Guide of that Author and of touching only upon the 68 Propositions as if they were the only Subject of the Condemnation of the Holy See without comprizing that Book therein 13. As for the person adds he whose Books the Prelates have censured I have already given an Account to the Pope my Superior of what I thought thereupon Who does not see that this is to shift off the essential point is it in vain that St. Peter had said That we must be ready to give an Account of our Faith not only to a Superior but to all those that desire it What would it have been for M. de Cambray to explain himself to the whole Church without affecting to spare and uphold M. Guyon But yet let us see what Account he has given to the Pope of his Sentiments upon the Books of that Woman I do not repeat it says he my Letter being made publick There is no Letter publick but that wherein he says to the Pope That there are some certain small Books censured by the Bishops some places whereof in the sense that naturally offer'd were condemnable You see all the Account he gives to the Pope of those Books that are pernicious throughout and not to be countenanced in any sense because what is read in them is pernicious and what he conjectures is to be found in them is forced and not sufficient 14. One may also observe here his affectation of naming to the Pope only Molinos and not M. Guyon It is true he hath set down in the Margin of the Letter to the Pope the short Method c. with the Explication of the Song of Songs But after the Liberty M. de Cambray has taken to say that they have inserted what they would in his Text who shall hinder him from disowning a Marginal Note the Text whereof is insignificant and whatsoever happens he will come off with condemning some places only in those Books whilst he spares the bottom which is wholly corrupted and besides he condemning them only in that pretended severe sense for which he is surety that it never came into the Author's Mind 15. He does not satisfie the publick any thing more in adding these Words I shall do on this point as on all others what the Pope will judge fit for what was he to expect since the Centure of Rome in the Year 1689. do we not see that M. de Cambray who has so long after defended that Book designs still to shift off the Condemnation thereof by deferring it So that Letter which he hath made publick does visibly say nothing at all therefore M. de Cambray would fain have us to believe that he has written a more secret and express Letter to the Pope It is for this reason that in the second Edition of his Answer he has supprest these Words My Letter is made publick and he would have recall'd the Edition wherein they were because we saw there very plainly that as to the Books of M. Guyon he was meerly for shifting off and never for explaining himself 16. He does more than keep silence M. de Paris has demonstrated that his Book of the Maxims is only a faint Mittigation a dexterous and artificial Justification of the Books of M. Guyon M. de Cambray has only covered over with fine Colours the Exclusion of the Hope and of the Desire of Salvation with that of Jesus Christ and of the Divine Persons in pure Contemplation and all the other Excesses of that Woman It is visibly her interior Life that this Prelate designed to describe and that he would palliate her manifest Failings in his 39 Articles it is what is found in her Life where she speaks of her self in this manner Souls of inferior degrees will often appear more perfect Then they find themselves soremote from the rest of Men and they think so differently from 'em that their Neighbour becomes insupportable Here 's a new Wonder to find themselves so much above other Men that the Eminency of Perfection which induces us to look upon our Neighbours with the most tender Condescension should hinder us from enduring them But the Wonder of Wonders is this We feel adds he in the new Life that We cover the exterior part by apparent Weaknesses So that among the Failings which she can neither overcome nor cover she flatters by those haughty Excuses the hidden Complaisance that makes her to turn her Weakness into Pride and by the same means M. de Cambray entertains the Admiration of the just that know her 17. What signifies these fine Discourses in the Maxims of the Saints upon Souls that pretend to be perfect They speak of themselves out of pure Obedience simply well or ill as they would speak of another Who does not see that they were design'd as Excuses for the Enormous Boastings of a Woman that gave out she was endued with a Prophetick and Apostolick Spirit with Power to bind and unbind so full of Grace as to over-flow and with a perfection so eminent that she could not endure the rest of Men when such Excesses discover themselves the Excuse is ready for it in the Book of M. de Cambray M. Guyon spoke of her self as she would have spoke of another she spoke out of Obedience to Father Lacombe her Director to whom she addresses her Life wherein are found all those things which have been related 18. Father Lacombe was he that was given her in a particular and wonderful manner if he was become her spiritual Father she had first been his Mother it was he alone to whom she communicated Grace tho' afar off with all the tenderness that she represents in her Life to that degree as to feel her self constrained that it might evaporate to tell him sometimes O my Son you are my beloved Son in whom alone I am well pleased God had notwithstanding given her in her Prison and as the Fruit of her Labours another Man far more intimate than Father Lacombe and how great soever her Union might be with that Father that she was to have with the latter was quite another thing As to that I will not conjecture any thing I relate here only that of her Life to shew that the false Mystery is continued and that we are not come to the end of the Delusions that we are to expect from that Woman 19. In the mean while that Father Lacombe is the Author of the Analysis condemned at Rome and since by several Bishops The Circumstances of his Intimacy with that Woman have been known of the late Bishop of Geneva of holy Memory John d' Aranthon And the History thereof is become publick in the Life of that holy Bishop which the Learned and pious general of the Carthusians has published The time is come when the pleasure of God is that this Union should be entirely discovered I shall say nothing more of it but shall content my self to describe the Person by whose Order M. Guyon wrote her
Quakerism A-la-Mode OR A HISTORY OF Quietism Particularly That of the Lord Arch-bishop of Cambray and Madam Guyone CONTAINING An Account of her Life her Prophecies and Visions her way of Communicating Grace by Effusion to those about her at Silent Meetings c. ALSO An Account of the Management of that Controversie now depending at Rome betwixt the Arch-bishop of Cambray and the Bishop of Meaux by way of Answer to the Arch-bishop's Book Writ by Messire Jacques Bonignes Bossuel Bishop of Meaux one of the French King 's Privy Council and Published by his Majesty's Authority Done into English from the Original printed at Paris LONDON Printed for J. Narris at the Harrow in Little Brittain and A. Bell at the Cross-Keys and Bible in Cornhill near Stocks market 1698. Price 1 s. THE PREFACE THe Controversie of Quietism which is the Subject of the following Book having made a great Noise in the World and taken up the Conclave of Rome for some Months and nothing having as yet appear'd in English but on the side of the Defendant the Arch bishop of Cambray It is not at all doubted but this Book which is the Bishop of Meaux's History of that Heresie and his Answer to the Arch-bishop of Cambray will meet with a good Reception from the Publick The Church of Rome who hath all along boasted so much of her Vnity must of Necessity forbear now to urge that Plea any more when as it will appear by this Book she is reduc'd to such a strait that either she must condemn the Generality of the Clergy of France or the Arch-bishop of Cambray and divers Persons whom she has Canonized for Saints It will also appear but too too evidently from this Treatise that Quakerism owes its Origine to that Anti-christian Church and that their Opinions are much favoured there at present when such horrid Blasphemies as those the Bishop of Meaux charges upon M. Guyon and her Champion the Arch bishop of Cambray from Letters and Manuscripts under their own Hands continue so long without a Publick Censure whilst at the same time she foments a Raging Persecution against the Protestants in France and hath rais'd a New One against those of Germany A HISTORY OF Quietism SEing my Lord Archbishop of Cambray desires an answer to his demands so precisely and that in this conjuncture none of 'em are more important than those that regard our proceedings which he endeavours by all means possible torender odious whereas he himself pretends always to abound with Charity aud Meekness even to excess If I should delay to satisfie him he would reap too great an advantage from our silence What does he not insinuate against us by these words of his answer to our Declaration The proceedings of those Prelates of whom I have just cause to complain have been such that I have reason to think I should not be believed if I related them and indeed it is fit to conceal the knowledge thereof from the Publick Nothing can be imagined more vigorous and extream than what is included in this discourse wherein by feigning a desire to keep silence he says more than if he spoke out That he may justifie himself to be in the right and make us appear to be in the wrong this Prelate in the first Edition of his Answer lays down this important matter of Fact That he had got it to be proposed to my Lord of Chartres that we should by consent Petition the Pope to order a new Edition of his Book to be regulated by his Divines at Rome so that we should have nothing to do but to rely upon those Divines And a little after I demanded a speedy answer but instead of that I received the Printed Declaration against me We know nothing of this pretended matter of fact My Lord of Chartres will inform the Publick touching his concern But without expecting the confutation of a fact of such importance My Lord of Cambray retracts it himself seeing he would have recalled that Edition though published at Rome by his own order and that in the other which he substitutes in its place he suppresses the whole Article We have in our hands both Editions the one wherein he alledges that matter of fact and the other where it is suppressed and the proof is demonstrative that that Prelate without remembring the facts he alledges writes the most odious things that can come into his Head and at the same time so false that he himself is obliged to retract and suppress them intirely 2. This is enough to let the World see what a fine gloss he would put on his own Conduct and in what frighful Colours he would set off ours His chief aim is to defame me and he is not satisfied to accuse me in all his Letters of a precipitant and imbittered Zeal It is to me that he writes those words You never cease tearing me in pieces and what is still more injurious You every where deplore my Condition and rend me pretending to bewail me He adds What can any one think of those Tears that serve only to give more Authority to the Accusations in the same Letters he says Passion hinders me from seeing what is before my Eyes and the excess of my prejudice bereaves me of all exactness I am says he the Author of the Accusation against his Book I am that unmerciful Man who not being able to glut my fury by the indirect and ambitious Censure contained in our Declaration redouble my blows upon him in particular And adds That when come to my self again I make use of smooth words to call him a second Molinos an expression that never came out of my Mouth this Prelate knows himself that I have always distinguished betwixt him and Molinos in their Conduct and also in certain Consequences though he has advanced all his principles But here are more particular Accusations 3. I do not comprehend at all says he the Conduct of Monsieur de Meaux On one hand he inslames himself with indignation for to hear him speak I am never compos ment is c. Inflames himself I say with indignation when any one seems but to doubt whether there may not be something of Evidence in Md. Guyons System On the other hand he gives her the Communion himself he authorises her in the daily use of the Sacraments and when she leaves Meaux he gives her a full attestation without requiring any act from her whereby she may formally recant any Error Whence then can so much severity and so much remisness proceed 4. These are the reproaches we have under the Hand of My Lord of Cambray in a writing still extant He knows well enough to whom he directed it and we shall have occasion to speak of it hereafter Every thing is untrue in the place just now mentioned He would not be so just as to say that I gave the Communion once only to Madam Guyon and to observe in the mean time that it
