man from the will of God who had created him to delight himself with him and willed for that that he should love him with all his heart There cannot be delight but with what is beloved and therefore will God be loved of man with all his heart and that he place his affections in nothing else but in him only The Devil no sooner perceived that but he enticed him by the five natural senses which are as the five windows of our heart to withdraw his heart and affections from God and to place them on visible and sensible things The Devil then first moved Adam's heart to regard the beautiful Creatures which God had created for him he moved also his sense of hearing to give attention to the false perswasions of that old Serpent who made him believe that he should know Good and Evil if he did eat the fruit of the Tree which God had forbid him to eat of He moved him to put his Hand to touch that Apple his Smelling to smell it and his Taste to eat it and by that means the Devil carryed Adam's Heart and affection to the Creatures and turned him away from the Love he owed to God If the Devil could have drawn man's Heart directly to love him he had done it but because he is an invisible spirit he could not move the five natural Senses of man to love him And therefore he served himself of visible and sensible creatures to get himself indirectly loved by man that by moving man to self-love and to use all the other Creatures to satisfie his self-love and consequently withdraw him from the love of God which he hath done with too much success seeing he hath caused Adam and all that were to proceed from him to disobey against God and so made him abandon that dependance that he would no more depend but upon his own will and love nothing but himself Behold the miserable fall into which the Devil caused all men to fall into in Adam And they all in general are born in that misery and disobedience since the fall of Adam and come into the world with that evil inclination to love themselves and follow the corruption of their senses which breeds all sorts of sins because they are now moved by an evil spirit which is the Devil whence no good can proceed for the privation of all good is the possession of all evil So that he that hath rejected the love of God and would not renounce himself hath deprived himself of all sort of good seeing there is no other good but God and is fallen into all sorts of evil that is to say into the privation of all sorts of Good God never created any evil but man produced it when he deprived himself of the Love of God in which alone consists all sorts of Good And that is the thing they call sin which signifies to turn away and desert God who is all good and in the privation of him is all evil So that he that hath withdrawn his affections from God to place them in the love of himself or of any other creature hath abandoned all Good and embraced all sorts of Evil. For there can be no other evil but the privation of all good into which man engages himself when he carrys his love and affections to any thing else than God And what Adam did once by the instigation of the Devil men do it for their own particular as often as they set their affections on any thing beside God only Observe a little my Child how often you have fallen into the same sin with Adam and loved any other thing than God alone and also if you are not actually addicted to your self-love and retired from the love of your God but I am not surprised at it because you never knew that sin consisted in that and no person hath taught you it for the men of this time are ignorant of that truth as well as you and they that are esteemed the most virtuous are full of self-self-love though they think themselves free from sin so far does the heart of man deceive it self But for your part be wiser for though all men should go to perdition you must endeavour to save your own Soul The great number of damned would not diminish your torments if you should be damned with them but rather augment them by the augmentation of crys blasphemies and noysomeness of Fire and Brimstone which shall augment in Hell with proportion to the number of damned And therefore I counsel you to leave that common tract of the blindness of men which esteem nothing sin but the material things which they have prescribed one to another to be evil Things which God regards little seeing he is a pure Spirit whom not only these gross material things offend as they decifer sins as Drunkenness Robbery Whoredom and other material sins blameable before men but God is offended to see the heart of man cleave to and love things so vile since he created him to love his God only who will delight himself with him And yet man deserts God to delight himself in the satisfaction he takes in eating drinking and cloathing and recreation with any other creature Which hugely displeases God and man becomes his enemy by disobedience while he acts against the designs God had in creating him after his own image and likeness to take his delights with him notwithstanding man against the intention of God delights in himself and the Creatures that are less than himself For whatsoever is created under Heaven is much below man who is as the head and principal of all the works of God and was established over all the other inferiour works of God being made as a little God in his divine nature which is enclosed in his Humanity But the Devil envious of his happiness from the instant of his creation strove to make him lose that part of the divinity which God had bestowed on him he rendered him sensual and earthly to make him leave the love of divine and heavenly things which alone he ought to have loved and by that means he had enjoyed all the other creatures at pleasure as master and Lord of all that was subjected to him But the proud Devil could not suffer man in dominion over the other Creatures he being rejected and banisht from the friendship of God deprived of all good and replenisht of all evil so he by Rage and Envy attempted to destroy man with himself and make him companion of his miseries and seeing man composed of a body and a spirit he insinuated into his spirit endeavouring to unite himself with him under pretext of procuring good to him and so made him imagin that he should know all things as God if he would eat the fruit God had forbid him to eat of and these thoughts being entred into Adam's spirit gained his affection and made him forget the Love and Obedience which he owed to God beginning to love
defect Fire is good in that it warms and enlightens but evil in that it burns and smoaks Water is good in that it refreshes and quenches thirst but evil in that it is crude and cold the Air is good for respiration and to purge bad vapours but evil in that it hath tempests the Earth is good for producing fruits but evil in that it is miery and that it produces pricking Thorns and Thistles Gold Silver and other Metals are good in that they serve mens commodities but evil for their heaviness and obscurity all the Plants and Fruits of the Earth have something of good and something of evil and also all beasts of the Earth the Air and the Water and man especially is composed of Good and Evil So that there is nothing amiable but God alone since there can never be evil in him and out of him nothing good to be loved all being accompanied or mixt with evil Evil is not an object of Love nor worthy of our affection Man then is created to love and there 's nothing more natural to him than love He must needs love something For he may be as soon without life as without love for there 's nothing but death puts an end to the love of earthly things but the love which is in his nature can never end It is created of God who is eternal it shall also endure eternally but that love can have divers objects one loves good things another evil a-third things mixed of good and evil Now he that loves good things loves God since there is nothing good beside him and all the good that is in the Creatures comes from him He that loves evil things loves the Devil seeing there is nothing evil but what comes from him For God hath not created evil nor any thing evil it is the Devil alone who hath produced all evils in separating himself from all good and is by consequence fallen into all evil which is nothing else but the privation of all good And he that loves the creatures loves an object composed of good and evil for God created them all good but the Devil by his subtil malice hath insinuated the evil into the good when he gained man's will who consented to that mixture of good and evil For God had created man free so he would not hinder him to use that liberty which he had once given him And therefore man is free during this life which is his time of tryal where he may choose one of these three Objects viz if he will love God or the Devil or earthly Creatures Now there is no doubt but God is the most lovely Object who hath nothing of evil Wherefore then should it be impossible to love God with all our heart as he hath commanded there is nothing so lovely as him and beside that love brings us all sorts of good for God is as powerful as lovely and can render man happy in time and in eternity O what Quiet Joy and contentment even in this world hath a person that loveth God and how much shall these Goods be augmented in Eternity What disquiet Grief and Trouble inwardly hath a man that loves the Devil for let him do all the evil he can he is never pleased nor content his Conscience can never be in quiet and his joy can be only false and apparent because of the sadness which sin infallibly brings For evil blinds the Soul fills the Heart with dark and melancholy thoughts dulls the Spirit and tortures the Conscience as soon as the pleasure of the evil is over And after these temporal evils he must