that the latter Christians shall live in greater Perfection than those of the Primitive Church did That he will send his Holy Spirit to lay before us those means of Salvation which Jesus Christ taught us while on Earth that we may clearly see how far we are estranged from them and to give us the Light of the Truth that we may see the way to return and to take up again the same Gospel-Means and recover the Dependance of our Will on God without which none can be saved And God will give the full Understanding of all that has been delivered in his Name from the Beginning of the World both by the Holy Prophets and by Jesus Christ and his Apostles or other Saints his Disciples 2. The Original Design of God in the creating of Man being to take his Delight with him for which End he not only made Man after his own likeness but he also became Man that he might live with him in perfect Resemblance to all Eternity and this being now suspended unto Man because of his Sin until that he have accomplished his Penitence to which he is subjected by Sin yet since God does not change nor will ever alter his Designs this time of Penitence being finished Man will enter again into Communion with God as if he had never offended him He will speak to God Face to Face by his Humanity which will be rendred immortal as well as is that of Jesus Christ that they may delight themselves perfectly together upon Earth which will then be rendred Paradice by the lovely Presence of God who for this End became Man and in the End of the World will come in Glory upon Earth to Live and Reign for ever with Men which is as it were The Sum of all the Designs that God has over Men and the Alliance he has often promised to make with Man 3. All the Works of God are Eternal and nothing that he has made shall ever perish And in the End of this World at the Coming of Jesus Christ in Glory all things shall be renewed and restored into that primitive Integrity in which they were at first created All the Evil that is in the Creatures the Fruit of Man's Sins shall be wholly taken away All Nature shall then put off the Corruption Darkness and all the Disorders with which it had been tainted since Adam's Sin All shall become Bright Glorious and Luminous all Corruption shall be removed from the Body of Man and it shall be re-establish'd in that glorious perfect State in which it was at first created And the Soul become perfectly pure shall take its Delights with God and the Body with Heaven and Earth and all the other Creatures For God 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 shall 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 4. After the Judgment when God shall take all Malignity from the Earth and from all the Creatures the Venom from Serpents Scorpions and other poysonous Beasts Maladies and Infirmities from the Bodies of Men and Beasts and Weaknesses from Spirits All this shall be reduced into some corner of the Earth all in a mass that these Malignities may act together upon the Bodies of the damned and that the Works of their hands be rendered unto them For God never made any of all these Evils He created all things Good Men only by their Wickedness have given Malignity unto all created things and therefore it ought to appertain to them and to be rendered to them by the Right of Justice which will come to pass at the Judgment when the Bodies of the Wicked shall rise also that none of the Works of God may perish and shall be sent into that miserable Corner with all the Evils which shall be removed from the Blessed and from the Earth from Plants Beasts and all the Elements that all these things may serve them only for Delight and Pleasure without being able to do any more Evil as they were in the Beginning of their Creation and all their Malignities which they have contracted by the Sins of Men shall be rendered unto their Authors 5. God having at the First Creation endued all living Creatures with a Power of producing their like and Man in his perfect State being endued with the same Power of producing his like without the help of another he shall be re-establish'd into the same State again So that in the Kingdom of Heaven there will be eternal Propagation but altogether Holy altogether Pure and Deified without concupiscible Appetite but by pure Acts of Love to God which will extend it self to the Production of New Creatures to the Glory of their Creator There there is not Male and Female they neither marry nor are given in Marriage but are as the Angels in Heaven XXXVIII This as a Sum of her Accessory Sentiments and they who shall consider them without prejudice will hardly think that for them she deserves to be treated either as an Heritick or as a Mad Whimsical Woman It has been already said that she does not propose them as Articles of Faith necessary to be believed by all that according to St. Augustine these only are damnable Doctrines which tend to destroy Charity the Love of God and our Neighbour which it is evident those Sentiments do not and it were easie to make appear that many other Doctrines and Practices do which pass among many for very Christian XXXIX Besides it is evident that these Sentiments tend to clear and confirm all the Truths and Doctrines of Christianity and to endear them to us They shew us the great Designs of God's Love in the Creation of Man the excellent State in which he made him and the Happiness to which he design'd him They make appear evidently that all our Evil is from our selves and all our Good from God They shew us the Ground and Reason why Man's Redemption was set about and not the fallen Angels why Jesus Christ took such Interest in Man became Intercessor and Surety for him and why his Mediation was accepted by God his Father and why after other means essay'd he at last cloath'd himself with Man's Mortality why the following of his Counsels and Example is indispensibly necessary to Salvation They represent to us the horrid Corruption that Man is fallen into by Sin both as to Soul and Body and all the Creation by him and how mad we are to gratifie our corrupt Inclinations and to love this present World They direct us to a right use of the Rods and Judgments of God and awaken us to a sence of our present State wherein all the World lies in Wickedness They give us a prospect
true Man infinitely beloved by his Father full of Love to him and of Charity and Compassion for Man ardently intercedes with God for him that he would have Mercy on him His Father could refuse him nothing that was consistent with his Righteousness and Truth It was not just that he should receive Man into Favour if he should continue still to turn away his Love from God to the Creatures and to himself nor had it been just and safe to have restor'd him presently to the same State of Divine Communion and Joy from whence he had fallen it was necessary he should feel first the Evil of Forsaking his God that so his corrupt Nature might be mortified and he establish'd in the Love of God God then for the Merits and Intercession of Jesus Christ pardons Man upon Condition he turn again to the Love of his God from the Creatures and himself and for this End he communicates again to him his Light and Grace and allows him a Time of Trial wherein he is to do Penitence for offending his God that thereby his corrupt Nature and his Love to the Creatures and himself may be throughly mortified and he return and be establish'd in the Love of God Jesus Christ accepts of the Terms and becomes Surety for Man that he shall fulfil them and applies himself with ardent Love to bring Man back again to God The Delights of the Creatures being that which had turn'd away Man's Affections from God it was just and necessary that he should deny himself to them and make an entire Sacrifice of all those Delights and of his Lusts after them to the Love of God To make which the more easie for him the Earth was accursed for his Sake Jesus Christ coming now to interpose with God to bring him back to his Duty leaves no Means unessay'd to effectuate it of inward Light and Grace and outward Laws and Ordinances according to Man's State and Circumstances When the Corruption of Man's Nature had resisted and bassl'd all those Means yet nothing being able to quench his Love he at last cloaths himself with Man's mortal Nature puts on all his Infirmities becomes in all things like to him yet without Sin and as if he had been the greatest Sinner does Penitence for him denies himself to all Honours Riches Pleasures Sciences Eases Accommodations Self-seeking and Self-will lives and dies in perfect Poverty Contempt and Pain makes an enitre Sacrifice of himself his Life and all things of the World unto his God and this both that by his Doctrine and by his perfect Example he might shew Man what Way to return to God how to do Penitence for his Sins how to deny himself and take up his Cross and to make a Sacrifice of himself and all unto God and by doing all this in Man's Nature to shew him how practicable it was and also that for the sake of this pure and perfect Oblation of himself done from so great Love to God and Charity to Man God might be still moved to have Mercy on Man to grant him his Grace and to accept of his Penitence united to this Sacrifice of Jesus Christ What Jesus Christ has done and suffered for Man on Earth has infinitely heightned his Merits and the Power of his Intercession with God so that he obtains for Man Pardon and Grace and Time to repent and the being receiv'd into perfect Favour with God upon his Penitence as if he had never sinned Jesus Christ has satisfied on his part the Justice of God but they only receive the Benefit of it who follow his Example in denying themselves and taking up their Cross and do thereby mortifie their corrupt Nature and return to the Love of God It is in this Sence that we also must satisfie God's Justice not that we can make any Satisfaction to God proportionable to our Demerits Not that we can merit his Pardon or Salvation but it being just with God not to receive Man into Communion again with him till he do Penitence for his Sins and thereby mortifie his selfish and carnal Affections not that God stands in need of this but that it is absolutely necessary for Man's Recovery we cannot expect Salvation without satisfying in this manner on our part The Satisfaction of Jesus Christ for our Sins may be taken in two Sences by way of Merits or by way of Discharge The First way That he has thereby merited Pardon Grace and Salvation for all who shall follow his Example is most true The Second by way of Discharge That Jesus Christ has so fully satisfied the Justice of God for the Sins of his Elect that nothing is required of them but to believe and rely on his Merits and nothing due from them but by way of Gratitude as if God stood in need of their Services or that they need do for the mortifying of corrupt Nature as much only as their Love and Care for the World and themselves will permit and trust in Christ's Merits for the rest This I say is most false Christ having merited for us Grace to mortifie our corrupt Nature and Pardon and eternal Life if we return to the Love of God Again there is a twofold Substitution or the having one in our stead to satisfie the Justice of God for us There is a Substitution of Self-love and another of Charity or the Love of God The First is when we desire to gratifie our sensual and corrupt Nature and follow our own Wills and Lusts and are very well pleas'd to hear that there is one has suffered for us and satisfied God's Justice so that we are content to believe in him and hope in his Merits going on in the mean time to indulge our corrupt Nature excusing our selves because of our Frailty and Weakness and that we cannot do otherwise but our Saviour Jesus Christ has made an Atonement for all and we hope in his Merits This is a False Diabolical and Antichristian Substitution as A. B. makes abundantly appear through all her Writings The Substitution of Charity is when out of a deep Sence of our Baseness and Undutifulness to God and the Propensity of our Natures to continue so still and to gratifie our corrupt Inclinations we apply our selves by his Grace to deny our selves and to make a Sacrifice of all that 's dear to us to God in leading a Life of constant Penitence but seeing our Penitence bears not Proportion to the infinite Greatnes and Goodness of that God whom we have offended we rejoice to know that there is one of perfect Purity and in full Favour with God who for us has made a suitable Oblation of himself not to discharge us from a Life of Penitence but to obtain Grace for us to do it and Acceptance of it with God and shew us how to perform it To him we flie and for his sake we beg for the Acceptance of our imperfect Penitence and desire it may be united to his Sacrifice and done
the Grandeur of Charity or the Love of God that of Reason and that of worldly Empire and Honour Alexander and others have excell'd in the last and seem Great to the Eyes of Flesh Archimedes and others have excell'd in the second and seem Great to the Eyes of Reason Jesus Christ appear'd in none of these Grandeurs had neither Learning nor worldly Greatness and was of no regard neither to the Eyes of the Flesh nor those of the Great Philosophers and of Reason but O! how Great was he in the Eyes of Charity how Meek and Humble and Patient and Self-denied in a Life of absolute Poverty Contempt and Pain for the Love of God and Men. Now all the Writings and Actions of A. B. tending to draw Men into this Kingdom of Charity and the Love of God which is of a quite distinct Rank and Order from that of humane Reason as well as of worldly Greatness it was no wonder that she put no great Value on the one more than the other they being both unspeakable Hindrances in the way to it and the second more than the third She shews that there is in the Soul a Principle for above humane Reason and that is Divine Faith which does not consist in believing only with the understanding the Twelve Articles of the Creed which may be done by a humane Faith as we believe the recital of some History when a Person worthy of Credit relates it this gives not to the Soul any Divine Vertues which God only can operate in us Faith is a Divine Light which God infuses in the Soul which makes us to know and desire Eternal things and despise Temporal It is not a natural Quality as our Reason but a Divine Quality which proceeds from God as the Beams do from the Sun as nothing can make us see the Sun but the Sun himself It was communicated to all Men at their Creation lost by their Fall renew'd by the Merits and Grace of Jesus Christ When it shines in our Souls it warms them with the Love of God and Men who bear his Image and Likeness and produces Charity And this Charity regulates all our Life and gives weight and measure to all our Actions For Divine Faith is always living and operating It partakes of all the Divine Qualities Righteousness Goodness and Truth So that he who has Faith in his Soul cannot be Unjust nor a Liar nor a Deceiver nor Wicked nor seek his own Interest his own Glory his own Pleasure or Satisfaction seeing all these respect time and earthly things Humane Reason is an Inferiour Principle that may indeed convince us that there is a God the Author of Nature who made and sustains all things but this cannot produce in our Souls Faith and Charity Vertues derived immediately from God and not from Nature or the Understanding of Man which is a frail Creature limited to Earth and Time And to think to know or comprehend God by the natural Understanding is a greater Folly than the Heathens committed in worshipping the Sun All Men being now void of humane Faith take up with a humane Belief and divide and dispute and quarrel and hate and despise one another without knowing wherefore and without perceiving that the Folly they have in themselves is more to be despised than what they require in their Brother The active Exercise of our Reason when depriv'd of the Light of Faith serves but the more to confound and darken us it keeps us in a vain Amusement makes us neglect the necessary means of obtaining Divine Faith blows up the Heart with Pride makes us despise the most Divine Truths when they do not accord with our Principles and value our selves beyond others tho' humble ignorant Persons are more to be regarded as being more disposed to receive the Light of Faith than those Learned who have drunk in the Doctrine of Men. She blesses God that preserv'd her from this for then she should have been uncapable of receiving that of the Holy Spirit Jesus Christ call'd the Simple and Ignorant to be his Disciples and Apostles it was they whom he train'd up to instruct and teach others the way to Salvation When a Learned Nicodemus came to him he told him that unless he became as a little Child he could not enter into the Kingdom of God He founded no Colleges nor Academies to train up his Followers in all sorts of Learning but taught them by Word and Deed to deny themselves in all earthly things and to take up their Cross and follow him True Religion is preserved or received by the same means by which it is at first instituted and established They who say in another case that Christ being more faithful than Mâ—ses in all the House of God who yet left not a Pin of the Tabernacle unmade and therefore he surely could not be wanting in ordering what was fit for his Church may examine their own Measures by this Rule She says The Schools and Doctrine of Men have corrupted the true Sence of the Scriptures and by their Learning authorize all sorts of Sins that it seems the Schools are expresly instituted to forge Cases of Conscience capable of leading Men to Hell For what need is there to Gloss the Gospel and the Life of Jesus Christ They are clear Truths which Jesus Christ taught by Word and Deed that we must be poor in Spirit humble in Heart desirous to suffer Persecution for Righteousness sake and to do to others as we would have them do to us but to corrupt all these things the Learned make Glosses that it is not against Poverty of Spirit to labour or trade that we may get Money and make some Fortune in the World and to flatter Men the better to their Ruine they add by Word that we must possess Riches as not possessing them which is a great Deceit for Men are not now so dispos'd as those of the Old Testament who receiv'd Temporal Goods from God as a Blessing to employ them to his Glory not having their Hearts any ways wedded to them as those of our Time who incessantly covet Riches desiring still more and more It is an infallible Truth that all who would be saved must love God with all their Heart And if we ask those Divines if it be not lawful for a Man to love his Father Mother Wife Children Kinsfolk Friends yea his Country Money House Honour Divertisements Meat Drink Cloaths and every other Creature they will answer yes because they love them themselves and yet imagine they fulfil the Command of God of loving him with all their Heart and to disguise this Lie the better they will say We must not love all these things inordinately giving us to understand thereby that our Hearts may be well divided into so many different Affections without sinning which has so authoriz'd the neglect of the Command of loving God with all our Heart that no Body thinks it is needful They live and die in
XLVII She retir'd to Gaunt and from thence to Mechlin and form'd a Process before the King's Council at Brusselâ— against the Magistrates at Lisle for the Recovery of the Hospital and tho' it did appear most evidently that she was Innocent and that they had acted against her with inexcusable Violence yet they would not venture to give Sentence for her against a Party so Powerful and far more Considerable before Men than was the Innocence of a simple private Maid So the Process remains undecided to this Day and she could no longer abide in Safety in Lisle unless in secret XLVIII She staid Four Years in Flanders at Gaunt and Mechlin after she had left the Hospital and many well-dispos'd Persons made Acquaintance with her The first she spoke with at Mechlin was one Mr. Coriathe an Archdeacon who became afterwards Vicar General At his Request she wrote the first Treatise of her Life call'd La Parole de Dieu She wrote to him also many Letters which are printed in the First and Second Parts of La lum nèe en tenebr She had also there in the number of her Friends a Learned and Pious Divine M. Peter Noel Licentiate in Divinity Priest and Canon who had been Secretary of the Famous Cornelius Jansenius Bishop of Ypres This Man being of the Sentiments of Augustin engag'd her in Conferences concerning Grace where she unravell'd in an admirable manner all the Difficulties which have hitherto been inexplicable by Mens Spirits This gave occasion to her writing the Treatise call'd Academie des Sâ—avans Theologiens because of the great Contests which were then between the Jansenists and Molinists concerning Grace and the great Noise that was made about the Doctrine of the Casuists concerning Attrition Contrition Probability and their Morals wherein her Friends being all Jansenists discours'd to her often of the Excess of their Adversaries which she could hardly believe till she went and heard some of their Preachers who vented sometimes their sine Morality She was touch'd with Compassion for the Blind that were led and with Indignation at the Blind Leaders It pitied her to see the general Abuse among the Churchmen the Religious and the People who rested on Trifles and a meer Outside which the Blindness of some Guides recommended as a sure way to Salvation tho' they never thought of being purified from their inward and secret Sins nor of returning to the Love of God In this Treatise all these things are handled with great Penetration Clearness and Solidity Monsieur Noel was perswaded that she was full of the Holy Spirit but on the other hand it troubled him to see that the Holy Fathers had not still the same Light with her in Theological Matters or as to divers Places of the Holy Scripture She wrote to him several Letters on this and other Subjects which are in La Lum neé en tenebres Another of her Acquaintances was M. Gillemans Canon and Archpriest of Gaunt who one Day asking her Opinion of the Doctrine of the Casuists that one might be saved by Attrition without Contrition and telling her he had written a great Volume against the Jesuits upon that Subject she told him her Thoughts and that she had lately put them into Writing After having oft solicited for this Paper he obtain'd a sight of it for some Days which he read with such Admiration that when he return'd it he said You have said more things and more convinciâ—g on this Subject in these Three Leaves than I have done in all my Book which has cost me so much Time Labour and Expences and therefore I condemn my Book never to see the Light This Writing is the Fifth Chapter of the First Part of Academie des Sçavans Theologiens She return'd to Lisle May 1664. where she staid privately for some Months about her Affairs for the most part in the House of her Pastor Monsieur Lamberti where she wrote the Explication of the 24th and 25th Chapters of St. Matthew which are in La Lum nec en tenebres To him she wrote many Letters after her first Return to Lisle in the 23d and 24th Years of her Age which was the first of all her Writings and it is call'd L'Appel de Dieu le Rufus des Hommes Part I. XLIX But the most faithful and constant Friend she had in Flanders was M. Christian de Cort Pastor of the chief Church at Mechlin and Superiour of the Fathers of The Oratory there A Man full of Zeal for God and Charity for his Neighbour and void of all Self-seeking From the first time that A. B. spoke to him he was so touch'd enlightn'd and enflam'd by God that immediately he resolv'd absolutely to follow Jesus Christ even to Death in the abandoning all Honour Pleasures and Wealth of this World which he promis'd a little after to A. B. and perform'd with an inviolable Fidelity He no sooner discovered that God had hid in her the Treasures of his Divine Wisdom than he took all Occasions to be instructed by her and when alone set down in Writing the Summ of what had past in their Conversation but briefly and without order He acquainted her with his Resolution to publish this to the World thinking himself oblig'd in Conscience to undeceive others as by those Divine Truths he was undeceiv'd himself But when she had seen his Papers and read a little of them she told him they would be useful for himself but not for others because they often answer'd the Thoughts of his own Mind which no Body perceived but himself and being solicited by him to compose this Work anew returning him his Papers she her self wrote by way of Conference the things which God brought into her Memory in the same manner as they are now publish'd in the Three Parts Of the Light of the World L. In September 1667. she went for Holland at the Solicitation of M. de Cort in order to the printing of this Book her Friends having assur'd her that she would not be permitted to do it in Brabant and she propos'd to retire from thence to the Isle of Noordstrand where she had bought a Farm from M. de Cort the Director of it She had Debates with her self before she could resolve to go to Holland having never been in any Place without the Dependance of the Church of Rome and being made believe that all the Hereticks as they call'd them were monstrous and infectious But having recommended this Affair to God she was told That these common Differences of Religion do not bring Salvation but the Love of God only and Vertue which we ought to love in all Persons who aspire to it without regarding what outward Religion they profess that she ought to do Good to all and to communicate to all the Light of the Divine Truth of what Religion soever they be This wrought in her Soul such a perfect Impartiality that she never afterwards enquired of what Religion one was provided
