well and secure The Thirteenth Conference Of true Faith according to the tenour of the Creed Of the knowledge of God and of our selves by the consideration of his Works I Told her That I did not believe that I had true Faith and that she had sufficiently made appear to me that I could not be right therefore I desired to understand of her wherein true Faith does consist tho' it were but upon my own account for I desired to profit in it She said Sir let us examine a little together our Creed and see if there be so much as one Article of it observed even by the most perfect Christians now-a-days If we believ'd that God is Almighty that he created the Heaven and the Earth could we live without loving and fearing him as we do Could we also attribute to our selves the earthly good things which all the World seeks after and loves since they are all created by God and do all appertain to him in Property which we do daily usurp In the second place If we did believe in Jesus Christ the only Son of God who was conceived of the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary could we reject his Instructions since he is the Son of God the Fountain of all Wisdom Could we follow a Carnal Church seeing she is altogether Spiritual engendred in the Body of Jesus Christ by the operation of the holy Spirit Could we also live in Luxury when God chose a Virgin for his own Mother Would we not endeavour to love Virginity since God has so much esteem'd it Moreover if we believ'd that Jesus Christ the Son of God has suffer'd even so far as to be Crucified Dead and Buried could we live so softly seeking all eases to our Body not willing to suffer any thing that is painful nor affronts nor tribulations when we believ'd that the Son of God has indeed suffer'd for us even to a shameful Death yea was buried as a corruptible Man Would we not imitate or follow him at some distance in case we had the faith that we profess Moreover if we believ'd that he is risen from Death to Life that he is ascended into Heaven were it possible that we could love this present Life while we hope that we shall rise again since Jesus Christ is risen again to ascend unto Heaven Would not this withdraw our affections from the Earth through the hope of ascending unto Heaven with Jesus Christ Were it possible that we would build Houses and make so many other settlements as we do on Earth as if it were our abiding City And if we did believe that Jesus Christ will come from Heaven to judge the quick and the dead were it possible that we would live in so great a neglect of our Salvation with so little care of making ready our Accompts to render them to that great Judge who will demand of us an account of all our Thoughts Words and Deeds Would we not rather lay aside all our worldly Affairs to attend on this which is the most important to us yet on the contrary is often the least of our â—ares And did we believe likewise that there is a holy Spirit and a holy Church is it possible that we would be so little Spiritual so Natural and Earthly so wedded to our Senses in which we live sometimes more brutishly than the Beasts themselves whereas our Souls ought to be wholly Spiritual and Holy since we have a Holy Spirit and a Holy Church And did we believe the Communion of Saints is it possible that every one should be so much wedded to his own Interest and Wealth If Prayers and good Works ought to be all common amongst Christian Brethren how much more ought temporal Wealth to be for the succour of our Neighbour which is very far from Mens dispositions now who study nothing but to keep up and increase their own Wealth understanding no other thing but mine and thine both in Spirituals and Temporals And did we believe in the remission of Sins how would we be penitent and contrite to obtain the pardon of them instead of continuing in them through hardness of heart as we see the most part of men do who finish their Lives in black thoughts and despair instead of having immediate recourse to mercy according to their belief For he who has promised the remission of Sins has not promised them time to persevere in them If this belief were real they would not persevere in them for one day for they are not certain of living so long And did we believe in the Resurrection of the Flesh how could we love and esteem our flesh in a condition so miserable as that of this mortal Life We would greatly contemn it in the hope we had of its Resurrection l in which it should live most happy delivered from so many miseries calamities and maladies under which it groans during its exile in this miserable World which setting aside the hopes of its Resurrection must rather be called Death than Life the belief of this Article would give a disgust of the delights of this present Life and make us aspire towards that to come And did we believe in Life eternal what would we not do to obtain it We would voluntarily forsake Father Mother and all our Goods to obtain this eternal Life for it deserves more than a thousand Worlds which cannot last but for a small time in respect of Eternity whereas we see the most part of men so in love with this miserable Life that they would fain abide here for an Eternity though it be filled with miseries and calamities Do you not see Sir that there is no more faith in the House of God That no body lives conformably to his belief That they place faith only in Words as I have told you formerly They say over it may be every day their Creed and yet they do not observe so much as one Article of it These are nothing but words that vanish into Air and nevertheless they would take it very ill to make appear to them that they have not true faith tho' it be always operative and never idle True faith works always the vertues of which I told you in the Souls which possess it and if these operations are not seen it may indeed truly be said that these Souls have not faith for it can never be any where without operating its vertues no more than the Sun can be without giving his beams Consider it well Sir and you will find my saying true and you will condemn your self I told her I perceived clearly that People lived in a distraction of spirit and that few persons knew themselves That it was no wonder they knew not God since they did not know themselves and that truly we were deceived She replied Sir he who knows God will always know himself and he who knows himself will assuredly know God for the one is linked unto
we do Works as good which are but indifferent or indeed sometimes evil For to go to Church only out of Custom is an indifferent Work and if being there we behave as in a prophane Place it is an evil Work It is the same as to the frequenting of the Sacraments And if we give Alms thro' some Natural Tenderness or Inclination this Work has not that Righteousness nor Goodness to make it pass for Good in God's Sight So that to do no good Works before God and notwithstanding to presume of Salvation is a Sin against the Holy Ghost So that we believe we have merited Salvation by good Works which do not derive their Goodness from God Nevertheless we think he is obliged to give us Paradise as the most part of Pious and Religious Persons do presuming to have that by Right of Justice which is not due to them because there are none but true Righteousness and Charity that can be call'd good Works by which we may hope for Salvation And tho' none be adorned with these Vertues each one notwithstanding believes he shall obtain it as if God could save without Righteousness There is also another Sin against the Holy Ghost which is to impugn the known Truth This is now commonly Practis'd by those who are called Spiritual For if we should tell any of them that they are not true Christians or that we live in the Reign of Antichrist or that the World is judged and that its Wickedness is come to the Heighth they would believe nothing of this loving rather to stick to their old Customs than to learn how they may become true Christians and they would likewise scruple to believe that we are fallen into the Reign of Antichrist tho' we see by Mens Lives and Manners that of Necessity they must be engag'd to the Devil and tho' they see no Hope or Appearance that the World will grow better yet they do not believe that 't is judged Thus they impugn the Truth of all these things the Belief of which might bring them to Conversion and to a Life leading to Salvation but they impugn all these Truths that they may continue in their so dangerous Darkness tho' they be sufficiently known to all those who will open their Eyes But they who will impugn the Truth commit this Sin against the Holy Ghost which shall not be forgiven neither in this World nor in the other For they will never be converted because of the Resistance which they make to the Truth which is that that gives Salvation They know well enough that their Life is not that of a true Christian Nevertheless they impugn this Truth because they have no Desire to become one They see the Devil rules thro' all in Lyes and Deceits and that all oppose the Doctrine of JesusChrist and they will not believe that this is the time of Antichrist that they might resist and beware of him and by impugning this Truth they desire not to avoid his Snares They see that Wickedness is universally at a Heighth and they will not believe that the World is judged that they may not be afraid of this Judgment Another Sin against the Holy Ghost is the Envy of the spiritual Good of others which is so generally committed that almost they make no Reflection on it and among the most Pious this Envy is the most ordinary We may only remark the several Orders of Religious Persons They are almost insupportable to one another each one valuing his own Order and Community and they cannot hear the Perfections and Praises of others mentioned without having a spiritual Envy against them secretly in their Hearts and even if a particular Person among them excel the rest in spiritual Good he would be envied yea hardly used by all the rest or imprisoned if he should live in greater Perfection among them than generally they do or should declare the truth of their Faults So that if a votary of any of their Religious Orders should observe literally the Gospel which Jesus Christ has left us I believe he would be martyr'd or so hardly us'd by the rest that it would be impossible for him to live among them without suffering a thousand Deaths of Persecutions and for any secular Person who would observe the Gospel in the World he would be envied likewise by all those who profess to be vertuous and are not who would reject with Contempt this manner of Practice which would not be conformable to their own For there is such a secret Pride in their Hearts that they cannot suffer that another should lead a better Life than themselves nor even that he should have the Name of it but they would endeavour to vilifie and despise him or make him to be suspected of Levity or other Evils in which is now fulfilled the Prediction of Jesus Christ when he says You shall be hated of all for my Name 's sake For the Apostles were never hated of all because many still lov'd and follow'd them But at present this Warning is fully accomplished because he who walks in the Truth is hated of all For this Sin against the Holy Ghost of the spiritual envying of another possesses the Hearts of all those who make a Profession of Vertue Because having no true Vertue they envy that which is true and continue therein all their Days without desiring to change because they do not esteem this a Sin but rather Wisdom that they will not own what they do not practise covering this Sin with a Fidelity and Constancy in what has been first taught them And thus they die in Envy Another Sin against the Holy Ghost which is Obstinacy in Sin is also in use amongst those who make a Profession of Vertue For not being willing to own the forementioned things to be Sins they continue obstinate in them and therefore will not be forgiven because they will not ask Pardon nor repent of them For as much as they are persuaded that they are not Sins because they are inward and spiritual Therefore they die in Obstinacy in Sin And even tho' they should live till the other World they would not be converted from the Presumption of their Salvation because they are possess'd with a good Opinion of their good Works neither will they submit to the Truth which would shew them the contrary Thus they commit this Sin with the other following ones which are against the Holy Ghost Wilful Munder is also committed by the same spiritual Persons and they will not acknowledge it For very often they occasion Death to themselves or others by their sensual or indiscreet Inclinations How many of those do we see wedded to their Appetites of Eating Drinking and other bodily Exercises tho' they be prejudicial to their Health They will not change nor leave them even tho' they be advertis'd of it How many die before their time by too much Eating or Drinking or taking something prejudicial to their Health or
and that by submitting their Wills to Superiours they might learn to submit them to God She said Sir this School of Perfection is not good for there they cannot learn true Vertue if it be not there He who truly desires to resign himself to God would do very ill to enter into Monasteries now For the Spirit of God is departed from them The first Founders informed themselves whether those who wou'd enter into a Religious Life were endued with or aimed at the Love of God and Charity for their Neighbour And these Institutors at present ask how much Money they have to bring with them into the Monastery And if they have Friends to give them Money after they are come there This is a general Custom They must have one of these Qualifications else there is no Entry into the Cloysters They must also have a good Body a good Voice and good Health unless Money supply all the rest and for it they wou'd receive the Devil himself if he came there with abundance of Money How can Vertue be found there since nothing but Money and Gain is there sought for So that a vertuous Soul who should enter there would be constrained to yield to the Prevalence of Vice or else to go out again For if such a one thinks to learn Submission to God by Submission to some Superiour he will be very far from it Because their Will is still contrary to that of God who does all things that are just good and true whereas these take Wealth unjustly against the Intention of their first Founders who desired to live in Poverty They act also against the Goodness of God when they will receive none but the Rich or those by whom they may reap Advantage whereas Jesus Christ receives every one without Respect of Persons They act also against the Goodness of God when they teach their Novices holy Gestures and Countenances while the Heart is far from it and they do not teach them any true Piety but that only which has the Appearance of it and is not true So that the Novice cannot learn to subject himself to God by his Submission to Men who in all things are contrary to him Therefore I am sorry that a truly sincere Person should enter into a Monastery For there he will find himself deceived and will lose the Vertue that he had before he came thither For there God is not to be found any longer I ask'd her yet one more Question upon this Head that is Whether one who in Simplicity believes that the Monasteries are yet governed by God and goes thither with a Design to lead a better Life than in the World and being there Endeavours to live well as to his own particular without following the evil Maxims which he sees are practised by others would do Ill to go there or to stay among them having taken the Vows She said Sir this is a great Question but I will answer it since I have promised to answer to what you ask One who in Simplicity believes that God does yet govern the Cloysters would not sin by entring into them But if he discover the Reality of the Evil he is obliged to depart from them even tho' he were profest provided it be in his Power For before God his Vow is null because he is disappointed of the Conditions for which he made it which were to learn Perfection and to be ruled according to God's Spirit These supposed Conditions being wanting he by Consequence may in Conscience and before God break his Vow but not before Men who by the greater Force will maintain their Authority So that one who has taken his Vows going from them tho' for a good end and his greater Perfection shall by them be held for and treated as an Apostate In this Case he must conform himself to the Sufferings of Jesus Christ and endure Persecution for Righteousness It were better therefore not to enter into them fearing lest he have not Strength enough to endure Persecutions But if he have been there for a long time and cannot find the way to get out from them he must resolve upon a long Martyrdom For they will not only hinder him to live well as to his own particular but they will oblige him by Force to follow the evil Maxims of others For the Devil is of this Temper that he will never suffer Good where he can hinder it and these Persons being guided by the same Devil will not suffer another to do good where they can hinder it Hereby we see evidently that their Malice is not humane but devilish For humane Malice extends it self only to Evil by its own Malice and Infirmity or ceases to do good thro' Sloth or the Corruption of its own Will which is never enclin'd to do Good Nevertheless it esteems and honours the good Deeds of others tho' it be not enclin'd to follow or imitate them This is the utmost that humane Malice extends to but it never goes so far as to hinder another stom doing good How great soever this Sinner be yet he willingly recommends himself to the Prayers of the Good But devilish Malice hinders all the Good it can as these Monks do at present I said to her I was much troubled to understand that there were such Mischiefs in the Cloysters because some of my Friends were there whom I esteemed to be good Men and desirous to please God She said Sir If they are such they must be persecuted there else I will not believe that they can be truly the Servants of Jesus Christ and yet remain in the Cloysters without Persecution A truly good Man can no more abide in the Cloysters than Water can abide in the Fire There are many indeed who seem to be good Men and have a good natural Temper to be at every body's Service as Hackney-Horses are These are not good Men tho' they seem to be such because like a Reed they bow with every Wind. The Devil and wicked Men make use of such Persons to cover their great Wickedness because by some such Simpletons the World will judge that all are good and simple But if your Friends be Men of Understanding and of solid Vertue they will easily perceive that all is corrupted in the Monasteries and if they love the Righteousness of God they cannot be silent but will speak against Iniquity in doing of which they shall be oppress'd with Persecution If you speak to them in particular Sir and if they trust you with a true Relation of what passes among them they will tell you yet more than I do For I know not the Particulars of what passes in these Cloysters but only in general that they are abominable before God of which their Behaviour in general is Evidence enough to those of good Understanding who will observe it that they may conceive it aright The greatest Evil is that they cannot discover these Truths in any body because they are so powerful and
degree that it can come to and the Devil has gain'd an inward dominion over the hearts of all men not that wickedness is manifestly at the highest degree in the judgment of men for it will appear more clearly when they shall commit all sort of sins publickly without being afraid of any the evil will seem then greater but it will be less in the sight of God for it will then be no more accompanied and disguised with Hypocrisie as it is at present The Devil having gain'd the hearts of ill men will remain no longer conceal'd He is desirous to reign publickly and openly assoon as he can for his greater Glory As long as there were here and there some good Souls he kept himself hid to the end he might gain them but at present he can so well disguise his malice that all serve him the wicked with good will as his hired Servants and the good serve him by constraint as his Slaves From hence I infer that the time of his Reign is come and that he will appear very shortly visibly in the flesh And to satisfy the second doubt proposed viz. how there shall be Martyrs of Jesus Christ and of those who shall obtain Salvation by the Perfecutions of this discover'd Antichrist this shall be an effect of the last Mercy of God who will yet once send his light into the world according to his promise That the light shall arise in darkness and that the darkness shall be as noon day That is to say that in this time of darkness in which we live at present wherein the Truth is not any longer discern'd from Lies Faithfulness from Deceit nor Righteousness from Iniquity that God will make his Light to arise in this Darkness and that these who shall receive it shall open their eyes and see the blindness of their understanding and reject the spirit of errour into which they were fallen thro the false perswasions of this invisible Antichrist and shall embrace the spirit of truth which is the Doctrine of Jesus Christ and by this means dispose themselves to Martyrdom and to saving sufferings in the Quarrel of Jesus Christ for many are now detain'd the Slaves of the Devil thro ignorance and inadvertency believing even that they follow Jesus Christ when they follow this strange Shepherd thro his delusions I thought it impossible to believe that the Devil had dominion over the hearts of all men because I knew many who make profession of being good men who in effect are observ'd to addict themselves to pious and religious works exercising themselves in both publick and private Devotions employing themselves according to their Callings in succouring their Neighbour and owning the quarrel of good men in making peace and agreement between those who have quarrels and debates She said Sir it is by these works which seem good and pious that the Devil deceives the good and renders them his Slaves making them to do his will without their perceiving it It is for this reason our times may well be called dangerous because the darkness is so thick as that good is not any longer discern'd from evil Those are esteem'd good men who do often frequent the Churches and Sacraments and are present at the publick Solemnities and they who do so believe themselves to be good men and to live well but believe me Sir if this be not done in the true Spirit of Christianity these are all but amusements for the life of a Christian is an inward and spiritual Life consisting in the LOVE and Respect we owe to God and CHARITY to our Neighbour for God This Love is an inward Passion of our Soul which is known to none but God himself as also this Charity for our Neighbour These inward passions are sometimes discover'd outwardly by external operations as to suffer willingly for him whom we love to be subject in all things to his will to honour him with all our power by these solid vertues it is discover'd if we be good men not by making a profession of being so for this profession of being good proceeds often from a presumption of our Salvation which is a sin against the Holy Ghost A sinner who knows his sin is often a better man than this presumptuous person The Sixth Conference How the outward worship of God and the outward works of Charity towards our Neighbour are corrupted by the Devil And from whence this Power proceeds I Desir'd to be satisfy'd concerning all these points of good works which I had observ'd to be yet in use among those who profess to be good men to see whither the Devil would produce such operations in his Adherents I ask'd her first If it was not a good work to go often to the Church or to its Solemnities She answer'd It is very good to go to Church to hear the Word of God since Jesus Christ himself went thither to teach it for there is distributed or at least ought to be that word which gives food or nourishment to the souls of the faithful But I pray you Sir says she reflect a little seriously with me on the way of going to Church and of teaching the Word of God there which is now observ'd and see if you will not be oblig'd to confess that by what is now done in Churches the Devil receives much more honour than God therefore he incites his Adherents to go thither often and the Ministers to perform the Solemnities there frequently They go to Church out of custom and being there they behave themselves even as they do in profane places The Solemnities there are so vain that they serve rather to satisfie the senses than to move devotion Among a thousand persons who follow Processions you will scarce find one who has his heart lifted up to God! Sermons are made more out of vanity and heard more out of curiosity than to profit by them Behold the Theater of the World at present judge now whither all these things can pass for good works in the sight of God and if the Devil has not ground to excite them to these actions from whence he derives so much his advantages When once he could perswade men that a Christian Life consists in outward actions he perverted all the good so that they do rather follow him than Jesus Christ because these visible and outward things make a stronger impression on the natural senses than those spiritual things which Jesus Christ has taught and commanded us I felt in my soul that this was true but desiring to learn more I said to her that for those who apply themselves to their Neighbours as to visit the poor and the sick to own the quarrel of the good to quiet and appease strife and contentions that these works could not come from the suggestion of the Devil She reply'd All these things are good if they were done in the spirit of Charity and purely for the Love of God but that this was so
quiet and find leisure to entertain my self with God I think the plagues are so near that shortly there will be no need of Preachers to proclaim the judgments for the plagues will make themselves be felt sufficiently by unbelievers who in my opinion will be converted too late for the pains will be so great that they will not know whither to turn them for fear Never any such thing has been seen since the world was made I 'm afraid only for those who will not believe because they will not be converted and will not prepare for sufferings and being surpriz'd at unawares will be in danger of perishing with the wicked for thus it fell out in the time of the universal Deluge tho it is to be believ'd there were yet some here and there who feared God nevertheless all perished because of their unbelief Eight persons only did escape the shipwrack because they believed the word of Noah And now when we speak of the last times and of Judgment they think we tell them fables yea they reject them as untrue and impertinent discourses One says this will not fall out in my time and thus they thrust it out of their minds This has often troubled me for one must be without Charity who is not grieved to see his Neighbour perish while he will not believe his danger nor will he have help I said to her that the evil could not be wholly desperate so long as there was yet Life in man that he might still be converted that he has always God for his Father who abounds in mercy entreating her to discover these truths to men among whom there were yet some without doubt who would follow them and that Ignorance was the cause of their damnation She said Sir if there were not an infatuation of mind spread thro the whole world I would yet have some hope of the Conversion of some Souls in particular But this Antichrist by his Devilish arts has corrupted the minds of men especially of Christians that he might â—ender them stupid and without reason in the matter of their salvation and of the knowledge of God This stupidity cannot be humane for there are yet too many fine wits in the world to suffer themselves to be deluded by false perswasions that we are Christians and that the Roman Church is guided by the holy Spirit that all the Devotions which are used at present in the Church are things that perfect us or render us holy for there needs no more than a simple human reasoning to perceive that there is no Holiness nor Righteousness nor Charity among men now notwithstanding there were never so many Churches in the world so many Masses so many receivings of the Sacraments so many Priests Monks Religious and devout persons as there are at present Can we conclude that all these things which seem to be holy are withal good since they have produced so many bad effects Could holy things work wickedness in men as we see and feel it If this were only among the Heathens Jews Turks or Hereticks we might have some ground to believe that the Christians had receiv'd the grace of God by means of their Christian exercises and the common receiving of the Sacraments to live better than all those other Sects who are not the people of God or at least to be less wicked than they but we see the quite contrary that the Christians now adays have less of righteousness and charity than the Turks themselves and in the mean time they suffer themselves to be blinded with this amusement that they are Christians and will be sav'd with these seeming devotions and the receiving of the Sacraments Iâ— the Devil had not infatuated all their spirits it would be impossible that there should be so much as one how simple soever who would let himself be perswaded to believe a thing contrary to what he saw with his eyes felt with his hands and comprehended with his mind This is notwithstanding what all people do while they believe they are Christians and will be sav'd after the manner that they live now It is most true that the mercy of God is very great and men may be converted so long as they are yet in life but by what means do you judge Sir that they can be converted As long as they cannot be convinc'd that this outward Church is not the holy Church and that all those means of Salvation which she has appointed are not the true means no body will ever be converted For tho indeed their hearts were moved with compunction and repentance thro the fear of Gods judgments yet they would not return to true faith but would go seek for the cure of their souls in the Sacraments and the pious exercises to which they have been so long accustom'd and thus they would remain in the same state in which they were formerly without ever attaining to true repentance For if I should tell them the truth and teach them the true means of recovering the grace of God they would believe that I design'd to seduce and deceive them So much are they pre-occupy'd with lies and delusions I said to her That this proceeded from ignorance that she ought to declare in particular wherein true faith does consist that without doubt many would yet open their eyes and would embrace it there being many who desire not to be damn'd of whom I was one She answered There is no longer Faith Sir among the People of God It has been banish'd from them since men placed their faith and confidence upon one another from that time God has been forgotten Men have made it be believ'd that they would save one another tho' these Saviours cannot save themselves nor make one hair of their heads Nevertheless by their Perswasions they have made almost all the World to become Idolatrous Every one has forsaken the TRVE FAITH to follow and adhere to these men plac'd in Ecclesiastical Dignities whom they have follow'd and honour'd as Gods believing they had got enough when they knew how to please and content them Nature took its content thus the Mind its satisfaction In one word the true invisible and incomprehensible God has been raz'd out of the memory by these false ones visible and sensible to our Nature they have begun to make the way of Salvation broad whereas Jesus Christ made it narrow and the Divine and Spiritual Church they have rendred humane and carnal and thus they have become still worse till now that we are arrived at the height of all Evil. The greatest of all is that men do not perceive it for they are become insensible through so long a custom I believe indeed there are yet many persons who would not be Damn'd but what means is there to save them when they will not believe that they have abandon'd their true Faith And how can they be made to change so long as they believe that they are
