to be Examined by my Bishops a great number of Doctors and learned Religionaries of several Orders They have all as well Bishops as Doctors unanimously reported that it was a very ill and dangerous Book and that the Explanation published by the said Archbishop was unwarrantable He declared in his Preface that his intention only was to Explicate the Doctrine of his Brethren who after they had attempted by all gentle ways to reclaim him they found themselves obliged in Conscience to put out their Declaration concerning his Book and to consign the same into the Hands of the Archbishop of Damas your Holiness's Nuncio at my Court to the end that your Holiness might put an end to an Affair that may have pernicious Consequences if it be not nipt in the very Bud. I humbly intreat you to pass sentence upon the same Book and Doctrine contained therein as soon as possible and assure your Holiness at the same time that I shall make use of all my Authority to put the Decision you shall make in Execution and that I am Most Holy Father Your very affectionate Servant LOUIS Meudon Aug. 26. 1697. THE TABLE SEveral sorts of Love wherewith we may love God The First Love 1 The Second 1 The Third 2 The Fourth 3 The Fifth 5 The Names of these Five sorts of Love 1. Of the Carnal Love of the Jews 7 2. The love of Concupiscence ibid. 3. The love of Hope 8 4. Interested Love ibid. 5. Pure Love ibid. ARTICLES 1. Of the love of Concupiscence 9 2. Three different Degrees of Just Persons upon Earth 12 Â How Fear and Hope purify themselves 13 Â The effects of pure Love 15 3. Of interested love It makes a great many Saints 18 4. How Hope perfects her self and keeps her distinction from Charity 21 Â How an interested Soul can Will or seek God as he is her Good 24 5. The two states of the Just of Resignation and Indifference 26 Â What holy Indifference is 27 Â Passages out of St. Francis de Sales concerning it 29 6. Holy indifference is the real Principle of the interested desires of the Law and of Grace 33 7. There is no state that gives Souls a miraculous Inspiration wherein consists the perfection of the internal Life 35 8. What abandoning ones self is 39 Â The extream Tryals of abandoning 40 Â The Souls resistance makes these Tryals long and painful 40 Â The diffeeence between common Temptations and the Tryals of an entire purification 41 9. The state of the Soul that abandons her self to God in these extream Tryals 43 Â The Edge of the Spirit or Top of the Soul 44 10. The Souls absolute Sacrifice of its own Interest to God 46 11. The difference between the New and the Old Law 51 Â The Soul ought to follow Grace without being willing to prevent it 52 Â A cooperation with Grace ibid. Â Of Activity 53 12. Of disinterested Souls 57 Â An abnegation and hatred of ones self ib. Â One ought always to watch over himself 58 Â The difference between the Vigilancy of pure and interested love 60 13. Simple and direct Acts and reflex Acts an inward certainty 62 14. The separation of the upper part of the Soul from the lower in extream Tryals 65 Â How this separation is made ibid. 15. Vniversal Sobriety Mortification 68 Â A temperature of Austerities 69 Â The effects of Austerities ibid. 16. Two sorts of Proprieties 71 Â Resignation 72 Â What mystical Men call Propriety 73 Â Disappropriation ibid. 17. Common and extraordinary temptations and the difference between them 77 18. Divers sorts of Wills in God 81 Â The permissive Will of God 82 19. Vocal and mental Prayer 84 20. Of Reading 87 Â A persuasion of the most powerful love of all 88 21. The difference between Meditation and Contemplation 89 22. When Meditation may be quitted in order to enter upon Contemplation 93 23. For what Souls contemplation is not convenient 95 24. Habitual Contemplation 96 25. Perpetual Prayer 98 26. Interruptions of direct Contemplation 101 27. Direct Contemplation is negative 102 28. How centemplative Souls are deprived of the distinct views of Christ 106 29. Of passive Contemplation 109 Â Why they call it the Prayer of Silence or quietude 111 30. Of the passive state 114 31. The simplicity of the passive state 117 32. The liberty that is in the passive state 120 33. The Reunion of all the Virtues in Love 122 34. Of Spiritual Death 125 35. Of the state of Transformation 126 36. Of the Internal Exercises of transformed Souls 128 37. Transformed Souls may sin 130 38. And consequently they ought to come to Confession 132 39. The imperfections of the Soul 135 40. How a Transformed Soul is united to God 138 41. Of spiritual Marriages 139 42. Of substantial Vnion 140 43. The submission of the Spiritual Man 141 44. The Oeconomy and Secret of the sublimest Exercise of pure love 143 45. All the Internal ways are but the means to arrive at pure Love 145 Â The Conclusion of all the Articles 149 ADDITIONS THE Lord Archbishop of Cambray's Letter to the Pope 151 A Letter of the same Person dated August 3. 1697. 160 A Declaration of Three Prelates viz. of the Archbishop of Paris the Bishop of Meaux and Chartres upon the Book Entituled An Explanation of the Maxims of the Saints concerning the Internal Life 166 The Thirty Four Articles of the 16 and 26th of April 1695. 216 The French King's Letter to the Pope 227 FINIS Some BOOKS Printed for Henry Rhodes in Fleet-street MOnasticon Anglicanum or the History of the Abbies Monasteries Hospitals Cathedrals and Collegiate Churchies in England and Wales made English from Sir Will. Dugdale with Sculptures Folio price 10 s. The New World of Words or an Universal English Dictionary containing the proper significations of all Words from other Languages together with the Explanations of all those Terms that conduce to the Understanding of any of the Arts and Sciences viz. Divinity Philosophy Law Physick Mathematicks Husbandry Published by E.P. The Fifth Edition enlarged from the best English and Foreign Authors A Work very necessary for Strangers and our own Country-men for the right understanding of what they Discourse Write or Read Fol. Price 14 s. Memoirs for the Ingenious Containing several Curious Observations in Philosophy Mathematicks Physick Philology and other Arts and Sciences By M. de la Crose Miscellaneous Letters giving an Account of the Works of the Learned both at home and abroad in which there is a Catalogue and Idea of all valuable Books The New Politicks of the Court of France under the Reign of Lewis XIV wherein are to be seen all his Intrigues in respect to the Potentates of Europe Letters writ by a Turkish Spy who lived Forty Five Years undiscover'd at Paris giving an Account to the Divan of Constantinople of the Remarkable Transactions in the Christian Courts
she bears to God in her own conveniency alas would be guilty of an extream Sacriledge ........ That Soul which loveth God only for her own sake loveth her self as she ought to love God and loveth God as she ought to love her self Which is as much as if one should say the love I bear to my self is the end for which I love God so that the love to God be depending subordinate and inferiour to self-love .... which is an unparallell'd impiety 3. We may love God with a love of hope which love is not intirely selfish for it is mixt with a beginning of love to God for himself only our own interest is the chief and predominant motive S. Francis of Sales love of God Lib. 2. c. 17. Speaks thus of this love I don't say however that it returns so fully upon us as to make us to love God only for our sakes ..... There is a great deal of difference between saying I love God for the good things I expect from him and this expression I love God only for the good things I expect from him This love of God is so call'd because the motive of self-interest is yet predominant in it 'T is a beginning of Conversion to God but not yet the true righteousness of this hopeful love S. Francis of Sales love of God Lib. 2. c. 17. Spoke thus Sovereign love is only in Charity but in hope love is imperfect as not tending into the infinite goodness as it is such to us .... Though in truth none by that love alone can either observe the Commandments of God or have eternal life 4. There is a love of Charity which is yet allayed with some mixture of self-interest but is the true justifying love because the disinteressed motive is over-ruling in it to which S. Francis of Sales Speaks in the last cited place Sovereign love is only in Charity This love seeks after God for himself and prefers him before anything whatsoever without exception By reason only of that preference 〈…〉 capable to justifie us And it prefe 〈…〉 less God and his Glory both to us and our interests than to all other Creatures besides The reason why is this because we are no less vile Creatures and unworthy to compare our selves with God than the rest of created beings God who did not make us for the other Creatures hath not likewise made us for our selves but for himself alone He is no less Jealous of us than of the other external objects which we may love To Speak properly the only thing he is Jealous of in us is our selves for he clearly sees that it is our selves whom we are tempted to love in the enjoyments of all external objects He is not liable to mistakes in his Jealousie and the love of our selves is the centre of all our affections Whatsoever does not proceed from the principle of Charity as S. Austin so often saith is of cupidity And it is the destruction of that very love the root of all vices which is precisely the aim of God's Jealousie While we have yet but a love of hope whereby self-love does preponde are against the Glory of God the Soul is not satisfied yet But when disinteressed love or of Charity begins to turn the scale and to prevail against self-interest then a Soul that loves God is truly beloved of him Nevertheless this true Charity is not yet entirely pure that is without any mixture but the love of Charity prevailing over the interessed motive of hope that state is termed a state of Charity The Soul then doth love God for the sake of him and for her self but so as to love chiefly the Glory of God not seeking her own happiness but as a means by her related and subordinated to the ultimate end namely the Glory of her Maker Nor is it necessary that this prefering of God and of his Glory to us and our interests be always explicite in the righteous Soul We are assured by faith that the Glory of God and our felicity are inseparable one from another 't is enough if this so just and necessary preference be real but implicite in the occurrences of life There is no need of its becoming explicite but in the extraordinary occasions of trial from God in order to purifie us from our dross But then he would give us both light and courage proportionate to the trial to carry us through it and to make us sensible in our hearts of that preference Now to dive for it scrupulously at another time in the bottom of our hearts would rather prove prejudicial and dangerous 5. We may love God with a love of pure Charity and without any mixture of the motive of self-interest Then it is that we love God in the midst of troubles and adversities so that we should not love him more even when he fills our Souls with comforts Neither fear of punishments nor desire of rewards have any share in this love God is no more beloved either in regard of the merit or perfection or for the happiness which is found in loving him We would love him as much though by an impossible supposition he should know nothing of his being beloved or would render eternally unhappy those who had loved him Nevertheless we do love him as the supream and infallible happiness of those who are faithful to him we love him as our personal good as our promised reward as our all but no more with that precise motive of our own happiness and recompence Thus much did S. Francis of Sales with the most exactness express love of God Lib. 2. c. 17. in these Words 'T is a very different thing to say I love God for my self and saying I love God for the sake of my self ..... for the one is a holy affection of the Bride ... and the other a downright impiety c. He Speaks again thus in another place The purity of love consists in not willing any thing for ones self in looking on nothing but the good pleasure of God for which one would be ready to prefer eternal torments to glory The Soul disinteressed in pure charity expects desireth hopeth in God as her good her recompence as that which is promised her and is entirely for her self She will have him for her self but not for the love of her self She will have him for her self that she may conform with the good pleasure of God who will have it so for her self But she will not have him for the love of her self because she is no more acted by her own interest This is pure and perfect love which works the same acts as mixt love in all the same virtues with this one difference only that it driveth out fear with all vexatious troubles and is even free of all the solicitude of interessed love Now I declare that to avoid all sort of equivocation in a matter where it is so dangerous to make any and so difficult not to mistake I
