from the wise nor the word from the Prophet come and let us smite him with the Tongue and let us not give heed to any of his words But God has quite other Designs the Lord has said according to the declaration of an other Prophet Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth and with their lips do honour me but have removed their heart far from me and their fear and worship of me is nothing but formality and taught by the precept of men therefore behold I will proceed to do a marvellous work their wise men shall perish and the understanding of their prudent shall be hid This is an unavoidable judgment which they must resolve to undergoe and their resistance will only serve to make them be more entirely crusht by the powerful hand of God This will be to the little ones and to the simple matter of joy and gladness and they shall sing praises unto the Spirit of God whom Jesus Christ shall send to possess the place of that human and diabodical Spirit which he will extripate blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord. If you have a sincere desire to be of the Number of these little and simple ones you will easily perceive by the Divine Light that is communicated to you that God begins to fulfill his word as well as the desire that we profess to have in that Prayer of the Church come lovely Spirit and renew the Earth You will afterwards be more fully convinc'd of this Truth by other works of this nature This is faithfully and sincerely communicated to you according to the Manuscript of the late Mr. De Cort who nourisht his Soul with these Truths by which he had been regenerated to God and incited to renounce the Vanities of this World I have neither added nor substracted any thing from it except some words at the top of the Pages and before the Conferences to serve for an Abridgment of the matter and a help to the memory of the Reader I began also to quote the passages of the Holy Scripture to shew that their is an entire conformity not only of the Doctrin Words and Sentiments but even of the Life Conduct Actions and other Accidents of this Maid with those who were heretofore unquestionably enlightn'd and govern'd by the Holy Spirit But since the prosecution of that Design would have required a great deal of time and since it may be probably supposed that most Readers will not give themselves the trouble of searching and examining so great a number of passages it was thought sufficient to illustrate the first Conference with all the particular Quotations as a sample of that absolute uniformity with the Spirit of God and his direction which might have been easily carried on throughout the whole Work And in the remaining part of the Book you will only find the most necessary passages cited or those which have most manifest relation to the Text. God grant Beloved Reaader that you may reap from this Work an Advantage which may dispose thy Soul to become a Child of his Grace and to receive his Holy Spirit This is the hearty and earnest desire of P. P. P. THE PREFACE OF Monsieur de Cort TO THE READER Friendly Reader I Here present you with an Account of what befel me in a Voyage I made to a far Country to come to which I travelled above a Year accompanied with several of my own Country-men who with me were Eye-witnesses of our meeting by the way with a Pilgrimess who spoke to us admirable and amazing Things that are capable of converting unto God all those who shall read or hear the hidden Secrets of the Righteousness and Mercy of God and the Blindness of Men and the Power which the Devil at present has over them The Thing is as profitable as astonishing for it has never been conceived or comprehended by any humane Wit It must needs proceed from a divine Understanding and it must needs be a Celestial or Terrestrial Angel for neither Philosophy nor Theology could ever teach me the Things which this Pilgrimess taught me in the small time wherein I travelled with her but in a way so simple and so unaffected that all her Words did pierce my Heart and enlighten my Understanding working in my Soul Joy and Compunction together I was at first quite transported beside my self and I thought all my Understanding was renvers'd while I heard her first Discourses being of Opinion that the Words of Jesus Christ were fulfilled in that he says I will destroy the Wisdom of the Wise and abolish the Prudence of the Prudent for of necessity all Men how knowing and learned soever they be must be struck dumb and confounded by the simple Wisdom of this Pilgrimess and I took it for a singular Mercy of God that he was pleased yet to declare his Secrets to any of his Servants wishing for the Memory of an Angel that I might be able to declare all that I heard of this Pilgrimess since nothing proceeded from her Mouth which was not profitable and most enlightning very convincing and powerful capable of converting the most hardned Hearts and obstinate Sinners But I must yield to my Weakness not being able to declare any other thing but what my Memory shall furnish me with being helped by some Remarks which I made when I had the conveniency of Writing I entreat the Reader that in this Narrative he may not seek for Ornament of Language nor Philosophical Discourses but the naked simple Truth since God makes use of weak Things to confound the strong I will not at all disguise or adorn her Language fearing to oppose the Designs which God has to manifest to all the World that he reveals his Secrets to Babes and that he resists the mighty and the proud Ones of the Earth from whom he conceals and hides his Secrets and Wonders For this Reason we have ground to say with S. Augustin The Ignorant and the Vnlearned take Heaven by force and we with all our Sciences continue drown'd in earthly Affections Are we ashamed to follow them because they have out-run us We ought rather to be ashamed not to follow them And to add here also the Words which the Pilgrims of Emaus said one to another when they remembred what Jesus Christ had spoken to them by the way while he explained to them the Holy Scriptures to wit Was not our Heart on fire and did it not burn within us when he spoke to us in the way and opened unto us the Holy Scriptures This Pilgrimess in speaking to us must certainly be animated with the same Spirit with which our Saviour was for each of us felt his Heart to burn by her powerful Words which did gently beget in our Souls a Contempt of created Things and a Love of Things eternal enlightning our Understandings by Truths so clear that they could not proceed from any other than from the Father
the marks and signs of the last times fulfill'd and perfectly accomplisht The life of men is the open book in which these truths are written and the holy Scriptures are the equitable Judge which pronounces this sentence Read Sir with attention they will deliver you from the difficulty you find in believing this for tho indeed they do not determine precisely the day of judgment yet they will make you see sufficiently that the cheif signs which must precede it do already appear That no body will believe this is a most certain evidence of it for Jesus Christ says that it shall be as in the days of Noah they were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage and knew not until the flood came and took them all away Even so is it at present they take their recreations and pleasures heaping up earthly treasures building houses and temples as if they were to remain here to eternity while all must very shortly perish And no body will believe it according to the prediction of Jesus Christ when he compares these last times with those of the universal deluge He says in St. Math. 24. it will be as in the days of Noah adding when you shall see the abomination of desolation to be in the holy place flee away Do you not think Sir that this abomination is now in the holy place if Envy were lost it might be recover'd in the Cloisters if Avarice were dead it would be reviv'd by the Priests Vain-glory and Pride is no where so prevailing as among the Clergy in one word Simonies and all other sins abound in the place which ought to be holy What more sure marks would you have than those which Jesus Christ himself has declar'd to us should precede the Judgment if you desire to see the Stars fall from Heaven the Sun to be darken'd the Moon not to give her Light all these are nothing but material signs which can do no harm to Souls but serve only for outward evidences of the wrath of God and to the end that even insensible things may feel the terrors of that great day as the Rocks did when they were rent at the death of Jesus Christ This added nothing to his passion nor render'd those who put him to death more criminal for they were nothing but insensible rocks without souls or reason Even so will it be as to the Stars and the other celestial bodies if they change colour or suffer any other alteration this will not be hurtful to our souls which are spiritual and cannot receive any punishment by these visible and material Stars so much the rather that these signs and Stars cannot be understood but spiritually For how could the Stars fall from Heaven since the Mathematicians tell us that one Star alone is seven times greater than all the Earth so great a thing cannot fall into one so small for it would not be capable to contain it And if we take the mystical sense calling by the name of Stars persons luminous in Doctrine the Doctors and Guides Prelates Bishops and all those who are plac'd in Dignities to whom the name of Stars may be appropriated as being the Lights of the world this sign would also have at present its sense accomplisht for we see every day such persons fall from righteousness and truth who for some worldly interest or humane respects fall from the truth of the Gospel which is the true heaven of Souls and wallow in the earth among its riches and pleasures as secular persons do In former times how many of those were seen who had their hearts and spirits continually towards heaven their lives and manners did enlighten all the world as the Stars of the Firmament but at present they are fallen into the mire of earthly affections So that it may be truly said that the Stars are fallen from Heaven and that the Sun also is become without light For Truth which is the true Sun of Righteousness cannot any longer appear openly it is become black and hateful to all the world who desiring to be flatter'd and prais'd cannot hear the truth because it reproves the falshood which now prevails These two signs of the Sun and of the Stars appear at present in their full accomplishment in the mystical and inward sense which is much more than if they did appear in the literal and material sense for the reasons above-mentioned and if the Moon be not as yet without light it will be so very shortly in the mystical and perfect sense The Moon is all transitory things which after the manner of the Moon do encrease or diminish according to good or bad fortune These things will lose their light so soon as Wars shall have destroy'd and ruin'd temporal wealth Then all that pomp and magnificence which shines in the Sanctuary will lose its splendor and will no longer yeild any thing but blood Since for Gold and Silver they will cut the throats of those who are plac'd in the highest dignities so that what shines and glisters to day in the Church will wholly lose its lustre and light and by this means this Moon will be darken'd I entreat you to read attentively the 24th Chapter of St. Matthew it speaks of the present time All the Parables do the same I wish I had time and leisure to explain them to you you would see as well as I that the Judgment approaches for all the forerunning signs are already come People do not perceive them for want of reflecting seriously enough on the holy Scriptures or upon the inward life of men now adays they amuse themselves with regarding only their outward piety imagining that there are yet a great many good men because they appear such but before God all are corrupted They resemble the Apples of Sodom which appear beautiful without and have nothing within but rottenness This is the true symbole of the life of Christians now which God makes me perceive abundantly by his inward light This fill'd me with astonishment and desiring to understand her more clearly I ask'd her whether there were not any good men or true Christians in our days She said to me No Sir THERE ARE NO TRVE CHRISTIANS VPON EARTH There are indeed diverse persons who seem to be good men and are really so in comparison of the wicked they may indeed pass for Saints before men but before God they are not true Christians for tho they do not act wickedly but frequent the Sacraments and other exercises of Devotion yet nevertheless they have not the LOVE OF GOD nor Charity for their Neighbour in their hearts much less a hatred of themselves or a desire to embrace the Cross Sufferings and Persecutions to follow Jesus Christ On the contrary they so love themselves that all their designs aim at nothing but their own satisfaction even in the most pious things You would be astonisht Sir to see what difference there is between the sight
have done 29. The Fifth Conference Of Antichrist and how he reigns over all in Spirit 31. The sixth Conference How outward Worship towards God and the outward Works of Charity towards ones Neighbour are corrupted by the Devil And from whence this power does proceed 36. The seventh Conference That God has not abandon'd Men but Men have abandon'd God and resisted his Grace in the distribution of which he is not partial 39. The eighth Conference Of the Grace of God How it is given unto us And of the difficulty of being Converted 41. The ninth Conference What the Church is and of its corruption 45. The tenth Conference Of the Remission of Sins Of Confession and how it is abused 48. The eleventh Conference Outward Devotions imposed by Men are not of true Faith Of the true Church which cannot err in what it ordains The Doctrins of Jesus Christ and those of Men. True Prayer 52. The Twelfth Conference That the Conversion of Men is now desperate as in the time of Noah and wherefore 59. The thirteenth Conference Of true Faith according to the tenour of the Creed Of the knowledge of God and of our selves by the consideration of his works 63. The fourteenth Conference How God forsakes us and how we forsake him by distraction of Mind by which the Devil does subdue Men withdrawing them from the Love and Gratitude which they owe to God who discovers himself most sensibly in all things alone Lovely 70. The fifteenth Conference That God has never given unto Man but only one essential Commandment which is that of his Love which is most easie and most agreeable and that of every other thing most vain 77. The sixteenth Conference Of continual Prayer and constant Communion with God for which we were created and how we are distracted from it by the business of this World and by the enjoyment of frail Creatures 82. The seventeenth Conference How to discern whether the motions which press us to leave the outward hindrances to Divine Communion be from God or not That there are also inward obstacles and that we must not be wedded even to good means 92. The eighteenth Conference How we may attain to perfection and to Communion with God resigning our selves wholly unto him quitting both humane Wisdom and the Instructions of others for a time Christians uncapable of being taught They will be more desolate than the Jews 96. The ninteenth Conference That all Christians ought to read the Holy Scripture Whether the Church can err Where it is Where not 101. The Twentieth Conference Of the reading of the Holy Scripture and of the prohibition â—fâ—t How the Church cannot fail And what she is and is not 104. The Twenty first Conference Where the true Church is Where God is How he speaks unto the Soul and how we ought to be disposed for this Divine Conversation 109. The Twenty second Conference That there can be no true contentment but in God alone How to return thither Of Gifts and of those which are made to Churches which shall perish 116. The Twenty third Conference Of the destruction of the Church and of the uprightness of God in his Judgments and in all that he does 121. The Twenty fourth Conference Of the enquiry about the most Holy Trinity and of Grace and that even the Saints themselves are therein mistaken none being infalliable 125. The Twenty fifth Conference That the Holy Spirit sends always new influences and that his Light ought not to be bounded nor the interpretation of the Scriptures unto that which the Holy Fathers have had in past times 128. The Twenty sixth Conference How and wherefore the Holy Scripture has in nothing as yet been understood in a perfect Sense which is shewn by new Explications concerning the Creation of Man his Fall the coming of Jesus Christ in Reproach and that in Glory upon Earth there to reign eternally Of the Glorification of the Creatures both Animate and Inanimate what makes Paradise and Hell and that all these things shall be preceeded by universal Rods and Scourges 131. The Twenty seventh Conference That the care of withdrawing ones self from Chastisements is yet a Self-Love and that the Communion of the Soul with God sufficeth in all places 157. The Twenty eighth Conference How we ought to pray and understand the Lords Prayer in a perfect sense which respects the Dispositions and Graces which shall be granted us in the Glorious Kingdom of Jesus Christ of which there are here Marvellous things spoken 160. The Twenty ninth Conference Of the signs whereby we may know that we are fallen in the last Times and that the World is Judged viz. that Men are without Righteousness Truth and Goodness before God and that the execution of his Plagues do already appear effectually 178. The Thirtieth Conference How God permits that Men should be abandoned to to the Spirit of Error 191. The End of the Table of the Conferences of this first Part. THE LIGHT of the WORLD The First Part. The First Conference Of Gods dealing with A. B particularly how he instructed her immediately from her Infancy the opposition of men of Christian perfection and of the deplorable state of Christian AS we advanc'd in our journey still travelling towards the Sun rising being already more than half way we perceiv'd at a distance one walking before us not knowing at first who it was because of the distance we remark'd only that it was a person alone who desir'd no Company but retir'd aside assoon as any body approach'd and hid herself until we mending our pace had come nearer and when we beheld this person we perceived she was a Maid who appear'd young enough and tho she was simply apparelled she had notwithstanding a grave and majestick Mien We saw in her face the marks and the joy of a serene and contented soul Her gate was always of an equal pace neither flow nor hasty her looks gave both joy and fear she did not refuse to speak to us in our Language tho it was not natural to her and having ask'd her whither she was going she said In Pilgrimage for penitence for her own sins and those of others And having ask'd her from whence she came she said From afar for she had travell'd many years and was harrass'd by the way and discolour'd by the Sun We ask'd what she design'd by so long and troublesome voyages dangerous for a Maid alone remonstrating to her that there were many other means to do penitence in her own Country without being in danger of hunger thirst unhappy rencounters and many other inconveniencies which may fall out in travelling alone and that at least she ought to take some Company To which she answer'd That she was oblig'd to travel alone for she had found no body that would accompany her and that many had indeed gone along with her for some time but upon the first temptation hunger or incommodity they had staid behind not knowing how to endure
evils He can never do evil All that comes from him is most good and perfect he created us in an altogether holy and perfect state with an immortal body and a divine soul subject to none but himself having given us a spirit enlighten'd to know him and a power to rule over all the creatures both terrestrial and infernal and if he has oblig'd us to aid and succour one another this is not that he had created us more infirm than any other living creature but only to the end he might afford us matter for entertaining mutual Charity and Union together one assisting his Brother out of love the other being led to love him by the assistance and benefits which he receives from him and thus perpetually to maintain this love by the aliment of the need that we have of one another to the end we might continue united together as Jesus Christ is united to his Father And even the manner of the Generation of men is ordain'd for no other reason but always to preserve this perfect unity of body and spirit Thus you see that God has done all things well tho it seems sometimes to our ignorance that many evil things come from God the only Author of all good and the Destroyer of all evil It is our sin which has caused all the miseries under which we continually groan the maladies and infirmities of body are engender'd in us by sin the weakness ignorance and inconstancy of our spirit do proceed from sin That all the creatures rise up against us and hurt us this is but to take just vengeance of the rebellion which we have committed against God by sin It is a blasphemy therefore to say That God has subjected us to so many evils since we our selves only are the Authors of them and he can never do evil no not to damn us if we do not damn our selves and to know how and by what means we may attain to the LOVE OF GOD which is true Charity we need only take the Gospel and there observe in particular the instructions which Jesus Christ and his Apostles have left us in writing and put them in practice Behold the sure means to attain to true Charity without which no body can be sav'd It is not necessary that we seek any other means than those which Jesus Christ has taught us by word and deed I said to her if to be sav'd one must have this perfect Charity few persons will attain to salvation for we do not observe now that the Charity of which she speaks does possess the hearts of men She answers This is to be bewail'd with tears of blood for no body shall be sav'd without it as St. Paul affirms that Tho we would bestow all our goods to feed the poor tho we could remove Mountains tho we had the Gift of Prophecy yea tho we would give our body to be burned yet all this would be nothing for our Salvation without Charity And if you will exactly run over all the holy Scriptures you shall find by the sayings of Jesus Christ of the Apostles and of all the holy Prophets that never any person shall be sav'd without this Charity which consists in the LOVE OF GOD and of our Neighbour for God In the mean time no body possesseth this Charity and almost all the world presumes to be sav'd There is now Sir so great darkness in the whole world that no body discerns truth from falshood since they have taught Christians that the means of living well and of being sav'd do consist in going to Church in praying morning and evening and in confessing and communicating often By these things they have annull'd the Law of God and stified Charity for this is no more in use among Christians it is not so much as known by them and they understand not what true CHARITY is because this name is now appropriated to the gifts which persons bestow on Monks religious persons the superfluous Ornaments and Buildings of Monasteries and Churches they have baptizd by the name of Charity all these Gifts Presents and Legacies And I in my inward conversation do find them to be sensual affections and call them Robbery and Avarice for he who receives Presents without necessity by way of Alms does certainly commit Robbery and robs the poor and necessitous who alone are capable of receiving alms So that he whosoever he be having necessaries for the support of his life being able to gain them by some trade or labour is oblig'd to restore all the gifts and presents which he receives by way of alms and that person commits the sin of avarice who covets more than what is simply necessary for the support of his life for it is a great folly for a Traveller to load himself with burthens which are not necessary to him for the accomplishing of his Voyage Thus no body can enrich himself or heap up earthly goods without the Lust of Avarice which sin as all others does blind souls rendring them insensible of their own hurt But because they have introduc'd the calling of these vices and sins by the name of Charity every one believes they have it while they co-operate to these vices by this the Devil has seiz'd on the Throne of God and reigns in the Sanctuary by falshood whereas God ought to reign there by truth Behold the deplorable state in which we live at present the danger is so much the greater that all the evils are cover'd with vertue and piety that good men may be the more deceiv'd who live and die in this horrible darkness not knowing what true Charity is far less do they possess it so that I despair of their Salvation If they do not perceive this truth of Charity they can never be sav'd since not knowing it they cannot love it nor endeavour to find it while they think it is enough to bear the name of charitable tho they neither know nor possess true Charity There are so many such errors now in Christendom that Christians are by them led insensibly into Hell while they believe that they are assuredly in the way of Paradice I ask'd her If the goodness of God would permit that so many persons should go to perdition while they believe that they do well and follow the counsel of learned men and such as are authoriz'd by the Church She said Truly Sir there will be more Christian Souls damn'd by these means than by gross visible and material sins because all those persons who think to be sav'd live and die in the sins against the Holy Ghost which will not be pardon'd neither in this world nor in the other Not that these sins are so enormous that they cannot be pardon'd but because they are inward and spiritual little known and far less feared The most devout persons are tainted with them and will
never repent of them as long as they presume to be sav d according to the doctrine of the learned of this age This is not against the goodness and mercy of God because he has left us his doctrine in writing in his Gospel and the other holy Scriptures which will never perish according to the promise that heaven and earth shall pass away but his words shall not pass away Every one may have recourse thither without amusing himself with the new inventions of men Leaving the fountain of living waters to draw out of broken Cisterns which can hold no water Ignorance will not excuse sin We feel indeed in our Conscience that we do not follow the doctrine of Jesus Christ that our life and our manners are in nothing conformable to the life of the first Christians that our heart is not inflam'd with the LOVE OF GOD nor Charity to our Neighbour and nevertheless we would flatter our selves with the presumption of our salvation because men do promise it to us who have no power to give it to us no more than to themselves In this point our Ignorance is too gross and affected and will not serve to excuse us before God but will rather serve for our Condemnation for we might always find the truth if we had done our endeavour to seek it But because our Guides have taught us ways of salvation more pleasing to our senses and to our taste we have follow'd them rather than those which Jesus Christ has shewn by his deeds and taught by his word It is just that he abandon us to the spirit of errour since of our own free will we have more esteem'd Error than the Truth which alone leads to Salvation I ask'd her If she did not esteem the Priests and Guides of Souls and if to attain to Salvation we ought not to follow their Instructions She said Yes Sir I honour and esteem true Priests because they ought to be the Ambassadors of God to distribute to the ignorant the points of Faith and the doctrine of Jesus Christ which is the nourishment of all Christian Souls But I may say with a sensible regret that I know no true Priests who are simple Ministers of Jesus Christ only to declare and interpret his word because every one ofthem abounding in their own sense teach that which is most sutable to their inclinations They ought to be nothing but the Organs of the Holy Spirit and it seems they are become his Masters Humane Learning and Studies have depriv'd them of the Gospel simplicity they ascribing to themselves what appertains to God conducting Souls by their own measures not by the Rules of the Gospel forasmuch as they themselves do not follow them Some indeed speak the words of the Gospel but they do so gloze and disguise it that no body thinks himself obliged to put it in practice Which is very lamentable for Jesus Christ yesterday and to day is altogether the same and will be even to the end of the world without any change or mutation This being most true how is it possible that any can be sav'd while they do not follow in any thing what he has taught us He has said that he who does not deny himself cannot be his Disciple which no body does On the contrary every one loves himself and yet they call themselves the Disciples of Jesus Christ It must needs be that the one or the other is deceiv'd This impossibility which Jesus Christ has laid down is it render'd possible by the authority of those Guides who assure all the world of their Salvation while they love themselves This cannot be true for Jesus Christ cannot lie but men indeed may err especially in things wherein they have interest for if they taught simply that a man must deny himself and the other points of the Gospel they would give severe reproofs to themselves because their lives and manners are very far from this practice therefore they study to find out glosses reasons and exceptions to the end they may find means not to be oblig d to follow and practice this holy doctrine which is repugnant to their sences Thus every one lives in a presumption of his Salvation without any ground for these men are not Saviours and cannot save us but are rather Seducers of whom Jesus Christ foretold that they should come in the last times in which we are certainly fallen at present wherein the spirit of error does fully reign where truth is stifled and lying prevails The Second Conference Of the Judgment of God Of the Last Times and of the Men of the Last Times REmarking these last words I ask'd her if she sirmly believ'd that the last times were come and whither the Judgment approached She said to me Believe me Sir there is nothing more true we actually live in the last times and the judgment is so near that before three years I believe you will see the effects of it I could not be perswaded to believe this continuing pensive and silent which she perceiving said Sir the difficulty you find to believe these things proceeds from the universal darkness that is now upon the earth by which all the world is blinded and no body sees where he goes no more than they who liv'd during the Egyptian darkness which was so great that none could stir out of the place in which they were this was nothing but the outward figure of the inward darkness in which men walk at present We do not perceive that we are fallen into the last times nevertheless we may see by the lives of men now that all the signs are fallen out which Jesus Christ has foretold viz. that iniquity shall be multiplied and Charity in many shall wax cold and so of the rest Who can doubt that this is not at present when iniquity is so great and so universal that there is no more faith nor law among men People study nothing but to deceive their Neighbour the Father cannot trust his Son nor the Son his Father the Brother rises up against the Brother friendship is only feign'd business is full of deceit and fraud We see nothing but pride and ambition reigning in the hearts of all men Judges are without equity Priests without sincerity Cloysters fill'd with avarice and the devout full of malice which has been at all times in some particular persons but is at present so multiply'd that it possesses almost all men in general and charity is not only waxt cold but is altogether frozen and become dead in the hearts of men So that these signs of the last times are all fully accomplisht Read if you please the Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy where he says that in the last times there shall come men loving their own selves c. You will see more clearly than the Sun all
