light more and more divine and saving mysteries which ript up all his hellish Heresies and Mysteries of Iniquity to the gnawing of his malicious spirit and all the like instruments of his fury while the Bread of Life was aboundantly dispensed to hungry souls whom it shall nourish unto Eternal Life when all the Wicked shall be cut off and the Meek shall inherit the Earth For the more particular Account of her divine Pilgrimage see the History of her Life and take here a short Bill of that heavenly chear now dispensed in her Writings that took up the spare hours of her many diversions at Amsterdam The funerall of false Theologie in the first part of which she shews the Confusion the Ignorance Corruption Insensibility and foundamental Errors of Christians and even of Conductors and modern Divines In the second their Presumption Envy Pride Obstinacy and Head strongness In the third that all their Theorie and Practices are no more but Pharisaical without divine Faith In the fourth that the Devil has great power over men over the wicked and even over the best whom by these other he turns away from following God and engages them to co-operate to the Evil of others and makes them draw back after they have abandoned the World That is a work of singular efficacy and profit Scarce did ever man read it without being touched in his soul even the most wicked who became pale and as struck dead with it Upon occasion of some converse she had with some Cartesian Philosophers she composed The Holy Perspective wherein she shews that Men and particularly Christians have lost the Light of God which is true and divine Faith to be led by corrupt Reason and by a false or most faint Light they draw from nature so perverse brutish carnal and gross as it is become by sin that this is it that has destroyed all Christian-religion and brought it to the Blindness and Darkness wherein it is immersed and that God may restore it its first state there is no other way but to abandon that false Guide of Reason and to resign our selves to God that he may himself revive in us that divine Light of Faith which we have extinguished The New Heaven and New Earth in which is shewn in what Glory the World and Man were created how they have miserably faild from it how they entertain and even encrease their Misery and by what means they ought to return into the disposition God requires to restore them to their first Glory and renew all the world God showed her in Spirit the Glory and Beauty of the first World not supportable by corporal Eyes All was bright transparent shining with Light and unspeakable Glory God's last Mercy in which by a reason enlightened by Faith not perverted by human Studies and Prejudices she leads every man of good judgment to a conviction of the spiritual things which Faith discovers and unto which every man's Reason when conducted by a person that is illuminated by Faith renders so convincing Testimonies that they who will yield themselves to its Touch are moved and pressed to ask of God a saving and divine Knowledge of them by the Light of Faith With all these are intermixed many other divine Lights and profound Mysteries which God had reserved to this end of the last hour able to enlighten to quicken to inflame to strengthen to encourage and to ravish any that have not renounced all interest in heavenly things If any find difficulties in her Writings consider that she having no further human Learning than that having learnt it she did once read the New Testament and finding it the same with what God spake in her Soul she closed the Book to apply seriously to the doing of it seeking no more reading meditation conferring or other study than that of purifying her soul from earthly Affections and sins in following Jesus Christs Doctrine and Example She could not speak after the Rules and with the Cautions of human Literature far less by the pedantry of the Schools it were then most cruel injustice to judge her by them Again we must not suppose when she treats of a matter what she does not mention in that place that she denies it nor require her to treat so fully more than her scope there requires as the Scholastiques who handling a matter at their tour adduce all they can relating to it In the Third place to understand her Writings as all others divinely inspired the Key is a good Will Humility and Prayer to a Malign a Corrupt Proud Self-wise and Self-powerful Reader no entry in them no favour from them but that of Death And the center end and aim of these Writings being the Love of God by renouncing our selves the Creatures and sin the Devil the World and the Flesh the farther we are from this the greater discord and contradiction between these Writings and our corrupt hearts and blind spirits and if ever we will be reconciled it must be by valuing loving esteeming and submitting to them as they are conducive to these ends and the difficulties will all quickly evanish this way the Disciples of Christ of Prophets and Apostles entered into their Masters Doctrine To conclude with the zealous and sincere Author of her Life LOrd thou hast yet manifested the words of eternal Life in these last days and our ears have heard and our hands have handled the word of life which thou hast put into her these words of Life which are originally in thee we have seen and heard them and we bear testimony that thou hast manifested them to us and our testimonie is most true before thee and before whosoever will open the eyes of his Conscience to consider it in thy divine Presence Yes Lord my God Creator and Inspector of my Heart who hast given me to love thy divine Truth more than the Sciences and the Advantages of Egypt thou knowest that I hate lying and falshood and that I would not for any consideration recommend untruth I cannot deny that I have obtained of thy Grace to discern the Truth from Falsehood and that I have done it in this Work thou knowest O Lord. Thou knowest my God that if after all possible application of spirit I could find in the intentions in the end the Writings and the Practice of Antonia Bourignon thy Creature any thing contrary to thy Glory that rendered thee less worthy of the infinite and eternal Adoration Love and Praises due unto thee if any thing favouring Corruption and Sin and that might contradict thy holy Image and the Doctrine and Life of thy Christ if any thing dangerous for mens Salvation thou knowest I would abhor that that I would detest it that I would curse it Is it not true O Searcher and Judge of my Thoughts that this disposition is most really in the bottom of my Soul Is it not in the deepest and final sincerity of my heart that I protest openly that the words of eternal
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-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
himself and search the means for his own satisfaction Now God had given man five natural Senses that he might prove all that God had created for him provided he praised and thanked the Creator for so many good things but he began to use his senses to please himself and attribute to himself the Favours and Graces God had bestowed on him as if they had been his own and he the Soveraign independent on God for he pleased himself to see so many beautiful creatures and attributed them to himself and also to hear the pleasant Melody which God produced in nature pleasing himself in hearing them without referring them to God the same did he in smelling taking his contentment in all the good Odours which God had made to show unto man his liberality giving him not only the things neeful for the sustenance of his being but also Delectable things to procure him pleasure as are the objects of Sight Hearing and Smell and man could well have subsisted without the pleasures of these but God would oblige him to love him by excess of benefits and so created so many good and beautiful Creatures only for pleasure to man having created all sorts of delicious fruits for his nourishment and so many other creatures to satisfie his feeling that he might lack nothing for sustenance and pleasures which he could use at pleasure provided he blessed the Lord who had made them for him But ingrate man falls from that acknowledgment of his God and takes all his gifts for his proper satisfaction and so he left the Love of God and hath turned to love himself which hath necessarily rendred him an enemy to God for such ingratitude is insupportable though it were but committed by one man to another For what man would be satisfied to have desired the friendship and fidelity of another having with that aim bestowed his goods on him in abandance and procured him all sorts of pleasures and recreations that he might faithfully keep friendship if that ingrate Wretch forsook his Benefactor to take his pleasure in these same goods which he had so freely received how much more then should God resent the ingratitude of man while he places his love and affection in the things which God hath so liberally bestowed on him to oblige him to love him and yet man hath forsaken him and pleases himself only in self-self-love That you ought to consider well My Child that you render not your self guilty before that great Majesty and Discover if you be not obliged to embrace voluntarily Adam's penitence since you have fallen so often in the same sin in quitting the love and Dependance of your God to love your self and Depend on your proper will So resolve to renounce your five natural senses which are assuredly actuated by the devil for since he got power over Adam's spirit he hath after had it over that of all men and will have it so long as they continue to live in their corrupt nature from which I pray God Deliver you and I remain forever Your Well-wisher in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON Holstein near Gottorp Castle 18. Febr. 1672. St. vet THE VIII LETTER It is easier to love God than any other Thing To the same to whom is shown that we must renounce the evil use of our senses and that