she bears to God in her own conveniency alas would be guilty of an extream Sacriledge ........ That Soul which loveth God only for her own sake loveth her self as she ought to love God and loveth God as she ought to love her self Which is as much as if one should say the love I bear to my self is the end for which I love God so that the love to God be depending subordinate and inferiour to self-love .... which is an unparallell'd impiety 3. We may love God with a love of hope which love is not intirely selfish for it is mixt with a beginning of love to God for himself only our own interest is the chief and predominant motive S. Francis of Sales love of God Lib. 2. c. 17. Speaks thus of this love I don't say however that it returns so fully upon us as to make us to love God only for our sakes ..... There is a great deal of difference between saying I love God for the good things I expect from him and this expression I love God only for the good things I expect from him This love of God is so call'd because the motive of self-interest is yet predominant in it 'T is a beginning of Conversion to God but not yet the true righteousness of this hopeful love S. Francis of Sales love of God Lib. 2. c. 17. Spoke thus Sovereign love is only in Charity but in hope love is imperfect as not tending into the infinite goodness as it is such to us .... Though in truth none by that love alone can either observe the Commandments of God or have eternal life 4. There is a love of Charity which is yet allayed with some mixture of self-interest but is the true justifying love because the disinteressed motive is over-ruling in it to which S. Francis of Sales Speaks in the last cited place Sovereign love is only in Charity This love seeks after God for himself and prefers him before anything whatsoever without exception By reason only of that preference 〈…〉 capable to justifie us And it prefe 〈…〉 less God and his Glory both to us and our interests than to all other Creatures besides The reason why is this because we are no less vile Creatures and unworthy to compare our selves with God than the rest of created beings God who did not make us for the other Creatures hath not likewise made us for our selves but for himself alone He is no less Jealous of us than of the other external objects which we may love To Speak properly the only thing he is Jealous of in us is our selves for he clearly sees that it is our selves whom we are tempted to love in the enjoyments of all external objects He is not liable to mistakes in his Jealousie and the love of our selves is the centre of all our affections Whatsoever does not proceed from the principle of Charity as S. Austin so often saith is of cupidity And it is the destruction of that very love the root of all vices which is precisely the aim of God's Jealousie While we have yet but a love of hope whereby self-love does preponde are against the Glory of God the Soul is not satisfied yet But when disinteressed love or of Charity begins to turn the scale and to prevail against self-interest then a Soul that loves God is truly beloved of him Nevertheless this true Charity is not yet entirely pure that is without any mixture but the love of Charity prevailing over the interessed motive of hope that state is termed a state of Charity The Soul then doth love God for the sake of him and for her self but so as to love chiefly the Glory of God not seeking her own happiness but as a means by her related and subordinated to the ultimate end namely the Glory of her Maker Nor is it necessary that this prefering of God and of his Glory to us and our interests be always explicite in the righteous Soul We are assured by faith that the Glory of God and our felicity are inseparable one from another 't is enough if this so just and necessary preference be real but implicite in the occurrences of life There is no need of its becoming explicite but in the extraordinary occasions of trial from God in order to purifie us from our dross But then he would give us both light and courage proportionate to the trial to carry us through it and to make us sensible in our hearts of that preference Now to dive for it scrupulously at another time in the bottom of our hearts would rather prove prejudicial and dangerous 5. We may love God with a love of pure Charity and without any mixture of the motive of self-interest Then it is that we love God in the midst of troubles and adversities so that we should not love him more even when he fills our Souls with comforts Neither fear of punishments nor desire of rewards have any share in this love God is no more beloved either in regard of the merit or perfection or for the happiness which is found in loving him We would love him as much though by an impossible supposition he should know nothing of his being beloved or would render eternally unhappy those who had loved him Nevertheless we do love him as the supream and infallible happiness of those who are faithful to him we love him as our personal good as our promised reward as our all but no more with that precise motive of our own happiness and recompence Thus much did S. Francis of Sales with the most exactness express love of God Lib. 2. c. 17. in these Words 'T is a very different thing to say I love God for my self and saying I love God for the sake of my self ..... for the one is a holy affection of the Bride ... and the other a downright impiety c. He Speaks again thus in another place The purity of love consists in not willing any thing for ones self in looking on nothing but the good pleasure of God for which one would be ready to prefer eternal torments to glory The Soul disinteressed in pure charity expects desireth hopeth in God as her good her recompence as that which is promised her and is entirely for her self She will have him for her self but not for the love of her self She will have him for her self that she may conform with the good pleasure of God who will have it so for her self But she will not have him for the love of her self because she is no more acted by her own interest This is pure and perfect love which works the same acts as mixt love in all the same virtues with this one difference only that it driveth out fear with all vexatious troubles and is even free of all the solicitude of interessed love Now I declare that to avoid all sort of equivocation in a matter where it is so dangerous to make any and so difficult not to mistake I
Spirit of God does inspire them thus upon every occasion that this inspiration is nothing but that which is common to all Just Souls and which never exempts them in the least from the whole extent of the written Law that this inspiration is only stronger and more special in Souls elevated to pure love than in those who are acted only by interested love because God communicates himself more to the perfect than to the imperfect So when some mystical Saints have admitted into holy indifference inspired desires and rejected the others we must take heed not to think that they would exclude the desires and the other acts commanded by the written Law and admit none but those that are extraordinarily inspired This would be a Blasphemy against the Law and raise above it a Phantastical inspiration The desires and other inspired acts mentioned by those Mysticks are either those commanded by the Law or those approved by the Counsels and which are formed in an indifferent and disinterested Soul by the inspiration of ever preventing grace without the mixture of any interested eagerness to prevent grace So that all is reduced to the letter of the Law and to the preventing grace of pure love to which the Soul does co-operate without preventing it To Speak thus is to explain the true sense of good mystical persons 't is to take away all equivocations which may seduce the one and offend the other 't is to precaution Souls against whatsoever is suspected to be illusive it is to keep up the form of Sound Words as S. Paul does recommend it 2 Tim. C. I. V. 13. VII False SOuls dwelling in an holy indifference have no regard for any though a disinterested desire which the written Law obliges them to form They ought to desire nothing more but those things which a miraculous or extraordinary inspiration moveth them to wish without