add nothing to our souls and cannot have the recompense of eternal life They may indeed be a mean to attain to true virtue when our design is to aspire and arrive at it but the misery is that many rest at these means and external virtues as if that were the end And so they think they have virtue indeed whereas they have it only in shadow not in reality And therefore is it that I teach you what true virtue is and particularly what is that meekness which J. Ch. says we must learn of him It is nothing else but a peace quiet and tranquillity of Spirit which resides in the bottom of our soul and all these are Spiritual qualities which cannot be seen or felt but by their outward operations But the essence of that virtue of meekness is a divine quality and you cannot judge by the outward actions if one possesses it for one may well learn to speak mildly without having the mildness which J. Ch. says we must learn of him We may learn meek words like a Perroquet and speak so perhaps for civility or by hypocricy for I have known persons that appeared most meek in their carriage who inwardly were wicked and arrogant And therefore we must not amuse our selves at that outward mildness which is often deceitful and but natural for there are persons so faint-hearted that they fear to speak a harsh word left it give themselves trouble by as harsh an answer and that Sillyness makes them mild and calm both to good and evil And yet such dare believe that they have the virtue of meekness when it is only a vice of sloath and injustice which makes them yield to the sin of others instead of resisting it with diligence and courage but they will not take so much trouble It is not then that false meekness which I exhort you unto my Child for so you should not learn that which J. Ch. teaches but I would gladly make you comprehend what is that true meekness that you might love and follow it It is then an inward peace a quiet of conscience and tranquillity of Spirit which dwells in the bottom of our soul behold what that meekness which J. Ch. recommends to learn of him contains Himself practiced that meekness all the time of his mortal life and you may observe from that if there be at present any souls possessed by his Spirit that is who have effectually those three qualities in their souls for otherways they cannot be possessed of the Holy Ghost Observe well in me If I have peace in my soul quiet of conscience and tranquillity in my Spirit And if you discover in me these qualities believe assuredly that you may obtain them also for God refuses not his graces to them that ask and desire them and he will be loath to refuse that of meekness when J. Ch. says that we must learn it of him for he will not command us to learn that which is impossible God is just and therefore he hath not taught us any thing by Jesus Christ but what he will readily give us That Spirit of meekness and gentleness is the Holy Spirit which J. Ch. says shall not be refused to any bringing us this comparison to the purpose who is he of you who when his son asks bread will give him a stone or if he demand fish will give him a serpent And he Draws this conclusion If you then being evil know to give good things to your children how much more shall not your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him All the evil consists in that we do not desire him and that desire cannot be great in us as long as we do not know him Many say that the Holy Spirit does not work in souls now adays as he did in the days of J. Christ rand his Apostles because they do not see him in form of a dove as he appeared at the baptism of J. Chr. or as tongues of fire as on the Apostles at Pentecost which is a very feeble argument For the Holy Ghost is not limited to times being an eternal God who gives his gifts and bears his fruits at all times and will do to all eternity seeing he can never be barren nor idle operating always in the souls that are disposed thereto and if we see not now these tongues of fire that dove or other external signs it is because we need them no more now the gospel law and the doctrine of Jesus Christ being sufficiently confirmed at least there is no Christian as I believe that calls it in question Moreover these external forms added nothing to the souls of those that received the Holy Ghost but served only to convince the hard-heartedness of the incredulous And therefore true believers have no need to see external figures to believe that the Holy Spirit dwells yet in the soul of him that is thereto disposed They can well examin it themselves knowing but what the Holy Spirit is what are his gifts what his graces and what his fruits of which the meekness we must learn of Jesus Christ is one And though it be declared in divers places of Scripture yet it is all the same thing For J. Ch. says Learn of me for I am meek and lowly and St. Paul puts among the twelve fruits of the Holy Spirit goodness and benignity which is the same thing pronounced in different words and is in substance the peace quiet and tranquillity of Spirit residing in the soul that hath these three internal qualities These signs are assured testimonies of the habitation of the Holy Spirit For the natural Spirit cannot give true peace nor true quiet nor true tranquility of Spirit as give the meekness and lowliness which J. Christ says we must learn of him I suppose by these My Child you comprehend sufficiently what is that meekness and lowliness which J. Ch. teaches And also that you have remarked enough that I possess it in my soul seeing you see me in inward peace quiet of conscience and tranquility of Spirit without notable change but yet you know not how you may come to feel the effects of that meekness of J. Ch. in your soul I know certainly you love them so far as you know them but you know not how to attain to them Which I shall also teach you if you will give good attention and follow my counsel for it is very easie to obtain the meekness which J. Ch. teaches if you will empty your soul of what hinders it and absolutely become a disciple of J. Ch. and follow his doctrines And if you feel not in your soul true inward peace quiet of conscience and tranquility of Spirit you may believe you have not yet learnt of J. Ch. his meekness and lowliness and so you must embrace the means to attain to it The first and fundamental means is absolutely to will and desire it which I believe by the grace of God you do In the