She replied Truly Sir you cannot cover these Evils for they are too manifest Whether this opposition to the Holy Spirit be made directly or indirectly it is always evil They may indeed perswade the People to believe that the Holy Fathers had more light for understanding the Holy Scriptures than Laick Persons taken up about the Affairs of the World But to oblige Priests to take Oaths not to receive any other Interpretations than those of the ancient Fathers is to make them Swear indirectly that they shall oppose the Holy Spirit Seeing they would believe they falsified their Oath in receiving a new Light of the Holy Spirit which the Fathers had not received If new Light must come before the end of the World and the Priests have sworn not to receive it Laicks receiving it will be yet less approved by that which you call the Church than the Priests who have the first Rank there To whom then shall the Holy Spirit address to spread his Light upon the Earth He must of necessity bestow it on the Turks Jews or Heathens since those who are called Christians will not or cannot receive it for fear of falsifying their Oath And if God reveal his Secrets to Babes as he ordinarily does who among the Christians would receive this Revelation The particular Priests could not do it because of their Oath and if they would present it to what is called the Body of the Church They would examin whether the ancient Fathers have said the same things which if they did not find they would reject it as a Heresie since their resolution is not to receive any thing but what the ancient Fathers have said If the Church were that which Jesus Christ brought from Heaven it would be always uniform and guided by the same Holy Spirit There would be no need to fear that every one would Interpret the Holy Scriptures after his own way for there could not be but one and the same Belief For all would be Saints and capable of Interpreting the Scriptures yea even of Prophecying according as God who is free should grant Light to every one tho Men would indeed Captivate and limit him by their new Laws The Twenty sixth Conference How and wherefore the Holy Scripture has not been understood in a perfect Sense as yet in any thing which is shewn by new Explications touching the Creation of Man his Fall the Coming of Jesus Christ in Disgrace and his coming in Glory upon Earth to reign there for ever Of the Glorification of the Creatures both Animate and Inanimate and what makes Paradise and Hell and that universal Plagues and Rods shall preceed all these things HAving remarked that she spake so often of the Holy Scriptures which she said had not been understood hitherto in their perfect Sense I asked her how she could speak of them since she had told me that for a long time past she had not read them nor made use of any Books and from whence could she know that they were not understood in their perfect Sense She said Sir I will tell you trusting in your Secrecy that God hath given me the understanding of all the Holy Scripture without having read it and when by chance or casually I hear Sermons or other Conferences to Explain it I perceive plainly that they do not speak of it in its perfect Sense Sometimes they explain something in part and at other times in a sense altogether contrary or ill applied for what they say is repugnant to what I know in my Intercourse and the Spirit of God cannot have contrary Senses either the one or the other must be deceived As for me I think my Sentiment is immediately given to me from God because I never studied nor learned any thing from Men and this likewise cannot come from my Imagination because I never give way to Speculation and desire not to know nor learn any thing for I stop my Ears to all that they would teach me fearing lest there should remain in my Understanding any Idea's of the Things which I had read or heard which would mingle themselves with the Light which God gives me I would be very presumptuous to believe that these so clear Interpretations come from my self I said to her That I remember she had divers times cited some Passages of Scripture and even referr'd to the Chapter of the Text as speaking of the last Times in the 24th Chapter of S. Matthew entreating me to read it asking her How she could know this She said to me Sir I have read sometimes transiently the New Testament having obtain'd Permission of a certain Bishop But as soon as I began to read I perceiv'd in what I read all my Sentiments explain'd so that if I were to write the Sentiments which I carry within me I should compose a Book like that of the New Testament so much do I find them altogether conformable And it seeming to me that it would be useless to read what I did so sensibly possess I left off to read except where there was occasion to speak of the Gospel or any other thing contain'd in the said Testament I was then well pleas'd to cite it that by this mean my Saying might be more authoriz'd by the Holy Scripture than by my simple Word tho' it be altogether conformable thereunto And that 24th Chapter of S. Matthew is so much the more in my Heart that I see it treats of the Time in which we are fallen at present I wish all the World would read it that they might apprehend the more the Danger in which we live without perceiving it I said to her I had read that Chapter divers Times and nevertheless did not comprehend that it spoke of this present Time entreating she would explain it to me She said Sir I will do it by the Grace of God But I must have Time to rest Let us still go on our Way and how soon I shall stop I will give you that Explication in Writing Give me only the Text and I believe you will receive great Light from it You may also confront it with the Explications which the Holy Fathers have made of it You will see which of all will have the most perfect Sense That will be a small Sample which will shew what the whole Piece will be For it seems to me that I will be oblig'd one Day to explain all the Holy Scripture in general but for this end I will need to keep my self without the Reach of the Roman Church because by speaking the Truth of it I will be liable to their Reproof Truth does alway shock Lying as Righteousness does Unrighteousness I know I cannot but speak the Truth and also that they who do not follow it do resist it For this cause they kill'd the Holy Prophets and Jesus Christ himself because they bear Witness to the Truth I can expect no less Recompence from Christians now for they being without the
Truth will strongly resist it and practising Unrighteousness they will not suffer Righteousness in their presence because it would reprove them I can very well hold my Peace as I have done for so many Years by-gone But when God shall will that I speak I will cry to all the World without fearing those who can but kill the Body Death would be agreeable to me if with it I could enlighten my Christian Brethren and draw them out of Error I said to her That the Church did not put to death the Holy Fathers who had explain'd the Holy Scriptures But on the contrary had honour'd and esteem'd them That neither ought she to be afraid of being ill treated by them but rather receiv'd and approved in explaining the Scriptures She said to me Sir You would always excuse this Church because you have espous'd her as I have also done It proceeds from this that you do not yet distinguish what the true Church is tho' I have so often spoke to you of it The Church in a perfect and defin'd Sense is no other thing but the Souls which are united in Heart and Will wholly unto God These are his only Spouses He never had any others no more under the Old Testament than the New yea from the Beginning of the World and will never have even to the End yea throughout all Eternity Nothing can be the Church but that which is united wholly unto God No more than a Woman can be a Man's Spouse if she be not united to him For if she joyn herself to another she is an Adultress the same is it without Comparison in the Alliance which God makes with Souls If they withdraw from him and joyn themselves to any other thing they are Adultresses and worthy of being divorc'd If God permit a Man to forsake his Wife for Whoredom wherefore should not this Law be observ'd by himself If Rome with its College does remain united to God in the Spirit of Truth she is the Church and his Spouse But if she be separated from that Truth and Righteousness she is no more but a Civil and Political Assembly Make always this Distinction Sir or otherwise you will be deceiv'd taking Falshood for Truth If there were a thousand Popes with as many Counsellors assembled and if they did not possess the Spirit of God they are not the Church but if a simple Woman that spins on a Distaff do possess the Spirit of God she is the Church The Holy Fathers were not ill treated by Rome in expounding the Holy Scriptures because there were yet perhaps in their Time in those Assemblies some Souls which were Churches and who by confequence did defend the Truth But at present this Support is not to be expected but rather mortal Persecutions An evil thing Sir ought not to be maintain'd blindly as if it were good Therefore God has given you a good Judgment to make this Distinction for if you continue always fix'd in the Resolution to take this outward Body of the Roman Church for the Holy Church it is in vain for me to discover to you her Evil and the Infidelity she has committed toward her lawful Husband You would do as he who would permit his Wife to play the Adultress in dissembling it without being desirous to know or discover it The Sin is as great to tolerate it as to do it If God permit me to speak the Truth openly to that Church which you esteem you would see with Regret how ill she would treat me you could not deliver me from the Peril to which your pious Belief would expose me I said to her That for the Exposition of the Holy Scriptures she needed offend no Body That this was but what God had declar'd unto us That every one ought to desire to have still a more clear Vnderstanding of them yea even the Wicked themselves that this ought not to displease them I entreated her to write boldly She said When you shall read Sir the 24th Chapter which I have promised you it may be you will change your Opinion for the Word of God is like to a two-edged Sword Truth cuts all that it meets with in Opposition to it So that without respecting any Body we cut all sorts of Errors and Lies in following only the streight Truth blindly and without knowing it we do often wound those of whom we are not thinking If the Word of God were well explain'd it would offend all the Persons that live now in the World yea those who are esteem'd Holy and Perfect For as we do not see so many little Atoms flying in the Air when the Sun does not shine brightly as we do when he spreads his Beams clearly even so the Souls which are full of Sins and Imperfections do not perceive them so long as the clear Understanding of true Perfection is not given them They believe that they are very clean but so soon as this Divine Light shall give its Rays every one will see evidently that he is deceiv'd that he has no Righteousness and that he is no true Christian Therefore the Devil will hinder as much as he can this Light from being discover'd and will oppose himself thereunto even by those that have most Authority that very few may perceive their Blindness For if these Explications were maturely consider'd by every one all the World would be converted for there is nothing more charming than to consider that which God has done for Man from his Creation and continued even till now which is nothing but a continued Course of Benefits all corresponding to one another always in great Perfection The Creation the Law of Moses the Prophets the Gospels are all the same thing by an excellent Harmony I ask'd her Whether the Ancient Fathers had not discover'd these things aright and if they had not declar'd this to the World by so many Expositions and Books which they had written She said Sir It was not necessary that the Ancient Fathers should have the Understanding of all things It was enough that they understood that which Men had need of then but since we draw near to the Fulness of time it is expedient for Men now that they learn that which must fall out in their Time Therefore God now reveals the Secrets which he would then have to be kept hid When the Apostles ask'd Jesus Christ when these things which Jesus Christ had told them should come to pass He answer'd them That it was not for them to know the Times which the Father had in his own power To shew that unseasonable Light ought not to be desir'd and that to him alone appertains the knowing the Time and the Hour of all things Thus he thought fit to reserve the Understanding of the Scriptures till the necessary time which is at present The Holy Fathers could not know then what he would reserve till now and all that they declar'd of it by so many
Evangelical Counsels for observing it aright He is despis'd and rejected by the Great Men of this World He is also Reproach'd Buffeted held for a Wicked One To shew that the Praises of Men are not to be sought for but their Reproaches rather to be endur'd for the Love of God At last he is put to Death for the Truth enduring all with Patience To teach us to suffer patiently even to Death And all that he has endur'd has been to give us an Example I ask'd her In case Men had not come to so great Extremity of Evil whether she believ'd that Jesus Christ would have come so soon to take Human Flesh She Replied No Sir he would not have come till the end of the World to judge and condemn Men in abolishing Evil He would have come in the glory of all his Majesty with all his Angels not in Contempt and Sufferings He would have come to Reign not to undergo an infamous Death If you read attentively the Prophets Sir you will find that they speak far more of this coming in Glory than of that in Reproach For the coming of Jesus Christ in Glory is as it were THE SUM OF THE DESIGNS WHICH GOD HAS OVER MEN And the coming in Reproach is as it were the Accident of the said Designs Therefore there will be much more spoken of through all the Holy Scriptures Read Sir attentively all the said Scriptures from the creation of the World you will find that they all will aim at this Kingdom of Jesus Christ on Earth with Men for this is the end of their Creation God can never reign fully in Men until the time of this coming in Glory because that they living yet in the liberty of doing evil do not yet give full possession to God to reign in their Souls for very often or at least by accident Sins do rule there Which we have seen in the greatest Saints of the World A David a Solomon all the Apostles and Disciples of Jesus Christ yea all those who have since been esteemed Saints have all in general fallen into Trespasses and have strayed from God for some time By which he could not find in them his perfect reign as he will do after his glorious Coming For then all will be Deify'd Bodies as well as Souls And there will be an end of all Evil. God will then have his full dominion over all Flesh which has never been For the most part of Men in all times have Blasphemed and Despised him tho all were created by him to love him and to adore him They have yielded their honour and love to the Creatures instead of the Creator Is it not fit Sir that these things be one day repaired and that God be worshipped in Spirit and in Truth by his Creatures I said to her That assuredly God would after that manner be adored in Heaven but that I could not comprehend how he could be so here upon Earth She said I perceive Sir that you take for Heaven and Paradise some precise place or some particular part which ferves for a Residence to God And for my part I cannot believe that there is any thing capable of containing God for he is greater than all things and cannot be contain'd by any thing less than himself The Heaven is but his Creature which we say is on high and God has neither high nor low for he contains all Heaven and Paradise is always in him for there can be no other but his Presence and he who is in his Presence is in Heaven and Paradise For my part I know no other They tell us many imaginary things of God and of Paradise which have very little relation to what they are It seems God is like an earthly King who is lodged in some Palace of Wood or Stone These are all Speculations of Men as earthly as their Affections For God cannot have any fixt place for his Residence seeing he comprehends all things When I say that God will be upon Earth reigning with Men the Earth will then be Paradise for in all Places where he is there is always Paradise If God were in Hell Hell would then be Paradise there being no other but the presence of God That makes in all places where it is Heaven and Paradise When this presence is in our Soul our Soul is Heaven How can you not comprehend Sir that God could be truly adored in Spirit and in Truth upon Earth seeing he has so often promised to make an Alliance with Men Must not this Alliance be made upon Earth God being a pure Spirit has no need of any Station but Man having a Body has need of some Place to contain him The Earth was created for this necessity that it might contain the Bodies of Men. Why then should not God come upon Earth to dwell with them seeing they cannot go where God is in that purity of Spirit Of necessity he must either come upon Earth or indeed they could not be entirely united together I asked her When Jesus Christ shall come to reign upon Earth and to Allie himself with Men She said As sooon as the Plagues shall have rooted out all the Wicked or the greatest part of them then He will appear in the Clouds and all the World shall see him You may indeed live till then Sir if God please For my part I hope to see him and to reign with him Eternally In this all my hopes and my joy do consist For this Life is too miserable to take any contentment in it without the hope of this time to come I say it will be very shortly for I see the Measure full and Mens sins are come to the height They cannot be more numerous And if there were not some small Veil of Human respect they would Murther Rob commit Adultery and do all sorts of Abomination publickly as well as they do them before God But Pride keeps these things yet concealed that they may not be despised by Men And as for what passeth only before God or a few Persons they make no more reckoning of it It seems all is lawful provided it be not discovered What greater Evil can be expected The abomination of Desolation is in the Sanctuary Tho Christians be the People of God they have denied his Faith and have abandoned it to become Idolaters of one another Every one has his proper Idol one worships his own Body another his own Spirit another his Learning another his Riches another his Honours another his Children or other Creatures In short none adore God but with their Lips Is it a wonder that the Judgment is near when we see that all Men have abandoned their God Is it not time that he likewise abandon them which he cannot do but according as Man withdraws himself from God by the same consequence God is withdrawn from Man for two things cannot stay together when the one withdraws it self
spiritual or imaginary as they would sometimes make us believe why would Jesus Christ have made us to ask so many different things If Paradise were not accompanied with the Earth and with all the Creatures which we see and with our Body with all its Functions why must we pray to have our daily Bread when there will be no need of Eating Why should we pray that the Name of God may be Hallowed seeing all the Blessed have always Hallowed it and will never cease to do it tho' we should not pray for it Must there not be in this a Sense which we have not as yet discovered and that this Hallowing of the Name of God ought to be underderstood that all the Men who are upon Earth may Hallow his Name for it cannot be done fully by Angels by the Blessed and by some particular Souls living upon Earth But this Name must be Hallowed generally by all Men in Body and in Soul Which will be when this Kingdom shall come wherein the Will of God shall be done upon Earth as the Angels and the Blessed do it in Heaven and wherein shall be given us also our daily Bread that is every day in particular Graces in abundance for our Souls and all sort of delights to satisfie our Bodies wherein we shall pardon our Brethren their Sins as we shall see that God has pardoned us in giving us besides Pardon Eternal Happiness wherein there shall be no Temptations of the Enemy nor of our Nature for it will not any longer feel any vicious Inclinations where in short there can never enter any Evil but all sort of Happiness of Joy and of Contentments Perfect and Compleat Incomprehensibly Delightful This is what S. Paul saw when he said That they had never entred into the Mind of Man the things which God had prepared for his Elect. All the Holy Scriptures are full of this Kingdom which is to come to us This is the Feast signified by the Parable of the King Who made a Marriage for his Son This Son is Jesus Christ who is Allied with the Human Creature His Nativity in Flesh was but the betrothing wherein he has indeed promised unto Man an Alliance as he had done before to Abraham which will be accomplish'd and consummated only at the coming of Jesus upon Earth in Glory when he shall be perfectly United to Man Body and Soul with the Divinity all together This is that also which is signified unto us by the Parable Of the Master who went into a far Country giving Talents to his Servants to every one according to his Ability and at his return he demanded of each of them an account to give them their Wages Jesus Christ having given his Graces and Talents by his Gospel has ascended unto his Father which is the Long Journey But he will return in his Glory to demand an account of every one of all the Graces received in this time and to place his faithful Servants over great things and make them enter into the Joy of their Lord. This is also the Parable Of the Master who made a Feast and sent his Servants to call those that were bidden who all excused themselves One had bought Oxen another a Field another had taken a Wife The Birth of Jesus Christ was the time when he came to invite Men to the Feast which God would make that he might take his delight with Men and as soon as the day shall come that all shall be ready upon Earth for receiving the Son of Man in his Glory those who were invited by his Evangelical Doctrin will excuse themselves One will say I have been a Merchant I must wait upon my Merchandise I cannot attend it Another will say I have been a Labourer I must take care of my Labours I cannot attend it Another will say I have been Married I must satisfie my Wife and Family I cannot attend it And when Jesus Christ will swear that none of those who were called shall taste of his Banquet That is that all they who have received the Gospel and have not obeyed it shall never enter into his Kingdom For no State or Condition ought to hinder the observing of the Doctrin of the Gospel For Jesus Christ has not brought it from Heaven for the Monks or Religious only seeing there were none such then but he has brought it for all Christians in general whom he has particularly invited to make this Alliance with them And they who would not observe this Holy Doctrin shall never taste the Delights of that Marriage Feast All the other Parables speak of nothing but this Kingdom of Jesus Christ upon Earth when he compares this Kingdom of Heaven to A Grain of Mustard he signifies that it will be only the Little and the Humble who shall inherit this Kingdom and when they shall be mortified upon Earth they will grow so strongly that the Angels of Heaven shall come to rest in their Branches And when this Kingdom of Heaven is compared To a Treasure hid in the ground that he who has found it ought to sell All that he has to buy this ground that he may have this Treasure That is that this Kingdom of Jesus Christ is hid from the Judgment of the Wise being as it were sunk in the ground till the time appointed and then it shall be found by the Simple who labour in this Life to find the Kingdom of Heaven and when they shall discover it they will sell all that they have that they may follow this Evangelical Life In short Sir time would fail me to relate to you in particular all the Parables with all the Passages of Holy Scripture which treat of this Kingdom of Jesus Christ upon Earth because it treats of nothing so much as this as well in the Old as in the New Testament The Song of Zaohary is that he saw by a Prophetical Spirit the Re-establishment of the People of God in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ The Song of the Virgin Mary speaks of no other thing For what ground would she have had to rejoyce in the Lord since all his Life was a train of Sadness and Sorrow What ground would she have had to Sing his Magnificence since she saw him so Poor and Despised in the Stable of Bethlehem and pursued to Death in his Tender Infancy as he was all the rest of his Life What ground of rejoycing to see him Imprisoned and Accused as a Malefactor The Sword of Sorrow had always pierc'd her Heart to see her Son God and Man Beaten Torn and at last Hang'd upon a Cross in her presence It must needs be that her Joy proceeded from a Prophetick Spirit in seeing that one day he would be upon Earth in Glory wherein all Generations would call her Blessed which has never been done For none Praise her but a small number of Christians amidst so many Nations And that sometimes in such a
the Fattest Prebendaries thirsting still insatiably for more Honour Pleasures and Riches that they may Rule in this World instead of Enduring and Suffering in it in Imitation of their Master and Captain Jesus Christ who says so clearly to them I have done all to give you an Example and Be ye Followers of me But those Persons at present do directly the contrary despising Lowliness and Humility abhorring Poverty and avoiding Sufferings as much as they can Are not these Adulterers who falsifie their Faith promised to Jesus Christ in Baptism to renounce the Devil the World and its Pomps And after their Oaths they go and take up what they have renounced conforming themselves to the World and its Pomps and Vanities as much as they can And in the mean time they will still bear the Name of Christians which signifies the Spouse of Jesus Christ As in effect those Persons really were if they had continued in his Spirit and the Imitation of Him From which they being fallen they are nothing now but unfaithful Whoremongers and Adulterers worthy to be cast off by their Lawful Husband as they infallibly shall be for He cannot acknowledge them for Christians when He sees them in their Manners wholly Antichristian It must not be imagined that this Evil is only in the Roman Church as all the Reformed would perswade themselves calling the Roman Church commonly The great Whore in the Revelation since all and every one of these Reformed are more Whores than their Mother the Roman Church from which they have separated not to Reform her but to Deform her the more by rendring her a greater Beast than she was in her self For we see these Reformed live much more licentiously than those who continue in the Roman Church who being under Discipline are regulated and restrained in their Manners whereas the Reformed being subject to none live as Beasts every one following his own Will and the Inclination of their corrupt Natures This is that which made all these Reformers to depart from the Roman Church that they might make New Institutions accommodated to their Looseness For since they were resolved to give the Reins to their Brutish Senses they could not abide any longer under the Obedience of a Superiour and being inclined to follow Carnal Pleasures they must depart out of the Roman Obedience where they had taken Vows and Oaths of Chastity for else they had been cast into Prison as perjured and impious And that they might have Money enough to satisfie the Pleasures of their Taste they must be followed by Rich Persons who might furnish them with Money in abundance For this Cause they made Schisms in the Roman Church and they Established New Churches every one after his own Fashion who contradicted one another and understood one another no more than the Builders of the Tower of Babel and in this they were followed by many Honourable Persons who thought there was some Good Thing in the Reformed and so much the rather that they were agreeable to Corrupt Nature which they flattered and nourished in its Vices For these Reformers did not bid the People separate from the Roman Communion that they might live in Gluttony and Whoredom This would have been too infamous and reproachful among Good Men but they told them the Abuses of the Roman Church proposing to reform them Though in Truth it was but that they might lead a Licentious Life shake off Piety and Truth and give Loose Reins to the Motions of their Corrupt Nature and let it follow its Desires and Inclinations without constraint For if they had designed a Pious Reformation they would not have despised the Good Things that were in the Roman Church and would only have resisted the Evil which they judged to be there and Reformed that Evil first in themselves that by their good Example they might have led others to Reform themselves too since Example is an Effectual Preaching But these Reformers proceeded after quite another manner and rejected the Good with the Bad without distinction Because if they had maintained what was Good in the Roman Church they would have been obliged to observe it them themselves This they had no mind to do being resolved to lead a Licentious Life and to give Loose Reins to all their Brutish Senses They could not subject the People to the Obedience of a Superiour since they themselves would not at all depend upon one Therefore first of all they perswaded the People to shake off a Dependance on the Pope and other Superiours that they might live every one after their own Way as the Beasts who have neither Fears nor Cares but eat and drink well This is against all Decency since no Country no Common wealth no Family can be well ordered and governed without a Head a Superiour or a Father of the Family to whom the rest are subject And I pray you FRIENDLY READER what would a City or a Province be if it had no Magistrate no Superiour No other thing but a Den of Thieves Robbers and other Malefactours who would hinder all Good Men from dwelling there And though Superiority be so good useful and necessary even in the Civil State yet these Reformers reject it as an Evil Thing and will depend on none but themselves and live independently that they may the more follow the Swinge of their Brutish Senses whose Motions they let loose without Restraint These Reformers did not only cast off Obedience by their Reformation but also the Confession of Sins in particular For they would not declare to another the Luxury and the Excess which they had a mind to perpetrate and they could not enjoyn others what they would not do themselves Therefore they rejected and even despised this Confession though the Scripture sayes expresly Confess your Faults to one another And Confession in its self is Good and Holy humbling the Heart and serving for a Bridle and Restraint to Sin in Time coming All this sort of Good these Reformers rejected together with the pretended Errours they said they had discovered forgetting that the Scripture says Try all things and hold that which is good I will not excuse the Errours and Abuses which have crept in among these Auricular Confessions since I blame them more than these Reformers themselves did as may be seen in this LIGHT OF THE WORLD But they ought not to pluck up the good Grain with the Tares That belongs to the Lord to separate them in the Day of Harvest and not to these Reformers to come before the Time and pluck out of the Holy Church the good Things which Christ had planted there Such as Fasting and Abstinence are which these Reformers have so absolutely rejected and despised though in the Scripture Fasting is recommended for the Apostle sayes Be ye sober and watch And elsewhere it is said Sanctifie your Fast And Jesus Christ speaking to his Apostles of one possest sayes to them This kind goeth not out but by Fasting and
