Mind So that this daily Bread is not given us but acquired by Cares and Labours No more than the Food of our Soul which is the Word of God which ought daily to maintain it This is not given us daily for we must be at great care to search for it yea we know not where to find it So many Glosses so many Explications of this word that they would indeed make us swallow Poyson for Bread We must indeed watch and be at pains to find this true Food of our Souls But in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ the Word of God will be given us by the mouth of Jesus Christ himself which will nourish and fully satisfie our Soul As likewise all things necessary for the Entertainment of our Body shall be given us without pains care or labours The Fruits will grow so agreeable and substantial that it will require no other pains to be sustain'd by them but the delight of eating them Our Bodies will have no longer need to be covered or warmed for all the Elements will of themselves serve them with delight All this will be daily real gifts for they will be all freely given us of God without our Care or Labour Whereas in this World we have nothing but are as Workmen who receive the Wages of their Labours So that God cannot have made us ask the things which are impossible for us to obtain in this World Of necessity he must give us another in which we may obtain in Perfection the effect of our Perfections For as much as he never gives any thing imperfectly neither will he have us to put up unprofitable Requests as the seven of the Lords Prayer would be For there is not one of them which can be perfectly given in this World For if God did not forgive us our Offences but in the same manner that we forgive those who have offended us there would befal us no great Happiness in Paradise because those whose Offences we forgive are not always in our presence on the contrary we withdraw from them Sometimes out of Aversion sometimes that we may have no more occasion of being offended by them If God pardon us after this manner we would be of the Damned Souls For the Hell of our Soul is no other but the privation of the presence of God And as we do not give our Goods nor our Favours to those who have offended us and we think we do them enough of favour when we do not wish them Evil nor rejoyce in their Misery If God after he has pardon'd us our Sins should give us no more of his Goods and Graces than we give unto those who have offended us what Felicity could we hope for after the Pardon of our Sins but to fall again yet into greater Faults For his Graces and Benefits are necessary for us every moment to preserve us from Evil. And if he did not give us his Kingdom and his Treasures from whom could we expect for Happiness For no other but he can give it By which it appears clearly that we cannot ask for this World here That he forgive us our Offences as we forgive those who have Offended us because we would ask an Evil thing for our selves It must needs be that we ask these things for the time that we shall live with Jesus Christ in his Kingdom where being united unto his great Mercy we shall pardon our Enemies so perfectly that we shall desire the same Happiness for them which we shall receive from God who will not only pardon us our Sins but will deal with us as if we had never offended him giving us his Treasures and his Glory which will oblige us to do the same with those who shall have offended us For it would be unjust for us not to shew to our Neighbour the same Mercy which we receive from God This we cannot do nor comprehend during this miserable Life where being remov'd from his perfect Mercy we are as far from the Commiseration of our Neighbour and we can no ways beg of God that he deal with us as we deal with our Brethren without begging our ruin seeing if he should grant us this Request he would confine us to Hell which is the privation of the Vision of God From whence it appears That we look for another Heaven and another Earth where God will grant us all the Requests that he has made us to ask by this Prayer seeing that not one of them can be granted in this present World For if we examine also the Sixth Lead us not into Temptation We will find that the more we Pray the more we are Tempted For the Holy Spirit says If you would serve God prepare your Heart for Temptation Could Jesus Christ have made us to pray not to be led into it while in the mean time he lets us fall into it the more strongly This would be unjust He has taught us to ask nothing but what he will give us in a compleat and perfect sense But this will be after that we shall have accomplished this short penitence and shall go to reign with him Then there will no longer be any thing in us that will lead us into Temptation for we shall be fully satisfied with the presence of God not being able to love nor desire any other thing nor to move but by the motion of the Holy Spirit who will deifie even our Bodies which can no longer be led into Temptation as they will be always during this Life For the Devil will never cease to make War against us and more against the Good than the Wicked who are his own without trouble But for the Good he must win them by the strength of Temptations Therefore we must not hope to obtain in this Life the Sixth Petition of this Prayer Which is not to be led into Temptation no more than the seventh and last wherein we pray