing could occur more naturally in the writing of the Life of such a Person giving warning of such approaching Judgments than to excite Men also to consider Gods Warnings from the Heavens From all which there was not the least Ground for the Doctor to make the Inferences which he does or to call his Brother Fool not fearing the Danger incurred by so doing But the Doctor with his Friend the Author of Pensces diverses sur les Cometes will tell us They are all the superstitious Observers of Comets who look upon them as Presages of Divine Wrath and that Eclipses were sometimes as formidable and Comets now come to be better understood And in all Appearance the better they are understood they will become the more dreadful and terrible not only as Presages and Warnings of God's Judgments but also as the most dreadful and immediate Instruments of them XXIX As the true Reasons for which A. B. and her Writings are esteemed by some are not at all weakened by the Doctor but rather confirmed so neither is the Testimony of M. de Cort and M. Poiret being Men led by Truth more than Passion or Fancy by all that he alledges to the contrary What she said at the Age of Four Years being so weighty a Truth and the Text of her whole Life is most deservedly laid before the Doctors and Teachers by the Author of her Life and the 〈◊〉 that every good Man will make of it will be to sâ—arch his own Heart and not to lesten the weight and due Impression of any of God's Calls even out of the Mouths of Babes and Sucklings What he says to disparage the Purity of her Soul as well as of her Life shews only the Disorder of his own Mind who from Spiritual things studies to excite in himself end others impute Imaginations Vnto the 〈◊〉 all things are pure The Contradiction he finds out in M. Poiret lies only in his own Fancy Jesus Christ the Saints the Holy Scriptures do certainly send forth an Odour of Truth Charity Holiness Chastity and of all Vertues but this is not perceptible but only by them who are rightly disposed and who truly seek God Whereas they who love Falshood and Impurity are so far from feeling those Impressons that their Passions are rather excited to the contrary as appears by the Enemies of the Gospel So the Writings and Conversation of A. B. might make Divine Impressions of Charity and Purity upon some and yet the Spite and Malice and evil Passions of others might be thereby the more enflamed and that this is neither a Falshood nor a Contradiction daily Experience does testifie As to the Passage cited out of the Preface to M. Poiret's Divine Aeconomie whosoever shall read it at length as it is in the Preface it self will find the Thought so just and so excellent that he will see the Doctor has bewrayed only the Weakness of his own Understanding in censuring of it We see the Art that is now most magnified for finding out the Truth and upon which the Mathematicians do so much value themseves and I hope the the Doctor is a Friend to the Mathematicks tho' not to the Metaphysicks is that of shutting out all Idea's foraign to the thing in Question that the Mind may search after the Truth without Respect to its former Conceptions of it upon which the Truth does not at all depend If there be unquestionable and sufficient Evidences of the Divine Illumination of a Person this is not a sufficient Ground to despise them or to disparage
the Judgment of others who think well of them that there are many things in them which appear unto us wild and uninrelligible God may reveal things under most mysterious Figures altogether dark and hidden from us and yet before the Consummation of all things may make them plain and evident as we see in Ezekiel Daniel and the Revelations We must not therefore despise them because we have unquestionable Evidences of those Persons their being inspired by the Spirit of God So rather than with the Doctor to speak Evil of the things which I do not know I will conclude Quae intellexi optima sunt puto item quae non intellexi XXX I have detained you so long upon the Doctor 's first Narrative that I shall need to say little of the second for what answers the first serves for an Answer to the second also where he has done nothing toward the satisfying Peoples Expectations which he rais'd by his big Promises I shall let it pass with three or four Remarks only 1. He continues still to give false Representations of her It is not true that she pretends to a Sanctity above the Prophets or the Apostoles a Sanctity next to that of God nor to a comprehensive Knowledge Natural and Divine and all manner of speculative Truths nor to the Knowledge of all matters of Fact at what distance of Time and Place or how secret sover nor that she contradicts her self as if she asserted sometimes that both the Divine Truths which she declares and all the Words by which she utters them were inspired by the Spirit of God and sometimes the first only nor that she makes Jesus Christ a Type of her nor that she is the Mother of all that shall be converted unto God her Sayings import no such thing when they are considered without Prejudice in her own Writings as is made appear already 2. Notwithstanding of the Narrator's great Sincerity and that he intends to set down her own Pretences in her own Words without adding to or diminishing from or curtailing any Passage which may be necessary to qualifie the Meaning of them yet so earnest is he to make her odious that he forgets himselfe and either by truly curtailing the