small or great But let the Love of pure Truth draw thee to read Do not enquire who said these things but consider well what is said III. It is no less unjust to take the Sentiments of others only upon Trust from a declar'd Enemy to the Person whose Sentiments they are such you know are sure to set them always in a false Light so as to make them hateful and ridiculous If you will take the Doctrine of Jesus Christ himself from the Scribes and Pharisees they shall make him to speak Blasphemy and to be in Compact with the Devil Now this is the unjust Measure given by many to A. B. They take her Sentiments from those only who design to render them hateful and ridiculous who after the manner that they represent them may as easily expose the most Sacred Writings It is just then to hear her self and not to judge of her Sentiments by some Expressions or Passages of her Writings which separately may seem harsh but to compare such with the whole Context and with the main Scope and Substance of all her Writings and this will lead you to interpret them aright I do not desire that you should take her Sentiments upon Trust from me more than from others I aim only to set them in a True Light in opposition to the False Representations made of them And as to my Sincerity and fair Dealing in it I appeal to the Writings themselves IV. Neither is it just to weigh Sentiments by the Doctrines of Men and to despise and reject them if they do not agree exactly with the commonly receivâ—d Systems and Opinions The Doctrine of Jesus Christ is the Rule we are to walk by Men in forming of their Systems are ready to flatter Corrupt Nature It is certain in our practice we all do so and we are well pleas'd with Doctrines that may favour us in this If then her Sentiments be the same in Substance with the Doctrine of Jesus Christ and do not at all tend to sooth and flatter our Corrupt Nature but on the contrary to lead us to mortifie and subdue it we ought not to reject them tho' they do not in all things agree with the Systems of Men. V. Before we set down her Sentiments it is to be considered that as she owns the written Word of God to be the Test whereby we are to examine all Doctrines pretended to be come from God and that none contrary thereunto ought to be receiv'd and desires that hers may be tried thereby So she declares that the Doctrine of Jesus Christ is the last Doctrine that is to come into the World and contains the necessary means of Salvation and that there is no other way to Salvation but what he has chalk'd out to us by his Life Precepts and Counsels So that all her Writings and Sentiments aim at nothing but to convince Men that they do not follow the Life and Doctrine of Jesus Christ and to perswade them to do it as being indispensably necessary to Salvation VI. As to her Sentiments she makes appear that the Truths of Religion may be considered under two Heads 1. There are some Truths and Doctrines in which the Essence of Christianity does consist the Living Knowledge and Practice of which is necessary to Salvation 2. There are other accessory Truths without the express Knowledge and Belief of which one may be Saved VII First As to the Essential Truths of Christianity she supposes before all the Truth of the Holy Scriptures and of the Apostles Creed and that all that is contrary thereunto ought to be anathematiz'd and the Soundness of her Faith in these appears by her Profession of Faith and Religion which she presented publickly at the Court of Gottorp in Holstein which is prefix'd to all her Books and the Tenour of it is as follows VIII Her Profession of Faith 1. I Am a Christian and I believe all that a True Christian ought to believe 2. I am baptised in the Catholick Church in the Name of the Father in the Name of the Son in the Name of the Holy Ghost 3. I believe the Twelve Articles of the Apostolick Symbol or Creed and I do not doubt of one Article of it 4. I believe that Jesus Christ is True God and that he is also True Man as that he is the Saviour and the Redeemer of the World 5. I believe in the Gospel in the Holy Prophets and in all the Holy Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament And I will live and die in all the Points of this Belief which I protest before God and Men to all whom it shall concern In Testimony of which I have sign'd this my Confession with my Hand and seal'd it with my Seal At Sleeswick the 11th of March 1675. L. S. Anthoinette Bourignon IX Now this short Confession is the Abridgement and Foundation of all her Doctrine and of her Life and they who are not willing to be impos'd upon will be so just as to measure and judge of her Sentiments according to this Sincere and Publick Confession of her Faith and not according to the False and Calumnious Representations which some designedly make of them whereby they would have her to pass in the World for the Inventer of a New and Fantastical Religion and so raise in the Hearts of the People an Abhorrence of her and her Writings which aim at nothing but to perswade them to be truly Followers of Jesus Christ This being presuppos'd here follows 1. Her Accounts of the Essentials of Religion in her own Words 1. GOd created Man only to be lov'd by him and for no other End He had no need of Man nor of any other Creature being in himself alone Holy and Perfect Independent upon all things yea whom all obey in Heaven and Earth who is yet able to Create a Thousand Worlds and an Hundred Thousand kinds of Creatures according to his Good Pleasure But his Good Pleasure was to Create Man after his own Likeness that he might take his Delight with him and as there cannot be perfect Love if it be not reciprocal it was God's Will that Man should love his God with all his Power in Requital of the Love which God bear to him and that he should delight in him only since God would needs take his Delight with Man which obliged Man to place all his Affections upon God alone Seeing he was created for no other End he neither could nor ought in justice to turn his Affections towards any other thing than his God but to love him only with all his Heart and with all his Strength 2. God creating Man thus to take his Delight with him and that he might voluntarily love his God he gave him for this End Divine Qualities capable of loving him he created him altogether Free and Perfect he would not bound nor limit the Will of Man whom he would needs make
after his own Likeness to be his Spouse and not to be his Slave or constrain'd to do his Will for all the other Creatures were subjected under his Will but Man alone was created altogether Free like a little God Sovereign and Ruler over all the other Creatures which God had subjected to Man leaving him Free to use them well or ill according to his Will 3. So soon as Man turn'd away his Affections from God to love himself or the other Creatures he became the Enemy of his God and would not acquiesce in the Designs that God had for Man to take his Delight with him And by this means Man has damn'd himself and by ceasing to love God the Fountain of all Good he is fallen into all sort of Evil which consists in the Privation of all Good 4. Sin coming upon this Master-piece of the Works of God has rendred Man so miserable so infirm ignorant weak that all things over which he ought to rule do master and mischief him 5. Men are now born Children of Wrath and Perdition and are therefore assuredly damn'd by Nature and nothing but the Grace of God can save or deliver them from this Damnation into which they have voluntarily precipitated themselves 6. After that miserable Man had thus destroy'd himself â—esus Christ true Eternal God and true Man comes to intercede for him with his Eternal Father and by his Merits and Intercession has obtain'd for this ingrate Creature the Remission of his Sin and the Grace to do Penitence for it and a time and state of Trial for that End that by a perfect Repentance he may obtain the Favour of God to the End he may return to his Love which he had lost thro' his own Fault since Man was created free to continue eternally in the Love of God without ever falling from it 7. Whereas Man ought to recover this Love of God by his own Choice and his own free Will he must therefore testifie by his Contrition and Penitence the Regret he had to have lost this Love and effectually make use of the Grace obtain'd for him by Jesus Christ employing all the time of his Trial which is this Mortal Life to bewail his Sins and do Penitence for them since by the great Mercy of God he has obtain'd the Grace to do it and has the Means in his hand to fulfil this Penitence in the Curse that the Earth had receiv'd by his Sin so that it must be cultivated and Man must gain his Bread in the Sweat of his Face 8. Man was so corrupted by Sin that he can do no good of himself more than the Devils But Man by the Mediation of Jesus Christ has received this Mercy from God that he may be converted But as long as he follows the Corruption of his Nature he remains in his Devilish State and cannot be saved 9. Man has fallen by withdrawing his Affections from God to place them on the Creatures And no body will be saved but he who returns to the Love of God for which he was created and they who do without this Love do perish eternally 10. Jesus Christ having interceeded with his Eternal Father for Mercy and Pardon to Man became his Pledge and Surety that if his Father would yet allow Man a Time of Trial and Grace he should do Penitence for his Sins renounce his corrupt Nature and return to the Love of God And as Man's Pledge and Surety he took on him our Mortality and voluntarily cloathed himself with our Miseries he bore our Griefs and taking the Form of a Sinner underwent all the Pains due to our Sins as if he himself had been the greatest Sinner and bound to do Penitence tho he was never guilty of the least Sin that by his Merits and Sufferings he might merit for us with his Father the Spirit of Penitence and Conversion which being united to his Sufferings and his Charity which are Sacrifices more agreeable to God than our unclean Offerings and our Works defiled with Sin might be accepted of him 11. Jesus Christ took our Mortality out of the pure Love he bore to Men his natural Brethren that he might withdraw them from Sin and the Way of Predition into which they all walked He became a mortal Man to give us an Example and to teach us by what Means we may recover the Love and Grace of God he did take an infirm Body subject to all sort of Miseries and Death like to ours that he might teach and encourage us to do the Works that he had done in his mortal Body and that we imitating him might enjoy the Pardon and Recovery which his Merits have purchased for us 12. Jesus Christ by his Merits and Intercession has obtain'd Pardon for Man and the Grace of God for all who shall voluntarily embrace his Gospel Law and for no other and therefore none can ever be saved but by the Merits and Intercession of Jesus Christ which will never be applied to any but to his Disciples and Followers 13. Man stands in need of keeping the Commandments of Jesus Christ and the Gospel-Law because of his Frail y and because these are all Remedies of his Evils and by embracing these Remedies he shall recover the Love of God which he had lost thro' his own Fault 14. God is the only Fountain of all Good from whom never any Evil can proceed and Man is the only Fountain of all Evil from whom never any Good can come 15. The only Essential Command is a constant Dependence upon God and the Resignation of our Wills to him and all the other Commands teach us only the Means to attain to this Resignation and how to remove the Hinderances of it 16. The Essence of true Vertue consists in the Love of God and the Essence of Sin in the Love of our selves and of the Creatures 17 All the Actions of God do partake of his three Divine Qualities Righteousness Goodness and Truth and nothing we do can be well pleasing in the Sight of God if it do not partake of the same if it be not just and good and true 18. It is not necessary to Salvation to comprehend in particular the Theory of the Divine Mysteries far less to be wedded to one certain Party rather than another but that denying our selves and turning away our Liberty from the Love of the Creatures and from earthly Things we resign it and all our Faculties into the Hands of God that he may enlighten renew and govern them by his Spirit after which he will produce in the Soul the Light and Graces that he sees necessary for its Salvation This is a Summary of the Essentials of Christianity as they are represented by her and her Morality is a particular Deduction and Application of these Principles to the Hearts and
Actions of Men and it is so pure and excellent that her greatest Enemies have been forc'd to acknowledge it to be so that they might be the less suspected when they blame her in other things XI This Account of the Essentials of Religion I have given in her own Words she having summ'd them up in several Parts of her Writings sometimes under fewer Heads and sometimes under more tho' as to their Substance they are still the same And all her Writings have no other Tendency but to awaken in Mens Hearts a Sense of those Divine Truths and to convince them how far they are from them in their Practice She aims at nothing but to perswade Men that they cannot be saved without the Love of God that their corrupt Nature now leads them only to love themselves and the Creatures which is inconsistent with the Love of God that they cannot return to it without denying and mortifying this corrupt Nature which Jesus Christ by his Merits and Intercession has obtained Grace for them to do and this can be done only by obeying his Gospel-Law and following his Example which no body truly does This is the Substance of all her Writings These Truths she inculcates a hundred and a hundred times This is the constant Burthen of her Song Some other Sentiments which she calls Accessory Truths she mentions perhaps but three or four times in all her Writings And because every Palate does not relish them shall therefore those Books be despised and thrown away which do so lively represent the Essential Truths of the Gospel Would we throw away a Box of Pearls because some conceited Friend snatch'd at something amongst them and squeezing it hard at our Nose made it smell as Dung and then cry'd out Fie all is Filth throw all away Sure if these be the Great and Essential Truths of Religion they who love the Religion of Jesus Christ more than Prejudice or Party will greatly value and esteem the Writings of which those Truths are the Marrow the Substance and the All and will no more be scandaliz'd at them because of the Snarling of some than they would despise Pearls because Swine trample on the or Holy Things because Dogs bark at them XII Now that these are the Great and Essential Truths of Christianity will I think be readily granted by all The Holy Scriptures declare unto us that God is Love that they who dwell in Love dwell in God and God in them that there is none Good but God that the Sum of his Law is to love him with all our Hearts and our Neighbour as our selves that while we love the World the Love of the Father is not in us that Jesus Christ became Sin for us who knew no Sin that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him that Jesus Christ is come to bless us in turning every one of us from our Iniquities that unless we repent we shall certainly perish that in his Life and Death he was given us an Example that we should follow his Steps that by Nature we are the Children of Wrath that we cannot be his Disciples unless we deny our selves take up our Cross and follow him that if we be risen with Christ we will set our Affections on those things that are above and not on those things that are beneath that they who are Christ's have crucified the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts thereof that Knowledge puffs up but Charity edifieth that all Knowledge and all Faith without Charity profits us nothing XIII Thus S. Augustine in his Writings and particularly in his excellent Treatise De Doctrina Christiana Lib. 1. makes a Summary of the same Nature Of the Essentials of Christianity He considered all Beings under Three distinct Ranks and Orders Some which are to be enioy'd others which are to be used and others in the middle between these and they formed to enjoy and to use those other Beings The Things to be enjoy'd are those which make us happy The Things to be used are those which help us to attain to that which makes us happy and to cleave to it We who are to enjoy and use those things being plac'd between both if we give our selves to Enjoy the things which we should only use we are stopp'd in our Course and come short of our Happiness being entangl'd with the Love of things below To enjoy is by Love to cleave to something for its self To use a thing is to employ it as a Mean to attain to that which we love as Strangers travelling to their Native Country make use of Horses by Land or Ships by Sea to bring them thither That which is to be enjoy'd is only God the Father Son and Holy Ghost the Infinite and Unchangeable Good We ought to love nothing for it self but God and all other things only in and for God Other things are to be used or avoided as they are Helps or Hinderances of the Love of God All who are capable of Enjoying God as we are that is all our Neighbours we ought to love them as our selves that is to desire or endeavour that they be brought with us to love and enjoy God All Sin and Evil consists in the Loving and Enjoying what we ought only to use the Creatures and their Perfections and the Using what we ought to Enjoy Vtendis frui Fruendis uti This has so darkned and corrupted our Minds that we are not capable of loving and enjoying this infinite Good In order to this they must be cleansed and purified which is as it were a Travelling and Voyaging to our Country This could not have been if Wisdom it self had not stoop'd to our Infirmity and cloath'd himself with our Flesh to obtain Pardon and Grace for Sinners and to give them an Example in their own infirm Nature And as to convey our Thoughts to others we must cloath them with Words tho' thereby they are not defil'd nor chang'd so the Eternal and Unchangeable Word became Flesh and dwelt among us the Truth and the Life became the Way and brought us the wholsom Physick that is necessary to cure the Maladies of our Souls Remedies for every Disease The Sum of all is that the Fulness and End of all the Holy Scriptures is the Love of God and our Neighbours the Being that is to be enjoy'd and those Beings which are capable of enjoying him with us And that we might know and be able to do this the Providence of God has order'd the whole Temporal Dispensation for our Salvation which we ought to use not with an abiding Love but a transient one as we would love a Way or a Chariot that we may love those things in which we are carried for the sake of that to which we are going This is the Substance of that Excellent Book XIV It is true A. B. mentions other Sentiments which are not of the Essence of Religion but then she declares they are not
than any Degree of Life for whatsoever retains any Form has some Degree of Life The Body therefore is subject to Death and so approaches nearer to nothing wherefore that Life which delighting it self in the Pleasures of the Body neglects God inclines to nothing and this is Wickedness For it loves that which is less than Life because it is Body and because of this very Sin that which is lov'd becomes Corruptible that it by passing away may forsake its Lover because he by loving it had forsaken his God But that the Body of Man which before Sin was the most excellent in its kind is after Sin become so frail and subject to Death tho' it be a just Punishment of Sin yet it discovers more of the Clemency than the Severity of God For thereby we are perswaded that we ought to take off our Love from the Pleasures of the Body and to turn it to the Eternal Essence of Truth And herein the Beauty of Righteousness and the Favour of Good meet together that because we are deceived by the Sweetness of inferiour Goods we might be instructed by the Bitterness of the Punishments c. Thus it is evident that nothing comes positively from God as an efficient Cause but that which is positively from Good and all Evil and Malignity proceeds from Devils and Men which God does yet so moderate and restrain in this time of Man's Trial as many make Man by his Grace come to himself and return to his God and if there be no further hopes of Man he leaves him to himself and so punishes him no otherwise than a Physician does a Sick Man by leaving him to his own Folly and Intemperance when he will neither be ruled by him nor take the Physick he has prepared for him Man does properly damn himself and he receives only the Works of his own Hands O Israel thy Destruction is of thy self but in me is thy help When the Holy Scripture represents God as denouncing a Curse on the Earth the Pains of a Woman in Travail the Labour and Death of Man these are charitable Warnings of some of the natural Consequences of his Sin to dispose him for them and that he might make a right use of them And when the Scripture speaks of the Wrath of God and of the Punishments flowing from it all this is to be understood in a Sense agreeable to the Nature of God as we do those Passages which ascribe to him the bodily Parts and Passions of Men and as by thus interpreting those last Passages there is no wresting of the Scriptures but rather their true Sense exprest which either the clear Idea that we have of God or one or two plain Places of Scripture concerning him that he is a Spirit and unchangeable do sufficiently manifest so neither are the former wrested by giving them a Sense conformable to the Idea of the Divine Goodness and Perfections from whence no Evil Disorder nor Anxiety can proceed and to those Places of Scripture which affirm that God is Love and that Fury is not in him What unsutable and unlovely Representations some have given us of the Divine Nature and Operations and how unfit they are for inflaming Men with True Charity is but too evident from Men Writings and from Mens Lives XIX 4. Her Writings and Sentiments have a great Tendency to a Christian Vnion and Concord amongst the several Parties of Christendom We all seem to be sensible of the Evil and Mischiefs of Schisms and the Hatred Lying Evil-speakings Strifes Wars Fightings Persecutions Deaths which have followed upon them are but too fatal Proofs of it and therefore every Party strives to wipe off the Blame from themselves and to lay it on another But the most useful Thought is to consider how to heal them The Course followed by the respective Parties will never do it Those of every Party judge that Orthodoxy is only on their Side and therefore strive to reduce all to an Union by bringing them to be of their Party and thus their mutual Animosities and Divisions are still heightned But the Writings and Sentiments of A. B. do more naturally and more effectually tend to a Christian Union they teach Men to labour after the Spirit of true Christianity in the Use of the outward Forms and Rites which are consistent therewith of the respective Parties wherein they are without setting up a New Party or judging and condemning another because differing from them in those outward Rites and Forms She shews that the Differences of outward Religions of their Ceremonies and Opinions will neither save nor damn that they are not inseparable from the Essence of Christianity which consists in the denying of our selves the mortifying of our corrupt Nature and the following of Jesus Christ without which we cannot be saved that those other things are like the Cloaths and Garments which do not give Life but an outward Decency and Conveniency That the one is the Sword and these other things are the Sheath and that the Madness and Folly of the Christian World lies in Contending which of us has the best Sheath while the Devil robs us of the Sword the true Love of God and our Neighbour and laughs at us when we think to overcome him with the Sheath of our outward Religions as we would laugh at a Soldier who would needs fight his Enemy with the Sheath of his Sword And so little Regard had she to the Interest of a Party that when Lutherans and Calvinists came to be directed by her in the labouring after a Christian Life and Spirit she never enquired about their Opinions nor bid them abandon the Communion wherein they were On the contrary when the famous Dr. Swammerdam who was solicited by his Friend Steno to go over with him to the Church of Rome and to Italy did ask her Advice in it she did expresly forbid him telling him there was nothing but Vanity in the Change of Communions and that he might labour to be a true Christian in the Communion in which he was Did this Spirit prevail amongst the respective Parties how strangely would it sweeten our Minds towards one another our Animosities would quickly cease our Difference would fall of themselves we would be as far from imposing our Forms and Modes of Worship and Confessions of Faith on others or persecuting them who did not conform to them or hating and maligning such as differed from us in their Opinions and Parties as we would be from treating after this manner those who differed from us in the Fashion of their Garments or the Sheaths of their Swords We would find the Apostle's excellent Counsel most applicable in all theses Cases One believes that be may eat all things another who is weak 〈…〉 let not him that eateth despise him that eaâ—◠〈…〉 which eateth not judge him that 〈…〉 One Man esteemeth 〈…〉 Man esteemeth every Day 〈…〉 perswaded in his own Mind 〈…〉 regardeth
