the King and at the same time to importune him to commit the said Work to Examination The Arch-Bishops of Rheims and Paris with the Bishop of Meaux an implacable Enemy to Cambray were the persons appointed for it the effect whereof was the putting out of their Declaration upon the same Subject wherein they fully set forth their sentiments in relation to it And as these Prelates distinguished their Zeal in this manner against this Semi-Quietism the Bishop of Noyon about the same time in his Pastoral Letter written in the Form of a Preservative to keep the Clergy and Faithful of his Diocess in the holy Exercise of a solid and real Piety against the pernicions Maxims of Quietism sets himself against Quietism in all the Branches of it But tho' he would have the Quietism he darts his Thunder at to be not that of Molinos but this new sort of Semi-Quietism yet when he comes to a kind of an Explanation of it he confounds the new Quietism with the old seeing that in respect to the Opinions which he looks upon to be most monstrous he imputes what Molinos taught to those against whom he writes of which take this one tast What an Abomination is it says the Bishop to set up Vices in the place of Vertues and to pretend that shameful Falls are the Steps by which to ascend to the Glory of a perfect Union with God Now this is Molinos himself that has occasioned this Exclamation who says in direct Terms That we ought not to afflict or disturb our selves when we fall into any Defect but to rise up and go on and set our selves to Exercises of Piety as if we had never fallen Would you not take him to be a Fool says he who contending for the Prize of a Race and hapning to stumble in the midst of his Carier should lie upon the Ground to no other end than to bewail his Fall You would rather say to him Rise Friend and without loss of time set thy self a running again for he that gets up quickly and pursues his Race is like one that never fell So that it 's manifest from hence in short that the French Prelates do not well understand what they write against but that there is something in it tending to invalidate Penances and put Auricular Confessions out of Fashion which has brought so much Grist to the Romish Mill is what they seem to be very apprehensive of But the Clergy notwithstanding all their ' fore-mention'd Endeavours for the Suppression of this new Doctrine finding it to spread itself more and more among all Ranks and Orders of Men as well Ecclesiasticks as Laicks they thought it high time to transfer the Accusation to the Court of Rome with all the aggravation of the Arch-Bishop's of Cambray's Crime and Heresie imaginable and because they would not fail to make sure work of it they engag'd the French King so far on their side also as to get him to write to the Pope to induce him in Confirmation of the Censures of the Clergy of France to condemn the Arch-Bishop's Book who on his own part also being not ignorant of these Proceedings against him and not to be wanting to his own Defence thought it no less proper to write to his Holiness upon the same Subject But tho' the Bishop has used as much Caution as Submission in that he wrote to the Pope yet you will find in another of his Letters to a Friend that he is the same Man still But how violent soever the Arch-Bishops accusers appear'd against him both in France and Rome the Pope kept a soft pace till such time as having received the Arch-Bishops said Letter he was pleased to appoint seven Commissioners to Examine his Book viz. the Master of the Sacred Pallace His Holiness his Confessor and a Jaccbin Father Marsouiller a French-Man of the same Order the Proctor-General of St. Augustine-Friars Father Gabriel of the Mendicant Order Father Miri a Benedictine Father Grenelli a Franciscan and Father Alfaro Jesuit These were to make their Report to the Congregation of the holy Office in order to their farther proceedings thereupon But whither it were that these Gentlemen could not understand the Bishops Gallimaufry of notional speculations or what shall I call it or what ever else was in the wind they did nothing in it and the matter at last came before old Infallibility himself and his Sacred College of Cardinals But after all this and the continual Sollicitations of the Jesuits and some great Prelates there are some months now elapsed and nothing done in it and by any thing that hitherto has appear'd to the contrary they are so far from coming to a final decision either in favour or against the said Book as when they first began To enter upon an inquiry into the Doctrine and notions contained in this Treatise will not be proper for me in this place that being entirely left to the judgment of every one that has an inclination to peruse it It remains for me therefore to say that as it as stirred up the Curiosity of all sorts of persons abroad to make an inspection into these tenets so it has done mine to engage me in a more particular inquiry into the rise and progress as well as the dislike of and opposition made against them AN EXPLANATION Of the Diverse Loves Which may be had for GOD. 1. WE may love God not for the sake of himself but for some other good things depending on his Almighty power which we hope to obtain from him Such Love as this had the Carnal Jews who observed the Law in hopes only of being recompenc'd with the dew of Heaven and the fertility of the Earth This love is neither Chast nor Filial but meerly Servile or rather to speak properly who loveth so does not love God but his own dear Self and seeks entirely for himself not God but what comes from him 2. We may have Faith and not one degree of Charity with it We know God to be our only happiness that is to say the only Object the sight whereof can render us happy Now should we in this slate love God as the only instrument to be made use of for to work our happiness and because we are not able to find our happiness in any other object should we look upon God as a means of felicity and refer it purely to our selves as to its ultimate end this would be rather a self-love than a love of God at least it would be contrary to order as respecting God as an object or instrument of our felicity both to our selves and our own happiness And though by this love we should seek for no other reward but God alone yet would it prove wholly mercenary and of meer concupiscency That Soul as saith S. Francis of Sales in his Book of the love of God Lib. 2. c. 17. which should love God only out of love to her self by establishing the end of that love
she bears to God in her own conveniency alas would be guilty of an extream Sacriledge ........ That Soul which loveth God only for her own sake loveth her self as she ought to love God and loveth God as she ought to love her self Which is as much as if one should say the love I bear to my self is the end for which I love God so that the love to God be depending subordinate and inferiour to self-love .... which is an unparallell'd impiety 3. We may love God with a love of hope which love is not intirely selfish for it is mixt with a beginning of love to God for himself only our own interest is the chief and predominant motive S. Francis of Sales love of God Lib. 2. c. 17. Speaks thus of this love I don't say however that it returns so fully upon us as to make us to love God only for our sakes ..... There is a great deal of difference between saying I love God for the good things I expect from him and this expression I love God only for the good things I expect from him This love of God is so call'd because the motive of self-interest is yet predominant in it 'T is a beginning of Conversion to God but not yet the true righteousness of this hopeful love S. Francis of Sales love of God Lib. 2. c. 17. Spoke thus Sovereign love is only in Charity but in hope love is imperfect as not tending into the infinite goodness as it is such to us .... Though in truth none by that love alone can either observe the Commandments of God or have eternal life 4. There is a love of Charity which is yet allayed with some mixture of self-interest but is the true justifying love because the disinteressed motive is over-ruling in it to which S. Francis of Sales Speaks in the last cited place Sovereign love is only in Charity This love seeks after God for himself and prefers him before anything whatsoever without exception By reason only of that preference 〈…〉 capable to justifie us And it prefe 〈…〉 less God and his Glory both to us and our interests than to all other Creatures besides The reason why is this because we are no less vile Creatures and unworthy to compare our selves with God than the rest of created beings God who did not make us for the other Creatures hath not likewise made us for our selves but for himself alone He is no less Jealous of us than of the other external objects which we may love To Speak properly the only thing he is Jealous of in us is our selves for he clearly sees that it is our selves whom we are tempted to love in the enjoyments of all external