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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	able_a	act_n	action_n	24	3	5.8901	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41099	The maxims of the saints explained, concerning the interiour life by the Lord Arch-bishop of Cambray &c. ; to which are added, Thirty-four articles by the Lord Arch-Bishop of Paris, the Bishops of Meaux and Chartres, (that occasioned this book), also their declaration upon it ; together with the French-King's and the Arch-Bishop of Cambray's letters to the Pope upon the same subject.; Explication des maximes des saints sur la vie interieure. English	Fénelon, François de Salignac de La Mothe-, 1651-1715.; Fénelon, François de Salignac de La Mothe-, 1651-1715. Correspondence.; Louis XIV, King of France, 1638-1715. Correspondence.; Noailles, Louis-Antoine de, 1651-1729.; Godet des Marais, Paul, 1647-1709.; Bossuet, Jacques Bénigne, 1627-1704. Instruction sur les estats d'oraison, où sont exposées les erreurs des faux mystiques de nos jours.	1698 (1698)	Wing F675; ESTC R6318	100,920	267

only cumber and retard the Course of them both 'T is even so with a just Man in the Hand of God who moveth him without discontinuation with his Grace All hasty and unquiet Excitation fore-running Grace for fear of not acting enough all eager excitation except in case of Command for to give to one's self by an excess of interested Precaution those Dispositions which Grace does not inspire with in those Moments because it inspires with others less comfortable and perceptible all hasty and unquiet exciting for to give to one self by observable excitation a more perceptible motion and whereof one may be able to bear to himself immediately a more interested Witness are defective Motions for Souls called to a peaceable Disinterest of perfect Love This unquiet and fore-running Acting is what good Mysticks have called Activity which hath nothing in common with the Action and real but peaceable Acts that are essential to co-operate with Grace When they say that one ought no more to excite himself nor strive they mean only to remove that unquiet and hasty Excitation whereby one would go before Grace or recal the sensible Impressions of it after they are past or co-operate with it in a more sensible and noted manner than is required of us In this Sence Excitation or Activity ought effectually to be cut off But if by Excitation should be meant a Co-operation of the full Will and of all the Powers of the Soul to the Grace of each Moment it ought to be concluded that it is by way of Faith that one ought to excite himself every Moment to fill up all his Grace This Co-operation is no less sincere for being disinterested and for being peaceable it is no less efficacious and the Product of the entire Will For being without precipitation it is no less painful in relation to Concupisence which it overcomes It is not an Activity but an Action which consists in very real and meritorious Acts. Thus it is that Souls called to pure Love resist the Temptations of the greatest Trials They fight even to the Blood against Sin but it is a peaceable Combat because the Spirit of the Lord savors of Peace they resist in the Presence of God who is their Strength They resist in a State of Faith and Love which is a State of Prayer Those who have yet need of the interested Motives of Fear and Hope ought to take hold of them even with a natural eagerness rather than to expose themselves to be overcome Those who find by a repeated Experience and known to good Directors that their Strength lies in an amorous Silence and their Peace in the greatest Bitterness may continue thus to overcome Temptation and they must not be disturb'd for they are pained already enough another way But should these Souls by a secret Infidelity come secretly to fall from their State they should be oblig'd to have their recourse to the most interested Motives rather than expose themselves to violate the Law in the excess of Temptation To speak thus is to speak in conformity to the Evangelical Rule without weakning in the least either the Experiences or the Maxims of all good Mystical Persons XI False THat Activity which Saints will have us to cut off is the Action itself of the Will She ought not to produce any further Act she hath no longer need to co-operate with Grace with all her Power nor positively and fully to resist Concupiscence nor to work any internal or external Action that is troublesome to her It sufficeth her to let God work in her those that flow as from the Spring and for which she hath not so much as a natural repugnancy She hath no further need to prepare herself by the good use of one Grace for a greater that should follow and which is as it were linked to this first she needs only let herself loose without Examination to all the Propensions she finds in herself without assuming them She needs no more any Toil or Labour any Violence any Restraint of Nature Let her but remain without Will and Neuter between Good and Evil even in the most extream Temptations To speak at this rate is to speak the Language of the Tempter 'T is to teach Souls to lay Snares for themselves 't is to inspire them with Indolency in Evil which is the height of Hypocrisie 't is to engage them into a Consent to all Vices which is no less real for its being indirect and tacite XII ARTICLE True SOuls attracted to pure Love may be as disinterested in respect to themselves as to their Neighbours because they never see or desire more in themselves than in the most unknown neighbour but the Glory of God his good pleasure and the fulfilling of his promises In this sense these Souls are as it were strangers to