have also the Pencil which is the Word with which Jesus Christ and his Apostles laid on these fine Colours of Vertues in Souls but they want as that Ape the Spirit of that excellent Master which is Jesus Christ They have on Paper the same Words which the Holy Spirit dictated but they have not the same Holy Spirit to apply them in Practice to their own Souls and far less to the Souls of their Hearers XXV 10. Those Writings give us such just and clear Representations of the Truths of Christianity as tend to take us off from Self and from the Creatures and to make us turn unto and depend wholly upon God such as does not favour us in the least Sin and yet encourages the greatest Sinner to turn to God such as leads us to ascribe nothing to our selves but Evil and nothing to God but Good Such as lets us see that nothing can excuse us from obeying the Commands of the Gospel and following the Example of Jesus Christ without which by him tâ—ere is no Salvation It is true of Doctrines as well as Men By their Fruits ye shall know them Such Doctrines as tend to sooth Mens Corrupt Inclinations to teach them how to love God and the World too to gratifie their Appetites here and yet hope to enjoy God hereafter I do not mean in so many express Words but in their natural Tendency such certainly are not of God Now the Doctrines contained in those Writings have quite another Tendency as has been said There we have such true and lively Representations of God as shews us that he is altogether Lovely of his Design in creating Man only to be enjoy'd and lov'd by him without any decree or purpose of damning the greatest part of Mankind as may stir us up to comply with so tender a Love with so generous a Design of the horrid Degeneracy and Corruption of Man now both in Soul and Body as may make us abhor our selves of our Sins their being purely our own deed without any the least Predetermination or Concurrence of God but the contrary as may keep us from excusing our selves or laying the blame on God of the Merits Satisfaction and Intercession of Jesus Christ as may convince us that Pardon and Reconciliation with God and Grace and Means to return to God is to be obtain'd and that only by him of the Necessity and Nature of the preventing concurring and renewing Grace of God as may make us continually seek to him for it and yield up our selves to be guided by it of the Nature and Corruption of our Will as shews the absolute necessity of denying it and yielding it up to God of the Doctrine and Example of Jesus Christ as may convince us that our Corrupt Nature cannot be overcome and we cannot return to the Love of God without obeying his Precepts and following his Example Now Writings of such a Tendency ought not to be despis'd and ridicul'd by the Professors and Preachers of the Religion of Jesus Christ and that they have this Tendency I appeal to any who have read any of them without an Evil Eye XXVI 11. Those Writings do contain also many Divine Explications of the Holy Scripture not after the way of criticizing and reckoning up the several meanings and acceptions of a Word or the various Sences of Inpreters which a Man may be well vers'd in and yet be altogether ignorant of the true sence and meaning of the Holy Scripture where he pretends to Interpret it We see all Sciences have a certain Light by which they are discerned a certain Disposition of Faculties which makes us capable to understand them certain Principles which lead to the Knowledge of them and when these are wanting we grope in the Dark Children and Boys may understand all the Words of a Book of Philosophy of the Propositions in Euclid and yet understand nothing of the Truths contain'd there To understand the Holy Scriptures and the things of God we had need to be endued with the same Spirit and to be in the same Disposition with those who wrote them Now if any will be pleas'd to compare the Expositions given in those Writings of some places of Holy Scripture with the learned Comments of the Interpreters and Criticks of the Age I am perswaded that if they be not greatly prejudic'd they will be convinc'd that her Expositions come from a more Divine Original than than the most of the other that they give a clearer Light more worthy of God and more suitable to the great Ends of Religion that in this the Truth of our Saviour's words is manifest that God hides these things from the Wise and Prudent and reveals them unto Babes and that with great reason she blest God who preserv'd her from drinking in Humane Learning Of all these I shall instance one which deserves a particular Consideration and that is her Exposition of the 24th Chapter of St. Matthew set down in the First Part of La Lumiere nee on Tenebres It is too long to offer to transcribe it here they who are desirous to see it need not want Occasions To this I cannot but subjoin the just Cautions she gives and the excellent Rules for the Interpreting of the Holy Scriptures She makes appear how rash Men are in glossing the Holy Scriptures since the things which concern our Salvation are so plainly set down in them that they need no Glosses and the obscure things cannot be understood but by the same Spirit who endited them and not by Humane Wisdom which is directly opposite to the Wisdom of the Holy Spirit which descends only into humble Souls That they who will needs interpret the Scriptures by Humane Wisdom fall into great Mistakes and understand the Terms quite othewise than the Spirit of God intended Thus it is said that God hardened Pharaoh's Heart the meaning cannot be that he hardens Mens Hearts by making them obstinate in Evil for God can never co-operate to any Evil being the Fountain of all Good But he speaks thus to make us know that he leaves a wicked Man to go on in his Wickedness when he will not be restrain'd But on his part he uses always Goodness towards them that he may convert them both by good Inspirations Admonitions and other proper Means But when their Free-wills are willful to persist in Evil he leaves them to themselves The main Difficulty there is in understanding of the Scriptures arises from this that we do not know the Qualities of God and we are ready to attribute to him such as Men have imagining that he has a Love for some and a Hatred for others And thus every one is wedded to his own Sence and Opinions and will maintain them as the Truths of God But the best Course is still to take the Holy Scriptures in that Sence that draws us more and more to the Love of God and to the Knowledge of our own
Nothingness and to leave all these things which seem disputable to the Wisdom of God reckoning our selves unworthy to be able to comprehend what he is how he does his Works and by what means he saves Men relying on the Faith that shews us that he does all things in Goodness Righteousness and Truth without amusing our selves with any other thing but to put in practice the things which he has openly declar'd to us by his Gospel which are necessary for our Salvation such as Humility of Heart Self-denial the Love of God and the Love of our Neighbour It is better to exercise our selves in these solid Doctrines than to break our Heads in disputing and desiring to comprehend what is in God or how he governs Men Better let our selves be govern'd by him as little Children than to be inform'd how he will govern us It is to this says he that I exhort all the World knowing well that all the rest is nothing but Vanity and Amusement of Spirit For all the Learning and Curiosities of all the Men in the World cannot save us on the contrary their Doctrines Learning and Sentiments do rather withdraw us from God and our Salvation They either furnish us with means of Self-presumption or they slacken our Care to work out our Salvation Those words of Scripture which seem to say that God reprobates or damns Men cannot be understood but by the Signification of them which cannot be known but by the Light of Faith for if we take these words according to our Sense we should speak Evil of God and believe that he is Furious or Evil which cannot be for he is all Goodness all Peace and Tranquility and therefore he who would not utter Slanders against God ought not to stick to the Terms of the Scripture but in so far as they lead us to love and adore God or to the knowledge of our own Nothingness and Charity to our Neighbour for God has neither said nor taught to us but the things which tend to these Truths Thus when we believe that all Grace and Salvation comes immediately from God as it is true because we are Nothings then we honour God and acknowledge his Almighty Power in making so great things by his Grace of nothing and we must needs love him also by this Consideration and beg that he will continue and encrease this Grace and when we believe that God is so Gracious towards us that as soon as a sinner shall repent and turn unto him he will have Mercy on him this reinforces our Love to him in consideration of the Love he bears us so mercifully to Pardon us In these two Senses we may hold different Opinions about Grace and believe that it comes entirely from God and believe also that Men may have it when they will since God never rejects a penitent Sinner But whether we hold the one or the other of these in terms which do not tend to humble us and to acknowledge the Greatness of God that we may love and adore him it is an evil thing and it is a great rashness for Man to interpret and corrupt the Scriptures by Terms which authorize a Remissness in Vertue For they who will Gloss on the Scripture Words might say that God spoke not truly when he said to Jonas yet Forty Days and Ninevah shall be destroyed for the thing did not fall out according to the Terms which were not conditional but absolute Yet notwithstanding we ought not to surprize God in his Words or in the Scripture Terms but we ought to draw profit to our Souls from them conformably to his Designs who speaks only for our Profit He says absolutely that Ninevah shall be destroyed because the Inhabitants merited this Sentence the Justice of God condemn'd their Injustice but how soon they repented and embraced Penitence his Goodness and Mercy did also pardon them We must not therefore say that God did not speak truly but that he judg'd them justly and that he afterwards mercifully pardon'd them without being nice or grumbling about the Form of his Words or Expressions which are design'd only to make us grosly to understand the things according to our Capacity and Weakness These are certainly most excellent Cautions as to the expounding and understanding of the Holy Scriptures where the most necessary Duties are most plainly set down and obscure things cannot be discovered by human Wisdom but by Divine Faith and by the same Spirit that endited them where we ought not to quibble about Words and Phâ—ases but so to consider them as may tend most to the Love of God and Charity to our Neighbours and a deep Sense of our own Nothingness This is the excellent Rule given by S. Augustine hereafter to be mentioned this is the Method which the holy Fathers observed in interpreting the Holy Scriptures which makes their Writings so full of Unction and how desirable a Blessing is it that they who write Commentaries now adays may be acted by the same Spirit but this is thought too mean and simple for the Learning and Criticks of this Age. XXVII 12. The Clearing of Difficulties about Divine Truths in a few Words is likewise a singular Quality of those Writings The Learned we see still wrangle about them to Eternity writing huge Volumes and confounding rather than clearing them by a Multitude of Words and Distinctions The Doctrines about Grace Predestination and the Free-will of Man have been toss'd unsatisfactorily thro' many Ages Multitudes of Volumes written concerning them and yet the greatest Difficulties still left unresolved both Sides having a Mixture of Truth and Error the one that they might give all to God taking from Man what he had irrevocably given him and the other that they might reserve this to Man taking from God and subjecting to the Caprice of Man that which belongs to the pure Grace of God and from both there do follow Consequences most injurious to God and most prejudicial to the Salvation of Men tho' disclaimed by the most Now in two or three Sheets of Paper of those Writings there is more said for the clearing of those Difficulties than in whole Libraries of Volumes This in the â— and 2. Chap. of the 1. Part of Academ des Scavans Theologiens written upon Occasion of Conferences with and at the Desire of a learned and pious Divine Mr. Peter Noels Canon at Maline a Jansenist who had been Secretary to the famous Jansâ—nius Yprensis and had a great Veneration for this Virgin and her Writings to his Death I shall mention another Instance of this Nature of Mr. Gilleman's Canon and Arch-Priest at Gaunt famous there for some Writings who having ask'd her Judgment of the Doctrine of the Casuists then much talk'd of viz. That a Man may be sav'd by Attrition without Contrition by Sorrow for his Sins without the Love of God telling her that he had writ a large Volume against this false Doctrine she told him
her Thoughts and withal that she had written her Thoughts lately on the same Matter which he having obtain'd the Sight of after Importunity and with a Promise to restore it within three Days he read it with Feeling and Admiration and returning it said You have said more things and more forcible on this Subject in one Sheet than I have done in all my Book which has cost me so much Time Pains and Expences and therefore I condemn it never to see the Light It is the 4th Chapter of the fore-cited Book XXVIII 13. Those Writings are worthy of our Regard in that they tend to discourage and remove out of the Christian World the Disputing and Controversal Divinity and to take Men off from the Spirit of Controversie which has banished the Life and Spirit of Christianity from among Men. Some are ready to say that her Writings tend rather to multiply Controversies than to remove them in that they advance so many new Doctrines and Opinios which were never formerly heard of But these need give no Occasion of Dispute she declares they are not Matters of Faith are not necessary to Salvation they who are perswaded of the Truth of them and find them helpful to increase their Love and Admiration of God will receive them without disputing about them and they who are not perswaded of the Truth of them may let them alone and so there needs no Dispute and no Body will contend with them about them But those Writings tend to take Men off from this Spirit they make so clear a Difference between the Essentials and the Accessories of Religion so plainly describe the first that all cannot but be convinc'd of them and they shew that the last ought not to be any Subject of Debate and Contention They make appear that the Doctrine of Jesus Christ is to be learn'd by Simplicity and humble Prayer and not by Controversie and Debate and that none are more capable of understanding it than they who are led by the Spirit they shew that there is nothing more contrary to the Spirit and Great End of Christianity than the Spirit of Controversie That they who are led by it cannot endure that others should differ from them in some Sentiments about Religion even tho' they agree in the Essentials and Fundamentals of it but presently they prosecute him with all the Spite and Rancour they are capaple of as the Enemies of God and Religion and do all they can to inspire the same Spite and Aversion against them in all on whom they have Influence They assix on them hateful Names accuse them of Crimes they were never guilty of Blasphemy Idolatry c. they treat them with Contempt and Scorn make them pass for mad and distracted the Good in them or the Truth that appears in their Writings they conceal and are griev'd at it and make it pass for what they call in Scorn Flights of Devotion or the Effects of a warm Imagination and they rejoice when they meet with any thing that can expose them or make them hateful they cannot easily believe any thing that is Good in them but very readily Evil they do not consider the great Tendency of their Life and Writings but cull out some Instances and Passages of both which may separately seem hâ—rsh and they assix on them the hardest Sence they are capable of and from these draw Consequences and form odious Pictures of them from them they can endure no hard Words without Rage and Displeasure but against them they insult and triumph In a Word this Spirit is the compleat Reverse of that Charity which S. Paul describes It suffers little is unkind envious rash puffed up behaves it self unseemly seeks it self is easily provoked thinketh Evil rejoiceth in Iniquity but rejoiceth not in the Truth bears with nothing believes nothing hopes nothing endures nothing Now all things being diffusive of themselves this Evil exerting it self in the Writings and Discourses of Men spreads like a Contagion and our corrupt Nature being more susceptible of Evil than Good is soon seized with the Malignity Hence cometh that Hatred Variance Strife Evil-speaking those Revilings Calumnies Sects Schisms Wars Fightings Persecutions c. which have made the Christian World so much the Sport of the Devil and the By-word of the rest of Mankind Now one would think that by this time Men might be so generally out of Love with the Humour of Controversie so offended with the Trickâ— of laying the Stress of Christianity on things wherein it does not consist and so sensible of the Mischiefs that both have done to Religion throughout all Christendom that those Writings would be generally acceptable which tend to sweeâ—en Mens Minds towards one another to lessen a Concern for Sects and Parties to give a clear View of the Essentials of Christianity and plainly to distinguish them from the Accessories and Circumstantials and to lead Men to the Mortification of their corrupt Nature and the Recovery of the Love of God as those Writings most certainly do XXIX 14. The Manner after which those Writings were composed is something singular and extraordinary It cannot be denied but that they are writ with much Clearness Solidity and Force in all the things that may be useful for the Salvation of Man yet they are not the Effect of Study and the reading of other Books for she read none and did not derive her Knowledge either from learned Men or Books reckoning their Learning a Straying from the right Way and that as the Writing-Master would needs have a Double hire from those who had learn'd to write an ill Hand to wit one hire for unteaching them so ill a Habit and another to teach them to write well because he must be at more Pains with such than with those who had learn'd none at all so she was with the Learned who came to learn from her in Christ's School she had a double Labour one to unteach them the imaginary Wisdom which they had embraced join'd with Presumption and Rashness and the other to make them receive the true Doctrine of the Holy Spirit Humility and the Lowness and Simplicity of a Child And as her Writings were not the Result of Study and human Learning so neither were they the Effect of Meditation and human Reasoning We must think before we write and take Time to order our Thoughts and consider our Words we must blot out and mend and add to our first Draughts But when she put Pen to Paper she wrote as fast as her Hand could guide the Pen and what was once written was witten without blotting out or Change And when she returned to any Writings that she had laid by unfinish'd tho' for some Months or Years she did not apply her self to read them over but having read only five or six of the last Lines to see how the Period ended she immediately wrote on with her former Swiftness her Sentiments flowing from her as Water