that God May deliver us from Evil For we shall never be delivered from Evil Seeing we are still more and more opprest with it and the Just themselves are never without suffering of Evils which the Wicked do them in abundance Despising Persecuting and pursuing them even to Death If these are never delivered from Evil how much less can others be who are likewise charged with the Evils of the Soul besides those of the Body which are common to all Could we always pray to be delivered from Evil without ever obtaining it What vain Prayer would this be to groan under the burthen of all sorts of Evils in Body by so many kinds of Diseases and in Spirit by so many Infirmities Weaknesses and Inconstances and in Soul by so many Sins and Imperfections and with this to pray to be delivered from the Evils which are unseparable from this Life It must needs be that God would have us to ask at present what we ought to obtain afterward And if this Kingdom of Heaven were nothing but
says That they shall live for ever He has said elswhere That neither Whoremongers nor Drunkards shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Neverthelss we see daily such Persons receive the Eucharist Can they live for ever without entring into the Kingdom of Heaven There would be a great Contradiction in the Words of Jesus Christ He cannot save those whom he condemns nor say to those who shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven that they shall live for ever It is assuredly his Word which he calls his Flesh and his Blood For whosoever shall eat it that is to say incorporate it as the Nourishment of his Soul it must needs be that he live for ever for this Word gives Life Eternal and he who feeds upon it as on his daily Bread can never die this is the Tree of Life seeing it gave Life to all things This Word has created Heaven and Earth of nothing How should it not give Life unto the Soul which receives it And if it have the Force to translate Bread into the Body of Jesus Christ as they teach how shall it not change our Souls into the Spirit of Life Eternal if we receive and incorporate it as becomes Jesus Christ said These are my Mother my Sisters and my Brethren who hear my Word and do it To shew that he esteems more the Receiving of his Word than the having contributed to the Formation of his Human Body it being most certain that the Virgin Mary was more happy in receiving and doing his Word than in being his natural Mother I said to her That there were many Errors in the Church if the Sense that she proposed ought to be received That it was very clear and intelligible but it had never been understood after this manner She said Blessed be God Sir that he grants yet this Mercy to the World to send his Light amidst the so obscure Darkness into which it is brought at present All the highest Mysteries of our Faith are involved in this Obscurity nothing is understood in a perfect Sense and they do often apply Senses contrary to the Truth They have walk'd as groping even till Now. It is no Wonder if they fall from one Error into another insensibly It is a great Happiness that it has pleas'd God to let us live even until the Time that he comes to enlighten the World after that so great a number have perish'd through Ignorance We have no more deserv'd it than they Let us endeavour to apply it rightly unto our Salvation without letting the occasion slip which is now so freely offered us How many souls are there of such a tender Conscience that they dare not reject a Sentiment which comes from the Roman Church or any Decree of its College fearing to offend God because they look upon it and take it for the Holy Church I knew a Person of a very good Life a Doctor of Theology who said That if the Pope forbad him to read the Gospel he durst not read it any longer So much was he preoccupied with this Belief that Rome is the Holy Church Upon this Supposition all the most pious do follow that which is Evil without perceiving it because they have taught us that we owe a blind Obedience As if we were permitted to follow Evil blindfold which is a great Error For we are all oblig'd to discern whether what we follow be good or bad For Example This Doctor could not abstain from Reading of the Gospel without offending God highly tho' the Pope had forbidden him to read it because this Prohibition is contrary unto Jesus Christ who has brought his Word from Heaven to be the Rule of our Life and the Nourishment of our Souls and has said That it must abide in us for ever How could we cast it behind us because a Pope forbids it who cannot destroy what God has establish'd nor forbid what he has commanded without being Antichrist for all that is against Christ is assuredly Antichrist We may indeed believe and follow what the Pope and his Councils do ordain us when they are things conformable to the Law of God and the Doctrine of Jesus Christ which is no other thing but the Explication of the Law Tho' this were taught us by the Devil himself we could not do ill to follow it But the things which are contrary ought never to be blindly follow'd God has made us Reasonable Creatures to the End we may discern Good and Evil. All the Blindness that a true Christian ought to have is to captivate his Spirit under the incomprehensible Works of God not to captivate it to believe that that which is Evil is Good A man must have lost Sense and Spirit to abandon