and what I ought to do to attain to so great a Happiness She replyed Sir There are very few things to be done but there are many things to be left and parted with It is a great Point to quit Honours Offices and Dignities but these are all things without us There are also within us which hinder the Operation of God such as the coveting of all that pleases our Eyes the Lust of the Flesh and the Pride of Life If we could part with these things we would presently find God For if our Soul had no hindrances it would fall into him even as a Stone cast from on high falls into its Centre which is below Our Soul has God for its Centre it can never repose it self but in him Therefore we can find no Rest nor Satisfaction in the things of this World which do only pull us out of our Centre which is God But if we could part with that Covetousness that Concupiscence and that Pride which we have in our Heart we would find our selves swallowed up in God without knowing how There is no need of doing much to find God because he offers himself always of himself But we must labour to remove the Hindrances which our Vicous Affections do give him In this the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth Violence for we cannot without Violence quit our evil Habits God in the mean time does well deserve that we should force our selves to find him so much the more that by our Wickedness we have so basely forsaken him for things of so small Continuance For all that can be coveted in this World passes away like the Smoak And what can the Lust of the Flesh give us but Pains and Corruption The Pride of our Heart is nothing but a meer Blast of Wind which puts nothing within us And these so inconsiderable things do nevertheless oppose themselves to God building as it were a strong Wall between our Soul and him which hinders us from hearing his Voice and his Word There are no other means but to break it down by Force of Combat I ask'd her To what Place I should retire since she would not that I should follow her She said to me Sir You will be well enough in any Place provided you be with God There is no Part nor Place that can sanctifie you but rather a Disingagement from your self The World is great and God is every-where It is not meet to affect a particular Place It were better to roul from one Place to another since we are Pilgrims upon Earth let us walk always towards our Centre without considering in what Place we are lodg'd for the so small Time that our Life is to continue Jesus Christ had no house of his own yea not a Stone whereon to rest his Head So much the more as we are disingag'd so much the more shall we be united unto God And this is the only Reason why I do not desire your Company because I am nothing but a mere Creature as you are not a God from whom you ought to look for all things I said to her That her Company had done me great good That I had reason to desire it as the true mean of attaining to Vnion with God She said to me Sir So long as you rest upon any Means you will never arrive at the End Means are good to be made use of as we would make use of a Way to travel to some Place but they are not good to be relied upon Many Souls are deceived in this who have stopt in the midst of the Race and never found God because they rested upon the Means How Holy and Perfect soever the Means may be they are never God and we ought not to rest but upon him alone The Devil has likewise so many Holds when he finds us wedded to any thing He makes Mercury of every Wood. But when we are free of Matter and adhere to God only he cannot take Hold of us on any Side The Eighteenth Conference How we may attain to Perfection and to Communion with God resigning our selves wholly to him quitting both Human Learning and the being Taught of others for a Time Christians uncapable of being taught They will be more desolate than the Jews I Entreated That before I parted with her she would tell me in particular all that I ought to do to have Communion always with God That she ought to give me all Saving Instructions She says Sir God sufficeth you and Jesus Christ is your Master seek no other Means He is the Way the Truth and the Life He has omitted nothing in his Gospel for the Teaching us all things His Word is the Bread which is come down from Heaven for the Nourishment of our Souls Do not seek any other Pasture because there are now so many wild Herbs which are poysonous Feed only upon the Words which give Life and you shall never die If your Soul be entertaining itself with God he will make it see all that it ought to do and avoid more clearly than we perceive sensible Objects Resign your self to him and he will always guide you aright Be not careful any longer for any thing when you forsake all you shall find all I have thus experienc'd it According as I disingag'd my self from earthly things at the same Time God replenish'd my Soul with Light and with Consolation I can give you no other Instructions but those which I have experienc'd I doubt not but you know much more than I but your Wisdom is Human. When you govern'd it was but by Human and Natural Principles All that Wisdom must now be forsaken since Jesus Christ says That he will destroy it and as a Child you must embrace the Gospel-Simplicity for he says If we be not converted and become as little Children we shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Leave therefore all your Studies Sir and hear what God will teach you and follow him Hereby you will be the most wise in the World For if you continue your Studies they will serve you for great Hindrances If you have resolved to quit your Benefices quit also your Sciences For they have not made you to know God nor yet your self Therefore you have no reason to love them but rather to abandon them I ask'd her If I ought not to preach any more nor to teach any Person seeing I might now do it with more Perfection than I had done it formerly for I had receiv'd by her Discourse much Light of the Truth and of Falshood She says Sir Do not teach any Body until you have found Communion with God For how can you give to another what you do not possess your self You have made so many useless Sermons and so many Teachings without Profit for your self or others There is Time enough lost you ought now to employ it well You believe that you can do it with more
Perfection than formerly Which I doubt very much for if you think to teach the People the Evangelical Life and do not observe it your self this is worse than to hold your Peace because every one will have Ground to believe that it is nothing but a Formality which must be observ'd in declaring the Gospel and that there is no need to put it in Practice seeing they who teach it do not practise it themselves I think in this Case it were better to be ignorant of it than not to practise it when we know it At least it is a less Evil never to have understood it than to have known it and not to practise it tho' both are evil because all Christians are oblig'd to know the Gospel for we cannot without Guilt be ignorant of it but to hear it so often and for all this not to desire to follow it is a double evil because of the Ingratitudes which are committed in not practising what we know by the Grace of God It is a Grace to be caught and an Ingratitude not to follow Instructions Therefore you will do nothing but spend your self in Teaching and will not replenish others Besides that in Teaching there is always the Hazard of Vain-Glory because Flattery is the Ruine of our Souls and perswades us that we have that which they say we have I said unto her That infallibly many would put in Practice the Doctrine of the Gospel if they knew it as I do at present because these Truths are so clear that of necessity one must yield to them She said Sir Do not engage your self to declare the Truths which God now makes known to you For they will not be well receiv'd by the Learn'd You ought first to have overcome all Human Regards which you have not yet done Likewise you must have the Courage to expose your Life for this Truth For otherwise you will be opprest without any Profit because they would outragiously persecute you if you should declare the naked Truth of the State of the Church at present and if you teach that to be a true Christian one must observe the Doctrine of the Gospel they will altogether oppose you and will affirm That all they who are baptiz'd are Christians however Wicked they be Thus you will have much to suffer and will profit others nothing Because all that you might build up by Teaching of the Truth the Learn'd will destroy by their Arguments and will easily dissuade People from believing you even rejecting your Doctrine as Evil and Seditious for they study nothing so much as to flatter the World and speak as they are desirous to hear They have forgotten that Jesus Christ said by his Apostle That he who would please men is not the Servant of Jesus Christ There can be no Preaching any longer without Reproof but what flatters the Ear and is agreeable to the People for the Truth which reproves is so disapproven by Men that I believe Sir if you should speak publickly the Truths which I in confidence have told you they would cut you off from the Church declaring you an Heretick yea they would even pursue you to Death because they could not approve the Truth without condemning themselves their Lives being contrary thereto and no Body hates his own Soul Therefore they condemn others I ask'd her If I ought always to continue idle without doing any thing seeing I could not Teach nor Preach any more and that I had no other Employment for that I had passed all my Life-Time in Study and in the Direction of Souls She said Sir Labour first for your own Perfection until you be entirely united to God and then you will be capable of other things If there be no Profit to be reap'd among the Catholicks you may go among the Heathens and Hereticks who will be more disposed to receive the Truth than those who are under the Roman Church Because others sin through Ignorance and these Romanists through Malice Many Heathens would follow the Truth if they knew it and likewise divers Hereticks because they seek and ask it always Therefore we hear them dispute willingly to shew that they are not at Rest but seek and ask always after the Truth But the Catholicks do opinionately presume of their Salvation because they esteem themselves the People of God as they are truly even as the Jews were who are now abandon'd but shall be converted so soon as the Roman Church shall be overthrown Those will be truly capable of receiving the Spirit of Truth acknowledging their Errors and Ignorances Labour in the mean Time Sir for your own Perfection and you will very shortly see that the Harvest will be ripe and that there will be need of Workmen We approach so near that I fear your Soul will not have so soon acquir'd its own Perfection as these things will come to pass Therefore make haste fearing to be sent away as an unprofitable Servant Occupy the Talent which God has given you for he will come very shortly to demand an account of it Apply your self to your own Perfection with the same Earnestness wherewith you formerly applyed to the Perfection of others without any Profit I ask'd her If she believ'd that the Roman Church would be Destroy'd and Ruin'd and the Christians scatter'd as the Jews are at present She replyed Yes Sir and much more for the Jews have continued constantly in the Jewish Law tho' they be bodily scatter'd through all the World they are nevertheless united in an uniform Faith and Belief holding still the Law which God had given them But the Christians have denied their Faith tho' they be yet united Bodily How would they preserve it in Time of Persecution when all this Lustre and this Magnificence of the Church shall be destroy'd so that there shall not be one Stone upon another in its outward State no more than there is at present in its inward This must needs come to pass Sir else God would not be Just for the Jews might Reproach him with Reason That they never committed such an Infidelity against their God as the Christians do It is very true they kill'd the Body of Jesus Christ but that was through Ignorance The Christians do kill it a thousand times out of pure Malice They believe that the same Body of Jesus Christ is in the Sacrament of the Altar and they give it daily unto Whores Thieves Murtherers and Sorcerers and yet they make them believe that they shall thereby receive Graces The Jews never believ'd that they obtain'd Grace in putting Jesus Christ to death as these Christians do believe in receiving him unworthily For Pilate said that he found no Fault in him and was in great Fear to condemn him And the Christians go affrontedly to receive him with a Soul full of Sins believing in the mean Time that he is oblig'd to impart unto them his Graces in
flows from God the Fountain of all Joy and Pleasures An Human Life is a Life of Constraint The Life of Sinners is a Life of Slavery There is none but the Life of a true Christian that is fill'd with Delights The Human Life must force it self for to maintain it self aright in State and Honour and constrain its Nature and its Inclinations to yield unto and please Men fearing to offend or disoblige them therefore we are often constrained to bow as a Reed under the Power of the Great or those in Authority having no more Liberty than the Good or Bad Opinion of Men gives us The Life of a Sinner is a real Slavery for he is tortur'd with his own Passions which do often serve as an Executioner both to Body and Soul destroying both the one and the other What Pain is there in doing Evil What Displeasures and Remorse when the Evil is done How is a Sinner hated by others and a Burthen to himself He has not sometimes the Freedom to speak or lift up his Head for fear his Sin be discovered Is it not therefore more easie to abandon all and to entertain our selves only with God than to undergo the Yoke of a Human or of a Sinful Life Seeing he who is resign'd to God lives as a Child without Care who is carried in the Arms of his Father He fears nothing being under the Guard of the Almighty he desires nothing more for he has found all He can seek nothing because all things are found in God Riches Beauty Honour Pleasure all are there in abundance The Soul is joyful the Heart content and the Body in Repose How can you find Difficulty Sir in a thing agreeable and full of all Good It should rather be found in the Life which you lead Tho it be honest yet it is subject to a thousand Disquiets and Cares to maintain you aright and to please every Body To quit all things is to quit very little for to find the All. And not to think but upon God is to do that which naturally we would do upon the ceasing of the eagerness of our Imagination which frames to it self some imaginary Pleasure in the Conversation of Men which is nevertheless interwoven with a great many Displeasures and Discontents All this may be overcome by retiring our Spirit with God I said to her That I wish'd nothing more than to find my self in so happy a State which would yield me Communion with God That for this cause I would willingly abandon a thousand Worlds Begging she would tell me in order what I ought to do for the first She said Sir After that you shall have wholly abandon'd the World present your self before God as the Prodigal Son acknowledging that you have wasted so many Graces which he had imparted to you that you might love him and that you have applied them to please Men. Tell him plainly that you have sinned against him and Heaven And then he will give you the first Robe of Innocence in imbracing you as his Son Resign your self wholly to him as a Child newly born again and then he will govern you in all your Ways learning you to speak to walk to eat and all the rest that hitherto you did not know how to do aright for if you walk'd it has been to seek Temporal Things and if you have eaten it was but for the Maintenance of your Body and if you spoke it was only to please or satisfie Men All which things are Vain and Unworthy of a true Child of God Quit therefore Sir all your old Habits and suffer your self now to be conducted by God who is your true Father Receive from him what shall befal you If Prosperities come upon you bless him if Adversities receive them with Joy for he had no other things whilst in this World but Tribulations Esteem your self happy to imitate him Seek no longer any other thing but what God shall permit to befal you and then you will find that the Lord is good and gracious Tho' Tribulations seem sometimes bitter yet they are made sweet by the Conformity of the Life of Jesus Christ Pains suffered with Jesus Christ are rendred agreeable This Resignation to God is the first part of Blessedness which draws along with it all the rest When you shall be resigned to his Government you will have no longer need of Masters or any other Helps For he alone is your Protector in this Valley of Miseries which will not last but for a Moment in respect of Eternity Let us suffer with him if we would reign with him I ask'd What I should do with my temporal Goods if I should distribute them to the Poor or to Churches or rather to religious Convents She said Sir Keep your Temporal Goods for your Entertainment For he who has not wherewith to maintain himself now-a-days when Charity is dead would have Vexations to seek and find it So much the more that Justice requires rather to retain what we have lawfully acquired for our own Nourishment than to give it away and to be oblig'd afterwards to ask of others This Pretext of Voluntary Poverty hath introduc'd among the Religious great Avarice for after having abandon'd their own they seek with more Greediness the Wealth of Others than ever they did their own Which obliges them to flatter People and often to give way to evil that they may have where withal to live and they are unsatiable to augment and increase it It is a kind of Robbery to take the Goods of others by way of Alms when we have the Means to live upon our own But if you have more than suffices for your Entertainment distribute it to Christian Brethren who have need of it as the first Christians did so that no Body among them had need of any thing because the Rich did impart to the Poor what was necessary for them There being then no Proposal of Building so many Churches and Monasteries as at present which are built more for the Commodity and Pleasures of Monks than for the Glory of God which does not consist in material Temples as it does in the Living Temples of the Souls of true Christians These are the true Temples of God where he will reside to all Eternity But not in these Machines of Stone or Wood which will perish very shortly with their Builder who will be oblig'd to suffer Poverty by Force since they would not suffer it voluntarily according to the Vows and Promises which they make publickly of it If at present you do not find true Christians to whom to give of your Abundance keep it for the Love of God until you shall know them His Mercy will very shortly form a great number of them For to give to the Wicked is to co-operate to their Vices Having remark'd that she spoke of the Destruction of Churches and Monasteries I ask'd her If she
the one withdrawing makes a separation as if they both withdrew So that God is as much remov'd from Man as Man has remov'd himself from him And having thus abandoned God what can we expect but universal Plagues which our universal Evils have drawn down upon our guilty Heads Which Plagues having purg'd our Crimes and burnt the Tares the good Grain will then be gathered into the Granary of God which is the Kingdom of Jesus Christ I ask'd her Whether this Kingdom of Jesus Christ shall remain upon Earth for ever She saith yes Sir It will be Eternal and never end If you believe in Life Eternal which is an Article of our Creed you believe in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ upon Earth I have also told you that there is no other Paradise but the Presence of God And whereas Jesus Christ is God as my word is me his Body must have some Station as also all the other Bodies of the blessed God being a pure Spirit has no need of any Station nor yet our Soul which is also a Spirit A Spirit is through all and comprehends what is at a distance as well as that which is near As our Thoughts have no need of a way to go to Jerusalem They go thither in the twinkling of an eye for they do not stay in any place Even so God has no need of Heaven nor of Earth to stay in being a pure Spirit nor yet our Souls which are in Paradise when they are united unto God But our Body has need of Heaven and Earth and of all the other things which God has created for it because it is material it must also stay upon material things suitable unto its nature Therefore God has created all this World with all that is in it that Man may have his full delights as well in his Body as in his Soul For God makes nothing imperfect but all his Works shall have their compleat Perfections And resolving to create Man a kind of Creature Spiritual and Bodily both together he gives himself to him for to satisfie his Soul which is a Spirit he will give him likewise all created things to satisfie his Body So that the Soul shall take its delights with God and the Body its delights with Heaven and Earth and all the other Creatures For God has created them for those ends and for no other thing that Man might have his full perfect contentment of Body and Mind in that Life Eternal wherein Jesus Christ will reign always in Body and Soul with the Bodies and Souls of the Blessed who shall be united in Spirit unto God and in Body unto the Body of Jesus Christ Behold the alliance which God promised unto Abraham which he did not see but very far of and we see it now very near Do you not think Sir that this Kingdom of Jesus Christ must be upon Earth seeing that he has taken a Human Body like unto ours A spiritual thing cannot support but that which is spiritual But a material must have a stay agreeable to its Nature which is also material Who can or would change that Excellent Order which God has establish'd in all his Works so just and so perfect which alone are worthy of Admiration as the Author is of Adoration Can you yet doubt Sir that Jesus Christ shall reign upon Earth seeing it is a just and necessary thing Would you believe that God should create all this beautiful World only for this miserable Life of Penitence and that at the end of it he should abolish this great Work of his Hands or that he should consume by Fire the whole Universe This would not be a just thing that he had made all these things only for our Miseries This would be as much as to say that God had had little Wisdom I was ravish'd out of my self to hear things so unheard of so admirable and so charming And that I might understand a little more I ask'd her if the Earth and the World would abide for ever She said Yes Sir the Earth and all the rest that God has created will abide for ever in the State in which he established them at their Creation For the whole works of God are all Everlasting Therefore he has created all things with Seeds for to spring and to engender Eternally All which Generations must be made for the delight of Man without Pain or Labour All things would have brought forth their Kind according to their Species in a good and delightful manner x The Sun would have given his light and heat in measure without any Excess the Air without Storms the Sea without Tempests The Fire could not have burn'd us nor the Water drowned us nor the Earth brought forth Thorns nor the Beasts bitten and poyson'd us but all sort of things would have served us for Delight and Recreation So many little Beasts which are upon the Earth and in the Air which seâ—ems useless to us were created to the end that even the least of our Senses might be Recreated Even the diversity of Flies and many other sorts of Animals Herbs Trees and Flowers all these were created not only for the necessities of Men but also for their Delights Which things had nothing but Goodness and Perfection without Sharpness Prickings or Bitings How much more ought Man to be Good and Perfect seeing all these other things which were subjected to him had so much Goodness and Perfection You might ask me from whence it comes that all these Creatures are become Evil seeing they were created so good and perfect I will answer you That the sin of Man has caused all these Disorders and with Justice For all the Creatures of God ought to rise up against Man and take vengeance of his Ingratitude according to their power because he had merited that all that was given him for Joy should serve him for Grief Seeing he who ought to have serv'd for a delight z unto his God turns away from him to offend him his Justice would require that all the Creatures should do the same toward him since he had done it toward his God who had infinitely benefitted him more than any other Creatures which might well offend Man and become his Enemy when he was become the Enemy of God who tho he could not render his Creatures Evil because he is the source of all Goodness from whence nothing that is evil can ever proceed yet he might well permit that his Justice should be exercised by those inferior Creatures when Man had so justly deserved it I asked her If all those Creatures Animate and Inanimate would have an eternal Being She said Yes Sir nothing will perish of all that God hasmade But the evil that is in all these Creatures shall be taken away because it does not come from him and all that comes from Men shall Perish For Example That the Sun burns us and dazles the eyes which look upon him This
Roman Catholicks tho' this they hold for an Article of Faith that none can be saved out of her Communion This is very ill conceiv'd since God is universal and he 's to be found every where by those who seek and worship him For he 's not fix'd to any material Body All Souls who take their Delight in him are his Spouses call them by what Name or Religion you please For all these different Names or Opinions do not make a Christian but only the Practice of the Doctrine of Jesus Christ makes a Christian And all those who put in Practice the Doctrine of the Gospel are Christians and Disciples of Jesus Christ even tho' they were Turks or Heathens Of which Professions I believe several condemn and judge the nominal and professing Christians since God has no Respect of Persons and will judge all Men according to their Works This the Scripture confirms saying by your Works you shall be judged and by your Works you shall be condemn'd And Jesus Christ himself taught the Truth of God his Father to the Samaritan Woman and to many other Nations who were not Jews saying to his Apostles Go teach all Nations He that believes shall be saved He even ate and conversed with Sinners to see if any of them would receive the Truths of his Father and put them in Practice and tho' at first he rejected the Canaanitish Woman as a Dog yet he shew'd her Grace and Mercy by her Conversion and persevering Humility For the same Reason he says to Christians that Publicans and Sinners shall enter into the Kingdom of God and the Children of the Kingdom shall be cast out which still farther confirms this Truth That Religion does not save a Man but the Love of God that sanctisies him This made me get over all Humane Respects and declare the Truth of the things which were ask'd me by so many different Conferences all about the Roman Church For at that time I knew no other Religions and with Compassion I booked upon all those who died out of the Romanâ— Church as damn'd as our Divines taught So that being ask'd by a Romish Priest I answered plainly to all his Questions Vpon which many took Occasion to say that I had chang'd my Religion and was become an Enemy of the Roman Church which is not true since being born in it I will live and die therein without changing Name or Religion but only my Manners and Life And will endeavour to be regenerated in the Spirit of Jesus Christ and to follow and imitate him even to Death letting Ignorant Men say and judge of me as they please In the mean time I offer this LIGHT OF THE WORLD to all good Souls who seek the Truth and desire to become true Christians that they may truly discern Reality from Appearance For this prevails now through all the World among all sorts of Sects and Religions where every one cleaves to the Bark and does not touch the Wood fancying that Vertue consists in having a fine Religious Name of that of the Reformed the Evangelicks the Catholicks Yea that they are persons guided by the Holy Spirit of which the Quakers boast though all these sorts of Names are false and not at all suitable to the Life and Manners of those who call themselves so For if they who are called Reformed were truly so we would see the Reformation in their Life and Manners Whereas we find they all live according to Flesh and Blood which the Scripture says shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven They are neither reformed in their Moveables nor their Apparel nor in their Eating or Drinking They seek in all the finest and the best They labour and trade diligently that they may have wherewith to maintain themselves in Pomp Excess or Plenty as much as they can without bridling their fleshly Appetites or their Sensualities in any thing still coveting more that they may give it as much Satisfaction as they can that in this World they may have Ease Honours and Pleasure Thus they are called Reformed though in Effect they will not reform themselves in the least thing for the Kingdom of Heaven By which we see that they who call themselves Reformed bear a false Name that makes them Hypocrites and Deceivers of others and of themselves As those also are deceived who call themselves the Evangelicks For in all their Works and Practices there is nothing conformable to the Gospel but all directly opposite to it For they do not observe so much as one Point of the Evangelical Councils For instead of loving voluntary Poverty they love the Abundance and Riches of this World unsatiably and they who ought to be the Guides to those Evangelical Perfections are the farthest remov'd from them abandoning their Flocks and Churches to find others that afford them more temporal Profit They are far from imitating the Apostles who said freely I have received and freely I give thee since these modern Evangelicks give at the greatest Price and to him that bids most And therefore they do not justly bear the Name of Evangelicks since they neither teach nor Practise so much as one Council of the Gospel and have nothing but false Names and Parades that they may appear to be in the Sight of Men what they are not at all in the Sight of God No more than those are Catholicks who bear the Name since to call one a Catholick is to say he is a Person joyn'd in the Communion of Saints which these are not who call themselves Catholicks since we perceive not any Holiness in their Lives but much Vice and Injustice accompanied with Hypocrisie and seeming Vertue without any Reality or Sanctification They boast that they are Abraham's Children without doing the Works of Abraham or that they are Christians without observing the Commands of Christ They content themselves to be called Catholicks without conforming their Lives to those who liv'd holily upon the Earth whose Lives and Histories they read without endeavouring to become holy as they were whose Feast s they solemnize tho' they shall never be in their Communion nor truly Catholicks till in their Lives they follow their Vertues and walk in the streight Way that leads to Life So that this Name of Catholick will condemn them rather than justifie them whereas they presume to be preferr'd by God to all other Religions because they are of the most Holy and Perfect Religion according to the Name of Catholick which they bear This would really be if their Souls were united to Jesus Christ in the Communion of Saints which only and no other thing makes a Catholick By which we see that these Persons bear a false Name since they presume of their Salvation because of the Name Catholick and be-believe they are in the true Church out of which they say there is no Salvation This would be true if the Roman Church were the only Communion of Saints But because
Conference That the Roman Church is the Spouse of Jesus Christ but that she has falsified her Faith to her lawyul Husband I Said to her That she gave a deal of Light in divers things for which I did infinitely bless God but I could not deny it troubled me a little to hear that the Roman Church was thus fallen from the Spirit of true Christianity She said Sir it is more expedient for the Salvation of your Soul that you know the Misery into which the Church has fallen than if you knew the highest Mysteries of the Trinity or the greatest Good of all Men together Because an Evil known is easie to be avoided But as long as 't is unknown and hid from us it is always dangerous and may greatly hurt us without our being aware of it Therefore you ought to give the more Attention and to apply your Understanding more to understand and comprehend the Truth which I tell you of Evil than to discover the Good For if I told you the Good of all Men this would only give you some little Contentment or sensual Satisfaction which would add nothing to your Soul But by knowing the Evil as it is you may prudently beware of it that it do not touch or harm you For all these Evils which I said were introduc'd into the Church even while it was yet Holy are all covered with Appearances of Good and Piety and Reason because the Devil could never have gained so many Souls as have followed him but under this Colour or Mantle of Good And he will yet gain many by their Ignorance of these Evils or by their Unbelief of them For as long as they take Evil for Good they will still blindly follow it and Ignorance will not excuse the Sin For God having given us an Understanding to comprehend and a Spirit to discern we ought particularly to apply them to what concerns our Salvation and when the Truth is set before our Eyes and we will not open them to consider it we resist it and may look for the Condemnation of the Holy Spirit who says that Vnbelievers shall have their Portion with Sorcerers I said to her I would not be incredulous but believe the Truth But that I felt an inward Opposition when it thus overturn'd the Church in the chief Points of Belief which we owe to it in case it were the Holy Church She said Sir I believe in the Holy Church and if I had a thousand Lives I would voluntarily expose them for its Defence and would think my self happy to spend the last Drop of my Blood for such a Cause But when God makes me see clearly that She is not Holy nor that which Jesus Christ established but that She is the Whore which is spoken of in the Revelation I cannot resist so clear Truths which do not only lie secret in my Soul but God gives me also Terms and Words whereby to explain them to you that you may likwise receive the Knowledge of them for your Salvation For which I have often bless'd God who bestows on us so many particular Favours hoping he will do it also to others But I intreat you doubt not what I tell you of the Miseries into which Men are fallen For they are yet greater than I have told you But persuade your self assuredly if they were not true I would not have engag'd my self in Discourses so melancholly and disagreeable to your Sentiments It would be more pleasant to me to tell you that the Roman Church is Holy and Perfect and that those who obey and follow her are holy This would recreate both my Heart and yours and the Hearts of all who could hear it I should be very light-headed or void of Understanding to please my self with things which displease all the World and which oblige me still to hold my Peace and to conceal my self Because I know very well if they should hear me declare those Truths all the Romanists would rise up against me and even the most Pious would think they made a Sacrifice to God in killing me For they are ignorant of these Truths and are wedded to their Church as if she were Holy knowing no better because the great Darkness that is now throughout the whole World wherein the Devil has bewitch'd all Minds with Errours they may never come to the Knowledge of the Truth which every one withstands even thinking they do well in it I ask'd her If I might not suspend my Belief of those things which were contrary to the Church and believe only what concern'd Vertue and the Love of God She said Sir you can never follow Good without departing from Evil nor adhere perfectly to God without abandoning that which is contrary to him Have you not remark'd in how many things this Roman Church is contrary to the Doctrine of Jesus Christ How therefore can you adhere to her and follow Vertue and the Love of God so long as they are really contrary Jesus Christ says that We cannot serve two Masters without being unfaithful to the one or the other You must chuse which you love best Good can never profit you without the Knowledge of Evil because while you do not know and believe it you will insensibly fall into it yea you will often take Evil for Good For the Evil of this Church is still covered with the Sanctity of pious Reasons and Arguments And if Antichrist did not cover his Wickedness with Vertue he could gain none but the Wicked but with pious Pretexts he gains all the Good who would even make a Scruple not to follow him as you do Sir by your Demand For if you do believe and follow Vertue and the Love of God you will certainly hate all that is contrary thereunto I think I have already told you enough to let you see that the Rules the Commands and Ordinances of this Church are not conformable to those of God who when he created Man gave him full Liberty to use his Will wheras those constrain it in all Points and will not only subject it by Councils or Advices but by Force and Violence both bodily and spiritual So that as much as in them lies they destroy the Law and the Ordinances of God to establish their own Authority and to bind the Souls of Christians by so many Constraints that 't is impossible for them to satisfie them without displeasing God tho' there were no other thing but the forbidding Priests to labour and making them swear never to explain the Holy Scriptures otherwise than the ancient Fathers have done Do you not see Sir that all their Laws are nothing but political and made to maintain their State and Authority If a Prince or a King to whom you were subject did become a Tyrant would you make any Scruple to abandon him when it were in your Power to do it tho' he were the lawful Son of your King and gracious Father who had preceded him A