does from a Fountain She needed not it seems the Buckets of Study and Meditation wherewith to draw out of the broken Cisterns of others but she had within her a Fountain of living Water still springing up to everlasting Life As this is attested by those who were of her particular Acquaintance and all her Manuscripts are still extant written with her own Hand so a particular Account is given given of this by Mr. Francken Merchant at Amsterdam in his Testimony concerning her where among other things he tells That a learned Man of Amsterdam a Doctor of Law said to him one Day that he could not believe but it was some learned Man who had writ these Letters and publish'd them under the Name of A. B. as not being willing to be known and Mr. Francken assur'd him of the contrary but however he not having had long time to converse with her he would take care to inform himself more narrowly so as to be able to convince him as it fell out for some time since after he had told him he had often found her in her little Chamber with a Piece of Deal Board on her Knees writing without any other Thing but the Paper on which she wrote and the Pen and Ink which she made use of and she leaving off to write upon her Discovering that he was in the Room and because she never wrote but with Attention to the Voice of God in the inward Silence and Recollection of her Spirit he would take up the Paper with her Permission to read it and found it was writ so swiftly that there would be yet ten or twelve Lines fresh and wet Having made this Trial of it his Friend he says was perswaded of it as much as if he had seen it himself having full Confidence in his Sincerity from long Experience and Familiarity XXX 15. That which ought greatly to recommend her Writings to us is the Conformity of her Life and Practice It is the general Complaint concerning those who recommend Vertue and a truly Christian Life to others that they do not practice it themselves that they speak by one Principle and live by another and so their Words have little Force and they destroy Christianity one way more than it is possible for them to build it up another I know some have made an ill Use of the Elogies which have been given of her Life and Spirit by those who were Eye-witnesses of all like Spiders sucking Poison from the Flowers where the Bees gather Honey they exaggerate some of their Expressions far beyond the Intent of them and in Opposition to the Testimonies of those who were living Witnesses of her Life they some eighteen Years after she is dead will needs draw a Picture of her that may represent her very ugly with what Equity and Candour will appear in its due Place However any who shall read impartially the Story of her Life and the Testimonies given of her throughout all the Periods of it â— will conceive better Thoughts of her than what the New Narratives would give of them They will see that she liv'd constantly as one travelling towards Eternity and therein studying in all things to conform her Life to that of Jesus Christ in these and such-like Instances She convers'd always with God and no more with Men than her Duty and Charity requir'd she led a Life of continual Penitence mortifying her corrupt Nature and never gratifying her sensual Appetites in any thing Tho' she might have enjoy'd the Pleasures of her Senses the Delights of her Taste and of her other Senses yet she voluntarily depriv'd herself of them to please God Tho' she had lawfully acquir'd Riches yet would never use them but for pure Necessity Tho' she might have been conveniently serv'd and honour'd according to her Condition yet she despis'd these Honours and Services to imitate Jesus Christ loving rather to live unknown and serve herself than to be serv'd There was nothing observ'd in her Actions contrary to the Righteousness Goodness and Truth of God but they appear'd still to be accompanied with those three Qualities deriv'd from the Spirit of God She never recommended to any the Practice of a Vertue which she did not most exemplarily practice herself She was most humble and self-denied always ready to serve others rather than be serv'd by them and to take to her self the meanest and the least of every thing She did not affect to be thought humble by humble Words Gestures Habits c. nor did she distinguish her self from the rest of the World by any singular indifferent Thing but as to Habit Diet c. conform'd her self to the Customs of the Places where she happen'd to be So great was her Charity that she brought up some hundreds of Girls maintaining fifty of them at a time for the space of seven Years on her own Charges what was allow'd by the Founder being only for ten employing her Time Wealth Strength of Body and Mind in Training them up in all Vertuous Exercises and distinguishing herself in nothing from them as to Diet Bread Apparel c. Such was her Love to Men's Souls that she spared nothing to perswade them to the Love of God and to Imitate Jesus Christ and employ'd her Time and Wealth in writing and publishing the Truths of God for that End She suffer'd patiently all manner of Reproaches and Persecutions for the Sake of Jesus Christ She had an invincible Firmness and Constancy in what was Truth Nothing could shake or alter her She did nothing to please Men She had a constant Equality of Mind in all Conditions She discover'd a wonderful Prudence on all Occasions Let any body but read the Testimonies given of her by those who knew her in her Youth in her old Age and in all States of her Life as they are set down in Recucil des Temoignages and particularly that of Mr. Francken Merchant of Amsterdam and they will see how closely she was a Follower of Jesus Christ in Humility and Poverty of Spirit in a Contempt of all earthly Things in a Life of Labour and Penitence and in the true Love of God and the Souls of Men. Now Writings whose Substance and Essence contains such excellent Truths as those I have mention'd in the Account of the Essentials of Christianity and which have such remarkable Qualities and penn'd by one who liv'd so her self ought certainly to meet with some Regard and not to be immediately thrown away and People frighted from looking into them because there are in them some Sentiments which do not relish and seem to us Extravagant XXXI But perhaps it will be said that those Doctrines which she calls Accessories may be dangerous Opinions and damnable Doctrines and that what she seems to build with the one Hand she pulls down with the other that she makes a Mahumetan Paradise Eating and Drinking and Generation in the Kingdom of Heaven How easie a thing is it
them believe they are good Christians tho' really in their Hearts they have not one of the Qualities of the Spirit of Jesus Christ For instead of loving Poverty they love the Wealth of this World instead of loving Sufferings they love their Pleasures their Ease and their Contentments and instead of being willing to be despised they desire to be honoured and so of all the rest And in L'Antichrist Decouvert A. B. has made appear beyond all Exception that the Spirit of Antichrist prevails among all the Parties of Christendom and that thereby the Devil has with more Cunning and more irreclaimably possest Men with his Spirit and especially the Well-meaning so that the Harlots and openly Wicked will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven sooner than they because their Wickedness being manifest they are by the Grace of God more readily converted whereas in these the Spirit of the Devil being converted with the Mask of Jesus Christ he still makes them believe that they are guided by the Spirit of God when they are really acted by the Spirit of Antichrist 12. That the Degeneracy of Christendom proceeds from the Degeneracy of its Guides and Pastors is but too evident to be denied and the Evil is more sad and irremedible that they cannot endure to have it told them The Corruption of the other States of Christendom may be spoken of without exciting so much of Mens Indignation but if the Corruption of the Pastors be touch'd a Man must look for nothing but Rage and Resentment This cannot be spoken of but presently it is a Combination against the Priesthood as our Lord was accused as designing to destroy the Law because he exposed the Corruption of the Scribes and Pharisees All Protestants do generally grant that the Degeneracy of Christendom before the Reformation was chiefly owing to the Degeneracy of its Clergy and we being as far from True Christianity now as formerly there is Ground to think the Matter is not much mended We see what a strange Change the Holy Lives and Doctrine of a few simple Men wrought in the Conversion of many Thousands to the Faith and Spirit of Jesus Christ in the Primitive Church and how little is to be seen of this now The reason of this Difference is not because of their working Miracles for these serve only to confirm the Truth of a Doctrine which being once confirmed there is no more need of them but they are as effectual in all After-ages to those who are firmly perswaded of them so that to such as think they would be bettered if they saw such Miracles is applicable that of Jesus Christ If they believe not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded tho' one should rise from the Dead Neither can this Difference be imputed to the greater Prevalence of Wickedness now the World being highly corrupted also at that time and that to no small Degree It is to be attributed then to the Difference of the Spirit by which they were animated from that by which the Pastors of the Church are now generally led The things of God are not known but by the Spirit of God and where God finds pure and self-denied Souls he delights to communicate himself to them and to make them the Organs of conveying his Light and Spirit unto others who are not capable of receiving it immediately themselves Mens Minds are generally so extraverted and turned towards sensible things that they cannot be affected with the things of the Spirit of God unless they be conveyed to them by means that may affect their Senses and this is the reason of the great Necessity and Usefulness of the Pastoral Office For this Cause the Word was made Flesh and dwelt among Men full of Grace and Truth And when he ascended into Heaven he sent the Comforter who led his Apostles into all Truth and by their means conveyed the same Light and the same Spirit into others and they were filled with the Holy Ghost so that it was not so much they who spoke and acted as the Spirit of God by them and there their Doctrine and Lives had a wonderful effect in the Converting of others even as one Flame kindles another they had a living not a dead and barren Knowledge of Divine Things their fervent Charity did animate all their Words and Actions and there was nothing impossible to such a Faith and such a Charity this made them pray fervently to God for his Divine Grace to others and he would not deny the Requests of such ardent Charity And his holy Spirit encreasing the Vertue and Efficacy of their Prayers and Labours did inseparably join his powerful Operations to awaken convert and purifie the Hearts of others This made St. Paul say When ye received the Word of God ye received it not as the Word of Men but as it is in Truth as the Word of God which effectually worketh also in you that believe And Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the Epistle of Christ manifested by us written not with Ink but with the Spirit of the living God not in Tables of Stone but in fleshly Tables of the Heart This wrought the Conversion at one time of 3000 and again of 5000 at one Sermon of St. Peter This made the Officers who were sent to apprehend Jesus Christ say Never Man spoke like this and the Evangelists of our Lord 's preaching That he taught as one having Authority and not as the Scribes and they were astonish'd at his Doctrine For his Word was with Power or to speak with St. Paul in the Evidence and Demonstration of the Spirit and of the Power of God that is they made the Operations of the Spirit of God to be felt in the Heart Moreover they taught Men by their Deeds as well as their Words the Holiness of their Lives and their Abstraction from all earthly things did procure Belief to all they said and let the World see that they bid others do nothing but what they firmly believed and heartily set about themselves So that the whole Body of the Church was sound when to be a Minister of Jesus Christ it was required only to embrace an Evangelical Life and to give Evidence of the sincere Love they bear unto Jesus Christ and of being led by his Spirit But wicked and worldly Men crept into the Church and their number increasing they got themselves in to be the Pastors of it then under an outward Cover of Piety and Religion Men were turned away from an Evangelical Life and led to Damnation Then the Pastoral Office was turned into a Trade whereby Men might gain Honour or Greatness or Wealth in the World or at least their Living Then Men fitted themselves for the Pastoral Office not by Humility and Purity of Heart but by Study and Learning then the Pastors becoming generally void of the Spirit of God were deprived of the true and living Knowledge of the things of God and
retained only the outside and the Letter and varnished it over with their Learning and Human Doctrines and so the Blind led the Blind Then instead of the Gospel Simplicity Schools and Universities were multiplied and there was nothing to be seen but Disputes and Controversies Then the Pastors being void of true Charity and of the Spirit of Jesus Christ their preaching could have no Divine Force more than the Motions of Puppets or the Words of Parrots Then they learned to preach the Gospel by Study and Human Learning committing the Idea's of it to their Brain as Men learn other Trades and varnish over their Sermons with the same Words and Expressions that Jesus Christ and his Apostles used without comprehending or conveying to others the Divine Sence of them and what came from the Brain could go no farther than the Brain nothing can rise higher than its Original Then the great Business of Religion is turned upon the Pastor's side into an Art of Preaching where on a Theatre he displays his Learning and Eloquence and on the Peoples side into the work of Hearing and when they have continued daily in those pious Exercises for 20 30 40 or 50 Years they are for the most part no more truly Vertuous than when they began whereas where the Word of the Lord is there is Power Then the Pastors being proud and ambitious and envious and worldly and sensual and selfish they seek their own things under a Cover of seeking the things of Jesus Christ their Actions belie their Words and for their own Credit they so gloss and explain the Doctrine of Jesus Christ as to perswade People they may be good Christians and good Ministers of Jesus Christ and yet gratifie their Appetites and Inclinations Then being void of true Faith and true Charity they place Religion in a System of Opinions and Rites and tho' they agree in the common Principles yet differing in other things of lesser moment they thereupon divide dispute and quarrel form Parties draw all they can to their Side out of a Pretence to the Glory of God inspire them with Hatred and Fury against those that differ from them sooth and flatter the corrupt Inclinations of those of their own Party or the Great and those on whom they depend and stir up Magistrates and Princes to War and Bloodshed to persecute those who differ from them And as they make War against one another by their Disputes so they make Princes and secular Persons to do it by their Swords Thus instead of the Charity Peace and Concord which Jesus Christ left his Disciples they beget Hatred Strife and Envy among them and such is their Influence upon the People that they head their Passions and what they hate and call Heresie so do they Instead of the Self-denial and Mortification to the World which Jesus Christ and the first Pastors practised and taught they teach by their Example how to gratifie Self and love the World and yet seem greatly to honour Jesus Christ and to be Champions for his Religion And if the Salt have lost its savour wherewith shall the Flesh be salted And if they who should be the Light of the World and the Salt of the Earth are thus become Darkness and without Savour how great is that Corruption And how great is that Darkness Those of every Party do plainly discern this Evil in the Guides and Leaders of the opposite Parties but our Self-love blinds and hinders us from considering it in our selves This is not to be understood but that there are Pastors of good Inclinations and right Intentions amongst the several Perswasions and therefore what is said ought not to be applied to them but that this corrupt Spirit of Pride Vain-glory 〈…〉 Avarice the Love of Money 〈…〉 Politicks the pleasing of the 〈…〉 Aversion to the Humility Simplicity 〈…〉 and Cross of Christ prevails 〈…〉 in all Parties under a Cover of 〈…〉 Opinions and so serves still to 〈…〉 the more is a sad Truth that cannot be 〈◊〉 13. That we are in the last Times that the Wickedness of Men is as great and universal as in the Days of Noah that the Abomination of Desolation is in the Holy Place that we are now in the time of the last Judgments of God by which he will sweep the Wicked off the Earth and which shall be more dreadful and terrible than any that ever were A. B. does so sensibly make appear in her Writings particularly in the Light of the World That they are real Enemies to Mens Souls who scoâ—â— at them and divert People from laying them to Heart She makes appear that Iniquity is so great and universal that there is no 〈◊〉 Faith nor Law among Men. People study nothing but to deceive their Neighbours the Father cannot trust his Son nor the Son his Father the Brother 〈◊〉 up against his Brother Friendship is only feigned 〈◊〉 is full of Deceit and Fraud nothing but Pride and Ambition reigning in the Hearts of all Men. Judges are without Equity Priests without Sincerity Cloisters filled with Avarice and the Devout full of Malice which has been at all times in some particular Persons but is at present so multiplied that it possesses almost all 〈◊〉 And Charity is not only wakâ—d cold but altogather frozen and dead in the Hearts of Men. That the Signs of the last Times are all fully accomplish'd particularly those in 2 Tim. 3. 1. c. and Matt. 24. That Mens Lives are the open Book in which these Truths are written and the Holy Scriptures are the equitable Judge which pronounces the Sentence That People scoff at this and no Body will believe it is a most certain Evidence of it For Jesus Christ says that it shall be as in the Days of Noah they were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in Marriage and knew not until the Flood came and took them all away c. She makes appear how the Abomination and Desolation is in the Holy Place if Envy were lost it might be recovered in Cloisters if Avarice were dead it would be revived by the Priests Vain-glory and Pride is no where so prevailing as among the Clergy In a word Simonies and all other Sins abound in that Place which ought to be Holy That these are the Stars which fall every Day from Righteousness and Truth for some worldly Interest or humane Respects She makes appear that Men do not now embrace Penitence nor desire Amendment that they rather grow every Day worse and cannot suffer that their Faults should be truly shewn them That at all times there have been wicked Persons but when all in general do forget him it is to be believed that assuredly we are in the last Times and that the Judgment is given out because the Measure is full That God cannot suffer an universal Evil without an universal Chastisement and now Men having generally all of them abandoned their God have in doing this given Sentence of the
a Christian being a Man full of Zeal and of great Learning and hearing that there were Persons risen up who would destroy the Law and seduce the Simple and that they worshipped the first of these Impostors who was hanged on a Tree and that these new Upstarts were but a Rabble bigotted with that new kind of Folly which was like to hazard the Law of God and this being told him by all his Masters and Teachers the Priests the People his Kinsfolks and Friends instead of informing himself without Prejudice of those Men their Doctrine their Behaviour which would have prevented many false Steps he is carried to reproach and hate and persecute them that he may maintain the Truth of God and cut off Error and Heresie and the Seduction of the People Now what has fallen out in former Times may fall out in this and the most innocent Persons and Writings may meet with the most universal Reproaches and Prejudices It is certainly the Devil's Interest that it should be so and we see how successful his Attempts have been in former Ages He still made it his Business to get on his side those who set up to be the Guides and Leaders of the People and by this means always to oppress blacken and discredit Truth and Innocence II. Now the Person and Writings of A. B. have been loaded with as many Reproaches and Prejudices as any in this Age and that both in her Life time and since her Death Where-ever she went the Church-men of the respective Parties breath'd nothing but Fire and Faggot against her in their Pamphlets and Pulpits made her to pass for the worst of Hereticks and her Writings for a Sink of all Heresies and Blasphemies and thus it was easie to inspire People with Rage and Fury so that if they could have had her to have ston'd her to Death they would have thought they had done good Service and no sooner is one of her Writings translated into English for the spiritual Good of well-disposed Souls but immediately some are pleas'd to sound the Trumpet and to cry out Heresie and Blasphemy Errors and Delusions and this is enough to frighten a whole Island from looking into these Writings and to breed an Aversion against those who esteem and value them because of the Truths of God contain'd in them It was a remarkable Providence that she met with such Opposition from all Parties while she lived whereby as she discovered impartially the Evils of the respective Sects and Parties into which Christendom is divided so also she clearly vindicated her self from being guilty of the Errors and Heresies of which they accus'd her discovered the Impudence of their Calumnies and Slanders and remov'd from well-dispos'd Persons the Prejudices which had been given them against her We need only then give a short Account of what was laid to her Charge and her own Vindication of herself by which her Sincerity her Innocency her distinct and most rational Knowledge of the Truths of Religion her Orthodoxy and the Subservency of her Writings to the great Ends of Christianity will I hope appear to all unbiass'd Readers III. But first let us premise the Complaint she makes in general of the unjust Measures of her Adversaries how void they were of true Charity and Equity What ever Good or Truth was incontestably in her Writings they conceal'd it they lessen'd it whatever was capable of being turn'd to an Evil Sence they perverted it they pick'd out half Sentences here and there throughout her Writings and on these they put a Sence which she never intended concealing in the mean time what went before or after that might serve to clear the true sence and meaning of the Expression Any Doctrine of Christianity that was not so fully exprest in one Place they were ready to accuse her of denying it tho' she most clearly asserted it in another They were ready to catch at her Words and to interpret them according to the Niceness of the Schools not considering the simplicity and plainness with which she wrote she being intent to make known the Truth to all sincere and well-disposed Souls without regarding that nice and captious Wits would be ready to carp and quibble upon this or the other Word and not allow her to explain her self In short the great End of Christianity being to bring Men to the Love of God and the Mortification of their corrupt Nature and Self-will and this being the Butt of all her Writings as is most evident to any who pleases to read them she makes appear that her Adversaries cannot be Lovers of the Truth or of God that their Aim is not to maintain the Truth and oppose Error else they would rejoice to see this great End of Religion to be the Butt and Substance of so many Writings and that there are uncontestably contain'd in them so great a number of Divine Truths all tending to this End They would own and acknowledge this they would wish to meet with the Truth every where even in the things which seem'd to them obscure and disagreeable to it they would see if these were more clearly explain'd in other Places and if they might well bear a Sence that were agreeable to this great End of Religion or if even the Errors which they thought were contain'd there were no ways destructive of the true Love of God and so for the sake of them the whole Writings need not be forbidden and discredited IV. They may be convinced of the Injustice of the Measure by considering only how hard they would think it to have their own Writings so treated how odd it would seem to them if one should deal with the Sacred Scriptures after that Method and what wretched Conclusions an Enemy of Christianity might thereby draw from them and that if it had been their Luck to have been bred up at the Feet of Gamaliel among the Jewish Rabbies or with Porphyr among the Philosophers the Spirit and Measures by which they judge of Persons Sentiments and Writings would have animated them as much against Jesus Christ himself and had they come but Sixteen Hundred Years sooner into the World and been leaven'd with the same Spirit they should have been listed among the Philo-Judaeus's and the Porphyrs and overlooking the Substance of the Doctrine and Life of Jesus Christ would have pick'd out a half Sentence here and a Word or two there and some Passages of his Life that prejudiced Minds would be readiest to judge hardly of and wrest them to such a Sence and give all such a Turn as might make him pas for a Blasphemer a Seducer a Subverter of the Law of God a Teacher of Doctrines that would turn the World upside down one Self-conceited who spoke well of himself and ill of others who were more learn'd and pious than himself in a word give such a Character and Narrative of him patch'd up of some shreds of the Story of his Life and