any dependency from the Law they are acted and moved by God and taught by him in every thing so that God alone desireth in them and for them and they are in no need to co-operate with it by their free will Their holy indifference eminently containing all desires dispenseth with them from forming ever any Their inspiration is their only rule To Speak at this rate is to elude all Counsels under pretence of fulfilling them in a most eminent manner it is to establish in the Church a sect of impious Fanaticks 't is to forget that Christ Jesus came upon the Earth not to dispense with the Law or to lessen the authority of it but on the contrary to fullfill and perfect it so that Heaven and Earth shall pass away before the Words of our Saviour pronounced for the confirmation of the Law shall pass Finally it is to contradict grosly all the best mystical Writers and pull down from top to bottom their whole system of pure Faith manifestly incompatible with all miraculous or extraordinary inspiration which a Soul would voluntarily follow as her rule and support for dispensing with the fulfilling the Law VIII ARTICLE True HOly indifference which is never any other but the disinterest of love becometh in the most extream tryals what the holy Misticks have called abandoning or giving one self up that is to say that the disinterested soul gives her self up totally and without any the least reserve to God in all her own interest but she never renounceth either love nor any of those things wherein the Glory and good pleasure of her beloved are concern'd This abandoning is nothing else but that abnegation or renounciation of ones self which Jesus Christ requires of us in the Gospel after we have forsaken all outward things This abnegation of our selves is only pointed against our self-interest and ought never to hinder that disinterested love which we owe in our selves as to our Neighbour for God's sake The extream tryals wherein this abandoning is to be exercis'd are the temptations whereby our Jealous God will purify love in hiding from it all hope for its interest even eternal These Tryals are represented by a very great number of Saints as a terrible Purgatory which may exempt from the Purgatory of the other world those Souls who suffer it with entire Fidelity Only mad and wicked Men saith Cardinal Bona will deny their belief of those sublime and secret things and despise them as False though not clear when they are attested by Men of a most venerable Virtue who speak by their own experience of God's Operations in their hearts These tryals are but for a while and the more true souls are in them to Grace by leaving themselves to be purify'd from all self-interest by Jealous love so much the shorter are these tryals 'T is ordinarily the secret resistance of the Souls to grace under specious pretences 't is their interested and eager endeavour for retaining these sensible supports wherefrom God is willing to deprive them which render their tryals both so long and so painful for God never makes his Creature suffer to make him suffer without fruit It is with a design only to purifie the Soul and to overcome her resistances Those Temptations whereby love is purify'd from all self-interest are in nothing like to other common Temptations Experienced Directors can discern them by certain tokens but nothing is more dangerous than to take the common Temptations of beginners for trials tending to the entire purification of love in the most eminent Souls This is the source of all illusion This causeth deceived Souls to fall into hideous and dreadful Vices These bitter trials are not to be suppos'd to be but in a very small number of pure and mortified Souls in whom Flesh hath been a long while already entirely brought under the Spirit and who have solidly practised all the Evangelical Virtues They ought to be docile so as never willfully to strain at any of those hard and abject things which may be commanded them They ought not to fall in love with any comfort or freedom they should be taken off from all things whatsoever and also from the way that teacheth them this freedom they should be ready for all the practises that are laid upon them they are to stick neither to their kind of Prayer nor to their Experiences nor to their Readings nor to those persons they have consulted formerly with trust and reliance One ought to have had the Experiment that their Temptations are of a different nature from the common Temptations in this that the true means to still them is not to be willing to find a known Prop to Self-interest To speak thus is word for word to repeat the Experiences of Saints as they have related them themselves 'T is at the same time to prevent those very dangerous Inconveniences one might fall into by Credulity should one admit too easily in matter of Practice these Tryals which happen but very seldom by reason that few Souls have attained that Perfection where nothing remains to be purified but some
with all interessed motives of hope and fear Fear is brought to perfection by purifying it self it becomes a delicacy of love and a filial reverence in peace And it is then that chast fear which remains for ever and ever Likewise hope far from being lost is perfected by the purity of love and then it is a real desire and a sincere expectation of the fulfilling of the promises not only in general and in an absolute manner but also of the accomplishment of the promises in us and for us according to the good pleasure and will of God nay by the only motive of his good pleasure without any intermixture of our own interest This pure love is not yet satisfied with desiring no other recompence but God himself A slave entirely mercenary who should have a distinct faith of revealed truths might be willing to have no other reward but God alone because he would know him clearly as an infinite good and as being himself his true recompence or the only instrument of his felicity This mercenary Man in the life to come would have nothing but God alone but he would have God as Beatitude objective or the object of his Beatitude to refer it to his formal Beatitude namely to himself whom he would make happy and constitute himself as his ultimate end On the contrary whosoever loveth with a pure love without any mixture of self-interest is acted no more by the motive of his interest He wishes Beatitude to himself only because he knows that God will have it so and will have every one of us to desire it for his own glory If by an impossible supposition by reason of the promises which are meerly free God would annihilate the Souls of Just Men at the moment of their separation from the body or deprive them of the fruition of himself and keep them eternally under the temptations and miseries of this life as S. Austin supposes it or even make them to suffer far from him all the pains of Hell during all eternity as it is suppos'd by S. Chrysostom after S. Clement the Souls of this third state of pure love would not love or serve him with less fidelity Once more 't is true that this supposition is impossible upon the account of the promises because God hath given himself to us as a rewarder We cannot any more separate our happiness from God beloved with final perseverance but those things which cannot be separated in respect of the object may happen really to be so in respect of the motives God cannot fail of being the felicity of the faithful Soul but she may love him with so much impartiality that the enjoyment of a beatifying God increaseth not in the least the love she hath sor him without minding her self and that she would love as much though he were never to be the cause of her happiness Now to say that this abstraction of motives is but a vain subtilty is to be ignorant both of God's jealousie and of that of the Saints against themselves It is to give the name of subtilty to the nicety and perfection of Pure Love which the tradition of all Ages hath put in this abstraction of the motives This way of Speaking is precisely conformable to the whole general tradition of Christianity from the most Ancient Fathers to S. Bernard to all the most famous Scholastick Doctors from S. Thomas to those of our Age lastly to all those Mystical Men who have been Canoniz'd or approved by the whole Church