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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

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 LONDON Printed for H. Rhodes at the Star the Corner of Bride-Lane in Fleet-Street 1698. THE PREFACE I Always was of Opinion Men ought both to Speak and Write concerning the internal Life with all the moderation imaginable and though the same includes nothing but what is clearly conformable to the immutable rule of Faith and Evangelick Obedience yet to me it appears very manifest that this matter requires a kind of secret and wary management the generality of Readers are not at all prepared for such strong sort of Readings It s the way to expose the most pure and Sublime part of Religion to the derision of of prophane Spirits in whose sight the mystery of Christ Crucified is no other than a Stumbling-block of Offence and meer folly This is to commit the ineffable secrets of God in the heart to the hands of the most unthankful and most unexperienced Men who are not capable of any benefit or edification thereby On the other hand 't is to lay snares for all those that are uncredulous and discretionless in order to fall to illusion for they presently imagine themselves to be in all those states that Books represent unto them and from thence become visionaries and unteachable whereas if they should be kept in ignorance of all those states which are above theirs they could not fall upon those ways of disinterested Love and Contemplation but by the sole attraction of Grace without their imaginations heated with reading having any share therein Hence it is that I am perswaded Men should be as silent as possible in this matter for fear of overexciting the Curiosity of the generality of Mankind who have neither experience nor a sufficient light of Grace to examine the works of the Saints for the Carnal Man can neither discern nor taste of the things of God such as are the internal ways spoken of But seeing this part of Curiosity for some time past is become in a manner universal I think it will be as necessary to speak as it might have been wished Men would have held their Tongues My Design in this Treatise is to explain the experiences and expressions of the Saints in order to prevent their being exposed to the scorn and derision of wicked Men but at the same time I would lay open to mystical Men the real meaning of these holy Authors to the end the true value of their expressions may be made known unto them When I speak of holy Authors my meaning is to confine my self to those that are Canonized or whose memories have a sweet smelling savour in all the Church and whose Writings have been so solemnly approved of without any Contradiction I speak of no other than those Saints who have been Canonized or admired by the whole Church for having themselves practised and caused their Neighbour to practise a kind of spirituality that is scattered up and down through the body of their Writings It s undoubtedly unlawful for us to reject such Authors or to accuse them of innovating any thing against the course of Tradition I am about to shew how far these holy Authors have been from injuring the rule of Faith and favouring illusion I shall make appear to our mystical Men that I shall detract in nothing from all that which is Authorized by the Maxims and experiences of those Authors who are our pattern I shall engage them into a belief of what I say when I shew unto them the exact bounds these same Saints have set us and beyond which it is not allowable for us to go The mystical Men of whom I am speaking are neither those Fanaticks nor Hypocrites who conceal the mystery of iniquity under the notion of perfection God forbid that I should direct the word of truth to those Men who do not carry the mystery of Faith in a pure Conscience they deserve no other then Indignation and horror I speak to the plain open-hearted and teachable mysticks they ought to know that illusion continually follows the most perfect ways Those execrable Men the false Gnosticks from the very beginning of Christianity had a mind to mix themselves with the true Gnosticks who were Contemplative Men and the most perfect among the Christians the Begardians have in a false disguise imitated the Contemplative of these last Ages such as St. Bernard Richard and Hugh de St. Victor It s an Observation of Bellarmine that the expressions of mystick Authors have been often critisiced upon after an equivocal manner It frequently happens says he in his Book de Script Eccles that the expressions of those who have written of mystick Theology have been condemned by some and practised by others because they are not taken by every body in the same sence Cardinal Bona in his Compendium says also that those who are taken up with pas sive Contemplation are less able to expres themselves but more excellent in matters of practice and experience In short there is nothing so hard as to give a right understanding of those states which consist in such simple and nice Operations that are so far abstracted from sence and to set always in the right place all the correctives that are necessary to prevent illusion and to explain strictly the true System of Theology This is that which has given Offence to some Readers of mystical Men's Books and hath drawn divers others of those Readers into Illusion while Spain in the last Age was full of so many Saints endued with wonderful Grace the Illuminates were discovered in Andalouzia who brought the greatest Saints to be