look for greater and eternal ones because he hath loved the devil who can give nothing but torments having nothing else in his power So that evil Object is as little profitable as lovely It is the same with the Creatures while we cannot love them without the evils which they carry mixed with the good which God had put in them And all the creatures of whatever nature have no power to render us happy neither in this life nor in that to come For if we love Riches which are so much loved now adays we are their Slaves because of the travail we must use to get them and the care and disquiet to preserve them nor can they afford us more than a little nourishment for our bodies and Cloaths to cover us which the poor can have also and with less trouble and if they think themselves happy because they can satisfie their taste in eating and drinking deliciously that is only a greater misery causing infirmities and diseases from which they that live soberly are free And if we love some human Creature we are yet more miserable seeing we so sell our liberty and become subject to the passions and inclinations of another So that there is no happiness for the man that loves the creatures seeing they have no power to make us happy in this world and far less in eternity And therefore there is nothing but the Love of God which is profitable and amiable for man and no other Object we must then conclude from thence that it is very possible to love him and beside that it is profitable and necessary both for our temporal and eternal happiness which I pray you to believe Your Well-affectioned in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON In Holstein near Gottorp Castle April 20. 1672. St. Vel. THE IX LETTER That it is easier to Love God than any thing else To the same to whom is shown that it is most Easie Profitable Honourable Sweet and Pleasant to Love God and keep his Commands for him that will deny himself It is Blasphemy to say that it is impossible to love God with all our heart My Dear Child NEver suffer your self to be perswaded that it is impossible to Love God with all our heart as these Ignorants falsly say for there is nothing more easie sweet pleasant honourable and profitable than to love God with all our heart First it is most easie seeing man is created to love Love is the strongest passion he hath in his nature so that he can no more be without love than without life consequently it is very easie to follow that natural inclination where there in no need to do any violence seeing the bent and inclination of man tends thither of it self and that its easie to follow a Love which is engraven in all both soul and body No person then need doubt that it is most easie for him to love But some doubt if it is easie to love God being he is an object invisible to nature and we cannot love what we Know not but with great difficulty That sentiment is altogether brutish and cannot be in the mind of a reasonable man who by his reason can see that there is a God Author of all things and that there is no creature that hath not its origine from a supreme cause who is its Author and Creator or else they could
not have being nor existence For although man be above all the other creatures yet he cannot give light nor heat to the sun nor sustain the Waters in the firmament nor fructtifie the earth All that must needs be from a supreme cause whom he may know by his operations his understanding can see clearly even by his bodily eyes in contemplating the beautiful order which is in all nature we need but consider the distinction of Seasons the production of Herbs Plants Beasts and of men And though we cannot see the author of all these things yet we can see his works palpably and visibly The savage Pagans did both know and confess that there is a God Author of Nature and there are Christians at present so unnatural that they dare say they know not God because they see him not with their fleshly eyes And from that they will argue that they cannot love him because they know him not They render themselves in that like to the Beasts which have no spirit to perceive other than natural things and see them as though they subsisted by themselves But men having a spirit more noble than beasts comprehend even by their natural spirit that there is a God Author of Nature which engaged some Pagans to set up Altars to the Unknow God Some other of them at the Death of our saviour Jesus Christ said Either nature is a dissolving or the God of Nature suffers These things ought to make the Christians of this time blush for shame who say They cannot love God whom they see not So they shall be more punished in Hell than the Pagans that have applyed their spirit to know God by nature Whereas on the contrary these Christians do not at all study to know him neither by Nature nor by Grace which they have received in the Evangelical Law beside that which God gave to Moses These brutish Christians must neither believe nature nor the Law of God to say they cannot love God with all their heart whom they do not know For though they knew not God by his works which yet they see and touch they should at least know him by the Law of God which would not enjoin to love God if he were not Seeing then there is a God there is consequently an Object amiable above all things and man being full of love ought to be easily carryed to love him for love is always carryed to good and beautiful things so that nothing should be more easie to him than to love God who is the source of all Good and Beauty But all the difficulty man finds now to love him with all his heart comes hence that he doth not apply his spirit to discover and meditate the works and marvelous things of God and so cannot know nor love him but he gives himself to regard the earthly creatures in themselves and attributes to themselves the little of good and beauty that is in them and by that means carrys his affections to love the gross Objects which are visible and sensible to his stupid senses It is difficult for such persons to love God they cannot love heavenly Objects while they regard only earthly ones as they cannot comprehend eternal things because they contemplate only transitory And that is not because of their incapacity seeing God hath made them capable of loving him but because by their free will they choose to love the vile creatures more than him and it is that vitious choise makes them say that it is impossible to love God and themselves make that impossibility They are like persons who staying in a valley full of Snow complain that they are cold and that they cannot be warmed among that Snow which is very true but if they would walk a little to get out of that Snow and get up to the Mountain they should well feel that it is full easie to become warm where the sun bestows his rays It is even so with earthly men who please themselves in the Snow of worldly lustres they say and think it is impossible to be warmed by the Love of God which is also very true so long as they remain in the affections of the pleasures of this valley of tears For nothing can warm them in the love of God while there all is but Snow which cools them He that hath his pleasures in carnal things cannot have them in spiritual and he that puts his affections in perishing goods cannot have them in eternal ones and he that takes his pleasures here in sensualities cannot have them in spiritual things seeing all these things are contraries which can never abide together So long then as a man feels himself cold in the Love of God it is a token that he lives yet in affection to the things of this valley of Snow which are quenchers of the Love of God He cannot then feel in himself other than an impossibility or at least great difficulty to love God with his whole heart But if they would quit their affection to this valley of misery and mount up to the consideration of eternal things they should soon feel the Sun of Righteousness warm our Soul and the Love of God fill our heart which would not only find Facility therein but also Sweetness Pleasure Honour and Profit seeing in effect there is nothing more pleasant than to love God For me I have experienced that all love to the Creatures is bitter and that the Love of God only is sweet and pleasant for when I loved Riches they gave me aboundance of trouble to preserve them when I loved Honours I found there many bitter and piercing displeasures when I was not esteem'd or honour'd as I wished so that sometimes one Sleight caused me more pain than a hunderd Honours had given me contentment When I loved the pleasures and delights of this life I found there great bitterness because there is none of these pleasures that carry not its own pain with it for the pleasures of the taste breed poverty and diseases and are insatiable they never satisfie no more than those of the flesh which resemble Salt-water the more one drinks the more drought I have remarked that in several carnal persons who after having ruined their Body and Health in satisfying their concupiscence used all means to cure their infirmities and that to the end they might wallow yet more in their nasty pleasures And when I have loved any human Creature it was always painful for me to satisfie and please them and the fear of offending or loosing them was unto me a continual anxiety So that there is nothing but God alone whom it is easie and sweet to love Nothing is more pleasant for all other Loves have Grief mixed with their greatest Pleasures we see young people marry with joy there is nothing but mirth Plays and Dances but the Wedding is scarce over and sometimes sooner when we see them sad and afflicted pensive and melancholy Diseases attacque them the Care of