in spight of all the contradictions they have suffered Nothing in the Church is more evident than this tradition and nothing would be more rash than to oppose it or to endeavour to shift it off This supposition of the impossible case here mentioned far from being an indiscreet and dangerous supposition of the Mysticks is on the contrary formally in S. Clement of Alexandria in Cassian in S. Chrysostom in S. Gregory of Nazianzen in S. Anselm and in S. Austin who have been followed by a great number of Saints II. False THere is a love so pure that it rejects that recompence which is God himself so that a Man will not have it any more in himself and for himself though we are taught by faith that God will have it in us and for us and commands us to will it as he doth for his own glory This love doth carry its impartiality so far even as to consent to hate God eternally or to cease from loving of him or else it tends to the destruction of filial fear which is nothing else but the niceness and delicacy of a Jealous love or it aims to the exstinguishing in us all hope forasmuch as the purest hope is a peaceable desire to receive in us and for us the effect of the promises in conformity to the good pleasure of God and for his pure glory without any mixture of self-interest or else it tends to the hating of our selves with a real hatred so that we cease from loving in our selves for God's sake his worth and his image as we love it out of charity in our Neighbour The speaking at this rate is to give with a horrid Blasphemy the name of pure love to a brutish and impious despair and to the hatred of the work of our Creator It is by a monstrous extravagance to affirm That the principle of conformity with God makes us contrary to himself It is a going about by a chimerical love to destroy love it self It is to put Christianity out of the hearts of Men. III. ARTICLE True SOuls must be left in the exercise of love that 4. Love See pag. 8. which is yet mixt with the motive of interest as long as the power of grace shall leave them in it One ought also to reverence these motives scattered through all the Books of holy Scripture in all the most precious monuments of Tradition and in all the Prayers of the Church We ought to make use of these motives to repress passions to consolidate virtues and to disintangle our Souls from all things of this present life However this love though less perfect than that which is fully disinteress'd hath nursed up in all ages a great number of Saints and greatest part of holy Souls do never attain in this life the perfect impartiality of love you disturb and cast them into temptation if you take from them the motives of self-interest which being subordinate to love serve to hold them up and to animate them in dangerous occasions It would be to no purpose and indiscretion to propose them a more elevated love which is out of their reach as having neither internal light nor the power of grace for it Nay those who begin to have some knowledge and foretaste of it are yet very far from having the reality of it Finally those who have attained its imperfect reality are very far yet from having the uniform exercise of it turned into an habitual state What is
essential in the direction is to follow only grace step by step with extream patience precaution and niceness We ought to confine our selves to God's working and never speak of pure love but when God by internal unction begins to open the heart to that word so hard to Souls yet selfish and so apt to scandalize them or to cast them into trouble Nay more than that we ought never to substract from a Soul the support of interessed motives when they begin with the power of grace to instruct her in pure love 'T will be enough if upon certain occasions we shew her how amiable God is in himself but never to disswade her from taking hold on the support of mixt love To Speak thus is to Speak as the spirit of grace and the experience of internal ways will always make one Speak 'T is to caution Souls against illusion III. False INteressed love See pag. 8. is mean gross unworthy of God which generous Souls ought to scorn and despise Hast must be made to put them out of conceit with it that they may aspire from the beginning to an intirely Disinteressed Love The motives of the fear of Death of God's Judgments and of Hell belonging only to slaves ought immediately to be banished We ought to take from them the desire of their heavenly countrey and to cut off from them all the interessed motives of hope After having made them to relish the fully disinteressed love we ought to suppose that they have attraction and grace for it they ought to be removed from all practices which are not in the whole perfection of that love entirely pure To Speak at this rate is to be ignorant of the ways of God and of the operations of his grace They will have the spirit to blow where they list whereas it blows where it listeth They confound the degrees of interiour life They inspire Souls with that ambition and spiritual avarice spoken of by the blessed John of the Cross They remove them from the true simplicity of pure love limited to follow grace and never offering to prevent it They turn to slight the foundations of Christian Justice I mean that fear which is the beginning of wisdom and that hope whereby we are saved IV. ARTICLE True HOpe in the habitual state of purest love far from being lost is perfected and keeps its distinction from charity 1. The habit thereof infuses into the Soul and is conformable there to the producible acts of that virtue 2. The exercise of that virtue remains always distinguish'd from that of charity the reason of which is this It is not the diversity of ends that causeth the diversity or specification of virtues All virtues ought to have but one end though they be one from the other distinguished by a true specification S. Austin de moribus Eccl. l. 1. assureth that charity it self is the active principle of all virtues and takes diverse denominations suitable to the objects it is applied to S. Thomas saith that charity is the form of all virtues because it exerciseth and refers them all to its end which is the glory of God S. Francis of Sales who hath excluded so formally and with so many repetitions all interessed motives from all the virtues of perfect Souls hath followed precisely the steps both of S. Austin and of S. Thomas whom he cites They have all followed the universal tradition which constitutes a third degree of Just Men who do exclude all interessed motives from the purity of their love 'T is then certain that one ought not any more to seek in that state for hope exercised by an interessed motive otherwise this would be a pulling down with one hand what hath been raised with the other a making ones sport with so holy a tradition an affirming and denying at the same time one and the same thing and a seeking for the motive of self-interest in an intirely disinteressed love We ought then to remember well that it is not the diversity of the ends or of the motives which makes the distinction or specification of virtues What causeth this distinction is the diversity of formal objects To the end that hope may remain truly distinguished from charity 't is not necessary they should have different ends on the contrary for to be good they ought to refer to one and the same end 'T is enough if only the formal object of hope be not the formal object of charity Now so it is that in the habitual state of the most disinteressed love the two formal objects of these two virtues are very different therefore these two virtues do conserve in that state a distinction and true specification in the strictest Scholastical sense The formal object of charity is the goodness or beauty of God taken simply and absolutely in it self without any Idea relative to us The formal object of hope is the goodness of God as it is good for us and of a difficult acquisition Now it evidently appears that these two objects taken in the most abstracted sense and Formal Conception are very different Therefore the difference of the objects conserve the specifick distinction of these two virtues 'T is certain that God as he is perfect in himself and without any respect to me and God as he is my happiness which I