Selected quad for the lemma: tradition_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
tradition_n	book_n	holy_a	scripture_n	2,474	5	6.0561	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41099	The maxims of the saints explained, concerning the interiour life by the Lord Arch-bishop of Cambray &c. ; to which are added, Thirty-four articles by the Lord Arch-Bishop of Paris, the Bishops of Meaux and Chartres, (that occasioned this book), also their declaration upon it ; together with the French-King's and the Arch-Bishop of Cambray's letters to the Pope upon the same subject.; Explication des maximes des saints sur la vie interieure. English	Fénelon, François de Salignac de La Mothe-, 1651-1715.; Fénelon, François de Salignac de La Mothe-, 1651-1715. Correspondence.; Louis XIV, King of France, 1638-1715. Correspondence.; Noailles, Louis-Antoine de, 1651-1729.; Godet des Marais, Paul, 1647-1709.; Bossuet, Jacques Bénigne, 1627-1704. Instruction sur les estats d'oraison, où sont exposées les erreurs des faux mystiques de nos jours.	1698 (1698)	Wing F675; ESTC R6318	100,920	267

with all interessed motives of hope and fear Fear is brought to perfection by purifying it self it becomes a delicacy of love and a filial reverence in peace And it is then that chast fear which remains for ever and ever Likewise hope far from being lost is perfected by the purity of love and then it is a real desire and a sincere expectation of the fulfilling of the promises not only in general and in an absolute manner but also of the accomplishment of the promises in us and for us according to the good pleasure and will of God nay by the only motive of his good pleasure without any intermixture of our own interest This pure love is not yet satisfied with desiring no other recompence but God himself A slave entirely mercenary who should have a distinct faith of revealed truths might be willing to have no other reward but God alone because he would know him clearly as an infinite good and as being himself his true recompence or the only instrument of his felicity This mercenary Man in the life to come would have nothing but God alone but he would have God as Beatitude objective or the object of his Beatitude to refer it to his formal Beatitude namely to himself whom he would make happy and constitute himself as his ultimate end On the contrary whosoever loveth with a pure love without any mixture of self-interest is acted no more by the motive of his interest He wishes Beatitude to himself only because he knows that God will have it so and will have every one of us to desire it for his own glory If by an impossible supposition by reason of the promises which are meerly free God would annihilate the Souls of Just Men at the moment of their separation from the body or deprive them of the fruition of himself and keep them eternally under the temptations and miseries of this life as S. Austin supposes it or even make them to suffer far from him all the pains of Hell during all eternity as it is suppos'd by S. Chrysostom after S. Clement the Souls of this third state of pure love would not love or serve him with less fidelity Once more 't is true that this supposition is impossible upon the account of the promises because God hath given himself to us as a rewarder We cannot any more separate our happiness from God beloved with final perseverance but those things which cannot be separated in respect of the object may happen really to be so in respect of the motives God cannot fail of being the felicity of the faithful Soul but she may love him with so much impartiality that the enjoyment of a beatifying God increaseth not in the least the love she hath sor him without minding her self and that she would love as much though he were never to be the cause of her happiness Now to say that this abstraction of motives is but a vain subtilty is to be ignorant both of God's jealousie and of that of the Saints against themselves It is to give the name of subtilty to the nicety and perfection of Pure Love which the tradition of all Ages hath put in this abstraction of the motives This way of Speaking is precisely conformable to the whole general tradition of Christianity from the most Ancient Fathers to S. Bernard to all the most famous Scholastick Doctors from S. Thomas to those of our Age lastly to all those Mystical Men who have been Canoniz'd or approved by the whole Church in spight of all the contradictions they have suffered Nothing in the Church is more evident than this tradition and nothing would be more rash than to oppose it or to endeavour to shift it off This supposition of the impossible case here mentioned far from being an indiscreet and dangerous supposition of the Mysticks is on the contrary formally in S. Clement of Alexandria in Cassian in S. Chrysostom in S. Gregory of Nazianzen in S. Anselm and in S. Austin who have been followed by a great number of Saints II. False THere is a love so pure that it rejects that recompence which is God himself so that a Man will not have it any more in himself and for himself though we are taught by faith that God will have it in us and for us and commands us to will it as he doth for his own glory This love doth carry its impartiality so far even as to consent to hate God eternally or to cease from loving of him or else it tends to the destruction of filial fear which is nothing else but the niceness and delicacy of a Jealous love or it aims to the exstinguishing in us all hope forasmuch as the purest hope is a peaceable desire to receive in us and for us the effect of the promises in conformity to the good pleasure of God and for his pure glory without any mixture of self-interest or else it tends to the hating of our selves with a real hatred so that we cease from loving in our selves for God's sake his worth and his image as we love it out of charity in our Neighbour The speaking at this rate is to give with a horrid Blasphemy the name of pure love to a brutish and impious despair and to the hatred of the work of our Creator It is by a monstrous extravagance to affirm That the principle of conformity with God makes us contrary to himself It is a going about by a chimerical love to destroy love it self It is to put Christianity out of the hearts of Men. III. ARTICLE True SOuls must be left in the exercise of love that 4. Love See pag. 8. which is yet mixt with the motive of interest as long as the power of grace shall leave them in it One ought also to reverence these motives scattered through all the Books of holy Scripture in all the most precious monuments of Tradition and in all the Prayers of the Church We ought to make use of these motives to repress passions to consolidate virtues and to disintangle our Souls from all things of this present life However this love though less perfect than that which is fully disinteress'd hath nursed up in all ages a great number of Saints and greatest part of holy Souls do never attain in this life the perfect impartiality of love you disturb and cast them into temptation if you take from them the motives of self-interest which being subordinate to love serve to hold them up and to animate them in dangerous occasions It would be to no purpose and indiscretion to propose them a more elevated love which is out of their reach as having neither internal light nor the power of grace for it Nay those who begin to have some knowledge and foretaste of it are yet very far from having the reality of it Finally those who have attained its imperfect reality are very far yet from having the uniform exercise of it turned into an habitual state What is