Doctrine written by his own Disciples and dress him up in such a mock-Robe as might make him and his Doctrine the Object of the Scorn and Hatred of the People I know People flatter themselves with the Opinion that it were impossible for them to have treated Jesus Christ at this rate as the Scribes and Pharisees in our Saviour's Days imagin'd that had they liv'd in the Days of their Fathers they would not have persecuted and kill'd the Prophets as their Fathers did and yet our Lord shews them they have the same Spirit tho' they seem'd to honour the Prophets * by building their Tombs and garnishing their Sepulchres and saying If we had been in the Days of our Fathers we would not have been Partakers with them in the Blood of the Prophets Yet they persecuted those who were then sent amongst them and that the same Temper and Spirit reigns now in the world A. B. makes appear in her Writings and her Enemies did discover it in their Practices V. But it will be said they had good Reason to treat her as they did We come therefore to consider the Prejudices raised against her Doctrine and they have not been wanting to represent her as the Grossest of Hereticks but Wisdom is justified of her Children And 1. They accused her of denying the Holy Trinity and ground their Accusation upon this that she did not approve of the Word Person to express the Distinction of the Trinity and us'd to explain it by Comparisons and Similitudes Whereas she declares That she believes in one Divine Essence the most Holy Trinity the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost that the Essence of God is incomprehensible and so is the Mystery of the Trinity that it is a great Presumption in Men who cannot comprehend that which is in themselves what their Memory Understanding and Will is yet to imagine they will easily comprehend what is in God That our Soul which is nothing but a silly Creature is yet invisible and incomprehensible to us tho' it be in us and tho' we perceive and feel it to act and operate that no Body can comprehend what a Soul is and yet Men are so presumptous as that they will needs know what is in God and what the Three Persons of the Trinity are which are in him and that not for to honour or love him the more but that they may be able to talk and dispute well of them and to draw evil Consequences from them That God made St. Augustin know that this was incomprehensible by any Creature when once walking by the Sea-side and labouring to understand it he saw a Child running to fetch the Water of the Sea in his Hands into a little Hole which he observing and asking the Child what he did he replied he would have all the Water of the Ocean brought into that little Pit at which St. Augustin smil'd saying You can never do this my Child give over this Vndertaking The Child replied I shall sooner do this than you shall understand what you would comprehend with your Vnderstanding and then evanish'd It is true she makes use of Similitudes to express it by as That there is in God the eternal Understanding the eternal Word the eternal Love or Heart as there is in Man the Understanding the Speech and the Heart That there is in Man the Understanding the Memory and the Will which is a Figure of the Holy Trinity that God One in Essence has in himself Three essential Qualities which are diverse Righteousness Goodness and Truth and that nothing can be done by God but with Righteousness Goodness and Truth altogether and if one of these Qualities be wanting it cannot come from Gâ—d who is indivisible in these Three qualities which may be call'd Persons That she does not pretend thereby to give adiquate Notions of the Mystery of the Trinity which she declares is incomprehensible but that instead of the dark dry and barren Speculations of the Schools thereabout we may consider those Three Divine Qualities without which God never does any Work And to find if we are the Children of God we must see if we partake from him of those Three Qualities of the Righteousness Goodness and Truth of God and if we do not find them all Three together in our Souls we ought not to perswade our selves that we are the Children of God for as we approach unto him by Love accordingly those Three Qualities encrease in the Soul and as we find our Souls to be estranged from Righteousness Goodness and Truth accordingly we are estranged from God In using Similitudes thus to express the Holy Trinity she does nothing but what St. Augustin and other of the Ancient Fathers have done and she is far from saying that nothing else is comprehended in the Holy Trinity but that we ought to be taken up with such useful Considerations of what is in God rather than feed our Minds with fruitless Speculations which tend only to nourish Debate and Curiosity And when once some of her Friends told her that the Churchmen accus'd her of making the whole Mystery of the Holy Trinity to consist in the Righteousness Goodness and Truth of God she answered expresly They lye in so saying They said to her that she had said in the mean time more than once that Righteousness Truth and Goodness were the Trinity that was in God she replied I had no design to search into the Depth of this Mystery and to say that all did consist in this but that this was the most profitable and the most saving Consideration that we could have in the matter of the Holy Trinity of which the ordinary Speculations are often rash and unprofitable and for the most part injurious to God She did not desire to use often the Word Person because she look'd on that as a Word proper to created Beings that Jesus Christ is indeed a Person in God being truly Man as we are Yet she sometimes expresses the Mystery by the Word Persons In Temoign de Verite Part 2. p. 199. she says I do not believe that there is any Body living upon Earth who does more honour the most Holy Trinity than I do And I believe firmly One only God in Three Persons as I have done from my Childhood And how could I deny the Divinity of Jesus Christ since it is seen by all my Books that I hold Jesus Christ for True God and True Man both together even from the Beginning of the World which is to honour him more than to believe that he is God and Man only since he was born in Bethlehem and chargâ—d with our Miseries and Sorrows VI. They accus'd her also of denying the Divinity of Jesus Christ tho' there be nothing more False as appears through all her Writings She declares expresly in the Profession of her Faith that she believes that â—esus Christ is True Eternal God and True Man And in
to his Image we must suffer with him if we would reign with him His was meritorious and expiatory and exemplary ours is absolutely necessary for our Purification By his he obtain'd Pardon and Grace for us and chang'd the Eternal Punishment we deserved into a Temporal Penitence for our Purification and Recovery and to say we cannot undergo this Penitence is to have no Faith in his Merits to believe that it is enough that he did undergo this for us is the greatest Indignity done him and the greatest Cheat that we can put upon our Souls it is to belie and be false to our Surety and our Pledge It is like Bankrupts to swagger and rant it out with our Creditor's Goods because our Surety has paid the Debt for us It is to make Jesus our Slave to suffer all manner of Afflictions Poverty Reproach and Pain for us that we may go to Heaven in the pleasant and broad Way of Honours Wealth and Pleasures It is to be well pleas'd that the Physician has provided wholsome and necessary Physick for our Recovery and has taken it himself for our Direction and Encouragement but tho' we be sick to Death we will not taste it our selves because of the Bitterness of it believing that we shall Recover nevertheless because the Physician has taken it Jesus Christ led this Life of Penitence for us in his visible and mortal Body that he might shew us how ready he is still to undergo it in every one of us by his Spirit 8. God has no need of this our Penitence but we stand in need of it to recover the Love of God He does not covet our Wealth or Honours or Friends or Ease in that he requires of us to be poor in Spirit to deny our selves to take up our Cross and follow Christ to forsake all things since he created all things for Man and would be well pleased he could enjoy them still But Man is become so miserable that he cannot enjoy these things without setting his Heart upon them and turning it away from God and therefore Jesus Christ has given this his Gospel-Law without which no body can recover the Love of God It is a sad Mistake then to think that there is no necessity of good Works but only by way of Gratitude and Thankfulness to God as if he had need of our Acknowledgments or as if we could make him Presents of our Good Works to thank him which cannot be said but in Contempt of the Riches of God who possesses all in himself and seeks nothing without himself and needs not that we should give him any thing all the good Works that Men can do are for no other End but to resist and overcome the Evils of their Corruption And they are as necessary for our Salvation as Bread is for the Life of the Body for we cannot be saved without subduing our Corruption and no Body can do this but by the means of such good Works and such Penitence as stifles and mortifies the Vices and Sins which this Corruption has brought into the Soul 9. It is a Pride to glory in our Penitence since it is enjoined us for our Sins it ought rather to fill us with Humility and Confusion for in the Beginning it was not so God created us to live in all sorts of Delights without any Pain All this beautiful World was created to serve for Pleasures to the Body of Man and God himself was the Delight of his Soul But Sin only has changed that excellent Order and made Man subject to that over which he ought to rule because he had withdrawn his Subjection from God Our Sins have occasioned the Law of Penitence which Jesus Christ came to teach us by Word and Deed. This Penitence does not consist in Undergoing Pennances chosen by our selves and after our Fancy by which the Devil would drive us headlong and excite us to Vain-glory and which usually make Men presumptuous believing themselves to be better than others and that God is obliged to them for their good Works as the Pharisee All this proceeds from self-Self-love but true Penitence consists in taking patiently whatsoever God permits to befall us either to our Body Estate or Mind and willingly to suffer it in the Spirit of Penitence to satisfie for our Sins for every Moment there falls out Occasions of Suffering and and Submission so that we need not seek for them It is necessary that we practise this Resignation of our Will to God for accomplishing the saving Penitence which he has enjoined us and for the Exercise of all sort of Vertues 10. Since then the Justice of God could not permit that Pardon and Grace should be given to sinful Man but upon Condition that he turn away from Sin to God and in order to that live a Life of Penitence and co-operate with the Spirit of Suffering Self-denial and Mortification which God will communicate to him if he sincerely desire to be saved it is necessary that Man satisfie this Duty which is so just before God and which the Justice of God requires as well as the Nature of the thing it self This is that which she calls Man's Satisfying God's Justice on his Part this is that from which the Satisfaction of Jesus Christ does not procure us a Dispensation for then he had neither been just to God nor us but he merited the Acceptance of it at God's Hands and Grace and Strength for us to perform it and taught us how to undergo it If People are nice and captious and will needs carp at Words and Expressions as Satisfaction and the Satisfying the Justice of God while they understand what is meant by them no body will contend with them about them provided they grant the Truth and Reality of the thing that no body will be saved by the Merits and Satisfaction of Jesus Christ without the Mortification of their corrupt Nature and the Recovery of the Love of God It is good Consideration which is now generally assigned why God thought not fit as Governour of the World to pardon Rebellious Man without the Intervention of an expiatory Sacrifice in the Life and Death of Jesus Christ that Men might thereby see the Evil of Sin and God's infinite Hatred and Abhorrence of it and so might be diverted from continuing in it or returning to it It is for the very same Reason that God thought not fit to pardon Man for the Sufferings of Jesus Christ unless he also follow him in a Life of Penitence and Sufferings for we are not so sensible of what others suffer neither does it breed in us such an Abhorrence of that which has occasioned their Sufferings as when we suffer the like Pains and Evils our selves without which we have as superficial a Sense of them as of the Actings on a Theatre And therefore to give us the more lively Sense of the Sufferings of Jesus Christ and to enflame our Love to him
to her might be perfect and that he might fully delight himself in her not that he can delight in her for her self being a Subject too remote from his Greatness but for the Love he bears himself But she only receives all the Advantages of this Love for so soon as she gives her full Consent to the Love of her God she enjoys him and all his Graces in such Abundance that if God himself did not hold her in Life she would expire with so many Consolations surpassing her natural Strength What hinders all Men from enjoying this Abyss of Happiness Nothing but Sin alone And what is Sin Nothing but the turning away from God to turn to the Creatures they give divers Names to it and yet all are but one and the same thing to wit a turning away from God to love the Creature Thus I have set down at some length in her own Words her Sentiments about these Matters wherein she makes appear that all Men were created by God for Eternal Happiness and to enjoy him and therefore that God has not by an Eternal Decree reprobated any Man for Daâ—â—tion but is desirous that all should be saved That he gave Man irrevocably a Liberty and Free-will which he has not limited by predetermining the Acts of it from all Eternity or by any other manner of way because he would have him to love him freely and from a most willing Choice That Sin came into the World neither by the Will nor Decree nor Permission of God but by Man's abuse of the Free-will which he had irrevocably given him the greatest Natural Gift that could be bestow'd upon him That Man notwithstanding of his Liberty can of himself do nothing that is truly Good without the Grace of God there being nothing Good but what comes from God That in his Fallen Estate he cannot of himself return again to God without his preventing and concurring Grace That he denies his Grace to none not to the most Wicked That Man in his Corrupt State not being capable of his most inward enlightning Grace he fails not to recal him by sensible Graces Providence Fears of Hell Remorse of Conscience good Desires and Purposes c. That God requires Man's Co-operation with his Grace to which he enables him and will thereupon still give him more Grace That if he deny this Co-operation with God's Grace he destroys himself and puts a stop to the Operations of the Divine Grace That if he entirely and absolutely yield up his Free-will into the hands of God to be wholly directed by him he then takes him into his immediate Direction enters in that Soul and makes his abode with it it does not so much live as Christ lives in it it is one of his absolute Elect and cannot fall away Sure they who consider these things without Prejudice will see how sutable they are to the Nature of God how truly they represent his Power and Righteousness and Wisdom and Holiness and Love and Impartiality and Constancy and Sincerity and Truth and what a Consistency there is between his Attributes and his Providence how clear it is that Man's Sin and Damnation is owing entirely to himself and all his Good to God what reason we have to be deeply humbled to distrust and deny our selves and what great encouragement to Prayer to turn to God with all our Heart and entirely to depend upon him They will see how clearly the Difficulties about Providence are resolv'd which are so unaccountable by the other Systems They who desire a full view of all this and an Answer to the Objections made against it will find it done with great Evidence and Clearness in M. Poirets Oeconomy Divine particularly Tom. 7. De la Providence Vniverselle XIII Another Prejudice against the Sentiments of A. B. is that concerning the Divine Prescience to wit that God would not and did not absolutely and determinately foresee the Sin and Fall of Adam and this some aggravate as a horrible Blasphemy against the Omnisciency of God that he did not know or foresee from all Eternity in a most determinate manner all things that shall come to pass in the World Would Men consider things calmly and without Passion they would not be so rash in censuring others and the often Experiences they may have of the weakness of their own Understandings and how often and how greatly they are mistaken themselves may make them less positive and dogmatical than they are A. B. says That God having created Man after his own likeness he therefore made him altogether free without any Exception or Constraint That he might be lov'd by Man most freely and willingly and that so God might take his Delight in so free and voluntary a Love from Man He therefore would not only not predetermine him in his Actions but would not limit his Free-will so far as to foresee how he should dispose of the same Not but that by his Almighty Power he could have foreseen and known all but he would not so far limit the Liberty he had given as that it should be necessitated by any such foresight Even says she as if a Man because he loves his Wife and finds her Wise would give her an absolute Permission to dispose of his Goods without his being desirous to know how she should do it Now as this is a Principle that does not in the least infringe any of the Divine Attributes so it clears the Riddles of Providence and shews how so great a part of the Creation has degenerated and Sin and Wickedness overspread the World and that without any manner of Concurrence on God's part not the least Blemish on his unspotted Righteousness Goodness Holiness and Purity Whereas in all the other Systems it is acknowledged by all unbyass'd Persons that there are insuperable Difficulties how to reconcile the Righteousness and Goodness of God his Hatred of Sin his Sincerity and Truth with the Events and Mysteries of Providence and whatever Difficulties are brought against God's absolute Predetermination to all Mens Actions how wicked and hainous soever have no less force against his determinate Prescience of them The Two greatest Objections against this Sentiment of A. B. are that 1. It enroaches on God's Omniscience 2. That it is inconsistent with Prophecies and Predictions of future Events To clear the First It is to be considered that God is infinitely Self-sufficient and stands not in need of any other Being in the World nor the Idea of any other Being to make him infinitely Perfect So that all Beings besides himself and all their Idea's are the result of his Arbitrary Will and Pleasure and are therefore form'd of such Natures and Perfections as he in his infinite Wisdom and Goodness was freely pleas'd to grant It was free then to God to form the Idea's of other Beings or not to create them or not to give them Liberty or not to determine to foresee all their Acts or not all this was
Profession of this new Worship and are joined to those Persons and their Opinions Now she establish'd no new Worship nor new Exercises nor Laws nor Rules that savour of a Sect but only by her Life and Writings call'd on People to return to the Love of God and to imitate the Life of Jesus Christ in which State they were not and without which they could not be saved In her Letter to M. Reinboth Superintendant in Holstein I am very far says she from making a new Church as some maliciously slander me for I bring no new thing and Novelties are very displeasing to me I am careful therefore not to introduce any but I labour to advance in a Gospel-Life and to practise it And all my Writings and all I said formerly to well-disposed Persons aimed only at this and I forbear now to speak to them because I found it was unprofitable Your Preachers wrong me greatly when they cry out that I draw their People from them for in the ten Months I have been in Holstein I have not made Acquaintance with so much as one Person not so much as with my Landlady so that I give them no ground to say or think that I strive to draw People to form a new Church or teach a new Doctrine seeing that which Jesus Christ left us is the most perfect and the last that God will send unto Men. No new thing needs be invented but we should labour to perfect our selves in it and to put it truly in Practice instead of Disputing about it for all these Disputes are raised by the Devil to bring Hatred Divisions and Discords amongst Christians whereas the Church of God should be united in Peace and Love in the meek Spirit of Jesus Christ and it is now divided in as many Parties as there are different Sects which is lamentable and disturbs the Peace of Christian Souls and makes that they do not love one another tho' Jesus Christ has so earnestly recommended to them to love one another They are all partial and only love the Party which they have undertaken to stand by or defend This proceeds from an Antichristian Spirit and not from the Spirit of Christ XX. They libell'd her that she despised Sermons Sacraments Pastours Priesthood and all Government which were all most horrid Calumnies This says she in her Letter to Dr. Nieman Superintendant in Holstein is a gross Calumny for I wish with all my Heart that both Church and State may continue in Vigour for otherwise there would be no Knowledge of God in the Land nor Commonwealths maintained Seeing Preachings and Sacraments preserve amongst Men the Memory of sacred things and States keep their People in their Duty by Justice or else there would be nothing but Confusion and the Good would be destroyed by the Wicked if there were no Government and Magistrates to rule and govern them I indeed despise the Abuse of Churches and Sermons and Sacraments but not the Use of them nor the Essence of these which are established by God as is also Government and Magistracy And there is a great Difference between the despising a thing in it self and the Abuse that is made of it For it is one thing to say that every Sect abuses the Holy Scriptures and another to say that the Scripture is of no Worth or to despise it because many abuse it Now it seems Buchardus would make People believe that I despise all these Holy Things when I despise only the Abuse of them as true Christians ought to do who lay to Heart God's Honour They ought to lament when they see Men to degenerate as to the Love of God that they seem to hold meerly to the Bark of the things ordained by God without squaring their Lives by them They say I despise the Sacraments and other Offices of Piety while I believe there is no body that esteems them more than I do For the Quakers accused me by their defamatory Treatise That I had an abominable Doctrine sending Persons to Churches Sermons or Sacraments or other outward Solemnities desiring to infer from this that I had not the Spirit of God since I still esteemed those outward Devotions and also incited others to make use of them as Means to approach unto God Your Preachers may read what I have written in that Advertisement upon this Head so that I need not enlarge my self farther here but will satisfie them as to what they say That in effect I despise the Sacraments and other outward Devotions because I do not go my self to the Church nor to the Sacraments and they will needs reject all that I say in the Praise of Holy Things because I do not observe them my self to give an Example to others and would infer from thence That I speak with Dissimulation in praise of Holy Things and not sincerely as I think in my Heart This convinces me that they no ways know me For if they only knew me outwardly they would sufficiently see that I am sincere and not at all feigned or dissembled so that if I had in my Heart a Contempt for the Sacraments and other outward Devotions I would openly declare it by Word and Writ for I have overcome the World and am not afraid to tell the Truth of what I know I have indeed written against the Abuse of the Sacraments and other outward Solemnities but I never spoke against the things themselves seeing they are good and have often serv'd me as Means of Union with God But if I do not go now to the Church or Sacraments it is not out of Contempt of Holy Things but because I have no longer so great need of outward Means of Union with God as I had formerly when the Conversation of Men and the Diversion of the Cares of temporal Affairs did divert my Attention from God I retired then to Churches and approached the Sacraments that I might be the more recollected and united to God But since God has given me the Grace to find this Recollection in my little Chamber and to entertain my self in Spirit with God in Solitude I have not thought it so necessary to use these outward Ceremonies which sometimes would serve me for a Distraction to my inward Recollection This is partly the Reason why I have left them off but this is not all For if I had the Freedom to go to Church I would go to it on the Days commanded and would receive the Sacrament at the Times appointed Since I am under the Ordinances of the Roman Church Jesus Christ teaches me to obey the Laws both of God and Men as he himself did on Earth obeying Caesar and other Superiours tho' they were sometimes evil but their Ordinances good as I have particularly shewn in the said Advertisement But I cannot go to Church without hazard of my Life and it is not lawful for me to expose my self to so evident Dangers and Necessity has no Law There are Persons in the
