at all in the Christian Doctrine 2. The way and manner how it came into the Christian Church and hath obtained so much favour in it 1. That it hath no Foundation at all in the Christian Doctrine It is the great excellency of the Christian Religion that it gives us such incomparable directions in order to the compleat Felicity of our immortal souls That it hath not only discovered more plainly and fully the blessed state of another life but teaches men the most effectual way to prepare their minds for it viz. by sincere repentance by inward purity by subduing our passions and due government of our actions according to the Rules of temperance and justice by dependence on Divine Providence as to the affairs of this world by patience under afflictions by doing good to others although our enemies and perâ—ecutors by deep humility and mean thoughts of our selves by a large charity thinking as well of as doing well to others by valuing the concernments of another life above the advantages of this which is called self-denyal and to that degree that when our Religion calls for it we should willingly part with our lives for the sake of it This as far as I can understand it is the summary comprehension of a Christians Duty in order to his happiness and by patient continuance in Well-doing he may with reason hope for the enjoyment of that Blessed State which is reserved to another life The which being made known to the world by the Doctrine of Christ therefore Faith in our Lord Iesus Christ is made so necessary a part of a Christians Duty and because we want divine supplyes and assistance to enable us to do our duty therefore we are so much commanded to be frequent and â—ervent in prayer and many promises and encouragements are given to the due performance of it from Gods readiness to hear the prayers of the Righteous and to grant the requests they make to him All this is not only excellent in it self and most reasonable to be done but very easie to understand but not a word in all this tending to any immediate Union with God in the pure fund of the Spirit or such a State of Contemplation wherein the operations of the soul are suspended nothing of passive unions and visions and raptures as such things which every Christian who looks for perfection may hope for It is true we are often commanded to love God with all our hearts but withal we are told we must not fancy this love to be a meer languishing passion towards an infinite object which we therefore love because we do not understand but see him only in profound darkness and clasp about him with the closest embraces being united to him in the most immediate manner and being melted in the fruition of him Which are luscious Metaphors brought into the Christian Doctrine from that antient Family of Love I mean the School of Plato as I shall shew afterwards But the love of Christians towards God is no fond amorous passion but a due apprehension and esteem of the divine excellencies a hearty sense of all his Kindness to us and a constant readiness of mind to do his Will for this is the Love of God to keep his Commandments And if any man say I love God and hateth his Brother he is a lyar for he that loveth not his Brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen No man hath seen God at any time If we love one another God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us Thus the beloved Disciple who understood the greatest mysteries of Divine Love hath expressed them to us and thus the beloved Son of God hath declared what he means by the Love he expects from his Disciples If ye love me keep my commandments And ye are my Friends if ye do whatsoever I command you Here is nothing of an abstracted life or internal and external solitude or self-annihilation in order to an immediate active union with God in the supream point of the Spirit nothing of blind elevations of the Will without the use of Reason and Discourse ingulfing it more and more profoundly in God all these Mystical Notions and expressions had another spring and more impure Fountain than the Christian Doctrine § 5. Not so say O. N. and Mr. Cressy for if they may be believed there is ground in Scripture for all the most lofty mystical expressions If so I must retract what I have said but I never knew any men that needed more an infallible Interpreter of Scripture than they do they make such lamentable expositions of it if they can but hit upon a word or a phrase to their purpose away they run with that and never consider the design or importance of it What work doth O. N. make with his Cor altum and Regnum Dei intra vos whereas the first signifies nothing but due consideration nor the other any thing but that the Kingdom of the Messias was then come among them And what are these to Mystical Divinity And Mr. Cressy 's accedite ad Deum illuminamini is altogether to as much purpose for is there no instruction to be had from God or his Law short of passive unions no enlightning our minds but by immediate inspirations But Mr. Cressy thinks he hath done the business and quite stopped my mouth with S. Paul 's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who being in a wonderful Extasie saw and heard God only knows what which although he was willing to communicate yet he had not the power to do it But as the Person of Honour hath already very well told Mr. Cressy What is this to those who go about to express what neither themselves