receiveth every thing which human wisdom hath diverted having found so many Studies and Arguments to favour our proper will that all men believe it to be lawful to follow it without offending him who pleased to reserve it for himself Sir these are all blind who lead the blind and all fall into the ditch Be you never of that band but believe in the Light which God sheweth you I have spoken TRUTH unto you not affecting to be believed or followed but only to tend and aim at your Salvation All that I have told you is necessary for you if you will use it well because we cannot love God without knowing him nor follow Virtue without comprehending it we cannot also evite the Deceit without discovering it nor escape the Paws of the Devil without turning away therefrom make good use of all these things and you shall be happy in this world and in the other I doubt not but my manner of speech may have given you pain and difficulty because they do not accord with your Philosophy Theology or other Scholastique Sciences But believe that I have never made profession of any human Sciences I love rather to be ignorant of than to know them and if I could learn in a quarter of an hour all the Sciences of the Schools I would not employ so little time thereto because I know that human Sciences are great Impediments unto the Holy Spirit and also that the time is come when God shall destroy the Wisdom of the Wise and bring to nothing the Prudence of the Prudent and so I cannot use fine Discourses but such only as make known the native Truth the words the terms may well be debated and controlled but never the true sense which is true I will not dispute with the Wise seeing God shall shortly overcome them by the effects of my words nor also polish my Language because the simple nativeness pleaseth God more than the rhetorical Eloquences subject unto vanity for he that speaks that he may speak elegantly is filled with vain-glory willing to renounce which I seek only simple words that may express my conceptions I believe Sir that you have sufficiently understood me and that I can say no more to you to co-operate unto your Salvation there remains no more but to put it in practice Which you shall do more easily in solitude or the desert than elsewhere because of the corruption of men which are great letts unto us and also the power which the Devil hath at present over their spirits to bewitch them that are yet sound and entire Flee then Sir that you may evite all these dangers lest you might be diverted from your good proposal and should look back as Lot's Wife who was changed into a Statue of Salt Yet a little Penitence and after God will deliver you to enter into the joy which shall never end That is it I wish unto you in giving you Adiew I was grieved to hear that she would leave me praying her not to withdraw seeing I would follow what she had taught me which was nothing else but Self-denial and Dependance upon God She said unto me Sir it shall be more pure that you remain alone for I am only a Creature as you are and we must cleave unto the Creator alone without interruption he shall conduct you at his pleasure provided you be abandoned unto his will you need no more instructions of any person I have told you more than sufficient to conduct you unto union with God It should be hereafter only repetitions of things foresaid which should bereave your time and mine which it is better to employ in the practice than in repetitions Leave me in my liberty and take you also yours God hath not created us together He shall save us though separated in body True Union consists in a conformity of will with God and not in particular Conferences I must confess I have often distracted my self from entertainments with God to speak to you of so many divers things but I judged them necessary for your Salvation therefore have they not been grievous unto me but now when you know the truth of many things it is not necessary to speak more unto you God shall always teach you enough provided you continue faithful unto him He hath never refused what men ask for their Salvation You must have no more any other pretensions Let the World be overturned Let the Romish Church perish Let the Elements be moved against sinners all that cannot touch you provided you keep you firmly united with God Leave willingly every thing to find that union If I be with you or not it is a small matter provided you be with God that should suffice because he alone can save you and none else There is always mixture when a Creature cleaves to its like I have often despised them who hold themselves addicted to persons although it were under some pious pretext I will not do my self what I despise in others I said unto her That she had promised to explain to me the 24. Chapter of