Spirit of God does inspire them thus upon every occasion that this inspiration is nothing but that which is common to all Just Souls and which never exempts them in the least from the whole extent of the written Law that this inspiration is only stronger and more special in Souls elevated to pure love than in those who are acted only by interested love because God communicates himself more to the perfect than to the imperfect So when some mystical Saints have admitted into holy indifference inspired desires and rejected the others we must take heed not to think that they would exclude the desires and the other acts commanded by the written Law and admit none but those that are extraordinarily inspired This would be a Blasphemy against the Law and raise above it a Phantastical inspiration The desires and other inspired acts mentioned by those Mysticks are either those commanded by the Law or those approved by the Counsels and which are formed in an indifferent and disinterested Soul by the inspiration of ever preventing grace without the mixture of any interested eagerness to prevent grace So that all is reduced to the letter of the Law and to the preventing grace of pure love to which the Soul does co-operate without preventing it To Speak thus is to explain the true sense of good mystical persons 't is to take away all equivocations which may seduce the one and offend the other 't is to precaution Souls against whatsoever is suspected to be illusive it is to keep up the form of Sound Words as S. Paul does recommend it 2 Tim. C. I. V. 13. VII False SOuls dwelling in an holy indifference have no regard for any though a disinterested desire which the written Law obliges them to form They ought to desire nothing more but those things which a miraculous or extraordinary inspiration moveth them to wish without any dependency from the Law they are acted and moved by God and taught by him in every thing so that God alone desireth in them and for them and they are in no need to co-operate with it by their free will Their holy indifference eminently containing all desires dispenseth with them from forming ever any Their inspiration is their only rule To Speak at this rate is to elude all Counsels under pretence of fulfilling them in a most eminent manner it is to establish in the Church a sect of impious Fanaticks 't is to forget that Christ Jesus came upon the Earth not to dispense with the Law or to lessen the authority of it but on the contrary to fullfill and perfect it so that Heaven and Earth shall pass away before the Words of our Saviour pronounced for the confirmation of the Law shall pass Finally it is to contradict grosly all the best mystical Writers and pull down from top to bottom their whole system of pure Faith manifestly incompatible with all miraculous or extraordinary inspiration which a Soul would voluntarily follow as her rule and support for dispensing with the fulfilling the Law VIII ARTICLE True HOly indifference which is never any other but the disinterest of love becometh in the most extream tryals what the holy Misticks have called abandoning or giving one self up that is to say that the disinterested soul gives her self up totally and without any the least reserve to God in all her own interest but she never renounceth either love nor any of those things wherein the Glory and good pleasure of her beloved are concern'd This abandoning is nothing else but that abnegation or renounciation of ones self which Jesus Christ requires of us in the Gospel after we have forsaken all outward things This abnegation of our selves is only pointed against our self-interest and ought never to hinder that disinterested love which we owe in our selves as to our Neighbour for God's sake The extream tryals wherein this abandoning is to be exercis'd are the temptations whereby our Jealous God will purify love in hiding from it all hope for its interest even eternal These Tryals are represented by a very great number of Saints as a terrible Purgatory which may exempt from the Purgatory of the other world those Souls who suffer it with entire Fidelity Only mad and wicked Men saith Cardinal Bona will deny their belief of those sublime and secret things and despise them as False though not clear when they are attested by Men of a most venerable Virtue who speak by their own experience of God's Operations in their hearts These tryals are but for a while and the more true souls are in them to Grace by leaving themselves to be purify'd from all self-interest by Jealous love so much the shorter are these tryals 'T is ordinarily the secret resistance of the Souls to grace under specious pretences 't is their interested and eager endeavour for retaining these sensible supports wherefrom God is willing to deprive them which render their tryals both so long and so painful for God never makes his Creature suffer to make him suffer without fruit It is with a design only to purifie the Soul and to overcome her resistances Those Temptations whereby love is purify'd from all self-interest are in nothing like to other common Temptations Experienced Directors can discern them by certain tokens but nothing is more dangerous than to take the common Temptations of beginners for trials tending to the entire purification of love in the most eminent Souls This is the source of all illusion This causeth deceived Souls to fall into hideous and dreadful Vices These bitter trials are not to be suppos'd to be but in a very small number of pure and mortified Souls in whom Flesh hath been a long while already entirely brought under the Spirit and who have solidly practised all the Evangelical Virtues They ought to be docile so as never willfully to strain at any of those hard and abject things which may be commanded them They ought not to fall in love with any comfort or freedom they should be taken off from all things whatsoever and also from the way that teacheth them this freedom they should be ready for all the practises that are laid upon them they are to stick neither to their kind of Prayer nor to their Experiences nor to their Readings nor to those persons they have consulted formerly with trust and reliance One ought to have had the Experiment that their Temptations are of a different nature from the common Temptations in this that the true means to still them is not to be willing to find a known Prop to Self-interest To speak thus is word for word to repeat the Experiences of Saints as they have related them themselves 'T is at the same time to prevent those very dangerous Inconveniences one might fall into by Credulity should one admit too easily in matter of Practice these Tryals which happen but very seldom by reason that few Souls have attained that Perfection where nothing remains to be purified but some
prevent or to appease Temptations Quiet Prayer is always sufficient for to bring the Flesh under the Spirit One may wilfully leave off these Practices as gross imperfect and not convenient for Beginners To speak at this rate is to speak as an Enemy of the Cross of Christ 't is to blaspheme against his Example and against all Tradition it is to oppose the Son of God who saith Since the Days of John the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force XVI ARTICLE True THere are two Kinds of Proprieties The first is a sin for all Christians The second is not so much as a Venial Sin but only an Imperfection in comparison with fomething that is more perfect nay it is not even an Imperfection but for those Souls that are actually attracted by Grace to the perfect Disinterest of Love The first Property is Pride It is a Love of Self-excellency as 't is one 's own and without any subordination to our essential End which is the Glory of God This Property was the Sin of the first Angel who rested in himself as saith S. Augustine instead of referring himself to God and by that simple Appropriation of himself he did not remain in the Truth This Property is in us a Sin lesser or greater according as it is less or more voluntary The second Property which we ought never to confound with the first is a Love of our own Excellency as it is our own but with subordination to our essential End the Glory of God We desire to havenone but the most excellent Vertues we will have them chiefly for the Glory of God but we will have them also for our Merit and for the Reward that does attend them Moreover we desire them for the very Comfort of becoming perfect It is a Resignation which as S. Francis of Sales saith Hath yet Self-desires but they are subjected Those Vertues that are interested for our Perfection and Happiness are good because they refer themselves to God as our principal End But they are inferiour in Perfection to the Vertues exercis'd by holy Indifference and for the Glory of God alone in us without any Motive of Self-Interest either for our Merit or for our Perfection or for our Eternal Reward This Motive of Spiritual Interest which remains always in the Vertues while the Soul remains possessed with interested Love is that which Mystical Writers have called Propriety It is that which the blessed John of the Cross calls Avarice and Spiritual Pride The Soul whom they call the Proprietary One refers her Vertues to God by holy Resignation and in this is less perfect than the disinterested Soul which refers her to God by holy Indifference This Property which is not a Sin is nevertheless by Mystical Men called an Impurity not as if it were a Spot in the Soul but to express that it is a mixture of divers Motives hindring Love from being pure or without mixture They often say that they find this impurity or mixture of interested Motives in their Prayer and most holy Exercises But we ought to take heed least we think that they mean then to speak of any vicious impurity When it is clearly understood what Mystical Men mean by Property 't is no hard matter to understand what is meant by Disappropriation 't is the Operation of Grace purifying Love and making it disinterested in the Practice of all Vertues 'T is by means of Trials this Disappropriation is made it loseth therein as mystical Persons do say all Vertues But this loss is but seemingly so and for a limited time The Foundations of Vertues are so far from being really lost that they are rather purified by pure Love the Soul is there stript from all sensible Graces from all Relishes from all Easiness and from all Fervency which might both comfort and hearten her she loseth those Methodical Acts and such as are excited with Eagerness for to render to herself an interested Testimony concerning her Perfection but she loseth neither the direct Acts of Love nor the Exercise of distinct Vertues in case of a Command nor the near hatred of Evil nor the momentaneous Certainty of Evil necessary for the rectitude of Conscience nor the disinterested Desire of the Effect of the Promises in her the appearance alone of her Demerit is enough to take from her all discernable Support and to leave no other Shift for Self-Interest Why then should any real Evil be added to it as if God could not make his Creature perfect but by a real Sin On the contrary the Soul if so be she is faithful in those Trials called Loss and Disappropriation suffereth no real diminution of her Perfection but groweth still more and more in the inward Life in fine aSoul who purifies herself in the Experience of her daily Faults by hating her Imperfection because contrary to God loves nevertheless the Abjection coming to her by it because this Abjection is so far from being a Sin that it is on the contrary that Humiliation which is the Penance and Remedy of Sin itself She hates sincerely all her Faults by how much she loves God in the utmost Perfection but she makes use of her Faults to humble herself peaceably and thereby her Faults become the Windows of the Soul through which God's Light doth enter according to the Expression of Balthazar Alvarez In his Life C. 13. To speak thus is to unfold the true Sence of the best mystical Men it is to follow a plain System which is reduced only to the Disinterest of Love which is Authorised by the Tradition of all Ages XVI False THE Mystical Property which is interested Love is a real Impurity it is a Contamination of the Soul The Vertues of this State are not meritorious one must really lose the very Depths of his Vertues one must cease to produce even the most intimate and direct Acts of them one must really lose the Hatred of Sin the Love of God the distinct Vertues of his State in the Case of a Command one ought to lose really the momentaneous Certainty that is necessary for the Rectitude of Conscience nay also the disinterested Desire of the Effect of the Promises in us We ought to love our Abjection in such a manner that we may love truly our very Sin because it renders us Abjects and contrary to God Finally one ought in order to be entirely pure to strip oneself of all his Vertues and and make to God a disinterested Sacrifice of them by voluntary Actions transgressing the written Law and incompatible with these Vertues To speak at this rate is to make a Sin of interested Love against the formal Decision of the Council of Trent It is at the same time to strip the Souls of their Robes of Innocency and to quench all Graces in them under the pretence of a Disappropriation of them 'T is to Authorise the Mystery of Iniquity and renew the Impiety of the false Gnosticks who went
about to purifie themselves by the Practice of Impurity itself as we learn it from S. Clement of Alexandria XVII ARTICLE True THere is but a small Number of Souls who are in these last Trials wherein they make an end of purifying themselves from all Self-interest All other Souls without undergoing these Trials do yet arrive at several Degrees of Holiness that is very real and pleasing to God Otherwise one would reduce interested Love to a Judaical Worship or such as is unsufficient to eternal Life against the Decision of the holy Council of Trent The Director ought not to be easily induced to suppose that those Temptations in which he finds the Soul to be are extraordinary Temptations One cannot be too mistrustful of an heated Imagination and that exaggerates all that she feels or thinks to feel One ought to distrust a subtile and almost unperceptible Pride which tends always to flatter one self with being a Soul extraordinarily led Lastly we ought to distrust illusion which creeps in and makes one that after having begun by the Spirit with a Sincere Fervency to end in the Flesh His chief concern therefore should be to suppose at the very first that the Temptations of a Soul are nothing else but common Temptations the Remedy whereof is both internal and external Mortification with all the acts of fear and the practising of all interested Love One ought even to stand fast in admitting nothing beyond this without an entire conviction that these Remedies are absolutely unprofitable and that the sole exercise both simple and peaceable of pure Love does better quell the Temptation Upon this occasion it is that illusion and the danger of wandrings are in the extream When an unexperienced or too credulous Director supposeth a common Temptation to be an extraordinary one for the purifying of Love he is the ruine of a Soul he fills her with her self and casteth her into an incurable and unavoidable indolency of Vice To leave inrerested Motives when we have need of them it is to take from a Child the Milk of his Nurse and to deprive him cruelly of his Life by weaning him out of Season Souls who are very imperfect yet and full of themselves do often fancy upon indiscreet readings and such as are disagreeable to their circumstances that they are in the most rigorous Tryals of pure Love while they are yet only in such Temptations as are very natural which they draw on themselves by a lazy wandering and sensual Life The Tryals we Speak of here are only the Portion of Souls already perfected both in outward and inward Mortification who have learn'd nothing by premature Readings but by the sole Experience of Gods Conduct towards them who breath nothing but Candor and Docility who are always ready to think that they are deceived and ought to enter upon the common way again These Souls do not recover their peace in the midst of their Temptations by any of the ordinary helps at least while they are held with the Grace of pure Love Nothing but a faithful co-operation with the Grace of this pure Love can becalm their Temptations and thereby their Tryals are distinguished from the common ones The Souls that are not in this state shall infallibly fall into horrid excesses if you go about to blame them contrary to their necessities in the simple acts of pure Love and those who were under the Attractive Power of pure Love shall never be pacified by the ordinary practices of interested Love Whoever resisted God and had Peace But to make a true Judgment of Souls that are so nice and under such important circumstances Spirits ought to