What we most frequently meet with in that Book and in all her other Books is that this Lady was without Error This is the mark she gives every where of her state intirely united to God and of her Apostleship but though her Errors were infinite that which I took notice of most was that which concerned the exclusion of all desires and of all petitioning for ones self by resigning up our selves to the Will of God how secret soever it be in respect either of our Damnation or Salvation This is the Reigning Doctrine in all that Ladies Printed Books and Manuscripts and upon which I examined her in a long Conference I had with her privately I shewed her in her Writings and caused it to be repeated to her several times That every Petition for ones self carried some interest along with it contrary to pure Love and conformity to the will of God and at last very precisely that she could not ask any thing for her self What said I to her can't you ask nothing for your self No answered she I cannot She was much perplexed about the Petitions of the Lords Prayer I said to her What cannot you beg of God the remission of your Sins No replied she Well said I to her again immediately I whom you make the Judge of your way of Prayer I 〈◊〉 you as God does by my Mouth to say after me Lord I beseech thee forgive me my Sins I can said she well enough repeat those words but to make the sentiment thereof enter into my Heart is against my way of silent Prayer It was then that I declared to her that I could no more allow her the use of the Holy Sacraments whilst she entetained such Doctrine and that her Proposition was Heretical She promised me four or five times to receive instructions and to submit to it and this was the end of our Conference It was hâ—ld in the beginning of the year 1694 as I can easily justifie by the Dates of the Letters relating thereunto Soon after this was followed by another more important Conference with the Abbot of Fenelon in his Appartment at Versailles I entred into the same full of confidence that by shewing him in Madam Guyons Books all the Errors and Excesses just now mentioned he would agree with me that she was deceived and was in a state of delusion All the answer I had was that seeing she had submitted as to the Point of Doctrine the Person must not be condemned As for all the other Excuses those prodigious communications of grace as for what she said of her self of the height of her graces of the state of her eminent sanctity that she was the Woman with Child in the Revelations her to whom it was given to bind and to unbind the Corner Stone and the rest of that Nature he told me that it was the practising what St. Paul says Try the Spirits as for the great things she said of her self it was a magnanimity in her not inferior to that of S. Paul when he recounts all his gifts and that it was that very thing that must be tried God gave me quit other sentiments Her submission did not render her form of silent prayer good but gave us only hope that she should be brought back into the right way The rest appeared to me manifest delusions that there was no need of any other proof but only a plain relation of the matter of fact I intimated my Opinion with all imaginable freedom but at the same time with all possible meekness fearing nothing so much as to exasperate him whom I design'd to bring again into the good way I withdrew astonished to find a man of such fine wit admiring a Woman whose light was so short her merit so little and her delusions so palpable The tears I poured out then in the sight of God were none of those wherewith my Lord of Cambray upbraids me now you shed tears for me and you tear me in pieces I design'd nothing else but to conceal what I saw without opening my mind to any but to God alone and hardly could I believe it my self Nay I wish'd I had been able to hide it from my self I as it were felt my self trembling and afraid at every step lest I should fall as well as a person of so much light yet I did not lose courage but comforted my self from the experience of so many great Spirits whom God hath humbled for a little while to make them afterwards walk more stedfastly and I applied my self so much the more to undeceive the Abbot of Fenelon because they whom we had instructed were under his Charge 21. A little after this Conference I wrote a long Letter to Madam Guyon wherein I explained my self upon the difficulties just now mentioned reserving some of them for a larger examination I markt all my own Sentiments as I have just now represented them not forgetting those prodigious communications nor the Authority of binding and unbinding her Visions upon the Revelations and the other things I have related My Letter is of the 4th of March 1694. her Answer that follows upon it is very submissive and justifies all the matters of fact I have advanc'd as to the Contents of the Books She accepted my Advice to retire neither to be seen or to write to any body otherwise than about her business I did much esteem the docible Temper that appeared in her Letter and I applied all my attention to the disabusing the Abbot of Fenelon as to a person whose Conduct was so strange Sect. 3. The second part of the Relation containing what passed betwixt Mr. de Chaalons and Mr. Tronson and my self 1. VVHilst I was taken up with these thoughts and labouring betwixt hope and fear Madam Guyon turned the examination to quite another thing than what it was at first She took it in her head to have the accusations brought against her Morals and the disorders that were imputed to her examined Upon this she wrote to that future Protectress whom she thought to have seen in her Prophecy beseeching her to beg of the King that some Commissioners should be appointed with power to inform themselves to pronounce Judgment upon her Life The Copy she sent me of her Letter that which she joyned to it shew by their Dates that this happened in June 1694. This was a design to fulfil her Predictions and for that end Mad. Guyon gave a specious turn to the thing dexterously in sinuating that she must be cleared of the Crimes she was accused of without which they would enter upon the examination of her Doctrine with too much prejudice But it is not so easie a matter to surprize an enlightned Piety It was soon perceiv'd by the Mediatress she had chosen that this Proposal of the Commissiners besides other inconveniences shot wide of the Mark which was to begin by examining the Doctrines contained in her Wrirings they had in hand and in the Books
where with the Church was overflowed and so the Proposal dropt off it self Madam Guyon yielded and then demanded by her Friends the thing in the World that was most agreeable to me viz. that to put an end to an examination of a thing of that importance wherein the matter of Question must be throughly canvass'd and a sort of prayer so pernicious abolished if possible I should be associated with Mr. de Chaalons now Archbishop of Paris and Mr. Tronson superior General of the Congregation of St. Sulpice The Letter by which Madam Guyon acquaints me with this step makes out to the full all the reasons that induced her to submit to those two Gentlemen and to my self The last of 'em was unknown to me except by his reputation But the Abbot of Fenelon and his Friends had a particular confidence in him As for Mr. de Chaalons it is known with what holy friendship he and I have always been united He was also an intimate Friend to the Abbot of Fenelon With such Collegues I hoped to compass all things The King was acquainted with the thing so far as it related to Madam Guyon only and approved of it The Archbishop of Paris has explained what was written to him upon that account and what he answered The Books I had seen were delivered to those persons The Abbot of Fenelon begun then very privately to write upon that matter The Writings he sent us augmented every day and without naming in them Madam Guyon or her Books every thing he wrote tended to maintain or to excuse them The thing really in question was those Books and they made the sole Subject of our Meetings The silent prayer of Madam Guyon was that M. de Fenelon was for and perhaps 't was his own in a particular manner That Lady did not forget her self and during seven or eight month that we applied our selves to so serious a discussion she sent us fifteen or sixteen big Bundles which I have still to make a parallel betwixt her Books the holy Fathers Divines and the Spiritual Authors All this was attended with proffers of entire submission The Abbot of Fenelon took the trouble with some of his Friends to come to Iby a house belonging to the Seminary of Sr. Sulpice where we were obliged to hold our Conference because of the infirmities of Mr. Tronson They all desired that we would enter upon that examination throughly and protested they would refer all to our Judgment Madam Guyon testified the same submission by Letters full of respect and afterwards our only care was to terminate that Affair very privately so as to prevent all suspicion of any dissention in the Church 2. We began to read with more Prayers than Study and with Groans God knows for all the Writing they sent us especially those of the Abbot of Fenelon To compare all the passages and often to read over again whole Books how tedious and laborious soever the reading thereof might be The long extracts I have by me shew what attention we gave to an Affair wherein really the Church was so nearly concerned seeing the thing in question was no less than to hinder the revival of Quietism which we saw again appearing in the Kingdom by the Writings of Madam Guyon which were spread over all 3. We look upon it as the greatest misfortune of all that she had the Abbot de Fenelon for her Defender His Wit his Eloquence His Vertue the place he filled and those he was designed for Engaged us to labour with utmost diligence to reclaim him We could not despair of success for although he wrote to us things that we must own made us afraid the memory where of is as fresh to those persons as to me he mixed them with so many testimonies of submission that we could not perswade our selves that God would deliver him up to a Spirit of Error The Letters he wrote to me during the examination of this Book and before we had come to a Final Resolution breathed out nothing but obedience and tho he surrendred himself entirely to those Gentlemen I must own here that beside my being the President of the Conference he semmed to address himself to me with so particular a freedom because we had been long used to treat together of the Theological matters in dispute One of those Letters was conceived in the following terms 4. I receive my Lord with great acknowledgement the kindness you shew me I can't but see that you are willing out of Charity to to settle my Heart in Peace But I confess it seems to me that you are somewhat afraid to give me a true and perfect security in my State When ever you please I shall acquaint you as to my Confessor with whatever may be comprized in a General Confession of my whole Life and of all that regards my inward State When I besought you to tell me the truth and not to spare me it was neither formal Complement nor a trick to discover your sentiments If I had a mind to use Art it should be in other things and we should not have come to this pass I never desired any thing but what I will ever wish that is if it be Gods will that I may know the Truth I am a Priest I owe all to the Church and nothing to my self nor to my personal Reputation I declare to you still my Lord That I wont abide in Error one moment through my own fault If I don't abandon it without delay I declare it is you who are the cause of it seeing you determine nothing to me I do not value my place but I am ready to leave it if I am rendred unworthy of it by my my Errors I summon you in the Name of God and for the Love you have to the truth to tell it me in the utmost severity I shall go and hide my self and do Pennance the remaining part of my Days after having abjured and recanted the Erronious Doctrine that has seduced me But if my Doctrine be innocent do not keep me in suspence out of some Humane Respect To you it appertains to instruct with Authority those that are scandalized because they know not the Operations of God in the Soul You know with what confidence I have delivered my self to you and applied my self without intermission that you should not be Ignorant of my strongest perswasions There remains nothing for me to do but to obey For it is not the Man or the most Grand Doctor that I esteem in you it is God And though you should mistake your self my simple and upright obedience shall not deceive me and I account it as nothing to mistake when I do it with Vprightness and Humility under the hand of those who have Authority in the Church Once more my Lord if you doubt never so little of my decible Temper withou reserve be pleased to put it to the proof without spairing me Although your mind is more enlightned than that