St. Matthew that she should at least give me it before she left me She said Sir I do not willingly fail of my Promise give me the text of that Chapter and I shall explain it unto you word by word wishing that all men of good-will might see it that they might discover that it is of this present time that that chapter speaks Every one reads it without understanding it notwithstanding there are pleasant advertisments to beware of this dangerous time wherein we live at present These are not Fables made at pleasure but Truths proceeded out of the mouth of Jesus Christ himself which every one ought well to apprehend and follow the councels which he gives They are most salutary and most proper for escaping the evils to come which hang over our heads I must give it in writing for an eternal remembrance that men may observe if all that it contains shall not be effected in our time Do not oppose what you shall find contrary to your studies or old impressions because the Holy Spirit shall give perfect and unheard of intelligences of the Holy Scriptures because we are arrived in the fulness of time If you will receive them with Humility of Heart you shall understand all things in perfection but you must become a Child and cease from being a Wise Man because God reveals his secrets only unto little ones and hides them from the great and wise of the earth We must not resist the Holy Spirit and say such a Father explaineth it so or otherwise because the fulness is always more than a part You shall find what I say more clear than whatever the Holy Fathers have said because the time of the fulfilling of every thing is come but we must render simple our understanding as little Children or otherwise we cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven I brought unto
of God until God appointed her to return to an ordinary way of living while God's extraordinary divine communications to her flowed more and more during all her life like a stream still encreased until its ending a mighty River into the vast Ocean which in the same degree encreased in her soul that Constancy divine Love and all Virtues and Graces as not moved were more established by all the assaults which the craft and malice of Hell did eagerly spue out all her life while she pursued her first search of True Christians which when she could not find any true knowledge of a Christian Life and self-seeking among all the devout and Religious Persons whose earthly-mindedness she easily discovered through all their fair Pretexts she turned the more in to God in her Heart where he trained her in the true Christianity and told her She must not seek it in the World but in her own heart with God and in Solitude whereupon she did over the belly of all Opposition Tentations Allurements of Friends Riches and all worldly advantages most generously and constantly forsake all seeking that beloved solitude where she might enjoy God without disturbance God gave her a Spiritual solitude retiring her Heart and Soul from all that was not himself yet retained her from other to make her a Light to lead other good Souls out of the Egypt of this World into the same Wilderness of heavenly-mindedness The traverses she met with her constant Advance and all the steps of her conduct so signally disposed by the immediate hand and Councel of God as its unaccountable and vast so it is beyond the bounds and design of this short preliminary to insist on who desire a more satisfying Account may be satisfied by the History of her Life written partly by her self partly by a faithful and judicious eye and ear Witness Her desire was to be unknown and unnoticed yet many persons of good-will of several sorts came to her acquaintance who owed and owned unto her as the Instrument of Gods Spirit their Conversion their Enlightening their Inflaming in divine Love their Comforting and Strengthening and their Eternal Life testifying as they were living and standing Testimonies that her Words her Writings her Works and all her Life had an unutterable divine efficacy and power of converting and saving Souls that were well disposed infinitly beyond all the enervate and lifeless Means and Ordinances in the hands of the most elaborate and erudite heads exercising that trade for their dayly bread without the spirit of it under which alas its too visible and by all that have but the least spark of ingenuity confest and of sincerity regreted that we live most part so little or not at all moved from our earthly biass of self which declines us so much to Hell that if we get but a little survey of the Earth we never attain nor it may be seek any true glimpse of heavenly things which gives us to notice the same proportion of illuminating enlivening and invigorating force of painted Preachings to real ones as there is of the sun painted on a board to that in the Firmament Several who with good applause had long exercised the function of conducting and directing Souls as Ministers and Fathers in the Church not of the least erudition but of the most uprightness made it their happiness to learn at this illiterate Maid the empty Vanity of their former fruitless Labours and to begin again from the A B C of Solid Virtue under her direction owning more Solid Light and Divine Life from some few Rays of her Spirit than from all their Schools and Books Studies and Preachings Notice only one notable Matter in the way In an Hospital of poor Girles she charitably governed she discovered them all to be Witches in express compact with the Devil and that a vastly surprising greater part of the world than is usually by the innocent