endeavour to acquire are two formal objects very different There is no confusion on the part of the object which specifies these virtues but only on the part of the end and that confusion ought to be there and it alters in nothing the specification of virtues The only difficulty remaining now is to explain how a fully disinteressed Soul can will God as it is her good Is not this will they say a falling from the perfection of ones disinteressment a going back in the way of God a coming again to the motive of self-interest contrary to all that tradition of the Saints of all ages who do exclude from the third state of Just Men all interessed motives It is an easie matter to answer that pure love never hindreth us to will and causeth us even to will positively all that God is willing that we should will God will have me to will God as he is my happiness and reward I will him formally under this Notion but I will him not by that precise motive that he is my good The object and the motive are different the object is my interest but the motive is not interessed since it regards nothing but the good pleasure of God I will that formal object and in this reduplication as speak the School but I will it by pure conformity to the will of God who makes me to will it The formal object is that of the common hope of all Just Men and it is the formal object by which virtues are specified The end is the same with that of charity but we have seen that the unity of end never confoundeth the virtues I may without doubt desire my
supream good as it is my reward and not that of another and desire it in conformity to God who will have me to desire it Then I desire that which is really and which I know is the greatest of all my interests without being determined to it by any interested motive In this state hope remains distinguished from charity and does not alter or diminish the purity or impartiality of her state This is by S. Francis of Sales explained in these words according to Theological strictness Love of God Lib. 2. c. 17. It is a very different thing to say I love God for my self and to say I love God for the sake of my self the one is a holy affection of the Bride the other is an impiety that hath not the like c. To speak so is to conserve the distinction of Theological virtues in the most perfect Estates of the inward Life and consequently to depart in nothing from the Doctrine of the holy Council of Trent 'T is to explain at the same time the tradition of the Fathers of the Doctors of the School and of Mystick Saints who have supposed a third degree of Just Men who are in an habitual state of pure love without any motive of interest IV. False IN this third degree of perfection a Soul wills not any longer her Salvation as her Salvation nor God as her supream good nor reward as reward though God will have her to have this will Whence it is that in this state one is not any more able to do any act of true hope distinguished from Charity that 's to say that one cannot any more desire nor expect the effect of the promises in and for himself even for the glory of God To Speak at that rate is to place our perfection in a formal resistance of the will of God who wills our Salvation and will have us to will the same as our own recompence And this is at the same time to confound the exercise of Theological virtues against the decision of the Council of Trent V. ARTICLE True THere be two different states of righteous Souls The first is that of holy Resignation The resigned Soul will or at least would have several things for her self by the motive of her own interest S. Francis of Sales saith Love of God Lib. 9. That she hath yet selfish desires but that they are subjected She submits and subordinates her interessed desires to the will of God which she prefers before her interest Thereby this Resignation is good and meritorious The second state is that of holy indifference An indifferent Soul wills not any longer any thing for her self-interest She hath no interested desires to submit because she hath no more interrested desire 'T is true that there remains in her still some inclinations and unvoluntary repugnances which she submitteth but she hath no longer any voluntary and deliberate desires for her own interest except in those occasions wherein she does not faithfully cooperate to the fulness of her grace This indifferent Soul when she fulfilleth her grace wills not any thing more but as God makes her to will it by his attractive power She loves it is true several things besides God but she loves them only for the sole love of God and with the love of God himself for it is God that she loves in all whatsoever he causeth her to love Holy indifference is nothing but the impartiality or disinterest of love as holy Resignation is nothing but interessed love which submitteth self-interest to the glory of God Indifference reacheth as far and never farther than the perfect disinterest of love As that indifference is love it self it is a very real and positive principle It is a positive and formal will which causeth us to will or desire really all the will of God known to us It is not a dull unsensibleness an internal unaction or non-willing a general suspension or a perpetual equilibrium of the Soul On the contrary it is a positive and constant determination to will and not to will any thing as Cardinal Bona does express it One wills nothing for himself but every thing for God We desire nothing in order to be perfect or happy for our own interest but we will all perfection and blessedness as far as it pleaseth God to make us desire these things by the impression of his grace according to the written Law which is always our inviolable rule In this state we desire no longer Salvation as our own Salvation as an eternal deliverance as a reward of our merits or as the greatest of our interests But we will it with a full will as the glory and good pleasure of God as a thing which he wills and will have us to will for his sake 'T would be a manifest extravagancy to refuse out of a pure love to desire that good which God will do to us and commands us to desire The most disinterested love ought to will what God wills for us as that which he wills for others The absolute determination to will nothing would be no longer a disinterest but the extinction of love which is a desire and true will it would be no longer holy indifference for indifference is the state of a Soul equally ready to will or will not to will for God all that he wills and never to will for ones self what God does not declare that he wills Whereas that nonsensical determination not to will any thing is an impious reluctancy to all the known will of God and to all the impressions of his grace This equivocation in saying that one does not desire his Salvation is easie to be resolv'd We do desire it fully as the will of God To reject it in this sense would be a horrid Blasphemy and we ought always thereupon to Speak with a great deal of precaution It is true only as we do not will it as it is our recompence our good and our interest In this sense S. Francis os Sales hath said Second Conversation That if there was a little more of God's good pleasure in Hell the Saints would exchange Paradise for it And in other places too Conv. p. 182. The desire of Eternal Life is good but he makes us to desire nothing else but God's will Conv. 368. Could we serve God without Merit we should desire to do it He saith elsewhere Love of God Lib. 9. c. 11. Indifference is above Resignation for it loves nothing but for the will of God So that nothing moves an indifferent heart in presence of God's will An indifferent heart is as a Wax-Ball in the hands of his God in order to receive in like manner all the impressions of his Eternal good pleasure 'T is a heart without choice equally dispos'd to every thing without any other object of his will but the will of his God who does not set his love upon the things which God wills but in the will of God who wideth them In
