light more and more divine and saving mysteries which ript up all his hellish Heresies and Mysteries of Iniquity to the gnawing of his malicious spirit and all the like instruments of his fury while the Bread of Life was aboundantly dispensed to hungry souls whom it shall nourish unto Eternal Life when all the Wicked shall be cut off and the Meek shall inherit the Earth For the more particular Account of her divine Pilgrimage see the History of her Life and take here a short Bill of that heavenly chear now dispensed in her Writings that took up the spare hours of her many diversions at Amsterdam The funerall of false Theologie in the first part of which she shews the Confusion the Ignorance Corruption Insensibility and foundamental Errors of Christians and even of Conductors and modern Divines In the second their Presumption Envy Pride Obstinacy and Head strongness In the third that all their Theorie and Practices are no more but Pharisaical without divine Faith In the fourth that the Devil has great power over men over the wicked and even over the best whom by these other he turns away from following God and engages them to co-operate to the Evil of others and makes them draw back after they have abandoned the World That is a work of singular efficacy and profit Scarce did ever man read it without being touched in his soul even the most wicked who became pale and as struck dead with it Upon occasion of some converse she had with some Cartesian Philosophers she composed The Holy Perspective wherein she shews that Men and particularly Christians have lost the Light of God which is true and divine Faith to be led by corrupt Reason and by a false or most faint Light they draw from nature so perverse brutish carnal and gross as it is become by sin that this is it that has destroyed all Christian-religion and brought it to the Blindness and Darkness wherein it is immersed and that God may restore it its first state there is no other way but to abandon that false Guide of Reason and to resign our selves to God that he may himself revive in us that divine Light of Faith which we have extinguished The New Heaven and New Earth in which is shewn in what Glory the World and Man were created how they have miserably faild from it how they entertain and even encrease their Misery and by what means they ought to return into the disposition God requires to restore them to their first Glory and renew all the world God showed her in Spirit the Glory and Beauty of the first World not supportable by corporal Eyes All was bright transparent shining with Light and unspeakable Glory God's last Mercy in which by a reason enlightened by Faith not perverted by human Studies and Prejudices she leads every man of good judgment to a conviction of the spiritual things which Faith discovers and unto which every man's Reason when conducted by a person that is illuminated by Faith renders so convincing Testimonies that they who will yield themselves to its Touch are moved and pressed to ask of God a saving and divine Knowledge of them by the Light of Faith With all these are intermixed many other divine Lights and profound Mysteries which God had reserved to this end of the last hour able to enlighten to quicken to inflame to strengthen to encourage and to ravish any that have not renounced all interest in heavenly things If any find difficulties in her Writings consider that she having no further human Learning than that having learnt it she did once read the New Testament and finding it the same with what God spake in her Soul she closed the Book to apply seriously to the doing of it seeking no more reading meditation conferring or other study than that of purifying her soul from earthly Affections and sins in following Jesus Christs Doctrine and Example She could not speak after the Rules and with the Cautions of human Literature far less by the pedantry of the Schools it were then most cruel injustice to judge her by them Again we must not suppose when she treats of a matter what she does not mention in that place that she denies it nor require her to treat so fully more than her scope there requires as the Scholastiques who handling a matter at their tour adduce all they can relating to it In the Third place to understand her Writings as all others divinely inspired the Key is a good Will Humility and Prayer to a Malign a Corrupt Proud Self-wise and Self-powerful Reader no entry in them no favour from them but that of Death And the center end and aim of these Writings being the Love of God by renouncing our selves the Creatures and sin the Devil the World and the Flesh the farther we are from this the greater discord and contradiction between these Writings and our corrupt hearts and blind spirits and if ever we will be reconciled it must be by valuing loving esteeming and submitting to them as they are conducive to these ends and the difficulties will all quickly evanish this way the Disciples of Christ of Prophets and Apostles entered into their Masters Doctrine To conclude with the zealous and sincere Author of her Life LOrd thou hast yet manifested