condemn those Books more expresly than by subscribing to their just and severe Censure but this say they is to constrain M. de Cambray to own too great a Mistake What Remedy is there for it It is certain by the common Declaration of all Christendom and by the acknowledgment of M. Guyon that her Spirituality ought to be condemn'd It is certain by the present Confession of M. de Cambray that all his Correspondence with Madam Guyon was about that Spirituality she her self had condemned and that it made the only Tye of that Friendship so much boasted of What Answer can be given to so formal a Confession what can we say to them who will Object That this Correspondence united by such Tye was either known or not known if it was not M. de Cambray had nothing to fear in approving the Book of M. de Meaux if it was known that Prelate was so much the more obliged to declare himself and there was nothing he had reason to fear but holding either his Peace or making Evasions upon that Subject 19. M. de Cambray seems to have foreseen that Objection and therefore he continues in this manner for I Omit none of his Words They will be sure to tell me that I ought to Love the Church more than my Friend and more than my own self As if the Church were in Danger in an Affair wherein her Doctrine is secur'd and where the thing relates to a Woman whom I am ready to suffer should be defamed for ever Provided I have no Hand in it against my Conscience Yea I would burn my Friend with my own Hand and my self too chearfully rather than the Church should be in Danger She is a poor Woman confin'd opprest with Grief and Reproaches No body defends her nor excuses her and one is always afraid Good God! is that nothing to the Church to Bless a Seducing Book spread all over the Kingdom and further especially when he is suspected to approve it Is it nothing to the Church to observe to set in a true light to Confute the Errors of such a Book this is what M. de Cambray won't hearken to Why does he separate himself from his Brethren and not shew before the whole Church the Consent of the Episcopacy against a Book really so pernicious A Body is always afraid says M. de Cambray It is well seen He would have no Body to meddle with that poor Captive whose Fate he deplores and that we should suffer a Party that has already too much over-run the World to strengthen it self To what purpose is it for him to say Yea I would burn my Friend wish my own Hands I would burn my own self Such as do burn after this manner do it that they may burn nothing at all These are Transported Zealots who go beyond the Burt to pass over the Essential Point Burn not M. Guyon with your own Hand you should be irregular in so doing Burn not a Woman that shews she is coming to her self again unless once more you be assured that 〈◊〉 Recantation is not sincere Burn not 〈◊〉 own-self save the Persons condemn the Error proscribe with your fellow Bishops the pernicious Books that spread all over the World and put an end to a Business that disturbs the Church 20. After all continues M. de Cambray which is most proper either that I should revive in the World the remembrance of my past Intimacy with her and acknowledge my self the most insipid Man living for not having seen manifest Infamies or that I am execrable for having tolerated them or that I should keep to the last a profound Silence as to the Writings and Person of M. Guyon as one that excuses her in his Heart by reason she did not perhaps know the extent of each Expression nor the severity wherewith they would afterwards examine the Language of the Mysticks upon the Experience of the Abuses that some Hypocrites have committed upon it Tell me truly which is the wisest part of these two 21. I have nothing to do here but to observe in one Word that profound silence to the last which M. de Cambray promises here it will soon be seen what Mischief such a determined Silence causes to the Church After this necessary Remark as to the Fact let us go on with the Writing of that Prelate 22. They don't cease to tell us every day that the Mystick Divines themselves even the most approved of 'em have much exagerated Matters Nay they will have it that St. Clement and several of this chief Fathers have spoken in terms that require abundance of Correction Why do they expect that a Woman only could not exagerate why must whatsoever she has said tend to the forming of a System that makes a Body tremble If she could exagerate innocently if I have throughly known the Innocency of her Exagerations if I know what she would say better than her Books have explained it if I am convinced of it by Proof as decisive as the Terms they reprove in her Books are equivocal can I defame her against my Conscience and defame my self with her This Prelate declares himself more and more the Terms of M. Guyon are but equivocal the Bishops and even the Pope have condemned her Book only because they did not understand them well We are you see brought again in her behalf to those unhappy Disputes of the Question of Fact and Right M. de Cambray is the Author of it and there is none but this Shift left him to defend M. Guyon against his Fellow Bishops and against Rome it self 23. See how in this Condition he Triumphs saying without interruption Let my Conduct be closely observed