themselves and they Love themselves no farther but as they do the rest of other Creatures within the Order of pure Charity After this wise would Innocent Adam have Loved himself only for God's sake Self abnegation and the hating of our Souls recommended in the Gospel are not an absolute hatred of our Souls which are God's Image For the Work of God is good and we ought to Love it for his sake But we do spoil that work by Sin and we ought to hate our selves in our corruption The perfection of pure Love consisteth then in not loving our selves any further but for God alone The vigilancy of the most disinterested Souls ought never to be regulated according to their disinterest God who calls them to be as freed from themselves as from their Neighbour will have them at the same time more watchful over themselves whom they are intrusted with and for whom they are responsible than over their Neighbour whom God hath committed to their charge They ought even to watch over what they do every day to their Neighbour whom Providence hath intrusted to their direction and conduct A good Pastor watcheth over the Soul of his Neighbour without any interest He Loves in him nothing but God He hath him never out of sight He comforteth correcteth and supports him Thus ought we to bear up our selves without flattery and correct our selves without discouragement We ought to converse charitably with our selves as with another and not to forget our selves but by cutting off the ticklishness and niceness of self-love not to forget ones self at all but in pulling down all unquiet and interested reflections when we are intirely in the grace of pure love But it is never lawful to forget ones self so as to cease watching over our selves after the same manner we would watch over our Neighbour if we were Pastors We ought even to add this further that one is not so strictly charged with the care of his Neighbour as with himself because it is not in our power to regulate the internal wills of others as 't is of our own Whence it follows that one ought always to watch

to the will of God of saving all Men and the belief we ought to have that he is willing to save every one of us in particular This Soul does not doubt of the good will of God but believeth her own bad because she sees nothing in her self by reflection but the apparent evil which is external and sensible and that the good which is always real and intimate is by God's jealousie continually taken from before her eyes Nothing in this involuntary and invincible trouble can recover her nor reveal to her in the bottom of her self what God is pleased to conceal to her She sees God's Anger swoll'n and hanging over her head as the billows of the Sea ready to drown her then it is that the Soul is divided from her self she expires with Christ upon the Cross saying My God My God why hast thou forsaken me In that unvoluntary impression of despair she makes an absolute Sacrifice of her concern for Eternity because the impossible case in the trouble and darkness she is in seems to her possible and actually real Once more it would profit nothing to argue with her for she is wholly incapable of reasoning all the business lies in a conviction which is not intimate but seeming and invincible A Soul in this condition looseth all hope of things for her own interest but she never looseth in the superiour part of her self that 's to say in her direct and intimate acts that perfect hope which is the disinterested desire of the promises She loves God more purely than ever and is so far from consenting positively to hate him that she does not so much as indirectly consent to cease for one instant from loving him nor to diminish in the least her Love nor to put ever to the increase of that Love any voluntary bounds nor to commit any fault though never so venial A Director may therefore leave this Soul to make a simple condescention to the loss of her own interest and to the just Condemnation she thinks to be under from God which serveth ordinarily but to quiet her and to becalm the Temptation designed only for that effect I mean for the purification of Love But he ought never either to advise or to permit her positively to believe by a free and willful perswasion that she is reprobated and ought no longer to desire the promises by a disinterested motive He ought yet much less to consent she should hate God or cease from loving him or transgress his Law even by the most venial faults To speak thus is to speak according to the Experience of Saints with all the Precaution necessary for the Conservation of the Doctrine of Faith and never to lay open Souls to any Illusion X. False A Soul in Tryals may believe with an intimate free and voluntary Perswasion against the Doctrine of Faith that God hath forsaken her tho' she had not forsaken him or that there is no more Mercy for her tho' she does sincerely desire it or that she may consent to hate God because God will have her to hate him or that she may consent never more to love God because he will no more be beloved by her or that she can voluntarily confine her Love because God will have her to limit it or that she may violate God's Law because God will have her to transgress it In this State a Soul hath no longer any Faith or Hope or disinterested Desire of the Promises nor any real and intimate Love of God nor any even implicite Hatred of Evil which is Sin nor any real Co-operation with Grace But she is without any Action without any Will without any more Interest for God than for herself without either reflex or direct Acts of Vertues To speak at this rate is to blaspheme against what one is ignorant of and to corrupt one's self in what one knows 't is to make Souls