another place he saith Speaking of S. Paul and of S. Martin Ibid. They see Paradise open for them they see a thousand miseries and labours upon the Earth the one and the other is indifferent to their choice and nothing but the will of God can give the counterpoise to their hearts He saith afterwards Ibid. Should he know that his Damnation were a little more pleasing to God than his Salvation he would leave his Salvation and run to his Damnation He Speaks also thus in another place 3 Discourse It is not only requisite that we should relie upon Divine Providence concerning temporal things but much more for what belongs to our Spiritual life and perfection He saith elsewhere Whither it be in interiour or exteriour things you ought to will nothing but what God shall will for you Lastly He saith in another place I have almost no desires but if I was to be Born again I would have none at all If God should come to me I should go to him also if he would not come to me I should hold still and not go to him The other Saints of the last Ages who are authoriz'd by the whole Church are full of such and the like expressions which are all reduced to this saying that one hath no longer any self and interested desire neither about merit perfection nor eternal happiness Thus to Speak is to leave no equivocation in so nice a matter where none ought to be suffered 't is to prevent all the abuse which can be made of the most precious and most holy thing which is upon the Earth I mean pure love 't is to Speak as all the Fathers all the chiefest Doctors of the Schools and all mystical Saints do V. False HOly indifference is an absolute suspension of the will an entire non-willing an exclusion even of all disinterested desire It goes beyond the perfect disinterest of love It does not desire for us those eternal goods which by the written Law we are taught God will give us and which he wills we should wish to receive in us and for us by the motive of his glory All even the most disinterested desire is imperfect Perfection does consist in not willing any thing more whatsoever in not desiring any more not only God's gifts but also God himself and in leaving him to do in us what he pleases by not intermixing on our side any real or positive will To Speak at this rate is to confound all ideas of humane reason It is to put a chimerical perfection in an absolute extinction of Christianity and even of humanity One cannot find terms odious enough to qualifie so monstruous an extravagance VI. ARTICLE True HOly indifference which is nothing else but the disinterest of love is so far from excluding disinterested desires that it is the real and positive principle of all those disinterested desires which the written Law commands us and also of all those grace does inspire us with After this manner did the Psalmist express himself to God All my desires are set before thine eyes The indifferent Soul not only desires fully her Salvation as it is the good pleasure of God but more than that perseverance the amendment of her faults the increase of love by the means of grace and generally without exception all spiritual and even temporal good that is within the order of providence a preparation of means both for ours and our neighbours Salvation Holy indifference admits not only distinct desires and express demands for the accomplishment of all the will of God known to us but also general desires for all the will of God which we do not know To Speak thus is to Speak conformable to the true principles of holy indifference and to the sentiment of Saints all which expressions if well examin'd both by what precede and what followeth are reduced without difficulty to this explication that is pure and sound according to the faith VI. False HOly indifference admits of no distinct desire nor of any formal request for any good either spiritual or temporal what relation soever it hath either to ours or our Neighbour's Salvation We ought never to admit of any of those pious and edifying desires which may inwardly work upon us To Speak at this rate is to oppose God's will under thepretence of purer conformity to it it is to violate the written Law which commandeth us to desire though it does not command us to form our desires in an interested unquiet manner or such as is always distinct 'T is to extinguish true love by a nonsensical resinement 't is to condemn with Blasphemy both the words of Scripture and the Prayers of the Church that are full of requests and of desires 'T is an excommunicating ones self and putting himself out of a condition of being ever able to pray both with heart and mouth in the congregation of the faithful VII ARTICLE True THere is never a state of indifference or of any other perfection known in the Church that gives to Souls a miraculous or extraordinary inspiration The perfection of interiour ways does consist only in one way of pure love whereby God is beloved without any interest and of pure faith where one walks only in darkness and without other light but that of faith it self which is common to all Christians This obscurity of pure faith admits of extraordinary light 'T is not but God who is the master of his gifts may give Raptures Visions Revelations and internal communications But they do not belong to that way of pure Faith and we are taught by the Saints that then we ought not to stop willfully in those extraordinary lights but to pass them over as saith the Blessed John of the Cross and dwell in the most naked and dark Faith Much more ought we to take heed not to suppose in the ways we have spoken of any miraculous or extraordinary inspiration which indifferent Souls do guide themselves by They have for their rule nothing but the precepts and counsels of the written Law and the actual grace which is ever conformable to the Law As to the precepts they ought always to presuppose without wavering or reasoning that God never forsakes any unless forsaken first and consequently that grace always preventing does inspire them continually to the accomplishment of the precept when it ought to be accomplish'd So it is their work to cooperate with all the power and strength of their will that they may not come short of grace by a transgression of the precept As for those cases in which counsels are not turned into precepts they ought without doing violence to themselves to produce acts either of love in general or of certain distinct virtues in particular according as the internal attraction of grace inclines them to some rather than to others as occasion requires What is very certain is that grace prevents them in respect to every deliberate action that this grace which is the internal breathing of the
Poyson XVIII False WE ought to conform our selves to all the Wills of God and to his permissions as to all his other Wills We ought therefore to permit Sin in our selves when we know God is about to permit it We ought to love our Sin though contrary to God by reason of its abjection which purifies our love and takes from us all pretence and desert of a reward Lastly the attraction or inspiration of Grace requires from Souls in order to render them more disinterested for the Eternal reward the breaking of the Written Law To Speak at this rate is to Teach Apostacy and to put the Abomination of Desolation in the most holy place it is not the Voice of the Lamb but of the Dragon XIX ARTICLE True VOcal without Mental Prayer that 's to say without the attention of the Mind and the Affection of the Heart is a Superstitious Worship which honoureth God with the Lips while the Heart is far from him Vocal Prayer is not good and meritorious but in as much as it is directed and animated by that of the Heart It is much better to recite but a few Words with great recollection and Love than long Prayers with little or no recollection when they are not Commanded To Pray both without attention and Love is to Pray as the Heathens did who thought to be heard for the Multitude of their Words One Prays no further than one desires and one doth not desire but by how much one loveth at least with an interested Love Nevertheless Vocal Prayer ought to be respected and consulted as being good to awake the Thoughts and the Affections which it expresses as having been taught by the Son of God to his Apostles and practised by the whole Church in all Ages To make light of this Sacrifice of Praises this fruit of the Lips that does confess the Name of the Lord would be an impiety Vocal Prayer may be troublesome for a while to those Contemplative Souls who are yet in the imperfect