suspected of unsincerity Then it was St. Theresa Balthazar Alvarez and the Blessed John de la Croix took upon them to justifie their Conduct and Innocency Rusbrok whom Bellarmine calls a great Contemplative and Taulere that Apostolick Man so famous throughout Germany have been Vindicated the one by St. Dennis le Chartreaux and the other by Blosius Neither has St Francis de Sales been free from being contradicted the Criticks having been unable to discern how to joyn exact and strict Theology with that light of Grace that is most eminent So it is that the Chaff oftentimes hides the good Corn and the purest Authors concerning the Internal Life stand in need of an explanation ●●●st some expressions taken in a wrong sence should alter the purity of the Doctrine These Examples should make mystical Men sober and wary if they are humble and teachable they should leave not only Doctrinals to the entire decision of the Pastors of the Church but also the choise of all those terms that are proper to express them by St. Paul

overjoy'd at it believes himself to be already at the very gates of that City and that there is nothing now remaining but a little way and that very good for him but as he moves forwards the lengths and difficulties which he had not foreseen at first sight do proportionably increase he must be obliged to descend by Precipices into deep Vallies where he loses the sight of that City which he thought he could almost touch He must be forc'd oftentimes to creep up over sharp Rocks and 't is not without great trouble and dangers that he arrives at last at that City which he thought at first to have been so near him and so easie to come at It 's the very same thing with that Love which is entirely disinterested the first cast of the Eye discovers it in a wonderful perspective one thinks he has hold of it he supposes with himself that he is already confirmed therein or at least that there is between him and it but a short and even space but the more he advances towards it the more tedious and painful he finds the way There is nothing so dangerous for a Man as to flatter himself with this pretty Idea or Conceit and to believe that he lives in the practice of the same when it is not really so He that makes this Love to be speculative would fret himself to a Skeleton if God should put him to prove how this Love doth purifie and realize it self in the Soul In short he must have a care of believing that he hath the same in reality when he only has a view of it and is charmed with it That Soul which dares presume by a decisive reflection that he is arrived to it shews by his presumption how remote he is from it the small number of those that have reached it do not know whether they are really so and as often as they do reflect upon themselves in relation to it they are ready to believe it is not so with them when their Superiours declare the same unto them They speak of themselves as of another person in a dis-interested manner and without reflection and act with simplicity by a pure obedience according to true necessity without ever voluntarily judging or reasoning concerning their state In short tho' it be true to say that no man can set exact bounds to the operations of God in the Soul and that there is none but the Spirit of God that can sound the depths of this same Spirit yet it is also true to say that no internal perfection can allow a Christian to dispence with those real acts that are essential to the accomplishment of the whole Law and that all perfection reduces it self to this habitual state of sole and pure love which effects in these Souls with a dis-interested Peace all that which a mixt love does in others with some remains of an interested eagerness In a word there is nothing but a peculiar interest that cannot and which ought not at all to be found in the exercise of dis-interested Love but all the rest is there still in a more abundant manner than ordinarily in just Persons For us to speak with this precaution is to confine our selves within the bounds set us by our Fathers this is a Religious observance of Tradition and hereby is a relation given without any mixture of innovation of the Experiences of the Saints and the Language they have used in speaking sometimes of themselves with simplicity and pure Obedience XLV False TRansformed Souls are capable of judging themselves and others or to be assured of their internal Gifts without any dependance upon the Ministers of the Church or else direct themselves without any Character without an extraordinary Call and even with marks of an extraordinary Vocation against the express Authority of Pastors To talk in this manner is to teach an innovated Doctrine full of Prophaneness and to attack one of the most essential Articles of the Catholick Faith which is that of an entire subordination of Believers to the Body of Pastors to whom Jesus Christ said he that heareth you heareth me The Conclusion of all these Articles HOly indifference is nothing else but disinterested Love Tryals are nothing else but the Purification of it the abandoning of the same is but its exercise in Tryals The disappropriating of Vertue is nothing besides the laying aside of all Complaisance all Consolation and all Self-Interest in the exercise of Vertue by pure Love The retrenching of all activity implies no more than the retrenching of all inquietude and interested eagerness for pure Love Contemplation is but the plain Exercise of this Love reduced to one simple Motive Passive Contemplation is but pure Contemplation