himself to such a blind Obedience which nevertheless the most part of pious Christians do who do yield in all things to the Ordinances of the Pope or of his Council If this Mischief be not shortly at an End and if the Truth be not discover'd in this Point all the World will perish Because many things will be determin'd which will be against God tho' it were nothing but the Infallibility of the Pope It contradicts directly the Truth because no Man can ever be infallible how holy soever he may be S. Peter the first Pope did expresly deny his Master and did really err in dissembling because of the Jews for which S. Paul reproves him Can it ever be said without Blasphemy that a Man is Infallible secing Infallibility appertains to God alone Neither the Pope nor any other can err or fail in following the Doctrine of Jesus Christ but in following their own Judgments or those like themselves they may fail and err greatly I ask'd her How it was possible that God should have left his Church for so long a Time in Errors She said Sir God has not left his Church in Errors she can never err nor fail for she is one and the same thing with God As the Bridegroom is but one Flesh with his Spouse even so the Church is but one Spirit with God Therefore she can never be left in Errors not for one Moment But the Errors which I discover to you Sir are in Men not in the Church for the Church is no where but in the Souls which possess the Doctrine of Jesus Christ who have never err'd so long as they abide in it The Church is a Spiritual and Invisible Spirit which renders it self visible by the Human Bodies which this Spirit animates So long as these Bodies are animated and possest with this Spirit of Jesus Christ they are all Members which make up this Church But if this Spirit withdraw himself they are no more but Members of Flesh not Members of the Church Errors therefore are insinuated into these Members of Flesh not into the Spirit of God But whereas these Members of Flesh did possess formerly the Spirit of the Church
spiritual or imaginary as they would sometimes make us believe why would Jesus Christ have made us to ask so many different things If Paradise were not accompanied with the Earth and with all the Creatures which we see and with our Body with all its Functions why must we pray to have our daily Bread when there will be no need of Eating Why should we pray that the Name of God may be Hallowed seeing all the Blessed have always Hallowed it and will never cease to do it tho' we should not pray for it Must there not be in this a Sense which we have not as yet discovered and that this Hallowing of the Name of God ought to be underderstood that all the Men who are upon Earth may Hallow his Name for it cannot be done fully by Angels by the Blessed and by some particular Souls living upon Earth But this Name must be Hallowed generally by all Men in Body and in Soul Which will be when this Kingdom shall come wherein the Will of God shall be done upon Earth as the Angels and the Blessed do it in Heaven and wherein shall be given us also our daily Bread that is every day in particular Graces in abundance for our Souls and all sort of delights to satisfie our Bodies wherein we shall pardon our Brethren their Sins as we shall see that God has pardoned us in giving us besides Pardon Eternal Happiness wherein there shall be no Temptations of the Enemy nor of our Nature for it will not any longer feel any vicious Inclinations where in short there can never enter any Evil but all sort of Happiness of Joy and of Contentments Perfect and Compleat Incomprehensibly Delightful This is what S. Paul saw when he said That they had never entred into the Mind of Man the things which God had prepared for his Elect. All the Holy Scriptures are full of this Kingdom which is to come to us This is the Feast signified by the Parable of the King Who made a Marriage for his Son This Son is Jesus Christ who is Allied with the Human Creature His Nativity in Flesh was but the betrothing wherein he has indeed promised unto Man an Alliance as he had done before to Abraham which will be accomplish'd and consummated only at the coming of Jesus upon Earth in Glory when he shall be perfectly United to Man Body and Soul with the Divinity all together This is that also which is signified unto us by the Parable Of the Master who went into a far Country giving Talents to his Servants to every one according to his Ability and at his return he demanded of each of them an account to give them their Wages Jesus Christ having given his Graces and Talents by his Gospel has ascended unto his Father which is the Long Journey But he will return in his Glory to demand an account of every one of all the Graces received in this time and to place his faithful Servants over great things and make them enter into the Joy of their Lord. This is also the Parable Of the Master who made a Feast and sent his Servants to call those that were bidden who all excused themselves One had bought Oxen another a Field another had taken a Wife The Birth of Jesus Christ was the time when he came to invite Men to the Feast which God would make that he might take his delight with Men and as soon as the day shall come that all shall be ready upon Earth for receiving the Son of Man in his Glory those who were invited by his Evangelical Doctrin will excuse themselves One will say I have