am about to present to them the Errors imputed to Madam Guyon are not to be excused by the Ignorance of her Sex there is no rustick Woman tho' never so clownish but would presently abhor what they will have her to have taught The thing in question is not a remote and subtil consequence which might contrary to her intention be drawn from her speculative Principles and from some of her Expressions but the question is whether it be a diabolical Design as they say which is the Soul of all her Books that it is a monstrous System which has a connexion in all its Parts and which upholds it self with great Art from one end to the other These are not obscure Consequences that may have not been foreseen by the Author but rather the formal and sole aim of all her Systeme It is clear say they and it would be want of sincerity in any body to deny it that Madam Guyon hath writ only with a design to ruin as an imperfection all the explicite Faith of the Attributes of the Divine Persons of the Mysteries of Jesus Christ and of his Humanity She would dispense with the sensible Worship of Christians and with all distinct invocation of our only Mediator She pretends to destroy in the Faithful all the interior Life and all real Prayer by suppressing all the distinct Acts which Christ and his Apostles have commanded by bringing Souls for ever to an idle quietness which shuts out every Thought of the Understanding and every motion of the Will She maintains that when a Person has once done an Act of Faith and of Love that Act subsists perpetually during the whole Life without ever having need of being renewed that they are always in God without thinking of him and that they must take heed not to reiterate that Act. She leaves to Christians nothing but a brutish and impious indifferency betwixt Vice and Virtue betwixt the eternal hatred of God and his eternal love for which we ought to believe that every one of us has been created She forbids as unfaithfulness all real resistance to the most abominable Temptations She would have it believed that in a certain state of Perfection whereunto she speedily raises Souls there is no Concupiscence that they cannot sin that they are infallible and enjoy the same Peace that the Blessed do in Heaven That lastly what one does without reflection with facility and by the inclination of the Heart is done passively and by pure Inspiration This Inspiration which she ascribes to her self and her Followers is not the common Inspiration of the Just it is a Prophetick one it includes an Apostolick Authority above all the written Laws She establishes a secret Tradition upon such a foundation as overthrows the universal Tradition of the Church I maintain there is no ignorance how gross soever that can excuse a Person who advances so many monstrous Maxims They assure us nevertheless that Madam Guyon has written nothing but to raise the credit of that damnable spirituality and to procure the practice thereof This is the sole aim of her Works take away that you take away all She could think on nothing else Then the manifest Abomination of her Writings renders her Person manifestly abominable I cannot then separate her Person from her Writings 6. The manner after which M. de Cambray charges things here he seems to have had a design to frighten himself and to delude the Reader without examining whether I impute all those Errors to Madam Guyon or part only and the rest to other Authors there is but this one word to be consider'd If we suppose that this Lady persists in her Errors what ever they be it is true that her Person is abominable If on the contrary she humble her self if she subscribe the Censures which reject that Doctrine and her Books wherein she owns it is contained if she condemns her Book there is then nothing but her Book that remains to be condemned and through her humility if sincere and that she persists therein her Person is become innocent and may even become holy through her Repentance There was reason then to tell M. de Cambray that he might have approved of my Book without blaming M. Guyon whom I supposed penitent and against whom I said not a word and unless it be supposed that her Repentance was feign'd and that she was return'd again to her Vomit M. de Cambray was unjust to represent her Person as abominable by my Book and to refuse his Approbation to it upon that vain pretext 7. It is in this place that he recounts what has been transcribed before word by word that he does not comprehend M. de Meaux who on the one hand admits M. Guyon to receive the Communion and on the other condemns her so severly As for me continues he if I believed what M. de Meaux believes touching Madam Guyon's Book and by a necessary consequence of her Person I should have thought notwithstanding my friendship to her I was bound in Conscience to make her own and formally recant in the face of the whole Church the Errors she had so manifestly taught in all her Writings 8. Nay I am of Opinion that the Secular power should go farther what is more worthy of the Flames than a Monster who under a specious spirituality aims only at the establishing Fanaticism and Impurity who overthrows the Divine Law who looks upon all Virtues as so many imperfections who turns into Proofs and all Imperfections Vices who leaves neither subordination nor Rule in Humane Society who by the Principle of the Secret authorises all manner of Hypocrisie and Lying lastly who leaves no certain Remedy against so may Evils All Religion set aside the Civil Government alone is sufficient to inflict the last punishment upon so pestiferous a Person It is then certain that if that Woman had a Design to establish that damnable System she should have been burnt instead of being dismist as it is manifest that M. de Meaux has done after he had given her the Communion frequently and an authentick attestation without her having recanted her Errors If then she has recanted them if she has repented if she has detested the impurities and several other Excesses you say they ascribe to her If you falsely suppose that she is charged with them there is not so much as a Design to accuse her if she be reputed innocent of all what she is not found to be convicted of by Evidence if they do not so much as think upon that Examination which was not then ripe and which was not the question in hand but only the Errors of which really she was lawfully convicted and which she rejected by an authentick Act with the Books that contained them would you deliver her into the hands of Justice would you burn her do you consider well what is required of the meekness of our Ministry are we not the Servants of him that says I desire not
the death of the sinner When St. John and St. James would have commanded Fire to come down from Heaven is it not to us that Jesus Christ speaks in the Persons of those two Apostles Ye do not know of what Spirits ye are Is it not enough to be unmerciful towards Errors and to condemn the Books that contain them but must we throw into despair a Woman that condemns both her Errors and her Books ought we not to presume that she is sincere as long as there appears no Acts of her to the contrary and did not her presumed sincerity deserve some indulgence in regard of her Person One would really think you to be transported with Passion if you should carry your Zeal to that excess and he is to be accounted so who maintains that a Book must not be condemned without judging the Author of it worthy of the Fire even when the Author himself condemns his Book As for me continues M. de Cambray I could not approve of the Book wherein M. de Meaux ascribes to that Woman so horrible a System in all its parts without defaming my self and doing her an irreparable wrong The Reason is thus I have seen her often I had her in esteem I suffer'd her to be esteemed by illustrious Persons whose Reputation was dear to the Church and who had confidence in me I neither could not ought to have been ignorant of her Writings tho I have not examined them all at the time at least I knew so much of them as induced me to suspect her and to examin her with all rigor I have done it more diligently than her Examinators could do it for she was much more free more in her natural disposition more open with me in a time she had nothing to be afraid of I made her often explain her Mind as to the things now in dispute I have compelled her to explain to me the force of each Term of that mystical Language she used in her Writings I saw plainly upon every occasion that she undestood them in a most innocent and most catholick Sense I have also been willing to examin the particulars both of her Practice and the Counsels she gave to the most ignorant and least suspicious Persons I never met with any part of these Infernal Maxims imputed to her could I then in conscience impute them to her by my approbation and give her the last stroak towards her defamation after having seen so narrowly and so plainly into her innocence 10. This is certainly to answer stoutly for Madam Guyon Here 's fine words but very vain for there is but one word to determine all this that is that they should without hesitation have approved in my Book the condemnation of those of Madam Guyon if I took the sense of 'em well and if I imposed upon her M. de Cambray could not avoid entring with me upon that Examination unless he were as it appears now he is too much resolved to defend both that Woman and her Books at what rate soever against his Brethren 11. Lèt us then speak the truth He well knew in his Conscience that I imputed nothing to him but what was true and therefore he continues in this manner That others who only know her Writings take them in a rigorous sense let them do so I do not defend nor excuse neither her Person nor her Writings and is not this much to one that knows what I know As for me I ought in justice to judge of the Sense of her Writings by her Sentiments which I know to the full and not of her Opinions by the rigorous sense they put upon her Expressions and which never came into her mind if I did otherwise I should perfectly convince the Publick that she deserves to be burnt Thus you see my Rule is for Justice and Truth let us now come to decency 12. All that Rule of Justice is grounded upon this false Maxim that she deserved the Fire notwithstanding her having given an abhorrence in Writing of the Errors she was convinced of and of such as followed from the natural sense of her words Besides it is very certain that her Books and her Doctrine had scandalized the whole Church Rome her self had declared her Sentiments and so many Prelates in France and other Places had followed her Example that it was impossible to dissemble any longer the mischievous Effects of those Books and the Scandal given thereby over all the World Notwithstanding M. de Cambray who had given them for a Rule to such as had confidence in him will not to this very Day retract them And least he should condemn them he breaks all measures with his Brethren and yet he is not willing we should see his bigotted conceit of those Books What follows will make it appear much better At present it suffices to take notice of two things that result from his Discourse The one is That he suffers Madam Guyon to be esteemed by illustrious Persons whose reputation is dear to the Church and who had confidence in him He adds I neither could nor ought to have been ignorant of her Writings It is then by her Writings that he allows her to be esteemed of by Persons truly illustrious who had confidence in him in a word whom he guided They esteemed Madam Guyon and her Writings with the approbation of M. de Cambray then the Abbot de Fenelon The method of Prayer he advised them to was that which M. Guyon taught in her Book which he allow'd them to esteem tegether with her Person It is just as he says to preserve the Reputation of those Illustrious Persons who are dear unto the Church which we never so much as thought once to attack it But who can deny that M. de Cambray was obliged to disabuse those illustrious Persons of the esteem he had given them or allow'd 'em to have if you will of Madam Guyon and her Books the thing then in question is not at their Reputation which was protected by the authority of M. of Cambray Our business is to know whether M. de Cambray himself would not too much preserve his own Reputation in their Minds and in the Minds of so many others who knew how he recommended M. Guyon to such as put confidence in his Conduct Whether he would not too much save the Approbation he had given of Books so pernicious and dislik'd wherever they appear'd This is what M. de Cambray cannot excuse himself from after his Confession just now mention'd Seeing by that in the second place it now appears That he endeavours to this day to maintain those Books and that he finds nothing dubious in them but that mystical Language Madam Guyon uses in her Writings Is this a mystical Language when she has said in her Short Method that the act of giving up one's self being once perform'd ought never to be reiterated Is this a mystical Language when she reduces to the inferior sort of Contemplation
not having in him such a Principle of Habitual Charity nor any thing that unites him to God by the Rule of M. de Cambray tho' he may do never so much he always sinneth mortally 17. So the New Explications being side-ways go off more and more from the Truth to enter into them was to throw one's self into a Labyrinth of Errors which is not yet finished The Author writes no Books without producing some Novelty against sound Divinity He seemed to have rejected the involuntary he had admitted in the Trouble of the Holy Soul of Jesus Christ but it is clearer than the day that in his last Writings he re-establishes that impious Doctrine I have made a Demonstration of it which I don't repeat that is to say he walks without Rule and Principle according as his present Occasions push him 18. It is evident by such Matters of Fact as these that we could not receive his Explications It is therefore likewise evident that we could not but reject the Book nor be hindered from disowning publickly the Author who had publickly ascribed to us the Doctrine of it For what could we do or what could M. de Cambray advise us to hold our Peace it is to consent It is failing in an essential part of the Episcopal Function all the Grace whereof consists in speaking the Truth It is so opposing our selves to the Sentence of Pope St. Hosmidas Ipse impellet in Errorem qui non instruit ignorantes He drives the Simple into Error who does not Instruct them Especially in such a Case wherein you are appeal'd to as a Witness and your Name made use of to deceive them What then shall we speak it is what we have done with all simplicity in our Declaration But say they it is an anticipated Censure Not at all it is a Necessary Declaration of our Sentiments when we are forced to speak them out What obliged M. de Cambray to explain our Articles without our Consent to Cite us in our own Names and lastly to make us believe that his Book where we found so many Errors was but a more large Explication of our own Doctrine is he allowed to undertake whatever he pleases and must we keep silent tho' he goes on against us These are not meer Pretexts they are Reasons clearer than the Sun M. de Cambray is no less unjust when he says that we have denounced him Sincerity would oblige him to acknowledge that he denounced himself by his Letter to the