the right use of them ought to be referred to God also that it is possible equitable reasonable and necessary to love God with all our heart My Son I Will not believe that you are one of those evil advised persons who say there is little evil in following the motions of corrupt nature God created Nature say they and cannot be offended that we follow it Several of my Aquaintance have been of that mind they were given to Lasciviousness and told me That God would not punish them for that seeing himself had given them such a Nature and that it was needful to use it to multiply the world So flattering themselves in their Sins to satisfie their senses and more say they God hath given all these to man and we cannot be without Seeing Hearing Smelling Feeling and Tasting That 's all true but they had not light enough to discern the miserable state into which man is fallen by Sin from that happy one into which God had created him For then in that state man could enjoy the Pleasures of his five Senses provided he loved and blessed God But since he hath fallen into sin he can no more enjoy them without offending God because all the pleasure he now takes in his five Senses is only to satisfie himself for his own Glory and Advantage but before sin was the satisfaction of his Senses served only to bless praise and glorify the Lord for the Benefits and Mercies he received of him So that he no sooner saw these beautiful things but his heart was elevated to praise God who had given him these beautiful Objects these Melodies fragrant Odours delicious Tastes and Feelings So that whatever he saw or perceived good or pleasant was to him matter of blessing God and magnifying him for his Benefits But since man is fallen into sin the same things are to him matter of offending God for if he sees any beautiful thing he covets it to satisfie himself and that self-Self-love retires him from the Love of God and that is it which makes sin seeing he hath commanded us to love him with all our heart so that we cannot love these beautiful things without infringing that Command seeing all our heart cannot be in the Love of God when a part of it is upon beautiful things fine odours melodies delights of the taste and feeling For that 's a heart divided into as many parts as there are Different things it loves and consequently far from being intire in the Love of God as he hath commanded us But men are so blind and do so blind one another that every one perswades himself that he loves God while he loves only himself It is as if they thought to please God with words in saying with their mouth that they love him but they deceive themselves for as long as they will satisfie their five natural senses they will not love God seeing these being corrupt will engender all sorts of sin and consequently the Death of the Soul Notwithstanding no man values these evils and they think it is allowable to satisfie their senses and so follow them often as much as they can without believing they do evil and not apprehending that there is nothing more Deceitful than the Heart of Man which often flatters it self to its own destruction But you my Child be more wise learn the truth of things without yielding your self to be Deceived by false appearances Never believe that it is allowable to take any pleasure out of God and far less that there is no evil in following your five natural senses since that cannot be without sin for though we give our affections but for an
Letters which treat of Virtue that they who aspire unto it may see the state wherein they are and also if they have acquired any degrees of it or if their Virtues be only imaginary I do not present this matter of true Virtue to all in general since many should find it too difficult to be observed for such as yet love themselves or the things of the earth cannot have all their mind bent to acquire this Virtue nor tend to the spiritual diligence which it requires But I speak to the free and generous souls who have abandoned the world to follow Jesus Christ and such will easily understand me for none is better disposed to understand me than he that will practise true Virtue And others who have not that desire may content themselves to know the Commands of God in general seeing they aspire not to a greater perfection So I say to them as St. John to the soldiers Use no Violence nor fraud to any person and be content with your Wages He said so to them because he found them not disposed for greater perfection And every one is free to tend to what degree of perfection he will So St. John chooses of two Evils the least in councelling the Soldiers to be content with their Pay and do no Violence but if these Soldiers had tended unto Christian-perfection doubtless St. John had counselled them to cease from being Soldiers and to forsake all that they possessed as Jesus Christ did to the young man in the Gospel after he said he had kept the Commands of God I say the very same to them to whom I present this matter of true Virtue in these twenty four Letters which is but the beginning of my designs to shew wherein it consists in every thing To these namely who will follow it and to none other seeing that were to cast Pearls before Swine or the Childrens Bread unto Dogs Those are souls yet earthly and attached to the honours pleasures and goods of this life and consequently are not in a disposition to put true Virtue in practice It seems enough to them not to transgress grossly and externally the Commands of God because they know no other Evils but what are expressed in these Commands But the souls who have abandoned the world to follow Jesus Christ and to revive in his spirit must labour with all their force to acquire this true Virtue in renouncing the corruption of their nature And they may well be assured that they can never arrive at a truely Christian Life unless they have overcome the inclinations of that corrupt nature Therefore must we labour with diligence in the mortification of our senses that we may carry the Victory over that Corruption which sin hath brought unto human nature without that our Virtue is false or only apparent and in no wise Virtue before God For if you shew me a person sober and chast and upright in his business who imparts his Goods to the Poor who fasts at appointed times with many other good Deeds and yet follows the motions of corrupt nature I esteem nothing all these Virtues if there is not a renounciation of his corrupt nature and he hath not entirely renounced his own will for all these things together come not near the Victory which is in mastering the motions of corrupt nature And St. Paul names yet greater Virtues than these I have named when he says If I had the Gift of Prophecy and Faith that could remove Mountains and gave all my Goods to nourish the Poor I am nothing if I want Charity Now Charity is nothing else but the love of God which we cannot obtain but in renouncing self-self-love and hating the Corruption of our nature for we can never do good except we first depart from evil and all sorts of evil are contained in the corruption of our nature since it is fallen into sin So that we can never arrive at true Virtue but by renouncing that corruption nor at the Charity of which the Apostle speaks without having overcome it So I say with him unto all that would attain to true Virtue that all other good actions shall be nothing until we have surmounted and overcome the corruption which sin hath brought unto humane nature since all sorts of evil spring thence and therein can no good be found Though the blindness of men makes them presume that they can do all well yet they do altogether evil so long as they act according to the motions of corrupt nature And it is only arrogance and presumption of spirit that they think themselves wise and willing to do all good For if man were wise he would always distrust himself nor dare undertake any thing fearing to do evil since that is in him and there cannot proceed out of a vessel other than what is in it When Man was newly created by God in the state of innocence he was full of all good and all sorts of good proceeded from him but since he is fallen into sin he is filled with all evil and there can nothing proceed out of him but all evil That is a general rule and by it ought every one to regulate his life if he would be saved for there is no exception seeing all men have been corrupted by Adam's sin and consequently are filled with evils none excepted It is true mens natures differ in manners and conditions one is Meek another Harsh one is Proud another Humble but that is from their natural temperament because man being composed of four Elements Water Fire Earth and Air his Manners naturally are disposed with proportion to the element which predomines in him For every one hath in his nature divers dispositions He that in the forming of his body hath contracted more of Fire than of the other Elements will be more cholerique and luxurious because the Fire hath more power in him than the Air Water or Earth Another who in his formation hath contracted more of Water will be more dull in his Manners slow in comprehending any thing and less couragious He that in his formation hath received more of Earth than of other Elements shall be more heavy lazy and rude in his Manners Finally he that in his Formation hath contracted more of Air than other Elements will be in his manners more light and inconstant and more active in spirit and prompter to good or evil and by these natural temperaments all men are of divers complexions and different manners according as they have contracted of their Parents the intemperature of the Elements of which their body is formed But in respect of Grace they are all of a like nature and are by sin all fallen into the same corruption one as well as the other and so they all need to combate that corruption since they are all equally corrupted by sin which they must master if they would be saved without going to perswade that one is better than another because he hath in his nature a