objects He is not liable to mistakes in his Jealousie and the love of our selves is the centre of all our affections Whatsoever does not proceed from the principle of Charity as S. Austin so often saith is of cupidity And it is the destruction of that very love the root of all vices which is precisely the aim of God's Jealousie While we have yet but a love of hope whereby self-love does preponde are against the Glory of God the Soul is not satisfied yet But when disinteressed love or of Charity begins to turn the scale and to prevail against self-interest then a Soul that loves God is truly beloved of him Nevertheless this true Charity is not yet entirely pure that is without any mixture but the love of Charity prevailing over the interessed motive of hope that state is termed a state of Charity The Soul then doth love God for the sake of him and for her self but so as to love chiefly the Glory of God not seeking her own happiness but as a means by her related and subordinated to the ultimate end namely the Glory of her Maker Nor is it necessary that this prefering of God and of his Glory to us and our interests be always explicite in the righteous Soul We are assured by faith that the Glory of God and our felicity are inseparable one from another 't is enough if this so just and necessary preference be real but implicite in the occurrences of life There is no need of its becoming explicite but in the extraordinary occasions of trial from God in order to purifie us from our dross But then he would give us both light and courage proportionate to the trial to carry us through it and to make us sensible in our hearts of that preference Now to dive for it scrupulously at another time in the bottom of our hearts would rather prove prejudicial and dangerous 5. We may love God with a love of pure Charity and without any mixture of the motive of self-interest Then it is that we love God in the midst of troubles and adversities so that we should not love him more even when he fills our Souls with comforts Neither fear of punishments nor desire of rewards have any share in this love God is no more beloved either in regard of the merit or perfection or for the happiness which is found in loving him We would love him as much though by an impossible supposition he should know nothing of his being beloved or would render eternally unhappy those who had loved him Nevertheless we do love him as the supream and infallible happiness of those who are faithful to him we love him as our personal good as our promised reward as our all but no more with that precise motive of our own happiness and recompence Thus much did S. Francis of Sales with the most exactness express love of God Lib. 2. c. 17. in these Words 'T is a very different thing to say I love God for my self and saying I love God for the sake of my self ..... for the one is a holy affection of the Bride ... and the other a downright impiety c. He Speaks again thus in another place The purity of love consists in not willing any thing for ones self in looking on nothing but the good pleasure of God for which one would be ready to prefer eternal torments to glory The Soul disinteressed in pure charity expects desireth hopeth in God as her good her recompence as that which is promised her and is entirely for her self She will have him for her self but not for the love of her self She will have him for her self that she may conform with the good pleasure of God who will have it so for her self But she will not have him for the love of her self because she is no more acted by her own interest This is pure and perfect love which works the same acts as mixt love in all the same virtues with this one difference only that it driveth out fear with all vexatious troubles and is even free of all the solicitude of interessed love Now I declare that to avoid all sort of equivocation in a matter where it is so dangerous to make any and so difficult not to mistake I
Soul to take up with a bare acquiesce with its own just Condemnation and Reprobation Moreover in such a state it will be to no purpose nay intolerable to speak to him of the Rule of Faith in relation to the goodness of God that is extensive to all Men or to offer him Reasons for his satisfaction All these things are clearly rejected by the Thirty Four Articles when an absolute consent is not allowed of in any probations or tryals God forbid it should be so this is a false pre-supposition and impossible that other Article being premised wherein all despair is excluded and much less should the Director of ones Conscience be allowed to suffer Souls simply to acquiesce with their own Condemnation and just reprobation But on the contrary he is required not to suffer any such thing to be He is so far from being advised not to preach the goodness of God clearly and distinctly as the said Book asserts that he ought to be ordered in conformity to St. Francis de Sales to assure those afflicted Souls that they shall never be forsaken of God and that his goodness is not only general towards all Men but that the effects of the Divine Mercy is more especially extended unto them Again you have in the Articles all Virtues both Divine and Moral set forth and distinguished with their Motives but in the said Books endeavours are used to render the distinction there made obscure by these words Pure Love doth of it self constitute the Internal Life it 's the only Principle and sole Motive thereof all other Motives are taken away save only Charity But the reason whereby Charity is even made to subsist seems also to be taken away when it is said that this Love becomes by turns to be every distinct Virtue but it seeks after no Virtue as it is a Virtue and so neither is Faith sought for as Faith nor Hope as Hope nor even Charity it self which is the life and form of Virtue as a Virtue And so allowing these Propositions to be true all Virtues are debased and thrown out of doors pure Love will have no other effect than to hinder us to be studious of Virtue and no one shall cultivate the same better than he that neglects it which makes way for this extravagant and to this day unheard of proposition that Mystick Saints exclude the practice and acts of Virtue from this state which are Paradoxes that divert the Mind from the study of Virtue and impose strangely upon Spiritual Persons and render the very name of Virtue it self suspicious and odious Now we come to another Proposition that is very agreeable to what precedes that transformed Souls may and ought according to the present Discipline to confess their Venial Sins to ask pardon for their faults and to pray for the Remission of their Sins not for their own purification and deliverance but as 't is a thing agreeable to the will of God which clearly overthrows the right and intrinsical motive of Repentance and the same is contrary to our Fifteenth Article Besides we cannot allow that the Confession of Venial Sins is to be referred only to the discipline of the present times As for Concupiscence being perfectly routed out of some Souls though they are but very few where the sensible effects thereof are suspended or else where the Flesh has been a long time subjected to the Spirit what the said Book says in Relation thereunto is manifestly contradicted by our Seventh and Eighth Articles taken out of the Councils whence the Author is brought to such a pass as to extenuate the usefulness and necessity of Mortification notwithstanding the practice of the Apostles and Saints to the contrary and this tends to favour the Doctrine disallowed of in the Eighteenth Article of our Censure As for what concerns Contemplation we find in the said Book that when 't is pure and direct it 's not taken up willingly with any sensible imagination with any distinct and nameable Idea that is with any limited and particular Idea of the Divine Nature but that the same is confined to an Idea that is purely intellectual and abstracted from an Infinite Being And thus Contemplation cannot have the attributes of God nor the Divine Persons in the Trinity nor consequently the Humane Nature of Christ for an Object of its own choice but only by the representation which God makes of the same unto him and by the instinct and impression of peculiar Grace because the Mind does not voluntarily adhere to these Objects as if neither the goodness of the thing it self nor the exhortations of the Holy Scripture nor the choice of ones own Will in conjunction with common Grace were not sufficient to make a Man seek after them These Principles tend to this conclusion that Contemplative Souls are in both Conditions deprived of the distinct view of Christ and of his presence by Faith that is both in the very beginning of their Contemplations and in their Tryals and these Conditions may last a long time Neither is the Party afraid to reject the distinct view of Christ to the very intervals of Contemplation as if to contemplate Christ was to descend from the height and purity of Contemplation as the Beguardians were