thro' too much Labour And on the contrary how many are there who kill themselves by indiscreet Fastings or other Penances or the Neglect of necessary things All those are wilful Murtherers because they kill themselves to satisfie their own Sensualities or Inclinations and they are also often Murtherers of others because they occasion sometimes their Neighbours Death by indirect Ways as in forcing some to work beyond their Strength or in crossing and vexing them so much in their Goods and in their Spirit that they die of Grief or by not taking away Debates and Quarells when they can do it and these encrease till they come to kill one another or when by some Act or Omission they occasion the Rise of such Debates or when one comes to die thro' the Neglect of our necessary Succour or Assistance By all these things wilful Murther is committed tho' the Will be indirect it ceases not to be before God as great a Sin as a direct Murther For the Life is taken away indirectly as well as directly And sometimes it would be less evil to kill a Person at one Stroke than to kill him by degrees and the Sin also would sometimes be less by a Stroke given in a sudden Passion than when it lasts for so long a time and these Sins are often repeated Nevertheless none do perceive these kinds of Sins to be such as they are but the most spiritual fall into them thro' Negligence and very often without desiring to know them And thus while they do not repent of them they cannot obtain Pardon no more than of the other Sins against the Holy Ghost because they are committed secretly and without Repentance which draws on a Despair of Salvation which is also one of those Sins This Despair of Salvation is ordinarily excited by the Devil at the End of their Life When he he has train'd up Souls in the other Sins against the Holy Ghost he discovers them to them at Death to make them fall into Despair of their Salvation For then their Eyes being open'd to consider the great Number of Sins which they have committed against the Holy Ghost all the Days of their Life of which they have never repented and how often they have receiv'd the Sacraments in this evil State This makes them fall into a Despair of being saved because the Soul is disordered and cannot perceive the Means of its Salvation Yea tho' they should not distinctly perceive all those Sins they are notwithstanding in such Confusion and Perplexity that they durst not hope for Salvation and they would be ashamed to declare their Misery to Men who still held them for good Men. Hence it is that these Souls die without Repentance which is the Consummation of all their Evils For by the straight Righteousness of God no Sins will ever be pardoned without Repentance and they not embracing this die miserably tho' they have lived in a seeming Holiness they go notwithstanding to receive their Portion with Devils even tho' they had but one of these Sins against the Holy Ghost they shall never be saved I said to her That I began to doubt of the Salvation of all Men since they who are called Saints do so commonly perish That these Sins against the Holy Ghost were so much to be dreaded and nevertheless so few are afraid of them that God's Judgment of things is quite different from that of Men. She said Yes truly Sir God's Judgment is quite another thing than Man's For most frequently what they esteem Good is in God's fight very bad This is since they left his Righteousness and lean'd to their own They are now uncapable of making a right Judgment because their own Righteousness is blind and founded only on their own Imaginations and not at all on the Truth which could never deceive them For it is unchangeable and without Dissimulation but the Truth and Righteousness of Men is lying and deceitful and he who trusts in it must of Necessity perish because it flatters us to our Perdition If we had continued in the Righteousness of God our Judgment would have been conformable to his But since we are fallen into Unrighteousness we judge unrighteously both in respect of God and of our selves For we judge falsely of God on all Occasions attributing very often to him the Blame of our Damnation and of all the other Evils which befall us Tho' notwithstanding no Evil can come from God he being the Fountain of all Good to which all Evils are opposite We may also judge amiss as to our selves believing often our Salvation to be sure when it is in great Hazard as you may see by the Deduction of the Sins against the Holy Ghost of which I have so particularly spoken to you to let you see Sir how the most Pious are deceived since they strayed from the Righteousness and the Truth of God they are full of frivolous Devotions which blind their Understanding that they know not real Truth nor solid Vertue but amusing themselves with the Discourses of Men and seeming Vertues they live and die in a Presumption of their Salvation without good Works and thus they perish for ever The Ninth Conference That no body can be saved but he who professes the Goodness Righteousness and Truth of God The World is at present without them but it shall be renewed The Danger that Men are in Secret Evil ought to be discovered I Said to her That many would be deceived at Death because no body is endued with that Goodness Righteousness and Truth of God and if there can be no Salvation without these no body will be saved or very few She said No Sir no body can be saved if he do not possess the RIGHTEOVSNESS the GOODNESS and the TRVTH of God Therefore Jesus Christ says Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect He does not mean that we should be perfect as God in his Power or his Essence but in proportion to our being in his Righteousness his Goodness and Truth The Righteousness of God makes us do all things justly as well in Regard of our Enemies as of our Friends and our selves so that we must always at all times and on all Occasions be righteous both in Word and Deed. In this consists the Righteosness of God For if we are righteous only according to our own Inclinations we have nothing but a Humane Righteousness which ends with us and cannot save us Consider Sir the Righteousness of the Pharisee you 'll see that he fasted twice a Week paid Tithes of all that he possess'd and did other good things in the Judgment of Men and notwithstanding he is rejected by God and not justified which makes it appear to us sufficiently that to be saved we must have another Righteousness than our own that it must be conformable to the Righteousness of God or else it will not avail us for Eternity because it is said elsewhere If your
Perfection than formerly Which I doubt very much for if you think to teach the People the Evangelical Life and do not observe it your self this is worse than to hold your Peace because every one will have Ground to believe that it is nothing but a Formality which must be observ'd in declaring the Gospel and that there is no need to put it in Practice seeing they who teach it do not practise it themselves I think in this Case it were better to be ignorant of it than not to practise it when we know it At least it is a less Evil never to have understood it than to have known it and not to practise it tho' both are evil because all Christians are oblig'd to know the Gospel for we cannot without Guilt be ignorant of it but to hear it so often and for all this not to desire to follow it is a double evil because of the Ingratitudes which are committed in not practising what we know by the Grace of God It is a Grace to be caught and an Ingratitude not to follow Instructions Therefore you will do nothing but spend your self in Teaching and will not replenish others Besides that in Teaching there is always the Hazard of Vain-Glory because Flattery is the Ruine of our Souls and perswades us that we have that which they say we have I said unto her That infallibly many would put in Practice the Doctrine of the Gospel if they knew it as I do at present because these Truths are so clear that of necessity one must yield to them She said Sir Do not engage your self to declare the Truths which God now makes known to you For they will not be well receiv'd by the Learn'd You ought first to have overcome all Human Regards which you have not yet done Likewise you must have the Courage to expose your Life for this Truth For otherwise you will be opprest without any Profit because they would outragiously persecute you if you should declare the naked Truth of the State of the Church at present and if you teach that to be a true Christian one must observe the Doctrine of the Gospel they will altogether oppose you and will affirm That all they who are baptiz'd are Christians however Wicked they be Thus you will have much to suffer and will profit others nothing Because all that you might build up by Teaching of the Truth the Learn'd will destroy by their Arguments and will easily dissuade People from believing you even rejecting your Doctrine as Evil and Seditious for they study nothing so much as to flatter the World and speak as they are desirous to hear They have forgotten that Jesus Christ said by his Apostle That he who would please men is not the Servant of Jesus Christ There can be no Preaching any longer without Reproof but what flatters the Ear and is agreeable to the People for the Truth which reproves is so disapproven by Men that I believe Sir if you should speak publickly the Truths which I in confidence have told you they would cut you off from the Church declaring you an Heretick yea they would even pursue you to Death because they could not approve the Truth without condemning themselves their Lives being contrary thereto and no Body hates his own Soul Therefore they condemn others I ask'd her If I ought always to continue idle without doing any thing seeing I could not Teach nor Preach any more and that I had no other Employment for that I had passed all my Life-Time in Study and in the Direction of Souls She said Sir Labour first for your own Perfection until you be entirely united to God and then you will be capable of other things If there be no Profit to be reap'd among the Catholicks you may go among the Heathens and Hereticks who will be more disposed to receive the Truth than those who are under the Roman Church Because others sin through Ignorance and these Romanists through Malice Many Heathens would follow the Truth if they knew it and likewise divers Hereticks because they seek and ask it always Therefore we hear them dispute willingly to shew that they are not at Rest but seek and ask always after the Truth But the Catholicks do opinionately presume of their Salvation because they esteem themselves the People of God as they are truly even as the Jews were who are now abandon'd but shall be converted so soon as the Roman Church shall be overthrown Those will be truly capable of receiving the Spirit of Truth acknowledging their Errors and Ignorances Labour in the mean Time Sir for your own Perfection and you will very shortly see that the Harvest will be ripe and that there will be need of Workmen We approach so near that I fear your Soul will not have so soon acquir'd its own Perfection as these things will come to pass Therefore make haste fearing to be sent away as an unprofitable Servant Occupy the Talent which God has given you for he will come very shortly to demand an account of it Apply your self to your own Perfection with the same Earnestness wherewith you formerly applyed to the Perfection of others without any Profit I ask'd her If she believ'd that the Roman Church would be Destroy'd and Ruin'd and the Christians scatter'd as the Jews are at present She replyed Yes Sir and much more for the Jews have continued constantly in the Jewish Law tho' they be bodily scatter'd through all the World they are nevertheless united in an uniform Faith and Belief holding still the Law which God had given them But the Christians have denied their Faith tho' they be yet united Bodily How would they preserve it in Time of Persecution when all this Lustre and this Magnificence of the Church shall be destroy'd so that there shall not be one Stone upon another in its outward State no more than there is at present in its inward This must needs come to pass Sir else God would not be Just for the Jews might Reproach him with Reason That they never committed such an Infidelity against their God as the Christians do It is very true they kill'd the Body of Jesus Christ but that was through Ignorance The Christians do kill it a thousand times out of pure Malice They believe that the same Body of Jesus Christ is in the Sacrament of the Altar and they give it daily unto Whores Thieves Murtherers and Sorcerers and yet they make them believe that they shall thereby receive Graces The Jews never believ'd that they obtain'd Grace in putting Jesus Christ to death as these Christians do believe in receiving him unworthily For Pilate said that he found no Fault in him and was in great Fear to condemn him And the Christians go affrontedly to receive him with a Soul full of Sins believing in the mean Time that he is oblig'd to impart unto them his Graces in
Truth will strongly resist it and practising Unrighteousness they will not suffer Righteousness in their presence because it would reprove them I can very well hold my Peace as I have done for so many Years by-gone But when God shall will that I speak I will cry to all the World without fearing those who can but kill the Body Death would be agreeable to me if with it I could enlighten my Christian Brethren and draw them out of Error I said to her That the Church did not put to death the Holy Fathers who had explain'd the Holy Scriptures But on the contrary had honour'd and esteem'd them That neither ought she to be afraid of being ill treated by them but rather receiv'd and approved in explaining the Scriptures She said to me Sir You would always excuse this Church because you have espous'd her as I have also done It proceeds from this that you do not yet distinguish what the true Church is tho' I have so often spoke to you of it The Church in a perfect and defin'd Sense is no other thing but the Souls which are united in Heart and Will wholly unto God These are his only Spouses He never had any others no more under the Old Testament than the New yea from the Beginning of the World and will never have even to the End yea throughout all Eternity Nothing can be the Church but that which is united wholly unto God No more than a Woman can be a Man's Spouse if she be not united to him For if she joyn herself to another she is an Adultress the same is it without Comparison in the Alliance which God makes with Souls If they withdraw from him and joyn themselves to any other thing they are Adultresses and worthy of being divorc'd If God permit a Man to forsake his Wife for Whoredom wherefore should not this Law be observ'd by himself If Rome with its College does remain united to God in the Spirit of Truth she is the Church and his Spouse But if she be separated from that Truth and Righteousness she is no more but a Civil and Political Assembly Make always this Distinction Sir or otherwise you will be deceiv'd taking Falshood for Truth If there were a thousand Popes with as many Counsellors assembled and if they did not possess the Spirit of God they are not the Church but if a simple Woman that spins on a Distaff do possess the Spirit of God she is the Church The Holy Fathers were not ill treated by Rome in expounding the Holy Scriptures because there were yet perhaps in their Time in those Assemblies some Souls which were Churches and who by confequence did defend the Truth But at present this Support is not to be expected but rather mortal Persecutions An evil thing Sir ought not to be maintain'd blindly as if it were good Therefore God has given you a good Judgment to make this Distinction for if you continue always fix'd in the Resolution to take this outward Body of the Roman Church for the Holy Church it is in vain for me to discover to you her Evil and the Infidelity she has committed toward her lawful Husband You would do as he who would permit his Wife to play the Adultress in dissembling it without being desirous to know or discover it The Sin is as great to tolerate it as to do it If God permit me to speak the Truth openly to that Church which you esteem you would see with Regret how ill she would treat me you could not deliver me from the Peril to which your pious Belief would expose me I said to her That for the Exposition of the Holy Scriptures she needed offend no Body That this was but what God had declar'd unto us That every one ought to desire to have still a more clear Vnderstanding of them yea even the Wicked themselves that this ought not to displease them I entreated her to write boldly She said When you shall read Sir the 24th Chapter which I have promised you it may be you will change your Opinion for the Word of God is like to a two-edged Sword Truth cuts all that it