be tried to know whither they come from God or no. To Speak thus is to Speak with all the necessary precaution in a matter where our care cannot be too great and it is at the same time to admit all the Maxims of the Saints XVII False THe Simple Peaceable and uniform exercise of pure love is the only remedy that one ought to employ against the Temptations incident to every condition One may suppose that all Tryals do tend to the same end and have need of the same Remedy All the practices of interested love and all the acts excited by this motive are good for nothing but to fill Man with Self-love and to add to the Temptation To Speak at this rate is to confound all that which the Saints have so carefully separated It is to love seduction and run after it it is to jogg Souls into a precipice by taking from them all the springs of their present grace XVIII ARTICLE True THe Will of God is always our only rule and Love is wholly reduced to a Will willing of nothing else but what God himself Wills and makes the Soul to Will But there are several sorts of Wills in God viz. his positive and written Will which commands what is good and Prohibits what is evil This is the only invariable rule of our Wills and of all our voluntary Actions There is the Will of God which is manifested to us by the inspiration or attraction of that Grace which is in all Just Men. This Will of God must always be suppos'd to be entirely conformable to the written Will and it is not lawful to believe that it can exact of us any other thing but the faithful accomplishing of the Precepts and Counsels comprehended in the Law The Third Will of God is a Will of simple permission and is that which suffers Sin without approving of it The same Will which permitteth it condemns it It does not positively permit it but only by giving way to the Commission of it and not hindring it This permissive Will is never our Rule It would be an impiety to will our Sin under pretence that God willeth it permissively 1. It is false that God willeth it 'T is true only that he hath not a positive Will to hinder it 2. At the same time that he hath not a positive Will to hinder it he hath an actual and positive Will to condemn and to punish it as being essentially contrary to his immutable holiness to which he oweth all 3. One ought never to suppose God's allowance of Sin but that after it is unfortunately committed and when it cannot be help'd that what is done should be not done Then we ought to conform our selves at one and the same time to the two Wills of God According to the one we are to condemn and punish that which he condemns and would punish and according to the other we ought to will the confusion and abjection of our selves which is not a Sin but rather a Penance and remedy of Sin it self because this wholsome confusion and this abjection which carries in it self all the bitterness of a potion is a real good which God hath been positively willing to draw from Sin though he never positively willeth Sin it self This is to love the Remedy that is drawn from Poyson without loving
review of his actions and the Gifts he hath received in order to feed self-love to seek out a common support or to take up too much with himself 18. Mortifications are agreeable to a Christian in every state and are often necessary and to make the same separate from the duty of Believers under a pretence of perfection is openly to condemn St. Paul and to presuppose an Erroneous and Heretical Doctrine 29. Continual Prayer consists not in one perpetual act which is supposed to be without interruption and which also ought never to be repeated but in a disposition and habitual and perpetual preparation to do nothing that is displeasing unto God and to do every thing that is pleasing to him The contrary Proposition that would exclude in any condition whatsoever yea in a state which is perfect all pluralities and succession of acts is erroneous and opposite to the Tradition of all the Saints 20. There are no Apostolick Traditions but those that are acknowledged for such by the whole Church and the Authority whereof is decided by the Councils of Trent the contrary proposition is Erroneous and pretendedly secret Apostolical Traditions would be a Snare to the Faithful and a way to introduce all manner of evil Doctrines 21. Dilatory and quiet Prayer or such as is attended with the simple presence of God and all other extraordinary Prayers not excluding passive ones approved of by St. Francis de Sales and other spiritual ones received by the whole Church are not to be rejected nor suspected without great rashness and they do not hinder a man from being always disposed to produce all the forementioned acts in convenient time but to reduce them to implicit or apparent acts in favour of the most perfect under pretence that the love of God ties them all up to a certain method is to elude the obligation and to destroy that distinction which is revealed by God 22. Without these extraordinary Prayers one may become a very great Saint and attain to Christian Perfection 23. To reduce the inward state and purification of the Soul to these extraordinary Prayers is a manifest Error 24. It 's alike dangerous to exclude the state of Contemplation the Attributes the three Divine Persons in the Trinity and the Mysteries of the Incarnation of the Son of God and more especially that of the Cross and of the Resurrection and all those things that are seen no otherwise than by Faith are the Object of a Christians Contemplation 25. It s not allowable for a Christian under pretence of passive or other extraordinary Prayer to expect that God in the Conduct as well of the Spiritual as temporal Life should determin him to every action by way of particular inspiration and the contrary leads men to Illusions carelesness and the tempting of God 26. Laying aside the circumstance and moments of Prophetical or extraordinary inspiration the true submission which every Christian Soul tho' perfect owes to God consists in serving him with the natural and supernatural Light as he received the same and according to the Rules of Christian prudence in presupposing always that God directs all things in the Course of his Providence and that he is the Author of every good Counsel 27. We ought not to tye up the gift of Prophecy and much less the Apostolical state to a certain state of perfection and Prayer and to do so is to bring in an Illusion rashness and Error 28. The extraordinary ways and marks which those that have been approved Spiritualists have given concerning themselves are very rare and subject to the Examination of Bishops Ecclesiastical Superiors and Doctors who are to judge of the same not so much according to Experiences as according to the immutable Rules of the Scriptures and of Tradition and to teach and practice the contrary is to shake off the Yoke of Obedience that is due to the Church 29. If there is or if there has been in any part of the World a small number of chosen ones whom God by an extraordinary and particular way of prevention best known to himself stirs up every moment in such a manner to all those actions that are essential to Christianity and to other good works whereof there was no necessity of giving them any prescriptions to excite them thereunto we will leave them to the judgment of the Almighty and without avowing the like states we do only make this practical Observation that there is nothing so dangerous nor so subject to Illusion as to guide Souls in such a manner as if they had already attained thereto and that however it is not in these sort of preventions that Christian perfection doth consist 30. In all the above named Articles as to what regards Concupiscence imperfections and principally sin our meaning is not for the honour of our Lord to take in the Holy Virgin his Mother 31. As for those Souls whom God is pleased to exercise with Tryals Job who is a pattern for such teaches them to benefit themselves by lucid intervals in order to produce the most excellent acts of Faith Hope and Love The Spiritualists teach them to find these in the top or highest part of the Soul They are not therefore to be allowed to acquiesce in their apparent damnation but their directors with St. Francis de Sales are to assure them that God will never forsake them 32. It 's well in every condition and especially in this same to adore the vindictive Justice of God never to wish the exercise of the same upon our selves in all its rigour seeing that even one of the effects of this rigour is to deprive us of Love Christian Abandoning is to cast all our Cares upon God to hope in his goodness for our salvation and as St. Augustine after St. Cyprian teaches us to attribute all to him ut totum detur Deo 33. Troubled and truly humbled Souls may also be inspired with a submission and agreement to the Will of God tho' even by a very false supposition instead of the eternal good which he hath promised the Just he would detain them by virtue of his own good pleasure in eternal torments and this without being deprived at the same time of his Grace and Love which is an act of perfect resignation or self-abandoning and of a pure love practised by the Saints and which may be useful with that particular grace of God to Souls truly perfect without derogating from the Obligation of the other fore-mentioned Acts which are essential to Christianity 34. Over and above which it is certain that the Perfect and such as are Novices or beginners ought to be conducted respectively by different ways and that the former have a more full and deeper insight into Christian Truths than the other THE French King's LETTER TO THE POPE Most Holy Father THE Book written by the Archbishop of Cambray having for some Months past made much noise in the Church within my Kingdom I caused the same
Remnants of Interest mixed with Divine Love VIII False INternal Tryals take away for ever both sensible and visible Graces They suppress for ever the distinct Acts both of Love and Vertue they put a Soul into a real and absolute Impotency to discover herself to her Superiors or to obey them in the essential Practice of the Gospel they cannot be discern'd from common Temptations 'T is lawful in that State to abscond from Superiors to substract one's self from the Yoke of Obedience and to seek both by Books and Persons of no Authority the Helps and Lights one stands in needs of even notwithstanding the Prohibition of our Superiors A Director may suppose one to be in these Tryals without having tried before the bottom of the Soul upon her Sincerity Docility Mortifications and Humility He may immediately put that Soul upon purging her Love from all Dross of Interest in the Temptation without causing her to do any interested Act to resist the Vehemency of pressing Temptation To speak at this rate is to poyson our Souls it is to take from them the Arms of Faith necessary to resist the Enemy of our Salvation 't is to confound all the Ways of God 't is to teach Rebellion and Hypocrisie to the Children of the Church IX ARTICLE True A Soul who in these extream Tryals gives herself up to God is never forsaken by him When she asks in the Transport of her Grief to be delivered God does not deny to hear her but because he is willing to perfect her Strength in Infirmity and that his Grace is sufficient to her for it She loseth in that State neither the real and compleat Power within the Line of Power for to fulfil really the Precepts nor that of following the most perfect Counsels according to her Calling and present Degree of Perfection nor the real and internal Acts of her Free-will for that accomplishment She looseth neither preventing Grace nor explicite Faith nor Hope as it is a disinterested Desire of the Promises nor the Love of God nor the infinite Hatred of Sin not so much as venial nor that inward and momentous certainty that is necessary for the Rectitude of the Conscience She loseth nothing but the sensible Relish of Good but the comfortable and affecting Fervency but the eager and interested Acts of Vertues but the After-certainty that comes by an interested reflection bearing to itself a comfortable Witness of its Fidelity These direct Acts and such as escape the Reflections of the Soul but which are yet very real and do conserve in her all the Vertues without spot are as I have already said that Operation called by S. Francis of Sales the Edge of the Spirit or the Top of the Soul This State of Trouble and Gloominess which is only for a while is not even in its own Duration without peaceable Intervals in which some Glimpses of very sensible Graces appear like Lightning in a dark stormy Night which leave no sign of themselves behind To speak thus is to speak equally conformable both to the Catholick Doctrine and to the Experiences of Mystical Saints IX False IN these extream Tryals a Soul without having been before unfaithful to Grace loseth the true and full Power of persevering in her State She falls into a real Impotency to fulfil the Precepts in those Cases where Precepts are urging She ceaseth to have an explicite Faith in Cases where Faith ought to act explicitely She ceaseth to hope that 's to say to expect and to desire even in a disinterested manner the Effect of the Promises in herself She hath no longer the Love of God perceptible or imperceptible She hath no more a Hatred to Sin She loseth not only the sensible and reflective Horror of it but also the most direct and intimate Horror of the same She hath no more that intimate and momentous Certainty which can preserve the Rectitude of her Conscience in the very Moment of her Action All the Acts of those Vertues essential to the internal Life ceases even in their most direct and less reflected Operation which is according to the Language of Mystical Saints the Edge of the Spirit and the Top of the Soul To speak at this rate is to annihilate Christian Piety under pretence of perfecting it It is to make the Tryals designed to purifie Love an universal Shipwreck of Faith and of all Christian Vertues 'T is to say that the Faithful nourished with the Words of Faith ought never to hear without stopping their Ears X. ARTICLE True THE Promises of Eternal Life are meerly free Grace is never due to us or else it would not be Grace God never oweth to us in a strick Sence either Perseverance to the Death nor Eternal Life after the Death of the Body He is not so much as indebted to our Soul to give her Existence after this Life he might let her drop into her Nothing again as it were by her own Weight Otherwise he should not be free in respect to the Duration of his Creature and it would become a necessary Being But altho' God never owes any thing to us in a strict Sence he hath been pleased to give us Rights grounded on his Promises meerly free By his Promises he hath given himself as a Supream Blessedness to a Soul faithful to him and persevere to be so It is then true in this sense that any supposition tending to the believing ones being excluded from Eternal life by Loving God is impossible because God is faithful in his promises He wills not the Death of the Sinner but rather that he may live and be Converted Thereby it is certain that all the Sacrifices which the most Disinterested Souls make usually concerning their Eternal Blessedness are conditional They say my God if by an impossibility thou wouldst condemn me to the Eternal Torments of Hell without losing thy Love I should not Love thee the less for it But this Sacrifice cannot be absolute in an ordinary state In no other case but of the last trials this Sacrifice becometh in a manner absolute Then a Soul may be invincibly perswaded with a reflex perswasion and which is not the intimate bottom of Conscience that she is justly reprobated by God In this state did S. Francis of Sales find himself in the Church of of S. Stephen des Grez A Soul in this trouble finds herself contrary to God in respect to her former infidelities and by her present obduration She takes her bad inclinations for a deliberate will and sees not the real acts of her Love and of her Virtues which by reason of their simplicity do escape her reflections She becomes in her own eyes covered with the leprōsie of Sin though it is only in appearance and not real She can not bear with her self She is offended with those who are willing to quiet her and take away from her that kind of perswasion It matters nothing to tell her of the precise Doctrine of Faith in regard
