their Affairs and Houshold disquiets them Fortune is against them and in the end their Pleasures terminate in divers Griefs the Pleasures of the Flesh in Pains those of the Pallate into Diseases Honour into Contempt and Slights even as Haman's Pleasure when invited to the Queens Banquet changed into Grief when he saw that Mordecai would not render him the honour he desired so do all earthly pleasures terminate in Displeasure and sadness So that we can find no other true pleasure in the world but to love God only which is full pleasant and also honourable for what Honour is man capable of approaching unto that of loving a God so mighty who created Heaven and Earth and all other things and sustains them by his almighty power and who can give unto men eternal Salvation If we count it Honour that we love a King a Prince or other Person in Authority how much ought we to think us honoured that we may love a God who is incomprehensibly good and wise and what Honour is it for a small Worm of the Earth such as man is that he may love God who desires to be loved of him and even commands him to love him with all his heart As if God delighted to honour man by requiring to be loved of him And the honour of loving God is so considerable that it passes all that man is capable of in heaven or on earth Moreover it is also Profitable for him seeing that love can render him happy in this world and to all eternity Whereas all the Creatures together cannot procure us the one nor the other What profit can we draw from the Creatures who are unable to give us a Day yea an hour or even a moments life What could they then to give us Eternal Life All the advantage men can Draw one from another is a little Money Honour or Pleasure which vanish and most part ends in pain and grief as I have before shown And therefore we cannot truely call Pleasures the Advantages and Profits that men cause one to another No more ought we to esteem Honours which are but a blast of wind which vanishes in the air of a small Disgrace and so leaves nothing in the person honoured but a piercing grief that he is no more honoured What profit is it for a man to get of his fellow a little more money It is only a more weighty charge to bear in this world where the richest are the most miserable for they can never have more of their Riches but a little necessary nourishment and cloathing to cover them all the rest is superfluous to them and should serve others seeing he must not take for himself but for pure necessity What 's over gives only the Disquiet Care and Trouble of Dispensing or bestowing it So that a Lacquey is happier than his Master he hath no care but for himself but the Master must care for himself and all under him and see that nothing be wanting to them or else his servants will upbraid or despise him Is not that a poor advantage a little money that men can afford and yet he that receives it is obliged to a thousand thanks and beside to take a more honourable state which brings him more Care and Disquiet than he had before he was so rich That testifies that nothing in this world can advantage man or give him true Honour Pleasure or Content And so there is nothing but God can render man happy in this life and that to come seeing all the advantages men reap one from another serve but for their damnation Their Pleasures retire the Soul from God their Honours cause them to fall into Pride and their Riches into Avarice which leads them to the broad way of damnation and notwithstanding they fancy themselves happy for having the good will of men which is cause of their eternal misery But so great is their blindness that they cannot see these miseries however evident They perswade themselves that they are Happinesses that their Disquiets are Peace and their Displeasures Contentments For how many persons are there in the world who study all the Days of their life to perfect themselves in some Science to be esteemed of men how many that labour travail and put themselves in several hazards to gain a little money and how many that expose riches and life too to preserve their honour Although all these things be vain yet they love and esteem them often more than they do God for we see them not do for him what they do for the Creatures they render to them painful and hard services and imagin to themselves that there is more difficulty to love God than to love the World Notwithstanding the Love of God is easie sweet pleasant honourable and profitable as I have shown but the love of the world is disquieting sad without repose honour or profit for time and for eternity Which you may remark my Child by the reasons I have above deduced to you which should open your eyes to discern Falshood from Truth that you may never give place to the false perswasions which the blinded Christians would establish They say it is impossible to love God with all our heart and so blaspheme against him For God could not command an impossibility but all that he commands is good easie and pleasant And if you consider narrowly his ten commands you shall find but two of action viz. That of loving God and the other to honour Father and Mother The other eight are but prohibitions to do evil as not to kill steal bear false witness and the rest Is it then impossible to abstain from committing these evils that these blinded minds say it is impossible to keep the Commands of God Believe not these falshoods but constrain your self to get out of that valley of Snow which is the Riches and Pleasures of this life and ascend to the Mount of Consideration of things eternal and you shall find it pleasant to love God to which you shall have the helping hand of her who is Your Well-affectioned in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON Holstein near Gottorp Castle 25. April 1672. st vet THE X. LETTER The Love of God is easie and renders all things easie To the same to whom is shown that the Love of God is in its self most easie to attain whence proceed the difficulties that occur in it and how to be removed that this love wonderfully lightens the incommodities of this life and renders the observing the commands of God and the Gospel-advices easie My Dear Child BElieve firmly that the words of Jesus Christ are true viz. That his Yoak is easie and his Burthen is Light and take his counsel in taking his yoak which you shall feel to be such if you will take it on I experience it daily more and more believe that you shall experience it as I do if you continue in the resolution to follow Jesus Christ and become his true disciple I
than any other virtue seeing it begets of it self several others and banishes several vices which cannot abide in an humble heart as Pride Presumption Avarice Pomps and Vain Glory and many other sins which proceed from Pride of Heart but when it becomes humble then are all these vices banisht And to know what that Humility of Heart is essentially you are to believe that it is a perfect knowledge of ones self For he that knows himself well can never be proud nor have an esteem of himself He will not glory in the Praises and Honours of Men He will not desire Riches to be adorned or served for an humble heart believes that it deserves nothing and the least things content and satisfie it An humble Heart is not in wrath for being abased or despised because he seeth in knowing himself that he deserves nothing but is worthy of all contempt And whereas that is not practised among men it is because they know not themselves and so esteem themselves worthy of Esteem and Honour Riches and service and that makes them Proud For if they observed well whence they are what they are and what shall become of them it were impossible that they should in the least esteem themselves on the contrary they would see that they deserve all sort of Contempt because they are as to the Spirit frail ignorant and unconstant and as to the body full of Miseries Infirmities and Diseases liable to death and corruption All these things should not Give matter of exalting himself to man's understanding or to make him esteem himself in any wise but rather ground to humble and abase himself before God and Men because of his infirmities and miseries and yet we see they make themselves great are arrogant esteem much of themselves and in fine believe themselves worthy of all sorts of Honours Pleasures Riches and services every one advancing himself with all his power all that proceeds from thence that men know not themselves for if they did they would be ashamed to glory in their miseries folly and ignorance For man hath nothing else in himself and all these defaults are annexed to his corrupt nature If you open but the eyes of your understanding you shall see abundantly the miseries of your spirit and how it is agitated by divers motions and intemperate passions Also as soon as you open the eyes of the body you see the bodily miseries under which all men lye and if you reflect whence the body of man proceeds and of what substance it is formed you shall find that he proceeds of an unclean and putrid matter and from those members of his parents bodys which are the most shameful And thence he hath no subject to glory or esteem himself in his origin seeing it is from so vile and base things which ought to give him occasion of confusion and humility And even beasts have more estimable qualities than men as to the body For he would presently be stifled in the filth accompanying his nativity if he were not delivered by the assistance of others and he would presently starve with hunger and other necessities if care were not taken to sustain him whereas the beasts can help themselves so soon as they come into the world And if man will look forward into his life he shall find that it is but a mass of miseries linked one to another What feebleness is in man's body He can endure neither too much heat nor