light more and more divine and saving mysteries which ript up all his hellish Heresies and Mysteries of Iniquity to the gnawing of his malicious spirit and all the like instruments of his fury while the Bread of Life was aboundantly dispensed to hungry souls whom it shall nourish unto Eternal Life when all the Wicked shall be cut off and the Meek shall inherit the Earth For the more particular Account of her divine Pilgrimage see the History of her Life and take here a short Bill of that heavenly chear now dispensed in her Writings that took up the spare hours of her many diversions at Amsterdam The funerall of false Theologie in the first part of which she shews the Confusion the Ignorance Corruption Insensibility and foundamental Errors of Christians and even of Conductors and modern Divines In the second their Presumption Envy Pride Obstinacy and Head strongness In the third that all their Theorie and Practices are no more but Pharisaical without divine Faith In the fourth that the Devil has great power over men over the wicked and even over the best whom by these other he turns away from following God and engages them to co-operate to the Evil of others and makes them draw back after they have abandoned the World That is a work of singular efficacy and profit Scarce did ever man read it without being touched in his soul even the most wicked who became pale and as struck dead with it Upon occasion of some converse she had with some Cartesian Philosophers she composed The Holy Perspective wherein she shews that Men and particularly Christians have lost the Light of God which is true and divine Faith to be led by corrupt Reason and by a false or most faint Light they draw from nature so perverse brutish carnal and gross as it is become by sin that this is it that has destroyed all Christian-religion and brought it to the Blindness and Darkness wherein it is immersed and that God may restore it its first state there is no other way but to abandon that false Guide of Reason and to resign our selves to God that he may himself revive in us that divine Light of Faith which we have extinguished The New Heaven and New Earth in which is shewn in what Glory the World and Man were created how they have miserably faild from it how they entertain and even encrease their Misery and by what means they ought to return into the disposition God requires to restore them to their first Glory and renew all the world God showed her in Spirit the Glory and Beauty of the first World not supportable by corporal Eyes All was bright transparent shining with Light and unspeakable Glory God's last Mercy in which by a reason enlightened by Faith not perverted by human Studies and Prejudices she leads every man of good judgment to a conviction of the spiritual things which Faith discovers and unto which every man's Reason when conducted by a person that is illuminated by Faith renders so convincing Testimonies that they who will yield themselves to its Touch are moved and pressed to ask of God a saving and divine Knowledge of them by the Light of Faith With all these are intermixed many other divine Lights and profound Mysteries which God had reserved to this end of the last hour able to enlighten to quicken to inflame to strengthen to encourage and to ravish any that have not renounced all interest in heavenly things If any find difficulties in her Writings consider that she having no further human Learning than that having learnt it she did once read the New Testament and finding it the same with what God spake in her Soul she closed the Book to apply seriously to the doing of it seeking no more reading meditation conferring or other study than that of purifying her soul from earthly Affections and sins in following Jesus Christs Doctrine and Example She could not speak after the Rules and with the Cautions of human Literature far less by the pedantry of the Schools it were then most cruel injustice to judge her by them Again we must not suppose when she treats of a matter what she does not mention in that place that she denies it nor require her to treat so fully more than her scope there requires as the Scholastiques who handling a matter at their tour adduce all they can relating to it In the Third place to understand her Writings as all others divinely inspired the Key is a good Will Humility and Prayer to a Malign a Corrupt Proud Self-wise and Self-powerful Reader no entry in them no favour from them but that of Death And the center end and aim of these Writings being the Love of God by renouncing our selves the Creatures and sin the Devil the World and the Flesh the farther we are from this the greater discord and contradiction between these Writings and our corrupt hearts and blind spirits and if ever we will be reconciled it must be by valuing loving esteeming and submitting to them as they are conducive to these ends and the difficulties will all quickly evanish this way the Disciples of Christ of Prophets and Apostles entered into their Masters Doctrine To conclude with the zealous and sincere Author of her Life LOrd thou hast yet manifested the words of eternal Life in these last days and our ears have heard and our hands have handled the word of life which thou hast put into her these words of Life which are originally in thee we have seen and heard them and we bear testimony that thou hast manifested them to us and our testimonie is most true before thee and before whosoever will open the eyes of his Conscience to consider it in thy divine Presence Yes Lord my God Creator and Inspector of my Heart who hast given me to love thy divine Truth more than the Sciences and the Advantages of Egypt thou knowest that I hate lying and falshood and that I would not for any consideration recommend untruth I cannot deny that I have obtained of thy Grace to discern the Truth from Falsehood and that I have done it in this Work thou knowest O Lord. Thou knowest my God that if after all possible application of spirit I could find in the intentions in the end the Writings and the Practice of Antonia Bourignon thy Creature any thing contrary to thy Glory that rendered thee less worthy of the infinite and eternal Adoration Love and Praises due unto thee if any thing favouring Corruption and Sin and that might contradict thy holy Image and the Doctrine and Life of thy Christ if any thing dangerous for mens Salvation thou knowest I would abhor that that I would detest it that I would curse it Is it not true O Searcher and Judge of my Thoughts that this disposition is most really in the bottom of my Soul Is it not in the deepest and final sincerity of my heart that I protest openly that the words of eternal
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
Clouds agitated by the wind and representing such figures to our eyes It is even so with mens Sciences who fancy themselves wise when they are very ignorant For I do not believe that they have yet truly discovered one science even natural and how can they then in mystical or spiritual things That is what Jesus Christ said to his disciples He that seeth me seeth my father but you know neither me nor the father Notwithstanding we will often search curiously the profound Mysteries and divine Secrets and we know not natural things which we see and handle One will vaunt in being a Doctor of Medicine another in Theology another will be an Astronomer and so of other sciences although they be all alike ignorant of what they profess and think they know well And that proceeds from that airy Pride which the Devil hath inspired in to their Spirit perswading them that they are wise and worthy of honour and esteem though they be in effect ignorant and worthy of contempt We see that Physicians esteem themselves wise because they have read Medicinal Authors and these Authors are often as ignorant as they that read and follow them because all they have written is but vanishing figures which waver in the air of their imaginations and what the ancients have written is followed by their posterity And so they think to cure the sick by remedies coined in the air of mans imagination who seem to have divers Sciences and Remedies while they do but guess and hazard the lives of the sick and I believe the Physicians have killed many more than they 've cured to reckon the most common and ordinary and that because they have not discovered the Secrets of Nature and know not the constitution of man's body nor the origin of his diseases and consequently cannot exhibit proper remedies for them but often give what proves poison to kill men instead of curing them And therefore there is no subject of glorying for being called a Doctor in Medicine but rather of abasement and confusion for their great ignorance to the hurt of the Patient they take care of And as that ignorance is great in regard of bodily medicine it is yet greater in regard of the spiritual which is Theology for it kills many more souls than medicine does bodies and so th' one hath not subject of glorying of his skill more than th' other being they are equally ignorant which do not add nor pare the one from the other having each great ground of humility If Astrologers also knew how far short they are of the knowledge of the heavens they would be ashamed to bear the name and would acknowledge all their wisdom in that to be but folly and fancies of men who have not attained to the truth of that Science and what they have written are but imaginary suppositions far from being truths And upon like imaginations are founded also all other human Sciences which they learn by reading and study For when they are not founded 〈◊〉 the Truth of God they are altogether vain and false and are only fit to deceive men who by them deceive one another and hinder each other to come to the knowledge of the Truth of God and Wisdom of the Holy Spirit which is the only true wisdom and before which all the wisdom of men is but folly to blind our spirits that they should not come to the knowledge of themselves In which consists True Humility of Heart which Jesus Christ says we must learn of him which to do she prays you who loves the perfection of your soul Your Well-affectioned in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON In Holstein near Gottorp Castle Jan. 18. 1672. St. Vel. THE V. LETTER Humility is acquired by the Knowledge of ones Self To the same showing him that the true Knowledge even of things most esteemed by men ought to serve to humble them such as the Honours Riches and Pleasures of this life That all these are vain disquieting unsatisfying and hurtful My dear Child YOu have seen by my last what Humility is where I have shown you that it consists in the knowledge of our selves and that no person can ever be proud but for lack of knowing himself for in knowing themselves they will find subject enough to humble themselves by seeing their infirmities and miseries both of soul and body for he who will reflect seriously upon himself he shall not only discover his own nothingness but will judge himself much worse than nothing and consequently will be far from esteeming and magnifying himself unless he be altogether a fool and void of all reason and understanding For if he judge by an upright judgment what he is he shall see nothing but misery and infirmities in his nature and ignorance and Disorder in his spirit for a Beast knows more than he for the conduct of its life and is more moderate in eating and drinking and other natural things than man and we see him frequently exceed in these things which Beasts do not Thence is it that man is much more subject to diseases than the Beasts because they commit more excesses and Intemperances than they And when man finds himself more disorderly and foolish in the conduct of his life than the Beasts ought he not to humble himself before God and men as worthy of all confusion seeing God hath given him a Spirit more perfect than any Beast and yet he knows not to apply it to rule his passions and appetites which often causes to him great evils and sometimes death Which ought to be a great subject of humility and Contempt of himself he can never knowing that magnify and esteem himself if it is not because he is void of judgment and reason which he looses as soon as he gives entry to the vanities which the devil inspires into his spirit to esteem himself Then he goes from one error to another because fallen from the Light of the Truth and knows nothing but falshood which that evil Spirit makes him believe and inspires into his Spirit that he is worthy of Honour for his Wisdom or Riches or Virtue though he be contemptible even in all these very respects For his Wisdom is but folly before God and his riches are but weighty charges painful to be born and cause trouble and disquiet to preserve them and his Virtue cannot be other than feigned seeing it is not founded on the knowledge of his nothingness and truth of his miseries And Therefore vain-glory and esteem of our selves can never be other than meer folly which Satan inspires and foists into mens spirits seeing there is in them nothing esteemable as to the corrupted nature but aboundance of miseries worthy of Contempt and Scorn So that we may truly call a proud man a very Fool because he glories of his Miseries and judges his Ignorance Wisdom and his Troubles Riches For such are temporal Riches which create continual troubles and disquiet with a thousand cares both to acquire
have some Grace from God keep it hid until it be God's will that you should discover it otherwise you put your self in peril of committing several sins while you shall not perceive it For there can easily slip into your heart some Vain-glory when you have received any particular Grace and even when you have only the desire of forsaking the World the better to serve God that can give you to esteem your self more than another heware also of publishing it before you have done it It is best to do and be silent for to speak of these things gives satisfaction to your nature for it is much pleased to speak of good things so it is best not to give it matter of vain complacency but to suffer the good Seed which God hath cast into your Soul to spring up secretly until it bud and send forth branches outward springing from the root within and in the end bear fruit whereof every one may gather without your loss or hurt Which will come when you have overcome all human considerations and Vain-glory and then shall true Virtue appear sufficiently in all your works without needing to make your trade to teach others Then shall your actions teach them and works are much more effectual Sermons than Words For it happens often that they that speak well do evil And for that words effect nothing in the Souls of others though good unless they know that these words come from his heart that pronounces them and then they have more force to work in the Souls of others but to speak of divine things and of Virtue without the practising of them is as tinkling Brass sounding or as a Perroquet that speaks without reason and beside the uselesness of these words to others they endanger their own soul by Vain-glory. For the Ignorant esteem for Virtue virtuous words and praise them as if it were reality though they be not at all estimable for the Devil himself can speak well of divine things as sometimes persons whom he possessed have said unto me I heard a Story how one time the Devil took the form of a Human Body and a Religious Habit and in that equipage came and presented himself to a Monastery where there was kept a great Solemnity and because of the Feast a great concourse of people Now the preacher of the convent fell suddainly sick whereat the Prior was much vexed having no person to preach but at that instant it was that the Devil came in his Religious Habit and knokt at the Gate and asked liberty to lodge in the Convent and when he presented himself before the Prior to have his Blessing as do ordinarily the Religious Strangers he askt the reason of his sadness Who answered It was because of the suddain sickness befallen the Preacher that was to preach at that hour and that he feared the Murmur and Scandal which that might cause because there was no Preacher to supply the want The Devil answered That he would willingly make the Sermon which rejoyced much the Prior thinking God had sent him that Minister in his Necessity The Devil then going up unto the Chair preached so powerfully and so wisely of the judgment of God of the State of the Blessed and that of the Damned that most of the Hearers wept with compunction and were astonished to hear so clear a deduction of all these things But a simple Religious Person of that Convent had a Revelation from God that it was the Devil whereof he advertised the prior who having ended his Functions caused the preacher to come before him and conjured him by God to tell who he was He answered that he was the Devil The prior askt how it was possible that he could preach so beautiful Truths and so profitable for the salvation of Souls To which he answered I reap my advantage by that for those that have heard me speak these Truths can find no more cloak of ignorance I have declared to them the State of the Blessed and that of the Miserable and the just judgments of God and they were all moved But they are so addicted to self-love and the love of earthly things that they will not put into practice what I have taught them but on the contrary will follow their old Customs and forget the Truths which I have preached to them and after that he vanisht like smoak in presence of the Prior and some other of the Religious leaving a noysom Stink behind him This history shews enough that the Devil can well speak the truth and good things when he sees he can make his advantage of it and therefore should we not esteem it a Virtue to be able to talk well of good things Virtue consists only in the practice and so imagin not that you shall do well to study much that you may speak advantagiously of Virtue that would be but Vanity without Profit But endeavour to study well the knowledge of true Virtue to the end you may put it into practice and your practice shall teach others Never read any thing to learn to talk well but read the Books which teach the practice of Virtue such as is that of Thomas a Kempis or other such like For the high and difficult questions cannot make you holy but will inspire your heart with Vanity and Pride Now seeing we ought to evite even the shadow of evil we must consequently beware of reading Unprofitable things or elevating matters of Controversie and hidden Mysteries seeing all these things do no more but fill our Spirit with wind not bringing any profit to the soul but much hurt For as a Vessel filled with some liquor cannot receive any other thing without mixing with what is in it or spilling it over It is the same with our understanding when it is replenished with curious studies of whatever matter For then the light of the Holy Spirit cannot be poured into it pure It is mixed with our proper thoughts and so there is nothing but confusion And in that Confusion as in troubled water the Devil fishes and dissipates quite that Light And therefore it is that so few souls receive purely the light of the Holy Spirit They are not empty but filled with fine speculations of Mystique things Others have their minds filled with Medecine Others with Astrology and so of other studies They cannot comprehend why they should not have the Light of the Holy Spirit as well as some other particular souls which they see and know to possess it But they need not be astonisht at that for the Holy Spirit cannot enter into a soul filled with something else It must be altogether void of it 's own Curiosities before it can be disposed to receive the wisdom of the Holy Spirit It should then desire to know nothing beside what God wills that it should know and consequently should not apply it self to read any Book but such as enlightens the understanding in the knowledge of true Virtue Neither must
you read these things curiously or much at a time you should pause and consider what you find there profitable for your soul I would not altogether stop the curiosity you have to read my Writings or those of others who treat of solid Virtue For that Curiosity is necessary at the beginning for you cannot learn if you be not curious to know We must know before we can love If then you knew not the Truths which I write you could not practise them So we may give liberty to that curiosity to know good things You must not read only to nourish or satisfie it but to learn the truth You cannot discover it too much though some natural satisfaction mix it self it shall not hurt you provided you rest not on that pleasure They tell us that Mary Magdalene went to Jesus Christ because they said to her that he was a beautiful man and spoke well Notwithstanding that vain curiosity led her to the knowledge of the truth But after her first curiosity vanishing she gave her self to the practice of the Truths which she had heard from him Do you the same My Son Search curiously the Books which treat of solid Virtue and neglect no occasion to find them seeing they serve as means to know the will of God and because God often speaks to the soul by the means of a good Book moving the heart to the affection of eternal things and contempt of temporal you must only discern whether you read divine things for your own satisfaction or if you do it only to enlighten your soul in the knowledge of the Truth of God If it is for the last there is no evil that you give your self to long reading Stay your self only on the matters which move your heart to the Love of God without going further until you have found means to practise it well I did that in my young years when first I saw the New Testament and when I understood thereby what a Gospel Life was I closed the book for twenty years and exercised my self to practise what is contained in it And so I found the Light of the Holy Spirit without using Books to instruct me In which you may imitate me when you have sufficiently read what may avail to the perfection of your soul Which she wishes to you who remains Your Well-affectioned in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON Holstein near Gottorp Castle May 5. 1672. St. Vet. THE XV. LETTER The Devil incites to Good that he may bring Evil out of it To the same Discovering to him a seventh Wile of the Devil by which he carries us out of our selves that comparing our works with those of others we may from our Virtue contract vain-glory And an Eighth by which he incites us to immoderate Macerations and Mortifications of the Body And finally a Nineth in which he excites us to immoderation in spiritual good works toward our Neigbour as unseasonably to Instruct Convert Reprove or Correct him My Son I Must discover to you yet another Device of Satan by which he does gain several well enclined persons even such as have a good will who are not only resolved to labour for the knowledge of true Virtue but would also put it in practice For when he cannnot amuse them by fine speculations and curious searches to be capable of talking well of spiritual things because they have discovered that to talk well of and understand well a Virtue is but Vanity when it is not put in practice and that so they have absolutely resolved to fall to the practice in the exercise of good works Then comes he to tempt by virtue it self and by the practice of good works He endeavours to intrude Vain-glory upon true Virtue and secretly justles in Self-esteem and Contempt of others with good works None is exempt from that Vanity at the beginning of their conversion For all men carry in them an inclination to Pride when they come into the world and also every one must combat and oppose it if he would attain to Salvation But this Pride is harder to be discovered when it furrs it self into Virtue lurking in the heart without appearing outwardly as does that which proceeds from plenty of Riches and the honours which men give For that Vanity shews it self sufficiently outwardly for he that is proud of his Riches will shew to the world his Riches and Liberality by Prodigality in several things as in Moveables Cloaths Meat and Drink willing in every thing the best and dearest to satisfie his vain-glory and must also be served with Pages and Servants So that his outward Actions discover sufficiently the Pride of his Heart but spiritual Pride keeps it self hidden even under a cloak of Humility For we see ordinarily beginners in virtue give themselves to Fasting Watching and Prayer to humility in their Cloathes to ly on hard Beds and other Macerations of their Body and also to exercises of Works of Mercy spiritual and corporal Into which the Devil easily intrudes himself for if he can gain nothing by vain-glory in our good works because the man overcomes it by the Grace of God He attaques us by Excesses in them and moves us to fast to excess that it may ruin our health or unfit it for necessary labour and to obliege us after to substantious or delicate food and so precipitate us again into delicacy Lo how the Devil attempts to sway us from one extreme to another and especially him that is not well acquainted with his wiles He hath brought some to death by excess in fasting and maceration of the body I know that is rare in the time we live in when none will embrace penitence most part loving sensuality Yet among the small number of Penitents the Devil insinuates himself causing them to exceed For when he can no more make them fall by ease and sensualities he does it by excess in good Works And Prayer being the best of all he causes them to tye themselves to a number of vocal Prayers to over-charge them and disquiet them when they have not time to wait and fulfil these ordinary Prayers which makes the man sorrowful and dissatisfied thinking he does not please God when he does not fulfil all his ordinary prayers by custom and in that thought he is sad and pensive and uneasie to them he converses with The Devil draws his advantages from excess in prayer for it hurts the head when too vehement and brings often confusion in their affairs and housholding I have known Women so addicted to their prayers and devotions that they neglected their families to go to Church frequently at solemnities and Devotions and with all they thought they did well without discovering the cunning of the Devil who made them sin instead of doing good For God is a God of Order and not of Confusion and he says expresly that our Prayers should not be as those of the Pharisees who use many words seeing the Lord knows what we have need of
much power over his spirit Otherwise man hath in him a good judgment beyond any other creature and by that judgment he can assuredly know and discern good from evil And it is free for him to choose the good and hate the evil by an absolute act of his will which the Devil cannot hinder And moreover he hath power to resist the Devil by faith and hope in God who never fails to come to the relief of a man who asks and desires it And therefore my Son you must never say that the Devil made you do any evil which were to make you his slave and testifie your subjection to him as are the Sorcerers who have given him their souls and promised to obey him For such have truely oblieged themselves to do all the evil he pleases and when they do it not he beats and abuses them But you being a Child of God and voluntarily subject to him you must nor fear that the Devil can constrain you to sin against your will and so never attribute to him the fault you commit your self It is true the Devil first incites good persons to sin but they should despise him and not follow him yea and mock at his tentations But we must always watch over his surprisals and never sleep in the way of true virtue Believe then the Apostle's counsel where he says My Brethren be sober and watch for that very reason because the Devil goes about us like a roaring Lion seeking to Devour us We must resist him couragiously and not say I was not thinking of the Devil when I fell into evil For he desires willingly that we do evil without thinking on it That is his best recreation For it does not fall out that good persons do evil but while they sleep and think not of evil Then is it that the Devil acts most in us and causes that we think not of it till after the evil is committed But our negligence or Sleepiness will not find excuse before God seeing we are oblieged to watch always if we would arrive at true Virtue To which she exhorts you who careth for your soul Holstein near Gottorp Castle May 13. 1672. St. Vet. ANTONIA BOURIGNON THE XVIII LETTER The Good and Evil Spirit are known by their Fruit. To the same giving him the signs to know whether it is the Good or Evil Spirit that moves us shewing also a twelfth Artifice of the Devil by which he causes us to impute our Vices to our natural propensions without suspecting him to lurk therein that he may remain unknown My Son I see yet one difficulty which occurs to your Spirit to wit How you should discover when the Devil insinuates himself into your good Actions and how you shall know that it is he that moves you to do good that he may catch you or to cause that what you do with a good intention turn to his Honour For you protest that you will not obey him nor follow his tentation in any thing when you discover and know that he tempts you Believe me my Son that is most easie to discern provided you have an absolute will to resist the Devil It is very good and most easie to discover if it is the good or evil spirit who moves us in all our actions and words to do or say any thing small or great because these two spirits have their qualities and conditions quite different and work in us quite contrary operations and dispositions So that you may as it were feel with your finger if it is a good or an evil spirit which moves you to say or do any thing by the dispositions you shall feel in your Soul For the good spirit produces in our souls Charity Joy Peace Patience Long-suffering Goodness Bounty Meekness Chastity Faith Continence and Modesty And the evil spirit on the contrary produces therein Self-love Sadness Trouble Impatience Rashness Wickedness Fretting Pride Despair Intemperance Inequality Unconstancy and Impurity which are all things contrary to the fruits of the good Spirit And as the tree is known by its fruit so may we know the evil spirit by the fruit he produces in our souls And therefore we must always examin if our enterprises or the will or intentions we have to do or leave undone any thing produce in our souls Charity Peace Faith Joy and the rest And then we may be assured that our enterprises and wills are from God seeing they bring unto us the fruits of his spirit But if on the contrary we feel in our souls Self-love Sadness Impatience and the rest we may well be assured that our desires and enterprises are excited by the Devil Which is a firm and sure rule We need not then amuse our selves at fine speculations to discover if we be moved by the Devil to do or leave undone any thing while we feel in our selves the effects of a good or an evil spirit For the Devil will never incite to Charity seeing it is a divine Quality which the Devil hath not in his power and which unites souls to God But he draws from self-love all manner of advantage and declines the soul from the love of God For he that loves himself covets Pleasures honour and Riches and all that is not God and so he is sad and is not in the capacity to acquire true Virtue for he hath not courage to resist the tentation of the Devil but suffers himself rather to be overcome by dark melancholy Thoughts But the good Spirit banishes these thoughts by the joy which it brings to the Soul And although there were all sorts of occasions of Sadness externally even for our sins that good Spirit comforts and rejoyces the bottom of the soul amidst the most sensible Troubles and Pains When we have then inward joy in the midst of sufferings it is an assured testimony that the holy Spirit dwells in us Which hath often rejoyced me in the midst of Suffering and Persecutions I felt therein a great joy in the bottom of my Soul in lamenting my sins and I thanked God that he gave me these Tears of Repentance But the Devil gives only counterfeit and external joys which afflict and grieve the heart when they are over that is the cause why we see worldly persons always search after new Recreations and Divertisements For th' one is no sooner gone but Melancholy and Sadness seises the heart who would so divert himself and for that he hunts insatiably after new divertisments without finding withal true Contentment which we cannot have but by the joy of the Holy Spirit and that joy is not to be found among the Divertisments of the World I was astonisht to hear one day of a person who would re-establish Israel that he searcht for a great House with a Garden to divert himself and walk therein as also that he must sometimes go to walk in the field or go in a Barque of Pleasure or Boat to divert himself which gave me enough to