She said Sir All the World does this in effect and I know not so much as one Person upon Earth that will depend upon the Will of God For every one will needs follow his own Will Neither Small nor Great none excepted will resign their Will to God's but will all depend upon their own Is it a Wonder that I told you formerly that no body could be saved after the way that Men live at present This is an infallible Truth which none has yet discovered because of the Universal Darkness that is at present in the World Every one imagines that he will resign himself to God while in the mean time there is no such thing For if this were true we should not see Men so forward to deal in Business or Traffick nor to run through Countries and Cities to heap up Mony nor to use underhand Dealings for Offices Places or Benefices For every one placing his Dependance upon God would labour to provide only for his Necessities and no more knowing well that this Life is short and that Necessaries suffice a Traveller who studies not to load himself with Things superfluous or useless for his Journey for they would be a Burden to him All the Cares the Toils the Pursuits of Men for present Things are so many Evidences which declare that we will not resign our Will to God's but that we will follow our own neglecting the Penitence that God has enjoyn'd us that we may be advanc'd to Places Honours or Dignities seeking to live at our own Ease instead of labouring to satisfie the Penitence due to our Sins We Act quite contrary to the Will of God for we cannot be ignorant that he demands of us this Submission and this Penitence And withall we say by Word that we are resign'd to God and we look on it as a thing impossible that we should deny him our Will Which still discovers the more our Blindness I said to her That there was truly a horrible Darkness through the whole World and that I my self was surrounded with it while I believ'd that I would be resign'd to God and in the mean time had many Cares yet for this present Life She said Sir You see that your Resignation is not true so long as your Cares are yet for this Life This would be a great distrust of God if after you were resign'd to his Government you should yet be careful for Temporal Things Can God who created all Things for Man deny him his Necessities when he shall be resign'd to him If he feed the Birds of the Air who do not labour shall he not feed Man when he labours We are full of false Perswasions which flatter us to our Ruine For it is certain that he who has resolved to resign himself to God seeks no longer for Earthly Things but for those which are Eternal God makes him see evidently that what is here Below is nothing but Transitory which the Servant of God should not touch but by the by for they are unworthy of a Soul dedicated to God which cares no longer for any thing but to please him And if you be careful for other Things be assuredly perswaded that you are not yet resign'd to God Because this Resignation consists in a cessation from all things to receive God only And the less we Act our selves the more we receive There needs no more but TO CEASE AND TO RECEIVE For all our Cares and Vexations or Activities for the Things of this Life are all Hindrances which stifle the Operations which God would make in our Soul We must be quiet and rest that we may suffer the Holy Spirit alone to Act. If our Will be resign'd to God he will govern it wisely Let us leave our Souls to his Government and labour to accomplish the Penitence due for our Sins that we may have the Things needful for the Maintenance of our Body And then we could truly say that we are resign'd to God and not before For the Offices Cares and Business of the World are all Hindrances to this Resignation And even the so many different Ways of Devotion that are now practised are all great Hindrances since nothing but this Resignation alone is necessary I said to her That this little Word Resignation comprehended great Things that nevertheless it was the Philosophers Stone for the Discovery of Eternal Treasures to which I aspired She said Sir This Word RESIGNATION TO GOD comprehends all Things For he who is resign'd to him knows him and loves him he knows also true Vertue that he may follow it and the Falshood of Vices that he may avoid them Because God gives himself to the Soul that is resign'd to him and the Holy Spirit lives in it and abiding in it he replenishes it with his Gifts to know all Things and with his Fruits to entertain it So that all our Happiness depends upon the resigning our Wills to God's and not upon many different Things as People imagine That we may be restored into Favour with God entirely converted to him and out of all sort of danger there needs nothing but this Resignation If you are guilty resign your self to God he will immediately receive you and convert you to himself and if you are afraid of his Judgments and of these dangerous Times resign your self to him he will preserve and save you There is nothing to be done but this only To resign our selves to God and to continue in a Dependance upon Him Is it not a very Reasonable Thing that a Creature should abide in Dependance on its Creatour Must there be Constraints and Commands to oblige it to a Duty so just so good and advantagious There is no Law Divine Humane nor Civil that can give us a Dispensation from so just a Thing Nevertheless we Rebel against all sort of Rights to adhere to our own Will which is so wicked and insolent which precipitates us into so many sorts of Evils for all the Miseries which we feel in this Life proceed from our Self-will And as the Resignation of it to the Will of God is the Accomplishment of all Good so the Possession of it is the Consummation of all sort of Evil So that he who would be converted needs only resign his own Will into God's Hands In doing this he fulfils all the Law and the Prophets because they Teach us nothing else but the Means to attain to this Resignation I said to her That this being supposed which was most true That if we still acknowledge that we depend upon God in all things we have no need of any other Precept or Command it was strange that she had taught me so many Means She said Sir I have told you of the State of the World and of the Church that you may no longer trust to them by a pious implicite Faith I have told you also that we are fallen into the Reign of Antichrist fearing least you be deceived
Miseries of this present Life because in this he should have done an ill thing Which God can never do seeing he is the Source of all Good from whom no Evil can proceed But our Self-will alone engenders all the Evils and Miseries that we suffer For he who beats his Brains in Study suffers for the Self-will or Inclination he has for Studies all the Inconveniences that are in this Imployment For God never demanded Learning of any Body though Men cover this with the Pretext of the Glory of God yet there is nothing in it for the most part but Curiosity and Vain-glory or some Designs of making some Fortune in this World Another by his Self-will gives himself to Traffick or the business of Merchandising and will therefore endure Cares Watchings Fatigues and Labours to get a Little Heap of Mony or other Temporal Goods which end with him because he leaves them on the Earth from whence he took them One will be a Priest or a Monk another will Marry or continue free In one Word All Men in the World study to follow their own Wills in every thing without being willing to yield them to God and notwithstanding we think to go to Paradise while we refuse to resign our Will to him which we ought to do though he had never required it of Man It should be offered him in Acknowledgment of so many Benefits received from our God I asked her If it was not lawful for every one to choose some State or Calling by which to gain his Bread She said Yes Sir It is expedient that every one Labour that he may have his Bread for God has appointed Labour in Penitence for our Sins It is a Holy and Sacred Thing to Labour that we may fulfil the Penitence that God himself has enjoyn'd us We are free also to choose some State that of Marrâ—iage is instituted by God but a free Condition gives more leisure for converse with God and to work out our Salvation delivering us from the Cares and Vexations of the Government and Maintenance of a Family which do often breed us many Distractions But to choose humane Offices according to our Will would prove great Hindrances to us and are available only for this Life which needs but a little Food and some Clothing to cover our Body all the â—est is superfluous and a Burden to him that would obey God Therefore all Places Offices or Benefices of what kind soever are great Hindrances to Salvation because they respect only the Earth and aim at nothing but the Wealth Honours or Pleasures of this World which Things do certainly withdraw us from God and even make us often wholly to forget him by the continual Imployments and Diversions which these Places Offices or Benefices bring along with them which are not only undertaken by all means sought after and desired that thereby we may gain our Bread but very often that we may be rais'd to Honour and Vanities or that we may take with more Ease the Delights of the Body or of the Mind or also that we may heap up Temporal Wealth All which Things do certainly withdraw us from God Nevertheless we see Christians now adays do Toil and Sweat and Labour to obtain some Place Office or Benefice and they study all their Life-time to pursue what is pleasant profitable or honourable for them and they believe they are Wise in so doing As if their Happiness did depend upon this present Life and it were needful to make some Fortune here Which is a great Blindness of Mind I asked her If all Places Offices or Benefices were evil since it seem'd necessary and expedient that there should be Judges to maintain Order among the People and also Priests to teach what concerns Salvation She said Sir All Places Offices or Benefices are good in themselves but the ill use that is made of them renders them evil If a Person should engage in any Office of Justice or any other Secular Station singly with a design to Labour to preserve the People in Peace and to maintain Justice and the Innocence of those whom others would wrong this would be a great Charity to his Neighbour and a great Merit and Satisfaction as to the Penitence that every one is oblig'd to accomplish during this Miserable Life Because in taking the Cares and Labour of the Mind for a Pennance we satisfie God in gaining our Bread by these Labours of the Mind and besides this we assist our Neighbour by good Counsel and by maintaining him in his Right and defending him against malicious Persons He to whom God has given the Spirit and Capacity of doing this will be doubly recompenced before God provided he do it in a Spirit of Penitence in respect of himself and of Charity in respect of his Neighbour But it is much to be regretted that Men now regard neither of these Ends For if they could enjoy a good Pension due to any Office with little Travel this is what they would love most They seek not the Toils of it but the Profits Nor the maintaining of Policy or Justice but the Honour of Ruling over the People and if it were only the Zeal of Policy and Justice that moved Men to engage into publick Offices no good Men could stay in them any longer in these unhappy Times wherein Policy and Justice is no longer observed The Laws of Government are all made for the burthen of the Common People and for the Ease and Relief of the Great Men and those in Authority And by the same Breath Justice is rurn'd in their Favour So that Offices good in themselves are become very evil by the bad use which Men make of them now who obey not in any thing the Ordinances of God which are Penitence and Charity to our Neighbour But on the quite contrary they will enjoy instead of suffering and take their Pleasure and Repose instead of doing Penitence If Merchants had the Spirit of Penitence and Traded on design to procure Work to such Neighbours as were more fit for going about some Trade or Handicraft than to Labour the Ground all this would be done in mutual Charity accomplishing their Penitence the one by working and the other by taking care to send their Merchandises to the Places where they might be Retailed But the Intentions of these Men are far from the Designs of God For instead of Trading singly for their necessary Maintenance they do it only to inrich themselves and to encrease their Glory and Vanity So that instead of satisfying God by the Penitence of the Labours and Travels of our Business by undergoing them we but encrease our Sins and instead of exercising Charity to our Neighbour in giving him Wages for his Entertainment People take their greatest Advantages from the Workman and they give him as little as they can for his Labour And thus we do not accomplish Penitence nor yet exercise Charity to our Neighbour
the Sun the Moon the Stars and all the Heavens he must confess that the Authour of all these Things is perfect and looking on the Earth the Trees the Plants and Elements he must discover an incomprehensible Divinity who had the Skill to make all these admirable Things Which obliges all that are Reasonable to Love him And when Man considers himself and sees the Art there is in the Fabrick of his Body in the Faculties of his Soul in the Subtilty of his Spirit he must confess that there is a God the Authour of all this to whom all Things ought to be ascribed Because no Creature is able to do any such thing By all which things a Man comes more perfectly to the Knowledge of God than by Sciences and the Expositions of all the Doctors of the World who have nothing but Limited Sciences The Twentieth and Third Conference Shews That it is by Faith only that we can be Saved which coming from God works still Resignation Even among the Heathens c. I said to her That all this Knowledge of God was nothing but the Faith of a Heathen that it was not capable to work Salvation that to be saved we must have a Divine Faith She said Sir You are ignorant yet of a great many Things For that Faith which you call Heathen is Divine because it comes immediately from God who has imprinted in the Soul of all Men this Divine Light that leads them to the Knowledge of the true God This is a Grace infused without the Concurrence of any Men which is much more perfect then the Faith we give to the Things they propose to be believed by us in the Roman Church many of which are very absurd and neither respect the Glory of God nor our Salvation They give us for an Article of Faith That there are Three Persons in God Though nevertheless no Creature can comprehend what is in God but by his Operations which we see with our Eyes as that he is Almighty that he is All just all Good and True Because all that we see he operates in us and in other Creatures bear these Three Qualities But to know if there be Three Divine Persons in God this surpasses our Capacity Because God is an incomprehensible Being and was never discovered by any so as to know what there is in his Divinity They propose also to us many Things for Articles of Faith which are not of its true Essence seeing no Body can be saved without Faith and they continually propose to us new Things for Articles of this Faith which our Forefathers never believed as such And if we cannot have true Faith now without believing them it were to be feared that our Forefathers were not Saved since they did not believe those new Things which are now proposed to us as Articles of Faith They never believed that the Virgin Mary was conceived without Original Sin and now they would make this Belief to pass for an Article of Faith Though nevertheless there is no appearance of Truth in it For the Virgin came out of the Masse of Adam as all the rest of Men And she did also undergo the Penitence common to all the Children of Adam having gained her Bread by Bodily Labour and suffered the Malignity of all the Elements and her Son Jesus himself shiver'd for Cold in the Stable of Bethelem shewing that he was a real Man descended from Adam subjecting himself to the same Penitence that our First Father had received and accepted from God in the Remission of his Sin Why should they now lay it before us as an Article of Faith that the Virgin was conceived without Sin since all Humane Creatures which are born of Parents who live under the Dependance of God having accepted the Penitence that God enjoyn'd Adam are all born in the Indulgence that God gave to Adam Wherefore should there be a particular Article of Faith for the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin as also for the Infallibility of the Pope seeing all these Things have no respect to the true Faith which must work out our Salvation For if the Virgins Conception was Immaculate or if the Pope be infallible this makes nothing for our Salvation nor as to the Knowledge we ought to have of a God upon whom all Things depend This Light infused in my Soul is true Faith and the Dependance that I desire to have upon the same God is the Work of my Faith What need is there to add yet to this the believing that the Pope is infallible since I have the same Light of Faith that tells me No Man can be infallible Since Adam created in Innocence and endued with all the Grace and Holiness that can be met with in any Man did fall and by failing so grosly shew that he was not infallible may not a Man who is a Sinner fail or err All these Faiths and Beliefs are not divinely infused by God into our Soul as that Faith is which makes us know a God above all Things All good All-just All-mighty but Incomprehensible This Faith Sir which you call Heathen is the True Faith which is able to work Salvation in all those who in consequence of it do through Love resign themselves to the same God I asked her If she believed the Heathens would be saved since they are not baptized She said Yes Sir All the Heathens who knew God by his Works and resigned their Will to him shall assuredly be saved For they had operating Faith True Faith in believing that there is One Almighty God who created the Heaven the Earth and all Things and they had the Works of Faith when they were resign'd to the Will of the same God Which appeared in all those who despised the Things of this Life for that which is to come They could not have done this but by a Divine Light that God infused into their Souls Because the Brutish Senses cannot despise the Pleasures of this Life For they know no other and Nature cannot betray it self by despising what is good for it to choose what is evil for it When we see one who may have Honours Riches and Pleasures in this Life and who yet quits them to be dispised poor and afflicted we may well believe that he has the Light of Faith infused by God into his Soul Because neither the Devil nor Nature would ever induce him to do such Things For no Body hates his own Flesh and the Devil incites alwayes to satisfie Nature And if we see one whom we call a Heathen quit the Conversation of Men and retire into a Solitude we may well believe that he has the true Light of Faith which makes Nature break off conversing with its like For Society is a most Lovely Thing Man is a Sociable Creature above all the other Animals and if the Beasts are sad when they are alone how much more must Man be so when he Lives according to Nature unless it
Nature his Righteousness his Goodness his Truth and to be transform'd into the same Image to love him with all our Hearts is to love him only for himself and all other things only in and for God and entirely to depend upon him To love our Neighbours as our selves is to love them as his Images as being capable to be transform'd into his Nature and to endeavour to bring them with our selves to the Love and Enjoyment of God This is the Essence of Religion and the indispensible Duty that God requires of Man in all Estates whether that of Innocence or of his Reparation since his Fall and as our Saviour tells us Matth. 22. 40. On these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets Had man continued in the Integrity in which he was created no other Duty had been requir'd of him But he turning away his Love from God and setting it on himself and on the Creatures making himself his last End and the Creatures his chief Happiness Means are propos'd to Man to bring him back to the Love of God and to remove the Hindrances of it and he having forfeited the Friendship and Love of God Hopes are given him of Recovering his Love and Favour for obtaining of which the Intercession of a Mediator was needful who by his Merits and Favour with God might obtain it and the main Hindrances of the Love of God being Self-love and the Love of the Creatures he is directed to the Use of such Means as may effectually mortifie and subdue these in him and Man being a wayward Patient unwilling to take the Physick provided for him as being bitter and unpleasant the Physician takes Man's Nature on him and takes the Remedies first himself flies the Ease the Honours the Riches the Pleasures and the Sciences of this World embraces Poverty Reproaches Troubles and Pains and denies himself and his own Will in every thing that he might do the Will of him that sent him So the essentially necessary and effectual means to recover the Love of God is Faith in God through Jesus Christ with unfeign'd Repentance a constant denial of our selves and forsaking of every thing that hinders us to love God and for this End the taking up our Cross daily and following of Christ The Holy Scriptures are the Sacred Records wherein God's Love to Mankind the Life and Doctrin of Jesus Christ and the Precepts he has given for the mortifying of our corrupt Nature and returning to the Love of God are plainly manifested to us and in this respect they are necessary to make us wise unto Salvation as the written Counsels of a Physician would be for the Recovery of his Patient's Health Sermons religious Offices Sacraments sacred Assemblies Pastors Church-Government c. are more remote means for bringing Men to Salvation and if rightly us'd may be very helpful to direct them in the Practice of the necessary and effectual means for returning to an entire Dependance upon God But if the first be wholly neglected and these be rested on and if we think we are religious because zealous about these things and in the mean time are still Lovers of our own selves self-will'd self-conceited worldly-minded envious malicious our Actions void of Righteousness Goodness Truth c. our Religion is the Leaven of the Pharisees it is but a Form of Godliness we are alienated from the Life of God it is a Righteousness of our own and we are as mad and foolish as sick Men would be who should run about among Apothecaries and Surgeons and be very greedy to hear the Receipts of Cures for their Maladies dayly read and explain'd to them should fight and quarrel and hate and destroy one another in contending which were the best Explanations of the Receipts and which Company of Apothecaries and Surgeons had the best Form of Government and in the mean time both Directors and Patients were sick unto Death yet neither would apply themselves to take those Remedies which by all were granted to be necessary and effectual for their Recovery and without which they must inevitably perish Now the Writings of the Author of this following Treatise containing such bright Illustrations of the Truths of God reveal'd in the Holy Scriptures and discovering so plainly in what manner they are perverted by the false Glosses of the Professors of Christianity in their respective Parties I hope it will be no ill service done to the Christian Religion and to this Island in particular to make them more generally known to this part of the World of which Design this is an Essay The Author was a Virgin call'd Antonia Bourignon born in the Town of Lisle in Flanders in the Year 1616. the Daughter of a rich Man there and Baptiz'd and Bred up by her Parents in the Communion of the Church of Rome Being taught to read in her Childhood and having read the Gospels and being told of the Life of Jesus Christ how poor and mean and despis'd and self-denied he was and seeing all People live very unlike to him in Ease and abundance and Pleasures and Honours she ask'd her Parents Where are the Christians Let us go to the Country where the Christians live And tho' her Parents derided her for this yet this Impression ever remain'd with her and it was her constant Theme to let the World see what a true Christian is and that none such are to be found From her very Childhood she had inward Conversation with God and gave her self to Prayer and Divine Retirement but this Retirement being look'd on by the Suggestions of her elder Sister to her Companions as the effect of Stupidity and Sottishness and she despis'd therefore to avoid this she applied her self to take part in their Recreations and Divertisements and she quickly gain'd their Esteem and Favour above her Sister but lost her Conversation with God Yet he did not cease now and then to awaken her even in the midst of her Divertisements but Company and these Amusements still got the Ascendent Then God tried her with more severe means filling her Mind with fearful Ideas of Death Judgment and Hell whereby she came to her self again and saw the Vanity of all earthly things which would end at Death and leave the Soul empty of true Good and full of real Evils This made her abhor her present Life all worldly Advantages the Body and the Caring for it And because the Sollicitations of earthly things were apt to return again she took Care to have this deeply engraven upon her Spirit she went oft to Charnel-houses to view the Bones of the Dead saying See what thou art within a little while thou shalt be like this and yet more horrible She handled them to overcome her natural Horror for them and to make the Thoughts of Death familiar to her For six Months she begg'd no other thing of God but the Remembrance of Death and obtain'd it It was about the fifteenth or sixteenth Year of her
and in the keeping of my Commandments But the love I bear you and the care I have for you makes me give you these instructions for your own good But the full story of her Life is to be had in the Account of it written by her self and the continuation of it by the R. P. P. I know People will be possest with many prejudices against the Writings of this Person The plain representation which she gives of the Gospel Life and Spirit and the contrariety of the lives of Christians thereunto of the universal Corruption of all parties and their taking up with the shadow instead of the substance of Religion will provoke many to disparage and discredit them by all means and the Craftsmen that live by those Silver Shrines will stir up the multitude against them and from the circumstances of her Person and the singularity of some of her Sentiments they will take occasion to fill Peoples minds with prejudices so as not once to allow her a fair hearing I shall not offer to remove the particular exceptions which may be made against them I shall only take the freedom to say something as to three or four general Prejudcies which are most obvious They are ready to except against her for pretending to Divine inspiration and that the Doctrin she declareth is immediately and inwardly communicated to her by the Spirit of God That God may immediately inspire Souls with his Divine Light and Truth cannot be denied That he has tied himself never to do it after the Apostle's days and the Consignation of the Gospel in writiting cannot be made evident That there are many false pretenders to Divine inspiration and who thus highly take the name of God in vain is but too evident especially in the Age wherein we live That we ought not to believe every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they are of God or not The Spirit of God has already warn'd us that the surest Test wherby to try them is the conformity of the Doctrin with the Word of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ which is sufficiently confirmed already and its tendency is to take us off from all Earthly things and from our selves and to bring us to God and the entire correspondence of the Persons Life and Spirit therewith in all things will I think be readily granted by many Now M. A. B. desires to be put to this fair Tryal if her Doctrin be not the same with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and if the constant tract of her Life and Spirit be not answerable thereunto and the Fruits and Gifts of the Spirit which he ever brings along with him wherever he resides were not to be seen in her It is just then to give her a fair hearing And if you peruse her Writings impartially it is like you will meet with many remarkable Characters that are not ordinarily to be found in many Writings A clear and distinct account of the essential Truths of Christianity with a constant urging of them as the one thing necessary and distinguishing them from the accessory Truths which are not necessary to Salvation An unimitable simplicity of expression which a Child may understand with as singular a sublimity of thoughts a convincing power and force going along with them a plain unfolding in a few Lines the difficulties about which the Learned write many Volumes a constant harmony and uniformity of sentiments in the Writings of a course of forty Years from about the 23d to the 65th year of her Age in which she died with an evidence and clearness to the conviction of our natural Reason and all this by one who never read any Books never conversed with the Learned to be instructed by them never premeditated what she wrote never blotted out nor mended what was once written but being attentive unto the love of God in the calm and inward recollection of her Spirit wrote as fast as her hand could guide the Pen and when some writings were laid by unfinished for some years return'd to them and finish'd them after the same manner without reading any more of what had been written than some few of the immediately foregoing Lines to make a due Connexion And innumerable instances more But above all the exact and constant purity of her Life being a perfect pattern and living exemplar of the Spirit and Doctrin of the Gospel are things that deserve consideration If there were a Race and Nation of People born blind who had never seen the light but knew their Houses their Furniture their Fields c. only by the touch If some strangers should come in among them pretending to see the Light they would not readily take it on their word having no Idea of any such thing But if those strangers at their very first entry should describe their Houses where they had never formerly been their Dishes their Seats their Bulk Places and Shape and going out should tell them on a sudden the Neighbouring Hills Vallies Rivers and Villages their situation and distances which the Inhabitants themselves could not learn but by long use and by going from place to place and feeling them with their hands or staff they would certainly be convinced that these were endued with some more ready and perfect faculty and mean of knowing all these things than ever they experienc'd So for those who pretend to Divine Inspiration and to be led by the Spirit of God and give no evidence for it but their bare assertion indulging their corrupt Nature and being as much Lovers of their own selves and of Earthly things as others there is no reason to take it on their word but rather to look on them as deceivers But if any professing an inward illumination from God and a lively sense of Divine things should despise the Ease the Honours the Wealth and Pleasures of this World oppose constantly the desires of corrupt Nature deny their own Will mortify their outward senses have their minds ever turned towards God being always resign'd to his Will and withall without Study Reading Learning or Meditation should give a more clear full plain and consonant representation of Divine Truths even to the conviction of our natural reason than we are able to do after much Study Learning and Conversation we have reason to think that such are endued with a more clear effcttual and enlightning sense and knowledge of the Divine Truths than our notional knowledge can pretend to It is by this Test that M. A. B. desires to be Tryed It being objected to her that since she declared only the Truths contain'd in the Gospel of Jesus Christ there was no need of any new Revelation of them they being reveal'd already To this she replyed that as the Law of God of old was so corrupted by the glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees that they had made the Commandments of God of no effect thereby and therefore God was pleased to rescue his Law from their corruptions by the