Passages or by his Comments on them he makes her speak quite otherwise than she intended So that they who would not judge rashly may please to read them in her own Writings without the Doctor 's Curtailings and Glosses Thus as to his false Glosses when he says My Thoughts Words and Actions must have the Three Qualities of Righteousness Goodness and Truth else I should be as a sounding Brass c. Does this infer that she arrogates to her self a Sanctity above the Prophets and Apostles and next to God himself Souls truly regenerate are Partakers of the Divine Nature Christ lives in them Piety cannot be true as he himself grants without a Perfection of Parts tho' not of Degrees without an Universal Conformity to the Will of God so that their Thoughts Words and Actions must be both Just Good and True now as one Star differs from another in Glory so do regenerate Souls Her Words then imply no more but that God had truly renewed and regenerated her by his Holy Spirit and not that she exceeded all others in Sanctity as his malicious Gloss would have it Thus when she says I do not remember I ever committed any Faults but when I believed the Counsel of Men. It is far from her Meaning that she was born without Sin or that Original Corruption was perfectly cured in her as appears by all her Writings and by that very Place cited but that as Plants and Trees seem all Dead and without Life in the Winter-Season till the warm Spring make them all bud anew and discover the Life and Spirit that was in the Root so Mens natural Corruption which seems dead and mortified is awakened and exerts it self according to the diffirent outward Occasions conformable to the Variety and Difference of People's Inclinations and that this was her weak side by which her Self-love and Vanity did exert it self Again when she gives a convincing Reason for what she says or speaks of her self with the greatest Humility or limits general Sayings so as to confine them to her true Sense and Meaning all this he very cautiously keeps out and conceals as appears in the Citations out of the Light of the World in the 9 11 17 20 and 21st p. of the Narrative Thus where she wonderfully Illustrates how the Holy Spirit communicates to pure Souls such a comprehensive Divine Light and Knowledge as cannot be express'd by many Words the Doctor industriously skips it over and joins the foregoing and following Senâ—ences together I have need says she to express my self by humane Reasons and Comparisons because otherwise they could not understand me for the Holy Spirit speaks so succinctly that one Word makes me comprehend many things He gives Subtility to the Understanding to conceive great things by one of his small Motions It is just as if one were in a fine Room well adorned with Variety of Furniture and Rarities but there were no Light in it whereby to see all these things In such a Case it would need a great many Words to make him who had never seen them understand in particular all the fine Things and Furniture that were in the Room telling him here be such and such Pictures such Tables such Seats and such like things and yet we could not make him comprehend well the Beauty of this Furniture and Rarities But if a Light were brought into the Room tho' it were but that of a Candle in a Moment it would give more Knowledge of all the things that are in the Room than all the Discourses that were uttered to make them known So it is with the Light of the Holy Spirit when it enters into a Soul it makes it know and comprehend all things very clearly Nevertheless these things cannot be seen by Souls who are yet in the Darkness and Obscurity of their own Passions many Words and Discourses must be used to make them understand the Rarities that are in the Works of God So far A. B. All this is left out by the Doctor except only the first and last two Lines the rest did not serve his turn he design'd to confound and darken all and they gave too distinct and convincing a Light They who shall be pleased to peruse that whole Conference will see how little Ground there is for his scurrilous â—ests if we consider the thing in Thesi without relation to A. B. that when the Spirit of God does immediately enlighten a Soul he does not endite all the precise Words that it ought to make use of in explaining that Light and Truth to others only that he brings along with him the Gift of Wisdom to express it self so as to make the Divine Truths to be understood It cannot be mistaken
in very exaggerating Terms tho' the Doctor affirms that in all this Passage there are no penitential Acknowledgments neither general nor particular And afterwards she adds Or si je raccount si librement comment c. Now if I so freely relate how grosly I fell from so exalted a State of Grace as that wherein God had placed me from my Infancy how can I be supposed to say or believe that I can no more fall since what one hath once done he may do many times And after having asserted that no Creature can be impeccable during this miserable Life where there are so many stones of stumbling and instanced in Peter David and Solomon she says Can I be so ignorant as to believe that â— can no more fall or decline from the Grace of God I am certain I may do it every moment if I would retire my self from my Intercourse with God and entertain my self with my Senses I know so long as I remain united with him I cannot fall but if I should break off this Communion I should fall the first step I made