Wiles of the Devil which he opposes to Virtue that we may evite them which are recited in this and the following Letters as 1. That the Devil mixes himself in what is sensual in man 2. That he accommodates himself to the inclinations and impulses of every one leaving all the rest in quiet p. 93. XIII Whatever is sensible to Nature is not the Work of Grace or Virtue Discovering a third Artifice of the Devil whereby he perswades men that they may satisfie their senses in a slate of regeneration and Praising God A 4. by which he affixes the Heart to spiritual Pleasures and Delights wherewith the Followers of Virtue are affected p. 102. XIV The Devil transforms himself into an Angel of Light Discovering a 5. and 6. Artifice of the Devil by which he causes men to apply themselves to the study of the Truth and mystical and Spiritual things 5 That they may comprehend and understand them Or 6. That they may unseasonably instruct others p. 111. XV. The Devil instigates unto Good that he may bring Evil out of it A seventh Deceit of the Devil is to carry us out of our selves to compare our Good Works with others that we may draw Vain Glory from our Virtue An 8. whereby he excites us to immoderate Mortifications and Macerations of our Body And a 9. Whereby he excites us to immoderate spiritual Good Works toward our Neighbour as to desire to instruct convert reprove or correct him unseasonably p. 121. XVI The Devil mixes himself in our Good Works A tenth Artifice of the Devil in our corporal Good Works which the Devil often turns to his own honour Yet we must not therefore cease from them but joyn Moderation and avoid Human Respect and considerations and Pride which insult over us in this time of tryal p. 130. XVII Sin proceeds from Man's Free Will An eleventh Tentation is proposed by which we impute the guilt of our sins to the Devil to excuse our selves It is shewed that the Devil cannot bring man to sin nor do him any hurt without his own free Consent p. 139. XVIII The Good and Evil Spirit are known by their Fruit. Proposing the Signs to know whether we are ruled by the Instinct of the Good Spirit or of the Evil. A 12. Artifice of the Devil by which he causes that we impute our Vices to our natural Inclinations without suspecting him to lurk therein that he may remain undiscovered p. 149. XIX We cannot in this Life be free from Tentations Shewing to him that was afflicted that the Devil hath power so variously to tempt us that a 13. Artifice of the Devil is to break the firmness and strength of our mind by grief Also that Tentations are necessary and profitable to try and purify us p. 158. XX. Spiritual Diligence is necessary to Salvation A 14. Impediment of the Devil more pernicious than the rest is spiritual Negligence Moving also unto spiritual diligence by consideration of the Care usually bestowed in Worldly things which the Children of this world manage with more Prudence and Care than the Children of Light do their Business p. 168. XXI Spiritual Diligence necessary beyond all other Virtues Shewing how necessary Spiritual Diligence is for confirming the mind in Virtue and to remove two more Impediments of the Devil viz. 15. Sins of Omission with which the Devil tempts good men and 16. self-self-love which insinuates it self in all and is a continual sin p. 177. XXII Spiritual Diligence necessary to Salvation Exhorting unto Spiritual Diligence because without it none can persevere in the Service of God nor overcome corrupt Nature and Self-love p. 186. XXIII Spiritual Diligence necessary to Salvation Shewing the necessity of Spiritual Diligence to watch over all the actions of our corrupt Nature and proper Will and to acquire the knowledge of our selves That spiritual Negligence is a fountain of all Evils and is alone sufficient to damn us since it renders our Souls rude and like uncultivated and cursed ground which brings forth noehing but Bryars and Thistles and so is far from Meekness Lowliness and Humility of Heart p. 194. XXIV Men are Idolaters of their own Corruption and Enemies of True Virtue Shewing that the continuing of this subject is hindered by the Devils exciting the Wise of this World who are Enemies of Virtue and Friends of corrupt Nature to distract the mind of the Writer by their Disputes Lies Calumnies and all manner of Persecutions p. 202. An Extract of some of the Works of Mrs. A. Bourignon belonging to some Most Essential Matters of Christianism and Health Being a Letter written to one of her Intimates Mr. van de Velde concerning TOLERATION That it ought never to go the length of communicating with Sin directly or indirectly Of the Essential and of the Perfection of Christianity Of Religions Worships and Ceremonies and their use p. 220. Some Conferences taken out of the Third Part of the Light of the World viz. Conference XI How we must be Regenerated to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and that we must return into the Dependance of God which is the only thing which God requires essentially of Man p. 219. Conference XII That there is but one only thing to be done to be saved p. 226. Conference XVII Being a Collection of all the preceding Matters their End and Use p. 235. Conference XXVI Declareth the necessity of becoming a Child to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven renouncing all Worldly Wisdom and all Human Abuses p. 245. A Profession of Faith and Religion made Publick by Mrs. ANTONIA BOURIGNON I. I Am a Christian and I believe all that a true Christian ought to believe II. I am baptised in the Catholique Church in the Name of the Father in the Name of the Son in the Name of the Holy Spirit III. I believe the twelve Articles of the Credo or Apostles Creed and do not doubt in any Article of it IV. I believe that Jesus Christ is True God and that he is also True Man and that he is the Saviour and Redeemer of the World V. I believe in the holy Gospel in the holy Prophets and in all the holy Scripture both of the Old and New Testament I will live and die in all the points of this belief which I protest before God and Men to all whom it may concern To the faith whereof I have subscribed this my Confession with my hand and sealed it with my Seal Sleeswick 11. March 1675. Sealed and subscribed L. S. ANTONIA BOURIGNON A CATALOGUE Of Books Composed by Mrs. ANTONIA BOURIGNON I. THe Life of Mrs. A. Bourignon wherein is 1 an Apologie for her Person and for her Doctrine 2 Her Inward Life by her self 3 Her Outward Life by her self II. Her Life continued until her death by a Person of her Acquaintance III. God's Call and Mens Refusal in two Parts with a treatise of the Solitary Life and Gods Last Mercy IV. Light arisen in Darkness in
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
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
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
none can evite it And it is a happiness which man hath had above the Angels while he can have Pardon of his sin for a small time of Repentance as is this short life for the disobedient Angels were confined to Hell without remission whereas man is only sent for a small time to this world to do Penitence and after return to God whence he proceeded And therefore men ought voluntarily to embrace that Penitence to satisfie the Justice of God when it is so light and short in regard of eternal Damnation to which the Angels were condemned when they disobeyed God And that Penitence is light and easie when we will bear it as a Yoak which God hath given us for our sins Therefore also Jesus Christ calls it his Yoak and not ours to make us understand that all the miseries of this life are light and easie when we receive them from the Hand of God and to satisfie his divine Justice but that same yoak the same miseries are full heavy and grievous when we bear them grudgingly or seek to be delivered and discharged of them which cannot be in this valley of tears which is only a Prison of Penitence where we must stay until the time of our Penitence be over to some longer then to others according to the sentence of the great Judge But if we will take this Life of Penitence for a time of delights and Pleasure we must make an eternal Penitence which shall never end and begins even in this life For although we should employ all the powers of our spirit and forces of our body to charm our Miseries or evite sufferings they will not leave us for all that And whatever we do or say we must always feel heat and cold diseases of body and troubles of spirit the changing of seasons and revolutions of times and so many other accidents which befal man during the course of his life All that must be troublesome and painful to him if he take it not as the Yoak of God but if he embrace it affectionably as Jesus Christ did all shall be light and easie to him as were unto our Saviour Miseries Persecutions Torment and even Death not that his nature was insensible of the Pains and Torments which they caused him but he suffered all for the Love of God which made the most heavy Burdens and the bitter Gall of his cruel Passion appear to him easie light and pleasant If you will my son be his Disciple and become a true Christian embrace with him all the Miseries of this present life suffer patiently what ever befals you contrary to your will and above all deny and renounce your self as Jesus Christ your Captain taught and practised He warred against the inclinations of corrupt nature in every thing For because they tend always to Greatness and to receive Honour he choosed Meanness and Contempt because they tend always to covet riches he would be poor and because they seek always their ease and Pleasure he chose uneasiness and sufferings So that he always crushed the inclinations of corrupted Nature constraining it by the Bridle and Yoak of the Love of God doing every thing contrary to the inclinations of that corrupted nature Behold your Captain who marches before you and calls you to follow him