nor any else can understand If they pretend to the same extasies why do they not imitate his Modesty Why do they go about to help S. Paul to words to do it by if himself declared it could not be done by words To which Mr. Cressy answers as much as was to be answered which is just nothing But his Author O. N. brings the same place and not only that but all those which mention the Revelations of the Prophets or Apostles To what purpose Do I deny any Divine Revelations Do I give the least intimation that I questioned whether there were any true inspirations in the Writers of Holy Scriptures God forbid But how doth it follow if God did inspire men to declare his Will to mankind therefore all the pretences to Revelations and Inspirations in the Roman Church are true If S. Paul had once a true Rapture therefore all S. Teresa 's were such and not the effects of a vehement Imagination Let us observe the difference not only in the value and excellency and judgement of the Persons but in the very manner of relating them Her life written by her self to which O. N. appeals in this matter as
love left I need make no application of this to Mr. Cressy and I am far from the vanity of supposing this capable of being applyed to my case any farther than as I am one of those who are at present engaged in the Defence of our Church against that of Rome It is the happiness and honour of our Church of England that it hath in it at this day such store of persons both able and willing to defend her Cause as it may be no Church in the World hath ever had together more persons of excellent abilities great Learning and unaffected Piety and I look on my self as one of the meanest of them but it hath been my lot to be engaged more early and more frequently in this Cause than others which hath drawn so great a hatred of my Adversaries upon me but I thank God I have a good Cause and the testimony of a good Conscience in the management of it and so long I neither fear the waspishness of some nor the rage of others § 4. But this is their present design to represent me as one of different principles from the Church of England and not only different but such as if well understood are destructive to it and therefore they very gravely advise our Reverend Bishops to have a care of me if they hope to preserve the Church of England And can we think it is any thing else but meer kindness and good will to our Church that makes them so solicitous for its welfare It is a sad thing saith Mr. Cressy that not one Protestant will open his eyes and give warning of the dangerous proceedings of their Champion Nay it is no doubt a very sad thing to them to see that we do not fall out among our selves I am sure it is no fault of theirs that we do not for they make use of the most invidious and reproachful terms together concerning me that if they cannot fasten on one passion they may upon another but these poor designs have hitherto had but little success and I hope will never meet with greater And yet if nothing else will do Mr. Cressy saith that it is a â—hame that hitherto not one true Prelatical Protestant has appeared as a Defender of the English Church and State against me but on the contrary even some English Prelates themselves have congratulated and boasted of my supposed successful endeavours against the Catholick Church though ruinous only to themselves Alas good man his heart is even broke for grief that our Bishops take no more care to preserve the Church of England The Church he hath alwayes so entirely loved and ventured as much for her as any body while she was in prosperity and there was no danger and only forsook her when she was not able to reward his Love The truth was he gave her for gone at that time and then it was the late Church of England with him and no wonder when he thought her dead that he made Court to a richer Mistress but it was but a swooning fit she is come to her self again and I hope like to hold out much longer than that which he hath chosen And although Mr. Cressy's hands be now tyed and he hath entred into new Vows yet he cannot for his heart forget the kindness he had to her in her flourishing condition because she was then very kind to him he remembers the marks of her favour and the rich presents she made him and therefore something of the old Love revives in him towards her at least so far that he cannot endure to see her ill used when her Guardians neglect her and her Sons prevaricate with her If Mr. Cressy's faith had been as great as his Charity to have made him believe that she would ever have come to her self again I cannot think he would have forsaken her so unhandsomely and left her in a dying Condition but who could ever have thought that things would have come about so strangely But what if all this present shew of kindness prove meer collusion and prevarication in him What if it be only to divide her Friends and thereby the more easily to expose her to the malice of her enemies For as long as the Church of England stands she upbraids him in his own words with malignant ingratitude and it is the plausiblest way for him that was once a Servant and a Lover to compass her ruine with a pretence of Kindness § 5. But wherein is it that I have prevaricated with the Church of England whilst I have pretended to defend her The first thing he instances in is my charging the Church of Rome with Idolatry In very good time Mr. Cressy and is