wont to say By which Proceedings and Subtilties false Contemplators are furnish'd with excuses who take no delight in our Saviour Christ Jesus and are not freely carried into a contemplation of him and who remove the Divine Attributes and Sacred Persons in the Trinity far from it and separate distinct Acts of Faith therefrom thereby eluding the 1 2 3 4. and 24 Articles We read in the said Treatise that 't is never lawful to prevent the work of grace and that a Man is to expect nothing from himself by the way of his own industry and endeavours By which Proposition and all the rest that is contained in the Eleventh Article of the Book it appears upon exact examination that that act of the free will which is properly called excitation is destroyed those words of the Prophet David I will prevent his face and that other my Prayer shall prevent thee are thrown out of doors as is also that Maxim of St. Augustin whereon the whole dispensation of Divine Grace relies He cannot be helpt on unless he endeavour to do something of his own accord that famous distinction of Spiritual Men is at the same time destroyed who by common consent have distinguished between those acts that are the product of ones own industry and endeavours and those acts that are infused motitions which are wrought by God's act or impulse without any mixture of a mans effort therewith These and the like Propositions overthrow or at least obscure the 11. 25. and 26 Articles We do in the same Articles reject that continued Act which the Quietists have introduced into the state of perfection as being absurd in it self and foreign to the Scriptures and Fathers and the Author rejects the same also
shall always exactly observe the same names which I will assign to these five kinds of love for a better distinction 1. The love of the carnal Jews for the gifts of God distinguished from him and not for himself may be called meerly servile love But because we shall have no need to speak of it I shall say nothing of it in this work 2. That love wherewith God is beloved as the means and only instrument of felicity which is referr'd absolutely to ones self as to the ultimate end may be termed meer concupiscential love 3. That love in which the motive of our own happiness prevails yet over that of God's Glory is called love of hope or hopeful love 4. That love in which charity is yet mixt with a motive of self-interest related and subordinate to the principal motive and to the ultimate end which is the pure glory of God should be called love of charity mixt But because we shall have occasion to oppose very often this love to that which is called pure or wholly interessed I shall be oblig'd to give to this mixt love the name of interessed love as being indeed yet allayed with a remnant of selfish interest though it be a love of preference of God to ones self 5. The love to God alone considered in it self and without any the least mixture of an interessed motive either of fear or of hope is the pure love or perfect charity ARTICLES 1. ARTICLE True MEER concupiscential or wholly mercenary love whereby nothing should be desired but God God I say for the only interest of ones own happiness and because we should think to find in him the sole instrument of our felicity would be a love unworthy of God For one would then love him as a Miser doth love his Money or as a voluptuous Man his pleasure So that one would referr only God to ones self as a means to its end This overturning of order would be according to S. Francis of Sales love of God Lib. 2. c. 17. a Sacrilegious love and an unparallell'd impiety But this meer concupiscential or wholly mercenary love ought never to be confounded with that love which by Divines is called of preference which is a love of God mixt with ourself-interest and in which the love of our selves is found always subordinate to the principal end which is the glory of God Love meerly mercenary is rather a love of ones self than of God It may indeed prepare one for righteousness in this that it counterpoises our passions and renders us prudent in discerning where our true good does lie But it is against the essential order of a creature and cannot be a real beginning of true internal Justice On the contrary Preferential Love though selfish may justifie a Soul if so be that our own interest be referr'd to it and subordinate to the Predominant love of God and provided his glory be the principal end thereof so that we do not prefer with less sincerity God to our selves as to all other creatures This preference ought not however to be always explicite provided it be real for God who knows the clay whereof we are formed and pitieth his own Children does not require at their hand a distinct and unfolded preference but in those cases wherein he giveth them by his grace the courage to go through those trials in which this preference must needs be explicite Speaking thus we recede in nothing from the Doctrine of the holy Council of Tâ—ent which hath declared against the Protestants that Preferential Love in which the glory of God is the principal motive to which that of our own interest is referr'd and subordinate is not a Sin It condemns Sess 6. Chap. 11. those who affirm that just Men do sin in all their works if besides their principal desire that God be glorified they cast one eye also upon the eternal reward to spur their laziness and incourage themselves in running the race This is to Speak as S. Francis of Sales and the whole School of Mystical Men. I. ARTICLE False ALL interessed love or mixt with any self-interest concerning our eternal happiness though referr'd and subordinate to the principal motive of the glory of God is a love unworthy of him whereof the Soul ought to be purified as of a true spot or sin It is not even lawful to make use of meer concupiscential love or meerly mercenary to prepare sinful Souls to their conversion suspending thereby their passions and ill habits in order to put them in a condition to hearken peaceably to the words of faith To speak after that rate is to contradict the formal decision of the holy Council of Trent declaring that mixt love wherein the glory of God is the predominant motive is no sin This moreover is to contradict the experience of all holy Pastors who see often solid conversions prepared by a Concupiscential love and a fear meerly servile II. ARTICLE True THere are three different degrees or three habitual states of Just Men upon the Earth The first have a Preferential Love for God since they are Just but this love though principal and predominant is yet mixt with fear for their self-interest The second are much more in a Love of preference but this love though chief and over-ruling is yet mixt with Hope for their interest as it is their own Therefore S. Francis of Sales saith love of God Lib. 9. That holy Resignation hath yet selfish desires but subordinate These two loves are included in the fourth which I have called V. pag. 10. an interessed love in my definitions The third incomparably more perfect than the two other sorts of Just Men have a fully disinteressed love which hath been termed pure thereby to intimate that it is without mixture of any other motive than that of loving only in himself and for himself the sovereign beauty of God This all the Ancients have expressed by saying that there are three states The first of Just Men whom fear acted yet by a remnant of a slavish mind The second is of those who hope yet for their own interest by a mixture of a mercenary spirit The third is of those who deserve to be called Sons because they love the Father without any self-ended motive either of hope or of fear This the Writers of the last Ages have precisely express'd the very same under other equivalent names They have divided them into three states The first whereof is Purgative life in which we do combat vices with a love mixt with a motive interessed with fear of eternal torments The second is illuminative life wherein we do acquire fervency of virtues by a love yet mixt with a motive interessed for coelestial happiness Finally the third is contemplative or unitive life in which we do remain united with God by the peaceable exercise of pure love in which last state one never loseth filial fear nor the hope of the Children of God though he hath parted