saying If any man will come after me let him take up his Cross and deny himself and follow me You must not my Son seek any other Master nor hear other Doctrine for men deceive and are deceived who will take another way than Jesus Christ took or will enter into life eternal by means quite contrary to those which he used himself If there were another way of salvation Jesus Christ would have taught us it and had followed it himself seeing all he did upon the earth was to give us an example that we might follow and imitate him If then there were any thing better than to renounce our corrupt Nature doubtless he had taught us it Never go to perswade your self that men are too frail to observe the Law of God and the Gospelcounsels seeing the one and the other was given us only for our frailty for if we had been perfect we had not needed any Laws It is sin which hath brought these Laws upon man Yet you must not believe that the Laws are evil seeing they are very good and are the true means of our salvation For without them man had never known his sins and had insensibly abandoned God living without stop worse than a Beast not feeling nor knowing his misery You must know that Adam was not ashamed to see himself naked before God called him asking him Adam where art thou yet he had sinned and his Wife also in the Absence of God and lived still freely after their sin as they had done before but so soon as God called them they began to fear and tremble and be ashamed which made them flee and hide themselves from him not daring to appear before him as formerly The same effect did the Law of God in mens minds in Moses's Days for then also had they quite forsaken their God and lived without minding their duties giving themselves up to all sorts of sins without knowing them and for that would God give them a Law that by it they might know their sins and so abstain from committing them That Law was composed of ten Commands or ten things that they were to observe It is not a Burthen laid upon men by God as some ignorants say blaspheming God He hath not given them Commands which are impossible for them to observe for these things were to be observed in all times although they were not distinctly commanded or forbidden Natural reason ought sufficiently to have taught man that he should not Kill Steal commit Adultery bear False Witness Covet his Neighbour's Goods nor take the name of his God in vain And that same natural reason was sufficient to show them that they ought to love God with all their heart since they had received of him their being and all other things and received continually benefits for their sustenance The same natural Light was sufficient to show to man that he should Honour his Father and Mother since they have brought us up cared for us nourished and taught us in our tender age For ingratitude is an unnatural thing for even the most savage Beasts acknowledge their Benefactors So that the Law of God hath not charged man with any thing that he was not obliged to in all times For from his creation he was obliged to Love God with all his heart and to honour Father and Mother which are the two things commanded in the ten commands the other eight are only Prohibitions of doing evil which man was always obliged to abstain from and ever shall And the cause why God hath declared these things in form of Commands is man's infirmity who had so forgotten his duty that he committed evil without knowing it and should become
you remain faithful to him And after you shall see that through God you can do all things and shall say with David With my God I leap over walls For so great is the power of true Virtue that it makes appear light the things that are most grievous to nature That is it which Jesus Christ intended by the comparison If you had Faith as a grain of Mustard-seed you should remove Mountains It was not so marvelous a thing to remove Mountains of Sand and Stone seeing that would add nothing to our soul but he speaks of Mountains of difficulties which we find in the acquisition of true Virtue It appears at the beginning as an inhabitable Mountain whither one can never arrive But if the Soul persevere faithfully in its good Resolution it will revive by Faith in the Promises of God and with it will remove all these Mountains of imaginary difficulties since in effect there is no difficulty in the acquiring of true Virtue We have no sooner abandoned earthly Affections but we mount with ease unto true perfection for all the difficulties we apprehend are but false visages which the Devil hath placed as Vizards to frighten them that begin in true virtue But we need not fear for the Mask being taken off we find true Virtue which is sweet pleasant and agreeable And he that hath once discovered and known it finds no difficulty in it afterward but on the contrary much Quiet and consolation Though the Devil will never cease to tempt and pursue us He tempted Jesus Christ and pursued him even to the Desart whither he had gone by the conduct of the Spirit of God Therefore we must not be shaken by the Tentations which the Devil makes us but we must despise him as an Enemy of God and who hath no power over man but what himself gives him otherways the Devil is in his nature meer impotence who could not lift a pile of straw from the ground if man do not permit him So man when he is in the Grace of God may well mock at the Devil seeing then he cannot hurt him He waits and goes about him indeed who is in the Grace of God but cannot hurt him unless he fall from that grace or that he consent to the Tentations and Suggestions of the Devil It is nothing to feel Tentations though they should continue all the days of our lives provided we do not consent to them It is but a smoak which dissipates in the air It is not very agreeable but it cannot hurt him that does not approach it even so is it with the Tentation of the Devil it vanishes if we do not follow it It is the Devil's work to tempt but man's to resist thereto Therefore says St. Peter My Brethren watch and be sober for your enemy the Devil goes about like a roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour Resist him therefore continuing firm in the Faith He says so to teach us that we must not sleep in the Service of God nor give up to follow our Appetites but that we must be sober and watch with perseverance for we have an Enemy who never sleeps We must overcome him by the strength of faith which is able to transport the greatest Mountains of difficulties that can ever present to our understanding And if the Devil should tempt us night and day he cannot hurt our Soul provided it remain in faith which begets Hope in the promises of God He hath said Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden and I will give you rest He excepts none but calls all men in general and every one in particular saying they must come to him if they be heavy laden and he promises to ease us What surer caution would we have we have there the Promise of God himself for he says That he will comfort us if we go to him in need I am willing to believe my Son that you are burthened with Tentations of the Devil for he sees that you seek after true Virtue and so he will not fail to attacque you in the beginning and so much the more as you have given him advantage over your Soul by your former sins He will not quit that fortress but by force seeing he hath so long been Ruler and Governour there You must now then chase him by force it is in that only that the Kingdom of heaven suffers Violence and the Violent take it by Force For we are the Children of God and consequently Heirs of his Kingdom so we have no need to take that Kingdom by force It is given us freely of God But we must use great force to resist the Devil and our corrupt Nature which are the two Enemies of our Salvation who would rob our souls of that Kingdom though it belongs to us as the inheritance of our heavenly Father and that is the reason why he says that the Violent ravish it and that we must take it by force It is not that we must fight with Weapons of Iron to gain that Kingdom for all the bodily force of Nature together could do nothing to the gaining it but we must fight our enemies with spiritual Weapons of which the chief is faith seeing it begets Love and Hope toward God the two Bucklers to defend us against all sorts of Enemies For he that loves God fears nothing seeing Love is strong as Death and he that putteth his trust in God shall never be confounded So that the Devil shall never have power over him that resists him by faith So my son fear nothing persevere in the good resolution of attaining true Virtue Give all your affections to love God and you shall be strong as Death Place your Hope in God alone and you shall never be confounded nor deceived For having these Arms you need not fear the Assaults of your Enemy the Devil He is as a chained Dog and can go no farther than goes the Chain of man's consent If he come to vex you in the night during sleep that cannot hurt you seeing man does not use his free will while he sleeps and so cannot consent to the Tentation of the Devil which he knows full well but he comes to vex man in sleep that he may get him to consent when awakened to evil suggestions which he excited in his spirit while asleep for a man asleep sins not But be prompt to evelate your spirit unto God as soon as you awake and then the tentation shall vanish as smoak But if you begin to agitate in your spirit the things which you dreamed by the Tentation of the Devil and give your consent thereto or take pleasure in it then you fall into sin and shall consent to the Devil who is never more overcome than when we despise him Therefore I advise you never to regard Dreams or Evil thoughts which he represents to you asleep nay nor those which he offers when you are awake because you cannot sin so long as you do not take
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