will not promise that you shall have in his service sensual Pleasure or worldly Riches and vain Contentment but I promise you assuredly Quiet of Conscience Tranquillity of Spirit an inward Peace and contentment in your Soul Which are things far more estimable than the vain Pleasures and impure Contentments and aboundance of the Riches of this world which can never satisfie our souls being they are spiritual and cannot consequently be satisfied with material things Therefore is it that there was never any man perfectly content and satisfied in this world unless he loved God with his whole heart There is no other but such an one who can be entirely content for only the Love of God is capable fully to satisfie our souls for they are little divinities which cannot be fully contented out of God from whom they proceeded Therefore must you my Child labour to attain to that love for when you have truely found it you shall have all things and you shall reign over all the world having in contempt all that is not God And you have no violence to use with God to obtain his love seeing he gives it liberally and freely to all that desire and ask it and even compels men by an express Command which he hath given them but you must do a little violence to your self to obtain that love because your affections are carried to other things than him so you must reclaim them and constrain them to return to their God and in that you shall have so many combats as you have habitudes to love other things than God If you be then strongly addicted to self-love or Love of other Creatures your combats shall be so much the greater But the business deserves suffering well seeing after we shall enjoy so great Good temporal and eternal we should spare nothing to gain such a Treasure the Pain shall pass swiftly and the Joy endure eternally And therefore you must suffer willingly to retire your affections from earthly things and place them in God alone I have sufficiently shown you in my last that that is good pleasant honourable and profitable It remains for you now to put it in practice Examin once what it is that you love beside God and then detest that love and withdraw from it your heart If you love objects without your self flee from them as the enemies of your good loose from them your heart and desire no more to see them And if your Affections be occupied in Self-love remove them from an object so little lovely to place them in God who only merits your affections and nothing else Protest then against that natural inclination of Self-love and yield no more any thing to that nature but things purely necessary for it is your greatest enemy to which you must not furnish Arms to fight against you the better You must know that corrupt nature wars against the Love of God as far as you yield to it So give it the least satisfaction you can even till you have overcome it withdraw then from it your Affections you must restrain it as a Horse with Bridle that it kick not nor attempt but to serve the master you love Behold the means to render you free to love God with your whole heart for as soon as your affections are retired from all Creatures they will be assuredly carryed to love God their Creator because the Love of God is the element of our Soul in which only it can live recreate and repose it self That Love of God is the true center of our Souls whither they fall of themselves so soon as they are disengaged of other affections which are all vain It is as with a Stone thrown into the Air which will not rest till it fall on the Earth which is its center unless it be retained with bonds or other thing It is the very same with man's Soul which is thrown into the air of the Vanities of this world It cannot find rest there if we did not retain it by Force by Baits and Allurements of Affection for earthly things doubtless it would presently fall into the Love of God which is its center and element where it can rest and recreate it self to satisfaction because the Soul hath nothing more suitable to its nature than God from whom it proceeded and it can never repose till it be returned to him and when it is compelled to remain out of its element it is as a Fish which by Nets and Lines is forced out of the water which is to it very disagreeable and causes to it Death if it be not quickly returned into the water The same happens to the Soul when it suffers it self to be entangled in the nets of earthly Affections it must quickly die because it cannot find there an element suitable to its divine nature and so it languishes withers and dies an eternal death unless it break the nets of earthly Affections to return to its element which is the Love of God You must my Son labour that you may break all the bonds of earthly Affections and so soon as you feel affection for any thing that is not God rescind it quickly for it is a chain which retains you out of your element and though it should be painful for you to loose your heart from any thing to which it enclines these Pains shall quickly change into Consolations for you shall no sooner be returned into the Love of God but you shall bathe in ease and pleasure as fish newly returned to the water which is its element It is for that Jesus Christ says that his yoak is easie and his Burthen Light He calls a Yoak our natural inclinations because we must constrain and retain them and they are troublesom and grievous to bear For if we follow them we precipitate our selves into a thousand Evils seeing nature being corrupted by sin enclines always to evil And these evils are often troublesom and weighty to bear I know well that to us it seems grievous that we may not in any thing follow our natural inclinations but if we take on that Yoak for the Love of God it will become light and easie to us as Jesus Christ hath taught No person can dispence or excuse himself from bearing it since our first Father Adam laid it on the shoulders of all his Posterity all men in general and every one in particular are charged with the miseries which sin brought upon human nature They are all subject to Heat Cold Intemperance of the Air Hunger Thirst Infirmities and Diseases of the Body to Ignorance and Inconstancy of Spirit and the disorderly motions of Passions for sin hath brought all these things upon man's nature which God created altogether perfect but since all men have pertaken of Adam's Sin they are also subject to his Penitence That is the Yoak which God hath given man to satisfie his divine Justice So that all men coming into the world must bear that Yoak will they or not
rendet our selves its Slaves And though there were no other Devil but the Corruption of mans Nature we behoved notwithstanding to combat it continually seeing that Corruption is as much an Enemy of our Salvation as the Devil If you will my Son examin well your own self you shall find by experience that you do not one single action which though good in it self is not defiled with self-love and self-seeking and that you speak not one word which you aim not for your own advantage or praise or to excuse and justifie your self For Self-love searches always his own ease and satisfaction and will not have the blame in any thing Yea it would appear innocent in the most manifest faults it commits It speaks to excuse them reasons to maintain its opinions or what it hath fancyed or undertaken to maintain In fine it employs all the forces of body and spirit to disown its guilt So proud is that corrupt nature that it will not be blamed in any thing if it can evite it Now all these things are manifest sins which rob our heart of the Love and Honour of God to make us love and esteem our selves And so infring the Command To Love God with all our Heart while we love our own glory and esteem our selves with all our heart I have often declared that the ressence of sin consists in that man retires his affections from God to place them in any thing else beside him So we must conclude that man falls so often into sin as he turns to love himself And he falls so often into the love of himself as he will justifie or excuse himself since there is nothing just or excuseable in his corrupt nature It is by sin become altogether evil and cannot of it self do any Good spiritual or temporal But is filled with all sorts of evils from which no good can proceed That is a truth to which all the world would readily acquiesce if they were disengaged of self-love for then should they see that they are slow to all good and bent to all evil That they are ignorant impotent and in short all that we do in this life is only to be esteemed or to evite the contempt and humiliations that may befal us Which proceeds from that Pride of Life which sin hath planted in the bottom of the hearts of all men that come into the world They bring with them that pride which makes them live in continual sins if they do not resist it continually by Spiritual Diligence and watch not over all their Words and Actions to limit and regulate them by the Law and Will of God Which cannot be done without that Spiritual Diligence which ought to rule all our words and actions if we would attain to Salvation Which she wishes you who loves your soul ANTONIA BOURIGNON Husum Jan. 27. 