to the will of God of saving all Men and the belief we ought to have that he is willing to save every one of us in particular This Soul does not doubt of the good will of God but believeth her own bad because she sees nothing in her self by reflection but the apparent evil which is external and sensible and that the good which is always real and intimate is by God's jealousie continually taken from before her eyes Nothing in this involuntary and invincible trouble can recover her nor reveal to her in the bottom of her self what God is pleased to conceal to her She sees God's Anger swoll'n and hanging over her head as the billows of the Sea ready to drown her then it is that the Soul is divided from her self she expires with Christ upon the Cross saying My God My God why hast thou forsaken me In that unvoluntary impression of despair she makes an absolute Sacrifice of her concern for Eternity because the impossible case in the trouble and darkness she is in seems to her possible and actually real Once more it would profit nothing to argue with her for she is wholly incapable of reasoning all the business lies in a conviction which is not intimate but seeming and invincible A Soul in this condition looseth all hope of things for her own interest but she never looseth in the superiour part of her self that 's to say in her direct and intimate acts that perfect hope which is the disinterested desire of the promises She loves God more purely than ever and is so far from consenting positively to hate him that she does not so much as indirectly consent to cease for one instant from loving him nor to diminish in the least her Love nor to put ever to the increase of that Love any voluntary bounds nor to commit any fault though never so venial A Director may therefore leave this Soul to make a simple condescention to the loss of her own interest and to the just Condemnation she thinks to be under from God which serveth ordinarily but to quiet her and to becalm the Temptation designed only for that effect I mean for the purification of Love But he ought never either to advise or to permit her positively to believe by a free and willful perswasion that she is reprobated and ought no longer to desire the promises by a disinterested motive He ought yet much less to consent she should hate God or cease from loving him or transgress his Law even by the most venial faults To speak thus is to speak according to the Experience of Saints with all the Precaution necessary for the Conservation of the Doctrine of Faith and never to lay open Souls to any Illusion X. False A Soul in Tryals may believe with an intimate free and voluntary Perswasion against the Doctrine of Faith that God hath forsaken her tho' she had not forsaken him or that there is no more Mercy for her tho' she does sincerely desire it or that she may consent to hate God because God will have her to hate him or that she may consent never more to love God because he will no more be beloved by her or that she can voluntarily confine her Love because God will have her to limit it or that she may violate God's Law because God will have her to transgress it In this State a Soul hath no longer any Faith or Hope or disinterested Desire of the Promises nor any real and intimate Love of God nor any even implicite Hatred of Evil which is Sin nor any real Co-operation with Grace But she is without any Action without any Will without any more Interest for God than for herself without either reflex or direct Acts of Vertues To speak at this rate is to blaspheme against what one is ignorant of and to corrupt one's self in what one knows 't is to make Souls to be overcome by Temptation under pretence of purifying them 't is to reduce all Christendom to an impious and dull Despair 't is even grosly to contradict all good Mystical Persons who do assert that Souls in that State shew a very lively Love for God by their Sorrow for having lost him and an infinite Abhorrency of Evil by their Impatience oftentimes towards those who offer both to comfort and reassure them of their good State XI ARTICLE True GOD never forsakes the Just unless he be forsaken by him He is the infinite Good who seeks for nothing but to communicate himself The more one receiveth him the more he gives of himself Our Resistance only is that which restrains or retards his Gifts The essential Difference between the new Law and the old is that the latter did not lead Man to any thing that was perfect that it shewed what was good but gave not a Power wherewithal to do it and Evil without affording Means to avoid it whereas the new is the Law of Grace which gives both the Will and the Deed and which commands only because it gives the true Power to fulfil As the Observers of the old Law were assured that they should never see the diminution of their Temporal Goods Inquirentes autem Dominum non minuentur omni bono Souls that are true to their Grace shall likewise never suffer any dimunition in their Grace which is always preventing and the real Good of the Christian Law Thus each Soul that she may be fully true to God can do nothing solid and meritorious but to follow Grace without need of preventing it To be willing to prevent it is to be willing to give to one's self what it does not give yet 't is to expect something of himself and his own Endeavour or Industry 't is a subtile and unperceptible Remainder of a Semi-Pelagian Zeal at the very time when we long yet for more Grace One ought 't is true to prepare himself for to receive and invite Grace to himself but this ought not to be done without the Co-operation of Grace it self A faithful Co-operation with Grace in the present Moment is a most effectual Preparation for receiving and attracting of Grace the next Moment If the thing be narrowly pried into 't is then evident that all is reduc'd to a faithful Co operation of a full Will and of all the Forces of the Soul with the Grace of every Moment's presenting If all that could be added to this Co-operation were rightly taken in its full extent it would be nothing but a rash and over-hasty Zeal an eager and unquiet Endeavour of a Self-interested Soul an unseasonable Motion that would discompose weaken and retard the Operation of Grace instead of making it both more easie and perfect 'T is even as if one who is led by another whose Impulses he ought to follow should incessantly prevent his Motions and at every Minute turn himself back to measure that Space he had already run This unquiet and ill concerted Motion with the Man that principally moves would
only cumber and retard the Course of them both 'T is even so with a just Man in the Hand of God who moveth him without discontinuation with his Grace All hasty and unquiet Excitation fore-running Grace for fear of not acting enough all eager excitation except in case of Command for to give to one's self by an excess of interested Precaution those Dispositions which Grace does not inspire with in those Moments because it inspires with others less comfortable and perceptible all hasty and unquiet exciting for to give to one self by observable excitation a more perceptible motion and whereof one may be able to bear to himself immediately a more interested Witness are defective Motions for Souls called to a peaceable Disinterest of perfect Love This unquiet and fore-running Acting is what good Mysticks have called Activity which hath nothing in common with the Action and real but peaceable Acts that are essential to co-operate with Grace When they say that one ought no more to excite himself nor strive they mean only to remove that unquiet and hasty Excitation whereby one would go before Grace or recal the sensible Impressions of it after they are past or co-operate with it in a more sensible and noted manner than is required of us In this Sence Excitation or Activity ought effectually to be cut off But if by Excitation should be meant a Co-operation of the full Will and of all the Powers of the Soul to the Grace of each Moment it ought to be concluded that it is by way of Faith that one ought to excite himself every Moment to fill up all his Grace This Co-operation is no less sincere for being disinterested and for being peaceable it is no less efficacious and the Product of the entire Will For being without precipitation it is no less painful in relation to Concupisence which it overcomes It is not an Activity but an Action which consists in very real and meritorious Acts. Thus it is that Souls called to pure Love resist the Temptations of the greatest Trials They fight even to the Blood against Sin but it is a peaceable Combat because the Spirit of the Lord savors of Peace they resist in the Presence of God who is their Strength They resist in a State of Faith and Love which is a State of Prayer Those who have yet need of the interested Motives of Fear and Hope ought to take hold of them even with a natural eagerness rather than to expose themselves to be overcome Those who find by a repeated Experience and known to good Directors that their Strength lies in an amorous Silence and their Peace in the greatest Bitterness may continue thus to overcome Temptation and they must not be disturb'd for they are pained already enough another way But should these Souls by a secret Infidelity come secretly to fall from their State they should be oblig'd to have their recourse to the most interested Motives rather than expose themselves to violate the Law in the excess of Temptation To speak thus is to speak in conformity to the Evangelical Rule without weakning in the least either the Experiences or the Maxims of all good Mystical Persons XI False THat Activity which Saints will have us to cut off is the Action itself of the Will She ought not to produce any further Act she hath no longer need to co-operate with Grace with all her Power nor positively and fully to resist Concupiscence nor to work any internal or external Action that is troublesome to her It sufficeth her to let God work in her those that flow as from the Spring and for which she hath not so much as a natural repugnancy She hath no further need to prepare herself by the good use of one Grace for a greater that should follow and which is as it were linked to this first she needs only let herself loose without Examination to all the Propensions she finds in herself without assuming them She needs no more any Toil or Labour any Violence any Restraint of Nature Let her but remain without Will and Neuter between Good and Evil even in the most extream Temptations To speak at this rate is to speak the Language of the Tempter 'T is to teach Souls to lay Snares for themselves 't is to inspire them with Indolency in Evil which is the height of Hypocrisie 't is to engage them into a Consent to all Vices which is no less real for its being indirect and tacite XII ARTICLE True SOuls attracted to pure Love may be as disinterested in respect to themselves as to their Neighbours because they never see or desire more in themselves than in the most unknown neighbour but the Glory of God his good pleasure and the fulfilling of his promises In this sense these Souls are as it were strangers to themselves and they Love themselves no farther but as they do the rest of other Creatures within the Order of pure Charity After this wise would Innocent Adam have Loved himself only for God's sake Self abnegation and the hating of our Souls recommended in the Gospel are not an absolute hatred of our Souls which are God's Image For the Work of God is good and we ought to Love it for his sake But we do spoil that work by Sin and we ought to hate our selves in our corruption The perfection of pure Love consisteth then in not loving our selves any further but for God alone The vigilancy of the most disinterested Souls ought never to be regulated according to their disinterest God who calls them to be as freed from themselves as from their Neighbour will have them at the same time more watchful over themselves whom they are intrusted with and for whom they are responsible than over their Neighbour whom God hath committed to their charge They ought even to watch over what they do every day to their Neighbour whom Providence hath intrusted to their direction and conduct A good Pastor watcheth over the Soul of his Neighbour without any interest He Loves in him nothing but God He hath him never out of sight He comforteth correcteth and supports him Thus ought we to bear up our selves without flattery and correct our selves without discouragement We ought to converse charitably with our selves as with another and not to forget our selves but by cutting off the ticklishness and niceness of self-love not to forget ones self at all but in pulling down all unquiet and interested reflections when we are intirely in the grace of pure love But it is never lawful to forget ones self so as to cease watching over our selves after the same manner we would watch over our Neighbour if we were Pastors We ought even to add this further that one is not so strictly charged with the care of his Neighbour as with himself because it is not in our power to regulate the internal wills of others as 't is of our own Whence it follows that one ought always to watch