thought are such by evidences satisfying and convictive to the most doubting that will not be obstinate Passing from her first appearance in the World to her first publique appearance to the World On the second of December 1667. she departed from Mechline in Flanders and came to Amsterdam with design to satisfie the solicitation of her friends and God's will of having the Truth promulgate and known by the printing her Writings entituled The Light of the World and at the convenient season of sailing to go for Holstein where in the Isle of Nordstrand she had bought a Farm from Mr. de Cort the Director of the said Isle and Proprietor of most of it who was going with her In honour and imitation of the obscure mean Life of Jesus Christ that she might be unknown she hired a little House by the shore in a very retired place but falling soon into a sore and dangerous sickness she was obliged to yield to Mr. de Corts bringing a physitian of his acquaintance who with another he had told of her coming to know her could not abstain from telling others that quickly her fame was through all the Country and one of her Letters to the Dean of Lille which is the 5 th Letter in the second part of Light arisen in Darkness and is the first of all her Works that was printed coming out in the beginning of the year 1668. made her so famous that every one was earnest to see her and converse with her She seeing it God's will to manifest her resolved to give free entry and audience to all that pleased She was then visited for about a year and a half from all places by persons of all sorts of Professions Religions and Opinions by Theologues Phylosophe's Rabbins imaginary Prophets and all the most curious and expert in all Arts and Sciences Almost all did easily discover in her the divine Light whereby God would revive his love in their Souls with most sensible and convincing Touches and Motions of his spirit but they could not come to the Marriage of the Lamb for their Farms their Merchandises their Offices and Callings their Wives and Children and the Love of the World and the things of the World were in them and stiffled the Love of the Father and all the Protestations they had made to follow Christ forsaking all for him excepting two or three who forsook all and followed the Truth of God in her to death Of the many memorable things passed in these Visits you shall be diverted but with two or three Before she had any Acquaintance or Visits there Mr. de Cort told her that the Anabaptists were good and pious men having a great esteem of the Graces which God bestowed on her and that they protested if they might come to her it should be in Humility as little Children submitting to the Light of God She answered promptly That is not true these are great men who will hardly submit themselves to the truth and become little Children God revealing their disposition to her better than themselves
knew it And they shewed at first to be touched but no sooner did she without designing any person discover the nature and properties of Hypocrisie and the general corruption even in the most devout and holy but they finding themselves pinched rose all up against her by the artifices descried in the Letters she wrote then in the 3. part of Light arisen in Darkness and 2. and 3. Part of the Funeral of False Theologie Mrs. B. in one of her Letters to them having written not considering when she sought after them that there were no more true Christians and God told her she should be the mother of true believers Lest that especially that mother of true believers should stumble these erudide heads she would score it out but God said to her what 's written let it stay written and indeed no sooner had they that in their hands but they made such a dirty hubub her Pride her Pride that though her after-writings satisfie any that have common sense on that head these men have not yet come to themselves Mr. Serrarius famous enough for his correspondencies and his Writings was of the first that knew and recommended her every where he would lead her every where as a living Gospel that should enlighten all the world he would cause print all her Writings and even of his Titles and Prefaces to them yet extant but seeing at length that she would not swerve from the pure Truth God revealed in her to second his particular Opinions of the restoring a Levitical Worship of the Jews and his esteem of a certain Seducer at that time arisen in Palestine he rejected her for his own Imaginations Mr. Comenius so famous among the Learned his Learning not having puft him up as it does ordinarily fell out with Mr. Serrarius because of his injustice against Mrs. Bourignon and retained a Veneration for her all the rest of his Life and on his Death-Bed desired a last visit of her saying O That Holy Maid where is she then may I be so happy as to see her yet once before I die all the Knowledge and Sciences I have attained are but productions of reason and of Human Spirit and Study but she has a Wisdom and Light that come only from God immediatly by the Holy Spirit After she had seen him and was gone he said of her with transports of joy to them that visited him I have seen an Angel of God! God has sent me his Angel to day God did also let her see how far the best cultivated human spirit is blind and far from the Kingdom of God by conferences she had with some Cartesians both Divines and meer Phylosophers she had a discourse with the Professors Heydan and Burmannus but Nicodemus was too great a Doctor to understand Christs Language or learn of him though so blind as to deny that the Spirit blows