offending him who has reserved it for himself These Sir are all blind who lead the blind and both fall into the ditch See that you never be of that Crew but believe in the Light that God manifests unto you I have spoken TRUTH to you not out of an Affectation to be believed or followed but from a design and desire of your Salvation All that I have said is necessary for you if you will use it well Because we cannot Love God without knowing him nor follow Vertue without conceiving what it is In like manner we cannot avoid Delusion without discovering it nor escape the Snares of the Devil without turning away from them Make a good use of all these Things and you shall be happy both in this World and the other I doubt not but my way of speaking may be somewhat uneasie to you because it agrees not with your Philosophy Theology or other Scholastick Sciences But believe me I never professed any Humane Sciences I choose rather to be ignorant of them than know them and if I could learn in a Quarter of an Hour all the Learning of the Schools I would not employ even that Little Time about them Because I know that Humane Learning is a great Hindrance to the Holy Spirit and also the Time is come that God will destroy the Wisdom of the Wise and abolish the Prudence of the Prudent And therefore I cannot use fine Discourses but such only as make the plain Truth be understood Words and Terms may be contended about but not the real Meaning which is true I will not dispute with the Learned because God will overcome them very shortly by the Effects of my Words nor will I polish my Language because simple Plainness pleases God more than the greatest Eloquence which is subject to Vanity For he that speaks that he may talk well is full of Vain-glory Renouncing which I seek nothing but plain Words that may express my Thoughts I believe Sir you have understood me well enough and I can tell you no more whereby I may co-operate to your Salvation There remains nothing but to put it in practice This you will do more easily in a Solitude or Desert than elsewhere because of the Corruption of Men who prove great Hindrances to us and also because of the Power the Devil has now over their Minds whereby he may infatuate all those who are yet sound and entire Flee therefore Sir to avoid these Dangers and be afraid lest you be diverted from your good Purpose and do not look back like Lot's Wife who was changed into a Pillar of Salt Yet a little Penitence and then God will deliver you from it to enter into the Joy that shall never end This is what I wish you and bid you Adieu I was troubled to hear that she would leave me entreating she would not withdraw from me since I resolved to follow what she had taught me which was nothing else but the denying of my self and a dependance upon God She said Sir It will be more for your purity to stay alone Because I am but a Creature as you are and we must cleave to the Creatour only without Interruption He will lead you at his pleasure provided you be resigned to his Will you need no more Instructions from any I have told you abundantly what may bring you to an Union with God To speak more would be henceforth but a Repetition of what is already said which would rob us both of our Time and that would be better employed in the Practice than in Repetitions Leave me to my Liberty and take also yours God did not create us together He will Save us though we be separate in Body True Union consists in a conformity of the Will with God and not in particular Conferences I must confess I have often withdrawn from conversing with God to speak to you of so many diverse Things But I judg'd them necessary for your Salvation and therefore they were not uneasie to me But now that you know the Truth of many Things it is not expedient to speak to you any longer God will still teach you sufficiently provided you continue faithful to him He never denied what Men ask of him for their Salvation You ought to have no other Designs Let the World be overturned Let the Roman Church perish Let the Elements be moved against Sinners all this cannot touch you provided you keep firmly united to God Quit all Things willingly to find this Union It matters little whether I am with you or not Provided you be with God He should suffice you For he only can save you and no Body else There is always a Mixture when the Creature cleaves to its like I often despised those who cleave to others even though it was under some pious Pretext I will not do my self what I despise in others I said to her She had promised to explain to me the 24th Chapter of St. Matthew That she ought at least to give me it before she leave me She said Sir I do not willingly fail in my Promise Give me the Text of that Chapter and I will explain it Word by Word and I wish that all sincere Persons may see it that they may discover that this Chapter speaks of the present Time Every one reads it without understanding it Nevertheless there are fair Advertisements to beware of this dangerous Time in which we live at present These are not Tales made at pleasure but Truths come from the Mouth of Jesus Christ himself which every one ought to Learn and follow the Counsels that he gives They are most saving 〈◊〉 for escaping the Evils to come which hang 〈◊〉 our Heads I must give it in Writing for an eternal Memorial that it may be observed whether all that is contained in it shall not come to pass in our Time Do not oppose what you shall find contrary to your Learning or old Impressions because the Holy Spirit will give the perfect Understanding of all the Holy Scriptures which has not been hitherto heard of For we are fallen into the Fulness of Time If you receive them with Humility of Heart you shall understand all Things perfectly But you must become an Infant and cease from your own Wisdom For God reveals c his Secrets to Babes and hides them from the Great and Wise of the Earth You must not control the Holy Spirit or say Such a Father explains this thus or otherwise Because Fulness is still more than a Portion You will find what I shall say more clear than all that the Holy Fathers ever said Because the Time is come of the Accomplishment of all Things But you must simplifie your Understanding as a little Child else you cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven I brought her the Text of the Gospel promising entirely to submit my Vnderstanding as much as was possible that I might receive the Light of the Holy Spirit She
seen of Men they sought the Praise of Men more than that of God they devour'd Widows Houses but had still a Religious Pretence for it they would learn People to despise their Parents but it was on the account of Corban they would hate and persecute others even to Death but it was to do God Service they were mighty zealous to propagate their Religion and would compass Sea and Land to gain Proselytes but then our Saviour tells us They were twofold more the Child of the Devil than themselves Now it is observable That our Saviour's Reproofs are levell'd mostly against these two last sort of Persons The former he treats with such Pity and Compassion that his Enemies tax him for a Friend of Publicans and Sinners He tells them There is joy in Heaven over one Sinner that repents more than ninety and nine just Persons that need no Repentance And that he came not to call the Righteous but Sinners to Repentance But for the other two he warns his Disciples to beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees He calls them a Generation of Vipers whited Sepulchres fair and beautiful without but within full of Corruption and Rottenness he terms them the Children of the Devil and asks How they can escape the Damnation of Hell To judge according to Appearance one would think they deserv'd a milder Treatment and that the other ought to have been most Lasht and this is the Course and Practice of the World But that which seems Righteous before Men is an Abomination in the Sight of God Our Saviour's Conduct in this we may be sure was the effect of Divine Equity and Wisdom The Publicans and Sinners were not only look'd on as such by all others but also were self-condemn'd they knew they were doing what they ought not to have done their Conscience could not but often smite them and the Divine Grace exciting them and outward Afflictions chastising them might one time or other bring them to Repentance and the Sense of the greatness of their Sins might awaken in them an answerable Sense of the Divine Goodness so that where Sin had abounded Grace should so much the more abound and they who saw there was so much forgiven them would love much But the Pharisees and Sadducces were not so capable of Conviction their Sores were skin'd over with a fair Shew of Reason and Religion their Sins were mostly Spiritual they had no Remorse for them the World and they themselves did approve them in what they did they thought they were doing God Service and they had form'd to themselves such a Righteousness of their own as made it next to impossible to bring them to Repentance or to seek after the Righteousness of God by Faith There was no such Hazard that sincere and well-meaning Persons should be seduc'd by open and scandalous Sinners Their gross Sins and the ill Character they went under were as Beacons to warn others to beware of them But it was not so easie to avoid the Leaven of one of the other two they compass'd Sea and Land to gain Proselytes and the specious Reasons of the one and the seeming Piety Zeal and Devotion of the other with such a plausible Representation of Religion as might encourage them to hope for Heaven tho' they lov'd the World and follow'd their own Wills here were Snares which it was not easie to escape Publicans and Sinners were more capable of receiving the Truth they were convinced of all and even when they were not resolv'd to follow it yet the inward Conviction of their Consciences would keep them from maligning or persecuting the Publishers of it But the other two resisted it with all their Force stuck at nothing that might suppress it did calumniate and defame it persecuted its Author and Followers to the Death and thought that in all they did God Service Jesus Christ then foreseeing the Effects of the Effects of the Malice and Subtilty of the Devil how forward he would be to slip into his Church to profess himself his Disciple and pervert his Design and Doctrin under Colour of owning and promoting it and knowing well the Corruption of Men's Hearts how naturally the Love of themselves and of the World would make them take up with Shadows of Religion instead of the Life and Substance of it he takes Care not only to shew them plainly by his Life and Doctrin wherein it truly consists viz. in true CHARITY as its End and in a constant denial of our selves as to our own Wills and as to the Honours Riches and Pleasures of this World as the effectual and necessary Means of attaining to this End But he also lets them see the false Religion that Self-love takes up with and the main Branches into which it divides itself in the different Pictures of the Pharisees and Sadducees the one making an Idol of their corrupt Reason and worshipping it for their God and the other teaching for Doctrins the Commandments of Men making the Commandments of God â—f none effect either through their own Glosses or the Traditions of their Elders being more zealous for these than the plain and simple Word of God and both of them establishing a Righteousness of their own a Righteousness founded on Self-love Self-will and the Love of Temporal Things and making void the Righteousness of God being void of Charity and the Love of things Eternal And that the Disciples of Jesus Christ had need of such Warnings the fatal Experience of all following Ages has but too evidently testified and as it seems in our Saviour's Days in the last Age of the Jewish State these Corruptions among them were come to their heighth so in this last Age of the degenerate Christian State this twofold Leaven seems to have spread through all Parties and leaven'd the whole Lump The World is now full of those who set up for great Masters of Reason and measure every divine Truth by Mathematical Principles and Demonstrations and what will not bear that Test is ridicul'd by them and tho' a Truth be never so plainly reveal'd in the Holy Scriptures yet if it do not suit their way of Reasoning and if they think it lies fair to be pelted by their Witticisms they are sure to treat it in Derision and to start Questions about it as their Predecessors did to our Saviour about the Resurrection of the Woman who had been married to seven Husbands that were Brethren viz. Whose Wife she should be of the seven at the Resurrection And tho' they meet daily with as inexplicable Difficulties in the visible World in Bodies the being of which they cannot deny and if they had liv'd all their Days in an Island among People where the manner of the Propagation of Men and Beasts was never heard of when they had been told of it would have thought it as ridiculous and impossible a thing as any Truth deliver'd in the Holy Scriptures and tho' they have liv'd to see the
Principles of the greatest Philosophers who thought they establish'd all things by unerring Rules of Aequations hiss'd out of Doors yet this will not keep them from making Idols of their own Ideas and worshipping their own Reason and Christ and his Sacred Doctrin must be despis'd if he will not fall down before it and worship it And how strangely this Spirit spreads now in the World he that runs may read There is no Delusion more dangerous and which leads to more irrecoverable Blindness than this of making our wretched Reason and the Ideas it forms to it self the Measure and Standard of Truth The Eyes of our Mind are like those of our Body we may turn them to any Side we please but can discern nothing aright unless the Light shine upon them and let them see the Objects round about them So our Minds may form to themselves many Ideas and Imaginations but none of them conformable to the nature of things without a suitable Light to discover and direct them In the Material and visible World from the general Notions of Matter and Motion and the Combination of variously mov'd and figur'd Bodies Men form to themselves such and such Systems of the Universe which they strongly fancy to be the true Model of it but when we come to consider more nearly the things themselves we find them as far different as Light is from Darkness Our Minds must receive due and suitable Impressions from the Objects themselves else they can have no right Sentiment of them A blind Man can never conceive aright what Light and Colours the Sun and this visible World are unless his Eyes be open'd and he receive the Light The Light surrounds him and he comprehends it not we may by many Words and Similitudes give him general and dark Notions of the Excellency of Light and Colours and the Beauty of this visible World but one Glance of the Light it self will discover more to him than a thousand Descriptions made by us It is the same of Divine and Spiritual Things The Natural Man perceives not the Things of God but they are foolishness to him No Man knows the Things of God but by the Spirit of God A Divine Light and Illumination is necessary to make us understand and relish Divine Things And if we think to comprehend and judge of them by our Reason and Natural Ideas we do as foolishly and unreasonably as a blind Man that would judge of Light and Colours by the Ideas he has gathered from his Touch and other Senses And as the seeing and enjoying the Light and the receiving the other Impressions of this visible World are quite another thing than the Ideas we retain and form of these things to our selves in the Light 's absence for these notional Ideas can never enliven and warm and chear our Bodies and make us enjoy all this visible World as the other does no more than the Picture of the Sun can give us Light and Heat as the Sun himself does for these are but the Pictures of the Things themselves So the true Light and Impression of Divine Things upon the Mind is as far beyond the notional Ideas that we may form of them even tho' they were the true Pictures of them and as a blind Man ought to submit to the Judgment and Conduct of those who enjoy the Light and of whose Sincerity he has no reason to doubt and in the mean Time to strive if possible to enjoy himself so ought we to submit our Understanding and our Will to the Divine Revelation of the Will of God made to others and by them declar'd to us and in the mean time so to yield up our selves to God as that the Eyes of our Understanding being enlightned we may come to comprehend what the good and acceptable and perfect Will of God is But the Leaven of the Pharisees has yet more universally overspread Christendom than that of the Sadducees Upon this is founded the Difference of the several Sects and Parties that are in the Christian World and the Hatred and Animosity wherewith they prosecute one another one crying Lo here is Christ another Lo he is there The same Leaven runs through all Parties tho' it put on different outward Forms according to the different Interests and Engagements of the respective Parties Some are very zealous for particular Doctrins and Opinions which are uncertain as to their Truth and of no Necessity for Salvation Some set up for particular Forms and Rites of Worship which may be either us'd or let alone without hazard of Salvation And others are as zealously bent against them Some for such and such Forms of Discipline and Government and others for overturning them And tho' most of the Things for or against which they bend all their Zeal be of little Moment either for Promoting or Hindrance of Salvation yet they seem to lay the whole Stress of Religion upon them and having drawn them up into positive or negative Confessions of Faith Creeds Articles Canons of Councils and Acts of General Assemblies they baptize them into the Sacred Names of The Truths of God the Cause of Jesus Christ the Interest of his Church the setting the Crown upon Christ's Head they teach for Doctrins the Commandments of Men and are more zealous for their Forms and Systems of Doctrins drawn up by themselves or their Predecessors than for the Simplicity and Plainness of the Holy Scriptures and tho a Man embrace from his Herrt the Divine Writings and endeavour to square his Life by the Rules set down in them yet if he do not receive their Systems and be not zealous for or against such outward Forms and Rites as they embrace or dislike he is to them as a Heathen and a Publican And while they have a Zeal for the outside of Religion they neglect Righteousness Mercy and the Love of God while they avoid the Scandalous and Carnal Vices that would make them hateful in the World their Hearts are full of the Spiritual ones which are as hateful to God In short the Apostle gives us a plain Character of them 2 Tim. 3. 1 2 3 4 5. warning us That in the last days perilous Times shall come for Men shall be Lovers of their own selves covetous proud boasters blasphemers disobedient to Parents unthankful unholy without natural Affection Truce-Breakers false Accusers incontinent fierce despisers of those that are good trayterous heady high-minded lovers of Pleasures more than lovers of God having a Form of Godliness but denying the Power thereof It is strange to see how wilfully Men mistake the Nature of Christianity and place it in that which it does not conconsist and what it truly is they despise and trample upon Christianity may be either consider'd in its End or in the Means it directs us to for the attainment of that End Its End is CHARITY to love God with all our Heart and our Neighbour as our selves To love God is to love his
Nature his Righteousness his Goodness his Truth and to be transform'd into the same Image to love him with all our Hearts is to love him only for himself and all other things only in and for God and entirely to depend upon him To love our Neighbours as our selves is to love them as his Images as being capable to be transform'd into his Nature and to endeavour to bring them with our selves to the Love and Enjoyment of God This is the Essence of Religion and the indispensible Duty that God requires of Man in all Estates whether that of Innocence or of his Reparation since his Fall and as our Saviour tells us Matth. 22. 40. On these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets Had man continued in the Integrity in which he was created no other Duty had been requir'd of him But he turning away his Love from God and setting it on himself and on the Creatures making himself his last End and the Creatures his chief Happiness Means are propos'd to Man to bring him back to the Love of God and to remove the Hindrances of it and he having forfeited the Friendship and Love of God Hopes are given him of Recovering his Love and Favour for obtaining of which the Intercession of a Mediator was needful who by his Merits and Favour with God might obtain it and the main Hindrances of the Love of God being Self-love and the Love of the Creatures he is directed to the Use of such Means as may effectually mortifie and subdue these in him and Man being a wayward Patient unwilling to take the Physick provided for him as being bitter and unpleasant the Physician takes Man's Nature on him and takes the Remedies first himself flies the Ease the Honours the Riches the Pleasures and the Sciences of this World embraces Poverty Reproaches Troubles and Pains and denies himself and his own Will in every thing that he might do the Will of him that sent him So the essentially necessary and effectual means to recover the Love of God is Faith in God through Jesus Christ with unfeign'd Repentance a constant denial of our selves and forsaking of every thing that hinders us to love God and for this End the taking up our Cross daily and following of Christ The Holy Scriptures are the Sacred Records wherein God's Love to Mankind the Life and Doctrin of Jesus Christ and the Precepts he has given for the mortifying of our corrupt Nature and returning to the Love of God are plainly manifested to us and in this respect they are necessary to make us wise unto Salvation as the written Counsels of a Physician would be for the Recovery of his Patient's Health Sermons religious Offices Sacraments sacred Assemblies Pastors Church-Government c. are more remote means for bringing Men to Salvation and if rightly us'd may be very helpful to direct them in the Practice of the necessary and effectual means for returning to an entire Dependance upon God But if the first be wholly neglected and these be rested on and if we think we are religious because zealous about these things and in the mean time are still Lovers of our own selves self-will'd self-conceited worldly-minded envious malicious our Actions void of Righteousness Goodness Truth c. our Religion is the Leaven of the Pharisees it is but a Form of Godliness we are alienated from the Life of God it is a Righteousness of our own and we are as mad and foolish as sick Men would be who should run about among Apothecaries and Surgeons and be very greedy to hear the Receipts of Cures for their Maladies dayly read and explain'd to them should fight and quarrel and hate and destroy one another in contending which were the best Explanations of the Receipts and which Company of Apothecaries and Surgeons had the best Form of Government and in the mean time both Directors and Patients were sick unto Death yet neither would apply themselves to take those Remedies which by all were granted to be necessary and effectual for their Recovery and without which they must inevitably perish Now the Writings of the Author of this following Treatise containing such bright Illustrations of the Truths of God reveal'd in the Holy Scriptures and discovering so plainly in what manner they are perverted by the false Glosses of the Professors of Christianity in their respective Parties I hope it will be no ill service done to the Christian Religion and to this Island in particular to make them more generally known to this part of the World of which Design this is an Essay The Author was a Virgin call'd Antonia Bourignon born in the Town of Lisle in Flanders in the Year 1616. the Daughter of a rich Man there and Baptiz'd and Bred up by her Parents in the Communion of the Church of Rome Being taught to read in her Childhood and having read the Gospels and being told of the Life of Jesus Christ how poor and mean and despis'd and self-denied he was and seeing all People live very unlike to him in Ease and abundance and Pleasures and Honours she ask'd her Parents Where are the Christians Let us go to the Country where the Christians live And tho' her Parents derided her for this yet this Impression ever remain'd with her and it was her constant Theme to let the World see what a true Christian is and that none such are to be found From her very Childhood she had inward Conversation with God and gave her self to Prayer and Divine Retirement but this Retirement being look'd on by the Suggestions of her elder Sister to her Companions as the effect of Stupidity and Sottishness and she despis'd therefore to avoid this she applied her self to take part in their Recreations and Divertisements and she quickly gain'd their Esteem and Favour above her Sister but lost her Conversation with God Yet he did not cease now and then to awaken her even in the midst of her Divertisements but Company and these Amusements still got the Ascendent Then God tried her with more severe means filling her Mind with fearful Ideas of Death Judgment and Hell whereby she came to her self again and saw the Vanity of all earthly things which would end at Death and leave the Soul empty of true Good and full of real Evils This made her abhor her present Life all worldly Advantages the Body and the Caring for it And because the Sollicitations of earthly things were apt to return again she took Care to have this deeply engraven upon her Spirit she went oft to Charnel-houses to view the Bones of the Dead saying See what thou art within a little while thou shalt be like this and yet more horrible She handled them to overcome her natural Horror for them and to make the Thoughts of Death familiar to her For six Months she begg'd no other thing of God but the Remembrance of Death and obtain'd it It was about the fifteenth or sixteenth Year of her
Divine Explanations of it in the Gospel of Jesus Christ so the Doctrin of the Gospel is so corrupted by the glosses of men and these countenanc'd by the Learning and Wisdom of the World that men do not think themselves obliged to obey the Gospel according to the Letter and therefore God has thought fit by the Divine simplicity of his Light thro' the Organ of a silly Maid to rescue it from their corrupt glosses and to confound their Learning even to their own Conviction They pretend to expose her also for advancing new Sentiments and Doctrins and thereby giving occasion to more Disputes and Controversies instead of lessening them But never any did more abhor the Spirit of Dispute and Controversie than she and her proposing of these particular sentiments are far from giving occasion to them for as she makes a clear difference between the essential and the accessory Truths of Christianity so she proposes these sentiments only as accessorie ones which may be helpful to some to make them the more admire and love God and despise this present World but not as necessary to be believ'd by all and she has often said that People need not believe them and that for this they will neither be more nor less pleasing to God that they even ought to abstain from inquiring about them out of a Spirit of curiosity for such inquiries would beget distraction presumption and pride of heart that they ought to study only Jesus Christ crucified to imitate him and to deny themselves without which the Devil and sin would mingle themselves in all their enquiries And upon this head she refused often to explain her self upon these Subjects Saying wherefore serves it to distract your selves unprofitably to neglect the main thing Endeavour to deny your selves and to imitate Jesus Christ and you shall know one day what there is of these things otherwise you shall deprive your selves of them and Damn your selves by your own curiosity and presumption Speak no more to me of them but hold to the one necessary substantial and fundamental thing Jesus Christ Crucified out of whom S. Paul would know nothing beside Besides it is very observable that these sentiments are not only very agreable to the Holy Scriptures but do also explain a thousand passages of them and the whole System of the Works of God in such a clear manner as could not be hitherto comprehended Many are ready also to pick out some passages of her Writings which separately seem harsh and from them take occasion to accuse her of Heterodoxy and of denying the essential mysteries of the Christian Faith and particularly that of the sacred Trinity There are no Writings which by this measure may not be represented as full of Heterodoxies This usage she protests against her self and disires they may not treat her Writings as they do the Sacred Scriptures single out and expose some passages without comparing them with the whole tenour of the rest And for the mistery of the Sacred Trinity she not only declares her belief of it in express terms owns it in her confession of Faith but having us'd many similitudes to illustrate it as the Fathers and Schoolmen have done she declares in the 24th C. of the first Part of the Light of the World that this unspeakable most real most beautiful most good most great most glorious mistery is above all that we can make or say of it that nothing is able to express it and that all that can be said of it detracts from it instead of coming near it What she says in the 2. Conf. of the 2. Part of the same Book ought not to be understood as if she despis'd Baptism in it self or condemned the right use of Infant Baptism She wrote so favourably and with so much respect of the Sacraments that the Quakers thought her guilty of a Criminal excess as it appears by the Apologetical Treatise she publish'd in Answer to their Accusations But notwithstanding the high esteem she expressed for the right use of the Sacraments she was no less zealous in condemning the abuse of them especially when it appeared to be universal And it is in my opinion a general and uncontroverted Rule that when ill-disposed Persons make use of the most sacred things out of a principle of Self-love to flatter and encrease their own and other Mens corruptions their practice and proceedings in this case can only proceed from a Wicked and Deprav'd Spirit Now in those places where M. Bourignon disapproves the Baptism of Infants before they have attained the use of their reason and ascribes it to an ill principle it appears manifestly from the Text it self that she speaks only of the present use or rather abuse of it among wicked and ill-disposed Christians She speaks plainly p. 15. 16. of the Baptism of Infants whose Parents have not Faith themselves and cannot teach them to follow the Doctrin of Jesus since they themselves will not do it On the contrary they teach them to follow the World and its Pomps and that the Godfathers and Godmothers never think more on what they have promis'd in the Childs name far less do they acquaint him with it when he is grown up to the end the Child may remember the promise which he made at Baptism She speaks of Christians in parade and not in effect for they have no sooner renounc'd in Baptism the World and its Pomps than they think of nothing but to follow and to love it And nevertheless p. 17. when they are outwardly Baptiz'd they believe they are sufficiently assur'd of their Salvation and every body thinks himself a good Christian if so be he have been outwardly Baptiz'd This is her true meaning in these passages and it is with respect to those who are in that state or disposition and are habitually inclin'd to act after that manner that she affirms it would be more expedient to put off Baptism till they be of Age and in a good disposition of mind without which it would have been better for them that they had never been Baptiz'd Agreeably to this the Holy Scriptures intimate clearly that it 's the Devil who intices men to make use of the Sacraments while they are in an ill disposition of mind and that their hast and precipitancy in this case proceeds from the instigation of Satan and is an abomination to God as it appears by the 1. and 66. Chap. of the Prophet Isaiah St. Peter tells us plainly that it was by the instigation of the Devil that Simon Magus desir'd to be Baptiz'd while he was in the bonds of iniquity And when St. Paul says that those who receive the Lord's Supper unworthily eat and drink their own condemnation does he not clearly give us to understand that its the enemy of our Salvation who incites men to make a bad and rash use of Sacred things to the destruction of their Souls M. Bourignon has made it appear in so many passages of