most on the contrary we regard often what does most delight our senses or rather what is most for our advantage and thus we render our love vain or please the vanity of those who love us For this cause I have found it more sure to avoid all persons who would love me Nature does often flatter us in this point perswading us that we love the soul of the person when we love only the body and its endowments or our own delectation and advantage And having ask'd her why she would not stay in one fixt place since she was out of her own Country and why she would not be known She answered Tho I am a Stranger yet I may be taken notice of by staying long in one place which I do not desire for men are full of vain curiosity they would hinder my inward repose and quiet without any profit therefore I love rather to travel and continue unknown for men cannot give me any thing nor I them And having replied unto her that men might instruct her in the matter of perfection or that she her self might also instruct some others She answer'd I never learn'd any thing from any man and as to the teaching of them they have too much presumption of their own knowledge to hearken to a Child as I am I choose rather to leave them in their Ignorance than to speak to them to be pursued and persecuted by them I ask'd her if she was not afraid of being wanting in Charity to her Neighbours while she would not teach them or believ'd that they would persecute her in well-doing She said Sir if I had not made the experiment I durst not say so but believe me I have search'd in diverse places for persons who were esteem'd good men to declare my sentiments to them and to manifest the blindness that is now in Christendom and I have not found any body who has followed my sayings on the contrary some have reproach'd and persecuted me so that I have been constrain'd to withdraw out of their reach for they would have treated me hardly and even imprison'd me because I told them the truth which they will not learn because it reproves 'em They oppose themselves and are alarm'd against this truth more than against the Devil himself at this time it is put out of credit those who possess it are oblig'd to hold their peace and to conceal themselves I have experienc'd this in divers Countries where I have every where met with this opposition by which I sufficiently perceive that the darkness is universal thro all the world I cannot be wanting in charity in this point for I have often expos'd my Life for the salvation of my Neighbour and I would do it yet if I found matter dispos'd which failing I am resolv'd to continue alone tho with regret seeing all the world perish while they will have no help and will not know their blindness I do not believe that God will reckon with me as being wanting on my part to my Neighbour in what was in my power I ask'd her from whence she deriv'd her sentiments and what Books she made use of for her spiritual reading She said She had never taken any thing out of Books that she made no use of them nor carried any with her on the way but a small one in which were written the WORDS OF JESVS CHRIST which she carried instead of a Box of Reliques not to read it but out of devotion esteeming those words more than all the Reliques of the world and as for her sentiments that they came to her without her knowing how that in her Childhood she had been instructed in the principles of the Catholick Faith and that coming after wards to the use of reason she found her self replenish'd with the Doctrines of Jesus Christ and entertain'd her spirit with the consideration of the life of the first Christians These thoughts inflam'd her with a desire of imitating and following them therefore she said to her parents and friends Let us go into the Conntry where the Christiaus live whom Jesus Christ has taught And when they answer'd her Here is the Land of the Christians Jesus Christ has taught us She thought within her self that this could not be true that the life which she and all other persons led was not conformable to the Doctrine of Jesus Christ nor to that of the first Christians She always ask'd again Where was the Land of the Christians till every one derided her as if she had been a Fool assuring her that she liv'd in the Land of Christians and that they had the Doctrine of Jesus Christ which she could not comprehend saying I see here Coffers full of Silver costly Furniture and sine Houses whereas Jesus Christ was poor and born in a Stable How can we be Christians I cannot believe this At last she resolv'd not to speak any more of it thinking in the mean time how she might find the way and the opportunity of coming one day into the Land of Christians While she consider'd all the actions and deportment of men she found them always more contrary to her sentiments which made her often weep when she was alone and she made her complaint to Jesus Christ and ask'd him how she might live as a Christian and be his Spouse It seems says she Sir that God had pity on my tender tears for a little after I receiv'd a secret advertisement as if some one had spoken within me and answered my demands This gave me so much consolation that childish plays and pleasures were no more agreeable to me I could find no other contentment but in entertaining my self with these secret thoughts that taught me all the sentiments I still retain not but tho thro my wickedness I lost this conversation for a time when inclining to follow the pleasures of the world and to give my self to the vanities of youth earthly sentiments began to possess my spirit But the great mercy of God has since recall'd me and restor'd the same inward delights with more solidity and light I never acquir'd sciences any other way than by recollection I have no need either of Books or Masters to teach me on the contrary they would be a great hindrance to me if I should make use of them even an Angel from Heaven if visible would hinder me This I could hardly understand saying to her if an Angel from Heaven would be a hindrance to you how dare we speak to you any more to hinder you She said Do not mistake me Sir I mean that an Angel from Heaven can teach me no more than I learn by my inward conversation therefore he would be unprofitable to me but you cannot hinder me so long as you profit by my words my Charity
obliges me to leave my own Contentment of being with God to draw my Neighbour thither I feel indeed that your soul receives its light in speaking to me and that you profit much in hearing me therefore ask what you please and I will answer you as far as it shall please God to permit I am well pleas'd to shew Charity to my Neighbour I find my God always but not always souls dispos'd to receive his instructions He teaches me to prefer Charity to his Consolations and the sensible pleasures which he gives me I felt in my Soul such Consolation as I cannot express in hearing things so admirable Her words pierc'd my Soul I would have done her honour She says to me Beware of that Sir for I hate two things viz. honour and sin You are a Priest to whom honour is due for your dignity I am nothing but a simple Child If God impart to you his Graces by me it is to him you owe the acknowledgment and not to me for I am nothing and if he should withdraw his Graces from me I should be worse than nothing being inclin'd to evil which nothing cannot be We observed in her a profound humility of heart accompanied with great righteousness and truth She did not affect humble discourses but held always the exact truth in every thing saying what was to her praise as well as what was to her contempt telling us that under humble words and countenances the highest Pride was conceal'd that he who affects to be esteem'd humble presumes to bear the name and the appearance of the most perfect vertue because this humility is the foundation of all perfection without which nothing is to be esteem'd for watchings discipline and other mortifications of the body are nothing but vanity without humility Even prayer y without humility is nothing but hypocrisie For God resists the proud and gives his grace to the humble We ask'd her wherein true Humility consists She said In the knowledge of ones self for he who knows himself truly can never attribute to himself any Good either Natural or Spiritual for he will truly perceive that he has not power to make one hâ—â— grow upon his head nor to give himself one day of health or one moment of Life he will see that he is in his nature more miserable than any living creature upon earth depending upon another in every thing which will keep him voluntarily pliant and submissive to others because of the need he has to depend upon another for the maintenance of his body and as to his mind he who knows himself will judge truly that there is nothing more frail and unconstant than the mind of man which changes every moment and cannot know its true Good since we are all born in Ignorance and Weakness there being nothing to be found more miserable than a person subjected to his own passions and will he is in a perpetual slavery without rest or contentment And as to the superiour and divine part what weakness to do Good what bent and inclination to evil what violence to overcome vice in one word man is the abridgment and the abstract of all sorts of miseries This is that which Job so bitterly lamented But whosoever attains to this knowledge of himself he must needs be humble of heart and subject to the Government and Will of God upon whom he knows that he entirely depends Behold wherein true Humility consists pride proceeding from no other thing but from the Ignorance of our selves and from a not depending upon God attributing foolishly some authority and power to our selves desiring to depend upon our own will which is altogether deprav'd and enclin'd to all sort of evil our heart being puff'd up with our very miseries for there is no other thing in us but miseries for which alone we esteem ourselves to be something tho in effect we are worse than nothing which doth no evil By which we abundantly see that humility cannot consist in humble words and gestures but only in the knowledge of our nothingness and that humble actions do often serve as matter for our pride for to desire to appear humble is to be proud We ought to be truly humble before God but not desire to appear such before men We ask'd her wherein true Perfection did consist She said in the LOVE OF GOD For that he who loves God cannot sin nor offend him whom he loves that this love is a law and rule to all our actions that S. Augustin said well in saying Love and do what you will because he who loves God cannot do evil while all that he does centers in this love which he bears to God This love likewise cannot remain idle it must needs produce all sorts of vertues principally Charity which is inseparable from the love of God for since we cannot see or touch God we do it in part in our Neighbour who is the true Image of God This begets in our will a desire of good will toward our Neighbour wishing and procuring him the same temporal and spiritual good things which we wish and pretend to for our selves because of the love we bear to God whom our Neighbour represents from whence all sort of perfections do proceed without which there can be no true perfection since that is all summ'd up and contain'd in the love of God and of our Neighbour for he who loves God will exercise himself in the practice of all sorts of vertues to the end he may render himself agreeable to him whom he loves if he sees that his God has been little he will never desire to be great or that his God has been poor he will never desire to be rich or despis'd he will never desire to be honour'd and so of the rest And if he love his Neighbour out of Charity he will yield to him and serve him in his need wishing him no other evil than he would wish to himself he will willingly bear with his infirmities procuring on all occasions his good and advantage as his own So that all Perfection consists in this LOVE OF GOD AND OF OVR NEIGHBOVR FOR GOD. All the rest are nothing but amusements and lies When we place perfection in any other subject we deceive our selves These answers did ravish us with astonishment being obliged to acknowledge that they were most true in the most perfect and accomplish'd sense Having ask'd her By what means we might attain to this LOVE OF GOD which is true Charity since we are all born in such misery and that God has subjected us to so many evils bodily and spiritual and that our Nature has more need of help and succour than any other Creature To this she answer'd gravely Softly Sir do not blaspheme against God for it is not he who has subjected us to so many
end of the world This is the greatest miracle that God has done upon earth after men have invented so many glosses and opinions to contradict it and the life and manners even of those who are call'd the People of God are so different from this Doctrine that yet notwithstanding it subsists in its integrity in the hands and power of those who raze out and efface it by their manners and actions If it were not upheld by miracles how often would it have been stifled by the wisdom of the learned who if it were in their power would never suffer a Doctrine which so directly reproves their lives and manners In which God shews his almighty power that all men who shall be born upon the earth may have their recourse to this fountain of living water which is the Doctrine of Jesus Christ and that no body may pretend ignorance under pretext that there are different or new doctrines and errors for he who has a desire to search has also the means to find the real truth written in the holy Gospel or the rest of the holy Scriptures It was not therefore necessary to maintain it by so many disputes which Jesus Christ never taught us either by word or by deed Men could not destroy that which God would build It had been more expedient to strengthen and comfort the faithful than to dispute against the erroneous who were raised up only by the Devil they would have perished of themselves for all that is nor built by God shall be destroyed A small number of faithful Believers were far better than so great a multitude of Christians in appearance who do nothing but debate and dispute without possessing true living faith The rotten members corrupt those which are yet sound The Devil is never sooner overcome than by despising him for then he knows not how to take hold of the good but disputes and debates furnish him with diverse weapons to attack and overcome them The Fourth Conference Of the qualities and ways of acting which ought to have been in the Guides of the Church to maintain it in its good estate against all Enemies and that they might not make way for the Spirit of Anti-christ as they have done I Admired all this so powerful discourse desiring always to hear more I ask'd her how she conceiv'd that the Saints were thrust from the Government of the Church when the learned undertook it since many learned and great Doctors have been canoniz'd Saints and held for such She said Sir it is very rare to find a learned Saint or at least one who becomes holy by learning for all humane wisdom is foolishness before God All the Saints are certainly wise but few learned men are Saints I do not mean that there have not been some Saints who were engag'd in the Government of the Church as St. Ambrose St. Augustin and others but I cannot believe that a body is sound when it hath the Leprosy in any of its members The whole body of the Church was sound when to be an Apostle or Minister of the Church 't was only requir'd to embrace an evangelical life for all the rotten members were cut off from it or corrected or indeed they withdrew of themselves not being able to endure so great a sanctity that reprov'd them in all their manners St. Paul forbids Christians so much as to eat with sinners behold how he cuts off the rotten members and elsewhere it is said If thy brother will not believe the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen In many places of Scripture you will find this rejection St. Peter makes Ananias and Saphira fall dead at his feet for their lying St. Paul delivers over to the Devil the Corinthian besides so many others who have been chastized for not having continu'd faithful observers of the Law of the Gospel Others have withdrawn of themselves as Judas to go and hang himself and a great many others who withdrawing themselves gave occasion to Jesus Christ to ask the other Disciples If they would go also to which they reply'd and whither shall we go Lord thou hast the words of eternal life These three means were capable of upholding the holy Church in its Integrity and Holiness as Jesus Christ had establisht it and did himself observe these rules that is that the erroneous should be rejected and despis'd or else corrected for their errors or otherwise permitted to go out and withdraw themselves but these new Doctors have found out as a more perfect mean for the upholding of the Church to admit only the wise and learned to the government of it that the erroneous might be oppos'd and overcome by disputes Is the invention and wise foresight of these men more perfect than the ordinance and doing of God Can that eternal wisdom be ignorant that Learning was necessary for the government of his Church Was it necessary that men should change reform or perfect what Jesus Christ had establisht to wit that the government of his Church should appertain to those who have given evidence of the love they bear him for this cause he puts the question to St. Peter thrice to know if he lov'd him before he made him head of his Church On the contrary men are more inquisitive to know if any Minister of the Church be great and learned than if he love God This is a renversement of spirit which has seiz'd upon men since they would needs be govern'd by the wise of the world and they have despis'd the holy simplicity of the Gospel This mischief could not be brought in by humane frailty it must needs proceed from the malice of the Devil Man indeed thro frailty might backslide and follow Jesus Christ at a little farther distance than he had taught him but could not arrive to such an excess of wickedness as directly to oppose and despise his doctrine and practice This must needs come from that spirit of error who from the beginning entred into the the Church to oppose Christ and is therefore justly called ANTICHRIST He has so cunningly masqu'd and disguis'd his errors with piety and reason that they have been follow'd notwithstanding there have been at diverse times holy persons in the government of the Church The Fifth Conference Of Antichrist and how he rules every where in Spirit I Begg'd she would tell me whom she understood to be Antichrist and how he could introduce himself into the Church in its beginning since it appears from the holy Scriptures that he is to come only towards the end of the world and is called the man of sin the son of perdition and is not to reign but three years and a half She said I perceive Sir that you take for Antichrist a humane body which is to be born by the operation of the Devil I believe that this will fall out at the end of the world yea that he is already born
This is the cause and the origine of all the corruption of the world and that its evil is remediless when a remedy is poyson'd it cannot cure the Disease but rather make it worse as we see the world is declining daily yea every moment to the worse Those who are cut off from the said Church and whom they call Hereticks can never do so great mischief to the true Church as these persons do who call themselves the Fathers and Doctors of the Church tho they are fallen away from the Doctrine of Jesus Christ since no well-meaning persons will follow Hereticks they rather have an abhorrence of them but even well-disposed persons leaning to the direction of those who are intrusted with the spiritual government of the people do insensibly commit infinite evils following the direction of these Doctors while they do not lead them according to the words of Jesus Christ for their own doctrines cannot but poyson the most pious Souls This is a Leprosy which has infected the whole Church of God which is transmitted from one to another so far as that there are no longer any sound members to be found I bewail only those who desire to follow the truth for they know not where to find it for it is not no longer where it ought to be He who believes the contrary is deceiv'd and he who says it deceives others Jesus Christ is the Truth alone The Tenth Conference Of Remission of Sins of Confession and how it is abused I Ask'd her if she did not believe in the Remission of sins since she maintained so confidently that few or none will be saved and that Paradice is shut She answer'd Yes Sir I believe in the Remission of sins In that consists my joy and my hope I have even told you before that assoon as the sinner knocks God opens to him He needs but turn to him to obtain the pardon of his sins how great and numerous soever they may have been It is not for want of mercy in God that I despair of the Salvation of men but because they will not be converted because the most part do not or will not know their sins I have more hopes of the conversion of gross sinners than of persons who make a profession of vertue because of the presumption of their Salvation grounded upon their own Righteousness they cannot be so readily converted as a sinner who knows his evil life he is more ready to repent of it than they who believe that they live well tho it be not true It is of these that Jesus Christ says that he came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance So many Souls will be mistaken at death who think they are certain of their Salvation whereas they are very far from it taking false vertue for the true It is in this that Jesus Christ says that he will judge of Righteousness He cannot judge nor condemn the Righteousness which is truly such before him but he speaks of our Righteousness which is righteous in our judgment and in that of men Such Righteousness will be condemn'd of God because they were not righteous before his piercing eyes as they appear'd unto the eyes of men and to our own Behold why I said that Paradice is shut because I cannot discern at present true Righteousness in the vertuous I ask her Whether sins were pardon'd by the Sacrament of Pennance which is the Confession of sins to the Priests She said Sir there are so many abuses committed by this Sacrament that I believe more sins are committed by it than pardoned for people believe that to obtain the pardon of their sins it is enough that they declare them to the Priest and upon this perswasion they take little care to amend them neither also can they have great contrition for a thing which is so easily effac'd by the small confusion that they have in declaring their sins to the Priest No body would quit his pleasure and the contentment which he finds in sin for so small a trouble as there is in confessing it Hence it comes that we see people continue and even endreâ—se their sins all their life time Thus this Confession which is appointed for their Salvation serves to procure their Damnation because so many Confessions without amendment make profuseness of Sactileges of which they never repent because they believe they shall obtain life with these very means that occasion their death and when the soul is about to be separated from the body they only place the hope of their salvation iâ— the same Confession which has wounded the soul with so great a number of mortal wounds It was a great unhappiness did then befal the world Sir when the Church taught that to live well and to be saved a man must confess often The Catechisms which they teach the Children of Christians are stuâ—tâ—d with such doctrines and in all the Indulgences which the Church bestows she always ordains Confessions as one of the necessary means for obtaining the said Indulgences Every body teaches the doing of what is ordain'd by the Church in this case I would willingly ask if this be not to teach indirectly that a man must in frequently when they teach that he must confess often since Confession does always suppose sin He cannot confess frequently without sinning frequently for they who have not sinn'd have nothing to confess nor can they do it frequently without an express commission of sins that they may have matter of confessing frequently I believe Confessors have invented these multitudes of Confessions that thereby they may draw the people to themselves instead of leading them to Christ A true Shepherd-takes more pains to cure his Seeep and does not neglect its Scab that he may be oblig'd to take it often in his lap as these strange Shepherds do who love rather to draw to themselves souls continually laden with sins than to send them to God by the spirit of true repentance This is an error which was introduc'd into the Church by the cunning of that pernicious Antichrist that he might withdraw the souls of sinners from Christ who calls them saying Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden and I will give you rest and to lead them to men who slatter and keep them in their sins under a false promise of their Salvation for there is none but God only who can pardon sin and men who pretend to be in Gods stead and do not observe his word are Seducers since his word only can pardon sins It is true it was transferred to men with the same vertue which it had in the body of Jesus Christ but this was only as long as they should continue to persevere faithfully in that word and no otherwise The Apostles did all their works by vertue of this word and not by their own authority These Confessors do the quite contrary remitting sins according to their fancies and will
wisdom the original of all goodness and incomprehensible power In short the Church is God himself who cannot fail or err therefore Jesus Christ says he that hears you hears me because the word of God is God as our word is us our heart must be where we speak and also our understanding even so where the word of God is which is his Church there the holy spirit is which is his understanding and the almighty power which is his heart From whence it appears that the holy Trinity composes the Church which is no other but the power of the Father the wisdom of the Holy Spirit and the good will of the Son All these things are found united in the Church for God having a design to make man after his likeness he transferr'd to him his own qualities therefore he gives to his Church the power to pardon sins goodness by the communication of his word and his wisdom by the understanding of that word Jesus Christ who took human flesh has brought us the word of God which has taught us his wisdom and shewn us his love even as by our word we express what is in our understanding and the affections of our heart which God also did to us when he sent us his word upon earth by the organ of the humanity of Jesus Christ He made this alhance with men that he might have them after his likeness Therefore he has call'd them his Spouse and his Church which is altogether divine and spiritual But men would indeed disguise it and render it material sensual and carnal in giving the name of Church to men who do not possess this word without which they cannot be the Church nor have the power the wisdom nor the love which God gave to his lawful Spouse Therefore they may greatly err and fail in appointing and approving of rules for Christians And whereas you ask Whether all these outward Devotions which are now in use in Christendom be good and saving I doubt it very much for Jesus Christ taught not such varieties of devotion as we see now adays but he taught solid and inward vertues as Faith Hope and Charity Faith to believe in an Almighty God of whom we hold all things Hope to hope in him only without putting our confidence in any other thing and Charity to love him alone without placing our affection on any created thing whether in heaven or in earth These are the instructions of Jesus Christ but those at present who are call'd Church-men teach no other thing but to resort to Churches to frequent the Sacraments and to say a great many vocal prayers by rote and number With these outward things they make men believe that they are true Christians which cannot be since Christianity consists in a spiritual and inward life for it is divine and not humane If these outward devotions had been means proper for us to become good Christians we may be perswaded that Jesus Christ would have taught us them for he had more wisdom to foresee our need and weakness than these guides of souls can have and likewise more love to take care that nothing should be wanting to us for the time to come He left only his word to serve for the nourishment of our souls saying that it is the bread come down from heaven and that whosoever shall eat it shall not die whereas these persons give us only the Eucharist for nourishment in which the promise of Jesus Christ cannot be accomplisht for the host does not descend from heaven as his word does and they who eat it do not all live for ever For we see abominable souls even Sorcerers do communicate frequently and thereafter die in their sins We see also Bigots communicate very often who never attain to true faith nor the knowledge of the truth without which they cannot live for evel How then should the word of Jesus Christ be fulfill'd that they who eat this bread shall not die since all those die eternally after having so often eaten the Eucharist Jesus Christ cannot lie for he who incorporates his word shall never die because it gives life and nourishment to the soul and makes it live eternally I said to her This being suppos'd we must needs be in a time of great darkness in which there are many errors and many more erroneous who run blindly to damnation because the most pious hold Rome and all her Council for the Church She said Sir the Devil upon a false supposition finds matter enough to raise fine edifices I have no particular knowledge of Rome nor of her Council but I tell you in truth if the Pope with all his Council would say any thing to me which was contrary to the Doctrine of Jesus Christ I should not be oblig'd to believe him nor yet are any other Christians The Bark should never be taken for the Wood because it can never beat Fruit as the Tree would do tho it had little Bark The true Church where-ever it is brings forth always holy Fruits and if the Tree be known by its fruit we will know the Church by what it brings forth The practice of those who are Members of Rome doth sufficiently evidence to me that the holy spirit cannot be the Author of those things which are contrary to the practice of Jesus Christ We see the Prelates attended with Servants Coaches and Trains like to secular Princes their Furniture and Houses do surpass them Iâ— they had faith to believe that God being man was poor and despisd they would blush for shame as all other Christians to make themselves thus to be honoured Their faith being dead they run blindly to damnation This vail which is put before their eyes to make them believe that the Church ought to be upheld by worldly honours serves for nothing but to flatter them and to render them insensible of their misery For if the Church had had need of temporal wealth and honour Jesus Christ would have provided it sufficiently for all appertains to him being King and Creator of all things He knew all the revolutions of time he would surely have foretold them that it should be permitted them at a certain time to make themselves be honour'd and serv'd but on the contrary he foretels that God will cast down the mighty from their seats that he will resist the proud and will exalt the humble and there is nothing which he says more expresly than that we ought to learn of him to be meek and lowly in heart to which Lesson the arrogance and the pride of Christians now are directly opposite and they who may be called by their proper names Antichristians because they are thus oppos'd to Christ for these only are Christians who put in practice this doctrine of Jesus Christ all others who bear this name without doing it are nothing but rotten Members of the Church and it were better they were cut off
God for he who knows that he is but a pure nothing he must confess that there is something above him from whom he has receiv'd what he is because a Nothing cannot do any thing nor give any thing to its self Every one knows well that there has been a time in which he was not and when he is made he does not know how nor from whence he is taken which obliges him to acknowledge a God the Author of all things and even tho he went not out of himself he must know God All these truths seem'd to me so clear that I knew not how they could be call'd in question tho in the mean time we see no body attains to this knowledge of God or of himself that it must needs be acknowledged that we were fallen into a total forgetfulness of God and ignorance of our selves and that we were assuredly deceiv'd and seduc'd She said to me Sir the deceit is so great that no body can comprehend it We run as it were blindfold to damnation without perceiving it and whereas those who guide us ought to set us again into the right way they are the very persons who deceive us because they themselves are deceived by Satan Wherefore there is nothing to be hop'd for but a total ruine which will be irreparable seeing that it is eternal We are careful enough to avoid the perils of the body but we are too little careful to avoid the perils of the soul which are without comparison much more considerable Man having forsaken his God from whom can he expect Salvation When we leave God assuredly he leaves us not that he withdraws himself from us in respect of himself because he abides always through all without any change But he withdraws himself from us when we withdraw our selves from him for a thing which we leave cannot abide with us it is always as far from us as we are far from it tho we only make this separation It is fit to understand how we can truly say that God leaves us or forsakes us because many understand it amiss in attributing to God the cause of this forsaking It may be said that God has forsaken us now because this is true but we ought always to understand in what manner he leaves us for otherwise we blaspheme against God not by words but intention in conceiving that God does of himself forsake us The Fourteenth Conference How God forsakes us and how we forsake him by distraction of Spirit by which the Devil has seduc'd men withdrawing them from the Love and Gratitude which they owe to God who by all things does most sensibly discover himself to be alone lovely I Ask'd her by what mean we had fallen into such an ignorance and abandoning of God and of our selves She said By the straying of our spirit which has left off to entertain it self with the consideration of the marvels of God Our soul was created to love him and to bless him continually in which consists the continual prayer which Jesus Christ has recommended to us since he became man for we have no other thing to do in this world but this continual prayer God having given us all the rest We see in the Creation of Adam that he had no need to think on any other thing but to bless and love God and if he had entertain'd himself in this praise and love we had never fallen into all the miseries under which we yet groan The Devil who is nam'd the Serpent made it his business to entertain them to the end he might distract them from the Communion which they ought to have with God How soon he got the Woman to listen to him he began to draw her affections which were due to God only towards the fruits of the earth which were given her only for use and not to place her affection upon them from hence he likewise incited her to desire knowledge of good and evil withdrawing the attention which she had to God to apply it unto curiosity and a desire to be great and wise Lo this was the cause why we did abandon God and lose the knowledge of our selves Our first Parents began to do this in the terrestrial Paradise and we have continu'd it from generation to generation until we have arrived unto a total forgetfulness of God and an entire ignorance of our selves For if you will consider it well Sir you will be oblig'd to say that all men say really in their hearts There is no God because all their actions are done as if there were none and this evil proceeds from no other thing but that our spirit has no longer communion with God I ask'd her Whether men now do the same things which our first Parents did in the earthly Paradise and if they let themselves be thus seduced by the Devil She answered Truly Sir they do much worse for they do not follow the suggestion of the Devil in one thing only but in all their actions desires and enterprizes Who does not see now adays that all men have left off to entertain their spirits with God and that they have fix'd them on the consideration of created things hearkening willingly unto things curious and pleasant to their senses as our Mother Eve did And when the Devil proposes to our thoughts any thing which seems to be either pleasant or profitable to our nature who does not presently follow it without restraint and without fear and instead of fixing upon the consideration of the wonderful works of God we are continually busied in seeking our pleasures in the creatures in self-complacency or in the desires and coveting of earthly goods which things do entirely withdraw us from the total attention that we ought to have upon God alone for whom we are created and not for these things which are subjected to us and which God created for our footstools as the earth and metals and we will needs carry them upon our shoulders yea even upon our head and in our heart The Devil represents to us that these earthly pleasures are delightful that these beauties are agreeable that with Money we may do and know every thing and we believe this deceiver and follow his counsels employing the whole time of our life in seeking our pleasures and contentments and in heaping together earthly goods which is the cause that we are diverted from God for our spirit and understanding cannot attend upon two things so distant from one another as is God and the creatures We abandon the All to seek the Nothing as did our first Parents I said to her That Adam and Eve were expresly forbidden to eat of the fruit of a tree and that we are not thus expresly forbidden by God to love the creatures She reply'd He has not only once thus forbidden us but many times in different times and ages The Prohibition which God gave unto our first Parents Sir was