been a Merchant I must wait upon my Merchandise I cannot attend it Another will say I have been a Labourer I must take care of my Labours I cannot attend it Another will say I have been Married I must satisfie my Wife and Family I cannot attend it And when Jesus Christ will swear that none of those who were called shall taste of his Banquet That is that all they who have received the Gospel and have not obeyed it shall never enter into his Kingdom For no State or Condition ought to hinder the observing of the Doctrin of the Gospel For Jesus Christ has not brought it from Heaven for the Monks or Religious only seeing there were none such then but he has brought it for all Christians in general whom he has particularly invited to make this Alliance with them And they who would not observe this Holy Doctrin shall never taste the Delights of that Marriage Feast All the other Parables speak of nothing but this Kingdom of Jesus Christ upon Earth when he compares this Kingdom of Heaven to A Grain of Mustard he signifies that it will be only the Little and the Humble who shall inherit this Kingdom and when they shall be mortified upon Earth they will grow so strongly that the Angels of Heaven shall come to rest in their Branches And when this Kingdom of Heaven is compared To a Treasure hid in the ground that he who has found it ought to sell All that he has to buy this ground that he may have this Treasure That is that this Kingdom of Jesus Christ is hid from the Judgment of the Wise being as it were sunk in the ground till the time appointed and then it shall be found by the Simple who labour in this Life to find the Kingdom of Heaven and when they shall discover it they will sell all that they have that they may follow this Evangelical Life In short Sir time would fail me to relate to you in particular all the Parables with all the Passages of Holy Scripture which treat of this Kingdom of Jesus Christ upon Earth because it treats of nothing so much as this as well in the Old as in the New Testament The Song of Zaohary is that he saw by a Prophetical Spirit the Re-establishment of the People of God in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ The Song of the Virgin Mary speaks of no other thing For what ground would she have had to rejoyce in the Lord since all his Life was a train of Sadness and Sorrow What ground would she have had to Sing his Magnificence since she saw him so Poor and Despised in the Stable of Bethlehem and pursued to Death in his Tender Infancy as he was all the rest of his Life What ground of rejoycing to see him Imprisoned and Accused as a Malefactor The Sword of Sorrow had always pierc'd her Heart to see her Son God and Man Beaten Torn and at last Hang'd upon a Cross in her presence It must needs be that her Joy proceeded from a Prophetick Spirit in seeing that one day he would be upon Earth in Glory wherein all Generations would call her Blessed which has never been done For none Praise her but a small number of Christians amidst so many Nations And that sometimes in such a
are so degenerate in this Age that they are enclined more to dispute than to discover the Essence of that which is necessary for their Salvation If this were not the Unhappiness of Men now no Body would call in question whether Man ought to resign his Will to that of God if he desire to be saved Because there is nothing more reasonable nor better nor more just than that a Creature resign himself to the Will of its Creatour and depend upon him from whom it has received All. I said to her That there was no debate to be made about so certain Truths That every one ought to submit their Judgment to this Dependance upon God which assuredly was necessary in all Ages and under all Laws She said Sir Man has nothing in him that is worthy of God but his Divine Soul which consists in Reason and Free-will And if we do not yield it up to the Will of God what is it that we can offer or give Him He has no need of Gold or Silver or Land or Flesh or any Thing that is Natural Because his Being is wholly Divine He could not therefore demand any other thing of Man but this Reason and Free-will As in effect he has not demanded and will not demand any other thing When he said in his Commandments that we must not Kill nor Steal and so forth this was only to draw Man from his Self-love which led him to all these Things And when He taught so particularly by the Gospel what we ought to do and avoid it was because Man followed his own Will in so many divers things It was needful to point out to him every particular wherein he went astray and that for this End only that he might return to this Dependance upon the Will of God For otherwise many Things that Man had were not evil in themselves as Father Mother Brother Sisters Lands Houses Riches all which Things might be very well possest if there were a Dependance of his Will upon that of God For God did not forbid them by the Ten Commandments because Men were not then so absolutely Masters of their own Wills as they became since for they are not satisfied now to use and follow their own Wills during some Passion of Anger or Swearing or the like but they follow them in all Things loving Father Mother and the rest out of pure Self-love For if this were not Self-love Jesus Christ would draw no Body from it since he sayes That we ought to love our Neighbour as our selves And several