suffer our selves to be Corrected if there be need of it and let us endure Correction when we do not even deserve the same As for you Sir you ought to have no other portion therein than Silence Submission and Prayer Pray for me that am under such pressing difficulty pray for the Church that undergoes these Scandals pray for those who rise up against me to the end that they may be endued with the Spirit of Grace in order to undeceive me if I 'am in the wrong or to do me justice if I am otherwise Lastly pray for the interest of Prayer it self which is in danger and stands in need of being justified Perfection is become very suspicious they are not for removing it so far from lazy Christians and such as are full of self Disinterested Love would appear to be the Spring of Illusions and abominable Wickedness they have accustomed Christians under pretence of safety and precaution to seek after God no other way than by the motive of their blessedness and advantage to themselves Those Souls that have made most proficiency are forbid to serve God by the pure motive whereby hitherto it hath been wished that Sinners themselves would return from their Errors I mean the goodness of the infinitely amiable God I know that pure Love and abandoning ones self is abused I know that Hypocrites overthrow the Gospel under such good names but pure Love is no less a perfection of Christianity and 't is the worst of all Remedies to go about to abolish those things that are perfect to prevent being abused therewith God knows how to make better provision therein than Men. Let us be humble let us hold our peace instead of reasoning concerning Prayer let us be engaged in it in so doing we shall defend our selves our strength will consist in our silence I am c. Paris Aug. 3d 1697. THE DECLARATION Of the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Prelates Lewis Antony de Noailles Arch-Bishop of Paris James Benigne Bossuet Bishop of Meaux and Paul Godet Desmarais Bishop of Chartres upon the subject Matter of a Book Intituled An Explication of the Maxims of the Saints concerning the Internal Life AS we have been long since called to bear Witness it 's time at last we should make answer The most Illustrious and most Reverend Arch-bishop of Cambray as well in the very beginning as Preface of his Book called An Explication of the Maxims of the Saints c. hath made mention of two of our number whose Doctrine and Decisions contained in the Thirty Four Articles he hath only taken upon him more fully to explicate and which the third of us by a publick Act hath agreed to and Subscribed The same most Illustrious and most Reverend Arch-bishop hath in the Letter he wrote to our Holy Father the Pope Innocent XII grounded what he says upon the same Articles and Censures of the Bishops against some Books that have been written And we were the only three who have thought it our Duty to Censure those Books or rather according to the Author's words certain places in the said Book Nevertheless they are not some places as the same Author says that we have taken upon us to censure but the greatest part of them nay and we would have the whole Books condemned and the Spirit that runs quite thro' them But as the same Epistle takes notice our Zeal is not raised against certain Mystick Persons in former Ages who laboured under a pardonable ignorance of Theological Dogma's but our Censures and Articles are level'd at the Quietists of our own time who are well known amongst us Neither have we recourse to the obvious and natural sense of things as if there were some more occult meaning couched under them which perhaps might at the same time be tolerated but we have thought it necessary to expose the Poison lying hid in those Books We know nothing of any bodies taking occasion from our Articles and Censures to deride pure Love and Contemplation as the Illusions of a troubled Brain as the said Letter intimates It 's also said in the same Letter That the principal Points which have been treated on in the Book having been anew Explained are found to be conformable to the said Articles This Conclusion and the intention we find there is to have what is contained in the said Book to be thought agreeable to our Sentiments we are necessitated to explain our selves upon this Head tho' it is not without trouble of mind that we are brought to this Extremity having before used all sorts of means to gain the Judgment of our Brother herein 't is pure necessity that constrains us hereunto to the end we may prevent the Belief of our approving this Work and above all out of the Fear we are in lest our Holy Father the Pope whom we perfectly honour and to whom as to our Head we are inviolably united should be perswaded that we favour a Doctrine which the Church condemns We shall begin by shewing the Reasons that occasion'd the Articles which the Book Entituled An Exposition of the Maxims of the Saints c. makes mention of There was a certain Woman living amongst us who having put out a Pamphlet called a Short Method c. and some others also and spread up and down certain Manuscripts of the Quietists seemed to us to be a leader of that Sect she desired she might be allowed three Counsellors with whose Advice she might acquiesce the most illustrious Author of this book was added for a Fourth the design was to consine her and those of her Party within some bounds to remove all the subterfuges they had and to shew them from the undoubted Articles of our Faith the Lord's Prayer the Doctrine of the Holy Scripture Holy Tradition and Saints that their Tenets were condemned to all intents and purposes either from their own Nature or by Councils and the Apostolick See this was the end of the Articles that contained our decisions and Censures our business now is to see whether the said Book did explain and open the same or overthrow them In the first place Theological or Divine Hope is taken away in that Book as well out of the state of Grace as within it among the perfect And when it is said that without the state of Grace before Justification one may love God with the love of Hope in such a manner that self-love that is the love of our own Interest and Happiness be the principal Motive of the said love of Hope and prevalent above the other motive of love to God's Glory it from thence follows that Hope which depends upon a created good and self interest is no Divine or Theological Virtue but a Vice and thence it is that that Axiom of St. Augustine is applyed tho' in a wrong sense That which proceeds not from a principle of Charity proceeds from Concupiscence and from that love which is the root of all Vices and which the Jealous