this prevaricating with the Church of England when I have already in two set Discourses at large proved that by all the means we can come to know the sense of a Church this Charge hath been made good against her from the beginning of the Reformation to 1641. and that even then the Convocation declared the same in the Canons then made But what must I do with such kind of Adversaries that will never answer what I say for my self but do run on still with the same Charge as though they had nothing to do when they write but to tell the same story over and over Let Mr. Cressy do with his Readers as he pleases for my part I shall never follow him in that kind of impertinency For there is not one word there used by him which I had not particularly answered before he writ it The like I may say of the second Charge viz. that by the principles laid down by me I destroy the Authority of the Church of England which I have already shewed at large to be a very impertinent Cavil and that I do maintain as much Authority in the Church of England as ever the Church of England challenged to her self And to that Discourse I refer Mr. Cressy for satisfaction If he will not read it I cannot help that but I can help the not writing the same things over again and so this other part of his Epistle Apologetical is wholly impertinent unless he had taken off what I had said for my self already in answer to the very same Objections But all the reason in the World shall never satisfie Mr. Cressy that I aim not at setting up a Church distinct from the Church of England If it be any I assure him it is a very invisible Church for it is a Church without either Head or Members I declare my self to be not only a Member but an affectionate hearty friend to the Church of England I perswade some to it I endeavour what in me lyes to keep others from revolting from it But where lyes this Dr. Stillingfleet's Church which Mr. Cressy makes such a noise with I know none but that of the many thousands in England that have not bowed their knees to Baal and to
Countenance which seemed wholly to abstract her and afterwards she saw him altogether but not with her corporal eyes she confesses and she satisfied her self it could not be her imagination only although her Confessor told her so because the beauty was so great as to exceed her imagination yet he still encouraged her when as appears by her own confession others about her whom she had a great opinion of endeavoured to convince her it was only her imagination to her great trouble insomuch that she saith the contradiction of the good were sufficient to have put her out of her wits This Vision of the Beauty of Christ continued ordinarily with her for two years and an half in which she had a great desire to see the colour of his eyes and what bigness they were of but never could obtain that favour When the Iesuit-Confessor was out of the way others told her plainly it was the Devil that deluded her and they bid her cross her self when she saw a Vision she held a Cross in her hand to save her self the trouble and Christ took it in his and gave it her again with four Precious Stones which had the five wounds artificially engraven upon them which no body could see but her self After this she had a vision of Angels and clearly discerned the coelestial Hierarchy but she supposed one of those she saw to be one of the Seraphins who pierced her heart with a fiery dart and when he pulled it out again it left her wholly inflamed with great love to God but under excessive pain which yet caused so great pleasure that she could not desire to 〈◊〉 removed in the dayes that this 〈◊〉 she saith she was like a Fool she desired neither to see nor speak but to embrace her pain Not long after she relates how sometimes for three weeks together her imagination would be so tormented with trifles and toyes that she could think of nothing else then she fell into such a fit of dulness and heaviness without any kind of sense or remembrance of her former Visions and Raptures or else no otherwise than as of a dream to afflict and then she was full of doubts and suspicions that all was but imagination and if she conversed with any the Devil put her in such a distasteful spirit of anger that it seemed as if she would eat all not being able to do otherwise Then again she had comfort in an instant sometimes with a word sometimes with Visions which continued for a time more frequent than before then she thought that her bodily sickness was the cause of her former disturbance and that her understanding was so unruly that it seemed like a furious fool whom no body could bind neither was she able to keep it quiet for the space of a Creed At other times again she compares her self to an Ass being in a manner without any feeling and so it falleth out oft-times she saith that one while she laughed at her self and other times she was much afflicted and the inward motion provoked her to put posies and flowers upon Images and such kind of imployments After this the scene of her imagination was quite changed for it represented nothing but Devils to her in which state she tryed one pleasant experiment viz. how much more the Devils are afraid of Holy Water than of the Sign of the Cross from the Cross they fly but so as to return presently but from the Holy Water so as to return no more Methinks then she should have used it but once and it was not more terrible to Devils than