meets with in Opposition to it So that without respecting any Body we cut all sorts of Errors and Lies in following only the streight Truth blindly and without knowing it we do often wound those of whom we are not thinking If the Word of God were well explain'd it would offend all the Persons that live now in the World yea those who are esteem'd Holy and Perfect For as we do not see so many little Atoms flying in the Air when the Sun does not shine brightly as we do when he spreads his Beams clearly even so the Souls which are full of Sins and Imperfections do not perceive them so long as the clear Understanding of true Perfection is not given them They believe that they are very clean but so soon as this Divine Light shall give its Rays every one will see evidently that he is deceiv'd that he has no Righteousness and that he is no true Christian Therefore the Devil will hinder as much as he can this Light from being discover'd and will oppose himself thereunto even by those that have most Authority that very few may perceive their Blindness For if these Explications were maturely consider'd by every one all the World would be converted for there is nothing more charming than to consider that which God has done for Man from his Creation and continued even till now which is nothing but a continued Course of Benefits all corresponding to one another always in great Perfection The Creation the Law of Moses the Prophets the Gospels are all the same thing by an excellent Harmony I ask'd her Whether the Ancient Fathers had not discover'd these things aright and if they had not declar'd this to the World by so many Expositions and Books which they had written She said Sir It was not necessary that the Ancient Fathers should have the Understanding of all things It was enough that they understood that which Men had need of then but since we draw near to the Fulness of time it is expedient for Men now that they learn that which must fall out in their Time Therefore God now reveals the Secrets which he would then have to be kept hid When the Apostles ask'd Jesus Christ when these things which Jesus Christ had told them should come to pass He answer'd them That it was not for them to know the Times which the Father had in his own power To shew that unseasonable Light ought not to be desir'd and that to him alone appertains the knowing the Time and the Hour of all things Thus he thought fit to reserve the Understanding of the Scriptures till the necessary time which is at present The Holy Fathers could not know then what he would reserve till now and all that they declar'd of it by so many
always to aspire to that which will be eternal But on the contrary we would be content to lose it the Eternal provided we might live here always All Men almost are in this Error by which they draw down the Plague of Pestilence to put an End to Desires so impious which have made them abandon their God This Life must needs be taken away from us since it serves as a mean to withdraw us from God The Plague of Pestilence is justly sent upon us to give Death to those who love their Lives more than God As is also that of Famine because so many Men have abandon'd their God for the Pleasures of the Mouth How many are there who love Meat and Drink more than Spiritual Delights Provided the Mouth and the Belly be satisfied they care very little for God Is it not fit that they endure Hunger who think of nothing but of filling themselves This evil is so general that in the best Assemblies of Christians now-a-days they speak for the most part of Eating and Drinking to keep themselves chearful Is it not fit that this should be chastised with Justice by an universal Hunger since this Sensual Appetite has caused an universal Sin by almost all the Men of the World From whence I draw the certainty that all are judg'd and that the Sentence is irrevocable Because no Body repents of these three Sins which form the last Plagues and God cannot defer longer to send them I ask'd her how we could believe that the last Plagues were begun She said Sir Do you not perceive that we are abandon'd to the Spirit of Error That Lying prevails and that Truth is opprest That Men promise themselves Peace and Security in the midst of such evident Perils That there is no longer Righteousness nor Sincerity or Fidelity among Men That Evils are conceiv'd without Fear and brought forth without Reprehension That the Just is punish'd as guilty and the Guilty supported and defended That there is no longer neither Faith nor Law among Christians and that they live in a Neglect of God and of their Salvation Are not these the greatest Plagues that could ever befal the World They are more to be dreaded than Fire Pestilence War and bodily Famine which can but kill Bodies Whereas these Spiritual Plagues kill the Soul which is an Eternal Spirit Behold Sir with the Eyes of Truth and you will see that all Souls perish without perceiving it Which is the greatest Punishment that God can ever permit to befal Men. Many say blindly We are at the End of the World for Wickedness abounds in all places There is no Trust to be given to any They deceive one another without Faith or Honesty In saying this they speak the Truth without knowing it far less apprehending it Many Signs have appear'd in Heaven in the Sun in the Stars fearful Comets menacing great Evils which did affright some at first but so soon as the Devil had Leisure to make his Adherents study to find out Reasons shewing that these were but natural things engendred in the Air he made the Fear of those threatnings of God sent as the Forerunners of his Justice to evanish out of their Minds The Sea has yielded blood And as soon as this has ceas'd the Memory of it has been effac'd Fire has burnt many Cities and they have presently found out some Invention to cover all these Warnings which God gives us saying That these are Casual and Natural Things As also the swallowing up of several Towns and Cities caus'd by Earthquakes They attribute all these Things to future and to natural Causes saying That these Countries situate toward the Sea are subject to Earthquakes In short Sir they make all the Threatnings and Warnings of God to evanish out of Men's Minds that no Body may enter into himself to be converted unto him through Fear and Trembling Some Stroaks of Thunder us'd sometimes to shake intire Cities where the People ran to Confession to prepare themselves for Death But now when they see so many several Effects of the Justice of God by Men's being abandon'd to all sorts of Sins and also by all those outward Sings in Heaven and Earth which have appear'd in our Time and to our Eyes no body is converted unto God for this Far less do they Imbrace the Spirit of Penitence It seems they mock at God's Warnings saying These are Natural Things But I would willingly demand of these Ear-flatterers If God ought not to send his Plagues but by supernatural Things and to make Chimera's in the Air He who has created all the Elements must not he make Use of them to chastise the Offences which we commit against him Is there not need of Natural Things to make our Body suffer which are likewise Natural If the Bodies of the damn'd shall indeed be punish'd with Natural Things why should not in like manner our Bodies which are yet living upon Earth Since they are not sensible but of Natural Things they must needs have Subjects conformable to their Nature The Deluge was made by a Natural Rain And the last Plagues will be made by Pestilence War Famine and Fire all Natural Things because the Heaven the Earth and all the Elements ought to rise up against us to avenge the Offence that we do against their Creator and ours If the Fire shall kindle by some accident or the Earth quake by the Tossings of the Sea and overturn Cities would this be accidental unto God who says that to him the Hairs of our Heads are numbred Would he thus let such grievous Accidents fall out Without his Permission this cannot be true But the Devil to divert us from believing that these things are the beginnings of the last Plagues makes it be said by his Adherents that these are Natural Things that no Body may turn to Repentance The Thirtieth Conference How God permits Man to be abandon'd to the Spirit of Error I Ask'd her How God permits that we should be thus abandon'd to the Spirit of Error She said Sir God permits it by his Justice because we have left his Spirit of Truth to hearken unto and follow Lyes He compels no Body leaving every one in the Liberty wherein he created them If Man therewith will needs abandon his God and adhere unto the Devil he lets him for he will not take away again the Free-Will which he has once given him which God will never take back again for he is unchangeable in all his Doings And having once found it good that Man should be a kind of Creature altogether free he cannot afteward find it evil but will leave him this absolute Liberty unto all Eternity If he will use it to love God he will follow the End for which it has been given him and if he will use it to do evil and to withdraw himself from God he is free God will not
by God So that the Motions of the Soul and those of God become the same thing and they can no longer be distinguished because the Soul cannot now do any thing but what is just good and true unless it should depart from its Union with God and during this Straying should follow its own Will In this case it may do amiss and not otherwise But for you Sir you are not yet habituated to this Union examine still whether what you think speak or do be just good and true With this you cannot be mistaken even tho' yourown Inclination shou'd incite you to do things which have those three Qualities of God They are always of him tho' the Devil himself shou'd move them because there is nothing just good and true which is not of God because he only is just only good and only true And by these Marks you will certainly discern your own Motions from those of God and even tho' they were but mingled with them there wou'd still be something evil or unjust or untrue and then you must purge your Works from this Malignity or else omit them altogether I told her That I had yet one Doubt that is whether I ought to do or omit the Works in which I perceived not precisely these three Qualities of Righteousness Goodness and Truth whether the Works were indifferent or necessary or out of Complaisance She said Sir you ought to do all necessary Works when they cannot be easily done by others And for those which are indifferent to do them is but to lose time They must either be unprofitable or have some end If this end does not respect the Glory of God take good heed of mis-spending time which is so precious Never be persuaded of this Indifference because under that Name we often do evil things without being aware of it We can never do indifferent things except very subtilly before we reflect upon what we are doing For otherwise all our Actions how small soever they be have some Scope at which they aim And as for Works of Complaisance they are forbidden by Jesus Christ when he says that he who seeks to please Men is not the Servant of Jesus Christ unless your Complaisance aim at some good or necessary End Otherwise every Deed of Complaisance is vain and evil Resolve Sir to do those things only which have the Righteousness Goodness and Truth of God For all others are to be suspected and bring no Glory to God nor saving Good to our Neighbour and seeing you wou'd follow Jesus Christ seek those things which are above and not those which are upon the Earth which must very quickly perish It is better to lay up Treasures for Heaven where the Rust does not corrupt For tho' you shou'd gain herethe Friendship of all the Men of the World by your Works of Complaisance they cannot give you any thing One Degree of the Glory of God is of more worth than ten thousand Worlds Endeavour Sir to labour for this or be still Make no more fruitless Labour For all that is not of God is nothing and God alone is all permanent Good I said to her That I had not made this serious Reflection to remark if all my Actions were accompanied with Righteousness Goodness and Truth but that I did them often without thinking on any thing if I did not remark in them any of my own Wickedness She said Sir you do therefore commit many Faults both in respect of this present World and that to come For by proceeding inconsiderately it is certain you act only according to the Motions of Nature which being corrupted can do nothing that 's good After this manner your good Actions are but humane and will end with you this is a very prejudicial Ignorance not to know that all the Works which we do naturally shall not be rewarded before God and that all their Reward is received in this World Many Persons have done many such good Works who notwithstanding shall never be sav'd And even tho' they shou'd suffer Martyrdom by natural Motions this wou'd profit them nothing because to partake of Eternal Life all must have the Righteousness of God For finite things cannot come to be infinite Now all our Works which do not partake of God are finite and cannot reach Eternity because they have not these Eternal Ends but Natural or Temporal ones In this many do greatly deceivethemselves looking for Salvation by Works simply Humane or Natural believing that all Works are good when they are not accompanied with our designed Malice It 's thus before Men who judge only according to the Reach of their short Sight But the clear-seeing Eyes of God do judge according to Eternal Truth and Righteousness Therefore we must endeavour to do our Actions according to these else we shall remain empty-handed at Death It 's not enough that we cease to do evil we must also do well or otherwise we shall fall into the Sin against the Holy Ghost which is a Presumption of being saved without good Works and none can be called good if they bear not the Righteousness Goodness and Truth of God His Righteousness does every just thing both as to our selves and our Neighbour His Goodness does good to all and evil to none His Truth is always streight and single and when our Actions are not accompanied with these three Conditions they don't proceed from God but from our Nature or the Suggestions of the Devil who willingly covers his most subtil Temptations with seeming Good that he may make every one believe they shall be saved without good Works by making them esteem their Natural and Temporary Works to be good I said to her I should have great Difficulty to apply my self so as to remark always whether my Actions had these three Qualities and if they were only divine Motions She said Sir if you do not this you 'll lose all your Reward and will also occasion the Damnation of many others while you think you are doing good Works For Example you see some one in Want Your Nature is mov'd with Compassion towards him Without more Reflection you give him of your Goods either what is superfluous or even what you need your self and you believe you do a Work of Charity Nevertheless it may be ill done For if you don't consider from whence the Poverty of that Man proceeds you 'll often occasion his Condemnation For your Gifts may serve him for means to offend God as if he be enclined to drink your Alms will lead him to new Acts of Drunkenness or if he have a proud and haughty Heart by your Gift he 'll be the more puffed up employing it upon sumptuous Apparel or other Vanities to nourish his Pride and his Boasting or to commit other Excesses to which he 's addicted of Luxury Arrogance or Contempt of his Equals In short this Good that you think you have done him will often occasion divers sort of Evils