too much cold a little over in exercise and he is wearied he must rest and sleep or he looses his strength and health he must be cloathed and alimented cleaned and cherished whereby his understanding is occupied in care travail and disquiet all the days of his life to relieve the infirmities of his body And how many sorts of diseases afflict the body of man They are almost innumerable and they say thaâ— the Eye alone is liable to fifty sorts what then oâ— all the other members When every one hath its particular ones beside the disordered motions of thâ— passions as of Fear Terror Sadness Melancholy Anger Jealousie and such other sorts of evils to which man is subject during this miserable life where he hath no subject of glorying and esteeming himself but great reason to abase himself in the view of so many miseries to which his sin hath reduced him which gives him good cause of submission and humility before God and Men feeling himself miserable and infirm both in soul and body for the Spirit hath its diseases as well as the body for do but take heed to yourself and you shall find your spirit agitated by various superfluous desires and useless thoughts which carry it away often against its intention as the Apostle testifies that it is not in the power of man to order his thoughts which every one may feel For when we would fix our heart on prayer or other good exercise it wavers here and there that we cannot retain it So that we may truly say that it is not in man's power to contain his thoughts So infirm is his Spirit that his Reason hath not the force to stay the course of his thoughts which often sway the reason whither it would not So that man's Spirit is captivated under the tiranny of his disordered passions which often lead him into great evils even contrary to his will whereof the Apostle says I approve not what I do because what I would not that I do and what I would that I do not To prove how many evils the spirit of man is subject as well as his body and that there is no subject of glorying in the one or th' other seeing they are equally infirm and miserable changeable and inconstant For what mutations feel we not in our spirit the variety and changing in one day of Joy Sadness Hopes Displeasures and Desires are scarce numerable how many diverse thoughts we love at one time what we hate at another what we desire one day dissatisfies us another so that we know not our selves sometimes what we would be at and are often afflicted for having what we had desired And if one should write all the thoughts and desires which pass in the spirit of a man himself would be ashamed of his inconstancy and instability and would be far from haughtiness for the qualities of his spirit no more than for those of his body but would see ground of humility for his miseries for there is nothing can elevate the heart of man in an esteem of himself but a blast of wind which the Devil inspires into his spirit to precipitate him into the sin of Pride by sottish imaginations which proceed from that air which is in effect nothing wherewith he is filled For even all the sciences of man's understanding are but figures formed of that wind as we see figures in the air by the Clouds appearing sometimes as if we saw Mountains moving or Houses and Armies all which notwithstanding are but
much power over his spirit Otherwise man hath in him a good judgment beyond any other creature and by that judgment he can assuredly know and discern good from evil And it is free for him to choose the good and hate the evil by an absolute act of his will which the Devil cannot hinder And moreover he hath power to resist the Devil by faith and hope in God who never fails to come to the relief of a man who asks and desires it And therefore my Son you must never say that the Devil made you do any evil which were to make you his slave and testifie your subjection to him as are the Sorcerers who have given him their souls and promised to obey him For such have truely oblieged themselves to do all the evil he pleases and when they do it not he beats and abuses them But you being a Child of God and voluntarily subject to him you must nor fear that the Devil can constrain you to sin against your will and so never attribute to him the fault you commit your self It is true the Devil first incites good persons to sin but they should despise him and not follow him yea and mock at his tentations But we must always watch over his surprisals and never sleep in the way of true virtue Believe then the Apostle's counsel where he says My Brethren be sober and watch for that very reason because the Devil goes about us like a roaring Lion seeking to Devour us We must resist him couragiously and not say I was not thinking of the Devil when I fell into evil For he desires willingly that we do evil without thinking on it That is his best recreation For it does not fall out that good persons do evil but while they sleep and think not of evil Then is it that the Devil acts most in us and causes that we think not of it till after the evil is committed But our negligence or Sleepiness will not find excuse before God seeing we are oblieged to watch always if we would arrive at true Virtue To which she exhorts you who careth for your soul Holstein near Gottorp Castle May 13. 1672. St. Vet. ANTONIA BOURIGNON THE XVIII LETTER The Good and Evil Spirit are known by their Fruit. To the same giving him the signs to know whether it is the Good or Evil Spirit that moves us shewing also a twelfth Artifice of the Devil by which he causes us to impute our Vices to our natural propensions without suspecting him to lurk therein that he may remain unknown My Son I see yet one difficulty which occurs to your Spirit to wit How you should discover when the Devil insinuates himself into your good Actions and how you shall know that it is he that moves you to do good that he may catch you or to cause that what you do with a good intention turn to his Honour For you protest that you will not obey him nor follow his tentation in any thing when you discover and know that he tempts you Believe me my Son that is most easie to discern provided you have an absolute will to resist the Devil It is very good and most easie to discover if it is the good or evil spirit who moves us in all our actions and words to do or say any thing small or great because these two spirits have their qualities and conditions quite different and work in us quite contrary operations and dispositions So that you may as it were feel with your finger if it is a good or an evil spirit which moves you to say or do any thing by the dispositions you shall feel in your Soul For the good spirit produces in our souls Charity Joy Peace Patience Long-suffering Goodness Bounty Meekness Chastity Faith Continence and Modesty And the evil spirit on the contrary produces therein Self-love Sadness Trouble Impatience Rashness Wickedness Fretting Pride Despair Intemperance Inequality Unconstancy and Impurity which are all things contrary to the fruits of the good Spirit And as the tree is known by its fruit so may we know the evil spirit by the fruit he produces in our souls And therefore we must always examin if our enterprises or the will or intentions we have to do or leave undone any thing produce in our souls Charity Peace Faith Joy and the rest And then we may be assured that our enterprises and wills are from God seeing they bring unto us the fruits of his spirit But if on the contrary we feel in our souls Self-love Sadness Impatience and the rest we may well be assured that our desires and enterprises are excited by the Devil Which is a firm and sure rule We need not then amuse our selves at fine speculations to discover if we be moved by the Devil to do or leave undone any thing while we feel in our selves the effects of a good or an evil spirit For the Devil will never incite to Charity seeing it is a divine Quality which the Devil hath not in his power and which unites souls to God But he draws from self-love all manner of advantage and declines the soul from the love of God For he that loves himself covets Pleasures honour and Riches and all that is not God and so he is sad and is not in the capacity to acquire true Virtue for he hath not courage to resist the tentation of the Devil but suffers himself rather to be overcome by dark melancholy Thoughts But the good Spirit banishes these thoughts by the joy which it brings to the Soul And although there were all sorts of occasions of Sadness externally even for our sins that good Spirit comforts and rejoyces the bottom of the soul amidst the most sensible Troubles and Pains When we have then inward joy in the midst of sufferings it is an assured testimony that the holy Spirit dwells in us Which hath often rejoyced me in the midst of Suffering and Persecutions I felt therein a great joy in the bottom of my Soul in lamenting my sins and I thanked God that he gave me these Tears of Repentance But the Devil gives only counterfeit and external joys which afflict and grieve the heart when they are over that is the cause why we see worldly persons always search after new Recreations and Divertisements For th' one is no sooner gone but Melancholy and Sadness seises the heart who would so divert himself and for that he hunts insatiably after new divertisments without finding withal true Contentment which we cannot have but by the joy of the Holy Spirit and that joy is not to be found among the Divertisments of the World I was astonisht to hear one day of a person who would re-establish Israel that he searcht for a great House with a Garden to divert himself and walk therein as also that he must sometimes go to walk in the field or go in a Barque of Pleasure or Boat to divert himself which gave me enough to