Vices if he does not of himself entreat us to counsel and admonish him when he fails For one man ought never to go to compel another in what regards his perfection since God hath created us free and will not that we should be Slaves but wills that our souls should be his Spouses to yield themselves voluntarily to his Love But all Constraint is Slavery So we must never use rashness to force men to do well or constrain him to forsake his sins God will have us free during the time of our tryal which is this short life And it is the Pride and Presumption of our selves to go to instruct or correct our Neighbour by authority who is sometimes better before God than our selves though he have not so many moral Virtues or outward Appearance of Good which we often learn and observe that we may be agreeable to men who despise always what is reprehensible before them That is the reason of politique persons abstaining easily from gross and external sins that they may appear good which is often less virtue than that of such as speak rudely and commit open evil The best is to teach and preach to our selves and to have Piety and Charity for others when we think they do evil and we cannot hinder them It belongs to Judges to repress external Malifices to preserve good Policy But you who are a free person take not the charge of others but labour to learn well true Virtue and to put it in practice for the Devil cannot deceive you there as he can easily in the exercise of external Works of Mercy bodily or spiritual which you would do but he insinuates himself more easily in the bodily than spiritual being more sensible and visible and so more praised and applauded of men who esteem nothing more than liberality When then they see one that feeds the hungry gives drink to the thirsty cloaths the naked lodges strangers visits the sick and buries the dead They hold him for a Saint But it is rare to find such now adays in the miserable age wherein we live For generally men are filled with Avarice and Covetousness and seek only their own proper interests without troubling themselves with the necessities of their Neighbour Charity is cold in mens hearts and they esteem him virtuous who gives a little out of his superfluities to the poor or does any other outward merciful work Now the Devil easily furrs himself into all these things and if we discover not his subtilties we may do many works of corporal mercy which shall turn to his honour For he that does these things to be esteemed of men is a Hypocrite as were the Pharisees to whom Jesus Christ so often upbraided their Vice They did truely many works of mercy spiritual and corporal but those did not save them For Jesus Christ despised them calling them so often Hypocrites notwithstanding all their good works And even though we do them not to be seen and praised of men yet the Devil can find his advantage therein by the vain complacency which we take from them within our selves For it is always more honourable to give than to receive And there are some so naturally given to liberality that they will readily give what they have need of themselves only to satisfie their natural inclination Others are so disposed naturally to action that they will willingly incommode themselves to give Meat and Drink to the Hungry and Thirsty to lodge Strangers cloath the Naked visit the Sick and bury the Dead And that by a natural inclination they have to do so And therefore my Son you ought well to discern the Spirit which moves you to do Works of Mercy as well spiritual as corporal For the Devil often moves our hearts to multiply them and do them to excess to distract us from inward entertainment and to hinder us that we may never attain to true virtue And that so we may rest upon Virtues which men esteem such as are external works of Mercy which are generally praised without discernment But they can well be Sins instead of Virtues From such My Son you must keep you well that the Devil deceive you not Which you are advertised of by Your Well-affected in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON Holstein near Gottorp Castle May 5. 1672. St. Vet. THE XVI LETTER The Devil Corrupts our Good Works To the same shewing him a Tenth Artifice of the Devil in our Corporal Good Works taward our Neighbour which he often brings about to his Honour Yet we must not therefore cease from them but joyn Moderation in them and put away human Considerations and Pride which attacque us in this time of Tryal My Son I Believe it surprises you that I said in my last that Works of Mercy are often done to the Honour of the Devil Yet it is most true but for want of thoroughly considering the matter that offends the tender-conscienced and them that by a natural easiness accounts all good they believe blindly that all that 's called Good is so and that all sort of good works are agreeable to God which is false For the Devil insinuates himself into our best actions to render them evil And he hath done so from the beginning of the world bringing evil into all the Works of God which were all created good We may find that in our selves for though God created Man altogether good and perfect yet we feel that he is now evil and imperfect He was created to honour God and most men honour the Devil and obey him in every thing instead of obeying their Creator All judicious persons see that in the conduct of men now adays to be true And yet they will not believe that mens good works are done to the honour of the Devil and so they there that they esteem more their good works than those of God For man though created of God altogether holy and perfect serves to the honour of the Devil And wherefore should we not believe that men's good works serve thereto So such persons though otherways judicious here fail grosly But that is not strange seeing the Devil blinds their understanding that they should not see the truth of things but be led by their own inclinations and simplicity For it is much more agreeable to nature to believe that we do good than to think that we do evil and that our good works serve to the Honour of God and not to that of the Devil For man feels in himself a satisfaction when he does well and he hath an ambition to tend to do what is most estimable Then being more honourable to serve God than the Devil men perswade always themselves that they serve God especially when they apply themselves to Works of Mercy Notwithstanding the Devil reaps often the glory more than God So when the Devil sees any turn from sin and keep himself from evil doing to which he can no more engage him he induces him ordinarily to do many
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
Money nor other Service nor Medecines which could not prolong his Life one day And so he demanded of him assurance of his Salvation since he could not prolong his life that if he must die he might do it with peace and in assurance to die happy and to be saved That demand afflicted much the Prince and made him answer that his Salvation depended upon the Grace and Mercy of God and consequently it was not in his power to promise and far less to give it him Which grieved the Servant so exceedingly that turning away from his Prince and turning his face to the wall he said O Miserable man that I am have I passed all the days of my life to serve and please a Master who is not able to assist me in my greatest need nor give me one hours life I will not henceforth serve so impotent a Master And in that resolution he made a vow to God That if he would restore him his health that he would forsake men and retire to the Desert to serve God alone and attend the perfection of his Soul and so give himself to a Lord that could give him Life and Salvation Which he did in effect for God having restored him to health he retired to the Desert and there lived a good life during some years and in the end died well Does not that History open your understanding to understand the blindness of men who spare nothing in the service of the world but bestow therein their care and labour without scruple to please men such as themselves or to gain a little earthly Goods For Although that Story were not true as I believe firmly that it is Yet we see dayly that every one cares and labours for a little Money or a little Favour which they expect from men though it is most certain that they can give us nothing that 's solid and that they leave us at death not having the power to give us an hour of life Ought we not to have shame and confusion to say or think that it is difficult to watch always over our Words and Actions to discover the Snares of the Devil and the means to attain true Virtue While thereon depends our eternal Happiness and there is nothing can concern us so nearly as that For the devil snatches all occasions to surprise us And if we are not well on our guard we shall not speak one word nor do one action whereby he will not cause us to sin although we do not perceive it For he will make us speak what we ought to keep in silence and be silent of what we ought to speak to draw thence his advantage and to bring disorder and confusion in all to make us sin or others by our means And therefore pray I you to be diligent and to watch over all your actions that you may overcome the Devil and arrive at true virtue Which she wishes you who loving your Salvation remains forever Your well-affected in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON Holstein near Gottorp Castle June 1. 