Pope when he desires him to judge of his Book No Body had accused him it is he who did himself the Honour to bring the Business before the Pope We approved of his Submission but we could not dissemble that it was without consenting to his Doctrine 19. Why says he did you send your Declaration to Rome The answer is ready in every one's Mind It is because his Book had been sent thither that he himself had sent it thither and that he wrote to the Pope that this Book contained no other thing but our Doctrine Does Sincerity allow any Man to dissemble in things so clear but the thing is he had a mind to complain tho' he had no reason for it 20. These Complaints are confuted by one word only they tend only to this to say that we had a mind to ruine M. de Cambray God knows the contrary But without calling so great a Witness the thing speaks of of it self Before his Book appeared we conceal'd his Errors so far as to endure the Reproaches you have heard of already When the Books appear'd he had already ruined himself enough If we have been willing to ruine him he concurred with us by raising up all the World against him by his ambitious Decisions and by filling his Book with Errors so palpable and with so many unexcusable Excesses 21. When he upbraids us and me in particular as if he had proposed it to us that we should by a common Letter beseech the Pope to order our Question to be judged without Noise by his Divines and in the mean time to keep silence First he tells a thing of which I never heard one Word and so false that he himself suppresses the chief Circumstances as has been seen from the beginning of this Relation It is besides true that the Proposal was impracticable What he had imputed to us as to his Doctrine was made publick in his Advertisement in the Book of the Maxims of the Saints He had reiterated it without asking our Consent as he owns it and he repeated therein once or twice that his Doctrine was conformable to ours Therefore our Conscience obliged us to disown it as publickly as we had been appeal'd to as Witnesses of it In the third place we made no question of the Falshood of his Doctrine We held it determinately to be evil and not to be countenanced This was not a particular Affair between M. de Cambray and us It was the Cause of the Truth and the Concern of the Church which we could not take upon our selves alone nor treat it as a private Quarrel which M. de Cambray would have been at Then suppose he persisted invincibly as he has done to impuâ—e unto us his Thoughts and would never retract it We should not save our selves but by declaring our Sentiments to all the World This Declaration remained naturally submitted to the Pope as all Particulars in matters of Faith do and presenting it to him was as much as to submit it to him but in the mean time we discharg'd our Conscience and as much as we could we rejected the Errors which our Silence might have confirm'd SECTION VIII Vpon Gentle Methods and Amicable Conferences IF it be said that we should have tried all ways of Mildness before we had come to a Solemn Declaration this we did also The Arch-bishop of Paris has demonstrated it so clearly for himself and for us that I should have nothing to add upon that Fact were it not for the particular Accusations whereby they attack me 2. But if any one has a Mind to be satisfied by his own Eyes as to the fairness of my Conduct let him but read the Writing I addressed to M. de Cambray before the sending of our Declaration If the Reader thinks it tedious to be referred to other Writings and would find all in this here 's in short what I said That after so many Writings we must take a shorter way and where also we may explain our selves more precisely which is a Conference Viva Voce that this way was always used and even by the Apostles as the most efficacious and gentle to agree about any thing this being often proposed him I did again propose it my self by writing upon condition to put far away from me all manner of Contention and to be declared an Enemy of Peace if on my side it was not amicable and respectful As for what he seemed to fear my quickness as he called it I
Every Bishop ought to give an Account in Convenient time of what the Disposition of the Divine Providence has put in his Hand Therefore I have been constrained to explain that the Arch-bishop of Cambray a Man of that Dignity is fallen into that unhappy Mystery and has made himself the Defender tho' by indirect ways of that Woman and her Books 2. He will not say that he knew not that prodigious and non-sensical Communication of Graces nor so many pretended Prophecies nor the pretended apostolical Mission of that Woman when he has suffer'd her according to his own Confession to be esteemed by so many great Persons who put a Confidence in him as to Matters of Conscience He had then suffer'd a Woman to be esteemed who Prophesied according to the Delusions of her Heart His great Intimacy with that Woman was grounded upon her Spirituality and this was the only Bond of their Correspondence This is what we have seen writ with his own Hand after which we have no reason to be amazed at his having undertaken the Defence of her Books 3. It was to defend them that he wrote so many Memoirs before those that were chosen Arbitrators nor is it necessary for me to represent the long Extracts of 'em I have yet by me seeing the substance of 'em is to be found in the Book of the Maxims of the Saints 4. That he might have a Pretext for defending those pernicious Books the Text whereof he himself thought could not be maintained he must have recourse to a hidden sense which that Woman has discover'd to him he must say that he has explained those Books better than the Books explained themselves the Sense that naturally offers is not the true Sese It is but a rigorous Sense which he assures us she never thought on so that to understand them well we must read the thoughts of their Author we must guess what is known to M. of Cambray only and judge of Words by Words by Sentiments and not of Sentiments by Words The most non-sensical in the Books of that Woman is a Mystical Language for which the Prelate is our Security that her Errors are meer Equivocations her Excesses are innocent Exagerations like unto those of the Fathers and of approved Mysticks 5. These are the Thoughts of this great Prelate touching the Books of M. Guyon after having if we may beleive him examin'd them unto the utmost rigor this is what he has writ with his own hand some time before the publishing of his Book and after so many Censures we have not for all that been able to draw from him a real Condemnation of those Evil Books On the contrary it was to save them that he spared the Guide of Molinos which is the Original of them 6. Yet notwithstanding all the Mittigations in the Book of the Maxims of the Saints we may still find therein M. Guyon and Molinos too weakly dignified not to be known and if I say further that the Work of an Ignorant and Enthusiastical Woman and that of M. de Cambray have manifestly one and the same Design I shall say no more after all but what appears of it self 7. I shall not say it but after having tried to the utmost what Meekness and Charity could do we us'd no Tricks as to the Submission of M. Guyon We admitted them with a well-meaning mind I shall make use of this Word and presuming always on her Sincerity and Obedience we consulted the Honour of her Name of her Family of her Friends and of her Person as much as was possible nothing has been omitted to convert her and nothing was censured but her Errors and ill Books 8. As for the Arch-bishop of Cambray we have but too well justified our selves by the undeniable matters of Fact contain'd in this Relation as to my own particular I am justify'd more than I wish I were But in order to confute all the unjust Reproaches of that Prelate we were under a Necessity not only to discover part of the matter of Fact but to have the whole as far as the Source By which if I may say so it appears from the beginning that we have endeavoured to follow the motions of that Meek and Patient Charity which neither suspects nor thinks any evil Our Silence was insuperable till M. de Cambray declared himself by his Book Nay we had Patience to the utmost so that notwithstanding his obstinate Refusal of all Conference we did not declare our selves 'till the Extremity Where will he fix the Jealousie he accuses us of without Proof and if we must clear our selves of so mean a Passion what were we jealous of in the New Book of that Arch-bishop Did we envy him the Honour of defending and setting forth M. Guyon and Molinos with fine Colours Did we bear an Envy to the Style of an ambiguous Book or to the Credit it gave to its Author whose Glory on the contrary was thereby buried I am ashamed for the Friends of M. de Cambray who make Profession of Piety and yet have without any ground published every where and even as far as Rome that some private Interest has set me at Work How strong soever the Reasons be which I could produce in my Defence God puts no other Answer into my Heart but that the Defenders of the Truth as they ought to be free from all self-interest they ought no less to be above the fear of that Reproach to be accounted self-interested Persons However I am not against their believing that Interest has provok'd me against that Book if so be that there is nothing worthy of Reproof in its Doctrine nor any thing that may be favourable to the Woman whose Delusions must be made manifest God has permitted that against my Will they should put into my Hands those Books that are Evidences of it God was willing that the Church should in the Person of a Bishop a living Witness of that Prodigy of Error It is only invincible Necessity obliges me to discover it when they continue so wilfully blind in their Error as to force me to declare all When not being satisfied to triumph they will needs insult When God on the other hand discovers so many things that were kept secret I take great care not to impute to M. de Cambray any other Design but that which he has discovered by his Hand-writing by his Book by his Answers and by several undeniable matters of Fact This is enough and too much that he should be so open a Protector of a Woman that prophesies and who proposes to her self the seducing of the whole Universe If they say this is too hard against a Woman whose Errors seem to be the effect of madness I will grant it if that madness be not a pure Fanaticism and if the Spirit of Seducing did not work in that Woman and if this Priscilla has not met her Montanus to defend her 9. If in the mean time the Weak are scandalized
was at Paris where she was admitted to it by her Superiours So that it was not so much as in my power to exclude her from the Sacred Table They gave her the Holy Sacraments in consideration of the frequent profession she made of an actual Submission and Obedience At Meaux I appointed her a Confessor to whom I gave full permission to give her the Communion upon account of the intire Submission she exprest both by word and writing in the most expressive terms that could be conceived She subscribed the Condemnation of her own Book as containing ill Doctrine She also subscribed our Censures wherein her Printed Books and her whole Doctrine are Condemned And in the last place she rejected by a special writing on purpose the Chief Propositions that formed her Systems I have all these acts under her Hand and I gave that Attestation which they call a full one only in respect of those acts therein expresly enumerated and with special prohibition that she should not Direct Teach or Dogmatise which she agreed to under her Hand in that same attestation Thus that incomprehensible mixture of remisness and rigour is cleared by those Acts and the Accusation of my Lord of Cambray manifestly proved to be false Who does not then perceive by this that no Credit ought to be given to the Facts which that Prelate alledges against a Brother and intimate Friend such as I was I readily grant to my Lord Arch-Bishop of Cambray that if we have done him any wrong he ought as he repeats without ceasing to maintain the Honour of his offended Ministry let him do us the same justice I am then on the other hand bound to make the truth appear upon the complaints he makes use of to exasperate the Publick against me We must then find out the source and what may be the causes of those deceitful Tears and of the Passion he accuses me of We must look back as far as the Origine to see whether it be Charity or Passion that has guided me in that Affair It has lasted above four years and I am the first that was drawn into it The connexion of the matters of fact does not allow me to separate them and I am necessarily bound to relate all the particulars of that unpleasant History when the Conduct of my self and of my Brethren cannot be understood but by that means 5. It cannot chuse but be very afflicting to see Bishops come to such disputes even as to matters of fact it is a subject of Triumph for the Libertines and an occasion of their accounting Piety Hypocrisie and of holding the astairs of the Church in derision But if People won't be so just as to look to the Original they must judge without reason My Lord of Cambray boasts of it every where that he was not the first that wrote that he might thereby perswade the World he has right on his side and lay us under an odium as being the unjust agressors He directs those words to my self Who was it that writ first Who was it begun the Scandal But is it lawful to dissemble certain and publick matters of fact Who is it really that appeared first in Print upon this Subject I or my Lord of Cambray Who was it that frst in an Advertisement at the beginning of an important work gave notice that he designed only to explain more at large the Principles of two