knew it And they shewed at first to be touched but no sooner did she without designing any person discover the nature and properties of Hypocrisie and the general corruption even in the most devout and holy but they finding themselves pinched rose all up against her by the artifices descried in the Letters she wrote then in the 3. part of Light arisen in Darkness and 2. and 3. Part of the Funeral of False Theologie Mrs. B. in one of her Letters to them having written not considering when she sought after them that there were no more true Christians and God told her she should be the mother of true believers Lest that especially that mother of true believers should stumble these erudide heads she would score it out but God said to her what 's written let it stay written and indeed no sooner had they that in their hands but they made such a dirty hubub her Pride her Pride that though her after-writings satisfie any that have common sense on that head these men have not yet come to themselves Mr. Serrarius famous enough for his correspondencies and his Writings was of the first that knew and recommended her every where he would lead her every where as a living Gospel that should enlighten all the world he would cause print all her Writings and even of his Titles and Prefaces to them yet extant but seeing at length that she would not swerve from the pure Truth God revealed in her to second his particular Opinions of the restoring a Levitical Worship of the Jews and his esteem of a certain Seducer at that time arisen in Palestine he rejected her for his own Imaginations Mr. Comenius so famous among the Learned his Learning not having puft him up as it does ordinarily fell out with Mr. Serrarius because of his injustice against Mrs. Bourignon and retained a Veneration for her all the rest of his Life and on his Death-Bed desired a last visit of her saying O That Holy Maid where is she then may I be so happy as to see her yet once before I die all the Knowledge and Sciences I have attained are but productions of reason and of Human Spirit and Study but she has a Wisdom and Light that come only from God immediatly by the Holy Spirit After she had seen him and was gone he said of her with transports of joy to them that visited him I have seen an Angel of God! God has sent me his Angel to day God did also let her see how far the best cultivated human spirit is blind and far from the Kingdom of God by conferences she had with some Cartesians both Divines and meer Phylosophers she had a discourse with the Professors Heydan and Burmannus but Nicodemus was too great a Doctor to understand Christs Language or learn of him though so blind as to deny that the Spirit blows where he lists at present and his Voice to be heard to infer that we must not abandon our Vessel to the conduct of his divine Inspirations but steer by human spirit and reason She wrote to him on that occasion Letter 12. of the first part of the Funeral of false Theologie The Phylosophers would perswade her that she came near to their Principles but God shewed her their Nullity and errour She told them their disease that they would comprehend all by the activity of human Reason and not give place to the Illumination of divine Faith which requires a cessation of our Reason and Spirit that God may display that divine Light which gives the only true Knowledge of God but the mean pass that Reason with all its equipage of Ideas and clear and distinct Conceptions will be at to defend or regulate it self before God at Death felt a Cartesian gentleman even in this life who in the profound stupid security they are all leavened with after their once doubting to the full Scorned Mrs. Bourignons admonitions saying laughing You call your self the Mother of believers by the Truths you say you perswade and make them believe and I who have clear and evident demonstrations by which I can perswade reasonable spirits and make them believe much better I shall be the Father of believers But this poor Father of believers who was otherwise a man of spirit of a good beneficent nature and a person of quality being a little after in a deadly Disease in the flower of his age God opened his eyes to see his poor state and lament his error he began to cry with Tears night and day O my understanding my understanding whereto hast thou brought me Alas my Reason I relied so much on what assistance canst thou give me now Thou canst not now give me Salvation nor the hope of it I must be damned there can be no mercy for me A friend comforting him the best he could he wholly disconsolate asked continually Think you than there is yet any mercy to be hoped for my Soul and then looking and tossing about cryed again My understanding my understanding alass whereto hast thou led me Then to the first Friend Go tell desire that good soul Mrs Bourignon to pray to God for me that I may obtain pardon of that sin for otherwise I am damned or I must suffer a flul long Purgatory O! if I could recover from this Disease I would turn wholly to God and would follow altogether another way but when he told Mrs. Bourignon of it she answered he shall not recover but he shall die for if he did recover he would fall deeper in that pernicious Error As in effect he did in a good and sound Judgment in great contrition adoring Jesus Christ crucified God having shown her experimentally by that frequent conversation how little hope remains of converting the world by the little welcome and less Correspondence the Truth met with even with the best and wisest of all sorts he brought her with the two or three that seeing the means of purifying their souls to the Love of God and working out their salvation in her company would sell all for that Pearl of great Price maugre the tentation that lost the young man in the Gospel for they had great Riches and Reputation too I say he brought them from Holland to Holsatia And as from the beginning God did in all her after course unto himself serve himself of the manifold Malice and Persecutions of Satan against the Truth and Light of God to confound that blackfiend and all his Hellish Works of Darkness his violent Persecutions to extinguish it served but as wind to kindle it his Attempts to cut off the Messenger of it in one place served but to carry her further to more places and persons as with a general embassage his secret Blows God did more secretly often forewarn her of in spirit his outward open Violences he often no less wonderfully averted his calumnies and Accusations of Heresie did but bring the Truth to more admirable and dazling Evidence and bring to
Clouds agitated by the wind and representing such figures to our eyes It is even so with mens Sciences who fancy themselves wise when they are very ignorant For I do not believe that they have yet truly discovered one science even natural and how can they then in mystical or spiritual things That is what Jesus Christ said to his disciples He that seeth me seeth my father but you know neither me nor the father Notwithstanding we will often search curiously the profound Mysteries and divine Secrets and we know not natural things which we see and handle One will vaunt in being a Doctor of Medicine another in Theology another will be an Astronomer and so of other sciences although they be all alike ignorant of what they profess and think they know well And that proceeds from that airy Pride which the Devil hath inspired in to their Spirit perswading them that they are wise and worthy of honour and esteem though they be in effect ignorant and worthy of contempt We see that Physicians esteem themselves wise because they have read Medicinal Authors and these Authors are often as ignorant as they that read and follow them because all they have written is but vanishing figures which waver in the air of their imaginations and what the ancients have written is followed by their posterity And so they think to cure the sick by remedies coined in the air of mans imagination who seem to have divers Sciences and Remedies while they do but guess and hazard the lives of the sick and I believe the Physicians have killed many more than they 've cured to reckon the most common and ordinary and that because they have not discovered the Secrets of Nature and know not the constitution of man's body nor the origin of his diseases and consequently cannot exhibit proper remedies for them but often give what proves poison to kill men instead of curing them And therefore there is no subject of glorying for being called a Doctor in Medicine but rather of abasement and confusion for their great ignorance to the hurt of the Patient they take care of And as that ignorance is great in regard of bodily medicine it is yet greater in regard of the spiritual which is Theology for it kills many more souls than medicine does bodies and so th' one hath not subject of glorying of his skill more than th' other being they are equally ignorant which do not add nor pare the one from the other having each great ground of humility If Astrologers also knew how far short they are of the knowledge of the heavens they would be ashamed to bear the name and would acknowledge all their wisdom in that to be but folly and fancies of men who have not attained to the truth of that Science and what they have written are but imaginary suppositions far from being truths And upon like imaginations are founded also all other human Sciences which they learn by reading and study For when they are not founded 〈◊〉 the Truth of God they are altogether vain and false and are only fit to deceive men who by them deceive one another and hinder each other to come to the knowledge of the Truth of God and Wisdom of the Holy Spirit which is the only true wisdom and before which all the wisdom of men is but folly to blind our spirits that they should not come to the knowledge of themselves In which consists True Humility of Heart which Jesus Christ says we must learn of him which to do she prays you who loves the perfection of your soul Your Well-affectioned in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON In Holstein near Gottorp Castle Jan. 18. 