1672. St. vet THE XXI LETTER Spiritual Diligence necessary beyond all other Virtues To the same shewing him how necessary Spiritual Diligence is to confirm the mind in virtue And to remove yet two Impediments of the Devil Viz. 15 sins of Omission wherewith the Devil tempts good persons and 16 self-self-love which every-where mixes it self and is a continual sin My Son YOU must know that Spiritual Diligence is the most necessary of all the Virtues without which you cannot persevere in any Virtue and the Devil will always labour to cause you to lose them by degrees if you keep not firmly that of Spiritual Diligence For if he see you to have obtained the Virtue of Humility he will excite occasions of Pride as the Praises of men Prosperity in temporal Goods and such like to make you lose your Humility which you have already obtained by the Grace of God Be always on your guard then with Spiritual Diligence otherways you shall insensibly loose Humility before you be aware Which befel my self for after God had given me the Virtue of Humility I felt again Pride rise in my heart I felt a dissatisfaction when men gave me no Title of Honour or Respect but called me simply by my Name I even murmured at their incivility and though I testified nothing of it outwardly my Humility was notwithstanding weakened inwardly So that if God had not given me spiritual Diligence to watch continually over my Soul I had assuredly lost that comely Virtue of Humility as also that of Voluntary Poverty For after I was entirely freed from the Covetousness of this worlds Goods and had effectually forsaken them I felt covetous thoughts many years after For certain pious persons having demanded of me to put some Money in fellowship with them in their businesses which I did with intention to bestow all the Gain upon the Poor but after I had made that resolution I began to argue with my self If it was not enough to leave them the half of the Gain or some part of it and keep the rest for my self But examining my Conscience with Spiritual Diligence I discovered that the Devil intended by that to cause me to relapse into the Covetousness of the goods which by Virtue I had abandoned Which befel me also again after many years One time while I was at Malines about some business I conceived a desire to buy some Laces which are made there in aboundance with design to sell them dearer at Lisle and so save the expense of my Voyage Now after I had boughr them and saw appearance of gain I thought I might well keep that gain for my self though I was then in a house of poor which I had undertaken to govern for Charity and to employ thereon all my Labour and Industry for entertaining those Miserable Girles without seeking my own particular interest But the Devil endeavours always to surprise persons of a good will by most subtil snares unless they remain firmly fixed in spiritual Diligence and watch over all their words and actions For though it seemeth often that our actions are good reasonable and for a good end yet the Devil furs himself therein and attempts to get his advantage And when he cannot gain much he contents himself with little but yet brings always some hurt to the perfection of our souls or that of others So that we must be diligent that he may gain nothing For he cannot hurt us when we perceive it and have our wills fixed on God and a resolution to tend to true Virtue For when we discover the snares of the Devil we shall assuredly resist them but if we fall into spiritual negligence hee 'l ensnare us in all things and I believe we shall not speak a word from which he shall not draw some advantage against our souls or those of others For he will make us be silent of what we should speak for our advancement spiritual
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
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-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-self-love without holding it for sin though in effect that self-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-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-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-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-love and the Heat of the Love of God And when that 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-Self-love But he that lives in self-Self-love is a Slave of sin and
commits it upon all occasions But he that would evite these Perils should have spiritual Diligence to watch over all his words and actions to resist the corruption which sin hath brought unto human nature which is so corrupted by sin that it can produce no more any good temporal or spiritual since retired from the Love of God wherein is all good it is fallen into self-Self-love wherein is all evil which produces always its like So that whatever we do by our natural motion it is altogether evil and sin And if you could well comprehend that Truth as it is you should always distrust your self and never dare to do or undertake any thing if you would not do evil and fall into sin But man's rashness and ignorance renders him bold to undertake things spiritual and temporal As if he were wise and free of corruption which often precipitates him into great faults and sins which they do not perceive until after they are committed and so cannot be helpt I believe my Son that you have often experienced that in your self without knowing whence these faults proceeded seeing your will was to do all well believe me they proceed all from spiritual negligence and because you know not yet sufficiently the corruption of your nature which you have followed while in the world you thought your self full wise when you could order your temporal affairs to your profit You have not perceived that the Devil could well help you in that that by procuring you prosperity he might detain you always in the affection of earthly things and that you should neglect eternal ones as other Merchants of your profession do yet Who instead of labouring for the Gospel-pearl labour to follow the will of the Devil the Enemy of their souls without perceiving it Yea they think it a Blessing of God that they prosper in temporal Affairs but it is often a Curse seeing God gives his Friends temporal Adversities and reserves for them eternal Joys But to men that have done some temporal good in this world but have not overcome the corruption of their corrupt natures God recompences the temporal good they have done in this world with temporal prosperities because God leaves no Good without Recompence nor Evil without Punishment Wherefore I pray you my Son to watch over your soul with spiritual Diligence that you let not one word or action escape that proceeds from your corrupted nature seeing it produces all sorts of sins which would finally lead you to eternal damnation But labour to resist manfully the corruption of your nature by a Spiritual Diligence So you must always watch over your words and actions that the Devil gain you not by spiritual Negligence which she wishes you who loves your soul Husum Febr. 1. 1674. S. vet ANTONIA BOURIGNON THE XXIII LETTER Spiritual Diligence is necessary to Salvation To the same To whom is shewn the Necessity of Spiritual Diligence to watch over all the actions of our corrupt nature and proper will and to acquire the Knowledge of our selves Moreover that Spiritual Negligence is a Fountain of all Evils and is alone sufficient to damn us because it renders our soul rude and like to a cursed ground which bears only Thorns and Thistles and so is far from Meekness Lowliness and Humility of Heart My Son I Have entertained you largely of the Necessity of Spiritual Diligence which we must have in this perilouslife I have shewn you how necessary it is unto Salvation and that without it none can be saved because of the many enemies we have to war against I must now shew you all the Evils which Spiritual Negligence causes It is a Pest in the good Air of Virtue for although you had acquired a great number of Virtues they could not subsist in your soul without Spiritual Diligence seeing in this world we cannot be free of enemies who attacque us continually We might well be for some time in repose in Virtue but that repose should be the most dangerous combat of our souls which thinking to take rest as did the rich man in the Gospel who had his Granderies filled but it was said unto him thou Fool this night thy Soul shall be required of thee and whose shall then these things be The same shall be said to them who think they have acquired so many Virtues and yet have not Spiritual Diligence For they shall find themselves deceived at Death because they have not watched over their Virtues having suffered the corruption of their nature to reign For if you be not Diligent in Virtue to watch and be aware that Vain-glory insinuate not it self it will take away all the force and merit of your Virtue Seeing God says Sacrificespb So he hath no need of our virtue when it is accompanied with esteem of our selves or with Vain-glory as when we artribute any good unto our selves seeing we are truely filled with all evils where is no good For man's nature is so corrupted by sin that there remains to him no good spiritual or temporal So that we may with truth say that there remained nothing in man after sin but ignorance malice and power to do evil I know my Son You have to oppose that man by his nature can do some good as we see the wicked do in regard of their temporal affairs They gain Money and assist their Neighbour One can Write well another make Accompts one can Paint well another is a good Carpenter or other Mechanique which is good and necessary for the present life How then can we say with truth that man can do no good even in temporals It appears necessary that I should explain my self that I be not argued of falshood I know that all men in general and every one in particular believe that they have something good in themselves and that they can do well according to their knowledge Which is also true in regard of some even imperfect before God such are they that have the skill to exercise some Art or Trade which they have learnt I experienced that in the Girles of my Hospital at Lisle for they did very well what I had taught them Though otherways I knew that they had given their souls to the Devil and were joyned to him by explicite compact That did not hinder that they should learn well to sew cleanse spinn read and write and manage Housholdrey and several other things which they did very well So that it would appear not to be true which I averred viz. That man hath nothing good in him and can do no good For we see they do several goods things even to the view of men But you must know that all the good they do proceeds not from them but from God who hath bestowed it on them by particular Grace and Mercy or else they have learnt it of other men For it is a certain truth that man hath not of himself any thing but sin and that he can do no good