to be overcome by Temptation under pretence of purifying them 't is to reduce all Christendom to an impious and dull Despair 't is even grosly to contradict all good Mystical Persons who do assert that Souls in that State shew a very lively Love for God by their Sorrow for having lost him and an infinite Abhorrency of Evil by their Impatience oftentimes towards those who offer both to comfort and reassure them of their good State XI ARTICLE True GOD never forsakes the Just unless he be forsaken by him He is the infinite Good who seeks for nothing but to communicate himself The more one receiveth him the more he gives of himself Our Resistance only is that which restrains or retards his Gifts The essential Difference between the new Law and the old is that the latter did not lead Man to any thing that was perfect that it shewed what was good but gave not a Power wherewithal to do it and Evil without affording Means to avoid it whereas the new is the Law of Grace which gives both the Will and the Deed and which commands only because it gives the true Power to fulfil As the Observers of the old Law were assured that they should never see the diminution of their Temporal Goods Inquirentes autem Dominum non minuentur omni bono Souls that are true to their Grace shall likewise never suffer any dimunition in their Grace which is always preventing and the real Good of the Christian Law Thus each Soul that she may be fully true to God can do nothing solid and meritorious but to follow Grace without need of preventing it To be willing to prevent it is to be willing to give to one's self what it does not give yet 't is to expect something of himself and his own Endeavour or Industry 't is a subtile and unperceptible Remainder of a Semi-Pelagian Zeal at the very time when we long yet for more Grace One ought 't is true to prepare himself for to receive and invite Grace to himself but this ought not to be done without the Co-operation of Grace it self A faithful Co-operation with Grace in the present Moment is a most effectual Preparation for receiving and attracting of Grace the next Moment If the thing be narrowly pried into 't is then evident that all is reduc'd to a faithful Co operation of a full Will and of all the Forces of the Soul with the Grace of every Moment's presenting If all that could be added to this Co-operation were rightly taken in its full extent it would be nothing but a rash and over-hasty Zeal an eager and unquiet Endeavour of a Self-interested Soul an unseasonable Motion that would discompose weaken and retard the Operation of Grace instead of making it both more easie and perfect 'T is even as if one who is led by another whose Impulses he ought to follow should incessantly prevent his Motions and at every Minute turn himself back to measure that Space he had already run This unquiet and ill concerted Motion with the Man that principally moves would

overjoy'd at it believes himself to be already at the very gates of that City and that there is nothing now remaining but a little way and that very good for him but as he moves forwards the lengths and difficulties which he had not foreseen at first sight do proportionably increase he must be obliged to descend by Precipices into deep Vallies where he loses the sight of that City which he thought he could almost touch He must be forc'd oftentimes to creep up over sharp Rocks and 't is not without great trouble and dangers that he arrives at last at that City which he thought at first to have been so near him and so easie to come at It 's the very same thing with that Love which is entirely disinterested the first cast of the Eye discovers it in a wonderful perspective one thinks he has hold of it he supposes with himself that he is already confirmed therein or at least that there is between him and it but a short and even space but the more he advances towards it the more tedious and painful he finds the way There is nothing so dangerous for a Man as to flatter himself with this pretty Idea or Conceit and to believe that he lives in the practice of the same when it is not really so He that makes this Love to be speculative would fret himself to a Skeleton if God should put him to prove how this Love doth purifie and realize it self in the Soul In short he must have a care of believing that he hath the same in reality when he only has a view of it and is charmed with it That Soul which dares presume by a decisive reflection that he is arrived to it shews by his presumption how remote he is from it the small number of those that have reached it do not know whether they are really so and as often as they do reflect upon themselves in relation to it they are ready to believe it is not so with them when their Superiours declare the same unto them They speak of themselves as of another person in a dis-interested manner and without reflection and act with simplicity by a pure obedience according to true necessity without ever voluntarily judging or reasoning concerning their state In short tho' it be true to say that no man can set exact bounds to the operations of God in the Soul and that there is none but the Spirit of God that can sound the depths of this same Spirit yet it is also true to say that no internal perfection can allow a Christian to dispence with those real acts that are essential to the accomplishment of the whole Law and that all perfection reduces it self to this habitual state of sole and pure love which effects in these Souls with a dis-interested Peace all that which a mixt love does in others with some remains of an interested eagerness In a word there is nothing but a peculiar interest that cannot and which ought not at all to be