confound the Wisdom and the Learning of the World that they may strive rather to be well pleasing to God than men that fleeing all earthly loves which prove bitterness in the end they may give their hearts wholly to him who is altogether lovely whose love is unchangeable who will not disappoint them but will reward their Love with infinite Light and Joy and Love That they who pretend to be led by the Spirit of God may beware of taking God's name in vain and of vouching God's Spirit for all their Dreams and Imaginations for where the Spirit of God resides there his fruits are and the Soul that posses him has it's Affections wholly remov'd from Temporal and Earthly things and set upon those which are Spiritual and Eternal That the Pastors of the Church may see at whose Doors the Guilt of the universal Evils of Christendom are like mostly to be laid that they may fear and tremble when they hear that Salt which has lost it's Savour is good for nothing but to be cast out and troden under foot of Men that by the grace of God they themselves may be taught true Humility Self-denial and a contempt of all Earthly things without which Spirit they are no more capable of Teaching others however they repeat the Words of Christ and his Apostles than an Ape can make a good Picture tho' he take up and use the Painters Pencils and Colours In one Word that all may be brought to deny themselves and to follow Jesus Christ in the true Love of God and of one another and that the Judgments of God being now abroad upon the Earth the Inhabitants of the World may learn Righteousness For a further Vindication of these Writings and the Sentiments contain'd in them I shall here Subjoyn the protestation made by P. P. after his having Answered the Calumnies and Reproaches which some had publish'd against them in the V. Sect. of La paix des bonnes Ames pag. 278 279 280. But says he if all that said does not satisfy I will make and do at present make this PROTESTATION before God and before all Men that is That M. B. her Friends and I never had have not yet and shall never have by the Grace of God other Sentiments or Designs than to believe and live as true Christians professing by word and deed all that is Fundamental in true Christianity and which is comprehended in the Apostles Creed That we receive the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as Divine and Infallible and reject all that is contrary thereunto That we believe and adore the adorable and incomprehensible Trinity the Father the Word or the Son and the Holy Spirit God three and one eternaly Blessed the inward distinctions of which by what name soever they be call'd Real Relative Hipostatical Personal Substantial are as true as they are truly incomprehensible by the mind of Man That we hold Jesus Christ to be true Eternal God and true Man to be the Saviour and Redeemer of the World to be the Mediatour beetween God and Men who by his Merits by his Satisfaction by his Righteousness by his Life and by his Death is the Author of Salvation to all those who imitate him or to speak with the Apostle to all those who obey him That we ascribe the Glory of all Good purely to the grace of God and all Evil purely to the fault of Man and of the Devil That we make the essence and perfection of true Christianity to consist in Self-denyal in continual Prayer in the Love of God and of our Neighbour and in the imitation of our Saviour That we consider all other speculations as accessory for which it is good not to condemn any body but to leave every one at liberty to embrace or lay them aside as they find them helpful for the advancement of the essential part That the true Key whereby to come to the Knowledge of Divine things is Humility and Prayer and not the forc'd speculations of Human Reason That all States the Ecclesiastical the Political the Oeconomical are Establish'd by God and that the Honour and Submission which is measured out to them and regulated by the word of God is respectively due to them That when evil is reproved this does not concern those States directly nor good men in them who are free of it but only the abuse and the ill behaviour of the wicked That if in the Writings of M. B. or of her Friends there be any thing that is obscure or that seems contrary to what has been said we offer to clear and reconcile it or to disavow it in case it cannot be made appear that it cannot be well explain'd and that it is not a mistake of words We protest against all that may be cited from her writings or objected by way of consequence against what I have said as against so many shameful Manglings Malicious Interpretations deceitful Calumnies injurious Consequences in which God will do us Justice if Men are not just to us I protest also against all those who offer to pass hard Censures upon what concerns M. B. her Friends or my self without having read the principal of her writings or my system as against unjust and unreasonable Judges at least as against Persons very inconsiderate and unworthy of Credit In short I believe I have reason to require that they who shall be convinc'd to have laid to our charge a hundred falshoods and others who shall believe them without reason may not again be admitted the one in the Quality of Accusers and the other in that of Judges but rejected the one as notorious Impostours and the other as wilfully stupid AN ADMONITION TO THE READER Dear Reader SInce 't is my earnest desire that the perusal of this Divine Work of which this is the first Part may be profitable and advantageous to you I cannot forbear wishing that you may give no place in your mind to certain prejudices with which the most part of the World suffer themselves to be so miserably deluded that they would believe themselves deceived if they did not follow them Permit me to speak to you a word or two of some of those pernicious and deceitful prejudices which you must either banish out of your mind or forbear the reading of this Book as you would not bring upon you your own Condemnation by retaining those things which may cause you to make an ill use of it In the first place I advise you not to regard the appearance state or quality of Persons nor any thing that is purely external and so consequently can neither add nor substract from the Truth which has no dependance on things of that Nature Let the speaker be a Man or a Woman let instructions come from this or that place let the persons who are reproved be great or small Turks or Christians many or few you must not be surpriz'd at any of these circumstances Truth and Falshod may
of all Lights She told us Things unheard of so marvellous and sublime that we often remained quite lost with admiration for we had never heard such Things She explained likewise the Holy Scriptures so perfectly that none of the holy Fathers have ever so done nor any Body since the Creation of the World That which did most astonish us was That she told us she had never read nor learn'd them of any Body She knew also the secret Thoughts of the Hearts of many For a proof of which she told us Things so particular about our own inward State that neither Men nor Devils could ever know them Which befel us many times for she warned us of divers Mischiefs hid under a Mask of Piety saying That we were fallen into the dangerous Times foretold by Jesus Christ wherein many call themselves Christians and his Disciples who nevertheless are of the Synagogue of Satan who call themselves the Priests of God the Confessors and Guides of Souls while they adhere unto the Devil by express Covenant That these do seduce many by false appearances and that even those who have resolved to follow God are deceived by these false Prophets who deceive even the Elect under a colour of Holiness and Devotion that all the World was now full of such Guids Which at first did a little stumble us for we could not be enclined to believe that so many People in Christendom even Priests and religious Persons were bound unto the Devil by express Covenant We ask'd her for what reason we ought to believe a thing so abominable For it was always best to have a good Opinion of our Neighbour until the contrary were manifest She says Gentlemen it is meet in the general that you entertain in your Minds a pious Belief that every one is better than your selves but if you piously believe in particular that all the Persons with whom you converse are good you are undone It is more needful for you to discover the Evil which they have hid within them than their Good which will advantage you nothing but their Evil may greatly hurt you when it is unknown to you for you cannot beware of it while you do not know it or at least are in doubt of it It is with this pious Belief that the Good are entrapp'd by Satan who would never follow the Ill which is manifest But that which is hid under Good is much more dangerous You are free Gentlemen to believe of this what you please For my part I declare only what I learn in my inward Conversation with God I have many other Secrets to declare but methinks you are too scrupulous to hear them I will speak no more than you please I know very well how to hold my peace if my Words offend you or do not at all profit you Nevertheless I tell you in Truth that if these Evils be not made manifest to the World all Men are in danger of perishing For very shortly the Plagues of God will fall upon Christians and if Men will not believe that they have thus forsaken God to join themselves unto the Devil the most perfect will blaspheme against the same God who shall afflict them with divers Chastisements such as the like have never yet fallen out She said as in a Spirit of Fury God would be very unjust to exercise so much Rigour against the Christians if they were as good as you believe them or would think them to be It were better for us to separate for your Thoughts are altogether different from mine Go Gentlemen pursue your way For my part I love rather to walk alone and not to speak to you any more keeping my Secrets for my self I never spoke so openly of these Things This so rough and confident Answer did inflame our desire to speak to her the more that we might discover some other Thing knowing well that it is against the timerousness of the Feminine Sex to do and speak so positively to Persons of Learning and Authority as all of us were nevertheless like a strong Woman who would place her Confidence in God alone she answers us without fear making appear sufficiently that she neither desired our Friendship nor our Company no more than our Approbation but with a generous Contempt she walked without any humane Respect testifying abundantly that she sought for nothing upon Earth and that she feared no other Thing but God Which we remarked sufficiently during the whole time of our Voyage having never perceived her to baulk a word to please any Body keeping always to the strait Truth as well in small Things as in great Her Spirit was firm and constant always present to it self we never saw her wandring nor distracted She had a Judgment so just and equitable that she could not suffer the least Injustice tho' it had been in her own favour This streight Judgment was always blind without respecting either her Friends or Enemies her Honour or Reproach her Ease or Trouble her Hurt or Profit In fine we always discovered in her a perfect streightness on all sorts of Rencounters and a Truth so firm that never one Word did contradict another in so long a space of time and amidst so many different Discourses and Subjects She spoke very little unask'd and answer'd our Demands so effectually that often we remained mute and without Reply in very sublime Things being oblig'd to acknowledge that the Wisdom infused by God does far surpass all the Wisdom of Men. But it is no wonder that God did communicate himself to this Soul for she desired no other Communication nor Contentment but only what she found with her God For if we were about to tell her some News even of pious Matters she begg'd we would not speak of them to her saying that they were nothing but Distractions And when we entred into any strange Towns where she had never been she took no notice of any thing in them For having one Day entred into a Town and abode there for three Days after we came out of it I would needs speak of the fine Church that was there She said Is there a Church there Truly I did not see it Thus in whatsoever place she was she continued always in her Recollection We saw her often in Rencounters where she met with Affronts and Contempt and on other Occasions where she received Praises she never changed her Countenance receiving Contempt without Trouble and Praises without pleasure She shewed some Discontent when any Gift was offered her or when we would have rendered her any Service which she would never accept of except in case of Necessity or Sickness We perceived her always of a joyful Countenance but never to delight her self in any earthly Thing that might give her Joy In short we may all truly affirm that we never observed in her any Vice Sin or any weakness of Spirit but a perfect and solid Vertue surpassing natural and humane Strength which made us
great desire of Vertue and an absolute resolution of embracing an Evangelical Life having discovered sufficiently by her Discourses that without this no Body will be saved Her Words have so enlightened my Understanding that all the Learning I had acquired seems to me as Darkness and Ignorance in respect of that divine Wisdom which is so mercifully poured out upon the Earth by the Organ of a silly Maid I wish that every one had seen her and heard her as I have done and might receive thereby the same Operations which my Soul has felt for I look upon her Acquaintance as a greater favour than all the Graces and Favours which God has bestowed on me in this World yea even than my Creation it self for that would serve me in little stead without the working out of my Salvation which would have been in great danger if I had not attain'd to the knowledge of my Self and of the Designs and Marvels of God which I have learned and discovered by the means of this Creature and she has certainly been sent me as the only means of the perfection of my Soul and of all those who will profit by the recital of this Narrative which I find my self obliged to publish for the profit of many This is the true Treasure hid in the Earth He who shall find it ought to sell all that he has to buy this Ground to the end he may discover and find this Treasure and take it up with Joy as the most precious Thing of the World I cannot hinder some who wish Evil or are Enemies to the Truth from finding or pretending something that is not agreeable to them for the Light does always offend Blear-Eyes who cannot endure the Light and the Truth which reproves is never agreeable to our Senses But I would admonish them to beware of reprehending or making themselves Masters of the holy Spirit I behov'd for some time to suspend my Judgment as to the Belief of some Points of Doctrin for I had learn'd them from my Masters in another sense but since I have laid aside all these Authors who have written us their Sentiments and fix'd on the sacred Text of the holy Scriptures I have found so much Conformity in them with the Life Manners and Words of this Pilgrimess that no Doubts could come any longer into my Mind and I could not without betraying my Conscience give her so much as one Contradiction Since that gives me an infallible proof that this Soul is truly possest by the holy Spirit who has brought forth in her his Twelve Fruits his Seven Gifts and the Eight Beatitudes which Jesus Christ has taught I should believe I committed a great sin to think that any other Thing might proceed from such a Source than what is Divine so much the rather that I have always remarked that this Soul did act in nothing naturally but by supernatural Motives never being moved but by the motion of the holy Spirit In confirmation of which I would be ready to spend the last drop of my Blood to the end that none might reject this Light to love rather their Darkness as Jesus Christ has foretold that many would do but that every one may embrace it for Salvation to the end we may altogether enjoy the Kingdom of Jesus Christ which is here so particularly treated of with eternal Joy and Contentment Which is earnestly wisht you by Friendly Reader Your most affectionate in JESVS CHRIST Christian de Cort Superiour of the Oratory and Pastor of St. John at Mechlin At Mechlin the 10th of August 1667. M. A. B.'s Confession of Faith which she presented at the Court of Gottorp to oppose the Calumnies which the Church-men had spread that they might raise Suspicions of the Purity of her Faith I. I Am a Christian and I believe all that a true Christian ought to believe II. I was baptized in the Catholick Church in the Name of the Father in the Name of the Son in the Name of the Holy Ghost III. I believe the Twelve Articles of the Creed or the Apostles Symbol and I do not doubt of any one Article thereof IV. I believe that Jesus Christ is true God and that he is also true Man and that he is the Saviour and Redeemer of the World V. I believe in the Gospels the holy Prophets and all the holy Scripture both of the Old and New Testament And I will live and die in all the Points of this Belief which I protest before God and Men to all those whom it shall concern In Testimony whereof I have signed this my true Confession with my Hand and seal'd it with my Seal At Sleeswick the 11th of March 1675. Anthoniette Bourignon L. S. A Catalogue of the BOOKS written by M. A. B. born at L'Isle in Flanders 1. THE Life of M. Antonia Bourignon 2. God's Call and Men's Refusal in 2 parts 3. Light arisen in Darkness in 4 parts 4. The Grave of false Theology driven out by the true coming of the holy Spirit in 4 parts 5. An Advertisement against the Quakers 6. A Treatise of solid Vertue in 2 parts 7. The Light of the World in 3 parts 8. The Academy of learn'd Divines in 3 parts 9. The Testimony of the Truth in 2 parts 10. Innocence manifested and Truth discovered 11. The Touchstone 12. The Blindness of Men now in 2 parts 13. Antichrist discovered in 3 parts 14. The new Heaven and the new Earth 15. The holy Perspective 16. The last Mercy of God 17. The renewing of the Gospel Spirit in 3 parts 18. The Stones of the New Jerusalem 19. The Persecutions of the Just 20. The Morning Star 21. The Confusion of the Builders of Babel 22. Saving Instructions and Advices The most part of these Works are Translated from the French into the Dutch and High Dutch the first part of Solid Vertue the Touchstone and the first part of the renewing of the Gospel Spirit are also in Latin A Table of the Conferences of this first Part of the Light of the World The First Dialogue or Conference OF Gods dealing with A. B. particularly how he immediately instructed her from her Infancy The opposition of Men. Of Christian perfection and of the deplorable state of Christians Pag. 1. The second Conference Of the Judgment of God Of the last times and of the Men of the last times 17. The third Conference The methods by which Christianity has begun to decay from the times of the Apostles and has continued so to do to such a degree that at present there are no more true Christians upon Earth to wit 1. The admission of false Brethren 2. Appropriation 3. Debates 4. Partialities 5. Scholars 6. Disputes 7. The Victory of the Devil 23. The fourth Conference Of the Qualities and Manner of acting which ought to have been in the Guides of the Church to uphold it in its good Estate against all Enemies and not give way to the Spirit of Antichrist as they
end of the world This is the greatest miracle that God has done upon earth after men have invented so many glosses and opinions to contradict it and the life and manners even of those who are call'd the People of God are so different from this Doctrine that yet notwithstanding it subsists in its integrity in the hands and power of those who raze out and efface it by their manners and actions If it were not upheld by miracles how often would it have been stifled by the wisdom of the learned who if it were in their power would never suffer a Doctrine which so directly reproves their lives and manners In which God shews his almighty power that all men who shall be born upon the earth may have their recourse to this fountain of living water which is the Doctrine of Jesus Christ and that no body may pretend ignorance under pretext that there are different or new doctrines and errors for he who has a desire to search has also the means to find the real truth written in the holy Gospel or the rest of the holy Scriptures It was not therefore necessary to maintain it by so many disputes which Jesus Christ never taught us either by word or by deed Men could not destroy that which God would build It had been more expedient to strengthen and comfort the faithful than to dispute against the erroneous who were raised up only by the Devil they would have perished of themselves for all that is nor built by God shall be destroyed A small number of faithful Believers were far better than so great a multitude of Christians in appearance who do nothing but debate and dispute without possessing true living faith The rotten members corrupt those which are yet sound The Devil is never sooner overcome than by despising him for then he knows not how to take hold of the good but disputes and debates furnish him with diverse weapons to attack and overcome them The Fourth Conference Of the qualities and ways of acting which ought to have been in the Guides of the Church to maintain it in its good estate against all Enemies and that they might not make way for the Spirit of Anti-christ as they have done I Admired all this so powerful discourse desiring always to hear more I ask'd her how she conceiv'd that the Saints were thrust from the Government of the Church when the learned undertook it since many learned and great Doctors have been canoniz'd Saints and held for such She said Sir it is very rare to find a learned Saint or at least one who becomes holy by learning for all humane wisdom is foolishness before God All the Saints are certainly wise but few learned men are Saints I do not mean that there have not been some Saints who were engag'd in the Government of the Church as St. Ambrose St. Augustin and others but I cannot believe that a body is sound when it hath the Leprosy in any of its members The whole body of the Church was sound when to be an Apostle or Minister of the Church 't was only requir'd to embrace an evangelical life for all the rotten members were cut off from it or corrected or indeed they withdrew of themselves not being able to endure so great a sanctity that reprov'd them in all their manners St. Paul forbids Christians so much as to eat with sinners behold how he cuts off the rotten members and elsewhere it is said If thy brother will not believe the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen In many places of Scripture you will find this rejection St. Peter makes Ananias and Saphira fall dead at his feet for their lying St. Paul delivers over to the Devil the Corinthian besides so many others who have been chastized for not having continu'd faithful observers of the Law of the Gospel Others have withdrawn of themselves as Judas to go and hang himself and a great many others who withdrawing themselves gave occasion to Jesus Christ to ask the other Disciples If they would go also to which they reply'd and whither shall we go Lord thou hast the words of eternal life These three means were capable of upholding the holy Church in its Integrity and Holiness as Jesus Christ had establisht it and did himself observe these rules that is that the erroneous should be rejected and despis'd or else corrected for their errors or otherwise permitted to go out and withdraw themselves but these new Doctors have found out as a more perfect mean for the upholding of the Church to admit only the wise and learned to the government of it that the erroneous might be oppos'd and overcome by disputes Is the invention and wise foresight of these men more perfect than the ordinance and doing of God Can that eternal wisdom be ignorant that Learning was necessary for the government of his Church Was it necessary that men should change reform or perfect what Jesus Christ had establisht to wit that the government of his Church should appertain to those who have given evidence of the love they bear him for this cause he puts the question to St. Peter thrice to know if he lov'd him before he made him head of his Church On the contrary men are more inquisitive to know if any Minister of the Church be great and learned than if he love God This is a renversement of spirit which has seiz'd upon men since they would needs be govern'd by the wise of the world and they have despis'd the holy simplicity of the Gospel This mischief could not be brought in by humane frailty it must needs proceed from the malice of the Devil Man indeed thro frailty might backslide and follow Jesus Christ at a little farther distance than he had taught him but could not arrive to such an excess of wickedness as directly to oppose and despise his doctrine and practice This must needs come from that spirit of error who from the beginning entred into the the Church to oppose Christ and is therefore justly called ANTICHRIST He has so cunningly masqu'd and disguis'd his errors with piety and reason that they have been follow'd notwithstanding there have been at diverse times holy persons in the government of the Church The Fifth Conference Of Antichrist and how he rules every where in Spirit I Begg'd she would tell me whom she understood to be Antichrist and how he could introduce himself into the Church in its beginning since it appears from the holy Scriptures that he is to come only towards the end of the world and is called the man of sin the son of perdition and is not to reign but three years and a half She said I perceive Sir that you take for Antichrist a humane body which is to be born by the operation of the Devil I believe that this will fall out at the end of the world yea that he is already born
Recompence of the Affronts which they do him It must needs be Sir that all these Falshoods be discovered and that God shew the Villany of his People to all the World If clear-sighted and illuminated Men would discover it they would immediately be hated and slain between the Temple and the Altar therefore the Judgments of God must discover them The Nineteenth Conference That all Christians ought to Read the Holy Scripture Whether the Church can Err Where She is Where not I said unto her That the Jews and the Hereticks would be well-pleased to hear such Discourses for they have some such Sentiments She said Sir I do not speak to please any Body and I regard neither Jews nor Hereticks nor Catholics but the straight Truth according as the Spirit of God manifests it to me I have never conversed with Hereticks but I have casually heard some things said of them which are much better than what the Catholicks do Tho' it were in nothing but this That they take Pleasure to read the Holy Scriptures and carry them everywhere with them studying them almost Day and Night This is a very laudable thing because we ought always to learn what we ought to practise If we do not learn it we cannot know it In the Bible the whole Law of God is contain'd and also the Doctrine of Jesus Christ from whence may be deriv d all the Nourishment of our Souls If the Hereticks do not put it in Practice they do ill as well as the Catholicks but they have this Advantage that they know the Truth if they will practise it But the Catholicks are only stor'd with Books compos'd by Men and depriv'd of that which God hath given us for the Nourishment of our Souls It is just the same as if we would take from a Child his Nourishment and give him an Image to sustain him He may look long upon it before his Body receive Nourishment and Substance from it It seems to me a very ill thing to forbid Christians the Reading of the Bible in the Vulgar Tongue since it must teach us all that we ought to do and forsake and the Advertisements which God gives us by his Holy Prophets and by Jesus Christ himself and his holy Apostles I said unto her That the Church had forbidden to read the Bible in the Vulgar Language because of the Abuses which were thereby committed for many ignorant Persons would interpret it amiss from whence Heresies arise Secondly Because many Bibles were changed and something taken away or diminish'd from the Original She replyed Truly Sir these are very weak Reasons They forbid to read the Bible in the Vulgar Tongue lest the common People do draw Heresies from it while the most part of Heresies are introduc'd into the Church by the Learned Priests and Monks not by Simple Ones who would never be follow'd in their new Errors for they would have but small Authority and Learning to Introduce them If this Reason ought to have place it would be more expedient to forbid it to the Learned since they have invented all the Heresies and not the Vulgar Jesus Christ taught the Simple People more than the Learn'd to shew that he found them more capable and susceptible of receiving his Doctrine than the Great and the learned were And if all Christians ought to practise the Doctrine of Jesus Christ by the same Consequence they ought to Read and to Learn it And if they will needs forbid the Reading of it because of the Abuses which are committed thereby they must also forbid the going to Church and to the Communion where there are a thousand times more Abuses committed than can be committed by the Reading of the Holy Scriptures which was not made for the Learn'd but for Saints from whom Men will needs take it shewing themselves more foreseeing than Jesus Christ to hinder Abuses and Errors If there were in the Church a Prohibition only to read the Bibles which are not approv'd of there would be a Pretext to colour this Prohibition but seeing all are forbidden it is to forbid what God hath commanded I ask'd her Whether the Church might indeed err in this Prohibition or in any other thing She said No Sir the True Church can never err because God has promised that he will always maintain it But I would willingly know where the Church is at present She can be no where but in the Souls which possess the Doctrine of Jesus Christ Behold this is the only Place where the Church resides Who will shew me these Souls I would gladly know them I would love and follow them even to Death I have not yet found this Happiness You believe it may be that it is the City of Rome because S. Peter did reside there and for my part I believe that Rome is the Babylon of Confusion that the Holy Spirit does no more govern there than you see it in your Chapter You have Judgment enough to discern if the Holy Spirit directs all the Resolutions which are there taken He does it far less in the Roman College For there he has no more Audience and if he should appear there in Form of a Dove as he did at the Baptism of Jesus Christ all these Presidents would cast their Caps at him to chace him away for they have no more to do with his Light since they have made themselves Gods upon Earth The Church therefore cannot err but the Men who are call'd Churchmen may err and do truly err in this Prohibition by which Christians cannot any longer read the Gospel nor the Bible in which is contain'd the Law of God How then can they observe it if they may not read it in order to learn it This is an Error which no Body is oblig'd to follow because the true Church cannot thus command it for it is contrary to the Doctrine of Jesus who says Take eat this is my flesh and drink this is my Blood of the New Testament And these Men will not have us to touch it but as far as it pleases them to give it Whereas Jesus Christ says Take ye it and eat ye it He speaks to every one The Twentieth Conference Of the Word of Jesus Christ which is truely his Flesh and his Blood Of the Reading of the Holy Scripture and of the forbidding it How the Church cannot fail and what is the Church and what not I said to her That these Words were understood of the Eucharist where we drink his Blood and eat his Flesh She reply'd What perfect Sense can you find wherein to apply these Words of the Lord unto the Eucharist seeing he says That he who eats his flesh and drinks his blood shall live for ever and yet so many thousand Persons who commonly receive the Eucharist do live and die in their Sins It would follow that the Words of Jesus Christ were not true when he