End of the First Part of the Treatise of Solid Virtue EXTRACTS OF SOME OF THE WORKS OF Mrs ANTONIA BOURIGNON Belonging to some Most Essential MATTERS of Christianism and Health LETTER I. Of Toleration That it ought never to go the length of communicating with Sin directly or indirectly Of the Essential and of the Perfection of Christianity Of Religions Worships and Ceremonies and their use This Letter was written to one of her Intimate's Mr. Van de Velde and is the second of Light arising in Darkness 3. part Sir 1. I Know you seek the Perfection of your Soul and that you aspire after God I know also that he hath imparted of his Grace to you and particularly taught you his will in some things but I know also that you have not yet received the Holy Spirit which should teach us all Truths seeing you discern not yet well Evil from good and love all indifferently by a natural goodness as did Adam who knew very well the Consolation and Quiet which a Soul finds in entertaining it self with God but knew not what Evil was because he had never proved it He was created in Pleasures and Delights and conversed with his God in peace without apprehending the Evil which might come upon him in abandoning God to please himself with the Creatures And therefore did he so easily fall into sin before he perceived the Mischiefs and Miseries it would cause him 2. And almost the same is befallen you my dear Brother for when you enjoyed sweet entertainment with God you remained in the sensualities of corrupted nature by which you have insensibly lost commerce with God because so soon as he sees one take pleasure in any thing else but himself he retires by little and little and leaves the Soul to live to it self which precipitates it self often into divers Evils because our proper will engenders death since it was corrupted by sin 3. You did love Good and do yet love it but you have not enough hated Evil because you did not well know it perswading your self that you did well enough when you supported it in others not perceiving that we can sin in another nine ways the First is in Consenting thereto 2d in Councelling it 3d. in Tolerating it 4th in Assisting it 5th in Defending Evil 6th in Commanding it 7th in Partaking with it 8th in not Hindering it when in our power 9th in Hiding it from him that would hinder it 4. All these are not enough considered and we easily fall into them without considering it Although we desire to please God the Devil often surprises us by sins without us when he perceives that he cannot prevail to get us to commit them in our selves for he hath as much power over us by the sins which we commit in another as by them we commit in our selves seeing they shall both alike be imputed to us and if I did not advertise you of it you might easily fall into them without perceiving it For example you converse with persons that are avaritious proud or stained with any other sins they ate subject and inferiour to you as your Wife and Children or your Men or Maid-servants or Hirelings or whoever they be over whom you have authority notwithstanding lest you should displease them or lose their friendship you consent to their committing of sin without Daring or willing to resist it All these sins which are committed with your consent shall assuredly be imputed as if you had committed them your self To councel to do evil that you will not so long as you fear God but for suffering it in others I doubt you do it sometimes because you have not enough of hatred to sin as when you see one deceive in selling to or labouring for you and yet continue to buy of him or employ him in labour that is assuredly to suffer the evil which he commits 5. It were better to be in necessity without dealing with them that sell or labour by Avarice Fraude or Deceit for the Soul is more precious than the Body which ought rather to endure its necessities than to supply them to the prejudice of its soul which is assuredly defiled by suffering the sins of another and yet more by assisting and helping evil as he that would give goods to one that is Avaricious Gluttonous Proud Slothful or a Drunkard would assist him to go on in his sins and commit more with the Gifs and assistances he affords him and if we defend or excuse the Evil of another we also become guilty of the same for we ought never to excuse or defend it lest we so maintain the Evil-doer in his sins to commit which our corrupt Nature needs no encouragment and whoever affords it is partaker of the sin of the other Although it is commonly said That we should excuse the Faults of other and assist Sinners that is a false Theologie very hurtful to the Upright who are often deceived by Evil for lack of knowing it 6. Also you are not in hazard to command Evil so long as you fear God neither would you ever partake with manifest sin as with Robbery for God hath delivered you by his Grace from Avarice Yet you must take care to hinder evil when in your power or else the omission would render you partaker of the Evil committed and even so when you do not declare it to them that would hinder it All these sins or part of them may be committed by good men who aspire after Perfection particularly when they are of a good disposition naturally they take all in good part I have sometimes slipt into some such Faults by too much natural goodness or human regard but after God shewed me clearly these sins which we commit in another which I impart to you because I love your perfection as much as my own by a true Christian Charity seeing that you aspire unto its perfection which I will also shew wherein it consists for the darkness of this world is at present so great that the souls that are well enclined know nor whither they walk in regard of perfection taking often the false for true and imperfect for perfect and that because they have now taught so many divers means to perfection that one knows not which to take for the surest One says we must go frequently to Church and frequent the Sacraments Another places Christian Perfection in entering into some Religious Fraternity or Convent Others in fastings and Macerating the Body All these things were Good if well used but these are not the end nor that wherein Christian perfection consists For these may be performed by them that shall never attain to salvation because no external thing perfects the soul nor can they defile it They are only the means whereby we more easily attain to virtue or by abuse fall more easily into sin 8. Every Soul in particular ought to use the external means which excites them most to Christian Virtue and evite also things
your Soul and dispose it to recover that Union while I shall endeavour by mine that shall follow to shew you what true Virtue is and of whom you are to learn it that you be not deceived by any body and that you may discern truely between true and false Perfection in which many well-meaning Persons are deceived of themselves and others and your self has not yet gotten that light of true discerning to know things as they are before God taking them only as they appear to mens judgments who often deceive for it is written that all men are liars yea we lie often even to our selves perswading our selves that we know and understand mystique things while we are wholly ignorant of them Here follow some CONFERENCES Taken out of the THIRD PART Of the LIGHT OF THE WORLD CONFERENCE XI Declares how we must be regenerated to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and that we must return into the Dependance of God which is the only thing which God requires essentially of Man I asked her How that Regeneration could be performed for persons already advanced in Age and Doctrine SHe said Sir we must take wholly a new Life as if we were newly born to day because all the Good which we esteem our selves to have done heretofore is evil or at least good for this life for all our good works have always been accompanied with Self-love or with human Considerations which can never be recompensed in eternity because we have here received their Reward What we do by Self-love is recompensed by our satisfaction and what we do by human Considerations is recompensed by the complacency of men so that we can never in justice pretend any thing else being fully satisfied in this World after the pretensions and ends which we have had in doing our good works Although they have been covered with the cloak of the Glory of God or Charity toward our Neighbour all hath been in effect but vanity Therefore is it that he who will be converted must assume a life wholly new and believe that he hath never done one only action purely for the Love of God Which he shall know sufficiently by examining all the sins against the Holy Spirit and them which we commit in another with the eight Beatitudes and the other solid Virtues Every one may thereby see how far he is alienated from the state of the Blessed which Jesus Christ hath declared in these eight Beatitudes and if he hath the will to acquire them how he must take up a wholly new life and become as a Child newly born who suffers himself to be governed by his heavenly Father Neither age nor learning can hinder that we abandon our selves unto God suffering our selves to be ruled as it pleaseth him because the more we are advanced in age the more must we make haste to recover our Salvation because we have but the small time that our life endures The conversion of persons in age should not be deferred one day lest their life escape and there be no more recovery because after death there is no more remission The Learned must also acknowledge that all their Wisdom