understand that the Holy Spirit had not yet brought forth his fruits in his soul though he was accounted a Saint For then should he not have needed human Divertisments to be joyful by As for me I know by experience that I have more joy and contentment in my soul in Solitude and far from human divertisments than I have in mens conversation or amongst the most divertising Objects Which gives assurance that my joy proceeds from the Holy Spirit It must needs be that it comes not from human means for it were my Consolation never to come out of my Closet and to hear nothing but in my own heart and inner man But the Joy which proceeds from the evil Spirit terminates and ends always in Sadness and Melancholy with an earning after new Divertisments to divert that Sadness so that it is most easie to Discover if it is the good or evil spirit which dwells in our souls by the Dispositions and operations which we feel in them when we have the desire to do or say any thing we need not so much go to consider if it is in appearance good or indifferent to know if it comes from God as to examin the disposition which that desire brings into our soul to wit if it is in Peace and waits for the effect of its desires with Patience and Long-suffering For that is a sign the Spirit of God hath given us that desire and that it is his will that we effect it but if we perceive that that desire to do or say any thing marr our Peace and disturb our Spirit with impatience and attempt to precipitate us before the time of fulfilling our desires That is a sign that it comes from an evil spirit And if the desire or thing is good in it self it is a sign that the Devil would mix and insinuate himself into that good work to reap his Glory thence However we must not cease to do or speak what is good in it self but we must be on our guards that we suffer not the Devil to insinuate himself in it We must then use continual Prayer to have God's succour and Assistance and Strength to overcome the tentation which the Devil offers us while we are doing good We must never cease from doing Good Works because of the tentation of the Devil For he would gladly always hinder them if he could But we must examin well the inward disposition of our Souls to discover if the Devil does not insinuate himself therein that we may purifie our intentions and beware that the Devil find no advantage therein And if you will know my Son when it is God that inspires any thing to you remark always if it is accompanied with Goodness Benignity Faith Continence and Chastity For God never gives inspirations that are not accompanied with these conditions But the Devil often gives inclinations to do good with Fretting Malice Despite Dispair Inconstance Levity and Impurity I have seen sometimes persons that gave to the Poor by Despite and Fretting upbraiding and reproaching them without any faith of an eternal Reward I have seen others assist at publique Devotions with insolence and lightness And now adays almost all marry by incontinence and impurity All these things though good in themselves are induced and excited by the evil spirit since they tend to an evil end though good in appearance And therefore must we always be upon our guard and watch against so powerful an Enemy who attempts to surprise us in all our actions both good and indifferent that he may render them evil therefore we must study well to discern the good spirit from the evil Which we may do seeing there are assured marks to know them Never say then My son that you know not if it is God or the Devil who moves you to do or omit any thing but rather acknowledge with Humility of heart that you are not vigilant enough and diligent to discover that evil spirit who dazles your understanding that you should not know him For every word you speak or action you do you may discover if it comes of the Devil provided you make a serious reflection upon your self But the misery is that we are distracted and wandering and the Devil makes us forget what we should remember and puts in our mind what we should forget that he may bring confusion in all our behaviour Remark well that Advertisment and you shall find by experience that it is but too well grounded for since the Devil can no more make you fall into manifest sins he will always endeavour to make you contradict the holy spirit which you do not yet know well You have indeed resolved in general to obey him and follow him as you have done in abandoning the World in loosing your affections from earthly goods and desiring to follow Jesus Christ in his Lowness and Humility All that proceeds from the Spirit of God who hath governed you in the most important things and the Devil could not hinder it But now he attacques you in small things and of little import that he may hinder you to do the will of God in every thing and often he gains your will to make it contrary to the will of God in common and ordinary things For if you reflect upon your self you shall find there a certain opposition to whatever I propose to you which comes often even contrary to your will yea you are vexed that you should have so opposed or contradicted me Yet on the first occasion you do it again which cannot proceed of your self since you are displeased at it Now it is a firm and true Rule that whatever Evil we do against our will comes of the Devil and not of our selves I know that Spirit of contradiction which you have against what I desire comes not of your own will For you would gladly obey me in every thing seeing you know that I never desire any evil But you cannot in effect obey me in things good and salutary which comes assuredly of the Devil who is a spirit directly contrary to the Spirit of God which governs me For he moves as soon as I speak and brings some contradiction or opposition to what I propose he is troubled enraged and frets and would cause among us Thunder and Lightning as Heat and Cold do which occur in the air Which you do often and know not to help it because you have not sufficiently Discovered that it is the Devil does it in you against your will For you alledge sometimes reasons as if you would sustain his Quarrel and shew that you have reason to contradict me which you could not do if you believed that I have the Spirit of God from whom no evil can proceed But the Devil makes you forget that and excite in you a spirit of contradiction to which your nature is also enclined which is the cause you Discover not sufficiently that it is the Devil and attribute it to your natural inclination
forgetting ordinarily it self in too much Prosperity we see daily among men that he that prospers becomes proud and fixes in the world as in a place of abode and permanent And on the contrary that he that is in Adversity and tribulation becomes humble and hath his recourse to God I speak of such as are well-meaning and pious for to the wicked all turns to evil If they Prosper they offend God the more if they are in Adversity they blaspheme him and despair And all these things arrive in temporal Prosperities and Adversities so do they also to them that seek after true Virtue for not being tried by Tentations and sufferings they should not persevere in Virtue Although they were arrived at the profounest knowledge of divine Mysteries had the Gift of Prophecying and doing Miracles all that should vanish into smoak except they Pass through the furnace of Tentations and Afflictions For we cannot in this life arrive at that degree of Perfection in which Adam was at his Creation who yet fell full sordidly into sin against his God He forgot God and turned himself to the Creatures for he had all sorts of Prosperity Joy Content and Pleasure and knew not evil he could not imagin that his turning from God would render him so miserable having never felt any Misery But after he was tempted of the Devil and saw by experience that earthly Pleasures and Contentments had rendered him so miserable he was loath to stay longer in them and loved rather to embrace Sufferings and Patience as he did all the time of his life as to remain in the pleasures of an earthly Paradise which had made him forget his God by sensible Pleasures And if Adam a Creature so noble so holy and so perfect as God created him could not remain constant in the fidelity which he owed to his Creator before his tryal of tentations as he certainly did after them how should we contemptible and frail Creatures born with a propension to evil be able to remain faithful to God without being proved by tentation Our souls should be like wood silvered on the out-side which rusts with a little rain but we must endeavour to render them Silver or Gold purified by the fire of tentations and afflictions otherwise we can never arrive at true Virtue to which you my Son aspire And therefore rejoyce rather than afflict your self because the Devil hath power to tempt you for his tentations serve to perfect your soul and to acquire true Virtue at which you cannot arrive without passing through the furnace of Tribulations and Tentation of the Devil That Furnace is an Instrument most necessary for the perfection of your soul So Constrain your self to embrace them as St. Andrew embraced the Cross Saying O Good Cross Say also O blessed Tentation seeing by it I shall become more agreeable to God You have perhaps when in the World loved your mistresses Favours or Colours Shew now that you have chosen Jesus Christ for your Lover love and carry willingly his Colours and Livery esteem as love-favours all the Tentations which the Devil gives you because Jesus Christ was cloathed all the days of his life with Tentations and Sufferings both from Devils and Men. You must then wear his Livery if you will be his Servant Do you not feel my Son that the Devil tempts you every day yea every hour and moment and for that you have need to fight and resist continually if you would be saved It is a good sign that you perceive and feel the tentation for many feel it not at all and follow in every thing the tentation of the Devil Would you willingly be seised with that Lethargy and would you wish that the Devil should tempt you no more that were an evident sign that he held you as his own for ordinarily he tempts but little the persons that do his will easily He leaves such in quiet and they are well content not to be vexed with tentations They imagin themselves to be then in a good state though they be in effect in the greatest of all tentations But God hath delivered you from that danger in making you know and feel the tentation So you can no more be ignorant of it For I have shewed you it too plainly and you feel it also upon occasion I see by the eyes of the Spirit that the Devil moves your passions so soon as I open my mouth to speak to you and I feel that your inward motions are stirred up to oppose and contradict mine Which cannot proceed from your self for you have resolved assuredly to follow and hear me because you are convinced in your conscience that the spirit of God governs me And yet you cannot do it upon occasion and you feel fightings against what-ever I propose to you Now if you will not resist thereto you shall always follow the will of the Devil which you desire not to do You must then watch continually and be never weary to resist the Devil no more than he is to tempt you The greatest assault he gives you now is to make you contradict and oppose my will and desires And that because he sees that if you follow my will you follow assuredly the will of God seeing I have no other will but his And therefore it is that he acts continually in you to contradict me and your spirit strives against mine as Gabriel did with Lucifer You must resolve to which you will give the Victory If you will that the spirit which is in you have the Victory that shall be the Devils will But if you will that the spirit which is in me carry it you must combate your own and hold it suspect in every thing For from a spirit that is evil can nothing good proceed Now you cannot doubt but the spirit which is in you is evil seeing it opposes it self to mine and does the things which you would not of your own will do and that you have displeasure from the bottom of your soul that you contradict me and are not conformed to my will For your own will cannot be contrary to it self and cannot will that which it wills not And so we must conclude that it is the evil spirit who acts in you contrary to your own will and since you will not obey him you ought to be very glad that I resist him upon occasion For I hold him for my Enemy and will oppose him with all my power in every one in whom I perceive him all I do in you I am then sure that it is the Devil that evil spirit who gives and inspires in you these oppositions to my will For if it were not he that opposes you would follow all my will and desires with joy Resist then valiently all your proper inclinations and hold suspected all the motion of your corrupt nature to which the Devil is united and by these motions he acts in you But receive my sentiments and follow that which I
End of the First Part of the Treatise of Solid Virtue EXTRACTS OF SOME OF THE WORKS OF Mrs ANTONIA BOURIGNON Belonging to some Most Essential MATTERS of Christianism and Health LETTER I. Of Toleration That it ought never to go the length of communicating with Sin directly or indirectly Of the Essential and of the Perfection of Christianity Of Religions Worships and Ceremonies and their use This Letter was written to one of her Intimate's Mr. Van de Velde and is the second of Light arising in Darkness 3. part Sir 1. I Know you seek the Perfection of your Soul and that you aspire after God I know also that he hath imparted of his Grace to you and particularly taught you his will in some things but I know also that you have not yet received the Holy Spirit which should teach us all Truths seeing you discern not yet well Evil from good and love all indifferently by a natural goodness as did Adam who knew very well the Consolation and Quiet which a Soul finds in entertaining it self with God but knew not what Evil was because he had never proved it He was created in Pleasures and Delights and conversed with his God in peace without apprehending the Evil which might come upon him in abandoning God to please himself with the Creatures And therefore did he so easily fall into sin before he perceived the Mischiefs and Miseries it would cause him 2. And almost the same is befallen you my dear Brother for when you enjoyed sweet entertainment with God you remained in the sensualities of corrupted nature by which you have insensibly lost commerce with God because so soon as he sees one take pleasure in any thing else but himself he retires by little and little and leaves the Soul to live to it self which precipitates it self often into divers Evils because our proper will engenders death since it was corrupted by sin 3. You did love Good and do yet love it but you have not enough hated Evil because you did not well know it perswading your self that you did well enough when you supported it in others not perceiving that we can sin in another nine ways the First is in Consenting thereto 2d in Councelling it 3d. in Tolerating it 4th in Assisting it 5th in Defending Evil 6th in Commanding it 7th in Partaking with it 8th in not Hindering it when in our power 9th in Hiding it from him that would hinder it 4. All these are not enough considered and we easily fall into them without considering it Although we desire to please God the Devil often surprises us by sins without us when he perceives that he cannot prevail to get us to commit them in our selves for he hath as much power over us by the sins which we commit in another as by them we commit in our selves seeing they shall both alike be imputed to us and if I did not advertise you of it you might easily fall into them without perceiving it For example you converse with persons that are avaritious proud or stained with any other sins they ate subject and inferiour to you as your Wife and Children or your Men or Maid-servants or Hirelings or whoever they be over whom you have authority notwithstanding lest you should displease them or lose their friendship you consent to their committing of sin without Daring or willing to resist it All these sins which are committed with your consent shall assuredly be imputed as if you had committed them your self To councel to do evil that you will not so long as you fear God but for suffering it in others I doubt you do it sometimes because you have not enough of hatred to sin as when you see one deceive in selling to or labouring for you and yet continue to buy of him or employ him in labour that is assuredly to suffer the evil which he commits 5. It were better to be in necessity without dealing with them that sell or labour by Avarice Fraude or Deceit for the Soul is more precious than the Body which ought rather to endure its necessities than to supply them to the prejudice of its soul which is assuredly defiled by suffering the sins of another and yet more by assisting and helping evil as he that would give goods to one that is Avaricious Gluttonous Proud Slothful or a Drunkard would assist him to go on in his sins and commit more with the Gifs and assistances he affords him and if we defend or excuse the Evil of another we also become guilty of the same for we ought never to excuse or defend it lest we so maintain the Evil-doer in his sins to commit which our corrupt Nature needs no encouragment and whoever affords it is partaker of the sin of the other Although it is commonly said That we should excuse the Faults of other and assist Sinners that is a false Theologie very hurtful to the Upright who are often deceived by Evil for lack of knowing it 6. Also you are not in hazard to command Evil so long as you fear God neither would you ever partake with manifest sin as with Robbery for God hath delivered you by his Grace from Avarice Yet you must take care to hinder evil when in your power or else the omission would render you partaker of the Evil committed and even so when you do not declare it to them that would hinder it All these sins or part of them may be committed by good men who aspire after Perfection particularly when they are of a good disposition naturally they take all in good part I have sometimes slipt into some such Faults by too much natural goodness or human regard but after God shewed me clearly these sins which we commit in another which I impart to you because I love your perfection as much as my own by a true Christian Charity seeing that you aspire unto its perfection which I will also shew wherein it consists for the darkness of this world is at present so great that the souls that are well enclined know nor whither they walk in regard of perfection taking often the false for true and imperfect for perfect and that because they have now taught so many divers means to perfection that one knows not which to take for the surest One says we must go frequently to Church and frequent the Sacraments Another places Christian Perfection in entering into some Religious Fraternity or Convent Others in fastings and Macerating the Body All these things were Good if well used but these are not the end nor that wherein Christian perfection consists For these may be performed by them that shall never attain to salvation because no external thing perfects the soul nor can they defile it They are only the means whereby we more easily attain to virtue or by abuse fall more easily into sin 8. Every Soul in particular ought to use the external means which excites them most to Christian Virtue and evite also things
that engage them unto sin for it is written Whoso loveth hazard shall perish in it So that he that feels himself so weak in Chastity that he hath not the force to look upon Woman without lust he ought not to look upon one and he that drinks drunk when he hath Wine ought also to abstain from it and so of all other things though in themselves they be not evil because of our infirmity they cause Evil as others occasion Good and Virtue in our Soul when these means of perfection are used for their end 9. For example if you find by a true experience that you are more united to God in going to Church or frequenting the Sacraments you are obliged to use these means as much as possible For every one ought always to seek his own further perfection but if those means effect nothing in your soul you should not use them and if you return better into God in being shut up in your Closet you are obliged to remain there and not divert your self by going to Church and if your Soul feels more union with God in Solitude than when you seek that union by frequenting the Sacraments you ought to keep you solitary and there feast inwardly with your God for a Good Conscience is a Continual Feast where the soul reposes and recreates it self with his God And therefore it hath not always need of external means to excite it self to that Union 10. For often God prevents it with a spiritual joy and Contenrment without that it knows whence that Joy had its origin for God is a Spirit no ways tyed to material things neither to Time Places nor any means whatsoever he being a Spirit and the Soul a Spirit they comunicate in spirit and he that hath need to seek God in different Religions and Fellowships is not very far advanced in the Knowledge of God and knoweth not yet the place where he feedeth at Noon nor where he resteth at Night for if he knew that he would not run from one Religion to another to find God but would remain fixed in himself because the Center of our Hearts is the Palace of Honour where God rests and takes his delights All the Fraternities and Religions in the world cannot give that Union with God we must find it in our selves and though the perfectest Societies may well serve as means to lead us to Christian-perfection yet they cannot save us without the inward Virtues 11. One boasts that he is a Catholique another that he is Reformed others will be spiritual because in Orders or of the Reformation of Menno Truely my dear Brother all those things are not Good and can yield no perfection to our Souls to build our salvations upon any Religions is to deceive our selves seeing none of them can save us without having in our Souls true Christian perfection 12. If the Rules or Statutes of any Religion serve us as Means by which we experiment that they Unite us to God we are obliged to embrace and follow them for we must esteem the means as one would esteem the Sheath of a Sword of grear price but never esteem the Sheath so precious as the Sword which is within seeing it can never serve us to fight against our Enemies nor make them retire from us The Devil the World and the Flesh are our three sworn Enemies which continually attacque our Souls whom we must fight with the sword of Faith and the Buckler of Charity for if we think to overcome them with the outward Sheath of our Religions the Devil should laugh at us we should laugh at a Souldier who would fight his Enemy with the Sheath of his Sword It is yet more ridiculous to see how Christians would gain the Kingdom of Heaven by their Religions which cannot save them without the Love of God and Charity to their Neighbours 13. It is nothing but Amusements and Folly to fix themselves upon such an Order or such a Religion or to believe that they shall be saved for being enrolled in the most perfect Order or Religion in the world If you think to be saved for being of the Catholique Religion without a living Faith Hope in God and Charity to your Neighbour you are deceived for no person is truely Catholique but he that is in the communion of the Saints seeing to be Catholique is nothing else than to be UNITED in heart and will with all the souls that are UNITED in the Spirit of JESUS CHRIST Behold what makes the communion of Saints and the Assembly of Catholiques But if you see and feel that the rules of the Catholiques lead you unto God you must observe them faithfully and rather die than slip from them for as it is certain that he that loves peril shall perish therein so is it certain that he who embraces faithfully the means of his Perfection shall be perfected by reason of the infirmity of our nature it must always be aided and sustained by the means that can strengthen it 14. But if our souls were arrived at UNION with God they should no more need to use any means because then Love is a law unto it self and that union overcomes all the motions of corrupt nature to which we have then no more need to resist by Fastings or other Macerations of the Body which means are good for those that have given loose reins to their sensuality in eating and drinking or have allowed their Body other carnal Pleasures the habit of such ordinarily not yielding but by doing things quite contrary because our Nature is as an undaunted Horse which is not tamed but furious and unruly which we cannot tame after we have let him follow his liberty but by the bridle and spurs of Mortifications of the flesh 15. See there my dear Brother how you may learn to regulate well your Soul and discern wherein perfection consists that you take not apparent Virtue for real for ours is that dangerous time whereof Jesus Christ prophecyed saying that we must take heed and that many false Christs and false Prophets shall arise and shall do great Signs and Miracles I know you are fallen into evil insensibly and by little and little have lost entertainment with God by ignorance and for not having enough hated evil nor known the sins which you can commit in another but you must resume courage and begin anew considering more narrowly in what consists Christian perfection that as Adam did no more fall into sin after he knew the Evil it had brought on him so you fall no more into the sensualities of Nature but follow the conduct of the motions of the Holy Spirit as Adam did when he knew them for his whole life was a continual penitence and regret for having deserted Entertainment with God 16. And if you have that perfect regret it will be impossible for you to relapse again into natural sensualites seeing that they have interrupted yout Communion with God that regret will purge
lawful Husband who descended from heaven unto the Earth to teach her them as well by his Works as by his Words all which things are despised by her who should be his lawful Spouse I have often spoken to you of her Excesses and Adulteries will you yet hold her for the Holy Church while the Devil hath placed his throne in her what weakness of spirit to feel repugnancy to forsake so evil a thing upon frivolous perswasions that it is holy while God hath given us an understanding and reason it is for no other end but that we may discern evil from good that we may not perish blindly and now you would change Gods designs in stifling your understanding and reason to follow evil blindly and seeing it so openly evil you form some foolish imagination that it is yet good That must come only from a meer bewitching of spirit because reason even natural discovers sufficiently unto us that the Romish Church at present is not the Spouse of Jesus Christ because she doth not in any thing follow her husband and that two things so alienated cannot make confederacy How can you have repugnance to leave her who hath forsaken her God If Beasts and insensible Creatures and all the Elements have arisen against man when he did forsake the Dependance of his God how should man so reasonable not arise against that Church which hath forsaken the Dependance of her God to will no more dependance but upon her self we should rather have repugnancy to remain under her than to forsake her or otherwise we have less resentments of the offence done unto our Creator than the Beasts and elements or inanimate things which have always resented the injury done unto their Creator yea at the death of Jesus Christ the Stones did rent and the Sun was darkened Have you less affection for God Sir then these stones in not resenting the continual injuries which that Church doth unto God If a beautiful Angel is become a Devil for having desired in his heart to be equal unto God what shall become of her which preferreth her self unto the same God without willing to him in any thing I regret yet your blindness in that point Sir and cannot believe that your repugnancy cometh from your reason but some habitual sensibility which you have unto the Church For if your Understanding did apply it self to discover the origin of that repugnancy it should see clearly that it cometh from the pious affection which you have for the Church but that you do not take it where it is because men are deluded in that as in other things by terms and words of men and when they hear Rome named the Holy Church that word engenders in us affection for her without penetrating if she be that of which they speak when we would deceive a Child and keep him in fear of his Father we put his Cloak and Hat upon a Fagot in some place somewhat obscure which the Child perceiving he believeth that it is truely he and feareth and respecteth him But if he drew near and lift up the Cloak he should see that he was deceived and that what he held for his Father is only some Wood. Verily Sir in the Darkness wherein we live at present they do the very same with us covering Rome with the Cloak of the Holy Church and cloathing it with the Head of Jesus Christ we fear and respect it as if it were our true Mother the Holy Church authorised by Jesus Christ and his lawful Spouse but when we draw near and lift up that Cloak we shall see that there is nothing but Wood instead of Sanctity which cannot be profitable unto us except to warm us in the Winter Verily Sir we must not be so much Children in what regards our eternal Salvation We must not walk blindly in a matter so important If men apply all their spirit to make a Hose or a Shoe why should they not apply it more to save their Soul It is good to have the simplicity of the Dove in regard of God for he that hath abandoned himself unto him hath no more but to suffer himself to be conducted as a little Child but we must have the Prudence of the Serpent to beware of men who can deceive or be deceived and when they say to us behold the Holy Church we must observe narrowly if it is truely her or if it is a Fagot covered with her Mantle It is for that only that God hath given us an understanding that we may always discern true good from false especially in the matter of our Salvation because all other things are vain and perishing unworthy of a serious application of spirit seeing it ought not to be applyed but unto things eternal for which we are created and our misery proceeds from that we make more serious searches to discover the turns and courses of the affairs of the world than those of our Salvation In which the Scripture hath reason to say that the Children of this world are more prudent than the Children of the Kingdom because before engaging in any State Office or Traffique they will always ponder if it be truely advantagious and profitable and they will be loath to rely upon the Words of men and believe blindly that a thing is good before they have first experienced it If they have so much providence for what regards the Earth how much should we have for what regards Heaven we found our Salvation blindly upon what they tell us that Rome is our Mother the Holy Church and we do not sound that affair which concerns us so much to know if truely she hath the quality of our true Mother and if she is confederated with our true Father who is immutable in all his qualities unto which that Spouse must always be conform We must see if she whom they call our Mother hath the Spirit and Practice of our Father and if we find nothing like it we must renounce her and account her deceitful and lying unworthy of our affection FINIS THE ARMS OF THE CITY OF RYSEL ON THE RIVER OF LYSSE IN FLANDERS (a) Ps 8. (b) Ps 119. (a) Ep. 1 2 3. (b) Ep. 4 5 6. (c) Ep. 7 8. (d) Ep. 8 9 10. (e) Ep. 11. (f) Ep. 12 13. (g) Ep. 14. (h) Ep. 15 16. (i) Ep. 17 18. (k) Ep. 19 20 21 22 23 (l) Ep. 24. * 1 John 12 15. * Which is solidly proved in the 2. part of Solid Virtue letter 6. * Of Religions and external pious exercises †An excellent Rule and Comparison * True Catholiques and their Worship (a) Math. 6. v. 2 3. (b) Rom. 6. v. 4. (c) Heb. 9. v. 27. (d) 1 Cor. 1. v. 19. (e) Mark 10. v. 15. (f) Is 5. v. 13. (g) Ps 37. v. 5. (h) Ezek. 18. v. 23. (i) Rom. 11. v. 29. (k) Luk. 15. v. 24. (l) Deut. 32. v. 6. (m) Prov. 23. v. 26. (n) John 3. v. 8. (o) Ps 8. v. 7. (p) Gen. 3. v. 17 19. (q) Prov. 8. v. 31. (r) Cant. 2.4 (ſ) Luk. 10 42. (t) Ps 81. v. 14 17 (u) Math. 6. v. 26. (w) Ps 73 v. 23 24. (x) Ps 73. v. 25 26. (y) Luk. 15. v. 18. (z) Ps 18. v. 5 7. (a) Ps 37. v. 5 6 7. (b) Is 65. v. 3. (c) Ps 34. v. 15. (d) Is 58. v. 13. (e) Ecl. 12. v. 8 9.12 (f) Matth 3. v. 9. (g) Joh. 15. v. 6. (h) Math. 15. v. 24. (i) Is 29. v. 14. (k) Gen 19. v. 26. (l) Is 58. v. 13 14. (m) Ps 46. v. 3. c. (n) Luk 21. v. 36. (o) Ps 25 v. 14. Math. 11 v. 25. (p) 1 Cor. 8. v. 12. (q) Math. 18. v. 3. 1 Pet. 2. v. 2. (r) Math. 13. v. 44. (ſ) Rev. 5. v 1 9. (t) Is 29. v. 14. (v) Rev. 21. v. 2. (w) Ibid v. 3. (x) Rev. 20 v. 14 15. (y) Math. 18 v 3 (z) Gal. 1. v. 16. (a) Eccl. 37. v. 17 18. (b) Ps 73. v. 25 26 (c) 2 Thes 2. v. 4 (d) Math. 27. v. 51. (e) Math. 10. v. 16. (f) 1 Cor 20. v. 15. (g) Luk. 16. v. 8.