with all interessed motives of hope and fear Fear is brought to perfection by purifying it self it becomes a delicacy of love and a filial reverence in peace And it is then that chast fear which remains for ever and ever Likewise hope far from being lost is perfected by the purity of love and then it is a real desire and a sincere expectation of the fulfilling of the promises not only in general and in an absolute manner but also of the accomplishment of the promises in us and for us according to the good pleasure and will of God nay by the only motive of his good pleasure without any intermixture of our own interest This pure love is not yet satisfied with desiring no other recompence but God himself A slave entirely mercenary who should have a distinct faith of revealed truths might be willing to have no other reward but God alone because he would know him clearly as an infinite good and as being himself his true recompence or the only instrument of his felicity This mercenary Man in the life to come would have nothing but God alone but he would have God as Beatitude objective or the object of his Beatitude to refer it to his formal Beatitude namely to himself whom he would make happy and constitute himself as his ultimate end On the contrary whosoever loveth with a pure love without any mixture of self-interest is acted no more by the motive of his interest He wishes Beatitude to himself only because he knows that God will have it so and will have every one of us to desire it for his own glory If by an impossible supposition by reason of the promises which are meerly free God would annihilate the Souls of Just Men at the moment of their separation from the body or deprive them of the fruition of himself and keep them eternally under the temptations and miseries of this life as S. Austin supposes it or even make them to suffer far from him all the pains of Hell during all eternity as it is suppos'd by S. Chrysostom after S. Clement the Souls of this third state of pure love would not love or serve him with less fidelity Once more 't is true that this supposition is impossible upon the account of the promises because God hath given himself to us as a rewarder We cannot any more separate our happiness from God beloved with final perseverance but those things which cannot be separated in respect of the object may happen really to be so in respect of the motives God cannot fail of being the felicity of the faithful Soul but she may love him with so much impartiality that the enjoyment of a beatifying God increaseth not in the least the love she hath sor him without minding her self and that she would love as much though he were never to be the cause of her happiness Now to say that this abstraction of motives is but a vain subtilty is to be ignorant both of God's jealousie and of that of the Saints against themselves It is to give the name of subtilty to the nicety and perfection of Pure Love which the tradition of all Ages hath put in this abstraction of the motives This way of Speaking is precisely conformable to the whole general tradition of Christianity from the most Ancient Fathers to S. Bernard to all the most famous Scholastick Doctors from S. Thomas to those of our Age lastly to all those Mystical Men who have been Canoniz'd or approved by the whole Church in spight of all the contradictions they have suffered Nothing in the Church is more evident than this tradition and nothing would be more rash than to oppose it or to endeavour to shift it off This supposition of the impossible case here mentioned far from being an indiscreet and dangerous supposition of the Mysticks is on the contrary formally in S. Clement of Alexandria in Cassian in S. Chrysostom in S. Gregory of Nazianzen in S. Anselm and in S. Austin who have been followed by a great number of Saints II. False THere is a love so pure that it rejects that recompence which is God himself so that a Man will not have it any more in himself and for himself though we are taught by faith that God will have it in us and for us and commands us to will it as he doth for his own glory This love doth carry its impartiality so far even as to consent to hate God eternally or to cease from loving of him or else it tends to the destruction of filial fear which is nothing else but the niceness and delicacy of a Jealous love or it aims to the exstinguishing in us all hope forasmuch as the purest hope is a peaceable desire to receive in us and for us the effect of the promises in conformity to the good pleasure of God and for his pure glory without any mixture of self-interest or else it tends to the hating of our selves with a real hatred so that we cease from loving in our selves for God's sake his worth and his image as we love it out of charity in our Neighbour The speaking at this rate is to give with a horrid Blasphemy the name of pure love to a brutish and impious despair and to the hatred of the work of our Creator It is by a monstrous extravagance to affirm That the principle of conformity with God makes us contrary to himself It is a going about by a chimerical love to destroy love it self It is to put Christianity out of the hearts of Men. III. ARTICLE True SOuls must be left in the exercise of love that 4. Love See pag. 8. which is yet mixt with the motive of interest as long as the power of grace shall leave them in it One ought also to reverence these motives scattered through all the Books of holy Scripture in all the most precious monuments of Tradition and in all the Prayers of the Church We ought to make use of these motives to repress passions to consolidate virtues and to disintangle our Souls from all things of this present life However this love though less perfect than that which is fully disinteress'd hath nursed up in all ages a great number of Saints and greatest part of holy Souls do never attain in this life the perfect impartiality of love you disturb and cast them into temptation if you take from them the motives of self-interest which being subordinate to love serve to hold them up and to animate them in dangerous occasions It would be to no purpose and indiscretion to propose them a more elevated love which is out of their reach as having neither internal light nor the power of grace for it Nay those who begin to have some knowledge and foretaste of it are yet very far from having the reality of it Finally those who have attained its imperfect reality are very far yet from having the uniform exercise of it turned into an habitual state What is
essential in the direction is to follow only grace step by step with extream patience precaution and niceness We ought to confine our selves to God's working and never speak of pure love but when God by internal unction begins to open the heart to that word so hard to Souls yet selfish and so apt to scandalize them or to cast them into trouble Nay more than that we ought never to substract from a Soul the support of interessed motives when they begin with the power of grace to instruct her in pure love 'T will be enough if upon certain occasions we shew her how amiable God is in himself but never to disswade her from taking hold on the support of mixt love To Speak thus is to Speak as the spirit of grace and the experience of internal ways will always make one Speak 'T is to caution Souls against illusion III. False INteressed love See pag. 8. is mean gross unworthy of God which generous Souls ought to scorn and despise Hast must be made to put them out of conceit with it that they may aspire from the beginning to an intirely Disinteressed Love The motives of the fear of Death of God's Judgments and of Hell belonging only to slaves ought immediately to be banished We ought to take from them the desire of their heavenly countrey and to cut off from them all the interessed motives of hope After having made them to relish the fully disinteressed love we ought to suppose that they have attraction and grace for it they ought to be removed from all practices which are not in the whole perfection of that love entirely pure To Speak at this rate is to be ignorant of the ways of God and of the operations of his grace They will have the spirit to blow where they list whereas it blows where it listeth They confound the degrees of interiour life They inspire Souls with that ambition and spiritual avarice spoken of by the blessed John of the Cross They remove them from the true simplicity of pure love limited to follow grace and never offering to prevent it They turn to slight the foundations of Christian Justice I mean that fear which is the beginning of wisdom and that hope whereby we are saved IV. ARTICLE True HOpe in the habitual state of purest love far from being lost is perfected and keeps its distinction from charity 1. The habit thereof infuses into the Soul and is conformable there to the producible acts of that virtue 2. The exercise of that virtue remains always distinguish'd from that of charity the reason of which is this It is not the diversity of ends that causeth the diversity or specification of virtues All virtues ought to have but one end though they be one from the other distinguished by a true specification S. Austin de moribus Eccl. l. 1. assureth that charity it self is the active principle of all virtues and takes diverse denominations suitable to the objects it is applied to S. Thomas saith that charity is the form of all virtues because it exerciseth and refers them all to its end which is the glory of God S. Francis of Sales who hath excluded so formally and with so many repetitions all interessed motives from all the virtues of perfect Souls hath followed precisely the steps both of S. Austin and of S. Thomas whom he cites They have all