had created the Earth and so many reasonable Creatures only for the Glory of the Devil and his Adherents if he did not renew the Earth and make it bring forth Fruit for his Glory And as to Man's Propagation of his like to all Eternity if Man had continued Pure and Holy I am sure this would not have been thought a sensual State A Power to produce a Creature that is capable of loving and enjoying God is an astonishing Perfection only Concupiscence has now so polluted our Hearts that we cannot think of this but our Imagination presently defiles it and we joyn it to the sensual Idea's that Sin and Lust have brought into the World and cannot conceive how the one can be without the other judging of things according to our Corrupt Nature and we presently cry out A Mahumetan Paradise Which truly discovers only the Filthiness and Corruption of our Hearts and not the Impurity of the Sentiment but only that to the Impure nothing is pure If there were a Creature perfectly Pure and Holy and if God endued it with a Power of producing its like this Production would be no Act of Concupiscence but an Act of the most ardent Love of God This is the State she says the Saints shall be in to all Eternity which whatever be of the Truth of it is no Mahumetan Paradise and as there are remarkable Places of Scripture cited for the Proof of it so the Reason she assigns is very weighty to wit That all the Works of God are Eternal and his Gifts without out Repentance and if there were no such Production to all Eternity a very small number of Men would bless him for rever whereas so many reasonable Creatures are become Adherents to the Devil It must needs be then that the Generation of the Blessed multiply eternally as the Generation of the Miserable has multiplied temporally from the Beginning of the World And why should we think it absurd to say that Angels do thus produce their like to all Eternity We see here in this visible World that all Creatures who have any Degree of Life from the highest to the lowest are endued with this Power of producing their like all the Plants and Trees all the Beasts Birds Fishes and Insects and the reasonable Creature Man both as to his Soul and Body as has been made appear and you know the Rule of Analogy is of great weight as to all the Works of Nature And therefore unless we should suppose God to act unlike himself as to a higher Degree of living Beings we have all the Reason that the Nature and Analogy of things does suggest to conclude that Angels also do produce their like to all Eternity XXVIII It is not possible to foresee all the Prejudices that People may conceive or that may be suggested to them against the Writings and Sentiments of A. B. far less to Answer them all particularly in this Apology I have considered only the most Remarkable of those which do usually occur and have for the most part set down her own Answers in this the former and the following Parts which tho' it has made it the longer yet I hope it will make it the more useful I am not asham'd to Copy for I write only Narratives and not Originals If others write Originals when they pretend to write Narratives I shall not envy them I am only sorry that some are at such pains to deter Men from perusing those Writings which may be most useful to help them in the way to Eternal Happiness If they will not make that good use of them themselves they need not hinder others from profiting by them Thousands perhaps would be awakened to a deeper sense of the necessity of mortifying and dying to their Corrupt Nature who would never be stumbled at the things which they carp at but pass them over Whatever are her singular Sentiments such as this last mentioned you may look upon them all if you please as Dreams and Romances but since the necessary Duties of Christianity and the plain Way to Eternal Life are so clearly so forcibly and so divinely inculcated and prest in all those Writings and no stress laid on those other things O! that the Love of God and of Men's Souls and our own Salvation may constrain us to the serious practice of them our selves and make us carefully to avoid the being an Offence and Stumbling-Block to others O si tantam ad hiberent diligentiam ad extirpanda vitia Virtutes inserendas sicuti ad movendas quaestiones tunc non fierent tanta mala scandala in populo Tho. Ã Kemp. de Imitat Christ l. 1. c. 3. n. 5. The End of the Second Part. AN APOLOGY FOR M. ANT. BOVRIGNON PART III. Containing the Evidences which she brings that she was led by the Spirit of God With her Answers to the Prejudices against the same To which is added A Dissertation of Dr. De Heyde on the same Subject I. IN the Age wherein we live there needs no greater Prejudice against a Person his Sentiments and Writings than for him to declare that he is immediatly led by the Spirit of God This is enough to make us reject all he can say without any farther Enquiry We presently conclude he is Brainsick Hypochondriack Melancholly and Craz'd at least as to that Point however Rational he may be in other things or otherwise that he is a Knave who designs to put a Trick upon Mankind and that all who esteem him are as much Fools or Knaves as he II. The Wise and the Learned of the World and from them the generality of Men are enclin'd to think so upon different Grounds and Principles 1. Some disbelieve all Revelation from God and conclude that as all other Creatures have natural Powers given them to guide them to the End and Perfection of their Being so has Man and that there is nothing necessary for him to lead him to the End and Perfection of his Being but only the right Use and Improvement of his Reason 2. Others are convinc'd of the shortness and insufficiency of Humane Reason to lead Man to Happiness and of the Truth and Necessity of Divine Revelation But then God having spoken at sundry times and in diverse manners unto the Fathers by the Prophets and in these last Days by his only Begotten Son and all this being consign'd in Writing to be a standing Rule to all Generations and confirm'd by most satisfying Evidences to be from God they conclude that we must not look for any to be thus immediately inspir'd and enlightned by God now by whom he should speak to us and that any who pretend to it are Impostours or Brainsick Persons who will needs ape what they read or hear of in the Holy Scriptures and fancy they are such Persons immediately enlightned by God as they read of in those Holy Writings and to own any now as inspir'd by God is to
promises that if our Eye be Single our whole Body shall be full of Light and if it be Evil it will be full of Darkness For tho' a Soul have not in it self the Holy Spirit yet it shall have the Understanding enlightned to discover him in others provided it behold them with a single Eye without Dissimulation or Surprize but in the Simplicity of a Child as Jesus Christ says we must be in if we would enter into the Kingdom of Heaven They who see me write know well that I do it without any Study or humane Speculation and that it flows from my Spirit as Water flows from its Fountain and that I do nothing but lend my Hand and my Spirit to another Power than mine And God gives yet a more sure Testimony by imparting to me his Righteousness Truth and Charity For these things cannot come from Nature which being corrupted can produce no Good nor any Divine Vertues because I am come of the Corrupt Mass of Adam as all the rest of Men there could not be in me any Righteousness Truth and Charity which are all Divine and Supernatural Vertues which cannot enter into the Soul of Men but by the Work of the Holy Spirit This gives me a sufficient Testimony that I am led by God since the Devil and Nature have nothing of those Vertues And therefore we cannot find a surer Evidence that a Soul is led by the Holy Spirit than when it is possest of the Righteousness Truth and Charity of God For if we desire to see Miracles for a Proof we may be deceived since the Devil can do Miracles or things which seem Supernatural but he can never have in him the Righteousness Truth and Love of God The Good Spirit and the Evil may be known by the Qualities which they have The Spirit of God has in him a Peace and Sweetness that comforts the Soul and draws it to an inward Quiet But the Spirit of the Devil disturbs the Understanding disquiets it and robs it of Tranquility and Rest The Spirit of God acts sweetly and strongly in Peace and Tranquility of Mind All that comes from the Spirit of God is always accompanied with the Qualities of God which are Goodness Righteousness and Truth And that which comes from the Spirit of the Devil carries always the Qualities of the Devil which are Malice Injustice and Lying The Evil Spirit may sometimes move to do a good thing to draw Evil out of it but that seeming Goodness can never be accompanied with Righteousness and Truth which are the inseparable Qualities of God which the Devil may sometimes separately make use of to deceive Men aping the Works of God but he can never do a thing that is Good Just and True altogether since this appertains to God only who cannot be divided in any of these Qualities God does not speak to me by Voices Thundrings and Lightnings as he did of Old to the Prophets or as he spake to Tobit by Angels in the Likeness of Young Men or as he spoke to Jacob in the Vision of a Ladder upon which Angels did ascend and descend or as he spoke to Joseph in a Dream saying to him Take the Child and the Mother and flee into Egypt For I durst not rely upon all these things in which the Devil and the Fancy of Man may mingle themselves and make such things be seen and heard as if they came from the Spirit of God But I fix on the solid Truth of God on his Righteousness and on his Love because in such things the Devil can have no hold I have sometimes had Dreams and Visions coming from God as I may afterwards make appear by Experience but I do not rely on these Dreams and Visions unless the same things that I have seen and dream'd be confirm'd unto me by a secret Notice Intelligence after the manner that I converse ordinarily with God For so soon as the Soul is free of all Image and delivered from the agitation of its Passions and the Imagination ceases to operate then I hear the Voice of God and his Reasoning not with my Ears but with my Understanding And after this manner he makes me see and hear all that I need to know both for my own Conduct and that of others which many have experienc'd and found that I have told them the most secret things of their Hearts which neither Men nor Devils could know Never amuse your self with Discourses Visions or Revelations made to you or others if you do not perceive assuredly that they are accompanied with the Qualities of the Good Spirit of God or otherwise you will be easily deceived Remark always if what you say or do be accompanied with the Righteousness Goodness and Truth of God and then you shall assuredly hear God speak to your Soul For if you walk in these Qualities you will be in God and the Devil can deceive you no longer by Illusions or false Imaginations as he will easily do so long as you do not possess those essential Vertues of the Righteousness Goodness and Truth of God in which you ought always to walk if you would not be seduced by Satan The Devil can give Visions Ravishments or supernatural Extasies to Sorcerers yea make them foretel things to come being a subtile Spirit and foreseeing afar and by conjectures what will come to pass and he may make them fall out by the means of his Sorcerers who being powerful and numerous may by their Power and Authority bring about what has been Fore told Therefore it is fit to receive nothing for Truth but the things which lead us to a more strict Union with God and Denial of our selves These things are always Good even tho' they should come from the Devil himself we cannot be deceived in believing them I can never have the least doubt as if it were an evil Spirit that communicates himself to my Understanding for the evil Spirit could not in my Judgment produce so good and so constant Operations such as the Love of God and the Hatred of ones Self Moreover he could not separate the Soul from the Pleasures of this Life nor remove from it the coveting the Riches and Honours of the World nor give it a full Contentment in the want of all humane Consolation nor yet Joy in Hardships and Contempt All these things cannot come from the Devil for he is too opposite to all these Vertues and leads ordinarily to all sort of Evil tho' at first he cover them with Vertues The End of his Operations make appear sufficiently the Deeds of the Author and make known the Workman by his Works Thus you see how certain Marks she gives whereby to distinguish true from false Enthusiasm the Conduct and Inspiration of the Spirit of God from the Illusions of the Devil or Ones own Imagination and how Men may preserve themselves from being impos'd upon by the last That where a Soul is
know no true Christians it cannot be understood that I know them for true Christians because I call them by that Name but I conform my self in this to the Disposition of those who hear me and not to the Truth of what they are Which if I would follow I behov'd sometimes to call those nominal Christians Atheists or Antichristians which scarce any Man would understand therefore to make my self be understood I must use common and ordinary Terms and pronounce them as briefly as I can since we must give an account of every idle Word I ought not to add uselesly to the Name of Christians as they call them since it is understood well enough of it self without pronouncing those Words as the Quakers do To make appear how fully she clears her self as to Contradictions which they were ready to impute to her I shall here adduce one Instance I understand says she by yours that my Writings have had some good Operation in your Soul but withal that you have found as it seems to you some Contradiction in them in that I say absolutely that to be a true Christian one must abandon all that he possesses and nevertheless you find in one of my Letters that a Man must keep his Goods for his Necessities since the World is now without Charity and they would leave the Just without help in his need Both these things are most true and do not at all contradict one another for a Man must absolutely abandon the Love of earthly Goods if he would become a true Christian Jesus Christ has very often affirm'd this Truth in his Gospel and said that he who does not renounce all that he possesses cannot be his Disciple I bring no Novelties when through all my Writings I press this Necessity of forsaking all things to be a Disciple of Jesus Christ since Jesus Christ his Apostles and all who have received the Holy Spirit say the same thing and there is but one Truth which is God which says through all the same thing So that they who speak otherwise are Liars and Seducers of the People who flatter Men to destroy them under the Pretext of Glosses and false Reasons which they draw from the Holy Scriptures without any Ground This I have declar'd sufficiently in my Writings as you have well observ'd and approved as you say seeing I very much blam'd a Woman of Friesland who was yet careful what she should eat and drink and wherewithal she should be cloathed after she had resolved to become a true Christian as you have remarked in the Second Letter of the Fourth Part of La lum née en tenebres And I am still of the same Sentiment that when one relies upon temporal things and will not voluntarily abandon them to follow Jesus Christ he cannot be his Disciple and that Woman will never be one so long as she is not disengag'd from temporal Goods Tho' she be now gone out of her Country with a design to embrace a Gospel Life she cannot attain to it because of the Affection she has still for her Ease and Conveniences which proceeds from Self-love being anxious for the temporal Part and fearing Want And I can assure all those who are still in that Disposition that they are not true Christians But when I wrote to one of my Friends in the 24th Letter of the Fourth Part of La lum née en tenebr as you alledge that he â—ought to keep his Goods for his own Necessities or that of others without leaving them to his Friends or giving them to the Poor now adays I had reason to do it because this Man was more disengag'd in his Soul from temporal Wealth than that Woman and had already resolv'd to abandon them all so that his Heart was free to possess them as if he did not possess them which a Person wedded to them could not do tho' it seems to him he could and he will say so with his Mouth for there is nothing more deceitful than the Heart of Man which none knows but God and he to whom God reveals it And I had reason to advise this Man to keep his Goods and that Woman that she should not care for the Morrow without any Contradiction in my Advices but in the Disposition of those Two Persons whom you mention Since the one was free to possess Wealth without sinning and not the other and a good Physician ought always to consider the Original of his Patient's Disease if he would heal him For if he ordain the same Physick for all sorts of Maladies he would kill more than all the Executioners together So you must not think that there is a Contradiction in my Two Letters mentioned by you but that there are Two divers Remedies for Two different Diseases to wit one Remedy against the Love or Desire of earthly things and another against too great Liberality or Indiscretion Again A. B. says somewhere That no Body ever was or can be saved but by the Merits of Jesus Christ and some Pages after in the same Treatise she says that no Body can be saved by the Merits of another This seems contradictory as well as those Two Propositions the one of St. Paul and the other of St. James Man is justified by Faith without the Works of the Law and Man is justified by Works and not by Faith only This last Contradiction â—s reconciled by saying that St. Paul understands that the Principle which admits in us that true Righteousness which God places there is Faith and that Works are not that Principle But St. James means that that Principle which admits in us the Righteousness of God is Faith but that Faith is not destitute of Works for if Faith were without Works it were a dead Faith which would justifie no Body Thus these have no Contradiction and yet are harder to reconcile than any Passages of the Writings of A. B. Thus as to the forecited Passage when she says that no Body is saved but by the Merits of Jesus Christ her meaning is that Jesus Christ is the Author and meritorious Cause of the Salvation of Men who will accept of this Salvation by the ways that God teaches them and when she says that no Body can be saved by the Merits of another this signifies that none who will not co-operate to their Salvation by the ways that God preâ—cribes them câ—n be saved by the Merits of Jesus Christ or that the Merits of Jesus Christ will not save those who will not follow the way of Salvation Thus you see how easie it is for critical and captious Spirits to find Contradictions where there are none that the Holy Scriptures themselves have many seeming Contradictions tho none in Truth that they who are led by the Spirit of God write in great Simplicity regarding the Essence and Substance of divine Truths and not the niceness of Terms and how captious Spirits may misinterpret them and divine Truths had need to be read and