1672. St. Vel. THE V. LETTER Humility is acquired by the Knowledge of ones Self To the same showing him that the true Knowledge even of things most esteemed by men ought to serve to humble them such as the Honours Riches and Pleasures of this life That all these are vain disquieting unsatisfying and hurtful My dear Child YOu have seen by my last what Humility is where I have shown you that it consists in the knowledge of our selves and that no person can ever be proud but for lack of knowing himself for in knowing themselves they will find subject enough to humble themselves by seeing their infirmities and miseries both of soul and body for he who will reflect seriously upon himself he shall not only discover his own nothingness but will judge himself much worse than nothing and consequently will be far from esteeming and magnifying himself unless he be altogether a fool and void of all reason and understanding For if he judge by an upright judgment what he is he shall see nothing but misery and infirmities in his nature and ignorance and Disorder in his spirit for a Beast knows more than he for the conduct of its life and is more moderate in eating and drinking and other natural things than man and we see him frequently exceed in these things which Beasts do not Thence is it that man is much more subject to diseases than the Beasts because they commit more excesses and Intemperances than they And when man finds himself more disorderly and foolish in the conduct of his life than the Beasts ought he not to humble himself before God and men as worthy of all confusion seeing God hath given him a Spirit more perfect than any Beast and yet he knows not to apply it to rule his passions and appetites which often causes to him great evils and sometimes death Which ought to be a great subject of humility and Contempt of himself he can never knowing that magnify and esteem himself if it is not because he is void of judgment and reason which he looses as soon as he gives entry to the vanities which the devil inspires into his spirit to esteem himself Then he goes from one error to another because fallen from the Light of the Truth and knows nothing but falshood which that evil Spirit makes him believe and inspires into his Spirit that he is worthy of Honour for his Wisdom or Riches or Virtue though he be contemptible even in all these very respects For his Wisdom is but folly before God and his riches are but weighty charges painful to be born and cause trouble and disquiet to preserve them and his Virtue cannot be other than feigned seeing it is not founded on the knowledge of his nothingness and truth of his miseries And Therefore vain-glory and esteem of our selves can never be other than meer folly which Satan inspires and foists into mens spirits seeing there is in them nothing esteemable as to the corrupted nature but aboundance of miseries worthy of Contempt and Scorn So that we may truly call a proud man a very Fool because he glories of his Miseries and judges his Ignorance Wisdom and his Troubles Riches For such are temporal Riches which create continual troubles and disquiet with a thousand cares both to acquire
defect Fire is good in that it warms and enlightens but evil in that it burns and smoaks Water is good in that it refreshes and quenches thirst but evil in that it is crude and cold the Air is good for respiration and to purge bad vapours but evil in that it hath tempests the Earth is good for producing fruits but evil in that it is miery and that it produces pricking Thorns and Thistles Gold Silver and other Metals are good in that they serve mens commodities but evil for their heaviness and obscurity all the Plants and Fruits of the Earth have something of good and something of evil and also all beasts of the Earth the Air and the Water and man especially is composed of Good and Evil So that there is nothing amiable but God alone since there can never be evil in him and out of him nothing good to be loved all being accompanied or mixt with evil Evil is not an object of Love nor worthy of our affection Man then is created to love and there 's nothing more natural to him than love He must needs love something For he may be as soon without life as without love for there 's nothing but death puts an end to the love of earthly things but the love which is in his nature can never end It is created of God who is eternal it shall also endure eternally but that love can have divers objects one loves good things another evil a-third things mixed of good and evil Now he that loves good things loves God since there is nothing good beside him and all the good that is in the Creatures comes from him He that loves evil things loves the Devil seeing there is nothing evil but what comes from him For God hath not created evil nor any thing evil it is the Devil alone who hath produced all evils in separating himself from all good and is by consequence fallen into all evil which is nothing else but the privation of all good And he that loves the creatures loves an object composed of good and evil for God created them all good but the Devil by his subtil malice hath insinuated the evil into the good when he gained man's will who consented to that mixture of good and evil For God had created man free so he would not hinder him to use that liberty which he had once given him And therefore man is free during this life which is his time of tryal where he may choose one of these three Objects viz if he will love God or the Devil or earthly Creatures Now there is no doubt but God is the most lovely Object who hath nothing of evil Wherefore then should it be impossible to love God with all our heart as he hath commanded there is nothing so lovely as him and beside that love brings us all sorts of good for God is as powerful as lovely and can render man happy in time and in eternity O what Quiet Joy and contentment even in this world hath a person that loveth God and how much shall these Goods be augmented in Eternity What disquiet Grief and Trouble inwardly hath a man that loves the Devil for let him do all the evil he can he is never pleased nor content his Conscience can never be in quiet and his joy can be only false and apparent because of the sadness which sin infallibly brings For evil blinds the Soul fills the Heart with dark and melancholy thoughts dulls the Spirit and tortures the Conscience as soon as the pleasure of the evil is over And after these temporal evils he must look for greater and eternal ones because he hath loved the devil who can give nothing but torments having nothing else in his power So that evil Object is as little profitable as lovely It is the same with the Creatures while we cannot love them without the evils which they carry mixed with the good which God had put in them And all the creatures of whatever nature have no power to render us happy neither in this life nor in that to come For if we love Riches which are so much loved now adays we are their Slaves because of the travail we must use to get them and the care and disquiet to preserve them nor can they afford us more than a little nourishment for our bodies and Cloaths to cover us which the poor can have also and with less trouble and if they think themselves happy because they can satisfie their taste in eating and drinking deliciously that is only a greater misery causing infirmities and diseases from which they that live soberly are free And if we love some human Creature we are yet more miserable seeing we so sell our liberty and become subject to the passions and inclinations of another So that there is no happiness for the man that loves the creatures seeing they have no power to make us happy in this world and far less in eternity And therefore there is nothing but the Love of God which is profitable and amiable for man and no other Object we must then conclude from thence that it is very possible to love him and beside that it is profitable and necessary both for our temporal and eternal happiness which I pray you to believe Your Well-affectioned in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON In Holstein near Gottorp Castle April 20. 1672. St. Vel. THE IX LETTER That it is easier to Love God than any thing else To the same to whom is shown that it is most Easie Profitable Honourable Sweet and Pleasant to Love God and keep his Commands for him that will deny himself It is Blasphemy to say that it is impossible to love God with all our heart My Dear Child NEver suffer your self to be perswaded that it is impossible to Love God with all our heart as these Ignorants falsly say for there is nothing more easie sweet pleasant honourable and profitable than to love God with all our heart First it is most easie seeing man is created to love Love is the strongest passion he hath in his nature so that he can no more be without love than without life consequently it is very easie to follow that natural inclination where there in no need to do any violence seeing the bent and inclination of man tends thither of it self and that its easie to follow a Love which is engraven in all both soul and body No person then need doubt that it is most easie for him to love But some doubt if it is easie to love God being he is an object invisible to nature and we cannot love what we Know not but with great difficulty That sentiment is altogether brutish and cannot be in the mind of a reasonable man who by his reason can see that there is a God Author of all things and that there is no creature that hath not its origine from a supreme cause who is its Author and Creator or else they could