thereafter as a young Child that cannot go Doth she not here plainly own her Lability Weakness and Insufficiency that of her self she could not be without sinning no not for a moment that she as well as all others during this Life of Temptations is continually liable to Falls and that her only fear was lest she should discontinue her Fidelity to God But is this to arrogate to her self a Sanctity without the Alloy of humane Passions or Infirmities and which as the Doctor afterwards hath it is not exceeded but only equall'd by that of Jesus Christ It is his ordinary course all along in the Commentaries that he makes on A. B's words to run into intolerable Excesses In effect the Glosses he puts on them do in a great many places palpably destroy the Text and gives them a Meaning that she never intended I believe the Doctor would take it very ill to have his own Words so dealt by I must here take notice of a Passage of his Letter which sounds as highly at least as any that he quotes out of A. B. on the Head we are now considering Indeed saith he I was never so profane as to forget my Dependance on God Now it is certain that one never sins but when he forgets this Dependence and to say that Sin is the forgeting of our Dependance on God is a very proper Definition of it Here then the Doctor arrogates to himself an absolute Innocence I know he intended no such thing but yet you see the words very easily bear this Meaning I shall not now enter upon the Enquiry into what heights of Purity and Holiness God may by his Grace advance such as are truly regenerate and who continue faithful to him This I know will fall under the Doctor 's Disquisition more properly afterwards But whatever these heights may be they do not contradict that Passage of Holy Scripture he mentions nor supersede the use of the Lord's Prayer I thought fit to discuss this Section of the Doctor 's Second Narrative at some length because he frequently raises a great deal of Dust about what he insists on in it I shall touch on a few other Passages more passingly 2. A. B. does not pretend to have made by her Discoveries any Additions to the Essentials of the Christian Religion this she every where disclaims and affirms that the Holy Scriptures contain a full and perfect System of them She says indeed that the things which were revealed to the Authors of the Sacred Books more generally and more darkly are discovered to her more fully more clearly and more particularly but that they are such as do not strictly concern the Essence of Christianity tho' also she pretends to rescue even these things from the false and deluding Glosses which the self-flattery of Men hath put on them Now dato sed non concesso that this were so I do not see that her owning of it is as the Doctor alledges a preferring her self unto or setting her self above the Prophets and Apostles for it is certain that the Apostles had more clear and more full Revelations of the Christian Oeconomy made to them than were made to the old Prophets but I hope by their owning this they did not claim a preference to them This is an invidious stating of the matter all that can be justly inserred from such a Pretence is that it hath pleased God for great and wise Reasons to manifest himself more to one than to another but then the Instrument he makes use of hath no ground of boasting or self-exaltation as A. B. tells very often 3. She confidently asserts saith the Doctor that God hath given her the favour to sit in Moses's Chair and that she has more right to it than any of the Doctors or Pastors who now pretend to it Had the Doctor set down the Passage to which he here refers wholly as it is it would have look'd with a more acceptable Aspect than in the tour that he gives it In number 288 of the Book that he cites the Spirit of Burchardus is compared with that of Moses Moses saith she exhorted and taught the People to observe all the Commandments of God whereas Burchardus affirms that Men are too infirm to keep these Commandments and because I teach that we must keep them if we would be saved he is moved with Anger against me then follows the Passage which the Doctor notices By which it appears that I am more in Moses's Chair than is Burchardus with all his Promotion seeing he teaches the contrary to what Moses taught and I teach the same things Moses taught And all these Graces which God has imparted to me sufficiently evince that I am by him set in Moses's Chair by being in his Doctrine and Sentiments Where it is I think very evident that the Reason why she asserts her being in Moses's Chair is not a vain-glorious Affectation of or pretending to a Magisterial Superiority over others but because she taught Moses's Doctrine as to keeping the Commands of God And in effect all that she means by being in Moses's Chair as the perusal of the whole Section will convince any candid Reader is nothing else but having Moses's Spirit and Sentiments Nothing of all this appears in the Passage as it is curtail'd by the Doctor 4. A. B. does not pretend as the Doctor will have it pag. 14. num iv to the Knowledge of all manner of speculative Truths not to be sure of the nice and vain Subtilties of the Schools which are mostly but the Inventions of corrupt and airy Heads but only of these that are solid and useful and might tend to advance the Souls of Men in true Goodness Neither does she pretend to the Knowledge of all matters of fact but of these only as the Passages quoted * by himself do