without activity or eagerness A Passive state whether it be in a time bounded with pure and decent Contemplation or in those Intervals wherein a Man does not at all Contemplate doth exclude neither the real Action nor the successive Acts of the Will nor the specifick distinction of Vertue as they relate to their proper Subjects but only simple activity or interested inquietude it 's a peaceable Exercise of Prayer and Vertue by pure Love Transformation and the most essential or immediate Union is nothing but the Habit of that pure Love which of it self makes up all the internal Life and then becomes the only Principle and Motive of all the deliberate a●● meritorious Acts but this habitual State is never fixt unvariable nor unliable to be lost The true love of that which is right saith Leo carries in it self Apostolick Authorities and Canonical Sanctions THE Lord Archbishop of Cambray 's LETTER TO THE POPE Most Holy Father I have resolved with utmost expedition as well as with all manner of submission and respect to your Holiness to send the Book that I wrote some time since concerning the Maxims of the Saints in relation to an internal Life It 's a duty which I am obliged to pay not only to the Supream Authority with which you preside over all the Churches but also to those Favours you have been pleased to heap upon me But to the end that nothing may be omitted in a matter of such importance and concerning which Mens Minds are so tossed about and agitated and for removing any Equivocations that might arise from the diversity of Languages I have undertaken to make a Latin Version of my whole Work to which I apply my self wholly and will very quickly send this Translation to be laid down at your Holiness his Feet I would to God most Holy Father I could my self in person bring you my Book with a zealous and submissive heart and then receive your Apostolical Benediction but the Affairs of the Diocess of Cambray during the misfortune of the War and the instruction of the young Princes which the King has done me the honour to intrust me with will not allow me room to hope for this Consolation And now most Holy Father I come to give the

the King and at the same time to importune him to commit the said Work to Examination The Arch-Bishops of Rheims and Paris with the Bishop of Meaux an implacable Enemy to Cambray were the persons appointed for it the effect whereof was the putting out of their Declaration upon the same Subject wherein they fully set forth their sentiments in relation to it And as these Prelates distinguished their Zeal in this manner against this Semi-Quietism the Bishop of Noyon about the same time in his Pastoral Letter written in the Form of a Preservative to keep the Clergy and Faithful of his Diocess in the holy Exercise of a solid and real Piety against the pernicions Maxims of Quietism sets himself against Quietism in all the Branches of it But tho' he would have the Quietism he darts his Thunder at to be not that of Molinos but this new sort of Semi-Quietism yet when he comes to a kind of an Explanation of it he confounds the new Quietism with the old seeing that in respect to the Opinions which he looks upon to be most monstrous he imputes what Molinos taught to those against whom he writes of which take this one tast What an Abomination is it says the Bishop to set up Vices in the place of Vertues and to pretend that shameful Falls are the Steps by which to ascend to the Glory of a perfect Union with God Now this is Molinos himself that has occasioned this Exclamation who says in direct Terms That we ought not to afflict or disturb our selves when we fall into any Defect but to rise up and go on and set our selves to Exercises of Piety as if we had never fallen Would you not take him to be a Fool says he who contending for the Prize of a Race and hapning to stumble in the midst of his Carier should lie upon the Ground to no other end than to bewail his Fall You would rather say to him Rise Friend and without loss of time set thy self a running again for he that gets up quickly and pursues his Race is like one that never fell So that it 's manifest from hence in short that the French Prelates do not well understand what they write against but that there is something in it tending to invalidate Penances and put Auricular Confessions out of Fashion which has brought so much Grist to the Romish Mill is what they seem to be very apprehensive of But the Clergy notwithstanding all their ' fore-mention'd Endeavours for the Suppression of this new Doctrine finding it to spread itself more and more among all Ranks and Orders of Men as well Ecclesiasticks as Laicks they thought it high time to transfer the Accusation to the Court of Rome with all the aggravation of the Arch-Bishop's of Cambray's Crime and Heresie imaginable and because they would not fail to make sure work of it they engag'd the French King so far on their side also as to get him to write to the Pope to induce him in Confirmation of the Censures of the Clergy of France to condemn the Arch-Bishop's Book who on his own part also being not ignorant of these Proceedings against him and not to be wanting to his own Defence thought it no less proper to write to his Holiness upon the same Subject But tho' the Bishop has used as much Caution as Submission in that he wrote to the Pope yet you will find in another of his Letters to a Friend that he is the same Man still But how violent soever the Arch-Bishops accusers appear'd against him both in France and Rome the Pope kept