other times he exhorts that we love one another By which it appears evidently that he would only hinder us from following our Self-will in all these Things because all sorts of Sins consist in the following our own Wills as all Vertue consists in resigning our Will to that of God These are the Two Things which can Save and Damn us Though they be explained all at length by the Doctrine of the Gospel yet they are all abridged by the resigning of our own Will to God or by the following our own Will In this all Good and Evil does consist Of which we are free to make a Choice and to follow the one or the other For there is no Salvation without resigning our Will to God and no Damnation without following our own Will Let them grow old in Study and turn over all the Books of the World and let them treasure up all the Sciences they can never find a Truth more clear than That all Vertues and Salvation consist in the Resignation of our Will to that of God and that All Sins and Damnation consist in following our own Will This is an Eternal Truth which will never change Every one should lay it to Heart because it concerns him For it is a general Rule that respects every one Rich Poor Learned Ignorant Let us Work and Fast and Pray and do all that we can if withal we follow our own Will assuredly we shall be damned And on the other hand Let us take rest and Eat and Drink and do every other thing in a Dependance upon the Will of God we shall certainly be saved For God has nothing to do with the Offerings of Metals but that of our Free-will which he has reserved for himself Of which he gave a Figure by the forbidding Adam to eat of One Tree only Jesus Christ gave us this Conclusion also when after so many Instructions he said I came not to do mine own Will but the Will of him that sent me If Jesus Christ himself who was the Word of God lays down his own Will and sayes that he came not into this World to follow it but that of his Father what then ought to be done and said by the Reasonable Creature who desires to save its Soul since it is the Will of God that it should be saved Nevertheless it will not be saved without this Self-RESIGNATION I said to her That I wish'd from the Bottom of my Soul that never any Body had taught any other thing but the Dependance that we owe to God since in truth all is comprehended in it She said Sir I hope your Wish shall very shortly be accomplished because Jesus Christ promised it by a Parable where it is said That the Kingdom of Heaven is like to Leaven which a Woman took and put into Three Measures of Meal till the whole was leavened And because now we are not far from the Kingdom of Heaven God makes us to understand all that he said in former Times by Parables for then the Time was not come to make these Things be manifestly understood because the World who then liv'd did not see the Things signified by all these Parables But at present we are arrived at the end of the Last Times and shall see the Things fulfilled which are uttered by Similitudes He sayes first That the Kingdom of Heaven is like to Leaven which a Woman took as if he had said The Kingdom of Heaven will be proclaimed by a Woman who taking the Old the First and only Essential Commandment OF RESIGNING OUR WILL to that of God she will put it in the Law of Nature and in the Written Law and in the Evangelical Law which are the Three Measures of Meal and that God sent his Word these Three several Times to serve for Bread and Nourishment to our Souls And it seems this Word though sent after different wayes has not been converted into Bread because so few have nourished their Souls by it and this Food has remained in the Meal even till now Very few resigned themselves to God during the Law of Nature since at the Time of the Deluge Noah only with his Family were saved and only Eight Persons of all the World escaped the Flood And in the Written Law how few also were abandoned to God Since Moses so suddenly broke the Stone because he saw that few would observe the
evils He can never do evil All that comes from him is most good and perfect he created us in an altogether holy and perfect state with an immortal body and a divine soul subject to none but himself having given us a spirit enlighten'd to know him and a power to rule over all the creatures both terrestrial and infernal and if he has oblig'd us to aid and succour one another this is not that he had created us more infirm than any other living creature but only to the end he might afford us matter for entertaining mutual Charity and Union together one assisting his Brother out of love the other being led to love him by the assistance and benefits which he receives from him and thus perpetually to maintain this love by the aliment of the need that we have of one another to the end we might continue united together as Jesus Christ is united to his Father And even the manner of the Generation of men is ordain'd for no other reason but always to preserve this perfect unity of body and spirit Thus you see that God has done all things well tho it seems sometimes to our ignorance that many evil things come from God the only Author of all good and the Destroyer of all evil It is our sin which has caused all the miseries under which we continually groan the maladies and infirmities of body are engender'd in us by sin the weakness ignorance and inconstancy of our spirit do