to do so even with great Conviction and Sbame that God hath replenished my spirit with several most rare Graces and unknown Lights which will render me so much the more damnable before him if he have not Mercy on me I own that all the knowledges which God hath for so many years and does continue dayly to pour into my Soul as that of the new Jerusalem of the conversion of Jews and Pagans of the destruction of Antichrist of Satan reigning in all States and Conditions Sects and Religions under the name of Christ the vanity of human literature or that which they call Theologie whether studying or composing Books which I see by the Light of Faith to be meer delusions of Satan and so many other secrets which God speaks often in the ear of my Soul are all nothing in respect of the holiness it must be filled with that it may see God And that if it have not the last though it did divinely possess all these others Satan might well entertain it therein and even teach it more provided he might keep it always captive under one or more sins It was upon that very foundation that I did passionatly love and study human Literature in which Satan would willingly have nourished me and entertained my spirit all my life in detaining me thereby from the search and from the true adoration of God in the Soul So I was already in the profession of the Ministry even for some years that I had not any true knowledge of God and most ignorant of true Religion These things could get no entry into my Vnderstanding finding it so full of prejudices in favour of the reformed religion and against all other Sects as also addicted to Books and worldly Sciences This is it that made me leave the Romish Church in which I was born and lived to the age of 22. or 23. years apprehending that I should perish if I died in it believing also that the Reformed Church was altogether holy I was abused or imposed on therein From one Babylon which I left I 'm come into another If I were yet in that of my Nativity I would no more leave it but with my Soul and Spirit and would sanctifie my self there as well as in so many other Sects which I perceive now to be all but works or Idols of mens hands So many Pantings Prayers Studies and other things which I have employed to attain to the quality of Minister I had employed them to the sanctifying of my soul Also I know that the charge of Pastor which I have exercised more than these ten years is a charge meerly politique and human and that has nothing Divine nor of God but vain in the persons exercising it and in them that yield themselves the subjects of it And although for some years I have preached Truths unknown unto me and also which men cannot nor will not know to wit that God is a Spirit and that he is to be worshipped as such Yet I find it is a subtil Deceit to pretend to sanctifie men without being holy our selves and that these good wills do not always come from the holy Spirit hence I am perswaded that as long as Ministers are not holy God will not work any thing by them and that I do firmly believe that God hath at present in his Anger cursed the Ministers and Ministry of the Reformed Churches I say farther that it is impossible for a good man to exercise it after God without partaking with mens sins This is one of the reasons that oblige me to write to you and because I believe you give no counsel but after God's mind I desire your advice herein and wish God give me Grace to follow it namely the Ministry being both in me and in others such as I have just now described it if I should continue in it or not that is I desire to know by you what is Gods will concerning me many reasons oblige me to leave it off and I cannot tell what other points of conscience do yet retain me in it If it were God's will that I should forsake it it would be in the desire of coming as near unto you as I could especially if I were assured to be in the least usefull to aid you as much in the glorifying of God I mean in carrying that new and everlasting Gospel unto the World as I should hope you would be unto me for my souls welfare Another reason obliging me to write to you is that notwithstanding so many Graces that God hath put into my Soul yet I am not satisfied in my Conscience I am yet wrathful and am carnal in Marriage These two sins have very sore and often afflicted my Soul even I dare not promise unto God that I will not commit them any more for I have promised too often to him and have fallen therein too too often again My Soul has been in great sorrow for it and has learnt thereby to put it self below all gross sinners also God would so humble me thereby that I never reprove sin or sinners nor ever speak of them but I fall into greater my self It is in this and in other things that you shall judge proper that I desire you would give me some rules to lead my Life after God in the things of God and in the things of the World would to God it may be to my Salvation But there is enough said and asked for the first time I am in the bottom of my Soul and desire to be yet more Mrs Your most Humble most Obedient and most Obliged Servant ANTONI GRELLOT Minister of the French Church of Outreberg At Outreberg in the Electoral Palatine the 6-16 Novemb. 1677. She received a Letter from a Gentleman of London the stile and genius giving reason to expound the R. B. that subscribes it to be the famous and honourable Robert Boyle A Vowing her writings most praise-worthy and of so sweet an odour that he caused translate them into English with design to cause print them in that Language and signifying his most ardent desires to know of her State and her other writings so far as God should encline her heart and so rejoyce extremely his spirit because with her a Lover of the holy Truth and of the life of which she gives testimony unto others and to him wishing her all good and loving her in the Love which is life it self R. B. The Inscription To the most noble Virgin Antonia Bourignon in her Lodging Amsterdam See the veneration with bleeding regret of that just penetrating Spirit Sir George Makenzie Late Lord Avocat to his Majesty in a Treatise De imbellicitate ratiocinationis humanae published last year by Grevius at Vtrecht page 49. having said that we should employ our reason in warring against Vice and in attaining to Virtue and that there is nothing more just adds TAnta est ratiocinationis hujus efficacia ut etiam in aetatis diluculo infantes
than any other virtue seeing it begets of it self several others and banishes several vices which cannot abide in an humble heart as Pride Presumption Avarice Pomps and Vain Glory and many other sins which proceed from Pride of Heart but when it becomes humble then are all these vices banisht And to know what that Humility of Heart is essentially you are to believe that it is a perfect knowledge of ones self For he that knows himself well can never be proud nor have an esteem of himself He will not glory in the Praises and Honours of Men He will not desire Riches to be adorned or served for an humble heart believes that it deserves nothing and the least things content and satisfie it An humble Heart is not in wrath for being abased or despised because he seeth in knowing himself that he deserves nothing but is worthy of all contempt And whereas that is not practised among men it is because they know not themselves and so esteem themselves worthy of Esteem and Honour Riches and service and that makes them Proud For if they observed well whence they are what they are and what shall become of them it were impossible that they should in the least esteem themselves on the contrary they would see that they deserve all sort of Contempt because they are as to the Spirit frail ignorant and unconstant and as to the body full of Miseries Infirmities and Diseases liable to death and corruption All these things should not Give matter of exalting himself to man's understanding or to make him esteem himself in any wise but rather ground to humble and abase himself before God and Men because of his infirmities and miseries and yet we see they make themselves great are arrogant esteem much of themselves and in fine believe themselves worthy of all sorts of Honours Pleasures Riches and services every one advancing himself with all his power all that proceeds from thence that men know not themselves for if they did they would be ashamed to glory in their miseries folly and ignorance For man hath nothing else in himself and all these defaults are annexed to his corrupt nature If you open but the eyes of your understanding you shall see abundantly the miseries of your spirit and how it is agitated by divers motions and intemperate passions Also as soon as you open the eyes of the body you see the bodily miseries under which all men lye and if you reflect whence the body of man proceeds and of what substance it is formed you shall find that he proceeds of an unclean and putrid matter and from those members of his parents bodys which are the most shameful And thence he hath no subject to glory or esteem himself in his origin seeing it is from so vile and base things which ought to give him occasion of confusion and humility And even beasts have more estimable qualities than men as to the body For he would presently be stifled in the filth accompanying his nativity if he were not delivered by the assistance of others and he would presently starve with hunger and other necessities if care were not taken to sustain him whereas the beasts can help themselves so soon as they come into the world And if man will look forward into his life he shall find that it is but a mass of miseries linked one to another What feebleness is in man's body He can endure neither too much heat nor too much cold a little over in exercise and he is wearied he must rest and sleep or he looses his strength and health he must be cloathed and alimented cleaned and cherished whereby his understanding is occupied in care travail and disquiet all the days of his life to relieve the infirmities of his body And how many sorts of diseases afflict the body of man They are almost innumerable and they say thaâ— the Eye alone is liable to fifty sorts what then oâ— all the other members When every one hath its particular ones beside the disordered motions of thâ— passions as of Fear Terror Sadness Melancholy Anger Jealousie and such other sorts of evils to which man is subject during this miserable life where he hath no subject of glorying and esteeming himself but great reason to abase himself in the view of so many miseries to which his sin hath reduced him which gives him good cause of submission and humility before God and Men feeling himself miserable and infirm both in soul and body for the Spirit hath its diseases as well as the body for do but take heed to yourself and you shall find your spirit agitated by various superfluous desires and useless thoughts which carry it away often against its intention as the Apostle testifies that it is not in the power of man to order his thoughts which every one may feel For when we would fix our heart on prayer or other good exercise it wavers here and there that we cannot retain it So that we may truly say that it is not in man's power to contain his thoughts So infirm is his Spirit that his Reason hath not the force to stay the course of his thoughts which often sway the reason whither it would not So that man's Spirit is captivated under the tiranny of his disordered passions which often lead him into great evils even contrary to his will whereof the Apostle says I approve not what I do because what I would not that I do and what I would that I do not To prove how many evils the spirit of man is subject as well as his body and that there is no subject of glorying in the one or th' other seeing they are equally infirm and miserable changeable and inconstant For what mutations feel we not in our spirit the variety and changing in one day of Joy Sadness Hopes Displeasures and Desires are scarce numerable how many diverse thoughts we love at one time what we hate at another what we desire one day dissatisfies us another so that we know not our selves sometimes what we would be at and are often afflicted for having what we had desired And if one should write all the thoughts and desires which pass in the spirit of a man himself would be ashamed of his inconstancy and instability and would be far from haughtiness for the qualities of his spirit no more than for those of his body but would see ground of humility for his miseries for there is nothing can elevate the heart of man in an esteem of himself but a blast of wind which the Devil inspires into his spirit to precipitate him into the sin of Pride by sottish imaginations which proceed from that air which is in effect nothing wherewith he is filled For even all the sciences of man's understanding are but figures formed of that wind as we see figures in the air by the Clouds appearing sometimes as if we saw Mountains moving or Houses and Armies all which notwithstanding are but
not have being nor existence For although man be above all the other creatures yet he cannot give light nor heat to the sun nor sustain the Waters in the firmament nor fructtifie the earth All that must needs be from a supreme cause whom he may know by his operations his understanding can see clearly even by his bodily eyes in contemplating the beautiful order which is in all nature we need but consider the distinction of Seasons the production of Herbs Plants Beasts and of men And though we cannot see the author of all these things yet we can see his works palpably and visibly The savage Pagans did both know and confess that there is a God Author of Nature and there are Christians at present so unnatural that they dare say they know not God because they see him not with their fleshly eyes And from that they will argue that they cannot love him because they know him not They render themselves in that like to the Beasts which have no spirit to perceive other than natural things and see them as though they subsisted by themselves But men having a spirit more noble than beasts comprehend even by their natural spirit that there is a God Author of Nature which engaged some Pagans to set up Altars to the Unknow God Some other of them at the Death of our saviour Jesus Christ said Either nature is a dissolving or the God of Nature suffers These things ought to make the Christians of this time blush for shame who say They cannot love God whom they see not So they shall be more punished in Hell than the Pagans that have applyed their spirit to know God by nature Whereas on the contrary these Christians do not at all study to know him neither by Nature nor by Grace which they have received in the Evangelical Law beside that which God gave to Moses These brutish Christians must neither believe nature nor the Law of God to say they cannot love God with all their heart whom they do not know For though they knew not God by his works which yet they see and touch they should at least know him by the Law of God which would not enjoin to love God if he were not Seeing then there is a God there is consequently an Object amiable above all things and man being full of love ought to be easily carryed to love him for love is always carryed to good and beautiful things so that nothing should be more easie to him than to love God who is the source of all Good and Beauty But all the difficulty man finds now to love him with all his heart comes hence that he doth not apply his spirit to discover and meditate the works and marvelous things of God and so cannot know nor love him but he gives himself to regard the earthly creatures in themselves and attributes to themselves the little of good and beauty that is in them and by that means carrys his affections to love the gross Objects which are visible and sensible to his stupid senses It is difficult for such persons to love God they cannot love heavenly Objects while they regard only earthly ones as they cannot comprehend eternal things because they contemplate only transitory And that is not because of their incapacity seeing God hath made them capable of loving him but because by their free will they choose to love the vile creatures more than him and it is that vitious choise makes them say that it is impossible to love God and themselves make that impossibility They are like persons who staying in a valley full of Snow complain that they are cold and that they cannot be warmed among that Snow which is very true but if they would walk a little to get out of that Snow and get up to the Mountain they should well feel that it is full easie to become warm where the sun bestows his rays It is even so with earthly men who please themselves in the Snow of worldly lustres they say and think it is impossible to be warmed by the Love of God which is also very true so long as they remain in the affections of the pleasures of this valley of tears For nothing can warm them in the love of God while there all is but Snow which cools them He that hath his pleasures in carnal things cannot have them in spiritual and he that puts his affections in perishing goods cannot have them in eternal ones and he that takes his pleasures here in sensualities cannot have them in spiritual things seeing all these things are contraries which can never abide together So long then as a man feels himself cold in the Love of God it is a token that he lives yet in affection to the things of this valley of Snow which are quenchers of the Love of God He cannot then feel in himself other than an impossibility or at least great difficulty to love God with his whole heart But if they would quit their affection to this valley of misery and mount up to the consideration of eternal things they should soon feel the Sun of Righteousness warm our Soul and the Love of God fill our heart which would not only find Facility therein but also Sweetness Pleasure Honour and Profit seeing in effect there is nothing more pleasant than to love God For me I have experienced that all love to the Creatures is bitter and that the Love of God only is sweet and pleasant for when I loved Riches they gave me aboundance of trouble to preserve them when I loved Honours I found there many bitter and piercing displeasures when I was not esteem'd or honour'd as I wished so that sometimes one Sleight caused me more pain than a hunderd Honours had given me contentment When I loved the pleasures and delights of this life I found there great bitterness because there is none of these pleasures that carry not its own pain with it for the pleasures of the taste breed poverty and diseases and are insatiable they never satisfie no more than those of the flesh which resemble Salt-water the more one drinks the more drought I have remarked that in several carnal persons who after having ruined their Body and Health in satisfying their concupiscence used all means to cure their infirmities and that to the end they might wallow yet more in their nasty pleasures And when I have loved any human Creature it was always painful for me to satisfie and please them and the fear of offending or loosing them was unto me a continual anxiety So that there is nothing but God alone whom it is easie and sweet to love Nothing is more pleasant for all other Loves have Grief mixed with their greatest Pleasures we see young people marry with joy there is nothing but mirth Plays and Dances but the Wedding is scarce over and sometimes sooner when we see them sad and afflicted pensive and melancholy Diseases attacque them the Care of
still worse if the Law of God had not been given him as a Voice to reclaim him and to ask him as to Adam where art thou for without that Law he had not known his sin It is given him as a Light in the midst of his darkness and as a Medicine for his Evils But men now adays call these mercies weighty Charges yea insupportable to their frailty which is a gross ingratitude and deserves to be punisht and that God should withdraw his Mercies from these ingrate and stupid persons seeing they overturn the benefits of the Law of God and the sweet and light Yoak of the Evangelical Law into Chastisements and insupportable Burthens saying that it is impossible to observe them and so they belie the word of Jesus Christ viz. That his Yoak is easie and his Burthen Light Believe your Saviour my Son and hear not these lying men that say the contrary Abandon your self to God embrace the Evangelical Law and you shall know by experience that his Yoak is easie and his burthen light Which she assures you of who remains Your Well-affectioned in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON Holstein near Gottorp Castle April 20. 1672. St. Vet. THE XI LETTER We must always Advance in Virtue whatever Impediments come in the way To the same who is encouragad in the way of true virtue although the beginning be difficult because of the temptations with which the Devil vexed them that have resolved to embrace true Virtue My Son NEver weary in the Service of God the beginning of it is the difficultest You know that Rose-bushes bear thorns before they bear Roses it is the same with true Virtue It begins with Thorns a little pricking to corrupt nature but beautiful Roses will come in their season True virtue hath nothing pricking in it no more than the Rose for it is altogether sweet beautiful and fragrant nothing is sweeter than virtue It gives Peace and pleasure to the Soul for Peace and Joy are fruits of the Holy Spirit O what Peace and Contentment hath a virtuous Soul it seeks nothing fears nothing nor hopes nothing but in the promises of its God It acquiesces in his providence It yields it self to be conducted sweetly at the will and pleasure of the Lord. It is not disquieted nor straitned by any thing but in peace expects what God will dispose It affects nothing precipitates nothing knowing that patience and Long-suffering are the fruits of the Holy Spirit It is meek in it self and toward its Neighbour for Goodness Meekness and gentleness are also fruits of the Holy Spirit which he produces outward in the soul he possesses A virtuous soul is always modest and moderate in all its actions chaste continent and full of charity because the Holy Spirit who produces in it true virtue produces also his twelve fruits which are sweet and agreeable to God and Men. So that true Virtue is desirable for the sweetness it carries in it self It is desirable for its Beauty for nothing is more agreeable and beautiful than true Virtue for all good persons esteem and honour it seeing it is more estimable and honourable than all created things It can well abide a narrow search and near view for the neavrer we approach it the more we discover its beauty It is also fragrant as the Rose for true Virtue relishes in the nostrils of every one even of the Wicked who often are engaged to esteem it although they will not follow it And if we hear sometimes well inclined persons despise true Virtue it is because they know it not and have been often deceived with apparent Virtues wherewith the men of this time are filled which causes that the true is not so relished as it should but though it be not known nor esteemed among men yet it is sweet pleasant and savoury unto God who loves true Virtue as his Spouse because it is united inseparably with him And therefore my Child you must endeavour to acquire that beautiful Rose of true Virtue although you should feel the pricking of Thorns in the plucking it These pains will quickly pass but the beautiful Rose of Virtue will never fade It shall be eternally beautiful and of a good savour before God so you must spare nothing to acquire true Virtue If you feel pains therein they shall change into repose if you feel Grief it shall turn to Joy if Repugnance it shall be changed into Contentment for there is only the beginning which is difficult in the acquest of true Virtue The reason is because it is then the Devil uses all means to divert us from it He knows well that he can gain nothing upon us when we have acquired it and so he uses all his forces at the beginning to hinder us from arriving at it that is the reason why the Scripture says My Son if thou wilt embrace true virtue prepare your Heart for Temptation But the Devil leaves them in quietness who have only apparent virtues or those that have only good desires because he can ensnare them at his pleasure The first by presumption of their salvation because of apparent Virtues and the others in precipitating them unto death before they have brought their good desires to effect knowing well that Hell is paved with Good-wills which men had in this world without putting them in practice And therefore he leaves all such persons in peace as well as the Worldlings knowing well that he shall not miss them at one time or other and so he leads them softly to Hell with a silken rope without vexing or tempting them much But such as have truely resolved to follow Jesus Christ and embrace true Virtue he labours night and day to tempt them and by all means because he knows that he needs not pretend more to it when they have arrived at true Virtue Then they shall laugh at him and all his assaults and so he attempts to shake them at the beginning and to make them lose heart in considering the difficulty there is in acquiring true Virtue First he shows them the Pains and Thorns which they shall find in the mortification of their senses After he represents an impossibility to attain to so great perfection He shows them also the example of other persons whom they esteem good persons and tending to true Virtue For it is enough to them to make a morally good outside without being at the trouble to mortifie their five natural senses nor to renounce themselves and the Devil perswades them that that is not necessary for their salvation but he is but a Deceiver and Seducer of Souls that he may in the end render them partakers of his Miseries Keep your self My Son from his deceipts and give no ear to his suggestions nor to the Infirmities of your Nature For neither the one nor the other can hinder you to arrive at true Perfection provided you have a firm Resolution God will assist you and give you all that you need if
you remain faithful to him And after you shall see that through God you can do all things and shall say with David With my God I leap over walls For so great is the power of true Virtue that it makes appear light the things that are most grievous to nature That is it which Jesus Christ intended by the comparison If you had Faith as a grain of Mustard-seed you should remove Mountains It was not so marvelous a thing to remove Mountains of Sand and Stone seeing that would add nothing to our soul but he speaks of Mountains of difficulties which we find in the acquisition of true Virtue It appears at the beginning as an inhabitable Mountain whither one can never arrive But if the Soul persevere faithfully in its good Resolution it will revive by Faith in the Promises of God and with it will remove all these Mountains of imaginary difficulties since in effect there is no difficulty in the acquiring of true Virtue We have no sooner abandoned earthly Affections but we mount with ease unto true perfection for all the difficulties we apprehend are but false visages which the Devil hath placed as Vizards to frighten them that begin in true virtue But we need not fear for the Mask being taken off we find true Virtue which is sweet pleasant and agreeable And he that hath once discovered and known it finds no difficulty in it afterward but on the contrary much Quiet and consolation Though the Devil will never cease to tempt and pursue us He tempted Jesus Christ and pursued him even to the Desart whither he had gone by the conduct of the Spirit of God Therefore we must not be shaken by the Tentations which the Devil makes us but we must despise him as an Enemy of God and who hath no power over man but what himself gives him otherways the Devil is in his nature meer impotence who could not lift a pile of straw from the ground if man do not permit him So man when he is in the Grace of God may well mock at the Devil seeing then he cannot hurt him He waits and goes about him indeed who is in the Grace of God but cannot hurt him unless he fall from that grace or that he consent to the Tentations and Suggestions of the Devil It is nothing to feel Tentations though they should continue all the days of our lives provided we do not consent to them It is but a smoak which dissipates in the air It is not very agreeable but it cannot hurt him that does not approach it even so is it with the Tentation of the Devil it vanishes if we do not follow it It is the Devil's work to tempt but man's to resist thereto Therefore says St. Peter My Brethren watch and be sober for your enemy the Devil goes about like a roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour Resist him therefore continuing firm in the Faith He says so to teach us that we must not sleep in the Service of God nor give up to follow our Appetites but that we must be sober and watch with perseverance for we have an Enemy who never sleeps We must overcome him by the strength of faith which is able to transport the greatest Mountains of difficulties that can ever present to our understanding And if the Devil should tempt us night and day he cannot hurt our Soul provided it remain in faith which begets Hope in the promises of God He hath said Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden and I will give you rest He excepts none but calls all men in general and every one in particular saying they must come to him if they be heavy laden and he promises to ease us What surer caution would we have we have there the Promise of God himself for he says That he will comfort us if we go to him in need I am willing to believe my Son that you are burthened with Tentations of the Devil for he sees that you seek after true Virtue and so he will not fail to attacque you in the beginning and so much the more as you have given him advantage over your Soul by your former sins He will not quit that fortress but by force seeing he hath so long been Ruler and Governour there You must now then chase him by force it is in that only that the Kingdom of heaven suffers Violence and the Violent take it by Force For we are the Children of God and consequently Heirs of his Kingdom so we have no need to take that Kingdom by force It is given us freely of God But we must use great force to resist the Devil and our corrupt Nature which are the two Enemies of our Salvation who would rob our souls of that Kingdom though it belongs to us as the inheritance of our heavenly Father and that is the reason why he says that the Violent ravish it and that we must take it by force It is not that we must fight with Weapons of Iron to gain that Kingdom for all the bodily force of Nature together could do nothing to the gaining it but we must fight our enemies with spiritual Weapons of which the chief is faith seeing it begets Love and Hope toward God the two Bucklers to defend us against all sorts of Enemies For he that loves God fears nothing seeing Love is strong as Death and he that putteth his trust in God shall never be confounded So that the Devil shall never have power over him that resists him by faith So my son fear nothing persevere in the good resolution of attaining true Virtue Give all your affections to love God and you shall be strong as Death Place your Hope in God alone and you shall never be confounded nor deceived For having these Arms you need not fear the Assaults of your Enemy the Devil He is as a chained Dog and can go no farther than goes the Chain of man's consent If he come to vex you in the night during sleep that cannot hurt you seeing man does not use his free will while he sleeps and so cannot consent to the Tentation of the Devil which he knows full well but he comes to vex man in sleep that he may get him to consent when awakened to evil suggestions which he excited in his spirit while asleep for a man asleep sins not But be prompt to evelate your spirit unto God as soon as you awake and then the tentation shall vanish as smoak But if you begin to agitate in your spirit the things which you dreamed by the Tentation of the Devil and give your consent thereto or take pleasure in it then you fall into sin and shall consent to the Devil who is never more overcome than when we despise him Therefore I advise you never to regard Dreams or Evil thoughts which he represents to you asleep nay nor those which he offers when you are awake because you cannot sin so long as you do not take
