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

Poyson XVIII False WE ought to conform our selves to all the Wills of God and to his permissions as to all his other Wills We ought therefore to permit Sin in our selves when we know God is about to permit it We ought to love our Sin though contrary to God by reason of its abjection which purifies our love and takes from us all pretence and desert of a reward Lastly the attraction or inspiration of Grace requires from Souls in order to render them more disinterested for the Eternal reward the breaking of the Written Law To Speak at this rate is to Teach Apostacy and to put the Abomination of Desolation in the most holy place it is not the Voice of the Lamb but of the Dragon XIX ARTICLE True VOcal without Mental Prayer that 's to say without the attention of the Mind and the Affection of the Heart is a Superstitious Worship which honoureth God with the Lips while the Heart is far from him Vocal Prayer is not good and meritorious but in as much as it is directed and animated by that of the Heart It is much better to recite but a few Words with great recollection and Love than long Prayers with little or no recollection when they are not Commanded To Pray both without attention and Love is to Pray as the Heathens did who thought to be heard for the Multitude of their Words One Prays no further than one desires and one doth not desire but by how much one loveth at least with an interested Love Nevertheless Vocal Prayer ought to be respected and consulted as being good to awake the Thoughts and the Affections which it expresses as having been taught by the Son of God to his Apostles and practised by the whole Church in all Ages To make light of this Sacrifice of Praises this fruit of the Lips that does confess the Name of the Lord would be an impiety Vocal Prayer may be troublesome for a while to those Contemplative Souls who are yet in the imperfect beginnings of their Contemplation because their Contemplation is more sensible and affecting than pure and quiet It may be also burthensome to Souls who are in the last Tryals because every thing in that state disturbs them But one ought never to give them for a rule to forsake without the permission of the Church and without a true impotency known to be so by their Superiours any Vocal Prayer which is obligatory Vocal Prayer taken with simplicity and without scruple when it is according to the Command may well be troublesome to a Soul in relation to those things we have already noted But it is never contrary to the highest Contemplation Experience even shews that the most Eminent Souls in the midst of their most sublime Communications have familiar Communications with God and that they read or recite with a loud Voice and in a kind of Transport some inflamed Words of the Apostles and Prophets To Speak so is to explain the soundest Doctrine with the most correct Words XIX False VOcal Prayer is nothing but the gross and imperfect Doctrine of beginners It is intirely unprofitable to Contemplative Souls They are by the eminency of their state dispensed with as to the reciting of Vocal Prayers Commanded them by the Church because their Contemplation eminently comprehends what is more edifying in the different parts of Divine Worship To Speak at this rate is to despise the Reading of the Scriptures it is to forget that Christ hath Taught us Vocal Prayer which contains the perfection of the highest Contemplation It is to be ignorant that pure Contemplation is never perpetual in this Life and that in its intervals one may and ought to recite faithfully the Office which is Commanded and which of it self is so apt to nourish in our Souls the Spirit of Contemplation XX. ARTICLE True REading ought not to be done either out of Curiosity or desire of judging of our State or deciding it according to what we Read nor out of a certain relish of what we call Witty and sublime We ought not to read the most holy Books nor even the Scriptures but with dependency upon the Pastors and Directors who are in their stead 'T is they who are to judge whither each faithful Christian is prepared enough if his Heart is sufficiently purified and Docible for each different Reading They ought to distinguish the Food that is agreeable to every one of us in particular Nothing causeth so much illusion in the interiour Life as the indiscreet choosing of Books 'T is best to Read little and make long interruptions by way of recollection that we may let Love more deeply to imprint in us the Christian truths When recollection causeth our Book to drop out of our hands we must let it fall without scruple We shall take it up again time enough afterwards to renew in its turn our recollection Love Teaching by its Unction surpasses all the rational discourse we can make upon Books The most powerful of all perswasions is that of Love Nevertheless we must take in hand again the outward Book when the inward Book ceaseth to be open Otherwise the empty Spirit would fall into a rambling and imaginary Prayer which would be a real and pernicious idleness This would bring a Man to neglect his own instruction about necessary truths and forsake the Word of God and never to lay solid foundations both of the exact understanding of the Law and of revealed Mysteries To Speak thus is to Speak according to Tradition and to the Experience of holy Souls XX. False THe Reading of the most holy Books is unprofitable to those whom God teacheth entirely and immediately by himself 'T is not necessary that such persons as these should have laid the foundation of common instruction They need only to wait for all the light of truth that doth arise from their Prayer As for their Readings when they are moved to any they may choose without consulting with their Superiours such Books which Speak of the most advanced states They may Read the Books that are suspected or censured by their Pastors To Speak at this rate is to destroy instruction which is the food of Faith It is to substitute instead of the pure Word of God an interiour Fanatical inspiration On the other side it is to permit Souls to Poyson themselves with contagious Readings or at least such as are disproportionate to their true needs It is to teach them dissimulation and disobedience XXI ARTICLE True WE ought to distinguish between Meditation and Contemplation Meditation consists in discursive acts that can be easily distinguished the one from the other because they are distinguished by a kind of a noted motion because they are varied by the diversity of Objects they are applied to because they draw a conviction concerning the truth of the conviction of another truth already known because they draw an affection from several Motives methodically assembled Lastly because they are done and reiterated with