incomparably more over himself than the best Pastor can over his flock We ought never to forget our selves by abolishing the reflections that are even most interested when we are yet in the way of interested Love Lastly we ought not to forget our selves so as to reject all sorts of reflections as imperfect things For reflections have nothing imperfect in themselves and don 't become so often hurtful to so many Souls but because Souls sick of self-love turn very seldom an eye upon themselves but they do grow impatient and are softened at that sight Moreover God inspires often by his grace the most improved Souls with reflections very profitable either in respect to his designs in them or upon his former mercies which he makes them to celebrate or their dispositions whereof they are to give an account to their Director But finally disinterested love watcheth acts and resists Temptation more yet than interested Love doth The only difference is that the watchfulness of pure Love is simple and peaceable whereas that of interested Love which is less perfect keeps still some remains of eagerness and trouble because nothing but perfect Love driveth out fear with its attendance To Speak thus is to Speak in a very correct manner which ought to be suspected by no body and is conformable to the Language of Saints XII False A Soul fully disinterested in her self does not love her self even for God's sake She hateth her self with an absolute hatred as supposing the work of the Creator not to be good and she carries thus far her abnegation and renounciation enlarging the hatred to her self even so far as to will deliberately her loss and eternal reprobation She rejects grace and mercy wills nothing but justice and vengeance She becometh so great a stranger to her self that she ceaseth to take any further concern either for the good that is to be done or the evil to be eschewed All her desire is to forget her self in every thing and loose continually the sight of her self She is not satisfied to forget her self in respect to her own interest She is willing moreover to forget her self in relation to the amendment of her defects and to the fulfilling of the Law of God for the interest of his pure glory She reckons no longer upon her being entrusted with her self nor upon watching even with a simple peaceable and disinterested vigilancy over her own will She rejecteth all reflection as imperfect because nothing but meerly direct and not reflex sights are worthy of God To Speak at this rate is to oppose the experiences of Saints whose most internal Life hath been fill'd with very profitable reflections made by the impression of grace since they have afterward come to know the graces past and the miseries from which God hath delivered them that at length they have given an account of a very great number of things that had happened in them This is to turn the abnegation of ones self into an impious hatred of our Soul which supposes her to be bad by nature according to the principle of the Manicheans or which overturns the order in hating what is good and what God loves as being his image This is to annihilate all watchfulness all fidelity to grace all attention to make God reign in us all good usage of our liberty In a word it is the height of all impiety and irreligion XIII ARTICLE True THere is a great deal of difference between simple and direct acts and reflex acts Whensoever we act with a right Conscience there is in us an inward certainty that we go right or else we should act in a doubt whither we do well or ill and so should not practise a downright dealing But this inward certainty consists often in acts so simple so direct so rapid so momentanous so free from all reflection that the Soul who knows well that she makes them in that moment that she makes them does not find afterwards any distinct and durable sign of them Hence it comes that when she will return by reflection to what she hath done she doth not think she hath done what she ought she disturbs her self by scruples and is even offended at the indulgence of her superiours when they go about to quiet her in respect to what is past So God giveth her at the instant of the action by direct acts all the necessary certainty for the rectitude of her Conscience and he takes away from her in his jealousie the facility of finding again by way of reflection and an after-blow that certainty and rectitude so that she cannot enjoy it to her comfort nor justifie her self in her own eyes As for reflex acts they leave behind them a lasting and steady Foot-step which is found again when we please and this is the reason why Souls yet interested for themselves be willing incessantly to form acts that are strongly imprinted and reflected to make themselves sure of their operation and bear witness of it to themselves Whereas disinterested Souls are of themselves indifferent to perform acts distinct or indistinct direct or reflex They make reflex ones whenever either any Precept may require it or the power of grace carries them to it but they don't look for reflex acts with preference to others by a trouble arising from a concern for their own security Commonly in the extremity of Tryals God leaves nothing to them but direct acts of which afterwards they cannot perceive any Foot-step and this causeth the Martyrdom of Souls while any motive of self-interest remaineth yet in them These direct and intimate acts without reflection imprinting any sensible Foot-step are that which S. Francis of Sales hath called the Top of the Soul or Edge of the Spirit In these acts it was that S. Anthony did repose the most perfect Prayer when he said Prayer is not yet perfect when the solitary knows that be makes a Prayer Cassian conf 9. To Speak thus is to Speak conformable to the Experience of Saints without exceeding the strictness of Catholick Doctrine It is also to Speak of the operations of the Soul in conformity to the ideas of all good Philosophers XIII False THere are no true acts besides the reflex ones which are either felt or perceived as soon as we have ceased to perform any act of that kind we may say truly that we perform not one more that is real Whosoever hath not upon these acts a reflex and durable certitude hath had no certainty in the Action from whence it follows that the Souls who are during their Tryals in an apparent despair are there in a true despair and that the doubt wherein they are after having acted shews that they have lost in the action the inward Testimony of Conscience To Speak at this rate is to overturn all Ideas of good Philosophy 't is to destroy the Testimony of the Spirit of God in us for our Filiation 't is to annihilate all the internal life and all rectitude of Souls
XIV ARTICLE True IN the last Tryals for the purification of Love a separation is made of the superior part of the Soul from the inferiour in that the senses and imagination have no part of the peace and of the communications of Grace which God makes often enough both to the understanding and to the will in a simple and direct manner which escapeth all reflection After this manner Christ Jesus our perfect pattern hath been happy upon the Cross so that in the superior part of his Soul he enjoyed Coelestial Glory while in the inferiour he was actually a Man of Grief with a sensible impression upon him of his being forsaken by his Father The inferiour part did not impart to the superiour her involuntary trouble nor her painful swoundings The superiour communicated to the inferiour neither her peace nor her blessedness This separation is made by the difference of the real but simple and direct acts of the understanding and of the will who leaving behind them no sensible sign and of the reflex Acts which leaving a sensible mark behind them are communicated to the imagination and to the senses which are called the inferiour part for to distinguish them from that direct and intimate operation of the understanding and of the will called the superiour part The acts of the inferiour part in this separation consist of an entirely blind and unvoluntary trouble because all that is intellectual and voluntary belongs to the superiour part But although this separation taken in this sense cannot be absolutely denied the Directors nevertheless ought to take great care never to suffer in the inferiour part any of those Disorders which are in a natural course to be always deemed voluntary and for which the superiour part ought consequently to be accountable This precaution ought always to be found in the way of pure Faith which is the only one we can Speak of and in which nothing contrary to the order of nature is admitted 'T is needless for this Reason to Speak here of diabolical possessions obsessions or other extraordinary things One cannot absolutely reject them since both the Scripture and the Church have acknowledged them But in particular cases the greatest caution ought to be used for to avoid being deceived Moreover this matter that is common to all internal ways hath no particular difficulty to be cleared in it by the way of pure Faith and of pure Love On the contrary it may be asserted that this way of pure Love and of pure Faith is that wherein fewer of these extraordinary things are to be seen Nothing diminisheth them so much as not minding them and carrying always the Souls to a Conduct that is simple in the disinterest of Love and in the obscurity of Faith To Speak so is to Speak in conformity to Christian Doctrine and to give the greatest preservatives against illusion XIV False IN Tryals a total separation is made of the superiour from the inferiour part The superiour is united to God by an union whereof no sensible and distinct sign appears at any time either for Faith Hope Love or any other virtues The inferiour part becometh in that separation wholly Animal and whatever passeth in it against the rule of manners is deemed neither voluntary nor demeritorious nor contrary to the purity of the superiour part To Speak at this rate is to annihilate the Law and the Prophets It is to Speak the Language of the Devils XV. ARTICLE True THE persons who are in those rigorous Tryals ought never to neglect that universal sobriety so often spoken of by the Apostles and which consists in a sober use of all the things that are round about us This Sobriety reacheth to all the operations of sense of the imagination and even of the Spirit It makes our Wisdom Sober and Temperate It reduceth all to a simple use of necessary things This Sobriety implies a continual privation of all the enjoyments that are only for satisfaction and pleasure This Mortification or rather this Death tends to cut off not only all the voluntary motions of nature corrupted and revolted through the voluptuousness of the Flesh and the pride of the Spirit but also all the most innocent Consolations which interested Love does seek with so much eagerness This Mortification is practised with peace and simplicity without discomposure of mind and sourness against ones self without method suitable to ones occasions and needs but in a real manner and without intermission 'T is true that some persons oppressed by excessive Tryals are ordinarily oblig'd by their Obedience to an Experienced Director to forbear or lessen certain Corporal Austerities they have been much addicted to This Temperature is necessary for the Relief of their Body sinking under the Rigor of internal Pains which is the most terrible of all Penances It happens also often that these Souls have been too much in love with these Austerities and the Repugnancy they felt at first to obey in leaving them off in this State of Oppression shews that they stuck a little too fast to them But it is their Personal Imperfection and not that of the Austerities that deserves the blame Austerities answerable to their Institution are profitable and often necessary Christ hath given us the Pattern of them which all Saints have followed They bring our revolted Flesh under they tend to the Amendment of committed Faults and do preserve from Temptations 'T is true indeed that they don't serve to destroy the Bottom of Self-love or Cupidity but by so much as they are animated by the Spirit of Recollection Love and Prayer For want of which they would quench the grosser Passions and contrary to their Institution make a Man full of himself this would be nothing else but a Justifying of the Flesh It is moreover to be observed that the Persons that are in this State being deprived of all sensible Graces and from the fervent Exercise of all discernible Vertues have no longer any relish nor sensible fervency nor noted attraction for all the Austerities they had practised before with so much Ardor Then it is that their Penance is reduc'd to bear in a very bitter Peace the Anger of God which they look for every Moment and their manifest Despair There is no Austerity or Torment which they would not suffer with Joy and Ease in the room of this inward Pain all their inmost Attractiveness is to bear their Agony in which they say upon the Cross with Christ My God my God why hast thou forsaken me To speak thus is to acknowledge the perpetual necessity of Mortification It is to Authorise Corporal Austerities which by their Institution are very wholesome 'T is to be willing that the most perfect Souls should do Penance proportionable to the Strength Graces and Tryals of their State XV. False COrporal Austerities serve for nothing but to provoke Concupiscence and inspire the Practiser of them with a Pharisaical Complacency they are not necessary either to