Nothing which we call evil And that evil is in its essence in the Devil as Good is in God without mixture for there can be no Evil in God and there can be no Good in the Devil But we find a mixture in the other Creatures which have partaken of Good from God and evil from the Devil and so they can be mixed of these two things and are good or evil in proportion as they partake of the one or the other God gave unto man all sorts of Goods in aboundance since he had the power to give them And the devil that impotence hath given nothing to man but so much evil as he hath obtained consent from the free will of man and no more for he is nothing but miserable impotence And to know that the Malice of the Devil and the Sin of Man are but nothings you need but consider what we see and touch in nature For we see assuredly that Hunger and Thirst is but the want of Meat and Drink Cold is but the privation of Heat and Death the privation of life and so is it with all other sorts of evils which befal man which are only the privation of the Goods which he needs for his sustenance temporal and eternal For though we say that there are in Hell pains and Torments Fire Ice Sadness Bitterness and all sorts of Pains All these are nothing in effect but the privation of the goods which man should have had to be happy viz. all sorts of Contentments in God all Pleasure all Satisfaction and Delight Refreshment Peace and Joy eternal But the privation of all these things makes the Torments and Sufferings of Hell without need that there should be material Fire Ice or Famin. It is enough that the soul of man be deprived of all good to suffer all sorts of evil We may see that yet more clearly in a new born Infant if it be left without the good of assistance it is reduced to all sorts of evil and will die without our touching it to do it any evil for we deprive it of life in depriving it of assistance It is the same with the malice of the Devil and the Sin of man They are only privations of Good which notwithstanding cause Pains and Torments incomprehensible to mans soul And all that is represented to us by fire Hunger and other Torments of Hell which is nothing in regard of the reality of the Pains and Torments which a soul suffers that is deprived of the Grace of God For that soul is not only fallen into the Cold of Ice and Heat of Fire but also into all other sorts of Torments because the privation of the Grace of God is the possession of all sorts of evil and seeing that Grace causes us all sorts of Good its privation must needs throw us into all evil Now whatsoever lives in nature generates always because there is in it a bent and inclination to produce its like Herbs and Plants yield their seeds and sprigs or branches nothing remains unfruitful that lives in nature every kind produces its like to its power Beasts produce after their kinds men produce human Creatures spirits spirits every one according to their nature The good spirits which are the Angels of God produce always good spirits the evil which are the Devils produce evil The one and th' other of these spirits attempt to produce in the souls of men their own sort And as men are the noblest of all the Creatures there is neither Angel nor Devil hath power over him but so far as man gives them The good Angels always incite men to good the evil who are the Devils to evil And that by the desire that each of these spirits hath to render men like to themselves the Devil endeavours to render the souls of men devilish and the good Angels to render them Angelical Man in the mean while remains free to yield himself to be begotten unto good or evil for none of these spirits can force man they can but incite him Every one attempts to render him of his own party but since the Devil hath corrupted man's nature he hath also more power over it than the good Angel which hath not advanced it to good as the Devil to evil All the good in man comes from God only and not from the Angel who being a pure spirit hath not power but over the spirit of man in representing to him good things but the Devil as a subtil spirit hath insinuated himself into the spirit of man by means of the human nature And as the vital spirits in man are in his blood dispersed throw his whole body so does the spirit of the Devil mix and disperse it self with the vital spirits of man and works much more upon his nature than the good Angel who cannot joyn with the corruption of that nature because he is a spirit altogether pure but the Devil is impure and accords well with the impurity of our corrupted nature And therefore he is always more united with us than the good Angel who does not delight but in the pure spirit of man For he finds nothing conform to his Angelick nature but the spirit of man because our human nature is too gross and earthly to be united with the Angelick Nature But the Devil as an impure Beast wallows freely in the flesh and blood that he may gain the soul of man He so mixes himself with the blood of man that he easily moves all the parts of his body to do evil but man knows not that it is the Devil For he is so united to corrupt nature that though we feel his motions we think that they proceed but from our own nature Which is because man cannot comprehend that the Devil should so mix with flesh and blood since he is only a Spirit without Body as he is truely but the Devil hath that subtilty to joyn himself to the vital spirits of man to move the flesh to Luxury Wrath and other vicious Passions You may see that my Son by your proper experience For if you mark well the disposition of your sentiments you shall find that you have been often carryed away with vicious passions even against your will and that you have perceived them with regret which cannot proceed from your self for your will cannot contradict it self If you had naturally a will to the pleasure of the flesh it would not displease you but contrariwise you would take pleasure in it and be glad that you might effectuate it But when that carnal thought or desire displeases you and you regret it that is a token that it comes from a spirit which is without you and yet is in you without that you know how he is there Yet you see well by the operations which he does there that that proceeds not from your own will which cannot desire what displeases it but it complains with St. Paul where he says the Good that I would I do not
cleared that the Devil cannot draw man to sin nor do him any hurt except man give his own Consent My Son IN my former I set before your eyes how the Devil tempts men many ways and insinuates himself into Virtue it self that he may direct our good works to his own honour and glory which very often comes to pass But I fear lest by yet another sort of tentation he catch you which you could not discover if you were not forewarned of it To wit when you have well considered the power and wiles of the Devil and find in your experience that it is he who incites you to do evil It is to be feared that you will lay the blame upon the Devil because sometimes you do evil against your will For mans heart is so proud that he will not confess his fault and so seeks for the cause of his sins without himself Which you may the rather do because I have deduced to you at length that all evils come from the Devil and all good from God but though that be most true we must not therefore imagin that the Devil of himself can ever force us to do evil For he is a miserable impotency who hath no power over our souls hearts and wills but so much as we give him The Devil may well represent evil to our spirit and incite our wills to follow it and incite our corrupt nature but he can never force us so long as our will remains firmly resolved not to consent to evil The Devil is as a chained Dog who can go no further than his Chain permits him and God will give him no more power than the will of man desires For though he permitted him to tempt Job by the loss of his Goods Children Friends and Health he did not permit him to cause him to fall into sin And although Job cursed the day of his Nativity he did not herein offend God nor fall into any sin For he cursed only the malediction which sin brought into human nature which all men have reason to do in feeling the pains and sufferings which sin hath caused to us For before sin man was not subject to any Evil and he enjoyed all Good without mixture of evil He was not annoyed with hunger or thirst heat or cold he had no labour to weary him he needed no sleep nor had any alteration in soul or body was not subject to diseases nor death So that man had enjoyed all sorts of delights in this world and the time of tryal being over confirmed in Grace he had lived eternally happy and blessed But sin hath deprived him of all that happiness and hath reduced him to all sorts of suffering and misery Which Job considering in the midst of his miseries he had reason to curse the day of his birth when he saw himself in inevitable miseries You must consider that Job did not curse the day that God created him in on the contrary he blessed him for all because he was his faithful Servant and so he desired to satisfie divine Justice for all his sins which he had committed Now because he so desired God permitted the Devil to tempt him in divers manners that Job's faithfulness might be manifest before all men and the Devil himself But they that understand not the way of God judge that Job was impatient which is false For his soul rejoyced in that God pleased to use him as a mirrour of patience to confound the Devil who could never make him fall into sin though he essayed it so many several ways God knew that Job's heart was submitted to his holy will and that he offered himself continually to him to be proved in what manner it pleased him And because of these wishes God permitted that the Devil might tempt him Now if the Devil had had power over man he had not needed to ask God's permission to tempt Job for he would have done it of himself without any permission But he hath no power over man save what he by his own free will gives him Besides God can never do any evil to man nor permit that it befall him without the consent of his free will So if we commit sin it is of our own free will as also when we damn our selves for God can never damn any person without doing the greatest evil that ever was which cannot proceed from God who can never do any evil But it is our sins that damn us and not God for if there were no sin there should be no damnation and sin depending on man's free will we must not attribute our damnation either to God or to the Devil seeing God gives us always Grace in aboundance to save us and the Devil hath no power to damn us So that man alone is truly blameable for the sins which he commits and ought never to attribute the fault to the Devil because he cannot wrong us if we will not He may well bark as the chained Dogs but he cannot bite us unless we approach him And therefore my Son you ought never to believe that the Devil is the cause of your evil doing though all evils come from him he cannot effect them in us without our consent He may well afflict our Body or Spirit when we desire to purge our Souls by suffering Then God suffers him to tempt us by the most salutary things As he may permit the Devil to bring to poverty a Good Man when he sees that he would forget himself by Worldly Goods God loving his Soul so takes away his Riches as the occasion of the Damnation of his Soul Sometimes also he takes away his Honour or his Health lest these should hinder the perfection of his Soul And it is not always directly mans will that these things should be taken away from him for he complains sometimes of it but when God takes them away it is always with the indirect will and consent of man For example the person does not desire to be poor afflicted or sick but desires that God send him every thing that is necessary for his salvation And God regarding that good will removes from him whatever might hinder the advancement of the desired Salvation And that is a fatherly Love which God bears to Man and not a Punishment as the natural sense takes it and complains of it But it is truely what the person desired in the bottom of his soul viz salutary things And the Prophet even prays God That he would constrain his rebellious will By which we may see that God never afflicts a person without his will and consent direct or indirect Because he created him altogether free he cannot be touched to good or evil no more by God than by the Devil who can never cause man to sin against his will direct or indirect But man does not always know the indirect will he hath to sin and for that says or believes that it is the Devil that makes him sin against his will
Which yet is not so though it mix it self with the Devil's motion It is his custom to follow every ones natural inclination to cover himself the better that he be not known And by that Device he remains unknown each attributing his fault to his nature one would be supported in his Anger Another in his Sadness and Morosity Another in his Lust Saying often I cannot help these things it is my Nature That is a language the Devil hears gladly because so he lurks unknown and makes us go from evil to worse unto death But they that have esteemed the Malice and Wickedness of the Devil natural Weakness and infirmities shall see clearly at death that it is Devilish Malice which mixes it self with every ones natural inclination And the Devil labours always to discover these natural inclinations that he may the better play his part and remain unknown under that covert of natural infirmities And so he amuses many that they never think it is the Devil because he is so straitly united with their natures and that is his subtility He knows well he should not be so much obeyed if he gave tentations contrary to ones natural inclinations and so he follows always every ones Nature and augments the inclinations which he finds there If he meets with a Cholerique person he stirs him up the more to Anger If a Luxurious or Sad person he augments their Luxury or Sadness to gain them all on the weakest side he does as an Enemy that would attacque a City he will not assault where it is fortified but where it is weakest if he find some corner of the wall broken he attempts to break it more that by it he may enter the Town being the most advantagious entry for him And the Devil our Town Enemy does the very same he cannot surprise us in things wherein we are on our guard so he attacques us where we do not expect it and by that means he gains easily our will and makes it obey him in what we have inclination to We must then always make a serious reflection on all our words and actions and then we shall easily discover what comes from the devil seeing it hath always his qualities and produces within us the fruits of Envy Trouble Impatience Sadness and others which I marked above We may also remark enough the qualities of the things the Devil causes us to do For if you will examin your self narrowly you shall always find something in your words untrue or dissembled or spoke by vain complacency to please men which makes that there is not always Justice in your words For he that speaks by the good Spirit is true in the bottom and never speaks any thing to please or flatter men but declares natively the truth of things as well what is contrary to himself as what is advantagious seeing he seeks only to please God alone To know if our actions are excited by the Devil or not you need but mark if they be done for the Glory of God or for your own and if you seek not your self therein For the Devil will always incite us to seek our selves in all that we do He knows well that Self-love mars the Love of God And so he excites our understanding to consider if what we do or say shall be advantagious to us if it shall give us Pleasure Honour or Profit and when we observe none of these advantages in it he slackens our courage that we do not accomplish our undertaking nor prosecute our work The good Spirit on the contrary incites always to labour for the Glory of God and Assistance of our Neighbour And so he that is guided thereby does nothing for his own proper interest but endeavours to his power to assist his Neighbour in need because the Charity which that good spirit carries in it attends more the common good than his own particular By that my Son you may observe all your words and actions to know if they are excited by the good or evil Spirit For these are infallible marks to discern the spirits if from God or the Devil without amusing you to Speculate or seek to discover the Devil in himself since he is an invisible spirit and incomprehensible to your understanding but you shall always discover him infallibly by his qualities and the fruits which he produces in your soul and your inward disposition will tell you it Which she assures you of who is Your well-affected in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON Holstein near Gottorp Castle 15. May 1672. St. vet THE XIX LETTER We cannot in this Life be Free from Tentations To the same who was grieved for that the Devil hath power to tempt us so variously A Thirteenth Artifice of the Devil is shown him wherein he breaks the firmness of the mind by Sadness That Tentations are necessary and profitable to try and purifie us My Son I See you are grieved in Spirit because the Devil hath power to tempt men so many divers ways but you should rejoyce while you learn the truth of every thing For if you knew it not the Devil would seduce you by ignorance as he hath done so many thousands who have obeyed him because they did not know it they thought to follow the will of God while they followed certainly that of the Devil and so have perished insensibly For before God Ignorance does not excuse sin every one is oblieged to know what he ought to do and omit to attain to Salvation We need not think to say to God after death Lord I knew not this or that or I thought not I did evil in that for all excuses will be uncurrent coyn which will not be received nor approved of him seeing we have aboundantly the means to find if we have the desire to seek What should we say to see a man poor and miserable overcharged with his enemies when he will not be at the pains to labour or seek a better way of living and would needs sleep and rest at his ease though he knew himself to be surrounded by his Enemies we should certainly say that man were the cause of his own miseries and of all the evil that may befal him And why will you not judge also that he who neglects to search the means of his salvation and to discover the wiles of the Devil his Enemy is the cause of his own Damnation for it can be imputed only to our selves seeing we have aboundantly the means to find if we had a true desire to seek Tell me I pray you what cause of ignorance can a Christian pretend who reads and hears the Gospel and the Teachings of Jesus Christ and his Apostles to which he gives credit and accords that they teach that there is a Devil who is our Enemy and who seeks to Devour us that our life is a continual combat that we must watch and pray that we enter not into tentation Notwithstanding men will not do either the one nor the
encline to and you shall follow assuredly the Spirit of God So shall you carry the victory over that evil spirit who troubles you now Ply and submit your understanding under the Holy Spirit and never believe your self wiser than him in any thing For men are now abandoned to the spirit of error and their best Sciences are but Ignorance their Wisdom Folly And although you think sometimes to have reason to contradict me do it not And after you shall see that your reason cannot be better than mine which you may experiment while I remain Your well-affected in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON Holstein near Gottorp Castle May. 19. 1672 St. vet THE XX. LETTER Spiritual Diligence is necessary to Salvation To the same to whom is shewn a Fourteenth snare of the Devil more pernicious than the rest viz. Spiritual Negligence He is moved to Spiritual Diligence by consideration of the diligence usually bestowed on temporal things which the Children of this World administer with more Care and Prudence than the Children of Light do Spiritual Things My Son I Perceive it appears some what difficult to you to watch continually so narrowly over all your Words and Actions But believe me if you do it not the Devil will assuredly surprise you in every thing And you shall obey him without knowing it For he is a most cunning spirit who watches always without rest And therefore it is necessary despising all difficulties to resolve absolutely for the combat if you will obtain salvation and tend to true Virtue For without fighting there is no Victory and except you apply your spirit to watch diligently over all your actions and words you shall fall into all sorts of evil And therefore is it that they call Negligence a mortal or capital sin Now Negligence is not understood to be a mortal sin as signifying the want of bodily travail and labour for many persons are not oblieged to bodily labour having other occupations of Body and Spirit more profitable and necessary sometimes than bodily Labour And when they apply themselves to those good and useful things they fall not into that sin of Negligence which is called mortal for every one ought to occupy himself in different things according to his condition or disposition A sick person cannot labour bodily and sometimes also not in Spirit neither because of his Infirmity and so he falls not into the mortal sin of Negligence for he may by acting resignation to the will of God be more diligent than one that labours both in Spirit and Body A good Master of a Family labours often more in eying and watching over his Servants than he that delves the Ground An Artist labours more by ordering well the Building of a House than the Workman that builds it And so with other persons who perform their duty every one in his state and vocation So that we must not believe that that sin of Negligence is committed by them that labour not corporally but by all them that neglect to watch over their souls and to discover the tentation of the Devil Seeing such neglect their eternal Happiness and consent tacitly to the tentation of the Devil which is certainly a mortal sin and causes Eternal Damnation that is it wherefore this Negligence is accounted among capital sins and ought to be called Mortal since it causes Death to the Soul For he that through Negligence does not resist the Devil he leaves his soul a prey to him And he that searches not all means to find true Virtue shall never obtain it but dying without it shall never come to eternal Happiness And therefore you must of necessity have spiritual Diligence if you would be saved For it were but flattering of your self to think that God will receive your Excuses when you shall say I did not know that the Devil had so much Subtilty and Power over us to tempt us or if you should think to excuse your self before God by your Frailty and Weakness you could not abstain from sin and could not attain to true Virtue because you could not find the way For all these Excuses and false Reasons God will not accept because he searches the Reins and tryes the Consciences and sees the least motions of our wills And he knows without needing witnesses what Diligence we have given to watch over our Souls and what Diligence to evite sin and follow true Virtue For God is not as men who amuse one another by the false Philosophy which they 've learnt in the Schools which serves only to maintain wickedness and excuse the malice of their likes They invent smooth words to make wickedness appear Truth and please themselves with these fine words and suffer themselves to be perswaded that Falshood is Truth when adorned with the fine terms and words of their false Philosophy But God regards the Essence and Reality of the thing and sees even to the bottom of our Souls and so he knows if we have done all Diligence in earnest to discover the deceits of the Devil and find the means to arrive at true Virtue and finding that we have done neither the one nor th' other we are condemned without place for Excuses And so my Child you must not be deceived Think not to find Excuses before God when you have lived in spiritual Negligence for he will not accept them He hath given you a Body and Spirit and that to apply them both diligently to eschew evil and follow good But the misery is that men now adays are fallen into so profound an ignorance that they employ body and soul in Care and Diligence to acquire the things of the earth and render themselves by that means incapable of having spiritual Diligence for when a Vessel is filled with dung there can be nothing that is good put in it Alas what are all the Cares of the business and affairs of the world other than Dung which hath filled your Spirit You were a diligent Merchant and your care and diligence hath heaped up money to you but now what will you do with that money you cannot expend it for Meat and Drink and Cloathing nor can you carry it with you at Death and if you leave it to your Relations they shall thereby become more vicious and proud So that every way you must acknowledge that your spirit hath been always filled with the dung of cares and diligence for earthly things And it is no wonder that so you could not discover the wiles of the Devil nor the means which advance unto true Virtue because your Diligence was employed about other things But now when the Goodness of God hath discovered to you the truth of these things you must endeavour to use that Diligence to discover the tentations of the Devil and the means to arrive at Virtue which formerly you used in your temporal affairs I believe you would not then let slip any occasion wherein you saw any profit without accepting it and that you suffered