she found it comfortable to her soul for she saith that she found a particular and very evident comfort when she took it and such a delight which strengthned her whole soul which she found very often and considered it with great reflection then she relates her being in Spirit in Hell and what she endured there and towards the conclusion her being placed in Heaven in a rapture and seeing what was done there where she saw her Father and Mother c. after which she adds that our Lordshewed her greater secrets What! than what is done in Heaven for it is not possible she saith to see more than was represented unto her the least part of it was sufficient to make her soul remain astonished and found it impossible to declare some little part of it And now we find her at S. Pauls height and need go no farther in the account of her Visions which continues to the end of her Book but let me ask O. N. who hath particularly recommended this life to the consideration of any sober Protestant whether he doth in good earnest think that M. Teresa had the same kind of Raptures that S. Paul had I know he must not say otherwise since the Roman Church hath Canonized her for a Saint but I think they had done her a greater kindness to have appointed her good Physicians in time instead of her Iesuitical Confessors I could hardly have thought that among Christians I should have found S. Pauls Rapture parallel'd by such as these but we have lived to see strange things If S. Paul had discovered in his Writings so many Symptoms of a disturbed fancy such an oppression of Melancholy such rovings of Imagination such an uncertainty of temper could we ever think the world would have believed that Ecstasie which he expresseth with so much Modesty and makes so many Apologies for himself that he was forced to mention it by the false Apostles boasting of their Revelations It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory I will come to Visions and Revelations of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago c. Of such a one will I glory yet of my self I will not glory but in mine infirmities but now I forbear lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be or that he heareth of me Although he had many Revelations he mentions but one and that with the greatest modesty that may be under a third person and that above fourteen years ago He tells no long stories of a succession of Visions and Raptures and sights of Angels and Devils mixed with many impertinencies and indications of a disordered Imagination But saith O. N. that could not be in S. Teresa considering the diligence that was used for several years in the tryal of her Spirit and her Visions were confirmed to be from God by a general attestation of them throughout the Christian World even those who suspected and questioned them at first afterwards magnifying them But I desire no other evidence in this case than what she gives her self supposing the matters of fact to be true according to her own relation not that I would condemn her according to Mr. Cressy 's soft language as a hypocritical Visionaire
great and rich mens beds when they lay a dying in hopes of a prey their drawing people to confess to them their obtaining private Testaments their commending their own Order and discommending all others to that degree that the people commonly believed they could not be saved unless they were ruled by the Mendicant Friers Nay they were so busie not only to get priviledges but to insinuate themselves into Courts and great Families that no businesses almost were managed without them either relating to money or marriages with much more to the same purpose in him and if we believe the concurrent testimony of these Historians there were never greater Hypocrites known since the Pharisees and before the Jesuits than these pretenders to perfect Poverty who hated that in their hearts to which they made the greatest shew of Love We may perceive by chaucer what wayes they had of wheadling great persons into an opinion how much better it was to be buried among them than any where else the Bishops saw well enough what all this was designed for viz. to have the profits of burials and therefore in behalf of the Parochial Clergy they opposed it as long as they durst but Pope Innocent 4. declared their Churches to be Conventual and then to have liberty of burying in them which they made good use of both here and in other places to their great advantage So that what by the Favour of great Persons whom they flattered to become their Confessors what by their Masses and extraordinary Offices what by Burials and the charitable benevolence of well disposed persons to them they made a good shift to keep themselves a good way out of the reach of the Perfection of Poverty while in the mean time they pretended to nothing more than that But they found more comfort in their own purse-opening way than the Parochial Clergy did in their setled maintenance they having found out the knack of pleasing those humours in persons that had the greatest command of their purses but besides these wayes when the charity of particular persons began to coole towards them they had a certain rate upon houses which they lived upon which Sancta Clara confesses and saith it was easie for the people and abundantly sufficient for them So that laying all these wayes together although they had sworn so much affection to perfect Poverty and professed