Christ speaks only of those who are upon Earth who are obliged to have these Beatitudes if they would be saved and come to the possession of the Promises made to each of the said Beatitudes which are the certain Marks whereby to discover if we live in a state of Salvation or not Nevertheless no body examines himself upon this Head to see if he have those Beatitudes no more than if they were not proclaimed for us We say them as a Litany and not as things that we are oblig'd to put in practice In which we deceive our selves for no body will attain to the state of Blessedness but he who in this World shall put these Eight Beatitudes in practice And as far as Men are estranged from them they are as far from their Salvation I asked her What Remedy there was for such general Evils in which no body could be saved She said Sir I told you long ago that Paradise was shut My meaning was that no Body now at Death attains to Bliss because in their Life-time they make no Preparation for it but they are every way estranged from God For it is not now known what is Sin nor yet what is Vertue They imagine they are Vertuous when they do something that 's good in appearance and that they are not guilty of sin when they do not commit wicked Actions This is the most crafty delusion of the Devil by which he certainly gains all the good through this blindness of Mind This is an universal Evil which makes me afraid that not one Person shall be saved because none do perceive their Evil but grosse Sinners who live in Actual sins As for others every Moment they take the Name of God in vain One will say I trust in God another God will help us another God will shew us Mercy and thus on a Thousand other occasions the Name of God is still in their Mouth calling on him to co-operate in their sins For when they say they trust in God while the Soul wallows in sin is to desire that God would do Injustice Wherefore they may wait long in this sort of confidence and shall never obtain their Desire For God cannot help those who go on in sin without being unjust which he will never be And he who says that God will help him while he lives as People do at present says that God will help him to sin which he cannot do For he cannot contribute directly or indirectly to any Sin and if he assisted us in the way we live he should contribute to many sins which we commit For if he assisted us to preserve our Temporal Goods we would continue yea encrease our Pride our Excesses and Vanities and if he delivered us from Wars Peace would give us occasions to forget God and to abandon our selves the more to bodily Pleasures and Sensualities and if he delivered us from our Miseries of whatsoever kind we would certainly be led to greater Evils For Ease and Sloth engender all sort of Sins And when we say God will have Mercy on us and nevertheless we go on in a state of sin this is to blaspheme against the Righteousness of God Because he can never have Mercy but upon penitent Sinners Which the Godly now a days are very far from for they encourage themselves in their Sins as if they were Vertues and even call them by the Name of Vertues For the Avarice of the Cloisters and of the Religious is call'd Charity done them and the Adorning of Altars building of Houses and Magnificent Churches is call'd the Honour of God though these be but Vanities and Superfluities by which God is greatly offended For if at Baptism we have renounc'd the World and its Pomps to become Christians how can we adorn Churches which we call the Temples of God with the same Pomps and Vanities which Christians are not permitted to seek after in their own Persons nor in what belongs to them How can it be allowed to use them in Places particularly dedicated to God without tacitely Insinuating that God is served with our sins and Impurities as are all sort of Pomps and Vanities which are so common in Churches as well as in other places Nevertheless all this is covered with an Appearance of Vertue and Holiness This renders all the World impenitent For every one amuses himself with the belief of being sav'd in a state of Sin and Damnation Which is truly a desperate state because he who believes he is good will never repent and much less will he do Penitence and consequently he shall never obtain Pardon For God cannot pardon without Repentance All the Remedy that I see in this is a perfect Conversion unto God and a New Birth as if till now we had never been in the World For all that we have done hitherto has been evil and blame-worthy in the sight of God though to us all seem to be good through the Blindness of our Spirits in which we have been so sunk that no Body has seen whither he was going more than we do in a very dark Night Therefore Jesus Christ has said That a man must be born again and become as a little Child else he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven He speaks to those of the present Age For if one do not re-enter into the Womb of the Rising Church he cannot be sav'd The Eleventh Conference Shews how a Man must be born again to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven And that he must return to a Dependance upon God which is the only thing that he essentially requires of Man I asked her How this New Birth could be in those who are already advanc'd in Years and Learning She said Sir We must take up a Life wholly new as if to day we were newly born Because all the good that we think we have done heretofore is all evil or at least good for this Life onely For all our good Works have still been attended with Self-love or Humane Respects which can never be recompenc'd in Eternity because we have here had their Reward What we do out of Self-love is recompenc'd by our Satisfaction and what we do out of Humane respects is recompenc'd by the complacency of Men So that we can never in Justice pretend to any other thing for we are fully satisfied in this World according to the Pretensions or Ends we had in doing our good Works Though they have been covered with a pretence of the Glory of God or Charity to our Neighbours yet in effect all this has been but Vanity-Therefore he who desires to be converted must take up a Life wholly new and believe assuredly that he has never done so much as one Action purely for the Love of God Which we may abundantly perceive by considering all the Sins against the Holy Ghost and those which we commit by another with the Eight Beatitudes and the other solid Vertues Every one may see thereby
Age that these Combats began with her and towards the eighteenth that she came to a full Resolution of yielding up her Will wholly to God and of abandoning the World For seven Years after the Tears and Sorrows of her Penitence did continue which she accompanied with great Austerity and Mortification wearing a Shirt of Horse-hair next her Body Night and Day sleeping only on a Deal-board and that no longer than three Hours each Night passing the rest on her Knees in Prayers giving the Sheets of her Bed and her other Linnen to the Poor and still bringing them back to be wash'd with those of the Family without the Knowledge of the Servants She eat no more than what might preserve her Life and would mingle Earth and Ashes with what she did eat to avoid the Pleasure that might tempt her Her Penitence and Mortifications were not the effects of a Melancholy Humor nor did they produce it she being of a most chearful Disposition even till Death But she punish'd herself with an inward Contentment out of a Principle of Justice being convinc'd there was nothing more just than to regrate the Sin of having ceas'd to love so lovely a God God has no need of our Mortifications but our Flesh and Corruption have great need of them Timothy was so sensible of this that he stood in need of a Caution from the Apostle Paul to look also to his Health No doubt there may sometimes be Excess in these Mortifications of which M. Bourignon was so sensible that she could never advise any Body in this to follow her Example but to resign themselves to God and to take up chearfully the daily Crosses and Mortifications which his Providence shall appoint for them This so few are unwilling to do that undoubtedly God loves more the readiness of those who mortifie themselves too much than the Sloth of those who do it too little or not at all She would have continued this Austerity still if at the Age of twenty five Years God had not commanded her to leave off all this and to lead an ordinary Life When she remembred how she had lost God whom formerly she enjoy'd she would pass whole Nights in crying out My God! my God! where art thou my God! what shall I do what must I do to find thee again what would'st thou have me to do to be well-pleasing in thy Sight what shall I do to fulfil thy Will After much Time many Prayers Watchings and Tears God was pleas'd inwardly to manifest himself to her anew And the first Answer she receiv'd to the Petition she had so often made was this Divine Doctrin which contains the whole substance of the Gospel Forsake all Earthly Things Free thy self from the Love of the Creatures Deny thy self This was about the twentieth Year of her Age. These were the Words which stuck ever with her and upon these she laid the Foundations of a Christian Life She forsook all earthly things for the Love of God and to give her self wholly to him and yielded up her self entirely to his Conduct doing nothing without his Direction She thought to have met with true Christians in the Monasteries and was resolv'd to have shut up her self into one of them But there she found them as full of the Love of the World and of Self-love as elswhere God made known to her That the Society of Christians which she had been seeking for in vain was to be re-establish'd in the World by her means This seem'd impossible to her because of her Sex her Weakness her Ignorance her Meanness and having never read nor been taught by any what the Gospel-Life was And having laid this before God she had this Answer Behold these Trees in the Church-yard they seem dry Wood without Leaves or Fruit or any Appearance nevertheless when the Season comes they shall bring forth Leaves Flowers and in abundance without any Body's touching them So shall it be of my Work The manner how she was train'd up by God for this is remarkable That she might acquire Divine Light she was not sent to Study nor Reading nor Speculations nor to fill her Head with the Knowledge of Spiritual Things But she resign'd her self in Simplicity to God avoiding Sin needless Distractions and the Activity of her own Reason without desiring to know more than what was needful for her to know in the moment in which she was referring all the rest to God who gave her Knowledge and Light according to the Occasions wherein she needed them whether for her own Conduct or that of others for the Discovery of Truth or the Refutation of Error When she had learn'd from God his Designs in general she did not immediately with haste and precipitation set about the Execution of them as many rash Persons would have done with much Zeal She had still this Rule That it was not enough that God inspir'd good Designs but we must also wait upon him till he open the Way and direct all our Steps in the Execution of them that the Spirit of God acts leisurely yea slowly but steadily and what he produces in so leisurely and imperceptible a manner has afterwards a lasting and solid Subsistence Whereas the Spirit of the Devil moves all at first makes a great Noise and a great deal ado but in process of time all slackens and vanishes into Smoak and Nothing She mov'd always by this Rule She made several Attempts to bring others to lead a truly Christian Life Some Nuns were enclin'd to follow her Directions some Bishops and Priests were convinc'd of the total Degeneracy of Christendom and that the Spring of all the Corruption was in the Clergy but Human Respects and Worldly Considerations kept them from prosecuting what their Inward Convictions prompted them to She was prevail'd with to take the Charge of an Hospital of young Maids and to educate them in the Fear of God and the Spirit of the Gospel But after nine Years Labour tho' to outward Appearance they seem'd most modest and vertuous yet to her great Grief she found them in Heart to be led captive by the Devil at his Will She was afterwards mov'd by God to set down in Writing the Divine Truths communicated to her and having ask'd of God If she should keep these Writings secret or publish them He said to her Yes puhlish them for by them the Gospel shall be preach'd thro' all the World The writing of this Treatise The Light of the World was occasion'd by M. Christian de Cort Superior of the Fathers of the Oratory at Mechlin in Flanders a Man full of Zeal for God and Charity for his Neighbour and void of self-seeking He no sooner discover'd that God had hid in her the Treasures of his Divine Wisdom than he took all occasions to be instructed by her in the Truth and when alone set down in Writing the Sum of what had past in their Conversation but this briefly and without Order He acquainted her
oft as they pleas'd and if there needed nothing but their will to forsake their sins She said No Sir Grace is not in their power and they cannot recover it according to their pleasure It is called GRACE because it is a thing freely given it is not a debt or obligation which may be constrain'd for it comes of the sole mercy of God and not of our desires or merits Neither does it depend upon the will of a sinner to leave his sin He may indeed fall into it of himself but he cannot rise again without the grace of God But this grace will never be deny'd him if he ask it in humility of heart If we see sinners obstinate and impenitent it is because they do not pray earnestly enough to obtain grace for God is so good that assoon as the sinner is truly penitent he pardons him All the difficulty the sinner has to leave off his sin proceeds from sin itself which blinds the soul that it cannot perceive the terror of sin and the danger in which it has plunged him It has also in it so many chains and bonds with which it holds all his passions chain'd in such captivity that it seems to the soul impossible to leave off and forsake it so that we hear sometimes sinners say It is impossible for me to forsake my sin Not that God is the Author of this impossibility for he wills not the death of a sinner but that he should turn and live It is only the bondage into which sin reduces the soul that is under its dominion It must do violence to its self to break its bonds and avoid the occasions of sin by so doing it will recover the grace of God which is not drawn by force but falls of it self into the soul assoon as sin is gone out thence For God is always ready at the door to open to him that will knock The Ninth Conference What the Church is and of its Corruption I Said to her Since the mercy of God is so great how did you declare to me heretofore that you despaired of the Salvation of almost all the world She said It is true Sir I am yet of the same opinion and I cannot see how one soul can enter into Paradice after the manner they live at present I see that its gate is shut and that no body enters in any longer by it for Jesus Christ says that he is the way and I do not perceive any body that goes or walks in him or even that seeks him Since learned men have taught another way of Salvation than he every one follows them thinking they do well in believing them because they make themselves be called the Church which if it were true they could not teach otherwise than Jesus Christ has done since he and his Church are the same thing As Jesus Christ is no other but the Word of God even so the Church is no other but the same Word It was sent from Heaven covered and wrapt up in the humane body which is called Jesus Christ which God form'd for these ends that he might convey this word which is his Spouse into the bodies of all Christians and that all might be but one with Jesus Christ as he is one with his Father There is nothing but this word that can make the Church which is not tied to the City of Rome or that of Jerusalem but only to souls which possess this Doctrine These only are the Church Neither office nor habit nor dignity make the Church but the doctrine of Jesus Christ only out of which there can be no Salvation for it is the only one sent from God and will abide always without any change or mutation Let all the men of the world study to invent as many reasons means and controversies as they will they can never change or alter the Doctrine of Jesus Christ it will always be such as it was in the beginning and shall be even to the end without any change or mutation whatsoever It is an error to believe and damnation to follow any other thing how good and holy soever it doth appear I said to her That it was true there was no Salvation out of the Doctrine of Jesus Christ but there were yet many souls in the world who would follow it and that those who would contradict it are call'd Hereticks and are cut off from the Church but for the Pope the Cardinals Bishops Pastors all the rest of the Clergy of the Roman Church they believed that they had the Doctrine of Jesus Christ and consequently the Keys of Paradice and the Way of Salvation She said There is yet some light in your Soul Sir since you know that there is no Salvation out of the Doctrine of Jesus Christ but to say that there are yet in the world Souls who desire to follow it I have experienc'd the contrary having travell'd in diverse Countries and as it were by the permission of God I have been acquainted with different persons who were esteem'd holy and vertuous but I never observ'd any who follow'd truly the Doctrine of Jesus Christ Every one abounded in his own sense and were wedded to their particular devotions without an entire dependance on the will of God or the denial of their own will which is the foundation of a Christian Life from which the heads of the Roman Church are far removed since they forbid Christians to read the words of Jesus Christ which is the nourishment of Souls They cannot open Paradice by any other mean nor promise Salvation to any except in words but by observance of the Doctrine of Jesus Christ Mens blindness is so great in this point that it can no longer be seen where the true Church it at present because they place faith in words hope in presumption and charity in gold and silver and they make of the Church of God which is spiritual a Church of wood of stone and of mettals which are material and nevertheless they believe that they are in the way of Salvation and that they follow the Doctrine of Jesus Christ which is the greatest error that ever was in the world and therefore I fear there shall be so few Souls at present saved because few or none follow in deed this Doctrine of Jesus Christ and there is nothing more true than that without doing this we cannot be saved as you also acknowledge One must have very little judgment if he do not perceive that in the Roman Church the Cardinals Bishops Pastors Monks and religious persons and all the Clergy in general do not live conformably to the Doctrine of Jesus Christ nor in the primitive spirit of Christianity If the Salt have lost its savour wherewith shall the flesh be salted that is the common people cannot be preserved sound when their Heads and Governours are fallen away and corrupted