for Righteousness sake And by consequence the Doctrine of the learned now adays is altogether Antichristian that is to say contrary to that of Jesus Christ Not that their words are dissonant for they read the same Gospel which Jesus Christ and his Apostles taught but they gloss and explain so the words of the Gospel that they bring forth a quite perverse sence Notwithstanding they live in quiet though all their actions manners and desires be quite contrary to the Gospel Doctrine For every one now idolizes his own proper will And Jesus Christ said That we must renounce it Methinks all Christendom is become at present the people of Ephesus which adored the great Diana with this difference that Christians now adays adore the Corruption of the flesh whereas those adored a Statue of gold or Silver For we see these learned strive who can best find out subtil Inventions by which they may flatter men in their sins or perswade them that they may well follow the motions of their corrupt nature and withall attain to Salvation So that every one follows that Doctrine without perceiving that it is evil That is the reason why every one adores that Diana of corrupt nature as a Goddess And so they bestow all their time and goods to nourish honour and satisfie corrupted nature And more they think there is no evil in so doing while the ministers and learned do the same and promise Salvation to the people that live in that Idolatry But they ought to teach in effect the mortification of their senses the corruption of their natures how much it is ruined by sin and finally the necessity of denying our selves to be saved as Jesus Christ taught by word and works But these savage Pastors will not teach so unto their flocks and will yet less put it in practice themselves Yea nor will not suffer another to teach these Christian Truths It is for that they pursue me every where and would gladly exterminate me because I have written of true Virtue The same befel St. Paul by them of Ephesus who would exterminate him when he taught the truth Saying one to another That they should lose their gain if they suffered Paul to continue preaching Jesus Christ That he would ruin the worship of the great Diana and cause that the Goldsmiths should gain no more in the Workmanship of the Image of Diana It goes just so with these learned ones who are as the masters of the great Diana of corrupt nature which every one adores for his own particular But the Learned are the Masters to gain Money by the worship and adoration of corrupt nature So they speak and teach the people such things as please their corruption and endeavour to please men that they may receive advantages of them which they will not lose When then I begin to speak of true Virtue they are all allarmed against me as they of Ephesus were against St. Paul But these learned take also the Judges to their assistance and persecute me that I should be banisht or be discharged to write or speak of true Virtue Some wish me dead others burnt others that I were thrown in the midst of the Sea that I might speak no more of solid Virtue and so their gain and trade be not diminisht and their shops become unfrequented that is that they sell no more their frivolous Discourses to please men It is that which at last allarm'd them so at Flensburg whither I had gone about some business for the Ministers no sooner had any suspicion that I was in their Town but they preached in divers Churches that I am an arrant and pernicious person that I have a devilish Doctrine and finally no person should lodge me So that I behoved to come out secretly lest I should be massacreed by the Rable and Children whom the preachings of the Ministers had animated against me For they had spoken of me with great spite and horrours proclaming publickly that my Doctrine is worse than that of the Jews Adding beside that my doctrine is a mass of all the old Heresies that ever were in the world Yet I will not teach any thing by my Writings or Discourse but what Jesus Christ taught And if there is any thing contrary to that in them I detest and revoke it as I have often offered to revoke all that they would shew me to be contrary to the holy Scripture But it is not for Errors they persecute me or any evil in my Writings seeing they can shew me nothing such therein They persecute me then because I declare truely what is true Virtue and how a true Christian should live to be a Disciple of Jesus Christ I know well they mask these things saying that there are Errors in my Writings But no person shews me these errors They know not what to say to contemn the truths which I maintain For the Learned said first that I bring nothing of new and that they taught and preached tho same things twenty years agot But when they saw in the Book entituled The testimony of the Truth particulars and truths more clear in divine Mysteries than those they learnt in the Schools they say presently that they are Errors and that never any person wrote such things So that it behoved that God should regulate all according to their studies And should not give any new Graces to men now adays But that he should measure his Light by the rule of their scholastique doctrine and should not send the Holy spirit promised by Jesus Christ who shall teach all Truths Men then resist that Holy spirit and will not hear of other Truths but those they have learnt in the Schools It is every lamentable to see men such enemies of their eternal Happiness in rejecting the Light of the Truth which comes in this last time as the Prophets of God have fore-told That he will pour out his Spirit on all flesh and that your Sons and Daughters shall prophecy and the Old Men see Visions Now because I repeat the same things with many others from God they would kill me as was done to the ancient Prophets they think to hinder by that that true Virtue should be known and far more practised But though they should kill me the Spirit of God shall not die for that And rhe Truth shall always be true For if I should not speak it the Dead would speak or the Stones to declare it unto men And tho these Ministers put me to death God hath yet more than a hunderd millions of persons whom he can use to declare the same Truths which I advance And therefore my Son I exhort you to retain them well and put them in practice for though I were not in the world you must nevertheless save your own soul cost what it will if you will enjoy God to all eternity Which she wishes you with all her heart who loves your Happiness Husum Febr. 5. 1684. St. vet ANTONIA BOURIGNON The
your Soul and dispose it to recover that Union while I shall endeavour by mine that shall follow to shew you what true Virtue is and of whom you are to learn it that you be not deceived by any body and that you may discern truely between true and false Perfection in which many well-meaning Persons are deceived of themselves and others and your self has not yet gotten that light of true discerning to know things as they are before God taking them only as they appear to mens judgments who often deceive for it is written that all men are liars yea we lie often even to our selves perswading our selves that we know and understand mystique things while we are wholly ignorant of them Here follow some CONFERENCES Taken out of the THIRD PART Of the LIGHT OF THE WORLD CONFERENCE XI Declares how we must be regenerated to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and that we must return into the Dependance of God which is the only thing which God requires essentially of Man I asked her How that Regeneration could be performed for persons already advanced in Age and Doctrine SHe said Sir we must take wholly a new Life as if we were newly born to day because all the Good which we esteem our selves to have done heretofore is evil or at least good for this life for all our good works have always been accompanied with Self-love or with human Considerations which can never be recompensed in eternity because we have here received their Reward What we do by Self-love is recompensed by our satisfaction and what we do by human Considerations is recompensed by the complacency of men so that we can never in justice pretend any thing else being fully satisfied in this World after the pretensions and ends which we have had in doing our good works Although they have been covered with the cloak of the Glory of God or Charity toward our Neighbour all hath been in effect but vanity Therefore is it that he who will be converted must assume a life wholly new and believe that he hath never done one only action purely for the Love of God Which he shall know sufficiently by examining all the sins against the Holy Spirit and them which we commit in another with the eight Beatitudes and the other solid Virtues Every one may thereby see how far he is alienated from the state of the Blessed which Jesus Christ hath declared in these eight Beatitudes and if he hath the will to acquire them how he must take up a wholly new life and become as a Child newly born who suffers himself to be governed by his heavenly Father Neither age nor learning can hinder that we abandon our selves unto God suffering our selves to be ruled as it pleaseth him because the more we are advanced in age the more must we make haste to recover our Salvation because we have but the small time that our life endures The conversion of persons in age should not be deferred one day lest their life escape and there be no more recovery because after death there is no more remission The Learned must also acknowledge that all their Wisdom is but Ignorance before God which is often an impediment unto his Graces and that the time is come when he will destroy the wisdom of the wise and abolish the prudence of the prudent that all may receive the Kingdom of Heaven as little children I said unto her That it was very desirable to be of the number of them who shall be converted and that I would be the first to abandon my self wholly unto God as a little Child She said Sir no person can be entirely converted if he do not know the sins and also the true vertues These two things are necessary For otherwise men should think they were converted while they were yet full of sins and had not yet acquired any solid Virtues Therefore is it that I have spoken unto you so particularly that you should not remain in the darkness which invirons all the men in the World There should yet be found many who would turn and be converted but very few who know their internal sins and yet fewer who know what true Virtue is All these would make conversions false before God for if they do not know their hidden sins they cannot amend them and if they do not know what true Virtue is they cannot practise it The ignorance of these two things hinders that they cannot be converted unto God nor yield themselves to be governed by him That then must be learned first of all to know the state of their Soul in what degree of sin it is and also in what degree of true Virtue If these things were known there should be yet many who would embrace the spirit of penitence and abandon themselves unto God as little Children but because they know not the state of their Conscience many perish insensibly not knowing their miseries If you will Sir be abandoned unto God as a Child think that all that you have done hitherto is of no value and cast your self in Gods Arms who is your Father as a Child who cannot speak that he may teach your every thing He shall do it assuredly For it is his desire that we be converted unto him when we withdraw from him by our sins he suffers it because he will not retract the free will which he hath once given us for he is immutable in all his works but so soon as we return unto him by penitence he receives us as the father did his prodigal Child accepts us for his Child and Heir of his Glory But if you think to continue in your proper wisdom you shall never receive the Holy Spirit You must become simple as a Child and not will any more to use your proper will remitting and reposing it wholly in Gods hands giving him the reins of your proper will that he may guide it and conduct it whither he pleaseth and that you may no more be able to abuse it as hitherto you have done which you must confess with regret for if our will had been ruled by God we had never come into such Extremities of all Evils I said unto her That I must confess that my will had not been ruled by God because I had not known as at present the manner of abandoning my self unto God She said Sir no man can ever be saved unless he know that he must be entirely abandoned unto God because that is the first and last Commandment which he hath given unto man and to speak better it is the only thing which God requires of man If we would absolutely depend upon God we should fulfil all the Law and the prophets That is the only thing necessary All that I can ever have said Sir is comprehended in the DEPENDANCE which we ought to have upon God because he hath never required any thing else of man and also shall
reign from our proper Will and nothing else For our diseases are often caused by our intemperance in Eating and Drinking or other Excesses of the body which we commit to satisfie our proper Will which precipitates us sometimes into some state that causeth us a thousand Pains or some Employment or Traffique which lead us into great Troubles of Processes Quarrels Disquiets or other Poverties and Miseries And all that proceeds from that we would not submit our Will unto that of God who would have ruled us as a good Father his Child having loved rather to follow our own Will and undergo all manner of Calamities in this world and be in peril of suffering after greater ones which shall never end because he that will not be guided by God can never be saved seeing our proper conduct shall lead us into abyses of all manner of Evils temporal and eternal because our proper Will is ignorant precipitant never satiated nor satisfied not staying for any sorts of Evils although it discover its Miseries it does not amend them but attributes them unto another to Adam or else to God and so flattering themselves always in their own Will they persist therein until Death which gives beginning unto eternity of Misery because no person can be saved of himself and if they will not give their Will unto God from whom can they expect Salvation It is great blindness Sir not to know these Truths which are so evident seeing we feel our impotency and know that we have received all from God and cannot hope for any thing but from him And with all these considerations we will not abandon our Will into his loving rather to be miserable and perish in the end by following our own We are ingrate unto God and cruel unto our selves For it is very great ingratitude to refuse God the only thing that he requires of our proper Will having given us all the rest and great Cruelty unto our selves in withdrawing from the Dependance of God to subject our selves unto so many sorts of Evils I asked her How it was possible that men should refuse God their proper Will seeing all belonged unto him She said Sir all the world does that by effect and I know not one only person upon Earth who will depend on the will of God because every one will follow his own proper will great and small none excepted will not abandon their will unto that of God but will all depend upon their own Is it any wonder that I have said unto you formerly that none can be saved in the manner that they live at present It is an infallible Truth which none have yet discovered because of the universal Darkness which is at present in the world Every one imagins to himself that he will abandon himself unto God when there is nothing like it for if that were true we should not see men so earnest to negociate or traffique nor run through Cities and Countrys to gather Money nor also to solicit for offices states or benefices because every one remitting himself into the Dependance of God would labour to have only his necessities and no more knowing well that this life is short and that the necessity sufficeth unto a Sojourner who will be loath to burthen himself with things useless or superfluous unto his Voyage which would be a burthen to him All mens Cares Goings Comings or pretensions for things present are as many Witnesses which affirm that they will not abandon their will unto God but will follow their own proper will leaving the penitence which God hath enjoyned to exalt themselves into States Honours and Dignities seeking to live at our ease instead of labouring to fulfil the Penitence due unto our sins We act directly contrary unto the Will of God because we cannot be ignorant that he requires that Submission and Penitence of us And with all that we say by word that we are abandoned unto God and look upon it as a thing impossible that we should refuse him our will which discovers always the more our blindness I said unto her That there was truely horrible darkness over the universal World and that I my self was environed with them in believing that I would be abandoned unto God while I had yet many cares for this life She said Sir you see well that your abandon is not true so long as there are yet cares for this life It were to have great distrust of God that after we were abandoned unto his governing we should yet have Cares for temporal things God who hath created all things for man can he refuse him his necessities when he were abandoned unto him If he nourisheth the Birds of Heaven who labour not should he not nourish men in labouring We are exceeding full of false perswasions which flatter us to our ruin For it is assured that he who hath resolved to abandon himself unto God seeks no more earthly things but those which are eternal God makes him see sufficiently that what is here below are but transitory things which the Servant of God should not touch but with the extremity of his foot because they are unworthy of a Soul dedicated unto God which regards no more any thing but to please him And if you Sir have other Cares believe assuredly that you are not yet abandoned unto him because that abandon consists in a cessation from every thing to receive from God only and the less self acts the more we receive There needs no more but TO CEASE AND TO RECEIVE For all our Cares and Disquiets or activity for the things of this life are all Impediments which extinguish the operations which God would produce in our Soul We must cease and rest to let the Holy Spirit act alone If our will be abandoned unto God he will rule it wisely Let us yield our souls unto his Government and let us labour for accomplishing the penitence due unto our Sins that we may have things necessary for the entertainment of our body and then we may truely say that we are abandoned unto God not before because the States Cares and Affairs of the World are all Impediments unto that Abandon yea even so many divers means of devotion as men practise at present are all great Impediments since there is only that Abandon alone necessary I said unto her That that little word Abandon comprehended great things that it was nevertheless the Philosophers Stone to discover the eternal Treasures unto which I aspired She said Sir that word of ABANDON UNTO GOD comprehendeth all things for he that is abandoned unto him knows him and loves him and knows also true Virtue to follow it and the falsity of Vices to evite them because God abandons himself unto the Soul which is abandoned unto him and the Holy Spirit lives in it and remaining with it replenisheth it with his Gifts to know every thing and with his fruits to entertain it so that all our happiness depends
AN ADMIRABLE TREATISE OF SOLID VIRTUE Which the Men of this Generation know not seeing they take the Appearance of Virtue for True Virtue taught by JESUS CHRIST in these words Learn of me for I am meek and lowly and humble of heart as well as in the other Salutary Doctrines which he hath given for true Christians BY ANTONIA BOURIGNON Written in 24. Letters to a Young Man who sought after the Perfection of his Soul Teaching him that it Consists in the Knowledge of our selves and the Mortification of our Five Natural Senses Translated from the Original French At AMSTERDAM By HENRY WETSTEIN 1698. which Jesus saith both reveals and judges mens hearts How much of this divine Truth is in these Epistles the more upright the soul is it shall more discover and how much of this upright sincerity is in the soul the same Epistles will detect Here the most earnest hunger shall be adequately satiated and the most stupid inappetency unless it be voluntarily habitual and perversly obstinate may be awakened to an earnest search of that Virtue by the genuine representation of its inestimable value and ravishing beauty and the easie plain and sure means of attaining it here held forth But being a little may be by farr too much in the ordinary yea I had almost said universal way of talking much like a Perroquet of Virture without any living sence of it in the spirit its best not to divert the Reader from that Fountain where it flows living I mean that Speaker who can truely in a most ample sence say with David Credidi propter quod loquutus sum I believed and therefore I have spoken and with the master of Virtue Verba quae loquor non mea sunt sed patris qui me misit the words which I speak are not mine but the Fathers which hath sent me Only this being likely the first that hath appeared in our Language of the Writings of that extraordinary Organ of God's Spirit ANTONIA BOURIGNON it may be both suitable and acceptable to give the curious Searcher of solid Truth some entry into the unparalelled greatness of the thing by a brief recital of some memorable things of that person and of the thoughts of some few of them whose Souls that same Spirit touched by that Person and her Doctrine who was the Spring and Life of both To begin with the last Mr. Grellot an ancient Protestant Minister expresses the sense of his soul first to his friend Mr. P. and then to Mrs. A. B. her self In his to Mr. P. I Have long ago resolved for my self to endeavour to gain my living by the most abject and contemptible Works and Employs in the World and I have reason to lay my acount so for certainly if I preached in a Church where there were persons how ever little more knowing or of more worldly power than here I would never be suffered only because I manifest the deceipts that reign in Religion and in Sects I most willingly leave that precious Soul Mrs. Bourignon to sleep and rest in Jesus Christ therefore I dare not nor will not pray you to salute her in my Name I pray God only ratifie the Salutation and divine Benediction that you tell me she wishes to me I marvel not at what you write of the Spirit of God which is in Mrs. Bourignon that they who are with you will judge and think and cabal with the spirit of Zelots seeing I find no true Knowledge of God nor of his son nor of the Holy Spirit in men Seeing God shews the Mercy and Grace to you and to me to see and feel that the Spirit of God is in her pauci quos aequus amavit Jupiter God give also Grace that it may be for the greater Glory of his Name and to our Souls Salvation Though before I said I durst not nor would not have you to salute that Child of God Mrs. Bourignon from me yet do it if you can conveniently I desire earnestly to see Mrs. Bourignon while she is yet alive for men are not worthy that she should be so long I know not what to make of the ministry I have long deplored the imprudence I had when I engaged in it His Letter to Mrs. BOURIGNON MISTRIS IT is now three years since Mr. P. began to address your Writings to me I had no sooner seen or read them but I judged you were of God I received the Truths of them the rather because God had already told me several like or near unto them Since that time I have been fully perswaded in my interiour and am so dayly more that you are wholly filled with the Holy Spirit and nothing is capable to make me believe the contrary although I were the only person in the world of that mind And I think not strange that you are wholy filled with it seeing you have employed so many years to attain it I mean that you practise Holiness and have given your self to the purifying of your soul and the other things that obtain it from God I see you possess alone all the Truths whereof all the other Sects and Religions of Christians have only a part and that you have them in your Soul and in your Books without any mixture of error whereas on the contrary I see no Sect that hath not more or less of Errors as their Authors did more or less come near to God internally You alone discover fully the false Piety wherein the devout of this World are deceived As I do firmly believe then that being filled with God he wills that you be a Chanel and Conduit through which he will flow into the Souls of them that are disposed and fitted to receive him I desire that he may flow from you into me and that being in me he put there the fruits of his Spirit Adducing the sense of his own abjectness and indignity the multitude of her Letters and Writings already dispersed the Grace and Spirit of God not restricted to particulars as retarding his writing to her he proceeds Yet Mr. P. my Friend among other things he wrote to me from you having saluted me in your name two different times I desired and prayed that these salutations might be ratified by God and thereupon I have resolved to represent unto you something for the good of my soul Which I do most humbly and before God I see also that many good Souls from divers places desire to become yet better some by your Letters and the rest by coming as near unto your Person as they can and that you have the Charity to stretch forth your arms unto all of them I hope also you will hold them forth to me the more willingly because I am afflicted with the sense of my sins and for my not having Love enough to my God and that there be yet many things to be amended in me if I may bear the Image of God or of Jesus as I desire I ought the rather
13 th of January 1616. of honourable Parents As her Spirit and Tongue began to be loosed from the Sleep and silence of Infancy the first Expression she was capable to give of what impression her Soul received was a grain of admirable and divine Wisdom which fructified unto everlasting Life At the age of four years her Parents having instructed her piously in the Gospel and Life of Jesus Christ she asked still Where are the Christians Let us go to the place where Christians live Where are they whom Jesus Christ taught Take me to them that live as Jesus Christ O most profound and divine They in their worldly Wisdom would undeceive her saying that there in Flanders they were Christians and followed Christ She said That could not be for Christ commended Poverty they were altogether for Riches Christ despised honours and Pleasures choosing meanness and trouble but they were earnest for what he rejected and shunned his choice that they lived no ways like Christ O Great God! Out of the mouth of Babes and sucklings thou hast perfected Praise Thy Words and thy Entertainments enlighten and make wise even Little Children when great Doctors growing old in their Studies with all their Followers are in Darkness blind and naked without knowing it Lo a little Child her eyes and mouth scare opened discerning a worldly Life from a Christian and far beyond the old Philosophy Studied procedure seeking a man among men most natively tattling out where are the Christians amidst Christians men fight and dispute and write and preach and what not who shall have the best Religion and Christianity most pure and flourishing Lo God will bring them to agreement and how he sets a Girle of four years old amidst them and puts in her little Mouth these stammering words where are the Christians Let us go to the Country where Christians live words duely considered of a profound divine Wisdom of more saving light and profit than millions of lifeless Sermons and volums of rational Speculations and this is the Grain of Seed which fructified unto all the fruit of her life which was only a continued urging advancing pressing and increasing that first Thought and Desire It is true in the Old and New Testament that God will perfect his Praise out of the mouth of Babes but in the World we must expect the Truth and Praise of God from a mouth that can speak Latin or even Greek and Hebrew and for the more assurance there must be a great many of these wise Heads assembled to make a Synod or Council not to sleight our Theological Doctoralities and Masterships by giving heed to this babe So they laughed her iterated and earnest Demands to silence yet neither that nor the ruder treatment she met with as it encreased were so far from extinguishing that divine spark God had kindled in her that they served still to encrease its flame for this first repulse made her turn more in to God in her own heart detecting the Vanity of worldly things she sought of him the Grace to live as Christians did and even then every thing was to her occasion of turning to him with different prayers suitable to him who was her only Councellour and Companion until her sister much addicted to the Vanities of the World would needs have her follow she said to every body she had no spirit to converse and accommodate her self to others and by that artifice the Devil prevailed so far as to make her follow the company and mode of the Youth of the World only to please them to shew that she had spirit enough to appear brisk in which she succeeded so well or rather so ill that quickly she obscured her sister gaining the favour and goodliking of all and pleasing her Parents extreamly being of a meek humble affable and jovial Humour and a good Spirit that her Father employed her in his affairs which she managed with a great deal of dexterity and industrie But all this cost her the loss of that communion she had formerly with God as familiar as one Child with another Yet God had pity on that poor Creature wandring from him he gave her often inward invitations even amidst her divertisments and will you then leave me for another shall you find a Lover more perfect and faithful than I am This pierced her heart so as to make her flow into Tears but upon occasions she would charm her serious thoughts and the habit of Vanity and Tentations got the ascendant on her at length God sent more assistance to his call by filling her spirit with the terrible thoughts of Death Judgment and Eternity Sometimes she would regret rent her cloaths and detesting her vanity throw away all her Ornaments of Folly again she would yield to the tentation of company and Divertisments In these conflicts God fortified her she became pierced with so great fear of the Judgment of God that she durst not shut her eyes because of her sins which she thought were so great that no body ever had committed the like not that she had done any evil or unhonest thing after the world whose honesty is consistent with turning away from God and going to all the Devils provided regularly and in form with approbation and priviledge but because she had left her sweet Entertainments with God for worldly Divertisments after she had received so many Graces from him she saw that so great a sin that Hell and all the pains of Hell were not sufficient to punish her ingratitude God seeing her correspond to the tracts of his divine Mercy redoubled them on her that she was swallowed up of contrition passing the whole nights on her knees crying from the bottom of her Soul Lord what wilt thou have me to do Ah! Lord what shall I do that I may be acceptable to thee My God my God! where art thou what shall I do that I may find thee again After she had tasted long and deep of that bitter desolation wherein the soul finds it self as abandoned and rejected of God which they that have tasted call the Pains and Sorrows of Hell as Job and David and other Saints God began to heal The first return she had of God into her Soul was in answer to that continual Prayer Lord what wilt thou have me to do the whole of the Gospel these words Forsake all earthly things separate your self from the affection of the Creatures renounce and deny your self Her Vicissitudes of Desolation and Consolation succeeded until God purified her from all task or stain of her vain conversation and usually these inward piercing afflictions were preparatives to some particular Graces or favours of God And it is incredible what floods of Tears and of Contrition it cost her before she recovered her former Familiarity with God and her no less incredible strict severe Austerity in a mortifying Life which she continued many years by a principle of justice and its first mover was the love