beginnings of their Contemplation because their Contemplation is more sensible and affecting than pure and quiet It may be also burthensome to Souls who are in the last Tryals because every thing in that state disturbs them But one ought never to give them for a rule to forsake without the permission of the Church and without a true impotency known to be so by their Superiours any Vocal Prayer which is obligatory Vocal Prayer taken with simplicity and without scruple when it is according to the Command may well be troublesome to a Soul in relation to those things we have already noted But it is never contrary to the highest Contemplation Experience even shews that the most Eminent Souls in the midst of their most sublime Communications have familiar Communications with God and that they read or recite with a loud Voice and in a kind of Transport some inflamed Words of the Apostles and Prophets To Speak so is to explain the soundest Doctrine with the most correct Words XIX False VOcal Prayer is nothing but the gross and imperfect Doctrine of beginners It is intirely unprofitable to Contemplative Souls They are by the eminency of their state dispensed with as to the reciting of Vocal Prayers Commanded them by the Church because their Contemplation eminently comprehends what is more edifying in the different parts of Divine Worship To Speak at this rate is to despise the Reading of the Scriptures it is to forget that Christ hath Taught us Vocal Prayer which contains the perfection of the highest Contemplation It is to be ignorant that pure Contemplation is never perpetual in this Life and that in its intervals one may and ought to recite faithfully the Office which is Commanded and which of it self is so apt to nourish in our Souls the Spirit of Contemplation XX. ARTICLE True REading ought not to be done either out of Curiosity or desire of judging of our State or deciding it according to what we Read nor out of a certain relish of what we call Witty and sublime We ought not to read the most holy Books nor even the Scriptures but with dependency upon the Pastors and Directors who are in their stead 'T is they who are to judge whither each faithful Christian is prepared enough if his Heart is sufficiently purified and Docible for each different Reading They ought to distinguish the Food that is agreeable to every one of us in particular Nothing causeth so much illusion in the interiour Life as the indiscreet choosing of Books 'T is best to Read little and make long interruptions by way of recollection that we may let Love more deeply to imprint in us the Christian truths When recollection causeth our Book to drop out of our hands we must let it fall without scruple We shall take it up again time enough afterwards to renew in its turn our recollection Love Teaching by its Unction surpasses all the rational discourse we can make upon Books The most powerful of all perswasions is that of Love Nevertheless we must take in hand again the outward Book when the inward Book ceaseth to be open Otherwise the empty Spirit would fall into a rambling and imaginary Prayer which would be a real and pernicious idleness This would bring a Man to neglect his own instruction about necessary truths and forsake the Word of God and never to lay solid foundations both of the exact understanding of the Law and of revealed Mysteries To Speak thus is to Speak according to Tradition and to the Experience of holy Souls XX. False THe Reading of the most holy Books is unprofitable to those whom God teacheth entirely and immediately by himself 'T is not necessary that such persons as these should have laid the foundation of common instruction They need only to wait for all the light of truth that doth arise from their Prayer As for their Readings when they are moved to any they may choose without consulting with their Superiours such Books which Speak of the most advanced states They may Read the Books that are suspected or censured by their Pastors To Speak at this rate is to destroy instruction which is the food of Faith It is to substitute instead of the pure Word of God an interiour Fanatical inspiration On the other side it is to permit Souls to Poyson themselves with contagious Readings or at least such as are disproportionate to their true needs It is to teach them dissimulation and disobedience XXI ARTICLE True WE ought to distinguish between Meditation and Contemplation Meditation consists in discursive acts that can be easily distinguished the one from the other because they are distinguished by a kind of a noted motion because they are varied by the diversity of Objects they are applied to because they draw a conviction concerning the truth of the conviction of another truth already known because they draw an affection from several Motives methodically assembled Lastly because they are done and reiterated with
would love Impurity as much as Beauty if it were as acceptable to her Spouse she knows nevertheless that Purity and Beauty are the Delight of her Spouse therefore she only loves for his good Pleasure Purity and Beauty and rejects with Horror the Ugliness he rejects When a Soul is truly and actually in pure Love there is no fear but in the actual Confession of her Sin she is in the actual Condemnation of what she hath committed against the Well-beloved and consequently in the most formal most pure and most efficacious Contrition tho' she produces not always sensible Acts of it in an express'd and reflected Form If venial Faults are blotted out in an instant by the simple reciting of the Lord's Prayer as S. Austine assureth us in general of just Men tho' imperfect So much the more are they blotted out likewise in the transformed Souls by the Exercise of the most pure Love 'T is true that one is not oblig'd to make equally always frequent Confessions when the enlightned Director hath Reason to fear least they should cast one into Despair or be turned into a meer Habit or should become an unlading of the Heart and an ease for self-Self-love more afflicted for not seeing himself entirely perfect than faithful in being willing to do Violence to himself for his Amendment or because these frequent Confessions disturb too much some Souls and employ them too much about their State in some transient Pains or because they don't see in themselves any voluntary Fault committed since their last Confession which may appear to the Confessor a sufficient Matter of Sacramental Absolution after they have cast themselves at his Feet for to lay their Submission in the Power and Judgment of the Church To speak so is to speak a Language conform to the Experiences of Saints and to the Needs of several Souls without offending the Principles of Tradition XXXVIII False COnfession is a Remedy belonging only to imperfect Souls and which advanced Souls ought not to make use of but for outward appearance and for fear of offending the Publick either they never commit any Faults which deserve Absolution or they ought not to be watchful with the peaceable and uninterested Vigilancy of pure and jealous Love to perceive whatever in them may grieve the Holy Spirit neither are they any more oblig'd to Contrition which is nothing else but jealous Love hating with a perfect Hatred whatsoever is contrary to the good Pleasure of the Well-beloved nor should they think themselves guilty of an Infidelity against the Disinterest of Love and perfect Abnegation should they ask both with Heart and Mouth the Remission of their Sins which God however will have them to desire To speak at this rate is to take off from these Souls the true Exercise of that pure Love of the Supreme Good which ought to be on this occasion the actual Condemnation of Evil itself it is to remove Souls both from the Sacraments and Church-Discipline by a rash and scandalous Presumption 'T is to inspire them with Pharisaical Pride 't is at least to teach them to make their Confessions without Vigilancy Attention and Sincerity of Heart when they ask with the Words of their Mouths the Remission of their Faults 'T is to introduce into the Church an Hypocrisie which makes any Illusion uncurable XXXIX ARTICLE True SOuls in the first sensible Attraction which makes them pass to Contemplation have sometimes a Prayet which seems to bear no