he is not to be compar'd to any thing We must force our selves to love him not to comprehend him The Saints themselves committed great faults while they would needs embark into these Studies I believe the Devil has raised Disputes thereupon to amuse Men in useless things rather than profitable and to seek to comprehend what ought to be adored I ask'd her if the holy Doctors could indeed have committed such faults since we held that they had the Holy Spirit She said Yes Sir they committed many others through Ignorance They err'd in many things The Holy Spirit did not always guide their Pen nor their Understandings They were always frail Men so long as they lived upon Earth They might always fail and err for Jesus Christ says that He who says he is without Sin is a Liar I believe I have also told you heretofore Sir that none is Infallible but God Men who have the Holy Spirit are not always so disengaged from themselves that the Holy Spirit has that absolute dominion over them Their own sense of things gives them frequent hindrances and as long as they act naturally they stray from the Holy Spirit and do often commit in these wandrings great faults as David did tho God says that He was a Man according to his own Heart And Solomon who had received the Spirit in fulness did notwithstanding Sin greatly against the Faith it self and against the Commandments of God You must not wonder therefore that the Holy Fathers have committed faults in the Church the Apostles themselves committed them though they had visibly received the Holy Spirit We must never build on a Foundation so weak as Men are They may all err tho they were Saints and have erred in many things in upholding the Church For as soon as they perceived that it failed in the Souls of Christians and that its Honour and Authority was fallen they would needs redress it by worldly Honours and Riches and even defend it by Disputes and by Arms all which things are Buildings made with Mens hands which shall be ruined For that which God has not built shall be Destroyed Jesus Christ knew far better the means that were proper to uphold his Church He saw the time to come as well as the present He has not ordain'd that it should be maintain'd by Silver Authority Arms or Disputes but by Holiness The Twenty fifth Conference That the Holy Spirit sends always new Influences and that we must not bound his Lights nor the Interpretation of the Scriptures to that which the Holy Fathers have formerly had I Could not resist so clear Truths perceiving well that all Men are Fallible But because every one had always received the Opinions of the Holy Fathers as things certain I said to her that I had sworn to receive no other Explications of the Holy Scriptures but those of the Holy Fathers and that the Church did oblige all Persons plac'd in Dignities to do the same So that in all Benefices received they still take this Oath before they enter in possession of them She said Sir the Church can oblige no body to resist the Holy Spirit Your Oath is not obligatory in this case If God favour you or some other Person of your Acquaintance with any new Light must you reject it to obey Men Jesus Christ did not forbid this On the contrary he has said Receive the Holy Spirit And When he shall come he will teach you all things He speaks to the Apostles and to all Christians in them This Holy Spirit is never idle He operates always new Graces in those who receive him and gives still more clear Interpretations of the Holy Scriptures according as the end of the World approaches we shall every day understand them more clearly We see the figure of this in the Sciences of Natural things There is at present more knowledge of them than ever and Men now do know much more of Natural things which those who are gone before us were ignorant of yea understood them in a sense quite contrary to the truth They taught that the Sun goes round about the Earth Now they teach that the Earth turns and that the Sun is fixt which is more to be believed And thus in many Natural things they have discovered many Secrets since Sciences were encreas'd The Figure is never so accomplish'd as the thing figured Wherefore then should the Light of the Holy Spirit or the understanding of the Holy Scriptures be bounded to what the holy Fathers understood of them Every one of them had Discoveries according to his Talent and no more I believe Sir that if you examin them narrowly you will find that they do not accord in all things yea even that they sometimes contradict one another which cannot come from God for there is never any contradiction in him Each of the Fathers saw as far as his view reached and no more God does always farther discover his Secrets Can Men cause others to swear or can they swear themselves that they shall not receive any other Discoveries but that which the holy Fathers have received without opposing the Grace and Light of God This would be to speak after our way to clip the wings of the Holy Spirit that he might not flie farther than Men had marked out to him Truly Sir there are great Errors in all things It seems Men would take from God Power and Authority to attribute it to themselves giving him Laws and forbidding Men to obey him The holy Fathers could not be so rash as to believe that no body could understand the Holy Scriptures farther than they for they affirm that there are depths of hidden Treasure which they cannot comprehend In effect I believe that nothing has been yet understood in a perfect sense of all the Holy Scripture even till now and that likewise there is nothing accomplished but the Death of Jesus Christ Nevertheless all must be understood and accomplish'd in a perfect Sense before the end of the World God has not said or done any thing in vain He will give to Men the full understanding of all that he has said by his holy Prophets from the beginning of the World and nothing is so hid but it shall be discovered before the World end Why then should they forbid to receive other Interpretations than those which the holy Fathers in past times have received It were better to command to Pray continually for greater Light that we may know the better the Mysteries of our Faith that we may the better observe and follow them for we can never have so much love for a thing unknown as for that which we know I said to her that this Oath was not ordained to oppose directly the Holy Spirit but rather to hinder every one from Interpreting the Scriptures after his own way from which many Errors might proceed if there were not an uniform Belief among all Christians
Expositions and Books was but what they could know by Divine Light joyn'd to their own Conceptions which were not always guided by the Holy Spirit For their Studies and proper Sentiments often hindred this Knowledge and serv'd for Clouds to that Divine Sun who could not dilate his Beams fully upon their Souls because they were not entirely free and disingag'd from their own Idea's and Preoccupations It is true they said many things useful for that Time but not sufficient enough to enlighten those of the present Time All now must be known as it is The Prophets have indeed declar'd all that must come to pass even to the End of the World but neither they themselves nor any others understood their Sayings Jesus Christ himself declar'd what they had said by Parables not being willing to give the Understanding of them but only tell them That they might adore the Marvels of God when they should see the Things come to pass which had been for so long a Time foretold I ask'd her If she had received from God those Discoveries which have been for so long time hid from all the World She said Yes Sir I may say it with Confusion That it hath pleased God to communicate his Secrets to me which he had hid from the Wise and Great of the Earth If such has been his Will who can reprove it or find Fault with that which he finds good Is not he the absolute Lord of all things That which he wills he can do without Men's being able to contradict it for no Body is capable of giving Law to him He is as Powerful as Just and Good Let us only adore his Designs Tho' I were even the most wicked Creature of the World he might serve himself of me in what pleases him and damn me in the End if I have merited it All things being subject to him all things must obey him the Infernal Powers as well as the Celestial and Terrestrial Nothing can resist his almighty Arms. I must submit Sir if God will declare his Marvels by me I cannot hinder him If he will speak by a Stone or Wood he ought to be heard with Respect I have not sought nor ask'd these things they have been pour'd into me insensibly When once I desired no more to know any thing I have learn'd all things even to the greatest Mysteries of our Faith and all that shall befal Men even to the End of the World Nothing has been conceal'd from me I know the Master-pieces of the Works of God and the Accomplishment of the Holy Scriptures The Re-establishment of the Holy Church and the Reign of Jesus Christ upon Earth The Alliance which he promised unto Abraham and all the Things which are foretold by the Holy Prophets Nothing shall pass without having its accomplish'd Sense and its present Accomplishment in the Mystical Literal Divine and Material Sense It it an Abyss of Joy to think of it What Joy to see it brought to pass If you saw it as I do Sir you could no longer love any other thing no more than all other Men For no Delights can be imagin'd greater than those which Jesus Christ has promised to Men to Live to Converse and to reign among them Visibly and Bodily upon Earth This is a thing which ravishes my Soul with Joy and Contentment You need not be astonish'd that I take no more Pleasure in earthly things since these heavenly ones do take me up entirely I heard all these things with Admiration not knowing what to answer but to entreat her that she would explain herself a little more upon this Subject She said Consider Sir God created Man to take his Delight with him For this End he made him after his own Image and Likeness because there can be nothing more delightful than to rejoyce with ones like Therefore he made Man with a Divine and Immortal Soul like to himself He made him Good Righteous and Powerful in nothing different from himself but in this that he must depend upon God as his Creator whereas God has a Sovereign Independency without Origine or Beginning and Man receiv'd Being at a certain Time produc'd by the Goodness and Power of God whom he ought always to acknowledge and obey But instead of doing this he slighted this Dependence desiring to stand by himself and as God to know all things Which destroyed and ruin'd him for no sooner did he conceive the Desire of knowing Good and Evil and of equalling himself unto God eating the Apple which God had forbidden him for an outward Mark of his Ambition but he presently perceived the Misery into which he had reduc'd himself finding himself stript of all the Graces and Prerogatives into which God had so freely plac'd him and fell into Derision with God because of his Arrogance Notwithstanding of this God does not change and will never change his Designs He desires to take his Delight with Men For he created them for no other End Therefore he will not destroy or annihilate them as they merited but makes them only know the Fault which they had committed in desiring to shake off their Dependence upon him and he gives them a certain time to do Penitence for this Fault to the end that this Penitence being finish'd he may receive them again into his Favour and give them the first Robe of Innocence with the same Goodness and Power wherein he created them that throughout all Eternity he might accomplish his first Designs which are to take his Delight with Men. This Time of Penitence is this short Life wherein we breath at present which is the Exile into which we were banish'd from Paradice which was the Presence of God that Adam enjoy'd before his Sin for he then communicated himself to him as a Friend unto his Friend This makes Paradise there being no other Place that can make it but this Presence of God this alone is the Paradise of Delights For tho' indeed Adam had remain'd in the earthly Paradise in which he was he had continued as miserable as on the Earth which we possess at present after having quit the Conversation of God through his own Fault because nothing can be Paradise but this Divine Canversation And if Adam had remain'd in this Earthly Paradise after his Sin he had been even much more miserable than we are in this strange Land Because he might have eaten of the Tree of Life that he should not die and consequently have continued always miserable without ever finishing his Penance which the goodness of God foreseeing he banish'd him out of it that his Penance might be only temporal and passing In this he has shewn us great Mercy For as soon as we shall have finish'd this short Penance which he has enjoyn'd us we shall return into the same Conversation with God that Adam had before his Sin and even more familiar since God is
manner that very often instead of calling her Blessed they offend her by those Idolatries which they give to her Image and Jesus Christ himself would not suffer that they should call her Blessed for having born him in her Womb and suckled him with her Breasts By which it appears that it is not in this Life that all Generations call her Blessed that it must needs be that She saw in her Spirit that Kingdom of her Son in Glory wherein her Joy shall be accomplished and her Spirit Shall rejoyce in God her Saviour It will be then that he shall Cast down the Mighty from their Seats and Exalt the Humble Which as yet has never been done For the Mighty have greatly Exalted themselves since the coming of Jesus Christ and the Humble have been as they are yet despised and rejected The Holy Virgin could not lie in her Song called the Magnificat but she spoke of the time to come which she saw as present in her Spirit Which made her rejoyce and utter all the things which must come to pass in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in which all Generations will call her Blessed and all Souls will Magnifie this Glory where the Humble will be Exalted and the Mighty Abased and Humbled I was quite Transported beside my self to hear things so Admirable which had never been heard of and I saw them so clearly in my Vnderstanding that I could not but say within my self It is so these are clear Truths I nevertheless said to her that many of these things are understood of the Empyreal Heaven which is the Divine Place where the Souls of the Blessed will live Eternally with God where the Body and the Soul shall have four Qualities Agility Splendor Impassibility Subtility which being like Spirits will have no longer need of any thing but the presence of God She said Sir these are Speculations of Men who not having the gift of Understanding would nevertheless conceive something of what they do not understand If these Bodies of the Blessed had need of nothing wherefore should God create so many beautiful Creatures to serve only for Man's Misery For Gold Silver Precious Stones and so many other things not very necessary for the maintenance of his Life would then have been created only for his Mischief since they did not serve but for this Life where the most part of Men do Destroy and Damn themselves for Mony Wherefore then would God have created so many fine Fruits and other things for the nourishment of Man only for so short a time of Penitence as this livfe Would it have been worth the pains to have made the Sun the Moon the Stars and all the Elements that they might remain for so small a time Would God amuse himself for a little profit No Sir this will not go as People imagin for all the Works of God are eternal and will never Perish as I have told you heretofore all things will continue in their kinds eternally to serve and rejoyce the Body of Man made Blessed after he shall have finished his short Penitence Gold and the other Metals will serve to build his Houses and the precious Stones to adorn them They will not be Buildings made by Men's hands with the sweat of their Faces but wrought by the power of God who has form'd the Body and will likewise form the abode of the same Body And when the Holy Spirit speaks of the heavenly Jerusalem that its Gates shall be of precious Stones and its Walls of Gold This is not only in a mystical and spiritual Sense but also in a material Sense as all things must be perfect and accomplish'd in their time Spiritually Corporeally and Materially For God cannot do any thing Imperfectly I ask'd her If they should eat and drink in the Kingdom of Heaven She said Yes Sir Do you not see in the Gospel a that Jesus Christ says a little before his Death That he will eat no more of the fruit of the Vine until he shall drink it with his Disciples in the Kingdom of his Father This is applied to the Mystical sense because they know no other thing But it will be also in a Material sense that they shall drink delicious Wine with Jesus Christ besides the Mystical Wine of the admiration of his Glory which will inebriate Souls They shall eat also at the Table of the Lord where Jesus Christ himself says That he will come forth and serve us And when he says Woe to you that are rich that are full for you shall be hungry He adds Blesled are they that hunger and thirst for they shall be satisfied Read Sir the Holy Scripture you will find there in many places that of necessity it must be understood that we shall drink and eat Bodily in the Kingdom of Heaven with all sort of felicity Bodily as well as Spiritual For our Bodies are the Temples of the Holy Ghost in which he will dwell eternally When the Children of Israel were brought out of Aegypt they eat and drank with Delight Their Cloaths and Shoes did not wax old and they increased with their Bodies even their Nails had no need of being cut So particularly did God provide for their Necessities This nevertheless was but the Figure of eternal Life If he provided for them Cloaths Meat and all things which were even delicious without their care or labour tho they still offended him how will he not provide the delights of the Bodies of the Blessed who will bless him always I ak'd her If there would be likewise human Propagation in this Kingdom of Heaven She said Yes Sir there will be Propagation eternally but altogether Holy altogether pure and Deify'd It will be produced more leisurely than in this World because God by his Mercy has here abridged our days to abridge our Penitence But that Kingdom being of eternal duration will give time and leisure to Propagate stayedly without Pain or Sorrow or concupiscible Appetite but by pure union of Charity in God which will extend it self to the production of new Creatures to the glory of their Creator which is very reasonable For since this World was created few Men have been brought forth who have glorified their God On the contrary in all Times and Ages the Devil has derived his Glory from Men for when there were yet but two Persons upon Earth they yielded to the Devil and followed his Suggestions in abandoning their God And when the World was fully replenish'd Men gave themselves to yet greater Evils For at the time of the Deluge eight Persons only of all that great Universe were found obedient to the Word of God And in time of the Children of Israel when they were brought out of Aegypt to go into the promised Land two Persons only did enter into it In the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah Lâ—t alone with his Family did fear God And when God would have
forgiven that People providing that Abraham had found but ten in it he would not have consum'd them And when Jesus Christ himself came upon Earth all was corrupted having made void the Law of God by the Traditions of Men as he reproach'd the Jews with it who were then his People And now Sir since we have had the Doctrin of the Gospel what a small number of Persons do you see who have remain'd constant in it And on the contrary how many wicked Christians are there besides the Turks Jews Heathens and so many other Sects who are Enemies of God Should it not be said that God had created the Earth and so many reasonable Creatures only for the glory of the Devil and his adherents if he did not renew the Earth and make it bring forth fruit for his glory This would be an evil thing which God can never do And that the Creation of Men may be good of necessity there must be a time in which they may glorifie their God And if there were no Generation in the Kingdom of God a very small number would bless him even tho you should sum up the Prophets the Apostles and other Saints this could not suffice to give glory to God for the least favour that he had bestowed upon Men. It must needs be that the Generation of the Blessed multiply eternally as the Generation of the Miserable does multiply temporally from the beginning of the World or otherwise God would not be just I said to her That some Writers had spoken of this reign of Jesus Christ upon Earth but that the Roman Church had condemn'd it as Heresie She said Sir No body can have spoke truly of this Kingdom of Jesus Christ because it is the hidden Treasure which has not yet been discovered nor revealed to any They may well have said something of it according to the Speculation of Men But they could never understand it for the time was notcome to discover it This is the Master-piece of all the Works of God and the accomplishment of all the Holy Scripture Whether the Roman Church approve it or disapprove it that makes nothing Truth continues always Truth Tho all the World should disapprove it it will never change That which is true cannot become a Lie by the approbation or reprobation of Men. There can be no Heresie in that which the Holy Spirit has spoken by the Mourh of the holy Prophets of Abraham David Solomon the Apostles and Jesus Christ himself who have all largely spoken of this Kingdom of Jesus Christ upon Earth as well by Prophecy as Parables and other ways tho the full understanding of it has been reserved for the last Times in which we live at present All the Revelation of St. John speaks of no other thing If they would have received any understanding of it this could not be but by application and not in a perfect Sense And they who said they understood nothing of it have been the most wise because till this time none has understood any thing of it In short Sir the Kingdom of Jesus Christ are the Treasures of God Which he has reserved unto Men of which S. Paul has said That Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard nor has entred into the Heart of Man what God hath laid up for his Servants It were also better to adore all these Mysteries than to dive into them out of Curiosity For the great and the wise of this World do understand nothing of them They will be revealed unto the little ones for such is the will of God For which Jesus Christ blesses his Father That he had hid these things from the great Men and the Wise to reveal them unto Babes I said to her That I was very desirous to know when this Kingdom shall come and how it shall begin She said Sir I do not know the day but that this indeed will be as soon as the wickedness of Men shall be so multiplied that in Justice they will draw upon them his universal Plagues which will purge away all Iniquity Then shall the Son of Man appear in his Glory and Majesty to render unto every one according to his Works In that day the remnant of all Nations shall appear before him for the most part shall be dead with distress and fears and then he will judge them And those who shall be found dead unto his Grace he will banish into eternal Fire But those who shall be found living in his Grace shall be confirm'd in it to live in Body and in Soul eternally with him of whom shall begin the eternal Generation as it began in Adam and Eve our first Parents Then all malediction shall be removod from the Earth and it shall be again blessed All malignity shall be removed from the Elements and every Creature especially the Reasonable ones who shall live without any Maladies or Infirmities either of the Body or of Spirit and Soul Too much heat or cold shall not any more incommode them no evils shall touch them They shall handle fire without being burnt and Serpents without being Stinged Our Passions shall be well regulated there being no longer Lusts there neither of the Eyes nor of the Flesh nor of the Spirit No more Sorrows Griefs or Groanings no more of Love that heats no more of Desire that makes thirsty no more Terror no more Fear no more Forgetfulness no more Sloth no more Pusilanimity no more Cares and Anxieties In short no more of any thing that can hurt shall be found upon the Earth But all things shall serve for the recreation of Men who shall love one another in a perfect unity in Christ Jesus being not only re-establish'd into the Estate of Innocence wherein Adam was before his Sin but with a thousand times more Perfections Man shall possess all things in the glorious presence of Jesus Christ who will wipe away all Tears from his Servants giving them Glories in time to come for their Sufferings by a streight Justice each what they shall have merited in this Valley of Tears for he is the Restorer of all things Ought not Sir all these things to be re-established How many Innocents are there here accused as Guilty How many of these Persecuted wrongfully How many Injustices done to the Just How many sufferings do the Good endure Does not all this cry to God for Vengeance â— Must he not render it and how could he render it in a Spiritual Paradise as they make us believe The Body has here suffered with the Soul Is it not just that it should rejoyce also with it The Body of Jesus Christ which has received so many affronts and sufferings should it not be seen glorious in this World as it has been seen suffering What reparation can be made of all material things in a spiritual Heaven I wish for this glorious Reign that all the World may soe
and acknowledge the Justice of God which will leave nothing of all our good deeds without a recompence no more than our evil deeds without a punishment which every one shall receive by the just ballance of his Righteousness To accomplish which we must in this World have reparation of all the wrongs which have been done us and the falshood must be discovered the Mask must be taken off from all Men that their deceits and their hypocrisies may be known How they have dealt fraudulently with the Innocent All must be discovered at the coming of Jesus Christ in Glory and all things even material which have served for our reproach must serve for our glory As to S. Lawrence's his Grid-Iron and to S. Andrew his Cross And so of all the other Martyrs and chiefly the Instruments of the Passion of Jesus Christ which will shine in his glory like precious Stones and that materially for otherwise there could not be had a perfect and compleat reparation if we looked but for a spirtual Paradise because we suffer here in Body and Spirit both together This Kingdom approaches Sir for the Plagues are already begun I said unto her That no body believ'd that the last Plagues were begun nor the Kingdom of Jesus Christ upon Earth She said Sir The incredulous will go with Sorcerers For he who has no belief of this Kingdom can never well suffer the Plagues which go before it There is nothing but k this hope alone that can give force to sustain those so great Persecutions that there never were any like unto them It is therefore to be feared that these incredulous will perish with the Wicked For if we do not believe that we are fallen into the last times and that the Plagues are begun we will assuredly be deceived by that pernicious one Antichrist who reigns in Persons in Authority whom we take sometimes for Holy and Vertuous and believe that we do well to let our selves be guided and govern'd by them if we lay aside the doubt or belief that we are fallen into that dangerous time foretold by Jesus Christ wherein Evil is covered with Piety And if we do not believe that the Plagues which are begun are the beginnings of Sorrows with which God will purge the Earth we shall easily be brought to Murmour against him Yea we shall fall it may be into Despair in seeing the best Christians Persecuted by Persons who seem worse than our selves yea Churches ruined the Religious banished and all that they call a Church overturn'd and opprest in its source All this will give occasion to Blaspheme against God in case we do not know the wickedness of Men which had drawn down these Plagues upon our Heads We will commit a thousand sins of Murmurs against our Enemies and also against the disorders of those who ought to govern us Setting our selves to seek Human Succours which will sometimes do us more harm than our Enemies and thus we should suffer miserably as do Thieves and Murtherers Whereas did we believe that we are fallen into the last times and that the Plagues are begun we would return to God by Penitence taking all from his Hand as well the Rod as the Bread For all these things must come to pass and by Sufferings we must enter into his Glory as Jesus Christ has pav'd the way I said unto her That I my self could hardly believe that the last plagues were begun and also that Jesus Christ would come to reign upon the Earth were it not that she gave me the view and understanding of these things She said Sir this proceeds partly from want of Application of Spirit and partly because the Devil has bewitched the Spirits of all Men that they may not discover the truth of their Happiness nor of their Misery For if this were known many Persons would get out of Darkness and would follow the Light of Truth Whereas by that infatuation of Spirit the Good perish with the Wicked And thus he gains all to himself To give you a firm belief that Jesus Christ will come to reign upon Earth Sir apply your mind seriously to the reading of the Holy Scriptures You shall find through all that they declare this glorious coming and all that Man shall receive thereby This has been figured from the beginning of the World and by all that has past in it since all has been nothing but the Figures of this glorious Reign of Jesus Christ You have now a little prospect of this by what I have declar'd unto you Search into the matter you will find the thing more true than all the other mysteries of our Faith There is no more obscurity in it for the time is come for the understanding of it What the Fathers in past times have explain'd with so much pains and so imperfectly will be easie to you and in a perfect sense No body will be able to doubt or be ignorant of it who will submit his Spirit unto God with Humility of Heart All that Jesus Christ and the Apostles have said has been fulfilled but in part But you will find the accomplishment and the perfect sense in this glorious Reign of Jesus Christ By discovering assuredly that all which they thought fit to declare cannot be understood of any other thing but of this Reign Remark all the Petitions of the Lord's Prayer which I have elsewhere explained to you No body can imagine that all that we ask in that Prayer can be obtained during this miserable Life and it must needs be granted that we pray for another Life which we do not yet know and that this Life also must be material as well as spiritual For if it were only divine we would not ask for daily Bread nor that the will of God should be done there or that his Name should be Hallowed For all these things are done always in the Empyreal Heaven where no body has need of material Bread Spirits being filled with the presence of God There is nothing there likewise to be forgiven for no body there offends his Brother Temptations are banish'd from thence and Evils cannot enter there The blessed Life that we look for must needs be material as well as spiritual in which we shall have need of all the things which we ask in the Lord's Prayer since they cannot be obtain'd in this present Life and Jesus Christ could not have made us ask for unprofitable things or for those which he would not give This could not be done by a God who can do and know all things For it would be altogether unprofitable to ask what we cannot obtain here and it would be a superfluous thing to ask that of which we would have no need in the Empyreal Heaven as they imagine Paradise to be all the other Doctrins of Jesus Christ are also like to the petitions of that Prayer For when he says seek the Kingdom of