Prelates my Lord of Paris and my self which were made publick to the world in four and twenty Propositions Had we agreed together that he should explain our Principles Had I so much as ever heard of his Explanation My Lord of Cambray says many things of my Lord of Paris which that Prelate hath confuted by unquestionable facts and with general applause But as to me the excuses my Lord of Cambray makes have not the least ground seeing it is certain that I never so much as heard of the explanation he had a mind to publish of our Common Principles Did I deal with my Lord of Cambray in this manner And when I was about to publish the Explanation I had promised of our Doctrine did not I at first put the Manuscript into the hands of my Lord of Cambray in order to examine it These are most certtain matters of facts and such as are not to be denied I am then plainly innocent of the differences that have happened between us though I am accused as the Author of all the mischief If instead of explaning our principles it appears that we are accused of Capital Errors If he fill a whole Book with the Notions of Molinos and only gild them over with specious pretences ought we to suffer it The only thing then we are to do is to examine whether the bottom of our cause be as good as we have demostrated it else where But in the mean time it is clear in the face of the Sun and before God and Men that we are not the Aggressors that our defence was lawful in as much as it was necessary and that there was not the least shadow for controverting that part of the proceeding which is the ground work of all that followed 6. The rest is no less evident But in order to acquaint the Publick therewith seeing my Lord of Cambray himself urges us thereto and that he has five hundred People at his beck all over Europe to eccho his Complaints every where what else can we do but repeat things again from the very Original by a Narrative as plain on the one hand as true on the other and maintained by certain Proofs 1. For a long time I heard it from Persons eminent for Piety and Prudence that the Abbot of Fenclon was favourable to the new way of Prayer and I had proofs given me of it that were not altogether to be rejected Being concern'd for himself for the Chruch and for the Princes of France whose Tutor he was I often discoursed him upon that Subject and endeavour'd to discover his Sentiments in hopes of bringing him back to the Truth if he should a little swerve from it I could not persuade my self that a Person of his Light and of that docible Temper I took him to be could fall into these Delusions or at least continue in them tho' he might perhaps be dazzled by them I have always entertained a firm persuasion of the strong influence of Truth upon those that hearken to it and I never doubted but the Abbot of Fenclon was attentive to it Yet I was somewhat uneasie to find he did not enter so frankly with me upon that matter as he did upon others that we treated of ever day At last God deliver'd me out of that uneasiness And a Friend to us both a Person of eminent Merit and Quality came when I thought least on 't to declare to me that Madam Guyon and her Friends were willing to refer her way of Prayer and her Books to my Judgment It was about September
1693. when this was proposed to me Now to divine why they imparted that Secret to me whether it was one of those Sentiments of Trust God puts when he pleases into the Hearts of Men to bring about his hidden Designs or whether they only thought that in the present conjuncture some protector or other must be look'd for amongst the Bishops This I say is beyond my reach I won't use Arguments I I design only to relate Matters of Fact which as in the sight of God I have as fresh in my Memory as the first day and know them also by the Writings concerning them I have in my Hands I am naturally afraid to incumber my self with Business to which I have not a manifest Call What happens in the Flock committed to my Charge notwithstanding my Unworthiness does not give me much Trouble I put confidence in the Holy Ministry and the Divine Vocation As for that time when they proposed to me to examine that Matter they repeated so often that it was the Will of God and that Madam Guyon desiring nothing else but to be taught a Bishop in whom she trusted could not well refuse her the Instruction she demanded with so much Humility that at last I yielded I soon knew it was the Abbot of Fenclon who had given that Counsel and I thought it a happiness to find such a natural occasion offer of explaining my self with him God would have it so I spoke to Madam Guyon all her Books were delivered to me and not only the Printed ones but also the Manuscripts as her Life which she had written in a great Volume some Commentaries upon Moses Joshua Judges the Gospel the Epistles of St. Paul the Revelations and several other Books of Scripture I took them with me to my Diocess whether I was agoing I read them with attention I made large Extracts of them as are usually made of a Subject by one who is to judge of it I wrote down at length with my own Hand her very words and marked the pages and in four or five months I fitted my self to pronounce the Judgment that was demanded of me 2. I never would take upon me neither to hear the Confession of that Lady nor to direct her though she propos'd it to me but only to declare my sentiments of her of prayer and of the Doctrine of her Books making use in the mean time of the liberty she gave me to command or forbid her in that matter as God whose light I continually begg'd should be pleas'd to inspire me 3. The first occasion I had to make use of that power was this I met with an account in the Life of that Lady that God did give her such abundance of grace that she burst out with it in a Literal sense so that they were fain to unlace her She did not forget to take notice that a Dutchess once on a time perform'd that Office for her in that condition they often laid her upon her Bed and many times if they did but stay and sit by her they receiv'd the grave of which she was full and that was the only way to ease her She said moreover in express words that those graces were not for her that she had no need of them being full of grace otherwise and that this superabundance was for others I lookt upon this immediately as haughty new and unheard of and therefore at least very suspicious and my heart that had a continual loathing of the Doctrine of the Books I read was not able to brook that manner of giving grace For if you take it distinctly it was neither by her prayers nor admonitions she gave it there was no need of any thing else but to sit by her to receive an immediate effusion of that fulness of grace being struck with so amazing a thing I wrote from Meaux to Paris to that Lady forbidding her as God did by my mouth to use that new way of communicating graces until she were further examin'd I was willing to proceed moderately in every thing and to connemn nothing absolutely before I had seen all 4. That part of the Life of Md. Guyon is of too great consequence to be lest doubtful therefore I shall give the explanation of it in her own words Those says she that the Lord has given me this is the stile all over the Book my true Children have a tendency to keep silence by me I discover their need and communicate to them in God what they want they feel very well what they receive and what is communicated to them with fulness A little after There 's no more to be done but to sit by me in silence Therefore that communication is called the communication in silence without speaking and writing it is the Language of the Angles that of the Word which is but an eternal silence Such as sit thus by her are nourished says she inwardly by the grace which I communicate in fulness as they did receive the grace around her I felt my self says she to empty and be eas'd by degrees every one receiv'd their grace according to their degree of prayer and fel by being near me that fulness of grace brought by Jesus Christ It was like a Sluce that over-runs with abundance They did feel themselves filled and for my part I felt my self to be emptied and to be eas'd of my fulness My Soul was represented to me like one of those torrents that fall from the Mountains with unconceivable swift 5. What she tells with particular care is as has been said that there is nothing for her self in that fulness of grace she repeats every where that all was full there was nothing empty in her She was as a Nurse that bursts out with Milk but takes none at all for her self I am Says she for these many years in a state that seems equally naked and empty and for all that I am very full A water that fills a Pool to the brink as long as you see it keep within bounds it affords uothing by which its fulness may be distinguished but if a superabundance be added it must either discharge it self or burst out I never feel any thing for my self but when they stir at any time that Fund which is inwardly full and calm that causes the fulness to be felt with so much excess that it gushes out upon the sense It is continues she an overflowing of the fulness a gushing out of a Well always full for such Souls as have need to draw the Waters of that fulness It is the Divine Cistern whence the Children of Wisdom draw incessantly what they stand in need of Being at a time in one of those excesses of fulness having some person about her and a Woman said that she was fuller than usually I told them said she I should die of fulness and that my senses were so overwhelmed by it as I should burst It was upon this occasion that the Dutchess she mentions
Orders than he the simplicity of my Sentiments conformable to those of the Church and the Person I was to act gave me that confidence M. de Chaalons was desired to be one of the Assistants in the Ceremony and we thought we should give the Church a Prelate of the same mind with those that Consecrated him 15. I don't believe that M. de Cambray will forget this praise-worthy Circumstance of his submission After the signing of the Articles and about the time of his Consecration he desir'd me to keep at least some of his Writings to serve as an Evidence against him if ever he should stray from our Sentiments I was far from that spirit of mistrust No Sir said I I will never use any other precaution with you than to take your word I gave back all the Papers as they were given me not keeping so much as one nor any other thing except my extracts for a memorandum of the Errors I was to confute without naming the Author As for the Letters that belonged to me I kept some of them as has been seen rather for my comfort than that I believed I should ever have need of them except perhaps for M. Cambray to put him in mind of his holy Submissions in case he should be tempted to forget them that they are now published is really owing to pure Necessity which compelled me to speak more than I would The protestation he made to me a little before his Consecration should also have been kept in silence as well as the rest if it had not come to the King's Ears that advantage was made of it and that they made as if I confirmed the Doctrine of the Book of the Maxims of the Saints because I had Consecrated the Author 16. A little before the Publishing of that Book an Affair happen'd that gave me a great deal of Trouble In my Pastoral Instructions of the 16th of April 1695 I had promised a larger one to explain our Articlâ—s and I desired the Archbishop of Cambray to join his Approbation to that of M. de Chaalons then promoted to the See of Paris and to that of M. de Chartres for the Book I design'd for that Explication Seeing we are to name here the Bishop of Chartres I must take notice he was the first of the Bishops of that neighbourhood who discover'd the evil Effects of the Books and Conduct of Madam Guyon The Consequences of that Affair made us concur together in many things as for the Archbishop of Paris I was so much the more obliged to support my self by his Authority because for the good of our Province he was become the Chief of it I thought also it was for the publick Edification that our unanimity with M. de Cambray should be known more and more every where I put my Book in Manuscript into the Hands of that Bishop I expected his Exceptions and to correct my self according to his Advice I found in my self I thought the same compliance for him that he had shewed to me before his Consecration But about three Weeks after his Approbation was refused me and that too for such a Reason as was far from my being able to foresee A Friend to us both gave me in the Gallery of Versailles a Letter of Credentials from the Archbishop of Cambray who was in his Diocese Upon which I was given to understand that that Prelate could not enter into the Approbatition of my Book because I therein condemned Madam Guyon whom he could not condemn 17. It was in vain for me to represent unto that Friend the Incovenience that M. de Cambray would fall into What! it will appear said I that to sustain M. Guyon he disunites himself from his Brethren then all the World will see that he is her Protector the suspicion wherewith he was dishonoured abroad will now be found a certainty What becomes of those fine Discourses we so often had of M. de Cambray and which he and his Friends spread abroad as that he was so far from being concerned in the Books of that Woman that he was ready to condemn them if it were necessary Now that she had condemned them her self that she had before me subscribed the Condemnation of them together with the Evil Doctrine contained in them would he countenance them more than her felf In what amazement will the World be to find at the head of my Book the Approbation of the Archbishop of Paris and of the Bishop of Chartres without his Was not that the way to make the signs of his