Was the bottom of the Doctrine the Question I presently told M. de Meaux that I would sign with my own Blood the thirty four Articles he had drawn up so that he would explain certain things therein The Archbishop of Paris made earnest instances to M. de Meaux upon such things as appeared to him just and necessary M. de Meaux yielded and I did not defer one Moment afterwards to sign But now when the Business tends to the defaming by a back-blow my Ministry and Person by defaming M. Guyon and her Writings they find I make an invincible Resistance Whence comes that difference of Conduct Is it that I was weak or timorous at the signing the thirty four Propositions They may judge of it by my present Constancy Is it that I refuse now out of Conceit and from a factious Principle to approve the Book of M. de Meaux They may judge of it by my readiness to sign the thirty four Propositions If I was head-strong I should have been more especially so as to the Doctrine of M. Guyon than as to her Person I could not in my Bigottism how ridiculous and dangerous soever care any thing for her Person but so far as I could believe it necessary for the promoting of he Doctrine All this is
makes wonderful Arguments upon his Conduct Is it that I was meek and fearful when I signed the thirty four Propositions they may judge of that by my present Resolution Is it that I have refused out of Self-conceit and a Factious Spirit to approve the Book of M. de Meaux they may judge of that by my readiness to Sign the thirty four Propositions To what purpose are his Arguments when Matters of Fact speak Those Matters of Fact shew a Rule and a more simple and natural way to judge of his Change of Conduct It is in a word to be Arch-bishop or not to observe Measures before his being made so and to keep none when the Business is consummated 23. He Values himself much upon Readiness to suffer M. Guyon to be condemned confined fined and loaden with Reproaches without saying so much as one word to justifie her to excuse her or to sweeten her Condition We must not yet argue too much on this Point It is naturally and plainly thus that M. Guyon by her ill Doctrine and her rash Conduct for it was not then throughly div'd into was become so ridiculous and odious that the Prudence and Precaution of the Abbot de Fenelon even since he was made Arch-bishop of Cambray did not permit him to expose himself in vain What do I say to expose himself to lose his good Name utterly by upholding her and that there was no other way for one that would defend her but to take indirect Methods 24. It is what appears to us in all his Writings that he had secretly undertook to defend her Thus that he defends her to this very day in maintaining the Book of the Maximes of the Saints He lays down now as he did then all the Principles he can to uphold her If by his Knowledge he covers her Doctrine if he mittigates it in some places that way of Teaching it is so much the more dangerous In fine we could not excuse him then but by his extream Submission the Proof whereof we have been constrained to give by his own Letters and we had not lost those Hopes of him but by the Publication of his Book of which we must now speak SECTION VI. Of the History of the Book 1. THat Book that ought to have been so well Concerted with my Lord of Paris and M. Tronson As for me I was one to whom he would no more hearken That Book I say wherein he had engaged himself as has been said not to put any thing but what was Corrected and approved by them appeared at last on a sudden in February 1697. without the least Mark of any such Approbation The Arch-bishop of Paris has explain'd himself to the Arch-bishop of Cambray how that Book appeared against his Advice and against the formal Word M. de Cambray had given him As for me who restrict my self wholly to what is publick on that Head I shall only Observe that not to find the Arch-bishop of Paris's Approbation at the Head of that Book is the same in my Opinion as the Refusal of it seeing that according to the Obligations M. de Cambray had taken upon him he ought to have demanded it Let us not then any more speak of mine which was no less necessary seeing I was one of the two Prelates whose Principles he promised to explain We must not forget that Authentick Promise in the Advertisement of M. de Cambray There was publish'd a Book that was to decide such Nice Matters to distinguish so exactly betwixt the true and the false to take away all Equivocations and to reduce the Expressions to the utmost rigour of the Theological Language and by that means to serve as a Rule to all Spirituality We saw I say that Book appear without any Approbation not so much as of those from whom it was most Necessary and whose Approbation he had promised to take 2. It is in vain to Answer that M. de Cambray had 't is true promised to speak nothing but what M. de Paris should approve of but not to take his Approbation in Writing for 't is not the Custom to prove an Approbation by a Chimerical Matter of Fact It must be shewed in Writing and Signed especially when he of whom he takes it is concerned in the Case as the Arch-bishop of Paris was manifestly so in the New Book seeing he promised in the Preface of his Book that he would explain his Doctrine 3. So M. de Cambray ventured at He