that the latter Christians shall live in greater Perfection than those of the Primitive Church did That he will send his Holy Spirit to lay before us those means of Salvation which Jesus Christ taught us while on Earth that we may clearly see how far we are estranged from them and to give us the Light of the Truth that we may see the way to return and to take up again the same Gospel-Means and recover the Dependance of our Will on God without which none can be saved And God will give the full Understanding of all that has been delivered in his Name from the Beginning of the World both by the Holy Prophets and by Jesus Christ and his Apostles or other Saints his Disciples 2. The Original Design of God in the creating of Man being to take his Delight with him for which End he not only made Man after his own likeness but he also became Man that he might live with him in perfect Resemblance to all Eternity and this being now suspended unto Man because of his Sin until that he have accomplished his Penitence to which he is subjected by Sin yet since God does not change nor will ever alter his Designs this time of Penitence being finished Man will enter again into Communion with God as if he had never offended him He will speak to God Face to Face by his Humanity which will be rendred immortal as well as is that of Jesus Christ that they may delight themselves perfectly together upon Earth which will then be rendred Paradice by the lovely Presence of God who for this End became Man and in the End of the World will come in Glory upon Earth to Live and Reign for ever with Men which is as it were The Sum of all the Designs that God has over Men and the Alliance he has often promised to make with Man 3. All the Works of God are Eternal and nothing that he has made shall ever perish And in the End of this World at the Coming of Jesus Christ in Glory all things shall be renewed and restored into that primitive Integrity in which they were at first created All the Evil that is in the Creatures the Fruit of Man's Sins shall be wholly taken away All Nature shall then put off the Corruption Darkness and all the Disorders with which it had been tainted since Adam's Sin All shall become Bright Glorious and Luminous all Corruption shall be removed from the Body of Man and it shall be re-establish'd in that glorious perfect State in which it was at first created And the Soul become perfectly pure shall take its Delights with God and the Body with Heaven and Earth and all the other Creatures For God created them for those Ends and for no other thing that Man might have his full perfect Contentment of Body and Mind in that Life Eternal wherein Jesus Christ shall reign always in Body and Soul with the Bodies and Souls of the Blessed who shall be united in Spirit unto God and in Body unto the Body of Jesus Christ 4. After the Judgment when God shall take all Malignity from the Earth and from all the Creatures the Venom from Serpents Scorpions and other poysonous Beasts Maladies and Infirmities from the Bodies of Men and Beasts and Weaknesses from Spirits All this shall be reduced into some corner of the Earth all in a mass that these Malignities may act together upon the Bodies of the damned and that the Works of their hands be rendered unto them For God never made any of all these Evils He created all things Good Men only by their Wickedness have given Malignity unto all created things and therefore it ought to appertain to them and to be rendered to them by the Right of Justice which will come to pass at the Judgment when the Bodies of the Wicked shall rise also that none of the Works of God may perish and shall be sent into that miserable Corner with all the Evils which shall be removed from the Blessed and from the Earth from Plants Beasts and all the Elements that all these things may serve them only for Delight and Pleasure without being able to do any more Evil as they were in the Beginning of their Creation and all their Malignities which they have contracted by the Sins of Men shall be rendered unto their Authors 5. God having at the First Creation endued all living Creatures with a Power of producing their like and Man in his perfect State being endued with the same Power of producing his like without the help of another he shall be re-establish'd into the same State again So that in the Kingdom of Heaven there will be eternal Propagation but altogether Holy altogether Pure and Deified without concupiscible Appetite but by pure Acts of Love to God which will extend it self to the Production of New Creatures to the Glory of their Creator There there is not Male and Female they neither marry nor are given in Marriage but are as the Angels in Heaven XXXVIII This as a Sum of her Accessory Sentiments and they who shall consider them without prejudice will hardly think that for them she deserves to be treated either as an Heritick or as a Mad Whimsical Woman It has been already said that she does not propose them as Articles of Faith necessary to be believed by all that according to St. Augustine these only are damnable Doctrines which tend to destroy Charity the Love of God and our Neighbour which it is evident those Sentiments do not and it were easie to make appear that many other Doctrines and Practices do which pass among many for very Christian XXXIX Besides it is evident that these Sentiments tend to clear and confirm all the Truths and Doctrines of Christianity and to endear them to us They shew us the great Designs of God's Love in the Creation of Man the excellent State in which he made him and the Happiness to which he design'd him They make appear evidently that all our Evil is from our selves and all our Good from God They shew us the Ground and Reason why Man's Redemption was set about and not the fallen Angels why Jesus Christ took such Interest in Man became Intercessor and Surety for him and why his Mediation was accepted by God his Father and why after other means essay'd he at last cloath'd himself with Man's Mortality why the following of his Counsels and Example is indispensibly necessary to Salvation They represent to us the horrid Corruption that Man is fallen into by Sin both as to Soul and Body and all the Creation by him and how mad we are to gratifie our corrupt Inclinations and to love this present World They direct us to a right use of the Rods and Judgments of God and awaken us to a sence of our present State wherein all the World lies in Wickedness They give us a prospect
founded upon this that there was nothing more just than to bewail the Fault of ceasing to love so Lovely a God Yet she confest that she had run too far to an Extremity in her Mortifications and that so great that she would never tell it but to one and would never advise any to do as she had done but only to yield up themselves to God and suffer themselves to be exercis'd by him and by the Events which he sends them X. Thus she spent whole Nights in Prayer oft repeating Lord what wilt thou have me to do And being one Night in a most profound Penitence she said from the bottom of her Heart O my Lord What must I do to please thee For I have no body to teach me Speak to my Soul and it will hear thee At that Instant she heard as if another had spoke within her Forsake all earthly things Separate thy self from the Love of the Creatures Deny thy self XI She was quite astonish'd not understanding this Language and mus'd long on these Three Points thinking how she could fulfil them She thought she could not live without earthly things nor without loving the Creatures nor without loving her self Yet she said By thy Grace I will do it Lord. But when she would perform her Promise she knew not where to begin finding her self strongly engag'd in the Love of all earthly things which she did not observe before and knew not how to be disengaged Having thought on the Religious in Monasteries that they forsook all earthly things and the Conversation of the Creatures by being shut up in a Cloyster and the Love of themselves by subjecting of their Wills She ask'd leave of her Father to enter into a Cloyster of the discalceated Carmelites but he would not permit it saying He had rather see her laid in her Grave This seem'd to her a great Cruelty for she thought to find in the Cloysters the True Christians she had been seeking but she found afterwards that he knew the Cloysters better than she for after he had forbidden her and told her he would never permit her to be a Religious nor give her any Mony to enter there yet she went to Father Laurens the Director and offered to serve in the Monastery and work hard for her Bread and be content with little if he would receive her At which he smiled and said That cannot be we must have Money to build we take no Maids without Money you must find the way to get it else there is no entry here This astonish'd her greatly and she was thereby undeceiv'd as to the Cloysters resolving to forsake all Company and live alone till it should please God to shew her what she ought to do and whither to go XII The more she entered into her self the more she was enclin'd to abandon all and to retire somewhere without knowing whether her Heart was disengag'd from temporal Goods from worldly Pleasures from all Creatures Yet she did not find her self altogether free nor entirely united unto God for she was apt sometimes to turn again to what she had left She ask'd always earnestly When shall I be perfectly thine O my God And she thought he still answered her When thou shalt no longer possess any thing and shalt die to thy self And where shall I do that Lord He answered her In the Desart This made so strong an Impression on her Soul that she aspired after this but being a Maid of Eighteen Years only she was afraid of unlucky chances and was never us'd to travel and knew no way She laid aside all these Doubts and said Lord thou wilt guide me how and where it shall please thee It is for thee that I do it I will lay aside my Habit of a Maid and will take that of a Hermit that I may pass unknown XIII Having then secretly made ready this Habit while her Parents thought to have married her her Father having promis'd her to a rich French Merchant she prevented the time and on Easter Evening having cut her Hair put on the Habit and slept a little she went out of her Chamber about Four in the Morning taking nothing but One Penny to buy Bread for that Day and it being said to her in the going out Where is thy Faith in a Penny She threw it a way begging pardon of God for her Fault and saying No Lord my Faith is not in a Penny but in thee alone Thus she went away wholly delivered from the heavy Burthen of the Cares and good Things of this World and found her Soul so satisfied that she no longer wish'd for any thing upon Earth resting entirely upon God with this only fear least she should be discovered and be oblig'd to return home for she felt already more Content in this Poverty than she had done for all her Life in all the Delights of the World XIV She knew no way nor whither to go She went out at the Gate that leads to Tournay and came thither about Ten a Clock then past into the Province of Hainault and coming through a Village called Bassec where were arriv'd that Day a Company of Soldiers who were playing in the Market-Place when she had past by them and come to the end of the Village she met a number of Children at their Play who looking on her began to say it was a Maid and crying this so loud to one another the Soldiers ran to know the Fray and then taking Horse they overtook her in the Fields and stopt her asking who she was and whither she went She was surpriz'd but looking before her she saw a Church and hoping there might be some good Pastor there to deliver her she said she was going to the Pastor who would satisfie them The Commander brought her to the next Village Blatton to the old Mayor's House promising to have her to the Pastor's when once his Men were lodged There he thought to have abus'd her by force or enticement but she told him resolutely that he should first kill her or she him and that she believ'd the Earth would open to swallow him up The old Mayor and his Wife defended her and he threatned to burn the House and call'd his Men to Arms about it The Maid of the House got out at a Window and told the Pastor who coming into the Chamber where the Captain was raging like one mad gravely rebuked him and taking her by the Hand he with his Chaplain led her through the Soldiers into his Lodging the Captain sinking into an Astonishment against the Wall without stirring for the Pastor was a grave and vertuous Man of great Age whose Words had struck the Captain and taken away all his Strength and Spirit But when this was over he came with his Men to the Pastour's House to search for her and not finding her and being made believe she was gone they gallop'd toward Mons thinking to overtake her XV. The
to give a hateful Turn to ones Sentiments to make them pass for impious extravagant and ridiculous I shall therefore set down here a brief Summary of her Accessory Sentiments first premising some things that may dispose the Reader to consider them calmly and without prejudice 1. She declares they are reveal'd unto her by God and that now in the End of the World and near the Time of the Restitution of all things many things which were more darkly represented in the Holy Scriptures are now to be manifestly laid open when the Time of fulfilling all is at hand and that such things are now laid before us like a Clustre of Grapes of the Land of Promise to make us conceive something of the Beauty and Glory of the Heavenly Jerusalem 2. She declares as has been said that those Accessory Truths are not necessary to Salvation are not Articles of Faith ought not to be enquired into from a Spirit of Curiosity are not design'd for all but for those who being perswaded of them are thereby stirr'd up so much the more to the Love and Admiration of God and for others they maâ— let them alone XXXII 3. St. Augustin has given us an excellent Rule whereby to judge charitably of Sentiments and Interpretations of the Holy Scripture Whosoever says he so understands the Holy Scriptures or any part of them as that thereby he does not build up the twofold Charity the Love of God and our Neighbour he does not understand them aright But whosoever gives such a Sense of them as is profitable for advancing this Charity and yet what he says is not the particular Sense of the Writer in that place he does not err damnably neither does at all lie And if he err by a Sense which edifies Charity which is the End of the Commandment he so errs as if one by a mistake leaving the Highway should go streight over the Field to the Place whither the Way leads If these Accessory Sentiments then tend to promote the Great End of Religion the Love of God and our Neighbour tho' there were no Evidence for them from the Holy Scriptures they are neither hurtful nor damnable In giving an Account then of her Accessory Sentiments I shall consider them under these Heads Those which relat to 1. The State of the World before Man's Fall 2. The Fall of Man and its Consequences 3. The Methods taken for Man's Recovery by Jesus Christ 4. The Present State of the World 5. The Future State and the Restitution of all things And because the Series and Chain of those Accessory Sentiments cannot be well conceiv'd without some mention of the Essential Ones too I shall not scruple to do it where it is necessary to understand the Connexion of those Sentiments 1. As to the State of the World before Man's Fall the Summ of her Sentiments is as follows 1. VVHEN God created all things at First there was no Deformity in any of his Works all was Beautiful and Luminous no Grossness in the Earth no Whirlwinds and Hurricanes in the Air no Tempests in the Sea no Poison in the Herbs no Venom in Insects The Earth was all transparent throughout in it were to be seen the Plants the Stones and Metals all transparent likewise one might see thorouh it to its Center as easily as through the Air all the Beasts and Plants were all Beautiful in their respective kinds no Deformity in any of them and the Beauty of their Frame and Contrivance was to be seen throughout all being Transparent and Luminous All things were worthy of God and were Representations of his Greatness Magnificence Goodness Beauty Light and Fruitfulness in several ways and according to their different kinds 2. God having resolv'd to form a Creature that should love and enjoy him and in whose Love he would take Delight and Pleasure he creates Man after his own Image endues him with an immortal Soul breathed from himself with Understanding capable to receive him with a Heart to desire and thirst after him and cleave to him with a perfect Liberty and Free-will to do it heartily and freely and without the least Limitation or Constraint And to oblige him the more to love him his most Bountiful God and Lover gives him for an Accessory Felicity and Happiness the whole Creation subjects all his Works to him to be his Servants and to attend upon him puts all things under his Feet that he receiving the Homage and Delight of all the Creatures might return the Praise of all to God in the constant Love and Adoration of so Bountiful a God who would give himself to be lov'd and enjoy'd by him and would take his Delight with him and would give him such a world of beautiful Creatures to serve and attend upon him 3. That Man might partake of this Accessory Happiness and receive the Delight and Homage of all the Creatures and rule over them as their Lord and King he forms to him a Body as the Case and Organ of his Soul by which he might communicate with all the Creatures and rule over them and endues it with Faculties and Senses capable to give them Orders and to take in the Tribute of their Delights and Pleasures the Sense of Seeing to take in their Light and Beauty of Hearing to be entertain'd with their Melody and Musick Smelling to receive their odoriferous Steams and the Taste to relish their Sweetness and Delight the power of Moving of Speech and Gestures whereby to rule and govern them he might go to any place and make known his Will which all obeyed 4. This Body was not created by God after the manner that we see it at present but incomprehensibly more beautiful and more perfect as the Master-piece of all Nature clear subtile agile and transparent its Skin like Moscovy Glass its Flesh like Crystal its Veins like streams of Rubies its Waters like Diamonds its Nerves like the Hyacinth the Substance of the Fruits its Aliment that of all good Odours its Excrements all its Parts within and without its Bones Muscles Sinews Bowels all so bright fram'd with such Art that all the Beauties of the Universe were nothing to the least part of it The Quintessence of all Natural things was the Matter of which it was form'd and all Nature obey'd it If he design'd to go on the Waters they supported him if to the Center of the Earth it yielded to him if through the Air it was a Chariot to him The Sun the Stars the precious Stones and all the Beauties of the Earth were nothing if compar'd with the least Beauty of the Body of Man His Soul was wholly Divine his Understanding clear-sighted penetrating all the Secrets of Nature all things Divine and Supernatural 5. Man when he was created at First was endued with a Principle of Foecundity with a Power to produce his like without the help of another having within
say he is our Pledge and by his Sufferings has paid the Penalty due to our Sins having died to redeem us while we will suffer nothing nor share in his Pains being well pleased to have our Debts paid with the Goods of another It is on the other hand a great Boldness in those who think they shall be saved by their own Merits without the Merits of Jesus Christ For if Jesus Christ had not merited for them the Grace to do well they were not capable of having so much as one good Thought or Desire of doing one good Work So that all the Grace they have of doing any Good comes from the Merits of Jesus Christ tho' by Ignorance they despise it as poor blinded ones who can discern nothing thro' the Weakness of their Sight For if Jesus Christ had not come to bring Light to the World no body would have perceived his own miserable State and if he had not interceded with his Father no body would have had the Grace to receive his Light so that without Jesus Christ all Men would have remained lost thro' their Blindness and would never have been able to comprehend by what Means they ought to return to God if Jesus Christ had not come to teach them by Word and Deed. And if he had only taught them by Word as the other Prophets no body would have followed him since they believe even yet that it is impossible to imitate Jesus Christ and to follow the Evangelical Life But he himself has put it in Practice before Mens Eyes that after his Example they must endeavour to satisfie the Justice of God by the Union of his Sufferings and of his Charity which are Sacrifices more agreeable to God his Father than our unclean Offerings and our Works defiled with Sin If one had mortally offended his Equal he durst not of himself procure Peace and the Pardon of his Offence but he would interpose some Mediator who were a Friend of the offended Person to satisfie his just Wrath. But they who would be saved by their good Works have too much Pride to take Jesus Christ as Mediator but with an up-lifted Head they address to God whom they have so often offended that they rather draw down his avenging Hand upon their Heads than the Pardon of their Sins for God resists the Proud and gives his Heart to the Humble If they join'd their good Works to the Humility of Jesus Christ they might peradventure receive the Mercy of God by his Son Jesus Christ but standing up as the Pharisee who thanked God for his good Works they shall no more be justified than he was when he went out of the Temple Because he who is not cloathed with Jesus Christ is not admitted to his Father since before his Coming into the World all Men were Enemies to God So that he who is not cloathed with Jesus Christ cannot be acknowledged for his Friend far less for his Son seeing the Spirit of Jesus Christ is the only Son in which he takes Pleasure and not in another He therefore who thinks to go to God without the Mediation of Jesus Christ will be rejected as unworthy and rash because Jesus Christ is the only Door of Salvation They are Thieves who would enter by the Windows into the Kingdom of Heaven for that only belongs to the Disciples of Jesus Christ In which those greatly deceive themselves who believe that they may enter into it while they despise him or reject his Merits which have opened the Door to all those who will follow and imitate him Yet not to those who esteem Jesus Christ and his Merits but with all this will not embrace Penitence under a Pretext that Jesus Christ has satisfi'd wholly for their Sins comprehending even those which they shall commit in time to come as well as those which they have committed in time past In which Error are the most part of those who are called Christians yea amongst others the most perfect We hear nothing more ordinary in their pious Discourses than to say God is Good he will save us and Jesus Christ died to give us Entry into Paradise And with these fine Discourses every one thinks they are sure of Paradise even tho' they live and die in their natural Motions and Sentiments which is a great Mistake for God tho' he be good will save no body but him who shall satisfie his Divine Justice The Merits of the Death and Suffering of Jesus Christ will never be applied but to Souls which are regenerated in the Spirit of Jesus Christ For he has not suffered but for those who from a natural Life shall enter into a spiritual one For Jesus Christ says that all Righteousness must be fulfilled Now it were not just that they who have forsaken a Dependance upon God to depend upon their own Wills should enjoy the Merits of Jesus Christ without being converted and embracing his Spirit since he came not but to bring Sinners to Repentance and he who continues to persevere in his natural Life cannot repent and so cannot enjoy the Merits of Jesus Christ since it is not for those that he has suffered or merited but only for those who by Ignorance or Frailty have quitted their Dependance upon God and delight themselves in the Creatures without thinking they ought to delight themselves in God alone They lived in the Darkness of Death without knowing it Therefore Christ had Compassion on them and offered himself to his Father promising unto him that they should be converted and do Penitence provided he brought them the Light of Truth by which they might get out of their Darkness and their Errors In this Jesus Christ was our Pledge and answered for our Penitence with which we must be saved and not otherwise Therefore they form to themselves imaginary Ways in the Air who think that Jesus Christ is come to save us in speculative Way or by some incomprehensible Mysteries seeing our Redemption is accommodated to our Capacity But the Devil to divert us from taking the straight Way thro' which Jesus Christ walked blinds our Eyes with imaginary Things that we may never come to the Knowledge of the straight Truth making some believe that they cannot be saved by the Merits of Jesus Christ and others that his Merits will save them even though they use no Endeavours to imitate and follow him Many other Passages might I bring out of her Writings but these may shew her Sentiments in this Matter The Sum of her Sentiments comes to this That Man turning away his Heart and his Affections from God thereby all Communion between God and Man ceas'd and so Man was plung'd into an irrecoverable State of Sin and Misery as well as the fallen Angels if there had been none to interpose for him with God for whose Sake he should shew him Mercy there being nothing now in Man that could move God to have any Regard for him That Jesus Christ true God and
and to work in us the greater Detestation of Sin and of our corrupt Nature God thinks fit that we should feel in our Souls the Evil and the Bitterness of Forsaking him without which they can never be purified nor come to see God IX There is another Prejudice which has some Affinity to this and which the generality of Protestants are prepossessed with and that is because she affirms that there is a State of Purification after this Life for such Souls as are truly converted unto God and yet are not wholly purified from their Corruption and so are not immediately capable of enjoying God All corrupt Doctrine has generally some Fond of Truth with which they mingle many other things that tend to promote Men's worldly Interests the Wealth of the Clergy and the Dependance of the People Thus in the Church of Rome they have founded a Purgatory in a Place near to Hell where Souls are tormented by a material Fire from whence they are delivered by some Soul-Masses some superstitious Ceremonies the dying in a Cordelier's Habit and a thousand Fopperies of this Nature But that Souls which die truly converted unto God and yet have not attained to such a State of Purity as to be capable of enjoying him shall undergo a State of Purification before they can see God is more than probable The Sum of her Sentiments as to this are 1. That is evident none can enjoy God who are not in a State of so perfect Purity that there remains in them no Degree of Corruption neither Actual nor Habitual For no unclean thing can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven There is no Fellowship between Light and Darkness And they are only the pure in Heart who shall see God 2. It is certain that they who are truly converted unto God are in a State of Grace and Salvation tho' Sin be yet in him and the Old Adam is not yet dead If a Person full of Sins and evil Habits be in his Heart and Desires truly turned unto God he receives him into his Grace tho' his habitual Sins are not yet rooted out much more him who is greatly advanced in the Mortification of his corrupt Nature but has not yet attained to a State of perfect Purity 3. It is as certain that Conversion and Regeneration are not one and the same thing The first being the turning away from Evil to Good from Sin to God the second being the Renovation of the whole Man after the Image of God a Creature altogether new whose Will is wholly resigned to God who lives no longer but Christ lives in it 4. It is in Grace and spiritual things as it is in Nature and bodily things All things advance to their Perfection by Degrees and not in an Instant God does all things in Order in Number Weight and Measure and conformably to the Nature of the Beings he has formed We are first Children before we are Men and we advance by Degrees to the Stature and Wisdom of Men and put away Childish Things But if the Child come forth of the Womb void of the bodily Life it remains so still We are told of Children and Youth and Men in Christ Jesus and we must not think that all these States are attain'd to in an Instant in the spiritual Life no more than in the bodily 5. It cannot be denied but that many who are saved do go out of this World truly converted unto God but yet not throughly renewed and purified and as on the one hand God will not reject and cast away such Souls as seek him with all their Heart so on the other hand in this State of Impurity they are not capable of enjoying him And therefore God in his infinite Goodness Truth and Righteousness will place them in such a State as whereby all their evil Habits may be wholly rooted out all their Corruption subdued all their Filthiness cleansed and they purified as God is pure 6. This so great and so extraordinary a Change cannot be supposed to be wrought in an Instant nor yet without most sensible Pain and Labour to the Soul in whom this Change is wrought The Soul is of a most sensible Nature and when freed of this mortal Body that stupifies it its Sensibilities must be infinitely more lively and piercing and therefore the Sentiment of being deprived of the glorious Presence of God which it ardently thirsts after and of having within it Dispositions repugnant to this Enjoyment which a Ray from God manifests it to cannot but give it unspeakable Pain and Anguish We see here no sensible Being that is in Disorder can be restored to its right State without Pain and Trouble a broken Leg a disjointed Member a Part of the Body ulcer'd corrupt Humours cannot be rectified without Pain and Trouble It all the Parts and all the Members of a Body were dislocated corrupted and disordered the Pain and Trouble that would be felt in the restoring of that Body would be unspeakably greater All this is but a faint Image of the State of the Soul all its Faculties are more corrupted and disordered than it is possible for the Body to be the Restitution of which by the Operation of the Divine Grace cannot be perform'd even in this State of Stupidity without much Pain and Anguish but after this Life when the Soul is fully awakened it is supported by the Divine Grace to undergo this Change but with Dolours beyond Comparison greater No living thing can pass from one State to another without great Sensibility can enter into a new Element unto which it is not entirely conformable without suffering its Impressions with Pain weak and sickly Eyes cannot endure great Light without Pain nor a weak Body strong Nourishment without Trouble So a Soul falling into the Element of Eternity of the Divine Light and of the Fire of the Divinâ— Love if it be yet weak and ill â—sposed if iâ— have yet many contrary Disâ—â—sitions many things to be consumed many Habits to 〈…〉 out this cannot be done without great Sufferings Not that God chastises in Wrath nor that he deâ—â—â—nts to torment the Soul but that the Soul full of contrary Dispâ—sitions full of Darkness cannot receive his Light nor feel the 〈◊〉 of his Love without most sensible and dolorous Sentiments till by the Force and Continuance of these Impressions they have banish'd out all that is contrary to his Divine Light and Love which then transforms the Soul wholly into its own Nature It is unreasonable to oppose that Passage of Scripture that the Blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all Sins for the Meaning of it is not that because Jesus Christ has shed his Blood we ought to be cleansed from our Sins without Mortifications and sufferings but the quite contrary for the Blood of Jesus Christ is the Grace that he has merited by his Blood whereby we may be purified from our Sins by Sufferings and by a Conformity to his Sorrows and Death And
will tell me that you would try the Spirit of God by true Miracles and not by such as come by the Intervention of the Devil I ask by what means you shall discern between these so long as you have not that Holy Spirit which would learn you all Truth Then you would discern all things and would not need to ask Miracles to know if another be guided by that true Spirit For Faith alone would give you Evidence enough When the Pharisees ask'd Miracles of Christ and he had done some they said presently he had a Devil and that he cast out Devils by the Power of Beelzebub who was more Powerful than the inferiour Devils Do you not think that the same would happen now and if I also wrought Miracles would they not undoubtedly say that I were a Sorceress which were even to be feared since now there is no more need of Miracles except to bewitch Mens Spirits with Admiration our Faith being sufficiently confirm'd and the Gospel Law verified There is nothing wanting but that it is not put in practice and there is no need of Miracles to assure all Christians that they cannot be sav'd without the practice of it since Jesus Christ and his Apostles have so strongly affirm'd it One must deny the Gospel to believe that he can be saved without imitating Jesus Christ seeing he says that he is the way and that he who enters by him shall be saved that he also is the Door and that we cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but by him What Miracles will you require Sir from one who does no other thing but repeat the same Words which Jesus Christ and his Apostles pronounc'd and says no other thing but that to be a Christian we must have the Spirit of Jesus Christ I have done no ill to any Body nor said any other thing in Substance but that Men are fallen from the Faith and that they have by their Sins drawn down the Judgments of God upon their Heads that of necessity we must be converted to God and take up the Spirit of the Christians of the Primitive Church or otherwise we are not True Christians All these Truths are so clear that all Men ought to become silent and confounded by them silent in that they cannot bely the Truth and confounded to see that they are so far from God and the practice of True Christians But being unwilling to yield to this Truth and to be asham'd that their Degeneracy is laid open they will not be silent but strive to reproach those who tell this Truth and tempt them with Foreign Questions and Arguments even demanding of them outward Signs and Miracles as if they were of the Essence of Vertue while they cannot give the least Ray of Vertue to him who works them for True Miracles come from God and not from the Person that does them who is only his Instrument to shew to Men that which God operates So that you cannot be assured that a Person has the Holy Spirit even tho' he should work outward Miracles since Judas did them as well as the other Apostles and yet was a Devil We need another Touchstone to know the Spirit of God for St. Paul says tho' we could remove Mountains and had the Gift of Prophecy all this would be nothing without Charity It is a great Blindness to seek for Miracles and outward Signs that we may believe that a Soul is guided by the Holy Spirit It were better to search in the Scriptures what Gifts and Fruits the Holy Spirit brings always along with him and observe if they who say they are endued with the Holy Spirit have in them those Gifts and Fruits for then it is certain they are possest with the Holy Spirit for all these things are Supernatural and Divine Not that I would exclude True Miracles from Souls that love God for they would certainly do them in this present Time as much as the Apostles did them in their Days if it were necessary for God's Glory who will always do the Will of those who love him in all Times and Places But I have said all this to make appear to you that this is the least Favour that God does in this World to a faithful Soul that it has the Gift of Prophecy or of doing Miracles and that these things ought not to be valued in respect of Faith and Charity which unite Souls to God These are True Miracles with respect to the Souls of their Neighbour they restore to them Sight Health and Life and with those Philosophers Stones of Living Faith and Charity they change earthly Souls into the pure Gold of Divine Charity These are the True Miracles which shall be done in this Fulness of Time to prove the force of the Holy Spirit by the Cure of Souls more worthy beyond Comparison than Mortal Bodies The Summ of what she says on this Head is this That it is not necessary that every one who is immediately taught by the Spirit of God should prove the same by outward Miracles that they are necessary only for the Confirmation of a New Doctrine That she declares no other Doctrine than the Gospel of Jesus Christ which our Lord and his Apostles have sufficiently confirm'd already That to demand Miracles now is to tempt God and to expose our selves to be deluded by the Devil who we are told will in these last Times by his false Prophets do Signs and Lying Wonders which without the Spirit of God cannot easily be distinguished from true Ones That they are not the surest Touchstones of one's being guided and taught by the Spirit of God but the Gifts and Fruits of the Spirit particularly Living Faith and Charity and that by these the Spirit of God does greater Miracles in converting and healing the Souls of others than all outward Miracles on Bodies would amount to And that in these last Times God will manifest the Power of his Spirit by working these Miracles on Souls by turning them away from things Earthly and Temporal to things Heavenly and Eternal There were many of the ancient Prophets of whom we do not read that they wrought Miracles and their Prophesies were generally for After-times and not fulfilled in their own Days yet the People were bound to receive them as sent from God and there were sufficient Evidences for it in their Doctrine and Lives Besides it was no less than a Miracle and beyond the Power of Nature that she knew the Thoughts of other Mens Hearts and their inward Dispositions not that she always did so but when God thought fit to discover them to her either for her own Safety or for the Good of others This is oft-times declared and Instances given of it not only by her self but also by M. de Cort Poiret Tiellens Francken and many others The manner also of having so clear and comprehensive a Knowledge of Divine Things without Study Conferences Meditation or Books is no less strange