the words of eternal Life in these last days and our ears have heard and our hands have handled the word of life which thou hast put into her these words of Life which are originally in thee we have seen and heard them and we bear testimony that thou hast manifested them to us and our testimonie is most true before thee and before whosoever will open the eyes of his Conscience to consider it in thy divine Presence Yes Lord my God Creator and Inspector of my Heart who hast given me to love thy divine Truth more than the Sciences and the Advantages of Egypt thou knowest that I hate lying and falshood and that I would not for any consideration recommend untruth I cannot deny that I have obtained of thy Grace to discern the Truth from Falsehood and that I have done it in this Work thou knowest O Lord. Thou knowest my God that if after all possible application of spirit I could find in the intentions in the end the Writings and the Practice of Antonia Bourignon thy Creature any thing contrary to thy Glory that rendered thee less worthy of the infinite and eternal Adoration Love and Praises due unto thee if any thing favouring Corruption and Sin and that might contradict thy holy Image and the Doctrine and Life of thy Christ if any thing dangerous for mens Salvation thou knowest I would abhor that that I would detest it that I would curse it Is it not true O Searcher and Judge of my Thoughts that this disposition is most really in the bottom of my Soul Is it not in the deepest and final sincerity of my heart that I protest openly that the words of eternal
her the text of the gospel with promise to submit my understanding unto the Light of the Holy Spirit entirely to my power She said Sir that Submission is the preparation requisit For if you would act the Doctor or wise learned man you should put opposition unto the Light of the Holy Spirit source of all Wisdom You must always believe and maintain that he is more wise than all the Doctors that ever were in the world and that we learn more by a little ray of his Light than by an hundred years of most assiduous study Therefore render all your Wisdom Ignorances and become as an Infant newly born again that you may receive these new Intelligences which shall give you more light than ever all the Old Fathers together have had because they have never discovered the hidden Treasures because the time was not yet come Every one spoke according to his thoughts and not as it was really because it was a closed Book which none was worthy to open but Jesus Christ himself since he was killed and put to death There is not hitherto any thing accomplished of all the Holy Scriptures but that death which shall disclose the marvellous things of God which have remained hidden until now and begin to be revealed unto them who shall be humble of heart but the wise shall perish with their wisdom Therefore do I exhort you Sir unto Simplicity and Submission that you may receive the Light which begins to soring in our time and see the new heavenly Jerusalem descend adorned as a Bride unto the day of her Nuptials The League and alliance of God with men shall then be accomplished The Earth shall then be renewed All Creatures shall leave their Malignities which shall be confined unto the center of the Earth to torment the Bodies and Souls of all them who would not submit their wills unto God They shall receive there pains according to their sins being over-whelmed with those Malignities which these sins have caused CONFERENCE XXVI Declareth the Necessity of becoming a Child to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven renouncing all Worldly Wisdom and all Human Abuses I asked her How it were possible to leave all Sciences humanly acquired to become a Child when one is an Aged Man SHe said Sir except you do it you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven It is Jesus Christ who saith it and he cannot lie but he urgeth that necessity of becoming Children by Threatenings of not entering into the Kingdom of heaven which were the greatest evil that can befal man It were better never to be born than not to be saved and seeing we cannot be saved without becoming Children we must do it at any rate Would you Sir esteem more the Honour of the World or your acquired Science than the Kingdom of heaven That were very lamentable seeing all the things of this world do but pass as the Bird which cutteth the Air and leaveth no trace of its way after it so we when we shall be passed through this world there shall remain nothing of our Sciences or Studies nor of our Honour and Reputation all endeth with us and if there remain in the spirit of others any reputation that we were wise and learned that is insensible unto us after death If we have pleased our selves therein in our life the sufferings of these complacencies attend us in the other world and instead that it should be a happiness to us that we have been wise it is a great misery to us to have lost the Kingdom of Heaven by the same wisdom Forsake all these human Considerations Sir and become a Child though you be aged You must make the more