Division from his Brethren manifest his Consecrators his most intimate Friends What Scandal what Reproach to his Name Of what Books would he become the Martyr why would he bereave the People of the comfort of seeing in the Approbation of that Prelate the solemn Testimony of our unanimity All these Reasons had no effect my Manuscript was restored to me again having staid three whole Weeks in the hands of M. de Cambray The Friend that had taken upon him to give it me again said he had kept it for most part of the time himself and that M. de Cambray had it but few days and gave it back without having read much of it I wrote a few Lines to that Prelate intimating to him my just Fears I received an Answer that signifi'd nothing and then he had begun to prepare what you shall see afterwards 18. You would perhaps know beforehand what was become of M. Guyon She had desired to be received into my Diocese in order to be there instructed She was six Months in the Holy Convent of the Damsels of St. Mary upon condition she should have no communication with any person whosoever either within or without by Letter or otherwise save only with the Confessor I appointed her according to her Desire and with two Nuns I had chosen one of whom was the venerable Mother le Picard a most prudent Woman Superior of that Monastery Seeing all her Letters and Discourses breathed out nothing but submission and a blind submission we could not refuse her the use of the Holy Sacraments I instructed her diligently she subcribed the Articles where she plainly saw they utterly condemn'd her Doctrine I rejected her Explications and her submission was pure and simple A little after she subscribed the just Censure that M. de Chaalons and I published against her Books and the Evil Doctrine contain'd in them condemning them with Heart and Mouth as if each Proposition had been expresly utter'd Some of the chief of 'em were specified that comprised all the rest and she renounced them in plain terms The Books she condemned were the Short Method and the Song of Songs which were the only Printed Books she owned I would not meddle with the Manuscripts that were not known abroad She offer'd at every word to burn them all but I thought that precaution needless because of the Copies that remain'd So I satisfi'd my self with forbidding her to
that of the particular Attributes and of the Divine Persons without excepting Jesus Christ himself Is that a mystical Language to suppress all Desire even of our Salvation and of Heavenly Joys only out of a desire to rest upon the Will of God either known or unknown either for our own Salvation and that of others or for our Damnation What is afterwards drawn out of her Short Method and interpretation of the Song in the Book of the sorts of Prayer tho' it be no less pernicious is according to M. de C. a mystical Language It is true indeed but this mystical Language is that of the false mysticks of our Days Of Falconi Molino's and Malavals all condemdemned Authors but not that of any approved Mystick You see how M. de Cambray excuses the Books of M. Guyon To take what has been just now recited and whatever is of the same nature in the literal Sense and according to the Consequence of the Discourse is in the Sense of that Prelate rigorous and severe tho' it be the natural sense of 'em and that which he endeavours to excuse in order that those pernicious Books might remain authorised tho' he knows in his Conscience that he is not able to justifie them and therefore to save them he has recourse to that absurd method of judging of the sense of a Book by the particular Knowledge he has of the Sentiments of the Author and not of the Sentiments of an Author by the words of his Book to this end are all the fine Excuses of M. de Cambray directed But lastly this rigorous sense as he calls it is that which astonish'd and scandaliz'd all Christendom And to Answer so boldly for Madam Guyon that such things never came into her Thoughts is another bold stroke of judging of her Words by her Thoughts and not of her Thoughts by her Words this is always to open the Door to the grossest of Equivocations and to furnish Excuses for the most pernicious of Books 14. It is true indeed that to this very day M. de Cambray makes use of this method he would have us divine what were his Sentiments in his Book of Maxims tho' he hath not so much as said one word of them and we must not wonder that after having justified Madam Guyon by so false a Doctrine as that we have just now heard he should also make use of it to justifie himself But let us come to what he adds upon decency 15. I have known her I could not be ignorant of her Writings I ought certainly to know her Sentiments I being a Priest a Tutor to Princes and having applied my self from my Youth to a continual Study of Doctrine ought to have seen what is manifest I must then if it be so have at least tolerated that impious System which is the thing that makes me guilty of Error and covers me with Eternal Confusion All our Correspondence has also been held upon that abominable Spirituality wherewith as they say she has filled her Books and which is the Soul of all her Discourses And in owning all these things by my Approbation I render my self infinitely more unexcusable than M. Guyon That which will appear at first sight to the Reader is that I have been constrain'd to subscribe to the Defamation of my Friend whose Monstrous System I could not be ignorant of being manifest in all her Works according to my own Confession So that my Sentence should be pronounced and signed by my self at the Head of M. de Meaux's Book where that System is set off with all imaginable Horror I maintain it that such a Dash of my Pen given against my Conscienee out of a base Policy would for ever render me infamous and unworthy of my Ministry 16. You see nevertheless what these most wise and affectionate Persons towards me have desired and prepared against me by a deep Contrivance It is then to secure my Reputation that they would have me sign that my Friend deserves to be burnt with all her Writings for a damnable Spirituality which is the sole Tye of our Friendship But further how must I explain my self thereupon Must it be freely according to my Thoughts and in a Book wherein I shall have opportunity to speak at large No I must be treated like a Man that is dumb and confounded they will hold my Pen they will constrain me to explain my self in the Works of another Man by a simple Approbation I must own that my Friend is manifestly a Monster upon the Earth and the Poison of her Writings can proceed from no where but out of her Heart Thus you see what my best Friends have contriv'd for my Honour If the most cruel Enemies would have set Snares to catch me is not this exactly the thing that they should have demanded of me 17. What does he not think that amidst his Excuses every one that reads them answers him No your Friend deserved not to be burnt with her Books seeing she condemned them Your Friend was not a Monster upon Earth but an ignorant Woman who being dazled with a specious pretext of Spirituality deceived by her Directors applauded by a Man of your Figure has condemned her Error when Care was taken to Instruct her This Confession could not but edifie the Church and wean from her Books those that have been seduced by them M. de Cambray had nothing else to do but to approve so just a Conduct had not an unreasonable fear that he should defame his Friend and himself stuck too much in his Stomach What he calls a Defaming his Friend is to understand her Books in their natural Meaning as his Breathren did and as every Body else did that condemn'd them He would not have his Friends perceive that he had put so bad a Book into their Hands this is what he calls Defaming himself And now we shall have cause of Wonder to see him retreat so many Steps backwards without being willing to own it he fears too much not to defame himself but to own a Fault This is not to defame himself but on the contrary to honour himself and repair his wounded Reputation Was it so great a Misfortune to have been deceived by a Female Friend M. de Cambray is to this very day careful to spread abroad at Rome that he hardly knows M. Guyon What Conduct is this at Rome he is asham'd of this she Friend in France he dares not say that she is unknown to him and rather than suffer her Books to be blasted he answers and gives Security for their Doctrine tho' already condemned by their Author 18. What shall it be said then that M. Guyon has subscribed her Condemnation by force is that forcing her when she willingly subscribed it in a Monastery where she had confined her self of her own Accord in order to be there instructed Is that force to yield to the Authority of the Bishops whom she chose for her Teachers But could we
at the last whilst our Memory is yet fresh There are two of 'em very important The One of which is That the Explications put on the Margin of the thirty four Propositions were concealed from me and shew'd only to the Arch-bishop of Paris and M. Tronson They begun then from that time to Comment upon the Articles they turn'd them they explain'd them after his way He Conceal'd it from me Why because he knew in his Conscience that he departed from our first Sentiments He will say that M. de Paris and M. Tronson would have thought as I did Who doubts of it So they did and M. de Paris has well shewed it But then every one has his own Eyes and his own Conscience One helps another Why then did they separate me from those Gentlemen seeing that they and I drew up those Articles with a perfect unanimity as has been saip Why did he hide himself but from him to whom before his being Arch-bishop and at the time of the Examination of the Articles he referred all things as to God without any further discussion as a Child as a School-boy It is not for my advantage that I put him in mind of those words it is to shew the laudible disposition of Humility and Obedience God then inspired M. de Cambray with What has since happened that should alter his Resolution is it because I had Consecrated him is it because he was not satisfied with his having Chosen me for that Work when at that time he was more full than ever of the Sentiments God had inspir'd him with towards me tho' unworthy and renewed his Protestation that he would never entertain other Opinions than mine the Purity whereof he knew It was notwithstanding after having Signed the Articles that he gives unknown to me a large Explanation of 'em to the Arch-bishop of Paris and to M. Tronson As for me I should be satisfied with it but as for M. de Cambray would he separate and disunite Brethren and Unanimous Persons that had laboured and concerted things so perfectly together and as became Church-men If that was his Design what Conduct is this if it was not why does he hide himself from me who breathed out nothing but Unity and Concord Was I become of a sudden morose capricious and unmanageable it had been much better to have Communicated to me what he was treating with the inseparable Fellows of my Labour than a Letter to a Carmelite which related nothing to our purpose seeing that was writ rather with respect to his particular Instruction than to the State of the Matter in General But what he would make shew of some Remains of Confidence for a Man that deserved an entire Confidence whilst the Essential Part is concealed from him and whilst M. de Cambray in order to lessen the Number of the Witnesses of the Variations he was contriving labours secretly to separate him from them to whom God had join'd him in this Work 2. I have writ a Book wherein I fully explain the whole System of the Inward Wayes The Work is now ready They need not be afraid that I shall therein Contradict M. de Meaux I 'd rather choose to dye than to present the Publick with so Scandalous a Scene Without the Trouble of Dyeing to avoid that Scandal he should have only Communicated that New Work to me as all the others had been Communicated and as I had Communicated that which I was Medirating I take here Heaven and Earth to Witness that I never knew even according to the Confession of M. de Cambray what he was Contriving and that I have my Hands free from the Scandalous Divisions that are thereupon happened 3. I shall not speak of M. de Meaux but to praise him and make use of his Words Whom do they think to amuse by that ambiguous Discourse to what purpose serves wavering Praise in a Book of Doctrine Is it not common to use the Words of an Author against himself and to convince him Thus M. de Cambray did not give the World any Assurance against the Dissentions they had reason to fear from his Book so that once more I am innocent 4. I know perfectly well the Thoughts of M. de Meaux and I may venture to promise that he will be satisfied when he shall see my Work publish'd What he knows my Thoughts so well that he won't do so much as ask them I will be satisfied He answers for it so I see but his Book publish'd Did he think to draw the Publick after him and by their Authority to drag me also along to make me believe that in the Articles of Issy I had thought of all that he would do or that though he might be assur'd if I durst say so of my pacifick Temper he believed I would connive at every thing did he not think that Discretion Patience Compliance especially in matters of the Faith have bounds beyond which they must not be push'd There was a surer Method to prevent so great a Mischief which was to concert and to endeavour to understand one another as I had given him Example He shunned a way so fair and so natural and thought to draw the Publick after him but so far were they from suffering themselves to be drawn away that he saw an universal Uproar against it that the like will hardly be found exemplified Thus God turns Men out of the way when they neglect the certain and simple means they have in their Hands and relye upon their Eloquence 5. I don't presume to have this Work printed without consulting any body He promises to consult the Archbishop of Paris and M. Tronson and not to have any thing printed but what they approve I would have says he the same confidence in M. de Meaux were I not under the necessity of concealing from him a Work the printing whereof 't is likely he would hinder out of respect to his own Why should I hinder it Did he know in his Conscience that by turning the Articles as he has done our Books would be contrary to one another and that he argued upon Principles opposite to those we had agreed upon This is what he should have prevented It was perhaps out of Jealousie of excelling me that I would hinder his Book from coming out what Mark had I ever given of so mean a Disposition why would he suspect such a thing of his Fellow-Bishop his Friend his Consecrator who may well be accused of being too much possess'd with a good Opinion of his Compliance If I had been as unreasonable to shew so shamful a Jealousie and to wrangle vainly with M. de Cambray M. de Paris and M. de Tronson would have confounded me and because 't is likely I should contradict them upon this Conjecture and Appearance he really exposes the Church to the greatest Scandal that could be rais'd 6. But whence comes this change of Conduct He to whom all was referred during the Discussion of