a soft pace till such time as having received the Arch-Bishops said Letter he was pleased to appoint seven Commissioners to Examine his Book viz. the Master of the Sacred Pallace His Holiness his Confessor and a Jaccbin Father Marsouiller a French-Man of the same Order the Proctor-General of St. Augustine-Friars Father Gabriel of the Mendicant Order Father Miri a Benedictine Father Grenelli a Franciscan and Father Alfaro Jesuit These were to make their Report to the Congregation of the holy Office in order to their farther proceedings thereupon But whither it were that these Gentlemen could not understand the Bishops Gallimaufry of notional speculations or what shall I call it or what ever else was in the wind they did nothing in it and the matter at last came before old Infallibility himself and his Sacred College of Cardinals But after all this and the continual Sollicitations of the Jesuits and some great Prelates there are some months now elapsed and nothing done in it and by any thing that hitherto has appear'd to the contrary they are so far from coming to a final decision either in favour or against the said Book as when they first began To enter upon an inquiry into the Doctrine and notions contained in this Treatise will not be proper for me in this place that being entirely left to the judgment of every one that has an inclination to peruse it It remains for me therefore to say that as it as stirred up the Curiosity of all sorts of persons abroad to make an inspection into these tenets so it has done mine to engage me in a more particular inquiry into the rise and progress as well as the dislike of and opposition made against them AN EXPLANATION Of the Diverse Loves Which may be had for GOD. 1. WE may love God not for the sake of himself but for some other good things depending on his Almighty power which we hope to obtain from him Such Love as this had the Carnal Jews who observed the Law in hopes only of being recompenc'd with the dew of Heaven and the fertility of the Earth This love is neither Chast nor Filial but meerly Servile or rather to speak properly who loveth so does not love God but his own dear Self and seeks entirely for himself not God but what comes from him 2. We may have Faith and not one degree of Charity with it We know God to be our only happiness that is to say the only Object the sight whereof can render us happy Now should we in this slate love God as the only instrument to be made use of for to work our happiness and because we are not able to find our happiness in any other object should we look upon God as a means of felicity and refer it purely to our selves as to its ultimate end this would be rather a self-love than a love of God at least it would be contrary to order as respecting God as an object or instrument of our felicity both to our selves and our own happiness And though by this love we should seek for no other reward but God alone yet would it prove wholly mercenary and of meer concupiscency That Soul as saith S. Francis of Sales in his Book of the love of God Lib. 2. c. 17. which should love God only out of love to her self by establishing the end of that love

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

review of his actions and the Gifts he hath received in order to feed self-love to seek out a common support or to take up too much with himself 18. Mortifications are agreeable to a Christian in every state and are often necessary and to make the same separate from the duty of Believers under a pretence of perfection is openly to condemn St. Paul and to presuppose an Erroneous and Heretical Doctrine 29. Continual Prayer consists not in one perpetual act which is supposed to be without interruption and which also ought never to be repeated but in a disposition and habitual and perpetual preparation to do nothing that is displeasing unto God and to do every thing that is pleasing to him The contrary Proposition that would exclude in any condition whatsoever yea in a state which is perfect all pluralities and succession of acts is erroneous and opposite to the Tradition of all the Saints 20. There are no Apostolick Traditions but those that are acknowledged for such by the whole Church and the Authority whereof is decided by the Councils of Trent the contrary proposition is Erroneous and pretendedly secret Apostolical Traditions would be a Snare to the Faithful and a way to introduce all manner of evil Doctrines 21. Dilatory and quiet Prayer or such as is attended with the simple presence of God and all other extraordinary Prayers not excluding passive ones approved of by St. Francis de Sales and other spiritual ones received by the whole Church are not to be rejected nor suspected without great rashness and they do not hinder a man from being always disposed to produce all the forementioned acts in convenient time but to reduce them to implicit or apparent acts in favour of the most perfect under pretence that the love of God ties them all up to a certain method is to elude the obligation and to destroy that distinction which is revealed by God 22. Without these extraordinary Prayers one may become a very great Saint and attain to Christian Perfection 23. To reduce the inward state and purification of the Soul to these extraordinary Prayers is a manifest Error 24. It 's alike dangerous to exclude the state of Contemplation the Attributes the three Divine Persons in the Trinity and the Mysteries of the Incarnation of the Son of God and more especially that of the Cross and of the