that chose rather to dye than to present the Publick with so scandalous a Scene as to contradict me exposes himself likewise to contradict the Arch-bishop of Paris and to set the whole Church in a Combustion He had rather indeed expose himself and did it accordingly than with his Friends with his Fellow-Bishops not to say with them he had Chosen for Arbitrators of his Doctrine whilst on our part we offered to Concert all things with him and did so accordingly and put our Compositions into his Hands He has broke all Union out of an eager desire to give Laws to the Church and to furnish Excuse to M. Guyon nor can he endure to be told that he alone is the Cause of Division among the Bishops and of the Scandal of Christendom 4. He would have it forgot how speedy and universal an Opposition was made to his Book The Town the Court the Sorbonne the Monasteries the Learned the Ignorant Men Women yea all Orders without exception shewed their Indignation not against the Proceedings for they were known but to few and indeed to no body throughly but against the boldness of such an ambitious decision against the refinedness of the Expressions the strangeness unprofitableness and the ambiguity of that unheard of Doctrine It was then that the Publick Noise convey'd to the Sacred Ears of the King what he had so carefully conceal'd He heard it from an hundred Persons that M. Guyon had met with a Protector in his Court in his Family one that waited upon the Princes his Children And with what Displeasure we may judge by the Piety and the Prudence of that great Prince We were the last that spoke of it every body knows the just Reproaches we underwent from the Mouth of so good a Master for having concealed from him what we knew with which you may be sure he charg'd our Consciences Yet M. de Cambray in such a general dissatisfaction only complained of us and when we were constrained to excuse our selves for having served him too much and that we must lastly begg Pardon for our Silence that hád saved him he made and contrived the most strange Accusations that could be against us 5. Did I alone raise up the Publick what my Cabal my Emissaries shall I dare to say so I can say it with Confidence and before the Sun the most simple of all Men I would say the most incapable of all Cunning and of all Dissimulation as one who never found Credit but
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
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
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
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
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
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
and whom I shall never discover unleced me says she out of charity to ease me which was not able to prevent my body from bursting on both sides through the violence of the fulness She eased her self by communicating of her fulness to a Confessor whom she describes and to two other persons that I shall not name It was after having seen those things and many others of as great consequence which I shall relate that my Lord of Cambray persists in his Defence of Madam Guyón in such terms as will be amazing when we come to the Article where I must quote them as written with his own hand It will be then as clear as the Day and by what is already perceived that Madam Guyon is the ground of this business after all and that his desire alone to maintain her has separated that Prelate from his Brethren seing he attacks me as has been seen upon my procedure with Madam Guyon as well as with himself and that too in such a manner as might render my Ministry and my Conduct odious to the whole Church he should have foreseen what his reproaches would constrain me at last to discover But a higher reason still compels me to speak We must fortifie the minds of the Faithful against a seducing Doctrine which still has a being A Woman that can deceive Souls by such Delusions ought to be made known especially when she meets with Adâ—â—â—rers and Defenders and has a great party for her with an expectation of new things as shall be shewn hereafter I confess this was really a a work of Darkness which we ought to wish might have been kept hidden and I should have concealed it for ever as I have done for above three years with an unpenetrable silence had they not too excessively abus'd my discretion and had not the thing come to such a point that we must for the Service of the Church plainly lay open what she had privily hatch'd in her bosom 8. Madam Guyon perceiving presently that I found many extarordinary things in her Life she therupon prevented me by a Letter written and signed with her own Hand thus There are three sorts of extraordinary things that you may have observed The first which regards the inward Communications in silence this may be easily attested by a great number of persons of Merit and probity that have tried it Those persons whom I shall have the Honour to name when I have that of seeing you are able to justifis it As for the things that are to come it is a thing that I don't much care any body should mind This is not the essential point But I have been obliged to write all Our Friends may easily justifie that to you either by some Letters they have in their hands written ten years ago or