followed the universal tradition which constitutes a third degree of Just Men who do exclude all interessed motives from the purity of their love 'T is then certain that one ought not any more to seek in that state for hope exercised by an interessed motive otherwise this would be a pulling down with one hand what hath been raised with the other a making ones sport with so holy a tradition an affirming and denying at the same time one and the same thing and a seeking for the motive of self-interest in an intirely disinteressed love We ought then to remember well that it is not the diversity of the ends or of the motives which makes the distinction or specification of virtues What causeth this distinction is the diversity of formal objects To the end that hope may remain truly distinguished from charity 't is not necessary they should have different ends on the contrary for to be good they ought to refer to one and the same end 'T is enough if only the formal object of hope be not the formal object of charity Now so it is that in the habitual state of the most disinteressed love the two formal objects of these two virtues are very different therefore these two virtues do conserve in that state a distinction and true specification in the strictest Scholastical sense The formal object of charity is the goodness or beauty of God taken simply and absolutely in it self without any Idea relative to us The formal object of hope is the goodness of God as it is good for us and of a difficult acquisition Now it evidently appears that these two objects taken in the most abstracted sense and Formal Conception are very different Therefore the difference of the objects conserve the specifick distinction of these two virtues 'T is certain that God as he is perfect in himself and without any respect to me and God as he is my happiness which I endeavour to acquire are two formal objects very different There is no confusion on the part of the object which specifies these virtues but only on the part of the end and that confusion ought to be there and it alters in nothing the specification of virtues The only difficulty remaining now is to explain how a fully disinteressed Soul can will God as it is her good Is not this will they say a falling from the perfection of ones disinteressment a going back in the way of God a coming again to the motive of self-interest contrary to all that tradition of the Saints of all ages who do exclude from the third state of Just Men all interessed motives It is an easie matter to answer that pure love never hindreth us to will and causeth us even to will positively all that God is willing that we should will God will have me to will God as he is my happiness and reward I will him formally under this Notion but I will him not by that precise motive that he is my good The object and the motive are different the object is my interest but the motive is not interessed since it regards nothing but the good pleasure of God I will that formal object and in this reduplication as speak the School but I will it by pure conformity to the will of God who makes me to will it The formal object is that of the common hope of all Just Men and it is the formal object by which virtues are specified The end is the same with that of charity but we have seen that the unity of end never confoundeth the virtues I may without doubt desire my
supream good as it is my reward and not that of another and desire it in conformity to God who will have me to desire it Then I desire that which is really and which I know is the greatest of all my interests without being determined to it by any interested motive In this state hope remains distinguished from charity and does not alter or diminish the purity or impartiality of her state This is by S. Francis of Sales explained in these words according to Theological strictness Love of God Lib. 2. c. 17. It is a very different thing to say I love God for my self and to say I love God for the sake of my self the one is a holy affection of the Bride the other is an impiety that hath not the like c. To speak so is to conserve the distinction of Theological virtues in the most perfect Estates of the inward Life and consequently to depart in nothing from the Doctrine of the holy Council of Trent 'T is to explain at the same time the tradition of the Fathers of the Doctors of the School and of Mystick Saints who have supposed a third degree of Just Men who are in an habitual state of pure love without any motive of interest IV. False IN this third degree of perfection a Soul wills not any longer her Salvation as her Salvation nor God as her supream good nor reward as reward though God will have her to have this will Whence it is that in this state one is not any more able to do any act of true hope distinguished from Charity that 's to say that one cannot any more desire nor expect the effect of the promises in and for himself even for the glory of God To Speak at that rate is to place our perfection in a formal resistance of the will of God who wills our Salvation and will have us to will the same as our own recompence And this is at the same time to confound the exercise of Theological virtues against the decision of the Council of Trent V. ARTICLE True THere be two different states of righteous Souls The first is that of holy Resignation The resigned Soul will or at least would have several things for her self by the motive of her own interest S. Francis of Sales saith Love of God Lib. 9. That she hath yet selfish desires but that they are subjected She submits and subordinates her interessed desires to the will of God which she prefers before her interest Thereby this Resignation is good and meritorious The second state is that of holy indifference An indifferent Soul wills not any longer any thing for her self-interest She hath no interested desires to submit because she hath no more interrested desire 'T is true that there remains in her still some inclinations and unvoluntary repugnances which she submitteth but she hath no longer any voluntary and deliberate desires for her own interest except in those occasions wherein she does not faithfully cooperate to the fulness of her grace This indifferent Soul when she fulfilleth her grace wills not any thing more but as God makes her to will it by his attractive power She loves it is true several things besides God but she loves them only for the sole love of God and with the love of God himself for it is God that she loves in all whatsoever he causeth her to love Holy indifference is nothing but the impartiality or disinterest of love as holy Resignation is nothing but interessed love which submitteth self-interest to the glory of God Indifference reacheth as far and never farther than the perfect disinterest of love As that indifference is love it self it is a very real and positive principle It is a positive and formal will which causeth us to will or desire really all the will of God known to us It is not a dull unsensibleness an internal unaction or non-willing a general suspension or a perpetual equilibrium of the Soul On the contrary it is a positive and constant determination to will and not to will any thing as Cardinal Bona does express it One wills nothing for himself but every thing for God We desire nothing in order to be perfect or happy for our own interest but we will all perfection and blessedness as far as it pleaseth God to make us desire these things by the impression of his grace according to the written Law which is always our inviolable rule In this state we desire no longer Salvation as our own Salvation as an eternal deliverance as a reward of our merits or as the greatest of our interests But we will it with a full will as the glory and good pleasure of God as a thing which he wills and will have us to will for his sake 'T would be a manifest extravagancy to refuse out of a pure love to desire that good which God will do to us and commands us to desire The most disinterested love ought to will what God wills for us as that which he wills for others The absolute determination to will nothing would be no longer a disinterest but the extinction of love which is a desire and true will it would be no longer holy indifference for indifference is the state of a Soul equally ready to will or will not to will for God all that he wills and never to will for ones self what God does not declare that he wills Whereas that nonsensical determination not to will any thing is an impious reluctancy to all the known will of God and to all the impressions of his grace This equivocation in saying that one does not desire his Salvation is easie to be resolv'd We do desire it fully as the will of God To reject it in this sense would be a horrid Blasphemy and we ought always thereupon to Speak with a great deal of precaution It is true only as we do not will it as it is our recompence our good and our interest In this sense S. Francis os Sales hath said Second Conversation That if there was a little more of God's good pleasure in Hell the Saints would exchange Paradise for it And in other places too Conv. p. 182. The desire of Eternal Life is good but he makes us to desire nothing else but God's will Conv. 368. Could we serve God without Merit we should desire to do it He saith elsewhere Love of God Lib. 9. c. 11. Indifference is above Resignation for it loves nothing but for the will of God So that nothing moves an indifferent heart in presence of God's will An indifferent heart is as a Wax-Ball in the hands of his God in order to receive in like manner all the impressions of his Eternal good pleasure 'T is a heart without choice equally dispos'd to every thing without any other object of his will but the will of his God who does not set his love upon the things which God wills but in the will of God who wideth them In