Resurrection and all those things that are seen no otherwise than by Faith are the Object of a Christians Contemplation 25. It s not allowable for a Christian under pretence of passive or other extraordinary Prayer to expect that God in the Conduct as well of the Spiritual as temporal Life should determin him to every action by way of particular inspiration and the contrary leads men to Illusions carelesness and the tempting of God 26. Laying aside the circumstance and moments of Prophetical or extraordinary inspiration the true submission which every Christian Soul tho' perfect owes to God consists in serving him with the natural and supernatural Light as he received the same and according to the Rules of Christian prudence in presupposing always that God directs all things in the Course of his Providence and that he is the Author of every good Counsel 27. We ought not to tye up the gift of Prophecy and much less the Apostolical state to a certain state of perfection and Prayer and to do so is to bring in an Illusion rashness and Error 28. The extraordinary ways and marks which those that have been approved Spiritualists have given concerning themselves are very rare and subject to the Examination of Bishops Ecclesiastical Superiors and Doctors who are to judge of the same not so much according to Experiences as according to the immutable Rules of the Scriptures and of Tradition and to teach and practice the contrary is to shake off the Yoke of Obedience that is due to the Church 29. If there is or if there has been in any part of the World a small number of chosen ones whom God by an extraordinary and particular way of prevention best known to himself stirs up every moment in such a manner to all those actions that are essential to Christianity and to other good works whereof there was no necessity of giving them any prescriptions to excite them thereunto we will leave them to the judgment of the Almighty and without avowing the like states we do only make this practical Observation that there is nothing so dangerous nor so subject to Illusion as to guide Souls in such a manner as if they had already attained thereto and that however it is not in these sort of preventions that Christian perfection doth consist 30. In all the above named Articles as to what regards Concupiscence imperfections and principally sin our meaning is not for the honour of our Lord to take in the Holy Virgin his Mother 31. As for those Souls whom God is pleased to exercise with Tryals Job who is a pattern for such teaches them to benefit themselves by lucid intervals in order to produce the most excellent acts of Faith Hope and Love The Spiritualists teach them to find these in the top or highest part of the Soul They are not therefore to be allowed to acquiesce in their apparent damnation but their directors with St. Francis de Sales are to assure them that God will never forsake them 32. It 's well in every condition and especially in this same to adore the vindictive Justice of God never to wish the exercise of the same upon our selves in all its rigour seeing that even one of the effects of this rigour is to deprive us of Love Christian Abandoning is to cast all our Cares upon God to hope in his goodness for our salvation and as St. Augustine after St. Cyprian teaches us to attribute all to him ut totum detur Deo 33. Troubled and truly humbled Souls may also be inspired with a submission and agreement to the Will of God tho' even by a very false supposition instead of the eternal good which he hath promised the Just he would detain them by virtue of his own good pleasure in eternal torments and this without being deprived at the same time of his Grace and Love which is an act of perfect resignation or self-abandoning and of a pure love practised by the Saints and which may be useful with that particular grace of God to Souls truly perfect without derogating from the Obligation of the other fore-mentioned Acts which are essential to Christianity 34. Over and above which it is certain that the Perfect and such as are Novices or beginners ought to be conducted respectively by different ways and that the former have a more full and deeper insight into Christian Truths than the other THE French King's LETTER TO THE POPE Most Holy Father THE Book written by the Archbishop of Cambray having for some Months past made much noise in the Church within my Kingdom I caused the same

to be Examined by my Bishops a great number of Doctors and learned Religionaries of several Orders They have all as well Bishops as Doctors unanimously reported that it was a very ill and dangerous Book and that the Explanation published by the said Archbishop was unwarrantable He declared in his Preface that his intention only was to Explicate the Doctrine of his Brethren who after they had attempted by all gentle ways to reclaim him they found themselves obliged in Conscience to put out their Declaration concerning his Book and to consign the same into the Hands of the Archbishop of Damas your Holiness's Nuncio at my Court to the end that your Holiness might put an end to an Affair that may have pernicious Consequences if it be not nipt in the very Bud. I humbly intreat you to pass sentence upon the same Book and Doctrine contained therein as soon as possible and assure your Holiness at the same time that I shall make use of all my Authority to put the Decision you shall make in Execution and that I am Most Holy Father Your very affectionate Servant LOUIS Meudon Aug. 26. 