well and secure The Thirteenth Conference Of true Faith according to the tenour of the Creed Of the knowledge of God and of our selves by the consideration of his Works I Told her That I did not believe that I had true Faith and that she had sufficiently made appear to me that I could not be right therefore I desired to understand of her wherein true Faith does consist tho' it were but upon my own account for I desired to profit in it She said Sir let us examine a little together our Creed and see if there be so much as one Article of it observed even by the most perfect Christians now-a-days If we believ'd that God is Almighty that he created the Heaven and the Earth could we live without loving and fearing him as we do Could we also attribute to our selves the earthly good things which all the World seeks after and loves since they are all created by God and do all appertain to him in Property which we do daily usurp In the second place If we did believe in Jesus Christ the only Son of God who was conceived of the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary could we reject his Instructions since he is the Son of God the Fountain of all Wisdom Could we follow a Carnal Church seeing she is altogether Spiritual engendred in the Body of Jesus Christ by the operation of the holy Spirit Could we also live in Luxury when God chose a Virgin for his own Mother Would we not endeavour to love Virginity since God has so much esteem'd it Moreover if we believ'd that Jesus Christ the Son of God has suffer'd even so far as to be Crucified Dead and Buried could we live so softly seeking all eases to our Body not willing to suffer any thing that is painful nor affronts nor tribulations when we believ'd that the Son of God has indeed suffer'd for us even to a shameful Death yea was buried as a corruptible Man Would we not imitate or follow him at some distance in case we had the faith that we profess Moreover if we believ'd that he is risen from Death to Life that he is ascended into Heaven were it possible that we could love this present Life while we hope that we shall rise again since Jesus Christ is risen again to ascend unto Heaven Would not this withdraw our affections from the Earth through the hope of ascending unto Heaven with Jesus Christ Were it possible that we would build Houses and make so many other settlements as we do on Earth as if it were our abiding City And if we did believe that Jesus Christ will come from Heaven to judge the quick and the dead were it possible that we would live in so great a neglect of our Salvation with so little care of making ready our Accompts to render them to that great Judge who will demand of us an account of all our Thoughts Words and Deeds Would we not rather lay aside all our worldly Affairs to attend on this which is the most important to us yet on the contrary is often the least of our â—ares And did we believe likewise that there is a holy Spirit and a holy Church is it possible that we would be so little Spiritual so Natural and Earthly so wedded to our Senses in which we live sometimes more brutishly than the Beasts themselves whereas our Souls ought to be wholly Spiritual and Holy since we have a Holy Spirit and a Holy Church And did we believe the Communion of Saints is it possible that every one should be so much wedded to his own Interest and Wealth If Prayers and good Works ought to be all common amongst Christian Brethren how much more ought temporal Wealth to be for the succour of our Neighbour which is very far from Mens dispositions now who study nothing but to keep up and increase their own Wealth understanding no other thing but mine and thine both in Spirituals and Temporals And did we believe in the remission of Sins how would we be penitent and contrite to obtain the pardon of them instead of continuing in them through hardness of heart as we see the most part of men do who finish their Lives in black thoughts and despair instead of having immediate recourse to mercy according to their belief For he who has promised the remission of Sins has not promised them time to persevere in them If this belief were real they would not persevere in them for one day for they are not certain of living so long And did we believe in the Resurrection of the Flesh how could we love and esteem our flesh in a condition so miserable as that of this mortal Life We would greatly contemn it in the hope we had of its Resurrection l in which it should live most happy delivered from so many miseries calamities and maladies under which it groans during its exile in this miserable World which setting aside the hopes of its Resurrection must rather be called Death than Life the belief of this Article would give a disgust of the delights of this present Life and make us aspire towards that to come And did we believe in Life eternal what would we not do to obtain it We would voluntarily forsake Father Mother and all our Goods to obtain this eternal Life for it deserves more than a thousand Worlds which cannot last but for a small time in respect of Eternity whereas we see the most part of men so in love with this miserable Life that they would fain abide here for an Eternity though it be filled with miseries and calamities Do you not see Sir that there is no more faith in the House of God That no body lives conformably to his belief That they place faith only in Words as I have told you formerly They say over it may be every day their Creed and yet they do not observe so much as one Article of it These are nothing but words that vanish into Air and nevertheless they would take it very ill to make appear to them that they have not true faith tho' it be always operative and never idle True faith works always the vertues of which I told you in the Souls which possess it and if these operations are not seen it may indeed truly be said that these Souls have not faith for it can never be any where without operating its vertues no more than the Sun can be without giving his beams Consider it well Sir and you will find my saying true and you will condemn your self I told her I perceived clearly that People lived in a distraction of spirit and that few persons knew themselves That it was no wonder they knew not God since they did not know themselves and that truly we were deceived She replied Sir he who knows God will always know himself and he who knows himself will assuredly know God for the one is linked unto
they have retain'd the Name after having lost the Spirit and their Souls being void of Faith God takes no longer Pleasure in them but they are abandon'd to the Spirit of Error Not that God on his part leaves the Church to err but these Men having forsaken their God have form'd a Church of Flesh which cannot be the true Church which is a pure Spirit as God who is not visible but by his Works so the Church is not visible but by the Bodies of those who possess this Spirit It appears sufficiently that what they now call the Church is not govern'd by Divine Principles but by Human and Natural I ask'd her Whether the Pope the Cardinals the Bishops Prelates Pastors Priests Monks and other Persons making Profession of the Catholick Faith were not the Church And if all these Members together do not make up a Church She said No Sir all these Persons tho' met and assembled in one and the same Place do not make the true Church so long as they do not possess the Doctrine of Jesus Christ It is nothing but an Assembly of Flesh subject to Corruption Every one acts there according to his own Sense There they propose and resolve according to Human Arguments not according to the Spirit of God who is not to be found where things are manag'd only by Civil and Politick Measures which do not regard the Glory of God but human Accommodations The holy Spirit does not animate so vile Subjects Nevertheless he governs always the true Church in what Place soever it be He never abandons it But who can discover it It is so hid and unknown that no Body discerns it It is a Treasure hid under the Earth of which Jesus Christ has spoken by Parable saying That the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a Treasure hid in the Earth and that he who has discover'd it must sell all that he has to buy this Ground that he may find this Treasure There is no Kingdom of Heaven but in the Church that is to say There is no Salvation out of the Church and not knowing where to find it who can look for Salvation It it no wonder Sir that I said unto you heretofore That Paradise was shut forasmuch as I cannot see where the Church is and consequently where Salvation may be had It is a Vine which is cut even by the Root and Ground We see indeed its Branches extended far enough But they are nothing but dead Wood being cut off from the Root no Fruit can be any longer expected from them The Members which at present they call the Church are cut off from the Root which is Jesus Christ which brought forth great Branches But since they have been cut off from their Root they are fit for nothing but to be cast into the Fire which you will see very shortly Sir in case God give you yet some little Time to live The Twenty First Conference Where the true Church is Where God is How he speaks to the Soul and the Soul to him and how we ought to dispose our selves for this Divine Conversation I Ask'd her If there was no fix'd Place where we might find the Church That for my part I would search for her because I would seek to be saved She said to me Sir The Church is everywhere where there are Souls possessing the Doctrine of Jesus Christ There are no other Places proper or destin'd for the true Church to reside in All those Persons who are call'd Churchmen are as so many Stones with which they have built a material Church which serves now for the Offering of Sacrifice and it may be shortly will serve for a Stable for Horses These Stones and other Materials are not the Church tho' they serve to the Structure of a Building which may be both for Holy and Prophane Uses Therefore Sir the Church is not to be sought for in any fixt Place which is material but in Spiritual Souls who also cannot be found because they are oblig'd to keep themselves hid as the Body of Jesus Christ did before his Passion For they would do them no less Evil than they did to him because the Envy of the Prelates is now far greater than was ever that of the Pharisees who put Jesus Christ to Death God gives you a holy Desire of seeking the Church for he has said Seek the Kingdom of Heaven and the rest shall be added to you This is a Sign that the Church is not tied to any material Place for then there were no need to seek it but to go to the Place where it is For Example If the Church were at Rome there were no need to seek it We would know assuredly where it wâ—re Since Jesus Christ says it must be sought this is indeed a Sign that it is hid and unknown And likewise all they who seek Rome do not for this receive all the rest in Gift since so many things are wanting to them even after they are Romanists Which would not befal a true Christian who would be content with what were purely necessary with which God would always infallibly provide him I said to her That I was not truly satisfied for the Good of my own Soul That I would willingly know where I might find the True Church that I might have Salvation She replyed Sir The Church is within you If you seek the Kingdom of Heaven only let Jesus Christ reign in your Soul by his Doctrine then the Kingdom of Heaven will be in your Soul God being there He reigns always where he is He would reign in all the Souls of Men if they did not put Hindrances thereto The Centre of our Souls is God who being Salvation and Life we ought not to seek without us the Church nor the Kingdom of Heaven For he is not an Earthly and Temporal God but Celestial and Eternal The Church being the Word of God it is in us since he cannot be without his Word as we are always in the Place where we speak He is not Earthly for Jesus Christ says That his Kingdom is not of this World It is therefore a heavenly Kingdom which is in us because God is there whose Kingdom is Celestial and Eternal Where then would you seek the Church and the Kingdom of Heaven but in the Centre of your Soul That is the certain Place of its Residence We may be deceiv'd in all other things but not in this infallible Truth If every one had sought the Church and the Kingdom of Heaven in the Centre of his Soul there would not have been so many Persons deceiv'd Since they have sought God without themselves in so many divers means they have gone astray from him by the same means by which they ought to find him and whilst they sought for the Church in so many Masters Doctors and Directors they have stray'd from that which is Holy to follow a
may serve them only for Delight and Pleasure without being able to do any more evil as they were in the beginning of their Creation and all the Malignities which they have contracted by the Sins of Men shall be rendred unto their Authors The Fire of Hell will not be like that which we see because it is now a mixture of the works of God with the malignity of the works of Men as all other things are God has given unto Fire a sweet and agreeable Light and Heat and Sin has given it blackness and to burn These two evils shall be removed and confin'd to Hell that it may burn and blacken the Bodies of Men who have thus spoil'd the works of God by their Rebellion There will not be in Hell Elements or Beasts or other things as God has made them but only the malignity which every one of all these Creatures has contracted by sins For Example the Venom will be removed from Serpents and other creeping things and will be reserved for Hell As also the fury from Lions and Bulls that they may converse with the Blessed with Meekness and Gentleness and that nothing may be able any longer to give them pain that Fire may give heat and light without burning that the Air may surround them without being troubled that the Water may refresh and recreate them without being moved that the Lyons Serpents and all other wild Beasts may sport with Men for their Delight and Recreation and that all things may remain on the Earth to render the Body of Man happy that with his Soul it may have a perfect eternal contentment seeing that the Body has born with the Soul the saving Penitence which God had ordain'd it Whereas on the contrary the Bodies of the Wicked have rebelled against this Penitence and desiring to take their Delights instead of Sufferings To which the miserable Soul acquiescing they have justly merited to suffer joyntly in Hell which will likewise be Material and upon Earth that it may act upon Bodies as well as Souls which was not necessary before the Judgment since that Devils and Damned Souls had no need of a material Place for their being Tormented for all the evil of Souls consists in the privation of the Presence of God The Twenty seventh Conference That a care to withdraw from the Plagues is even a self Love and than the Conversation of our Souls with God suffices us in all Places I Said to her That I saw evidently we drew near to the end of the World because God gave these Discoveries of many things which never any body had understood That her Light was not Human And I entreated her for the love of God to tell me where that little corner of the Earth might be which God would reserve for his Servants that I might save my self during the Plagues She said to me Sir be not curious to know where this material Place will be which God will reserve for his Friends I my self durst not ask him fearing to seek my self or my own repose We are yet in the time of Penitence If we would withdraw that we may not suffer this would be but self-Love We shall be every where in security when our Soul shall be united with God and even tho our Body should feel the Plagues our Soul shall