deserves to be sought and Men do not deserve that God should seek them There are a great many Persons who say That they desire to love God but they desire not to quit their earthly Affections It is to no purpose to pray for such because they oppose themselves to the Grace of God not being willing to part with that which resists his Grace no more than God will give his Graces but to those who seek and desire them effectually in forsaking themselves and all other created things to find God I said to her That all her Sentiments were very far from the Sentiments of Men who believed that they might love God while they loved themselves or some other thing not vitiously She replied to me All Men now are possess'd with the Spirit of Error and of Ignorance For to believe that we may love God and our selves or other Creatures is a great Error and a false Persuasion for there is no relation between God and the Creature that they could dwell together in the same Place Our Soul was created Divine and Spiritual to the End God may rule there and if we debase it by the Love of Material and Human Things it is rendred uncapable of Divine things for that which is Carnal cannot be Spiritual and as Cold and Heat cannot abide together so Spiritual Things cannot dwell with Natural the one does always chase away the other a Contrary its Contrary Men live now as carnally as the Beasts being sensible of nothing but according to our brutish Senses And yet we would persuade our selves that we are Christians In which we are greatly deceiv'd for the Life of a Christian is a Spiritual Life not a Natural The Beasts are not created but for the Nature of Men but these are created for God who is a Divine Spirit We may sufficiently perceive this by considering the Course of our Life which is nothing but Pains Labours Vexations and Miseries Could it be possible that God should have created us for Ends so miserable as what we possess in this World This truly would be a miserable End God can never do such an Evil For no Evils can proceed from him but all sorts of Good The End of our Creation must be Divine and Spiritual or else Man would have Reason to curse the Day of his Birth which makes way for a miserable Life wherein those who are esteemed the most Happy are most to be bewailed We will esteem that Man happy who is a King a Prince or a Lord and they are all more miserable than a poor Peasant who has no other Cares but to maintain his Family and his Person whereas these others are oblig'd to maintain their Train their Subjects their Offices their Honours which they are sometimes oblig'd to defend at the Peril of their Lives Whereas a poor Fellow will accomplish the Course of his Life in Quietness notwithstanding of the Affronts which he receives A rich Man is likewise esteem'd happy for his Riches but what Labours does he not undergo to acquire them Or what Cares or Disquiets to preserve them It is altogether a Trade to have Riches A Man needs no other Work for all his Life-Time but to keep them well We will esteem a Person happy who is raised to an Estate Honour and Dignities Nevertheless there is nothing more miserable he being subject to all that concerns his Office not having sometimes the Leisure to attend upon himself How Circumspect must he be that he displease not the Great and that he may satisfie every Body which is indeed very difficult What Care must he take to provide for all that maintain him in Honour fearing lest he fall into any Disgrace or Contempt How must he bear with the Envious and with Slanderers In short Sir all these things which are call'd Happiness in this World are nothing but phantastical and imaginary Goods and real Evils They are so many Rattles which the Devil shakes that he may divert the Attention we ought to have upon God and he makes us forget the End for which we are created by all these Trifles which are nothing but real Amusements of Children and they make us perish through Ignorance rendring us uncapable of loving God I ask'd her Whether then all States Riches and Honours in which God or Nature has placed Men ought to be abandon'd And if we could not love God with any of these things She replyed They must be certainly left Sir before God can be lov'd Not that all these things are evil in themselves but because of the Infirmity of our Nature which has not found the Art of possessing them in God and while we possess them in themselves they are assuredly evil and hurtful to our Soul hindring it from Communion with God and from attaining to the End for which it was created It is just the same as if a Traveller instead of advancing on his Way to arrive at the Place which he aims at would needs stop in all the Gardens through which he must pass to gather and eat the Fruits which he found in them or to pass his Time in Smelling all the Flowers which he saw there We would reckon such a Person a Fool as in effect he would be because these Amusements and his Loss of Time would deprive him of the Happiness of arriving at the Place he design'd for and Night surprizing him by the Way would put him in hazzard of being pillag'd by the Robbers or devour'd by Wild-Beasts or at least incommoded as to his Rest which he would be oblig'd to take on the hard Earth with many Inconveniencies and Miseries All these Evils and Dangers would befal him because of the Folly he had committed in stopping among these Flowers and Fruits If he had only look'd on them at a distance smell'd them as he past along or pull'd an Apple for his Thirst this had not retarded his Journey but might have made it more Light by the Smell of the Flowers and the Refreshment of the Apple Even so is it as to Wealth Honours and Riches We being all Travellers and Pilgrims in this Life which ought to be compar'd but to a Day because of its short Continuance We travel towards Eternity but in our way we must pass through the Garden of this World wherein we perceive Fruits and Flowers which tickle our Senses On one Side we see the Riches which our Parents have left us or the Honour to which we have succeeded with some Place or Dignity These are the pleasant Fruits presented to our Eyes On the other side we perceive the Odour of Wine and of exquisite Meats rich Moveables beautiful Faces These are as so many divers Flowers and Fruits which charm our Smell but if we stop to taste and handle them we hinder our Journey to Eternity and we put our selves in Hazzard of being surpriz'd by Death and devour'd by the Devil who is always watching to
says That they shall live for ever He has said elswhere That neither Whoremongers nor Drunkards shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Neverthelss we see daily such Persons receive the Eucharist Can they live for ever without entring into the Kingdom of Heaven There would be a great Contradiction in the Words of Jesus Christ He cannot save those whom he condemns nor say to those who shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven that they shall live for ever It is assuredly his Word which he calls his Flesh and his Blood For whosoever shall eat it that is to say incorporate it as the Nourishment of his Soul it must needs be that he live for ever for this Word gives Life Eternal and he who feeds upon it as on his daily Bread can never die this is the Tree of Life seeing it gave Life to all things This Word has created Heaven and Earth of nothing How should it not give Life unto the Soul which receives it And if it have the Force to translate Bread into the Body of Jesus Christ as they teach how shall it not change our Souls into the Spirit of Life Eternal if we receive and incorporate it as becomes Jesus Christ said These are my Mother my Sisters and my Brethren who hear my Word and do it To shew that he esteems more the Receiving of his Word than the having contributed to the Formation of his Human Body it being most certain that the Virgin Mary was more happy in receiving and doing his Word than in being his natural Mother I said to her That there were many Errors in the Church if the Sense that she proposed ought to be received That it was very clear and intelligible but it had never been understood after this manner She said Blessed be God Sir that he grants yet this Mercy to the World to send his Light amidst the so obscure Darkness into which it is brought at present All the highest Mysteries of our Faith are involved in this Obscurity nothing is understood in a perfect Sense and they do often apply Senses contrary to the Truth They have walk'd as groping even till Now. It is no Wonder if they fall from one Error into another insensibly It is a great Happiness that it has pleas'd God to let us live even until the Time that he comes to enlighten the World after that so great a number have perish'd through Ignorance We have no more deserv'd it than they Let us endeavour to apply it rightly unto our Salvation without letting the occasion slip which is now so freely offered us How many souls are there of such a tender Conscience that they dare not reject a Sentiment which comes from the Roman Church or any Decree of its College fearing to offend God because they look upon it and take it for the Holy Church I knew a Person of a very good Life a Doctor of Theology who said That if the Pope forbad him to read the Gospel he durst not read it any longer So much was he preoccupied with this Belief that Rome is the Holy Church Upon this Supposition all the most pious do follow that which is Evil without perceiving it because they have taught us that we owe a blind Obedience As if we were permitted to follow Evil blindfold which is a great Error For we are all oblig'd to discern whether what we follow be good or bad For Example This Doctor could not abstain from Reading of the Gospel without offending God highly tho' the Pope had forbidden him to read it because this Prohibition is contrary unto Jesus Christ who has brought his Word from Heaven to be the Rule of our Life and the Nourishment of our Souls and has said That it must abide in us for ever How could we cast it behind us because a Pope forbids it who cannot destroy what God has establish'd nor forbid what he has commanded without being Antichrist for all that is against Christ is assuredly Antichrist We may indeed believe and follow what the Pope and his Councils do ordain us when they are things conformable to the Law of God and the Doctrine of Jesus Christ which is no other thing but the Explication of the Law Tho' this were taught us by the Devil himself we could not do ill to follow it But the things which are contrary ought never to be blindly follow'd God has made us Reasonable Creatures to the End we may discern Good and Evil. All the Blindness that a true Christian ought to have is to captivate his Spirit under the incomprehensible Works of God not to captivate it to believe that that which is Evil is Good A man must have lost Sense and Spirit to abandon himself to such a blind Obedience which nevertheless the most part of pious Christians do who do yield in all things to the Ordinances of the Pope or of his Council If this Mischief be not shortly at an End and if the Truth be not discover'd in this Point all the World will perish Because many things will be determin'd which will be against God tho' it were nothing but the Infallibility of the Pope It contradicts directly the Truth because no Man can ever be infallible how holy soever he may be S. Peter the first Pope did expresly deny his Master and did really err in dissembling because of the Jews for which S. Paul reproves him Can it ever be said without Blasphemy that a Man is Infallible secing Infallibility appertains to God alone Neither the Pope nor any other can err or fail in following the Doctrine of Jesus Christ but in following their own Judgments or those like themselves they may fail and err greatly I ask'd her How it was possible that God should have left his Church for so long a Time in Errors She said Sir God has not left his Church in Errors she can never err nor fail for she is one and the same thing with God As the Bridegroom is but one Flesh with his Spouse even so the Church is but one Spirit with God Therefore she can never be left in Errors not for one Moment But the Errors which I discover to you Sir are in Men not in the Church for the Church is no where but in the Souls which possess the Doctrine of Jesus Christ who have never err'd so long as they abide in it The Church is a Spiritual and Invisible Spirit which renders it self visible by the Human Bodies which this Spirit animates So long as these Bodies are animated and possest with this Spirit of Jesus Christ they are all Members which make up this Church But if this Spirit withdraw himself they are no more but Members of Flesh not Members of the Church Errors therefore are insinuated into these Members of Flesh not into the Spirit of God But whereas these Members of Flesh did possess formerly the Spirit of the Church
Terrestrial and Carnal Church By this the Devil has reaped much and replenish'd his infernal Granaries to our Dammage Therefore I intreat you Sir that you would not seek for the Church in any other Place but in the Centre of your Soul For there is so much Deceit under the Mask of Piety that the most knowing are catch'd by it Many are made Saints who are of the Synagogue of Satan I said to her That I had not that Method to discern and find God in the Centre of my Soul entreating she would declare to me the way how I might find him there She said Sir you will see him by the Eyes of Faith If you believe that God is everywhere he is also truly in your Soul and even in a special and particular manner as a thing which is most like to him He is in the Elements giving them Being and Subsistence else they could not subsist He is in the Herbs Trees and other Plants in giving them Vegetation He is in the Animals giving them Life as he does our Bodies For if God were not in all these things they would resolve into the same Nothing from whence they have been taken for no created thing can keep so much as one Plant of an Herb in Life It is God that does all We see this with our Natural Eyes how much more firmly ought we to believe that he is in our Soul which is Divine and Incomprehensible This Quality comes nearer to God than any other Creature We cannot comprehend what a Soul is no more than we can comprehend what God is It has Qualities so approaching to him that it may with Reason be call'd a dependent Deity For we see indeed the Works which it operates in our Body but we cannot see what it is but by its Operations as we cannot know God or perceive what he is but by the Works which he produces to our Knowledge Our Soul gives Motion to our Body and Agility to our Understanding makes the Memory to remember and moves all the other Powers of the Soul We feel and see that this is done in us nevertheless no Body can comprehend how this is done but we must confess that our Soul is a thing incomprehensible as well as God and since there cannot be many Gods we must conclude that God is the Centre of Souls and that they spring from him as a Branch from the Root And as Trees cannot bear Branches without having a Root so the Soul cannot have a Being if God do not give and produce it By which you may abundantly perceive Sir that of necessity God is the Centre of our Soul and that it cannot move but by him no more than the Body moves it self but by the Motion of our Soul This being so we ought therefore to seek God where he is and he being no where so expressly as in the Centre of our Soul it is there that he must be sought as in the true Place of his Residence And if you ask me the Method and the Way to find him in the bottom of your Soul there is no other but to remove all the Hindrances casting out of your Soul all earthly Affections that you may have no other but for him Your Soul will no sooner be free from all these Earthly Affections than it will fall into God as the Stone falls into its Centre I know no other Method but this Disingagement from our selves and from all other things to find God and to become one with him I have sometimes sought him without me by Actions which did seem good but I have since remark'd that those serv'd for Distractions and the more I acted outwardly so much the more did I stray from my God Therefore Sir become wise by my Loss and do not lose your Time in seeking means out of your self for they serve us often for Hindrances Our Soul is his true Temple and the Place of his Rest Let us only remove all that is between him and our Soul and we shall see him Face to Face to speak after our manner That is to say we shall see him clearly by Faith and shall know him by the Operations which he will make in us and shall taste him by the Repose and Consolation of our Conscience I thought that I understood well enough this Truth and that Faith dictates to us that God is the true Centre of our Soul But to taste him and speak sensibly to him by his Operations and Notices this was above my Capacity entreating her to tell me how this was done She said to me Sir The Soul is a Spirit and God is a Spirit and communicates himself in Spirit not with verbal Words but spiritual Motives Which nevertheless are more intelligible than the finest Eloquence of the World God communicates himself to the Soul as the Sun to his Rays and the Soul to its God as the Rays to the Sun by the great Unity and Dependence there is between God and the Soul When once it is denuded of its self it has no more need of Sight or Mouth to understand God than we have need of Words to understand our own Conceptions So soon as the Soul is disingag'd from it self it is so transform'd into God that it is entirely swallow'd up in him and becomes one thing with him having no longer any Will but his nor Desires but what he wishes and it does not move it self any longer but by the Motions of God So that the Soul and God are not any more but one and the same thing And if you do not taste God and understand not his Will it is assuredly because there is yet some Hindrance Do not afflict your self for this Sir but take the Pains to disingage your Soul as much as is possible for you This is all that you can do For to be troubled that you do not feel nor understand the Motions of God would be a Presumption for if your Soul were capable of it God would abundantly give it He wants your Disingagement fearing that you would abuse his Graces in living yet to your self I was wholly ravish'd with Pleasure to hear how God communicates himself to the Soul But perceiving that I was yet far from this Happiness I ask'd her By what means I might be disingag'd from my self and from every other thing that my Soul might taste God She said to me It is very easie Sir to be disingag'd from every thing by considering what it is For if we were not distracted and wandring in our Mind it would be impossible that we could love our selves or other created Things We cannot do it but through a Diversion or straying of the Mind For if we seriously reflect and consider what we love in loving our selves or other Creatures we must confess that we are Senless For what do we in loving our selves we love a thing very Miserable Impotent Unconstant and of short continuance there being no created thing more
Evangelical Counsels for observing it aright He is despis'd and rejected by the Great Men of this World He is also Reproach'd Buffeted held for a Wicked One To shew that the Praises of Men are not to be sought for but their Reproaches rather to be endur'd for the Love of God At last he is put to Death for the Truth enduring all with Patience To teach us to suffer patiently even to Death And all that he has endur'd has been to give us an Example I ask'd her In case Men had not come to so great Extremity of Evil whether she believ'd that Jesus Christ would have come so soon to take Human Flesh She Replied No Sir he would not have come till the end of the World to judge and condemn Men in abolishing Evil He would have come in the glory of all his Majesty with all his Angels not in Contempt and Sufferings He would have come to Reign not to undergo an infamous Death If you read attentively the Prophets Sir you will find that they speak far more of this coming in Glory than of that in Reproach For the coming of Jesus Christ in Glory is as it were THE SUM OF THE DESIGNS WHICH GOD HAS OVER MEN And the coming in Reproach is as it were the Accident of the said Designs Therefore there will be much more spoken of through all the Holy Scriptures Read Sir attentively all the said Scriptures from the creation of the World you will find that they all will aim at this Kingdom of Jesus Christ on Earth with Men for this is the end of their Creation God can never reign fully in Men until the time of this coming in Glory because that they living yet in the liberty of doing evil do not yet give full possession to God to reign in their Souls for very often or at least by accident Sins do rule there Which we have seen in the greatest Saints of the World A David a Solomon all the Apostles and Disciples of Jesus Christ yea all those who have since been esteemed Saints have all in general fallen into Trespasses and have strayed from God for some time By which he could not find in them his perfect reign as he will do after his glorious Coming For then all will be Deify'd Bodies as well as Souls And there will be an end of all Evil. God will then have his full dominion over all Flesh which has never been For the most part of Men in all times have Blasphemed and Despised him tho all were created by him to love him and to adore him They have yielded their honour and love to the Creatures instead of the Creator Is it not fit Sir that these things be one day repaired and that God be worshipped in Spirit and in Truth by his Creatures I said to her That assuredly God would after that manner be adored in Heaven but that I could not comprehend how he could be so here upon Earth She said I perceive Sir that you take for Heaven and Paradise some precise place or some particular part which ferves for a Residence to God And for my part I cannot believe that there is any thing capable of containing God for he is greater than all things and cannot be contain'd by any thing less than himself The Heaven is but his Creature which we say is on high and God has neither high nor low for he contains all Heaven and Paradise is always in him for there can be no other but his Presence and he who is in his Presence is in Heaven and Paradise For my part I know no other They tell us many imaginary things of God and of Paradise which have very little relation to what they are It seems God is like an earthly King who is lodged in some Palace of Wood or Stone These are all Speculations of Men as earthly as their Affections For God cannot have any fixt place for his Residence seeing he comprehends all things When I say that God will be upon Earth reigning with Men the Earth will then be Paradise for in all Places where he is there is always Paradise If God were in Hell Hell would then be Paradise there being no other but the presence of God That makes in all places where it is Heaven and Paradise When this presence is in our Soul our Soul is Heaven How can you not comprehend Sir that God could be truly adored in Spirit and in Truth upon Earth seeing he has so often promised to make an Alliance with Men Must not this Alliance be made upon Earth God being a pure Spirit has no need of any Station but Man having a Body has need of some Place to contain him The Earth was created for this necessity that it might contain the Bodies of Men. Why then should not God come upon Earth to dwell with them seeing they cannot go where God is in that purity of Spirit Of necessity he must either come upon Earth or indeed they could not be entirely united together I asked her When Jesus Christ shall come to reign upon Earth and to Allie himself with Men She said As sooon as the Plagues shall have rooted out all the Wicked or the greatest part of them then He will appear in the Clouds and all the World shall see him You may indeed live till then Sir if God please For my part I hope to see him and to reign with him Eternally In this all my hopes and my joy do consist For this Life is too miserable to take any contentment in it without the hope of this time to come I say it will be very shortly for I see the Measure full and Mens sins are come to the height They cannot be more numerous And if there were not some small Veil of Human respect they would Murther Rob commit Adultery and do all sorts of Abomination publickly as well as they do them before God But Pride keeps these things yet concealed that they may not be despised by Men And as for what passeth only before God or a few Persons they make no more reckoning of it It seems all is lawful provided it be not discovered What greater Evil can be expected The abomination of Desolation is in the Sanctuary Tho Christians be the People of God they have denied his Faith and have abandoned it to become Idolaters of one another Every one has his proper Idol one worships his own Body another his own Spirit another his Learning another his Riches another his Honours another his Children or other Creatures In short none adore God but with their Lips Is it a wonder that the Judgment is near when we see that all Men have abandoned their God Is it not time that he likewise abandon them which he cannot do but according as Man withdraws himself from God by the same consequence God is withdrawn from Man for two things cannot stay together when the one withdraws it self
Mind So that this daily Bread is not given us but acquired by Cares and Labours No more than the Food of our Soul which is the Word of God which ought daily to maintain it This is not given us daily for we must be at great care to search for it yea we know not where to find it So many Glosses so many Explications of this word that they would indeed make us swallow Poyson for Bread We must indeed watch and be at pains to find this true Food of our Souls But in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ the Word of God will be given us by the mouth of Jesus Christ himself which will nourish and fully satisfie our Soul As likewise all things necessary for the Entertainment of our Body shall be given us without pains care or labours The Fruits will grow so agreeable and substantial that it will require no other pains to be sustain'd by them but the delight of eating them Our Bodies will have no longer need to be covered or warmed for all the Elements will of themselves serve them with delight All this will be daily real gifts for they will be all freely given us of God without our Care or Labour Whereas in this World we have nothing but are as Workmen who receive the Wages of their Labours So that God cannot have made us ask the things which are impossible for us to obtain in this World Of necessity he must give us another in which we may obtain in Perfection the effect of our Perfections For as much as he never gives any thing imperfectly neither will he have us to put up unprofitable Requests as the seven of the Lords Prayer would be For there is not one of them which can be perfectly given in this World For if God did not forgive us our Offences but in the same manner that we forgive those who have offended us there would befal us no great Happiness in Paradise because those whose Offences we forgive are not always in our presence on the contrary we withdraw from them Sometimes out of Aversion sometimes that we may have no more occasion of being offended by them If God pardon us after this manner we would be of the Damned Souls For the Hell of our Soul is no other but the privation of the presence of God And as we do not give our Goods nor our Favours to those who have offended us and we think we do them enough of favour when we do not wish them Evil nor rejoyce in their Misery If God after he has pardon'd us our Sins should give us no more of his Goods and Graces than we give unto those who have offended us what Felicity could we hope for after the Pardon of our Sins but to fall again yet into greater Faults For his Graces and Benefits are necessary for us every moment to preserve us from Evil. And if he did not give us his Kingdom and his Treasures from whom could we expect for Happiness For no other but he can give it By which it appears clearly that we cannot ask for this World here That he forgive us our Offences as we forgive those who have Offended us because we would ask an Evil thing for our selves It must needs be that we ask these things for the time that we shall live with Jesus Christ in his Kingdom where being united unto his great Mercy we shall pardon our Enemies so perfectly that we shall desire the same Happiness for them which we shall receive from God who will not only pardon us our Sins but will deal with us as if we had never offended him giving us his Treasures and his Glory which will oblige us to do the same with those who shall have offended us For it would be unjust for us not to shew to our Neighbour the same Mercy which we receive from God This we cannot do nor comprehend during this miserable Life where being remov'd from his perfect Mercy we are as far from the Commiseration of our Neighbour and we can no ways beg of God that he deal with us as we deal with our Brethren without begging our ruin seeing if he should grant us this Request he would confine us to Hell which is the privation of the Vision of God From whence it appears That we look for another Heaven and another Earth where God will grant us all the Requests that he has made us to ask by this Prayer seeing that not one of them can be granted in this present World For if we examine also the Sixth Lead us not into Temptation We will find that the more we Pray the more we are Tempted For the Holy Spirit says If you would serve God prepare your Heart for Temptation Could Jesus Christ have made us to pray not to be led into it while in the mean time he lets us fall into it the more strongly This would be unjust He has taught us to ask nothing but what he will give us in a compleat and perfect sense But this will be after that we shall have accomplished this short penitence and shall go to reign with him Then there will no longer be any thing in us that will lead us into Temptation for we shall be fully satisfied with the presence of God not being able to love nor desire any other thing nor to move but by the motion of the Holy Spirit who will deifie even our Bodies which can no longer be led into Temptation as they will be always during this Life For the Devil will never cease to make War against us and more against the Good than the Wicked who are his own without trouble But for the Good he must win them by the strength of Temptations Therefore we must not hope to obtain in this Life the Sixth Petition of this Prayer Which is not to be led into Temptation no more than the seventh and last wherein we pray that God May deliver us from Evil For we shall never be delivered from Evil Seeing we are still more and more opprest with it and the Just themselves are never without suffering of Evils which the Wicked do them in abundance Despising Persecuting and pursuing them even to Death If these are never delivered from Evil how much less can others be who are likewise charged with the Evils of the Soul besides those of the Body which are common to all Could we always pray to be delivered from Evil without ever obtaining it What vain Prayer would this be to groan under the burthen of all sorts of Evils in Body by so many kinds of Diseases and in Spirit by so many Infirmities Weaknesses and Inconstances and in Soul by so many Sins and Imperfections and with this to pray to be delivered from the Evils which are unseparable from this Life It must needs be that God would have us to ask at present what we ought to obtain afterward And if this Kingdom of Heaven were nothing but