promises that if our Eye be Single our whole Body shall be full of Light and if it be Evil it will be full of Darkness For tho' a Soul have not in it self the Holy Spirit yet it shall have the Understanding enlightned to discover him in others provided it behold them with a single Eye without Dissimulation or Surprize but in the Simplicity of a Child as Jesus Christ says we must be in if we would enter into the Kingdom of Heaven They who see me write know well that I do it without any Study or humane Speculation and that it flows from my Spirit as Water flows from its Fountain and that I do nothing but lend my Hand and my Spirit to another Power than mine And God gives yet a more sure Testimony by imparting to me his Righteousness Truth and Charity For these things cannot come from Nature which being corrupted can produce no Good nor any Divine Vertues because I am come of the Corrupt Mass of Adam as all the rest of Men there could not be in me any Righteousness Truth and Charity which are all Divine and Supernatural Vertues which cannot enter into the Soul of Men but by the Work of the Holy Spirit This gives me a sufficient Testimony that I am led by God since the Devil and Nature have nothing of those Vertues And therefore we cannot find a surer Evidence that a Soul is led by the Holy Spirit than when it is possest of the Righteousness Truth and Charity of God For if we desire to see Miracles for a Proof we may be deceived since the Devil can do Miracles or things which seem Supernatural but he can never have in him the Righteousness Truth and Love of God The Good Spirit and the Evil may be known by the Qualities which they have The Spirit of God has in him a Peace and Sweetness that comforts the Soul and draws it to an inward Quiet But the Spirit of the Devil disturbs the Understanding disquiets it and robs it of Tranquility and Rest The Spirit of God acts sweetly and strongly in Peace and Tranquility of Mind All that comes from the Spirit of God is always accompanied with the Qualities of God which are Goodness Righteousness and Truth And that which comes from the Spirit of the Devil carries always the Qualities of the Devil which are Malice Injustice and Lying The Evil Spirit may sometimes move to do a good thing to draw Evil out of it but that seeming Goodness can never be accompanied with Righteousness and Truth which are the inseparable Qualities of God which the Devil may sometimes separately make use of to deceive Men aping the Works of God but he can never do a thing that is Good Just and True altogether since this appertains to God only who cannot be divided in any of these Qualities God does not speak to me by Voices Thundrings and Lightnings as he did of Old to the Prophets or as he spake to Tobit by Angels in the Likeness of Young Men or as he spoke to Jacob in the Vision of a Ladder upon which Angels did ascend and descend or as he spoke to Joseph in a Dream saying to him Take the Child and the Mother and flee into Egypt For I durst not rely upon all these things in which the Devil and the Fancy of Man may mingle themselves and make such things be seen and heard as if they came from the Spirit of God But I fix on the solid Truth of God on his Righteousness and on his Love because in such things the Devil can have no hold I have sometimes had Dreams and Visions coming from God as I may afterwards make appear by Experience but I do not rely on these Dreams and Visions unless the same things that I have seen and dream'd be confirm'd unto me by a secret Notice Intelligence after the manner that I converse ordinarily with God For so soon as the Soul is free of all Image and delivered from the agitation of its Passions and the Imagination ceases to operate then I hear the Voice of God and his Reasoning not with my Ears but with my Understanding And after this manner he makes me see and hear all that I need to know both for my own Conduct and that of others which many have experienc'd and found that I have told them the most secret things of their Hearts which neither Men nor Devils could know Never amuse your self with Discourses Visions or Revelations made to you or others if you do not perceive assuredly that they are accompanied with the Qualities of the Good Spirit of God or otherwise you will be easily deceived Remark always if what you say or do be accompanied with the Righteousness Goodness and Truth of God and then you shall assuredly hear God speak to your Soul For if you walk in these Qualities you will be in God and the Devil can deceive you no longer by Illusions or false Imaginations as he will easily do so long as you do not possess those essential Vertues of the Righteousness Goodness and Truth of God in which you ought always to walk if you would not be seduced by Satan The Devil can give Visions Ravishments or supernatural Extasies to Sorcerers yea make them foretel things to come being a subtile Spirit and foreseeing afar and by conjectures what will come to pass and he may make them fall out by the means of his Sorcerers who being powerful and numerous may by their Power and Authority bring about what has been Fore told Therefore it is fit to receive nothing for Truth but the things which lead us to a more strict Union with God and Denial of our selves These things are always Good even tho' they should come from the Devil himself we cannot be deceived in believing them I can never have the least doubt as if it were an evil Spirit that communicates himself to my Understanding for the evil Spirit could not in my Judgment produce so good and so constant Operations such as the Love of God and the Hatred of ones Self Moreover he could not separate the Soul from the Pleasures of this Life nor remove from it the coveting the Riches and Honours of the World nor give it a full Contentment in the want of all humane Consolation nor yet Joy in Hardships and Contempt All these things cannot come from the Devil for he is too opposite to all these Vertues and leads ordinarily to all sort of Evil tho' at first he cover them with Vertues The End of his Operations make appear sufficiently the Deeds of the Author and make known the Workman by his Works Thus you see how certain Marks she gives whereby to distinguish true from false Enthusiasm the Conduct and Inspiration of the Spirit of God from the Illusions of the Devil or Ones own Imagination and how Men may preserve themselves from being impos'd upon by the last That where a Soul is
Pastor ask'd who she was she told the Truth and that she fled out of the Dangers of the World to follow Jesus Christ the good Man wept and his Soul was confounded to see a Child like her quit all the Wealth and Pleasures of the World to embrace Poverty and Hardships while he after so many Years of Penitence was not come to such a Disengagement Ye he was a very Holy Man who liv'd in continual Prayer and Penitence the Story of whose Life is most remarkable the summ of it is thus XVI This Pastor of Blatton George de Lisle was design'd for the Pastoral Office from his Youth and train'd up after the ordinary ways of Study and Learning He had for some Years exercis'd the Functions of the Pastoral Charge after the manner that is usually done living after the way of the World in God's Judgment though Honestly and without Scandal in the World's Sense being often in Company as others of his rank and there diverting himself Eating Drinking and making Merry till it pleas'd God to touch his Heart and draw him from the brink of Perdition after this manner He and the Mayor having been invited on Shrove-Tuesday to make good Chear with the Lord of the Mannor after having past a part of the Night in Feasting as they came home about Midnight an enraged Soldier met them who had sworn to kill the first he met with he shot the Mayor who fell down dead at the Pastor's Feet who immediately was inwardly struck by God with these Thoughts How is it that thou art not in the place of this Man And if thou wet there in what State could thy Soul be but that of eternal Damnation dying in so wretched a Disposition as the fulness of Meat Wine and good Cheer which thou hast made O my God said he turning suddenly to God What Mercy hast thou shewn to make me now escape the eternal and certain Damnation of my Soul I 'll now watch and take care to be in a better Disposition Which he resolv'd and executed from that very Moment beginning to lead a Penitent and Christian Life without ever drawing back from it to his Death First he resolv'd to live Solitary for some time to strengthen him in Good and having substituted one to wait on his Cure for Six Months he sought out a Holy Person by whom he might be directed who accordingly for Six Months treated him with great Austerity And when he return'd to his Cure he encreas'd and continu'd what he had begun He resolved to mortifie his Body because it was so ready to tempt his Soul and to punish it for having taken too much its Ease and Pleasures Because he had pleas'd himself with fine Linen and fine Cloaths he never wore Linens any more and girded himself with a great Chain of Iron which went twice about and sunk into his Flesh Because he had lov'd to Sleep at Ease in a good Bed he caus'd them to bring his Coffin and a Stone in it for his Pillow where he lay with his Chain about his Loins all the rest of his Life Because he had taken too much Rest and past sometimes a part of the Night in Mirth and Laughter he spent Three Hours every Night from Eleven to Two after Midnight in Prayers and Tears on his Knees before the high Altar of his Church to bewail his Sins and Mens Blindness and Hardness Because he had plesa'd himself with commodious Lodging he staid in an Apartment which was almost always full of Smoke To punish the Excess he thought he had committed in Eating and Drinking he not only abstain'd from Flesh and Wine all his Days but also Seven whole Years from drinking Wine Water or any Liquor He would have been in the heats of Summer as in a Furnace all dry Mouth Tongue Palate Lips peel'd on Fire and like one in a burning Fever He renounc'd all Studies and all curious Learning referving only Two Books the Holy Bible and the Lives of the Saints in the one of which he read every Day a Chapter and in the other a Life saying of these Two Books Here 's the Doctrine the Bible and here 's the Practice the Lives of the Saints He had led this Life many Years when A. B. met with him first being then Sixty Years of Age and continued in it Twelve Years more This Holy Man had received Power from God over unclean Spirits and cur'd many possest with Devils a Lorain Soldier was brought to him afflicted with a Devil he staid with him for some Months and finding himself better went away the Pastor exhorting him to live in the fear of God least if he should fall again into Sin the Devil get more hold of him than formerly But he giving up himself to all sort of Licentiousness the Devil made him more wicked than before and among other things inspir'd him with such a hellish Rage against the Pastor that he resolv'd to kill him because he had remonstrated to him that his Life was Evil. He told it openly and threatned it for Three Years and when he came there to his Winter-Quarters they advertis'd the Pastor but he judg'd it was nothing but Menaces and thought himself unworthy to die the Death of a Martyr On Good-Friday having heard the Confessions of his Parishioners who prepar'd to communicate at Easter and all being gone out as he was rising from the Confessional Chair and prostrate before the High Altar to bewail their Sins and his own and beg God's Pardon this Soldier lurking among the Seats with his Carbine shot at him who fell suddenly down calling upon God The Villain perceiving that he yet breathed ran and gave him many strokes with his drawn Sword in the Head till he cleav'd it so as the Brains fell on the Pavement Some Children who had staid in the Church ran and publish'd the Murther He was carried into his House and lived till the next Morning tho' without Senses The Soldier died by the hand of Justice without shewing any Repentance A. B. sometimes ask'd him about his great Austerities how he came to continue them being so old since to be well pleasing to God there is nothing needful but to love him He replied You do not know me In the Age in which you see me I assure you my Flesh is yet so rebellious that if I did not tame it and make it suffer it would yet rise up against my Spirit it would rule over me and carry my Affections to things below to seek Pleasure and Satisfaction in them which would certainly turn me away from the Love of God I must therefore keep it in Subjection and Slavery least it become Mistress XVII But to return to A. B. the Pastor shut her up in a little Apartment of the Church where she was full of Consolation seeing her self disengag'd from all earthly things and retaining no Affection for any thing but a perfect Union with God Next Day he came
they will not be reduced from their supposed Errors by Noise and Banter All to the best of my Understanding that A. B. pretends to is only to be an Instrument in Christ's Hands and that no otherwise than by publishing these Truths that he by his Spirit communicated to her and which his Power and Grace alone was afterwards to make effectual Now let it be supposed but not granted that it was so What Disparagement is it to our Redeemer to make use of a poor contemptible Creature in order to accomplish great Designs Was it any Dishonour to him that his Apostles in his Name and Power converted more to the Christian Religion and wrought more Miracles than he did himself when he dwelt in mortal Flesh V. Perhaps it may be thought I am byassed in Favours of A. B. and therefore not so capable to discern that Latet Anguis in Herba I am sure if I am so my Prejudices are of no old Date they are not yet so rooted but sober and just Reasonings might discuss them and reclaim me from my Mistakes neither I think can it be said that they have been fortified from any prospect of Reputation or worldly Interest But whatever my Prejudices may be I can sincerely declare that what determined me to have an Esteem for this Person 's Writings was a Conviction that they not only recommended the great and essential Duties of the Gospel distinguished them from the Accessories discovered the Mischief of Sects and Parties and the Vanity of laying Stress on nice and airy Speculations but also because they suggested solid Principles which might serve as an Antidote against the Infusions of Atheists and Deists Pelagians and Socinians Antinomians and Fatalists and false Pretences to Inspiration And tho' I met with some things in them that seem'd a little odd and startling yet I choosed rather to suspend my Judgment since even her self does not impose them on any than forego what appear'd to me so very solid and useful Some LETTERS OF M. ANT. BOVRIGNON Whereby her True Christian Spirit and Sentiments are farther justified and vindicated particularly as to the Doctrine of the Merits and Satisfaction of Jesus Christ as is to be seen in the Third and Fourth Letters All of them are most worthy to be perused by those who sincerely love and impartially seek after the Truth and the Salvation of their Souls LETTER I. Concerning the Love of God Written to a Pastor at Mechlin and is the 15th of La lum nec en tenebr Part I. SIR I. I Know not how one of sound Judgment can love any other thing but God seeing there is no created thing that is worthy of our Love as he is being the Fountain of all Good Wisdom the Giver of all Wisdom the Beauty that creates all Beauty the Righteousness of the Righteous the Goodness of all Goodness the Accomplishment of all Perfections in short the only Object worthy of our Love without whom nothing is Lovely neither in Heaven nor in Earth Nothing without him can satisfie our Soul nothing can content it nothing can give it Perfect Pleasure nothing can make it happy neither now nor hereafter It is he who created us it is he who preserves us it is he who will judge us If Good of its own Nature is always Lovely why then does not the Soul employ all its Powers to love the Original the Perfection and the Consummation of all Good which is God II. If Likeness beget Love how can your Soul which was made after the Similitude of God live without loving him What other Lovely Object can it find without God whom only it resembles What Original or Pattern is there among all perishing Things to this Divine and Immortal Soul which cannot find its like but in God himself III. If Benefits do oblige even Nature it self to love its Benefactors how ought the Soul to love its God when he has given it all that it posseseth and has promised infinite and eternal Goods beyond Comparison in the Life to come He has given the Soul which he created of nothing He not only made it after the Similitude of the Angels of Heaven but after the likeness of God himself so that all Souls are by Creation made little Gods Could this God of Love give unto Man greater Goods and Gifts to make himself be loved by him than this Divine Creation of his Soul Immortal as himself The Body which he formed to be the Keeper and Sheath of this Soul could it have more Perfections Is there any thing in Nature more Admirable than the Body of Man animated with all the Powers of the Soul with an Understanding to conceive with a Memory to remember with a Will to act so that the very Body is in some manner an Image or Resemblance of the HOLY TRINITY IV. Could God give unto Man more and greater Gifts than he has done to oblige him to love him For after having given him a Being and Life he upholds and maintains it with all necessary things which he has likewise created for the Entertainment of this Man to whom he has subjected so many Creatures under his Power having made him Superiour over all the living Creatures and given him Authority as the Master-piece of the Works of God the Earth for his Foot-stool the Air to breath in the Fire to warm him the Water to refresh him the Fruits to nourish him the Flowers to recreate him in short all the visible and material things that God created were only for the Body of Man What must he have laid up for his Soul which is beyond all Comparison more valuable as being Divine created after the Image of God If he has made so many admirable Things for the entertainment of the Body which must die and remain for so short a time upon Earth Should not all those Gifts all those Benefits oblige Man to love such a Benefactor Seeing he has not received and can never receive any true Good without this Giver of all Good V. How can he be without loving him when he considers his Love which was not satisfied with having freely imparted unto us so many Gifts but after that this ungrateful Man had abused so many favours by turning away from his Creator to join himself to the Creature valuing the Gifts more than the Giver presuming to merit yet more he rebels against his Orders will needs out of Ambition of Spirit know more than it pleas'd his Creator and breaks his Commandment that he might equal himself unto him This God of Love who in a Moment could have punished all these Ingratitudes by an eternal Damnation unto which he had banish'd the fallen Angels lov'd Man more than the Angels and having more regard to the Love he bear him than to his Disobedience he pardons his Sin and forgives his Fault upon Condition of a temporal Penitence VI. This Testimony of Affection from a God towards his Creature
you or would wrong your Health 6. For I YIELD IN NOTHING TO NATURE knowing well that it is corrupt and begets all sort of Sins which kill the Soul and make it lose a Blessed Eternity Of necessity we must contradict it and deny all its Desires or otherwise it will lead us to all sort of eternal Miseries which few Persons do conceive For we see every one follows his own Will without thinking that he does Evil for they do not sufficiently perceive that our SELF WILL BRINGS FORTH ETERNAL DEATH as in Truth it does which I see by the Eyes of Faith And Jesus Christ has also taught us it when he says that he who does not deny himself cannot be his Disiple I cannot find more express Terms to make Man understand that he must not follow his own Will but absolutely deny it all that it asks Nevertheless we see that the best enclin'd now adays think themselves happy that they can follow their own Will which is always enclin'd towards earthly and tempoâ—al things and never towards Eternity which is unto it invisible and incomprehensible 7. For this Cause I can never Accompany one who travels towards the World and follows his own Will I must still wâ—lk alone so long as I shall not find others being like a desolate Widow who has no Companion nor Consolation in this World which is even very grievous to Nature Because it is always sociable and is pleas'd with the Society of those like to it which I have not as yet met with in this World having being always obliged to travel alone for I have found none to joyn my self unto tho' I have still sought after them and inform'd my self where are THOSE SOULS WHICH TRAVEL TOWARDS ETERNITY without having hitherto discovered any 8. I have convers'd with the Religious and Devout Persons of our side and have found them all seeking after earthly things for if they study and preach it is to recommend themselves to Men or to get their Living And secular Persons who are engag'd in the Practice of Physick or in Merchandizing do all to gain Money or to acquire Honour and Pleasure in this World So that none of those can accompany me in the way to Eternity and therefore I must walk alone or turn backward to the way of the World Which I will never do choosing rather to die alone in the way of Salvation than to follow a croud in the way of Perdition seeing the great number of the damned would never ease my Pain but rather encrease it by the encrease of the number of damned Souls Therefore I will continue in the way to Eternity tho' I should travel ALONE in it even to Death choosing rather to be alone with Jesus Christ than in a great Company with the World and Hell I know indeed my dear Child that you do not desire to follow the World or Hell but in effect you still follow them so long as you yet seek any other thing than Eternity You think you will not seek any other thing since you have resolved to quit the World But believe me so long as you yet seek to please Men and that you are afraid to displease them you are still in the way of the World And so long as you take pleasure here in the Honour or Prosit of the World you cannot relish the Delights or the Repose of Eternity And if you have yet an Esteem for Wealth it is certain you are not come to the Knowledge of eternal good things for these make one always to despse earthly Goods finding them to be vain and unworthy of our Love 9. By which you may certainly discern if you are in the way of Eternity or in that of the Earth and Time according as your Aims and Designs tend unto the one or the other This is a general Rule for ALL Men of the World by which they may measure if they are in the way to a BLESSED ETERNITY or in that which leads unto a MISERABLE ETERNITY by examining if their Cares Desires and Affections are towards earthly things or indeed towards things Eternal 10. Not that one must live in Idleness in this World for he ought continually to labour in it to accomplish the Penitence that God has enjoyn'd us But our Labour ought to respect Eternity the Glory of God the Salvation of our Soul or that of our Neighbour and all that is without this is Evil. For if one labour for this World he receives here the Recompence of his Labour and therefore he has no more to pretend to for Eternâ—ty For otherwise God would not be just seeing he who has laboured that he may gain Money having gain'd it has received the Reward of his Labour and has no Right to pretend to any other thing for he desired no other thing If you labour that you may get an Office and you obtain it your Labour is well rewarded by the obtaining of that Office If you labour in Traffick and Business that you may gain Money and if this succeed according to your Desires you must not look for any other Recompence but the Money that you have gained If you study that you may accomplish your self before Men you are rewarded by the Praises which they give you and the Esteem they have for you You see all that a Person can pretend to who labours for the Earth and for Time God cannot in Justice give him a Blessed Eternity when his Labours have no other End but the Earth towards which he travels all the Days of his Life as we see all Men do now and they think themselves Wise and Happy when they dextrously seek after their Advantages in this World For he who does it not is despised by them and look'd upon as a Fool. 11. This is the way in which all Men do travel wherein it would be impossible for me to follow or imitate them for I look upon all these things as Follies and Amusements of Satan For what can it profit a Man if he attains to some Office or Benefice or that he has heaps up Money that he may take his Delights in this World Death puts an end to all and the Praises of Men which he has acquired by improving himself are nothing but a blast of Wind which drives away the Ashes of our Corruption by forgetfulness out of their Memories And the poor Soul finds it self deprived of eternal Glory which it can never recover after this transitory Life which is the only way to a blessed or miserable Eternity It is a Folly and Deceit to hope for it He must content himself with the Earth which he lov'd and with Men whom he desired to please 12. Behold my dear Child what Recompence the Earth and Men can give them for all the Services which they shall render them nothing but the Pain and Sorrow of being forced to abandon them and Remorse of Conscience for having sought after earthly things and travelled towards a
Proposal to the Archbishop of Cambray XXIV Pere du Bois and sâ—me Maâ—â—s esteem her XXV The Jesuits disturâ— her XXVI The Bishop grants her desire XXVII The Clergy incensed against her XXVIII 〈◊〉 Bishop retracts his Permission XXIX She waits on her Mother at her Death keeps her Father's House He marries and she retires XXX Lives in great Solitude at St. Andrew XXXI I disturbed by an insolent Youth XXXII Is forced from thence by the War XXXIII Does the last Offices to her Father and succeeds to her Mother's Goods XXXIV Nothing in this contrary to the Laws of God or Man XXXV St. Saulieu accosts her XXXVI She undertakes the Care of a Hospital of Orphans XXXVII Her frequent Sicknesses there XXXVIII St. Saulieu's Persecution of her XXXIX Her Delivery from him and his end XL. She turns her House into a Cloyster XLI The Discovery of the Childrens Sorceries XLII Their Declarations XLIII No ground to disbelieve this Story or that the World swarms with such XLIV The Parents accuse her to the Magistrates XLV 〈…〉 XLVI Malefices to take a way her Life XLVII She wiâ—hdraws to Gaunt and Mechlin XLVIII Is esteem'd by Learned and Good Men there XLIX Particularly by M. de Cort L. Goes to Holland LI. â— sick at Amderdam and is visited by Persons of all Perswasions Tomb. de la fausse Theol. Part 2. Letter 1. LII Wrote here some of her Books LIII Mr. de Cort cast into a Dun geon by the Jansenists LIV. Her Concern for him and his Deliverance LV. They Peâ—â—n him in Holstein LVI Her long Sickness LVII M. de Cort had left her his Rights to Noordstrand LVIII They persecute her therefore LIX She goes to Holstein LX. The Quakers write and she Answers LXI Some Anabaptists of Friesland come to her LXII Their Behaviour LXIII The occasion of a new Persecution LXIV The Pastours of Holstein are alarmed LXV She is persecuted at Flensbourg LXVI At Husum and robb'd of her Printing Press Books and Papâ—rs LXVII General-Major Vanderwyck appears for her LXVIII The Pastors write against her LXIX She lives in great Secâ—ecy and Hazard at Sleswick the People being inflam'd by the Pastors LXX The scattering the Sheets of her Books discovers the Calumnies of the Pastors LXXI The Court gives her Protection LXXII She gives in a Confession of her Faith LXXIII The Church men prevail LXXIV She goes to Hambourg LXXV Her Exercâ—se and Writings there LXXVI She is persecâ—ted by the Pastors there LXXVII Goes to Lutzburg in Friesland LXXVIII Her Employment and Writings there LXXIX Long Sickness LXXX Persecuted anew by her Servant's Sorcerers LXXXI By those who pretended to protect her LXXXII The Pretence for it and the true Cause LXXXIII Goes to Franeker LXXXIV Her Death LXXXV Her Character Matth. 26. 48. 73. Temoign de Vertie Part 1. p. 146. Tomb. de la fausse Theol. Part 3. Letter 1. nu 17 18. Avis salut lett 133. I. The Occasion of the Letter II. Necessary Qualifications in Writers of Narratives und Characters III. These wanting in the Authours of the Preface to the Snake in the Grass and Bourignanism detected IV. The first Authour's rash and spiteful Charge against A. B. V. A. B. Vindicated from the 1 Of blasphemous Priâ—â— Parole de Dieu p. 127. Temoig de verite Part 2. p. 47. Ibid. p. 59 60. Iâ—id p. 81 â—â— VI. From the 2. That she overturn'd Priesthood c. * Sâ— Is 1. VII From the 3 Of Uncharitableness c. * p. 63 161 c. Gen. 6 12. Ps 14. 3. Mic. 7. 2. b Light of the World Part 1. p. 47. c â—emo igâ— de veâ—iâ—e Part 2. p. 71. VIII From the 4 Of 〈…〉 the Design 〈…〉 IX From the 5 Of her denying the Satisfaction of Jesus Christ * p 86 87 c. * See Apâ—logy p. 59 c. Light of the World p. 139. Light of the World p. 142. X. From the 6 Of her Contempt of the Holy Scriptures * p. 159 c. XI From the 7 Of her wild and barbarous Notions * See the Apology p. 72. c. * Ibid. p. 180. c. XII The undiscreet Treatment of M. Poiret pag. 127 c. XIII The Fury of his Zeal wrong levell'd XIV The Doctor the Author of the Narratives the Occasion of all this Noiseâ— XV. Great Caution to be used in judging of Spiritual Things XVI The Falseness of the Charge of a Sect. XVII His Uacharitableness to his Country-men XVIII In both the Narratives he fights with his own Shadow XIX His Disin genuity in his Narrations XX. Appears in his unjust Way of forming her Character 1. By pâ—ecing together half Sentiments from different Places 2. By borrowing pieces of it from her avow'd Enemies * Nar. 1. p. 75. 3. By obtruding false Translations Rev. 4. 14 4. By affirming things as said of her without giving Evidence * Pâ—eface §. 2. * p. 3. §. 3. p. 5. §. 4. 5. By drawing Consequences contrary to their Principles which their Sayings do not infer and they expresly disclaim Nar. 1. p. 18. §. 10. c. La paix de bonnes ames p. 186 c XXI The Dr's great Mistake as to the Regard required to the Testimony of Men. See Apology p. 14. c. XXII The true Reasons why A. B. was highly esteemed not adduced by the Doctor Nor those adduced sufficiently disproved As 1. her Sanctity * See Apology p. 137. The Doctor not faithful in relating the Proofs of her Sanctity * See Apology p. 42 43. XXIII His Reasons against her Sanctity disproved and she vindicated from 1. That of a light and vain Conversation 2. From following her own Humour without any regard to the Principles of Religion 3. From her Disobedience toâ—her Parents 4. From Covetousness because of her Law Suits a Vie exter â— 49. b 〈…〉 c ibid. n. 57. d Viâ— exter n. 52 54. e ib. n. 5 49 51. f ib. p. 180. g ib. and Part de Dien n. 9. p. 163. h Parole de Dieu p. 67. i Vie exter p. 186. k Avâ—s salut p. 86. l Vie Continuè◠cap. 12. p. 128 129. Temoign de Verite Part 2. p 3â—2 303 * Avertis contre les Tremb p 213 c. XXIV 〈…〉 c. XXV 2. Her Knowledge of secret Thoughts not disproved XXVI 3. Her foretelling things to coâ—e not disproved * Apology p. 230. c. XXVII 4. The Supernatural Means of her Knowledge not disprov'd XXVIII 〈…〉 c. 3â— n. 5 6 〈…〉 XXIX Just Remarks upon what 〈◊〉 of the 〈◊〉 Narra 1. p. 75. Ibid. p 76. XXX Some Remarks upon the Second Narrative 1. He persists in his false Representations 2. In his Curtailings and Glossings Nar. 2. p 4. Light of the World Part 2. p. 84. Light of the World Part 1. p. 92. Nar. 2. p. 5. Light of the World Part â— p. 39. 3. Makes Questions upon a false Supposition 4. He opposeth the Truth and joins with the Pelagians Light of the World Part 2. Conf. 13. p. 85. e 1 Cor. 6 17. D. C. Nar. p. 36 37. 5. A just Character of M Poiret and the Narrator's unchristian dealing with him considered Tem. des S. Ecrit p. 387 388. Ibid. p. 402 4â—3 D. C's Essays part 2. pag. 163 164 165. 6 The Narrator's Mistakes as to the comparison betwixt Jes Christ's First birth and the Renovatioâ— of his Gospel Spirit 7 His rash Censure of things he does not understand Narr 2. p. 49. 8. His 〈…〉 〈…〉 I. The Occasion and Design of the Letter II. Remarks upon Doctor Cock bourn's Letter to his Friend 1. H. judging others condemns himself * Letter p. 2. 2. Unjust 〈…〉 and 〈◊〉 * Pag. 9. c. â— pag. â—â— 3. The Doctor in Danger by becoming hâ—s own Interpreter * Pag. 30. 4. Not just in making of Characters 5. Makes a Controversie where there is none A. B's Writings valuable for their Plainness Simplicity and Disinterestedness 7. The Doctor 's Prenciples not friendly to St. Paul Etoile du Matin p. 23. 8. His Rudeness to A. b's Friends 9. His Rudeness to the Philadelphian III. Remarks upon the second Narrative 1. A. B's Pretences to Sanctity not so high at he describes them for she does not exalt her self above the Prophets c. She does not pretend to be without Sin or Corruption Solid Vertue Part 2. p. 71. She owns her Failings * 1 Narrat p. 49. In that very passage cited by the Author Vie exter p. 150. * Pag. 6. He most injuriously mistakes and translates some of A. B's words Put malicious glosses upon others * Tomb. dela Faus Theol. part 2. let 14. p. 115. Ibid. Ibid. Pag. 7. Pag. 2. 2. A. B. â—as made no Additions to the Essentials of Christianity * a Nar. p. 11. 3. Her Expression about Moses's Chair no mark of Pride * 2 Nar. p. 11. Pierre dâ— Touche p. 286. 4 Her Pretences to Knowledge not such as he describes them 2 Nar. p. 15. 5. That she requires the same respect to her Sayings as to the Scripture is false 2 Nar. p. 20 22. * Lum en ten part i. pag. 2. 6. The Doctor draws unjust and invidicus Consiquences 1. Instance * Light of the World Part 2. p. 85. Matt. 5. 14. 1. Tim. 4. 16. * Pag. 32. Second Instance * Light of the World Part 2. Conf. 17. p. 128 129 7. The Doctor 's Ignorance of A. B.'s Princâ—ples appears 2. Nar. p. 33. n. 7. IV. A 〈◊〉 Survâ—r of the Doctor 's whole Performance with Reflections on his undisercet Zeal 2 Nar. p 55. Letteâ— p. 21. V. 5. The Writer apologizeth for himself I. God alone Lovely Motives to the Love of God 1. He is the Fountain and Accomplishment of all Good II. 2. The Soul's Likeness to him III. 3. Of the Benefits bestowed by him upon the Soul and Body IV. 4. The Provision he has made both for Soul and Body V. 5. His Mercy to become the Saviour of Man VI. 6. His Inacrnation VII 7. His Annihilation VIII 8. His becoming a Teacher and Prophet IX 9. His becoming a Priest X. 10. That he gave his Life even for his Enemies XI 11. The Advantages of Divine Love XII 12. The Vanity of the earthly Love of Riches Honours Pleasures XIII 13. Nothing Lovely but God 14. Without him all is Folly and Misery
Christians I 've sought from my Nativity I liv'd I wrote to shew how such to be Convinc'd the World of â—rrors sins abuses All hate me for 't each one my NAME traduces To death they persecute me every where How should I other Lot than JESUS bear AN APOLOGY FOR M. Antonia Bourignon In Four Parts I. An Abstract of her Sentiments and a Character of her Writings II. An Answer to the Prejudices raised against them III. The Evidences she brings of her being led by the Spirit of God with her Answers to the Prejudices opposed thereunto To which is added A Dissertation of Dr. De Heyde on the same Subject IV. An Abstract of her Life To which are added Two LETTERS from different Hands containing REMARKS on the Preface to the Snake in the Grass and Bourignianism Detected AS ALSO Some of her own Letters whereby her True Christian Spirit and Sentiments are farther justified and vindicated particularly as to the Doctrine of the Merits and Satisfaction of Jesus Christ Non multum Disputandum Nuda enim Veritas seipsam Validissime tutatur probé intellecta genuinâ suâ luce tenebras omnes Dispellit Rob. Leighton Archiep. Glasc Prelect Theol Paraenes p 199 LONDON Printed for D. Brown at the Black Swan without Temple Bar S. Manship at the Ship in Cornhil R. Parker at the Unicorn under the Piazza's of the Royal-Exchange and H Newman at the Grashopper in the Poultry 1699. THE PREFACE I. SVch and so universal are the Prejudices raised amongst all Parties against the Writings and Sentiments of A. B. that the Sight of the very Title Page of this Apology will make some perhaps throw it by which Disdain scorning to look into it others to take it up in Derision and ask What would this Babler say Others to pry into it with an evil Eye with a Design only to carp at it and to pick out here and there some Expressions or Sentiments which differ from the ordinary Systems and put them in such a Dress as may excite the Hatred and Derision of the People II. But being fully perswaded in my Conscience that those Writings do greatly tend to revive the Life and Spirit of Christianity which is acknowledg'd to be so much decay'd and lost amongst all the Parties of Christendom and knowing that there are many well-disposed Persons who are frightned from lookâ—ng into them because of the odious Representations made of them and the Prejudices given them against them who if these Prejudices were remov'd would certainly peruse them with Delight and Profit to their Souls and would sensibly â—eel that the True Doctrine of Jesus Christ and the only way to eternal Life chalk'd out in his Life and Sayings is there plainly and distinctly represâ—nted I shall therefore in all Sincerity without Respect of Parties or Persons write this Apology And I do earnestly beg of Almighty God the Father and Fountain of all Light and Love that he may be pleas'd so to illuminate my Mind with his Heavenly Light and warm my Heart with his Divine Love that I may utter nothing but what flows from or tends to both and that some Rays of both may stream through this Writing to touch the Hearts and Spirits of others III. To dispose Persons to hearken to and to make a right use of an Apology of this Nature it is fit to premise two things First That it needs not prejudice any against A. B. and her Writings so far as not to listen to an Apology for both that they know she is evil spoken of said to be an Enthusiast an Enchantress a Blasphemer a Seducer and the Devil of a Saint that her Writings are said to be full of Heresies Delusions and Errors and that by Persons of all Parties Papists Protestants Lutherans Calvinists Presbyterians Episcopal Persons Anabaptists Quakers and even by the Preachers and Writers and Learned Men of the respective Parties for there is nothing more ordinary than for the most Innocent and the most Vpright to be thus treated Woe to you when all Men shall speak well of you This was the Treatment that Innocence and Truth it self met with our Lord Jesus Christ He was made to pass for a Blasphemer a Sorcerer a Perverter of the Law of God The most Learned and the most Godly in his Age hated him They who in other things stood at the greatest Distance did agree in this Herod and Pilate the Pharisees and Sadducees the Jews and Samaritans So that this may be rather a favourable Prejudice on her behalf at least so far as to allow her a fair Hearing IV. 2. I shall entreat you may not come to read this Apology nor the Writings to which it invites you with an evil Eye They who come to consider Writings or Persons with this Disposition are not capable of understanding them aright themselves or of giving a true Representation of them to others I know no Person tho' never so innocent nor Truth tho' never so clear nor Book tho writ with never so much Plainness Sincerity and Consistency which they who consider with this Spirit may not mistake expose misrepresent and ridicule Nothing more true than our Saviour's Words nothing more confirm'd from daily Experience The Light of the Body is the Eye if therefore thine Eye be single thy whole Body shall be full of Light but if thine Eye be Evil thy whole Body shall be full of Darkness It was from those different Dispositions that our Lord himself and his Doctrine met with such different Entertainment in the World They who were full of Self-love and Esteem and desir'd to love God and the World both to please Him and their Appâ—tites too to get and keep that Rank in the Esteem of Men which they thought they merited and hugg'd the Glosses and Sences they had put upon God's Law by which they had reconcil'd it with the following of their own corrupt Inclinations such look'd on all that Jesus said aud did with an evil Eye they never came to hear him but with a Design to catch him in his Words and they found out ways to put a hard Sence upon every thing The Miracles he wrought they said were done by the Power of the Devil they accus'd him of breaking the Sabbath Day and of countenancing it in his Disciples of Blasphemy in calling himself the Son of God of Pride in speaking well of himself of a Design to destroy the Law and seduce the People by his Doctrine and they made him an Enemy to Caesar in calling himself a King But the sincere and the single-hearted who came with a pure and upright Desire and Intention to understand and to follow the Truth did readily embrace the Doctrine of Jesus Christ the entrance of his Words gave them Light and Understanding and they were so fully satisfied of the great things of God's Law that they were not apt to wrest or mistake his Sayings or Actions in things of lesser moment