is but Ignorance before God which is often an impediment unto his Graces and that the time is come when he will destroy the wisdom of the wise and abolish the prudence of the prudent that all may receive the Kingdom of Heaven as little children I said unto her That it was very desirable to be of the number of them who shall be converted and that I would be the first to abandon my self wholly unto God as a little Child She said Sir no person can be entirely converted if he do not know the sins and also the true vertues These two things are necessary For otherwise men should think they were converted while they were yet full of sins and had not yet acquired any solid Virtues Therefore is it that I have spoken unto you so particularly that you should not remain in the darkness which invirons all the men in the World There should yet be found many who would turn and be converted but very few who know their internal sins and yet fewer who know what true Virtue is All these would make conversions false before God for if they do not know their hidden sins they cannot amend them and if they do not know what true Virtue is they cannot practise it The ignorance of these two things hinders that they cannot be converted unto God nor yield themselves to be governed by him That then must be learned first of all to know the state of their Soul in what degree of sin it is and also in what degree of true Virtue If these things were known there should be yet many who would embrace the spirit of penitence and abandon themselves unto God as little Children but because they know not the state of their Conscience many perish insensibly not knowing their miseries If you will Sir be abandoned unto God as a Child think that all that you have done hitherto is of no value and cast your self in Gods Arms who is your Father as a Child who cannot speak that he may teach your every thing He shall do it assuredly For it is his desire that we be converted unto him when we withdraw from him by our sins he suffers it because he will not retract the free will which he hath once given us for he is immutable in all his works but so soon as we return unto him by penitence he receives us as the father did his prodigal Child accepts us for his Child and Heir of his Glory But if you think to continue in your proper wisdom you shall never receive the Holy Spirit You must become simple as a Child and not will any more to use your proper will remitting and reposing it wholly in Gods hands giving him the reins of your proper will that he may guide it and conduct it whither he pleaseth and that you may no more be able to abuse it as hitherto you have done which you must confess with regret for if our will had been ruled by God we had never come into such Extremities of all Evils I said unto her That I must confess that my will had not been ruled by God because I had not known as at present the manner of abandoning my self unto God She said Sir no man can ever be saved unless he know that he must be entirely abandoned unto God because that is the first and last Commandment which he hath given unto man and to speak better it is the only thing which God requires of man If we would absolutely depend upon God we should fulfil all the Law and the prophets That is the only thing necessary All that I can ever have said Sir is comprehended in the DEPENDANCE which we ought to have upon God because he hath never required any thing else of man and also shall
never for the future so long as the world lasts but that dependance which he owes unto God It is a very small matter that he requires of us It is also great ingratitude that we deny him that Dependance upon him seeing he is the Lord and Creator of every thing that he hath created us of nothing and giveth all that we have to enjoy it in full liberty provided only we have always the acknowledgment that we depend upon him in every thing Could that great God demand less of a little Earth-worm than the acknowledgment of the Dependance of his God It is athing so just that although God had never testified that he desired that of Man he was obliged always to acknowledge it seeing all came truely-from him and he had enriched him with so many Graces and Prerogatives which obliged him unto a continual acknowledgment even although he had never had more than a natural reason for they say that brute and cruel Beasts have acknowledged some good deed of men all the days of their life and man with an understanding so compleat will not acknowledge the Dependance which he hath upon God nor submit his will un-unto that of God although he be so good as to desire it for if God were not an Excess of Goodness he would rather disdain men of so little worth than to permit them to unite their will unto his Nevertheless he permits and desires it yea threatens and rejects them who will not do it as Jesus Christ threatened St. Peter when he would not be washed by him If we had but a very little judgment we should say unto God that he should not permit only our will to be united unto his but rather that ours should be wholly annihilated and he exerce his over us only and absolutely I asked her How she understood that in saying That the acknowledgment of the Dependance of God was the only Commandment of God seeing he hath made so many divers ones She said Sir there is only that Commandment alone essential all the others are accidental For when God had created Adam and all men in him he gave him the power over all subordinate things having subjected all living Creatures unto him that he might rule over all as a little God without reserving any thing but that he should always acknowledge the dependance which he had upon his Creator beside that that he might rule over every thing as a Dependent Deity and to denote that Dependance he forbids him to eat of the fruit of one only Tree permitting him to taste all the others which signified that man might use enjoy and rule over every thing provided that he always acknowledged his dependance upon that supreme Deity of whom he held every thing and if Adam had not forgotten himself in forsaking that Dependance to depend upon himself he had never received any other Commandment from God nor all other men after him but the Justice of God was obliged to make other Commandments unto him for Penitence of his Disobedience he enjoins him to labour the Earth and gain his living with the sweat of his face which was the second Cummandment which God made unto man which yet is only accidental by Adam's fall and not essential by the Will of God who loved well to see him free without subjecting him unto any thing but himself alone And when he made the Commandments given unto Moses for the People of Israel that was also by accident for if they had not forgot themselves in so many divers sins which withdrew them from the Dependance of God he had never given them divers Commandments but fearing lest his People should perish through Ignorance he gave them always Commandments that by means of them they might know their sins and amend them otherwise God had never constrained man unto any thing else but to acknowledge him as superiour of all thing because God had created him to take his delights with him in full liberty and without constraint not willing to subject him unto any other Law than that of Love whence appears that all these other Commandments are but accidentally appointed because of the sins which men have committed in divers times who if they would yet at present reassume that Dependance upon God they should not need all the other Commandments nor Precepts because all are but means to attain unto that Dependance of God and that we might see and know all the things which hinder us to abandon our Will unto that of God and that knowing them by the Commandments we might remove and correct them that we might be able to enter again into that Dependance which was first enjoyned unto us as the only thing necessary unto our Salvation as it is yet at present even as then CONFERENCE XII Declares that there is but one only thing to be done to be saved I said unto her That it was very agreeable to hear that there was but one only thing to be done to be saved that I would gladly take that short way She said No Sir there is nothing but one only thing to be done for Salvation but there are many to be omitted which give us great Impediments and Disturbances We omit to do what serves us as means to arrive at that Dependance and we do what mars it The Penitence which God gave unto Adam to gain his living with the sweat of his face is very little observed by men at present Every one will live without labouring and they account it a happiness to have Riches to live at ease That is very far to contradict the means which God hath taught us so salutarily After Adam had sinned and all men in him he had by his free will departed from that Dependance upon God to become wise of himself he had rendered himself with all his Posterity miserable because all the Miseries which we endure are engendered by willing to do our own will We must not impute all our Miseries unto Adam but only unto our own faults which we our selves commit If we had only Adam's Sin we should only have the Penitence to labour for our living and endure the Intemperance of the Elements but our own sins cause unto us a thousand other sorts of sufferings If we would labour and endure heat and cold or other intemperances of the said Elements and remit the Dependance of our Will unto that of God we should quickly return into the blessed state wherein Adam was created for our Penitence should be accomplished in this short life which is much shortened by the Mercy of God and then we should enjoy an eternal beatitude which should never end but since our proper actual Will would not depend upon God but upon it self following its proper inclinations it hath caused us many other Evils which we attribute unto God or unto Adam and if we regarded them truely we should see that they take their origin and