till she forsook the World the Things of the World and Self that she might love God only and be resign'd to his Will in every thing In which Resolution she persevered so faithfully even to the end of her Life that she would rather have died a Thousand times than have desired any Creature or followed her own Will in any thing never undertaking any thing till she was first perswaded that it was the Good-will of God As appears every where in the Writings of Antonia Bourignon particularly in the Account of her inward and outward Life and the Continuation of it where this is sufficiently demonstrated Which Testimony tho' given by her self is nevertheless true as I have made appear in the Seventh Section IX Moreover this Testimony is confirm'd by many Good and Iâ—ous Men who knew Antonia Bourignon from her Infancy and did narrowly observe her Conversation Many such Testimonies are to be met with in that Treatise of A. B. which is called The Testimony of the Truth It is worthy of Observation that these Testimonies seem to have been published by the Providence of God that it might be evident to every one that A. B. led a Pious and Holy Life and that the Mouths of malicious Slanderers might be stopped not only by Two or Three Witnesses by whose Mouth every Truth is established but by such a Cloud of Witnesses who assure us that the Thoughts and Words of Antonia Bourignon were serious and pious even from her early Infancy so that observing the change that Man is subject to throughout all his Life and that he must part with all at Death while he seems to propose to himself in every thing that he undertakes an abiding and perpetual Good this made her conclude that we were not created for this wretched Life but for an abiding eternal and blessed Life of which she became so desirous that she counted all bodily Delights Recreations Pleasures fine Cloaths and all other perishing things as Dung and Loss for the Love of those good things which were Eternal and would never fail And about the Fourth Year of her Age having learned that our Lord Jesus Christ and his Apostles did lead a Life wholly free of all earthly and temporal Cares and Desires that they might only care and seek for those things which are above and are eternal she look'd on such a Life as most reasonable and worthy of a Man but observing that the Life of Christians now adays was altogether contrary to that kind of Life hence she concluded that they were not True Christians and begging that her Parents would have her to the Country where the Christians liv'd she vehemently thirsted to go thither that she might lead a truly Christian Life And tho' they endeavour'd to perswade her that she liv'd amongst Christians yet she could not believe this especially when advancing more in Years she found that the best among all the Parties of Christendom did still love and seek after earthly things so that their Deeds were directly opposite to the Deeds of Jesus Christ and of the First Christians While in the mean time our Saviour says expresly That the Disciple ought to be like his Master and that he who believes in him shall do the Works that he did yea greater Works than these as the Children of Abraham do the Works of Abraham X. As Antonia Bourignon grew in Years the Love of God and her Neighbour did encrease in her of which she gave infallible Proofs on all Occasions for observing that the Conversation of Men was an effectual Mean to withdraw us from God and to deprive us of his Love she therefore lived as solitarily as was possible not that she was Melancholly or Brainsick for such also seek to be Solitary but that applying her self to the Contemplation of God and of his Perfections she might the better continue in his Love She was otherwise of a chearful sociable and ingenuous Temper and understood well how they ought to carry themselves who desire to be lov'd by the World as appear'd in the time that she applied her self to the Conversation of the World XI Moreover she denied her self as to Meat Drink Apparel c. all things that were not absolutely necessary for the support of Life and this both that she might not adhere to any Creature and that she might bestow on the Poor and the Sick what she had beyond her Necessity And that Antonia Bourignon did these things not that she might be seen of Men like unto the Hypocrites but only from the Love of God and her Neighbour and things Eternal appears from hence that she did all these things in secret as much as was possible entering into her Chamber and shutting the Door pray'd to her Father in Secret and gave Alms her Lefthand not knowing what her Right-hand was doing She shew'd such a chearful Countenance that none but her pious Mother knew that she fasted XII That the Deeds and Actions of Antonia Bourignon did proceed from the Love of God appears also from this that she persever'd in them constantly to the end of her Life except that short time in which she engag'd her self â—n the Vanities of the World and no Reproaches Persecutions hard Usages with which she wrestled throughout all her Life did ever make her sâ—acken nor yet the Deceit fair Words and feign'd Sanctity of Hypocrites and Impostours who continually endeavour'd by many ways to distract her and to withdraw her from the Love of God So that she had received the Gift of Fortitude from the Holy Spirit to such a Degree that she would not have done any thing against the Will of God nor omitted that which she knew to be agreeable to the Will of God no not for the whole World And tho' she greatly desired Solitude because there she had learned to converse with God and to hear him in a profound Silence yet when the Glory of God or the Salvation of her Neighbour did require that she should converse with Men she willingly left that Solitude For she ever observed this Rule to prefer the Glory of God and the Salvation of her Neighbour to her own Profit being always ready not only to lay down her Life for her Neighbour but being content also to be blotted out of God's Book and with St. Paul to be an Anathema for her Christian Brethren XIII Antonia Bourignon finding that Virginity was most acceptable to God and an effectual Mean of persevering in the Love of God she therefore from her Childhood begg'd of God that she might be the Spouse of Jesus Christ earnestly desiring never to be married to any Man This she obtain'd so perfectly from God that she never entertain'd a Thought contrary to it tho' she was oft-times sought in Marriage by Persons who could have afforded her many worldly Advantages and her Parents were solicitous to have her married Yea her Father contrary to her Will promised her in Marriage to
that A. B. was Holy and in the Love of God and that to such a Degree that this Love seem'd to flow from her into them and other well-disposed Souls because many are brought by her to abandon their own Wills and the Creatures that they may Love God only and subject themselves wholly to his Will And I am perswaded that her Writings will have such Operations in all those who shall read them with a sincere and hearty desire to find the saving Truth and to endeavour to walk in it in so far as they know it Unless they be so far possest with Prejudices as that they will admit of nothing for Truth but what is consonant to their formerly receiv'd Opinions looking upon every thing that differs from them or seems contrary unto them as Lies and Error This is as if one looking always through a coloured Glass by which all Bodies would appear to him of the same Colour should imagine and affirm that other Men who look with the naked and single Eye are perfectly mistaken when they say that they see clearly that every Body has its own distinct Colour XVIII Unto these Four Evidences of the Sanctity of A. B. this Fifth ought to be added to wit the wonderful Works that A. B. did and the extraordinary Divine Lights that God communicated to her To reckon up all these we behov'd to narrate her whole Life and to adduce all her Writings which are full of such wonderful Works and Light Therefore let every one that loves the Truth apply to these Writings and which soever he shall be pleas'd to peruse he will by them be sufficiently convinc'd of this matter But that some Instance of this may be given it is to be considered that this ought to be look'd upon as a great Miracle in A. B. that she so generously fought against her corrupt Nature that she wholly subdued it not by her own Strength which could do nothing but Evil but by the Grace of God through which the weakest can do all things This Miracle ought to be more esteemed than raising the Dead giving Sight to the Blind and such like which serve only for this present Life and therefore may be performed by Men who are not Holy But to overcome corrupt Nature is an infallible mark of Holiness for the obtaining of which all other Miracles ought to be done otherwise they avail nothing but on the contrary do much hurt Among the innumerable Divine Lights communicated to Antonia Bourignon this is the chief that she had explain'd the Truths of the Gospel more clearly and efficaciously than any has done hitherto demonstrating that an Obedience to them is absolutely necessary for Salvation and rescuing them from the Glosses and false Expositions by which the Learned have so perverted the Truths of the Gospel that almost every Christian promises Salvation to himself although he do not walk according to these Truths XIX Since then it seems to appear sufficiently from what has been said that A. B. was Holy and in the Love of God it will be now fit to consider the Second Question proposed to wit If she was moved by the Spirit of God to write and to enlighten others For answer to this Question there needs nothing be adduc'd but what has been said as to the First Question For it A. B. was Holy and in the Love of God she would not have committed so great a Sin as to pretend that she was moved to write by the Spirit of God if it was false or if she was not certain that it was most true But that I may answer something in particular to this Second Question it is to be considered how we may be assured that any Writing is endited by God In order to this let us enquire how it appears that the Holy Scriptures were written by Men led by the Spirit of God as all Christians do believe XX. That we may proceed aright in this Enquiry it is to be remarked that God gives unto Men Breath and Life and all Things for in him we live and move and have our Being Nevertheless he has given to all Creatures the Faculty whereby to continue in their Being or to exist For God is Eternal and his Gifts are without Repentance therefore his Works do never perish besides they are endued with a Power of multiplying themselves and producing their like It is true many things perish but these are not the Works of God but Corruption and Vanity brought into the World and yet coming into it by Sin and Lust But besides these Faculties of preserving themselves and producing their like God gave to Man the Liberty of turning himself to God that he might be govern'd and ruled by him or of acting by the Strength already given him without asking new Strength from God If he do so he departs from God the Author of all Light and Good and then such a Man of necessity becomes Miserable and is sunk in Darkness as appear'd in the Fall of Adam and is to be seen daily in those who follow their own Wills that is who act by the Strength once given them and will not ask new Strength from God nor yield up themselves to be govern'd by him But if a Man yield up himself to God and ask help from him in every thing he goes about he will find God ready to help him Even as one in a very close Chamber is in the Day-time immediately enlightned by the Sun how soon he permits the Windows of the Chamber to be opened and the more Windows there are opened he receives the greater Light XXI From what has been said it appears that when we say that the Holy Scripture is endited by God we understand thereby that the Holy Men who committed it to Writing did so wholly deny their own Strength whether innate unto them or acquired by Diligence Learning and Meditation that they willingly acknowledged that thereby they could do no good nor any thing that was acceptable to God but did so entirely yield up themselves to be govern'd by God that they no longer lived to themselves but God did live and operate in them Now that we may be assured that the Holy Scriptures were penned by such Men we must examine what Operation the Holy Scriptures have in our Souls When then we experience that the Thoughts of our Hearts are manifested by them which can be done by none but God who alone knows the Heart and if this Holy Scripture be a powerful Mean for loosing our Hearts from the Love of Temporal things and drawing them to the Love of God and of things Eternal For the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any Two-edged Sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of the Soul and Spirit the Joynts and Marrow and is a discerner of the Thoughts and Intents of the Heart overthrowing every Imagination and Thought that exalts it self against God So that an Unbeliever perceiving
things and entirely resign'd unto him It is not for those Scessers then that I have written this Abridgment but for those who desire in the Simplicity of their Hearts to be helped on in the way to Eternal Life Jesus Châ—ist is the way and we are made believe that his Life is unimitable The first Christians followed him in a Life of Poverty Reproach and Pains in which now we think he neither can nor ought to be followed Here 's an Instance of are in this last Age of the World who as she declares to all that 〈◊〉 is no Salvation without following the Example aâ—◠〈◊〉 of Jesus Christ so she made him her constant Pattern and this her great Work from the Eighteenth Year of her Age to her Death and thereby encourages and invites 〈◊〉 all to deny our selves and take up our Cross and follow him Give her then of the Fruit of her Hands and let her own Works praise her in the Gates AN APOLOGY FOR M. ANT. BOVRIGNON PART IV. CONTAINING An Abridgment of her LIFE To which are added Two Letters concerning the Preface to the Snake in the Grass and Bourignianism Detected by different Hands I. MRs. Antonia Bourignon was born in the Town of Lisle in Flanders the 13th of January 1616. baptiz'd in the Parish of St. Maurice and nam'd Antonia her Father was John Bourignon an Italian by Nation and her Mother Margaret Becquart born near to Lisle they lived in a married State Thirty One Years having Four Daughters of which Antonia was the Third and One Son all of which died in their Childhood except the eldest Daughter who lived till the Thirty Sixth Year of her Age and was twice married She died Anno 1647. Her Mother in July 1641. Her Father married again in October being more than Sixty Years Old and died April 1648. And Antonia remained the only Heiress of her Mother her Sister having died without Children II. When she came into the World her Mother thought she had borne a Monster because her whole Forehead was covered with black Hair even to her Eyes and her upper Lip was fastned to her Nose and so her Mouth stood open they conceal'd her for some Months and the Hair fell off of it self and the Lip was untied by a Surgeon and she encreast in Comliness yet her Mother could not forget the Aversion she had conceiv'd and could not love her as she did her other Children but slighted her from her Infancy and could hardly look upon her the other Children also treated her rudely without her Father's knowledge who then loved her best of all his Children But his Affairs kept him still abroad except at Meals III. This rough Treatment made her retire from childish Plays and be much alone God then drew her powerfully to himself as soon as she had any use of Reason all her Thoughts were serious and her Reasonings seem'd not to proceed from a Child and having been instructed by her Parents when about Four Years of Age of the First Principles of Christianity and of all that Jesus Christ had done and suffered for Men she was desirous to be inform'd in what Country the Christians lived and profest a great desire to go thither and when her Parents mock'd her and told hâ—â— she was in the Country of Christians she said that could not be for Jesus Christ was born in a Stable and liv'd in Poverty whereas they all love to have fine Houses and fine Furniture and much Wealth and therefore she concluded they were not Christians and that she would go into the Country where the Christians do live but no Body understood this Language but turn'd it into Raillery and so she was constrain'd to hold her Peace IV. Finding so little Satisfaction in the World she turned her self unto God by Prayer and he being always ready to be found of them that seek him with their whole Heart especially little Children she from her Infancy had daily Conversation with God he speaking inwardly to her Heart and she thought this Divine Conversation was a thing common to all Then every thing serv'd her for an Occasion to Address to God Thus for Instance remarking that her Father was surly to her Mother and oft-times transported with Anger against her after having endeavour'd to appease him by her childish Embraces she would retire apart and considering how hard a thing it was to be married to a troublesom Husband would say to God My God my God grant I may never marry and she beg'd that instead of being married he would give her the Grace to become his Spouse Her Prayer was so well-pleasing to God that he granted her the full Accomplishment of it giving her from her Infancy the Gift of Chastity and Continence in so perfect a manner that she often said she never had in all her Life even by Temptation or Surprize the least Thought unworthy of the Chastity and Purity of the Virgin State V. Her Sister was much addicted to the Vanities of the World and could not look upon her Retiredness and Aversion from them without Indignation and Displeasure and among her Companions she made all this pass for an Effect of Stupidity and Dulness This made her quit her first Simplicity to follow for some time the Vanities of the World not that her Heart was set upon them but to shew that she had enough of Spirit and was not a Fool as her Sister would make them believe Thus the Devil laid Snares for her to entrap her and the sweetness of her Humour gain'd her the Love of the Young People they converst with beyond her Sister Thus she continu'd to Dress to frequent their Company to recreate her self with them in their Plays Dances and other youthful Divertisements tho' in all Honesty if that may be call'd Honesty which turns away the Heart from God however it past for such in the World Thus she greatly pleas'd her Parents particularly her Father who deny'd her nothing whereby she might appear with Advantage in the World Her Parents were anxious to have her married being Rich and having but Two Daughters and many Young Men would have had her for their Wife but she could never resolve to marry having an Aversion to it Yet she took Pleasure in the Conversation of the Youth till they urg'd her to marry and then she withdrew from them and would discourse with them no more She began also to take Pleasure in the Praises and Esteem of Men because they said she was fair and lovely whereas her Mother had still call'd her ugly and despis'd her on all Occasions VI. But as the World took place in her Soul God withdrew from it by degrees so that she felt no longer that Devotion or Pleasure in Prayer or Solitude which formerly gave her so much Contentment This made her Melancholly and the more she endeavoured to divert it by Company the more it encreast For her Soul was never at rest
only he desired to put in practice the Doctrine of Jesus Chrik and to recover the Love of God LI. When they came to Amsterdam she chose a little House in a very private Place to live solitarily in Conformity to the Private Poor and Mean State of Jesus Christ but a dangerous Sickness seizing her she permitted M. de Cort to bring to her a Physician of his Acquaintance who could not forbear speaking of her to others so that in a little time her Fame went through all the Country and People of all sorts desired to speak with her She thought that God might perhaps by this means open the Eyes of some make them see the miserable State of the World and dispose them to embrace a Christian Life And indeed many were mov'd to this so far as to encline to resolve upon it But it was as in the Days of Jesus Christ one Day one would follow him and a little after withdraw from him without thinking any more on him unless it were it may be to defame him or stone him or cry Crucifie him Every one had Business and Excuses which hindred them from Corresponding with the Calls of God The Anabaptists or Mennonists came to her and seem'd greatly to esteem the Graces of God in her but she no sooner discover'd the Nature and Properties of Hypocrisie and the generality of the Corruption even in the most Holy but finding themselves included they all declared against her She look'd on them as a Set of Persons who under modest and humble Words Cloaths and Gestures did conceal proud worldly and unregenerate Hearts Of them she writes in La Lum neé en tenebres Part 2. Serrarius Famous enough for his Writings and Correspondence at first highly esteem'd her proclaim'd her as a living Gospel And all the time he found her Thoughts agree with his as to the last Plagues the Conversion of the Jews Re-establishment of the Church and the Kingdom of Jesus Christ upon Earth all went well but when he found that she was not for the Re-establishment of a certain Levitical Worship which he fancied nor made any reckoning of an Impostor among the Jews who was risen up in the East he declared against her and studied to effice every where the good Impressions he had given of her She clears her self by a publick Print Tomb. de la fausse Theol. Part 2. Letter 14. At that time Labadie and his Disciples had as much Esteem for her and her Writings as afterwards they conceiv'd an Aversion for both They endeavour'd to bring her over to them by M. de Cort offering great Summs of Money to buy Noordstradt and to go with them but to no purpose She found he had no other Light but what Reading barren Speculations and some Acts of his own Understanding gave him and for a Motive of his Conduct some strong Conceits and Motions of his corrupt Passions without being any ways enlightned by the Spirit of God or govern'd by the calm Motions of the Divine Inspiration Therefore he and his fail'd not to blacken her on all Occasions the most piously and cunningly they could that the People might reckon her to be an Instrument of Satan and abhor her as the Devil himself M. Commenius so Famous among the Learned being then acquainted with her had quite other Thoughts But his Knowledge had not puff'd him up tho' it gave him some Prejudices which made him propose some Difficulties in which she satisfied him On his Death-Bed he bid tell her to give him the last Visit saying O the Holy Maid Where is she May I have the Happiness to see her yet once before I die All the Knowledge and Sciences I have had are nothing but Productions of Reason and of the Mind of Man but she has a Wisdom and Light that comes from none but God alone immediately by the Holy Spirit A. B. said often of him that she never knew a Learned Man who had a better and more humble Heart than he I was visited also says she by the Socinians who do altogether despise Jesus Christ saying that it is Idolatry to worship him And they ask'd me one Day If I believed also in a created God as Jesus Christ was I did not much reason with them because such impertinent Questions deserv'd no Answer telling them only that they ought not to come to me with such impertinent Discourse so they withdrew themselves Yet some affirm that I am of their Sentiments from which I pray God preserve me Many false Prophets and Prophetesses came to visit her One shewing her his Sword half drawn said he was going to behead all the Kings of the Earth and would begin at England and so entring into a little Bark it is not known what became of him Another John Roth had made ready Standards for the Twelve Tribes of Israel whom he was to re establish and some well-meaning People followed him In some Visits he made her she easily discovereded the Illusion and warn'd her Friends to beware of him being expresly told by God that he was a presumptuous Man over whom the Devil had much Power God gave her the same Sentiments of those of his Cabal particularly of one Quirin Kuhlman The Quakers also would try if they could draw her over to their Sect but they soon gave over their Hopes and one wrote against her upon which afterwards when in Holstein she wrote the Advertisement contre les Trembleurs Thus it seems the Devil design'd to distract or seduce her by all these sorts of Persons But God would thereby exercise her and make her know by experience to what height the Folly and Presumption of Man can go when joyn'd with the Illusions of the Devil never letting her be deceived by them He design'd also thereby to let the World see the vast difference between the false Lights of the Devil or the Imagination and the true Light that God sends in a way so solid so clear and so little capable of being suspected since she by whom he communicates it seeks to draw no body after her aiming at nothing but a simple retir'd solitary Life disengag'd from all Pleasures Riches and Honours imitating Jesus Christ without obliging any body to believe any other thing as necessary for Salvation but the Love of God and the denying of ones self looking on all other Knowledge and even things of Revelation as not necessary for those who have not yet Light and Grace enough necessary to receive them In which it is absolutely impossible that Seduction should mingle it self God made her also see how far the best cultivated humane Spirits are blinded and remov'd from the Kingdom of God by some Conversations she had with the Cartesians both Divines and Philosophers particularly with the Professors Heydanus and Burmannus upon which occasion she wrote the Twelfth Letter of the First Part of Tomb. de la fausse Theol. The Philosophers would perswade her that in spiritual things she