1674. THE XXII LETTER Spiritual Diligence is necessary to Salvation To the same Exhorting him to Spiritual Diligence because without it none can persevere in the Service of God nor overcome his Corrupt Nature and Self-love My Son I Cannot over much explain the worth and necessity of Spiritual Diligence since it does occasion your eternal Salvation and all the good things we attain in this life and that which is to come Consider well that necessity that you may apprehend it and put it into practice since thereupon depends your eternal happiness For though you had acquired several other Virtues yet the Devil could easily ensnare you by Spiritual Negligence and suffer you to do well for a time that he might ensnare you after He hath not been able to hinder you to forsake the world to give your self to the Service of God seeing that was your absolute resolution Neither could he hinder that you have detested sin and undertaken to follow true Virtue But he attends you in the passage that he may stop your course and hinder your perseverance by divers tentations and by occasions which he will excite to withdraw you from your good purpose He will excite men of good will to render your resolution suspect even upon pious pretext Hee 'l make you sometimes doubt if you should not do better to remain in the world and make your Light to shine to others to enlighten them again he will represent to you if you had not better yet merchandise that you might assist your Neigbour out of your superfluity or by your good Example For the Devil tempts by all sorts of means and when he cannot bring us to evil actions he insinuates himself into our good works yea even into our good intentions and mixes therein some of his venom a little when he cannot much He gives sometimes a weariness in the way of Virtue and makes appear burthensom what is in it self light giving the Soul a backwardness or difficulty in well doing or in overcoming it self Also he takes away the Hope of surmounting our imperfections and arriving at true Virtue that he may render our souls slack and lazy because they see not the means whereby to arrive at true Virtue So that he confounds our spirits that they may not discover the truth of things as they are before God but that they should occupy themselves always with apparent Virtues and curious Speculations And therefore is it we have need of continual Prayer and spiritual Diligence if we would persevere in the service of God otherwise the Devil would gain us by the one or other way Let us then watch always that he make not our first Fervour cool and slacken our good resolution of embracing solid Virtue He will attempt even when we have obtained true Virtue to lead us into Spiritual Negligence perswading us that we may well rest at ease seeing we have acquired it and that we cannot advance further I have known such persons as said to me That they were arrived at the highest degree of perfection to which they could attain And they said so because they had read all they could read And so they judged that to read more was but to repeat what they had already read and understood Which was to me a great Pride and a Spiritual Negligence which the Devil had planted in their heart to make them perish by that Negligence For not to advance in Virtue is to fall back and recoil seeing man never attains that perfection that he ought It is written in the holy Scripture Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect To teach us that we should tend to the perfection of God and never rest in the way of Virtue but always tend to a higher degree of perfection even to the last moment of our life to follow the nearer the perfection of our heavenly father But the Devil envious of our happiness endeavours to his power to divert us He serves himself of spiritual Negligence when he cannot prevail by evil desires and actions It is alike to him by what means he ensnare our souls provided he can in the
of God until God appointed her to return to an ordinary way of living while God's extraordinary divine communications to her flowed more and more during all her life like a stream still encreased until its ending a mighty River into the vast Ocean which in the same degree encreased in her soul that Constancy divine Love and all Virtues and Graces as not moved were more established by all the assaults which the craft and malice of Hell did eagerly spue out all her life while she pursued her first search of True Christians which when she could not find any true knowledge of a Christian Life and self-seeking among all the devout and Religious Persons whose earthly-mindedness she easily discovered through all their fair Pretexts she turned the more in to God in her Heart where he trained her in the true Christianity and told her She must not seek it in the World but in her own heart with God and in Solitude whereupon she did over the belly of all Opposition Tentations Allurements of Friends Riches and all worldly advantages most generously and constantly forsake all seeking that beloved solitude where she might enjoy God without disturbance God gave her a Spiritual solitude retiring her Heart and Soul from all that was not himself yet retained her from other to make her a Light to lead other good Souls out of the Egypt of this World into the same Wilderness of heavenly-mindedness The traverses she met with her constant Advance and all the steps of her conduct so signally disposed by the immediate hand and Councel of God as its unaccountable and vast so it is beyond the bounds and design of this short preliminary to insist on who desire a more satisfying Account may be satisfied by the History of her Life written partly by her self partly by a faithful and judicious eye and ear Witness Her desire was to be unknown and unnoticed yet many persons of good-will of several sorts came to her acquaintance who owed and owned unto her as the Instrument of Gods Spirit their Conversion their Enlightening their Inflaming in divine Love their Comforting and Strengthening and their Eternal Life testifying as they were living and standing Testimonies that her Words her Writings her Works and all her Life had an unutterable divine efficacy and power of converting and saving Souls that were well disposed infinitly beyond all the enervate and lifeless Means and Ordinances in the hands of the most elaborate and erudite heads exercising that trade for their dayly bread without the spirit of it under which alas its too visible and by all that have but the least spark of ingenuity confest and of sincerity regreted that we live most part so little or not at all moved from our earthly biass of self which declines us so much to Hell that if we get but a little survey of the Earth we never attain nor it may be seek any true glimpse of heavenly things which gives us to notice the same proportion of illuminating enlivening and invigorating force of painted Preachings to real ones as there is of the sun painted on a board to that in the Firmament Several who with good applause had long exercised the function of conducting and directing Souls as Ministers and Fathers in the Church not of the least erudition but of the most uprightness made it their happiness to learn at this illiterate Maid the empty Vanity of their former fruitless Labours and to begin again from the A B C of Solid Virtue under her direction owning more Solid Light and Divine Life from some few Rays of her Spirit than from all their Schools and Books Studies and Preachings Notice only one notable Matter in the way In an Hospital of poor Girles she charitably governed she discovered them all to be Witches in express compact with the Devil and that a vastly surprising greater part of the world than is usually by the innocent thought are such by evidences satisfying and convictive to the most doubting that will not be obstinate Passing from her first appearance in the World to her first publique appearance to the World On the second of December 1667. she departed from Mechline in Flanders and came to Amsterdam with design to satisfie the solicitation of her friends and God's will of having the Truth promulgate and known by the printing her Writings entituled The Light of the World and at the convenient season of sailing to go for Holstein where in the Isle of Nordstrand she had bought a Farm from Mr. de Cort the Director of the said Isle and Proprietor of most of it who was going with her In honour and imitation of the obscure mean Life of Jesus Christ that she might be unknown she hired a little House by the shore in a very retired place but falling soon into a sore and dangerous sickness she was obliged to yield to Mr. de Corts bringing a physitian of his acquaintance who with another he had told of her coming to know her could not abstain from telling others that quickly her fame was through all the Country and one of her Letters to the Dean of Lille which is the 5 th Letter in the second part of Light arisen in Darkness and is the first of all her Works that was printed coming out in the beginning of the year 1668. made her so famous that every one was earnest to see her and converse with her She seeing it God's will to manifest her resolved to give free entry and audience to all that pleased She was then visited for about a year and a half from all places by persons of all sorts of Professions Religions and Opinions by Theologues Phylosophe's Rabbins imaginary Prophets and all the most curious and expert in all Arts and Sciences Almost all did easily discover in her the divine Light whereby God would revive his love in their Souls with most sensible and convincing Touches and Motions of his spirit but they could not come to the Marriage of the Lamb for their Farms their Merchandises their Offices and Callings their Wives and Children and the Love of the World and the things of the World were in them and stiffled the Love of the Father and all the Protestations they had made to follow Christ forsaking all for him excepting two or three who forsook all and followed the Truth of God in her to death Of the many memorable things passed in these Visits you shall be diverted but with two or three Before she had any Acquaintance or Visits there Mr. de Cort told her that the Anabaptists were good and pious men having a great esteem of the Graces which God bestowed on her and that they protested if they might come to her it should be in Humility as little Children submitting to the Light of God She answered promptly That is not true these are great men who will hardly submit themselves to the truth and become little Children God revealing their disposition to her better than themselves