Poyson XVIII False WE ought to conform our selves to all the Wills of God and to his permissions as to all his other Wills We ought therefore to permit Sin in our selves when we know God is about to permit it We ought to love our Sin though contrary to God by reason of its abjection which purifies our love and takes from us all pretence and desert of a reward Lastly the attraction or inspiration of Grace requires from Souls in order to render them more disinterested for the Eternal reward the breaking of the Written Law To Speak at this rate is to Teach Apostacy and to put the Abomination of Desolation in the most holy place it is not the Voice of the Lamb but of the Dragon XIX ARTICLE True VOcal without Mental Prayer that 's to say without the attention of the Mind and the Affection of the Heart is a Superstitious Worship which honoureth God with the Lips while the Heart is far from him Vocal Prayer is not good and meritorious but in as much as it is directed and animated by that of the Heart It is much better to recite but a few Words with great recollection and Love than long Prayers with little or no recollection when they are not Commanded To Pray both without attention and Love is to Pray as the Heathens did who thought to be heard for the Multitude of their Words One Prays no further than one desires and one doth not desire but by how much one loveth at least with an interested Love Nevertheless Vocal Prayer ought to be respected and consulted as being good to awake the Thoughts and the Affections which it expresses as having been taught by the Son of God to his Apostles and practised by the whole Church in all Ages To make light of this Sacrifice of Praises this fruit of the Lips that does confess the Name of the Lord would be an impiety Vocal Prayer may be troublesome for a while to those Contemplative Souls who are yet in the imperfect beginnings of their Contemplation because their Contemplation is more sensible and affecting than pure and quiet It may be also burthensome to Souls who are in the last Tryals because every thing in that state disturbs them But one ought never to give them for a rule to forsake without the permission of the Church and without a true impotency known to be so by their Superiours any Vocal Prayer which is obligatory Vocal Prayer taken with simplicity and without scruple when it is according to the Command may well be troublesome to a Soul in relation to those things we have already noted But it is never contrary to the highest Contemplation Experience even shews that the most Eminent Souls in the midst of their most sublime Communications have familiar Communications with God and that they read or recite with a loud Voice and in a kind of Transport some inflamed Words of the Apostles and Prophets To Speak so is to explain the soundest Doctrine with the most correct Words XIX False VOcal Prayer is nothing but the gross and imperfect Doctrine of beginners It is intirely unprofitable to Contemplative Souls They are by the eminency of their state dispensed with as to the reciting of Vocal Prayers Commanded them by the Church because their Contemplation eminently comprehends what is more edifying in the different parts of Divine Worship To Speak at this rate is to despise the Reading of the Scriptures it is to forget that Christ hath Taught us Vocal Prayer which contains the perfection of the highest Contemplation It is to be ignorant that pure Contemplation is never perpetual in this Life and that in its intervals one may and ought to recite faithfully the Office which is Commanded and which of it self is so apt to nourish in our Souls the Spirit of Contemplation XX. ARTICLE True REading ought not to be done either out of Curiosity or desire of judging of our State or deciding it according to what we Read nor out of a certain relish of what we call Witty and sublime We ought not to read the most holy Books nor even the Scriptures but with dependency upon the Pastors and Directors who are in their stead 'T is they who are to judge whither each faithful Christian is prepared enough if his Heart is sufficiently purified and Docible for each different Reading They ought to distinguish the Food that is agreeable to every one of us in particular Nothing causeth so much illusion in the interiour Life as the indiscreet choosing of Books 'T is best to Read little and make long interruptions by way of recollection that we may let Love more deeply to imprint in us the Christian truths When recollection causeth our Book to drop out of our hands we must let it fall without scruple We shall take it up again time enough afterwards to renew in its turn our recollection Love Teaching by its Unction surpasses all the rational discourse we can make upon Books The most powerful of all perswasions is that of Love Nevertheless we must take in hand again the outward Book when the inward Book ceaseth to be open Otherwise the empty Spirit would fall into a rambling and imaginary Prayer which would be a real and pernicious idleness This would bring a Man to neglect his own instruction about necessary truths and forsake the Word of God and never to lay solid foundations both of the exact understanding of the Law and of revealed Mysteries To Speak thus is to Speak according to Tradition and to the Experience of holy Souls XX. False THe Reading of the most holy Books is unprofitable to those whom God teacheth entirely and immediately by himself 'T is not necessary that such persons as these should have laid the foundation of common instruction They need only to wait for all the light of truth that doth arise from their Prayer As for their Readings when they are moved to any they may choose without consulting with their Superiours such Books which Speak of the most advanced states They may Read the Books that are suspected or censured by their Pastors To Speak at this rate is to destroy instruction which is the food of Faith It is to substitute instead of the pure Word of God an interiour Fanatical inspiration On the other side it is to permit Souls to Poyson themselves with contagious Readings or at least such as are disproportionate to their true needs It is to teach them dissimulation and disobedience XXI ARTICLE True WE ought to distinguish between Meditation and Contemplation Meditation consists in discursive acts that can be easily distinguished the one from the other because they are distinguished by a kind of a noted motion because they are varied by the diversity of Objects they are applied to because they draw a conviction concerning the truth of the conviction of another truth already known because they draw an affection from several Motives methodically assembled Lastly because they are done and reiterated with
This Idea tho' very different from all that can be imagined and comprehended is however very positive and real The simplicity of this purely immaterial Idea and which hath not passed through the Senses and by the Imagination does not hinder but Contemplation may have for distinct Objects all the Attributes of God for the Essence without the Attributes would be no longer the Essence it self and the Idea of an infinitely perfect Being essentially comprehends in its simplicity the infinite Perfections of that Being This simplicity does not hinder the Contemplative Soul to Contemplate even distinctly the Three Divine Persons because an Idea let it be never so simple can nevertheless represent divers Objects really distinguished one from the others Finally this simplicity does not exclude the distinct sight of the Humanity of Jesus Christ and of all his Mysteries because pure Contemplation admits of other Ideas with that of the Divinity It admits of all the Objects which pure Faith can set before us It excludes nothing in Divine things but sensible Images and Discursive Operations Though the Acts tending directly and immediately to God alone be more perfect being taken on the part of the Object and in a Philosophical strictness they are nevertheless as perfect on the part of the pinciple that 's to say as pure and as meritorious when they have for Objects the Objects offered by God himself and wherewith one is conversant only by the impression of his Grace A Soul in this state considereth no longer the Mysteries of Jesus Christ by a Methodical and sensible working of the imagination to imprint signs of it upon the Brains and to be comfortably softened by them She is no longer Conversant about it by a Discursive Operation and successive Reasoning to draw conclusions from each Mystery But she sees with a simple and Amorous sight all the diverse Objects as certified and made present by pure Faith Thus the Soul can exercise in the highest Contemplation Acts of the most explicite Faith The Contemplation of the Blessed in Heaven being purely intellectual hath for distinct Objects all these Mysteries of the Humanity of our Saviour whose Graces and Victories they do sing So much the more reason there is that the most imperfect Contemplation of the Pilgrimage of this Life can never be altered by the distinct sight of all these Objects To Speak thus is to Speak according to all Tradition and as all good Mystical Men have been pleased to Speak XXVII False PUre Contemplation excludeth all image that 's to say all that Idea which is even meerly intellectual A Contemplative Soul admits of no real and positive Idea of God that distinguisheth him from all other beings She ought to see neither the Divine Attributes which do distinguish him from all Creatures nor the Three Divine Persons for fear of altering the simplicity of her sight She ought yet less to imploy her self about the Humanity of Jesus Christ since that is not the Divine Nature nor about his Mysteries because they would multiply too much Contemplation The Souls that are in this state have no further need to think on Jesus Christ who is but the way to come to God his Father because they are already arrived at the end To Speak at this rate is to be ignorant of all that good Mystical Men themselves have been pleased to say of the purest Contemplation It is to annihilate Faith without which Contemplation it self is annihilated 'T is to make a chimerical Contemplation which hath no real Object and cannot distinguish God from nothing It is to destroy Christianity instead of purifying it It is to make a kind of Deism which next moment terminates into a kind of Atheism whereby all real Idea of God as distinguished from his Creatures is rejected Finally it is to set up two impious Opinions The first is to suppose that there is upon the Earth some Contemplative Person who is no longer a sojourner and who hath no further need of the way because he is arrived at the end The second is to be ignorant that Christ who is the way is no less the Truth and the Life that he is as much the finisher as the Author of our Salvation Finally that the Angels themselves in their most sublime Contemplation have desired to see his Mysteries and that the Blessed Sing incessantly the Song of the Lamb before him XXVIII ARTICLE True COntemplative Souls are deprived of the distinct sensible and reflected sight of Jesus Christ at two different times but they are never deprived for ever in this Life of the simple and distinct sight of Jesus Christ First in the prime fervour of their Contemplation this exercise is yet very imperfect not representing God but in a very confused manner The Soul being as it were swelled up with the sensible Pleasure of her recollection cannot yet be conversant about distinct sights These distinct sights would cause in her a kind of distraction in her weakness and cast her again into the reasoning of Meditation out of which she is scarcely departed This impotency of seeing distinctly Jesus Christ is not the perfection but rather the imperfection of this exercise for it is then more sensible than pure Secondly a Soul looseth the sight of Christ in the last Tryals because God at that time takes away from the Soul the possession and reflected knowledge of all that is good in her to purifie her from all Self-interest In this state of unvoluntary darkness and trouble the Soul looses no more the sight of Christ than of God But all these losses are but in appearance and transient after which Christ is no less restored to the Soul than God himself Besides these two cases the most elevated Soul may in the actual Contemplation be possest of Christ made present to her by Faith and in the intervals where pure Contemplation ceaseth she is yet possessed of Jesus Christ It will be found by Experience that these Souls which are most Eminent in Contemplation are those that are most possessed of him They Speak with him every Hour as the Bride with her Bridegroom They often see nothing but him in themselves They bear successively deep impressions of all his Mysteries and of all the states of this Mortal Life True it is that he becomes something so intimate in their Heart that they use themselves to look on him less as a foreign and external Object than as the internal principle of their Life To Speak thus is to repress the most Damnable Errors 'T is clearly to explain the experiences and expressions of Saints which Souls given over to illusion might abuse XXVIII False COntemplative Souls have no more any need to see distinctly the Humanity of Jesus Christ because they are arrived at the end The Flesh of Christ is no more an Object worthy of them and they know him no more in the Flesh even as made present by pure Faith They are no more possessed of him out of actual Contemplation
would love Impurity as much as Beauty if it were as acceptable to her Spouse she knows nevertheless that Purity and Beauty are the Delight of her Spouse therefore she only loves for his good Pleasure Purity and Beauty and rejects with Horror the Ugliness he rejects When a Soul is truly and actually in pure Love there is no fear but in the actual Confession of her Sin she is in the actual Condemnation of what she hath committed against the Well-beloved and consequently in the most formal most pure and most efficacious Contrition tho' she produces not always sensible Acts of it in an express'd and reflected Form If venial Faults are blotted out in an instant by the simple reciting of the Lord's Prayer as S. Austine assureth us in general of just Men tho' imperfect So much the more are they blotted out likewise in the transformed Souls by the Exercise of the most pure Love 'T is true that one is not oblig'd to make equally always frequent Confessions when the enlightned Director hath Reason to fear least they should cast one into Despair or be turned into a meer Habit or should become an unlading of the Heart and an ease for Self-love more afflicted for not seeing himself entirely perfect than faithful in being willing to do Violence to himself for his Amendment or because these frequent Confessions disturb too much some Souls and employ them too much about their State in some transient Pains or because they don't see in themselves any voluntary Fault committed since their last Confession which may appear to the Confessor a sufficient Matter of Sacramental Absolution after they have cast themselves at his Feet for to lay their Submission in the Power and Judgment of the Church To speak so is to speak a Language conform to the Experiences of Saints and to the Needs of several Souls without offending the Principles of Tradition XXXVIII False COnfession is a Remedy belonging only to imperfect Souls and which advanced Souls ought not to make use of but for outward appearance and for fear of offending the Publick either they never commit any Faults which deserve Absolution or they ought not to be watchful with the peaceable and uninterested Vigilancy of pure and jealous Love to perceive whatever in them may grieve the Holy Spirit neither are they any more oblig'd to Contrition which is nothing else but jealous Love hating with a perfect Hatred whatsoever is contrary to the good Pleasure of the Well-beloved nor should they think themselves guilty of an Infidelity against the Disinterest of Love and perfect Abnegation should they ask both with Heart and Mouth the Remission of their Sins which God however will have them to desire To speak at this rate is to take off from these Souls the true Exercise of that pure Love of the Supreme Good which ought to be on this occasion the actual Condemnation of Evil itself it is to remove Souls both from the Sacraments and Church-Discipline by a rash and scandalous Presumption 'T is to inspire them with Pharisaical Pride 't is at least to teach them to make their Confessions without Vigilancy Attention and Sincerity of Heart when they ask with the Words of their Mouths the Remission of their Faults 'T is to introduce into the Church an Hypocrisie which makes any Illusion uncurable XXXIX ARTICLE True SOuls in the first sensible Attraction which makes them pass to Contemplation have sometimes