to love and admire it above all things yet they endeavoured with all their care and diligence to keep it from coming within their Doors § 15. But all this would not satisfie them for the Conventual Friers were never quiet till for the greater height of their poverty they procured leave from the Pope that they might enjoy Lands and possessions as well as others so much is confessed by their Martyrologist and the defender of their Order against Bzovius upon this a new Reformation began among them first by Paulutius Fulginas but very little regard was had to it till Bernardinus Senensis appeared in the head of it and then it spread very much these were called Fratres de observantiâ from their strict observance of S. Francis his Rule and many and great differences happened between them which it hath cost the Papal See some trouble to compose which were so high that Leo 10. in the Preface to the Bull of Union declares that almost all the Princes in Christendom had interceded with him to end the controversie between these two sorts of Beggers viz. those who had good Lands and revenues and others that had rich houses and furniture and other conveniences but had no endowments For this same Pope declared that these strict Observantines might enjoy the most magnificent Houses and costly furniture without any diminution to the perfection of their poverty because the right and property of them was not in themselves but in the Papal See but I cannot understand why the same reason should not hold for Lands too supposing the same Right and property to be in the Popes for it cannot enter into my head that a man is a jot the poorer because his estate lyes in goods and Iewels and not in Lands or why this may not be in Trustees hands as well as the other Indeed that was the solemn Cheat in all this affair that how rich soever really this Order of Mendicants was yet forsooth they had nothing at all to live upon but the Alms of the people for they had vowed the very height of poverty Why saith a plain Countrey man that is not well skilled in Metaphysicks the beggars in our Countrey do not live in such stately houses and have no such rich Ornaments nor feed so well nor are so well provided for as you are we that have Land of our own would be glad to have all things found us at so cheap a rate Do you think that riches lyes only in trouble and care and hard labour if that be it I confess you are poor enough but in no other sense that I see Alas poor man saith the good Frier we are as poor as Iob for all this Now that cannot I understand for my heart saith the other surely you call things only by other names than we do and make that poverty that we plain men call riches Well saith the Frier I will shew my charity to your understanding in helping of that if you will shew yours to us poor Friers therefore you must know that although we have the full use and possession for our benefit in the things you see yet Pope Nicholas 3. in the Bull Exiit and Pope Clement 5. in the Bull Exivi de Paradiso hath declared that we have no propriety and Dominion in them but that is reserved to the Papal See So that we enjoy all things but have right to nothing Say you so saith the Countrey man Then I believe you come within the compass of the Statutes against Vagabonds and sturdy Beggars for you live upon that which is none of your own and refuse to Work Tush saith the Frier that is an heretical Statute and we defie Q. Elizabeth and all her works as long as the Pope hath declared us to be poor we are so and will be so although we had ten times as much as we have For our holy Father the Pope can change not only the names but the natures of things nay I will tell you farther if we had as much wealth as the King of Spain in the Indies if we had only the possession and the supreme right or Dominion were declared to be in the Pope we were in perfect poverty for all this I cry you mercy Sir replyes the Countrey man I beseech you intercede with his Holiness to make me one of his Beads-men for I perceive poverty as he makes it is better than all my Lands that I have the Fee-simple of but I pray think of a better way to keep me out of the reach of the Statute for if I
is capable of the nearest approach to the state of glorified Saints the most divine exercise of contemplative Souls more perfectly practised only in Heaven and now he makes a prayer for me that it would please God to give me and all my friends a holy ambition to aspire to the practice of contemplative prayer though by me so much despised But of the good effects he saith it would have upon me I do the most wonder at that which he adds viz. that it would exceedingly better my style I have hitherto thought the choice of clear and proper expressions such as most easily and naturally convey my thoughts to the mind of another to be one of the greatest excellencies of Style but all before Mr. Cressy that have been the greatest Friends to Mystical Divinity have endeavoured to excuse the hard words of it Surely never any Masters of Style before Mr. Cressy thought obscure strained affected unintelligible phrases were any Graces and Ornaments of speaking Would it not add much beauty to ones style to bring in the state of Deiformity the superessential life the union with God in the pure fund of the Spirit and abundance of such phrases which are so very many that Maximilian Sandaeus the Iesuit hath written a large Book only in