spiritual or imaginary as they would sometimes make us believe why would Jesus Christ have made us to ask so many different things If Paradise were not accompanied with the Earth and with all the Creatures which we see and with our Body with all its Functions why must we pray to have our daily Bread when there will be no need of Eating Why should we pray that the Name of God may be Hallowed seeing all the Blessed have always Hallowed it and will never cease to do it tho' we should not pray for it Must there not be in this a Sense which we have not as yet discovered and that this Hallowing of the Name of God ought to be underderstood that all the Men who are upon Earth may Hallow his Name for it cannot be done fully by Angels by the Blessed and by some particular Souls living upon Earth But this Name must be Hallowed generally by all Men in Body and in Soul Which will be when this Kingdom shall come wherein the Will of God shall be done upon Earth as the Angels and the Blessed do it in Heaven and wherein shall be given us also our daily Bread that is every day in particular Graces in abundance for our Souls and all sort of delights to satisfie our Bodies wherein we shall pardon our Brethren their Sins as we shall see that God has pardoned us in giving us besides Pardon Eternal Happiness wherein there shall be no Temptations of the Enemy nor of our Nature for it will not any longer feel any vicious Inclinations where in short there can never enter any Evil but all sort of Happiness of Joy and of Contentments Perfect and Compleat Incomprehensibly Delightful This is what S. Paul saw when he said That they had never entred into the Mind of Man the things which God had prepared for his Elect. All the Holy Scriptures are full of this Kingdom which is to come to us This is the Feast signified by the Parable of the King Who made a Marriage for his Son This Son is Jesus Christ who is Allied with the Human Creature His Nativity in Flesh was but the betrothing wherein he has indeed promised unto Man an Alliance as he had done before to Abraham which will be accomplish'd and consummated only at the coming of Jesus upon Earth in Glory when he shall be perfectly United to Man Body and Soul with the Divinity all together This is that also which is signified unto us by the Parable Of the Master who went into a far Country giving Talents to his Servants to every one according to his Ability and at his return he demanded of each of them an account to give them their Wages Jesus Christ having given his Graces and Talents by his Gospel has ascended unto his Father which is the Long Journey But he will return in his Glory to demand an account of every one of all the Graces received in this time and to place his faithful Servants over great things and make them enter into the Joy of their Lord. This is also the Parable Of the Master who made a Feast and sent his Servants to call those that were bidden who all excused themselves One had bought Oxen another a Field another had taken a Wife The Birth of Jesus Christ was the time when he came to invite Men to the Feast which God would make that he might take his delight with Men and as soon as the day shall come that all shall be ready upon Earth for receiving the Son of Man in his Glory those who were invited by his Evangelical Doctrin will excuse themselves One will say I have been a Merchant I must wait upon my Merchandise I cannot attend it Another will say I have been a Labourer I must take care of my Labours I cannot attend it Another will say I have been Married I must satisfie my Wife and Family I cannot attend it And when Jesus Christ will swear that none of those who were called shall taste of his Banquet That is that all they who have received the Gospel and have not obeyed it shall never enter into his Kingdom For no State or Condition ought to hinder the observing of the Doctrin of the Gospel For Jesus Christ has not brought it from Heaven for the Monks or Religious only seeing there were none such then but he has brought it for all Christians in general whom he has particularly invited to make this Alliance with them And they who would not observe this Holy Doctrin shall never taste the Delights of that Marriage Feast All the other Parables speak of nothing but this Kingdom of Jesus Christ upon Earth when he compares this Kingdom of Heaven to A Grain of Mustard he signifies that it will be only the Little and the Humble who shall inherit this Kingdom and when they shall be mortified upon Earth they will grow so strongly that the Angels of Heaven shall come to rest in their Branches And when this Kingdom of Heaven is compared To a Treasure hid in the ground that he who has found it ought to sell All that he has to buy this ground that he may have this Treasure That is that this Kingdom of Jesus Christ is hid from the Judgment of the Wise being as it were sunk in the ground till the time appointed and then it shall be found by the Simple who labour in this Life to find the Kingdom of Heaven and when they shall discover it they will sell all that they have that they may follow this Evangelical Life In short Sir time would fail me to relate to you in particular all the Parables with all the Passages of Holy Scripture which treat of this Kingdom of Jesus Christ upon Earth because it treats of nothing so much as this as well in the Old as in the New Testament The Song of Zaohary is that he saw by a Prophetical Spirit the Re-establishment of the People of God in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ The Song of the Virgin Mary speaks of no other thing For what ground would she have had to rejoyce in the Lord since all his Life was a train of Sadness and Sorrow What ground would she have had to Sing his Magnificence since she saw him so Poor and Despised in the Stable of Bethlehem and pursued to Death in his Tender Infancy as he was all the rest of his Life What ground of rejoycing to see him Imprisoned and Accused as a Malefactor The Sword of Sorrow had always pierc'd her Heart to see her Son God and Man Beaten Torn and at last Hang'd upon a Cross in her presence It must needs be that her Joy proceeded from a Prophetick Spirit in seeing that one day he would be upon Earth in Glory wherein all Generations would call her Blessed which has never been done For none Praise her but a small number of Christians amidst so many Nations And that sometimes in such a
manner that very often instead of calling her Blessed they offend her by those Idolatries which they give to her Image and Jesus Christ himself would not suffer that they should call her Blessed for having born him in her Womb and suckled him with her Breasts By which it appears that it is not in this Life that all Generations call her Blessed that it must needs be that She saw in her Spirit that Kingdom of her Son in Glory wherein her Joy shall be accomplished and her Spirit Shall rejoyce in God her Saviour It will be then that he shall Cast down the Mighty from their Seats and Exalt the Humble Which as yet has never been done For the Mighty have greatly Exalted themselves since the coming of Jesus Christ and the Humble have been as they are yet despised and rejected The Holy Virgin could not lie in her Song called the Magnificat but she spoke of the time to come which she saw as present in her Spirit Which made her rejoyce and utter all the things which must come to pass in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in which all Generations will call her Blessed and all Souls will Magnifie this Glory where the Humble will be Exalted and the Mighty Abased and Humbled I was quite Transported beside my self to hear things so Admirable which had never been heard of and I saw them so clearly in my Vnderstanding that I could not but say within my self It is so these are clear Truths I nevertheless said to her that many of these things are understood of the Empyreal Heaven which is the Divine Place where the Souls of the Blessed will live Eternally with God where the Body and the Soul shall have four Qualities Agility Splendor Impassibility Subtility which being like Spirits will have no longer need of any thing but the presence of God She said Sir these are Speculations of Men who not having the gift of Understanding would nevertheless conceive something of what they do not understand If these Bodies of the Blessed had need of nothing wherefore should God create so many beautiful Creatures to serve only for Man's Misery For Gold Silver Precious Stones and so many other things not very necessary for the maintenance of his Life would then have been created only for his Mischief since they did not serve but for this Life where the most part of Men do Destroy and Damn themselves for Mony Wherefore then would God have created so many fine Fruits and other things for the nourishment of Man only for so short a time of Penitence as this livfe Would it have been worth the pains to have made the Sun the Moon the Stars and all the Elements that they might remain for so small a time Would God amuse himself for a little profit No Sir this will not go as People imagin for all the Works of God are eternal and will never Perish as I have told you heretofore all things will continue in their kinds eternally to serve and rejoyce the Body of Man made Blessed after he shall have finished his short Penitence Gold and the other Metals will serve to build his Houses and the precious Stones to adorn them They will not be Buildings made by Men's hands with the sweat of their Faces but wrought by the power of God who has form'd the Body and will likewise form the abode of the same Body And when the Holy Spirit speaks of the heavenly Jerusalem that its Gates shall be of precious Stones and its Walls of Gold This is not only in a mystical and spiritual Sense but also in a material Sense as all things must be perfect and accomplish'd in their time Spiritually Corporeally and Materially For God cannot do any thing Imperfectly I ask'd her If they should eat and drink in the Kingdom of Heaven She said Yes Sir Do you not see in the Gospel a that Jesus Christ says a little before his Death That he will eat no more of the fruit of the Vine until he shall drink it with his Disciples in the Kingdom of his Father This is applied to the Mystical sense because they know no other thing But it will be also in a Material sense that they shall drink delicious Wine with Jesus Christ besides the Mystical Wine of the admiration of his Glory which will inebriate Souls They shall eat also at the Table of the Lord where Jesus Christ himself says That he will come forth and serve us And when he says Woe to you that are rich that are full for you shall be hungry He adds Blesled are they that hunger and thirst for they shall be satisfied Read Sir the Holy Scripture you will find there in many places that of necessity it must be understood that we shall drink and eat Bodily in the Kingdom of Heaven with all sort of felicity Bodily as well as Spiritual For our Bodies are the Temples of the Holy Ghost in which he will dwell eternally When the Children of Israel were brought out of Aegypt they eat and drank with Delight Their Cloaths and Shoes did not wax old and they increased with their Bodies even their Nails had no need of being cut So particularly did God provide for their Necessities This nevertheless was but the Figure of eternal Life If he provided for them Cloaths Meat and all things which were even delicious without their care or labour tho they still offended him how will he not provide the delights of the Bodies of the Blessed who will bless him always I ak'd her If there would be likewise human Propagation in this Kingdom of Heaven She said Yes Sir there will be Propagation eternally but altogether Holy altogether pure and Deify'd It will be produced more leisurely than in this World because God by his Mercy has here abridged our days to abridge our Penitence But that Kingdom being of eternal duration will give time and leisure to Propagate stayedly without Pain or Sorrow or concupiscible Appetite but by pure union of Charity in God which will extend it self to the production of new Creatures to the glory of their Creator which is very reasonable For since this World was created few Men have been brought forth who have glorified their God On the contrary in all Times and Ages the Devil has derived his Glory from Men for when there were yet but two Persons upon Earth they yielded to the Devil and followed his Suggestions in abandoning their God And when the World was fully replenish'd Men gave themselves to yet greater Evils For at the time of the Deluge eight Persons only of all that great Universe were found obedient to the Word of God And in time of the Children of Israel when they were brought out of Aegypt to go into the promised Land two Persons only did enter into it In the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah Lâ—t alone with his Family did fear God And when God would have
Heaven and the rest shall be given you this also will not come to pass in this Life For the Servants themselves who seek the Kingdom of Jesus have suffered many Necessities and Lazarus at the the Rich Man's Feet could not obtain a crum of Bread tho' he did not cease to ask it If the Promise which Jesus Christ has made of giving the rest to those who shall seek his Kingdom were to be understood of this present Life none if the Friends of God would stand in need of any thing tho' they should not ask of any it would be needful that God accomplish what he has promised them And if the Kingdom of Heaven were only spiritual as People do imagine there would be no need of any rest or other things after having obtain'd this Kingdom which would suffice fully Do you not see Sir that this promise of Jesus Christ is to be understood of his Kingdom upon Earth where he will give besides his Glory all material things for the delights of our Body Which he calls The Rest and makes us understand that we shall not need to seek and labour to have them but that he will give them freely as an excess of Blessedness And when Jesus Christ says He who shall leave Father Mother Brethren Sisters Lands or any other thing for his Name shall have a hundred fold in this World neither can this be understood of this present Life for the Apostles and so many other Saints who abandon'd all to follow him had not an hundred fold in Earth Mother Brethren Sisters Houses or Lands but on the contrary had need of many things after having abandon'd them Jesus Christ himself after having abandoned the delights of Heaven says That he had not in this Life a stone where to rest his Head How then should his Promises be true that he would render a hundred fold in this Life Jesus Christ can he lie and make all who have abandon'd all for his sake to be afterward in want of things necessary which would be very far from having the hundred fold of them We see the Wicked have ordinarily more Prosperity in Earthly Goods than the Just Jesus Christ would be a deceiver to falsifie his Promise which he has made unto all those who shall forsake all for his sake This cannot be thought But he promised to those who shall have left Father Mother or any other thing for his sake that they shall possess Life Eternal which shall be in that World when Jesus Christ shall come to dwell with his Creatures where he shall render the hundred-fold of all the things which they shall have forsaken for his sake for one Father they shall find an hundred because all those Blessed Ones shall have the Hearts of a Father and Mother toward their Neighbour All shall be Brethren and Sisters under the government of one and the same Father And the Earth being purg'd from all the Wicked shall suffice to give unto the Just an hundred times as much as they shall have abandoned in this miserable Life Lo thus the Promises of Jesus Christ shall be accomplish'd in a perfect sense in his Kingdom which can in no wise be accomplish'd in a perfect sense elsewhere no more in the Empireal Heaven as is imagined than in this time of Penitence There would need years of time to relate unto you Sir all the passages of Holy Scripture which verifie these Truths for when Gabriel says of Jesus Christ that he shall be great and be called the Son of the most High he cannot speak of his coming in the Stable of Bethlehem for he was but a little Infant abandoned and neglected of Men where his Grandeur did consist of Poverty and Miseries And when he began to be known and to speak in publick they call him the Son of the Carpenter and of Mary amongst the common People Which is very far from being call'd the Son of the most High and how should he lift up his Horn seeing he was wrapt up in Swadling-cloths and bound with Swathing-bands And it seems he had not strength to resist King Herod and the Pharisees who pursued him to death before whom he fled instead of resisting Do you not see Sir that nothing has in this World its perfect Sense Nevertheless all that is spoken by the Holy Spirit must be intirely fulfilled And if we hope that this accomplishment ought to come to pass in this time of Penitence we deceive our selves for the more it shall continue the more will Men mistake the greatness of God and the less will they call him the Son of the Most High and the less will he make his strength appear that he may give place to Man to use his Free-will But as soon as the time of the Reign of Jesus Christ shall come he will exalt his Horn to exercise his Power and condemn the Wicked and he shall be known of all Men for the Son of the Most High For he will come in Majesty and Power to rule over all things Whereas in the Empireal Aether there will be no need of exalting his Horn and shewing his Power seeing all submit to him by Love It is therefore of the day when he shall come to reign upon the Earth that Zacharias speaks by his Prophetical Spirit when he saw the Glory of Jesus Christ upon Earth And when he himself says If I be lifted up I will draw all unto me he does not speak but of this Kingdom to come For he has not drawn all unto him by his death upon the Cross because the most part of Men has since voluntarily yielded themselves unto the Devil The Twenty ninth Conference Of the Marks to know that we are fallen into the last Times and that the World is Judged to wit That Men are without Righteousness Truth and Goodness before God and that the execution of the Plagues makes it already effectually to appear I said to her That I understood sufficiently what she meant by this Reign of Jesus Christ upon Earth that I would apply my self to discover it more intreating her to tell me the Marks whereby to know that we were in the last times and that the Judgments were at present begun She said Sir observe well the deportment of Men and you will see clearly that it must needs be that they are Condemned for therein you do not perceive any Penitence nor desire of amendment On the contrary they grow every day worse and cannot so much as suffer that the truth of their faults should be shewn them and reckon themselves more secure in evil-doing than the Good have ever been in well-doing For the Saints themselves have feared God and dreaded Death Whereas Men at present have lost the fear of God and fear only Men and instead of dreading the passage of Death they dread only the day in which they must lose their Life which they love more than God Every one lyes
Souls who are not sanctified are not truly Catholick neither will they be saved for their Religion since no Religion saves unless the Heart be truly Religious or truly Catholick In which also those who are called Quakers do greatly deceive themselves who through a foolish Imagination fancy that they are guided by the Holy Spirit as soon as they have begun to conform themselves to this Sect as if it had more Force to sanctifie Men than all the other Religions together even the most perfect none of which can save so much as one Soul For there is nothing that saves but the LOVE OF GOD and not a Religion Every one ought to hold the Religion that serves him as a Mean to attain to this LOVE without taking his Religion for the End of his Salvation if they would not be greatly deceived at Death thinking to plead their Religion which they imagine to be the best as the Quakers believe they have the Holy Spirit and so take the Name of Quakers tho they have him only by Imagination and false Persuasions and the Devil makes them believe they are better than all the rest of Men because they have quitted outwardly the gross Sins of Drunkenness Theft Lying and the like tho' in their Manners they be as vicious as others presuming that they have the Holy Spirit which they have not living in an Esteem of themselves and a Contempt of others calling themselves spiritual while they remain carnal despising all the Means of Piety and Devotion to adhere to their own Caprices and they imagine they are illuminated by the Holy Spirit when they are mov'd only by their own disorderly Passions which do often precipitate them into fruitless Sufferings and Persecutions with the Scandal of their Neighbour So that no body has Ground to believe that he shall be saved for being of the Quakers Opinion no more than the being of any other Sect or Religion since all these Names do nothing to the Salvation of Souls But to be sav'd of Necessity we must be renewed in the Life of God And the Scripture says Obedience is better than Sacrifice This shews that it 's better to be resigned entirely to the Will of God to be ruled thereby than to profess any Religion how good and holy soever we think it to be These material Bodies do not save the Soul but the Love that it bears to its God will save it and nothing else In which Men deceive themselves when they lay the Stress of their Salvation upon some means which they make use of to be saved How good soever these outward things be they give nothing to the Essence of the Soul which is wholly divine and spiritual and cannot attain to Salvation if it be not united to its God who created it for this End tho' the Blindness that Sin has brought upon Man's Spirit does not often persuade him that he shall be saved by other Means as by going oft to Church frequenting the Sacraments hearing many Preachings or spiritual Books or in being able to discourse of these things in giving to the Poor out of his Abundance in making long Prayers and so many other Actions which they call pious as if God to save us had need of these things Which is a great Delusion For it is only our Infirmity and Weakness that has need of these outward Things For it is written that the true Worshippers shall worship God in Spirit and in Truth and not in the Temple nor on the Mountain That is to say not in material Temples nor in Mountains of high Speculations but the Spirit and the Heart must be truly possest with the Love of God without which no body will be saved Not that I would reject or despise all these pious Means or good outward Works as these Reformed do blindly reject all sorts of good Works as evil since these good Works may serve as effectual Means to attain to this Love of God seeing the covetous Man mortifies his Avarice by giving his Goods to the Poor and he who cannot pray to God in his House for the Distraction of his Affairs does well to go to Church that he may be the more recollected Or he who feels more Compunction and Piety in his Soul in frequenting the Sacraments or has more inward and saving Light by going to Sermons or reading the Scripture or some other spiritual Book he is oblig'd to use all the Means which lead him to the Love of God without despising the least Mean that may help his Weakness in raising him to the Love of God since every one is oblig'd to seek the Means of his Perfections I blame only the Abuse that is made of these things in taking them for the End of Salvation whereas they are only Means to assist Humane Weakness which forgets easily Eternal and invisible things if she be not often put in Remembrance of them by outward things But I blame those who are so ignorant as to believe that they shall be saved for being of some Religion or for using the Sacraments and doing some good Work since these things do not sanctifie us being of themselves dead Works which cannot give Life to our divine Souls and the Devil himself might do all these outward things tho' he shall never be sav'd I believe indeed some captious Spirits will take Occasion to say that I am not truly Catholick in speaking against the Vse of the Sacraments and other Ceremonies of the Roman Church but I cannot preserve my self from the Calumny of partial Persons who love their Darkness rather than the Light that I offer them from God who has given me his Holy Spirit promis'd by Jesus Christ which teaches me all Truth since Jesus Christ himself could not avoid the being calumniated imprison'd persecuted and at last put to Death by means of the Jewish Priests who said they were in God's stead and sate in Moses's Chair as the Priests of all Religions say now While in the mean time they outragiously persecute the Truths which I learn immediately from God without Study without Meditation Discourse Reading or any other Means which would rather prove a Hindrance to me than an Illustration of the Light of the Holy Spirit who endites to me all things necessary for the Salvation of Souls and gives me also his Gift of Strength to bear joyfully those Persecutions and Outrages which these more than Pharisaical Priests exercise against me For they will not suffer that the Truth of God should come to light by any but themselves tho' they 've rendred themselves most unworthy of it because they will not apply themselves to the Imitation of Jesus Christ nor to the Sanctification of their Souls and if these be wanting they shall never understand the inward Voice of God 'T would be a great Vertue in them if at least they would suffer another to understand it But they can't attain to this Christian Vertue of rejoycing in the Good of another They
Christian has no need of being forc'd and they who are not so have no need of these Commands I said I believ'd that all our good Works to make them meritorious ought to proceed from the Heart and from our Will but that God alone can search the Inward and therefore the Church ordain'd outward things of which she could judge and that to keep Christians united together it was needful to give them Laws and make them be observed She said Sir you grant me by what you say that the Church at present is not that which Jesus Christ established since to keep Christians united she makes Laws that are nothing but civil and temporal ones respecting only outward things because that which was established by Jesus Christ ought not to be upheld but by the Bond of Charity uniting Christians by a Conformity of their Wills in God which Unity of Spirit appears sufficiently by outward Operations because the Christian who is possess'd with Charity cannot remain hid For Charity is always working There need no other outward Laws to make appear to Men whether we be true Christians but THE LOVE of GOD and CHARITY FOR OVR NEIGHBOVR These things are as well outward as inward and may be judg'd by Men For to discover true Christians it was not needful to ordain them so many Precepts under Pain of mortal Sin For the Doctrine of the Gospel was but too sufficient to regulate all their Actions and Manners Why should they command the hearing of Mass under the Pain of mortal Sin since Jesus Christ in his Gospel has never oblig'd nor even counsel'd any body to do it nor yet to confess their Sins once a Year Tho' indeed he says confess your Sins one to another this is not that one must do it once a Year But when he has sinned he must be humbled and confess to his Brother that he is a Sinner and this rather in publick than in private that the Humility of declaring our selves Sinners and the Confusion that we have to be known for such before Men may give satisfactory Punishment to our Sins This is not to say that he must go and confess at certain Times and Days But when the Sinner desires to return to God in Heart and Affection even tho' this should not befal but once in his Life and at the end of it He should not cease for this to have the Pardon of his Sins and to obtain Mercy from God And if to be saved it were so precisely necessary to communicate at Easter how could a Paul a Macarius and Anthony and so many other holy Hermites have been saved who ended their Lives in the Deserts of Aegypt and Thebais without having ever communicated or heard Mass If Jesus Christ had spoken of the Eucharist when he said Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood you shall have no Life in you This Church which you believe to be holy would have err'd in holding all these Persons for Saints who never communicated or at least very seldom For St. Paul the Hermite having been for so many Years in the Desert without seeing any body died without receiving the Eucharist The Aegyptian Mary after having been thirty Years without seeing any body received it once only before her Death with a thousand such like What could these be saved without observing so much as one of these Commands of the Church For they sanctified all the Days of their Life by a continual Union with God as all true Christians ought to do It was not needful for them to pitch upon certain Days appointed by the Church all their Days none excepted being sanctified by continual Prayer In like manner they could not observe the Fasts of Lent and the other times expresly appointed For their Life was nothing but a continual Fast taking no other Food but what was purely necessary as all true Christians ought to do who expect to be satisfied in the other World without desiring to satiate themselves in this Why should they who have studied to defend this Church say that People cannot marry in Lent or Advent Neither Jesus Christ nor his Apostles ever forbad such things neither did they command the Paying of Tithes For that great Apostle St. Paul says that his Hands gain'd his Bread and that he was chargeable to no body And Jesus Christ bids his Disciples tho' The Workman be worthy of his Reward take and eat whatsoever is given them and when they enter into a Place and are not received that theygo from it shaking the Dust off their Feet whereas those Councils ordain the Payment of Tithes by Force So that he who is wanting in it should be treated as a Criminal I do not know Sir how you can say that all these Laws with so obliging them were needful to keep Christians united by many others to observe them by Force Because I can see nothing in all these Ordinances which has the Property of uniting Hearts On the contrary rather of dividing them I said to her That in all well order'd Common-wealths there must always be heads and Superiours whom we ought to obey and follow their Laws or otherwise there could be no Order She said Sir if you hold the Church for a Civil Common-wealth you have Reason but if you hold her to be Holy and Spiritual or the Spouse of Jesus Christ you are much in the wrong For her Head was still her Superiour and has given her such excellent Laws and Rules that no body can add any thing more perfect to them Those who would needs make some Changes in them have wholly confounded them and they who would be their Superiours have abused the Graces of their Liege Lord Since being appointed his Lieutenants on Earth to maintain his Ordinances they have neglected them and have made others after their own Mode or for their own Advantage against the Designs of their Sovereign Master For by forbidding to marry at certain times they disturb the Order that God has set from the beginning of the World Nothing was more holy nor ever will be amongst Men in this World than Adam before his Sin Nevertheless God gave him a Wife that he might know her for the Generation of Men and for the perpetual Unity that they ought to have together If God found it meet that this Marriage should be instituted in the Earthly Paradise in the most holy time that ever was before Adam had sinn'd why do these Persons forbid to marry in the times of Lent and Advent If it were for the Piety of the Time they would not give so many Dispensations to do it after they have forbidden it For ordinarily we see more of the Rich married in this forbidden Time than in that which is allow'd It seems this Prohibition is but for the Poor who have not Money enough to obtain these Dispensations It is a Pain to me to bend my Mind under these Laws For I
and Submission so that we need not seek for them It is only necessary that we practise this Resignation of our Will to God for accomplishing the saving Penitence which he has enjoyn'd us and for the Exercise of all sort of Vertues For as soon as God shall be Master of our Will he 'll lead it to all good so that we shall do no longer Evil even in temporal things For God will govern all with his Spirit of Righteousness Goodness and Truth which can never fail in any thing Righteousness doing good to all and evil to none Truth giving Light to discern all things and so to bring all to a good End If you resolve Sir truly to resign your self to God you shall enjoy all this Happiness but as long as you act by your own Will you 'll spoil all and shall not be saved I said to her That this Way was so streight that one would be afraid to pass through it and that it would make one afraid that he could not be saved She said This Way is only a little streight at the Beginning but as soon as one has forc'd himself to depart from his own Will 't is then so large free and pleasant that there can he nothing more agreeable For the Soul which has resign'd its Will to God lives like a Child without Care and tho' Heaven and Earth shou'd be overturned she is still in Repose and without Fear knowing well that God who governs her is able to preserve her through all She seeks no longer after any thing knowing well that her God will still provide for her She has no more Desire after any thing for she finds in God a Satiety and perfect Satisfaction She places her Hope no longer in any thing but the Promises of God In short Sir this is a Life wholly delightful and pleasant full of solid Contentment which is not founded upon the Levity of Chances or Changes of Men but upon a permanent Stability Whereas on the contrary the Life of one who is governed after his own Will is very miserable and he walks continually upon the Briars and Thorns with which it is sown So that a Soul subject to to its own Passions furnish him with a kind of Martyrdom How many Vexations and Cares are there to satisfie this Self-will which often is unsatiable The more 't is satisfied the less 't is contented How often does our Self-will throw us into irreparable Mischiefs It 's ignorant inconstant insolent hasty and enclin'd to all sort of Evil so that he who follows it is oblig'd to lead a miserable Life and to end it in an unhappy Death It seems Sir you are afraid yet of resigning your self to God as if this Resignatination were a streight Way and troublesome Life when you see by so many Truths that 't is so sweet and agreeable and on the contrary that which seems so pleasant to you is so painful and dangerous All the Difficulty that you 'll find to make this Resignation is no other thing but a Shadow which appears something and in Effect is nothing As soon as you shall turn away your Eyes from your self to look towards God this Shadow of Apprehension will vanish and you shall see it no more I said to her That I was not so much afraid of resigning my self to God For I wou'd willingly do it but that in several Recounters she had given me Occasion to doubt of my Salvation She said Sir do you love flattering Discourses more than the Truth If it be so you may retire from me For I am settled in the Truth and I have no desire to depart from it I can make no Reflection whether it pleases or displeases my Hearers but I am resolved still to observe it tho' it wou'd cost me my Life For he who forsakes the Truth forsakes God which I will never do I love rather to lose the Favour of all the Men of the World than to omit the Truth when I am oblig'd to speak it But setting aside this Obligation I can very well hold my Peace because Jesus Christ has said that Pearls should not be cast before Swine If the Truths that I have told you beget Scruple in you 't is a sign that you are not resolved to be sav'd For otherwise you wou'd greatly rejoyce to understand the Truth Those who are called Swine in the Gospel are Men who make a Dunghil of the Roses of true Vertue or of the Pearls of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ Those hidden Secrets are precious Stones and he makes a Dunghil of them who says that they are imaginary or contriv'd things or Heresies All these Sentiments make a Dunghil of the Pearls which are presented to them and according to the Counsel of Jesus Christ they ought not to be told to such but to those who value them as they merit And when yor tell me that I give you occasion to doubt of your Salvation by speaking of true and solid Vertue it seems you wou'd also make a Dunghil of its Roses I have told you the Truth That no body shall be saved but he who of his free Resolution resigns his Will to God's and denys his own You need not therefore doubt of your Salvation if so be you will do this Sir but if you will not doubt confidently of your Salvation For you shall never obtain it This Doubting is good if thereby you take a Resolution to search for the means of your Conversion For the Fear of God is the Beginning of true Wisdom If you be not in Fear as to your Salvation you will presume of it and therefore will be sure of your Damnation Because he who presumes to have it uses no Endeavours to obtain it but dies in a Sin against the Holy Ghost Therefore it is a great Advantage that I have made you doubt of your Salvation since this Doubt will certainly lead you to Salvation I said to her That I desired indeed to have the Fear of God and of my Salvation but that I saw my self so far from this perfect Resignation that it seem'd to me I could never attain to it She said Sir that is nothing but a panick Fear because there is no Ground to fear what we wou'd willingly do If you have been resolved in it for so long a time past suffer not the Devil to tempt you now For there is no more Difficulty at present than the first Day you had the Will to do it Be not carried away by imaginary things which are nothing but Amusements Fix on the Reality of the thing You perceive clearly that you have a Free Will and Choice and that by this you act in all things It is by it you go from one Place to another It is it that desires to see and hear It makes you covet or pretend to Wealth Places or Honours It is it also that desires Pleasures and Prosperities It is it likewise that wou'd rule over others