Heaven and the rest shall be given you this also will not come to pass in this Life For the Servants themselves who seek the Kingdom of Jesus have suffered many Necessities and Lazarus at the the Rich Man's Feet could not obtain a crum of Bread tho' he did not cease to ask it If the Promise which Jesus Christ has made of giving the rest to those who shall seek his Kingdom were to be understood of this present Life none if the Friends of God would stand in need of any thing tho' they should not ask of any it would be needful that God accomplish what he has promised them And if the Kingdom of Heaven were only spiritual as People do imagine there would be no need of any rest or other things after having obtain'd this Kingdom which would suffice fully Do you not see Sir that this promise of Jesus Christ is to be understood of his Kingdom upon Earth where he will give besides his Glory all material things for the delights of our Body Which he calls The Rest and makes us understand that we shall not need to seek and labour to have them but that he will give them freely as an excess of Blessedness And when Jesus Christ says He who shall leave Father Mother Brethren Sisters Lands or any other thing for his Name shall have a hundred fold in this World neither can this be understood of this present Life for the Apostles and so many other Saints who abandon'd all to follow him had not an hundred fold in Earth Mother Brethren Sisters Houses or Lands but on the contrary had need of many things after having abandon'd them Jesus Christ himself after having abandoned the delights of Heaven says That he had not in this Life a stone where to rest his Head How then should his Promises be true that he would render a hundred fold in this Life Jesus Christ can he lie and make all who have abandon'd all for his sake to be afterward in want of things necessary which would be very far from having the hundred fold of them We see the Wicked have ordinarily more Prosperity in Earthly Goods than the Just Jesus Christ would be a deceiver to falsifie his Promise which he has made unto all those who shall forsake all for his sake This cannot be thought But he promised to those who shall have left Father Mother or any other thing for his sake that they shall possess Life Eternal which shall be in that World when Jesus Christ shall come to dwell with his Creatures where he shall render the hundred-fold of all the things which they shall have forsaken for his sake for one Father they shall find an hundred because all those Blessed Ones shall have the Hearts of a Father and Mother toward their Neighbour All shall be Brethren and Sisters under the government of one and the same Father And the Earth being purg'd from all the Wicked shall suffice to give unto the Just an hundred times as much as they shall have abandoned in this miserable Life Lo thus the Promises of Jesus Christ shall be accomplish'd in a perfect sense in his Kingdom which can in no wise be accomplish'd in a perfect sense elsewhere no more in the Empireal Heaven as is imagined than in this time of Penitence There would need years of time to relate unto you Sir all the passages of Holy Scripture which verifie these Truths for when Gabriel says of Jesus Christ that he shall be great and be called the Son of the most High he cannot speak of his coming in the Stable of Bethlehem for he was but a little Infant abandoned and neglected of Men where his Grandeur did consist of Poverty and Miseries And when he began to be known and to speak in publick they call him the Son of the Carpenter and of Mary amongst the common People Which is very far from being call'd the Son of the most High and how should he lift up his Horn seeing he was wrapt up in Swadling-cloths and bound with Swathing-bands And it seems he had not strength to resist King Herod and the Pharisees who pursued him to death before whom he fled instead of resisting Do you not see Sir that nothing has in this World its perfect Sense Nevertheless all that is spoken by the Holy Spirit must be intirely fulfilled And if we hope that this accomplishment ought to come to pass in this time of Penitence we deceive our selves for the more it shall continue the more will Men mistake the greatness of God and the less will they call him the Son of the Most High and the less will he make his strength appear that he may give place to Man to use his Free-will But as soon as the time of the Reign of Jesus Christ shall come he will exalt his Horn to exercise his Power and condemn the Wicked and he shall be known of all Men for the Son of the Most High For he will come in Majesty and Power to rule over all things Whereas in the Empireal Aether there will be no need of exalting his Horn and shewing his Power seeing all submit to him by Love It is therefore of the day when he shall come to reign upon the Earth that Zacharias speaks by his Prophetical Spirit when he saw the Glory of Jesus Christ upon Earth And when he himself says If I be lifted up I will draw all unto me he does not speak but of this Kingdom to come For he has not drawn all unto him by his death upon the Cross because the most part of Men has since voluntarily yielded themselves unto the Devil The Twenty ninth Conference Of the Marks to know that we are fallen into the last Times and that the World is Judged to wit That Men are without Righteousness Truth and Goodness before God and that the execution of the Plagues makes it already effectually to appear I said to her That I understood sufficiently what she meant by this Reign of Jesus Christ upon Earth that I would apply my self to discover it more intreating her to tell me the Marks whereby to know that we were in the last times and that the Judgments were at present begun She said Sir observe well the deportment of Men and you will see clearly that it must needs be that they are Condemned for therein you do not perceive any Penitence nor desire of amendment On the contrary they grow every day worse and cannot so much as suffer that the truth of their faults should be shewn them and reckon themselves more secure in evil-doing than the Good have ever been in well-doing For the Saints themselves have feared God and dreaded Death Whereas Men at present have lost the fear of God and fear only Men and instead of dreading the passage of Death they dread only the day in which they must lose their Life which they love more than God Every one lyes
Conference That the Roman Church is the Spouse of Jesus Christ but that she has falsified her Faith to her lawyul Husband I Said to her That she gave a deal of Light in divers things for which I did infinitely bless God but I could not deny it troubled me a little to hear that the Roman Church was thus fallen from the Spirit of true Christianity She said Sir it is more expedient for the Salvation of your Soul that you know the Misery into which the Church has fallen than if you knew the highest Mysteries of the Trinity or the greatest Good of all Men together Because an Evil known is easie to be avoided But as long as 't is unknown and hid from us it is always dangerous and may greatly hurt us without our being aware of it Therefore you ought to give the more Attention and to apply your Understanding more to understand and comprehend the Truth which I tell you of Evil than to discover the Good For if I told you the Good of all Men this would only give you some little Contentment or sensual Satisfaction which would add nothing to your Soul But by knowing the Evil as it is you may prudently beware of it that it do not touch or harm you For all these Evils which I said were introduc'd into the Church even while it was yet Holy are all covered with Appearances of Good and Piety and Reason because the Devil could never have gained so many Souls as have followed him but under this Colour or Mantle of Good And he will yet gain many by their Ignorance of these Evils or by their Unbelief of them For as long as they take Evil for Good they will still blindly follow it and Ignorance will not excuse the Sin For God having given us an Understanding to comprehend and a Spirit to discern we ought particularly to apply them to what concerns our Salvation and when the Truth is set before our Eyes and we will not open them to consider it we resist it and may look for the Condemnation of the Holy Spirit who says that Vnbelievers shall have their Portion with Sorcerers I said to her I would not be incredulous but believe the Truth But that I felt an inward Opposition when it thus overturn'd the Church in the chief Points of Belief which we owe to it in case it were the Holy Church She said Sir I believe in the Holy Church and if I had a thousand Lives I would voluntarily expose them for its Defence and would think my self happy to spend the last Drop of my Blood for such a Cause But when God makes me see clearly that She is not Holy nor that which Jesus Christ established but that She is the Whore which is spoken of in the Revelation I cannot resist so clear Truths which do not only lie secret in my Soul but God gives me also Terms and Words whereby to explain them to you that you may likwise receive the Knowledge of them for your Salvation For which I have often bless'd God who bestows on us so many particular Favours hoping he will do it also to others But I intreat you doubt not what I tell you of the Miseries into which Men are fallen For they are yet greater than I have told you But persuade your self assuredly if they were not true I would not have engag'd my self in Discourses so melancholly and disagreeable to your Sentiments It would be more pleasant to me to tell you that the Roman Church is Holy and Perfect and that those who obey and follow her are holy This would recreate both my Heart and yours and the Hearts of all who could hear it I should be very light-headed or void of Understanding to please my self with things which displease all the World and which oblige me still to hold my Peace and to conceal my self Because I know very well if they should hear me declare those Truths all the Romanists would rise up against me and even the most Pious would think they made a Sacrifice to God in killing me For they are ignorant of these Truths and are wedded to their Church as if she were Holy knowing no better because the great Darkness that is now throughout the whole World wherein the Devil has bewitch'd all Minds with Errours they may never come to the Knowledge of the Truth which every one withstands even thinking they do well in it I ask'd her If I might not suspend my Belief of those things which were contrary to the Church and believe only what concern'd Vertue and the Love of God She said Sir you can never follow Good without departing from Evil nor adhere perfectly to God without abandoning that which is contrary to him Have you not remark'd in how many things this Roman Church is contrary to the Doctrine of Jesus Christ How therefore can you adhere to her and follow Vertue and the Love of God so long as they are really contrary Jesus Christ says that We cannot serve two Masters without being unfaithful to the one or the other You must chuse which you love best Good can never profit you without the Knowledge of Evil because while you do not know and believe it you will insensibly fall into it yea you will often take Evil for Good For the Evil of this Church is still covered with the Sanctity of pious Reasons and Arguments And if Antichrist did not cover his Wickedness with Vertue he could gain none but the Wicked but with pious Pretexts he gains all the Good who would even make a Scruple not to follow him as you do Sir by your Demand For if you do believe and follow Vertue and the Love of God you will certainly hate all that is contrary thereunto I think I have already told you enough to let you see that the Rules the Commands and Ordinances of this Church are not conformable to those of God who when he created Man gave him full Liberty to use his Will wheras those constrain it in all Points and will not only subject it by Councils or Advices but by Force and Violence both bodily and spiritual So that as much as in them lies they destroy the Law and the Ordinances of God to establish their own Authority and to bind the Souls of Christians by so many Constraints that 't is impossible for them to satisfie them without displeasing God tho' there were no other thing but the forbidding Priests to labour and making them swear never to explain the Holy Scriptures otherwise than the ancient Fathers have done Do you not see Sir that all their Laws are nothing but political and made to maintain their State and Authority If a Prince or a King to whom you were subject did become a Tyrant would you make any Scruple to abandon him when it were in your Power to do it tho' he were the lawful Son of your King and gracious Father who had preceded him A
away all the Fruits of the six Days Labours which he did in creating this beautiful World if all this shou'd be for the Devil and his Adherents No no Sir this cannot go so God must have his time to reign over all his Creatures that they may adore and know him the only true God and that the Number of his Elect may be multiplied as much as he has destin'd them that these never dying may bless him to all Eternity This is the Kingdom of Jesus Christ which I wait for Sir with Chearfulness Nothing can afflict me in this Hope It is a joyful Life to think on it what Joy must it be to possess it I said to her That these Words did ravish me with Pleasure but that I had also in Exchange the Grief to believe that all Men now are in a State of Damnation for fear lest I also be of the Number She replied You may indeed rejoice Sir 'T is the greatest Ground of Joy that we can ever have 'T is the Master-piece of all the Works of God and the Accomplishment of all things For this the World is created for this Man is created and for this God is become Man The Coming of Jesus Christ in Sufferings was for Sinners but his glorious Coming will be for the Righteous Therefore he says being in the World I am not come to save the Righteous but to bring Sinners to Repentance God from all Eternity design'd to become Man to the end he might not only make Man like to him but that God also might be like to Man that he might take his perfect and compleat Delight with him 'T is good to consider this Sir that God is not become Man only on design to suffer and to die For this would have been a sad Subject and the ancient Patriarchs wou'd have had little Ground to have prayed and desired so earnestly that God should become Man to see him hardly used suffering Reproaches Scourges and so cruel a Death The Love they bare to God wou'd rather have made them desire to remain in their Captivity than to be delivered from it at so dear a Price as the Sufferings and the Death of God-Man All those Wishes and Aspirations which all the Fathers and Prophets of the ancient Law made cou'd not be for this Coming in Sufferings but rather that glorious Coming wherein Jesus Christ being lifted up will draw all Men unto him which his Death on the Cross has not done because very few followed him then and no body follows him at present This is very far from drawing all to him seeing so few have been drawn from the Beginning of the World even till now Must there not a Time come wherein that he may fulfil his Word he will draw all in general to him Must he not also to make the same Accomplishment take away the Sins of the World For his Death instead of taking away the Sins of the World has rather brought on more because they have encreas'd and multiply'd since Can God fail in his Promise Must there not come a time when he will take away all the Sins of the World If this were not God shou'd not be faithful in his Promises which cannot be true For Heaven and Earth shall pass away but his Promises shall not pass away There is not a Syllable of them which shall not have its entire Accomplishment in an altogether perfect Sence They wou'd sometimes make us believe that all this shall be fulfilled in Paradise and they tell us that nothing defiled can enter there How then shall there be Sins there to be taken away And if all the Blessed are united to him there will be no more need of drawing them I said to her That I was so convinced as to believe that we must look for a new World and a new Earth and that I knew well enough that nothing of the holy Scripture shall have its Accomplishment in this World but that I was not freed from the Trouble of believing that all Men now were in a State of Damnation of which Number I was one tho' nevertheless I desired to be saved whatever it cost She said Sir to discover Truths you must always take things in their Source Consider I pray you that the Coming of Jesus Christ in Sufferings was for no other Grounds but to make known to Men their Sins in which they liv'd so blindly that the most Part knew not what they did but followed one another insensibly in the Way of Perdition as they do yet at present God of his great Mercy wou'd have become Man before his Coming in Glory that he might bring Light to Sinners whereby they might know their Sins and to teach them in particular what they ought to do and avoid to the end they may observe the Law of God which he came not to change nor abolish no more than to give a new one but only to teach the Means by which Men shou'd easily attain to the observing of this Law of God which was given from the Beginning of the World and will never be changed For God will never demand any other thing of Men but the Dependence which they ought always to acknowledge they have on their God who has created them and given them all things In the Practice of this Dependence is contain'd all the Law and the Prophets and the Doctrine of Jesus Christ They can have no other thing in Substance But Men being fallen from the observing of this first Law have need from time to time of divers Means to raise them again from their Fall For these ends Jesus Christ is come into the World timously and ere it perish before his limited time that taking Humane Flesh he might teach Men palpably according to their Senses to the end they might not be any more ignorant of any thing but might get out of Darkness to discover their Sins and see clearly the Way they ought to take to come to Salvation And that those Means which Jesus Christ came to teach them might not seem too grievous and difficult to them he wou'd needs pave the Way himself and put them in practice all the time he was on Earth to the end Men might afterwards follow his Steps and imitate his Example By this Foundation Sir you can easily discover whether all Men be in the Way of Salvation or Damnation Lay this down first that no body shall be saved but he who keeps the Law of God Secondly that Men thro' their Frailty cannot observe this Law but by such Means as Jesus Christ has taught them because they imagine that they live in a Dependence upon God when they do but depend on their own Wills To make this known Jesus Christ teaches them that to be his they must deny themselves Not that this Law of denying ones self was ordain'd in these precise Words in the Beginning of the World but it was tacitly contain'd in
you would hinder me from hearing God perfectly It is true you do me no hurt when you look upon my Actions as Humane but you cannot profit by them It were much better that you sought God purely and leave me alone to enjoy him more particularly Because the least Unprofitableness does always darken the Soul I have spoken to you of many different Things which may give you Light into the Secrets of God and your own Salvation and particular Perfection There remains only to put them in Practice Read the Holy Scriptures they will confirm you in all that I have told you and give Credit to nothing but the Truth of the Gospel be he who he will that speaks to you For all Men are Lyars And if I shou'd say things contrary to the Gospel do not believe me For you ought not to believe any thing because I say it to you but only because it is really true And if you knew me you should also know God because he is one and the same Spirit in all things So far as you shall discern Righteousness Goodness and Truth in any Person so far shall you discern God living in them and no farther So that it 's never good to follow Persons for themselves but to follow the Righteousness Goodness and Truth which you shall discover to abide in them Therefore it 's not needful to have their bodily Presence it 's enough to accompany them with Spirit and Will in their Righteousness I said to her That she ought not to deprive me of her Company since it gave me so much Light and good Purposes and that I heard her Discourses as proceeding from the Holy Spirit but that I had not as yet strength enough to put them in Practice that I would be constrained to accompany some other Person because I could not stay alone She said Sir if you do this you are undone For now you 'll meet with no body in the World that possesses these three Qualities of Righteousness Goodness and Truth and consequently you seek in vain among Men what you will certainly find with God from whom Men will divert you and fill your Mind with their own Idea's and Imaginations enticing you to follow them Tho' they are not in the Truth yet they think they are and willingly draw over every one to their Errours while they even believe they are doing well Be on your Guard Sir for we are fallen into the dangerous Times foretold by Jesus Christ wherein Many false Prophets shall arise and shall deceive many Obey these Warnings and let not your self be deceived For many come in the Name of Jesus Christ who are in League with Satan and do deceive many Remember still that we live now in the Reign of Antichrist and that God at his Coming finds no more Faith in Israel that is among his People For all have denied him Faith consists in the Belief of the Promises and Word of God Who is there now a-days that hears his Word and acts according to it The Christians are the People of God nevertheless none of them has Faith For if they did believe in one only God they wou'd not make so many Idols that each one has his particular Idol One makes an Idol of his Wealth another of his Honour another of his Wisdom and so of all other things which they adore and esteem So that none has any longer Faith to believe that there is but one only true God whom we ought to worship nor yet the other things which God taught us by his holy Prophets his Apostles and Jesus Christ himself The Church has no longer Faith to believe that all these things must be practised in order to Salvation These seem to be but Stories of the ancient Times and that it 's not necessary now to put them in Practice So that the word is now fulfilled which says that when the Lord shall come he shall not find Faith in Israel He is come and he finds no Faith in his People Therefore take good heed Sir of applying to any body because there is no Faith now among Christians but many Deceivers and Seducers Continue rather alone or follow me yet a little The Fourteenth Conference That the Habit does not make the Monk and that Religions of themselves make none holy Of the Corruption of them and of the Church I Asked her How it was possible that there should be no longer Faith in Israel and yet so great a Number profess the true Faith and in particular so many devote themselves to God in Cloysters and Monasteries that they may the better observe the Word of God and the Doctrine of Jesus Christ She said It 's true Sir a great many profess to be Christians but notwithstanding they are not so While you conversed in the World did you observe any that followed the Doctrine of Jesus Christ that denied himself that chose the last Place or the least when he might have a better and so many other things taught and observed by Jesus Christ I know indeed you will answer me No And I ask you if there can be other Christians than those which follow his Doctrine They call none a Calvinist but he who follows the Doctrine of Calvin nor a Lutheran but he who follows the Doctrine of Luther And why wou'd they reckon those to be Christians who don 't follow the Doctrine of Jesus Christ They bear the Title falsly and they lye to the Holy Ghost For they are not Christians before God if they do not observe the Doctrine of the Gospel They but flatter themselves to believe it and deceive themselves to doubt it Do you need any other Evidence Sir than your own Understanding which sees and comprehends clearly enough that these who are now called Christians do not follow Jesus Christ neither in his Doctrine nor in his Works and that they are not Christians but in Word and in Picture having nothing of true Christianity neither following Christ at a distance nor near at hand On the contrary their Lives and Manners are directly opposite to the Life and Manners which Jesus Christ laid before us for an Example when he lived upon Earth Nevertheless you ask me if it be possible to believe that there is no longer Faith in Israel And I ask How is it possible to believe that there are yet Christians upon Earth I said to her That they who retire from the World to become Religious or enter into Cloysters ought precisely to follow Jesus Christ since they make solemn and particular Vows She said Sir do you not see that these Vows are not well observ'd They vow Chastity Poverty and Obedience Remark if this be observed in the Cloysters or among the Monks These are only outward things which seem as little obligatory as Baptism seems For neither the one nor the other is observed and after the outward Ceremonies are performed they do not think any longer on the Promises they 've
body tho' they shou'd say I am Christ For Christ is not here and there but only in the Doctrine that he left us by his Word He who believes any other thing is deceived I said to her That if this were true many Souls would be deceived because all they who profess to serve God do follow the Counsel and Direction of some Man and if he be of those who belong to the Devil they may deliver many Souls to Satan She said Sir this is lamentable in our Days wherein they have introduc'd these Directions of Men by which so many are led to Damnation even tho they were not directed by some Sorcerer they are at least turned away from God to adhere to Men. This is a great Hindrance to Vertue and the Salvation of Souls For as long as we adhere to the Creatures we shall never find God The one must go out before the other enter and these Guides instead of leading Souls to God do withdraw them from him even tho' they were good Men because God is jealous and will not suffer a Rival nor our Hearts to be separated or divided If so many Souls be engag'd to the Devil by these Directions it is because they chose rather to be lov'd by Men than God This gives the Devil Power to gain them by the Means of these Directors who are much more lov'd and follow'd than God is For he is often forgotten that they may remember these Men. Wives esteem them more than their Husbands Daughters more than Father and Mother and Men take more of their Counsel than that of Jesus Christ Thus every one furnishes Matter for the Devil to be deceiv'd by him It is by this Door he enters to make himself universal Emperour of the whole World He had gain'd many before the Coming of Jesus Christ but since he slipt into the Church by these Directions he possesses all the Wicked with their own Will and the Good indirectly by the Conduct of his Adherents whom he has introduc'd into the Church For Jesus Christ did never establish such Directions in his Church nor yet his Apostles nor their Disciples If this had been an Institution of the Holy Spirit it wouâ—d have been observ'd by the Primitive Christians who had more Zeal to gain Souls to God than these new Directors have For they rather draw them to themselves than lead them to God This often makes the Guides and those who are led by them to perish and go both together to the Devil I ask'd her By what Means I might avoid the Seduction of these false Prophets since they had the chief Ranks in the Church how I might discover them from the true ones If the one be Priests and Religious Persons as well as the other She said It will be very hard for to discern them unless you read diligently the ancient Prophets There you will find how the true and how the false Prophets have spoken For both the one and the other are this Day guided by the same Spirits The holy Prophets were and still will be led by the Holy Spirit and the false ones were and still will be led and directed by the Devil as well at present as under the old Law There is only this difference of times that then there were many holy Prophets and now there are few or none because the Number of the False is so encreast that they have almost swallowed up the Good And as God is not visible by the Eyes of the Body neither is the Devil visible after that Manner both being invisible Spirits who nevertheless render themselves visible by their Operations For he who is guided by God will still speak o the Truth without regarding whether it please or displease Men On the contrary he who is led by the Devil will still speak as Men are willing to hear Remark well Sir in the holy Scripture you will find that all the false Prophets did then always tell good News and promised to every one Peace Prosperity and Assurance whereby they deceived all the World This is even practised at present For if you take notice of all these Priests and Religious Persons you shall hear them always promising Peace and Safety to every one and that even in temporal Affairs whether as to the State or as to particular Persons You hear them always telling good News and promising that all shall go well So that if you remark the Discourses of these false Prophets of the old Law and the Preachers and Confessors at present you shall hear them all speak almost the same Language For the most Pious now-a-days study to please Men and to tell them things agreeable to their Senses and hereby they destroy all the World For if they were in the Spirit of God they wou'd tell the Truth and wou'd preach to all the World that the Abomination is in the Sanctuary and that it is high time to turn to God That the Ax is laid to the Root to hew down the Tree and to break down that great Statue of the Church which Sin has rendered abominable in the sight of God and also that the Life of Christians is very far from true Christianity and that the best of them live in a Presumption of their Salvation and in other Sins against the Holy Ghost Which is most true But instead of doing this they praise and exalt the Church as if she were holy and they persuade People that they are Christians when they are baptized and tho' they do not at all live according to the Rules of true Christianity that yet nevertheless they shall be saved In which they deceive and seduce them For there are no true Christians but they who observe the Doctrine of Jesus Christ and no body can be saved but he who keeps the Commandments of God the first of which is to love God with all our Heart and our Neighbour as our selves which no body does Nevertheless all these false Prophets tell the People that they shall assuredly be saved and that all shall go well with them Is not this a sure Mark to discern false Prophets from the true because the False flatter us always for our Ruin and the True reprove us for our Salvation He that wou'd deliver himself from being deceived must diligently examine whether these Church-men speak to us according as they are willing to hear or if they truly reprove what is blame-worthy of which sort we shall find so very few that almost none will speak the Truth when it is displeasing to People especially to those who are in Places and Dignities For this cause our Times are justly called perilous Times since the Evil is so masqu'd with Vertue For if the Evil were manifest there wou'd be no danger because all good Men wou'd avoid it and so wou'd put themselves out of Hazard of being deceived whereas when it is covered over with Piety and Vertue