found in the exercise of dis-interested Love but all the rest is there still in a more abundant manner than ordinarily in just Persons For us to speak with this precaution is to confine our selves within the bounds set us by our Fathers this is a Religious observance of Tradition and hereby is a relation given without any mixture of innovation of the Experiences of the Saints and the Language they have used in speaking sometimes of themselves with simplicity and pure Obedience XLV False TRansformed Souls are capable of judging themselves and others or to be assured of their internal Gifts without any dependance upon the Ministers of the Church or else direct themselves without any Character without an extraordinary Call and even with marks of an extraordinary Vocation against the express Authority of Pastors To talk in this manner is to teach an innovated Doctrine full of Prophaneness and to attack one of the most essential Articles of the Catholick Faith which is that of an entire subordination of Believers to the Body of Pastors to whom Jesus Christ said he that heareth you heareth me The Conclusion of all these Articles HOly indifference is nothing else but disinterested Love Tryals are nothing else but the Purification of it the abandoning of the same is but its exercise in Tryals The disappropriating of Vertue is nothing besides the laying aside of all Complaisance all Consolation and all Self-Interest in the exercise of Vertue by pure Love The retrenching of all activity implies no more than the retrenching of all inquietude and interested eagerness for pure Love Contemplation is but the plain Exercise of this Love reduced to one simple Motive Passive Contemplation is but pure Contemplation without activity or eagerness A Passive state whether it be in a time bounded with pure and decent Contemplation or in those Intervals wherein a Man does not at all Contemplate doth exclude neither the real Action nor the successive Acts of the Will nor the specifick distinction of Vertue as they relate to their proper Subjects but only simple activity or interested inquietude it 's a peaceable Exercise of Prayer and Vertue by pure Love Transformation and the most essential or immediate Union is nothing but the Habit of that pure Love which of it self makes up all the internal Life and then becomes the only Principle and Motive of all the deliberate a●● meritorious Acts but this habitual State is never fixt unvariable nor unliable to be lost The true love of that which is right saith Leo carries in it self Apostolick Authorities and Canonical Sanctions THE Lord Archbishop of Cambray 's LETTER TO THE POPE Most Holy Father I have resolved with utmost expedition as well as with all manner of submission and respect to your Holiness to send the Book that I wrote some time since concerning the Maxims of the Saints in relation to an internal Life It 's a duty which I am obliged to pay not only to the Supream Authority with which you preside over all the Churches but also to those Favours you have been pleased to heap upon me But to the end that nothing may be omitted in a matter of such importance and concerning which Mens Minds are so tossed about and agitated and for removing any Equivocations that might arise from the diversity of Languages I have undertaken to make a Latin Version of my whole Work to which I apply my self wholly and will very quickly send this Translation to be laid down at your Holiness his Feet I would to God most Holy Father I could my self in person bring you my Book with a zealous and submissive heart and then receive your Apostolical Benediction but the Affairs of the Diocess of Cambray during the misfortune of the War and the instruction of the young Princes which the King has done me the honour to intrust me with will not allow me room to hope for this Consolation And now most Holy Father I come to give the

the King and at the same time to importune him to commit the said Work to Examination The Arch-Bishops of Rheims and Paris with the Bishop of Meaux an implacable Enemy to Cambray were the persons appointed for it the effect whereof was the putting out of their Declaration upon the same Subject wherein they fully set forth their sentiments in relation to it And as these Prelates distinguished their Zeal in this manner against this Semi-Quietism the Bishop of Noyon about the same time in his Pastoral Letter written in the Form of a Preservative to keep the Clergy and Faithful of his Diocess in the holy Exercise of a solid and real Piety against the pernicions Maxims of Quietism sets himself against Quietism in all the Branches of it But tho' he would have the Quietism he darts his Thunder at to be not that of Molinos but this new sort of Semi-Quietism yet when he comes to a kind of an Explanation of it he confounds the new Quietism with the old seeing that in respect to the Opinions which he looks upon to be most monstrous he imputes what Molinos taught to those against whom he writes of which take this one tast What an Abomination is it says the Bishop to set up Vices in the place of Vertues and to pretend that shameful Falls are the Steps by which to ascend to the Glory of a perfect Union with God Now this is Molinos himself that has occasioned this Exclamation who says in direct Terms That we ought not to afflict or disturb our selves when we fall into any Defect but to rise up and go on and set our selves to Exercises of Piety as if we had never fallen Would you not take him to be a Fool says he who contending for the Prize of a Race and hapning to stumble in the midst of his Carier should lie upon the Ground to no other end than to bewail his Fall You would rather say to him Rise Friend