seems to have some pleasure in it seeing there are persons that have no greater pleasure in the world than to eat and drink well and that sense adds somewhat to mans body Yet it is more replenisht with miseries than the other four because it hurts more both the soul and body of man seeing it causes so many diseases and even death by its excesses and also so many souls damn themselves in striving to satisfie the pleasure of Taste which leads them to several other sins and withdraws them assuredly from the love of God who requires to have our affections alone For he is a jealous God and notwithstanding we place them in things vile and corruptible as are meat and drink For what is more naughty than meat and drink They have scarce past the throat but they become putrid and corrupt and especially the more fine and delicate corrupt more than the courser And for all that people love them bestowing pains and travail to attain them which is a gross blindness of mind from which I pray God preserve you that your love may remain in God only and you may know the truth of all salutary things in the desire whereof I remain Your Well-wisher in Jesus Christ ANTONIO BOURIGNON Holstein near Gottorp Castle 17. Febr. 1672. St. vet THE VII LETTER He that serves the Lusts of his Senses by that same Renounces the Love of God To the same exhorting him to the effects of Humility by the Renouncing of his senses showing him that no man can follow them unless thereby he renounce the Love of God which is the end of our Creation and the essence of true Virtue My Dear Child I Deduced to you in my last how vain and miserable are the Pleasures of the Senses and have shewed you the truth of several things that you might arrive to the Humility of heart which Jesus Christ requires It is much to understand well these things but also you must set about the practice and embrace in good earnest the mortification of your senses following the truths you have known otherways it s a small matter to know the Truth if you put it not in practice knowledge is very good for you cannot practise what you know not but if that knowledge be not fruitful it cannot serve for our Salvation We must needs put to our hand and war against our corrupt nature otherways we must die the eternal Death after the temporal Which may easily be conceived since mans nature is corrupted by Adams sin and hath quitted dependance on God to depend of it self It must then of necessity remain in that corruption and sin until every man for his own particular have overcome that corruption and disobedience which he hath contracted against God or else he abideth in death and dies damned eternally For although Adam had not sinned all men in general and every one in particular could have sinned and corrupted his way by leaving dependance on his God and that because all the men that were or shall be are all created free and can continue in the dependance of God and also recede from it if they please for God forces no person So that he that is arrived to the use of Reason hath the same liberty to sin and retire from dependance on God that Adam had before his sin yet with this difference that Adam at the beginning had not in his nature that frailty and inclination to sin and evil which men have who proceeded from him after his sin for they have contracted that frailty and inclination to evil from their first father and also the infirmities of body which we see in all men and feel in our selves for no person is exempt from the evils which sin hath caused in man's nature Though it is free to all men to follow that inclination to evil which they feel in themselves as also they can by the Grace of God overcome their infirmities and the corruption of their five senses in not following them but fighting against them And it is in that that Jesus Christ says we must take the Kingdom of Heaven by Force and the Violent take it so That is not that we should fight by force to gain the Kingdom for God created it for us and he gives it us freely but it is that we must resist with force the corruption of our nature that we may enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and so that we approve not in us the sin which Adam committed and do not of our own proper will retire from dependance on God Therefore it is the Scripture says Our Life is a continual Warfare For we must continually combat the corruption of our senses without that we can never return to dependance on God from which Adam's sin hath withdrawn us seeing our senses being corrupted beget all sorts of evil and there needs no more but to follow them and their inclination to turn us away from God and remain in the way of damnation For no sooner loose we the reins to our Sight but it pleases it self to behold beautiful or curious things and no sooner have we considered them but we covet them And if we yield to the sense of Hearing the Heart delights in it and the Affection is drawn to it It is even so with Smelling where the sensitive part takes pleasure And if we please our selves in Taste all our care and study are put to search means to satisfie it and that sense is more insatiable than any other and precipitates into all sorts of sins Moreover it excites the sense of feeling for he that pleases his taste seeks also to satisfie his feeling with pleasure and satisfaction Even all the five senses are moved only by the love we carry to our selves and desire of affording our selves pleasure All these things with-draw us assuredly from God and dependance on him and he hath commanded us to love him with all our heart So that he wills not that we fix our heart on things so frail and vile as are the Sight Hearing Smelling Taste and Feeling For it is unworthy of a divine Soul which God hath given us capable of loving an eternal God who desires and commands that we love him with all our heart So that the man that hath affection for his senses quits voluntarily the dependance of God seeing he does not submit himself to his will who demands that we should love him with all our heart And that is from the disorder which the devil hath caused in man's nature when he made it turn the affection upon the creatures which is due to God alone In which consisted the first sin which man committed and thence all other sins draw their origin For nothing can be evil or sin but what is committed against the will of God and there is nothing but that can be evil as nothing can be good but what is done by his will So the Devil laboured violently from the beginning of the world to pervert
but it would soon revive if they granted to their nature eases and pleasures But the soul that is regenerated in Jesus Christ knows well that Nature must be kept under subjection and restraint during this short life which is a time of penitence where we must suffer if we will enjoy after Which shews that those who say they may enjoy all beautiful and good things here praising God are very ignorant and deceived by the Devil For they think themselves to be regenerated in the Spirit of Jesus Christ which is false seeing his Spirit doth not teach that we should taste the Pleasures of this life and use all that 's good and pleasant But he teaches penitence and renouncing our selves to be poor in Spirit to forsake all that we have to watch and be sober All that is not to enjoy whatever is good and pleasant For Jesus Christ teaches to take the least and to choose the lowest place If then these persons had but attained however little of the Spirit of Jesus Christ they would be far from saying that they have overcome the corruption of their nature and are renewed in the Spirit of Jesus Christ while they do things quite contrary to what he did and taught For if it were permitted to the Regenerate to take their pleasure and to enjoy whatever is good and pleasant in nature doubtless Jesus Christ would have done so seeing there was never any person regenerated and had overcome the corruption of Nature so perfectly as he And yet he speaks of nothing but suffering becoming poor bearing the Cross and denying our selves These imprudents must think themselves more perfect than he seeing they say they may well taste all what is good and pleasant in nature provided they thank God Notwithstanding our Lord deprived himself of all these things to give us example Do you not see my Son that it is a cunning device of Satan to deceive them that aspire unto Virtue For he fills their Spirit with presumption assoon as he hath got them to digest some curious speculations of the spiritual life They imagin that they are already regenerated in the Spirit of Jesus Christ although they live altogether according to the corrupt nature of the old Adam Such persons are very far from true Virtue And it is to be feared that they shall never arrive at it seeing they think themselves in it already but they are far from it and they had better never have begun to be virtuous than to take up false Virtues These sins are worse than others because of their Hypocrisie They think themselves virtuous and they are yet full of Vices and Sins I despair more of these apparent devout persons than of the persons of the World who have any Fear of God for they have the beginning of Virtue which th'others have not who cannot fear God believing themselves regenerated in the Spirit of Jesus Christ They fancy themselves to be in Assurance and they are in the midst of Perils and Dangers of losing their souls by Presumption and the Delusion of the Devil who attempts always to turn aside them that desire to follow true virtue He first by some inward Consolation and sweetness endeavours to fix them on it by self-love for corrupt nature loves to be comforted