by several things they have been witnesses of the Idea of which I easily lose As for the things that have respect to Miracles I have writ them in the same plainness as the rest You see then already that in her opinion she communicates Grace in that unheard of and prodigious manner just now mentioned And besides that she is a great Prophetess and a Worker of Miracles she desires me thereupon to suspend my Judgment till I had seen and heard her which I did as much as I could upon the last Heads 9. I shall leave for a little while the Miracles that I meet with in every page of her Life and her Predictions which are either wavering false or a confused medley As for the Communications in silence she endeavours to justifie them by a Writing she subjoyns to this Letter with this Title The Lords Hand is not shortened She alledges the Example of the Celestial Hierarchies which she does also in several places in her Life that of the Saints who understand one another without speaking that of Iron touched with the Load stone that of loose Men who communicate one to another a Spiirit of Debauchery that of St. Monica and of St. Austin in the Tenth Book of the the Confessions of that Father Where 't is true he speaks of the silence whereinto those two Souls were drawn but without the least mention of those prodigious Communications of those arrogant fulnesses and of those overflowings just now spoken of I don't speak of those Experiences I was referred to nor yet of certain effects which possession or if you will a strong fancy may operate These are nothing else than proofs seeing they are to be tried and examined according to that principle of the Apostle Try the Spirits whether they be of God trie all things And again Hold fast that which is good When in order to come to this Trial I had begun by forbidding those absurd Communications Madam Guyon endeavoured to excuse one part of it as the bursting of her Cloaths in two places by that frightful plenitude I have her unsatisfactory Answer in a Letter writ with her own Hand which serves to justifie the matter of fact As for the examining of so strange a Communication we may well perceive it is to no purpose All that was good in the Answer was that the Lady promised to obey and to write to no body which I had required to keep her from medling with directing of any body as she used to do with an amazing Authoty For amongst other things in her Life as appears also by her Printed Exposition upon the Canticles that by an Apostolical Power and Mission wherewith she was endowed and to which the Souls of such a pitch are raised she not only saw clearly into the bottom of the Souls but like wise received a marvelous Authority upon the Bodys and Souls of such as our Lord had given her The inward state says she seems to be in my hand by the flowing out as has been said of that Grace communicated out of her fulness without their knowing how nor wherefore they could not forbear to call me their Mother and when they had tasted of my direction all other conduct was burthensome to them 10. Amidst the precautions I made use of against the course of those Delusions I continued my reading and came to that place where she foretells the approaching Reign of the Holy Ghost over all the Earth A terrible persecution against her method of Prayer was to precede it I saw says she The Devil unbound against the said Prayer and against me That he was a going to raise a sad Persecution against the followers of that sort of Prayer He was afraid to attack my self He feared me too much Sometimes I defied him He was afraid to appear I was as terrible to him as a Thunderbolt 11. One Night says she to God being throughly awake You shewed me unto my self under the form of that Woman in the Revelations You shewed me that Mystery you made me to comprehend that Moon My Soul was above vicissitude and changes She remarks also her self and the Sun of Justice that surrounded her and
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
the Matter he whose only Judgment was expected with a Submission I did not abuse In a word he to whom he was willing to refer all things without Discussion and Reservation is now the only Man from whom he conceals himself Why no new thing is happened to me since M. de Cambray was made Arch-bishop I have given him a new Mark of Confidence in desiring his Approbation and in submitting my Book to his Examination but it happen'd that he being raised to that sublime Dignity would for some conceal'd ends change the Articles he had signed and he must since then have forgot what he had promised to one of the Arbitrators he had chosen and to whom he had shewed most Submission 7. He was no less mistaken when he thought so than when he thought he could impose upon the Publick M. de Paris has refused him his Approbation he has given his Approbation O my Book He attempted in vain to disunite those whom God I dare say had united by the common Faith and by the Spirit of the Tradition that we had sought for in the same Fountains It is true M. de Tronson grants that he did not oblige M. de Cambray to give me his Approbation but when all is done all depends upon the Exposing of it to the Publick M. de Cambray did so expose it saying he could not approve my Book without betraying his Sentiments to tell him