will not be reformed loving rather to perish in their Blindness than to receive the Light and this of their deliberate Will Whereas those Jews are still looking for and aspiring after the Coming of their Saviour in Glory Tho' in many things they err Nevertheless they persevere in this Hope which will infallibly come to pass to them provided they acknowledge the Fault they committed in putting Jesus Christ to Death I ask'd her Whether there was any Sect or Nation more capable of receiving the Truth than the Jews who were a People rejected by all Nations and despised by every body as unworthy of the Conversation of all good Men She said Sir I know not precisely what the Jews are but as a Friend I can tell you that they are yet the People who love God more than any other Their being rejected and despised by every body shall perhaps serve for a Satisfaction to God for the Sins which they committed in putting him to death Because this is God's Way to chuse always the Things that are most vile and most contemned by the World I do not at all doubt but the Jews will be the first in the Kingdom of Heaven because they have been so humbled and despised in this World in which they have imitated Jesus Christ more than the Christians who honour themselves more than God and every one esteems them as the People of God and Jesus Christ has told us by the Mouth of his Mother that he will put down the Mighty from their Seats and will exalt the Humble This makes me believe that this People of the Jews so humbled through all the World shall be exalted above all others and that the Roman Church which is placed in the highest Chair on Earth shall be cast down from all her Power Because God has said that he who exalts himself shall be abased and he who humbles himself shall be exalted It must needs be Sir that all the Words of God be fulfilled in all Respects The Jews having been the most humbled People among Men ought to be according to the Justice and Truth of God the most Exalted as it shall come to pass For as soon as they shall receive the Truth which I commit to you they shall be converted and receive the Holy Spirit by whom they shall discover all things see their Errors and the Truth and embracing it shall arrive at the Time so often desired by them in which they will see the true Messiah and Saviour of the World come in Glory who will receive them into his Kingdom from whence the Children of it shall be shut out These are the Christians who shall never taste of his Feast tho' they were invited and called unto it But the Jews and Heathens shall sit down there and the Christians shall be thrust out because they would not obey God's Call who having called them to Christianity they would not conform themselves unto it Therefore they shall never taste of his Dainties because this is the last Mercy of God who will bring to his Table the Sick rather than the Whole who resist his Will as the Christians do now I ask'd her If I might declare to the Jews all the things she had told me as coming from God by a Prophetical Spirit She said Sir I am not Prophetical as the Ancient Prophets were who spoke of very obscure things So that many times neither the People nor they themselves understood well what they signified because the Time was not yet come to give the full Understanding of them But at present in this Fulness of Time God declares his Secrets very manifestly that every one may understand them So that you must not say Sir that you are sent in the Name of some Prophet because the Things that I have told you are such plain and lively Truths that no body of a good Judgment can doubt but the Holy Spirit must have inspired them For if they believe that God is Truth my Words are so sensibly inseparable from it that all Nations both great and small must confess that in all my Discourses the Truth is in its Source And this Truth being God it is therefore God assuredly who declares these Truths For the Devil is the Father of Lyes and Nature finds out still Excuses either in its own Sins or in those it loves By which you may see evidently that Truth comes immediately from God tho' it shou'd come out of an Ass as once it did Therefore you need not so much stay to judge whether I have the Spirit of Prophesie as you ought to examine very narrowly whether I speak the Truth For that is always God The Prophesies of the Ancient Prophets will all of them very shortly be fulfilled There is no Need of any longer having obscure Prophesies because we are fallen into the last Times wherein all the Prophesies shall cease and we shall see them all entirely accomplished and we shall not receive any more new ones Because the King of all the Prophets will himself govern his People and will give an entire Accomplishment to all that has been prophesied of him So that Sir you shall not need to say that you hold these Truths from a Prophet because the Work does always bear Witness who its Workman has been Even so when the Truth is lively declared it gives sufficient Evidence by what Master it is formed I cannot conceal that I derive all my Wisdom from God because I never learned any thing from Men But there is no Need to say that I have a Prophetick Spirit when God gives Reasons and Comparisons to explain it after the Manner of Men. I said to her That in many of her Discourses she spoke of the Future and of the Time to come and that as to those we could not know yet whether they were true or not She said Sir what is to come is as true as what I have already experienced Receive all with Humility of Heart and you shall see in its Time as clear as the Sun that all shall be accomplished For God cannot lye The holy Scriptures must say the same things that I say Because all proceeds from one and the same Spirit and the Jews will understand me yet better than you do because they are more vers'd in the holy Scriptures I think if I spoke to them their Hearts would be over-joy'd and ravish'd with Pleasure to know that so great a Happiness is to befal them as to become the People of God and to suffer for his Love till they shall see him come in Glory with his Angels to render to every one according to his Works The Christians have this in their Creed which contains the twelve Articles of Faith that Jesus Christ who is ascended into Heaven shall come again to judge the Quick and the Dead And notwithstanding they will not believe it tho'
they say it daily Or they imagine that this Coming shall be so suddenly as if the Judgment were to be by Way of Enchantment and that it were to paâ—s in an Instant or in one Day These are foolish Speculations For the Judgment is already begun and I know not how many Years it shall last only at the End Jesus Christ shall appear upon the Earth in Glory and Majesty and so shall converse with Men who shall be all made happy with his glorious Presence which shall fill them with Glory and shall wipe away all their Tears and Griefs to bring them into Joy that shall never end They who will not believe this are Enemies of their own Good because there is nothing in the World that can give them more Constancy to suffer than the Hopes they have that in the End they shall see the glorious Coming of Jesus Christ upon Earth All sorts of Consolations are comprehended in this I said to her That the Jews look for the Coming of their Messias in Glory that he would come to reign and abide with them but that the Christians look'd for him only to come and judge the World and to go away again carrying along with him all the Blessed She said Sir the Jews shall not be disappointed of their Expectation They shall see their Messiah in Glory who will govern them upon Earth conversing eating and drinking with them For he himself says that he will make his Friends sit down at his Table and that he will rise up and serve them now in this Paradise which the Christians imagine there shall be no need of sitting at a Table nor eating nor being served And also when Jesus Christ said to his Disciples that he would drink no more of the Fruit of the Vine till he drank it new in the Kingdom of his Father he means certainly of the Earth which shall be the Kingdom that God will give to the Body of Jesus Christ Because in the Divine Kingdom there can be no Planting of Vines nor making of Presses to drink Wine there Truly Sir the Christians are superstitious in many things and they judge rashly of all that they do not comprehend They may clearly see by the holy Scriptures that Jesus Christ shall have a glorious Reign and that he will be the Restorer of all things and also the Saviour of Men Because all the Prophets with the Apostles and other Saints have sufficiently spoken of these things which shall certainly come to pass For the Scripture cannot err or fail But because they have not received the compleat Knowledge of them to explain all the Christians Fancy in their Speculations that this shall come to pass in a divine and incomprehensible Paradise without reflecting that the divine Kingdom cou'd not be promised to Jesus Christ because as God he always possess'd it and has no need of being promised what he possesses For Possession is always greater than Promise for that is wholly accomplished by Possession Therefore the Promise of Jesus Christ must be on Earth where he shall reign over all Men shall save them and re-establish all things because in the divine Heaven there is nothing to be re-established For nothing was ever spoiled there Nor any to be saved because all that are there have Salvation and whither can they imagine that God shou'd carry the Blessed with him since he comprehends all things and cannot be contain'd by any thing They speak of God as if he had a Closet somewhere for his Retirement I said to her That the Jews had look'd a long time for the Messias but that the Christians did not expect him till the Day of Judgment and the Resurrection of the Dead She said Sir the Jews have done well always to wait for their Messiah For a Thing is then more loved when it is long desired It is a constant Faith that makes them persevere in this Expectation which shall be recompensed with a great Joy when they shall receive the Fruit of their Hope For it is not vain but very well founded on all the Holy Scriptures which is the most solid Foundation in the whole World since it is the Word of an all-wise all-good and all-mighty God But when the Christians look for their Saviour only on a certain Day they are not so diligent to prepare for his Coming which they imagine to be yet far from them They confound divers things together which have no Relation to one another and they make but one Day of the Plagues the Judgment the Resurrection of the Dead and the Coming of Jesus Christ in Glory as if all these things were to be done together But they are greatly deceived we have not a God of Confusion who surprises Persons at unawares confounding them by precipitating things On the contrary all his Ways are so well regulated and ordered that there is not a Devil in Hell that cou'd say in truth that God gave him the least Surprize or that he could find in all his Works the least Injustice or Want of Goodness and Truth This being so how cou'd it be that God shou'd send all his Plagues in one Day that no body might have Leisure to be converted being surprised so suddenly with so many different Evils as to be chastised judged raised again saved or damned all in one Day If God has been just good and true from all Eternity wou'd he become impious at the last Day This cannot be But Men mistake him and every one judges of him according to their Fancy For if they wou'd judge uprightly they wou'd not dare to say that God cou'd surprise Men to judge and chastize them so suddenly I wou'd gladly ask Christians where they find it Written how long the Judgment shall last I said to her That no body had distinguished these Times and that all Christians believed that the Judgment the Chastisement the Resurrection of the Dead and the Coming of Jesus in Glory were but one and the same thing and that they should come to pass all together She said Sir They are very much deceived For these are all divers things which must come to pass at different Times For first of all the Judgment is when God saw the universal Iniquity of all the Men of the World and that not so much as one knew and lov'd him he by streight Justice judged and condemned the World And that he might not surprise any he delays the Execution of his Sentence that Men might discover by Experience that the World is judged seeing the Evils to encrease and Peoples Amendment desperate This is the greatest Evidence to verifie that the Sentence is irrevocable God does this that Men remarking these Truths may quake for Fear and be converted unto him that they may obtain his Mercy at least every one for their own particular I believe Sir that these thirty Years the World is judged and condemned and that now the
Time is come to put this Sentence in Execution It will begin with the Plague of War and then that of Pestilence and after of Famine that there may be time given to all Men of good Will to repent and to take these Plagues in Penitence for their Sins and by these Sufferings to find a Way to return to God with all their Heart and to rise from Death to Life that is to say from Sin to Grace as the Jews shall do by being converted first of all that the Lord may find them watching at his Coming and may say to them Well done good and faithful Servant because thou hast been faithful in a few things I will set thee over great things Enter into the Joy of thy Lord Which Joy shall be recovered at the Coming of Jesus Christ in Glory who will overthrow all Evil by the Brightness of his Coming which shall be seen and understood by all the Men who shall then be remaining on the Earth Thus it is that God orders these last things with Weight and Measure that he may still exercise his Righteousness Goodness and Truth even to the End of the World waiting still for Sinners to Repentance being desirous that they shou'd be converted and live Whatever Men say God will never depart from his eternal Qualities and will not confound his last Works no more than he did his first For he continues still firm and constant in all his works If Men will not know this 't is their own Fault and the Effect of the straying of their Minds Nevertheless it is time to open their Eyes For the Plagues are begun I said to her That the Jews were wilfully obstinate not to believe that Jesus Christ was God which the Christians did believe assuredly and consequently they were nearer to be converted than the Jews She said Sir the Jews are less obstinate than the Christians because there is more Ground for their Unbelief than for that of the Christians who reject the Coming of Jesus Christ in Glory tho' it be verified by all the Holy Prophets the Apostles and Jesus Christ himself who in so many divers Places declare his glorious Coming and very few speak of his Coming in Reproach This makes the Jews doubtful knowing that God never surprises any but often foretells the things that must come to pass and they finding so frequently in the Holy Scripture the Prophesie of his Coming in Glory and so seldom his Coming in Reproach they have some fundamental Reasons for which they cannot believe his Coming in Reproach But so soon as the Truth shall come to enlighten them they will yield to it because they love it Whereas the Christians do formally resist it and wilfully impugn it and will not believe what they read so often nor hearken to the Light that is offered them thereupon being desirous to continue obstinately in the Persuasions in which they have been trained and blindly to believe the Sentiments of Mens preferring them to the Truth of God So that the Jews will sooner believe that Jesus Christ is God than the Christians will believe that the same Jesus Christ shall come to reign in Glory upon Earth tho this Coming be much more to be desired and valued than that Coming in Sufferings and Reproaches For he who highly esteems God will be troubled to believe or see he shou'd be abased or despised and become the Reproach of Men he who deserves all Honours in Heaven and Earth Hereby the Jew's have more humane Ground not to believe the Coming of Jesus Christ in Sufferings than the Christians have not to believe his Coming in Glory which is more honourable pleasant and desirable tho' the Jews as well as the Christians do very ill not to believe both the Comings of Jesus Christ which are equally true both the one and the other I said to her That she seem'd to hold the Jews Part more than the Christians She said Pardon me Sir I am not partial and if I were I wou'd rather take the Christians Part among whom I am born than that of the Jews whom I never saw I hold only the Part of Truth without leaning to any Side because I have no Pretensions upon Earth Neither Jews nor Christians will give me any thing But God will judge me in Truth and Righteousness Therefore I will always observe it without Respect to any body If I knew not that the Jews are more disposed to receive the Truth than the Christians I wou'd not speak to their Advantage But I cannot conceal the Truth when it is asked me If you address these Jews you will find my Saying true For I know nothing of my self All comes from a Source from whence no Lye can be drawn I am not enclined for the Jews nor for any other Sect in the World For I know none of them that are well pleasing to God But I love those best that are most disposed to receive the Truth and to be converted unto God and I remark this People of the Jews to be more disposed for this than any other Which in Trust I declare to you Not that I may be lov'd or despised but that I may simply declare the Truth as I know it Make a Trial of it Sir and of all the other Things which I have told you you will find them in their Time all true For I am not for telling things that are extravagant or without Necessity You will have Need after this to know all that I have declared unto you They will be very profitable for you and for those whom you shall judge capable of receiving them Doubt nothing of them Conceive and digest them all You shall receive from them great Light in your Understanding and Strength and Nourishment to your Soul and you shall still enter farther into the Knowledge of God and of your self which shall be an Everlasting Happiness for you Beware of being tempted to believe the Contrary Because the Devil will surprize you with false Appearances under a Pretext of scrupulous Piety and Justice The Eighteenth Conference How the Holy Spirit gives his Light to the Soul I Said to her That I would not doubt of her Words because I believed that they all came from the Holy Spirit She said Softly Sir all my Words come not from the Holy Spirit For he does not dictate to me all the Words that I must pronounce but the Substance of all that I say because I would never speak otherwise than by his Motion and no other Discourses are necessary for me For I have no Desire to please any and all that makes not for the Glory of God seems to me a superfluous and useless Thing Therefore I do not willingly utter any Discourse but these to which the Holy Spirit moves me But he does not dictate to me all my Words I have Need to express my self by Humane Reasons or Comparisons because otherwise they could not understand me For
come to reign on the Earth with Men to render Justice to every one and to root out all Evil and recompence the sufferings of the Righteous without this perswasion you can never support the Evils which hang over our Head for without knowing these Truths it will be impossible not to fall into despair or murmuring against God if we know not his Righteousness Goodness and Truth with which he does all things Thus we cannot besaved without Faith which discovers the Truth All these things are true of Judgment of Antichrist and of the coming of Jesus Christ in Glory but if you will not believe them you resist the known Truth which is a Sin against the Holy-Ghost that shall never be forgiven The Sixth Conference Discovers the Signs that the World is Judged and that ANTICHRIST Reigns now I said to her I would be very careful not to commit any Sin against the Holy Ghost though I knâ—w not yet the Truth in every thing entreating she would afford the means to discover the Truth of all the things she told me to wit the Judgment the Reign of Antichrist and the coming of Jesus Christ in Glory She said You would infallibly believe them if you would seriously remark what you may see with your Eyes and conceive with your Humane Understanding for these things are so far advanced that one may feel them provided his Mind be not infatuated For first as to the Judgment as I have already told you it is easy to see that the world is Judged because sins are universal and no body will Repent There is every where the Lust of the Eyes the Lust of the Flesh and the Pride of Life of which no body Repents and Amends and there can be no forgiveness where there is no amendment and therefore of necessity the World is Judged because these evils are not among some particular persons as they have been in all times but they are generally among all men both small and great If you observe them narrowly you will find Sir that these three sins reign infallibly in the Hearts of all men of whatsoever condition those in whom you cannot discover them are very often the greatest Hypocrites who know better to dissemble and cover their sins And for the second The believing that we are now in the Reign of Antichrist you need only Remark narrowly by what Spirit Men are led because they who are led by God follow his Righteousness his Goodness and his Truth On the contrary they who are led by the Devil oppose themselves to this and if you Reflect upon the Actions of Men now you will find nothing in them but Injustice Malice and Lying which are three qualities of the Devil opposed to the Righteousness Goodness and Truth of God This is so common at present that there is nothing to be seen but Injustice Malice and affected Lies I said to her in my opinion there were some men who seemed to follow Righteousness and Truth tho it must be acknowledged the greatest part live in Injustice and Deceit She said Sir Judg righteously and examin everything to the bottom You grant already that the greatest part of men now live in Injustice and lies All the World finds this by experience And when the greatest part is for the Devil we may well fear that he will shortly have the whole for as rotten Apples spoil the sound ones so Men corrupted by the Devil are still corrupting and drawing in those who are yet sound If all men in general or almostall were on the Devils side the Reign of Antichrist would be at an end for he could gain no more he would be pleased to have all his Adherents with him to Hell for the reason why he keeps them in Life here and raises them to places and preferments is that they may serve him in corrupting others and in doing all the mischief to the good that may be Now there would be no need of this if all in general were dedicated to his service he could go no farther and God would not continue the World in being to wait for men's Conversion for those who are Dedicated to the Devil will not be converted as some other sinners would be who have not yet renounc'd God nor given their Souls to the Devil as his sworn Votaries or Sorcerers do who are precisely dedicated to the Devil of their own free will as the greatest part of men have done This may appear sufficiently by their Malice which is not only human but Devilish also for human Malice extends it self no farther than to that which is pleasant or profitable to the Malicious Person but at present we see men's Malice so black that he who acts it has neither pleasure nor profit by it and nevertheless they afflict the good and ruin sometimes the wealth and honour of their Neighbour without any profit to themselves And lies are so common tho frequently without any advantage that the truth is seldom or never spoken from whence it appears that it certainly comes from the Devil for men could not arrive at such a malice as that is which we see now reign in the World If I told you Sir that I had these truths by any particular Revelation from God you would entertain it may be some scrupulous doubts about it but I refer you to your own experience that you may know by human Reasons that we are fallen into the last times that the Judgment is past on the whole World And that this is now the Reign of Antichrist For as to the coming of Jesus Christ in Glory I cannot make it appear to you so precisely as the things that are already come to pass but if you read attentively the Holy Scriptvres they will plainly enough declare it to you for of all contain'd in them there is nothing more spoken of than of the coming of Jesus Christ on Earth in Glory From the beginning of the World we are told that Jesus Christ was to become man to Reign with men on Earth and tho he had not been man to suffer he had become man to Reign Because he would take and give to men a perfect contentment of Conversing together with them in Body and Soul Divinity and Humanity I cannot make you see this Sir by the Eyes of the Body because the time is not yet come Therefore I send you to the Holy Scriptures But as for the Judgment and the Reign of Antichrist you may see it with your Eyes and comprehend it with your Natural understanding For it is visible and comprehensible by him whose Spirit is not infatuated and who seeks to discover the Truth The thing is so manifest that it speaks out it self Many say blindly We are in the end of the VVorld and they perceive not that they speak truth Others say The Devil reigns over all and they see not that this is the Reign of Antichrist who Rules as
the real truth if they receive it For hitherto it has not been yet discover'd nothing of the Holy Scripture has been explain'd in its perfect sense every one has drawn conjectures from it according to his Light not according to what is in it in effect thus they might well die for holding some opinion which was not the real truth but the opinion of some Author for which they might die indeed without being for this the Martyrs of Jesus Christ For to be such a man must die for the Defence of the Law of God and the Doctrine of the Gospel or otherwise he cannot be a Martyr before God however men call many others by this name this shews that there is obscurity and darkness through all even in the most holy things Every one walks in the dark not discerning the pure Truth Even many who have the best Maxims would judge indeed that I were an Heretick in speaking against the Decrees of the Councils of Rome out of a pious belief that they have been all held by the Co-operation of the Holy Spirit Which is a false Supposition For the Holy Spirit never changes With what he inspir'd the Apostles he inspires also at present those who hear him They are always the same things I said to her That the Holy Spirit did sometimes inspire diverse Means for the attainment of the same End She said 'T is true Sir if the Means which those Councils set before us did all aim at the keeping of the Commands of God and at his Doctrine of the Gospel I should believe that they came from the Holy Spirit but when they aim at a quite contrary sense I may well judge that they come not from thence because God never contradicts himself He has commanded that we love him with all our Heart and these Councils say that to get the Pardon of our Sins and obtain Salvation it suffices that we have a sorrow for sin out of fear of Hell Can these two contrary senses come from the same God And there are so many other things which are variously oppos'd to the Doctrine of Jesus Christ as I have told you formerly as the baptizing little Infants and a Thousand other things which are directly contrary to the Doctrine of Jesus Christ I know indeed that they deny this Truth saying that they have ordain'd nothing contrary to the Law of God For with studied Words and Terms they cover all their Faults and I am neither a Philosopher nor Divine to answer their artificial Arguments or studied Words but I say in truth that they do in effect directly contrary to the Law of God and the Doctrine of the Gospel Not that they say so but they do it And Deeds are more than Words I doubt not but they would surprize me by my Words For the Devil has nothing but Subtilties wherewith to cover his Malice But they cannot surprize me in the matter of the Essential Truth which abides always true They might say indeed the Councils do not say that we ought not to love God with all our Heart but only that Attrition is sufficient for Salvation Is not that enough to teach indirectly that we are not obliged to love God And is not this indirect Doctrine much worse than the direct which no good Men would follow I asked If the Light which she received from the Holy Spirit was contrary to what the Councils had ordained She said Yes Sir the Decrees which the Councils have made so far as I know them are all directly contrary to what the Holy Spirit dictates to me And you your self may perceive it Though there were nothing but the forbidding to read the Gospels and the holy Bible in the Vulgar Tongue is not this contrary to the Doctrine of Jesus Christ who has given his Word rather to the vulgar and simple People than to the Learned And if it had not been his Will they should read it after his Death he would not have left it them in Writing This is the Nourishment of the Children of God And these Councils would make them die for hunger Is not also the forbidding Priests to labour against the Commandment of God who ordained Adam the most holy of all Men to labour in penitence for his Sin And the Oath which they cause the Priests to take not to receive any other Explications of the Holy Scriptures but those approved by the Church is it not also against the Holy Spirit who offers every Moment to give new Light which these Councils do not approve because it would reprovâ— them For all that comes from the Holy Spirit reproves Evil. There are also many other things which these Councils have ordained that are contrary to the Light that God gives me which is wholly conformable to the Law of God and the Doctrine of Jesus Christ I have no need to read any Books to know if they be endited by the Holy Spirit because the Sentiment of my Soul gives me still evidence enough of them When I understand only the substance of a thing I perceive certainly whether it come from the Holy Spirit or not You may easily see Sir by all that I have already told you that this Church and her Councils are not guided by the Holy Spirit but by the Spirit of Errour which deceives all the World under this false Masque of the Holy Church and Holy Councils whereby the most Innocent let themselves be ruled by the Devil at his pleasure while they believe that they follow the Truth which is God The Ninth Conference Speaks of the Sins which we commit in another and that to declare the Truth of Evil is not Sin I said to her I was more certain that she was guided by the Holy Spirit than that the Church and her Councils were so and therefore she must tell me what I ought to do She said Sir You may indeed lean to my Sayings because I speak nothing of my self It is true it seem'd somewhat hard to you that I overturn the Church and her Councils and also when I say that the Devil rules them But I know this by the Light of the Holy Spirit which obliges me to declare it perhaps for the enlightning of others that they may be converted or to give them a full Measure that no body may pretend Ignorance For if I were not prest in my Conscience I would beware to speak of such Evils as one trembles to hear them It were more pleasant and agreeable if I could say in truth that the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit and that Rome is the Church of God This Discourse would comfort my Soul and give content to all those who are under her Obedience But this not being true I should flatter them to their destruction Whereas the true knowledge of Things may save them You have been also troubled sometimes to hear me say that all men now are in a state of Damnation which notwithstanding