where he lists at present and his Voice to be heard to infer that we must not abandon our Vessel to the conduct of his divine Inspirations but steer by human spirit and reason She wrote to him on that occasion Letter 12. of the first part of the Funeral of false Theologie The Phylosophers would perswade her that she came near to their Principles but God shewed her their Nullity and errour She told them their disease that they would comprehend all by the activity of human Reason and not give place to the Illumination of divine Faith which requires a cessation of our Reason and Spirit that God may display that divine Light which gives the only true Knowledge of God but the mean pass that Reason with all its equipage of Ideas and clear and distinct Conceptions will be at to defend or regulate it self before God at Death felt a Cartesian gentleman even in this life who in the profound stupid security they are all leavened with after their once doubting to the full Scorned Mrs. Bourignons admonitions saying laughing You call your self the Mother of believers by the Truths you say you perswade and make them believe and I who have clear and evident demonstrations by which I can perswade reasonable spirits and make them believe much better I shall be the Father of believers But this poor Father of believers who was otherwise a man of spirit of a good beneficent nature and a person of quality being a little after in a deadly Disease in the flower of his age God opened his eyes to see his poor state and lament his error he began to cry with Tears night and day O my understanding my understanding whereto hast thou brought me Alas my Reason I relied so much on what assistance canst thou give me now Thou canst not now give me Salvation nor the hope of it I must be damned there can be no mercy for me A friend comforting him the best he could he wholly disconsolate asked continually Think you than there is yet any mercy to be hoped for my Soul and then looking and tossing about cryed again My understanding my understanding alass whereto hast thou led me Then to the first Friend Go tell desire that good soul Mrs Bourignon to pray to God for me that I may obtain pardon of that sin for otherwise I am damned or I must suffer a flul long Purgatory O! if I could recover from this Disease I would turn wholly to God and would follow altogether another way but when he told Mrs. Bourignon of it she answered he shall not recover but he shall die for if he did recover he would fall deeper in that pernicious Error As in effect he did in a good and sound Judgment in great contrition adoring Jesus Christ crucified God having shown her experimentally by that frequent conversation how little hope remains of converting the world by the little welcome and less Correspondence the Truth met with even with the best and wisest of all sorts he brought her with the two or three that seeing the means of purifying their souls to the Love of God and working out their salvation in her company would sell all for that Pearl of great Price maugre the tentation that lost the young man in the Gospel for they had great Riches and Reputation too I say he brought them from Holland to Holsatia And as from the beginning God did in all her after course unto himself serve himself of the manifold Malice and Persecutions of Satan against the Truth and Light of God to confound that blackfiend and all his Hellish Works of Darkness his violent Persecutions to extinguish it served but as wind to kindle it his Attempts to cut off the Messenger of it in one place served but to carry her further to more places and persons as with a general embassage his secret Blows God did more secretly often forewarn her of in spirit his outward open Violences he often no less wonderfully averted his calumnies and Accusations of Heresie did but bring the Truth to more admirable and dazling Evidence and bring to
life were with incomparable Purity Evidence Clearness and Solidity in that Soul which thou didst sanctifie and are yet in her holy Writings In truth the way that is there recommended as necessary to Salvation is the only and the true way there is no danger to abandon our selves wholly and entirely in it for it is the very Truth it is the Truth it self It is the pure Truth There is none Lord there can be none other in Heaven nor in Earth There is none other way unto eternal life than that which thou hast put into the Mouth in the Writings and in the Life of thy most holy hand-maid Antonia Bourignon I praise and bless and thank thee O my God that thou gave me to know the same and hast opened and enclined the ear of my heart thereto Give me Grace to love to observe and to maintain that heavenly Truth unto Death Happy he that should lose a thousand lives for so worthy a subject Happy he who shall never for any consideration leave the practice of it Let me by thy divine Grace be of that number that after this short life of Tryal that most certain and most infallible mean make me enjoy my soveraign End which is to have the happiness ever to adore and praise thy great Majesty O Jesus eternal God Creator Saviour and redeemer of the World while with the Father and holy Spirit thou shalt reign Gloriously in all eternity Amen Revelation Ch. 3. He that hath Ears to hear Let him hear THE PREFACE OF THE PUBLISHER THis Treatise consists of two parts whereof the one may be called Extructive which builds or establishes and the other Destructive which destroys or everts For the first ten Letters are adapted to the planting of Virtue and all the rest to evert and root out what may hinder its increase