haste lest time and life escape Never consult flesh and blood for they deceive and corrupt us Let us consult only our divine Soul which is reasonable and it shall tell you that nothing is better nor more reasonable than to abandon our free will unto God who hath given us it and to submit it unto his government as a little Child that on that depends our eternal Happiness and that nothing else can save us because without that Dependance there is no Salvation I said unto her That I knew most clearly that truth that there was no Salvation without the Dependance of God asking how I could now ignore Sciences formerly acquired seeing I could not make my self not to have them She said Sir nothing can hurt you if all be submitted unto God You cannot ignore what you know by means of your Studies but you can well submit all these Sciences unto God and account them as Ignorances as in effect they are Apply no more your spirit unto the study of Sciences and believe them to be all vain in respect of the Wisdom of God You shall know that you are abandoned unto his will when you seek no more any thing upon Earth neither Learning nor Wisdom nor desire to know any thing else but what may render you acceptable unto God For he that is abandoned unto him without Deceit moves himself no more but for what regards his Glory all the rest toucheth him no more If he is wise or ignorant it is indifferent unto him Wisdom serves him for what regards the Glory of God and in no wise to rule upon Earth knowing well that he who is abandoned unto God without Sciences is as great as he who is so with much Learning and even as we may well be Poor of Spirit in possessing Riches so can we possess much learning and withal be simple of Spirit when we have submitted all our Learning unto God he serves himself of it as he pleaseth but so long as we will rely on and make account of them we are not yet become Children to have entry into the Kingdom of Heaven And seeing God sheweth you Sir that there is no Salvation without dependance on him put your self promptly therein without considering if you have Sciences or any thing else For as the Proverb is God makes Mercury of all wood we must not regard our selves but his will who desires that all men of whatever conditions hold themselves under his Dependance remitting their free wills into his power without using the same themselves I said unto her That absolutely and irrevocably I abandoned my self unto God to be a true Child but that I had yet some repugnancy to renounce the Church She said Ha Sir you must never renounce the Holy Church but rather die but you must only renounce the abomination which is crept into the Romish Church of these days Do you not see that she hath falsified her faith unto her lawfull Husband Jesus Christ and hath not remained faithful unto him I should be glad that you could shew me one only point of the Doctrine of Jesus Christ that she observes or one only thing that she practiseth that is not contrary to the Life and Doctrine of her
lawful Husband who descended from heaven unto the Earth to teach her them as well by his Works as by his Words all which things are despised by her who should be his lawful Spouse I have often spoken to you of her Excesses and Adulteries will you yet hold her for the Holy Church while the Devil hath placed his throne in her what weakness of spirit to feel repugnancy to forsake so evil a thing upon frivolous perswasions that it is holy while God hath given us an understanding and reason it is for no other end but that we may discern evil from good that we may not perish blindly and now you would change Gods designs in stifling your understanding and reason to follow evil blindly and seeing it so openly evil you form some foolish imagination that it is yet good That must come only from a meer bewitching of spirit because reason even natural discovers sufficiently unto us that the Romish Church at present is not the Spouse of Jesus Christ because she doth not in any thing follow her husband and that two things so alienated cannot make confederacy How can you have repugnance to leave her who hath forsaken her God If Beasts and insensible Creatures and all the Elements have arisen against man when he did forsake the Dependance of his God how should man so reasonable not arise against that Church which hath forsaken the Dependance of her God to will no more dependance but upon her self we should rather have repugnancy to remain under her than to forsake her or otherwise we have less resentments of the offence done unto our Creator than the Beasts and elements or inanimate things which have always resented the injury done unto their Creator yea at the death of Jesus Christ the Stones did rent and the Sun was darkened Have you less affection for God Sir then these stones in not resenting the continual injuries which that Church doth unto God If a beautiful Angel is become a Devil for having desired in his heart to be equal unto God what shall become of her which preferreth her self unto the same God without willing to him in any thing I regret yet your blindness in