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
Letters which treat of Virtue that they who aspire unto it may see the state wherein they are and also if they have acquired any degrees of it or if their Virtues be only imaginary I do not present this matter of true Virtue to all in general since many should find it too difficult to be observed for such as yet love themselves or the things of the earth cannot have all their mind bent to acquire this Virtue nor tend to the spiritual diligence which it requires But I speak to the free and generous souls who have abandoned the world to follow Jesus Christ and such will easily understand me for none is better disposed to understand me than he that will practise true Virtue And others who have not that desire may content themselves to know the Commands of God in general seeing they aspire not to a greater perfection So I say to them as St. John to the soldiers Use no Violence nor fraud to any person and be content with your Wages He said so to them because he found them not disposed for greater perfection And every one is free to tend to what degree of perfection he will So St. John chooses of two Evils the least in councelling the Soldiers to be content with their Pay and do no Violence but if these Soldiers had tended unto Christian-perfection doubtless St. John had counselled them to cease from being Soldiers and to forsake all that they possessed as Jesus Christ did to the young man in the Gospel after he said he had kept the Commands of God I say the very same to them to whom I present this matter of true Virtue in these twenty four Letters which is but the beginning of my designs to shew wherein it consists in every thing To these namely who will follow it and to none other seeing that were to cast Pearls before Swine or the Childrens Bread unto Dogs Those are souls yet earthly and attached to the honours pleasures and goods of this life and consequently are not in a disposition to put true Virtue in practice It seems enough to them not to transgress grossly and externally the Commands of God because they know no other Evils but what are expressed in these Commands But the souls who have abandoned the world to follow Jesus Christ and to revive in his spirit must labour with all their force to acquire this true Virtue in renouncing the corruption of their nature And they may well be assured that they can never arrive at a truely Christian Life unless they have overcome the inclinations of that corrupt nature Therefore must we labour with diligence in the mortification of our senses that we may carry the Victory over that Corruption which sin hath brought unto human nature without that our Virtue is false or only apparent and in no wise Virtue before God For if you shew me a person sober and chast and upright in his business who imparts his Goods to the Poor who fasts at appointed times with many other good Deeds and yet follows the motions of corrupt nature I esteem nothing all these Virtues if there is not a renounciation of his corrupt nature and he hath not entirely renounced his own will for all these things together come not near the Victory which is in mastering the motions of corrupt nature And St. Paul names yet greater Virtues than these I have named when he says If I had the Gift of Prophecy and Faith that could remove Mountains and gave all my Goods to nourish the Poor I am nothing if I want Charity Now Charity is nothing else but the love of God which we cannot obtain but in renouncing self-love and hating the Corruption of our nature for we can never do good except we first depart from evil and all sorts of evil are contained in the corruption of our nature since it is fallen into sin So that we can never arrive at true Virtue but by renouncing that corruption nor at the Charity of which the Apostle speaks without having overcome it So I say with him unto all that would attain to true Virtue that all other good actions shall be nothing until we have surmounted and overcome the corruption which sin hath brought unto humane nature since all sorts of evil spring thence and therein can no good be found Though the blindness of men makes them presume that they can do all well yet they do altogether evil so long as they act according to the motions of corrupt nature And it is only arrogance and presumption of spirit that they think themselves wise and willing to do all good For if man were wise he would always distrust himself nor dare undertake any thing fearing to do evil since that is in him and there cannot proceed out of a vessel other than what is in it When Man was newly created by God in the state of innocence he was full of all good and all sorts of good proceeded from him but since he is fallen into sin he is filled with all evil and there can nothing proceed out of him but all evil That is a general rule and by it ought every one to regulate his life if he would be saved for there is no exception seeing all men have been corrupted by Adam's sin and consequently are filled with evils none excepted It is true mens natures differ in manners and conditions one is Meek another Harsh one is Proud another Humble but that is from their natural temperament because man being composed of four Elements Water Fire Earth and Air his Manners naturally are disposed with proportion to the element which predomines in him For every one hath in his nature divers dispositions He that in the forming of his body hath contracted more of Fire than of the other Elements will be more cholerique and luxurious because the Fire hath more power in him than the Air Water or Earth Another who in his formation hath contracted more of Water will be more dull in his Manners slow in comprehending any thing and less couragious He that in his formation hath received more of Earth than of other Elements shall be more heavy lazy and rude in his Manners Finally he that in his Formation hath contracted more of Air than other Elements will be in his manners more light and inconstant and more active in spirit and prompter to good or evil and by these natural temperaments all men are of divers complexions and different manners according as they have contracted of their Parents the intemperature of the Elements of which their body is formed But in respect of Grace they are all of a like nature and are by sin all fallen into the same corruption one as well as the other and so they all need to combate that corruption since they are all equally corrupted by sin which they must master if they would be saved without going to perswade that one is better than another because he hath in his nature a
Wiles of the Devil which he opposes to Virtue that we may evite them which are recited in this and the following Letters as 1. That the Devil mixes himself in what is sensual in man 2. That he accommodates himself to the inclinations and impulses of every one leaving all the rest in quiet p. 93. XIII Whatever is sensible to Nature is not the Work of Grace or Virtue Discovering a third Artifice of the Devil whereby he perswades men that they may satisfie their senses in a slate of regeneration and Praising God A 4. by which he affixes the Heart to spiritual Pleasures and Delights wherewith the Followers of Virtue are affected p. 102. XIV The Devil transforms himself into an Angel of Light Discovering a 5. and 6. Artifice of the Devil by which he causes men to apply themselves to the study of the Truth and mystical and Spiritual things 5 That they may comprehend and understand them Or 6. That they may unseasonably instruct others p. 111. XV. The Devil instigates unto Good that he may bring Evil out of it A seventh Deceit of the Devil is to carry us out of our selves to compare our Good Works with others that we may draw Vain Glory from our Virtue An 8. whereby he excites us to immoderate Mortifications and Macerations of our Body And a 9. Whereby he excites us to immoderate spiritual Good Works toward our Neighbour as to desire to instruct convert reprove or correct him unseasonably p. 121. XVI The Devil mixes himself in our Good Works A tenth Artifice of the Devil in our corporal Good Works which the Devil often turns to his own honour Yet we must not therefore cease from them but joyn Moderation and avoid Human Respect and considerations and Pride which insult over us in this time of tryal p. 130. XVII Sin proceeds from Man's Free Will An eleventh Tentation is proposed by which we impute the guilt of our sins to the Devil to excuse our selves It is shewed that the Devil cannot bring man to sin nor do him any hurt without his own free Consent p. 139. XVIII The Good and Evil Spirit are known by their Fruit. Proposing the Signs to know whether we are ruled by the Instinct of the Good Spirit or of the Evil. A 12. Artifice of the Devil by which he causes that we impute our Vices to our natural Inclinations without suspecting him to lurk therein that he may remain undiscovered p. 149. XIX We cannot in this Life be free from Tentations Shewing to him that was afflicted that the Devil hath power so variously to tempt us that a 13. Artifice of the Devil is to break the firmness and strength of our mind by grief Also that Tentations are necessary and profitable to try and purify us p. 158. XX. Spiritual Diligence is necessary to Salvation A 14. Impediment of the Devil more pernicious than the rest is spiritual Negligence Moving also unto spiritual diligence by consideration of the Care usually bestowed in Worldly things which the Children of this world manage with more Prudence and Care than the Children of Light do their Business p. 168. XXI Spiritual Diligence necessary beyond all other Virtues Shewing how necessary Spiritual Diligence is for confirming the mind in Virtue and to remove two more Impediments of the Devil viz. 15. Sins of Omission with which the Devil tempts good men and 16. self-love which insinuates it self in all and is a continual sin p. 177. XXII Spiritual Diligence necessary to Salvation Exhorting unto Spiritual Diligence because without it none can persevere in the Service of God nor overcome corrupt Nature and Self-love p. 186. XXIII Spiritual Diligence necessary to Salvation Shewing the necessity of Spiritual Diligence to watch over all the actions of our corrupt Nature and proper Will and to acquire the knowledge of our selves That spiritual Negligence is a fountain of all Evils and is alone sufficient to damn us since it renders our Souls rude and like uncultivated and cursed ground which brings forth noehing but Bryars and Thistles and so is far from Meekness Lowliness and Humility of Heart p. 194. XXIV Men are Idolaters of their own Corruption and Enemies of True Virtue Shewing that the continuing of this subject is hindered by the Devils exciting the Wise of this World who are Enemies of Virtue and Friends of corrupt Nature to distract the mind of the Writer by their Disputes Lies Calumnies and all manner of Persecutions p. 202. An Extract of some of the Works of Mrs. A. Bourignon belonging to some Most Essential Matters of Christianism and Health Being a Letter written to one of her Intimates Mr. van de Velde concerning TOLERATION That it ought never to go the length of communicating with Sin directly or indirectly Of the Essential and of the Perfection of Christianity Of Religions Worships and Ceremonies and their use p. 220. Some Conferences taken out of the Third Part of the Light of the World viz. Conference XI How we must be Regenerated to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and that we must return into the Dependance of God which is the only thing which God requires essentially of Man p. 219. Conference XII That there is but one only thing to be done to be saved p. 226. Conference XVII Being a Collection of all the preceding Matters their End and Use p. 235. Conference XXVI Declareth the necessity of becoming a Child to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven renouncing all Worldly Wisdom and all Human Abuses p. 245. A Profession of Faith and Religion made Publick by Mrs. ANTONIA BOURIGNON I. I Am a Christian and I believe all that a true Christian ought to believe II. I am baptised in the Catholique Church in the Name of the Father in the Name of the Son in the Name of the Holy Spirit III. I believe the twelve Articles of the Credo or Apostles Creed and do not doubt in any Article of it IV. I believe that Jesus Christ is True God and that he is also True Man and that he is the Saviour and Redeemer of the World V. I believe in the holy Gospel in the holy Prophets and in all the holy Scripture both of the Old and New Testament I will live and die in all the points of this belief which I protest before God and Men to all whom it may concern To the faith whereof I have subscribed this my Confession with my hand and sealed it with my Seal Sleeswick 11. March 1675. Sealed and subscribed L. S. ANTONIA BOURIGNON A CATALOGUE Of Books Composed by Mrs. ANTONIA BOURIGNON I. THe Life of Mrs. A. Bourignon wherein is 1 an Apologie for her Person and for her Doctrine 2 Her Inward Life by her self 3 Her Outward Life by her self II. Her Life continued until her death by a Person of her Acquaintance III. God's Call and Mens Refusal in two Parts with a treatise of the Solitary Life and Gods Last Mercy IV. Light arisen in Darkness in
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
2d. place you must endeavour to remove all impediments which retard that peace quiet and tranquility of Spirit these impediments are in our corrupt nature for from sin men are falâ— into a continual trouble war and disquiet and our passions being disordered breed all these and they cannot be governed ordered and kept in peace except we have resisted and overcome them and also altogether renounced our natural inclinations and then is it that we find peace quiet and tranquility of Spirit and not before Behold wherefore it is that J. Ch. says we must Deny our selves if we would be his Disciples for that renouncing of our passions alone is the true means to attain to that peace quiet and tranquillity of Spirit For since sin came our passions bereave us of these which before sin were well regulated and temperate bringing joy peace and tranquility to our souls whereas now we feel the quite contrary For if we suffer our passions to rule they will lead us to intemperance sadness and disquiet of Spirit So that it is impossible for one that lives according to his natural senses to learn the Meekness and Gentleness which J. Ch. teaches us And it is for that he adds the gospel doctrine That we must Deny our selves For th' one cannot be without the other if we will be meek and lowly as J. Ch teaches we must of necessity deny our selves seeing our nature hath nothing but harshness and fretting which causes trouble of Spirit and disquiet in the will and contention with our neighbour for he that has not meekness in himself cannot have peace with his neighbour except it be a Dissembled or civil peace which yields not inward quiet nor tranquillity of Spirit As I believe My Child you feel in yourself for though you have a quiet of conscience because you have abandoned the world and the occasions of sin yet you have not that inward peace which would render your Spirit tranquile and peaceable For you act yet with Disturbance which proceeds from corrupted and distempered passions So if you knew to vanquish that and calm these unprofitable agitations it were your great advantage and you would easily obtain the meekness which Jesus Christ teaches as also lowliness and gentleness seeing these two are knit together meekness of heart engenders gentleness toward our neighbour for he that is tranquile and peaceable in himself will not trouble his neighbour nor give any occasion of fretting seeing the meekness of the good quenches the wrath of the wicked And though one that has learnt the meekness and gentleness of Jesus Christ were surrounded with troubles of all sorts he will yet keep a tranquile Spirit Because he does no more follow the motions of his corrupt nature and so retains peace quiet and tranquility of Spirit where it is obtained by the meekness and gentleness of J. Chr. My Child if you would also learn that Lesson endeavour to Deny your self and not follow your own will in any thing For Since it was corrupted by sin it always enclines to evil suspect whatever proceeds from your own will and follow it in nothing it is it which bereaves you of the meekness and gentleness which Jesus Christ teaches and we have no greater enemy in the world than our proper will If you could well comprehend that truth doubtless you would not follow it in any thing and you would Distrust even your Good Wills and intentions and suspect them but because you know not yet well that your proper will is so evil you do not distrust it Notwithstanding is betrays you often and it leads you to do evil often when you would do good your bottom and inward intention is good but your proper will opposes your good desires and makes you often do the contrary of what you have well resolved If I were in your place I would not follow my own will in any thing and hold all my own best wills for evil seeing there can never come good out of what is altogether corrupt as our will is become through sin so that no good can proceed from it Whatever is good must proceed from God And whatever is evil from the Devil and the corrupted will of man It is as a fire which kindles in our nature luxury anger and all sorts of intemperance it is insatiable never satisfied ever desiring what it hath not restless in its desires turbulent in its searches ever panting and never refreshed nor content in the end our proper will creates us more evil than the Devil himself who could in no wise hurt us if our proper will did not consent thereto So that when we have overcome our own will we have overcome the devil also For he can never make us sin but in moving our will to submit to him It is for that that I said man can never have a greater enemy than his proper will and consequently every one in particular and all men in general ought to make war with their proper wills yet how few esteem it their enemy and a great many idolize it esteeming themselves happy that they can follow it in every thing without considering that it brings death to the soul and hinders the will of God to be fulfilled in us For he that follows his own will is not subject to the will of God seeing these two are always contrary So that he who will accomplish the will of God must of necessity renounce his own will and who will learn of J. Christ meekness and lowliness must refuse every thing to his proper will and so be shall possess in his soul peace quiet and tranquility of Spirit which I pray God grant you by renouncing your proper will which is the only means to make you happy in this world and to all eternity as wishes she that desires your Salvation Holstein near Gottorp Castle 5 Feb. 1672. ANTONIA BOURIGNON THE III. LETTER Men can sufficiently know the will of God if they would perform it To the same shewing him while he perswaded himself that the will of God is not sufficiently manifest in every thing that we might accomplish it denying our own that the will of God may be known and is sufficiently manifested in the commands of God which Jesus Christ proposeth so Clearly Saying Learn of me for I am meek and Lowly and humble of heart My Child I Believe you understand sufficiently by my former what that meekness and lowliness is which we must learn of J. Ch. how it is pleasant to obey how mans proper will is corrupted by sin and how we must now fight with and overcome it if we will find peace in our souls quiet of conscience and tranquility in our Spirit But you cannot comprehend how you may so know the will of God in every thing to follow it in quitting your proper will Believe me that scruple proceeds from your corrupt nature which would willingly be dispensed or excused from being obliged to renounce your proper will
them and to conserve them Some of the Pagans having discover'd that threw all their Gold and Money into the sea to be freed from the care and disquiet of keeping it and live with liberty of Spirit Which should confound the Christian who employs all the force of his body and industry of his mind to acquire Riches so burthensom to have and troublesome to keep when the Pagans by the Light of nature have had them in contempt and thrown them from them which they did because they had a true knowledge of themselves and of natural things And thence also did they despise the Honours and Pleasures of this life and seeing them so miserable and of so short continuance one counted it not worth the pains to build a House to lodge in being content with a barrel to defend him from Sun and Rain Another seeing that he could conveniently enough carry Water into his Mouth in the hollow of his Hand would no more use a Cup. So firmly have these Pagans despised this present life that they would not take any pleasure therein nor use created things but for urgent necessity and the least that might be rejecting what 's more And so they did because they knew that all the pleasures and Honours of this World are vain false and deceitful that they might obtain true ones which are eternal they longed therefore to be delivered from this miserable life which they esteemed a Prison a Valley of Tears as in truth it is But men now adays discover not that they esteem themselves happy in their Miseries and rich in their Poverty they delight in their Chains and Bonds by blindness of spirit and for want of knowing themselves and the things they so prise and so they esteem him happy who can take his pleasure in eating and drinking recreations and other carnal satisfactions Yet such are abundantly more miserable than those that live soberly and chastly and in poverty He that can content himself with little hath no need of much and is more joyful in his retiredness of spirit than if he were in the midst of pleasant and divertising company Beside he needs not use much labour or trafique to gain money Also he that lives soberly is better content with his course fare than they that follow their appetites which are insatiable by all their Dainties And he that lives chastly keeps his liberty and the repose of his Conscience And he that does not delight in company and divertisments does not fear displeasing men nor studies anxiously to be acceptable to them as others who take delight in them They must be cloathed and behave themselves after the fashion of the World and for that they must gain money that they may be well treated as others which requires a continual care to provide all that nothing be wanting that they may appear like others and that is a slavery from which we cannot be delivered but by quitting the World For he that will please the World hath lost his liliberty and cannot serve himself He is as a hired Servant subjected to all sorts of Vanities to the great ones and wise ones of the world whom he fears and respects more than God himself and withal that they reckon themselves happy to be so engaged and bound to the World and its vanities to which they willingly yield themselves Slaves For if they would retain their liberty they would disengage themselves from these human regards and withdraw from worldly creatures without yielding their spirit to be bewitched in thinking its Slavery to be a Liberty and its Fetters to be Chains of Gold for Ornament which is meer falshood and vanity for to serve God only is to reign and to serve the World is to be a Slave Which these wise Pagans knew well and therefore contemned the World and its honours and pleasures Yea some of them cared not to be visited by Kings and Emperors so that one of them desired and bid a King that came to visit him Stand by and be gone complaining That he kept from him what he could not give namely by interrupting from him the Sun-shine which he esteemed more valuable than all the Kingdoms of the World For which they had good reason for the greatest Charges afford also the greatest Troubles and he that is over others is servant of all for he must take care of them and rule and govern them as he will answer to God which may disquiet and vex him all the days of his life and puts in hazard his eternal Salvation For he must not only reckon for himself but also for all that have been under him and bear for and with them the punishment of all that they have done amiss by order sufferance or for want of instruction and correction according to the justice of God Therefore is it that a Superior is more miserable than another in time and in eternity which we may observe even in the Master of a Family who must take care and travail to entertain his Wife Children and servants while they are often without care knowing that their Master must feed and cloath them in due time that they want nothing in which they are much happier than their Masters for they have only one service to perform and their master is burthened with several Yet such is the blindness of men that every one desires Charges Estates Superiorities and Masterships which they could not desire if it were not by an air of pride which the Devil hath inspired into their minds otherways it were impossible that men should seek after Charges but do their utmost to evite them As several Saints have done formerly some lest they should be obliged to undertake the charge of Bishops that was offered to them retired privately to evite it and even one of the Popes considering the heavy burthen of his Charge exchanged his Popedom for a Desart So afflicting are Charges and Superiorities for them that have attained to know the truth of things and their own misery and frailty and so they have contemned them and thought it enough to see to themselves and desired not a Posterity to succeed to their Miseries which they knew too well to desire them for their Posterity They loved rather to live chastly than to procreate Children so miserable as themselves In which they were very wise being we see that in effect men wax worse every day and the Children are worse than their Fathers and Childrens Children yet worse because of the great corruption that is now among men which augments even visibly So that he that knows the Truth will be loath to multiply this perverse Generation but will expect that men resume a true Christian Life and so may multiply in the spirit of Jesus Christ a holy Generation Lo what they that are wise desire but the ignorant think it a happiness to produce Children Heirs of their Miseries because themselves do not know them and so glory in their shame without perceiving it