To recommend Virtue is taken the precept of him who is the Master and Example of it by which is made an introduction shewing what Virtues we must in the first place embrace and by what meanstend to them which is by Obedience and renouncing our own will unto the Meekness Lowliness and Humility of Heart of Iesus Christ see Let. 1 2 3. the Nature of which Humility is explained and the means conducing to the attainment of it viz the knowledge of our Corruption and the Miseries which our Bodys and Souls ly under Let. 4 5 6. Which ought to produce in us the effect of renouncing our natural senses and being content with what is of meer necessity we should flee all Pleasure and proper Satisfaction Let. 7 8. which emptying of our selves will be accompanied with the Love of God which incontinently possesses the Heart from which vitious affections are expelled because of the near relation and sympathy between them as between the Creature and its natural Element In which Love consists the Essence and Complement of all Virtue and all Good Let. 8 9 10. Concerning the overturning and resisting the Impediments and Tentations of Satan is treated Let. 11. whether they be offered to our Imagination or Sensibility even spiritual Let. 12 13. or to the Understanding making us rest in the naked knowledge of the Truth Let. 14. Or exciting us to external acting or internal with Vain Glory or by Dejecting us through immoderate mortifications or in unseasonable good works spiritual or corporal toward our Neighbour Let. 15 16. Or in regard of the Devil accusing him too much or too little of our sins Let. 17 18. Whether these Tentations affect the will whose godly fervour Satan would extinguish by Grief Spiritual Negligence and Self-love as shew Let. 19 20 and to the end There is briefly represente the whole subject handled in this divine Treatise which is more specially noted at the beginning of each Letter that you may kind Reader view as in a Table and beter retain in your memory the divine Instructions therein delivered Moreover you may with us well admire the infamous audacity of some as the Church-men in Holsatia whereby some years ago they caused that these so wholsome instructions while under the Press in the German and Low Dutch Tongues were taken away by force and violence and rent While I consider these obscure enemies of the truth that Scripture offers it self to me that Every one that Doth and will do evil hateth the Light and cometh not to the Light lest his deeds be reproved and this is the Condemnation that Light is come into the world and men Love Darkness rather than Light because their Deeds are Evil. It is far otherwise with him who doth and will do the Truth for he cometh to the Light that his Deeds may be made manifest because they are wrought in God Joh. Ch. 3. I pray the God of Truth that he graciously please to instruct and lead you in the way of Truth that you never refuse to come to the Light Farewell TO THE READER Friendly Reader I Cannot abstain from imparting unto you these twenty four letters which I have written to one of my particular Friends where I shew him what Solid Virtue is because it is a matter so necessary for the present time when we see false virtue reign or such as is only apparent to the eyes of men and while so many persons deceive themselves perswading themselves that they have true Virtue whereas they have nothing but fine Speculations They think themselves Humble when they can talk well of Humility and think they have the Love of God when they desire to have it notwithstanding they have in effect only the Love of themselves and it is but Deceit and Falshood when they say they have the Love of God They do not so much as know the corruption of their Nature seeing they think they may follow that corruption without sinning provided they do no evil reproveable before men and have a will to do well and love God Which notwithstanding is not sufficient to be saved for good desires without effect are nothing before God They are indeed Foundation stones serving to the building of true Virtue For without good Desires we cannot do good Works We must first have the desire and after put it in execution which is wanting to many persons of a good will who content themselves to be of a good will and hope with that all shall go well without considering that the holy Scripture says to all in general Depart from evil and do Good Now the Evil is in our corrupt nature which no person ought to ignore yet few depart from that corruption and most love and follow it thinking they do well which is a great abuse and presumption of spirit for we cannot do good except we depart from evil and he that does not resist that corrupt Nature and renounce it cannot acquire true Virtue which few persons comprehend and thence is it that they have only apparent Virtues and no real ones Therefore is it that I have resolved to cause print these twenty four