not have being nor existence For although man be above all the other creatures yet he cannot give light nor heat to the sun nor sustain the Waters in the firmament nor fructtifie the earth All that must needs be from a supreme cause whom he may know by his operations his understanding can see clearly even by his bodily eyes in contemplating the beautiful order which is in all nature we need but consider the distinction of Seasons the production of Herbs Plants Beasts and of men And though we cannot see the author of all these things yet we can see his works palpably and visibly The savage Pagans did both know and confess that there is a God Author of Nature and there are Christians at present so unnatural that they dare say they know not God because they see him not with their fleshly eyes And from that they will argue that they cannot love him because they know him not They render themselves in that like to the Beasts which have no spirit to perceive other than natural things and see them as though they subsisted by themselves But men having a spirit more noble than beasts comprehend even by their natural spirit that there is a God Author of Nature which engaged some Pagans to set up Altars to the Unknow God Some other of them at the Death of our saviour Jesus Christ said Either nature is a dissolving or the God of Nature suffers These things ought to make the Christians of this time blush for shame who say They cannot love God whom they see not So they shall be more punished in Hell than the Pagans that have applyed their spirit to know God by nature Whereas on the contrary these Christians do not at all study to know him neither by Nature nor by Grace which they have received in the Evangelical Law beside that which God gave to Moses These brutish Christians must neither believe nature nor the Law of God to say they cannot love God with all their heart whom they do not know For though they knew not God by his works which yet they see and touch they should at least know him by the Law of God which would not enjoin to love God if he were not Seeing then there is a God there is consequently an Object amiable above all things and man being full of love ought to be easily carryed to love him for love is always carryed to good and beautiful things so that nothing should be more easie to him than to love God who is the source of all Good and Beauty But all the difficulty man finds now to love him with all his heart comes hence that he doth not apply his spirit to discover and meditate the works and marvelous things of God and so cannot know nor love him but he gives himself to regard the earthly creatures in themselves and attributes to themselves the little of good and beauty that is in them and by that means carrys his affections to love the gross Objects which are visible and sensible to his stupid senses It is difficult for such persons to love God they cannot love heavenly Objects while they regard only earthly ones as they cannot comprehend eternal things because they contemplate only transitory And that is not because of their incapacity seeing God hath made them capable of loving him but because by their free will they choose to love the vile creatures more than him and it is that vitious choise makes them say that it is impossible to love God and themselves make that impossibility They are like persons who staying in a valley full of Snow complain that they are cold and that they cannot be warmed among that Snow which is very true but if they would walk a little to get out of that Snow and get up to the Mountain they should well feel that it is full easie to become warm where the sun bestows his rays It is even so with earthly men who please themselves in the Snow of worldly lustres they say and think it is impossible to be warmed by the Love of God which is also very true so long as they remain in the affections of the pleasures of this valley of tears For nothing can warm them in the love of God while there all is but Snow which cools them He that hath his pleasures in carnal things cannot have them in spiritual and he that puts his affections in perishing goods cannot have them in eternal ones and he that takes his pleasures here in sensualities cannot have them in spiritual things seeing all these things are contraries which can never abide together So long then as a man feels himself cold in the Love of God it is a token that he lives yet in affection to the things of this valley of Snow which are quenchers of the Love of God He cannot then feel in himself other than an impossibility or at least great difficulty to love God with his whole heart But if they would quit their affection to this valley of misery and mount up to the consideration of eternal things they should soon feel the Sun of Righteousness warm our Soul and the Love of God fill our heart which would not only find Facility therein but also Sweetness Pleasure Honour and Profit seeing in effect there is nothing more pleasant than to love God For me I have experienced that all love to the Creatures is bitter and that the Love of God only is sweet and pleasant for when I loved Riches they gave me aboundance of trouble to preserve them when I loved Honours I found there many bitter and piercing displeasures when I was not esteem'd or honour'd as I wished so that sometimes one Sleight caused me more pain than a hunderd Honours had given me contentment When I loved the pleasures and delights of this life I found there great bitterness because there is none of these pleasures that carry not its own pain with it for the pleasures of the taste breed poverty and diseases and are insatiable they never satisfie no more than those of the flesh which resemble Salt-water the more one drinks the more drought I have remarked that in several carnal persons who after having ruined their Body and Health in satisfying their concupiscence used all means to cure their infirmities and that to the end they might wallow yet more in their nasty pleasures And when I have loved any human Creature it was always painful for me to satisfie and please them and the fear of offending or loosing them was unto me a continual anxiety So that there is nothing but God alone whom it is easie and sweet to love Nothing is more pleasant for all other Loves have Grief mixed with their greatest Pleasures we see young people marry with joy there is nothing but mirth Plays and Dances but the Wedding is scarce over and sometimes sooner when we see them sad and afflicted pensive and melancholy Diseases attacque them the Care of
Which yet is not so though it mix it self with the Devil's motion It is his custom to follow every ones natural inclination to cover himself the better that he be not known And by that Device he remains unknown each attributing his fault to his nature one would be supported in his Anger Another in his Sadness and Morosity Another in his Lust Saying often I cannot help these things it is my Nature That is a language the Devil hears gladly because so he lurks unknown and makes us go from evil to worse unto death But they that have esteemed the Malice and Wickedness of the Devil natural Weakness and infirmities shall see clearly at death that it is Devilish Malice which mixes it self with every ones natural inclination And the Devil labours always to discover these natural inclinations that he may the better play his part and remain unknown under that covert of natural infirmities And so he amuses many that they never think it is the Devil because he is so straitly united with their natures and that is his subtility He knows well he should not be so much obeyed if he gave tentations contrary to ones natural inclinations and so he follows always every ones Nature and augments the inclinations which he finds there If he meets with a Cholerique person he stirs him up the more to Anger If a Luxurious or Sad person he augments their Luxury or Sadness to gain them all on the weakest side he does as an Enemy that would attacque a City he will not assault where it is fortified but where it is weakest if he find some corner of the wall broken he attempts to break it more that by it he may enter the Town being the most advantagious entry for him And the Devil our Town Enemy does the very same he cannot surprise us in things wherein we are on our guard so he attacques us where we do not expect it and by that means he gains easily our will and makes it obey him in what we have inclination to We must then always make a serious reflection on all our words and actions and then we shall easily discover what comes from the devil seeing it hath always his qualities and produces within us the fruits of Envy Trouble Impatience Sadness and others which I marked above We may also remark enough the qualities of the things the Devil causes us to do For if you will examin your self narrowly you shall always find something in your words untrue or dissembled or spoke by vain complacency to please men which makes that there is not always Justice in your words For he that speaks by the good Spirit is true in the bottom and never speaks any thing to please or flatter men but declares natively the truth of things as well what is contrary to himself as what is advantagious seeing he seeks only to please God alone To know if our actions are excited by the Devil or not you need but mark if they be done for the Glory of God or for your own and if you seek not your self therein For the Devil will always incite us to seek our selves in all that we do He knows well that Self-love mars the Love of God And so he excites our understanding to consider if what we do or say shall be advantagious to us if it shall give us Pleasure Honour or Profit and when we observe none of these advantages in it he slackens our courage that we do not accomplish our undertaking nor prosecute our work The good Spirit on the