does from a Fountain She needed not it seems the Buckets of Study and Meditation wherewith to draw out of the broken Cisterns of others but she had within her a Fountain of living Water still springing up to everlasting Life As this is attested by those who were of her particular Acquaintance and all her Manuscripts are still extant written with her own Hand so a particular Account is given given of this by Mr. Francken Merchant at Amsterdam in his Testimony concerning her where among other things he tells That a learned Man of Amsterdam a Doctor of Law said to him one Day that he could not believe but it was some learned Man who had writ these Letters and publish'd them under the Name of A. B. as not being willing to be known and Mr. Francken assur'd him of the contrary but however he not having had long time to converse with her he would take care to inform himself more narrowly so as to be able to convince him as it fell out for some time since after he had told him he had often found her in her little Chamber with a Piece of Deal Board on her Knees writing without any other Thing but the Paper on which she wrote and the Pen and Ink which she made use of and she leaving off to write upon her Discovering that he was in the Room and because she never wrote but with Attention to the Voice of God in the inward Silence and Recollection of her Spirit he would take up the Paper with her Permission to read it and found it was writ so swiftly that there would be yet ten or twelve Lines fresh and wet Having made this Trial of it his Friend he says was perswaded of it as much as if he had seen it himself having full Confidence in his Sincerity from long Experience and Familiarity XXX 15. That which ought greatly to recommend her Writings to us is the Conformity of her Life and Practice It is the general Complaint concerning those who recommend Vertue and a truly Christian Life to others that they do not practice it themselves that they speak by one Principle and live by another and so their Words have little Force and they destroy Christianity one way more than it is possible for them to build it up another I know some have made an ill Use of the Elogies which have been given of her Life and Spirit by those who were Eye-witnesses of all like Spiders sucking Poison from the Flowers where the Bees gather Honey they exaggerate some of their Expressions far beyond the Intent of them and in Opposition to the Testimonies of those who were living Witnesses of her Life they some eighteen Years after she is dead will needs draw a Picture of her that may represent her very ugly with what Equity and Candour will appear in its due Place However any who shall read impartially the Story of her Life and the Testimonies given of her throughout all the Periods of it â— will conceive better Thoughts of her than what the New Narratives would give of them They will see that she liv'd constantly as one travelling towards Eternity and therein studying in all things to conform her Life to that of Jesus Christ in these and such-like Instances She convers'd always with God and no more with Men than her Duty and Charity requir'd she led a Life of continual Penitence mortifying her corrupt Nature and never gratifying her sensual Appetites in any thing Tho' she might have enjoy'd the Pleasures of her Senses the Delights of her Taste and of her other Senses yet she voluntarily depriv'd herself of them to please God Tho' she had lawfully acquir'd Riches yet would never use them but for pure Necessity Tho' she might have been conveniently serv'd and honour'd according to her Condition yet she despis'd these Honours and Services to imitate Jesus Christ loving rather to live unknown and serve herself than to be serv'd There was nothing observ'd in her Actions contrary to the Righteousness Goodness and Truth of God but they appear'd still to be accompanied with those three Qualities deriv'd from the Spirit of God She never recommended to any the Practice of a Vertue which she did not most exemplarily practice herself She was most humble and self-denied always ready to serve others rather than be serv'd by them and to take to her self the meanest and the least of every thing She did not affect to be thought humble by humble Words Gestures Habits c. nor did she distinguish her self from the rest of the World by any singular indifferent Thing but as to Habit Diet c. conform'd her self to the Customs of the Places where she happen'd to be So great was her Charity that she brought up some hundreds of Girls maintaining fifty of them at a time for the space of seven Years on her own Charges what was allow'd by the Founder being only for ten employing her Time Wealth Strength of Body and Mind in Training them up in all Vertuous Exercises and distinguishing herself in nothing from them as to Diet Bread Apparel c. Such was her Love to Men's Souls that she spared nothing to perswade them to the Love of God and to Imitate Jesus Christ and employ'd her Time and Wealth in writing and publishing the Truths of God for that End She suffer'd patiently all manner of Reproaches and Persecutions for the Sake of Jesus Christ She had an invincible Firmness and Constancy in what was Truth Nothing could shake or alter her She did nothing to please Men She had a constant Equality of Mind in all Conditions She discover'd a wonderful Prudence on all Occasions Let any body but read the Testimonies given of her by those who knew her in her Youth in her old Age and in all States of her Life as they are set down in Recucil des Temoignages and particularly that of Mr. Francken Merchant of Amsterdam and they will see how closely she was a Follower of Jesus Christ in Humility and Poverty of Spirit in a Contempt of all earthly Things in a Life of Labour and Penitence and in the true Love of God and the Souls of Men. Now Writings whose Substance and Essence contains such excellent Truths as those I have mention'd in the Account of the Essentials of Christianity and which have such remarkable Qualities and penn'd by one who liv'd so her self ought certainly to meet with some Regard and not to be immediately thrown away and People frighted from looking into them because there are in them some Sentiments which do not relish and seem to us Extravagant XXXI But perhaps it will be said that those Doctrines which she calls Accessories may be dangerous Opinions and damnable Doctrines and that what she seems to build with the one Hand she pulls down with the other that she makes a Mahumetan Paradise Eating and Drinking and Generation in the Kingdom of Heaven How easie a thing is it
his Body the Principles of both Natures and in that respect being a compleat and perfect Man which Power was actuated upon ardent Acts of Love to God and a Desire to produce a Creature like himself to love and enjoy his Maker 6. Adam while he was in perfect Innocence did thus produce one like himself who was the First-Born of every Creature the Second Adam and the Son of Man And God being desirous to give to Man a full and perfect Contentment in Body and Spirit and to dwell with him bodily and visibly so that he might Converse with Man as a Friend with his Friend he therefore not only made Man after his Image but he becomes like to Man he unites himself to the Humane Nature in the Second Adam that he might Converse familiarly with Man by an Organ to be seen heard and felt by him conformable to his Nature This is Jesus Christ Eternal God and True Man 7. Notwithstanding of this Adam swimming amidst all sensible Delights the Time of Trial given him being then a State of Delight and Pleasure began to lean too much towards them and to please himself in them without turning his Soul so constranly towards God and so became less sensible of the Motions of God's Light and Love upon his Spirit being taken up too much other ways which encreasing still upon him to prevent his total Degeneracy and that he might not sink so low as to place his Love and Affections on things which were only earthly and material God resolves to make a Help for him he for this end takes one of the Principles of Foecundity out of Man and therewith forms the Woman who being form'd more Beautiful than any of the Creatures and being a more lively Representation of God he might love her in God as God's Image being endued with a Divine Soul as he was and so she might take off his Affections from the other Creatures and raise them towards God 2. As to Man 's total Fall and the Consequences thereof 1. THE Woman who was given for a Help to Man to keep him from a total Degeneracy listning to the Temptations of the Serpent the most subtile and beautiful of all the Beasts turn'd away from God her self and led on Man to do so too both of them shaking off their Dependance upon God and his Will and following their own Wills and breaking a just and easie Command that God had given them forbidding them to eat of the Fruit of one Tree as an Acknowledgement of Homage to their Great Creator and Benefactor and that they held all of him 2. As by turning from the Sun we fall into Darkness and Obscurity so Man much more by turning away from God and setting his Heart upon the Creatures brings an universal Corruption and Misery on himself and on all the Creatures which had been subjected to him Above all Sin corrupted Man's Soul did it the greatest Mischief having damn'd it eternally and made it like unto the Devil For both were created by God to love him and when they both withdraw this Love from God to love themselves or other Creatures they are equally become Devils the one incarnate and the other spiritual depriv'd of all sort of Good and fallen into all sort of Evil. So that if Man will consider himself narrowly he shall find his Soul defil'd with all sort of Sins fill'd with Injustice subject to Lying enclin'd to Covetousness blown up with Pride furious with Anger Lustful Gluttonous Sloathful Negligent with all other sort of Sins which reside in the depth of his Soul Sin so corrupted his Will that he had always a Bent and Inclination to Evil so that all that comes from the Self-will of Man is Sin his Self-will being fill'd with nothing but Self-love Sin has also so corrupted his Reason that it is no longer capable of discerning and judging aright of things It has so darkened his Memory and confounded his Understanding that he takes Evil for Good and Good for Evil without Judgment and Reason From the Corruption of his Soul did flow that of his Body all its Humours and Parts being disordered his glorious Body becomes filthy dark and deform'd in every part of it contracts that gross Crust of Corruption which we now carry about with us and which has seiz'd on every the least part of it within and without so that our First Parents were asham'd of themselves sought wherewith to cover their Nakedness and went and hid themselves The Senses also became gross dull and feeble could discern nothing but the outside of things and the whole Body became full of disorder within subject to the ill Impressions of all the Creatures and at last to Dissolution and Death 3. Man by his Fall brought also a Corruption and Deformity upon all the Creatures which had been subjected to him the Earth became gross and dark barren and unfruitful and all the Creatures became hurtful and mischievous to Man and rose up against him who had shaken off his Allegiance to their Bountiful Creator The Air stifles him the Waters drown him the Fire burns him the Earth Corn and Trees deny him their Fruits without his Care and Labour the Stars send bad Influences on him and he is subjected to Cold Heat Hunger Thirst Weariness and innumerable other Evils being deprived of the Dominion he had over all things and subjected unto them 4. All Men in the World are the Natural Off-spring of Adam and do descend from him both as to Body and Soul so that they must partake of the same Qualities with him being all his Living Images and therefore all Men who were in his Loins when he turn'd away from God sinned in him and do inherit his Corruption and Misery both of Body and Mind as if he had not sinned he had produc'd all Men to Salvation as God created them But every Man for himself would have had the same Liberty that Adam had to remain firm in the Love of God or to turn away from it by placing his Affections on himself or other Creatures He might damn or save himself during this Time of Trial and all who had remained faithful to God would have been saved on the contrary all who had withdrawn their Affections from him to love any other thing would have been damn'd and their Posterity would have been in the same State tho' Adam had never sinn'd So free and independent would Men have been during their Time of Trial which is that in which we live at present and must continue till the Day of Judgment And then being confirm'd in Grace as the faithful Angels are they could never fall away being perfectly united to God after this Time of Trial. 3. As to the Means and Method for Man's Recovery 1. ALL Mankind had been thus irrecoverably lost and damn'd as the fallen Angels are if the Son of God our elder Brother had
not interpos'd and become a Mediator between God and them who being touch'd with a deep fence of the wretched State into which Man had plung'd himself he ardently prays and interceeds with his Heavenly Father that he would have pity on those his wretched rebellious Creatures and his Brethren that he would be pleas'd to pardon them grant them his Grace tho' most unworthy of it and â—llow them yet a Time of Trial becoming Surety for them that they should detest and abhor their Corruption deny themselves and return to the Love of God His Mediation is accepted and upon the account of his Merits and Intercession Man is pardoned Grace is given him of new and a Time of Trial allow'd him in which he must lead a Life of Penitence and thereby mortifie his Corrupt Nature and return to the Love of God 2. The Time of Trial given to Man at first was a State of Pleasure and Delights but since the Fall of Man the Time of Trial assign'd him is a State of Labour and Toil and therefore God thrust Man out of a delightful Paradice and suffered the Malediction and Curse of his Sin to fall upon the Creatures in a great measure that they all might afford him Vexation instead of Pleasure and so he might have occasion of doing Penitence because he had turn'd away his Heart and Affections from God and set them on the Creature 3. The Son of God having undertaken the Recovery of Mankind out of pure Love and Compassion he provides means and remedies according to the different states of their Maladies The First Command he gives Man as a necessary mean of his Recovery is a Life of Penitence and Labour to eat his Meat in the sweat of his Face but Men multiplying their Sins he multiplied his Commands as so many means to turn them from their Sins and gave them variety of Precepts to make them think upon God in all their Actions and Words so that their Hearts might be in a continual Elevation to him But they cleave to the Letter of the Law without comprehending the Sence of it and turn'd away yet more from the Love of God placing their Affections on the Creatures the Riches Pleasures and Honours of this Life pleasing themselves with the outside of their Rites and Ceremonies 4. When all other means prov'd unsuccessful Jesus Christ tries the last Remedy Men were not capable in their Mortal State of being taught by him in his Glorious Body He had obtain'd of his Father to give them in Spirit good Thoughts and Motions yea Divine and Supernatural Light but all this was not capable to convert them or to make them sensible they were in a State of Damnation because of each one 's inveterate habit to follow their brutish Nature There was need of a Mean visible and sensible to their Corruption to move their Hearts otherwise they had all been lost without a sence of their own Misery all perishing without perceiving it by a damnable Imitation of one another thus all running in the Broad Way to Hell Having therefore obtain'd from his Father Mercy and Pardon for them upon their Repentance Jesus Christ resolves to become a Mortal Man He therefore cloaths himself with our Mortality and bringing along with him his Divine Light to enlighten them and his Divine Love to enflame them he becomes in all things like to Corrupt Man yet without Sin he teaches them by his Word and his by Example how they should mortifie their Corrupt Nature do Penitence and recover the Love of God he charges himself with the miseries and frailty that Sin has brought upon Humane Nature taking on himself all their Maledictions and the Punishments due to their Sins which he did bear and suffer as if he had been the greatest of all Sinners living a Life of extream Poverty Labour Contempt and Pain undergoing a shameful painful and accursed Death and so obtaining Pardon for all who should thus follow his Steps 5. God made his Will known to good Men to the ancient Patriarchs and Prophets by the Organ of the Glorious Body of Jesus Christ But since Men were taught by Jesus Christ in his Mortal Body there is no need to see or understand by his Glorious Body They have received the Light of Truth so that they need not bodily Visions to understand the Will of God Jesus Christ speaks now to them in Spirit and in Truth enlightning Souls with his Divine Light inwardly by his Holy Spirit which operates in Souls disengag'd from themselves and from all earthly Affections acting in them sweetly and powerfully when the Soul is in Peace and Tranquility of Mind It hears then as a soft Wind which surrounding it with Joy makes it see what it ought to do and avoid both for its own Conduct and for that of other well-dispos'd People 4. As to the Present State of the World the Summ of her Accessory Sentiments are 1. THAT all Men have corrupted their Ways and that there are no True Christians in the World truly mortified to corrupt Nature and regenerated in the Love of God and the Spirit of Jesus Christ 2. That the present State of Christendom is a perfect Babel our Language being confounded and the Builders do not understand one another 3. That we have glossed away the Laws and Doctrine of Jesus Christ by our Expositions as much as the Scribes and Pharisees did Moses's Law by their Traditions 4. That we live presently in the Reign of Antichrist and that he rules in Spirit through all the Earth by his Three Antichristian Qualities which he sheds into Man's Nature Injustice Malice and Hypocrisie under a cover of Religion in Opposition to the Three Divine Qualities Righteousness Goodness and Truth which Jesus Christ came to plant in the Hearts and Lives of all his Disciples That Men seduce one another under fair Appearances That Sin is mask'd with Holiness and cover'd with Hypocrisie 5. That the Source of all the Evils in the Church is in the Corruption of the Pastors and Churchmen and that the Abomination of Desolation is in the Sanctuary That all the Degeneracy of Christians comes from the Degeneracy of their Guides 6. That the Wickedness of Man now being Universal and come to a height greater than in the Days of Noah the Sentence of Gods last Judgments is irrevocably past and the Plagues are begun and will continue till that by War Famine Pestilence and other grievous Judgments all the Wicked be consumed from off the Face of the Earth but this shall be done slowly and in a Course of many Years that many may thereby be awakened and brought to Repentance 5. As to the State of Things to come her Sentiments are 1. THAT God will yet once renew his Gospel-Spirit upon Earth and will fill well-disposed Souls with the Spirit that Jesus Christ had while upon Earth and
seems therefore now that all was not good as he had made it that Man began to abuse the Free Will that God had given him to be less ardent in his Love and Dependance upon God and to lean towards the Creatures and therefore to prevent his total Fall he makes a Help-meet for him gives him a Companion endu'd with an immortal Soul and the living Image of God as himself that in Loving this living Image of the Divinity as himself his Affection might be raised and strengthened in the Love of God 4. That Jesus Christ was come immediately from Adam and that God in him did assume the human Nature before the Fall of Man is insinuated by those Instances in the Holy Scripture that he is call'd peculiarly the Son of Man there being none other so but he the second Adam that he is said to be the First-born of every Creature none of the Creatures having produc'd any of their Kinds before Adam that the Lord conversed familiarly with Adam and spoke with him Face to Face and he heard the Lord walking in the Garden and hid himself Thus it was God in the human Nature Jesus Christ that spoke to Adam to Noah to Abraham to Jacob to Moses to the Patriarchs and the Prophets The Interpretations which by latter Writers are given of those Apparitions are an evident Straining of the Text as to say that it is a created Angel a Simple Creature who says I am the God of thy Father the God of Abraham And Moses hid his Face for he was afraid to look upon God It was he who in Person did lead the Israelites by Day in a Pillar of a Cloud and by Night in a Pillar of Fire out of which he spake to Moses Face to Face as a Friend speaketh to his Friend Thus after the Idolatry of the Golden Calf he threatned not to go up any longer in the midst of them but to send an Angel before them And when Moses desired to see his Glory he was covered with the Lord's Hand while he passed by and permitted only to see his back Parts because he could not see his Face and live the Weakness of our corrupt Nature not being able to behold that Glory without being dissolv'd and yet this Divine Body tho' covered with a Cloud made such Impression by the Rays of its Glory on the Body of Moses as that after forty days Conversation his Countenance did shine And the ancient Fathers were so sensible that all this could not be said of an Angel that many of them were in the Opinion that the Son of God did assume a human Body before he was incarnate and therein appeared to Adam and the Patriarchs so Justin Martyr Tertullian Irenaeus c. A very pious and learned Divine of the Church of England has of late made appear that Jesus Christ immediately after the Fall of Man became the Mediatior and Surety of a New Covenant and so under the most high God and Father did immediately rule and govern his Church and People and that therefore 1. There was a certain extraordinary Angel who frequently appeared and spoke to the Jewish Patriarchs who is sometimes called Jehovah who ordinarily assumed to himself Divine Appellations and to whom the holy Men rendred Divine Honours Vows and Sacrifices and that he appear'd to them in the Form of a Man 2. That he was a Divine Person and no created Being 3. That he was that Divine Person that descended upon Mount Sinai and from thence removed into the Tabernacle and thence into the Temple 4. That he was not God the Father 5. That he was God the Son who appeared to the Patriarchs Joh. 8. 56 58. brought Israel out of Egypt and descended on Mount Sinai Heb. 12. 16. Eph. 4. 8. Psal 68. led them thro' the Wilderness into Canaan 1 Cor. 10. 9. dwelt in the Jewish Tabernacle and Temple Joh. 12. 41. compared with Is 6. 1. and was that Jehovah and Divine Lord and King who under the most high Father presided over the Jewish Church Eph. 5 14. with Is 60. 1. Is 41. 4. and 48. 12. with Rev. 1. 2 17. and 2. 8. and after his coming into the World he still retain'd his Right and Title of King of Israel Matth. 2. 2. Joh. 1. 49. and 12. 13. Zech. 9. 9 14 15. Joh. 18. 33 34 35 36 37. Now it being evident that immediately after the Fall of Man Jesus Christ became a Mediatour and Surety for him that he took the immediate Care of his People and often appeared to them in the Form of a Man is it not as agreeable with the Analogy of Faith and the Holy Scriptures to say he was truly so than to affirm that he took only the Appearance of a Man till he cloathed himself with our Frailty and Mortality Besides this is a wonderful Instance of the infinite Wisdom and Goodness of God that so many of the Angels having fallen from their first State and so all Intercourse between God and them broken off to prevent the Fall of Man or if he should fall that there might be a way for his Recovery and that there might be one for whose Sake and Mediation he might pardon Man and conferr new Graces on him that therefore the Eternal Son of God should unite himself to Man's Nature and become Man while Man was yet in his Integrity and Innocency since afterwards the Divinity would not have united it self to sinful Man and so all Intercourse between God and Man should have been broken off as it is between him and the Fallen Angels 5. That Sin did strangely deform the Body of Man and that it became quite another thing than it was before appears by this that Man after his Sin was ashamâ—d of himself saw his Nakedness and was ashamd of it and sought something wherewith to cover it whereas there was no such Shame before no more than the Sun can be ashamed that his Light and Glory is not covered with Clouds and Darkness 6. That Sin has also deform'd the Creation which is to be restored to its primitive State is expresly pointed out in the Holy Scriptures we being told that the Creature was made subject to Vanity and that the whole Creation groaneth and travelleth in Pain together until now and that it shall be delivered from the Bondage of Corruption into the glorious Liberty of the Children of God 7. That all Men are the Natural Off-spring of Adam as to their Souls as well as to their Bodies seems to be a most just and true Sentiment We see in this visible World God has endued all living Creatures with a Power to produce their like from the meanest Plant to the most perfect Animal All kinds of Birds Beasts and Fishes produce their Off-spring of the same kind of Body Life and Spirit with themselves endued with the same Power of producing their like which Life and Spirit
even the Learned as well as the Vulgar begin again to acknowledge to be somewhat else than meer Mechanism This Production all the Art of the World cannot imitate but it is derived down from the first of every Kind to the respective Series of Individuals of that Kind thro' all Generations That all Men do thus derive their Off-spring from Adam as to their Bodies no body will deny but the general Opinion of the Learned has been that our Souls are immediately created or infus'd by God into our Bodies and that we do not derive them from our Parents and so from Adam But as God has endued Man with a Power of producing the Bodies of his Off-spring so also it seems evident that he has endued Man's Soul united to his Body with a Power of producing Souls united to Bodies which receive also from their Constituents the same Power of producing other Souls united to Bodies and that altogether like themselves There is no Contradiction in the Nature of the Thing and the Blessing of Multiplying given to Man is as unlimited as that to the other Creatures and the Scripture speaks of the Children in the Parents Loins and by this we easily conceive how the Corruption of Man's Nature is communicated to his Posterity without any Blemish in the Holiness and Righteousness of God for he having created Man Holy and Righteous with a Power to produce his like had he continued so the Souls which proceeded from him had been so too but he being corrupted in his Nature he could derive no other to his Posterity For Propagation is redoubling of the same Being and of the same State in which it is But on the other Hand if Souls are not derived from the Parent but immediately created by God Children may be less said to be the Off-spring of their Parents than the Young of the other living Creatures are from them so that they all do more perfectly produce their Kinds than does Man But above all this will never satisfie as to the other great Truth That all Souls are now impure and corrupt from their Original and Children of Wrath by Nature as the Scripture says It were blasphemous to say That God creates Souls impure ignorant and corrupt and it is no less evil to think that God creating them pure and holy does immediately put them into Bodies where they no sooner are but immediately they are thereby reputed so corrupt and guilty as to merit an eternal Separation from God The devout and profound S. Augustine was so sensible of the Difficulties in this Matter that he was undetermined what Side to take and professed that he had seen nothing that cleared them and he was for bearing with one another as to a Difference of Sentiment in these Things It is absurd to conclude this Sentiment to be false because we cannot conceive how Souls should propagate Souls without communicating of themselves in whole or in part if the last they are divisible and not spiritual if the first they should cease to animate their former Bodies this is to reason about Souls from the Idea's we have of Bodies Do not we experience ten thousand things in the World tho' we cannot conceive how they are We see the Soul produces Thoughts and one Thought produces another and this in infinitum Now it is easie for God to make that in certain Circumstances the Divine productive Vertue of the Soul should beget a Thought which has in it a Principle of Activity as it self has and that this Principle after its Production should not depend any longer on the producing Soul but subsist by it self 8. It has been judged the greatest Uncharitableness for her to declare to the World that there are no True Christians whereas in Truth it is one of the greatest Acts of Charity If a number of Persons were desperately Sick and their Distempers had so craz'd the most of them that they were not sensible of their own Sickness and Dangers tho' they perceived sufficiently the Illness of their Neighbours would it be Uncharitableness to awaken them and tell them of their Danger and direct them to the true Remedies even tho' some of them were using the proper means and tending to recovery it were certainly a Kindness done them all She does not say that there are not among Christians who have good Purposes and good Desires and who are good in Comparison of the Wicked but none who are truly regenerately into the Spirit of Jesus Christ She says * To be a true Christian is to imitate the Actions of Jesus Christ and to obey his Instructions Thus Jesus Christ says To enter into the Kingdom of Heaven we must become as a little Child we must take the last Place we must do Penitence we must be poor in Spirit we must deny our Selves we must love our Neighbours as our selves we must take the Kingdom of Heaven by force we must pluck out the Eye or cut off the Hand that offends us we must leave our Offering to go and be reconciled to our Brother we must love our Enemies and do good to them that hate us that we cannot serve two Masters we must not care for the Morrow but lay up Treasures in Heaven we must enter by the strait Gate that a rich Man will hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven that we must take up our Cross and follow him that we must give an Account of every idle Word that God hides his Secrets from the Wise and Prudent and reveals them to Babes that he came not to be served but to serve c. She appeals to Christians whether they be renewed into this Spirit and makes through all these Instances how far they are from it and how few there are who aspire after it And to make People believe otherwise is but cheating Men into Damnation 9. That the present State of Christendom is a Babel where the Language is confounded and the Builders do not understand one another is but too sad a Truth to be denied If a wise Master Builder design to build a glorious City and give particular Instructions how the inferiour Workmen shall be trained up for it and by what Marks they shall be chosen and what Measures they shall observe in squaring fitting and laying of the Stones and if the Workmen shall be trained up by quite different Measures and chosen for the Office by other Marks and if the Workmen do so far mistake their Measures Rules and Instructions as that some of them say he commanded one thing and others the quite contrary some that the Stones should be hewn after such a way and others after a quite different way and should live in a continual Debate and Scuffle each side contending that they were only in the right and striving to draw as many Stones as they could to themselves and then instead of carefully and wisely hewing them and fitting them for the Building should animate
God giveth them Light and they shall reign for ever and ever see Isa 60. In a Word she makes appear that all the Holy Scriptures by Parables Figures and Prophecies do point out this Kingdom of Jesus Christ with Men This being the Sum of the Designs which God has over Men. And that this is a just and necessary thing it is unconceivable that God would have created this beautiful World only for this short Life of Penitence only for our Misery only to serve Devils and Men as Instruments of their Wickedness and Rebellion against him and then should abolish this great Work of his Hands That it is most just that all things be re-establish'd in their first State that all things be restored that Reparation be made of all the Injuries and Affronts done to his Humanity and to those who loved and followed him and that all that has been done unjustly be repaired both bodily and spiritually and that on the same Theatre that God having given Man both a Body and Soul there must be likewise a Paradise for both the Presence of God being the compleat Paradise of the one and all this visible World with all things in it freed from all Malignity and God dwelling visibly and bodily with Man therein the Paradise of the other which will endure for ever For God's Recompences are not temporal and finite but eternal as coming from an eternal God who cannot give finite or imperfect Gifts XLI These are the most singular of her Accessory Sentiments and by what has been said it appears that they are neither inconsistent with themselves nor with the Holy Scriptures nor with the necessary and essential Truths of Christianity that they serve to clear a thousand Passages of the Word of God that they tend to promote the Love of God and of all Men and lead us to mortifie our corrupt Nature and to despise this present World A. B. herself did not at first speak or write of these Sentiments but to some Friends and when they had shewn them to others she was troubled knowing that the Devil would take Advantage thereby to make them despise the other Truths necessary for their Salvation even as many of our Saviour's Disciples being offended at a hard Saying of his forsook him and walked no more with him And I would not have offered to give a Summary of those her Accessory Sentiments in this Apology but that they being now all publick in her printed Writings they who have set themselves to give an odious Character of her and her Sentiments to the World will be sure to dress them up in a Fool 's Coat to excite the People to cry out both of her and them Away with them Crucifie them And therefore I have chosen to give a simple and true Narrative of them even of those which seem most singular and extravagant All the Works of God are a Mystery and the most ordinary things the Formation of Man now and all the other Works would seem to us as strange if we were not accustomed to see them every Day Such things are not to be enquired into neither out of vain Curiosity nor from a disputing Humour which begets Presumption and Pride of Spirit for the Divine Mysteries are rather to be admir'd and ador'd than curiously search'd into by our blind Reason Let us make it our great Business to imitate Jesus Christ in Humility and Self-denial if we would be truly enlightned and delivered from all Blindness of Heart God walks with the Simple he reveals himself to the Humble he gives Understanding to little ones he opens his Meaning to pure Hearts and he hides his Grace from the Curious and the Proud Human Reason is weak and may be deceived but true Faith cannot be deceived See Psal 18. 118. XLII Now the Account I have given of the Sentiments of A. B. both as to the Essentials and Accessory Truths of Christianity is a just and true Representation which may be more fully and satisfyingly had from her own Writings And I shall leave it to all impartial Readers to consider whether the Character which some have been pleased to give of her Sentiments as heretical blasphemous ridiculous and extravagant be just and equal and if it be not the Result rather of their Mistakes and Prejudices than a plain and fair Account of her Doctrine and Sentiments The excellent Monsieur Paschal in his Pensees Chretiennes gives it as the most essential and distinguishing Mark and Character of true Religion that it makes its chief Precept and the great and essential Duty of Man to be To love God with all our Hearts and this he says is the peculiar and singular Character of the Christian Religion in Contradistinction to all others And if we shall impartially compare the Doctrine of Christianity as it represented in the Writings of A. B. with the Accounts of it delivered to us in the Systems of Divinity of the respective Parties in Christendom I think it will evidently appear that it is a most distinguishing Character of the former tho' it makes the Love of God the great End of Religion and all the other Duties of it means to bring us to that End and that the other tho' they cannot omit when they give an Account of Christianity to mention this as one of its great Precepts yet they so shuffle and confound Doctrines and give it such a Place in their Systems as may make People lay greater Stress on other things and give them Ground to hope they may be saved without it or without conforming our Lives to the Rules and Life of Jesus Christ which lead to it The End of the First Part. AN APOLOGY FOR M. ANT. BOVRIGNON PART II. An Answer to the Prejudices raised against her Sentiments and Writings I. THERE is nothing more ordinary than for People upon light and weak Grounds to take up Prejudices against the Persons and Sentiments of others and to judge rashly and inconsiderately of them and this is a Fault to which People of all Tempers are subject The Learned the Dogmatical and the Abettors of Parties cannot endure any thing that seems to lessen the Credit of their Sentiments or their Party they presently raise a Hue-and-Cry and do all they can to animate the People Thus the Scribes and Pharisees were full of Spite and Prejudice against our Lord Jesus Christ and inspir'd the People with the same Spirit The generality of Men see with other Mens Eyes and judge with other Mens Understandings they cannot be at the pains to weigh and consider things impartially themselves but they trust to the Skill and Sincerity of those who pretend to judge for them and such for the most part judging rashly and by their Passions lead the Multitude to do so too Yea even Persons of good Inclinations and who have a true Zeal for God and Divine things are apt to commit the same Fault Thus St. Paul before he was