explication of them and this is the account he gives of the Mystical Style that it is obscure involved lofty abstracted and flatulent that it hath frequent hyperbole's excesses and improprieties And he tells us there were some who not unhappily compared them to Paracelsian Chymists who think to make amends for the meanness of their notions by the obscurity of their terms Carolus Hersentius hath nothing to answer to this but only that the matter cannot be plainer expressed in Mystical Divinity which is so far from being an argument to me that it can improve ones style that it gives me very much ground to suspect the very thing it self For God would never require from men the practice of that as certainly he doth the duty of Prayer and the greatest Love of himself which it is impossible for men to understand when it is proposed to them What obligation can there be to practise no man knows what The Christian Religion is a very plain and intelligible thing and if it had not been so I do not know how men could be obliged to believe it I do not say that men could form a distinct conception in their minds of the manner of some of those things which are revealed in it as how an infinite being could be united to humane nature but this I say that the terms are very intelligible and the putting of those terms into a proposition depends upon Divine Revelation viz. that the Son of God was incarnate so that all the difficulty in this case lyes in the conception of the manner which by reason of the shortness of our conceptions as to what relates to an infinite being ought to be no prejudice to the giving our assent to this Revelation since we acknowledge the union of a spiritual and material being in the frame of mankind and are as well puzzled in the conception of the manner of it But in Mystical Divinity I say the very terms are unintelligible for it is impossible for any man to make sense of that immediate Union with God in the pure fund of the Spirit wherein the Mystical Writers do place the perfection of the Contemplative Life § 3. But because Mr. Cressy referrs the Person of Honour for the understanding those Mystical phrases which I had quarrelled with to the Author of the Roman Churches Devotions vindicated which was purposely writ in answer to me upon this subject I shall therefore consider what light he gives us in this matter for I am very willing to be better informed In the beginning he saith that Prayer is the most Fundamental part of a Christians Duty if this relates to the matter in hand viz. of contemplative prayer it must be implyed that this is a part at least of that fundamental Duty and if it be so I think my self obliged to understand it and it must be a very culpable ignorance not to understand so fundamental a part of a Christians Duty Therefore I shall pass by all his excursions and hold him close to the matter in debate I confess he prepares his way with some artifice which makes me a little jealous for things plain and easie need none He insinuates 1. That those who have not these things cannot well know what they mean and then adds 2. That the means for obtaining them are in his own words much frequent and continued vocal or mental prayer much solitude and mortifications of our flesh and abstraction of our thoughts and affections from any creature much recollection much meditation on selected subjects and the endeavouring a quiescence as much as we can from former discourse these actions of the brain and intellect now hindring the heart and will and the bringing our selves rather to a simple contemplation without any action of the brain or intellect or at least as little as may be to exercise acts of love adhere to sigh after and entertain the object thereof and after this come passive unions which are rather Gods acts in us than our own and are particular Favours to some and those not constant By this explication I am fallen into utter despair of understanding these things for if the acts of the brain and intellect prove such hindrances to the desired union and the quiescence in order to it be that of Discourse viz. of all ratiocination I am utterly at a loss how this should ever be understood by the persons themselves and much more how it should be explained to others And I extreamly wonder at those who go about to explain things which themselves confess are so far from being understood that the acts of the understanding are hindrances to the enjoyment of them But F. Baker speaks more plainly in this matter when he describes this Mystick contemplation by which saith he a soul without discoursings and curious speculations without any perceptible use of the internal senses or sensible Images by a pure simple and reposeful operation of the mind in the obscurity of faith simply regards God as Infinite and Incoâ—prehensible Verity and with the whole bent of the Will rests in him as her Infinite Universal and Incomprehensible Good This is true Contemplation indeed And afterwards he adds that as for the proper exercise of active contemplation it consists not at all in speculation but in blind elevations of the will and ingulâ—ing it more and more profoundly in God with no other sight or knowledge of him but of an obscure Faith only And towards the conclusion of his Book he hath these words We mortifie our passions to the end we may loose them we exercise Discoursive prayer by sensible Images to the end we may loose all use of