proceed from sin That all the creatures rise up against us and hurt us this is but to take just vengeance of the rebellion which we have committed against God by sin It is a blasphemy therefore to say That God has subjected us to so many evils since we our selves only are the Authors of them and he can never do evil no not to damn us if we do not damn our selves and to know how and by what means we may attain to the LOVE OF GOD which is true Charity we need only take the Gospel and there observe in particular the instructions which Jesus Christ and his Apostles have left us in writing and put them in practice Behold the sure means to attain to true Charity without which no body can be sav'd It is not necessary that we seek any other means than those which Jesus Christ has taught us by word and deed I said to her if to be sav'd one must have this perfect Charity few persons will attain to salvation for we do not observe now that the Charity of which she speaks does possess the hearts of men She answers This is to be bewail'd with tears of blood for no body shall be sav'd without it as St. Paul affirms that Tho we would bestow all our goods to feed the poor tho we could remove Mountains tho we had the Gift of Prophecy yea tho we would give our body to be burned yet all this would be nothing for our Salvation without Charity And if you will exactly run over all the holy Scriptures you shall find by the sayings of Jesus Christ of the Apostles and of all the holy Prophets that never any person shall be sav'd without this Charity which consists in the LOVE OF GOD and of our Neighbour for God In the mean time no body possesseth this Charity and almost all the world presumes to be sav'd There is now Sir so great darkness in the whole world that no body discerns truth from falshood since they have taught Christians that the means of living well and of being sav'd do consist in going to Church in praying morning and evening and in confessing and communicating often By these things they have annull'd the Law of God and stified Charity for this is no more in use among Christians it is not so much as known by them and they understand not what true CHARITY is because this name is now appropriated to the gifts which persons bestow on Monks religious persons the superfluous Ornaments and Buildings of Monasteries and Churches they have baptizd by the name of Charity all these Gifts Presents and Legacies And I in my inward conversation do find them to be sensual affections and call them Robbery and Avarice for he who receives Presents without necessity by way of Alms does certainly commit Robbery and robs the poor and necessitous who alone are capable of receiving alms So that he whosoever he be having necessaries for the support of his life being able to gain them by some trade or labour is oblig'd to restore all the gifts and presents which he receives by way of alms and that person commits the sin of avarice who covets more than what is simply necessary for the support of his life for it is a great folly for a Traveller to load himself with burthens which are not necessary to him for the accomplishing of his Voyage Thus no body can enrich himself or heap up earthly goods without the Lust of Avarice which sin as all others does blind souls rendring them insensible of their own hurt But because they have introduc'd the calling of these vices and sins by the name of Charity every one believes they have it while they co-operate to these vices by this the Devil has seiz'd on the Throne of God and reigns in the Sanctuary by falshood whereas God ought to reign there by truth Behold the deplorable state in which we live at present the danger is so much the greater that all the evils are cover'd with vertue and piety that good men may be the more deceiv'd who live and die in this horrible darkness not knowing what true Charity is far less do they possess it so that I despair of their Salvation If they do not perceive this truth of Charity they can never be sav'd since not knowing it they cannot love it nor endeavour to find it while they think it is enough to bear the name of charitable tho they neither know nor possess true Charity There are so many such errors now in Christendom that Christians are by them led insensibly into Hell while they believe that they are assuredly in the way of Paradice I ask'd her If the goodness of God would permit that so many persons should go to perdition while they believe that they do well and follow the counsel of learned men and such as are authoriz'd by the Church She said Truly Sir there will be more Christian Souls damn'd by these means than by gross visible and material sins because all those persons who think to be sav'd live and die in the sins against the Holy Ghost which will not be pardon'd neither in this world nor in the other Not that these sins are so enormous that they cannot be pardon'd but because they are inward and spiritual little known and far less feared The most devout persons are tainted with them and will