because I have always walk'd so as to obtain common Credit All of a sudden I have conceived the bold Design of ruining by my Credit alone the Arch-bishop of Cambray whom until then I had always been willing to save at my own Peril But that is nothing I alone have by imperceptible springs from a Corner of my Closet amongst my Papers and my Books stirr'd up the whole Court all Paris all Europe and Rome it self where the universal Astonishment not to say more was carried as fast as the Publick News could convey it What the most credited and most absolute Potentates could not perform and care not undertake viz. to make Men concur as it were in an instant in the same thoughts I alone have done it without stiring from my Closet 6. Yet I wrote nothing my Book that was finishing and printing when that of M. de Cambray appeared stay'd three Weeks longer in the Press and when I published it they sound therein 't is true Principles contrary to those of the Maxims of the Saints it could not be otherwise seeing we took such different ways and that I designed only to establish the Articles that M. de Cambray had a Mind to elude but not one Word against that Prelate 7. I shall say nothing of my Book but one well known and certain Matter of Fact It passed without any seeming Contradiction I had no Advantage of it I therein taught the Doctrine of the Catholick Church the Approbation of M. de Paris and that of M. de Cambray did add thereunto that Authority which the Holy Concurrence of Bishops gives naturally in Matters of Faith The Pope himself did me the Honour to sènd me a Letter upon the Book I had laid at his Sacred Feet and was pleased to express himself in brief that my Volume had much encreased the good Will he entertain'd for me That brief Letter is publish'd in my Second Edition It appears also in the Letter to M. de Cambray whether there be a Word of his Book That difference regards not my Person It is an Advantage from the Doctrine I taught which is known all over the Earth and which is authorized and always favoured by the Chair of St. Peter 8. Affairs seemed afterwards to be somewhat embroil'd It is the ordinary Conduct of God against Errors There happens at the very first Appearance of 'em an illustrious Declaration of the Faith It is as the first stroke of the Ancient Tradition that repulses the Novelties they design to introduce A little afterwards a second Time follow'd which I call the time of Temptation the Cabals the Factions began to stir Passion and Interest divides the World Great Bodies great Potentates stir themselves Eloquence dazzles the simple the Dialecticks lay Snares for them Extravagant Metaphy sicks carries the Minds of Men into unknown Countries many know no more what to believe and hold all in Indifference without Understanding or Distinction they embrace their Party meerly out of Humour There 's the Times I call Times of Temptation if they will Times of Darkness we must wait in Faith for the last Time when Truth shall triumph and get the victory 9. The first thing that appeared upon opening the Book of M. de Cambray was a manifest affectation to excuse the Mysticks newly condemned by cutting them off once twice and thrice from the List of the false Spiritualists Here we may discover him that had promised to keep silence to the last upon the Account of M. Guyon We have shewed in another place that the short Method of that Woman was nothing else but a more express Explication of Molinos's Guide and especially as to indifference about Salvation and that they had besides affected to transcribe into that small Book the same Passages Molinos relyes upon in his Guide among others a Letter of Father Falconi which has been censur'd at Rome So that to save Madam Guyon they must save Molinos and for this reason M. de Cambray spared him in the Maxims of the Saints It is true that he durst not forbear condemning expresly that Heresrarcha in his Letter to the Pope But he spoke therein only of 68 Propositions of that Wretch and affected to keep silence as to the Guide which is the Original of the New Quietism and of the short Method As for this last Book very far from condemning it he excused it in the same Letter by comprising his Author among the Mysticks Who says he carrying the Mystery of the Faith in a pure Conscience had favoured the Error by an excess of affectionate Piety for want of precaution the choice of terms and through a pardonable Ignorance of the Principles of the Divinity He adds that this was the Subject of the Zeal of some Bishops and of the 34 Propositions altho' those Propositions and Censures had no regard to any but to M. Guyon and Molinos There 's the pretended Exagerations the pretended Equivocations and in one Word the pretended Mystical Language which is plainly to be seen he prepared as a Refuge to that Woman and he presented that Excuse to the Pope himself to draw his Advantages from it if he would have received it 10. Here we may see the same Spirit of Indulgence for the short Method and M. Guyon's other Books when speaking of the Censures of some Bishops against certain little Books of which he durst not hold his Peace altogether before the Pope he reduces the same Censures to some places which taken in the sence that naturally offers at first deserve to be condemned He would seem thereby to condemn them if we remember'd not the particular sense he would have to be found in the same Books notwithstanding their proper Words and judges them to be condemnable only in a rigorous sence which he assures us never came into the Mind of their Author by which it is but too plain he reserved to himself the Liberty of excusing them by this particular sense he pretends to find in the Book notwithstanding the Words of the Book it self 11. In the mean while how little soever he may have said of it he is so afraid we should believe that he hath pass'd a Sentence of Condemnation upon the Books of M. Guyon by so speaking in his Letter to the Pope of the Bishops that have censured her that he explains it in his Answer to the Declaration where he says that he does not relye at all upon their Censures wherein he never had any part neither directly nor indirectly Words chosen on purpose to shew that he was very far from approving them 12. What he answers upon the affected Omission of Molinos and of M. Guyon is no less estrange Do they pretend says he seriously that I would defend or excuse Molinos when in all my Books I detest all the Errors of the 68 Propositions that occasion'd him to be condemned Yes without doubt they seriously pretend it seeing that these very Words confirm the perpetual affectation of suppressing the
Life 20. In every page of that Life she gives way to her Rapture so far as to say O let me hear no more of Humility The Virtues are no longer for me No my God let there be no more for me neither Virtue nor Perfection nor Holiness And every where in her Life she says Virtuous Manners are imperfect Manners The Virtue Humility is a feigned Virtue or at least affected and forced It is there also that we find the Source of the New Language where it is mentioned that they will have no more Virtue as Virtue M. de Cambray has adopted those words Thence comes whatsoever we find in his Writings to lessen the Esteem of Virtue and thence comes in the last place his perpetual forcing so many passages of St. Francis de Sales which are to be understood more simply as that Saint did 21. We had said nothing like this in our Articles Such Explications as are added in Favour of M. Guyon are not a more large explication as M. de Cambray promised but an evident Depravation of our Sentiments and Principles In the as Article we spoke all upon the Conditions and Suppositions impossible This was sufficient to verifie what had been said of it by St. Chrysostom and other Saints who would never introduce those Suppositions but with the Expression of an impossible Case But what was sufficient for the Saints was not sufficient to excuse M. Guyon So that to Contemn her they were fain to invent the absolute Sacrifice never heard of before and all the Circumstances that have been often remarkt all things added to our Articles and unknown to all Authors except to Molinos and M. Guyon 22. To speak a word of it by the by and to bring the Reader a little back again to the Matter of Fact was that an Expliction of our Principles or his acquiescing to his just Condemnation which one of our Articles has expressly condemned that we must never suffer troubled Souls to acquiesee in their Despair and apparent Damnation On the contrary M. de Cambray permits such as acquiescence by a Director and to render it more voluntary to ascribe it to the highest part of the Soul he calls it a Sacrifice and an absolute Sacrifice We said in the same Article that we must with S. Francis de Sales assure those Souls that God will not forsake them But far from approving that Article M. de Cambray confutes it expresly when he says that our Business is not neither to argue with those Souls that are incapable of all reasoning nor to represent unto them the Goodness of God in general We must then deprive of Comfort those Souls we suppose to be holy and bereave them with their Reason of the reasonable Service St. Paul teaches We must deliver them up to their Cruel Thoughts and to speak it in one word to their Despair was this to explain or to deprave our Principles Did we say any thing like this in our Articles SECT VII On the Arch-bishop of Cambray's Explications and the Necessity of our Declaration 1. IF we must now come to the Explications of M. de Cambray three Things are to be Observed in the Matter of Fact The first is that they were Explications we never heard one Word of and that we were to own them as contained in the Articles of Issy seeing it was those Articles which my Lord of Cambray would have had explained The second was that he changed them every day so that they are not yet finished And the third was that they did visibly contain new Errors 2. What had we to do with his Natural Love which never came into our Mind and suppose we had admitted it did it avail any thing towards solving the Difficulties the chief of all was the acquiescing to his just Condemnation on the part of God The Arch-bishop of Paris has lately demonstrated that the acquiescing to the Loss of that natural Love is so far from acquiescing to one's own Condemnation on the part of God that it is on the contrary a receiving of Grace from it seeing according to the Author himself this is one of the ' greatest to be deprived of a Love which they account the sole Obstacle to perfection what could we have said to an Argument so clear and was not this sufficient to hinder us from receiving Explications which afford no help to the Book they would have us to excuse 3. On the other hand that Explication is so bad that M. de Cambray has lately chang'd it in the very last Letter he address'd to me In that last Letter to acquiesce in one's own Condemnation is no more to acquiesce in the Loss of Natural Love as hitherto he would have us to understand it To acquiesce in his just condemnation is for a Sinner to acknowledge that he deserves Eternal Punishment So the Natural Love is useless to that act it is not out of a Natural Love that a Sinner owns himself to deserve Eternal Punishment But this new Answer is not better than the rest and the Arch-bishop of Cambray will find himself constrained to forsake it as soon as he considers this short Reflection It is not true that to acknowledge ones self to deserve Eternal Punishment is to acquiesce in his just Condemnation For 't is so far from acquiescing therein which happens to Men in Despair that we begg Pardon of the just Judge We beseech him to change his Justice into Mercy and not to deal with us according to our deserts but to save us through Grace in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord so far are they from Consenting by that Act to their own Condemnation that it is on the contrary to oppose his Mercy thereunto which hinders the Effect thereof 4. So and this is the Second Remark those Explications changed every day That which M. de Cambray seems to adhere to is that of Natural Love and of the terms of Motive to which as he grants he now gives a new Sense different from that of the School I do not touch upon that Matter whereof the Bishop of Chartres by whom the Explications have been transmitted to us will say what according to his Prudence he thinks fit But I shall only take Notice of those publick Matters of Fact The Letter to the Pope appeared a few Months after the Book in order to soften the Expressions thereof without mentioning therein either a Natural Love or the New Sense of Motives Soon after there came into our Hands by M. de Chartres another Explication wherein that Prelate can testifie no mention was made of Natural Love and he gave Motive a Sense therein quite contrary to that which has been proposed since At last the Natural Love which we had not yet heard of is come out and this is that same Explication which was set forth in the Pastoral Instruction 5. To draw all the Dispute on that Point M. de Cambray publisht at Rome and other places where he