that point Sir and cannot believe that your repugnancy cometh from your reason but some habitual sensibility which you have unto the Church For if your Understanding did apply it self to discover the origin of that repugnancy it should see clearly that it cometh from the pious affection which you have for the Church but that you do not take it where it is because men are deluded in that as in other things by terms and words of men and when they hear Rome named the Holy Church that word engenders in us affection for her without penetrating if she be that of which they speak when we would deceive a Child and keep him in fear of his Father we put his Cloak and Hat upon a Fagot in some place somewhat obscure which the Child perceiving he believeth that it is truely he and feareth and respecteth him But if he drew near and lift up the Cloak he should see that he was deceived and that what he held for his Father is only some Wood. Verily Sir in the Darkness wherein we live at present they do the very same with us covering Rome with the Cloak of the Holy Church and cloathing it with the Head of Jesus Christ we fear and respect it as if it were our true Mother the Holy Church authorised by Jesus Christ and his lawful Spouse but when we draw near and lift up that Cloak we shall see that there is nothing but Wood instead of Sanctity which cannot be profitable unto us except to warm us in the Winter Verily Sir we must not be so much Children in what regards our eternal Salvation We must not walk blindly in a matter so important If men apply all their spirit to make a Hose or a Shoe why should they not apply it more to save their Soul It is good to have the simplicity of the Dove in regard of God for he that hath abandoned himself unto him hath no more but to suffer himself to be conducted as a little Child but we must have the Prudence of the Serpent to beware of men who can deceive or be deceived and when they say to us behold the Holy Church we must observe narrowly if it is truely her or if it is a Fagot covered with her Mantle It is for that only that God hath given us an understanding that we may always discern true good from false especially in the matter of our Salvation because all other things are vain and perishing unworthy of a serious application of spirit seeing it ought not to be applyed but unto things eternal for which we are created and our misery proceeds from that we make more serious searches to discover the turns and courses of the affairs of the world than those of our Salvation In which the Scripture hath reason to say that the Children of this world are more prudent than the Children of the Kingdom because before engaging in any State Office or Traffique they will always ponder if it be truely advantagious and profitable and they will be loath to rely upon the Words of men and believe blindly that a thing is good before they have first experienced it If they have so much providence for what regards the Earth how much should we have for what regards Heaven we found our Salvation blindly upon what they tell us that Rome is our Mother the Holy Church and we do not sound that affair which concerns us so much to know if truely she hath the quality of our true Mother and if she is confederated with our true Father who is immutable in all his qualities unto which that Spouse must always be conform We must see if she whom they call our Mother hath the Spirit and Practice of our Father and if we find nothing like it we must renounce her and account her deceitful and lying unworthy of our affection FINIS THE ARMS OF THE CITY OF RYSEL ON THE RIVER OF LYSSE IN FLANDERS (a) Ps 8. (b) Ps 119. (a) Ep. 1 2 3. (b) Ep. 4 5 6. (c) Ep. 7 8. (d) Ep. 8 9 10. (e) Ep. 11. (f) Ep. 12 13. (g) Ep. 14. (h) Ep. 15 16. (i) Ep. 17 18. (k) Ep. 19 20 21 22 23 (l) Ep. 24. * 1 John 12 15. * Which is solidly proved in the 2. part of Solid Virtue letter 6. * Of Religions and external pious exercises †An excellent Rule and Comparison * True Catholiques and their Worship (a) Math. 6. v. 2 3. (b) Rom. 6. v. 4. (c) Heb. 9. v. 27. (d) 1 Cor. 1. v. 19. (e) Mark 10. v. 15. (f) Is 5. v. 13. (g) Ps 37. v. 5. (h) Ezek. 18. v. 23. (i) Rom. 11. v. 29. (k) Luk. 15. v. 24. (l) Deut. 32. v. 6. (m) Prov. 23. v. 26. (n) John 3. v. 8. (o) Ps 8. v. 7. (p) Gen. 3. v. 17 19. (q) Prov. 8. v. 31. (r) Cant. 2.4 (ſ) Luk. 10 42. (t) Ps 81. v. 14 17 (u) Math. 6. v. 26. (w) Ps 73 v. 23 24. (x) Ps 73. v. 25 26. (y) Luk. 15. v. 18. (z) Ps 18. v. 5 7. (a) Ps 37. v. 5 6 7. (b) Is 65. v. 3. (c) Ps 34. v. 15. (d) Is 58. v. 13. (e) Ecl. 12. v. 8 9.12 (f) Matth 3. v. 9. (g) Joh. 15. v. 6. (h) Math. 15. v. 24. (i) Is 29. v. 14. (k) Gen 19. v. 26. (l) Is 58. v. 13 14. (m) Ps 46. v. 3. c. (n) Luk 21. v. 36. (o) Ps 25 v. 14. Math. 11 v. 25. (p) 1 Cor. 8. v. 12. (q) Math. 18. v. 3. 1 Pet. 2. v. 2. (r) Math. 13. v. 44. (ſ) Rev. 5. v 1 9. (t) Is 29. v. 14. (v) Rev. 21. v. 2. (w) Ibid v. 3. (x) Rev. 20 v. 14 15. (y) Math. 18 v 3 (z) Gal. 1. v. 16. (a) Eccl. 37. v. 17 18. (b) Ps 73. v. 25 26 (c) 2 Thes 2. v. 4 (d) Math. 27. v. 51. (e) Math. 10. v. 16. (f) 1 Cor 20. v. 15. (g) Luk. 16. v. 8.