four Parts V. and VI. The Funeral of false Theologie in four Parts VII The Light of the World in three Parts VIII The Accademy of learned Theologues in three Parts And Confusion of the Builders of Babylon IX A Treatise of Solid Virtue in two Parts X. Advertisment against the sect of Quakers And the persecution of the Righteous XI The Testimony of the Truth first Part. XII A Collection of Testimonies given unto A. Bourignon XIII The Testimony of the Truth second Part. And Innocency avowed and Truth discovered XIV The Touch-stone And the Morning-star XV. The Blindness of the men of this time in two Parts XVI Antichrist discovered in three Parts And the Holy Perspective XVII The renewing of the Gospel Spirit in three Parts XVIII The New Heaven and New Earth And the Stones of the New Jerusalem XIX Wholsome Advices All these Books are originally in French The greatest part of them are translated into High and Low Dutch Solid Virtue 1 Part The Touch-stone and The Gospel Spirit 1 Part are translated into Latin And are all to be sold by Henry Wetstein Bookseller at Amsterdam AD SOLIDAE VIRTUTIS Amicum ejusdemque hostem ALLOQUIUM Totius libelli ideam exhibens DIscere Virtutem Lector sine fraude doloque Vis liber hic monstrat Christum panditque sequendum Pare teque nega mitesce dejice temet Mens ignara tibi est cor pravum corpus iniquum Et cujus pudeat miseri ne tu illius ergo Sensibus indulge satis esto necesse repelle Cetera replet amor vacuas sacer almaque virtus Ast non una manet te crux non pugna reposcit Te semel Assiduos versas o Orce labores Mox sensum mulces mox ludis imagine mentem Jam specie veri noti Jam gloria pellit Te motore animum vis mox in corpore regnet Saevitia utve alios jam passim mens pia curet Jam te astute reum fers intus mox sine culpa Ut lateas fueris Jam mentem sanguine tetro Obruis laxas eam ut aut ignavia perdat Perdat amorve suus Sic sunt fraudesque dolique Orce tui Patet ars tua sic patet modus illam Frangendi Rabiem fundis nec miror in ista Quae docet haec sacro 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 numine virgo THE FIRST LETTER That all Christians ought to learn of Jesus Christ Meekness Mildness Gentleness and Lowliness of Heart Written to one desirous of true virtue Shewing him that to attain thereto we must have submission and obedience by which we may begin to learn meekness lowliness and humility of heart My Dear Child I Perceive you have not yet comprehended well what Jesus Christ teaches saying learn of me for I am meek and lowly and humble of heart because upon occasion you do not exercise it enough but yield loose reins to your nature for when it enclines to anger you speak harshly and sometimes use force and violence to fulfil what you have resolved as well in small matters as in great which does not testify humility of heart seeing the humble heart yields willingly to another in things not evil and does not imagin that another ought to follow our will But it is always willing to follow anothers will in whatever is not contrary to God and the perfection of its own soul I suppose you may well have observed that in me for ordinarily I inform my self of the will of my brethren to Know what they love best in indifferent things and I have more contentment to do any thing after their desires than after my own for that yields me more quiet and inward peace feeling a certain satisfaction to see them content and joyful And even my nature enclines to it by the habit which I 've used to resist my own will in every thing and being overcome it rules over all things and has no grudge for whatsoever comes contrary to it provided it be not against the glory of God or the love of our neighbour All beside is indifferent to me if it is rain or fair weather if I eat harsh meats or sweet when they wrong not my health if I be alone or in company so that the one be as wholesome as the other And finally I 'm as well content to be in one countrey as another providing I have the same occasions to live well And so I am comforted in every event whether I be sick or in health I have no choose in case I honour God as well in one state as in another it is all one to me and I would never choose any thing so that I receive from the hand of God whatsoever comes to pass and so I as always content and joyful If you knew but to learn that method you would be very happy and continually in quiet whereas now fretting and discontent you disquiet and trouble your Spirit and are burthensome to others and so hinder mutual love for a bitter word is pleasant to no body and a mild one mollifies the heart even of a furious person I know your heart is good and that you hate no person notwithstanding to judge by the tone of your voice one would say that you are envious and they that know not your heart think you are in rage you must know that they are not always disposed to bear with you and that may marr the peace and diminish charity which Jesus Christ hath so much recommended to Christians Saying if you love one another thereby shall all men know that you are my disciples I believe you love the brethren in the bottom of your heart but sometimes you speak to them as if you hated them and would not hear them speak If they spoke as you do you would have difficulty to suffer them So you ought to consider that they have much to suffer that you speak so harshly They do very well in suffering you but it is no advantage for your soul for if all the world should bear with you that will not justifie you before God nor will your nature for that change its evil inclinations but be strengthned in them And so you shall be in danger to live and die imperfect which you would regret much before God when too late Therefore it is much better to endeavour now to overcome that bilious humour which is in your nature than be Slave to a wrathful passion which masters you whereas you should govern it and use it only when it concerns the maintaining the truth and defence of the glory of God Then is it that there is place for anger as the scripture also says be angry and sin not But we must never be angry for things indifferent and of small import much less speak harshly because Jesus Christ says we must be meek and lowly of heart That is a lesson he gives to all Christians and exhorts them to learn it of him