alledged to him the Experience not only of my Conferences with the Ministers but also those we had sometimes together upon this Occasion without having raised my Voice so much as half a Note higher 3. If there were any Expedients to be found they could not but issue from such Conferences but I plac'd my hope in another thing I conceiv'd hope I say from the strength of Truth and from a perfect Acquaintance with the Disposition of M. de Cambray that I could bring him again to right Principles God is my Witness clearly and amicably I durst say so certainly and without reply in a few Conferences and perhaps in one only and in loss than two hours time 4. All that M. de Cambray objected was that I had engaged my self to answer to 24 Demands in Writing which I thought fit afterwards to defer by reason said I of the Equivocations of the 24 Demands which would take too much time to disintangle and by reason of the long time that must have been employed in writing the Consutations and Proofs Adding notwithstanding that I would readily write all the Proposition I should have advanced in the Conference if desired but that we were to begin at what was most short most decisive and most express I added also most charitable nothing being able to supply Verbal Conference and a lively tho' plain Discourse on the presence of Jesus Christ in the midst of us when we should be assembled in his Name to agree upon the Truth 5. Every body was amazed at the inflexible Refusal of M. de Cambray during six Weeks we have undeniable Witnesses for it and they earnestly desired to have us confer together I refused no Conditions a Clergy-man of Note being moved as every Body else was with the charitable desire of re-uniting the Bishops oblig'd me to give my Word to agree to a Conference where he should be If he had told the Answer he brought me to me alone perhaps we should have left it with himself It was in a word that M. de Cambray would not have it said that he changed any thing by the Advice of M. de Meaux If this Prelate won't grant that this was his Answer let him make such an one as he pleases but we may see that he cannot make any that 's good However I my self sent him the Writing the Extracts whereof you have just now heard It is not long one may read it over in less than a quarter of an Hour amongst those I have collected M. de Cambray does not deny that he received it Here 's five great Letters he addresses to me where he only reprehends me for having said in my Writing that I bore him in my Bowels he does not believe it possible for a Man to bear in his Bowels such as he reproves for the sake of the Truth nor to deplore their State but by shedding artificial Tears to tear them the more in pieces Why did he not come to the Conference to try the Strength of such brotherly Tears and Discourses which Charity I dare say so the Truth had inspired us with We expected three Weeks the effect of that new Invitation and the Declaration was not sent 'till at last we had made use of all the mild ways imaginable of which Declaration we must yet speak a Word SECTION IX Vpon the Declaration of the three Bishops and the Summa Doctrinae 1. THey complain it is too severe but the Arch-bishop of Park has truly affirmed that the Archbishop of Cambray has been very much spared therein We have there kept under silence those Temptations of a particular kind which cannot be resisted and of which we could not forbear to speak in another place wherein we had kept nuder Silence those Compliances of Ingenuous Souls upon humbling things indefinitely which should be commanded them The Deprivation not only of all Comfort but also of all Liberty that readiness to forsake all and the way it self that teaches this readiness That Disposition without bounds to all the practices laid upon them and that universal forgetfulness of their Experiences of their Readings of the Persons they have formerly consulted with confidence Lastly We there kept under silence the Possessions the Obsessions and other extraordinary things which the Author had given us as belonging to the interior ways It is known what use the false Spiritualists make of it as well as of other things just now mentioned M. de Cambray himself insinuates it and we receive little Comfort in hearing him say that the way of pure Love and pure Faith that he teaches is that wherein you shall see less of it than in others as if nothing were to be done here but to consider the more or the less and that he ought not to have explained himself more expresly against such abominations 2. The Author objects continually that we have not taken Notice of his Correctives wherewith he will have his Book to be fuller than any other Book whatever that is the very thing we complained of We thought it an Unhappiness for a book of that Nature to have so many Correctives as it is for a Rule to need too many Exceptions The Truth is more simple and that which must be so often modified discovers naturally an ill Foundation He had nothing to do but to explain himself simply as he had promised Whatsoever he hath said upon the absolute Sacrifice has only afforded Difficulties in the Article of the impossible Suppositions therefore he should have omitted those Correctives which serve only to encrease the evil for instance the dangerous Corrective of the Perswasion not inward but apparent which serves only to excuse the Language of Molinos as has been shewed elsewhere All impartial Readers acknowledge that these Correctives are but so many Perplexities fit to make Men mad and we have seen enough to make us sensible of the Snares that ignorant People meet with in the obscurity of that Book which promised so much plainness and neatly to cut off all Equivocations 3. One of the things they cry up most as an excellent Corrective is the false Articles where 't is true M. Cambray condemns the false Mystical Divines the Arch-bishop of Paris has discovered the Subtilty of it a Man entangles himself naturally when he will not condemn what he dares not defend openly In another place he overstrains Quietism the better to pass over the Error What Quietism has ever consented to hate God eternally nor to hate himself with a real hatred so that we cease to love in our selves the Work of God and his Image Who has ever consented to hate himself with an absolute hatred as supposing the work of the Creator not to be good To carry the renouncing of one's self so far by an impious hatred of our Soul which suppose it to be evil in its nature according to the principle of the Manichees When we shoot at this rate we shoot at random we pass over the
communicate them or to write of 'em to others or to teach dogmatise or direct condemning her to silence and retirement as she desired I received the Declaration she made against the Abominations she was accused of presuming her to be innocent as long as she was not Convicted by a lawful Examination whereupon never enter'd She asked me leave to go to the Waters of Bourbon after her submissions she was free She desired to be received after her return from the Waters into the same Monastery where she kept her Apartment I granted it one design to instruct and thoroughly to convert her without leaving her if possible not so much as the least tincture of the Visions and Delusions past I gave her that attestation her Friends so much bragg'd of abroad but she never durst shew it because I expresly specified therein that Account of the Declarations and Submissions of M. Guyon which we had by us subscribed by her own Hand and of the Prohibitions accepted by her with submission neither to Write Teach nor Dogmatise in the Church nor to spread abroad her Printed Books or Manuscripts nor to lead People into the way of her silent Prayer or otherwise I was satisfied with her Conduct and had continu'd her in the participation of the Holy Sacraments wherein I found her This Attestation was dated the First of July 1695. I set out the next day for Paris where we were to advise what course we should take concerning her for the future I shall not recount how she went off before the day I had fixed for her departure nor how she since absconded her self how she was taken again and convicted of several things contrary to what she had signed What I cannot conceal is that she set up always for a Prophetess I have in her Writings sign'd with her own hand that God had put into her disposal the life of such as oppose themselves to her Visions She has made Prelates and Archbishops far different from those the Holy Ghost hath chosen She has also made such Predictions as would strike horror into those that hear them You have already seen what she had foretold as to the Protection of her Silent Prayer by the King himself She has since given out that after what she calls Persecution her Prayers would spring up again under a Child The Prophecy has been taken notice of to the August Infant without making any Impression upon his Mind God forbid I should accuse M. de Cambray nor the wise Heads that are about that lovely Prince of the Discourses that have been made to him concerning it but there are amongst all Parties People of outragious tempers who speak without measure or aim and that sort of People spread Reports abroad that the times will change and thus they frighten the simple You see then plainly the Reasons I have to write those Circumstances You see in whose presence it is I write them and why at last I make a Woma nknown who is at present a cause of Divisions in the Church 14. M. de Cambray during the time of our examination spoke of her in different manners he has often frighten'd us when he said to two or three of us together that he had learnt more from her than from all the Doctors together and at other times he comforted us saying he was so far from approving her Books that he was rather ready to condemn them if it were thought necessary in the least I doubted no more of his Conversion upon this point than upon the rest and seeking nothing else but to convince throughly of his Errors a Man of parts by a method so much the more sincere as it was meek and without compulsion I wished he might come of his own accord to himself again as it were from a short fit of giddiness and we thought fit to defer the proposing to him the express condemnation of the Books of that Woman 'till such time as he could do it without reluctancy Thus you have an Account of those unmerciful Men and of those Persons that envied the glory of M. de Cambray those that had a mind to ruin him that have carried their severity so far as it 's impossible the relation of it can find Belief amongst Men. Let the time at least be instanc'd when that madness seiz'd us They might well have found fault that we spared him too much shew'd him too much meekness and were guilty of too much compliance Let it be so and I will own it and to speak only of my self that I carried my Confidence the love of Peace and that benign Charity which suspects no evil too far hitherto it remains at least an uncontroverted Truth That the Archbishop of Cambray disunited himself from his Brethren to maintain Madam Guyon against them Sect. IV. M. de Cambray's Excuses for refusing me his approbation 1. That Prelate well foresaw the inconvenience I had intimated to his Friend to whom he gave the Charge of his credential Letter and here I shall give you what he writ with his own hand to the Person in the World before whom de desir'd most to clear himself I shall relate the whole without retrenching one word Let the Reader be attentive to it and therein see the true cause of all the Troubles of the Church The Writing begins thus 2. When M. de Meaux proposed to me that I should approve of his Book I testified to him with all imaginable tenderness that I should be very glad to give that publick mark of my conformity in Opinion with a Prelate whom I have lookt upon from my Youth up as my Master in the Science of Religion I offer'd to go to Germigny to draw up with him my Approbation I said at the same time to my Lords of Paris and Chartres and to Monsieur Tronson that I saw no shadow of difficulty between M. de Meaux and me as to the Point of Doctrine But that if he would attack Madam Guyon personally I could not approve of it This is what I have declar'd six Months ago I never knew any thing of it more than what follows 3. M. de Meaux gave me lately a Book to be examin'd at the opening of the Packet I found that they were full of personal Confutation I presently acquainted My Lords of Paris and Chartres and M. Tronson with the hardship that M. de Meaux put upon me 4. Let us explain whether he takes for personal Coufutation the Condemnation of the Person I did not so much as once think of condemning the Person of Madam Guyon who had submitted her self If he call the Confutation of her Book a personal Confutation it was not then her Person but her Book he has a mind to defend He goes on 5. They did not fail to tell me that I might condemn the Books of Madam Guyon without defaming her Person or doing my self an injury But I conjure them that speak so to weigh as before God the Reason I