to abandon one self so far as never to watch over one self with a simple and peaceable Vigilancy and not to let fall the eager Motions of Nature to receive only those of Grace To speak at this rate is to believe that Reason which is the first of God's Gifts in the Order of Nature is an Evil and consequently to renew the foolish impious Error of the Manicheans it is to be willing to change Perfection into a continual Fanaticism and to tempt God every Minute of one's Life XXXII ARTICLE True THere is in the passive State a Liberty of the Children of God which hath no relation to the unbridled License of the Children of this World These simple Souls are no more tormented by the Scruples of those who fear and hope for their own Interest Pure Love gives them a respectful Familiarity with God as that of a Bride with the Bridegroom they have a Peace and Joy full of Innocency they take with simplicity and without hesitation the needful Refreshments of Mind and Body as they would perswade their Neighbours to the same they speak of themselves without any positive Judgment but out of meer Obedience and real Necessity as Things appear to them at that moment they speak then of them either as good or bad as they would speak of another without any Headiness in what they think or any Love for the good Opinion which their most simple and modest Words might create in them of themselves and acknowledging always with an humble Joy that if there is any Good in them it comes from God alone To speak thus is to relate the Experiences of Saints without offending the Rule of Evangelical Manners XXXII False THE Liberty of passive Souls is grounded upon an Innocency of Disappropriation which makes pure in them whatsoever they are prompted to do tho' never so irregular and inexcusable in others They have no longer any Law because the Law is not established for the Righteous provided he does appropriate nothing to himself and acts nothing for himself To speak at this rate is to forget that it is said That if the written Law is not for the Righteous it is because an inward Law of Love prevents always the outward Precept and that the great Commandment of Love containeth all the others 'T is to turn Christianity into an Abomination and to make the Gentiles to blaspheme the Name of God 'T is to give up Souls to a Spirit of Falshood and of Giddiness XXXIII ARTICLE True THere is in the passive State a Re-union of all the Vertues in Love which never excludeth the distinct Exercise of each Vertue 'T is Charity as saith S. Thomas after S. Augustine which is the Form and Principle of all Vertues That which distinguisheth or specifieth them is the particular Object which Love does embrace The Love which abstains from impure Pleasures is Chastity and this very same Love when it bears Evils takes the Name of Patience This Love without going out of its Simplicity becometh by Turns all different Vertues but it admits of none as being a Vertue that 's to say either Fortitude Greatness Beauty Regularity or Perfection A disinterested Soul as S. Francis of Sales 12. Discourse of Simplicity hath observed it loves no longer the Vertues either because they are handsome and pure nor because they are worthy to be beloved or as beautifying and perfecting those that do practise them or because they are meritorious and prepare Men for an Eternal Reward but only because they are the Will of God A disinterested Soul as this great Saint said of Mother Chantal Life of Mad. of Chantal p. 246. does not wash away her Faults for to be pure and does not adorn herself with Vertues for to be beautiful but for to please her Spouse to whom if Ugliness had been as acceptable she would have loved it as much as Beauty Then it is that we do practise all distinct Vertues without thinking that they are Vertues then we think on nothing every Moment but to do the Will of God and jealous Love causeth at the same time that we desire no more to be vertuous seeing that we are never more vertuous than when we are no more pleased to be so It may be said in this Sence that passive and uninterested Love will no more even Love itself as being her Perfection and Happiness but only as it is that which God does require of us Therefore S. Francis of Sales saith that we return into our selves loving that Love instead of the well Beloved Love of God l. 9. c. 9. This Saint in another place saith that we ought not so much as to desire the Love of God as it is our good Lastly to give to this Truth all the strictness that is necessary this Saint saith that we ought to endeavour to seek in God nothing but the Love of his Beauty and not the pleasure which is felt in the Beauty of his Love This distinction will appear subtile to those whom unction hath not yet taught but it is confirmed by the Tradition of all Saints from the beginning of Christianity and it ought not to be despised without making light of the Saints who have placed the perfection of a Soul in this so nice a jealousie of Love To speak thus is to repeat what holy mystical Men have said after both S. Clement and the Ascetes upon the Cessation of Virtues and which ought to be explained with infinite precaution XXXIII False IN the Passive slate the distinct practice of Virtues is out of season because pure Love which contains them all in its quietude dispenseth absolutely with Souls in this exercise To speak at this rate is to contradict the Gospel It is to lay a stone of scandal in the way of the Children of the Church It is to give them the name of the Living while they are Dead XXXIV ARTICLE True SPiritual Death whereof so many mystical Saints have spoken after the Apostle who saith to the Faithful ye are Dead is nothing but the entire purification and disinterest of Love so that the unquietness and frowardness which do proceed from an interested Motive do not weaken the operation of Grace and that Grace doth work in a manner entirely free Spiritual resurrection is nothing else but the habitual state of pure Love which we do ordinarily attain to after the tryals designed for its purification To speak so is to speak as the greatest Saints and most cautious mystical Men have done XXXIV False SPiritual Death is an entire extinguishing of the Old-Man and of the last sparks of Concupiscency Then one hath no more need even of the peaceable and disinterested resistency to natural motions nor of co-operation to any medicinal Grace of Jesus Christ Spiritual Resurrection is the entire consummation of the New-Man in the Age and plenitude of the perfect Man as in Heaven To speak at this rate is to fall into an Heresie and impiety which is to the ruine of all
a little less pure and disinterested It 's enough for this State that the Acts of Vertue are performed therein very frequently with that perfection that Charity diffuses there and with which the same are animated All these things are agreeable to our thirty four Articles I shall joyn to the Book which I have published most Holy Father a Collection in Manuscript of the Sentiments of the Fathers and Saints of the last Age concerning the Pure Love of Contemplatives to the end that that which is but plainly set out in the First Book may be proved in the Second by the Testimonies and Opinions of the Saints of all Ages I entirely submit Most Holy Father both the one and the other Pieces to the Judgement of the Holy Roman Catholick Church who is the Mother Church of all and has taught all the rest I devote all that is mine and my self to your Holiness as a Son ought to do that is full of Zeal and Respect towards you But if my Book in French hath been already brought unto your Holiness I most humbly intreat you most Holy Father to decide nothing concerning it 'till such time as you have seen my Latin Version that will be dispatched away with all speed There is nothing now remaining for me save to wish a long Pontificate to the chief of Pastors who Rules the Kingdom of Christ with so disinterested an Heart and who says with so much applause from all the Roman Catholick Nations to his Illustrious Family I know you not In doing thus daily I think I seek the Glory and Consolation of the Church the Re-establishment of its Discipline the propagation of