Doctrine written by his own Disciples and dress him up in such a mock-Robe as might make him and his Doctrine the Object of the Scorn and Hatred of the People I know People flatter themselves with the Opinion that it were impossible for them to have treated Jesus Christ at this rate as the Scribes and Pharisees in our Saviour's Days imagin'd that had they liv'd in the Days of their Fathers they would not have persecuted and kill'd the Prophets as their Fathers did and yet our Lord shews them they have the same Spirit tho' they seem'd to honour the Prophets * by building their Tombs and garnishing their Sepulchres and saying If we had been in the Days of our Fathers we would not have been Partakers with them in the Blood of the Prophets Yet they persecuted those who were then sent amongst them and that the same Temper and Spirit reigns now in the world A. B. makes appear in her Writings and her Enemies did discover it in their Practices V. But it will be said they had good Reason to treat her as they did We come therefore to consider the Prejudices raised against her Doctrine and they have not been wanting to represent her as the Grossest of Hereticks but Wisdom is justified of her Children And 1. They accused her of denying the Holy Trinity and ground their Accusation upon this that she did not approve of the Word Person to express the Distinction of the Trinity and us'd to explain it by Comparisons and Similitudes Whereas she declares That she believes in one Divine Essence the most Holy Trinity the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost that the Essence of God is incomprehensible and so is the Mystery of the Trinity that it is a great Presumption in Men who cannot comprehend that which is in themselves what their Memory Understanding and Will is yet to imagine they will easily comprehend what is in God That our Soul which is nothing but a silly Creature is yet invisible and incomprehensible to us tho' it be in us and tho' we perceive and feel it to act and operate that no Body can comprehend what a Soul is and yet Men are so presumptous as that they will needs know what is in God and what the Three Persons of the Trinity are which are in him and that not for to honour or love him the more but that they may be able to talk and dispute well of them and to draw evil Consequences from them That God made St. Augustin know that this was incomprehensible by any Creature when once walking by the Sea-side and labouring to understand it he saw a Child running to fetch the Water of the Sea in his Hands into a little Hole which he observing and asking the Child what he did he replied he would have all the Water of the Ocean brought into that little Pit at which St. Augustin smil'd saying You can never do this my Child give over this Vndertaking The Child replied I shall sooner do this than you shall understand what you would comprehend with your Vnderstanding and then evanish'd It is true she makes use of Similitudes to express it by as That there is in God the eternal Understanding the eternal Word the eternal Love or Heart as there is in Man the Understanding the Speech and the Heart That there is in Man the Understanding the Memory and the Will which is a Figure of the Holy Trinity that God One in Essence has in himself Three essential Qualities which are diverse Righteousness Goodness and Truth and that nothing can be done by God but with Righteousness Goodness and Truth altogether and if one of these Qualities be wanting it cannot come from Gâ—d who is indivisible in these Three qualities which may be call'd Persons That she does not pretend thereby to give adiquate Notions of the Mystery of the Trinity which she declares is incomprehensible but that instead of the dark dry and barren Speculations of the Schools thereabout we may consider those Three Divine Qualities without which God never does any Work And to find if we are the Children of God we must see if we partake from him of those Three Qualities of the Righteousness Goodness and Truth of God and if we do not find them all Three together in our Souls we ought not to perswade our selves that we are the Children of God for as we approach unto him by Love accordingly those Three Qualities encrease in the Soul and as we find our Souls to be estranged from Righteousness Goodness and Truth accordingly we are estranged from God In using Similitudes thus to express the Holy Trinity she does nothing but what St. Augustin and other of the Ancient Fathers have done and she is far from saying that nothing else is comprehended in the Holy Trinity but that we ought to be taken up with such useful Considerations of what is in God rather than feed our Minds with fruitless Speculations which tend only to nourish Debate and Curiosity And when once some of her Friends told her that the Churchmen accus'd her of making the whole Mystery of the Holy Trinity to consist in the Righteousness Goodness and Truth of God she answered expresly They lye in so saying They said to her that she had said in the mean time more than once that Righteousness Truth and Goodness were the Trinity that was in God she replied I had no design to search into the Depth of this Mystery and to say that all did consist in this but that this was the most profitable and the most saving Consideration that we could have in the matter of the Holy Trinity of which the ordinary Speculations are often rash and unprofitable and for the most part injurious to God She did not desire to use often the Word Person because she look'd on that as a Word proper to created Beings that Jesus Christ is indeed a Person in God being truly Man as we are Yet she sometimes expresses the Mystery by the Word Persons In Temoign de Verite Part 2. p. 199. she says I do not believe that there is any Body living upon Earth who does more honour the most Holy Trinity than I do And I believe firmly One only God in Three Persons as I have done from my Childhood And how could I deny the Divinity of Jesus Christ since it is seen by all my Books that I hold Jesus Christ for True God and True Man both together even from the Beginning of the World which is to honour him more than to believe that he is God and Man only since he was born in Bethlehem and chargâ—d with our Miseries and Sorrows VI. They accus'd her also of denying the Divinity of Jesus Christ tho' there be nothing more False as appears through all her Writings She declares expresly in the Profession of her Faith that she believes that â—esus Christ is True Eternal God and True Man And in
to his Image we must suffer with him if we would reign with him His was meritorious and expiatory and exemplary ours is absolutely necessary for our Purification By his he obtain'd Pardon and Grace for us and chang'd the Eternal Punishment we deserved into a Temporal Penitence for our Purification and Recovery and to say we cannot undergo this Penitence is to have no Faith in his Merits to believe that it is enough that he did undergo this for us is the greatest Indignity done him and the greatest Cheat that we can put upon our Souls it is to belie and be false to our Surety and our Pledge It is like Bankrupts to swagger and rant it out with our Creditor's Goods because our Surety has paid the Debt for us It is to make Jesus our Slave to suffer all manner of Afflictions Poverty Reproach and Pain for us that we may go to Heaven in the pleasant and broad Way of Honours Wealth and Pleasures It is to be well pleas'd that the Physician has provided wholsome and necessary Physick for our Recovery and has taken it himself for our Direction and Encouragement but tho' we be sick to Death we will not taste it our selves because of the Bitterness of it believing that we shall Recover nevertheless because the Physician has taken it Jesus Christ led this Life of Penitence for us in his visible and mortal Body that he might shew us how ready he is still to undergo it in every one of us by his Spirit 8. God has no need of this our Penitence but we stand in need of it to recover the Love of God He does not covet our Wealth or Honours or Friends or Ease in that he requires of us to be poor in Spirit to deny our selves to take up our Cross and follow Christ to forsake all things since he created all things for Man and would be well pleased he could enjoy them still But Man is become so miserable that he cannot enjoy these things without setting his Heart upon them and turning it away from God and therefore Jesus Christ has given this his Gospel-Law without which no body can recover the Love of God It is a sad Mistake then to think that there is no necessity of good Works but only by way of Gratitude and Thankfulness to God as if he had need of our Acknowledgments or as if we could make him Presents of our Good Works to thank him which cannot be said but in Contempt of the Riches of God who possesses all in himself and seeks nothing without himself and needs not that we should give him any thing all the good Works that Men can do are for no other End but to resist and overcome the Evils of their Corruption And they are as necessary for our Salvation as Bread is for the Life of the Body for we cannot be saved without subduing our Corruption and no Body can do this but by the means of such good Works and such Penitence as stifles and mortifies the Vices and Sins which this Corruption has brought into the Soul 9. It is a Pride to glory in our Penitence since it is enjoined us for our Sins it ought rather to fill us with Humility and Confusion for in the Beginning it was not so God created us to live in all sorts of Delights without any Pain All this beautiful World was created to serve for Pleasures to the Body of Man and God himself was the Delight of his Soul But Sin only has changed that excellent Order and made Man subject to that over which he ought to rule because he had withdrawn his Subjection from God Our Sins have occasioned the Law of Penitence which Jesus Christ came to teach us by Word and Deed. This Penitence does not consist in Undergoing Pennances chosen by our selves and after our Fancy by which the Devil would drive us headlong and excite us to Vain-glory and which usually make Men presumptuous believing themselves to be better than others and that God is obliged to them for their good Works as the Pharisee All this proceeds from Self-love but true Penitence consists in taking patiently whatsoever God permits to befall us either to our Body Estate or Mind and willingly to suffer it in the Spirit of Penitence to satisfie for our Sins for every Moment there falls out Occasions of Suffering and and Submission so that we need not seek for them It is necessary that we practise this Resignation of our Will to God for accomplishing the saving Penitence which he has enjoined us and for the Exercise of all sort of Vertues 10. Since then the Justice of God could not permit that Pardon and Grace should be given to sinful Man but upon Condition that he turn away from Sin to God and in order to that live a Life of Penitence and co-operate with the Spirit of Suffering Self-denial and Mortification which God will communicate to him if he sincerely desire to be saved it is necessary that Man satisfie this Duty which is so just before God and which the Justice of God requires as well as the Nature of the thing it self This is that which she calls Man's Satisfying God's Justice on his Part this is that from which the Satisfaction of Jesus Christ does not procure us a Dispensation for then he had neither been just to God nor us but he merited the Acceptance of it at God's Hands and Grace and Strength for us to perform it and taught us how to undergo it If People are nice and captious and will needs carp at Words and Expressions as Satisfaction and the Satisfying the Justice of God while they understand what is meant by them no body will contend with them about them provided they grant the Truth and Reality of the thing that no body will be saved by the Merits and Satisfaction of Jesus Christ without the Mortification of their corrupt Nature and the Recovery of the Love of God It is good Consideration which is now generally assigned why God thought not fit as Governour of the World to pardon Rebellious Man without the Intervention of an expiatory Sacrifice in the Life and Death of Jesus Christ that Men might thereby see the Evil of Sin and God's infinite Hatred and Abhorrence of it and so might be diverted from continuing in it or returning to it It is for the very same Reason that God thought not fit to pardon Man for the Sufferings of Jesus Christ unless he also follow him in a Life of Penitence and Sufferings for we are not so sensible of what others suffer neither does it breed in us such an Abhorrence of that which has occasioned their Sufferings as when we suffer the like Pains and Evils our selves without which we have as superficial a Sense of them as of the Actings on a Theatre And therefore to give us the more lively Sense of the Sufferings of Jesus Christ and to enflame our Love to him
it not to ascribe vitious Passion to God to say that he reprobated Man because of the foresight of the Sins which he would commit after his Creation and that he predestinated him to Salvation foreseeing his future Merits Had God need of Man's Merits to save him Can all Men together with all their Merits bring one Ray of Glory to God Is not this to go over to their side who say that Men shall be elected and saved by their good Works and not by Grace only in which they make God a Liar who has promised as they grant that he will save us by Grace To say that God did not create Man for Damnation but reprobated Man after Adam's Sin which had undone them all is most absurd For as all Men were created in Adam so they were also all alike fallen in Adam and all in general reprobated by the same Sin of Adam for he could not have a divided Will one part of it sound and another damn'd there being but one Man only and he had but one Will in which was included the Will of all Men that should ever arise from him And if God had left Adam in the reprobated State wherein he fell all Men had equally remained so And when Adam received the Pardon of his Sin and was admitted to Penitence all Men were still in him and consequently all were restored to Favour upon Condition of performing the Penitence that God enjoyn'd in Adam So that God could not leave one part of Men in the Curse without dividing Adam and appointing one part of his Body for Salvation and another for Reprobation since there was but one Man If there had been two it might have been said of Men what is said of Angels that one part of the Angels was damn'd and another confirm'd in Grace but that of one Soul and one Body there should proceed reprobated and saved by the Predestination of God this is odious They who say that God did not predestinate to Damnation but only left one part of Men who were in Adam in Damnation and did elect another part to Salvation do directly contradict the Scriptures for the Scripture says expresly that with God there is no respect of Persons How could he then predestinate one part of Men to Salvation and leave the other part into the Damnation into which they were all equally plung'd since all had equally sinn'd in Adam and one no more than another How then can it be that God who is no Respecter of Persons can damn one part and save another of the same Mass of Persons which have equally contracted the same Sin without Injustice which cannot be in God And tho' he be almighty to save one and damn another as those Casuists say yet he will never do it for he will never do any Injustice For my part says she I would not commit the least Injustice against my Enemies not against the Devil himself How much less would God who is incomprehensibly more Just than I do such an Injustice as to damn one and save another of the Persons who have committed the same Fault even tho it were in his Power They say may not a Man do with his own Goods what he will how much more may God dispose of Man as he pleases who absolutely belongs to him and none can ask him why he saves one and lets another perish This says she seems a weak Argument even in the Comparison for it is not true that a Man can do with his Goods what he pleases he ought to use them according to Justice and Reason and if he do otherwise he will bear his Punishment before God who will not suffer Injustice nor us to abuse our Goods without calling us to an Account at the Day of Judgment How much more will God dispose of Men justly even tho' they belong to him How much less can he commit this Injustice of damning one and saving another of those who have fallen into the same Fault and are equally Guilty It is true God is Almighty and can do what he will but he can never will to do any thing unjustly as this would be which could not be without respect of Persons and this cannot be in God To say that he expresly predestinated one part of them to Damnation is to say that he had not so much Righteousness in himself as that which he requires of Men for he says to them Love your Enemies do good to them that hate you This Counsel would have had no Authority if he himself had reprobated those who are become his Enemies This absolute Reprobation would not be Good but the greatest Evil that could be imagin'd How could he command Men to do Good to their Enemies when he himself would do so great and eternal an Evil for the Fault they had committed against him and that while they were yet in a State of Penitence as they are during this Life where Reprobation shall never have place since till the very last Instant they may find Mercy and Pardon This Reprobation can only have place after Death and not during this Life Because this is the Time of Penitence in which if Men were certainly reprobated they could have no part and it would be a very rigorous and unjust thing to oblige those to Penitence whom he absolutely resolves to damn Men it seems confound the Times when they speak of Predestination and take the present for the time to come For at the Judgment God will separate two masses the one of Elect the other of Reprobates who shall then assuredly be damned because the Time of Penitence will then be past but during this Life there can be no predestinated Reprobates If God has reprobated the Wicked to Damnation he would not give them so many secret and inward Warnings to turn them unto him as all Sinners may know by experience that even when by Sin they have turn'd away from God they feel how oft he recals them by many Occasions and by Checks of Conscience All the Souls who are damned have been often admonished by God both inwardly and outwardly as may be seen in the Holy Scriptures How often did he admonish Pharoah and other wicked Men If it were true that God had reprobated them he would not have been sincere in giving them so many Admonitions to turn them from their Wickedness or at least they were all vain Admonitions since being predestinated to Evil it was impossible for them to do Good Must God tempt Men or render them more guilty than otherwise they would have been of themselves God has declared that as he Lives he has no pleasure in the Death of the Wicked but that the wicked Man turn from his way and live and that he is not willing that any should Perish God then should not be sincere in his words if he had predestinated some Souls to Damnation which cannot be said of God who is Truth it self always faithful in his Promises
himself has still his Self will to fight against even to Death Wherefore the Apostle says Our Life is a continual Warfare and Jesus Christ makes appear sufficiently that he had his Self-will to resist even to Death when towards the end of Life he yet prays Not my Will but thy Will Father be done But if you cannot understand these things says she leave them for those who shall understand them take only of my Writings what is good and profitable for your Soul and suspend your Judgment as to the rest till God give you Light for there are many things in them which it is not necessary for the Salvation of many to understand And it is far better to know well how to love God than how to speak well of Vertue Thus it appears with what Force and Evidence she advances this Sentiment and yet how far she is from requiring a Belief of it from all as of necessity to Salvation how clearly she shews that it is so far from dishonouring Jesus Christ or being contrary to his Purity in that State of Trial and Temptations to which he voluntarily subjected himself that on the contrary it manifests the greatness and constancy of his Love to God the ardency of his Charity for Men the firmness of his Adherence to God amidst all Temptations the value of his Merits and Satisfaction for us and the encouragement he has given us by his Example to resist all Temptations and to follow his Steps and to depend on him for Succour and Compassion since we have not a High-Priest who cannot be touch'd with the feeling of our Infirmities but was in all Points tempted like as we are yet without Sin In this Passage we see also how expresly she asserts our Redemption by Jesus Christ and his Satisfaction for our Sins They who desire this Matter handled at more length may find it in Oecon. Div. Part 5. p. 21 to 60. and in the Accessory Letter above-mention'd I shall here only add that we ought not to stumble at harsh Expressions when we know the main intent of them as St. Paul says Christ was made a Curse and Sin which seems most harsh There is an ambiguity in the Words Evil Corrupted and Corruption which may either signifie Sin it self or the Effects and Consequences of it So the Will signifies sometimes the Superiour Faculties of the Soul sometimes the Bent and Inclination of sensible Nature to please it self and in this last Sence one may have a Self-will evil and corrupted yet without sinning when he resists it So the Summ of her Sentiment is that Jesus Christ took on him not the act of Evil or Sin but the Impulsions the Inclinations the Temptations weaknesses of the Inferiour Will of sensible Nature not to consent to it in any thing but to resist it and to make all these die in himself by the Power of his Spirit and his Eternal Light and by means most contrary to the Inclinations of sensible Nature that he might the more help and encourage his Brethren to the same Fight and Victory XVII To some her Sentiments concerning the State of Children before they have attain'd the use of their Reason is no small stumbling to wit That the Will of Children is bound up in the Will of the Parents till they have attained the use of their Reason and can use their own Free-will themselves then they are free to choose Good or Evil and to be sav'd or damn themselves according to this Choice But before they come to the use of Reason this Choice is in the Power of their Parents who may save or damn them even as they can give them natural Life or Death because of the strict Union and Sympathy between the Body of the Mother and of the Child in the Womb. If she takes in Poyson the Child dies if Physick it is healed for these two Bodies are but one and the same Substance divided into two parts This is true also as to the Soul so that if a Mother give the Child in her Womb to the Devil it is his till being come to the use of Reason it resists the Devil renouncing him with its Free-will and abjuring its evil Inclinations to become the Child of God And if Fathers or Mothers were true Christians or Persons regenerated in the Spirit of Jesus Christ undoubtedly they would produce also Christian Children in this Regeneration and till they had attain'd the use of their Reason they would always be God's by the Free-will of their Parents but if they become Wicked of their own Wills after this they are free to do it and their Parents cannot hinder them I know many doubt of a Child dying in Infancy can be damn'd but it is for want of Divine Light that they do not comprehend the Works of God with whom it is as Just to damn the Child of a wicked one as it is to save the Child of a just Man for he has united inseparably the Will of the Father to that of the Child as he has united the Body of the Child with that of the Mother And if they will condemn this for an Injustice they may as well hold it an Injustice that all Men are fallen in Adam which would be a Blasphemy against God He created at the Beginning all Men in Adam as he did all the Trees of one kind in the first Tree of that kind c. and all things with Seeds for to produce each one their like which will never change for the Works of God are Eternal being created by an Eternal God and Man not being capable of using this Free-will in his Childhood of necessity it must subsist somewhere to be preserv'd till it may reside in the Person for whom it was created As we see the Free-will of all Men was in the Free-will of Adam since all are Partakers of his Sin and Miseries that he brought upon Man for it is most certain that God could not have given to Man an inclination to Evil which he feels from his Birth nor the Miseries of Body and Mind in which he finds himself For God being all Good cannot do any Evil and we must of necessity conclude that the Free-wills of Men were in the Free-will of Adam when he sinn'd And since all Christians believe that all Men sinn'd in Adam why ought they not by the same Consequence to believe that Children sin in their Parents or are damn'd in them The Catholicks believe that all Children are sav'd provided they be baptized and that those Children shall be damn'd who shall die without Baptism but that they shall not endure the Pains of Hell as those who sin with their Free-will It is true as in Paradise there are diverse Degrees of Glory signified by those Words of Scripture which say In God's House there are many Mansions there are also diverse Punishments in Hell but it is not true that all Children dying without outward Baptism shall be
damn'd For this is but a Testimony of the Faith which the faithful Christian has in his Soul which he declares to all Men by the means of the Water of outward Baptism but if this living Faith is not in the Man's Soul this outward Baptism will serve him for nothing This is the Reason why Anabaptists will not baptize Children but they themselves seem to have no more Faith when they are grown up than when they were Children for the Scripture says He who believes in Jesus Christ does the Works that he did which they do not which shews they do not believe in him tho' they are not baptiz'd till they come to the use of Reason So the Soul of Man cannot receive Salvation by the means of outward Baptism when he has not in him living Faith or his Parents for him if he be in Childhood The Catholicks then have no ground to believe that all Children who are baptized shall be saved and that they who die without Baptism shall be damn'd since this depends upon the Free-will of their Parents who offering willingly their Children to God to become true Christians they are accepted of God by the Will of their Parents and will assuredly be saved if they die before the use of Reason And if others by their Parents are offered to the Devil and to Sin and die in their Nonage they will be damned by the Evil will of their Parents even tho' outwardly they receive the Baptism of Water which without Faith is null and Faith without Baptism in diverse cases does save We see with what strength of Reason she declares this Sentiment and tho' there were nothing else but the Consideration of our case in Adam it serves to confirm it for there is no partiality in God no respect of Persons he acts by the same Measures and the same Rules with Creatures of the same Kind and Qualities The Offence we take at this proceeds from our Ignorance of God and his Works and the Desire we have to extenuate the Guilt and damnable Effects of our Unchristian Care of our Children When God created things at first he did not establish them in the Disorder in which we now see them but all good and excellent in their respective kinds When he establish'd the Propagation of Man to come from Man it was not that they might communicate Imperfections to one another but the Perfections he had given them and God's wise and admirable Conduct in this is thus in some measure represented When he created free and intelligent Beings it was not possible but that at first they must be frail and capable of falling away for then they had no Habits to Good which consisting in frequently repeated Acts and being acquired thereby intelligent Creatures at first were not strengthned in Good and thro' their weakness they might abuse their Liberty and fall away God having seen this come to pass in an infinite Number of Angels and desiring to settle other Creatures in their room thought how he might place others who from their Birth or Being might have Habits to Good and so being thus establish'd in it might not so easily fall away If then all those Creatures should come from one Source that were habitually Good then they who came of them should be born all with an habitual strength to Good and they encreasing and strengthning their good Habits those who descended from them should be yet much more establish'd and invincible in Goodness and so on by a continual Gradation But to accomplish this charitable Design the first Creature of that kind must be produc'd in the common Lot without an habitual Firmness but in a State actually Good and such care taken to prevent his Fall as that God bodily converses with him If therefore Man do not correspond to this Care it is purely his own fault who of his Free-will has chang'd into a Source of Misery that which ought to have been a Source of Communication of Good Now the same Reason for which Men were to come of one another by Propagation is the Reason also why the Lot of Children is the same with that of the Parents so long as they have not the use of their Liberty If Parents had remain'd in the Perfection in which God plac'd them and encreas'd in it according to his Establishment this had been a great Happiness for their Children who had thus been Partakers of habitual Good even from their Original but if the contrary did afterwards happen this is neither from the Decree nor Design of God but purely the fault of Man with which God's Decree has no concern Now suppose that God has appointed that Men should descend of one another by Propagation it follows immediately and naturally without the intervention of a New Decree that the Lot and Liberty of the Children should be bound up in the Parents so long as they are not in a State to make use of it freely themselves As long as an Effect is in its Cause it is one and the same with its Cause And as long as it is not like to its Cause and is not Independent on it it is also in it for it goes out from it but according as it has it self apart the natural and necessary Faculties and Functions for its own Constitution and for its individual Government as its Cause has to be naturally compleat If therefore it have not as yet the free conduct of it self being found to be a free Agent it is as yet in regard of that in its Cause or in its Parents Not that for some Years after a Child is born his Free-will is yet in an inherent manner in his Parents and that it must flow from them into the Child when he is farther advanc'd in Age. But that the Parents produce a Body and a Soul in a State imperfect enough so as yet to need their Care and Operation so to speak for some Years before the Subject which hitherto is imperfect become perfect And so long as it is not it belongs yet naturally to the producing Cause which is obliged to have a care of it as a part of it self as in effect it is Hence also comes the Right which Fathers and Mothers have of educating their Children which is not a Right that is positive or may be dispenc'd with or which simply regards the Body but a natural indispensible Right which much more respects the Soul than the Body XVIII Another great Prejudice rais'd against her was that she spoke so meanly of Reason did not look on it as the surpeam Faculty of the Soul nor the Exercise of it as the best Employment and thought there were such dangerous Fruits of Sciences and humane Learning and the means of acquiring them In the Thoughts of M. Pascal there are I remember excellent Reflections about the Three different sorts of Grandeur which have their different Empires Dignities Honours c. and may be call'd Divine Rational and Earthly
the Grandeur of Charity or the Love of God that of Reason and that of worldly Empire and Honour Alexander and others have excell'd in the last and seem Great to the Eyes of Flesh Archimedes and others have excell'd in the second and seem Great to the Eyes of Reason Jesus Christ appear'd in none of these Grandeurs had neither Learning nor worldly Greatness and was of no regard neither to the Eyes of the Flesh nor those of the Great Philosophers and of Reason but O! how Great was he in the Eyes of Charity how Meek and Humble and Patient and Self-denied in a Life of absolute Poverty Contempt and Pain for the Love of God and Men. Now all the Writings and Actions of A. B. tending to draw Men into this Kingdom of Charity and the Love of God which is of a quite distinct Rank and Order from that of humane Reason as well as of worldly Greatness it was no wonder that she put no great Value on the one more than the other they being both unspeakable Hindrances in the way to it and the second more than the third She shews that there is in the Soul a Principle for above humane Reason and that is Divine Faith which does not consist in believing only with the understanding the Twelve Articles of the Creed which may be done by a humane Faith as we believe the recital of some History when a Person worthy of Credit relates it this gives not to the Soul any Divine Vertues which God only can operate in us Faith is a Divine Light which God infuses in the Soul which makes us to know and desire Eternal things and despise Temporal It is not a natural Quality as our Reason but a Divine Quality which proceeds from God as the Beams do from the Sun as nothing can make us see the Sun but the Sun himself It was communicated to all Men at their Creation lost by their Fall renew'd by the Merits and Grace of Jesus Christ When it shines in our Souls it warms them with the Love of God and Men who bear his Image and Likeness and produces Charity And this Charity regulates all our Life and gives weight and measure to all our Actions For Divine Faith is always living and operating It partakes of all the Divine Qualities Righteousness Goodness and Truth So that he who has Faith in his Soul cannot be Unjust nor a Liar nor a Deceiver nor Wicked nor seek his own Interest his own Glory his own Pleasure or Satisfaction seeing all these respect time and earthly things Humane Reason is an Inferiour Principle that may indeed convince us that there is a God the Author of Nature who made and sustains all things but this cannot produce in our Souls Faith and Charity Vertues derived immediately from God and not from Nature or the Understanding of Man which is a frail Creature limited to Earth and Time And to think to know or comprehend God by the natural Understanding is a greater Folly than the Heathens committed in worshipping the Sun All Men being now void of humane Faith take up with a humane Belief and divide and dispute and quarrel and hate and despise one another without knowing wherefore and without perceiving that the Folly they have in themselves is more to be despised than what they require in their Brother The active Exercise of our Reason when depriv'd of the Light of Faith serves but the more to confound and darken us it keeps us in a vain Amusement makes us neglect the necessary means of obtaining Divine Faith blows up the Heart with Pride makes us despise the most Divine Truths when they do not accord with our Principles and value our selves beyond others tho' humble ignorant Persons are more to be regarded as being more disposed to receive the Light of Faith than those Learned who have drunk in the Doctrine of Men. She blesses God that preserv'd her from this for then she should have been uncapable of receiving that of the Holy Spirit Jesus Christ call'd the Simple and Ignorant to be his Disciples and Apostles it was they whom he train'd up to instruct and teach others the way to Salvation When a Learned Nicodemus came to him he told him that unless he became as a little Child he could not enter into the Kingdom of God He founded no Colleges nor Academies to train up his Followers in all sorts of Learning but taught them by Word and Deed to deny themselves in all earthly things and to take up their Cross and follow him True Religion is preserved or received by the same means by which it is at first instituted and established They who say in another case that Christ being more faithful than Mâ—ses in all the House of God who yet left not a Pin of the Tabernacle unmade and therefore he surely could not be wanting in ordering what was fit for his Church may examine their own Measures by this Rule She says The Schools and Doctrine of Men have corrupted the true Sence of the Scriptures and by their Learning authorize all sorts of Sins that it seems the Schools are expresly instituted to forge Cases of Conscience capable of leading Men to Hell For what need is there to Gloss the Gospel and the Life of Jesus Christ They are clear Truths which Jesus Christ taught by Word and Deed that we must be poor in Spirit humble in Heart desirous to suffer Persecution for Righteousness sake and to do to others as we would have them do to us but to corrupt all these things the Learned make Glosses that it is not against Poverty of Spirit to labour or trade that we may get Money and make some Fortune in the World and to flatter Men the better to their Ruine they add by Word that we must possess Riches as not possessing them which is a great Deceit for Men are not now so dispos'd as those of the Old Testament who receiv'd Temporal Goods from God as a Blessing to employ them to his Glory not having their Hearts any ways wedded to them as those of our Time who incessantly covet Riches desiring still more and more It is an infallible Truth that all who would be saved must love God with all their Heart And if we ask those Divines if it be not lawful for a Man to love his Father Mother Wife Children Kinsfolk Friends yea his Country Money House Honour Divertisements Meat Drink Cloaths and every other Creature they will answer yes because they love them themselves and yet imagine they fulfil the Command of God of loving him with all their Heart and to disguise this Lie the better they will say We must not love all these things inordinately giving us to understand thereby that our Hearts may be well divided into so many different Affections without sinning which has so authoriz'd the neglect of the Command of loving God with all our Heart that no Body thinks it is needful They live and die in