a Prayet which seems to bear no Proportion with some gross Faults that remain yet in them and this disproportion makes some Directors to judge that they have not got Experience enough that their Prayer is false and full of Illusion as S. Theresa saith it hapned to her The Souls exercised by extraordinary Trials shew sometimes there upon transient Occasions an irregular Spirit weakned by the Excess of Pain and a Patience almost exhausted as Job did appear imperfect and impatient in the Eyes of his Friends God leaves often to even transformed Souls notwithstanding the Purity of their Love certain Imperfections which proceed more from a natural Infirmity than from the Will and which are according to the thought of Pope S. Gregory the contrapoise of their Contemplation as the pricks of the flesh were in the Apostle the messenger of Satan to hinder him from growing Proud of the greatness of his revelations Lastly these imperfections which are not any violation of the Law are left in a Soul to the end that one may see in her the tokens of the great work which Grace hath of necessity made in her These infirmities serve to depress her in her own eyes and to keep the gifts of God under a Veil of infirmity which exerciseth the Faith of that Soul and of the Just persons that know her Sometimes also they serve to draw on her Contempt and Crosses or to make her more Docile to her superiors or to take from her the comfort of being approved and assured in her way as it happened to the Blessed Theresa with incredible pains Finally to keep the secret of the Bride and of the Bridegroom hidden from the wise and prudent of this World To speak so is to speak conformable to the experiences of Saints without any offence to the Evangelical Rule because the Directors who have experience and the Spirit of Grace are not without ability to judge of the Tree by the Fruits which are Sincerity Teachableness and freedom of the Soul upon the chiefest occasions Moreover there will be still other tokens which the Unction of God's Spirit shall give sufficiently to be felt if the state of each Soul be patiently lookt into XXXIX False ONE may reckon a Soul as Contemplative and even as transformed though she is found for some considerable time negligent of her instruction concerning the principles of Religion careless of her duty wandring and unmortified always quick in excusing her own faults unteachable haughty or cunning To speak after this rate is to authorize in the most perfect state the most dangerous imperfections 't is to cover under the cloak of an extraordinary state defects that are most incompatible with true Piety 't is to approve the grossest illusions 't is to invert the rules whereby Spirits ought to be tried to know whither they come from God or no 't is to call evil good and draw upon ones self the woes of Scripture XL. ARTICLE True A Transformed Soul is united to God without the interposition of any medium three sorts of ways 1. When she loves God for himself without any medium of interested motive 2. When she contemplates him without any sensible image or discursive operation 3. When she fulfills his Precepts and Counsels without any set order of forms whereby to give to her self an interested witness To speak thus is to express what holy mystical Men would say by excluding from this state the practices of Virtue and this explication is nothing offensive to Universal Tradition XL. False A Transformed Soul
is united to God without any medium either by the Veil of Faith or the infirmity of the Flesh since the fall of Adam nor by the medicinal Grace of Jesus Christ by whom alone one may in every state go to the Father To speak at this rate is to renew the Heresie of the Beggards Condemned by the Council of Vienna XLI ARTICLE True THE Spiritual Wedding uniteth immediately the Bride to the Bridegroom essence to essence substance to substance that 's to say will to will by that entirely pure Love so often mentioned Then God and the Soul make no more but one and the same Spirit as the Bride and the Bridegroom in Marriage are made but one Flesh He who adheres to God is made one and the same Spirit with him by an intire conformity of the will which is the work of Grace The Soul is then fully satiated and in a Joy of the Holy Ghost which is the bud of Coelestial happiness She is in an entire purity that 's to say without any defilement of Sin except those daily Sins which the exercise of Love can immediately blot out and consequently she may without Purgatory be admitted into Heaven which no unclean thing can enter into for Concupiscence which remains always in this life is not incompatible with this entire purity since it is neither Sin nor a spot in the Soul But this Soul hath not her Original integrity being not exempt either from daily faults or from Concupiscency which are incompatible with their integrity To speak so is to speak with the Salt of Wisdom wherewith all our Words ought to be seasoned XLI False THE Soul in this state hath her Original integrity she sees God face to face she does enjoy him as fully as the Blessed To speak at this rate is to fall into the Heresie of the Beggards XLII ARTICLE True THE Union called by mystical Men essential and substantial consisteth in a simple and disinterested Love which fills all the affections of the whole Soul and which is exercised by Acts so peaceable and so uniform that they seem to be but one though they be several really distinguished Acts. Several mystical Writers have termed these Acts essential or substantial to distinguish them from Acts that are froward unequal and made as it were by the out-goings of a Love which is yet mixt and interested To speak so is to explain the true sense of mystical Writers XLII False THis Union becomes really essential between God and the Soul so that nothing is capable either to break or to alter it any more This substantial Act is permanent and indivisible as the substance of the Soul it self To speak at this rate is to teach an extravagancy as much contrary to all Philosophy as to Faith and to the true practice of Piety XLIII ARTICLE True GOD who conceals himself from the Wise and great ones reveals and communicates himself to the little ones and to the simple The transformed Soul is the Spiritual Man S. Paul speaks of that 's to say a Man acted and led by the Spirit of Grace in the way of pure Faith This Soul hath often both by Grace and by experience for all things of simple practise in the tryals and exercise of pure Love a knowledge which the Learned who have more science and humane Wisdom than experience and pure Grace have not She ought nevertheless to submit with heart as well as mouth not only to all the decisions of the Church but also to the Conduct of her Pastors as having a special Grace without exception to lead the Sheep of the flock XLIII False THE transformed Soul is the Spiritual Man of S. Paul so that she may judge of all the truths of Religion and be judged by no body She is the Seed of God that cannot Sin Unction teacheth her all so that she hath no need of being instructed by any body nor to submit to superiours To speak at this rate is to abuse the passages of Scripture and turn them to ones ruine 'T is to be ignorant that Unction which teacheth all teacheth nothing so much as obedience and suggesteth all truth of Faith and of practice only by inspiring the Ministers of the Church with an humble Docility In a word 't is to establish in the midst of the Church a Damnable Sect of Fanaticks and Independents XLIV ARTICLE True THE Pastors and Saints of all Ages have used a kind of an Oeconomy and secret in not speaking of the rigorous trials and of the most sublime exercise of pure Love but to those Souls to whom God had given already both attraction and light to it Though this Doctrine was the pure and simple perfection of the Gospel noted throughout the whole body of Tradition the Ancient Pastors proposed usually to the generality of Just Men no other than the practise of interested Love in proportion to their Grace and thus gave Milk to Infants while they distributed Bread to strong Souls To speak thus is to say what S. Clement Cassian and divers other Holy Authors both Ancient and Modern do constantly affirm XLIV False THere has been in all Ages among those that live Contemplative Lives a secret Tradition and such as has been unknown even to the body of the Church her self This Tradition would include secret Opinions beyond the truths of universal Tradition or these Opinions at least would be contrary to those of the common Faith and would exempt Souls from exercising all those Acts of an explicite Faith and dislimited Vertue which are no less essential to the ways of pure Love than to that which is interested To speak thus is to annihilate Tradition instead of multiplying it It is the way to make a sect of secret Hypocrites in the Bosome of the Church without her being ever able to discover them or to free her self from them Hereby the impious secret of the Gnosticks and Manicheans will be revived and all the Traditions of our Faith and Morals undermined ART XLV True ALL the Internal ways that are most eminent are so far from being above an habitual state of pure love that they are but the way to arrive at that bound of all perfection all inferiour degrees do not come up to this true estate The last degree which Mystick Writers call by the name of Transformation or Essential Union without any Medium is no more than a simple reality of this love without a peculiar interest This when true is the most safe state because it is the most voluntary and meritorious of all the states of Christian Justice and because 't is that which referrs all to God and leaves nothing to the Creature But on the contrary when 't is false and imaginary it is the heighth of illusion The Traveller after many Fatigues Dangers and Sufferings arriving at length upon the top of a Mountain from thence discerns at a distance his Native City and the end of his Journey and all his toils he is presently
God is so much set against After Justification in a perfect state of pure and dis-interested love he admits of Hope that resides in the Mind but doth not move it because that the love which is contained in this Hope is pure without any mixture of interest in respect to fear or hope and being as it were perfect Charity it excludes Hope as well as Fear so that the Soul is not at all excited from any motive or upon the account of self-interest and so those incentatives or motives of self-advantage so often inculcated in the Scripture Tradition and the Prayers of the Church are utterly excluded from perfect Minds As for the motives of Self-interest the same is explained in all the passages of the Book in such a manner that the Soul is to retain no mercenary desire and not to love God neither for his desert perfection nor the good that is to be found in loving him nor yet for everlasting Rewards and it would be insinuated that it is the common sentiments of all the Saints both Ancient and Modern From whence this general Conclusion is made That this interested Motive is formally excluded from all the Virtues of perfect minds an Opinion which is also attributed to St. Francis de Sales without using the place where it is to be met with tho' in contrariety to this there are divers passages in his Writings that are quite opposite thereunto To the same end tends also what is further said that we will or love God as he is our good happiness and reward that we love him formally under this precision or restriction but not because of this restriction and that the formal Object of our hope is our interest to wit God our Good but that we have no mercenary motive thereunto but this is perfect contrariety to make that a motive which is no motive to cut off that hope which being destitute of power to move the Soul has no more in it than the bare name of hope By these Propositions and others also whereby in retaining the name of hope the thing it self is precluded the sense of our First and Thirtieth Article concerning the retaining of the Exercise of hope in every condition is eluded It will signify nothing for a Man to say that there are other propositions opposite hereunto to be found in some places of the said Book For to be plain in the matter the said Book contains things that evidently contradict one another for Example God wills that I should love him as he is my Good Happiness and Reward very well but the contrary is repeated again and again in these words It 's certain we do not will the love of God or our Salvation as he is the reward of our merits our salvation our eternal deliverance our good our interest and the greatest of them So manifest a Contradiction of Propositions and Terms is sufficient to prove there is Error in that case and cannot serve for an Excuse for the same Moreover the style of this Book is so perplext and the manner of reasoning used in it so subtile that they are quite lost there being many places therein where the sense cannot be found out without great trouble and vexation of mind and this must be the Character of an ill-contriv'd System and of an Author that seeks not so much a good temperament of things as subterfuges and subtilties As for what concerns the desire of Eternal Salvation the said Author thus expresses himself The desire of Eternal Salvation is good but nothing ought to be desired saving the Will of God a Proposition which he attributes to St. Francis de Sales tho' it be not to be met with in any of his Writings In the same Book it is also said that there are two different states of the Just one of resignation wherein mercenary or self-desires are subjected to the Will of God another of Holy indifference wherein the Soul has no mercenary desire at all except it be upon such occasions as when it is wanting to its own grace and is not fully correspondent thereunto to which proposition the forementioned Heads are referred that Salvation is not to be desired as it is our good our reward c. All these Propositions as well as those that exclude the desires of Eternal Salvation conceived from motives of Hope as also those others that regard the indifference of Salvation are rejected in the foresaid Articles pursuant to the Authority of the Holy Scriptures not only as false but also as erroneous Those same Articles particularly condemn that which is affirmed in the said Book that holy indifference admits of general desires for the accomplishment of all the hidden will of God and though the Decrees of ones own and others reprobation were contained in this Will yet his desires are to be so far extended as to wish the accomplishment of the same Neither is there as the said Book would insinuate any room left for Equivocation seeing all manner of Equivocation is taken away in the said Articles concerning the indifference of Salvation by a clear definition of indifference which may appertain to the events of this Life and sensible Comforts but never to salvation and the means that are conducive thereunto The Author in order to make the Articles to be equivocal grounds himself upon this Position that Salvation is to be desired and wished for as a thing that God would have which is right enough and taken from the very end of Salvation But in his Book he expresses himself in an exclusive manner saying that the Soul wills not happiness for it self but because it knows God wills it whereby the immediate and specific motives of hope are cut off and a way opened to the pernicious Opinion of indifference as if salvation was in it self a thing indifferent and as if the good that was commanded was not in it self desirable but only upon the account of its being commanded and enjoined In the mean time the difference that lies between desirable things because of the will of God and those things that are not desirable but by reason of the will of God is set forth by the Author himself from the very beginning of his Treatise in a passage he cites out of St. Francis de Sales There is a great deal of difference between these words I love God for the good I expect from him and those I do not love God but upon account of that good which shews what diversity there is often between things that seem to be exprest in very near the same words This indifference to Salvation which is asserted throughout the whole Book gives way to these consequences that a Soul in the greatest tryals may be invincibly perswaded that it is reprobated by God whereby the Sacrifice of Salvation which is ordinarily conditional becomes absolute an impossible case appearing not only as possible but even as real or actual And then a director of ones Conscience may suffer a