man from the will of God who had created him to delight himself with him and willed for that that he should love him with all his heart There cannot be delight but with what is beloved and therefore will God be loved of man with all his heart and that he place his affections in nothing else but in him only The Devil no sooner perceived that but he enticed him by the five natural senses which are as the five windows of our heart to withdraw his heart and affections from God and to place them on visible and sensible things The Devil then first moved Adam's heart to regard the beautiful Creatures which God had created for him he moved also his sense of hearing to give attention to the false perswasions of that old Serpent who made him believe that he should know Good and Evil if he did eat the fruit of the Tree which God had forbid him to eat of He moved him to put his Hand to touch that Apple his Smelling to smell it and his Taste to eat it and by that means the Devil carryed Adam's Heart and affection to the Creatures and turned him away from the Love he owed to God If the Devil could have drawn man's Heart directly to love him he had done it but because he is an invisible spirit he could not move the five natural Senses of man to love him And therefore he served himself of visible and sensible creatures to get himself indirectly loved by man that by moving man to self-love and to use all the other Creatures to satisfie his self-love and consequently withdraw him from the love of God which he hath done with too much success seeing he hath caused Adam and all that were to proceed from him to disobey against God and so made him abandon that dependance that he would no more depend but upon his own will and love nothing but himself Behold the miserable fall into which the Devil caused all men to fall into in Adam And they all in general are born in that misery and disobedience since the fall of Adam and come into the world with that evil inclination to love themselves and follow the corruption of their senses which breeds all sorts of sins because they are now moved by an evil spirit which is the Devil whence no good can proceed for the privation of all good is the possession of all evil So that he that hath rejected the love of God and would not renounce himself hath deprived himself of all sort of good seeing there is no other good but God and is fallen into all sorts of evil that is to say into the privation of all sorts of Good God never created any evil but man produced it when he deprived himself of the Love of God in which alone consists all sorts of Good And that is the thing they call sin which signifies to turn away and desert God who is all good and in the privation of him is all evil So that he that hath withdrawn his affections from God to place them in the love of himself or of any other creature hath abandoned all Good and embraced all sorts of Evil. For there can be no other evil but the privation of all good into which man engages himself when he carrys his love and affections to any thing else than God And what Adam did once by the instigation of the Devil men do it for their own particular as often as they set their affections on any thing beside God only Observe a little my Child how often you have fallen into the same sin with Adam and loved any other thing than God alone and also if you are not actually addicted to your self-love and retired from the love of your God but I am not surprised at it because you never knew that sin consisted in that and no person hath taught you it for the men of this time are ignorant of that truth as well as you and they that are esteemed the most virtuous are full of self-love though they think themselves free from sin so far does the heart of man deceive it self But for your part be wiser for though all men should go to perdition you must endeavour to save your own Soul The great number of damned would not diminish your torments if you should be damned with them but rather augment them by the augmentation of crys blasphemies and noysomeness of Fire and Brimstone which shall augment in Hell with proportion to the number of damned And therefore I counsel you to leave that common tract of the blindness of men which esteem nothing sin but the material things which they have prescribed one to another to be evil Things which God regards little seeing he is a pure Spirit whom not only these gross material things offend as they decifer sins as Drunkenness Robbery Whoredom and other material sins blameable before men but God is offended to see the heart of man cleave to and love things so vile since he created him to love his God only who will delight himself with him And yet man deserts God to delight himself in the satisfaction he takes in eating drinking and cloathing and recreation with any other creature Which hugely displeases God and man becomes his enemy by disobedience while he acts against the designs God had in creating him after his own image and likeness to take his delights with him notwithstanding man against the intention of God delights in himself and the Creatures that are less than himself For whatsoever is created under Heaven is much below man who is as the head and principal of all the works of God and was established over all the other inferiour works of God being made as a little God in his divine nature which is enclosed in his Humanity But the Devil envious of his happiness from the instant of his creation strove to make him lose that part of the divinity which God had bestowed on him he rendered him sensual and earthly to make him leave the love of divine and heavenly things which alone he ought to have loved and by that means he had enjoyed all the other creatures at pleasure as master and Lord of all that was subjected to him But the proud Devil could not suffer man in dominion over the other Creatures he being rejected and banisht from the friendship of God deprived of all good and replenisht of all evil so he by Rage and Envy attempted to destroy man with himself and make him companion of his miseries and seeing man composed of a body and a spirit he insinuated into his spirit endeavouring to unite himself with him under pretext of procuring good to him and so made him imagin that he should know all things as God if he would eat the fruit God had forbid him to eat of and these thoughts being entred into Adam's spirit gained his affection and made him forget the Love and Obedience which he owed to God beginning to love
will not promise that you shall have in his service sensual Pleasure or worldly Riches and vain Contentment but I promise you assuredly Quiet of Conscience Tranquillity of Spirit an inward Peace and contentment in your Soul Which are things far more estimable than the vain Pleasures and impure Contentments and aboundance of the Riches of this world which can never satisfie our souls being they are spiritual and cannot consequently be satisfied with material things Therefore is it that there was never any man perfectly content and satisfied in this world unless he loved God with his whole heart There is no other but such an one who can be entirely content for only the Love of God is capable fully to satisfie our souls for they are little divinities which cannot be fully contented out of God from whom they proceeded Therefore must you my Child labour to attain to that love for when you have truely found it you shall have all things and you shall reign over all the world having in contempt all that is not God And you have no violence to use with God to obtain his love seeing he gives it liberally and freely to all that desire and ask it and even compels men by an express Command which he hath given them but you must do a little violence to your self to obtain that love because your affections are carried to other things than him so you must reclaim them and constrain them to return to their God and in that you shall have so many combats as you have habitudes to love other things than God If you be then strongly addicted to self-love or Love of other Creatures your combats shall be so much the greater But the business deserves suffering well seeing after we shall enjoy so great Good temporal and eternal we should spare nothing to gain such a Treasure the Pain shall pass swiftly and the Joy endure eternally And therefore you must suffer willingly to retire your affections from earthly things and place them in God alone I have sufficiently shown you in my last that that is good pleasant honourable and profitable It remains for you now to put it in practice Examin once what it is that you love beside God and then detest that love and withdraw from it your heart If you love objects without your self flee from them as the enemies of your good loose from them your heart and desire no more to see them And if your Affections be occupied in Self-love remove them from an object so little lovely to place them in God who only merits your affections and nothing else Protest then against that natural inclination of Self-love and yield no more any thing to that nature but things purely necessary for it is your greatest enemy to which you must not furnish Arms to fight against you the better You must know that corrupt nature wars against the Love of God as far as you yield to it So give it the least satisfaction you can even till you have overcome it withdraw then from it your Affections you must restrain it as a Horse with Bridle that it kick not nor attempt but to serve the master you love Behold the means to render you free to love God with your whole heart for as soon as your affections are retired from all Creatures they will be assuredly carryed to love God their Creator because the Love of God is the element of our Soul in which only it can live recreate and repose it self That Love of God is the true center of our Souls whither they fall of themselves so soon as they are disengaged of other affections which are all vain It is as with a Stone thrown into the Air which will not rest till it fall on the Earth which is its center unless it be retained with bonds or other thing It is the very same with man's Soul which is thrown into the air of the Vanities of this world It cannot find rest there if we did not retain it by Force by Baits and Allurements of Affection for earthly things doubtless it would presently fall into the Love of God which is its center and element where it can rest and recreate it self to satisfaction because the Soul hath nothing more suitable to its nature than God from whom it proceeded and it can never repose till it be returned to him and when it is compelled to remain out of its element it is as a Fish which by Nets and Lines is forced out of the water which is to it very disagreeable and causes to it Death if it be not quickly returned into the water The same happens to the Soul when it suffers it self to be entangled in the nets of earthly Affections it must quickly die because it cannot find there an element suitable to its divine nature and so it languishes withers and dies an eternal death unless it break the nets of earthly Affections to return to its element which is the Love of God You must my Son labour that you may break all the bonds of earthly Affections and so soon as you feel affection for any thing that is not God rescind it quickly for it is a chain which retains you out of your element and though it should be painful for you to loose your heart from any thing to which it enclines these Pains shall quickly change into Consolations for you shall no sooner be returned into the Love of God but you shall bathe in ease and pleasure as fish newly returned to the water which is its element It is for that Jesus Christ says that his yoak is easie and his Burthen Light He calls a Yoak our natural inclinations because we must constrain and retain them and they are troublesom and grievous to bear For if we follow them we precipitate our selves into a thousand Evils seeing nature being corrupted by sin enclines always to evil And these evils are often troublesom and weighty to bear I know well that to us it seems grievous that we may not in any thing follow our natural inclinations but if we take on that Yoak for the Love of God it will become light and easie to us as Jesus Christ hath taught No person can dispence or excuse himself from bearing it since our first Father Adam laid it on the shoulders of all his Posterity all men in general and every one in particular are charged with the miseries which sin brought upon human nature They are all subject to Heat Cold Intemperance of the Air Hunger Thirst Infirmities and Diseases of the Body to Ignorance and Inconstancy of Spirit and the disorderly motions of Passions for sin hath brought all these things upon man's nature which God created altogether perfect but since all men have pertaken of Adam's Sin they are also subject to his Penitence That is the Yoak which God hath given man to satisfie his divine Justice So that all men coming into the world must bear that Yoak will they or not
pleasure in or consent thereto Although you should be tormented all the days of your life by evil thoughts that shall not make you lose the Grace of God so long as they displease you Yet you have cause to humble your self before God for your former sins for if you had never sinned and willingly given entry to evil thoughts the Devil would not have had the power to cause you to have them after against your will But what is past is no more in your power it remains only that you strive for the time to come never more to return to them Remain then faithful to God and persevere in your good resolution which you have taken to find true Virtue Never weary in that search it deserves well that you endure some trouble for even the worldlings endure yet much more in the service of the world For what Disquiets Cares and Travails does not a Merchant suffer to gain a little Money What pains must not a Gentleman take to preserve his Honour what Fatigue and Toil hath the Labourer and Tradesmam to gain their Food which you have in the service of God without trouble Will you not suffer a little Tentation of the Devil to arrive at true Virtue which is to buy at a very easie rate For all that the Devil can do to you is inconsiderable in respect of the joy which attends you in Heaven if you endure with perseverance he may well disturb your Spirit with divers Tentations but can never cause you to fall into sin without that your own will consent to him For when you have rendred your will to God he will keep it well and not permit that the Devil gain to make it consent unto Evil. And what more the Devil can do is but a small matter He should have no power over your will if he had not had so formerly so he could not have troubled you so often For I perceive often his contradictions against me by you against your will He knows that I belong to God and follow his will which he contradicts to his power but he cannot hinder that I know and practise it and so hinder that you should follow it and causes you to contradict it often in small things because he cannot obtain that you should oppose it in great things He gains always a little when he cannot gain much I know well that is against your will and what comes to pass against it comes assuredly from the Devil for a man cannot be contrary to his own proper will what he wills he desires and what he desires effects it so far as he can And therefore it is the Devil that does in him whatever he does against his own will If you comprehended well that my Son you would resist him more and would no more cause me so much pain by the contradictions you make to the Will of God which by his Grace I know in things great and small and it you must follow to your power But you have not yet sufficiently discovered the subtil Snares of that old Serpent nor overcome your self nor human considerations which are the Chains that yet hinder your flight to God but do not lose courage If I have overcome the world you may also overcome it and shall become master of the Devil and of your self God is not partial nor an Accepter of Persons He bestows his Grace upon all them that seek and desire it in truth I wish you these desires and remain Your Well-affected in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON Holste in near Gottorp Castle 27. April 1672. St. vet THE XII LETTER The Devil the Enemy of true Virtue Opposes it with all manner of Devices To the same to whom is shewn that it is necessary to know the Wiles of the Devil with which he opposes true Virtue that we may evite them which are shown in this and the following Letters as 1. That the Devil insinuates himself into what is sensual in man 2. That he suits himself to the impulses and inclinations of every one leaving the rest in quietness My Son I Spake much to you in my last of the tentation of the Devil because it is as necessary for you to know in order to your salvation as it is to know true virtue For if you know only the good you shall easily fall into the evil even without perceiving it and so shall sometimes follow evil thinking that you do well But since I have undertaken to teach you all things necessary to salvation I must speak to you of the malice of the Devil and how he tempts men to lead them to perdition as he hath already led many even such as have never discovered that is was the Devil who incited them to do evil and so have suffered themselves to be seduced insensibly by him though they have been persons well enclined yet have they been lost by ignorance For ignorance does not excuse before God Every one is obliged to know what he ought to do and leave that he may please the Lord. If then I should now speak to you only of the beauty and excellency of virtue and you knew not the Wiles of Satan whereby he attempts to hinder men to arrive at it doubtless you should never enjoy it he would stop you in the way by one means or other So that I judge it more necessary that you know the Malice of the Devil and the power he hath over men when he is unknown to them than to teach you the Deepest Mysteries of Divinity For all sciences together could not make you holy but the Malice of the Devil should lead you to Damnation if you knew it not Therefore I pray you to apply diligently your spirit to comprehend that all sorts of Evil come from the Devil as all sorts of Good comes from God There is only these two things that are good and evil So that whatsoever is good in Heaven or on Earth in all the Creatures in every place proceeds immediately from God and all that is evil in every thing comes from the Devil For he being by his sin separated from God is fallen into all evils There is no good but in God alone and in the privation of good consists all evil All that is infallible Evil then is no real thing and God never gave it a being but all good things come ever from God whence it follows that the privation of all good is all evil So that the Devil being seperated from God who is all good is consequently fallen into all evil which is nothing else but a privation of all good That miserable Nothing is the Devil who by his free will would separate himself from all good and it is that separation which makes all evil There can be no other evil but the want and deprival of all good seeing God never created Evil. Now nothing can have a being but what God created and having never created evil it cannot be other thing but a cursed
and the Evil that I would not that I do and that to show us that there is in us an evil spirit who is the Devil who often acts in us contrary to our will Which is but too true and what every one may experiment in himself provided he will examin himself narrowly For though the Devil be an invisible spirit yet he renders himself visible by his operations And since there is no other Evil but the Devil we must conclude that all the Evils we do against our will proceed from him only For he endeavours always to cause us to sin and to lose the grace of God that he may have us Companions of his miseries by causing us to lose all good which consists in the Grace of God to cause us to fall into all sorts of Evil which is the privation of all sorts of Good The Devil is in that state and so attempts to beget others miserable as himself and that with as much Care Labour and Desire as men can bestow to beget their like Behold the cursed instrument which acts always in man to make him lose the Grace of God Which you must know my Son if you will arrive at true Virtue For if the Devil remain unknown to you he will gain you by one means or other it is all one to him provided he catch men and he hath divers sorts of Snares proper for the condition of every one He spies out the inclinations of every man that he may attaque him where he is weakest When he sees one addicted to covet the Riches of this world he will give him prosperity that he may fix his heart thereon If that succeed then hath he gained the man seeing his affections cannot be unto God so long as as they are in his money Not that the Devil can give men Riches for he is but a poor Wretch who hath nothing but miseries but he hath power over the minds of many men whom he moves to labour and give profit to such as he hopes to gain by addictedness to Riches So that he brings forth occasions to make them prosper by his adherents Now they that know not the Wiles of the Devil think that it is the Blessing of God when they so prosper The Devil so blinds their understanding that they discover not even that these Prosperities cause them to fall into several sins For he that is rich becomes ordinarily proud he exceeds in Pomp Vanity Delicious Fare Idleness Luxury and divers other Excesses which he could not commit before he was rich So it is easie to conjecture that it could not be by the Blessing of God he acquired these Riches But men are at present so blind in that point that they attribute to God what the Devil does to draw them to Hell one by oneway and another by another For he is so subtil that he will be loath to tempt one by things contrary to their inclination If he sees one liberal and that covets not the Riches of the World he will make him exceed in Liberality in giving prodigueing and neglecting what is necessary for himself and so he will make him give his Riches to them that will offend God by what he gives them And if he see another Addicted to Luxury Blasphemies or Drunkenness he is often content with some of these sins and lets him do well in other things For it is enough to the Devil if he hold us bound by one only sin wherein we have our affections that is enough to keep us out of the Graces of God seeing we must not with-draw our heart to place it in any thing but in God alone Yet the Devil always incites man to do all the evil he can But there are many who would not give themselves to many Vices though they be addicted to some one Such sorts of persons are not much molested by tentations of the Devil but he lets them rest quietly in the sin to which he sees them most addicted without tempting them by others When then he hath no hope to carry men to greater Evils he contents himself to keep their souls fast by one Chain until Death that he may after drag them to hell with him The misery is that men will not be aware for they that are not addicted to many sins have always hopes of their salvation I confess says one I'm enclined to Luxury but I bestow much on the poor and will wrong no man Another says It is true I 'm given to Drinking but I am kind and obliging to my neighbour A third It 's true I love Riches and Honours but I also attend the Service of God I go frequently to Church and to Solemnities and Devotions A fourth says I 'm given to feeding and delicacy but I hate no person And so with a thousand Excuses they think to evite damnation and to abtain salvation while they are not addicted to many Vices and Sins But the Devil derides all these Excuses he would have of all sorts of persons in Hell them that commit more sorts of sins and those also that are addicted to one or two sorts For there are in Hell all sorts of states and degrees even as there is in the world where one is of higher condition than another Those that have here committed more sins shall be in greater damnation in Hell than others I pray God deliver you from that unhappiness and remain Your Well-affected in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON Holstein near Gottorp Castle 29. April 1672. St. vet THE XIII LETTER Whatever is Sensible to Nature is not the Work of Grace or Virtue To the same to whom is shewn a third Artifice of the Devil whereby he perswades men that they may satisfie their senses in the state of Regeneration and praising God And a fourth by which he affixes their minds to the spiritual sweetness and Delights wherewith they that desire to follow Virtue are affected My Son I Have not yet sufficiently detected to you the Devils cunning craftiness although I have shown you how he useth to tempt men by the things they are most enclined to which I hope you now understand well But you know not yet how he tempts spiritual persons and them that seek after true Virtue he uses more endeavour to gain these than for them of the world for these he leaves to do as they please knowing well that they need but follow their corrupt Nature to damn themselves without his tempting of them much For the corruption of nature comes from the Devil and we need but follow it to become little Devils as if we but follow the Light of God we shall become little Gods for the good spirit and the evil also beget always their like when joyned and united to the soul of man They produce always fruits of their own nature When man 's will then joyns with the Corrruption of his Nature it needs no other Devil from without to tempt it having in it self that little Devil
but it would soon revive if they granted to their nature eases and pleasures But the soul that is regenerated in Jesus Christ knows well that Nature must be kept under subjection and restraint during this short life which is a time of penitence where we must suffer if we will enjoy after Which shews that those who say they may enjoy all beautiful and good things here praising God are very ignorant and deceived by the Devil For they think themselves to be regenerated in the Spirit of Jesus Christ which is false seeing his Spirit doth not teach that we should taste the Pleasures of this life and use all that 's good and pleasant But he teaches penitence and renouncing our selves to be poor in Spirit to forsake all that we have to watch and be sober All that is not to enjoy whatever is good and pleasant For Jesus Christ teaches to take the least and to choose the lowest place If then these persons had but attained however little of the Spirit of Jesus Christ they would be far from saying that they have overcome the corruption of their nature and are renewed in the Spirit of Jesus Christ while they do things quite contrary to what he did and taught For if it were permitted to the Regenerate to take their pleasure and to enjoy whatever is good and pleasant in nature doubtless Jesus Christ would have done so seeing there was never any person regenerated and had overcome the corruption of Nature so perfectly as he And yet he speaks of nothing but suffering becoming poor bearing the Cross and denying our selves These imprudents must think themselves more perfect than he seeing they say they may well taste all what is good and pleasant in nature provided they thank God Notwithstanding our Lord deprived himself of all these things to give us example Do you not see my Son that it is a cunning device of Satan to deceive them that aspire unto Virtue For he fills their Spirit with presumption assoon as he hath got them to digest some curious speculations of the spiritual life They imagin that they are already regenerated in the Spirit of Jesus Christ although they live altogether according to the corrupt nature of the old Adam Such persons are very far from true Virtue And it is to be feared that they shall never arrive at it seeing they think themselves in it already but they are far from it and they had better never have begun to be virtuous than to take up false Virtues These sins are worse than others because of their Hypocrisie They think themselves virtuous and they are yet full of Vices and Sins I despair more of these apparent devout persons than of the persons of the World who have any Fear of God for they have the beginning of Virtue which th'others have not who cannot fear God believing themselves regenerated in the Spirit of Jesus Christ They fancy themselves to be in Assurance and they are in the midst of Perils and Dangers of losing their souls by Presumption and the Delusion of the Devil who attempts always to turn aside them that desire to follow true virtue He first by some inward Consolation and sweetness endeavours to fix them on it by self-love for corrupt nature loves to be comforted But the new Beginner no sooner takes his pleasure in these sensible Sweetness and Consolations but he falls The reason is that he will not mind his duty in resisting the corruption of his nature when he is fastned to these sensibilities But will think he hath already overcome it when he feels delight and consolation in Spiritual things whereas before he felt none but in natural things And that makes him believe that he is already at the height of Perfection though he be not yet at the first degree which is the Tears of Penitence and regret for offending God and the desire to walk henceforth in his Fear which is the beginning of all Virtue But the Devil diverts that Fear and perswades them that they are already virtuous because they desire to become so And so does the Devil amuse those that begin and he would willingly keep them all their life with Sweetness inward Consolations which the Devil can give and also man 's own Nature For as soon as they with-draw from the Vanity of the World they find great quiet since it is a Slavery to serve the World There they torture and rack their understanding by care to maintain themselves well in honour and reputation to be well cloathed and adorned and to be followed and esteemed What Diligence must not a Worldly Person use to please men What Fear of incurring Disgraces How must he dissemble and suffer to have mens Favour and keep it How much toil to gain sufficiently to maintain him honourably What Device and Cunning must he use to get Esteem and to avoid Contempt In fine he that serves the World hath nothing but toil and disquiet but he that hath resolved to quit it to serve God begins to be loosed from the weighty yoak of pleasing the World and to find himself in much more quiet and contentment Which is pleasant to nature but if it please and fix it self upon these Pleasures it will not advance in Virtue but live in self-love instead of the love of God And in that the Devil forwards Nature mightily in augmenting these sweetnesses and inward Consolations to fix the person the more to them God bestows also Sweetness and consolations upon them that begin to draw them the more easily from Earthly Affections to the Love of himself by sensible Consolations which the soul finds in his service But whencesoever they come we must never rest thereon nor take pleasure in any thing that is not God For all Sin came into the World by man's loving the Creatures and taking his pleasure in them And when we take pleasure in Inward Consolation we turn from God in loving that sensibility It is permitted to feel and perceive them since God gives them sometimes but we cannot addict our selves to them without sinning no more than to other things beside God For our whole heart ought to be employed in the Love of God only I know well the Devil attempts to turn us from that Love by all sorts of occasions and he no sooner sees one retire from the Love of the World Riches Honours and Pleasures but he attacques them by the affection of Virtue and inward consolations to with-draw their Hearts thereby from that pure Love of God Be then upon your guard my Son lest the Devil ensnare you under pretext of Virtue Which Care she wisheth you who remains Your Well-affected in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON Holstein near Gottorp Castle May 3. 1672. st vet THE XIV LETTER The Devil Transforms himself into an Angel of Light To the same to whom is discovered a fifth and sixth Artifice of the Devil by which he causeth men to apply themselves to the knowledge of