the Love of all sorts of Creatures and yet think to be saved for their Divines have found out Philosophical Reasons to maintain this Yet she says what she has written of the Learned is not that she will despise Learning or the Study of Sciences and Languages Since all these things may serve for the Glory of God when we will apply them to those Ends and moral Vertues give Advantage to divine Vertues For a well bred Person will still be more docile in the Practice of true Vertue than one ill-bred and one of good Learning will be more able to understand and receive true Vertue than a rude and ignorant Person so that what says she makes me fear that few of the Learned and of the Great shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven is that I see in effect that very few of them are humble in Heart and that it is impossible speaking naturally that they should not esteem themselves more than another as having more ground for it And unless by Divine Vertue a Learned Person know the Misery and Ignorance into which Sin has plung'd him he can never be without Self-esteem and Presumption of Spirit which things God resists and does not give them his Grace for of necessity they must be humble in Heart to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven But because this Sentiment concerning the Nature of humane Reason is so contrary to the common Opinion of the Learned I shall here briefly represent it in a Light and Method conformable to our ways of reasoning and enquiring into things as it is most rationally and fully accounted for by M. Poiret in his Treatise De Eruditione to which I refer those who desire to enquire farther into it for full Satisfaction 1. The Original Ends of God's creating Man being to enjoy him and all his Works the one as his Essential Happiness and the other as Accessory he therefore gives him an Immortal and Divine Soul and a Material Body and endues these with sutable Faculties capable of enjoying this twofold Happiness the one material and sensible his bodily Senses by which he might take in the Beauty and Delight of all the Creatures and the other Divine and Spiritual his Understanding by which he might be capable of enjoying God and Divine things and of receiving his Light and Love 2. Those Faculties are passive and do not by any activity of theirs produce their Objects but only are laid open and turn'd to them to receive them Our Eyes do not form the Light but only passively receive it and the Beauties of the other Creatures and in the Night tho' we open and turn them about never so earnestly we meet with nothing but Darkness So is it as to our spiritual Faculties and their Objects 3. Those respective Objects when they are present to their respective Faculties do make so strong and vivid an Impression on them that in their Absence we are capable of forming to our selves in our Minds Images and Pictures of them and of compounding or dividing or comparing these Pictures together and of forming Propositions and Consultations about them and according as these passive Faculties have received due and vivid Impressions or faint or none at all from their respective Objects we are accordingly capable of forming true or false Pictures of them And this is the active Faculty which we call Reason 4. The Knowledge we have by the Impressions from the Objects themselves in our passive Faculties is a loving solid real Knowledge making us enjoy the Object and the Delight and Happiness it can give us The Knowledge we have by the Exercise of this active Faculty of our Reason is a dead dry barren superficial Knowledge that communicates nothing to the Soul of the Delight and Reality of the Objects themselves We see what a difference there is between beholding the Sun and forming to our selves Idea's and Pictures of him in his Absence the first enlightens warms delights directs us lets us see the Beauty of all the Creation the other affords nothing of this and if we had still been Blind and never seen the Light even the very Pictures of it we fancy to our selves would be false as well as superficial Now it is just the same as to the spiritual things the natural Man perceives not the things of God they seem Foolishness to him His Idea's and Reasonings about them are like a Blind Man's Reasoning about Colours and tho' they were never so Just yet they cannot make him Happy nor to enjoy the Object themselves no more than a Man's drawing the Pictures of Light Fire Meat and Drink can enlighten warm and nourish his Body Our Souls must be turn'd to God and taken off from all other things And blessed are the pure in Heart for they shall see God The Knowledge we have by Reason then is a superficial barren and dead Knowledge does not bring to the Soul the true and living Knowledge of God They who give themselves up to it do really deny God make their Reason their God are guilty of a more dangerous Idolatry than they who worship the Sun and how universal this Evil is now in the World he that runs may read The true and living Knowledge of God is to be had only from God our divine Faculties must be turn'd to him and turn'd away from other Things that they may be enlightned by him they are in our corrupt State more dead and defiled and vitiated than the weakest or most blinded Eyes and Reasoning will not recover them more than it will give Eyes to the Blind Physick is indispensably necessary to heal them and the Laws and Life of Jesus Christ transcribed into our Hearts and Practice is the only Remedy for them XIX They accused her that she designed to form a new Sect and Party and so to encrease the Divisions and Schisms in Christendom whereas no body did more deplore the Divisions of Christians than she She saw that Schisms and Sects served only to destroy true Charity the Love of God and Men and brought in nothing but Hatred Envy and every evil Work under a Cover of different Forms and Opinions She desired nothing but to reunite Christians in one in the Spirit of Jesus Christ and to have obtained that would have been willing to have spent to the last Drop of her Blood She protested a hundred and a hundred times that she would establish no Party nor draw any after her but send all to Jesus Christ and to the Practice of the Doctrine of the Gospel She shunned the Conversation of Men and liv'd always shut up in a Chamber she wished never to see any Body provided they were all united to God To set up a Sect is to leave a Society and a certain publick Worship where Persons were once Members and to establish another to which they draw by human Motives as many Persons as they can and acknowledge them as Members of it when they make a verbal
that God dwells in my Heart by his Righteousness Truth and Charity and that he makes me govern all my Actions by the square of these Vertues which is a sufficient Evidence to me that it is God who guides me since the Devil and Nature have nothing of these Vertues And therefore there cannot be a surer Testimony that a Soul is guided by the Holy Spirit than when it is possest with the Righteousness Truth and Charity of God I imagine if Bucchardus heard that I say I have the Truth Righteousness and Charity of Moses he will condemn me more than ever having done it so often thro' his Book tho' I had not there spoken openly of the Graces which God had given me But the being condemn'd by so imperfect a Man can do no hurt to my Soul For God knows it is he who commands me to do this and it matters little whether it please or displease Men it is enough to me when it pleases God Yet I will not say that I have the same Degrees of the Vertues Righteousness and Charity that Moses had For God has not reveal'd to me how much of them he imparted to him but I will only say that my Soul is possest in proportion with the same Charity Righteousness and Truth that Moses had but if he had a Pound of each of these Vertues and I an Ounce only I do not at all know neither will I ask for the Vertue of another does not concern me it is enough for me that I be faithful in what is committed to me If God has given me his Divine Love I must do all my Actions and form all my Intentions for this Love without seeking in any thing my own or the Satisfaction of Men and if God has given me his Righteousness I must exercise this Vertue equally in things great and little according to my Employ doing always justly to every one even to my Enemies And God has so planted this Righteousness in the bottom of my Soul that I cannot suffer Injustice towards the Beasts far less towards any Person And the Truth that God has imparted to me is so rooted in my Soul that I suffer for it all sort of Persecutions And tho' it be hard for me to suffer so much for having told the Truth which God commands me I cannot cease to do it For it is better to obey God than Man As to the Accusation of Pride for saying that she underderstood all the Holy Scriptures without having read them that it was enough for the Fathers that they understood what Men had need of then that God now reveals the Secrets which he would then have kept to be hid that the Prophets have indeed declar'd all that must come to pass but neither they themselves nor any others understood their Sayings that all this was spoken without blasphemous Pride appears by the rest of the Discourse and the comparing it with all her Writings That the Prophets had Visions of things to come which they themselves did not perfectly Understand cannot be denied that God may give a fuller understanding of them near the time of their Accomplishment is no absurd nor impossible thing that he has been pleas'd so to do to this Virgin all her Writings do testifie that she declares this without Pride as it appears in all her Writings so in that very place cited Where she says Yes Sir I may say it with Confusion that it has pleas'd God to communicate his Secrets to me which he has hid from the Wise and Great of the Earth If such has been his Will who can reprove it or find fault with that which he finds Good Is not he the absolute Lord of all things That which he will he can do without Man's being able to contradict it for no Body is capable of giving Law to him he is as Powerful as Just and Good let us only adore his Designs Tho' I were evâ—n the most wicked Creature in the World he might serve himself of me in what pleases him and then might damn me in the end if I have merited it All things being subject to him all must obey him the Infernal Powers as well as the Celestial and Terrestrial Nothing can resist his Almighty Arm I must submit if God will declare his Marvels by me I cannot hinder him If he will speak by a Stone or Wood he ought to be heard with respect And as to the Expression in one of her Letters wherein she calls her self a Mother of True Believers for which the Anabaptists or Mennonists accuse her of blasphemous Pride she unanswerably vindicates her self I do not wonder says she that those Mennonists are scandaliz'd at it for they do not know from what Fund it is taken and while they think I am led by the same Spirit with them they must needs be scandaliz'd at the simple Truth with which I express my Sentiments They think I would do better to study humble Words to speak soberly in what relates to me and that I ought not to tell so openly the things which God communicates to me for they practice the quite contrary to my Sentiments and yet think they possess the finest Vertues They have for a Maxim to learn to speak humbly and have for Rules to be simply apparel'd to be strictly united to their Party and not to converse nor drink or eat with those who are cut off from it and far less to assist them any manner of way And all these things are contrary to what God has planted in my Soul To study to speak humbly of ones self having a proud Heart is a great Pride accompanied with Deceit and Lying The Pride consists in desiring to be thought Humble before Men by speaking humbly the Lying consists in saying often that which is False for he who says he is Weak and has no Good in him is sometimes so proud at the Bottom that he cannot endure that another should have so mean Thoughts of him and would be ill content to hear some one say that he has not Vertue or that he is not in a State of Perfection Do you not remember Sir that some of those learned Persons ask'd you if I durst say that they are not regenerated in Jesus Christ while none of their Actions do discover this Regeneration For we see them as much wedded to earthly things as other Men for they are well pleas'd to be honoured and served and esteemed by every Body If they were regenerated all these Desires would be dead in them the Spirit of Poverty Sufferings Humility and Charity would effectually live in their Souls for Regeneration consists in dying to ones self to live to God and if they were dead to the World they wuold seek the things which are above and no longer those which are on Earth And yet they who are sunk into the Traffick of the World and gain as much as is possible for them would have it be believ'd that
it I take Cant for a multitude of Words without any True and Divine Sence and not flowing from an inward Life and Spirit and of this there is but too much in the World But the Writings of A. B. are of another Temper and no Body will nauseate them upon this Head but they who have a secret Disgust for the Holy Scriptures God's Ways are not as our ways When we write we seek our selves we strive to discover our Reason and our Learning and study what may please the Curiosity the Fancy and the Niceness of others The Holy Writings are most unlike to ours both as to Matter and Manner and Method and Stile they are not written to please the Learned the Orator the Philosopher the Critick the Curious but to bring down every lofty Imagination and to mortifie our Self-conceit to Comfort the Humble and the Afflicted to give Light and Knowledge to the Poor and Simple and to send the Rich away empty They repeat again and again the great and necessary things of God's Law to mortifie our Niceness and Curiosity and to beat them in upon us by all means while we think it enough to know these things tho' we are not so happy as to do them Now Writings that partake so much of this Spirit will not be despis'd on this Head by any sincere Christian XXVII Some endeavour to render her Sentiments ridiculous concerning the State of the Blessed in the Life to come and they say she establishes a Mahumetan Paradise Eating and Drinking and Generation in the Kingdom of Heaven making the Earth to become that Heaven and that it shall be a Place of all sensitive Delights Vnto the pure all things are pure but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure but even their Mind and Conscience is defiled I would gladly ask such if Adam had continued always in the State of Innocence perfectly Pure and Holy whether they would have called his State a Mahumetan Paradise and a sensual Life If there were no Concupiscence in Man's Nature but a most ardent pure and habitual Love of God the Beauties and Delights of all the Creatures would serve to enflame the Soul still the more with the Love of God There needs no more but to understand her Sentiments to be convinced of the impudent Falshood of their Reproaches She says then That the Earth and all this visible World being wholly renewed and restored to that glorious State in which it was at first formed of which in the First Part shall be the Seat of the Kingdom of God with Men for ever where Jesus Christ God-Man will reign with the Blessed both as to his Divinity and Humanity That Heaven as to the Soul is the Presence of God and we are in Heaven when we are in God and God is in Heaven as he is in the Souls of his Saints as Augustin interprets Our Father which art in the Heavens but as God has given us both a Body and Soul he has given us also a Paradise of both the Soul can have its compleat Paradise in the Presence of God but the Body must have a material and bodily one like it self For this end the Earth and all this visible World and all that therein is were created and for the same Reason God would have become Man tho' Man had never sinn'd that he might live with him both bodily and spiritually and to make his Happiness compleat And therefore he being unchangeable in his infinitely Wise and Good Designs he will certainly make not an imaginary but a real divine and corporeal Reparation of all things to last for ever for his Recompences are Eternal and will purge away from all the Creatures the Malignity and Corruption that Sin has brought upon them And in this State every individual Saint being restored in Body and Soul to the State in which Adam was in his greatest purity before the Woman was formed out of him shall produce his like of himself alone through all Eternity from a Principle of the Love of God and by an ardent Desire that there may be still more Creatures to love and praise the Divine Majesty This then shall not be a corrupt lustful and shameful Propagation like to that of this corrupt World but altogether Pure Holy and Glorious as we see in a manner an earthly Figure of it still in all the Plants and Trees In the Resurrection they neither marry nor are given in Marriage but are as the Angels of God in Heaven Now what is there in all this unworthy of God or unsutable to the State of the Blessed or contrary to the Holy Scriptures or to the Nature of things It is certain none of the Works of God shall perish but all shall be restored to their primitive Perfection The Scripture tells us there shall be a new Heaven and a new Earth Whose Habitation would the Earth have been if Man had never sinn'd and if the Earth had never been accursed And whose Habitation shall it be when it is renewed and made a new Earth When Men fancied all the Works of God to be shut up as it were in a round Sphere and the Earth to be its Centre and the Planetary and Starry Heavens so many firm and solid Orbs moving round about it and the Empyreal Heaven above all this Sentiment about the Earth might have been thought absurd But in the Age we live in wherein is made known the vastness of the Universe and that all the fix'd Stars are probably Suns and Centres of different Systems of the whole and all the other Planets as well as our Earth among which it moves replenish'd no doubt with variety of living and intelligent Beings we have reason to admire the Providence of God in giving Discoveries to a simple unlearned Woman of the State and Habitation of the Blessed sutable to what is now known of the Frame of the Universe which is also fully confirmed from the Holy Scriptures as was shewn in the First Part and does so clearly demonstrate the unchangeable Wisdom and Goodness of God who having created Man in a Pure and Happy State and the Delights and Beauties of this World for his Accessory Felicity and the Devil by his Craft and Subtilty having perverted both and made this Earth for many Ages nothing but Scenes of Wickedness and Misery yet God by his infinitely Wise Conduct and Providence brings about at last the perfect Renovation of Man and of his Habitation the Earth and of all the Creatures and makes it an Eternal Paradise of unspotted Purity and Bliss Whereas on the other Hand it is most unaccountable how infinite Wisdom and Goodness who changes not after he had form'd Man and this World in so excellent a State and both are corrupted by the Devils should continue the Earth for so many Ages to be the Theatre of their Wickedness and then entirely destroy it Might it not then be said as she expresses it That God
after it but nevertheless an immediate Revelation tending to explain and illustrate the Doctrine of Jesus Christ to vindicate it from the false Glosses of Corrupt Teachers and to awaken and excite Men to follow and obey it may be both useful and necessary The Jewish State did no more call for his Mercy than does ours Have we the whole Will of God and our Duty consign'd to us in Writ So had they Was it that from time to time their Faith and Hope might be strengthned and encouraged in the Approach of the Messiah the same need have we who are bidden hope and look for his Coming again in Glory and yet in these last Days there are Scoffers walking after their own Lusts and saying Where is the Promise of his Coming Was it because of the great Degeneracy both of the Priest and People that they needed such extraordinary Messages and Warnings from God So do we Ought we to reject all who lay any Claim to Divine Inspiration without any farther Enquiry because there are in this Age many Impostours Enthusiasts who falsly pretend to be led by the Spirit of God and are not So might they Were they in Circumstances to discern those who were truly led by the Spirit of God from those who were acted by a Lying Spirit So may we So that from the Nature of God the Methods of his dealing with Men and the present State of the World and of Mankind this appears to be no impossible nor improbable thing XI Nay there are strong Presumptions on the other side that God will shew his Mercy to Mankind We are forbidden to believe every Spirit but are bidden try the Spirits whether they are of God or not If none are inspir'd by God what need is there to try any but to reject all We are told that in the last Days God will pour out of his Spirit upon all Flesh And when the Apostle S. Peter applies this Prophecy to the Descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles in the Day of Pentecost he meant not thereby to limit that Promise to that Time as if it had its full Completion but to shew that then it began to be fulfilled and that Jesus being now ascended to his Father and having received the Promise of the Holy Ghost had shed forth this upon them And it evidently appears that he did not limit it to that Time but shew that that was rather the first Fruits of it and that it was to be fulfilled and continued in all After-ages he saying expresly Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the Remission of Sins and ye shall receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost For the Promise is unto you and to your Children and to all that are afar off even as many as the Lord our God shall call Which was as it were a Preludium and first Fruits of what they might expect For it is not God's Manner to promise largely and liberally and to perform meanly and sparingly and the Number of Persons on whom the Gifts of the Spirit were poured out in those Days was too small to fill up the Extent of Joel's Prophecy especially if we compare it with and interpret it by other Prophecies of the same Nature it will appear that this is a Mercy which God designs to communicate in a higher Measure after the coming of Jesus Christ than formerly For he has promised that he will put his Law in their inward Parts and write it in their Hearts And they shall teach no more every Man his Neighbour and every Man his Brother saying Know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them saith the Lord. And we are told that the Earth shall be full of the Knowledge of the Lord as the Waters cover the Sea So that the Reason why this is so little experienced among Christians now adays is not because the Lord's Hand is shortned that he cannot do it or that this was a Mercy to be shewn only to the first Christians but because our Sins have separated between us and our God XII There have not been wanting in the several Ages of the Church some pure and holy Souls extraordinarily enlightned by the Spirit of God as Anthony and Paul the Hermit and many others of the Ancient Fathers of the Desart and in the later Ages Thaulerus Thomas a Kempis and some other extraordinary Persons as they who read their Lives or Writings without prejudice may see XIII It is generally believed by all Protestants that we are at present in the Reign of Antichrist and it is generally own'd by all That before the End of the World there will be a Destruction of the Antichristian State and a glorious State of the Church of Jesus Christ in Purity and Holiness without which the Conversion of the Jews and the bringing in of the fulness of the Gentiles cannot be hoped for All the Prophecies both of the Old and New Testament do point at this and their Description of it is so great and magnificent that it were absurd to apply it to any Event has fallen out already for in Divine Things the Reality of them does vastly transcend the most magnificent Descriptions that can be given of them There is nothing more plain from the Holy Scriptures and the State of the World than that the glorious Times foretold by the Spirit of God are not yet come And considering the great Corruption of the World and how unlikely it is that by human Wisdom or Reason such a Change will be wrought since the World by Wisdom knows not God there is all Ground to believe and hope that God will by an extraordinary Effusion of his Spirit bring about so great a Change XIV There being a two-fold Coming of Jesus Christ and a double Completion of Prophecies in relation to both therefore as the Preaching of John the Baptist was the first Coming again of Elias so many judge the Prophecy imports a Second Coming not of his Person but of some in his Spirit to restore all things Jesus Christ telling us even after John was beheaded that Elias will come indeed and restore all things To this Purpose a very sincere Enquirer into the Prophetick Stile takes out of the Prophecies and History concerning Elias and John Baptist a Character of that Spirit of Elias that must renew the World That its Doctrine must be that of casting away all Corruption Insincerity and Hypocrisie Declaring against all Distortion or Perversion of the Simplicity of Christian Truth by proud or politick Persons which will be no sectarian Spirit to rend and tear but a reconciling Spirit to solder together the Affections of Men Which will neither abrogate what is authentick noâ— introduce what is new but be a Restorer only of what useful Truths and Practices may seem to have been lost in the long Delapse
is unchangeable always consistent with himself and no Body can be mistaken in following what is conformable to the Gospel even to tho' it were declar'd by a wicked Person yea by the Devil himself But if some one declare some particular thing respecting the Salvation or Damnation of any they must see from whence this Knowledge comes If such have it by the Light of the Holy Spirit they must believe it as the Scripture or else they be in Hazard of being forsaken by God for despising the Warnings which he often gives us by some one of his Friends whom he makes use of to declare his Will to those who would not hear it so particularly themselves As he did to David by the Prophet Nathan to declare his Sin to him of which he was become insensible and so many others whom he has withdrawn from the way to Hell by the Warnings of some Souls enlightned by him as he does sometimes yet at present A True Prophet never seeks himself desires not to please Men aims at nothing but to satisfie the Will of God tho' it cost him his Life He speaks of his Commission without fear or respect of any He has no soft Words that flatter the Ears but hard ones that pierce Hearts He declares the Truths that reprove Men more willingly than those which commend them A True Prophet rejoyces more to be hated than lov'd because he sees then he is more conformable to his Master who in doing Good was hated and persecuted by Men. There is not a more certain Mark than the Reproach and Contradictions of Men whereby to discern a True Prophet from a False for Falshood always flatters and so is loved by the People who are willingly flattered The Holy Spirit can have no regard to what pleases or displeases but to what is pure Truth without respect of Persons And if there remain any doubt if it is the Holy Spirit who speaks by a Person who says so we must try if that Person possess the Twelve Fruits of the Holy Spirit his Seven Gifts and the Eight Beatitudes so you shall see visibly in them the Holy Spirit by his infallible Operations Thus you see what excellent and true Marks and Characters she gives whereby we may try whether any be truly endued with the Spirit of God or not and the more her Doctrine Life and Spirit are enquir'd into by the Lovers of Sincerity and Truth the more they will abide this Touchstone And it will still the more clearly appear that her Doctrine is the same in Substance with the Gospel her Life and Spirit a Transcript of it that the Law of God was written in her Heart from whence her Doctrine came as from a Fountain of Living Water springing up to Everlasting Life and was not derived from the broken Cisterns of humane Learning Conversation Study and Books And that her Words are sharp and piercing searching into the Heart and Conscience and far from soothing and flattering the Corruptions of Men. XVIII M. Pascal has given it as a distinguishing Mark and Character of the Christian Religion in Contradiction to all other Religions of the World as an Argument of its Divine Authority and Original that it makes Charity or the Love of God its principal End and Man's chief Duty which no other Religion does And I think it may be given as a distinguishing Character of the Doctrine of A. B. its being a true Representation of Christianity in Contradiction to most of the Systems of the Doctrine of Jesus Christ which have been advanc'd in this last Age of the World that she makes Charity or the Love of God the great End of that Religion and the Precepts and Life of Jesus Christ the necessary Means to bring us to that End and when this is so clearly discovered and represented to us by an illiterate Child without the use of any humane Helps and our false Glosses whereby we have perverted the Doctrine of Jesus Christ are laid open to us to ascribe this to Natural Judgment Heat of Fancy any Humane or Diabolical Means or to think to confound it with our Buffoonry and Criticks is a Spiritual Infatuation like that of the Scribes and Pharisees XIX Now all that has been or can be opposed to those Evidences of A. B. her being led by the Spirit of God come under these Two Heads viz. it is either affirm'd that these Marks and Characters are not sufficient Evidences even tho' she had them or that they do not all belong to her I shall give you then her own Vindication of her self in answering some Prejudices relating to these Heads First then they objected that there could be no sufficient Evidence of her being led by the Spirit of God unless she were endued with the Power of working Miracles In Answer to which she says It is a great Ignorance to desire to see Miracles that we may believe that a Soul is possest with the Holy Spirit for the Devil at this time can easily do Wonders Jesus Christ has assur'd us that in the last Times many false Prophets will arise that shall do great Signs and Wonders And we live now in the Reign of Antichrist They who ask now for Miracles deserve to be seduc'd by Satan for what need is there of them since God is not to send into the World a New Doctrine The Gospel Law is the last and most perfect of all Laws Nothing New will come to instruct Men except the fulfilling of the Gospel Law which was sufficiently confirm'd by Jesus Christ and his Apostles who needed then for the Hardness of Mens Hearts to work outward Miracles because of their Unbelief For those Persons Signs were wrought that were visible to their Senses But now Men are sufficiently confirm'd in the Gospel Law There are no Christians incredulous in this Point And therefore Miracles would serve to no purpose now since nothing is taught but what Jesus Christ and his Apostles taught and this is believed both by good and bad Christians I think you have not the true Touchstone to discern if a Person has the Spirit of God when you would try him by Miracles for the Spirit of Satan may do great Signs and Wonders in the Persons where he dwells I have seen Persons possest with that unclean Spirit who would have done admirable things Some were Blind for some Years and recovered their Sight in an Instant others were Dumb and recovered their Speech by supernatural Means others did hang and flee visibly in the Air before all the People others were without Pulse and Motion for some Nights and Days and in an Instant would arise and walk chearfully Are not here the Dead raised the Sick healed the Blind recovered to their Sight the Dumb to their Speech and Bodies suspended in the Air by the Power of the Devil How could you judge then by Miracles if a Person be led by the Spirit of God or of the Devil You
and extraordinary XX. 2. It is objected against her being led by the Spirit of God that many have had Visions and Revelations and yet not from God but that they have been acted either by the Heat of their own Imagination or by Illusions from the Devil who can transform himself into an Angel of Light and work upon the Fancies and Imaginations of corrupt Men so as to make his Illusions pass for Immediate Communications from God and therefore she may be reckoned among the Enthusiasts and Visionaries with which the World abounds Enthusiast is a Word which at first had a Good meaning viz. one truly led by the Spirit of God but now generally it is taken for one who falsely pretends to it and is not And of such there are several sorts of false Enthusiasts in the World tho' all of them do not go under that Name 1. Many there are who indulging still their corrupt Nature and being strongly acted by their own Imagination or by Impulses of the Devil pretend to Divine Inspiration and vent impious absurd and corrupt things as inspir'd by God By their Fruits ye shall know them Others are become Idolaters of their Reason make it their God But the most ordinary false Enthusiasts are they who least of all will own the Name those I mean who pretend to be Embassadours from God and that to resist them is all one as to resist the Spirit of God and that their Sermons and Explications of the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the Word of God tho' in the mean time they have not the Spirit of Jesus Christ are far from being enlightned by him venting their own Notions Passions Errors and Wranglings for the Word of God wresting it to speak as they would have it and in the mean time hating and persecuting those who are truly taught of God and calling them by the odious Names that belong to themselves True Divine Inspiration so far as we can conceive it from the Representations of those who have been truly and immediately Illuminated of God may be considered under these Two general Heads 1. Either God communicates himself his Light and Truth immediately to the Soul without the Intervention of any sensible Idea or Image Or 2. He makes use of sensible Images to affect the Soul and that after different manners by Dreams Visions Voices c. and it is in these especially and not in the former that the Devil labours to ape God and to delude Souls or that Men are deluded by their own warm Imaginations and the Devil's Illusions or their own Fancies pass for Divine Visions c. Now that the Motions and Sentiments of A. B. were not the Effect of such an Enthusiasm seems evidently to appear from her own Writings It is best to hear her self That I may satisfie says she to a great Lawyer the Question so oft proposed by you how I understand and speak with God I shall tell you in Simplicity what I can say of it God is a Spirit the Soul is a Spirit they communicate in Spirit they are not verbal Discourses but spiritual Notices Intelligences Spirituelles which nevertheless are more intelligible than the best Eloquence of the World God makes himself to be understood by the Soul by inward Motions which the Soul understands and comprehends according as it is freed of earthly Idea's and in so far as the Faculties of the Soul do cease the Motions of God are so much the more intelligible unto it The Notices of God are infallible when the Soul is free of all Images and in a Forgetfulness of all created things but they are doubtful when it acts by Imaginations and seek Sensibilities or any other thing that is not purely God The Saints themselves have in this Point committed Mistakes by Visions vocal Words Extasies or other Sensibilities to which the Imagination contributes God is a Spirit the Soul purified is transform'd into him and has no need of Words nor of Sight to understand him more than we need an Eye or a Tongue to understand our own Conceptions It is hard to declare how this is done it must be hard also to believe it and in Effect it is subject to Deceptions and Illusions of the Devil or the Imagination if these inward Notices and Knowledge be not declared by a Person whose Life and Words are conformable to the Gospel as being inspir'd by one and the same Spirit The rest of this Letter is transcrib'd above There is nothing more Difficult for Man's Understanding than to discern Spirits to know if they are of God or of the Devil or from Nature to discern this a Divine Light is necessary for the same things which the Spirit of God operates that of the Devil or of Nature may do also If the Spirit of God make a Soul say that which is to its Praise by a Spirit of simple Truth that of the Devil will make the same things be spoken through pure Pride that of Nature to get Esteem being so subtile in its Flatteries that it will sometimes utter things to its Contempt that it may appear Humble before those who hear them The same thing may be Holy Diabolical or Humane according to the inward Intention and Motion of the Soul that operates which God alone knows evidently in which so many deceive themselves who presume to discern Spirits and to guide Souls by their own natural Light These are the Blind who lead the Blind and both fall into the Ditch I entreat you to remark that the Holy Spirit is not visible to be seen by the Eyes of the Body where he resides but he manifests himself sufficiently by the Operations which he produces in those Souls which possess him They are adorn'd with all his Gifts and Fruits which are sure Marks of his Operations for neither the Devil nor Nature can work such Effects no more than natural Fruits can be brought forth without the Trees by which Fruits we discern the Trees so ought we to discern Souls that are filled with the Holy Spirit for to regard only the Bark which are the outward Actions and Words there is occasion of being greatly deceived for the Devil covers himself with the Garment of seeming Vertue and Sanctity and under this deceives the most Pious and the most Learned The Twelve Fruits and the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit and the Eight Beatitudes have always their Operations in the Person who possesses the Holy Spirit who cannot reside any where without them more than the Sun can be without Light so that it is in vain to seek other Signs whereby to discern this Spirit since these only are the true Oneâ— So that we may know if a Person be animated by the Holy Spirit or by the Devil or by Nature by the Operation of his Works we need only consider them with a single Eye with a pure Intention without Curiosity or Affectation and then we cannot be deceived for God