1697. THE TABLE SEveral sorts of Love wherewith we may love God The First Love 1 The Second 1 The Third 2 The Fourth 3 The Fifth 5 The Names of these Five sorts of Love 1. Of the Carnal Love of the Jews 7 2. The love of Concupiscence ibid. 3. The love of Hope 8 4. Interested Love ibid. 5. Pure Love ibid. ARTICLES 1. Of the love of Concupiscence 9 2. Three different Degrees of Just Persons upon Earth 12   How Fear and Hope purify themselves 13   The effects of pure Love 15 3. Of interested love It makes a great many Saints 18 4. How Hope perfects her self and keeps her distinction from Charity 21   How an interested Soul can Will or seek God as he is her Good 24 5. The two states of the Just of Resignation and Indifference 26   What holy Indifference is 27   Passages out of St. Francis de Sales concerning it 29 6. Holy indifference is the real Principle of the interested desires of the Law and of Grace 33 7. There is no state that gives Souls a miraculous Inspiration wherein consists the perfection of the internal Life 35 8. What abandoning ones self is 39   The extream Tryals of abandoning 40   The Souls resistance makes these Tryals long and painful 40   The diffeeence between common Temptations and the Tryals of an entire purification 41 9. The state of the Soul that abandons her self to God in these extream Tryals 43   The Edge of the Spirit or Top of the Soul 44 10. The Souls absolute Sacrifice of its own Interest to God 46 11. The difference between the New and the Old Law 51   The Soul ought to follow Grace without being willing to prevent it 52   A cooperation with Grace ibid.   Of Activity 53 12. Of disinterested Souls 57   An abnegation and hatred of ones self ib.   One ought always to watch over himself 58   The difference between the Vigilancy of pure and interested love 60 13. Simple and direct Acts and reflex Acts an inward certainty 62 14. The separation of the upper part of the Soul from the lower in extream Tryals 65   How this separation is made ibid. 15. Vniversal Sobriety Mortification 68   A temperature of Austerities 69   The effects of Austerities ibid. 16. Two sorts of Proprieties 71   Resignation 72   What mystical Men call Propriety 73   Disappropriation ibid. 17. Common and extraordinary temptations and the difference between them 77 18. Divers sorts of Wills in God 81   The permissive Will of God 82 19. Vocal and mental Prayer 84 20. Of Reading 87   A persuasion of the most powerful love of all 88 21. The difference between Meditation and Contemplation 89 22. When Meditation may be quitted in order to enter upon Contemplation 93 23. For what Souls contemplation is not convenient 95 24. Habitual Contemplation 96 25. Perpetual Prayer 98 26. Interruptions of direct Contemplation 101 27. Direct Contemplation is negative 102 28. How centemplative Souls are deprived of the distinct views of Christ 106 29. Of passive Contemplation 109   Why they call it the Prayer of Silence or quietude 111 30. Of the passive state 114 31. The simplicity of the passive state 117 32. The liberty that is in the passive state 120 33. The Reunion of all the Virtues in Love 122 34. Of Spiritual Death 125 35. Of the state of Transformation 126 36. Of the Internal Exercises of transformed Souls 128 37. Transformed Souls may sin 130 38. And consequently they ought to come to Confession 132 39. The imperfections of the Soul 135 40. How a Transformed Soul is united to God 138 41. Of spiritual Marriages 139 42. Of substantial Vnion 140 43. The submission of the Spiritual Man 141 44. The Oeconomy and Secret of the sublimest Exercise of pure love 143 45. All the Internal ways are but the means to arrive at pure Love 145   The Conclusion of all the Articles 149 ADDITIONS THE Lord Archbishop of Cambray's Letter to the Pope 151 A Letter of the same Person dated August 3. 1697. 160 A Declaration of Three Prelates viz. of the Archbishop of Paris the Bishop of Meaux and Chartres upon the Book Entituled An Explanation of the Maxims of the Saints concerning the Internal Life 166 The Thirty Four Articles of the 16 and 26th of April 1695. 216 The French King's Letter to the Pope 227 FINIS Some BOOKS Printed for Henry Rhodes in Fleet-street MOnasticon Anglicanum or the History of the Abbies Monasteries Hospitals Cathedrals and Collegiate Churchies in England and Wales made English from Sir Will. Dugdale with Sculptures Folio price 10 s. The New World of Words or an Universal English Dictionary containing the proper significations of all Words from other Languages together with the Explanations of all those Terms that conduce to the Understanding of any of the Arts and Sciences viz. Divinity Philosophy Law Physick Mathematicks Husbandry Published by E.P. The Fifth Edition enlarged from the best English and Foreign Authors A Work very necessary for Strangers and our own Country-men for the right understanding of what they Discourse Write or Read Fol. Price 14 s. Memoirs for the Ingenious Containing several Curious Observations in Philosophy Mathematicks Physick Philology and other Arts and Sciences By M. de la Crose Miscellaneous Letters giving an Account of the Works of the Learned both at home and abroad in which there is a Catalogue and Idea of all valuable Books The New Politicks of the Court of France under the Reign of Lewis XIV wherein are to be seen all his Intrigues in respect to the Potentates of Europe Letters writ by a Turkish Spy who lived Forty Five Years undiscover'd at Paris giving an Account to the Divan of Constantinople of the Remarkable Transactions in the Christian Courts