Proportion with some gross Faults that remain yet in them and this disproportion makes some Directors to judge that they have not got Experience enough that their Prayer is false and full of Illusion as S. Theresa saith it hapned to her The Souls exercised by extraordinary Trials shew sometimes there upon transient Occasions an irregular Spirit weakned by the Excess of Pain and a Patience almost exhausted as Job did appear imperfect and impatient in the Eyes of his Friends God leaves often to even transformed Souls notwithstanding the Purity of their Love certain Imperfections which proceed more from a natural Infirmity than from the Will and which are according to the thought of Pope S. Gregory the contrapoise of their Contemplation as the pricks of the flesh were in the Apostle the messenger of Satan to hinder him from growing Proud of the greatness of his revelations Lastly these imperfections which are not any violation of the Law are left in a Soul to the end that one may see in her the tokens of the great work which Grace hath of necessity made in her These infirmities serve to depress her in her own eyes and to keep the gifts of God under a Veil of infirmity which exerciseth the Faith of that Soul and of the Just persons that know her Sometimes also they serve to draw on her Contempt and Crosses or to make her more Docile to her superiors or to take from her the comfort of being approved and assured in her way as it happened to the Blessed Theresa with incredible pains Finally to keep the secret of the Bride and of the Bridegroom hidden from the wise and prudent of this World To speak so is to speak conformable to the experiences of Saints without any offence to the Evangelical Rule because the Directors who have experience and the Spirit of Grace are not without ability to judge of the Tree by the Fruits which are Sincerity Teachableness and freedom of the Soul upon the chiefest occasions Moreover there will be still other tokens which the Unction of God's Spirit shall give sufficiently to be felt if the state of each Soul be patiently lookt into XXXIX False ONE may reckon a Soul as Contemplative and even as transformed though she is found for some considerable time negligent of her instruction concerning the principles of Religion careless of her duty wandring and unmortified always quick in excusing her own faults unteachable haughty or cunning To speak after this rate is to authorize in the most perfect state the most dangerous imperfections 't is to cover under the cloak of an extraordinary state defects that are most incompatible with true Piety 't is to approve the grossest illusions 't is to invert the rules whereby Spirits ought to be tried to know whither they come from God or no 't is to call evil good and draw upon ones self the woes of Scripture XL. ARTICLE True A Transformed Soul is united to God without the interposition of any medium three sorts of ways 1. When she loves God for himself without any medium of interested motive 2. When she contemplates him without any sensible image or discursive operation 3. When she fulfills his Precepts and Counsels without any set order of forms whereby to give to her self an interested witness To speak thus is to express what holy mystical Men would say by excluding from this state the practices of Virtue and this explication is nothing offensive to Universal Tradition XL. False A Transformed Soul
a little less pure and disinterested It 's enough for this State that the Acts of Vertue are performed therein very frequently with that perfection that Charity diffuses there and with which the same are animated All these things are agreeable to our thirty four Articles I shall joyn to the Book which I have published most Holy Father a Collection in Manuscript of the Sentiments of the Fathers and Saints of the last Age concerning the Pure Love of Contemplatives to the end that that which is but plainly set out in the First Book may be proved in the Second by the Testimonies and Opinions of the Saints of all Ages I entirely submit Most Holy Father both the one and the other Pieces to the Judgement of the Holy Roman Catholick Church who is the Mother Church of all and has taught all the rest I devote all that is mine and my self to your Holiness as a Son ought to do that is full of Zeal and Respect towards you But if my Book in French hath been already brought unto your Holiness I most humbly intreat you most Holy Father to decide nothing concerning it 'till such time as you have seen my Latin Version that will be dispatched away with all speed There is nothing now remaining for me save to wish a long Pontificate to the chief of Pastors who Rules the Kingdom of Christ with so disinterested an Heart and who says with so much applause from all the Roman Catholick Nations to his Illustrious Family I know you not In doing thus daily I think I seek the Glory and Consolation of the Church the Re-establishment of its Discipline the propagation of the Faith the Extirpation of Schisms and Heresies and lastly an abundant Harvest in the Field of the Soveraign Father of the Family I shall for ever c. The Lord Arch-Bishop of Cambray 's Letter of August the 3d 1697. SIR BE not concerned for me the business of my Book is gone to Rome if I am under a mistake the Authority of the Holy See will undeceive me and this is that I wait for with a gentle and lowly Mind if I have illy exprest my self they will reform my expressions If the matter appears to require a more large explication that I will readily do by way of Additions If my Book contains nothing in it but what is pure Doctrine I shall have the consolation to know exactly what a Man ought to believe and what to reject I shall not in this Case fail to make all those Additions which without weakning the truth will be conducive to enlighten and edifie such Readers as are most subject to take the allarm But Sir in short if the Pope condemns my Book I shall be the first God willing that will condemn it and put out a Mandate to forbid the reading of it in the Diocess of Cambray I shall only intreat the Pope to do me the favour exactly to note those passages he condemns and the sense whereon he grounds his Condemnation to the end that I may subscribe thereunto without restriction and that I may never run the risque of defending excusing or tolerating the sense it s condemned in Being thus disposed thro' the blessing of God I am at rest and have nothing to do but to wait the disposition of my Superiour in whom I acknowledge the Authority of Jesus Christ to be lodged disinterested Love must not be defended but with a sincere disinterest We have not to do herein with a point of Honour nor with the Opinion of the World nor yet with that profound humiliation wherein Nature may fear to meet with ill success I think I act with integrity I am as much afraid of being presumptuous and possessed with a base shame as to be feeble politick and fearful in the defence of truth If the Pope condemns me I shall be thereby undeceived and the vanquished shall reap all the real fruits of the Victory Victoria scedet victis saith St. Augustine But if on the other side the Pope does not condemn my Doctrine I shall endeavour both by my silence and respect to pacifie those of my Fraternity whose Zeal has animated them against me by laying a sort of Doctrine to my charge which I abhor and always did as much as they do Perhaps they will do me justice when they see my sincerity There are but two things that my Doctrine was intended to comprehend the first whereof is that Charity is a love to God sor his own sake distinct from that motive of blessedness that we find in him Secondly that Charity in the life of the most perfect Souls is that which precedes all other Vertues which animates them and commands the acts so as to make them bear to its end insomuch that the Just thus qualified do then ordinarily exercise hope and all other Vertues with all the disinterest of Charity it self because this same state of the Soul is not without its exception being no other than an habitual one and not immutable God knows I have never intended to teach any thing else that exceeded these limitations And hence it is that I have said in my speaking concerning pure Love which is Charity so far as it animates