contrary incites always to labour for the Glory of God and Assistance of our Neighbour And so he that is guided thereby does nothing for his own proper interest but endeavours to his power to assist his Neighbour in need because the Charity which that good spirit carries in it attends more the common good than his own particular By that my Son you may observe all your words and actions to know if they are excited by the good or evil Spirit For these are infallible marks to discern the spirits if from God or the Devil without amusing you to Speculate or seek to discover the Devil in himself since he is an invisible spirit and incomprehensible to your understanding but you shall always discover him infallibly by his qualities and the fruits which he produces in your soul and your inward disposition will tell you it Which she assures you of who is Your well-affected in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON Holstein near Gottorp Castle 15. May 1672. St. vet THE XIX LETTER We cannot in this Life be Free from Tentations To the same who was grieved for that the Devil hath power to tempt us so variously A Thirteenth Artifice of the Devil is shown him wherein he breaks the firmness of the mind by Sadness That Tentations are necessary and profitable to try and purifie us My Son I See you are grieved in Spirit because the Devil hath power to tempt men so many divers ways but you should rejoyce while you learn the truth of every thing For if you knew it not the Devil would seduce you by ignorance as he hath done so many thousands who have obeyed him because they did not know it they thought to follow the will of God while they followed certainly that of the Devil and so have perished insensibly For before God Ignorance does not excuse sin every one is oblieged to know what he ought to do and omit to attain to Salvation We need not think to say to God after death Lord I knew not this or that or I thought not I did evil in that for all excuses will be uncurrent coyn which will not be received nor approved of him seeing we have aboundantly the means to find if we have the desire to seek What should we say to see a man poor and miserable overcharged with his enemies when he will not be at the pains to labour or seek a better way of living and would needs sleep and rest at his ease though he knew himself to be surrounded by his Enemies we should certainly say that man were the cause of his own miseries and of all the evil that may befal him And why will you not judge also that he who neglects to search the means of his salvation and to discover the wiles of the Devil his Enemy is the cause of his own Damnation for it can be imputed only to our selves seeing we have aboundantly the means to find if we had a true desire to seek Tell me I pray you what cause of ignorance can a Christian pretend who reads and hears the Gospel and the Teachings of Jesus Christ and his Apostles to which he gives credit and accords that they teach that there is a Devil who is our Enemy and who seeks to Devour us that our life is a continual combat that we must watch and pray that we enter not into tentation Notwithstanding men will not do either the one nor the
commits it upon all occasions But he that would evite these Perils should have spiritual Diligence to watch over all his words and actions to resist the corruption which sin hath brought unto human nature which is so corrupted by sin that it can produce no more any good temporal or spiritual since retired from the Love of God wherein is all good it is fallen into Self-love wherein is all evil which produces always its like So that whatever we do by our natural motion it is altogether evil and sin And if you could well comprehend that Truth as it is you should always distrust your self and never dare to do or undertake any thing if you would not do evil and fall into sin But man's rashness and ignorance renders him bold to undertake things spiritual and temporal As if he were wise and free of corruption which often precipitates him into great faults and sins which they do not perceive until after they are committed and so cannot be helpt I believe my Son that you have often experienced that in your self without knowing whence these faults proceeded seeing your will was to do all well believe me they proceed all from spiritual negligence and because you know not yet sufficiently the corruption of your nature which you have followed while in the world you thought your self full wise when you could order your temporal affairs to your profit You have not perceived that the Devil could well help you in that that by procuring you prosperity he might detain you always in the affection of earthly things and that you should neglect eternal ones as other Merchants of your profession do yet Who instead of labouring for the Gospel-pearl labour to follow the will of the Devil the Enemy of their souls without perceiving it Yea they think it a Blessing of God that they prosper in temporal Affairs but it is often a Curse seeing God gives his Friends temporal Adversities and reserves for them eternal Joys But to men that have done some temporal good in this world but have not overcome the corruption of their corrupt natures God recompences the temporal good they have done in this world with temporal prosperities because God leaves no Good without Recompence nor Evil without Punishment Wherefore I pray you my Son to watch over your soul with spiritual Diligence that you let not one word or action escape that proceeds from your corrupted nature seeing it produces all sorts of sins which would finally lead you to eternal damnation But labour to resist manfully the corruption of your nature by a Spiritual Diligence So you must always watch over your words and actions that the Devil gain you not by spiritual Negligence which she wishes you who loves your soul Husum Febr. 1. 1674. S. vet ANTONIA BOURIGNON THE XXIII LETTER Spiritual Diligence is necessary to Salvation To the same To whom is shewn the Necessity of Spiritual Diligence to watch over all the actions of our corrupt nature and proper will and to acquire the Knowledge of our selves Moreover that Spiritual Negligence is a Fountain of all Evils and is alone sufficient to damn us because it renders our soul rude and like to a cursed ground which bears only Thorns and Thistles and so is far from Meekness Lowliness and Humility of Heart My Son I Have entertained you largely of the Necessity of Spiritual Diligence which we must have in this perilouslife I have shewn you how necessary it is unto Salvation and that without it none can be saved because of the many enemies we have to war against I must now shew you all the Evils which Spiritual Negligence causes It is a Pest in the good Air of Virtue for although you had acquired a great number of Virtues they could not subsist in your soul without Spiritual Diligence seeing in this world we cannot be free of enemies who attacque us continually We might well be for some time in repose in Virtue but that repose should be the most dangerous combat of our souls which thinking to take rest as did the rich man in the Gospel who had his Granderies filled but it was said unto him thou Fool this night thy Soul shall be required of thee and whose shall then these things be The same shall be said to them who think they have acquired so many Virtues and yet have not Spiritual Diligence For they shall find themselves deceived at Death because they have not watched over their Virtues having suffered the corruption of their nature to reign For if you be not Diligent in Virtue to watch and be aware that Vain-glory insinuate not it self it will take away all the force and merit of your Virtue Seeing God says Sacrificespb So he hath no need of our virtue when it is accompanied with esteem of our selves or with Vain-glory as when we artribute any good unto our selves seeing we are truely filled with all evils where is no good For man's nature is so corrupted by sin that there remains to him no good spiritual or temporal So that we may with truth say that there remained nothing in man after sin but ignorance malice and power to do evil I know my Son You have to oppose that man by his nature can do some good as we see the wicked do in regard of their temporal affairs They gain Money and assist their Neighbour One can Write well another make Accompts one can Paint well another is a good Carpenter or other Mechanique which is good and necessary for the present life How then can we say with truth that man can do no good even in temporals It appears necessary that I should explain my self that I be not argued of falshood I know that all men in general and every one in particular believe that they have something good in themselves and that they can do well according to their knowledge Which is also true in regard of some even imperfect before God such are they that have the skill to exercise some Art or Trade which they have learnt I experienced that in the Girles of my Hospital at Lisle for they did very well what I had taught them Though otherways I knew that they had given their souls to the Devil and were joyned to him by explicite compact That did not hinder that they should learn well to sew cleanse spinn read and write and manage Housholdrey and several other things which they did very well So that it would appear not to be true which I averred viz. That man hath nothing good in him and can do no good For we see they do several goods things even to the view of men But you must know that all the good they do proceeds not from them but from God who hath bestowed it on them by particular Grace and Mercy or else they have learnt it of other men For it is a certain truth that man hath not of himself any thing but sin and that he can do no good