from the Natural Spirit that cloaks it self with the Spirit of God for this Divine Spirit never tends but to Divine Things If you had observed Sir that that fine Spirit which you attribute to me had been applied to get Wealth or to gain Praise or to Conversation to take Pleasure with Men you would have had some Reason to say that I had nothing but a natural Spirit or if you had discovered in my Words any Ornament of Language to make me be esteemed Eloquent or in my Writing any Affectation of speaking well that I might be praised these would be all Marks of a human Spirit I would gladly ask you Sir if you have ever seen me acted by this natural Spirit First if I have ever done any thing to gain Money Or if I have desir'd any sensual Pleasures or fed my self with Praises or lov'd the Conversation of Men Have you not rather perceiv'd that I ask nothing of any Body For I can say in Truth that if they would give me Riches I would not accept of them for my own Goods are a burthen to me and the two things I hate in the World are Honour and Sin the Conversations and Divertisements of the World are a Weariness to me and if I affected to be prais'd for my Words or Writings I would study to speak well to write well and to spell well whereas I have nothing but a simple vulgar Language nakedly to signifie my Thoughts without Curiosity or any Circumspection And for my Writings do you not see they are without any Study or Ornament full of Faults of Writing and Orthography without any human Regard or Reflection Do you think I have not enough of Spirit to correct all these Faults and to learn in a little time to write and spell perfectly that Men might see my Skill I am far from these Sentiments for I would never learn any thing of Men because I desired not to be prais'd by them One would have freely taught me Orthography another Poesy another the Mathematicks another the Latin Tongue and I despis'd all this to content my self with writing on my Knees on a little piece of Board the things that God sheds into my Spirit without desiring to make any Reflection to see if I wrote well or ill or if what I say will please one or displease another whether they will be well receiv'd and approved or despis'd or censur'd I have no other aim in Speaking or Writing but eternal things without caring for temporal and earthly things having no Pretensions upon Earth but only that of pleasing God and stirring up my Neighbour to his Love This cannot proceed from a Natural Spirit which is confin'd to earthly things and cannot aim to please God nor at eternal things for Nature cannot find its Pleasure and Satisfaction in a God which it does not see and feel What is beyond Sense is not Food agreeable to Nature more than precious Stones can be Food for Horses for neither of these are Aliments proportioned to the Nature of either For the Natural Senses will no more be filled with God and things Eternal than a Horse will be satisfied with Jewels for his Food but he loves the Grass and Hay far better as Food more sutable to his Nature Even so it is of the Natural Spirit and Senses they do far more esteem things earthly and sensual than God who is an Invisible Spirit or things Eternal which they do not perceive and feel with their Senses Whence we may draw a sure Consequence that he who does not seek or desire the Goods and Pleasures which tickle our Senses has the Spirit of God and lives supernaturally and he who seeks nothing but God and things Eternal cannot have this from a Natural Spirit and when you will needs say that my Writings proceed from a Natural Spirit you must prove that they aim at some Profit Pleasure or Praise from Men. If I desired to Profit by them I would endeavour to please them and to gain their Friendship and if I desired to take Pleasure among them I would draw them to me as you do and if I desired their Praises I would speak that which they would willingly hear and would not say that they are not true Christians For if I would say that all who have visited me are vertuous Souls and true Christians undoubtedly every one would esteem me and greatly praise me but when I do the quite contrary I shew it is the Spirit of God who acts in my Writings since they aim at nothing but to make known the Truth of God which alone can guide Souls to eternal Life and that the same Writings speak nothing but of despising earthly and temporal things There cannot be a more evident mark of Distinction between the actings of the Spiri of God and that of Nature than what is assign'd by her the last tending only to things Temporal and the other to things Eternal and that the Spirit she was guided by had this constant Tendency to God and Eternity and not to Honour Praise Wealth or Pleasure or any Temporal and Earthly things appears by the whole Course of her Life and Conversation XXII 4. It was alledged as another Presumption that she could not be led by the Spirit of God but by her own wild Imagination that they say she was ready to ascribe to the Spirit of God even all her Mistakes in writing or citing of Passages of Scripture naming Peter for Paul or the like and for an Evidence of this they cite the Story concerning M. Noel a Divine in Flanders who when he first read some of her Writings they being full of Faults of Orthography and Language and not so methodically ordered and the same things often repeated in different places tho' after a different manner he offered to put them in a better Order and Stile without changing the Essence of the Truth but when she ask'd Counsel of God it was said to her What rashness is it for Men to offer to Correct the Works of God All this may be very true and yet it does not follow that she ascribes all her Mistakes to the Dictates of the Spirit of God yea she plainly affirms the contrary and that all the Mistakes and Errors she falls into are from her self and not from God When you ask says she If there be any thing humane in my Motions Words and Deeds This Question seems to me Ridiculous Since being a humane Creature as well as others I must have natural Motions and Faculties as others have otherwise I should be an Angel or a Statue of Wood Stone or Metal which Instruments God never makes use of for declaring his Truths to Men. But the Devil has oft spoken by such Oracles But God spake by his Holy Prophets Natural Persons as others are who through their natural Frailty did often commit very great Faults yea sometimes gross Sins Must we doubt if Moses had the Spirit of God and
by the Spirit of God who cannot contradict himself for God is Yesterday and to day the same unchangeable and always equal to himself from whom no Variableness nor Contradiction can proceed But if her Adversary would examine all the Holy Scripture after the Manner he had done her Writings he would find many more such seeming Contradictions in the Bible For indeed there are many more according to the narrow Apprehension and shallow Judgment of Men who being earthly and carnal cannot understand spiritual things or those endited by the Holy Spirit and they forge in their little Brains Errours out of most solid Truths and Contradictions out of the greatest Conformities From hence have sprung so many Errours Schisms and Divisions in the Church of God because every one would understand the Scripture after their own Mode they have invented so many different Religions and each says This is founded on the Holy Scripture tho' very often they have different Sentiments and contradict one another in the same Truths while every one thinks he understands them aright Tho' they are uncapable of understanding Divine Things for the same Spirit that endited the Holy Scriptures gives the Understanding of them and when the Spirit of Man undertakes to do it he still falls from one Errour into another and loses himself in that great Ocean of Divine Wisdom which he cannot understand nor comprehend It does not trouble me that there appears to be Contradictions in my Writings to the Judgments of Men since they will hardly find two Prophets speak the same Words upon the same Matter and the four Evangelists do not relate the same Things after the same Manner Must it therefore be said that there are Contradictions in the Holy Scriptures as this Benjamin Furly says there are in my Writings God commands to honour Father and Mother and Jesus Christ says we must hate Father and Mother adding that he who does not forsake Father and Mother and all things cannot be his Disciple How will this Benjamin reconcile these two Passages For to honour Father and Mother is a thing quite contrary to the hating and forsaking them And Jesus Christ says that he is not come to bring Peace upon Earth but War between Father and Son c. And elsewhere he says my Peace I give you In one Place he says Drunkards and Gluttons shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and elsewhere he says that that which enters into the Mouth does not defile the Soul Truth is invincible and does not change for all that may be thundered against it but it is the more established when it is opposed and contradicted by ignorant Persons as this Benjamin who cannot discern Truth from Lying and from Contradictions He confounds one time with another and will needs give general Rules for all sorts of Occasions and when these Rules are not punctually observed at all times he thinks that Persons do change or contradict themselves And if he had been an Apostle of Jesus Christ when he lived upon Earth he would have often reproved him as at present he does me For when Jesus Christ was afraid of his Enemies he bids his Apostles buy Swords and if they wanted money to do it that they should sell their Garments and a little after he commands to put up the Sword and threatens that he who strikes with the Sword shall be strucken by it If this Benjamin had been in S. Peter's Place when he cut off Malchus's Ear he would certainly have been displeased at Jesus Christ and blamed him for Inconstancy and Contradiction because he could not discern the time when he ought to strike and when he ought to forbear He reproaches me that I have written somewhere that I might say something that is not true without lying or sinning He does not consider that there are material Lies which are not Sins He would have Words precisely spoken which are true according to his Caprice for it is a chief Article of the Quakers to justifie themselves before Men for they study precise Words that they may not commit a material Lie and they dare not call a Christian by that Name without adding as they call them fearing to Lie by calling him a Christian when he is not truly such For my part I am far from these Maxims for I never regard the pronunciation of Words but the Essence of the Truth of the things which I advance If I express them in this or that Term it is all one to me provided I deceive no Body and that I make the things to be understood which I would signifie But there is this difference between the Spirit that guides me and the Spirit that guides that Sect that they would be esteem'd by Men for good Men and for the People of God whereas I am not concern'd how they esteem me for I am content with the Testimony of my own Conscience and seek not the Approbation of Men far less will I say any Words to the end they may think that I am Just and guided by God It suffices me that I know it and God knows it for it is written He who would please Men is not the Servant of Jesus Christ Therefore I will freely speak a material Lie when I believe the thing is true for Example I have often said that I was Two Years younger than I find I am since I caus'd one to search the Register of my Baptism I grant I have thus made many material Lies yet without sinning thereby or lying since a Lie is a Deceit or Falseness of the Heart that kills the Soul which I could not do by saying that I was Two Years younger for I aim'd not thereby to deceive any Body nor to speak against the Truth I have uttered many such material Lies I love rather to possess the Essence of Truth in the bottom of my Soul than to speak verbally true Words through Hypocrisie For what else is it to call Men by the Name of Christians and to add to it as they call them than Hypocrisie and Contempt of the Truth such as the Jews had when they said to Pilate that he ought to write on the Cross of Jesus Christ that he was King of the Jews by adding to it as he said which Pilate would not add saying only What is written is written as I also answer to this Benjamin when he would teach me to speak Words which are true before Men For I know well that all whom I call Christians are not truly Christians before God yet I will not learn from the Quakers to add to the Name of Christian as they call them since this seems to me superfluous and I have no other Intention in calling them simply Christians but to make it be understood of whom I speak to wit that I speak not of the Jews or Heathens but of those only whom I call Christians yet without design to maintain that they are true Christians Since I declare elsewhere that I
understood them they afterwards despis'd them and would no longer believe them so as to mock and make a by-Word of what the Prophets said to them Even Jeremy himself thought he was much mistaken when he saw not the Effect of the good Promises that God had made to his People Ah! Lord God surely thou hast greatly deceived this People and Jerusalem saying Ye shall have Peace whereas the Sword reacheth unto the Soul The same Difficulty of not being able to comprehend the Word of God according to our way of conceiving it befel the very Disciples of Jesus Christ who had convers'd with him they were mistaken and thought themselves deceived witness the two who after his Death going to Emmaus sad and without hope said We trusted that it had been he who should have redeemed Israel and beside all this to Day is the third Day since these things were done And even when Jesus Christ ascended into Heaven some ask'd him if at this time he would restore Israel The Holy Spirit makes many things be said in another Sense than Men understand it as in what he made Caiphas say concerning Jesus Christ that it was expedient that one Man should die that the whole People perish not which he spoke not of himself and understood in another manner and for a quite different end than that of the Holy Spirit Thus we see we may be easily mistaken by our way of understanding the Words and Revelations of God They are an Abyss and Depth of Spirit which our natural Sense cannot comprehend We must free our Mind from our way of conceiving things and place it in the Liberty of a Faith which may make it reckon its own ways of conceiving obscure and dark There we shall receive the Abundance of the Spirit Wisdom and Understanding proper for conceiving aright the Words of God which no Man that is not Spiritual can comprehend or judge of they being Divine He cannot judge even reasonably of them and if he judge of them according to the outside he is not Spiritual For tho' they be covered with this outside yet he cannot understand them as St. Paul says that the natural Man does not conceive the things which are of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him and he cannot understand them because they are Spiritual But the spiritual Man discerns all things It is a rashness therefore to give our selves the Liberty to treat of Divine things by a way of comprehending them naturally when they require a Discerning that is Supernatural to Sense Let us conceive this also by some Examples Suppose a Holy Person sees he is persecuted by his Enemies and God says to him I will deliver thee from them all see Jer. 1. 19. this Prophecy may be true tho' his Enemies kill him as it happened to that Prophet therefore he who should understand this Prediction in a temporal way should be deceived for God might have spoken of the true and chief Deliverance and Victory which is Salvation by which the Soul is victorious and delivered from all its Enemies in a far more true and profitable way than the temporal and outward Deliverance And in this Sense that Prediction was more true and ample than the Man would have conceiv'd it to be if he understood it only for this temporal Life For the Words of God do comprehend always the principal and most useful Sense and Man may understand them after his way according to the less principal Sense and so be mistaken Add that if a Person to whom God has given such a Promise be the Head of a Family or Society bodily or spiritual the Promise may concern his Children or those associated with him bodily and may be fulfilled in them tho' as to the Death of the Head the Promise is annihilated Even so if a Soul desiring to die a Martyr for God receive this Word from him Thou shalt be a Martyr it may fall out that the Person shall not die a Martyr and yet the Promise remain true for it will be accomplish'd according to the principal and essential part God giving him the Love and Recompence of Martyrdom making him a Martyr of Love giving him a Martyrdom lengthned out in Labours the continuance of which will be more troublesome than Death In which he will accomplish both the desire of the Soul and his own Promise for the desire of the Soul was not simply that kind of Death which of it self would signifie nothing without God's Friendship but to render to God the Service and the Love of a Martyr The other because God will give most perfectly the Reality and Recompence of this tho' by other means God has promised to fulfil the Desire of the Righteous because their Desires are just and true If therefore God do not fulfil them during this temporal Life it is certain he will do it after this Life and in a most perfect manner so that the Promises do still remain most true The second Cause why divine Words and Visions tho' always true in themselves yet nevertheless are not always certain as to us is because of the Reasons Motives and Grounds upon which they are built since they may change the Effect does not follow We must therefore believe that these things will infallibly come to pass so long as that shall remain which moves and incites God for Example to punish as if God said Within a Year I will send such a Plague upon this Kingdom the Ground of this Threatning is a certain Transgression which they commit in this Kingdom against God If therefore the Transgression cease or vary the Punishment may also cease or be changed Nevertheless the Threatning was true forasmuch as it was founded on an actual Fault and it would have been executed if the Offence had continued This appears in what happened to the City of Ninevah whither God sent the Prophet Jonah to denounce from him Yet Forty Days and Ninevah shall be destroyed Which nevertheless was not fulfilled because the Cause of this Threatning ceas'd which was the Sins of the People who immediately repented otherwise this Denunciation from God would certainly have taken effect The same thing as to the matter of divine Threatning we see in King Ahab whom God threatned by the Prophet Elias with a great Judgment Him his House and Kingdom But because he rent his Garments with Grief covered himself with Sackcloth fasted and lay in Sackcloth and Ashes humbled and afflicted himself God immediately tells him by the same Prophet that he would not send that Evil in his Days Where we see because Ahab chang'd the Threatning and Sentence of God ceas'd also From hence we must conclude that tho' God reveal or speak affirmatively to a Soul any thing in Good or Evil concerning it self or others this may change more or less or none at all according to the Change of the Affection or Disposition of that or these Souls and according to
and God who had so much comforted her in Prayer all the time that she was despised now withdrew from her and her Prayers were without any fervour Her Conscience often check'd her when she did or said any thing to please the World but she had not the courage to withdraw from it But God had pity on her who had abandon'd him to turn to the Creatures She oft-times felt inward Motions from God and even in the midst of her Divertisements and Dancings she had sometimes secret Reproofs from him piercing her Heart with those inward Words Will you forsake me then for another Will you find a Lover more compleat and more faithful than I am But a little after Company and Divertisements got the Ascendant and even when she was excited by those inward Motions to abandon all she would reply Then I should never have Pleasure It is fit for one to take some Pleasure in their Youth VII Then God seeing that his gentle Motions avail'd nothing took more severe means to recover her and fill'd her Spirit with fearful Apprehensions of Death Judgment and Hell the hearing of the Deaths of others and Sermons about Death and Judgment did before that touch her but very little like the Stories of Foreign Countries and she would not let her self think that she was concern'd in them But when God was pleas'd to open her Eyes and let her see she must Die and appear at the great Judgment then unexpressible Apprehensions seiz'd her and all the Day long when she was alone she would say to her self Poor Creature What will become of thee Thou must die all the things of the World cannot save thee from this fearful Death thou caâ—st not escape it And what wilâ— thou say when that Hour shall come This she often repeated both in her Mind and by Word They with whom she convers'd observing her Sadness endeavour'd to chear and divert her but all in vain For then she had a disgust of all Recreations and earthly Pleasures And when she forc'd her self to take Contentment in any thing she thought it was said to her Heart To what purpose takest thou Pleasure since thou must die For what will this serve thee before God But the sensitive part of her Soul was very displeas'd to see it self thus afflicted and said in its mute Language Thou shalt never be well if thou put not these Fancies out of thy Head but will die very shortly if thou continue in such Apprehensions This made her leave oft for some time But as soon as she came to her self the superiour part said Forget Death as much as you will it shall not forget thee It is a folly to think to free thy self of it by shutting it out of thy Memory It will find thee every where and does not wait till thou be ready but comes at its time unlook'd for and when thou shalt think least of it And if the Idea of it only does so affright yea put thy Life in hazard how will the reality of it make thee afraid when thy Soul shall be in Danger Give place to those Truths without flattering thy self with any Reasons VIII These were the Debates which toss'd her Spirit without ceasing She resolv'd then to quit all the World and prepare for Death and prevent it since it followed her so hard But she found great Difficulty to do it being Young and in the midst of all worldly Advantages so that she might promise to her self as much of worldly Pleasures Honour and Wealth as any of her rank Nevertheless the thoughts of Death had yet greater force when she thought on the future State She said to her self It is very true Mirth is agreeable Pleasures are sweet and Wealth delightful but this lasts but for a little time Death will come and change all and all must be parted with with a lamentable regret and it may be an eternal Punishment for a good of so short continuance So that perceiving clearly this Truth she prayed earnestly to God to give her Grace to think always upon Death and never to let it be out of her Mind for any thing that might befall her which she obtain'd after a long perseverance in this Prayer And to fix it the more upon her Spirit she went oft to the Church-yard where looking on the Bones of the dead she said See my Body what will become of thee Thy own Head and thy own Hands will be very shortly thrown into this Company and she was afraid to look upon them and forc'd her self to approach them being naturally timorous and to handle them saving O miserable Creature Wilt thou have a Horror for thy self Draw near boldly Thou shalt be a Thousand times more vile when the Worms shall eat thee and this will be the greatest Honour that can befal thee to be ranked with these Bones here IX This gave her a great disgust for the Body which she formerly cherish'd and a hatred and severity against her self and after her Sister was married she retir'd from all sort of Company staid alone in her Chamber entered upon a very austere Life Lying hard Sleeping little Fasting much mingling what she did eat with Ashes to mortifie her Taste wearing hair cloath next to her Skin and afflicting her Body and praying and weeping the most part of her time for Grief that she had left the sweet Conversation she had with God to please her self in the Divertisements of the World She visited the Poor and Sick frequented the Churches and Sacraments not knowing by what means she could recover the Favour of God which she had lost through her own Fault She durst scarce sleep in the Night fearing to fall into Hell while asleep and that the Earth would not bear her So terrible were her Apprehensions of the Judgments of God that she durst not shut her Eyes because of her Sins which seem'd to her so great that none had ever committed the like not that she was guilty of any Crime or wicked Deed but because she had forsaken the sweet Conversation that her Soul had with God to please her self with the Divertisements of the World after having received so many Favours from God which deserved the Thanksgiving of her whole Life This appear'd to her so great a Sin that Hell was not sufficient to punish it She continued in those Austerities and Mortification for Seven Years and would have done so still if God had not commanded her when she was Twenty Five Years of Age to leave this and lead an ordinary Life Her Mortifications were not the Effect of a melancholy Humour nor accompanied with it for she was of the most serene and chearful Temper even to her Death But she chastis'd her self with an inward Contentment and Tranquillity out of a Principle of Justice And her Floods of Tears flowing from the Love of God whose Friendship she had lost through her own Fault were attended with a secret and most solid Pleasure
House at the Church of St. 〈◊〉 near Lisle XXX There she liv'd alone wrought to gain her living was mâ—re conâ—â—ted than ever being rid of the Affairs of the World and convers'd with no body A poor Maid brought her Food once a Week and very often the Door was not opened till she came again The Consolations she received from God in that Place were unexpressible full of spiritual Delights So that she often past whole Days without eating or drinking not knowing it was Night She was so transported with them that she ask'd of God if there was any thing beyond them in Life Eternal He answered Infinitely more beyond Comparison You ought not during this Life to delight your self in such Sensibilities The least sensible Motions of the Soul are the most perfect and of which the Devil can take no hold as he does in the sensible ones Thus he delivered her from all corporâ—al Sensibilities to which she was no more subject and â—he afterward walked surely in Spirit and in Truth And whereas she would fix her Residence in that Place of Delights he said to her Thou shalt walk yet in the World and be persecuted and reproached Thou shalt fly into the Desart through rugged Ways Prefer my Glory to thy Contentment I had no Repose upon Earth XXXI She was troubled there for some time by the pursuit of a foolish Youth Nephew to the Pastor there who having seen her became desperately in Love with her and still haunted about her House She complain'd to his Uncle who having threatned to put him away if he should not desist he chang'd his Love into Fury and several times shot a Fuzee through her Chamber and at last gave out he had married her and in less than an Hour all Lisle was full of it every one spoke of her with Contempt she knowing nothing of it till her Confessor sent to ask her and the Preachers publish'd the Falshood of it to the People XXXII After Four Years stay in this Retreat she was forc'd to flee in haste the French coming into this Village to surprize Lisle She retir'd into the Town in the House of a poor devout Maid who gave her a Corner in a Garret where in the Winter she suffered great Cold being oft covered with Snow in the Morning when she awak'd The Countess of Willerwall wrote to her earnestly to return to her which she did and staid with her about a Year till she was call'd to Lisle her Father being a dying XXXIII Having done the last Offices to her Father and her Sister being dead Childless and she remaining the sole Heiress of her Mother she was doubtful whether she should meddle with the Succession She considered on the one hand that after having forsaken all worldly Goods to follow the Poverty of Jesus Christ she ought not to take them up again on the other side she knew not to whom to leave it fearing to do Evil and to partake in the Sins of those who should possess it Her Mother-in-Law had wasted those Goods more than a half for the Five Years she had liv'd with him and tho' at his Marriage he had 20000 Florins in Cash yet she had not only spent that but great Revenues of his own Goods and of his first Wife 's besides the Revenues of his Office capable of maintaining honourably all his Family so that at his Death there was not wherewith to bury him She would not be guilty therefore of leaving them to one who would make no other use of them but to offend God In this Perplexity she advis'd with her Confessor who thought that she ought to take what belong'd to her and dispose of it in Alms remitting her nevertheless to be determined by God After some Days of earnest Prayers to God that he would direct her what to do in this matter he said to her Pursue your Right take your Goods you shall have need of them for my Glory She claim'd then the half of the Goods due to her by Law and Custom as the sole Heiress of her Mother leaving the other for the Children of the second Marriage and was tost with many Troubles before that Process was at an end XXXIV Some are ready to interpret this as a hankering after the World as she foresaw they would and that her Declaration that it was the Will of God that she should possess her Rights was purely her own Invention to cover this We are still apt to measure others by our selves and to think tht their Actions cannot proceed from another Spirit and Principle than what we are conscious ours would flow from in the same Circumstances But they who consider the whole tract of her Life will not be so rash in their Judgment Worldly Goods are not Evil in themselves the only Evil is that when we possess them we are not as tho' we possest them not but our Hearts are set on them and therefore God commands either the forsaking or keeping of them and we ought either to abandon or possess them according as our Hearts are apt to be set upon them or are wholly mortified to them A. B. had been habituated to a State of Mortification to the World and all earthly things by an actual abandoning of it in a course of many Years God having thus tried her as he did Abraham in relation to his Son Isaac and this was become her Delight and Element And when she came to possess them again it appears through all her Life that she did it as tho' she possest them not looking on her self only as a Steward of them to employ them for her Master's Use and they as a weighty Charge to her which she would gladly have been rid of employing them wholly for many Years in the bringing up of Orphans and never throughout all her Life taking to her self but simple Necessaries no more than if she had been in the greatest Poverty XXXV Being one Day in the Street about her Affairs a Man whom she knew not accosted her and afterwards came to her Lodging telling her there were multitudes of poor Infants made Orphans by the Wars in great Want both as to Body and Soul and that she might remedy this great Evil God having given her Talents and Commodities to undertake so good a Work and prayâ—d her to recommend this Proposition to God who would make known his Will to her thereabout The Man had a great Appearance of Piety and spoke so divinely of spiritual Things that she thought he was taught by the Holy Spirit He told her He was call'd John S. Saulieu born near Dorway that he had never studied Letters but for his own Perfection that he had still convers'd with Vertuous Persons and staid some time with an Hermit and had now for his Director the Pastor of St. Stephens at Lisle and a Character being ask'd of him he said he was a Man of an Apostolick Zeal He walk'd on the Streets
came near their Principles She told them their Malady was that they would needs comprehend all by the activity of Humane Reason without giving place to the Light of Divine Faith which requires a Cessation of the activity of our Reason that God may shed or revive therein that Divine Light without which not only God is not well known but even he and the true Knowledge of him are banish'd out of the Soul by this activity of our corrupt Mind and Reason which is a real kind of Atheism and rejecting of God They were so full of their Idea's that they mock'd at her Remonstrances But one of them being a little after seiz'd with a mortal Sickness in the Flower of his Age and God opening his Eyes to let him see his Error he began to lament and cry Night and Day My Vnderstanding my Vnderstanding to what hast thou brought me Alas my Reason in which I so much trusted what assistance canst thou give me now Now thou canst give me neither Salvation nor the hope of it I must be damned There can be no Mercy for me A Friend of A. B. going to see him in that State endeavour'd to comfort him but the other finding no Quiet ask'd him still If he thought there was yet any Mercy to be hop'd for his Soul And then casting again his Eyes and Arms from one side to another began again his Complaints My Vnderstanding my Vnderstanding Whether hast thou guided me Some of his Friends amongst others Steno and Swammerdam came often to visit and comfort him but nothing could calm him At last he turns to the Friend of A. B. saying Go tell that good Soul meaning A. B. to pray to God for me that I may obtain the Pardon of this Sin otherwise I am damned or must suffer a very long Purgatory O if I could recover of this Sickness I would turn wholly unto God and would follow quite another Way But when this was told to A. B. She answered He shall not rise again but he will die for if he should recover he would fall again more profoundly into this pernicious Errour He died his Judgment being sound and good but with Great Repentance and Contrition adoring with great Fervency Jesus Christ crucified to the Greeks and to the Philosophers Foolishness A. B. had such an Horrour for this wicked Disposition of the Philosophers that she could not suffer it affirming that God had declared to her expresly That this Errour of Cartesianism was the worst and most cursed of all the Heresies in the World and a formal Atheism or a rejecting of God in whose Place corrupt Reason did set up it self Not that this Idol of corrupt Reason is not a thing common to all the Learned and to all sorts of Philosophers as well as the Cartesians but these are incomparably more wedded to it they think they are in Possession of it above all and they will admit of nothing but by this Way After she had been visited by all sorts of Persons who reaped not that Profit they might have done God sent her two or three sincere and well disposed Men who finding in her Life and Conversation the Means to approach unto God and to advance the Perfection of their Souls left the World their Business and Friends and continued with her all the time of her Life and theirs All others withdrew to her great Satisfaction She said God had made her see by this Converse with People of all Sorts whom she had admitted indifferently by his Divine Order how few are to be gained in the World even among the best and those who seek the Truth and that after these Visits God would never more engage her to such a Distraction and that she should lead a retir'd Life all the rest of her Days Which fell out and she begun it then in Amsterdam and did not give access as formerly LII She employ'd most of this Time to compose many Books Of which these are the Principal The Funeral of False Divinity in 4 Parts Upon Occasion of some Conferences with the Cartesian Philosophers she wrote the Holy Perspective There she wrote also her Outward Life and the New Heaven and the New Earth In the writing of which she was so ravished that she often forgot her necessary Food She designed to have continued these Wonders But God said unto her Leave that Work Men are not worthy nor capable of it they will imagine that they have the Dispositions requisite for that glorious State but they are very far from them Shew them rather the miserable State they are brought into by Sin under the Dominion of corrupt Nature and under the Empire of Antichrist who now rules over them without their apprehending it Write to them of the Reign of Antichrist So she laid by her Pen and that Work saying to God I shall do it Lord and wrote afterwards the Treatise of Antichrist discovered in Three Parts She began another Treatise called The last Mercy of God but did not finish it for the Reasons told in the Conclusion of it and the Traverses she met with in the Imprisonment of M. de Cort and her own Persecutions and Flights kept her from the Pursuing that and other Works which she had begun LIII Had M. de Cort followed her Counsel he might have avoided all the Mischief he fell into but the Sincerity and Goodness of his Nature would not let him think that he had such cruel Enemies especially amongst his Brethren and Friends the Priests Churchmen and his own Disciples whom he had brought up and to whom he had hitherto left and given all he could not believe that they would seek to imprison him or endeavour to poison him as she forewarn'd him of both and still bid him take heed of them The true Cause of this Imprisonment was that God having touched his Heart to hearken to the Divine Truths declared unto him by A. B. he resolved not only to embrace them but to publish them also to others designing to retire to the Isle of Noordstrand of which he was Director and had the best Part of it at his Disposal and to invite good Men thither who desir'd to lead a Christian Life This seem'd to his Brethren an Apostacy and the setting up a new Heresie they resolve therefore to ruin him But this Pretext would not do at Amsterdam or Holstein and therefore they must devise another At Amsterdam there is a Dungeon where at the Instance of Creditors they arrest and shut up Strangers who are in Debt till they have satisfied it There are usually ten or twelve Prisoners there living in Despair as mad passing the time in swearing blaspheming and committing a thousand Impieties and sometimes killing one another having no Food but a piece of brown Bread and a little small Beer and there some of them die in Misery They thought this Place would do as well as one of the Prisons of the Roman Inquisition and to
which his Highness had granted to the Partners of that Isle that she had nothing to do with the Pastours of Holstein her Enemies that she and 〈◊〉 would let them and their Hearers do and say what â—â—ey pleased that while they gave Offence to no body but liv'd honestly and justly and even brought temporal Advantage to the Inhabitants of the Country and had nothing but just Designs they ought not to oppose them fearing thereby to oppose God That otherwise God would take Vengeance on them and that she was much afraid that he might punish the Country and the Inhabitants in the same Manner that she had been and might yet be treated by them It is like the Discourses of the Pastours made all this vanish but they could not put off what follow'd some Months after However she resolv'd to wait with Patience to see if they would grant her just Requests She applied herself to take a particular Care of forming the Souls of those who were with her according to the Will of God both as to spiritual and temporal She wrote for their spiritual Direction besides many particular Letters one common to them all which is the Second Part of The Renovation of the Evangelical Spirit and for their outward Behaviour began to write the Treatise called Sound Advices and also The Rules of Christians which last is joined to the Treatise called The Stones of the New Jerusalem As she prescrib'd them nothing of herself she ask'd God his Will as to the Government of outward Things for which he gave her particular Rules which are already put into English in the Preface to The Light of the World p. 19. Shortly after this the Court was forc'd to remove the King of Denmark and his Troops passed over all the Country and the President being then secur'd the Pastours applied to the King's Council who then took the Government of the Country to cause her to be seiz'd she immediately after went for Hambourg with one Maid leaving her Friends in the House which she had bought but some Weeks before and the King's Armies came into the Country and ravaged every where and they who would not tolerate a Servant of God who could do them nothing but Good both for Body and Soul were forc'd to suffer private and publick Hardships which were long and severe enough LXXIV She came to Hambourg the last of March 1676. where there was Appearance she might live long enough retiredly in a Place whose Freedom Greatness and Trade keeps them from taking exact Notice of Strangers and private Persons that live there The first Traverse she met with was that she could find no where a free Chamber where she might live retir'd so that after having waited all Day she was forc'd to go lodge in a Soldier 's House who offer'd her a little Chamber where she staid fifteen Months for want of a Retreat elsewhere In the Spring time she applied herself to make a little Garden of a Court which was useless to the Lodging and accommodated it very well and profitably She repaired and whiten'd her Chamber and a Part of the Lodging wash'd her own Linen and serv'd herself in every thing except the Buying of Provisions not daring to go abroad lest she should meet with some of her Acquaintaince She was most exact in all the outward things which Necessity and good Order required and said this pleased God more than the most sublime Contemplations which often gratifies Self-love and thereafter gives Occasion of Disorder and Displeasure to the Soul by the Confusion that Negligence has brought in outward things Whereas outward Labour even in the meanest things humbles the Heart simplifies it begets an entire and exact Submission to God a laudable Charity and Care for our Neighbour and a certain Repose and Contentment of Soul which did more satisfie S. Joseph in being a Carpenter than were the Doctors of the Law in preaching in Moses's Chair She told how S. Terese having begun to write one of her sublimest Works and having interrupted it for to Spin when her Religious Nuns begg'd she would continue to write she answered them that she must first have done with her Distaff This A. B. told sometimes smiling to those who would perswade her not to employ her self in outward Labours that she might bestow all her Time in writing spiritual Things LXXV She wrote then the Second Part of Solid Vertue and the excellent Preface to The Renovation of the Evangelical Spirit and the Preface before The Blindness of Men now adays for she resolv'd to prepare all her Writings to be published after that God had made known to her that such was his Will for by them the Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached thro' all the World There were several Persons who came to her at this time from several Parts and being convinced of the Truth offered her all the Services they were capable of And she offered them always unto God that she might know how to behave with them She was again surrounded with Afflictions on all sides In Sleswick her Friends were robb'd beaten and wounded by the Soldiers and Rabble and forc'd to leave the Lodging and flee into the Woods and from thence thro the Snow into the Town of Kiel In Noordstrand the Peasants stole the Beast and other Goods she had bought with her Money her Friends there neglecting to sue after them She herself at Hambourg was seized with some Fits of Sickness which brought her very low And perceiving that some Friends who were then with her were troubled with the Thoughts of her being to be taken from them shortly by Death she said Why do you make such Reckoning of me I am nothing but a human Creature Fix upon God and cleave to him From him you must call for Help him you must strive to please You are to have no Concern at all for me as to my Person It is to God only and to his Spirit that you must cleave If I come to die what matters it You must not for this leave off in the least to cleave unto God and continue faithful unto him If you trust in me you will deceive your selves I may die as any other Person And if God did not still preserve my Life as by a Miracle amidst so much Weakness and Perils I should have been dead already a thousand times They were so perswaded of this particular Protection of God that it made them too confident that God would yet preserve her Life for a long time One of them said to her I do not believe that you can die so soon whatever Evil befall you And I says she do certainly believe I may die even at this Moment What reason have you to believe the contrary Because replied he God has given you Promises which are not yet fulfilled and we are sure that God will not be wanting in his Word He has promised that you shall have Children who shall imitate you