be comforted in the midst of Sorrows as S. Lawrence was in the midst of burning Coals and so many other holy Martyrs Let us rather think of conversing always with God than of putting our Body in a place of Security because it will be always secure in conversing with God If there be a danger which he would not have us suffer he will warn us of it always in time as he did Noah Lot and so many others of Friends He will not permit any thing to befall us but that in which he would try or purge us Do not so much desire to know the place where you may retire as to know the place where God resides to converse with him For in this alone consists all our safety both Bodily and Spiritual You might indeed withdraw bodily into some place of Security where your Souls notwithstanding would not be sure of being Saved And if this were it would be but a poor Safety for our Life is so miserable that to lose it is more desirable than to preserve it were it not the fear of not having yet accomplish'd the Penitence due for our Sins Otherwise Death is pleasant and this Life grievous were it not that it may have God to converse with Without this there is nothing but Miseries I asked her In what place I might find this continual Conversation with God that I might be every where in Security and not fear Death She said Sir You must not go out of your self for God is the Centre of your Soul You must not seek him among the publick Places of the City as the Spouse in the Canticles did who was beaten by the Soldiers But re-enter into your self and you will find him He is no where more particularly than in the Souls of Men. These are his real living Temples where he rests at Noon that is in his most clear Light There entertain your Spirit with him and he will entertain himself with you He is more desirous to hear us than we are to speak to him neither going out nor in nor any other affairs whatsover can hinder this inward Conversation On the contrary it perfects all things So soon as our Affections are taken off from all other Objects and set upon God alone we will find him every where and he will never cease to give us his Graces to accomplish perfectly all our Enterprizes how little so ever they be for his Spirit was the true Wisdom which is not ignorant of any thing no more of Temporal things than of Spiritual This Spirit perfects all sort of things There is no place or condition be what it will that can divert us from this Conversation when our Affections are carried toward it Make a little Experience of it Sir and you will find what I say to be true You could not any longer fear Death in possessing the Author of Life for whether we live or die we will be always in the Earthly Paradise in which nevertheless we may indeed sin as Adam did because there are yet in this miserable Life so many things which may divert us from God that without great violence we cannot remain in this Spiritual Conversation but if Nature must do so great violence to it self at Death to separate from the Soul why may it not do a less to separate it self from that which hinders our union with God It is in this that Jesus Christ says if your Eye your Foot or any other Members of your Body do offend you cut them off pluck them out and cast them from you To shew that we must force our selves to part with all that
till we have attained to the Vse of Reason where can the free Will of Children remain who lose Father and Mother in their Infancy or as soon as they are born She replied Those Sir abide in the Will which their Parents had in their Conception and Production or as they leave them when they die In whatsoever Will they leave their Children when they die these abide in it till they have attained the Use of Reason for then they are always put in possession of their own Will whether they have been till then given to God or to the Devil they can nevertheless choose the one and leave the other But the Child who has been given by his Parents to the Devil shall have much more Difficulty of returning to God than he who by his Parents has been given to God because of the Bent to Evil which he has already contracted He must do a far greater Violence to his Nature than he that has been habituated to Good from his Infancy because Custom is another Nature so that it is very hard for a Child train'd up in Evil even till the Use of Reason to forsake or change it afterwards Therefore he who is born of good Parents fearing God has great Advantages beyond him who is born of Mahometans Jews or evil Catholicks who must use great Efforts before he overcomes the Evils acquired during his Weakness and Childhood Nevertheless God will never be wanting to give him Grace to do this if he hath an effectual Desire and Will for it for he created Man for no other end but to serve him and he can deny him nothing that is necessary for his Salvation On the contrary he affords him on his Part all Occasions and Means of Salvation even tho' he be born of evil Parents or Sorcerers They have no more Power over their Children after they are come to the Use of their own Reason if so be they will apply it to know and love God For they are put in such a State as if they were beginning to be born except as to the evil or good Habits contracted in their Childhood I said to her That we see two Children sometimes begotten of the same Father and Mother and yet the one enclined to Good and the other to Evil. She said This may very well be Sir because Fathers and Mothers are not always in the State of Grace sometimes they fall from it and afterwards they recover it The same befalls their Children as long as they have the free Will of these Infants in their Power it is still united to theirs and while the Father and Mother live they may put the Souls of their Children being yet in Childhood in Favour or Disgrace with God Therefore one may be enclined to Good and another to Evil according to the divers Dispositions and Desires of the Parents who at one time give one of their Children to God and at another time give another to the Devil They may indeed give their Blessing to one of these Children of the same Womb and their Malediction to another which will operate in their Children so long as they are not yet arriv'd at the Use of Reason because their free Will is united to that of their Fathers and Mothers From this Ground has proceeded the use of giving a Blessing which Use has past beyond Father and Mother to the Priests as being the spiritual Fathers of Christians tho' they have not the same Power that the natural Fathers have for they have not co-operated to the Formation of their Body nor yet very often to the Instruction of their Souls which Fathers and Mothers ought to do under Pain of their own Damnation We have seen Examples enough of the Power which Parents have over their Children for many have received the Devil in their Body by some evil Wish of their Fathers Jacob prospered and was bless'd by the blessing of his Father tho' he was not his eldest Son Many Curses have befallen some Children for the Sins of their Fathers and this is just because the free Will of the Child remains always depending on that of the Father till he hath received full Judgment to be able to use it himself Therefore the People cried at the Condemnation of Jesus Christ His Blood be upon us and on our Children I said to her That it fell out often that good Fathers and Mothers had evil Children and on the contrary those who were very evil have had very good Children She said This falls out Sir when the Children of good Parents have attain'd to the Use of Reason being put in Possession of their own free Will they forsake the good Instructions of their Parents and contract evil Habits by bad Conversation or by other Means which turn them away from their Parents Benediction to follow their own perverse Will over which the Father has no more Power since they are emancipated from the Power of their Fathers Will. In like manner when the Child of an evil Father becomes good and lives well this is still after he has acquired the Use of Reason and that then opening the Eyes of his Understanding to consider his evil Life he returns to do good by his Liberty and his free Will in which the Conversation of good Men does greatly help him But as long as he continu'd in the Power of his Fathers free Will he must of necessity be damned or saved according to the Disposition of his said Father and this by an equitable Justice because of the great Sympathy there is between the Father and the Child as being Flesh of his Flesh and Bone of his Bones And as the Child who is in its Mothers Belly receives no other Nourishment but that of the Mother who may by her Food give Life or Death to her Infant which is in her Power so long as she bears it in her Womb even so is it of the Soul by the great Sympathy there is between the free Will of the Father and that of his Child Tho' they be two Souls they are nevertheless dependant upon that which has its full Reason as the Body of the Infant and of the Mother do both of them depend upon the Food which the Mother takes because she alone is capable of receiving it to make it pass to her Infant so that these two Bodies are reputed but one till the Infant be brought to Light and become capable of receiving its own Food Then the Mother is no longer capable of causing Life or Death to it except with what the Child may take of it self God acts ordinarily as to our Soul the same way that he does as to our Body at least by Similitude I said to her That she gave me very profound Thoughts that never any Body had searched so far into this Matter but that all they whose Spirits were perplexed about the Reasons why God damn'd one Infant and saved another did still referr to the Power
to revive the true Spirit of Christianity with more Ease than all that they would joyn to it since which things have been the Cause that many have withdrawn themselves from the Church to forge Heresies according to their Fansies For they judg'd they were as learn'd as those who would oblige them to their Laws I said to her I could not comprehend how the Commands of the Church had deformed the Doctrine of Jesus Christ since they were only added as more express Means to make it be well observ'd She said Sir you do not reach to the Bottom of this Affair For if you remark it more nearly you shall find direct Contradictions because these Councils would have by force what Jesus Christ would not have but by Love He never press'd any body to follow his Doctrine On the contrary when any of his Disciples left him he ask'd his Apostles if they would leave him also leaving always every one to his own Free-Will whereas these damn the Souls and oppress the Bodies of those who will not obey them They condemn as guilty of mortal Sin all those who will not observe their Commandments and even imprison their Bodies banish them from their Country yea for this they sometimes put them to death This Spirit of Rigour does it not destroy the Form of that sweet Gospel-Law which was so perfectly formed by the greatest Artist that ever was or shall be that is by Jesus Christ who was God and Man Could there be any thing to be added to the excellent Work of such a Master For there can nothing be added more than taken away without altering the first Form If one take from a Picture the sweet Draughts of some Figure by adding to it some rude ones the Figure ceases to be what it was before For it is impossible that two contrary things should abide together in the same Subject Cou'd Rigour be introduc'd into the Church to make Meekness be observed there These Arguments which you lay down Sir are without Foundation but you do it to excuse what you have once espoused as I have done also Notwithstanding I cannot cover its Deformities so well known to the Eyes of my Saviour who will very shortly make them known to all the World tho' they strive so earnestly to cover them I said to her I should be very sorry if I should aim to cover what displeased God but that it was the common Sentiment of all Christians to own and follow as a good thing what the Church assembled in a Body had ordain'd and determin'd For we say in our Creed That we believe in the Holy Catholick Church She said Sir you would have reason if you did not take the Bark for the Wood and a Humane Church for the Divine The Holy Church cannot err as I have told you divers times because it is the same thing with God If it be Holy it is Apostolick Now the Apostles never commanded the going once a Year to Confession upon Pain of Sin nor even taught it to any as a Vertue On the contrary Jesus Christ said to all those whose Sins he remitted Go and sin no more This was far from commanding them to go once a Year to Confession For this would be tacitly or indirectly to command them to sin once a Year because Confession always supposes Sin yea they even teach us that he who receives Absolution without Matter of Sin commits a Sacrilege as he does also who gives it Therefore of Necessity a Man must sin every Year that he may confess every Year if he would not commit a Sacrilege Do you not see Sir that the Holy Spirit cannot have instituted such things This must come from elsewhere as many other things ordain'd and resolv'd upon by this Church collegiately assembled tho' it be in use amongst Christians to referr to it and believe it This can be nothing but a blind Submission For if we had good Eyes we would still look whether what they command or ordain us be truly good and conformable to the Gospel before we follow it They tell us indeed that Faith ought to be blind because it consists in believing what we do not see But this Faith does not extend so far as to believe what Men say to us but only what God himself has told us by the Holy Prophets and Apostles or by Jesus Christ himself who has foretold us a great many things which we do not see because they are not yet come to pass In this we must use Faith because God cannot lye nor fail in making good his Promises But our Faith does not stand in that which Men say to us or command us For they themselves are often fallen from the true Faith while they ordain us things contrary thereunto I ask'd her If she judg'd the Commandments of the Church to be evil things She said No Sir there are divers things which of themselves are good as fasting in Lent in imitation of Jesus Christ who fasted forty Days in the Desart and also the communicating at Easter in Memory of the Supper which Jesus Christ made with his Apostles at that time and also the Sanctifying the Days dedicated unto God because he himself has commanded it All these things are good in themselves But this Constraint under Pain of Damnation or civil or bodily Punishment is most evil because good Works done with regret cannot please God who has no need of our Fasts or Sacrifices but he regards our Heart and our Will If this do not concurr to our good Works he will throw them as Dung into our Faces For nothing can please him but what is offered him by Love Therefore he says in so many Places He that WILL come after me or he that WILL follow me In all things he requires our affectionate Will and nothing by Force or Violence This belongs but to cruel Men who are not of God seeing he is ALL LOVE and has given us no other Laws but that of Love whereas these Persons come with a great many Commandments under Pain of Damnation and other Temporal Punishments Have you ever read Sir that Jesus Christ his Apostles or Disciples did at any time imprison any or impose Fines on any for not obeying their Ordinances as these Councils do who deforming this beautiful Law of Meekness and Love do forge troublesome and constraining ones Does not God deserve that we sanctifie the Days which are dedicated to him out of Love Is not the Desire that we have to follow and imitate Jesus Christ powerful enough to make us fast the Lent and communicate once a Year without the being oblig'd to it by force He who does it not out of Love must do it with regret or in Hypocrisie Were it not better not to be constrain'd to it than to do things so troublesome without meriting any thing and to die the Devil's Martyr which this violent and forcing Command does occasion For a true