and without loss of time set thy self a running again for he that gets up quickly and pursues his Race is like one that never fell So that it 's manifest from hence in short that the French Prelates do not well understand what they write against but that there is something in it tending to invalidate Penances and put Auricular Confessions out of Fashion which has brought so much Grist to the Romish Mill is what they seem to be very apprehensive of But the Clergy notwithstanding all their ' fore-mention'd Endeavours for the Suppression of this new Doctrine finding it to spread itself more and more among all Ranks and Orders of Men as well Ecclesiasticks as Laicks they thought it high time to transfer the Accusation to the Court of Rome with all the aggravation of the Arch-Bishop's of Cambray's Crime and Heresie imaginable and because they would not fail to make sure work of it they engag'd the French King so far on their side also as to get him to write to the Pope to induce him in Confirmation of the Censures of the Clergy of France to condemn the Arch-Bishop's Book who on his own part also being not ignorant of these Proceedings against him and not to be wanting to his own Defence thought it no less proper to write to his Holiness upon the same Subject But tho' the Bishop has used as much Caution as Submission in that he wrote to the Pope yet you will find in another of his Letters to a Friend that he is the same Man still But how violent soever the Arch-Bishops accusers appear'd against him both in France and Rome the Pope kept a soft pace till such time as having received the Arch-Bishops said Letter he was pleased to appoint seven Commissioners to Examine his Book viz. the Master of the Sacred Pallace His Holiness his Confessor and a Jaccbin Father Marsouiller a French-Man of the same Order the Proctor-General of St. Augustine-Friars Father Gabriel of the Mendicant Order Father Miri a Benedictine Father Grenelli a Franciscan and Father Alfaro Jesuit These were to make their Report to the Congregation of the holy Office in order to their farther proceedings thereupon But whither it were that these Gentlemen could not understand the Bishops Gallimaufry of notional speculations or what shall I call it or what ever else was in the wind they did nothing in it and the matter at last came before old Infallibility himself and his Sacred College of Cardinals But after all this and the continual Sollicitations of the Jesuits and some great Prelates there are some months now elapsed and nothing done in it and by any thing that hitherto has appear'd to the contrary they are so far from coming to a final decision either in favour or against the said Book as when they first began To enter upon an inquiry into the Doctrine and notions contained in this Treatise will not be proper for me in this place that being entirely left to the judgment of every one that has an inclination to peruse it It remains for me therefore to say that as it as stirred up the Curiosity of all sorts of persons abroad to make an inspection into these tenets so it has done mine to engage me in a more particular inquiry into the rise and progress as well as the dislike of and opposition made against them AN EXPLANATION Of the Diverse Loves Which may be had for GOD. 1. WE may love God not for the sake of himself but for some other good things depending on his Almighty power which we hope to obtain from him Such Love as this had the Carnal Jews who observed the Law in hopes only of being recompenc'd with the dew of Heaven and the fertility of the Earth This love is neither Chast nor Filial but meerly Servile or rather to speak properly who loveth so does not love God but his own dear Self and seeks entirely for himself not God but what comes from him 2. We may have Faith and not one degree of Charity with it We know God to be our only happiness that is to say the only Object the sight whereof can render us happy Now should we in this slate love God as the only instrument to be made use of for to work our happiness and because we are not able to find our happiness in any other object should we look upon God as a means of felicity and refer it purely to our selves as to its ultimate end this would be rather a self-self-love than a love of God at least it would be contrary to order as respecting God as an object or instrument of our felicity both to our selves and our own happiness And though by this love we should seek for no other reward but God alone yet would it prove wholly mercenary and of meer concupiscency That Soul as saith S. Francis of Sales in his Book of the love of God Lib. 2. c. 17. which should love God only out of love to her self by establishing the end of that love

another place he saith Speaking of S. Paul and of S. Martin Ibid. They see Paradise open for them they see a thousand miseries and labours upon the Earth the one and the other is indifferent to their choice and nothing but the will of God can give the counterpoise to their hearts He saith afterwards Ibid. Should he know that his Damnation were a little more pleasing to God than his Salvation he would leave his Salvation and run to his Damnation He Speaks also thus in another place 3 Discourse It is not only requisite that we should relie upon Divine Providence concerning temporal things but much more for what belongs to our Spiritual life and perfection He saith elsewhere Whither it be in interiour or exteriour things you ought to will nothing but what God shall will for you Lastly He saith in another place I have almost no desires but if I was to be Born again I would have none at all If God should come to me I should go to him also if he would not come to me I should