speak with the Author of Bourignianism detected who might have allowed one of the Writings of A. B. to be put in English and recommended as useful to advance the Interest of true Christianity without making such a Noise about it yet it no sooner comes to his Hands but he presently raises the Hue and-Cry Delusions and Errours and magnifies it into a new and growing Sect that he might get himself a Name and have the Glory to encounter and as he hop'd to defeat it But the Doctor is not so dreadful an Enemy as he would seem at first On-set they who bluster most are not always the most dangerous They who have read the Writings of A. B. and find that the Marrow and Substance of them are the Essential Truths of Christianity and that her singular Sentiments which she says are not necessary to be believed do not contradict those Essential Truths do justly wonder what has moved the Doctor to raise all this Dust and Clamour I know he once profess'd a great Veneration for Thomas à Kempis his Book de Imitatione Christi but he being a Mystick and one who seems to own his being immediately enlightned by the Spirit of God it may be the Doctor despises him now as in his late Letter he declares he has long since turn'd off such Conversation and a deceas'd Friend of his had not only a great Esteem for that Book but also for others of the same Nature such as the Life of M. de Renti c. The Person I mean was the most pious and learn'd H. Scougall of whom the Reverend Dr. Burnet now Bishop of Sarum gave so deserv'd a Character in his Preface to Bishop Bedal's Life and with whom he prevail'd to let him publish his Devout Treatise of the Life of God in the Soul of Man to which he was pleas'd to prefix a Preface and to subjoin a Discourse of his own of a Spiritual Life which little Book also contains an excellent Idea of the Divine Life in the Soul and particularly a Notion of Faith far above the Common and approaching as near as any I know to that of A. B. viz. that it is a kind of Sense and feeling Perswasion of Spiritual Things and has the same Place in the Divine Life that Sense hath in the Natural Now the Doctor professing a great Esteem for these Writings and acknowledging that they contain the Marrow and Substance of Christianity and the Writings of A. B. being the same in Substance and she requiring no Regard to be had to her accessory Sentiments but in so far as any should find them useful for increasing in them the Love of God some think it unaccountable why the Doctor should fall so foul upon her for her accessory Opinions and does not rather honour her for the sake of the main Truths and more favourably and candidly construct the others XV. There are Variety of Dishes in spiritual as well as in bodily Food and that may be very agreeable and healthful to one Palate which another cannot relish why should the Doctor then set up to be a Taster to all the World and because his nice and learned Palate cannot relish some course and homely tho' very substantial Fare should he therefore cry out There is Death in the Pot and frighten all others from tasting of it as far as his Testimony can have Influence We do not use to drive our Flocks from a good Pasture even tho' all the Herbs in it be not equall◠nourishing They who have a true Sense and Relish of Divine Things if they were reading the Writings of A. B. would be so affected with the Divine Truths contained therein as they would quite pass over the accessory Opinions they would run to the Pearls and gather the wholsom Food and apply themselves only to Things which direct them to the Love of God and the mortifying of their corrupt Natures The Doctor should have considered the Woe pronounced against all them by whom Offences do come and not rashly have laid a Stumbling-block before his Brethren and by his abusive and unlovely Characters endeavoured to raise Prejudices against and frighten many from A. B's Writings where they might have reaped so much Good and Profit and been brought to a true and lively Sense of Divine Things XVI The Doctor is unjust in his Title Page where he calls his Narratives The Delusions and Errours of A. B. and her Growing Sect. I know no such Sect in the World A. B. was grieved there were so many Sects already so far was she from designing to make a new one I know none who esteem her Writings that are form'd into any Sect. I know of no separate Meeting nor new Rites nor other Symbols that distinguish this Sect. There be Romanists Calvinists Lutherans there be of the Episcopal and Presbyterian Perswasions who esteem those Writings as they do other good Books yet they form no new Sect or Party there are none farther from the Spirit of a Sect than they unless this be called a new Sect to endeavour after the Spirit of the Primitive Church viz. an entire and brotherly Union in Divine Charity XVII He is neither kind nor just to his Country men in telling the World the Infection has seized many in Scotland and some of the better Sort who have been reputed Men of Sence Learning and Probity They might have read those Writings as they do other good Books without being branded for Hereticks and Sectarians he might have discovered what he thought to be Delusions or Errours without defaming his Country-men or bringing up an evil Report upon them his Books might have instructed and confuted them without pointing them out I am perswaded the Doctor would think it a crying Sin to proclaim those Persons to be Thieves Robbers and Murtherers tho' I think his saying so would do them no great Hurt and if he would consider things calmly he would find it no less and perhaps a greater injustice to tell the World they are become Hereticks Blasphemers Idolaters and new Sectarians and so thereby as far as in him lies to murther their Reputation make some to despise and abhor them and excite others to persecute them as Men unworthy to live But as a Conquerour he was resolv'd upon to a Triumph and to add to the Glory they must be led at his Chariot XVIII The Doctor has taken up two long Narratives in fighting with his own Shadow the first in proving that we ought not to believe the high Characters which M. de Cort M. Poiret and others give of the Person and Sentiments of A. B. upon their bare Word and the second that we are not to believe the Characters she gives of herself and her own Sentiments upon her own Testimony without sufficient Enquiry and Evidence And in both these I know none will contend with him In the First he would make Men believe that the great Business of her Friends is to recommend her
according to his Perswasion I got at a publick Auction that Copy of the Works of A. B. which the Author of the Censure made use of and with great wonder I observed the Weakness of Man The Author was a wise Man of great Judgment and Sincerity but what cannot Prejudices do that grow up with us I found many Places marked with a little Line on the Margent which if you consider them alone cannot but make the Doctrine of A. B. look suspicious yea blasphemous but if you join them with what goes before and follows after in her Writings they have an excellent and pious Sence The Author who while he liv'd was most dear to me and whom I am bound to honour now he is dead had such Prudence Judgment and Sincerity that he would never have made such Exceptions if the preconceiv'd Opinion of a Sect as it daily happens tâ— others had not bewitch'd him nevertheless I am perswaded that if he had lived till now he would have come to see his Errour This is the Judgment of Dr. Christianus Thomasius Counsellor to the Elector of Brandenbourg and Professor of the Law in the University of Hale in Saxony and is published in one of his Discourses before the Treatise De Eruditione solida c. which he caused to be reprinted in Germany and I wish with all my heart that Doctor Cockbourn and his Friend may impartially consider it and it may please God to open their Eyes and let them see their Mistakes 3. So zealous is the Doctor to blacken her that to compleat the Extravagancy of the Character he ventures to translate their Words falsly and even of those False Translations will tack together two half Sentences that are more than a Page distant in the Original as if they had been written in the blasphemous Way that he represents them in one Breath Thus Narr 1. p. 4. lin 7 8 9. he makes the Author of the Continuation of her Life say of her She is the divine Sun of Righteousness and with the same Breath She is pure Truth and the only Truth that can guide one to Heaven and eternal Life As if he had affirm'd both of her and both in one Period whereas they are in two different Paragraphs and neither of them spoken of her The first is a Petition put up to Almighty God by the Author of the Vie Continuée p. 599. That he would please to fix him in the Heaven of his Truth that the Dragon might not be able to cast him upon the Earth by his Violence nor by his Artifice That says he I may then always receive the Light of the Divine Sun of Righteousness in which thou hast placed thine Handmaid And then in the next Section when he had appealed unto God the Searcher of Hearts concerning his Integrity in seeking after Truth and his Impartiality in examining the Life and Writings of A. B. concerning his Readiness to disprove if he could with all the Application of his Mind have found any thing in them favouring Corruption or Sin or contrary to the Glory of God c. he continues his Appeal in these Words Is it not with the utmost Sincerity of my Heart that I protest openly that the Words of eternal Life have been with an incomparable Purity Clearness and Solidity in this Soul which thou hast sanctified and are yet in her Writings Certainly the Way that is recommended there as necessary to Salvation is the only and true Way this is the Life and Doctrine of Jesus Christ and there is no Danger to give up our selves to it entirely for this is Truth it self This is the Truth This is the pure Truth Thus we see there cannot be a more palpable Disingenuity in citing and translating than this is which can bear no Apology bâ—t an ingenuous Acknowledgment of the Pevarication Again Nar. 1. p. 9. lin 18. he makes M. de Cort complain that no body makes Prayers to her in the Times of Universal Scourges The Oâ—iginal is ni la point faire prier and the true Translation is they do not desire her to pray I shall not enquire what Sence the Doctor would have the Reader put upon his Translation but must say that he himself should not have aggravated his Guilt by calling that a close and literal Translation Art XIII of his Letter when he cannot be ignorant that it is both a false and a foul one Again Nar. 1. p. 17. he makes the Author of the Preface Apologet. prefix'd to her Life pag. 97. say that A. B. was the purest most disinterested and self denied Soul and the most resigned to God that ever was upon Earth The Words in the Original are Or je puis dire avec verite que M. Bour. estoit une ame des plus pures des plus degagées c. and the true Translation thus that she was one among the Souls which have been most pure c. his false Translation would have him to exalt her above all humane Creature the true lists her only among the Saints of the first Form among the hundred forty four thousand which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes Again Nar. 1. p. 74. forming an Argument against her Chastity from a Passage of her Life and her own Account of it La Parole de Dieu n. 158. and by the way I must say that no Lover of Purity would have perverted this Passage to the Sence that he has done nor is there any thing in the Embraces of Parents and Children that can be supposed to defile the Imagination of a Soul such as hers was in a truly regenerate State and in a profound Recollection and Communion with God he falsely translates theâ— last Part of it The Original is Je pensay de concevor cinque Personnages que je tiens gens de bien The true Version I thought I conceived Five Persons whom I reckon to be good Men. But the Doctor must render it Five comely Persons that it might serve his Design and afford Matter for impure Jest 4. It is no fair dealing in a Narrater to affirm things as spoken or written by others in his own Words without giving Evidence for them But the Doctor in his own Words tells us That if she may be believed Christ only laid the Foundation for her Works and did no more but prepare the way for her Design That the last and greatest Manifestation of the Divine Wisdom Power Love and Goodness was reserved to her and therefore she is and must be a greater Person than Jesus Christ himself And says he if we will take the Words of the Anonymous Author of La vie Continuee and some others this Woman was above all that 's Humane That God designed she should be the greatest Blessing that ever was conferr'd on Mankind That they set her on the same Level with Jesus Christ That they draw a Parallel betwixt him and her and do make him the Type of her
Works is a dead Faith in which while they remain they will never obtain Salvation seeing a living and operative Faith is necessary which cannot be recovered but in the imitation of Jesus Christ for otherwise no body can recover the Grace of God which he has merited for us for those only who will embrace the Gospel Law for it only teaches us how to return to God and points out all the things which have withdrawn us from him 18. If the Gospel Law did not tell me that I must be poor in Spirit I would never have known that the Goods of the World could withdraw me from God and if the same Law did not tell me that I must be humble in Heart I would have remained in the Pride in which Nature begot me and if the same Law did not teach me that I must deny my self take up my Cross and follow Jesus Christ I would never have known that the Love of my self drew me away from the Love of God or that my natural Inclinations did incline me to Sin I would never have done Violence to them that I might take the Kingdom of Heaven by force but having learned in the School of Jesus Christ the Truth of my Duties I will follow them and walk in the Light that he has purchas'd for me by his Sufferings and will not lean upon the Opinions of blinded Men who take Lies for Truth for I know well that for me the Gospel Law was made and that without the observing of it I cannot be among those whom the Father has given unto Jesus Christ and for whom he prays unto his Father I hope you also will be of that number my dear Child that having been in this World united in the Spirit of Jesus Christ we may be united together with him for ever Which she wisheth who remains Yours wholly in God A. B. Amsterdam Jul. 15. 1670. LETTER V. A Traveller to Eternity minds not earthly things To a Child of God who did not sufficiently comprehend that the Cares of this Life were an Hindrance to the Perfection of the Soul and was troubled to hear me say that it behoved me to tarvel alone to Eternal Life seeing he was desirous tobear me Company Shewing him that all the things of this World are vain and when we make it our Business to acquire them or to please Men we are not to look for an Eternal Reward This is the Twelfth of La lum née en tenebr Part iv My dear Child 1. I Know that you are troubled to hear me say that I am all alone in the World since you desire to accompany and follow me Your Desire is good in this but my Proposition is true that I am all alone in the way through which God leads me You ought not to be troubled to hear the Truth but rather to discover what must be done to accompany me I TRAVEL TOWARDS ETERNITY and I see all the World travelling towards the Land of their Banishment which is this miserable World after which every one aspires for I have not yet found one Person who seeks nothing but eternal things only 2. All Men of sound Judgment say that they aspire after things Eternal while their Thoughts Labour and Studies are taken up about what respects the Earth and Time Is it possible that they can have such a Blindness of Spirit as to believe that they desire eternal things when they despise them â—or â—e who seeks after the Goods of this World gives a sure Evidence that he despises Eternity Since it gives a full Satisfaction to the Man who desires it and he can no longer desire any other thing For all that is Temporal and Transitory seems to him Dung and Filth of which he makes use of the least â—e can and would flee in the Air towards Eternity without any wise touching the Earth if his Body were not of so 〈◊〉 Matter and obliged to take such gross Food for its 〈◊〉 But they who travel towards the World are still desirous of Silver and Gold that by this means they may make themselves to be served and honoured that they may take their Delight in Eating Drinking Walking commodious Apparel in adorning their Houses with fine Moveables and rich Ornaments that they may satisfie their Five Natural Senses of Sight Hearing Smell Taste and Feeling 3. So that it is no wonder that a Person who travels towards Eternity finds herself alone in the way since all the Men that we see now do so desire and seek after all these things studying and labouring with all their Power to obtain them and they will not despise or forsake them for all the Reasons that can be told them They would indeed have Eternity without resolving to forsake temporal things tho' Jesus Christ tells us That we cannot serve Two Masters without being unfaithful to the one or the other They wrest this Passage according to the Sensuality of their Inclinations and they will needs follow them and have eternal Life also which is impossible Therefore I do not understand Men now neither do they understand me and for this Cause we cannot stay together 4. I must indeed out of necessity be among Men But as soon as it shall be possible for me I will leave them to follow the way that God points out to me and leave them to follow those ways which they will needs choose for their Damnation I will not say my dear Child that you walk in this way of Damnation since you have an effectual Desire to be saved and to accompany me But you are yet travelling towards the World which is not as yet crucified in you you do not yet know how one must die to it in all things I am therefore troublesome to you in RESOLVING TO WALK ALONE and you give me more trouble to oblige me to follow you in travelling towards the Earth and Temporal things where I cannot accompany you without continual Strife and Debates for there is not a temporal Action or Word which is not blameworthy in this way that leads to Eternity For I should no sooner hear you speak of things which respect the Earth only but I would reprove you for them as idle Words and unprofitable for Eternity And if by your Actions you should labour for earthly things I would complain of your Employ and reckon your Labour to be vain 5. You see how I would be a Burthen to you and you would be insupportable to me And therefore our Journey would be melancholly and troublesome both for you and me and worse than that of two Persons who did not understand one another by Signs nor Words Nevertheless your Company does not offend me for I love it because of the good Desires which you have neither will I reprove you by way of Correction or Reproof but out of good Inclination for your Perfection which I love as my own But your Nature will feel Troubles thereby which perhaps would be insupportable to
Love of God Man must now live a life of Penitence i Pierre de Touche p. 3â—9 No Salvation in the State of corrupt Nature and Jesus Christ only has made us capable of getting out of it k ib. p. 310. No Salvation without returning to the Love of God l Renouv de l' Espr pref p 25. Jesus Christ as our Pledge suffers and merits for Man m Antechr dec part 2 p. 41 74. n ibid. part 3. p. 48 49. o Pierre de Touche p. 3 8 Renouv. de l' Esp Ev. part 1. p. 156. Jesus Christ's Life is our Copy how to recover the Love of God p Renouv de l' Esp Ev. pref p. 128 129. None sav'd by Christ but who obey his Gospel-Law and follow him q Pierre de Touche p. 310. The Precepts of Jesus Christ are all Remedies for Man's Evils r Renouv de l' Esp Ev. avant pref p. 22. All Good from God all Evil from Man s Light of the World part 3. p. 69 c. The One Essential Command t Acad. des Theol. part 1. p. 47 c. The Essence of Vertue and Sin u Light of the World part 2. p. 57 c. Nothing acceptable to God but what is just good and true x Acad. des Theol part 1. p 62 c. Not much speculâ—tive Knowledge but Resignation of our Liberty and Faculties to God necessary to Salvation XI The Substance of these Truths XII That they are the Essence of Christianity appears 1. from Scripture XIII 2. From the Fathers S. Aug. de Doctrin Chr. lib. 1. c. 3 4 5 9 10 11 12 13 22 19 35. c. XIV Her own Declaration that her great and only Aim is the Love of God and that she lays no Stress on the accâ—ssory Truths Renouv. de L. Espr Ev. pref p. 110 111 112 c. XV. Her Writings not to be despis'd tho' others may have done as well XVI Some peculiar Characters of her Writings and Sentiments 1. The clear Distinction betweeen the Essentials and Accessories L' Etoile du Matin p. 40 41. XVII 2. The Relation that the Duties of Christianity have to one another Renouv. de l' Esp Evang. part 2. n. 81. part 3. n. 39 48. XVIII 3. Her most amiable Representation of the Divine Nature Light of the World part 1. conf 7 14 15. part 2. conf 1. part 3. conf 1 2 18. Renouv de l' Espâ—it Evang. Preface n. 15 c. * Vâ—s Deus una Veritas una Salus omnium prima atque summa Essentum ex qua est omne quicquid est in quantumest quia in quantum est quicquid est bonum est Et ideo ex Deo non est Mors. Non enim Deus Mortem fecit nec laetatur in Perditione Vivorum quoniam summa Essentia esse facit omne quod est unde Essentia dicitur Mors autem non esse cogit quicquid moritur in quantum moritur nam si ea quae moriuntur penitus morirentur ad nihilum sine dubio pervenirent Sed tantum moriuntur quantum minus Essentiae participant Corpus autem minus est quam vita quaelibet quoniam quantulumcunque manet in specie per vitam manet Corpus ergo magis subjacet Morti ideo vicinius est nihilo Quapropter Vita quae Fructu Corporis delectata negligit Deum inclinatur ad nihilum ista est nequitia Id enim amat quod minus est quam Vita quia Corpus est propter ipsum Peccatum quod amatur fit corruptibile ut fluendo deserat Amatorem suum quia ille hoc amando deseruit Deum Quod vero Corpus Hominis cum ante Peccatum esset in suo Genere optimum post Peccatum factum est imbecillum Morti destinatum quanquam justa vindicta Peccati sit plus tamen Clementiae Dei quam Severitatis ostendit Ita enim nobis suadetur a Corporis Voluptatibus ad aternam Essentiam Veritatis Amorem nostrum opportere converâ—i Et est Justitiae Pulchritudo cum Benignitatis Gratia concordans ut quoniam bonorum inferiorum Dulcedine decepti sumus Amaritudine Poenarum crudiamur S. Aug. de Vera Relig. Cap. 11 12 15 Oâ—con diâ— tom 3. c. 13. Hos 13 9. 1 Joh. 4. 8. Is 27. 4. XIX 4. Their Tendency to Union and Concord Lum enteneb part 3. letter 2. Rom. 14. 2 c. XX. 5. The 〈…〉 from 〈…〉 XXI 6. The leading to a true Reformation Renouv. de l'Esp Ev. Sainte Visiere Nouv. ciel p. 160. Joh. 14. 6. c. 10. 9. XXII 7. The taking off from a speculative Knowledge of Divine things Tomb de la fausse Theol. p. 1. 1 Cor. 2. 11 Joh. 1. 5. 1 Cor. 2. 14. Mat. 2. 26. and c. 6. 22. Ps 25. 9. Joh. 8. 12. Jam. 3. 17. Is 29. 3. 1. Cor. 8. 2 3. Jam. 3. 15. Is 29. 14. 1 Cor. 1. 19 27. Tomb de la fausse Theol. p. 1. let 1 2 c. La Sainte Visiere De Imitat Christi L. 3. c. 4â— XXIII 8. The Plainness and Simplicity of them XXIV 9. The convincing Force of them Recueil des Temoignages Nouv. ciel p. 166. 170. XXV 18. The just and excellent Representation of the Trushs of Christianity Renouv. de l' Espr Evang. c. XXVI 11. The Divine Explications of Holy Scripture Renouv. de L'Espr Ev. p. 1. Her Cautions and Rules for interpreting of the Holy Scriptures La Dern misericorde de Dieu avantprop n. 135 136 139 140 146 147 148. Eodem certe Spiritu credenda intelligenda S. Scriptura quo tradita est Th. a Kemp. Micah 6. 8. Matt. 22. 37 40. Ezek. 18. 27 28. S. Aug dâ— Doct. Chr. L. 1. ch 36. XXVII 13. The clearing of Difficulties in a few Words Acad. des Theol. part 1. ch 1 2. XXVIII 13. The taking Men off from the disputing Theology La Sainte Visier Tomb. de laâ—auss Theol. Etoile du Mat. p. 37. 1. Cor. 13. 4 c. XXXI 14. The singular Manner of the writing them * Recueil des Temoign p. 84 85 c. XXX 15. The Conformity of her Life and Practice Recueil de Temoign La Vie de M. A. B. XXXI A Summ of her Accessory Sentiments 1. That they are not her own L'Etoile du Matin p. 34. 2. Not necessary to Salvation ib. p. 41 42 Renouv. part 2. p. 121 122 223. XXXII 3. St. Augustin's Rule for judging of Sentiments * De Doct. Christiana lib. 1. c. 36. XXXIII 1. Before the Fall 1. No Deformity in the Works of God Le Nouv. Ciel p. 34. 2. Man created to enjoy God and all his Works The Qualities of his Soul Lum en teneb part 1. let 15. 3. A Body given him wher by to rule over the Creation ibid. 4. The wonderful Glory and Beauty of that Body Le Nouv. Ciel p 44 45 51 74. 92. L'Etoile du Matin p. 3 10. 5. Man capable of producing his like ibid. p. 33. 6. Adam