Christian has no need of being forc'd and they who are not so have no need of these Commands I said I believ'd that all our good Works to make them meritorious ought to proceed from the Heart and from our Will but that God alone can search the Inward and therefore the Church ordain'd outward things of which she could judge and that to keep Christians united together it was needful to give them Laws and make them be observed She said Sir you grant me by what you say that the Church at present is not that which Jesus Christ established since to keep Christians united she makes Laws that are nothing but civil and temporal ones respecting only outward things because that which was established by Jesus Christ ought not to be upheld but by the Bond of Charity uniting Christians by a Conformity of their Wills in God which Unity of Spirit appears sufficiently by outward Operations because the Christian who is possess'd with Charity cannot remain hid For Charity is always working There need no other outward Laws to make appear to Men whether we be true Christians but THE LOVE of GOD and CHARITY FOR OVR NEIGHBOVR These things are as well outward as inward and may be judg'd by Men For to discover true Christians it was not needful to ordain them so many Precepts under Pain of mortal Sin For the Doctrine of the Gospel was but too sufficient to regulate all their Actions and Manners Why should they command the hearing of Mass under the Pain of mortal Sin since Jesus Christ in his Gospel has never oblig'd nor even counsel'd any body to do it nor yet to confess their Sins once a Year Tho' indeed he says confess your Sins one to another this is not that one must do it once a Year But when he has sinned he must be humbled and confess to his Brother that he is a Sinner and this rather in publick than in private that the Humility of declaring our selves Sinners and the Confusion that we have to be known for such before Men may give satisfactory Punishment to our Sins This is not to say that he must go and confess at certain Times and Days But when the Sinner desires to return to God in Heart and Affection even tho' this should not befal but once in his Life and at the end of it He should not cease for this to have the Pardon of his Sins and to obtain Mercy from God And if to be saved it were so precisely necessary to communicate at Easter how could a Paul a Macarius and Anthony and so many other holy Hermites have been saved who ended their Lives in the Deserts of Aegypt and Thebais without having ever communicated or heard Mass If Jesus Christ had spoken of the Eucharist when he said Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood you shall have no Life in you This Church which you believe to be holy would have err'd in holding all these Persons for Saints who never communicated or at least very seldom For St. Paul the Hermite having been for so many Years in the Desert without seeing any body died without receiving the Eucharist The Aegyptian Mary after having been thirty Years without seeing any body received it once only before her Death with a thousand such like What could these be saved without observing so much as one of these Commands of the Church For they sanctified all the Days of their Life by a continual Union with God as all true Christians ought to do It was not needful for them to pitch upon certain Days appointed by the Church all their Days none excepted being sanctified by continual Prayer In like manner they could not observe the Fasts of Lent and the other times expresly appointed For their Life was nothing but a continual Fast taking no other Food but what was purely necessary as all true Christians ought to do who expect to be satisfied in the other World without desiring to satiate themselves in this Why should they who have studied to defend this Church say that People cannot marry in Lent or Advent Neither Jesus Christ nor his Apostles ever forbad such things neither did they command the Paying of Tithes For that great Apostle St. Paul says that his Hands gain'd his Bread and that he was chargeable to no body And Jesus Christ bids his Disciples tho' The Workman be worthy of his Reward take and eat whatsoever is given them and when they enter into a Place and are not received that theygo from it shaking the Dust off their Feet whereas those Councils ordain the Payment of Tithes by Force So that he who is wanting in it should be treated as a Criminal I do not know Sir how you can say that all these Laws with so obliging them were needful to keep Christians united by many others to observe them by Force Because I can see nothing in all these Ordinances which has the Property of uniting Hearts On the contrary rather of dividing them I said to her That in all well order'd Common-wealths there must always be heads and Superiours whom we ought to obey and follow their Laws or otherwise there could be no Order She said Sir if you hold the Church for a Civil Common-wealth you have Reason but if you hold her to be Holy and Spiritual or the Spouse of Jesus Christ you are much in the wrong For her Head was still her Superiour and has given her such excellent Laws and Rules that no body can add any thing more perfect to them Those who would needs make some Changes in them have wholly confounded them and they who would be their Superiours have abused the Graces of their Liege Lord Since being appointed his Lieutenants on Earth to maintain his Ordinances they have neglected them and have made others after their own Mode or for their own Advantage against the Designs of their Sovereign Master For by forbidding to marry at certain times they disturb the Order that God has set from the beginning of the World Nothing was more holy nor ever will be amongst Men in this World than Adam before his Sin Nevertheless God gave him a Wife that he might know her for the Generation of Men and for the perpetual Unity that they ought to have together If God found it meet that this Marriage should be instituted in the Earthly Paradise in the most holy time that ever was before Adam had sinn'd why do these Persons forbid to marry in the times of Lent and Advent If it were for the Piety of the Time they would not give so many Dispensations to do it after they have forbidden it For ordinarily we see more of the Rich married in this forbidden Time than in that which is allow'd It seems this Prohibition is but for the Poor who have not Money enough to obtain these Dispensations It is a Pain to me to bend my Mind under these Laws For I
himself and nothing could resemble him but this free Power of his Will Tho' he had created Man's Soul divine this had been but a limited Spirit without this Free-Will which must certainly concurr to compleat the Delight which God would take with Men For as a King can take no Contentment in recreating himself with a Slave as he would do with a Queen who is nearer his Quality so God would make Man in his full Liberty and capable of using his Free-Will fully that in this Liberty he might be some way like to him This being done he cannot repent of any thing but lets Man enjoy his Gifts However he abuse them his Righteousness and Constancy will not let him withdraw or take from him what he has once given him but he leaves it him and will leave it to all Eternity Whether Man save or damn himself Free-Will shall never be taken from him for God is not changeable in his Gifts no more than in all his Works This being so he cannot hinder the Romanists from killing any body amongst them who would be the true Church without bounding or limiting the Free-Will that they have to do this But his Goodness preventing their Malice will move his Church to withdraw out of their Power or to hide her self as Jesus Christ hid himself to avoid the Jews Tyranny and by this means he exercises his Goodness towards his Church and leaves those Men of ill Will in the Liberty that he has given them who do only the Mischiefs that are in their Power and cannot reach the doing those which the Good by their Light and Foresight can avoid 'T is thus Sir that I said God could not preserve his Church among these Romanists because he will never use his Power against the Justice of the Right that he has given them to use their Free-Will Sir we ought always to take things in their Source or else we would utter Calumnies against God either in saying that he is not Powerful to hinder Evil nor Almighty to preserve his own or not just in not letting Causes work according to the Order in which he has established them which would be so many Blasphemies Because God can never do any Evil for he is the Source of all Good He cannot permit Injustice for he is perfect Righteousness And likewise he cannot against Promise take from him the Free-Will that he has once given him But he does all his Works in such Perfection that Goodness Righteousness Faith and Truth concurr in all in an excellent Harmony which ravishes the Understanding of him who considers them I said to her That the Impression of Dependance on this Roman Church was as it were naturalized in my Soul and that it would be very ill in me to leave her altogether tho' I absolutely desired to resign my self entirely unto God She said Sir be not any ways troubled Continue confidently under the Roman Church provided you do not follow in her but that which is good in it self abundance cannot hurt After you shall be entirely resigned unto God he will uphold you and will govern you thro' all The more you shall be united to him the more you will partake of his Vertues and his Light shall be given you more clearly to discover the Truth of every thing You are now yet a Courtier of this Roman Church Therefore you love her and would feign excuse her Faults that you may not be obliged to forsake her which likewise you ought not to do by the Inducement of any but if you approach to God you will partake of this Light as the Ray partakes of the Sun according as it is near it When you shall partake of the Righteousness of God you will see with an upright Eye the Injustice of this Roman Church and when you shall partake of the Truth of God you will discover their Lyes and having partaken of the Goodness of God you will discover that Malice which now you can scarce believe For all the Perfections of God do assuredly discover the Imperfections which are opposite to him Labour therefore Sir to find this Union with God and be not troubled under whose Dependance you are Rome cannot hurt you when you hearken to none but God We need not be at the Trouble to learn where the true Church is For she will be in us as long as we possess the Law of God and the Doctrine of Jesus Christ which only makes up the holy Church It remains only that in the Roman Church you beware of the Seductions which are crept in there This is what Jesus Christ has so often warn'd us of in his Gospel sayng Beware of false Prophets who will come deceitfully and shall seduce many False Christs and false Prophets shall arise who shall if it were possible deceive the very Elect. He neither speaks of Turks nor of Heathens but of false Christs The Seventh Conference Of the Mass and of the Sacraments and Ecclesiastical Functions I ask'd her How I should behave in the Administration of the Sacraments in the Mass and other Functions of my Charge She said Sir Do all this in the Spirit that God requires you to do it in because there are great Abuses in this For all these things are not what they made us believe of them Many Superstitions have crept into them against God's Honour and our Salvation Therefore you must always join your Intention with what God may have in these things or otherwise you will commit many Faults and will likewise deceive others For my part I believe the Mass represents the Communion that Jesus Christ had with his Apostles who eat and drank with them every Day blessing the Bread and breaking it to distribute them which the Apostles continued to do with their Disciples and afterwards all the Primitive Christians who assembled every Day to eat together and blessing God imparted to every one as he had need which maintain'd and nourish'd among them the true CHARITY which Jesus Christ had left them by Testament Do this in Remembrance of me and you shall live for ever because without this Charity no body can be saved as St. Paul assures us Tho' one could even remove Mountains tho' he gave all his Goods to the Poor yea his Body to be burn'd c. all this would be nothing without Charity which Jesus Christ had recommended to all his Disciples a little before his Death This is now out of use and instead of nourishing and maintaining it by these daily Meetings of Christians those who did assemble to eat and drink blessing God for what he bestowed on them they have chang'd it into the Mass which we observe to this Day with little Profit and Salvation except that the Intentions of some may be to do it in the Spirit and Desire which Jesus Christ had when he appointed it and left it in his Testament It is to this I exhort you Sir that you
away all the Fruits of the six Days Labours which he did in creating this beautiful World if all this shou'd be for the Devil and his Adherents No no Sir this cannot go so God must have his time to reign over all his Creatures that they may adore and know him the only true God and that the Number of his Elect may be multiplied as much as he has destin'd them that these never dying may bless him to all Eternity This is the Kingdom of Jesus Christ which I wait for Sir with Chearfulness Nothing can afflict me in this Hope It is a joyful Life to think on it what Joy must it be to possess it I said to her That these Words did ravish me with Pleasure but that I had also in Exchange the Grief to believe that all Men now are in a State of Damnation for fear lest I also be of the Number She replied You may indeed rejoice Sir 'T is the greatest Ground of Joy that we can ever have 'T is the Master-piece of all the Works of God and the Accomplishment of all things For this the World is created for this Man is created and for this God is become Man The Coming of Jesus Christ in Sufferings was for Sinners but his glorious Coming will be for the Righteous Therefore he says being in the World I am not come to save the Righteous but to bring Sinners to Repentance God from all Eternity design'd to become Man to the end he might not only make Man like to him but that God also might be like to Man that he might take his perfect and compleat Delight with him 'T is good to consider this Sir that God is not become Man only on design to suffer and to die For this would have been a sad Subject and the ancient Patriarchs wou'd have had little Ground to have prayed and desired so earnestly that God should become Man to see him hardly used suffering Reproaches Scourges and so cruel a Death The Love they bare to God wou'd rather have made them desire to remain in their Captivity than to be delivered from it at so dear a Price as the Sufferings and the Death of God-Man All those Wishes and Aspirations which all the Fathers and Prophets of the ancient Law made cou'd not be for this Coming in Sufferings but rather that glorious Coming wherein Jesus Christ being lifted up will draw all Men unto him which his Death on the Cross has not done because very few followed him then and no body follows him at present This is very far from drawing all to him seeing so few have been drawn from the Beginning of the World even till now Must there not a Time come wherein that he may fulfil his Word he will draw all in general to him Must he not also to make the same Accomplishment take away the Sins of the World For his Death instead of taking away the Sins of the World has rather brought on more because they have encreas'd and multiply'd since Can God fail in his Promise Must there not come a time when he will take away all the Sins of the World If this were not God shou'd not be faithful in his Promises which cannot be true For Heaven and Earth shall pass away but his Promises shall not pass away There is not a Syllable of them which shall not have its entire Accomplishment in an altogether perfect Sence They wou'd sometimes make us believe that all this shall be fulfilled in Paradise and they tell us that nothing defiled can enter there How then shall there be Sins there to be taken away And if all the Blessed are united to him there will be no more need of drawing them I said to her That I was so convinced as to believe that we must look for a new World and a new Earth and that I knew well enough that nothing of the holy Scripture shall have its Accomplishment in this World but that I was not freed from the Trouble of believing that all Men now were in a State of Damnation of which Number I was one tho' nevertheless I desired to be saved whatever it cost She said Sir to discover Truths you must always take things in their Source Consider I pray you that the Coming of Jesus Christ in Sufferings was for no other Grounds but to make known to Men their Sins in which they liv'd so blindly that the most Part knew not what they did but followed one another insensibly in the Way of Perdition as they do yet at present God of his great Mercy wou'd have become Man before his Coming in Glory that he might bring Light to Sinners whereby they might know their Sins and to teach them in particular what they ought to do and avoid to the end they may observe the Law of God which he came not to change nor abolish no more than to give a new one but only to teach the Means by which Men shou'd easily attain to the observing of this Law of God which was given from the Beginning of the World and will never be changed For God will never demand any other thing of Men but the Dependence which they ought always to acknowledge they have on their God who has created them and given them all things In the Practice of this Dependence is contain'd all the Law and the Prophets and the Doctrine of Jesus Christ They can have no other thing in Substance But Men being fallen from the observing of this first Law have need from time to time of divers Means to raise them again from their Fall For these ends Jesus Christ is come into the World timously and ere it perish before his limited time that taking Humane Flesh he might teach Men palpably according to their Senses to the end they might not be any more ignorant of any thing but might get out of Darkness to discover their Sins and see clearly the Way they ought to take to come to Salvation And that those Means which Jesus Christ came to teach them might not seem too grievous and difficult to them he wou'd needs pave the Way himself and put them in practice all the time he was on Earth to the end Men might afterwards follow his Steps and imitate his Example By this Foundation Sir you can easily discover whether all Men be in the Way of Salvation or Damnation Lay this down first that no body shall be saved but he who keeps the Law of God Secondly that Men thro' their Frailty cannot observe this Law but by such Means as Jesus Christ has taught them because they imagine that they live in a Dependence upon God when they do but depend on their own Wills To make this known Jesus Christ teaches them that to be his they must deny themselves Not that this Law of denying ones self was ordain'd in these precise Words in the Beginning of the World but it was tacitly contain'd in