the Truth and Mysterial and Spiritual things to the end that 5 they may comprehend them or 6 that they may unseasonably instruct others My Son I Have not yet exposed to you all the Wiles and Devices of the Devil as it is impossible for me to discover them all but I shall yet tell you of more which I have experimented my self and also such as I have seen in others You must then know in what manner he treats with spiritual persons otherwise he might seduce you without your knowing it and you should sometimes take for Operations of God what were Operations of the Devil For he transforms himself into an Angel of Light and does in us almost the same things which the Spirit of God does he gives light to our understanding and makes it conceive mystical things and deep divine mysteries for having been an Angel of God he knew his will but did not put it in practice He attempts to cause men to do the very same He does not hinder them to read mystical things and to take pleasure in them while they are in themselves beautiful and pleasant He gives also curiosity to desire to understand them that they may be able to speak well of them but he hinders with all his might that they should bring them into practice For he knows well that it is written that he that knew the Will of his Father and did it not should be beaten with many stripes His Malice is so great that it is his satisfaction to see man in the greatest miseries and the deeper he sees man precipitated in Damnation the more he rejoiceth and for that is it he excites always to do more Evil and knowing that it is a greater Evil to know mystical things and not practise them than to be ignorant of them or unable to know them He gives light to the man's understanding to make him understand and comprehend well these divine things and so much the more as he reaps his advantage seeing he that understands nothing of these will be always more humble than he that does understand them well For he boasts and glories without reason but the other fears God because of his Ignorance and accounts himself unworthy to receive his Graces while he can say nothing in divine things whereas the other because he can thinks himself a Saint I have known several in that state whom I could not help because they thought themselves wiser than me in mystical things Yea I have seen clearly that the Devil teaches mystical things For divers Sorcerers have told me that the Devil taught them divine things and catechized them even as a Missionary and I found in effect that they understood as much of divinity as some Divines who have studyed in it all their life I knew in particular one man who spoke as Divinely as an Angel of Heaven could and when I heard him at first I thought to have found another self and remained several years in that Opinion For I had never heard any speak so profoundly of the internal and mystique Life as him but at length he discovered to me that all was but Hypocrisie Which I could hardly believe because of the good Opinion I had conceived of him and his inward disposition So I asked him where he had learnt those profound Secrets of the inward and mystique Life seeing he had not studied nor understood Latin He answered That he had an Ambition to be esteemed of men and to effect it he had neither Birth nor money being a poor countreymans Son but seeing that Virtue was esteemed among Persons of Virtue and Honour he conceived that by learning it he should be esteemed of such persons which did also succeed to him For every one esteemed him as a Saint as he had in his Discourse and outward Comportment the appearance of it He was Modest walked among men without regarding them he was always the first at Church on days of Solemnities and Devotions he gave liberally to the Poor and sometimes put off the Cloaths of his own body to cover some miserable Body he saw Naked because he had no substance to give them Money He ate and drank soberly sincere and true in his words shewed to be in continual Communion with God And with all these fine apparent Virtues he was by compact joyned to the Devil as he confessed several times himself at the end of his life and died enraged renouncing God and calling upon the Devils of whom he complained because of the Torments they caused him to suffer Behold how men deceive themselves in believing them to be virtuous who can speak well of Virtue and the Devil himself teaches his Adherents to talk well For that man told me that the Devil incited him to buy several good Books as Taulerus Cantsvelt Johannes a Cruce and other good mystique Authors that by reading them and retaining what he read he might speak like them and by such discourse be esteemed one enlightned of God Notwithstanding that Light came from the Devil which befalls also many others who are but Beginners in Virtue even against their intention and without that they perceive it and that to stay them in these Lights and pleasant Speculations of Divine things Therefore my Son be never curious to know much nor that you may be able to talk well of Virtue but be careful to practise well what you know For God will call you to an accompt of it Seeing much shall be required of him to whom much is given Be faithful to the first light God gives you and he shall give you more afterward Go not out of your self to communicate it to others before you have put it in practice your self The Devil uses also that deceit and thereby turns away many from following true virtue For he gives them at the beginning a certain fervour and desire to convert all the World And that assoon as they have in themselves any sensible joy and sweetness or have received some particular Light from God or have taken the resolution to abandon the World to serve God they would gladly impart all that to others before they have received sufficiently themselves and by that means the Devil distracts their minds and makes the little they had to vanish without any profit arriving to others It is of such persons the Scripture says that they rise too early in the morning For they cannot give true Virtue to others while they have it not themselves And so all goes away in words and distractions and in the end themselves remain with empty souls from which by little and little is dispelled all the humour they had tasted of Virtue They think to do good to others and they profit no person but lose their time unprofitably Be aware of this Deceit my Son and go not out from your own heart before you be sent There are enough who make it their trade to Teach others but very few that teach themselves If it come that you
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
her the text of the gospel with promise to submit my understanding unto the Light of the Holy Spirit entirely to my power She said Sir that Submission is the preparation requisit For if you would act the Doctor or wise learned man you should put opposition unto the Light of the Holy Spirit source of all Wisdom You must always believe and maintain that he is more wise than all the Doctors that ever were in the world and that we learn more by a little ray of his Light than by an hundred years of most assiduous study Therefore render all your Wisdom Ignorances and become as an Infant newly born again that you may receive these new Intelligences which shall give you more light than ever all the Old Fathers together have had because they have never discovered the hidden Treasures because the time was not yet come Every one spoke according to his thoughts and not as it was really because it was a closed Book which none was worthy to open but Jesus Christ himself since he was killed and put to death There is not hitherto any thing accomplished of all the Holy Scriptures but that death which shall disclose the marvellous things of God which have remained hidden until now and begin to be revealed unto them who shall be humble of heart but the wise shall perish with their wisdom Therefore do I exhort you Sir unto Simplicity and Submission that you may receive the Light which begins to soring in our time and see the new heavenly Jerusalem descend adorned as a Bride unto the day of her Nuptials The League and alliance of God with men shall then be accomplished The Earth shall then be renewed All Creatures shall leave their Malignities which shall be confined unto the center of the Earth to torment the Bodies and Souls of all them who would not submit their wills unto God They shall receive there pains according to their sins being over-whelmed with those Malignities which these sins have caused CONFERENCE XXVI Declareth the Necessity of becoming a Child to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven renouncing all Worldly Wisdom and all Human Abuses I asked her How it were possible to leave all Sciences humanly acquired to become a Child when one is an Aged Man SHe said Sir except you do it you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven It is Jesus Christ who saith it and he cannot lie but he urgeth that necessity of becoming Children by Threatenings of not entering into the Kingdom of heaven which were the greatest evil that can befal man It were better never to be born than not to be saved and seeing we cannot be saved without becoming Children we must do it at any rate Would you Sir esteem more the Honour of the World or your acquired Science than the Kingdom of heaven That were very lamentable seeing all the things of this world do but pass as the Bird which cutteth the Air and leaveth no trace of its way after it so we when we shall be passed through this world there shall remain nothing of our Sciences or Studies nor of our Honour and Reputation all endeth with us and if there remain in the spirit of others any reputation that we were wise and learned that is insensible unto us after death If we have pleased our selves therein in our life the sufferings of these complacencies attend us in the other world and instead that it should be a happiness to us that we have been wise it is a great misery to us to have lost the Kingdom of Heaven by the same wisdom Forsake all these human Considerations Sir and become a Child though you be aged You must make the more haste lest time and life escape Never consult flesh and blood for they deceive and corrupt us Let us consult only our divine Soul which is reasonable and it shall tell you that nothing is better nor more reasonable than to abandon our free will unto God who hath given us it and to submit it unto his government as a little Child that on that depends our eternal Happiness and that nothing else can save us because without that Dependance there is no Salvation I said unto her That I knew most clearly that truth that there was no Salvation without the Dependance of God asking how I could now ignore Sciences formerly acquired seeing I could not make my self not to have them She said Sir nothing can hurt you if all be submitted unto God You cannot ignore what you know by means of your Studies but you can well submit all these Sciences unto God and account them as Ignorances as in effect they are Apply no more your spirit unto the study of Sciences and believe them to be all vain in respect of the Wisdom of God You shall know that you are abandoned unto his will when you seek no more any thing upon Earth neither Learning nor Wisdom nor desire to know any thing else but what may render you acceptable unto God For he that is abandoned unto him without Deceit moves himself no more but for what regards his Glory all the rest toucheth him no more If he is wise or ignorant it is indifferent unto him Wisdom serves him for what regards the Glory of God and in no wise to rule upon Earth knowing well that he who is abandoned unto God without Sciences is as great as he who is so with much Learning and even as we may well be Poor of Spirit in possessing Riches so can we possess much learning and withal be simple of Spirit when we have submitted all our Learning unto God he serves himself of it as he pleaseth but so long as we will rely on and make account of them we are not yet become Children to have entry into the Kingdom of Heaven And seeing God sheweth you Sir that there is no Salvation without dependance on him put your self promptly therein without considering if you have Sciences or any thing else For as the Proverb is God makes Mercury of all wood we must not regard our selves but his will who desires that all men of whatever conditions hold themselves under his Dependance remitting their free wills into his power without using the same themselves I said unto her That absolutely and irrevocably I abandoned my self unto God to be a true Child but that I had yet some repugnancy to renounce the Church She said Ha Sir you must never renounce the Holy Church but rather die but you must only renounce the abomination which is crept into the Romish Church of these days Do you not see that she hath falsified her faith unto her lawfull Husband Jesus Christ and hath not remained faithful unto him I should be glad that you could shew me one only point of the Doctrine of Jesus Christ that she observes or one only thing that she practiseth that is not contrary to the Life and Doctrine of her
before we ask it And if we think to gain time for Prayer by watching the Devil will disturb our spirit for want of sufficient sleep that he may weaken us and in short time destroy us I have experienced all these things and sometimes fallen into so great extremities that if God had not marvelously maintained me I should have been dead long ago by excess in fasting watching and lying hard which God hath since shewen me to be but a disorderly fervour which cannot be long continued and that the Devil finds his advantages in it and easily insinuates therein thoughts of vain-glory because they think themselves better than others while they use these mortifications of the body though they be no more but means to mortifie our Intemperances and Luxury For if we were well disposed we should not need Watchings Fastings and other Macerations of the body It is not our Flesh that can sin but the will only which we must compel more to do well than our flesh seeing this is but as a Horse which ought not to be whipt when he rides willingly which he does as well covered with a Sadle of Leather as with one of Velvet and contrariwise Even so our Heart may be as virtuous when our Body is covered with velvet as when with Leather seeing the outward habit brings nothing to the Soul Beside a simple habit covers often Hypocrisie and causes pride in the Heart And therefore we must never be tyed to these outward things for the Devil thereby finds opportunity But we must be tyed to God alone on whom the Devil hath no power as he hath on all our outward actions even the best For the Devil furrs himself into works of spiritual Mercy and Charity he perswades us that it is well done to instruct the Ignorant and admonish the faulty which in effect profits no more in this miserable time when men perish not by Ignorance but by pure malice For every one would profess to teach virtue and very few will practice it I exercised my self about nine years in teaching of the ignorant without profiting any thing in the salvation of their Souls On the contrary I had the dissatisfaction to hear some of them say to whom I had shewn the Christian Doctrine and Virtue That they could now do greater Evils than they could do before because now they could cover their wickednesses with feigned Virtues which they could not do before they learn't to talk of Virtue So it is not advisable that we distract our selves to go and teach others unless we see that our teaching will be profitable to their Salvation whom we would teach and we must use in this great discretion otherwise the Devil vould amuse us all our life in teaching the Ignorant thinking we did a work of spiritual Mercy which yet should be no profit to others and much hurt to our selves We must indeeâ—â—ave Charity to teach our Neighbour but not exceed therein nor have an indiscreet Zeal toward such as search not after the Salvation or Perfection of their Souls themselves For the Devil himself would feign ignorance and desire of us instruction to distract us from our own perfection I have known persons possessed of the Devil who went continually searching pious Souls to be instructed in Christian Perfection These are such as the scripture calls silly Women ever learning and never come to the knowledge of the Truth For they care not to put it in practice although they knew it but seek only to amuse us and cause good persons to lose their time who cannot advance in Virtue while they are attempting in vain to procure it to others There is the profit the Devil draws from works of spiritual Mercy both in instructing Ignorants and admonishing the Faulty for so evil is our time become that we can no more resist the evil it is enough to endure and suffer it with regret If you should speak to admonish men for their Oaths Whoredoms Robberies Lies and Infidelities and other gross Sins they would leap in your face curse you despise you calumniate and hate you So that instead of doing them any work of Mercy you should excite them to greater sins and put your self in danger of being abused and persecuted without any profit As I have known persons zealous for the Glory of God who could not suffer the wicked in their presence and reproved their Vices and admonished them upon occasions And these have often run the hazard of being killed by them they admonisht the Devil attempting so to extirpate them Which also happened to one of my Friends who was Poisoned for being over-zeaâ—â—â—â— for the Glory of God and over-fervent in opposing Evil And therefore we must in all things use discretion if we would evite the snares which the Devil spreads every where to catch souls Yet we must not therefore neglect to instruct the Ignorant and admonish the Faulty when we find persons disposed to profit thereby Yea we must have in our heart the Charity of St. Paul who wished to be accursed for his brethrens Salvation Which appears to be an excessive Zeal but it proceeded from the Charity of his Heart toward his Neighbour and forgetting of himself For he regarded more the Glory of God than his own Salvation or Advantage seeing he was but one person to glorify God and his brethren a great number So that excess could not come of the Devil seeing he had no interest or profit by it He knows that God does the will of them that he loves and so he might foresee that St. Paul would obtain the Prayer which he made for his Brethren He knew also that God would not damn St. Paul for his great Charity which he carryed to his Brethren offering his own Salvation that they might be saved He could have no extrance there seeing Charity is God himself on whom the Devil hath no power but he hath much over all our external actions when they are done without discretion Therefore was it St. Anthony said Discretion is the greatest of all Virtues seeing they are disorderly when not regulated with Discretion For Fastings Watchings Prayers and Works of Mercy and other Virtues are not good when Discretion is wanting It is good to admonish and instruct our Neighbour in a fit season and when he desires it but when he does not seek it or will not suffer it we must withdraw testifying that their imperfections and sins displease us without going to correct or restrain them authoritatively For God hath not given us our Brother in charge he is left free as well as we so we ought not to help him but by Charity as far as he hath need and desires it not farther God does equally the same with all men he pleased to have them free and so constrains them in nothing Now we must not presume to be more just or charitable than God in willing to obliege our Neighbour to do well by force and forsake his Sins and
but that is only an excuse for their sin 'T is true the Devil can tempt man against his will but cannot make him sin against his will he may trouble his spirit and make him remember what he should forget And forget what he ought to mind But if the person be well upon his guard and will not do evil he shall discover easily that that comes from the Devil being against his will and so will betake himself to continual Prayer to God which Jesus Christ hath so much recommended to us as most necessary for our salvation Since we have continually an Enemy to combat we must continually have Arms to defend us and that will be necessary all the days of our life That is it which the Apostle counsels us To pray always without ceasing Because we have always need of divine succour and help against the continual Assaults which the Devil gives us For it is his business and employ to do the most evil he can And as a Merchant accounts himself happy to gain much Money by his Trafick or an Artist by his Labours so also the Devil accounts himself happy in gaining many souls to himself that he may exercise on them his Cruelty and Malice And therefore he never ceases for his part to labour and invent new snares to catch the soul of man And when we shut the door of our heart to him on one side he attempts to enter by some window on the other So that all human wisdom is not able to discover all the Subtilties of Satan who being a most subtil spirit surpasses in subtilty the capacity of man's spirit And therefore is it that he must of absolute necessity use continual Prayer to discover the tentations of the Devil which he cannot know without a divine Light and yet less hath he power to resist them without the assistance of God Whom he ought continually to invocate and call for help without intermission Seeing the Devil never sleeps and watches over us when we rest But the strength of Faith and Hope in God can make us overcome the Devil and despise him as but miserable impotence Seeing he can never make us fall into any sins without the consent of our own will which refusing him he can in no wise hurt man although he should tempt him with all his might during all his life These tentations serve only for greater and true virtues to the man because he passes the time of his tryal in testifying his faithfulness to God while he does not consent to the tentations the devil offers And I account it a much happier state to be tempted than not to be so while we resist the tentations seeing they purge our souls and satisfie the Justice of God who hath in Justice enjoyned penitence for our sins which we must needs accomplish during the time of our tryal which God hath limitted since the creation of man And if we will not voluntarily suffer the tentations of the Devil now we must suffer aboundantly more sensible pains after our death when the soul being separated from this mortal body feels more vividly the separation from his God than it does when joyned with its mortal body which diverts the sense of that separation by its five natural senses which seeing hearing tasting smelling and feeling gross and earthly things are suspended and amused that he cannot feel so lively the separation of his soul from God and so charms his great misery with the amusements of earthly things Which are nothing but truely Charms and Bewitchings for though we see by experience that never any person in the world was fully satisfied and content with earthly things although enjoying all they could demand of them so love we them and that love ruins us from the Love of God without that we feel the pain of it But after death all these gross and earthly things being ended as to us thence shall we feel vividly the absence of God because not diverted more with other things and that shall endure until the time of our tryal shall be past which God alone knows how long it shall endure But it is most certain that he that will not voluntarily endure the tentations of the Devil in this present mortal life shall assuredly suffer them more sensibly after death seeing no evil shall remain unpunished and no good without recompense And he that does the good of resisting the Devil in not following his tentations must expect an everlasting Reward and therefore methinks not to be tempted in this mortal life is the greatest of all tentations Since it deprives us of the good of satisfying the Justice of God and oblieges us to suffer afterward more sensible pains And therefore my Son be not offended to feel the tentation of the Devil but resist it valiently for the Glory is in the combat and not in Idleness and Rest seeing while we feel not tentation it is a sign that the Devil holds us in a lethargique sleep to cause us to die an eternal death insensibly and without pain But when he combats us with all his forces it is a sign that he does not hold us and that he fears to lose us Therefore take courage and pray God with an humble heart that he may give you strength to overcome the Enemy But never say it is the Devil makes you do evil but smite on your Breast and confess your guilt since the Devil cannot compel you to do evil but only your perverse will when it consents to his tentations For if the Devil could speak when you say that it is he made you do evil and sin he would give you the lie and say that it was not he that made you sin but that it was your own will without the consent of which you cannot sin You may well sin without the Devil for his malice hath entered into us by Adam's first sin but the Devil cannot bring forth sin in us without our consent You are always free to do evil though the Devil do not tempt or compel you because your nature was corrupted by the first sin and thence all men from Adam bring with them in their nativity that corruption and inclination to evil But when man is arrived to the use of reason he ought thereby to discern good from evil and choose which he will follow Yea he hath a natural instinct which makes him discern evil from good for we see often a Child without any Discretion be ashamed for having done evil and his countenance testifies sufficiently that he knows when he commits evil And therefore we ought never to believe that we cannot discern good from evil to make choise for that is but to flatter our selves For lo the wickedest man in the world however blinded in his sins knows assuredly well enough when he does evil but he hath no will to change his wickedness into good or he hath not the courage to resist the Devil and that because he hath given him so