of Life which is observed now in the Cloysters They must either have been Saints before they entered there or being there they must have resigned themselves to the Will of God and followed the Holy Spirit and if so they might be holy in any Place and in any State and Condition and not in the Cloyster only but these Monks extol their Sanctity for their Honour and Profit attributing it to the Perfection of their Rules tho' these have often prov'd Hindrances to those who were guided by the Holy Spirit who is always without Constraint whereas these Rules do fetter and bind Souls with so many Chains that they are more chain'd than Slaves in the Galleys This cannot but bring great Disturbance to truly Christian Souls whom these Constraints do not render holy but the Conformity of their Will to that of God because there can be no Holiness but what is derived from him and therefore no Saints but according as they partake of his Holiness Righteousness Goodness and Truth from which Mens Practices are very remote and if Men were not sitting in greater Darkness than that of Aegypt of old was they wou'd not reverence the Monks to day because there were Saints among them formerly Since their Lives were wholly different from the Lives which the Monks lead now and if they observe narrowly the Histories which they themselves write of them they will find them a Reproof to them in every thing For they write that those Holy Monks did greatly despise the World and these at present do love and seek it that those lov'd Poverty whereas these love and seek for Riches The first were humble and despised and these are self-conceited and will be honour'd Read Sir if you please the Lives of all the Holy Monks you will find them wholly contrary to what we see at present So that what ought to raise their Esteem confounds them I said to her That Saints had instituted these Orders and Rules and therefore they must be good She said Sir if these Orders and Rules had remained in the State in which their first Founders established them they might have been helpful for Sinners who wou'd reform their Vices because when Nature is left to its own Freedom it contracts such evil Habits as that it cannot afterwards be delivered from them but by Rigour and Constraint This is the Reason that mov'd those first Founders to observe bodily Mortifications and Austerities because the World was so addicted to all sorts of Sensualities that Men almost thought of nothing else but their bodily Ease and Pleasures To remedy which these Lovers of Souls introduc'd Ways of living that might resist such inveterate Vices appointed Fastings to subdue the Body Watchings to attend upon Prayer bodily Severities to resist Lust and so of all the other Means that were proper to withdraw Men from the Vices to which they were habituated All these things cannot be evil provided they be observed in the Spirit and Intention with which they were established because they may serve as powerful Helps for Sinners who desire to be converted but every one has no need of these Means to be holy because they cannot give Holiness but serve only to correct the Vices that might make the Soul still cleave to bodily Sensualities and shou'd hinder the Resignation they shou'd make of themselves to be dispos'd of by God But to believe that these Austerities can of themselves render us holy is a great Errour For even the Devil might observe them and continue a Devil still So also wicked Men may become Religious and observe their Rules and yet not change their Affection to their Vices since the same Means which might deliver them from them may plunge them farther into them as we see by Experience that they will sometimes study more Sensuality when they eat but Fish and Pulse than they wou'd do in eating Partridges and other good things and will have more Vanity in wearing a course Habit than in Silk and Purple We may also meet with more Avarice in a poor Man than in one who abounds in Wealth Therefore we can't judge the Vertue of the Soul by outward Exercises since both a good and ill Use may be made of them I said to her That Vows and the constraint Rules were Powerful Helps to regulate ones Life and that the Cloysters cut off many Occasions of offending God being out of the Hurry of the World She said Truly Sir I cannot believe that that Constraint of Vows and Rules have been established by the Holy Spirit because it is contrary to the Free-Will that God has so bountifully given us The same Spirit cannot give and take back the same thing He shou'd be subject to the Passion of changing as we are which cannot be in God He cannot hold that to be evil which he has once approv'd as good The greatest Favour which ever he bestowed on Man is the having given him his Free-Will which renders him a depending Deity and capable of conversing with God as with his like because he is pleased to make a Creature of such a Nature that it shou'd have this Free-Will to all Eternity And how is it possible that the same God shou'd change his eternal Designs and shou'd inspire the Saints to curb Men and to deprive them of this same Liberty wherewith when he created them he wou'd endue them to oblige them afterwards by Vows to follow or love him If God had these Designs no body shou'd be damn'd because the Goodness of God is so great that it wou'd by force constrain all Men to be saved No no Sir this cannot be true God can bind no body to Vows This must be the Invention of Men who having a good Will and Desire that many shou'd be saved thought it was good to constrain them by Vows and Ties that they might be bound to continue in pious Exercises This can come only from humane Prudence and not from the Holy Spirit tho' the Founders of Orders instituted it or the Church after them found it expedient by Vows to oblige the Religious that thereby they might be preserved in their first Resolution of serving God This cannot at all proceed from the Holy Spirit who will never act contrary to himself And to know whether Vows and Constraints were powerful enough Means for the well ordering of Mens Lives that they might cease to offend God and live as true Christians we need only come to experience which is still the Mistress of all Sciences How many thousand Persons in Christendom are now under Vows in Cloysters and Religious Orders and how few of them are there who do Miracles If these Vows and Rules came from the holy Spirit they would certainly be all Saints For the observing the Commands of the Holy Spirit does still produce Holiness so that all who wou'd be subject to the Vows which the Holy Spirit shou'd dictate to them wou'd receive all the Fruits and Gifts which
are not to be found among the Votaries in Cloysters On the contrary we see they are rather guilty of six Sins against the same Holy Spirit which are so ordinary in these Votaries that it may be said they are inseparable from them For we find in them always a Presumption of being saved without good Works because being full of self-love they can never be good They oppose also the known Truth because the real Truth reproves them Therefore they will not hearken to it chusing rather to perish in their Darkness and to lay the Stress of their Salvation upon the Opinion or Discourse of Men. So that we need not enter into Monasteries to discover clearly that they are not become Saints by their Vows and the Constraint of their Rules nor yet have quitted all Commerce with Men since we see they desire as much their Conversation as secular Persons do And what will it serve for the Perfection of Souls to have their Wills bound by Vows and even their Bodies shut fast up when the Spirit is yet curious to know what passes in the World as the Practice is in the enclosed Cloysters For if one would learn all sort of News he may go into one of their Parlours and if our Will were bound to God when it is bound to the Will of Men there wou'd not be such Contradictions in the Cloysters where as many Persons as there are there are almost as many contrary Wills All this does sufficiently make appear that the Rules and Vows do not make the Person holy or depending upon the Will of God On the contrary they rather estrange him from it For as soon as they have fulfill'd their Obedience to their Superiour they believe they have wholly satisfied God whereas very often they offend him for these Superiours are often estranged from the Spirit of God neither is it to be accounted a great Vertue that we acquiesce in the Will of some Person whom we love This is purely natural and not from the Holy Spirit I said to her That we have sometimes heard that Miracles have been wrought by this Obedience to Men. She said Sir these cannot have been true Miracles if they had their Rise from Obedience to Men. There are so many things to be distinguished in the matter of Miracles that the Devil may easily work such as the World wou'd admire And I believe he has already deceived many pious Persons by false Miracles For he can dazle Mens Spirits and make them take nothing for something He can also trouble the Humours of the Body and cause Diseases which he can afterwards remove because it is done by Charms and by the same Charms it may be undone again Besides that he has so many who are bound to him by precise Covenant who do his Will by whom he can work many Malefices which might seem real Miracles tho' they be only all Tricks of the Devil Therefore I will not believe that those Stories which they tell us of Miracles fallen out by this Obedience to Men are true nevertheless I do not reject the Approbation that God has sometimes given of the Submission rendered to his Servants who possess his Spirit and spread it by teaching it to others in obeying of whom they obey God himself because they are not moved but by him So that those who obey them do indirectly obey God In this manner I believe that God may work true Miracles to confirm that it was his true Spirit which dwelt in these Superiours As he wrought Miracles to confirm that the Apostles did possess his Spirit because he did not remain in the Flesh to converse with Men and teach them He taught them by his Servants Therefore he said He that hears you hears me But he says not this to all bodily Superiours as it is now taken because it is to be feared that many of these do directly follow the Devil's Will and consequently teach others to do the same at least indirectly By which we may fear the Hazard there is in this Submission to Men and may learn also the Deceit there is in what they teach Christians now and particularly those who wou'd serve God in Perfection I said to her That the Vows were approved by the Church as a perfect thing and that all the World did look on them as good things She said And for my part Sir I look upon them as evil things for all Persons For he who resolves to be resign'd to God with all his Heart has no need to be constrain'd to this by Men because the Love he bears him is still strong enough to tie him to God without needing that Men shou'd interpose in it and he who has not this resolute Will of resigning himself to be governed by God cannot make Vows in any Order except in Hypocrisie Because Vows cannot constrain his Will but his Body and when the Body is constrain'd to do good against the Desire of the Will he is then the real Martyr of the Devil because he suffers much and merits nothing And thus Vows cannot be good neither for the Wicked nor yet for the Good who if they are so truly have no need to be forc'd to do good by the Constraint of Men if these Holy Founders have instituted Vows which I do not believe this must have been only out of humane Respect or Persuasion or for want of divine Light and if the Church approves them it is to keep these Persons in a precise Dependence upon her from which if these Vows were laid aside many would deliver themselves which is to be desired and it were far better that all these Persons in Vows had their Liberty than to continue cloyster'd to the Damnation of their own Souls and the deceiving of others who look upon those under Vows as Saints submitting to their Council and Government tho' very often they are governed by the Devil and he by their Means gains the most Pious who could not be gain'd any other way but by this Cover of Religion which all the World esteems to be good and holy By this the Devil gets into the Throne of God that he may deceive by false Appearances If he had remain'd among the Turks Jews or Heathens he could not have become Antichrist seeing one cannot shock an Enemy at a distance unless he approach him So the Devil could not stock the Doctrine of Jesus Christ if he had not insinuated into the Church it self and among those in it who make a Profession of Vertue as the Monks and Religious Persons and he having slipt in among these draws all the World after him and yet they do not discover him neither dare they believe that he dwells in these Persons who in Appearance and in the Esteem of all the World are holy because he has on his side the 〈…〉 earned I said to her That they who had enter'd upon a vertuous Course of Life went into the Cloysters that they might learn it better
the Holy Spirit speaks so succinctly that one Word makes me comprehend many things He gives Subtilty 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 divers Furnitures and Rarities But there were no Light in it whereby to see all these things In such a Case it wou'd require 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 are 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 It is thus Sir that I tell you all my Words do not come immediately from the Holy Spirit But indeed all the Substance of what I say Because I never had any other Master nor any other Study but that of purging my Soul from Earthly Affections By this I received the Light of all the things of which I have spoken to you with many more which nevertheless I could not make you understand but by Words and Discourses accommodated to your Capacity which are not all precisely endited by the Holy Spirit Word for Word except that in general they are produced by the Gift of Wisdom which the Holy Spirit always brings along with him into the Soul where he resides giving it the Skill to express it self and to make Divine Things be understood by those who are in Darkness Therefore Sir you are not deceived in believing that my Words come from the Holy Spirit For it is true if you take them in Substance But if you would maintain a precise enditing of Words the Enemies of the Truth might surprize you in some Terms not well express'd or some Word of a contrary Signification or other Faults of my Language which come from my Weakness or Ignorance For the Holy Spirit can commit no Faults He always gives his Light perfect and compleat to the Soul that is purified from it self But he does not always give precise Words and Terms to make it be understood by others because it does not remain always precisely hearkning to the Enditing of the Holy Spirit being often distracted by Earthly Objects which divert it sometimes without its being aware and in this Diversion it may commit many Faults even tho' it had received the Holy Spirit For this Cause our Life is always dangerous and we ought still to watch that we be not surprized by our Enemies I asked her How she could see by the Light of the Holy Spirit things which consist in Matter of Fact as the Deportment of the Jews and Christians and others She said Sir this is manifested to my Understanding even as Divine Things are without any Distinction except that the Soul receives more Contentment in conceiving and understanding the Things of God than those which respect Men tho' all come from the same Source nevertheless they have different Effects For when God shews to the Soul his straight Righteousness his universal Goodness his pure Truth it is filled with Wisdom and solid Vertue by those which it remarks in God and when he makes it see his Glory Majesty and his Almighty Power the Soul is filled with Joy Honour and Strength in Consideration of the Qualities of its God But he no sooner makes appear to it the deplorable State to which Men are reduced now than the Soul is afflicted and thirsts with a Desire to see them converted unto God who also shews unto it all the necessary Means for this Conversion And as a Physician cannot rightly cure a sick Person or Patient without seeing first the Cause of the Disease or laying open the Sores of his Evil even so does God towards a charitable Soul that is touched with a sensible Regret to see its Neighbour perish and with a Desire to succour him with all its Power Then God makes it see the Sores that is the Faults and Sins of his People more distinctly than if it conversed daily with them even though it has never seen them by the Eyes of the Body Nevertheless it knows them better than they who converse daily with them Because the Light of God pierces to the Bottom of Souls and the Sight of Men perceives only outward things Therefore many are often deceived and take what is false for true But God judges always with an upright Judgment And when the Soul has Bowels of Charity to help its Neighbour God shews it the State in which he lives and also the Means by which he may rise again from his Fall This is the Reason why God makes Matters of Fact which respect our Neigbour to be as well perceived as divine Things and that by the Light of the Holy Spirit which is so much the brighter the farther it is removed from Humane Light and Natural Knowledge For this Cause Sir I retire so much from Men and will learn nothing from them because their Wisdom hinders and obscures the Light of the Holy Spirit and according as I am removed from them accordingly I approach to true Knowledge For sometimes I wou'd tell you better what passes among the Turks or other remote Places than what is done in my Presence For my Eyes may deceive me But the Holy Spirit cannot deceive me I asked her How this Light had its Original If the Holy Spirit did immediately declare things to the Soul or if the Soul did propose them first She said Sir this is done differently For sometimes the Holy Spirit gives Notices of the Things which the Soul never saw nor thought of At other times he makes it understand something which it saw or understood imperfectly But for the most Part the Light is demanded by the Soul when it prays for it or for somewhat else Then if it be well recollected it receives the Understanding of what it asked either God grants it or makes it see wherefore he denies it or else what it ought to do or forsake to co-operate with the Designs of God and to obtain its Request Behold how the Lights of the Holy Spirit have their Rise All that is needful in this is to disengage our Soul from Earthly Affections and to resign it to the Will of God Then he governs and illuminates it in such sort
nor any Created Thing because he contains all in himself But he has chosen our Will for himself that it being united to his own he might take his delight and pleasure in it Consider a little Sir how far we stray from the Designs of God while we thus use our own Will in all Things without discovering the Wiles of Satan who under good and pious pretences leads us at his pleasure from a Dependance upon God and yet we do not perceive it I said to her That it was an Infatuation of Spirit that no Body saw precisely the necessity of this Dependance but they imagin'd it was enough to believe in the general that God is our Creatour and that we have receiv'd all from him She said Sir Faith without Works is dead It is not enough that we believe by way of Speculation That we have received all from God but on the contrary this belief will render us more guilty For to believe that God is our Creatour and that all Things appertain to him and notwithstanding of this Belief to desire to rule upon Earth as Soveraigns of our own Will and not to submit it but by constraint to all that God permits to befal us against our own Inclinations this is directly opposite to our Belief and so is it to believe also that we received all that we have from God and nevertheless to use all these things according to our Appetites and Inclinations as all the World does For he who has received a good Judgment applies it to acquire Sciences Offices or Dignities in this World forgetting that this Judgment pertains not to him but God only gave it him that it might be applied to know and love him and if he apply it to any thing else he must render a strict account of it Nevertheless no Body considers this Every one thinks he is Master and Lord of his own Understanding and may dispose of it independently according to his own Will It is the same also with him who has Wealth he makes himself Lord and Master of it even as if it belong'd to him in property He employes it in Glory Pomp and Vanity or other Pleasures of his Body or Mind or in the Things to which he finds himself most inclin'd as if he had created these Riches himself and held them of none and while he says by Word that he has received all from God yet notwithstanding he will not use them but according to his own Will And thus by his Deeds he belies what he say by Word Thinking to deceive God he deceives himself and is his own Ruine For while we will use our own Will in all things we withdraw from a Dependance upon God which is so necessary for our Salvation The Fifteenth Conference Shews how every thing must be used to keep us in a Dependance upon God I asked her How every thing ought to be used that we may have this entire Dependance upon God She said Sir We must first consider for what End we were Created And seeing that it was to Love and Serve God we must apply our selves to nothing else except by the by in necessary Things reserving all our Affections for him who Created us for these Ends And whether we have Wit or other Talents of Body or Mind or Riches Honours and Prosperity we must never use these Things but for the Glory of God Because all pertains to him and we are but the Stewards of them liable to give an Account And we ought to manage them so well that nothing may be used but by the Appointment and Will of God which we ought always to inquire into and follow and never our own Will for it ought still to depend upon him who gave it Could God demand less of us than the Dependance of our Will on his after he had given us our Body with all its Properties and our Soul with all its Faculties and this Beautiful World with all that is in it to enjoy them fully at our Wish with Joy and Ease demanding nothing else for so many Gifts Graces and Prerogatives but the Resigning of our Wills to his notwithstanding of which Man is so ungrateful unthankful and unreasonable as to deny it to his God his Creatour This Dependance of our Will so small a Gift that God asks of us should it be refus'd him when we know that all comes from him and that his Goodness has so advantagiously bestowed Favours on us Truly Sir this Ingratitude deserves that all the Creatures rise up against Man to take Vengeance of the Injury he has done his Creatour in denying him the Dependance of his Free will and that he will dispose of it himself Even insensible Things are obliged by strict Justice to avenge such an Ingratitude Which will be very speedily done Because the Measure is full All Men harden their Hearts and stop their Ears against Gods Demand Of resigning their Wills to his Will None will hearken to it any longer Therefore the Sentence of Universal Rods is given out and shall not be revoked Because none will revoke the Resolution that every one has taken of following their own Will in every thing and will not depend upon God as if we were our own Soveraigns I said to her There were yet some Persons in the World whose Wills were resign'd to that of God She said Sir I know none of them But I do not know all the World If there be some yet scattered up and down the World God will take them into his particular Care But the General Judgment shall not be delayed for this The Plagues shall encrease still even till the Consummation of all Evil and if they go on leisurely it is to give Time and Leisure to Men of Good Will that they may be converted and repent of their Ingratitude yeilding up to God the Free-will that he so freely gave them to use it according to his Will This is now done by few or none We hear nothing else said but I will be resign'd to God while in effect all the World follow their own Will Some give themselves eagerly to Study some to Trade some to the Law to Offices Benefices and that uncessantly till every one has obtained their Pretensions And we settle our selves upon Earth as an abiding City or as if we were created for this Miserable Life here we build Tabernacles as if we were to remain in them always while we see our Friends and Neighbours dye in a little time and we know that none stays here but every one dyes in his turn some sooner and some later without knowing at what Hour our turn will come We are born in Miseries in which we live and dye without seeing any other End for our selves but Death which may make us sufficiently comprehend that we are not created for this Life but we must look for another For God could never have had so low an End in creating us as the the
but we Toil and Labour for the Goods of this Miserable Life as if we were Created for it though we ought only to pass through it as Travellers and Pilgrims But we change all the Orders that God has established and instead of sighing here in the Spirit of Penitence we desire to Rule at our Pleasure and instead of loving our Neighbour as our selves we deny him sometimes Wages for his Labour that we may enrich our selves the more seeking nothing but our own Interest without regarding the Loss or Inconveniency of our Neighbour A certain Evidence that Charity is dead among Christians even among Churchmen who as the Fathers of Christians and the Pastours of their Souls should undertake Offices and Benefices out of pure Charity to Teach the Ignorant in the matter of their Salvation and also to accomplish their own Penitence in Labouring and Travelling to gain Souls to God as the Apostles did But instead of doing this they seek after the Benefices that have the greatest Revenues and the least Toil and instead of Labouring in the Lord's Vineyard they seek their Rest and Ease doing as little Penitence as they can to satisfie God as every one is obliged to do for himself For their is neither Priest Religious Pope Cardinal Bishop Prebend nor any other of whatsoever State or Condition who is not oblig'd to accomplish his Penitence here For all having fallen in Adam are subject to the Penitence that was enjoyned him which ought to be known by all Men. The Saints did always Labour Jesus Christ himself did so His Apostles and Disciples never gave themselves Ease while they lived in this Life of Penitence For that great Bishop and Father of Christians the Apostle St. Paul says that he was never chargeable to any but gained his Bread by working with his own Hands besides the Travels and Labours which he did undergo to Teach the ignorant the Doctrine of the Gospel performing thus his Penitence by his Labour for his own Sins and exercising Charity to his Neighbour by the Sweat and Labour of Troublesome Voyages Consider Sir how far Men are now from observing the Ordinances of God How every one strives to resist them For neither Small nor Great submits to Labour to perform his Penitence but all willingly Labour to gain Money or to take their Pleasures or to make themselves be Honoured in this Miserable World regarding more those Things which pass away than those which are Eternal or to say better regarding and obeying more our own Will than the Will and Ordinances of God Is it a Wonder if such Sins draw down the Vengeance of God upon our guilty Heads since no Body will undergo the Penitence that God has enjoyned to all Mankind but every one will needs follow his own Will and Labour to make himself happy in this Miserable Life which was given us to do Penitence in and not to take our Pleasures in it If so many Miserie 's befel Men for one only Disobedience that Adam committed what ought we to expect for so many Crimes and Contempts of the Ordinances of God which we commit daily We are astonished to see the Beginnings of Sorrows by Wars and also Disorders and Confusions in States and in the whole World and we ought rather to be astonished at the Goodness of God that he endures so long the Rebellion of his Creature Man who is come to such a height of Ingratitude that he will no longer acknowledge in any thing the Dependance that he has upon his Creatour but will Enjoy here where he ought to Suffer and take his Pleasures where he ought to do Pennance And yet nevertheless dare lift up his Head and believe that he shall have Eternal Life notwithstanding of his Ingratitude and his Disobedience to him who alone can save him We would make God to become unjust if we could For we will not at all depend upon him but upon our own Will Neither will we suffer and do Pennance in this World but rather Enjoy and Reign in it And notwithstanding of all these Oppositions to God we would oblige him to save us Which would be against his Righteousness Because Salvation belongs only to those who resign their Wills to that of God and who do and fulfil the Pennance that God himself has enjoyned us Which no Body does And all the World say That they shall be Saved In which every one deceives himself For God will still exercise his Exact Righteousness without respect of Persons He cannot save those who are not Resigned to his Will no more than those who will not not fulfil here the Pennance which Sin has merited Because he will still accomplish his perfect Righteousness Therefore Jesus Christ says Not every one that sayes Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he who shall do the Will of my Father which is no other but that Man of his own Free-will subject his Will to Gods Disposal who having ordain'd him to gain his Bread by the Sweat of his Face will never change his Ordinances For he is unchangeable And if Man withdraw himself from him God in Reason and by an Upright Judgment will reject him since Man has no Right to deny this Dependance upon his God from whom he has received all Things and himself I asked her Whether our Salvation depended only upon this Resignation of our Will to that of God She said Yes Sir our Salvation depends solely on this Resignation of our Will to that of God For it comprehends all the Laws and all sort of Vertues Because having resigned our Will to the Will of God we live no longer but God lives in us who works all his Will without opposition He Acts in us He Labours in us and satisfies our Penitence So that the Soul has nothing more to do but to receive from God and delight its self in the Operations which he works in it and needs not any longer seek for means of its Salvation without its self for it possesses the Giver thereof The Soul that is resigned to the Will of God does possess all sort of Vertues since God is pleased still to exercise his Goodness and to give his Graces where he finds no longer any opposition He Adorns the Soul with all sort of Vertues which he Infuses in it with all the Gifts and Fruits of the Holy Spirit So that the Soul which is Resign'd to God has no longer need of any Laws or Rules or Means because God does govern the same immediately and independently from all Things To this Dependance only our Salvation is annex'd without which we cannot obtain it Because this is the only Thing that God demands of Man and he will never demand any other thing to make him eternally happy neither shall he ever obtain Salvation without this Dependance Because he who denies it to God is rebellious and unthankful while he will not depend upon him