for Righteousness sake And by consequence the Doctrine of the learned now adays is altogether Antichristian that is to say contrary to that of Jesus Christ Not that their words are dissonant for they read the same Gospel which Jesus Christ and his Apostles taught but they gloss and explain so the words of the Gospel that they bring forth a quite perverse sence Notwithstanding they live in quiet though all their actions manners and desires be quite contrary to the Gospel Doctrine For every one now idolizes his own proper will And Jesus Christ said That we must renounce it Methinks all Christendom is become at present the people of Ephesus which adored the great Diana with this difference that Christians now adays adore the Corruption of the flesh whereas those adored a Statue of gold or Silver For we see these learned strive who can best find out subtil Inventions by which they may flatter men in their sins or perswade them that they may well follow the motions of their corrupt nature and withall attain to Salvation So that every one follows that Doctrine without perceiving that it is evil That is the reason why every one adores that Diana of corrupt nature as a Goddess And so they bestow all their time and goods to nourish honour and satisfie corrupted nature And more they think there is no evil in so doing while the ministers and learned do the same and promise Salvation to the people that live in that Idolatry But they ought to teach in effect the mortification of their senses the corruption of their natures how much it is ruined by sin and finally the necessity of denying our selves to be saved as Jesus Christ taught by word and works But these savage Pastors will not teach so unto their flocks and will yet less put it in practice themselves Yea nor will not suffer another to teach these Christian Truths It is for that they pursue me every where and would gladly exterminate me because I have written of true Virtue The same befel St. Paul by them of Ephesus who would exterminate him when he taught the truth Saying one to another That they should lose their gain if they suffered Paul to continue preaching Jesus Christ That he would ruin the worship of the great Diana and cause that the Goldsmiths should gain no more in the Workmanship of the Image of Diana It goes just so with these learned ones who are as the masters of the great Diana of corrupt nature which every one adores for his own particular But the Learned are the Masters to gain Money by the worship and adoration of corrupt nature So they speak and teach the people such things as please their corruption and endeavour to please men that they may receive advantages of them which they will not lose When then I begin to speak of true Virtue they are all allarmed against me as they of Ephesus were against St. Paul But these learned take also the Judges to their assistance and persecute me that I should be banisht or be discharged to write or speak of true Virtue Some wish me dead others burnt others that I were thrown in the midst of the Sea that I might speak no more of solid Virtue and so their gain and trade be not diminisht and their shops become unfrequented that is that they sell no more their frivolous Discourses to please men It is that which at last allarm'd them so at Flensburg whither I had gone about some business for the Ministers no sooner had any suspicion that I was in their Town but they preached in divers Churches that I am an arrant and pernicious person that I have a devilish Doctrine and finally no person should lodge me So that I behoved to come out secretly lest I should be massacreed by the Rable and Children whom the preachings of the Ministers had animated against me For they had spoken of me with great spite and horrours proclaming publickly that my Doctrine is worse than that of the Jews Adding beside that my doctrine is a mass of all the old Heresies that ever were in the world Yet I will not teach any thing by my Writings or Discourse but what Jesus Christ taught And if there is any thing contrary to that in them I detest and revoke it as I have often offered to revoke all that they would shew me to be contrary to the holy Scripture But it is not for Errors they persecute me or any evil in my Writings seeing they can shew me nothing such therein They persecute me then because I declare truely what is true Virtue and how a true Christian should live to be a Disciple of Jesus Christ I know well they mask these things saying that there are Errors in my Writings But no person shews me these errors They know not what to say to contemn the truths which I maintain For the Learned said first that I bring nothing of new and that they taught and preached tho same things twenty years agot But when they saw in the Book entituled The testimony of the Truth particulars and truths more clear in divine Mysteries than those they learnt in the Schools they say presently that they are Errors and that never any person wrote such things So that it behoved that God should regulate all according to their studies And should not give any new Graces to men now adays But that he should measure his Light by the rule of their scholastique doctrine and should not send the Holy spirit promised by Jesus Christ who shall teach all Truths Men then resist that Holy spirit and will not hear of other Truths but those they have learnt in the Schools It is every lamentable to see men such enemies of their eternal Happiness in rejecting the Light of the Truth which comes in this last time as the Prophets of God have fore-told That he will pour out his Spirit on all flesh and that your Sons and Daughters shall prophecy and the Old Men see Visions Now because I repeat the same things with many others from God they would kill me as was done to the ancient Prophets they think to hinder by that that true Virtue should be known and far more practised But though they should kill me the Spirit of God shall not die for that And rhe Truth shall always be true For if I should not speak it the Dead would speak or the Stones to declare it unto men And tho these Ministers put me to death God hath yet more than a hunderd millions of persons whom he can use to declare the same Truths which I advance And therefore my Son I exhort you to retain them well and put them in practice for though I were not in the world you must nevertheless save your own soul cost what it will if you will enjoy God to all eternity Which she wishes you with all her heart who loves your Happiness Husum Febr. 5. 1684. St. vet ANTONIA BOURIGNON The
life were with incomparable Purity Evidence Clearness and Solidity in that Soul which thou didst sanctifie and are yet in her holy Writings In truth the way that is there recommended as necessary to Salvation is the only and the true way there is no danger to abandon our selves wholly and entirely in it for it is the very Truth it is the Truth it self It is the pure Truth There is none Lord there can be none other in Heaven nor in Earth There is none other way unto eternal life than that which thou hast put into the Mouth in the Writings and in the Life of thy most holy hand-maid Antonia Bourignon I praise and bless and thank thee O my God that thou gave me to know the same and hast opened and enclined the ear of my heart thereto Give me Grace to love to observe and to maintain that heavenly Truth unto Death Happy he that should lose a thousand lives for so worthy a subject Happy he who shall never for any consideration leave the practice of it Let me by thy divine Grace be of that number that after this short life of Tryal that most certain and most infallible mean make me enjoy my soveraign End which is to have the happiness ever to adore and praise thy great Majesty O Jesus eternal God Creator Saviour and redeemer of the World while with the Father and holy Spirit thou shalt reign Gloriously in all eternity Amen Revelation Ch. 3. He that hath Ears to hear Let him hear THE PREFACE OF THE PUBLISHER THis Treatise consists of two parts whereof the one may be called Extructive which builds or establishes and the other Destructive which destroys or everts For the first ten Letters are adapted to the planting of Virtue and all the rest to evert and root out what may hinder its increase To recommend Virtue is taken the precept of him who is the Master and Example of it by which is made an introduction shewing what Virtues we must in the first place embrace and by what meanstend to them which is by Obedience and renouncing our own will unto the Meekness Lowliness and Humility of Heart of Iesus Christ see Let. 1 2 3. the Nature of which Humility is explained and the means conducing to the attainment of it viz the knowledge of our Corruption and the Miseries which our Bodys and Souls ly under Let. 4 5 6. Which ought to produce in us the effect of renouncing our natural senses and being content with what is of meer necessity we should flee all Pleasure and proper Satisfaction Let. 7 8. which emptying of our selves will be accompanied with the Love of God which incontinently possesses the Heart from which vitious affections are expelled because of the near relation and sympathy between them as between the Creature and its natural Element In which Love consists the Essence and Complement of all Virtue and all Good Let. 8 9 10. Concerning the overturning and resisting the Impediments and Tentations of Satan is treated Let. 11. whether they be offered to our Imagination or Sensibility even spiritual Let. 12 13. or to the Understanding making us rest in the naked knowledge of the Truth Let. 14. Or exciting us to external acting or internal with Vain Glory or by Dejecting us through immoderate mortifications or in unseasonable good works spiritual or corporal toward our Neighbour Let. 15 16. Or in regard of the Devil accusing him too much or too little of our sins Let. 17 18. Whether these Tentations affect