and commands all other distinct Vertues Whoever allows of nothing beyond that is within the confines of Tradition whoever passeth those bounds is already out of the way I do not think there is any danger that the Holy See should condemn a Doctrine so well grounded upon the Authority of the Fathers of the Schools and of so many great Saints that the Church of Rome has Canoniz'd As for the manner of Expressions contained in my Book if they should be any ways prejudicial to truth for want of being correct I consign them to the judgement of my Superiour and I should be very sorry to trouble the repose of the Church were there no more in it than the interest of my Person and of my Book These are my thoughts of the matter Sir I go for Cambray having Sacrificed unto God with my whole heart all that I could Sacrifice to him thereupon permit me to exhort you to be of the same mind I have introduced nothing that related to Humane Affairs and Temporals into the Doctrine which I was convinced of the truth of neither have I forbore to let the Pope know any of those Reasons that could support this Doctrine This is enough let God do the rest if it be his Cause that I have vindicated let us not be concerned at the intentions of Men or their proceedings it is God alone that is to be looked to in all this let us be the Children of Peace and Peace will rest upon us it will be bitter but the same will be so much the more pure Let us not spoil good intentions by an humour by any Heat by any Humane Industry by any Natural Impression for the justifying of our selves Let us plainly give an account of our Faith let us
both in his Treatise and in his Letter Nevertheless he falls into the same absurdity by allowing of such still peaceable Acts that they have nothing whereby the Soul may be able to make a true distinction of them they being such as are disturbed with no manner of joltings so uniform and so even that they seem as much to be no acts at all as one continued Act during the whole course of ones Life Lastly we have more particularly taken care in our Articles lest Christian Perfection holiness or purity or the internal Life should be placed in passive Prayer or in other quiet and extraordinary ones of that kind wherein all contemplative and formal persons are with us but on the contrary the said Book doth assert that the same Prayer and Contemplation do consist in pure love which doth not only justify and purify of it self but consummate accomplish and make perfect and is consequently the last degree of Christian perfection Wherein the Author doth extreamly err and not only differs from spiritual men but even from himself He differs from spiritual Persons or Mysticks who in persuance to the Authority of St. Theresia the Expositions of John de Jesus and the sentiments of James Alvarez de Paz who was a follower of them and that of St. Francis de Sales and several others have taught that either a person may arrive at a state of perfection without quiet prayer or that this Prayer is in the number of such blessings as seem very much to appertain to those graces that are purely free that it is neither of a perfecting nature and justifies no man yea and that the same may consist with mortal sin He differs from himself in that he asserts every where That Christian perfection consists in this sort of Prayer which is nothing else but a love that is very pure and teaches at the same time the greatest part of holy Souls and those who by a peculiar Title are called Saints could never attain to this sort of Prayer nor consequently to perfection because they had not the inward light nor the advantages of attractive Grace From hence he conludes that the Doctrine of pure love wherein all Evangelick perfection doth consist and to which all Tradition beareth a Testimony is yet a mystery which is concealed not only from Christians in general but even from the greatest part of Saints and that 't is the business of a director of Mens Consciences to leave the same unto God and to wait for his opening the Heart by his internal Unction as if the word of the Gospel would be of no use to those who ought to be endued with pure love as if Unction should exclude and shut out the good word of Salvation From whence it follows that that command of Christ Be ye perfect doth not appertain to the Saints nor that neither thou shalt love c. which derogate from the perfection of Christian calling There is also as much contradiction between these Propositions That the gift of pure Love and Contemplation depends upon grace or divine inspiration which is common to all that are justifyed and that yet there are many Saints to whom the same is not communicated and which would be but a trouble and offence to them were the same proposed to them These things therefore and those other before mention'd which run through the whole Book are contrary to our Censures and the Thirty Four Articles so often mentioned neither are those that follow less opposite to the same Doctrine or any more consonant to Truth In the first place altho' the said Book doth in the beginning and in divers other places onwards make an enumeration of false spirituallizers If I may so call them whereof he makes the Gnosticks of old the Beguardians in the middle age and the late Illuminates of Spain to be of the number yet he makes no manner of mention of Molinos and his followers nor more particularly of that Woman upon whose account the Articles were framed whereas in the mean time it must be said that they should have been chiefly spoken of seeing the whole Church is filled with the noise their Writings have made and the Censures past upon them by the Pope's authority To which these Positions must in like manner be added that the love of pure Concupiscence how impious and sacrilegious soever it be doth yet prepare Sinners for to be justifyed and converted tho' this preparation proceeds from no other motions than such as are excited by the Spirit or at least the impulse thereof That justifying love whereby a person seeks not its own happiness but as a means that doth refer unto and subordinates it self to the last end which is God's glory is in this Book called mercenary which is contrary to the judgment of the Schools and that Axiom of St. Augustin so well known among Divines That we are to deliver our selves according to a known Rule That an impossible case to wit that a just Soul who loves God even to the end should yet be condemned to eternal punishments is rendred possible and that St Francis de Sales seems to have found himself to be in the same state tho neither he himself nor any of those that have writ his Life say any thing of it and that no just Soul can be brought to believe it That direct Acts and such as escape the reflections of the Soul are the very same operation of the Soul which by St. Francis de Sales are called the top of the Soul tho' he says nothing of it in all his Writings That in these Acts there is a strange and unheard of division of the Soul in it self to be found since perfect Hope subsists in the upper part as the lower is abandon'd to despair and which is worse the former is in direct Acts and the other in reflex ones which are in themselves the most deliberate and efficacious especially if allowed by the director of the Conscience insomuch that Hope being expelled by reflex Acts subsists in those that are direct That in this division of the Soul labouring under an unvoluntary impression of despair and making an absolute Sacrifice of its own interest for that of Eternity it doth die on the Cross with Christ saying my God my God why hast thou forsaken me as if despairing Souls could expire with Christ and yet bewail their state in being forsaken by him That in these last Tryals or Experiments he makes a separation between the Soul and it self according to the Example of Christ who is our pattern wherein the inferior part had no Communication with the superior neither in its unvoluntary troubles nor faintings that in this separation the motions of our inferior part are blind and full of unvoluntary Trouble As if there had been such perturbations in Christ as there are in us which is an abominable Opinion and which the fam'd Sophronius hath condemned as such with the approbation of the sixth Council As