Stuffs Linens c. but the coursest and cheapest To these her Lodging and Accommodation were sutable a little Chamber a few old Chairs a little Table and sometimes a piece of Board upon her Knees to write upon her Bed and its Furnituee of the same kind yet all neat and cleanly She always served her self and was never served by others but in case of necessity but most ready to serve others whether Poor or Rich indifferently if this only could be of any Profit to the Soul or if any urgent Necessity called for Help no Service was then too mean for her and to spare others she would readily go and do the meanest Offices even to wash the Dishes scour the Pots take off the Ashes wash the Linen sweep and clean the House not excepting any Employ how low soever provided Health good Order or other Reasons did permit it 4. Yet in all these she never set to her self any particular Rules and advised her Friends never to amuse themselves with particular Rules of some outward Customs of humble Habits and pious Countenances which some Persons and Sects do observe to shew they are Devout and Spiritual as to wear their Apparel only of such a Fashion or such a Colour or such a Stuff or to choose particular Meats or the like whereby they distinguish themselves from the rest of the World as being more Holy and more Vertuous than they This she said begets in such an Esteem of themselves and a Contempt of others is real Hypocrisie and the greatest Pride and far from the Doctrine and Practice of Jesus Christ who could not be distinguish'd from his Disciples by his Enemies when they came to apprehend him without a Sign from Judas of his kissing him nor his Disciples from the rest of the People but when their Speech bewrayed them 5. She was most diligent in her Affairs did all things both for the Body and Soul with Foresight and good Order without letting any thing be spoiled but put all to some good use being always well employed in something and acting in all things with as much care as a faithful Steward and that in little things as well as great She would never undertake a thing hastily nor go about with it Precipitation not to have it soon done but to have it well done She took time first to recommend it to God and being once perswaded that it was agreeable to his Will she did it leisurely but with Perseverance as God she said did all his Works Doucement Fortement this she said was good both for Body and Soul and advanced any Affair better than too much Vehemence 6. She was so little concern'd for to be esteem'd and honoured by Men that their Praises and Reproaches did equally touch her as little as if she had never heard of them seeking nothing in the World but that God might be honoured and the Souls of Men saved Her Business and her Thoughts never aimed to procure Honour Ease Wealth or Pleasures for her self or others All her Pleasure was to delight in God in her Solitude out of the Conversation of Men and to bring to light what he gave her for the Salvatian of Souls This made her stay for the most part Solitary in her Chamber and even when she was taken up in sowing or any other Work she lov'd still to be alone to keep her Spirit always united to God and if the Salvation of her Neighbour had not required it she would certainly have broken off from all Society 7. Tho' Solitude was a thousand times more agreeable to her than any Company yet she would part with it and make her self as it were a State of continual Labours and Cares for the good of others purely for the Love of God and the Salvation of Souls So entire was her Resignation unto God that what she once knew to be his Will tho' contrary to her Inclinations and Quiet tho' she saw she would meet with nothing but Contempt Reproach and Persecution in it yet she made a Sacrifice of all to follow it 8. Her constant Rule was Righteousness not only to render to every one in outward things what appertain'd to them but it extended to all things to those of the Soul as well as of the Body She did not despise the Good that was in her Enemies nor excuse the Evil that was in her Friends She never judged according to Passions but according to Equity She would not be Partaker of other Mens Sins 9. Truth was the Rock on which she stood firm and to which she did adhere and cleave without Respect of Parties or Persons so that they who opposed it might well hurt themselves they could not shake her and tho' all the Learned in the World would have set themselves against her she would have regarded it no more than if they had been Children being so establish'd in the Truth So free was she from all humane and worldly Respects that she would not for all the Wealth Friendship or Terrors of the World omit to declare the Truth if the Glory of God required it 10. The Love of God was the Element in which she lived She delighted in him only despised all earthly things for him and adhered to him so strongly that she would do nothing without his Divine Will 11. All her Life was a constant Proof of her Charity to Men. From this Spirit she employed her Time Labour and Goods for many Years for the Good of the Souls and Bodies of a multitude of Orphans She took all care to communicate to the World even against Mens Will and endeavours to the contrary the Light that God gave her for the Good of their Souls denuding her self of all Accommodations and suâ—fering all manner of Reproaches and Harâ—ships that she might do them the greatest Good and bring them to God 12. And such was her Perseverance and Fortitude in this that all the Scorn and Contempt and Hardships and Persecutions that she met with in a Course of many Years did not shake nor alter her 13. She was so disinteress'd so far from seeking her self that she would never seek for any nor draw any Body over unto her Sentiments and would not let those who were with her strive any ways to draw in others even tho' they by this way had been able to bring over the most Powerful and the most Learned in the World and from whom she and hers might have received â—ore of outward Advantages and Support Her Rules for her self and Friends were Seek none let God operate in Souls otherwise all will be nothing but the Works of Mens hands which will perish As she had no other Butt but to send all to God so she would have no other thing for the Motive and Principle but the being moved by God 14. She had always a serenity and cheerfulness of Spirit a tranquility of Mind and Joy that even appeared outwardly And whatever Emotion she might be seiz'd with
upon some extraordinary Accident or some great Fault committed by others yet it was soon â—ver and she no sooner entred into her Chamber or her Solitude but she returned again with great Tranquility She usually said That she hated nothing but Honour and Sin 15. Her Patience and Resignation was singular in the Sicknesses Pains and other Adversities which beâ—el her and her bearing with the Faults and Infirmities of those who were with her tho' upon Occasions her Zeal and Fervour made her rebuke them earnestly especially when they sinned wilfully and maliciously For they who were of good Inclinations and sinned through Infirmity or Ignorance she bear with them or corrected them with great Mildness and Lenity but if any who had been often admonished did sin wilfully and maliciously she did rebuke them vehemently and being moved with a lively Zeal set her self against their Iniquity and we see it was usual for the most Holy to do so Moses Paul and others yea and Jesus Christ himself 16. Her Faith in God did uphold her on all Occasions never doubting of the Truth of his Word waiting his Time for the fulfilling of it and looking still to the things which are not seen and which are eternal 17. Her admirable Knowledge in Divine Things appears by all her Writings and the manner of acquiring it was no less Admirable not by the means of Books Schools or Men as was evident to all who convers'd with her and appears from all her Writings But all my Books says she and Library consist in the Conversation of my Spirit with God and my School is to learn to purge my Soul from Sin and to withdraw its Affections from all earthly things that it may love only those which are Eternal The manner also of composing her Writings as has been already mentioned was no less singular and extraordinary Her Knowledge was singular also in other things as there was occasion for it particularly in the Law in the Matters of Right and Justice so that the greatest Lawyer could not have more distinctly deduced an Affair nor urged it with stronger Reasons as appears in the Affairs of M. de Cort and of Noordstrand 18. Her Humility and Lowliness did shine forth in her Actions so that they who conversed with her do declare they could not observe in her any thing of Pride or Self-esteem Yet this was not express'd by artificial humble Words and Gestures which affect the Reputation of being thought so and cover the greatest Pride but by an unaffected Poverty of Spirit and giving the Glory of all Good to God And the very things which her Enemies adduce as Instances of Pride were great Evidences of the contrary 19. Simplicity and Sincerity of Heart were her nature there was no Guile in her Spirit she not only would not deceive Men but also would not deceive her self and because of this single Eye her whole Body was full of Light for God makes wise the Simple 20. She often bless'd God for three Things 1. That he never let her drink in the Doctrine of Men for this she said would have made her uncapable of receiving that of the Holy Spirit 2. That he had not engaged her in a married State for then she would have lost the Liberty of cleaving to God only 3. That he gave her Peace and Tranquility of Mind in all Rencounters for otherwise she would have oft times stumbled or fallen in the so many different Accidents and Miseries to which she was exposed 21. Her Life was a continual Prayer her Spirit being always turned towards God whether she was writing or working or eating or walking or in her Chamber or travelling every thing gave her Occasion of begging his Help or to bless him for his Favours or to adore and celebrate his Perfections 22. As she heartily regrated the Divisions of Christendom so she advised those of her Friends who had withdrawn themselves from the World to lead a Christian Life not to make new spiritual Assemblies and Meetings She said Christians ought always to entertain one another with spiritual Things and that all their Words and Works should be Sermons for edifying and animating one another to Vertue and to the Perfection of their Souls She bid them purge their Souls from Sin and labour to acquire true Vertue and to preach to themselves and others by their Life Not but that she thought publick Assemblies were necessary for those who were still taken up about Worldly Affairs and who would apply the whole time of their Life in temporal Affairs if there were not some Times appointed for Prayer or some Places for hearing Instruction Nor did she think publick Assemblies unlawful when they sincerely sought the Glory of God Nor that they who were truly regenerated themselves and endu'd with Divine Light to instruct others ought not to teach them But she gave this Counsel to her Friends both that they might avoid the Scandal of Forming a new Sect and the drawing upon themselves unnecessary Persecutions and Hatred in Places where such Assemblies were not tolerated and that they might not be tempted to Vain-glory Curiosity and Destruction by offering to teach others before they were well taught themselves for their own Perfection or by desiring to learn from others that which they did not practice 23. Being ask'd concerning the Eucharist if she held Transubstantiation or Consubstantiation or a figurative Representation only She said These were all unprofitable Speculations about which Men dispute to no purpose and yet none of them can tell how this Mystery is Neither is it necessary for Salvation nor for the Fruit of true Communicating As for me says she I never apply my self to these Formalities but in Simplicity I lift up my Heart and Spirit unto God and place my self always as in his Presence and I communicate uniting my Design and my Intention with that of Jesus Christ and in his Spirit without troubling my self with other Particularities provided my Spirit be united to his and in a true Disposition of conforming my self to him and of following him 24. Tho' she had the Liberty to Converse with many Yet she said she saw it not fit since Men now are so accustomed to see affected Gestures and counterfeit Vertues that they cannot receive True Vertue says she unless it be accompanied with that Surliness and those Hypocritical Gestures which I abhor for God will not lead me by these Ways He gives me a Tranquility of Mind and a Joy in my Soul that even appears outwardly I have no insolent Laughters but a continual Joy that oftentimes chears those who converse with me when they know that my Joy does not proceed from any human Satisfaction but from my Conversation with God But they who do not understand these things do imagine that one who has received the Holy Spirit should be still melancholy sad and serious to the utmost Degree thinking that he ought not to do or speak the least thing
Redeemer of Mankind that none ever was or shall be saved but by his Intercession and Merits that he became their Pledge and Surety and effectively paid the Penalty that he cloathed himself with our Mortality and gave himself in Sacrifice for the Redemption of his Brethren that from his Life his Actions his Sufferings and Death do flow all the saving Means both outward and inward that are necessary for removing the horrid Corruption of Mankind both as to Body and Soul for destroying in us all Evil all Wickedness and the Image of the Devil and for recovering us unto and perfecting us in Holiness and in the Love and Image of God This is the Essence of the true Orthodox Christian Doctrine as to the Merits and Satisfaction of Jesus Christ and the Reason why many of her Expressions are so misunderstood upon this Subject seems to be that she endeavoured to undeceive such as soothed and flattered themselves in the looseness and irregularity of their Lives from the Pretence of the utter Impossibility to keep the Commandments of God and the full Satisfaction of Jesus Christ and the Penalties paid by him by declaring distinctly that as Jesus Christ had done enough on his Part for their Salvation procuring them Pardon and Time to repent and Grace to return to the Love of God so they must do what is required on their Parts repent and return to the Love of God and the Instructions and Commands Jesus Christ left with them are the necessary Means to bring them to it If we would reign with Christ we must suffer with him It is well known that the vulgar way of explaining this Doctrine had too great a tendency to the Flattering of corrupt Nature that the Doctrine of the Antinomians is now owned by many and as to Mens Practices it seems to be the Principle of all What need is there then to caution against so damnable a Principle And grant once that none can be saved by Jesus Christ but they who follow his Life and Doctrine and the Sentiments of A. B. will allow the Doctrine of the Satisfaction of Jesus Christ to be received in the highest Sense that may shew God's Indignation against Sin his Compassion to Sinners his Regard to the Holiness and Authority of his Laws and may lay a powerful Obligation upon Men not to trample upon them In this manner the Doctrine of the Satisfaction has been explained and cleared by the Reverend Dr. Stillingfleet Dr. Outram Dr. Scot and others and I know none who Esteem the Sentiments of A. B. who would not thus cordially embrace it How unjust and injurious the Author is in this Matter to A. B. evidently appears by the 6th and 8th Letters of the Third Part of Lum en tenebres the last whereof is subjoined to this Apology among some others translated into English The Occasions of these Expressions cited by the Author upon which he grounds this Accusation is a peculiar Sentiment of A. B. That such is God's Love to Mankind and his Delight with the Children of Men that he designed to become like to Man as he had made Man like to himself that there might be mutual Contentment in a mutual Likeness and he might live spiritually and bodily with Men to all Eternity even tho' Man had never sinned yea that he united himself to the humane Nature from the Beginning in the first Born in Adam and after that Man had plunged himself into Sin and Misery he became in all things like to him yet without Sin that he might redeem and save them Now the only difference between this and the generally received Doctrine lying in these two that God would have become Man though Adam had not sinned and that he united himself to Man's Nature even in the Beginning which the Author if he pleases may look upon as Dreams since no Body says they are necessary to Salvation she might well have used these Expressions cited by the Author without denying thereby any Satisfaction by Jesus Christ She gives good Reasons for saying that God had no need to become Man to redeem us he is not subject to any Necessity that he might have suffered Man to perish eternally and created a Thousand Adams and a Thousand earthly Paradices with the same Perfections in which he created the first out of Nothing She does not deny that Jesus Christ coming to redeem Man must suffer and so the Texts the Author brings to prove this are needless but affirms that God would have become Man tho' Adam had not sinned And the Reason why she says he would needs suffer and die by Accident for the Instruction and Relief of Men is because she was perswaded that Sin came into the World by Accident by Man's abuse of his free Will against the Will of God and contrary to the first and essential Designs that he had in creating Man which was that he might take his Delight with him and not that Man might sin and thereby give him an Occasion to magnifie his â—ustice and Mercy And God's primary Design in becoming Man was that he might make an eternal Alliance with Man and Manâ—s falling into Sin gave Occasion to his prosecuting his first Design by a State of Humiliation and Suffering that so he might recover Fallen Man Altho' Jesus Christ did highly glorifie God by the Divine Vertues of Meekness Patience Charity c. manifested by him in his Sufferings yet certainly the unworthy Treatment he met with in the World from those whom he came to save must needs be Matter of the greatest Grief and Sorrow to those pious Souls that beheld it and to all that ever knew it and therefore it is no wonder tho' that Day in the beholding whereof the Fathers in the ancient Law are said to rejoyce be interpreted of the Day of his second Coming in Glory and not of his first Coming to Suffer The Author is greatly mistaken in what he calls her second Argument as if she affirmed that none of the Holy Prophets spoke of Jesus Christ's Coming to Suffer for all that she affirms is That if you read attentively the Prophets you will find they speak much more of his Coming in Glory than of that in Reproach And there has been Occasion given of mistaking the Passage cited by the Author in the End of the 22d p. of his Preface by the Trnslation of it for it imports no more in the Original but that of the Holy Prophets who foretold the Coming of Jesus Christ in the Flesh many of them did not speak of his Sufferings X. The Author is most injurious to A. B. in alledging for a 6th Accusation that she joyns with the Quakers in the Design of leading Men from the Vse of the Holy Scriptures The Contrary is most evident in all her Writings as appears from the Apology She thinks the Scriptures contain the true spiritual Food and Nourishment of Souls and the Preservation of them in
speak with the Author of Bourignianism detected who might have allowed one of the Writings of A. B. to be put in English and recommended as useful to advance the Interest of true Christianity without making such a Noise about it yet it no sooner comes to his Hands but he presently raises the Hue and-Cry Delusions and Errours and magnifies it into a new and growing Sect that he might get himself a Name and have the Glory to encounter and as he hop'd to defeat it But the Doctor is not so dreadful an Enemy as he would seem at first On-set they who bluster most are not always the most dangerous They who have read the Writings of A. B. and find that the Marrow and Substance of them are the Essential Truths of Christianity and that her singular Sentiments which she says are not necessary to be believed do not contradict those Essential Truths do justly wonder what has moved the Doctor to raise all this Dust and Clamour I know he once profess'd a great Veneration for Thomas à Kempis his Book de Imitatione Christi but he being a Mystick and one who seems to own his being immediately enlightned by the Spirit of God it may be the Doctor despises him now as in his late Letter he declares he has long since turn'd off such Conversation and a deceas'd Friend of his had not only a great Esteem for that Book but also for others of the same Nature such as the Life of M. de Renti c. The Person I mean was the most pious and learn'd H. Scougall of whom the Reverend Dr. Burnet now Bishop of Sarum gave so deserv'd a Character in his Preface to Bishop Bedal's Life and with whom he prevail'd to let him publish his Devout Treatise of the Life of God in the Soul of Man to which he was pleas'd to prefix a Preface and to subjoin a Discourse of his own of a Spiritual Life which little Book also contains an excellent Idea of the Divine Life in the Soul and particularly a Notion of Faith far above the Common and approaching as near as any I know to that of A. B. viz. that it is a kind of Sense and feeling Perswasion of Spiritual Things and has the same Place in the Divine Life that Sense hath in the Natural Now the Doctor professing a great Esteem for these Writings and acknowledging that they contain the Marrow and Substance of Christianity and the Writings of A. B. being the same in Substance and she requiring no Regard to be had to her accessory Sentiments but in so far as any should find them useful for increasing in them the Love of God some think it unaccountable why the Doctor should fall so foul upon her for her accessory Opinions and does not rather honour her for the sake of the main Truths and more favourably and candidly construct the others XV. There are Variety of Dishes in spiritual as well as in bodily Food and that may be very agreeable and healthful to one Palate which another cannot relish why should the Doctor then set up to be a Taster to all the World and because his nice and learned Palate cannot relish some course and homely tho' very substantial Fare should he therefore cry out There is Death in the Pot and frighten all others from tasting of it as far as his Testimony can have Influence We do not use to drive our Flocks from a good Pasture even tho' all the Herbs in it be not equall◠nourishing They who have a true Sense and Relish of Divine Things if they were reading the Writings of A. B. would be so affected with the Divine Truths contained therein as they would quite pass over the accessory Opinions they would run to the Pearls and gather the wholsom Food and apply themselves only to Things which direct them to the Love of God and the mortifying of their corrupt Natures The Doctor should have considered the Woe pronounced against all them by whom Offences do come and not rashly have laid a Stumbling-block before his Brethren and by his abusive and unlovely Characters endeavoured to raise Prejudices against and frighten many from A. B's Writings where they might have reaped so much Good and Profit and been brought to a true and lively Sense of Divine Things XVI The Doctor is unjust in his Title Page where he calls his Narratives The Delusions and Errours of A. B. and her Growing Sect. I know no such Sect in the World A. B. was grieved there were so many Sects already so far was she from designing to make a new one I know none who esteem her Writings that are form'd into any Sect. I know of no separate Meeting nor new Rites nor other Symbols that distinguish this Sect. There be Romanists Calvinists Lutherans there be of the Episcopal and Presbyterian Perswasions who esteem those Writings as they do other good Books yet they form no new Sect or Party there are none farther from the Spirit of a Sect than they unless this be called a new Sect to endeavour after the Spirit of the Primitive Church viz. an entire and brotherly Union in Divine Charity XVII He is neither kind nor just to his Country men in telling the World the Infection has seized many in Scotland and some of the better Sort who have been reputed Men of Sence Learning and Probity They might have read those Writings as they do other good Books without being branded for Hereticks and Sectarians he might have discovered what he thought to be Delusions or Errours without defaming his Country-men or bringing up an evil Report upon them his Books might have instructed and confuted them without pointing them out I am perswaded the Doctor would think it a crying Sin to proclaim those Persons to be Thieves Robbers and Murtherers tho' I think his saying so would do them no great Hurt and if he would consider things calmly he would find it no less and perhaps a greater injustice to tell the World they are become Hereticks Blasphemers Idolaters and new Sectarians and so thereby as far as in him lies to murther their Reputation make some to despise and abhor them and excite others to persecute them as Men unworthy to live But as a Conquerour he was resolv'd upon to a Triumph and to add to the Glory they must be led at his Chariot XVIII The Doctor has taken up two long Narratives in fighting with his own Shadow the first in proving that we ought not to believe the high Characters which M. de Cort M. Poiret and others give of the Person and Sentiments of A. B. upon their bare Word and the second that we are not to believe the Characters she gives of herself and her own Sentiments upon her own Testimony without sufficient Enquiry and Evidence And in both these I know none will contend with him In the First he would make Men believe that the great Business of her Friends is to recommend her
according to his Perswasion I got at a publick Auction that Copy of the Works of A. B. which the Author of the Censure made use of and with great wonder I observed the Weakness of Man The Author was a wise Man of great Judgment and Sincerity but what cannot Prejudices do that grow up with us I found many Places marked with a little Line on the Margent which if you consider them alone cannot but make the Doctrine of A. B. look suspicious yea blasphemous but if you join them with what goes before and follows after in her Writings they have an excellent and pious Sence The Author who while he liv'd was most dear to me and whom I am bound to honour now he is dead had such Prudence Judgment and Sincerity that he would never have made such Exceptions if the preconceiv'd Opinion of a Sect as it daily happens tâ— others had not bewitch'd him nevertheless I am perswaded that if he had lived till now he would have come to see his Errour This is the Judgment of Dr. Christianus Thomasius Counsellor to the Elector of Brandenbourg and Professor of the Law in the University of Hale in Saxony and is published in one of his Discourses before the Treatise De Eruditione solida c. which he caused to be reprinted in Germany and I wish with all my heart that Doctor Cockbourn and his Friend may impartially consider it and it may please God to open their Eyes and let them see their Mistakes 3. So zealous is the Doctor to blacken her that to compleat the Extravagancy of the Character he ventures to translate their Words falsly and even of those False Translations will tack together two half Sentences that are more than a Page distant in the Original as if they had been written in the blasphemous Way that he represents them in one Breath Thus Narr 1. p. 4. lin 7 8 9. he makes the Author of the Continuation of her Life say of her She is the divine Sun of Righteousness and with the same Breath She is pure Truth and the only Truth that can guide one to Heaven and eternal Life As if he had affirm'd both of her and both in one Period whereas they are in two different Paragraphs and neither of them spoken of her The first is a Petition put up to Almighty God by the Author of the Vie Continuée p. 599. That he would please to fix him in the Heaven of his Truth that the Dragon might not be able to cast him upon the Earth by his Violence nor by his Artifice That says he I may then always receive the Light of the Divine Sun of Righteousness in which thou hast placed thine Handmaid And then in the next Section when he had appealed unto God the Searcher of Hearts concerning his Integrity in seeking after Truth and his Impartiality in examining the Life and Writings of A. B. concerning his Readiness to disprove if he could with all the Application of his Mind have found any thing in them favouring Corruption or Sin or contrary to the Glory of God c. he continues his Appeal in these Words Is it not with the utmost Sincerity of my Heart that I protest openly that the Words of eternal Life have been with an incomparable Purity Clearness and Solidity in this Soul which thou hast sanctified and are yet in her Writings Certainly the Way that is recommended there as necessary to Salvation is the only and true Way this is the Life and Doctrine of Jesus Christ and there is no Danger to give up our selves to it entirely for this is Truth it self This is the Truth This is the pure Truth Thus we see there cannot be a more palpable Disingenuity in citing and translating than this is which can bear no Apology bâ—t an ingenuous Acknowledgment of the Pevarication Again Nar. 1. p. 9. lin 18. he makes M. de Cort complain that no body makes Prayers to her in the Times of Universal Scourges The Oâ—iginal is ni la point faire prier and the true Translation is they do not desire her to pray I shall not enquire what Sence the Doctor would have the Reader put upon his Translation but must say that he himself should not have aggravated his Guilt by calling that a close and literal Translation Art XIII of his Letter when he cannot be ignorant that it is both a false and a foul one Again Nar. 1. p. 17. he makes the Author of the Preface Apologet. prefix'd to her Life pag. 97. say that A. B. was the purest most disinterested and self denied Soul and the most resigned to God that ever was upon Earth The Words in the Original are Or je puis dire avec verite que M. Bour. estoit une ame des plus pures des plus degagées c. and the true Translation thus that she was one among the Souls which have been most pure c. his false Translation would have him to exalt her above all humane Creature the true lists her only among the Saints of the first Form among the hundred forty four thousand which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes Again Nar. 1. p. 74. forming an Argument against her Chastity from a Passage of her Life and her own Account of it La Parole de Dieu n. 158. and by the way I must say that no Lover of Purity would have perverted this Passage to the Sence that he has done nor is there any thing in the Embraces of Parents and Children that can be supposed to defile the Imagination of a Soul such as hers was in a truly regenerate State and in a profound Recollection and Communion with God he falsely translates theâ— last Part of it The Original is Je pensay de concevor cinque Personnages que je tiens gens de bien The true Version I thought I conceived Five Persons whom I reckon to be good Men. But the Doctor must render it Five comely Persons that it might serve his Design and afford Matter for impure Jest 4. It is no fair dealing in a Narrater to affirm things as spoken or written by others in his own Words without giving Evidence for them But the Doctor in his own Words tells us That if she may be believed Christ only laid the Foundation for her Works and did no more but prepare the way for her Design That the last and greatest Manifestation of the Divine Wisdom Power Love and Goodness was reserved to her and therefore she is and must be a greater Person than Jesus Christ himself And says he if we will take the Words of the Anonymous Author of La vie Continuee and some others this Woman was above all that 's Humane That God designed she should be the greatest Blessing that ever was conferr'd on Mankind That they set her on the same Level with Jesus Christ That they draw a Parallel betwixt him and her and do make him the Type of her
must be owned that she consulted Men and Books very little for she had both in great Contempt And yet within Eight Lines he says That her sublime Thoughts were suggested by her Conversation with others by Sermons which she heard and by Conferences with Confessors Priests and Learned Men. The Doctor who is so ready to fasten Contradictions upon others would do well to clear himself of them here he seems to contradict himself with his Pen in his Hand O but says he no matter how she came by them unless they be Solid and True But if they be both Solid and True it is certainly worth the while to consider both them and the Source of them His Calumny of her despising the Scriptures is already answered It had been good the Doctor had given us a Specimen of the fine Thoughts of the metaphysical mean Person of his Neighbour Parish he has been unkind to his Acquaintance there that he never let them know of this fine Wit he might have given a Narrative of him in Bourignianisin detected As for the Singular Talents of his Weaver he may meet with such in every Parish XXVIII One of his great Talents in his Narratives lies in making long Common Places and then giving such a turn to some Expression of A. B. or of her Friends as may amuse the Reader and make him think that they act or write contrary to the Vertues or Divine Truths about which he has been preaching or are guilty of the absurd things he has been exposing and when he comes to the Application he speaks not Truth in one Article but hâ—s the Art of darkning and confounding things instead of putting them in a true Light this appears in his XXV Article as well as in all the former It is not true that the Appearance of Comets is given as a Reason for having Mrs. A. B. in so high esteem for they were not mentionâ—d as Signs of her but as Presages of the approaching Judgments of God which she also declared concerning which the Author of the Vie continuè had good Reason to regret that the Devil should prevail so far as to get Books and Sermons published to efface our of Mens Hearts the Fear of God's Judgments which might arise from the Considerations of such wonderful Appearances by tâ—lling that Comets are Natural things and so there is no Reason to be apprehensive of them as if the greatest 〈◊〉 were not inflicted by natural Means as that Author there considers to excellent Purpose And as A. B. does in the Place cited on the Margent Many Signs says she have appeared in Heaven in the Sun in the Stars fearful Comets menacing great Evils which did affright some at first But so soon as the Devil had leisure to make his Adherents study to find out Reasons shewing that these were but Natural things he made the Fear of these Threatnings of God sent as the Fore-runners of his Justice to evanish out of their Minds c. It seems Men mock now at God's Warnings calling them Natural things The Deluge was made by a Natural Rain and the last Plagues will be made by Pestilence War Famine and Fire all Natural things But the Devil to divert us from believing that these things are the Beginnings of the last Plagues makes it be said by his Adherents That these are Natural things that no Body may turn to Repentance So nothing could occur more naturally in the writing of the Life of such a Person giving warning of such approaching Judgments than to excite Men also to consider Gods Warnings from the Heavens From all which there was not the least Ground for the Doctor to make the Inferences which he does or to call his Brother Fool not fearing the Danger incurred by so doing But the Doctor with his Friend the Author of Pensces diverses sur les Cometes will tell us They are all the superstitious Observers of Comets who look upon them as Presages of Divine Wrath and that Eclipses were sometimes as formidable and Comets now come to be better understood And in all Appearance the better they are understood they will become the more dreadful and terrible not only as Presages and Warnings of God's Judgments but also as the most dreadful and immediate Instruments of them XXIX As the true Reasons for which A. B. and her Writings are esteemed by some are not at all weakened by the Doctor but rather confirmed so neither is the Testimony of M. de Cort and M. Poiret being Men led by Truth more than Passion or Fancy by all that he alledges to the contrary What she said at the Age of Four Years being so weighty a Truth and the Text of her whole Life is most deservedly laid before the Doctors and Teachers by the Author of her Life and the 〈◊〉 that every good Man will make of it will be to sâ—arch his own Heart and not to lesten the weight and due Impression of any of God's Calls even out of the Mouths of Babes and Sucklings What he says to disparage the Purity of her Soul as well as of her Life shews only the Disorder of his own Mind who from Spiritual things studies to excite in himself end others impute Imaginations Vnto the 〈◊〉 all things are pure The Contradiction he finds out in M. Poiret lies only in his own Fancy Jesus Christ the Saints the Holy Scriptures do certainly send forth an Odour of Truth Charity Holiness Chastity and of all Vertues but this is not perceptible but only by them who are rightly disposed and who truly seek God Whereas they who love Falshood and Impurity are so far from feeling those Impressons that their Passions are rather excited to the contrary as appears by the Enemies of the Gospel So the Writings and Conversation of A. B. might make Divine Impressions of Charity and Purity upon some and yet the Spite and Malice and evil Passions of others might be thereby the more enflamed and that this is neither a Falshood nor a Contradiction daily Experience does testifie As to the Passage cited out of the Preface to M. Poiret's Divine Aeconomie whosoever shall read it at length as it is in the Preface it self will find the Thought so just and so excellent that he will see the Doctor has bewrayed only the Weakness of his own Understanding in censuring of it We see the Art that is now most magnified for finding out the Truth and upon which the Mathematicians do so much value themseves and I hope the the Doctor is a Friend to the Mathematicks tho' not to the Metaphysicks is that of shutting out all Idea's foraign to the thing in Question that the Mind may search after the Truth without Respect to its former Conceptions of it upon which the Truth does not at all depend If there be unquestionable and sufficient Evidences of the Divine Illumination of a Person this is not a sufficient Ground to despise them or to disparage