the Faith the Extirpation of Schisms and Heresies and lastly an abundant Harvest in the Field of the Soveraign Father of the Family I shall for ever c. The Lord Arch-Bishop of Cambray 's Letter of August the 3d 1697. SIR BE not concerned for me the business of my Book is gone to Rome if I am under a mistake the Authority of the Holy See will undeceive me and this is that I wait for with a gentle and lowly Mind if I have illy exprest my self they will reform my expressions If the matter appears to require a more large explication that I will readily do by way of Additions If my Book contains nothing in it but what is pure Doctrine I shall have the consolation to know exactly what a Man ought to believe and what to reject I shall not in this Case fail to make all those Additions which without weakning the truth will be conducive to enlighten and edifie such Readers as are most subject to take the allarm But Sir in short if the Pope condemns my Book I shall be the first God willing that will condemn it and put out a Mandate to forbid the reading of it in the Diocess of Cambray I shall only intreat the Pope to do me the favour exactly to note those passages he condemns and the sense whereon he grounds his Condemnation to the end that I may subscribe thereunto without restriction and that I may never run the risque of defending excusing or tolerating the sense it s condemned in Being thus disposed thro' the blessing of God I am at rest and have nothing to do but to wait the disposition of my Superiour in whom I acknowledge the Authority of Jesus Christ to be lodged disinterested Love must not be defended but with a sincere disinterest We have not to do herein with a point of Honour nor with the Opinion of the World nor yet with that profound humiliation wherein Nature may fear to meet with ill success I think I act with integrity I am as much afraid of being presumptuous and possessed with a base shame as to be feeble politick and fearful in the defence of truth If the Pope condemns me I shall be thereby undeceived and the vanquished shall reap all the real fruits of the Victory Victoria scedet victis saith St. Augustine But if on the other side the Pope does not condemn my Doctrine I shall endeavour both by my silence and respect to pacifie those of my Fraternity whose Zeal has animated them against me by laying a sort of Doctrine to my charge which I abhor and always did as much as they do Perhaps they will do me justice when they see my sincerity There are but two things that my Doctrine was intended to comprehend the first whereof is that Charity is a love to God sor his own sake distinct from that motive of blessedness that we find in him Secondly that Charity in the life of the most perfect Souls is that which precedes all other Vertues which animates them and commands the acts so as to make them bear to its end insomuch that the Just thus qualified do then ordinarily exercise hope and all other Vertues with all the disinterest of Charity it self because this same state of the Soul is not without its exception being no other than an habitual one and not immutable God knows I have never intended to teach any thing else that exceeded these limitations And hence it is that I have said in my speaking concerning pure Love which is Charity so far as it animates and commands all other distinct Vertues Whoever allows of nothing beyond that is within the confines of Tradition whoever passeth those bounds is already out of the way I do not think there is any danger that the Holy See should condemn a Doctrine so well grounded upon the Authority of the Fathers of the Schools and of so many great Saints that the Church of Rome has Canoniz'd As for the manner of Expressions contained in my Book if they should be any ways prejudicial to truth for want of being correct I consign them to the judgement of my Superiour and I should be very sorry to trouble the repose of the Church were there no more in it than the interest of my Person and of my Book These are my thoughts of the matter Sir I go for Cambray having Sacrificed unto God with my whole heart all that I could Sacrifice to him thereupon permit me to exhort you to be of the same mind I have introduced nothing that related to Humane Affairs and Temporals into the Doctrine which I was convinced of the truth of neither have I forbore to let the Pope know any of those Reasons that could support this Doctrine This is enough let God do the rest if it be his Cause that I have vindicated let us not be concerned at the intentions of Men or their proceedings it is God alone that is to be looked to in all this let us be the Children of Peace and Peace will rest upon us it will be bitter but the same will be so much the more pure Let us not spoil good intentions by an humour by any Heat by any Humane Industry by any Natural Impression for the justifying of our selves Let us plainly give an account of our Faith let us
suffer our selves to be Corrected if there be need of it and let us endure Correction when we do not even deserve the same As for you Sir you ought to have no other portion therein than Silence Submission and Prayer Pray for me that am under such pressing difficulty pray for the Church that undergoes these Scandals pray for those who rise up against me to the end that they may be endued with the Spirit of Grace in order to undeceive me if I 'am in the wrong or to do me justice if I am otherwise Lastly pray for the interest of Prayer it self which is in danger and stands in need of being justified Perfection is become very suspicious they are not for removing it so far from lazy Christians and such as are full of self Disinterested Love would appear to be the Spring of Illusions and abominable Wickedness they have accustomed Christians under pretence of safety and precaution to seek after God no other way than by the motive of their blessedness and advantage to themselves Those Souls that have made most proficiency are forbid to serve God by the pure motive whereby hitherto it hath been wished that Sinners themselves would return from their Errors I mean the goodness of the infinitely amiable God I know that pure Love and abandoning ones self is abused I know that Hypocrites overthrow the Gospel under such good names but pure Love is no less a perfection of Christianity and 't is the worst of all Remedies to go about to abolish those things that are perfect to prevent being abused therewith God knows how to make better provision therein than Men. Let us be humble let us hold our peace instead of reasoning concerning Prayer let us be engaged in it in so doing we shall defend our selves our strength will consist in our silence I am c. Paris Aug. 3d 1697. THE DECLARATION Of the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Prelates Lewis Antony de Noailles Arch-Bishop of Paris James Benigne Bossuet Bishop of Meaux and Paul Godet Desmarais Bishop of Chartres upon the subject Matter of a Book Intituled An Explication of the Maxims of the Saints concerning the Internal Life AS we have been long since called to bear Witness it 's time at last we should make answer The most Illustrious and most Reverend Arch-bishop of Cambray as well in the very beginning as Preface of his Book called An Explication of the Maxims of the Saints c. hath made mention of two of our number whose Doctrine and Decisions contained in the Thirty Four Articles he hath only taken upon him more fully to explicate and which the third of us by a publick Act hath agreed to and Subscribed The same most Illustrious and most Reverend Arch-bishop hath in the Letter he wrote to our Holy Father the Pope Innocent XII grounded what he says upon the same Articles and Censures of the Bishops against some Books that have been written And we were the only three who have thought it our Duty to Censure those Books or rather according to the Author's words certain places in the said Book Nevertheless they are not some places as the same Author says that we have taken upon us to censure but the greatest part of them nay and we would have the whole Books condemned and the Spirit that runs quite thro' them But as the same Epistle takes notice our Zeal is not raised against certain Mystick Persons in former Ages who laboured under a pardonable ignorance of Theological Dogma's but our Censures and Articles are level'd at the Quietists of our own time who are well known amongst us Neither have we recourse to the obvious and natural sense of things as if there were some more occult meaning couched under them which perhaps might at the same time be tolerated but we have thought it necessary to expose the Poison lying hid in those Books We know nothing of any bodies taking occasion from our Articles and Censures to deride pure Love and Contemplation as the Illusions of a troubled Brain as the said Letter intimates It 's also said in the same Letter That the principal Points which have been treated on in the Book having been anew Explained are found to be conformable to the said Articles