that he ought not to approve of his having so expos'd it is the same thing as to Advise one not to sign the Confession of Faith so long as he is not perswaded of it It is exactly what M. Tronson had order'd to be told me It is what he told me himself he told me besides by several Persons and to my self before unexceptionable Witnesses that he believ'd M. de Cambray oblig'd in Conscience to condemn the Books of M. Guyon and disown his own Book then all would have been at an end if he had stood to his Advice The Proof of this would he very easie but it is better to stick close only to what is decisive 8. We may now see one of the Reasons why M. de Cambray who still conferred with M. de Paris and M. de Chartres constantly refused to confer with me It appears already by that Writing that even before the Publication of his Book all his Care was to divide us but the Truth is stronger than the Wiles of Men and 't is impossible for Man to disunite those that it unites 9. I shall exhort the Mystick Divines that have erred continues M. de Cambray to own their Errors and they that have not explained themselves well to condemn without restriction their Expressions Can any one go further to repress Error Who doubts but they may and ought to go further when he hath authorized an evil Book a Book not only suspected every where but besides condemned at Rome already and elsewhere When he has allowed it to be esteemed by illustrious Persons and suffer'd her to make use of the Confidence they had in him to authorize that Book and moreover tho' they could not justifie it but by recourse to secret Explications which they to whom it was recommended neither ought nor could divine When he alledges for his chief Defence that the reason of his excusing that Book was only because he explains it better than it explained it self Is that enough to exhort in general Authors that have failen to acknowledge their Faults and if they have spoken in an ambiguous sense to explain themselves No without doubt it is not enough That is a meer Illusion it is certainly one to propose to make a Woman write who never ought to have written and who is condemn'd to perpetual Silence He ought to clear himself before the Publick and not to make use of a vain pretext to excuse himself of it 10. He is so deeply engaged in defending the Doctrine of that Woman that he not only owns her to be his Friend but also that all his Correspondence and Intimacy with her was only grounded upon the Sprituality she professed 11. He is I say to this very day so wedded to M. Guyon's Book tho' condemned by so many Censures that he affects to excuse the Errors thereof as a Mystick Language and as Exagerations which he offers to maintain by those of some Mystick Divines Nay even of some Fathers without considering that what we reprove in that Woman is not only some Exagerations which may happen innocently but also that she has sur passed in her Principles all the Mystical Divines true or false nay has out-done the Book of Molinus himself 12. Yet once more he remains so closely wedded to those ill Books that he had declared just now in his Memorie that he will continue silent upon that Subject to the last He is indeed silent to Extremity seeing that to this very day notwithstanding the danger he is in for endeavouring to excuse those Books a clear Condemnation thereof cannot be extorted from him 13. In order to conclude his Observations upon the plain matters of Fact we must further observe the prodigious difference betwixt what was really acted between us on the signing the Articles and what is related thereof by M. de Cambray If I say that he offer'd to subscribe all that very moment without examining any thing out of an entire and perfect Obedience I should only repeat what is to be seen in all his Letters it is he that taught us it is he that laid upon us the Condition of the Signature I was a severe morose Man and must be earnestly press'd by M. de Paris then M. de Chaalons in order to bring me to the Sentiments of M. de Cambray I never refused to be taught by any of the lowest order of the Church and much less by great Prelates But as for this time and this Mattèr I do repeat it and God knows that there never was the least Controversie between M. de Chaalons and me we drew up the Articles with one Voice without any thing like a Dispute and we unanimously reject the subtle Interpretations of the Archbishop of Cambray which tended to render all our Resolutions useless 14. As for the matter of Doctrine says he I did not cease to write and to hearken to those approved by the Church To what purpose is this Discourse the Question was about understanding them right What is it that M. de Cambray submitted to our Judgment if it was not the Interpretation he gave to them but now 't is quite another thing It is he that teaches us the Tradition let us give Glory to God if it be so but was it we that desired Arbitrators of our Doctrine who desired only a Decision to submit our selves thereto without reserving to our selves the least Reply who so earnestly pressed that they would take us at our Word upon that Offer and that they would try our Compliance what is there happen'd since the
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
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