Ass but his Spirit is still to be regarded through all she is but the Organ the Instrument and the Conduit but the Spirit Life and Power the living Waters and the pure Truth come from Jesus Christ 3. Tho' there were no more but this one Expression in the Comparison it were enough to shew how far she is from making a Parallel as to what relates to her self The Child Jesus says she gathered Disciples after him the second also will draw a great number of persons to be Disciples of the first 4. There are few serious Christians who do not believe that there will be a renewing of the Church of God before the End of the World and that Jesus Christ will live in her by his Light and Spirit Now there being a great Analogy in the Works of God through the several Ages of the World a prudent serious Christian will not scoff at the making a Comparison betwixt the Renovation of his Gospel Spirit in the World and the first establishing of it 7. As to what he says in his Tenth Article her own Defences are already given in the Apology As I shall never desire to mock at and speak evil of things that I do not know so had the Doctor lived among the Pharisees at the time of the Birth of Jesus Christ he would have made it as much the subject of his Scorn and Raillery that it was said a Virgin betroth'd to a Husband had conceived a Son only by the power of the Holy Ghost as now he diverts himself and others with his light and foolish lests in relation to this Virgin To turn an innocent Raillery in Conversation which had nothing in it of any impure Idea and uttered 30 years ago by a Person of known Gravity who never staid with A. B. tho' he greatly esteem'd her and with whom her other Friends had never any Acquaintance to turn this I say into an impure Jest and fix it upon her and her Friends as their ordinary Conversation shews only how impure as well as malicious the Imaginations of some are who catch at all occasions to turn the most innocent things that way Turpe est Doctori c. 8. It is a dangerous thing it seems to come near the Narrator when he is in his Majesty for then he lays furiously about him The Author of The State of the Philadelphian Society had a modest Reflection upon the Doctor 's boasting that he would overturn the Quakers Philadelphians Quietists and Pietists as well as the Bourignianists all at one blow The Doctor treats him with a great deal of Insolence and Scorn tho' what he said stands good after all that the Doctor hath yet replied The Doctor says that the Church of England and the Presbyterians do not stand upon the same Foundation nor resolve their Faith by the same Rule yet themselves say they do it viz. by the divine Authority of the Scriptures and the Practice of the purest Ages of the Church which was all the Postscript affirmed What that Author said of the internal Light of the Spirit of God being so rationally stated in the Treatise it self in opposition to all Enthusiastical Delusion and Imposture and made appear to be ownd by all the Reformed Churches and particularly by the Church of England I am sorry that the Doctor shews himself such an Enemy to the Grace and Spirit of God as to flout at it and to scoff at Authors and Writings which he does not know There are many who look upon the Writings of A. B. as excellently representing the Essentials of Christianity yet they do not believe her other particular Sentiments but commend her Discretion in the manner of their delivery Now he who that Author hopes may undertake to give a true Character of her may be of that number and so the Doctor might have spared all his Declamations about his Vtopias and Hennepins The Doctor concludes with an uncommon strain of disdainful and boasting words If he persist to amuse Men with his Narratives as he has already given a proof with how little Caâ—dour he manages them and confounds and â—â—akens the Truth instead of clearing it so he may be disappointed of his Designs and miss his Aim come short of the Glory and Name he aspires after and make the Writings of M. A. B. to be more valued and esteemed in the World in which I am sorry he should think himself unhappy for the more narrowly they are enquired into by sincere and serious Persons their Worth will the more appear and they who clearly see the great and essential truths of Jesus Christ contained in these Writings will never be shaken by his Narratives and let him calumniate as he will it will still more and more appear that God has chosen the weak base and foolish things of the World to confound the Wise the Learned and the Mighty and the Writings of that despised and pious Virgin M. Aâ—t Boâ—â— ignon will be admired and esteemed when it will be quite forgotten that ever there were such Writings in the World as the Preface to the Snake in the Grass and Bourign Detected It may please God to open his Eyes and to let him see what Mistakes his Passions and his rash and hasty judging of things have made him run into and what mischief he does unto the true interest of Christianity how he entertains and diverts the Scoffers and the Profane and lays a stumbling-block in the way before many serious Persons to turn them away from that by which they might reap unspeakable spiritual profit to their Souls by his giving such Characters of Persons and Writings which aim at nothing but to perswade People to the Love of God and for that end to follow the Example of our Lord Jesus Christ in a Life of Penitence and Mortification of our corrupt Nature which desire none to sollow the Instrument of these Writings but Jesus Christ only nor believe any thing upon her Authority but upon his only and as it is conformable to his Gospel nor to have any regard for her particular Sentiments as not being necessary to Salvation and which do not at all tend to make a new Sect or divide Christians or separate them from their lawful Pastors but to unite us all in the Spirit of Jesus Christ If he seriously pursue this great Design himself in the true Fear of God his Prejudices will vanish as a Mist before the Sun That God may grant him this Grace and that he may instantly ask it of him with a sincere and humble heart is the earnest and daily Prayer of SIR c. POSTSCRIPT HAving seen a Letter of M Poiret's to a Friend I here send you an Extract out of it by which you will see with what a Christian Spirit he considers the Doctor 's unworthy Usage of him Nil moror quod in me ita debacchetur Narrator dicta in sensus horridos blasphemos interpretetur aversionem suam
Natures than accomplishing their proper Wills To be perfectly cured of Original Corruption is the Privilege only of the Blessed Even they who were sanctified from the Womb did while they were in this Life feel and were obliged to resist the Importunities of corrupt Nature The Doctor adds That neither here nor any where else does A. B. give any Instances of her Faults except some Levities before she was Sixteen years old and that she does not any where own the having Sin I intreat that it be remarked That what the Doctor here diminishingly calls some Levities was by him egregiously aggravated in his first Narrative Sect. xx Here he can find no Instances of her Faults and there he thought he discovered too many Here he represents her as no where owning that she had Sin there he introduces her confessing that she had run into a vain light and idle Conversation following the Pleasures Recreations and Divertisements of the World And this Scene of her Life when he thought it seasonable for him so to do he delineates in all the shapes of Horror telling us That she suffered an Eclipse for some years Pride and Ambition Sensuality and Covetousness prevail'd on her that she resisted the Spirit of God and walked contrary to the Dictates of her Conscience video meliora In effect he turns her into what Forms he pleases sometimes she must be a Goddess and at other times a very Devil I judge that it will be evident to any impartial Person that the Doctor hath dealt very unfairly by that Passage which he cites at the close of pag. 5. I shall set it down entire I spent says she most of my time all alone in my Chamber in Prayer and Tears and great Grief for my having thus followed the ways of the World I entred upon a very austere Life using hard Beds Fasting Watching and wearing Sackcloth that so I might chastise my Body I visited the Poor and Sick I frequented the Churches and Sacraments not knowing by what means I might be restored to the Favour of God which I had lost by my own Fault I could not sleep at night fearing lest I should go down to Hell for I was afraid of the Judgments of God that I dared not shut my eyes because of my Sins which appeared to me so great as none had ever committed the like not because I had done any wicked or evil Actions for all Men esteemed and honoured me but because I had parted with the ravishing Intercourses which my Soul had with God that I might take my pleasure in the Divertisements of the World after I had received so many Favours from God as merited my Acknowledgments throughout all my Life This Sin appeared to me so great as Hell had no Punishment answerable to it I should think it had been impossible for any body after having perused this Passage to write at the rate the Doctor does without firmly resolving to cross all the Dictates of Ingenuity and Candor Is this then no where to own that she had Sin and to justifie every thing that she said or did Are there no Instances of Faults given here or does the Doctor think that following the World or turning the heart from God tho' but for some time and not in the highest degrees are but little veniai Levities Are there here no penitential Acknowledgments made neither general nor particular What would the Doctor have Are there not here ingenuous Confessions of very great Faults and a very deep and sensible Sorrow for them Doth she not highly aggravate them both as to the Guilt they included and the Punishment they deserved And doth she not on the account of them put in Practice the Severities of Mortification and Self-denial Is the Doctor angry because she was not a greater Sinner or would her being so have recommended her the more to him The Doctor translates that period point que J'eusse fait aucunes manuvaises actions very disingenously thus That she had never done Evil whereas he should have turned it you see Not that she had done any wicked or evil Actions It is manifest that there is a vast Difference between Never having done evil and Not having done any wicked Actions The Doctor 's Translation which is neither literal nor true though it serves his present turn makes A. B. pretend to an absolute Innocence and Guiltlessness but by the other which is a just one the Reader easily sees that her Words import only That she had not done any outward Actions that were gross and scandalous But then it is very possible that one may be guilty of having done a great deal of Evil inwardly and in his heart tho' he had never committed any gross and visible Immoralities And that this is the true Sense of the Passage is evident not only from the scope of this whole Paragraph but particularly from the Reason that she there assigns namely That eveevery one esteem'd and honour'd her they did so because they discovered nothing in her outward Carriage but what was modest sober and agreeable And I think none that consider well what they read will make any Scruple to admit this as a sufficient Reason for what she asserted tho' the Doctor insinuates some will And thus tho' A. B. refuses that in the Circumstances in which she then was she had not done any Actions that were visibly scandalous yet with the same breath she acknowledges very penitently that she was guilty of very great Evils in suffering the World to gain Ground on her Heart Now tho' the Doctor promised his Readers at the beginning of his Narrative that he would give them A. B's Pretences in her own Words and not curtail Passages yet let any that is unbyass'd judge if he hath done so here and whether the Nice and Inquisitive have not need to consult her Writings and rather believe their own Eyes than his partial Accounts and whether in fine tho' he engages in his Letter pag. 28. that he will be as faithful in relating matters of fact according to his Knowledge as if he were a Witness upon Oath whether I say this Promise of his can be a sufficient Security for relying on his Testimony if it be found that he falls frequently into such Inadvertencies or Misrepresentations as these The Doctor sets down the Return which she made to the Charge of M. Serarius very faintly I will impart to you some Periods of it In effect says she my only Fear is lest I should not continue faithful to my God and I cannot bear with them who say or believe That there is a state of Perfection in this World wherein Men are impeccable I look upon this as a great Error and Self-presumption in them And then he tells M. Serarius how he was present when she rehearsed before several Persons the account of the great defection of her Youth which she here relates again with a fresh Sorrow and
does it not deserve that it love him He farther obliges it by more powerful Means For that he might make them see that his Delight is to be with the Children of Men he becomes Man visible and sensible as themselves not being satisfied to have made Man after his Image and Likeness but God is made after the Image and Likeness of Man yea he becomes truly Man to teach them how to love him by material Words and Deeds conformable to their humane Capacities VII Could God testifie more Love for Man than to abase himself yea to annihilate himself to speak according to our Language and to cloath himself with humane Nature What Judgment could conceive greater Testimonies of his Love Or what Means could be fallen upon more powerfully to oblige Man to love him than to become like to Man in Nature to become his Equal in Condition not preferring himself to the meanest Men to converse and be familiar with them as their Brother and Companion yea he subjects himself unto and obeys Man that he might gain his Friendship he serves him even to the washing of his Feet and tho' Man offend him he prevents him always with Friendship le ts a Judas kiss him who contriv'd his Death and at the time he came to deliver him up to his Enemies he even calls him his Friend VIII And for an Evidence that he makes Man his Friend he declares unto him his Secrets and all that he learned from his Father and all this to engage Men to a reciprocal Love He eats and drinks with them draws them by his sweet Conversation teaches them familiarly all the necessary Means to love him gives them a Law all of Love which contains no other thing but the Love of God and our Neighbour All his Gospel contains nothing but the true Means to fulfil this Law of Love He so earnestly presses this Love that he threatens with eternal Damnation if we do not love him with all our Heart with all our Soul and with all our Strength Could he express more powerfully the Desire he has that Man love him while he draws him even by force to his Love IX And to make this Force altogether Lovely he charges himself with the Burthen of Man's Sins resolving out of the Love he bear him to suffer in his own Body the Punishments due for them He suffers Hunger Thirst Weariness travelling through so many Places to seek Man and to help him in his Penitence that he might have no other Care out to love him Is it possible that Man should not acknowledge such a Love Is he so unnatural as not to love such a Benefactor who obliges him by so many so painful Proofs of his Love that they seem to exceed the Bounds of Reason X. Who ever saw Love arrive to such an Excess of Good-will for the Person beloved For a GOD to debase himself to subject himself and to suffer for his Creature that which no Body would do for his Equal and it would be no small Love for one to give his Life for his Friend Which JESUS CHRIST gave for Man who was his Enemy having overcome his Malice by the Excess of his Love And the more that Man is transported to deal hardly with him he is led the more to love him laying down his Life voluntarily the more to oblige him by the Consideration of such a LOVE that surpasses all Vnderstanding that a GOD should be enclin'd to love a Worm of the Earth of which he has no need and which is led even to outrage and offend him instead of being enclin'd to love him XI Ingrate Creature Wilt not thou yield to this LOVE Cruel to thy Self Enemy of thy own Good Wilt not thou bow under this Yoke which is so gentle and lovely It s Captivity is Liberty its Service is a Kingdom its Pains are Delights its Labours are Repose its Griefs are Contentments This LOVE satisfies the Soul fills it with all Happiness comforts it and adorns it keeps it always chearful with its Beloved nothing can offend it What Happiness what Joy what Peace what Delights to the Soul that possesseth this Love It fears nothing it hopes for nothing it seeks nothing it finds nothing Lovely without this LOVE XII How blind and ignorant is he who loves the Wealth the Honours and the Pleasures of this World He is never content nor satisfied For Riches bring along with them a Thousand Cares and Disquiets with an unsatiable Thirst which fastens the Soul to Earth and to Metals and turns it away from God Honours are yet more vain than Riches for they are nothing but Fantastical and Imaginary which give nothing to the Soul that loves them but an empty swelling of Pride which makes the Heart break at the least change of Fortune which vexes and torments them continually with the fear and care of Losing them and tho' they did possess them lawfully and securely yet they are nothing but a Smoak of Vanity since we are nothing and all they who honour us are equally Nothings What Folly is it to look for Glory from all these NOTHINGS and to love Honours so vain and of so short Continuance Pleasures such as they may be give very little Satisfaction to Man in general because they are of so short Continuance in particular for that they are so vile and earthly unworthy of the Nobleness of our Soul which is Divine and Spiritual for to take Pleasure to eat and drink is to level our selves in this Point with the Beasts and often to hurt both Soul and Body seeing these Pleasures do sometimes breed Excesses prejudicial to the Health indisposing both Body and Mind which pay very dear for the Pleasures which they pretend to have in Meat and Drink All the other Pleasures of the Body are always insatiable to him who would please his Five Senses the Eye will never be satisfied with Seeing the Ear with Hearing and so of the rest if Reason do not govern all they will still importune us yea become Insolent and Unsatisfiable To love Play is loss of time to love Hunting is Weariness to love Company is Disquiet The more we would oblige them the more they are dissatisfied And what shall we have after having satisfied all our Senses and given to our Body all the Pleasures that it desires Nothing but Weariness and Remorse of Conscience which will torment the Soul especially at Death We may lawfully use these things but not love them for they are no wise worthy of our Love XIII There is nothing LOVELY and that can satisfie our Soul but GOD ALONE Neither was it created for any other End but to love its god and to cleave to him only All other Goods are false and deceitful Since we cannot live without LOVE Why do we not love this GOD who is ALONE LOVELY So much the rather that he desires it that he has obliged us to it by
Sin since which time it can produce nothing but all sort of Evil it being impossible for it to do any Good or to have one good Thought For this Cause Job had good Reason to curse the Day of his Birth for none of the Beasts would be so miserable in their Nature as is Man if he had not in him a Divine Nature 4. All must grant this and say with your Friends that it is impossible to imitate Jesus Christ seeing he lived supernaturally having subjected his Humane Part to his Divine and made his Flesh die that he might live to his Spirit and despised Temporal things that he might embrace Eternal But I would gladly ask all those Natural Persons if they desire to do the same things And if they have put to Death the old Adam in them that is the Inclinations of corrupt Flesh And if they have labour'd with all their Power to revive in them the Spirit of the new Adam which contradicts the Sensualities of the Flesh Which appears by the Person of Jesus Christ who overcame all Natural Sensualities 5. It may be they will say that it would be impossible for them to attain to such a Perfection as Jesus Christ had while they will not part with so much as one of the Affections which they have for their Pleasures or Sensualities that they might follow him at a distance For they do not so much as desire to imitate him far les to tend to his Perfection They believe indeed by an imaginary Speculation that Jesus Christ has satisfied all for them and they will not believe by a Divine Truth that he has merited for them by his Sufferings the Grace and the Power to imitate him because they do not desire to do it for they love rather to remain in the Corruption of the old Adam than to be quickened into the new which is Jesus Christ 6. Thus it is that those poor Souls flatter themselves to their Ruine while they say that they cannot imitate Jesus Christ nor live without Sin because of their great Frailty This is as much as to say that they resolve not to be saved and they resolve to die in their Sins for there are only two ways the one of Salvation the other of Damnation and Jesus Christ is that which leads to Salvation He who will not walk in the same Way in which he walked cannot find Life but without all doubt shall die for ever Therefore my dear Child do not give way to the Discourses of those poor blinded ones who have fill'd their Understanding with Errors but walk according to the Light that God has given you and labour to be born again in the Spirit of Jesus Christ our Saviour Withdraw from the World since he says that he prays not for the World but for those whom his Father has given him out of the World Those who are of the World are they who love the transitory things of the World and will not part with them to imitate Jesus Christ They are rich in Will and proud in Heart loving their fleshly Sensualities while they flatter themselves by saying that it would be impossible for them to imitate Jesus Christ and to live without Sin because of their great Frailty which if they understood aright they would use means to overcome it and he who felt his Heart cleave to Riches would not possess them but would put them far away from him as some of the Heathens did who threw all their Money into the Sea fearing least it should deprive them of the Liberty of their Mind And if a Man found himself so frail as to fall into the Sin of Pride he would shun Offices Greatness and Honours that he might follow the Poverty and Lowliness of Jesus Christ and if hâ— found himself so frail as that he could not eat and drink delicate things without falling into the Sin of Gluttony he would take the coarsest Meats and Drink proportionably to support the Weakness and Frailty of Nature weaning it from all Sensuality or fleshly Apperite But Men do not feel themselves too frail to iudulge their Body in all its Appetites and Pleasures and they will needs make themselves believe that they are too frail to abstain from Sin or to imitate Jesus Christ 7. This Sentiment is so Erroneous that I would be ashun'd to refute it were it not that I see so many Souls possess'd with it especially among those of Calvin's Reformatiâ—on who live and die in this Belief that Jesus Christ has satisfied all for them that it is impossible for them to do good or to imitate Jesus Christ This it seems is inculcated unto them from the Cradle since in effect we see that all their practice is founded upon it while they live according to the Motions of corrupt Nature and with this believe that they shall be saved by the Merits of Jesus Christ without striving to imitate him since they are taught that it is impossible to do this And tho' this is a false Theology yet every one follows after it leaning upon a broken Reed 8. For that Man of whom I spoke to you formerly said that it was impossible for him to do any good Work yea to say the Lord's Prayer with Attention no more than they with whom he convers'd whom he had often ask'd if they could say it with Attention and they all answered they could not It is to be remarked that they were Merchants of great Trade and Spirit who found out all sort of Inventions for gaining of Money with great Dexterity and Care and their Spirit was not disingag'd for saying the Lord's Prayer with Attention For where their Treasure was there was their Heart and the Attention cannot be perfect in two so contrary things at the same time but if they had purg'd their Souls from coveting earthly Goods and as carefully applied their Understanding to speak unto God and to hear him without doubt they might not only have said the Lord's Prayer with Attention but might also have attention seriously upon continual Prayer which Jesus Christ has so much recommended to us saying that we ought always to pray and never to cease 9. But those poor Ignorants think to please God with fair Words as they please Men by saying that they are too frail to do any Good far less can they imitate Jesus Christ for these Excuses will condemn them For if they were truly sensible of their Frailty they would avoid the Occasions of Sin and use the Means of Poverty Humility and Patience that they might imitate Jesus Christ for he did nothing when he was upon Earth but that which another would do that were animated with the same Spirit that he was For the same God has through all the same Power and can do by the Body and Spirit of other Men that which he did by that of Jesus Christ 10. For in as much as he is God his Power is not limited provided that Man give no â—indrance
Works is a dead Faith in which while they remain they will never obtain Salvation seeing a living and operative Faith is necessary which cannot be recovered but in the imitation of Jesus Christ for otherwise no body can recover the Grace of God which he has merited for us for those only who will embrace the Gospel Law for it only teaches us how to return to God and points out all the things which have withdrawn us from him 18. If the Gospel Law did not tell me that I must be poor in Spirit I would never have known that the Goods of the World could withdraw me from God and if the same Law did not tell me that I must be humble in Heart I would have remained in the Pride in which Nature begot me and if the same Law did not teach me that I must deny my self take up my Cross and follow Jesus Christ I would never have known that the Love of my self drew me away from the Love of God or that my natural Inclinations did incline me to Sin I would never have done Violence to them that I might take the Kingdom of Heaven by force but having learned in the School of Jesus Christ the Truth of my Duties I will follow them and walk in the Light that he has purchas'd for me by his Sufferings and will not lean upon the Opinions of blinded Men who take Lies for Truth for I know well that for me the Gospel Law was made and that without the observing of it I cannot be among those whom the Father has given unto Jesus Christ and for whom he prays unto his Father I hope you also will be of that number my dear Child that having been in this World united in the Spirit of Jesus Christ we may be united together with him for ever Which she wisheth who remains Yours wholly in God A. B. Amsterdam Jul. 15. 1670. LETTER V. A Traveller to Eternity minds not earthly things To a Child of God who did not sufficiently comprehend that the Cares of this Life were an Hindrance to the Perfection of the Soul and was troubled to hear me say that it behoved me to tarvel alone to Eternal Life seeing he was desirous tobear me Company Shewing him that all the things of this World are vain and when we make it our Business to acquire them or to please Men we are not to look for an Eternal Reward This is the Twelfth of La lum née en tenebr Part iv My dear Child 1. I Know that you are troubled to hear me say that I am all alone in the World since you desire to accompany and follow me Your Desire is good in this but my Proposition is true that I am all alone in the way through which God leads me You ought not to be troubled to hear the Truth but rather to discover what must be done to accompany me I TRAVEL TOWARDS ETERNITY and I see all the World travelling towards the Land of their Banishment which is this miserable World after which every one aspires for I have not yet found one Person who seeks nothing but eternal things only 2. All Men of sound Judgment say that they aspire after things Eternal while their Thoughts Labour and Studies are taken up about what respects the Earth and Time Is it possible that they can have such a Blindness of Spirit as to believe that they desire eternal things when they despise them â—or â—e who seeks after the Goods of this World gives a sure Evidence that he despises Eternity Since it gives a full Satisfaction to the Man who desires it and he can no longer desire any other thing For all that is Temporal and Transitory seems to him Dung and Filth of which he makes use of the least â—e can and would flee in the Air towards Eternity without any wise touching the Earth if his Body were not of so 〈◊〉 Matter and obliged to take such gross Food for its 〈◊〉 But they who travel towards the World are still desirous of Silver and Gold that by this means they may make themselves to be served and honoured that they may take their Delight in Eating Drinking Walking commodious Apparel in adorning their Houses with fine Moveables and rich Ornaments that they may satisfie their Five Natural Senses of Sight Hearing Smell Taste and Feeling 3. So that it is no wonder that a Person who travels towards Eternity finds herself alone in the way since all the Men that we see now do so desire and seek after all these things studying and labouring with all their Power to obtain them and they will not despise or forsake them for all the Reasons that can be told them They would indeed have Eternity without resolving to forsake temporal things tho' Jesus Christ tells us That we cannot serve Two Masters without being unfaithful to the one or the other They wrest this Passage according to the Sensuality of their Inclinations and they will needs follow them and have eternal Life also which is impossible Therefore I do not understand Men now neither do they understand me and for this Cause we cannot stay together 4. I must indeed out of necessity be among Men But as soon as it shall be possible for me I will leave them to follow the way that God points out to me and leave them to follow those ways which they will needs choose for their Damnation I will not say my dear Child that you walk in this way of Damnation since you have an effectual Desire to be saved and to accompany me But you are yet travelling towards the World which is not as yet crucified in you you do not yet know how one must die to it in all things I am therefore troublesome to you in RESOLVING TO WALK ALONE and you give me more trouble to oblige me to follow you in travelling towards the Earth and Temporal things where I cannot accompany you without continual Strife and Debates for there is not a temporal Action or Word which is not blameworthy in this way that leads to Eternity For I should no sooner hear you speak of things which respect the Earth only but I would reprove you for them as idle Words and unprofitable for Eternity And if by your Actions you should labour for earthly things I would complain of your Employ and reckon your Labour to be vain 5. You see how I would be a Burthen to you and you would be insupportable to me And therefore our Journey would be melancholly and troublesome both for you and me and worse than that of two Persons who did not understand one another by Signs nor Words Nevertheless your Company does not offend me for I love it because of the good Desires which you have neither will I reprove you by way of Correction or Reproof but out of good Inclination for your Perfection which I love as my own But your Nature will feel Troubles thereby which perhaps would be insupportable to
their Purity notwithstanding their Contradiction to Mens Lives in whose hands they are to be a standing Miracle and the Doctrine of Jesus Christ to be the last and most perfect Doctrine that is to come into the World and the Standard by which all others are to be examin'd and tried and desires no body may receive her Sentiments but in so far as they are agreeable thereunto and condemns the Practice of the Roman Church in with-holding the Use of the Scriptures from the People as a heinous Injustice and Impiety Tho' she does not think that God has bound up himself only to this way of communicating his Light but may when he pleases immediately communicate the same to any Person without the Use of the Holy Scriptures and such Persons may forbear the reading of them as she did without despising them as one needs not be taken up with reading his Friend's Letter when he is immediately conversing with him And for an Evidence of it she appeals to the Truths which she declares are communicated to her by God if they are not the same in Substance with those contained in the Holy Scriptures XI The Author comes next to some of her Opinions which she her self has often declared are not necessary to be believed and which if Men please they may count them Dreams and Fancies He calls them wild and barbarous and indeed as he conceives and represents them he would make some of them appear Extravagant enough tho' a candid Interpretation of them will render them both amiable and useful Thus what Wildness or Barbarity is there in Asserting that Jesus Christ and his Church are one that it is his Spirit internally animating influencing and informing the Souls of Men that makes them Members of his Mystical Body which is the Church or in Asserting that the last Judgment by which she means the Universal Plagues by which God will in a Course of many Years destroy the Wicked from off the Earth is at hand Few who seriously consider the State of the World will think this a wild and barbarous Notion but the Scoffers who walk after their own Lusts and say Where is the Promise of his coming She maintains no Mahumeâ—an Paradise but such a one as Man would have enjoy'd in the State of Innocence when as yet he had no Lust or Concupiscence Vnto the Pure all things are Pure but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing Pure but even their Mind and Conscience is defiled She says with our Saviour That the Saints after the Resurrection neither marry nor are given in Marriage but are as the Angels in Heaven She condemns human Learning no farther than it fosters Pride Amusement Self-conceit and the Lust of the Eye or Curiosity and destroys Charity and the Love of God There is no greater Absurdity in saying that Jesus Christ thought fit to appear in our human Nature void of human Learning no Mathematician no Philosopher nor Critick than to say that he appear'd poor and despised of all not having where to lay his Head since he thought fit to deny himself of all that we make the Object of our Vanity and Concupiscence XII What the Author is pleas'd to say of M. Poiret that he was craz'd and is still so reputed being utterly false can do him no Hurt with such as are either acquainted with himself or his Writings but it shews that Mens Passions will make them rashly utter false and extravagant Things which they themselves do not believe For the Author himself in the next Page reckons him among the Men of Sence and Learning who have written in Defence of A. B. abroad It is no wonder then that some in Britain admire his Books for he is no superficial rambling Writer as they discover more than an ordinary Degree of Sence and Learning so they direct to the solid Knowledge and Practice of true Christianity Freed from the false Glosses of Parties and the Disguises of Self-Love and corrupt Nature the Charge of his denying the Divine Prescience is clear'd in the Apology * They do also endeavour to make him odious by publishing an Expression which they say he used in a private Conversation with two Gentlemen of their Acquaintance M. Poiret himself says it is not easie for him to remember the Conversations he hath with all who come to see him nor if he had such an Expression to any but that if he had those Gentlemen may think he had Reason for what he spoke and he is well pleased that all the World know it that as he is fully perswaded that God is so he is perswaded that A. B. was illuminated and inspired by his Holy Spirit Both these are Truths but it does not follow that he looks upon both as of equal Moment or that he believes them upon equal Grounds XIII After the Author has formed so grievous and unjust a Charge laying aside a Christian Temper he proceeds in his 8. Sect. to sound the Trumpet and excite others to Fury and Indignation and in his late Book of the History of Sin and Heresie p. 33. he repeats over the same Charge with all the hard Words that Spite and Fury could invent and insinuates his Fears of a Growing Sect and Party It is strange to see Men more alarm'd and enrag'd against Enemies created by their own Fancy than they are against real ones If the Author of the Preface were once out of the Heat that his Imagination has put him in it were easie I should think to convince him that these he calls Bourignianists are no such Enemies as he has fansied to himself I can assure him they do heartily own that our Reconciliation with God is obtain'd only by the Merits and Satisfaction of Jesus Christ That the Word of God contained in the Holy Scriptures is the Standard by which we are to try and examine all Doctrines That no Inspiration can come from God that does not fill the Soul with Humility and Charity or That instills under the Sheeps Clothing of Devotion and Piety any Heresie or any thing that tends to Schism or to withdraw Obedience from their lawful Bishop or to set up new Sects and that Corruptions in the Church are better amended by living in the Communion of it and there by good Example to reclaim than by open Desertion to set up opposite Factions which heightens Animosities embitters Spirits renders them deaf to one anothers Advices and often proceeds to Blood and Slaughter as the Author of the Preface does so rationally conclude it in the Marks he gives to distinguish between Inspirations from God and Diabolical Enthusiasm And if there be any thing in the Writings of A. B. contrary to these or to the Doctrine of Jesus Christ they do openly disown and disclaim the same and stand up for them no farther than they tend to promote the great Interests of Christianity Truth Holiness and Peace XIV I come now to