and excuse this Roman Church which you may easily perceive to be corrupted And the more she is drest up with Vertues and Sanctity she is the more capable of corrupting the Innocent who approach her thinking to find the Spouse of Jesus Christ without Blemish while in the mean time they contract nothing but the Corruption of an infamous Strumpet Thus the most Sound become diseased and will perish if their Maladies be not quickly laid open and dress'd as is meet by that divine Physician who comes upon the Earth to teach us all things according to the Promise that Jesus Christ gave us speaking to his Diciples saying that he wou'd send the holy Spirit who shou'd teach us all things He is now come Sir hear him The Fifteenth Conference That the Time is come when the Holy Spirit will teach us all Truth How Christians do reject his Light and what Progress the Devil has made among them For what end how and to whom God communicates his Spirit I Ask'd her Who this Physician might be who could cure such Sores and such Corruption She said It is the Holy Spirit Sir which Jesus Christ did promise us a little before his Death who will teach us all things This is that LIGHT which shall arise in the Darkness which the World will not receive but Love their Darkness rather than the Light Therefore is it known by so few because they will not receive it giving more Faith to their Darkness than to this Light which breaks forth as a new Day upon the Earth and comes to discover the Truth of all things But Men are become now so much Lovers of themselves that they will not learn the Truth except in things which are agreeable to them resisting the Truth that reproves them or is not conformable to their Liking and Inclinations In this they will give Laws to the Holy Spirit and make him speak what they encline to hear In these Times the Sins against the Holy Ghost are fully accomplished Therefore Jesus Christ calls them dangerous times because the Sins which are committed then will not be forgiven neither in this World nor in the other When Jesus Christ came into the World they committed many Sins against him Nevertheless all those shall be forgiven because the Jews never understood that he was the Son of God Neververtheless they have perceived and confessed that they did ill in putting him to Death and all the Sins of which we repent shall certainly be forgiven But this Sin which is now committed against this Holy Spirit will never be repented of and therefore will never be pardoned neither in this miserable World nor in that blessed one which is to come because they will never ask forgiveness for them since they will not acknowledge them and if they will not suffer the Physician to lay open and search into the Sores of a Patient how can they hope for a Remedy by his Cure Even so the Holy Spirit cannot heal the Wounds of our Souls if we will not let him discover them I said to her It was very desirable that these Wounds of our Souls were laid open that they might be healed She said Sir it is indeed a desirable thing but it is very little desired For all the World resists this Discovery and they think they do a very pious Action when they will hear nothing spoken of the Evils which have crept into the Church nor yet of the Monks and others who prosess to serve God The Holy Spirit it seems must accommodate himself to the Times if he would be heard and must praise the Vices and Sins that are at present committed against him For that String must not be touch'd to speak evil of those who desire to continue in Reputation or Authority in the Church even tho' they should commit all sort of Abominations and tho' they were Sorcerers and Devils They teach it as a Principle of Vertue that we ought to excuse their Sins and take our Garments to cover them that no body may perceive them This is very far from desiring that these Wounds may be laid open that they may be healed 'T is no wonder Sir that I have so often told you that I cannot see by what way there should be so much as one Person at present saved in Christendom because the greatest Part live as Atheists without acknowledging God any longer or thinking on him and the rest having the Reputation of good Men are so full of the Sins against the Holy Ghost that I know not what way they can be gained If it should be told a Priest Sir you are deceived in the Administration of the Sacraments They do not operate of themselves as you think he would think this Advertisement came from the Devil and would resist it as a very ill thing Or if it should be said to a Monk or any other devout Person that they were not true Christians they would presently take the Alarum and withstand the Person who should tell them this Truth as if he were an Enemy of God and a Liar because he who has no desire to amend will not be pleased to have his Faults discovered to him Thus every one continues in his Sins and desires not to leave them off or so much as discover them In this Men love Darkness rather than the Light which arises so graciously upon which depends the Salvation or Damnation of all the Men in the World For the Darkness is universal and there is no Sect or Nation whatsoever that is in the real Truth I said to her That she was obliged to discover these Truths that they would be of great use tho' it were but to my Soul She said Sir you are no more disposed than any other to receive the Light of the Holy Spirit unless your Heart be humble and your Spirit simplified This is what Jesus Christ told Nicodemus that he must become a Child and enter again into his Mother's Womb affirming elsewhere that l If we are not converted and become as little Children we shall never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven These very Words must now have their compleat and perfect Sense For he who shall not submit his Spirit in Simplicity as a little Child cannot receive the real Truth which the Holy Spirit brings into the World because the Doctrines of Men and their evil Customs have so blinded and darkned their Understandings that 't is impossible for them to receive the Light of Truth unless they be first stript of all their Sciences acquired by humane Means which prove Vails and Bandages to the Eyes of the Soul For these humane Maxims are all lying and deceitful teaching to honour Men and give Deference to them when they are in Place and Dignities not considering that Honour is due to God alone by his Commandment and that Deference ought to be given to the Truth only to which it is due and as long
will not be reformed loving rather to perish in their Blindness than to receive the Light and this of their deliberate Will Whereas those Jews are still looking for and aspiring after the Coming of their Saviour in Glory Tho' in many things they err Nevertheless they persevere in this Hope which will infallibly come to pass to them provided they acknowledge the Fault they committed in putting Jesus Christ to Death I ask'd her Whether there was any Sect or Nation more capable of receiving the Truth than the Jews who were a People rejected by all Nations and despised by every body as unworthy of the Conversation of all good Men She said Sir I know not precisely what the Jews are but as a Friend I can tell you that they are yet the People who love God more than any other Their being rejected and despised by every body shall perhaps serve for a Satisfaction to God for the Sins which they committed in putting him to death Because this is God's Way to chuse always the Things that are most vile and most contemned by the World I do not at all doubt but the Jews will be the first in the Kingdom of Heaven because they have been so humbled and despised in this World in which they have imitated Jesus Christ more than the Christians who honour themselves more than God and every one esteems them as the People of God and Jesus Christ has told us by the Mouth of his Mother that he will put down the Mighty from their Seats and will exalt the Humble This makes me believe that this People of the Jews so humbled through all the World shall be exalted above all others and that the Roman Church which is placed in the highest Chair on Earth shall be cast down from all her Power Because God has said that he who exalts himself shall be abased and he who humbles himself shall be exalted It must needs be Sir that all the Words of God be fulfilled in all Respects The Jews having been the most humbled People among Men ought to be according to the Justice and Truth of God the most Exalted as it shall come to pass For as soon as they shall receive the Truth which I commit to you they shall be converted and receive the Holy Spirit by whom they shall discover all things see their Errors and the Truth and embracing it shall arrive at the Time so often desired by them in which they will see the true Messiah and Saviour of the World come in Glory who will receive them into his Kingdom from whence the Children of it shall be shut out These are the Christians who shall never taste of his Feast tho' they were invited and called unto it But the Jews and Heathens shall sit down there and the Christians shall be thrust out because they would not obey God's Call who having called them to Christianity they would not conform themselves unto it Therefore they shall never taste of his Dainties because this is the last Mercy of God who will bring to his Table the Sick rather than the Whole who resist his Will as the Christians do now I ask'd her If I might declare to the Jews all the things she had told me as coming from God by a Prophetical Spirit She said Sir I am not Prophetical as the Ancient Prophets were who spoke of very obscure things So that many times neither the People nor they themselves understood well what they signified because the Time was not yet come to give the full Understanding of them But at present in this Fulness of Time God declares his Secrets very manifestly that every one may understand them So that you must not say Sir that you are sent in the Name of some Prophet because the Things that I have told you are such plain and lively Truths that no body of a good Judgment can doubt but the Holy Spirit must have inspired them For if they believe that God is Truth my Words are so sensibly inseparable from it that all Nations both great and small must confess that in all my Discourses the Truth is in its Source And this Truth being God it is therefore God assuredly who declares these Truths For the Devil is the Father of Lyes and Nature finds out still Excuses either in its own Sins or in those it loves By which you may see evidently that Truth comes immediately from God tho' it shou'd come out of an Ass as once it did Therefore you need not so much stay to judge whether I have the Spirit of Prophesie as you ought to examine very narrowly whether I speak the Truth For that is always God The Prophesies of the Ancient Prophets will all of them very shortly be fulfilled There is no Need of any longer having obscure Prophesies because we are fallen into the last Times wherein all the Prophesies shall cease and we shall see them all entirely accomplished and we shall not receive any more new ones Because the King of all the Prophets will himself govern his People and will give an entire Accomplishment to all that has been prophesied of him So that Sir you shall not need to say that you hold these Truths from a Prophet because the Work does always bear Witness who its Workman has been Even so when the Truth is lively declared it gives sufficient Evidence by what Master it is formed I cannot conceal that I derive all my Wisdom from God because I never learned any thing from Men But there is no Need to say that I have a Prophetick Spirit when God gives Reasons and Comparisons to explain it after the Manner of Men. I said to her That in many of her Discourses she spoke of the Future and of the Time to come and that as to those we could not know yet whether they were true or not She said Sir what is to come is as true as what I have already experienced Receive all with Humility of Heart and you shall see in its Time as clear as the Sun that all shall be accomplished For God cannot lye The holy Scriptures must say the same things that I say Because all proceeds from one and the same Spirit and the Jews will understand me yet better than you do because they are more vers'd in the holy Scriptures I think if I spoke to them their Hearts would be over-joy'd and ravish'd with Pleasure to know that so great a Happiness is to befal them as to become the People of God and to suffer for his Love till they shall see him come in Glory with his Angels to render to every one according to his Works The Christians have this in their Creed which contains the twelve Articles of Faith that Jesus Christ who is ascended into Heaven shall come again to judge the Quick and the Dead And notwithstanding they will not believe it tho'