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

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

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

Reasons that have induced me to write concerning the internal Life and Contemplation I have observed That some Persons abusing the Maxims of the Saints that have been so often approved of by the Holy See thought by little and little to insinuate pernicious Errors thereby and that others who knew nothing of spiritual things turned the same into a Ridicule The abominable Doctrine of the Quietists under the appearance of Perfection glided secretly into divers parts of France and even into our Low Countries Several Writings whereof some were too Uncorrect as others might be justly suspected of Errors stirred up the indifferent Curiofity of the Faithful against them Some Ages ago diverse mystical Writers arraigning the Mystery of the Faith in a pure Conscience had favoured the same yet not knowing the Error concealed under it this they did out of an excess of warm Piety want of precaution in the choice of Terms made use of by them and a pardonable ignorance of the Principles of Theology This is that which has inflamed that ardent Zeal of divers illustrious Bishops and this gave them an occasion to Compose Thirty Four Articles which they were pleased to draw up and lodge with me This also has brought them to Censure certain little Books some Passages of which being taken in the sense that doth naturally arise from them have deserved to be condemned But most Holy Father Men have not removed far from one Extream without falling into another some persons have taken occasion against our intention to Ridicule as an extravagant Chimera the pure love of a Contemplative Life For my own part I thought by taking diligent heed to an exact medium it was the way to separate Truth from Error and that which is Ancient and Stanch from what is new and dangerous this is that which I have endeavoured to do according to my weak Abilities but to know whether I have succeeded therein or no is left most Holy Father to your Judgment and 't is my business respectfully to give ear to St. Peter as living and speaking in you whose Faith shall never fail I have chiefly applyed my self to make this Work concise and therein have followed the Advice of very knowing Persons who have desired that a ready and an easy remedy should be found out not only against the Illusion which is Contagious but also against the scoffing of prophane Persons Great regard then was to be had for those Souls that are full of Candour who being more simple in that which is good than precaution'd against Evil could not discern that horrible Serpent that was hid under the Flowers regard also must have been had to the Contempt of Criticks who would not separate the Ascetick or studious Traditions and precious Maxims of the Saints from the vile Doctrine of Hypocrites Wherefore it has been thought necessary to make a kind of a Dictionary of Mystical Theology in order to prevent good Souls from passing beyond those Bounds set unto us by our Fathers I have therefore in as short a Style as possibly I could comprized the Desinitions of those Terms which the Practice of the Saints have Authorized I have also imploy'd the weight and authority of a Censure to endeavour to crush down a Heresy so full of Impudence it appeared to me most Holy Father as some sort of undecency that a Bishop should expose those Monstrous Errours to the Publick without testifying at the same time the indignation and horror which the Zeal of God's Cause had inspir'd him with against it Nevertheless I pray God that I may not have lost the sight of my own weaknesses and spoken any thing presumptuously The supream Authority of the Holy See hath abundantly supplyed all my Defects the Soveraign Pontiffs upon a scrupulous examination of all the Writings of the Saints which have been Canoniz'd have upon all occasions approv'd of the true Maxims of the Ascetick or studious Life and contemplative Love Wherefore having kept close to that immutable Rule I hope I have without any danger of going out of the way fitted up the Articles which I have asserted as true ones As to those false ones which I have Condemned I have been led thereunto as it were by the Hand for I have in every thing taken the Solemn Decrees by which the Holy See hath Condemned the Sixty Eight Propositions of Molino's for my Model therein And so having such an Oracle for my Foundation I have endeavoured to lift up my Voice to speak In the first place I have Condemned the permanent Act which has never any occasion to be reitterated as being a Poisoned Spring of Idleness and inward Lethargy In the next place I have Established the indispensible necessity of a distinct Exercise of every Virtue Thirdly I have resisted a perpetual and uninterrupted Contemplation which would exclude Venial Sins the distinction of Virtue and unvoluntary distractions as being incompatible with the Condition of a Traveller Fourthly I have rejected passive Prayer which would exclude the real Cooperation of Free-will for the formation of Meritorious Actions Fifthly I have allowed of no other Rest neither in Prayer nor in other Exercise of the Internal Life save that peace of the Holy Ghost whereby the most pure Souls frame their Actions in so uniform a manner that they appear to Persons without Knowledge not as distinct Acts but a simple and permanent Unity with God Sixthly For fear that the Doctrine of pure Love so much Authorized by so many Fathers of the Church and other Saints might serve as an Azilum or Refuge to the Quietists I have set my self chiefly to shew that in what degree of Perfection soever it may be and how great the Purity of Love wherewith one is filled may arrive to yet he must always retain in his Heart the Hope wherewith we are saved in pursuance to what the Apostle saith concerning Faith Hope and Charity Now these three things Faith Hope and Charity remain but Charity is the greatest We must therefore always hope for desire and pray for our Salvation since 't is God's will it should be so and that he requires that we should will it for his glory thus Hope preserves it self in its proper Exercise not only by the means of the infused Habit but also by its own proper Acts which being commanded and enobled by Charity as the Schools phrase it they are most absolutely carried to the sublime end of the same Charity which is nothing else but the pure glory of God Seventhly This state of pure Charity is not to be found but in a very few perfect Souls and that 't is there only in an habitual manner When I say habitual God forbid that an unamissible state or such as is exempted from any variation should be meant If this estate be still subject to daily Sins with how much more reason is the same compatible with Acts performed from time to time which cease not to be good and meritorious tho' they may be