the Command of some Servants of God This is a certain Proof that it is Sin only that gives all the Malignity to every Thing and that nothing but the Rebellion that Man has raised against his God renders all the Elements and other Creatures Rebels against him If we would from this time yield up our Will into God's Hands and submit our selves entirely to him we should immediately find that all Things would subject themselves to us without any constraint How greatly does Man wrong himself when he will needs dispose of his own Will He makes himself miserable in this World and far more in that to come Whereas by being willing to depend upon God he has all under his Power together with Eternal Bliss What Infatuation of Spirit is it that we will not do a Thing so good so just and so reasonable as to resign our Will to that of God! If Men were taught this as they are other frivolous Devotions it would be impossible that any would deny God so profitable a Submission But they let themselves be amused by the Discourses of Men who propose a Salvation without being able to give it These are those false Christs and false Prophets of whom Jesus Christ has so often told that we must take heed of them who have deceived all the World so that none think any longer of resigning themselves to God or of doing saving Penitence I said to her There were yet divers Persons who desired to be resigned to God and also to do Pennance which cannot be avoided in this World She said Sir You take the Bark often for the Wood For those who say they will be resigned to God have nothing but outward Words For if they were truly so they would be governed by God and would no longer labour for the Earth but only for Heaven Even the Labour that is necessary for the support of Life would be done only to fulfil their Penitence appointed by God But when we see them aim at Places Honours and Dignities or Deal and Traffick to acquire Riches or Pleasures that one would be a Priest another a Religious one build Cloysters another Houses as if he were to abide in them for ever All these Things with a Thousand others are infallible Evidences that God does not govern our Will For he could not move us to make Tabernacles here since he has sent us hither only to undergo a short Penitence He could not incite us to build what must be so quickly destroyed Neither Jesus Christ nor his Apostles and Disciples built Temples or Houses being contented with what was simply necessary In which the Heathens will rise up against us in the Day of Judgment who did so despise the shortness of this Life that they would not build Houses contenting themselves with a Tub to cover them from the Injuries of the Season Others threw their Mony into the Sea not judging it necessary for so short a Life though since that Time ours is much shortned Neither can it be true that we are willing to do Pennance because every one avoids Sufferings as much as he can and to do saving Pennance it must be voluntary and suffered for fulfilling the Will of God For else we may suffer much without Meriting as Robbers and Thieves do I said to her That this ought to be preached through all the World that they who would perish through Ignorance might hear the Truth and be converted She said Sir You may do as you please As for me I retire For I am not sent to preach but simply to declare the Truth as I have done to you You may have sufficiently remarked in all my Discourses and my Life if there were any Affectations or Passions which should move me to tell you these Things I am perswaded in the sight of God that I have no Self-Interest in it nor any desire to please or displease Men nor to affect the speaking new or marvellous Things No Sir I am not led by that Spirit but by that of Jesus Christ who had such Compassion for Men that for them he endured a bitter Passion and the Death of the Cross If you preach these Things to Men of good Judgment and who thirst after the Truth they will gladly hear you and yield themselves and return to God For they will easily see that here is no Flattery for any Body nor yet Contempt or sensual Animosity but pure solid Truths which none can resist but they who are in League with Satan and love Lyes and resist the Truth Those will very hardly receive Truths that are so opposite to them they will induce effeminate Spirits to reject these Things as evil perceiving that the knowledge of these will take from their Master the Devil the Power to deceive by Falshood and Hypocrisie and that he will be forced very quickly to discover his Mischievous Reign Because he shall not be able to catch Souls any longer under the colour of Piety and Holiness as he has done hitherto And his furious Reign shall be far less dangerous For so soon as he shall be known for the Devil no Body will follow him any longer except they who wilfully yield up themselves to him Whereas at present every one follows him blindly But so soon as his Malice shall be discovered he shall have no longer Power over Innocent Souls Tell the Truth boldly Sir to all good Men in Confidence But beware of the Adherents of the Enemy and of those who let themselves be governed by his Spirit though they be not precisely in Covenant with the Devil Because these will do you much Mischief when they think they are doing well For they who have their Minds infatuated do serve the Devil as well as Sorcerers themselves The one directly and the other indirectly You will still discover them by the resistance which they will make to the Truth for they will not so much as hear it Because they know very well they cannot change the Truth They endeavour at least to reject and despise it that no Body may receve it This will be the Devils last Effort For as soon as the Truth shall be known it will strongly resist him and at last will break his Head Observe still Sir the Disposition of those to whom you would declare these Truths And when you find opposition from them leave off speaking to them For those who shall be disposed to profit by the Truth will give Ear to it willingly and with Hungry Desires will search even to the Bottom that they may discover the Essence of it For no good Men can resist the Truth nor the Things which are proposed to them without having examined whether they be Good or Evil But the Wicked will resist it before they know it And if they can catch a Word different from their School Terms they will take it in a quite contrary Sence Therefore Sir do not amuse your self with Questions and Disputes For this would
be to cast Roses before Swine Offer them only to those who will take pleasure to smell them and not to these who will cast them into the Dunghil All good Men will feel in the Bottom of their Souls that this cannot come from the Devil For he is the Father of Lyes and never incites to Self-denial because he is too proud Nor to the Love of God because he hates him And yet less to resign our Will to that of God for he catches all Men by their Self-will All my Discourses have for their Scope all that is contrary to the Devil who is never contrary to himself The Ninteenth Conference Sheweth That the Spirit of Antichrist hinders Men from discovering the saving Truth and that the Heathens are more resigned to God than the Christians at present I said to her That I thought no Body in the World could resist so clear Truths without betraying his own Conscience That all the Things she had told me did speak forth themselves and were attended with such solid Foundations and such firm Reasons that the Learned and Vnlearned might comprehend them and that the Scope of all was the Glory of God and the Salvation of Souls and that there was nothing in them that savoured of the Earth She said If we were not fallen into the Reign of Antichrist no Body could resist so clear Truths All the World would feel them and would discover his Deceits every one would flie to the Desert to do Penitence bewailing his past Life and the Errours wherein he had lived for so long a time But the Michief is that this Antichrist has so great a number of Adherents who take up his Quarrel and resist the Truth that the good themselves have difficulty to receive it For they disfigure it and make it pass for Lyes and Heresies telling those who advance it that they would seduce the People as they said of Jesus Christ when he brought Light into the World calling him a Seducer of the People or one that had a Devil The Power of Darkness is much encreast since the Time that he was upon Earth and nothing is to be look'd for but Outrages from all the Devil's Adherents In this case a Man must count it a Happiness to suffer Persecution for Righteousness sake and believe that there is no more blessed Death than to dye a Martyr for the Truth But he must beware of Men and use the Wisdom of the Serpent and rather part with his Skin than lose his Soul You will find more Welcome Sir among the Jews and Heathens than among the Catholicks who condemn others to Authorize their own Customs despising the Doctrine of Jesus Christ who sayes Judge not and you shall not be judged condemn not and you shall not be condemned These Catholicks condemn all those who do not follow them This is the cause why they are judged and condemned first to be rooted out They condemn so many holy Heathens who will go before them in the Day of Judgment because they were faithful to God though they had not any Laws or Institutions to know Him Nevertheless many resigned their Wills to that of God and obeyed the Truth in their Lives whereas these Christians follow Lyes of which the Devil is the Father and none of them will resign themselves to God nor take notice of the Truth which discovers the shortness of this miserable Life and the certainty of one that shall be Eternal These Heathens knew a God to whom they resigned themselves and seeing the Misery of this Life they bewailed it they laughed when they considered the Stupidity of Men who took pleasure in this Life and judg'd that they ought not to be called Men because they did not use their Reason to discover the Truth of Things For he who went through the City of Athens with his Lantern seeking for a Man in the midst of so many Thousands as were in the Market-place could not be ignorant that they who were about him were all Men But seeing they were all occupied in buying and selling and Trading for the Earth he could not acknowledge them to be Reasonable Men Because he who has Reason ought to use it for his Eternal Happiness else he is nothing but a Beast For Reason only makes a Man without which he does not differ from the Brute Beasts for they are unreasonable Animals and Men are reasonable ones Laying aside which they are as much Brutes as the Beasts This made the Philosopher search for a Man among so great a Number and could not find one because all spent their Lives in Worldly Business instead of employing them in the Study of the Knowledge of God and of the Truth which is the same God And they condemn those Heathens as damned and for my part I look upon them as SAINTS and believe they will come to Reign with Jesus Christ upon Earth to condemn the Christians who besides the Light of the Heathens had Lawes and Commandments from God with the Doctrine of Jesus Christ which obliged them to a farther Knowledge of God and the Immortality of their Souls the Shortness and Misery of this Life that they might despise it and the Vanity of perishing Goods that they might abandon them Nevertheless not one of these Christians does any of these Things I asked her If it was indeed possible that not so much as one Christian should be resigned to God nor have the Vertues of the Heathens She said Yes Sir This is most true that not so much as one Christian is resigned to God nor understands true Vertue as much as the Heathens did Because none apply themselves to it Since they became Idolaters of Men they have left off to know God and abondoned themselves to the Will of their Idols instead of the Will of God They Preach and Teach through all Christendom That we must depend upon Men whom they call the Fathers of the Church That we must believe and follow them even with a blind Obedience In which they prefer themselves to God who demands only of Man that he obey him in what he shall make known to him having given him Eyes to discover this Beautiful Universe that when he sees the Heavens the Earth the Sun the Stars and all the Elements with so many different Creatures so marvellous and so well ordered he might clearly perceive that all those Things must proceed from a God since Men and Nature can make nothing like them Moreover when Man considers himself he discovers evidently by his Understanding that his Soul his Memory his Understanding cannot come but from a God for no such Thing can come from Nature no more than his Body since all the Industry of Men is not capable to make so much as one Hair of our Head This obliges us to acknowledge a God by so many different Operations without being put to know God blindly no more than to love
or follow him blindly as these Christians say we must obey and follow Men blindly For when we consider all the Works of God and observe what he has done for us it is impossible we should cease to love and follow such a Benefactour If we had but the Light of a Heathen we would not readily yield this blind Submission to Men Because they are not our Creatours nor our Saviours and our Dependance ought to be upon the Lord who created all Things But not on frail Man like our selves who can give us nothing but Promises without Effects for they deceive us when they promise us Salvation since they cannot give it to themselves And yet all the World believes they shall save all Christians of whom I know not so much as one that is in the way of Salvation because they neither know God nor true Vertue but have their Understandings blinded by the Discourses of Men who desire to love and be loved by their like and instead of leading them to the knowledge of the true God to love and follow him they draw them to love themselves And by this blind conduct every one runs to Perdition while many believe that they are in the way of Salvation So that I might well travel through all Christendom with a Lantern to find out so much as one Man as the Philosophers did through the City of Athens Because no Body any longer uses his Reason to see the Obligation that we have to depend upon the Will of God nor yet to consider the Misery and Shortness of this Life nor the Vanity of transitory Things but are in all this as if they were void of Understanding and follow one another blindly without considering any other Thing For if Man did only use his Reason he would see clearly that he is obliged to depend upon his God since he has received all from him and can pretend to nothing but from him His Natural Instinct does sufficiently encline him to this Dependance Though they call this a Heathen Light this is not that it is simply Natural but it is an Impression that God makes on our Understanding which leads us to know God and to submit our selves to him Which if we do we are happy in whatsoever Nation we be For God never demanded any other thing of Men but this Resignation to his Will and if he has since appointed Laws this was but by reason of Mens Frailty having never formerly subjected them to any Laws but that of depending upon him As he would not yet provided we would submit to him This our Christians do not though they hope to be saved I said to her That it troubled me much to hear that not so much as one Christian was resigned to God She said Sir That you may not believe this blindly recal to mind a little the Persons whom you have held for good Men and consider narrowly all their Behaviour that you may see whether they are not guided by their own Wills even in their pious Works whether they are not done from their own Inclinations You will find that this has always been at the Helm to govern all and that if it were not to please our selves many good Works would be left undone For my part I have remarked this in all the Persons whom I have known and I never knew but one Maid who was resigned to God Nevertheless I have met with those who had the greatest Reputation for Vertue and I alwayes perceived that their Actions though good were mingled with Self-love Which hinders a Resignation to God For as long as our Self-will will bear Rule God cannot have our Submission These are all dead Works which shall be recompenced only in this World and not at all in the other I have seen Persons given to Fasting Watching and Prayer diligent in going to Church and in relieving the Poor and yet notwithstanding of this they subjected not their Wills to that of God But followed their own as much as they could imagining that they did all for God while there was no such thing For if God had govern'd their Wills they would have done all their Actions both small and great in the Righteousness Goodness and Truth of God From which they were very far estranged and if they had been capable of it I would have made appear to them that their best Actions were very blameable and accompanied with Presumption and Self-satisfaction In this many deceive themselves and believe they are in a State of Salvation though they be very far from it You must not be troubled Sir to hear it said That there is not so much as one Christian in the way of Salvation Since it is true and none are resigned to God But we ought to bewail their Blindness and desire and pray that they may be converted for the Time to come since there is Time for Repentance and Leisure to return to God even to the last Moment of our Life If I should say that all Christians are in a State of Salvation as all these false Prophets do their Salvation would certainly be desperate Because every one would rest on such a dangerous Estate It were far better to tell the Truth by declaring that they are not in the way of Salvation that they may strive to recover it than to flatter them with false Words And it should be more acceptable to them to hear that they are not resigned to God if it be most true than to hear that dreadful Sentence Go ye cursed into Everlasting Fire when they should have thought to hear Come ye Blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom For it will be too late at Death to return to a Dependance upon God And it is not so now By which you may see Sir that there is more reason to be troubled when we hear them say that Christians are in the way of Salvation than when they say they are in that of Damnation when it is true as it is because of their Blindness For if I did not most evidently perceive this I would not affirm such unpleasant Things But I should be without Charity if I should not declare so important Truths while we are yet living in the Time of Penitence For I perceive inwardly in my Soul that the Thoughts Words and Actions of Men are not at all directed by God For they partake not of his Righteousness Goodness and Truth but on the contrary they are all full of Self-interest Self-honour or Pleasures And notwithstanding no Body will willingly be reproved Every one desires to continue as he is without knowing his Fault and much less amending it covering and palliating his Miseries and excusing them as much as he can So that I see no good that can be done for the Conversion of Christians for they trust too much to the false Perswasion of their Salvation Therefore I will retire and bid you Adieu Not that I am displeased to be among Men to
whom I am like but it is because I perceive them to be Enemies of God and they do not desire to know it With which my Heart is very much opprest The Twentieth Conference Shews That there are very few among the Christians who desire to be converted unto God and to return to a Dependance upon him And treats of the necessity of this Dependance I asked her If she did not fear that she should Act against Charity to her Neighbour by retiring thus from their Conversation since she might do them great good She said No Sir I Act not against Charity to my Neighbour Because I cannot help him if he will not have Help I have had but too much Experience of this that Men will not change their Life at least the Christians For I was never acquainted with others to know if they are as much hardned as those who are called Christians For those I say I have done all that could be done to shew them the dangerous State in which they live but I profited very little by it They love rather to see and hear fine Things But for resigning themselves to God no Body will do it but by Word which is as far from the Truth as is Heaven from Hell Every one says that he will be resigned to God while in the mean time no Body will deny his own Will in the least thing we hear them often say I will what God wills And the least Contradiction they meet with does alarum them and those who promise them Salvation comfort them and flatter them saying That this is to be patient when they murmur not against the Appointments of God and that they must only resign themselves and thereby they shall merit much As if God were obliged to Recompence their Impatience For to suffer Contradictions is common and necessary both to the Wicked and to the Good Because no Body can be free of them in this miserable World where every one must suffer will he nill he But to say that we are resigned to God when we are only resigned by force is a Lie because this resignation is a necessary thing when we cannot hinder things to fall out against our Will For to be resigned to God we must have no more Self-will to will this and not to will that For a Thing that we have resigned we do not hold nor possess it any longer to desire to use it Resignation to God is a total dependance upon his Disposal as well for our Soul as for our Body and for all that concerns us bridling our own Will in every Thing without willing or desiring any thing any longer knowing well that Gods Conduct is always more perfect than all that we could wish for If it rain if it be fair if it be hot or cold if we are in Peace or War in Adversity or Prosperity it matters little provided we be resigned to God It is he who governs all these Things and can never do evil If our Friends live or dye what the matter when God ordains it Our Life our Death must not be wisht for nor desired by us because we are not capable enough to judge what is good or evil for us And to offer to give Laws to God is to mock him since he understands and knows all Things He sees far better than we what is good and perfect because he is the Wisdom that cannot be ignorant of any thing and the Goodness that can do no evil and who orders all Things to a good End so that if we were not void of Understanding we would not entertain a Thought of contradicting any Thing that befals us For all turns to good to him who is resigned to God and though we esteem it a Happiness to have good Desires yet it is a Thing infinitely more perfect to have no Desires with a Dependance upon God Because a never so little mixture with this Dependance alwayes hinders the Effect of the Ordinances of God as if we would be Tutors to him or give out our Law for doing well In the mean time we are so short sighted that we do not discern Good from Evil So that if God should permit that to befal us which we often ask and desire of him as Good great Mischiefs would have come upon us so blind are we in the matter of our Salvation And yet we will not resign our Will to that of God but in Word only So that if I should tell Christians now adays that they will never be saved without resigning their Wills to that of God they would say that I damn all the World For they look on the Salvation and Damnation of Men as if they could Damn and Save them whereas it is God only that can Save and Sin only that can Damn Therefore by conversing with Men I will not profit them for their Salvation I said to her That God having imparted to her such Light it ought not to remain under a Bushel But should be set in a Candlestick She said Sir What will it avail to set the Light upon a Candlestick when those who are present will shut their Eyes that they may not see it These Christians are so pre-occupied with their own way of Devotions and with seeming Vertues that they esteem nothing else and as soon as they shall see the Brightness of this Light their Eyes will be dazled with it and they will even complain of the Light of it How is it possible to shew to any that which he will not see I have conversed among others with the most pious of the Religious who could not imagine that there was another way of Salvation but a good observance of their Rules and they thought they did a thing well-pleasing to God to maintain the Honour and Profit of their Order and for my part I judge this to be so far from a Dependance upon God that I think it is the real Mean to take them off from it For as long as we are tied to Rules and Studies to observe them well it is alwayes the Person that Acts and the Care of preserving the Honour and Profit of the Order is indirectly the seeking their own Honour and Profit Which is not only a Vice but also a false Vertue that deceives them to their Ruine and though I assure these Persons that there is no other way of Salvation but that of resigning their Will to God yet they will not hear this Note insisting alwayes on the first Tune they learned and they think they are resigned to God since they have quit the World to enter into a Religious Order and they apply themselves to the observing of their Rules they say their Offices and obey their Superiours choosing rather to resign themselves to Men their Equals than to their God imagining that he is served with Reverences Bowings of the Knee and a great many common Prayers Without remembring that 't is he who searches the Reins and examines
but one Man only and he had but one Will in which was included the Will of all Men that should ever arise from him So that God could not pitch in him upon one Masse of Reprobates and one of Saved Because there was no longer Salvation in him after his Sin nor in all other Men his Posterity All were reduced into this damned Masse without any exception And as none could be damned before Sin so none could be saved after it Because in Adam all Men in general were contained who have still shared in his Happiness and Miseries his Favours and Disgraces his Pleasures and his Penitence All Men being inseparably united to the will of Adam the Father of all living I asked her How it could be that some Men are damned and some saved since there was so strait an union between the Will of Adam and that of other Men She said This comes to pass Sir when every Man comes to the use of Reason He goes out of the Power and Will of Adam and is put into his own full Liberty as Adam was at his Creation with this difference only that Men have in them the Malignity of Sin Which Adam had not when he was created but only an Inclination to good As to the rest all Men in general are put when they are capable of Reason into the same Estate wherein Adam was created with the same Divine Soul wholly free and reasonable capable of being led to good or evil as Adam was But that some are saved or damned is not by any Necessity or Predestination but only by every ones Free-will who are led to good or to evil according to the Choice they make of the one or the other Because on Gods part Man is left free and entire as he was before Sin For God never changes his Works He has not for sin changed any thing in the Earth nor in the Heavens nor in the Elements nor in the Beasts nor in the other Creatures but has continued them all such as he created them without any change but Sin has brought Malignity upon each of them whereas before the said Sin all Things were good without any evil Even so God has changed nothing in Man since his Sin He remainsentire in all his Qualities both Bodily and Spiritual except that by Sin he has contracted a Malignity and an Inclination to evil Which before he had not but a bent and inclination to all sort of good Behold this is the only change that Sin made in Man without his being necessitated to evil far less predestinated to Damnation Since all Men received in Adam the Pardon of this Disobedience having also received in him the Penitence which was accepted for all Men in Adam so long as a Man is unable to use his own Reason For then he is set at Liberty from the Power of Adam and that of his own Parents in whose Will he remain'd till then And coming out of this he is free to choose good and evil and neither God nor Men can constrain him to Salvation or Damnation And that any is saved or damned can proceed from nothing but the free choice that every one makes of following good or evil and not at all from Predestination as they very unjustly do imagine For God will never deprive Man of his Graces how wicked soever he be so long as he shall Live in this World He will never take back the Graces which he gave him in Adam They shall be still communicated to him if he will make a good use of them The Pardon which he granted to Adam he granted to all Men and no Body can believe without Sin that God should Reprobate him for the Sin of Adam For by his Grace he forgave all when he forgave Adam his Sin He cannot retract the Remission which he then gave to all Men to Reprobate them upon the same account of Adams Sin For God never repents him of what by his Mercy he has once done unless Man of his Free-will come to offend God by other new Sins Which he is free to do All Men were created in the State of Innocence in Adam and all Men sinn'd in Adam and also received the Pardon of this Sin in Adam So that all they who dye in Adam are certainly saved by the Mercy of God upon the Pardon that he gave to Adam But if his Children being come to the use of Reason do of their own Free-will turn to evil they then fall again into Gods displeasure and begetting Children in the same displeasure they are in the same Condemnation with their Fathers as being united with them till they come to the use of their own Reason For then they begin to have a Being by themselves whereas before they were reckoned to be one and the same thing with their Parents because of the Sympathy there is in the Union of the Father with the Child whose Will he holds in his Power as Adam held the Will of all Men till they attain the use of their own Reason so that till then they may be predestinated to Salvation or Damnation by the good or ill Will of their Parents and not by the Decree of God who cannot and will not destroy any Body having certainly created and forgiven all the World that all might be saved and none Reprobated For if he had precisely decreed some for Damnation he should not have had so much Righteousness in himself as what he demands of Men For he sayes to them Love your Enemies and do good to them that persecute you This Counsel would have had no Authority if he himself had Reprobated those who are become his Enemies This absolute Reprobation would not be good but the greatest evil that ever could be imagined How could he command Men to do good to their Enemies when he himself would do so great and eternal an Evil for the Fault they had committed against him and that while they were yet in a state of Penitence as they are during this Life where Reprobation shall never have place since till the very last Instant they may find Mercy and Pardon This Reprobation must only operate after Death and not during this Life Because this is the Time of Penitence in which they who shall be certainly Reprobated can have no part and it would be a very rigorous and unjust Thing that God should oblige those to Penitence whom he absolutely resolves to damn I believe Sir they confound the Times when they speak of Predestination and take the present for the Time to come For at the Judgment God will then take Two Masses the One of Elect and the Other of Reprobates who do what they will shall assuredly be damned Because the Time of Penitence will then be past But during this Life there can be no predestinated Reprobates I told her That well-meaning Persons did believe there was in this Life Predestination and that God had here Vessels
of Election and Reprobation and both necessarily so She said This is Sir because these Persons though well-meaning do not discover the Goodness and the Righteousness of God and they judge only according to the Appearance of Things and not according to the Reality For God can never Reprobate any after that he has created all for Salvation and he cannot damn them for Adam's Sin after he has pardoned it and Man has undertaken the Penitence that God enjoyned him on that occasion If there were any Reprobated for this Sin of Adam in strict Justice Adam ought to be first of all Reprobated since he first committed the Sin 'T is sad to see and hear how Men mistake the Qualities of God making him pass as unjust and evil like themselves I am sorry Sir that I must be so prolix in this Matter but the Thing requires it Because it is a most important Point that regards the Glory of God and the Salvation of Men and therefore I cannot speak too much of it Be not you more weary to hear than I am to speak of it I have still had strange Contradictions in my Spirit when I heard Persons of Sincerity aiming to maintain the Truth and yet notwithstanding very far from knowing it and taking the Sentiments of Men for infallible Truths though very often they persist in their Ignorance which is so great and so prejudicial to the Salvation of many For he who believes he is predestinated to Salvation will not be at the pains to procure it and though he fall into Sins he will not repent of them believing that he cannot be damned and that he shall one Day Repent though it were but the Last of his Life Consider a little Sir what sloth this occasions in those well-meaning Persons and in what hazard they put their Salvation For it is a Delusion to believe that we shall be Saved by God's Predestination Live as we please for God will never Save any since Adam's Sin but those who of their Free-will shall resign themselves to the Will of God Though his Goodness Sav'd all Men in creating them without any Co-operation of theirs yet he will Save none without it after they have their Free-wils to make choice of good or evil God could indeed Save them before they made Resistance and while he was absolute Lord of all Things But since he gave them this Free-will to govern themselves and so many other Things he cannot Save them without themselves Therefore no Body should flatter himself to believe that he shall be Saved if he be predestinated seeing this Predestination can have no more place since the Sin of Adam Every one must exercise himself to work out his Salvation Because no Body shall obtain it but he who of his own Free-will shall yield up into God's Hands the Free Liberty that he gave him These are the Elect Because they being yielded up unto God none can pluck them out of his Hands unless the Person himself should yet withdraw from God Which is almost impossible Because God still directing him his Will can no more be led to evil than that of God is unto which it is joyned and united The Goodness of God replenishes it with so many Graces that it is impossible not to follow them How could the same Goodness ordain that any should be Reprobated since nothing that is evil can proceed from it Must not the Reprobation of Men of necessity come from their evil Will Since it is impossible for God to do evil it is consequently impossible for him to Reprobate so much as one Soul If it be it is still its own Fault only and not at all a Predestination to Damnation Because God damns no Body not even at the Last Day of Judgment For they who shall be then absolute Reprobates shall condemn themselves when the Justice of God shall appear to them their Injustice will give Sentence against themselves and confine them to Hell as the just Merit of their Iniquities and not at all as the Decree of God I said to her It was very probable that God can damn no Body since he is all good and can do no Evil that notwithstanding of this we see according to our short Prospect of Effects as if Men were Predestinated to good and evil As in the Conversion of St. Paul and of Mary Magdalen and on the contrary in the Reprobation of Judas and of the wicked Thief She said Sir These different Accidents are not considered in their Source but only superficially gone over and judg'd according to Humane Sentiments which does not penetrate the Righteousness of God St. Paul was not only a Chosen Vessel on God's part but also on the part of his own Free will For after he had the use of Reason he was alwayes zealous of the Law of God and 't is very probable he had resigned his Free-will to God according to his Knowledge because all that moved him to persecute the Christians was only a desire to maintain his Law which he believed was more perfect as being given by God and imagining that the Christians aimed to destroy it he would maintain it and believe that by doing this he greatly pleased God who seeing this good Desire would needs draw him out of his Ignorance in an outward and extraordinary manner Because it is God's Property to abound in Grace and to prevent Men of good Will by such Means as whereby they may discover that he favours them Therefore he appeared visibly to St. Paul by some Light and made him blind asking him wherefore he persecured him Making him understand by these outward Signs the State of his Soul by the Light he shews him that he was in darkness by the Blindness of his Eyes the Blindness of his Mind which must be directed to some one who might make him see the Truth and by the Question Wherefore he persecuted him to shew him how much he was deceived in Prosecuting the Christians who were the People of God This he knew not all these Things fell out not because God had partially chosen St. Paul to be his Apostle But because he had of his own Free-will chosen to follow Good and to resign himself to God But whereas Men see only these outward Things they believe God acts by Passion as they do and that he prefers one of his Creatures to another Which he does not at all For he loves them all equally as being all his Children and nevertheless gives more Grace to those who are most resigned to him And this with Reason For a Son who does his Fathers Pleasure and is dedicated to his Will is more worthy of Favours than another who resists and despises the Will of the same Father Magdalen received also the Grace of Conversion though she was a Sinner But if we consider well her inward Disposition we shall clearly perceive that she was truly