But the new Beginner no sooner takes his pleasure in these sensible Sweetness and Consolations but he falls The reason is that he will not mind his duty in resisting the corruption of his nature when he is fastned to these sensibilities But will think he hath already overcome it when he feels delight and consolation in Spiritual things whereas before he felt none but in natural things And that makes him believe that he is already at the height of Perfection though he be not yet at the first degree which is the Tears of Penitence and regret for offending God and the desire to walk henceforth in his Fear which is the beginning of all Virtue But the Devil diverts that Fear and perswades them that they are already virtuous because they desire to become so And so does the Devil amuse those that begin and he would willingly keep them all their life with Sweetness inward Consolations which the Devil can give and also man 's own Nature For as soon as they with-draw from the Vanity of the World they find great quiet since it is a Slavery to serve the World There they torture and rack their understanding by care to maintain themselves well in honour and reputation to be well cloathed and adorned and to be followed and esteemed What Diligence must not a Worldly Person use to please men What Fear of incurring Disgraces How must he dissemble and suffer to have mens Favour and keep it How much toil to gain sufficiently to maintain him honourably What Device and Cunning must he use to get Esteem and to avoid Contempt In fine he that serves the World hath nothing but toil and disquiet but he that hath resolved to quit it to serve God begins to be loosed from the weighty yoak of pleasing the World and to find himself in much more quiet and contentment Which is pleasant to nature but if it please and fix it self upon these Pleasures it will not advance in Virtue but live in self-love instead of the love of God And in that the Devil forwards Nature mightily in augmenting these sweetnesses and inward Consolations to fix the person the more to them God bestows also Sweetness and consolations upon them that begin to draw them the more easily from Earthly Affections to the Love of himself by sensible Consolations which the soul finds in his service But whencesoever they come we must never rest thereon nor take pleasure in any thing that is not God For all Sin came into the World by man's loving the Creatures and taking his pleasure in them And when we take pleasure in Inward Consolation we turn from God in loving that sensibility It is permitted to feel and perceive them since God gives them sometimes but we cannot addict our selves to them without sinning no more than to other things beside God For our whole heart ought to be employed in the Love of God only I know well the Devil attempts to turn us from that Love by all sorts of occasions and he no sooner sees one retire from the Love of the World Riches Honours and Pleasures but he attacques them by the affection of Virtue and inward consolations to with-draw their Hearts thereby from that pure Love of God Be then upon your guard my Son lest the Devil ensnare you under pretext of Virtue Which Care she wisheth you who remains Your Well-affected in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON Holstein near Gottorp Castle May 3. 1672. st vet THE XIV LETTER The Devil Transforms himself into an Angel of Light To the same to whom is discovered a fifth and sixth Artifice of the Devil by which he causeth men to apply themselves to the knowledge of
entertain himself with his heavenly Father free from all distraction And nothing more pure than the intentions of our Saviour He says He came not into the world to accomplish his own Will but the Will of him that sent him Notwithstanding the Devil had the impudence to go to tempt him several times by Vain-glory in presenting to him the Kingdoms of the World as also the Stones to convert into Bread for his Hunger He tempted him also by the Scripture saying That be should throw himself down from the pinacle of the Temple because it is written that the angel shall preserve us c. Are not these full cunning wiles of the Devil while he uses the most holy things to tempt Jesus Christ He attempts to catch him by his Fasts his confidence in God and by glory in presenting him all the kingdoms of the World How then should he leave untempted frail and imperfect Creatures like us For what is man there that must not confess himself far short of the least of Jesus Christ his perfections Who is he that retires to the Desert to give himself to entertainment with God out of the Dangers and Divertisments of the world Who refuses the kingdoms and Riches of the Earth Who is he among the spirituals that does not tempt God by his Temerity and Presumption For they no sooner receive any particular Light or Grace from God but they Glory and esteem themselves beyond others And no sooner do they forsake sin to give themselves to Works of Mercy but they think God is beholding to them and that every body should esteem them Which happens to all that begin to serve God and follow true Virtue excepting none because of the corruption of our nature He that says or believes the contrary is deceived and walks not in rhe Truth and the knowledge of himself For all men in general and every particular brings these natural inclinations with him coming into the world they are all proud presumptuous covetous of honour riches and pleasures Always prefer themselves to others and esteem themselves worthy of all goods and honour Yea they think God oblieged to them for the least good action they do because the Devil hath furred into mans nature that pride of life which inflames the heart of man and hinders him to abase himself and acknowledge his faults We see that even Adam did not humble himself after his sin but endeavoured to excuse it saying The Woman which thou gavest me tempted me to eat of the Apple and she said The Serpent beguiled me All which proceeded from the pride which the Devil had already planted in the heart of our first Parents and consequently in the hearts of all men that were to proceed from them For all are stained with that sin of Pride and so they will not acknowledge their faults but defend them to their power Which also remains with them till death unless they overcome that corruption of nature by true Virtue And when they arrive at that they overcome the Devil For he hath no power but over his own works or the corruption which he hath caused in our nature That being once overcome we revive in the strength of the grace wherein Adam was created And when man finds himself united to God by the love he hath to him then he scorns at the Devil and becomes a new creature And so will no more have any fellowship with that corruption wherein he was born Yet such an one must be upon his guard for the Devil who seduced our first parents when in the state of Grace may well seduce a man that is regenerated in it so long as he lives in his time of tryal which is this miserable life for God will prove mans fidelity to him He created him free that liberty then must needs be proved otherwise it should be constraint For if God had willed absolutely to constrain him to love him he had been happy as Gods slave But he would honour man much more in creating him free that he might entertain himself with him He would then choose the soul of man for his Spouse and not his Slave And therefore it must have a time of proof or advisement to resolve if it would joyn and unite with its God or not Now this time of tryal was this present life in which Adam should have given testimony of his fidelity to his God Notwithstanding he was so imprudent as to break the fidelity he owed to the Spouse of his Soul would go joyn himself to creatures unworthy of his love And so he interrupted the covenant and fellowship which God would make with his Soul even until his sin and infidelity were purged by repentance That is the reason why his time of tryal was turned into one of penitence which Adam underwent faithfully all the time of his life But the pride which his first sin hath planted in our hearts makes us often depise him and wish evil to him because of the hurt he caused us As if he were the cause of our damnation which is a great error For although Adam had never sinned yet other men might always have damned themselves by their own sins during their time of tryal For each one for himself should in this time have given testimony of his fidelity to God since all men and every one in particular were of the same nature and condition and also in the same state with Adam before his sin And there is at present no other difference betwixt the state of man now and that of Adam but that since sin came men are born with an inclination to Evil whereas Adam had inclination to Good only when he was created With that exception we are of the same condition with Adam and created for the same end that our souls should be spouses to God provided we remain faithful to him during the time of our tryal and penitence which we must attend in this life which is full short in regard of that of Adam But if we knew the truth of things and discovered the snares of the Devil to shun and evite them in our good actions we might hope to attain again to an eternal union with God For Adam's sin cannot damn us if our own sins do it not seeing God hath pardoned Adam's sin in case he fulfilled his repentance And he hath also pardoned all other men upon the same condition but the misery of men now adays is that they know not those things and will here enjoy instead of suffering Which is a false perswasion of the Devil who insinuates himself into the holiest things while we perceive it not Which is a truth she exhorts you to believe who is careful of your Soul Holstein near Gottorp Castle May. 8 1672. St. vet ANTONIA BOURIGNON THE XVII LETTER Sin proceeds from Man's Freewill To the same shewing him an Eleventh sort of Tentation whereby we lay the blame of our sins upon the Devil to free our selves where is