Soul to take up with a bare acquiesce with its own just Condemnation and Reprobation Moreover in such a state it will be to no purpose nay intolerable to speak to him of the Rule of Faith in relation to the goodness of God that is extensive to all Men or to offer him Reasons for his satisfaction All these things are clearly rejected by the Thirty Four Articles when an absolute consent is not allowed of in any probations or tryals God forbid it should be so this is a false pre-supposition and impossible that other Article being premised wherein all despair is excluded and much less should the Director of ones Conscience be allowed to suffer Souls simply to acquiesce with their own Condemnation and just reprobation But on the contrary he is required not to suffer any such thing to be He is so far from being advised not to preach the goodness of God clearly and distinctly as the said Book asserts that he ought to be ordered in conformity to St. Francis de Sales to assure those afflicted Souls that they shall never be forsaken of God and that his goodness is not only general towards all Men but that the effects of the Divine Mercy is more especially extended unto them Again you have in the Articles all Virtues both Divine and Moral set forth and distinguished with their Motives but in the said Books endeavours are used to render the distinction there made obscure by these words Pure Love doth of it self constitute the Internal Life it 's the only Principle and sole Motive thereof all other Motives are taken away save only Charity But the reason whereby Charity is even made to subsist seems also to be taken away when it is said that this Love becomes by turns to be every distinct Virtue but it seeks after no Virtue as it is a Virtue and so neither is Faith sought for as Faith nor Hope as Hope nor even Charity it self which is the life and form of Virtue as a Virtue And so allowing these Propositions to be true all Virtues are debased and thrown out of doors pure Love will have no other effect than to hinder us to be studious of Virtue and no one shall cultivate the same better than he that neglects it which makes way for this extravagant and to this day unheard of proposition that Mystick Saints exclude the practice and acts of Virtue from this state which are Paradoxes that divert the Mind from the study of Virtue and impose strangely upon Spiritual Persons and render the very name of Virtue it self suspicious and odious Now we come to another Proposition that is very agreeable to what precedes that transformed Souls may and ought according to the present Discipline to confess their Venial Sins to ask pardon for their faults and to pray for the Remission of their Sins not for their own purification and deliverance but as 't is a thing agreeable to the will of God which clearly overthrows the right and intrinsical motive of Repentance and the same is contrary to our Fifteenth Article Besides we cannot allow that the Confession of Venial Sins is to be referred only to the discipline of the present times As for Concupiscence being perfectly routed out of some Souls though they are but very few where the sensible effects thereof are suspended or else where the Flesh has been a long time subjected to the Spirit what the said Book says in Relation thereunto is manifestly contradicted by our Seventh and Eighth Articles taken out of the Councils whence the Author is brought to such a pass as to extenuate the usefulness and necessity of Mortification notwithstanding the practice of the Apostles and Saints to the contrary and this tends to favour the Doctrine disallowed of in the Eighteenth Article of our Censure As for what concerns Contemplation we find in the said Book that when 't is pure and direct it 's not taken up willingly with any sensible imagination with any distinct and nameable Idea that is with any limited and particular Idea of the Divine Nature but that the same is confined to an Idea that is purely intellectual and abstracted from an Infinite Being And thus Contemplation cannot have the attributes of God nor the Divine Persons in the Trinity nor consequently the Humane Nature of Christ for an Object of its own choice but only by the representation which God makes of the same unto him and by the instinct and impression of peculiar Grace because the Mind does not voluntarily adhere to these Objects as if neither the goodness of the thing it self nor the exhortations of the Holy Scripture nor the choice of ones own Will in conjunction with common Grace were not sufficient to make a Man seek after them These Principles tend to this conclusion that Contemplative Souls are in both Conditions deprived of the distinct view of Christ and of his presence by Faith that is both in the very beginning of their Contemplations and in their Tryals and these Conditions may last a long time Neither is the Party afraid to reject the distinct view of Christ to the very intervals of Contemplation as if to contemplate Christ was to descend from the height and purity of Contemplation as the Beguardians were wont to say By which Proceedings and Subtilties false Contemplators are furnish'd with excuses who take no delight in our Saviour Christ Jesus and are not freely carried into a contemplation of him and who remove the Divine Attributes and Sacred Persons in the Trinity far from it and separate distinct Acts of Faith therefrom thereby eluding the 1 2 3 4. and 24 Articles We read in the said Treatise that 't is never lawful to prevent the work of grace and that a Man is to expect nothing from himself by the way of his own industry and endeavours By which Proposition and all the rest that is contained in the Eleventh Article of the Book it appears upon exact examination that that act of the free will which is properly called excitation is destroyed those words of the Prophet David I will prevent his face and that other my Prayer shall prevent thee are thrown out of doors as is also that Maxim of St. Augustin whereon the whole dispensation of Divine Grace relies He cannot be helpt on unless he endeavour to do something of his own accord that famous distinction of Spiritual Men is at the same time destroyed who by common consent have distinguished between those acts that are the product of ones own industry and endeavours and those acts that are infused motitions which are wrought by God's act or impulse without any mixture of a mans effort therewith These and the like Propositions overthrow or at least obscure the 11. 25. and 26 Articles We do in the same Articles reject that continued Act which the Quietists have introduced into the state of perfection as being absurd in it self and foreign to the Scriptures and Fathers and the Author rejects the same also
both in his Treatise and in his Letter Nevertheless he falls into the same absurdity by allowing of such still peaceable Acts that they have nothing whereby the Soul may be able to make a true distinction of them they being such as are disturbed with no manner of joltings so uniform and so even that they seem as much to be no acts at all as one continued Act during the whole course of ones Life Lastly we have more particularly taken care in our Articles lest Christian Perfection holiness or purity or the internal Life should be placed in passive Prayer or in other quiet and extraordinary ones of that kind wherein all contemplative and formal persons are with us but on the contrary the said Book doth assert that the same Prayer and Contemplation do consist in pure love which doth not only justify and purify of it self but consummate accomplish and make perfect and is consequently the last degree of Christian perfection Wherein the Author doth extreamly err and not only differs from spiritual men but even from himself He differs from spiritual Persons or Mysticks who in persuance to the Authority of St. Theresia the Expositions of John de Jesus and the sentiments of James Alvarez de Paz who was a follower of them and that of St. Francis de Sales and several others have taught that either a person may arrive at a state of perfection without quiet prayer or that this Prayer is in the number of such blessings as seem very much to appertain to those graces that are purely free that it is neither of a perfecting nature and justifies no man yea and that the same may consist with mortal sin He differs from himself in that he asserts every where That Christian perfection consists in this sort of Prayer which is nothing else but a love that is very pure and teaches at the same time the greatest part of holy Souls and those who by a peculiar Title are called Saints could never attain to this sort of Prayer nor consequently to perfection because they had not the inward light nor the advantages of attractive Grace From hence he conludes that the Doctrine of pure love wherein all Evangelick perfection doth consist and to which all Tradition beareth a Testimony is yet a mystery which is concealed not only from Christians in general but even from the greatest part of Saints and that 't is the business of a director of Mens Consciences to leave the same unto God and to wait for his opening the Heart by his internal Unction as if the word of the Gospel would be of no use to those who ought to be endued with pure love as if Unction should exclude and shut out the good word of Salvation From whence it follows that that command of Christ Be ye perfect doth not appertain to the Saints nor that neither thou shalt love c. which derogate from the perfection of Christian calling There is also as much contradiction between these Propositions That the gift of pure Love and Contemplation depends upon grace or divine inspiration which is common to all that are justifyed and that yet there are many Saints to whom the same is not communicated and which would be but a trouble and offence to them were the same proposed to them These things therefore and those other before mention'd which run through the whole Book are contrary to our Censures and the Thirty Four Articles so often mentioned neither are those that follow less opposite to the same Doctrine or any more consonant to Truth In the first place altho' the said Book doth in the beginning and in divers other places onwards make an enumeration of false spirituallizers If I may so call them whereof he makes the Gnosticks of old the Beguardians in the middle age and the late Illuminates of Spain to be of the number yet he makes no manner of mention of Molinos and his followers nor more particularly of that Woman upon whose account the Articles were framed whereas in the mean time it must be said that they should have been chiefly spoken of seeing the whole Church is filled with the noise their Writings have made and the Censures past upon them by the Pope's authority To which these Positions must in like manner be added that the love of pure Concupiscence how impious and sacrilegious soever it be doth yet prepare Sinners for to be justifyed and converted tho' this preparation proceeds from no other motions than such as are excited by the Spirit or at least the impulse thereof That justifying love whereby a person seeks not its own happiness but as a means that doth refer unto and subordinates it self to the last end which is God's glory is in this Book called mercenary which is contrary to the judgment of the Schools and that Axiom of St. Augustin so well known among Divines That we are to deliver our selves according to a known Rule That an impossible case to wit that a just Soul who loves God even to the end should yet be condemned to eternal punishments is rendred possible and that St Francis de Sales seems to have found himself to be in the same state tho neither he himself nor any of those that have writ his Life say any thing of it and that no just Soul can be brought to believe it That direct Acts and such as escape the reflections of the Soul are the very same operation of the Soul which by St. Francis de Sales are called the top of the Soul tho' he says nothing of it in all his Writings That in these Acts there is a strange and unheard of division of the Soul in it self to be found since perfect Hope subsists in the upper part as the lower is abandon'd to despair and which is worse the former is in direct Acts and the other in reflex ones which are in themselves the most deliberate and efficacious especially if allowed by the director of the Conscience insomuch that Hope being expelled by reflex Acts subsists in those that are direct That in this division of the Soul labouring under an unvoluntary impression of despair and making an absolute Sacrifice of its own interest for that of Eternity it doth die on the Cross with Christ saying my God my God why hast thou forsaken me as if despairing Souls could expire with Christ and yet bewail their state in being forsaken by him That in these last Tryals or Experiments he makes a separation between the Soul and it self according to the Example of Christ who is our pattern wherein the inferior part had no Communication with the superior neither in its unvoluntary troubles nor faintings that in this separation the motions of our inferior part are blind and full of unvoluntary Trouble As if there had been such perturbations in Christ as there are in us which is an abominable Opinion and which the fam'd Sophronius hath condemned as such with the approbation of the sixth Council As