Time is come to put this Sentence in Execution It will begin with the Plague of War and then that of Pestilence and after of Famine that there may be time given to all Men of good Will to repent and to take these Plagues in Penitence for their Sins and by these Sufferings to find a Way to return to God with all their Heart and to rise from Death to Life that is to say from Sin to Grace as the Jews shall do by being converted first of all that the Lord may find them watching at his Coming and may say to them Well done good and faithful Servant because thou hast been faithful in a few things I will set thee over great things Enter into the Joy of thy Lord Which Joy shall be recovered at the Coming of Jesus Christ in Glory who will overthrow all Evil by the Brightness of his Coming which shall be seen and understood by all the Men who shall then be remaining on the Earth Thus it is that God orders these last things with Weight and Measure that he may still exercise his Righteousness Goodness and Truth even to the End of the World waiting still for Sinners to Repentance being desirous that they shou'd be converted and live Whatever Men say God will never depart from his eternal Qualities and will not confound his last Works no more than he did his first For he continues still firm and constant in all his works If Men will not know this 't is their own Fault and the Effect of the straying of their Minds Nevertheless it is time to open their Eyes For the Plagues are begun I said to her That the Jews were wilfully obstinate not to believe that Jesus Christ was God which the Christians did believe assuredly and consequently they were nearer to be converted than the Jews She said Sir the Jews are less obstinate than the Christians because there is more Ground for their Unbelief than for that of the Christians who reject the Coming of Jesus Christ in Glory tho' it be verified by all the Holy Prophets the Apostles and Jesus Christ himself who in so many divers Places declare his glorious Coming and very few speak of his Coming in Reproach This makes the Jews doubtful knowing that God never surprises any but often foretells the things that must come to pass and they finding so frequently in the Holy Scripture the Prophesie of his Coming in Glory and so seldom his Coming in Reproach they have some fundamental Reasons for which they cannot believe his Coming in Reproach But so soon as the Truth shall come to enlighten them they will yield to it because they love it Whereas the Christians do formally resist it and wilfully impugn it and will not believe what they read so often nor hearken to the Light that is offered them thereupon being desirous to continue obstinately in the Persuasions in which they have been trained and blindly to believe the Sentiments of Mens preferring them to the Truth of God So that the Jews will sooner believe that Jesus Christ is God than the Christians will believe that the same Jesus Christ shall come to reign in Glory upon Earth tho this Coming be much more to be desired and valued than that Coming in Sufferings and Reproaches For he who highly esteems God will be troubled to believe or see he shou'd be abased or despised and become the Reproach of Men he who deserves all Honours in Heaven and Earth Hereby the Jew's have more humane Ground not to believe the Coming of Jesus Christ in Sufferings than the Christians have not to believe his Coming in Glory which is more honourable pleasant and desirable tho' the Jews as well as the Christians do very ill not to believe both the Comings of Jesus Christ which are equally true both the one and the other I said to her That she seem'd to hold the Jews Part more than the Christians She said Pardon me Sir I am not partial and if I were I wou'd rather take the Christians Part among whom I am born than that of the Jews whom I never saw I hold only the Part of Truth without leaning to any Side because I have no Pretensions upon Earth Neither Jews nor Christians will give me any thing But God will judge me in Truth and Righteousness Therefore I will always observe it without Respect to any body If I knew not that the Jews are more disposed to receive the Truth than the Christians I wou'd not speak to their Advantage But I cannot conceal the Truth when it is asked me If you address these Jews you will find my Saying true For I know nothing of my self All comes from a Source from whence no Lye can be drawn I am not enclined for the Jews nor for any other Sect in the World For I know none of them that are well pleasing to God But I love those best that are most disposed to receive the Truth and to be converted unto God and I remark this People of the Jews to be more disposed for this than any other Which in Trust I declare to you Not that I may be lov'd or despised but that I may simply declare the Truth as I know it Make a Trial of it Sir and of all the other Things which I have told you you will find them in their Time all true For I am not for telling things that are extravagant or without Necessity You will have Need after this to know all that I have declared unto you They will be very profitable for you and for those whom you shall judge capable of receiving them Doubt nothing of them Conceive and digest them all You shall receive from them great Light in your Understanding and Strength and Nourishment to your Soul and you shall still enter farther into the Knowledge of God and of your self which shall be an Everlasting Happiness for you Beware of being tempted to believe the Contrary Because the Devil will surprize you with false Appearances under a Pretext of scrupulous Piety and Justice The Eighteenth Conference How the Holy Spirit gives his Light to the Soul I Said to her That I would not doubt of her Words because I believed that they all came from the Holy Spirit She said Softly Sir all my Words come not from the Holy Spirit For he does not dictate to me all the Words that I must pronounce but the Substance of all that I say because I would never speak otherwise than by his Motion and no other Discourses are necessary for me For I have no Desire to please any and all that makes not for the Glory of God seems to me a superfluous and useless Thing Therefore I do not willingly utter any Discourse but these to which the Holy Spirit moves me But he does not dictate to me all my Words I have Need to express my self by Humane Reasons or Comparisons because otherwise they could not understand me For
the same bed To shew that it avails nothing for one to save his Body but he must endeavour to be united unto God or otherwise he shall be taken in what place soever he go to I said to her That I would follow her even to Death because she had the words of truth tho all the world should withstand it She said Sir There is no need that you follow my Person but my words keep them in your Heart and thereby you will attain to Salvation for they are saving Never turn away from them For the Devil has this invention to raise a great many distractions that he may divert us from following the Truth he sends sickness Troubles Affairs of Importance and a thousand other occasions to divert our good purposes that we may never bring them to effect If you were speaking Sir with all good men who are in publick Offices whether Civil or Ecclesiastick they would acknowledg to you that they were never so throng'd with Affairs or Business as now because the Devil being unable to gain them entirely to himself he endeavours at least to give them so much business as that they may not have leisure to think of their Salvation nor of the Dangers in which they live We must certainly discover his wiles or otherwise he will draw us along with him insensibly He has deceived so many by these means making them believe that their imployments were profitable for the Publick or their Neighbours when they serv'd for nothing but human accommodations without any advantage to the Glory of God or the Salvation of Souls And under this False Perswasion many have lost their own Salvation without procuring that of others It is not in these last times Sir that Places Offices or Imployments are saving it is much for a Man to save his own Soul for the times are too dangerous and the world too blind and obstinate If they perceived their blindness they would seek to find a remedy But while they believe they see clearly they cannot think of a remedy and they fall easily into eternal ruin But if you Sir for your own part would be saved remember the Truth and follow it for without it there can be no Salvation For it alone makes us to know God and the Devil and likewise the state of the World and that of our own Conscience Truth shews us also the certain way of Salvation and by it all the wonders of God are discovered It is the Light of the World and the sure harbour of Salvation without which nothing can be good or beautiful The seventh Conference Shews that Jesus Christ will come in Glory or else he should not be the Saviour of the World as he is and there would be no just Recompence for the Good and for the Wicked I said to her that I had sufficiently discovered the truth of this that we are in the last times that the VVorld is judged and Antichriso reigns and also that the Plagues are begun because there is no truth nor Righteousness among Men but that I did not yet see why Jesus Christ shall come to reign in Glory upon Earth She said This is the most evident truth and the greatest Goodness and Justice of God because Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the World and the restorer of all things You see clearly by all the Truths that I have told you that very few will be saved of all those who live at present after the usual manner and if this miserable World should last yet longer there would still be fewer because every day it grows worse How therefore should Jesus Christ be the Saviour of the World if he did not restore all things No body could be Saved for the whole World perishes There must come a time that the whole World shall be saved that he may be fitly called the SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD And this cannot be in Heaven as People imagine because all who enter there shall be Saved having received Salvation at the hour of Death and this respects only particular persons who by reason of their small number cannot well be called the WORLD because it consists in a Generality and not in some particular Persons 'T is a truth therefore that in a certain time Jesus Christ will save all the World in general This will be at his coming in Glory when he shall have judged the World and condemned the Wicked he will save the Good with all their Posterity who can never perish any more because of the continual Presence of Jesus Christ God and Man who will govern and lead them to Salvation This his coming in Glory is also necessary to restore all things because there has been no reparation yet of all the Injuries and Affronts that were done to his Humanity His low Condition has not been raised up his Poverty has not been enriched his Tears have not been wiped away his Humility has not been exalted neither have any other of his Contempts and Sufferings been repaired nor of those who have loved and followed him One has died as a Malefactor another as a Seducer a St. Andrew on the Cross a St. Lawrence on the Grid-iron and so many other holy Martyrs who have suffered Persecution and Death for Righteousness and Truth There has been no reparation of all this hitherto but by imaginary things as they say that Jesus Christ was exalted on the Cross which is an infamous reparation to dye on a Gibbet as a Malefactor If those who hold this Cross to be a reparation of Honour were hanged after this manner themselves they would not believe that their Honour were repaired by this How can they imagine that that of God was so It is not to be imagin'd that Honour should be repaired by Infamy it self But because his coming in Glory was unknown to them they have applied Infamy to Glory that they might say something of it The truth is Jesus Christ will come upon the Earth to repair all things for it would not be just that he should have suffered so innocently and after him so many other Saints and Martyrs who were free from Crimes and that they should continue dead without being repaired Spiritually and bodily for what they have suffered unjustly or for the Love of God and if People imagine that all these things must be repair'd in a Divine and imaginary Heaven they are deceived because this reparation cannot be perfectly made there for natural sufferings ought also to have suitable reparations unless God did as Charmers do who cure bodily wounds with spiritual rememedies or some artificial words No Sir this will not go after that manner because God does his works always in a perfection every way accomplish'd He will repair both bodily and spiritually all that has been done unjustly and the whole world shall thereby discover his Righteousness Goodness and Truth that every one may know that he is worthy and just worthy
live and dye in amusing our selves with the Hopes of Salvation without any ground Because it ought to be founded only upon the Resignation of our Will to that of God That which we least think of is the most necessary I said to her Since this Resignation of our Will was the only thing needful we ought to fix upon it and that neither Books nor Study nor any other Means were any longer fit for attaining to Salvation and that Man was very void of Judgment in burthening himself with so many other things She said Sir Man is truly void of Judgment while he amuses himself with so many different Things since there is but one thing necessary All the rest is superfluous and useless There is no need of Studies nor Benefices that we may resign our selves to God nor of Honours nor Riches nor Places and Dignities For all this respects the Earth only and Humane Accommodations A little Aliment will serve for this short Life Alas why should we vex and amuse our selves to make up a Fortune here which must remain on the Earth and all Humane Delights must dye with us Is it not a great Folly to embroil our selves in Places Offices and Benefices for so short a Time as this Life lasts during which we have no need of any thing but a little Meat and Drink with some Cloaths to cover our Body No Body has need of any thing else neither King nor Pope more than others with all their Wealth and Grandeurs but this little Aliment and whether we leave behind us at death Land or Money 't is all the same thing The Body rots in the Ground and we carry nothing away the Rich no more than the Poor the Noble than the Beggar Death levels all without any Preference Must not a Man be very void of Judgment to desire Goods which are a Burthen to us painful to get troublesome to preserve and grievous to be parted with What a folly does he commit who from his Youth gives himself to the Study of Letters or other Sciences on design to attain to some Office and Dignity and when he has attain'd it reckons himself happy As if any Happiness could be found in Miseries And does not discover that truly the Wealthiest and the Greatest are the most miserable and subject to more Cares and Vexations to more Fatigues and greater Accounts to be charged on their Souls and Consciences For he who has but a small Labour sufficient for the maintenance of his Life without pretending to more is a thousand times happier than a Rich and Great Man in this World and has also a far less Account to render to God For Offices and Riches lay great Obligations on him that possesses them So that what we imagine to be a Happiness brings upon us great Mischief robbing us of our Time which ought to be employed only in fulfilling our Penitence and also exposing our Souls to many Hazards of their Salvation and it wholly hinders the Resignation of our Will to that of God For he who covets the Offices Honours Riches and Grandeurs of this World cannot be resigned to God because all these things proceed from our own Will seeing that of God aims at no other thing but Eternity whereas all that is Temporal and passes away is opposite to it We would laugh to see a Pilgrim heap on his Head or Shoulders the Earth which he should only tread upon that he may advance in his Journey and we think we are very wise in Loading our selves with Gold and Silver which should only serve us for a Foot-stool and we oppress our Understanding with Cares Studies and so many different Distractions whereas we have but one thing only to care for which is to resign our VVill to that of God and to live without Care in this Resignation of our Will to his This is all that God will always demand of Man without obliging him to any other Thing And when we amuse our selves with so many different Things we Act against the Command of God and we follow our own Will For one will covet to become an Attorney Advocate or Counsellour another to be a Merchant Shop-keeper or Tradesman one becomes a Priest another enters into a Religious Order another desires to be a Prebend Bishop Cardinal or Pope And when they have attain'd to all these Pretensions they are only filled with Wind Because all this passes away as the Vapour that vanishes in the Air And very often when we think to take our ease under the Favour of some great Fortune we immediately go down into the Grave where Death puts an End to all our Employs and renders all our Pretensions vain For by following our own Will we can never have acquired any thing for Heaven and God would not be just if he should reward eternally the Works that we do for the Earth or with respect to the Creatures We are deceived if we believe it because all that respects the Earth is recompensed on the Earth The Sixteenth Conference Shews How the Resignation of our Will to that of God is a Continual Prayer that it supplies all particular Doctrines and Practices and that the Gospel directs us only to the removal of the Obstacles which hinder it the discovery of which is necessary I asked her If it was needful to use any longer the Means of Devotion when one is resigned to God If it was any longer needful to Pray to Watch to Fast to go to Church to frequent the Sacraments to procure Indulgences to Honour Images especially that of the Virgin Mary which Devotion they tell us is necessary for Salvation with many other things which seem to be good She said Sir The Resignation of our Will to that of God supplies all Things and when we are arrived at this Resignation we have no longer need of any Means Because God works then in us what pleases him and we have no longer need to Act but to be still and passive Our Devotions are then without ceasing and we pray always when we are always resigned to God For Prayer is nothing else but an Elevation of the Spirit unto him and it is elevated unto him as long as we receive all from his Hands and are pleased every Moment with what he ordains This is the continual Prayer which he demands of Man saying That we must alwayes pray and not faint He who lifts up his Heart to God only when he is in the Church or sayes his Pater Noster's does not pray alwayes Because he cannot be alwayes in the Church nor mutter his Prayers from Morning till Night But he who resigns his Will to that of God prayes continually whether he eat drink walk or take his rest He is alwayes by his Will united to God and has no need of other Means because he is arrived at the End where Means would be a Hindrance to him He still watches when he is ready at all