cleared that the Devil cannot draw man to sin nor do him any hurt except man give his own Consent My Son IN my former I set before your eyes how the Devil tempts men many ways and insinuates himself into Virtue it self that he may direct our good works to his own honour and glory which very often comes to pass But I fear lest by yet another sort of tentation he catch you which you could not discover if you were not forewarned of it To wit when you have well considered the power and wiles of the Devil and find in your experience that it is he who incites you to do evil It is to be feared that you will lay the blame upon the Devil because sometimes you do evil against your will For mans heart is so proud that he will not confess his fault and so seeks for the cause of his sins without himself Which you may the rather do because I have deduced to you at length that all evils come from the Devil and all good from God but though that be most true we must not therefore imagin that the Devil of himself can ever force us to do evil For he is a miserable impotency who hath no power over our souls hearts and wills but so much as we give him The Devil may well represent evil to our spirit and incite our wills to follow it and incite our corrupt nature but he can never force us so long as our will remains firmly resolved not to consent to evil The Devil is as a chained Dog who can go no further than his Chain permits him and God will give him no more power than the will of man desires For though he permitted him to tempt Job by the loss of his Goods Children Friends and Health he did not permit him to cause him to fall into sin And although Job cursed the day of his Nativity he did not herein offend God nor fall into any sin For he cursed only the malediction which sin brought into human nature which all men have reason to do in feeling the pains and sufferings which sin hath caused to us For before sin man was not subject to any Evil and he enjoyed all Good without mixture of evil He was not annoyed with hunger or thirst heat or cold he had no labour to weary him he needed no sleep nor had any alteration in soul or body was not subject to diseases nor death So that man had enjoyed all sorts of delights in this world and the time of tryal being over confirmed in Grace he had lived eternally happy and blessed But sin hath deprived him of all that happiness and hath reduced him to all sorts of suffering and misery Which Job considering in the midst of his miseries he had reason to curse the day of his birth when he saw himself in inevitable miseries You must consider that Job did not curse the day that God created him in on the contrary he blessed him for all because he was his faithful Servant and so he desired to satisfie divine Justice for all his sins which he had committed Now because he so desired God permitted the Devil to tempt him in divers manners that Job's faithfulness might be manifest before all men and the Devil himself But they that understand not the way of God judge that Job was impatient which is false For his soul rejoyced in that God pleased to use him as a mirrour of patience to confound the Devil who could never make him fall into sin though he essayed it so many several ways God knew that Job's heart was submitted to his holy will and that he offered himself continually to him to be proved in what manner it pleased him And because of these wishes God permitted that the Devil might tempt him Now if the Devil had had power over man he had not needed to ask God's permission to tempt Job for he would have done it of himself without any permission But he hath no power over man save what he by his own free will gives him Besides God can never do any evil to man nor permit that it befall him without the consent of his free will So if we commit sin it is of our own free will as also when we damn our selves for God can never damn any person without doing the greatest evil that ever was which cannot proceed from God who can never do any evil But it is our sins that damn us and not God for if there were no sin there should be no damnation and sin depending on man's free will we must not attribute our damnation either to God or to the Devil seeing God gives us always Grace in aboundance to save us and the Devil hath no power to damn us So that man alone is truly blameable for the sins which he commits and ought never to attribute the fault to the Devil because he cannot wrong us if we will not He may well bark as the chained Dogs but he cannot bite us unless we approach him And therefore my Son you ought never to believe that the Devil is the cause of your evil doing though all evils come from him he cannot effect them in us without our consent He may well afflict our Body or Spirit when we desire to purge our Souls by suffering Then God suffers him to tempt us by the most salutary things As he may permit the Devil to bring to poverty a Good Man when he sees that he would forget himself by Worldly Goods God loving his Soul so takes away his Riches as the occasion of the Damnation of his Soul Sometimes also he takes away his Honour or his Health lest these should hinder the perfection of his Soul And it is not always directly mans will that these things should be taken away from him for he complains sometimes of it but when God takes them away it is always with the indirect will and consent of man For example the person does not desire to be poor afflicted or sick but desires that God send him every thing that is necessary for his salvation And God regarding that good will removes from him whatever might hinder the advancement of the desired Salvation And that is a fatherly Love which God bears to Man and not a Punishment as the natural sense takes it and complains of it But it is truely what the person desired in the bottom of his soul viz salutary things And the Prophet even prays God That he would constrain his rebellious will By which we may see that God never afflicts a person without his will and consent direct or indirect Because he created him altogether free he cannot be touched to good or evil no more by God than by the Devil who can never cause man to sin against his will direct or indirect But man does not always know the indirect will he hath to sin and for that says or believes that it is the Devil that makes him sin against his will
much power over his spirit Otherwise man hath in him a good judgment beyond any other creature and by that judgment he can assuredly know and discern good from evil And it is free for him to choose the good and hate the evil by an absolute act of his will which the Devil cannot hinder And moreover he hath power to resist the Devil by faith and hope in God who never fails to come to the relief of a man who asks and desires it And therefore my Son you must never say that the Devil made you do any evil which were to make you his slave and testifie your subjection to him as are the Sorcerers who have given him their souls and promised to obey him For such have truely oblieged themselves to do all the evil he pleases and when they do it not he beats and abuses them But you being a Child of God and voluntarily subject to him you must nor fear that the Devil can constrain you to sin against your will and so never attribute to him the fault you commit your self It is true the Devil first incites good persons to sin but they should despise him and not follow him yea and mock at his tentations But we must always watch over his surprisals and never sleep in the way of true virtue Believe then the Apostle's counsel where he says My Brethren be sober and watch for that very reason because the Devil goes about us like a roaring Lion seeking to Devour us We must resist him couragiously and not say I was not thinking of the Devil when I fell into evil For he desires willingly that we do evil without thinking on it That is his best recreation For it does not fall out that good persons do evil but while they sleep and think not of evil Then is it that the Devil acts most in us and causes that we think not of it till after the evil is committed But our negligence or Sleepiness will not find excuse before God seeing we are oblieged to watch always if we would arrive at true Virtue To which she exhorts you who careth for your soul Holstein near Gottorp Castle May 13. 