hold still and not go to him The other Saints of the last Ages who are authoriz'd by the whole Church are full of such and the like expressions which are all reduced to this saying that one hath no longer any self and interested desire neither about merit perfection nor eternal happiness Thus to Speak is to leave no equivocation in so nice a matter where none ought to be suffered 't is to prevent all the abuse which can be made of the most precious and most holy thing which is upon the Earth I mean pure love 't is to Speak as all the Fathers all the chiefest Doctors of the Schools and all mystical Saints do V. False HOly indifference is an absolute suspension of the will an entire non-willing an exclusion even of all disinterested desire It goes beyond the perfect disinterest of love It does not desire for us those eternal goods which by the written Law we are taught God will give us and which he wills we should wish to receive in us and for us by the motive of his glory All even the most disinterested desire is imperfect Perfection does consist in not willing any thing more whatsoever in not desiring any more not only God's gifts but also God himself and in leaving him to do in us what he pleases by not intermixing on our side any real or positive will To Speak at this rate is to confound all ideas of humane reason It is to put a chimerical perfection in an absolute extinction of Christianity and even of humanity One cannot find terms odious enough to qualifie so monstruous an extravagance VI. ARTICLE True HOly indifference which is nothing else but the disinterest of love is so far from excluding disinterested desires that it is the real and positive principle of all those disinterested desires which the written Law commands us and also of all those grace does inspire us with After this manner did the Psalmist express himself to God All my desires are set before thine eyes The indifferent Soul not only desires fully her Salvation as it is the good pleasure of God but more than that perseverance the amendment of her faults the increase of love by the means of grace and generally without exception all spiritual and even temporal good that is within the order of providence a preparation of means both for ours and our neighbours Salvation Holy indifference admits not only distinct desires and express demands for the accomplishment of all the will of God known to us but also general desires for all the will of God which we do not know To Speak thus is to Speak conformable to the true principles of holy indifference and to the sentiment of Saints all which expressions if well examin'd both by what precede and what followeth are reduced without difficulty to this explication that is pure and sound according to the faith VI. False HOly indifference admits of no distinct desire nor of any formal request for any good either spiritual or temporal what relation soever it hath either to ours or our Neighbour's Salvation We ought never to admit of any of those pious and edifying desires which may inwardly work upon us To Speak at this rate is to oppose God's will under thepretence of purer conformity to it it is to violate the written Law which commandeth us to desire though it does not command us to form our desires in an interested unquiet manner or such as is always distinct 'T is to extinguish true love by a nonsensical resinement 't is to condemn with Blasphemy both the words of Scripture and the Prayers of the Church that are full of requests and of desires 'T is an excommunicating ones self and putting himself out of a condition of being ever able to pray both with heart and mouth in the congregation of the faithful VII ARTICLE True THere is never a state of indifference or of any other perfection known in the Church that gives to Souls a miraculous or extraordinary inspiration The perfection of interiour ways does consist only in one way of pure love whereby God is beloved without any interest and of pure faith where one walks only in darkness and without other light but that of faith it self which is common to all Christians This obscurity of pure faith admits of extraordinary light 'T is not but God who is the master of his gifts may give Raptures Visions Revelations and internal communications But they do not belong to that way of pure Faith and we are taught by the Saints that then we ought not to stop willfully in those extraordinary lights but to pass them over as saith the Blessed John of the Cross and dwell in the most naked and dark Faith Much more ought we to take heed not to suppose in the ways we have spoken of any miraculous or extraordinary inspiration which indifferent Souls do guide themselves by They have for their rule nothing but the precepts and counsels of the written Law and the actual grace which is ever conformable to the Law As to the precepts they ought always to presuppose without wavering or reasoning that God never forsakes any unless forsaken first and consequently that grace always preventing does inspire them continually to the accomplishment of the precept when it ought to be accomplish'd So it is their work to cooperate with all the power and strength of their will that they may not come short of grace by a transgression of the precept As for those cases in which counsels are not turned into precepts they ought without doing violence to themselves to produce acts either of love in general or of certain distinct virtues in particular according as the internal attraction of grace inclines them to some rather than to others as occasion requires What is very certain is that grace prevents them in respect to every deliberate action that this grace which is the internal breathing of the