understood of all the Holy Scripture for even they who pronounc'd it understood it not in its perfect Sense but in part only But now that the Holy Spirit is come upon Earth to give the full Knowledge of them he needs not for this End a Body of Flesh but only to give Men Spiritual Understanding that they may know the Powers of God the Love he bears to Man the End for which he created him and may have the knowledge of True Vertue and of that which is False All these Things shall be known by the Understanding of those Men who will receive the Light of Truth which the Holy Spirit brings now into the World HE IS BORN in the midst of its Universal Darkness in which no Body knows the Truth of any Thing all being falsified or not known The Holy Spirit comes to clear this by Spiritual Notices I blest my good Fortune and the Day in which I met with this Pilgrimess for my Vnderstanding received such Light by her Discourses that I must confess my Soul had perish'd without this Rencounter I asked her How her Words could have such strong Operations on me She said Sir This proceeds from the Holy Spirit who begins to visit your Soul by his Light Receive it with Humility of Heart and he will enlighten you more For he is come to fill the Souls of all those who shall receive the Truth It is by the Operations that you feel that he is born in Souls He is a Spirit and he works in the Spirit of all who seek and desire him We must not any longer seek for visible and material Means For all these things are Hindrances to him Let us only open our Heart and Spirit to receive the Truth and it will teach us all Things For nothing but Lies has undone the whole World The Darkness that Men are in and their forgetfulness of God have come by Lying which has seiz'd on all the World For none are now in the Truth The false Perswasions which they have imprinted on Mens Hearts have made them mistake God and the State of their own Souls There is therefore great reason to bless the Goodness of God who in so miserable a Time sends us his Holy Spirit to enlighten all those who will receive him I believe Sir you are the first but a great Number will follow you For as soon as the delusion shall be discovered the Eyes of many will be opened and their Heads lifted up to return to God abhorring their Errours and the Deceit of their blind Guides They will see that all that they have taught them as Means of bringing them to God have estrang'd them from him and the Sacraments and other Ceremonies of the Church instead of procuring them the Grace of God to love him and to acquire true Vertue have given them rather a Contempt of God and a false hypocritical Vertue This being discovered many will seek the Truth abhorring Lying which has put their Salvation in so great hazard I asked her If the Holy Spirit would not become visible She said No Sir He will not be visible but by the Operations which he will make in Souls whom you shall see disingaged from the Earth and cleaving to God alone We shall see them possess Joy Peace and Patience with the other Fruits and Gifts which will be sure Evidences that the Holy Spirit will dwell in their Souls who notwithstanding shall not be seen by the Eyes of the Body in any Material Form or Figure For the Time is come that God will be worshipped in Spirit and in Truth and no longer in Figures which shall all cease because of the Accomplishment of all Things And all that was figured in the Old Law shall be accomplished in full perfection by the Holy Spirit For the Time is come that all the Promises which God made to Men from the Beginning of the World shall be fulfilled the Alliance that God has promis'd to make with Men shall have its perfect Accomplishment For they shall be his People and he will be their God This has not come to pass as yet Though Men were created to be God's People nevertheless they did not continue so on the contrary they committed so many Infidelities that he was oblig'd to destroy them by a General Deluge and though the Children of Israel were God's peculiar People they forsook him notwithstanding and gave themselves to Idolatry The Jews who were as precisely God's People denied him also and would not acknowledge him when he became Man but revil'd him and hang'd him on a Cross And now the Christians who ought more perfectly to be Gods People despise him in his Sufferings and in his Doctrine So that the Alliance that God promis'd to make with Man could not hitherto be accomplish'd Of necessity the Holy Spirit must come upon Earth to enlighten Men that they may have the Faithfulness requisite for this Alliance of God with Men For a Marriage cannot be compleat if the Spouse be not faithful as the Husband is The Fourteenth Conference Speaks of the Alliance that God will make with Men and of the Coming of Jesus Christ in Glory and that to have a Share in it we must of necessity resign our Will to God and return to a Dependance upon him I entreated her to tell me How and when and wherein this Alliance of God with Men shall be made She said This Will be made by the Holy Spirit who will illuminate Souls make them know their Errours and also the End for which they were created which is nothing less than to be joyn'd and united to God who will take his Delight with Men And they perceiving this shall separate themselves from all Earthly Pretensions and resign themselves to the Will of God desiring no longer to use their own Wills because they have entirely renounc'd them Then shall they have such Dispositions as will invite God down to the Earth to Ally himself visibly and bodily with Men by an inseparable and indissoluble Tye. This is the End for which God cloath'd himself with a Humane Body to make himself like to Man that the Alliance he designed to make with him might be wholly perfect and compleat both in Body and Spirit What God promis'd of Old to Abraham could never be accomplish'd because Men were never resign'd to God as they ought having still us'd their own Free-will without depending upon God This did separate and divorce them from the Alliance which he promis'd them But in this Fulness of Time wherein we live the Holy Spirit is come down to teach us all Things and whosoever shall hear him shall enjoy the promis'd Alliance For Jesus Christ will come very shortly upon the Earth in Glory to Joyn and Allie himself with all those who shall resign themselves to him I cannot precisely tell the Day Sir but that it will be towards the End of the Plagues which are now
said Sir This Submission is the Preparation required For if you set up for the Doctour or for the knowing Man you will oppose the Light of the Holy Spirit the Source of all Wisdom It must alwayes be believed and acknowledged that he is wiseâ— than all the Doctours that ever were in â—he World and that we learn more by a small â—ay of his Light than by a Hundred Years of very assiduous Study Therefore reckon all your Learning Ignorance and become as a Child newly born again that you may receive these new Notices which will give you more Light than all the Fathers had together Because they never discovered the hid Treasures for the Time was not yet come Every one spoke of it according to his Conceit and not according to what it really was For it was a Sealed Book that none was worthy to open but Jesus Christ himself after he was put to death and Crucified To this very Time there is nothing in all the Holy Scripture fulfilled but this Death which will make way for the Wonders of God that have remained hid till now and begin to be revealed to those who shall be humble in Heart But the Wise shall perish with their Wisdom Therefore I exhort you Sir to Simplicity and Submission that you may be worthy to receive the Light which breaks forth in our Days and to behold the New Jerusalem descend from Heaven adorned as a Bride in the Day of her Espousals The Alliance of God with Men will then be accomplished The Earth will then be renewed All Creatures will quit their Malignity which shall be confined to the Center of the Earth to torment the Bodies and Souls of all those who would not submit their Wills to God They shall receive Pains and Anguish according to the Measure of their Sins being overwhelmed with the Malignities which were caused by these Sins The Eighteenth Conference Speaks of Hell and of the Damned which shall be they who have followed their own Will which is the cause of all Evil and that few are disposed to quit it that they may resign themselves to God and receive the Divine Truth I asked her If all Men who will not submit their Will to God shall be confined to Hell She said Yes Sir assuredly they shall None shall escape Hell who have followed their own Will And this most righteously For God cannot save him who withdraws from him and who with his full Reason and the Consent of his Will will independently follow his own Inclinations as if he were Soveraign and without a Creatour We know well enough we cannot save our selves and that our Salvation depends upon God and yet we hope to be saved though we have quitted our Dependance upon God and adhere to our selves This is a false Perswasion which the Devil and the World set before us to make us insensible of our Misery For God will never save him who will not depend upon him If through Frailty we commit some Acts of Independence upon God and afterwards repent of them we may yet hope for Pardon But when we see that all Men live and dye in following their own Wills and will not leave it off being readier to murmur against God than to yield up their Wills to him he must of necessity render to them according to their Works God made no Malignity in the Elements nor in any other Creatures having created all good and perfect But Sin and the Self-will of Man has brought a Malignity into all Things And therefore it belongs to him as being the Work of his Hands And if it be just to render to each one what belongs to him it is necessary that Man have for his Portion the Malignity of all the Creatures to all Eternity as being the Works of his Hands that the Fire burn him the Water swallow him up the Wind bluster the Earth be Thorns to prick him the Dogs bite him the Wolf devour him the Lion tear him the Serpent poyson him and all the other Creatures shall spue out their Malignity upon Man who brought it upon them by forsaking his Dependance upon God I said to her That upon this Supposition all shall be damned Because none resign their Will to God since every one enjoyes it as much as is possible for them She replied Sir I have told you long ago that Paradise was shut and that none did any longer enter into it Because no Body resigns his Will to that of God The Maximes of the Church have so blinded Mens Spirits by so many different wayes of Salvation that none consider the Obligation that lies on them to resign their Wills to God They think to be saved by going to Church frequenting the Sacraments c. though nevertheless they follow their own Will in every Thing This ruines all the World and has caused the general Judgment For God having beheld all the Earth found not one who was resigned to him nor so much as one that did good All having forsaken God to follow their own Wills And this general Evil has caused the general Sentence which is irrevocable Because there is Time no longer If any desires to be converted he must make haste For the Last Times are near their End They began when Jesus Christ became Man and by Grace have continued till now to give Man a full Measure and abundance of Time for his Conversion Time is come to its End Yet a little Suffering and the Judgment will end and the Wicked shall go to the Abyss of all Evils and the Converted to the Enjoyment of all Good which shall never end and that not only spiritual but also bodily and material For all the Creatures will render their Duty to Man as soon as he shall pay his Duty to God They were created to serve for the Delight of Man as he was created to serve for the Delight of God And as soon as he shall be converted and enter into a Dependance upon his God he shall experience that the Beasts and Elements shall submit also to the Will of Man For for this they were all created And if we see the Beasts and Elements rebel against Man this is for no other reason but because he rebels against his God For else all inferiour Things would be entirely subject to Man if he were entirely subject to God even though it were in this Miserable Life We have Examples of this in the Life of many Saints who because they resigned their Wills to God had in this Time of Penitence the Power to command the Elements and to be familiar with the Wild Beasts One carried Fire without being burnt by it Another stay'd the Sun And several have tam'd Wild Beasts and commanded the Wind and Tempests of the Sea with so many other Wonders playing with Serpents and recreating themselves with Birds which assembled by
withdraws himself from him and damns himself but that he cannot hinder it Not that the Almighty Power of God does not reach all Things or that his Power is limited but it is because it pleased him to give Man this Free-will when he created him that with it he might love him and Man nevertheless turns away from loving Him to love some Creatures that are unworthy of him This is an occasion for him to repent to speak in our Gibberish But God can never have any kind of Repentance or any other Passions Because he is unchangeable and never retracts what he has once done The first and last Thing that he demands of Man is that he acknowledge in all things the Dependance that he has upon God and that he so love him as to yield up the Free-will he gave us into his power Lo this is all that God requires of Man All the other Precepts Counsels and Commands are only accessory and casual not at all necessary for him that fulfils this only essential Commandment which Men now have forgot because of the Traditions of Men which has so filled their Spirits that no Body penetrates now into the Essence of Vertue and they know not wherein it consists Which is very deplorable I asked her How it was possible that Man should come to such an Ignorance of God and of himself and to such a forgetfulness of his Salvation She said The Reason is Sir that whereas Men ought to apply their Reason and Understanding to know the Works of God they have applyed them to Earthly Things and pried into the Works of God to apply them to Evil. For Example We see some Rod or Chastisement befal us We immediately say that God is angry and that he afflicts us These are the Sentiments of the most pious and they are much better than those who ascribe this to Fortune or Second Causes for there is no Solidity in this whereas the first has some regard of God yet nevertheless it is so imperfect that it is injurious to him instead of being honourable For if we speak truly of God it cannot be said that he is angry because he is not subject to any Passion no more to Wrath than other Passions Neither does he afflict us because no Evil or Afflictions can come from him as being the Source of all Good from which no Evil can be derived But these Terms are used even in the Holy Scripture to make us understand something of God according to our Capacity And if it were said that any other thing than God afflicts us it would induce Men being so imperfect to Vengeance instead of Repentance It is better therefore to use Terms which do rather excite us to Vertue as the Scripture way of speaking does wisely but we must not infer from this that these Terms are in effect true but only to give us some signification that is less evil of the things that we ought to understand And nevertheless they insist sometimes upon certain Terms and thereon build Disputes and Questions which amuse the World and turn them away from the knowledge of God and of themselves and of Eternal Salvation as the Debate about the Grace of God or Predestination has done They found it upon this that God in several places of the Sacred Text has said that he has elected one and reprobated another or that he forsook his People or hardened Pharaoh's Heart These are all Terms accommodated to our Capacity but it does not follow that they are so really For God Elected all Men that were or shall be to Salvation and none to Reprobation Because God does always good to all without respect of Persons or regard of Mens Merit or Demerit for he respects himself only that he may still exercise his Goodness from which there cannot proceed so much as the Reprobation of one Soul For where there is nothing but all good there no evil can be found and Reprobation is the greatest Evil in the World which never can come from God who is all good And to believe that God gives his Graces only to whom he pleases is also to render him partial and passionate favouring one more than another Which cannot be found in God who is always just as well as always good and never favours any out of Preference Though the Scripture uses these Terms nevertheless the Favours of God are still enlarged according as the Soul resigns its self to his Will and no farther Because his Goodness is still accompanied with Righteousness He still abounds in Graces and denies them to none If any do not feel the Operations of them it is because he uses them according to his own Will applying them to evil as is done in Nature when they abuse their Beauty Health Wealth or Honours to offend God who notwithstanding does not withdraw these Natural Graces because of their Abuse no more than he does his Spiritual Graces which his Goodness still bestows though we abuse them For God can never cease to do well And when 't is said that he forsakes his People this is also but a way of speaking Because God never forsakes any thing since he comprehends in himself all things He cannot quit or abandon any thing no more than he can harden the Hearts of any For this would be to do an ill thing But these are all Terms used in the Scriptures that Men may not interpret to an evil Sense the Works which they see fall out without their knowledge For if the Text said that Men have the Grace of God and also their Salvation at their will they so love themselves that they would not any longer acknowledge God but would ascribe to themselves the Power of saving themselves which would be a greater Evil than to say that our Salvation depends immediately upon the Grace of God Because this is true but not in the way that Men take it when they say that they cannot be saved without the Grace of God as if God had not given his Graces to all Men from their Creation which whatever a Man do will never be taken back or retracted If he hardens his Heart to evil this is when he will irreconcilably withdraw his Free-will from a Dependance upon God Then the Justice of God cuts short this Injustice So that it may be indirectly said that God hardens Hearts even as we would say that the Fire has burnt the Wood that was put into it this would be a true thing For the Fire consumes all that is capable of that Element but if nothing be put into it for its Aliment it would consume its self instead of consuming any other thing Even so is it as to the Justice of God which devours all that is opposed to it Unjust Hearts are hardned by the Justice of God which like a Fire devours all that is thrown into it When a wicked Man has determined to run to evil he falls into God's Justice
and his Heart is hardned because he has cast himself into the devouring Fire of this Justice The Twentieth and Fifth Conference Shews That all the Wisdom of Men is nothing but Ignorance in respect of the Divine Light and that God will destroy this Humane Wisdom to give place to that of his Holy Spirit I said to her That she overturned all the Wisdom of the Learned and that there was no more place for Study She said I told you long ago Sir that the Time is come wherein God will abolish the Wisdom of the Wise 'T is not only the worldly Wise or Humane Wisdom that he speaks of for that will perish of its self but it is of the Wisdom of those who believe they are wise in the Works of God or in Theologie This Wisdom will be destroyed through the Goodness and Mercy of God Because many of these are Men of good Inclinations but they perish through Ignorance For they maintain the Sentiments of Men which have been given them for infallible Truths And you may easily perceive Sir that they are not such nor founded upon the Wisdom of God which is alwayes the same If you consider those who have spoken of the Grace and Works of God you will find them different in Sentiments though divers of them were Saints This may be an Evidence to you that their Wisdom was not Divine and that their Learning has darkned the Light of Truth which can never change nor contradict it self in any thing And because this Learning is a Hindrance to the Holy Spirit who comes now to illuminate the Souls of Men of good Will of necessity this Learning must be destroyed in them This the Goodness of God will do perfecting Praise by the Mouth of Sucklings and Infants The Wisdom of God is our Mother from which we ought to draw all our Substance which Wise Men cannot do before their Wisdom be destroyed This the Goodness of God will do in our Time destroying the Wisdom of the Wise and abolishing the Prudence of the Prudent and they will be asked very shortly where is the Wise the Scribe and the Disputer of this World For they shall not be found any longer since God will abolish all their Prudence and Wisdom by the Mouth of Infants I wish Sir you were the first and that I might say to you with the Spouse Who will give me my Brother sucking the Breasts of my Mother that I might find him without and might kisse him The Wisdom of God is the Common Mother of all those who are resigned to him Suck its Breasts boldly they will fill you with Delights And as soon as I shall find you void of all your Sciences I will salute you in the Unity of Divine Wisdom Quit Sir all other Wisdom and depart from your own Wisdom and Prudence It is an Instance of God's Goodness that he comes to deprive you of them Do not believe as the Wise of the World do that your Happiness consists in your Wisdom Since it must be destroyed before you receive the Wisdom of the Holy Spirit and you confess to me that I overthrow the Wisdom of the Wise and judge that it is not fit to Study any longer walk while this Light lasts fearing lest you be surprized with Darkness which is now spread through all the World Get out of it for all is corrupted there Keep your self solitary for the World at present is a Temporal Hell wherein nothing is to be seen but Objects which incite to evil God is not any longer known nor loved there Nothing is to be heard there but Blasphemies The most Holy will say that they have not the Grace to do well and that God has predestinated whom he pleased that all these Decrees will come to pass do what they will with many other Calumnies which they utter against God And as his Name is blasphemed in the Eternal Hell so is it in this World which is a Temporal Hell where St. John has well said in his Revelation That the Whore was full of Names of Blasphemies And if the best do thus blaspheme the Name of God how much more must the Wicked do so who deny him by Word or Deed by denying him their own Wills saying they are their own Masters and that they may dispose of all that belongs to them or sometimes what belongs to others when it is entrusted to them So that he who would take Sanctuary from the Perils of his Salvation must retire from the World where Salvation is no longer to be had For all have forsaken God and no Body knows him any longer Every one having made an Idol of his own Imagination or to say better Every one makes a God after his own fashion One sayes that he damns another that he forsakes another that he permits evil and that he rejects many though God can never reject any seeing he is greater than all Things and comprehends all in himself and can never do evil and never ceases to do good All the Qualities of God are unknown to Men For none possesses true Wisdom because none will resign their Will to his Every one follows his own I said to her That I was altogether convinced and that I perceived very clearly that all the Wise were greatly ignorant of the Wisdom of God that all Studies and Disputes were founded only upon Terms and Words or upon the Sentiments of Men. She said I bless God Sir that he gives you these Lights Do not look back any longer For Men are deceived and do deceive one another They have long agoe quitted the Light of Truth and the more they thought to find it by Humane Reasons or Arguments the farther they have been removed from it Because the same Wisdom is needful for understanding the Holy Scriptures that did at first dictate them and the Men who are wise in this World are very seldome humble and God resists the Proud and gives his Wisdom to the Humble and the Little Ones Therefore the Wise continue ignorant of the Wisdom of God and are only Wise in themselves and such Wisdom is Foolishness before God for it is of no use for the knowledge of Eternal Things and the World pass will away with all its Sciences so that all the Wisdom of Men is nothing but Vanity upon which we ought never to build our Salvation since it is written Wo to the Man that puts his confidence in Man Which nevertheless all Men almost do now For it seems for a Man to be sure of his Salvation it is enough to follow the Sentiment of some Author or some Saint though all Men may err and fail even though they were canonized for Saints This is not a solid Bottom whereupon to found our Belielf and Salvation because there is but one only Truth which is God and he who is not united to this Truth is in Errour and Lies and still walking in
and also that the World is Judg'd that you may not flatter your self with false Hopes believing that it will last yet and so continue in sloth I have also shewn you true Vertue that you be not deceived by that which is so but in appearance having also declared to you the Sins against the Holy Ghost and those which we commit in another that you may not be ignorant of any thing that can hinder this Resignation to God For the Ignorance of Good and Evil would insensibly ruine us and whereas we are fallen into the Times of Universal Darkness the Common Enemy might very easily deceive you as he does all the World perswading you that you are resign'd to God when you live yet intirely to your self Therefore I have explained to you so many Things one by one that you might discern aright Truth from Lies and that you might certainly resign your self to God according to your desire And because you can never do good without departing from Evil nor depart from that without knowing it I have therefore endeavoured to discover to you the Good and Evil that Reigns at present in the World that I might give you the certain Marks whereby to know if you are truly resign'd to God or not and since the Commandments of God and also the Law of the Gospel are given us to discover what hinders us to be resign'd to him That by this means we may remove all the Hindrances of our Resignation to God Voluntary Poverty serving as a Mean to free our Self will from the desire of perishing Goods Chastity to free this Will from desiring Carnal Pleasures and Obedience to deliver us from the desire of fulfilling our own Will and so of all the other Evangelical Counsels which teach us to depart from that which hinders our Resignation to God Therefore I judg'd it necessary to declare to you all the Things that hinder this Resignation to God and those also which may serve as Means to facilitate this Resignation which is the only Essential Thing that God demands of all those who would be saved I asked her If it will be enough for me absolutely to resolve that henceforth I will depend upon God and no longer use my own Will in any thing She said This Resolution Sir is a great Beginning but 't is to be feared that we shall not put it effectually in Execution because of our inveterate Evil Habits Our Self-will having always born sway how can we entirely subdue it except by the Means that Jesus Christ has pointed out to us in his Gospel which are as so many Steps to ascend to this Resignation For otherwise we might make false Suppositions as we have done hitherto But when we shall put in practise the Doctrine of the Gospel we shall thereby discover how far we have advanced in this Resignation to God For if our Frailty had not needed these Means God would not have taken Humane Flesh to come and teach us them For he can do nothing that is useless We must therefore fix here Sir and receive this Doctrine of the Gospel in its plain Literal Sense which will teach us all things plainly to our Senses by following of which we shall certainly attain to this Resignation For this is the true the shortest and the most certain way Though indeed God sent at divers times Prophets and holy Persons to tell Men by what Means they might recover this Resignation to God yet none of them has done it so perfectly as Jesus Christ did when he was upon Earth For he has omitted nothing but has taught all so precisely that Men will never stand in need of any other Instructions For this is the last Mercy that God will shew to Men who must not look for any thing after the Doctrine of Jesus Christ And what was taught before or since is not at all comparable to this Doctrine of the Gospel If we would be sav'd we must embrace and follow it for it teaches us all the necessary Means for fulfilling the Law of God The Thirteenth Conference Shews That the Doctrine of Jesus Christ is the last that God will send into the World And that the Holy Spirit comes to give now the perfect Vnderstanding of it I asked her How this Doctrine of the Gospel could be the last Means that God would give to Men to bring them to Salvation since we look yet for the Holy Spirit who in these last Times must teach us all Things She said Sir The Last Times began when God became Man He brought along with him upon Earth his Last Mercy teaching Men by Word and Deed all that they ought to do and avoid without omitting any thing of all that shall be necessary for them even to the End of the World So that none have need of any thing else to be taught them It is true we shall have the Holy Spirit in the End of these Last Times into which we are now fallen and he is already born upon Earth But he comes not to bring us new Means of Salvation but only to lay before us those which Jesus Christ taught us when he was in the World that we may clearly see how far we are now estranged from them and to give us the Light of Truth that we may see the Way to return and re-take the same Gospel-means that we may recover the Dependance of our Will upon that of God which is his First and Onely Essential Command without which no Body can be saved For this is the least Thing that we owe him and if we do not fulfil it our Ingratitude is so great that we cannot in Justice be saved I asked her If the Holy Spirit was born in Flesh as Jesus Christ was in his Time And what things he would teach us more than Jesus Christ has done She said Sir The Holy Spirit is the same God with Jesus Christ who was the Word of God as the Holy Spirit is his Understanding There is but One God only but there are divers Powers And as our Understanding knows more than our Mouth speaks so the Holy Spirit will give more Light than did the Words of Jesus Christ though all comes from one and the same God and one and the same Source What Jesus Christ said was understood by Men only in part and the same Things shall be understood in a perfect and compleat Sense by this Wisdom of the Holy Spirit He needs not take a Body of Flesh to speak to Men For Jesus Christ did that sufficiently so that he needs speak no more But there is need of more Understanding For the Last Times are near their End And before the World end God will give the full Understanding of all that has been delivered in God's Name from the Beginning of the World both by the Holy Prophets and by Jesus Christ and his Apostles or other Saints his Disciples Nothing has been fully