This Conclusion and the intention we find there is to have what is contained in the said Book to be thought agreeable to our Sentiments we are necessitated to explain our selves upon this Head tho' it is not without trouble of mind that we are brought to this Extremity having before used all sorts of means to gain the Judgment of our Brother herein 't is pure necessity that constrains us hereunto to the end we may prevent the Belief of our approving this Work and above all out of the Fear we are in lest our Holy Father the Pope whom we perfectly honour and to whom as to our Head we are inviolably united should be perswaded that we favour a Doctrine which the Church condemns We shall begin by shewing the Reasons that occasion'd the Articles which the Book Entituled An Exposition of the Maxims of the Saints c. makes mention of There was a certain Woman living amongst us who having put out a Pamphlet called a Short Method c. and some others also and spread up and down certain Manuscripts of the Quietists seemed to us to be a leader of that Sect she desired she might be allowed three Counsellors with whose Advice she might acquiesce the most illustrious Author of this book was added for a Fourth the design was to consine her and those of her Party within some bounds to remove all the subterfuges they had and to shew them from the undoubted Articles of our Faith the Lord's Prayer the Doctrine of the Holy Scripture Holy Tradition and Saints that their Tenets were condemned to all intents and purposes either from their own Nature or by Councils and the Apostolick See this was the end of the Articles that contained our decisions and Censures our business now is to see whether the said Book did explain and open the same or overthrow them In the first place Theological or Divine Hope is taken away in that Book as well out of the state of Grace as within it among the perfect And when it is said that without the state of Grace before Justification one may love God with the love of Hope in such a manner that self-love that is the love of our own Interest and Happiness be the principal Motive of the said love of Hope and prevalent above the other motive of love to God's Glory it from thence follows that Hope which depends upon a created good and self interest is no Divine or Theological Virtue but a Vice and thence it is that that Axiom of St. Augustine is applyed tho' in a wrong sense That which proceeds not from a principle of Charity proceeds from Concupiscence and from that love which is the root of all Vices and which the Jealous
for the Tradition of all ages which is continually alledged in the said Book we may learn what that was from St. Francis de Sales alone whom the Author so much insists upon and tho he be the only Authority almost cited by him in his Works yet he quotes him several times to ill purpose and that in relation to very important points whereon the whole foundation of his Book depends which having been shewed in some measure in what has been said before we shall now for brevity sake pass over and defer the same with divers other things to another opportunity as we shall also consider the examination of Vocal Prayer the nature of Contemplation human Acts and Tryals the three Marks whereby Vocation is known from Meditation to Contemplation And lastly several Texts of Scripture which instead of being expounded according to the natural meaning of them have been made to bear a new and unheard of Interpretation Moreover we cannot but wonder seeing this Book treats of the love of such as are perfect that yet it takes no manner of notice of a love of gratitude towards God and Christ our Saviour as if these things were no ways proper to stir up and inflame true Charity or that the same derogated from pure love or that such as are perfect ought to neglect them Neither are we less amazed that in citing the Decree of the Council of Trent that defines hope to be in it self good and agreeable to the state of Saints that this which is contained in the same Decree is omitted viz. That the most holy and most perfect such as David and Moses were were stirred up by this motive as is especially set forth in the same Council which says That eternal life is to be proposed as a Reward to all those that continued in the performance of good Works to the end and put their hope in God and so by consequence to all the Saints and such as are most perfect by which motive they are not at all made mercenary but Children that by the way of Charity are aiming at their Father's Inheritance Hereunto it must be added that the Opinions dispersed up and down in this work tend tho' against the Author's intention to promote that Notion that Vice by the help of direct Acts may subsist with the Virtue that is opposite to it so as that while the Soul thro' an inconsiderate Zeal for the Justice of God doth acquiesce with the whole secret will of God it doth imprudently consent to its own entire and absolute Reprobation and so we shall be brought contrary to the Apostles prohibition to be taken with subtilties and vain bablings Lastly the groans of the Church which is but as a sojourner here below and longs to return to her own Countrey are stifled St. Paul and the other Saints who in their Martyrdom have been helpt up with the hopes they had of Happiness and counted the same to be gain are hereby turned off as mercenary Souls but we having the form of sound words and being desirous to follow the footsteps of the Saints do not measure impossible and absurd things with Christian Piety and Perfection neither do we believe that some extraordinary and unusual Affections which a few Saints have been a little subject to and that by the by ought therefore to be presently turned into Rules and esteemed as a particular state of Life we do not call those Wills or Consents which are conversant about impossibilities true Wills and real Consents but veleities as the Schools also term them These things therefore we have received from our Ancestors these are our Thoughts and our Will is that all the World may know them Given at Paris in the Archiepiscopal Palace in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Six Hundred Ninety Seven on the Sixth day of August Lovis Ant. Archbishop of Paris J. Benigne Bishop of Meaux Paul Bishop of Chartres DECLARATIO Illustriss Reverendiss Ecclesiae Principum Ludovici Antonii de Noailles Archiep. Parisiensis Jacobi Benigni Bossuet Episcopi Meldensis Pauli de Godet des Marais Episcopi Carnotensis Circa Librum cui titulus est Explication des Maximes des Saints sur la Vie Interieure c. JAmdudum in testimonium vocatos respondere tandem nos oportet Illustrissimus Reverendissimus D. D. Archiepiscopus Dux Cameracensis ab ipso libri initio cui titulus Explication des Maximes des Saints c. in ipsa Praefatione seu Commonitione praeviâ duos commemoravit ex Nobis quorum doctrinam ac decreta 34 Articulis comprehensa tantum copiosius exponenda susceperit Tertius verò etiam constitutione publicâ eandem cum illis sententiam promulgavit Idem Illustrissimus ac Reverendissimus Archiepiscopus datis ad S S. D. N. D. Innocentium Papam XII literis iisdem articulis atque Episcoporum adversùs quosdam libellos censuris nititur tres autem tantum sumus qui eosdem libellos eorumve loca quaedam censurâ notandos duxerimus Neque tamen loca quaedam ut idem Auctor asserit sed pleraque omnia ac totos libellos ipsumque adeo eorumdem librorum spiritum elisum voluimus Neque ut in eadem Epistolâ scribitur adversùs mysticos aliquot ante actis saeculis Theologicorum Dogmatum veniali inscitiâ laborantes noster zelus excanduit sed adversùs notissimos nostrae aetatis Quietistas gravissimè lapsos censurae nostrae articulique directi sunt Neque confugimus ad obvium naturalemque sensum tanquam occultior sensus subesset qui tolerari forsitan posset sed venenum libellorum in aperto esse duximus Latet etiam nos ex articulis censurisve nostris aliquos arripuisse occasionem amorem purum contemplationem quasi delirae mentis ineptias deridendi ut est in Epistolâ proditum In eadem Epistolâ rursùs libri summâ expositâ omnia iisdem articulis consona perhibentur Quae cum ita fint cumque praedictus liber nostrâ se sententiâ tueatur quid de eo sentiamus promere cogimur non tamen ad haec extrema dolentes anteà devenimus quam omnia conati experti ut fraternum animum flecteremus Omnino necessitati cedimus ne quisquam in eundem librum consentire nos putet ac quod gravissimum foret ne S S. D. N. Papa quem impensissimè devotissimè colimus cuique ut capiti fide indivulsâ adhaeremus doctrinae quam Romana improbet Ecclesia ullo modo favere nos arbitretur Ac primum quidem eorundem articulorum quos praedictus liber commemorat ea suit ratio Cum apud nos extaret mulier quae edito libello cui titulus Moyen court c. aliis ejusmodi sparsisque MSS. Quietistarum factionis dux esse videretur Ea consultores tres dari sibi postulavit quorum judicio staret His Illustrissimus auctor quartus accessit Itaque animus fuit eam ejus asseclas quibusdam finibus coercere