1672. St. Vet. ANTONIA BOURIGNON THE XVIII LETTER The Good and Evil Spirit are known by their Fruit. To the same giving him the signs to know whether it is the Good or Evil Spirit that moves us shewing also a twelfth Artifice of the Devil by which he causes us to impute our Vices to our natural propensions without suspecting him to lurk therein that he may remain unknown My Son I see yet one difficulty which occurs to your Spirit to wit How you should discover when the Devil insinuates himself into your good Actions and how you shall know that it is he that moves you to do good that he may catch you or to cause that what you do with a good intention turn to his Honour For you protest that you will not obey him nor follow his tentation in any thing when you discover and know that he tempts you Believe me my Son that is most easie to discern provided you have an absolute will to resist the Devil It is very good and most easie to discover if it is the good or evil spirit who moves us in all our actions and words to do or say any thing small or great because these two spirits have their qualities and conditions quite different and work in us quite contrary operations and dispositions So that you may as it were feel with your finger if it is a good or an evil spirit which moves you to say or do any thing by the dispositions you shall feel in your Soul For the good spirit produces in our souls Charity Joy Peace Patience Long-suffering Goodness Bounty Meekness Chastity Faith Continence and Modesty And the evil spirit on the contrary produces therein self-Self-love Sadness Trouble Impatience Rashness Wickedness Fretting Pride Despair Intemperance Inequality Unconstancy and Impurity which are all things contrary to the fruits of the good Spirit And as the tree is known by its fruit so may we know the evil spirit by the fruit he produces in our souls And therefore we must always examin if our enterprises or the will or intentions we have to do or leave undone any thing produce in our souls Charity Peace Faith Joy and the rest And then we may be assured that our enterprises and wills are from God seeing they bring unto us the fruits of his spirit But if on the contrary we feel in our souls Self-love Sadness Impatience and the rest we may well be assured that our desires and enterprises are excited by the Devil Which is a firm and sure rule We need not then amuse our selves at fine speculations to discover if we be moved by the Devil to do or leave undone any thing while we feel in our selves the effects of a good or an evil spirit For the Devil will never incite to Charity seeing it is a divine Quality which the Devil hath not in his power and which unites souls to God But he draws from self-self-love all manner of advantage and declines the soul from the love of God For he that loves himself covets Pleasures honour and Riches and all that is not God and so he is sad and is not in the capacity to acquire true Virtue for he hath not courage to resist the tentation of the Devil but suffers himself rather to be overcome by dark melancholy Thoughts But the good Spirit banishes these thoughts by the joy which it brings to the Soul And although there were all sorts of occasions of Sadness externally even for our sins that good Spirit comforts and rejoyces the bottom of the soul amidst the most sensible Troubles and Pains When we have then inward joy in the midst of sufferings it is an assured testimony that the holy Spirit dwells in us Which hath often rejoyced me in the midst of Suffering and Persecutions I felt therein a great joy in the bottom of my Soul in lamenting my sins and I thanked God that he gave me these Tears of Repentance But the Devil gives only counterfeit and external joys which afflict and grieve the heart when they are over that is the cause why we see worldly persons always search after new Recreations and Divertisements For th' one is no sooner gone but Melancholy and Sadness seises the heart who would so divert himself and for that he hunts insatiably after new divertisments without finding withal true Contentment which we cannot have but by the joy of the Holy Spirit and that joy is not to be found among the Divertisments of the World I was astonisht to hear one day of a person who would re-establish Israel that he searcht for a great House with a Garden to divert himself and walk therein as also that he must sometimes go to walk in the field or go in a Barque of Pleasure or Boat to divert himself which gave me enough to
end retain them to himself be therefore upon your guard my Son and before all embrace spiritual Diligence as that which is most necessary for the perseverance of your Virtue For though there were no other Devil to tempt us but the Corruption of our Nature it is sufficient to give continual exercise to combat it For it is so corrupted by sin that it produces continually evil effects in our soul to cause it to perish eternally We need but follow that nature to be damned as I have else where told you The reason is because it neither wills nor desires but what is evil and tends to self-love It is true man was created by God perfect and in that state of perfection he did all good blessing and honouring God and so enjoyed every thing without sinning but since man abandoned that state of perfection by his sin he is become so corrupted that whatever he does or says tends only to his own glory or satisfaction which is to sin Seeing all Glory belongs to God alone and man ought to seek nothing but to please him and as often as he does otherways he offends him And therefore must you have that spiritual Diligence to watch over all your words and actions except you would live in continual sins For if we eat and drink it is ordinarily to please our taste and sensuality instead of taking these necessary things with praising the Lord who made them If we cloath our selves it is also for our own satisfaction ease and glory instead of cloathing our selves in humility and with confusion because our sin made us ashamed and necessitated us to cover our body to preserve us from the injuries of the air which the same sin rendered intemperate in Heat Cold and tempests For before Sin man was altogether naked without shame and had no necessity to cloath himself being cloathed only with Glory and Light He was Lord and Governour over all the Elements which were submissive and obedient to him encompassing him only for his contentment and pleasure But now that is since sin hath corrupted human nature man cannot take pleasure in walking on the Earth in the refreshing of the Wind or Water without sinning because he does all these things only for his own satisfaction instead of doing them to satisfie God alone If man study labour or undertake any thing it is always for his own glory and proper satisfaction or profit instead of undertaking all these things for the Glory of God only and to apply all the forces of his body and powers of his spirit to glorify God who gave us them He also does often glory vainly in the gifts and talents which he hath received of his God and attributes them to himself as if he were the proprietary of them and independent of the Author of all Good And so forgets what is written viz. That every good Gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of Lights They come not then from man's power who inclines to nothing but to do evil And consequently if man can labour study or do any other good and necessary thing these are graces and favours which God hath given him and can take from him in a moment And therefore man hath not reason of glorying or to attribute to himself the least good thing Which he does notwithstanding either through ignorance or malice So he hath need to watch continually if he would abstain from sin otherwise he shall fall every moment without perceiving it For since he is corrupted by sin he cannot have a good thought nor speak one word that is not defiled and mixed with self-self-love or self-esteem which I could shew you my Son in your own experience if you were capable but all your thoughts and words are mixed with impurity I know well you are resolved in the bottom of your soul in general to please God and no more to sin yet you do it as often as you seek your own satisfaction You do it through ignorance because you have not sufficiently discovered how much human nature is corrupted by sin and you have not esteemed it evil to follow it On the contrary you and all other men who live according to their corruption have held it for a good thing to follow their own wills as far as they did not induce them to do any thing evil and reprehensible before men For every one walks in his darkness and have no light to know their miseries and the state into which sin hath brought them And that ignorance makes them live at ease in their self-love without holding it for sin though in effect that self-love is the essence of all sorts of sins For if man kill steal commit adultery or do any other thing forbidden in the commands of God it is only to satisfie his self-love If he seeks his profit pleasure or ease if he esteem or boast of himself it is all to satisfie that love the same if he seek the honours and pleasures of this world In fine Self-love is the womb in which are engendred all sorts of sin and it entriely robs our heart of the Love of God Which being pure cannot remain with the impure love of our selves Therefore is it that it need not appear strange to any that they cannot obtain the Love of God though they desire it For they can never obtain it while they continue in the love of themselves And they should rather account themselves unworthy of the Love of God than rashly to desire that God should come to reside in a heart filled with self-love and polluted with sins They that would have the Love of God and will not forsake that of themselves are very imprudent seeing they would make so unsuitable a match as is that of the Love of God in which consists all sorts of good with self-love in which consists all sorts of evil which is intolerable and unworthy of good Reason for it is the same as if they would joyn Heat and Cold in the same place which is contrary to nature which will never suffer that but these two contraries shall so wrestle together that the stronger shall hold the place alone For if we put Fire in the Water it is extinguished when it cannot overcome the Water but if the Fire is so great that it can consume the Water it becomes victorious and destroys the Water It is even so with the Soul that desires the Love of God It is the place where is the Cold of self-Self-love and the Heat of the Love of God And when that self-Self-love is the stronger it extinguishes entirely the Fire of the Love of God But if the Love of God kindle more in the Soul it banishes quite self-Self-love Which arrives unto the purified souls which scarce feel any more their self-Self-love when that of God hath gotten the upper-hand in the soul They live and die in that love and despise Self-love But he that lives in Self-love is a Slave of sin and