the will whose godly fervour Satan would extinguish by Grief Spiritual Negligence and Self-love as shew Let. 19 20 and to the end There is briefly represente the whole subject handled in this divine Treatise which is more specially noted at the beginning of each Letter that you may kind Reader view as in a Table and beter retain in your memory the divine Instructions therein delivered Moreover you may with us well admire the infamous audacity of some as the Church-men in Holsatia whereby some years ago they caused that these so wholsome instructions while under the Press in the German and Low Dutch Tongues were taken away by force and violence and rent While I consider these obscure enemies of the truth that Scripture offers it self to me that Every one that Doth and will do evil hateth the Light and cometh not to the Light lest his deeds be reproved and this is the Condemnation that Light is come into the world and men Love Darkness rather than Light because their Deeds are Evil. It is far otherwise with him who doth and will do the Truth for he cometh to the Light that his Deeds may be made manifest because they are wrought in God Joh. Ch. 3. I pray the God of Truth that he graciously please to instruct and lead you in the way of Truth that you never refuse to come to the Light Farewell TO THE READER Friendly Reader I Cannot abstain from imparting unto you these twenty four letters which I have written to one of my particular Friends where I shew him what Solid Virtue is because it is a matter so necessary for the present time when we see false virtue reign or such as is only apparent to the eyes of men and while so many persons deceive themselves perswading themselves that they have true Virtue whereas they have nothing but fine Speculations They think themselves Humble when they can talk well of Humility and think they have the Love of God when they desire to have it notwithstanding they have in effect only the Love of themselves and it is but Deceit and Falshood when they say they have the Love of God They do not so much as know the corruption of their Nature seeing they think they may follow that corruption without sinning provided they do no evil reproveable before men and have a will to do well and love God Which notwithstanding is not sufficient to be saved for good desires without effect are nothing before God They are indeed Foundation stones serving to the building of true Virtue For without good Desires we cannot do good Works We must first have the desire and after put it in execution which is wanting to many persons of a good will who content themselves to be of a good will and hope with that all shall go well without considering that the holy Scripture says to all in general Depart from evil and do Good Now the Evil is in our corrupt nature which no person ought to ignore yet few depart from that corruption and most love and follow it thinking they do well which is a great abuse and presumption of spirit for we cannot do good except we depart from evil and he that does not resist that corrupt Nature and renounce it cannot acquire true Virtue which few persons comprehend and thence is it that they have only apparent Virtues and no real ones Therefore is it that I have resolved to cause print these twenty four
Letters which treat of Virtue that they who aspire unto it may see the state wherein they are and also if they have acquired any degrees of it or if their Virtues be only imaginary I do not present this matter of true Virtue to all in general since many should find it too difficult to be observed for such as yet love themselves or the things of the earth cannot have all their mind bent to acquire this Virtue nor tend to the spiritual diligence which it requires But I speak to the free and generous souls who have abandoned the world to follow Jesus Christ and such will easily understand me for none is better disposed to understand me than he that will practise true Virtue And others who have not that desire may content themselves to know the Commands of God in general seeing they aspire not to a greater perfection So I say to them as St. John to the soldiers Use no Violence nor fraud to any person and be content with your Wages He said so to them because he found them not disposed for greater perfection And every one is free to tend to what degree of perfection he will So St. John chooses of two Evils the least in councelling the Soldiers to be content with their Pay and do no Violence but if these Soldiers had tended unto Christian-perfection doubtless St. John had counselled them to cease from being Soldiers and to forsake all that they possessed as Jesus Christ did to the young man in the Gospel after he said he had kept the Commands of God I say the very same to them to whom I present this matter of true Virtue in these twenty four Letters which is but the beginning of my designs to shew wherein it consists in every thing To these namely who will follow it and to none other seeing that were to cast Pearls before Swine or the Childrens Bread unto Dogs Those are souls yet earthly and attached to the honours pleasures and goods of this life and consequently are not in a disposition to put true Virtue in practice It seems enough to them not to transgress grossly and externally the Commands of God because they know no other Evils but what are expressed in these Commands But the souls who have abandoned the world to follow Jesus Christ and to revive in his spirit must labour with all their force to acquire this true Virtue in renouncing the corruption of their nature And they may well be assured that they can never arrive at a truely Christian Life unless they have overcome the inclinations of that corrupt nature Therefore must we labour with diligence in the mortification of our senses that we may carry the Victory over that Corruption which sin hath brought unto human nature without that our Virtue is false or only apparent and in no wise Virtue before God For if you shew me a person sober and chast and upright in his business who imparts his Goods to the Poor who fasts at appointed times with many other good Deeds and yet follows the motions of corrupt nature I esteem nothing all these Virtues if there is not a renounciation of his corrupt nature and he hath not entirely renounced his own will for all these things together come not near the Victory which is in mastering the motions of corrupt nature And St. Paul names yet greater Virtues than these I have named when he says If I had the Gift of Prophecy and Faith that could remove Mountains and gave all my Goods to nourish the Poor I am nothing if I want Charity Now Charity is nothing else but the love of God which we cannot obtain but in renouncing self-love and hating the Corruption of our nature for we can never do good except we first depart from evil and all sorts of evil are contained in the corruption of our nature since it is fallen into sin So that we can never arrive at true Virtue but by renouncing that corruption nor at the Charity of which the Apostle speaks without having overcome it So I say with him unto all that would attain to true Virtue that all other good actions shall be nothing until we have surmounted and overcome the corruption which sin hath brought unto humane nature since all sorts of evil spring thence and therein can no good be found Though the blindness of men makes them presume that they can do all well yet they do altogether evil so long as they act according to the motions of corrupt nature And it is only arrogance and presumption of spirit that they think themselves wise and willing to do all good For if man were wise he would always distrust himself nor dare undertake any thing fearing to do evil since that is in him and there cannot proceed out of a vessel other than what is in it When Man was newly created by God in the state of innocence he was full of all good and all sorts of good proceeded from him but since he is fallen into sin he is filled with all evil and there can nothing proceed out of him but all evil That is a general rule and by it ought every one to regulate his life if he would be saved for there is no exception seeing all men have been corrupted by Adam's sin and consequently are filled with evils none excepted It is true mens natures differ in manners and conditions one is Meek another Harsh one is Proud another Humble but that is from their natural temperament because man being composed of four Elements Water Fire Earth and Air his Manners naturally are disposed with proportion to the element which predomines in him For every one hath in his nature divers dispositions He that in the forming of his body hath contracted more of Fire than of the other Elements will be more cholerique and luxurious because the Fire hath more power in him than the Air Water or Earth Another who in his formation hath contracted more of Water will be more dull in his Manners slow in comprehending any thing and less couragious He that in his formation hath received more of Earth than of other Elements shall be more heavy lazy and rude in his Manners Finally he that in his Formation hath contracted more of Air than other Elements will be in his manners more light and inconstant and more active in spirit and prompter to good or evil and by these natural temperaments all men are of divers complexions and different manners according as they have contracted of their Parents the intemperature of the Elements of which their body is formed But in respect of Grace they are all of a like nature and are by sin all fallen into the same corruption one as well as the other and so they all need to combate that corruption since they are all equally corrupted by sin which they must master if they would be saved without going to perswade that one is better than another because he hath in his nature a