the marks and signs of the last times fulfill'd and perfectly accomplisht The life of men is the open book in which these truths are written and the holy Scriptures are the equitable Judge which pronounces this sentence Read Sir with attention they will deliver you from the difficulty you find in believing this for tho indeed they do not determine precisely the day of judgment yet they will make you see sufficiently that the cheif signs which must precede it do already appear That no body will believe this is a most certain evidence of it for Jesus Christ says that it shall be as in the days of Noah they were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage and knew not until the flood came and took them all away Even so is it at present they take their recreations and pleasures heaping up earthly treasures building houses and temples as if they were to remain here to eternity while all must very shortly perish And no body will believe it according to the prediction of Jesus Christ when he compares these last times with those of the universal deluge He says in St. Math. 24. it will be as in the days of Noah adding when you shall see the abomination of desolation to be in the holy place flee away Do you not think Sir that this abomination is now in the holy place if Envy were lost it might be recover'd in the Cloisters if Avarice were dead it would be reviv'd by the Priests Vain-glory and Pride is no where so prevailing as among the Clergy in one word Simonies and all other sins abound in the place which ought to be holy What more sure marks would you have than those which Jesus Christ himself has declar'd to us should precede the Judgment if you desire to see the Stars fall from Heaven the Sun to be darken'd the Moon not to give her Light all these are nothing but material signs which can do no harm to Souls but serve only for outward evidences of the wrath of God and to the end that even insensible things may feel the terrors of that great day as the Rocks did when they were rent at the death of Jesus Christ This added nothing to his passion nor render'd those who put him to death more criminal for they were nothing but insensible rocks without souls or reason Even so will it be as to the Stars and the other celestial bodies if they change colour or suffer any other alteration this will not be hurtful to our souls which are spiritual and cannot receive any punishment by these visible and material Stars so much the rather that these signs and Stars cannot be understood but spiritually For how could the Stars fall from Heaven since the Mathematicians tell us that one Star alone is seven times greater than all the Earth so great a thing cannot fall into one so small for it would not be capable to contain it And if we take the mystical sense calling by the name of Stars persons luminous in Doctrine the Doctors and Guides Prelates Bishops and all those who are plac'd in Dignities to whom the name of Stars may be appropriated as being the Lights of the world this sign would also have at present its sense accomplisht for we see every day such persons fall from righteousness and truth who for some worldly interest or humane respects fall from the truth of the Gospel which is the true heaven of Souls and wallow in the earth among its riches and pleasures as secular persons do In former times how many of those were seen who had their hearts and spirits continually towards heaven their lives and manners did enlighten all the world as the Stars of the Firmament but at present they are fallen into the mire of earthly affections So that it may be truly said that the Stars are fallen from Heaven and that the Sun also is become without light For Truth which is the true Sun of Righteousness cannot any longer appear openly it is become black and hateful to all the world who desiring to be flatter'd and prais'd cannot hear the truth because it reproves the falshood which now prevails These two signs of the Sun and of the Stars appear at present in their full accomplishment in the mystical and inward sense which is much more than if they did appear in the literal and material sense for the reasons above-mentioned and if the Moon be not as yet without light it will be so very shortly in the mystical and perfect sense The Moon is all transitory things which after the manner of the Moon do encrease or diminish according to good or bad fortune These things will lose their light so soon as Wars shall have destroy'd and ruin'd temporal wealth Then all that pomp and magnificence which shines in the Sanctuary will lose its splendor and will no longer yeild any thing but blood Since for Gold and Silver they will cut the throats of those who are plac'd in the highest dignities so that what shines and glisters to day in the Church will wholly lose its lustre and light and by this means this Moon will be darken'd I entreat you to read attentively the 24th Chapter of St. Matthew it speaks of the present time All the Parables do the same I wish I had time and leisure to explain them to you you would see as well as I that the Judgment approaches for all the forerunning signs are already come People do not perceive them for want of reflecting seriously enough on the holy Scriptures or upon the inward life of men now adays they amuse themselves with regarding only their outward piety imagining that there are yet a great many good men because they appear such but before God all are corrupted They resemble the Apples of Sodom which appear beautiful without and have nothing within but rottenness This is the true symbole of the life of Christians now which God makes me perceive abundantly by his inward light This fill'd me with astonishment and desiring to understand her more clearly I ask'd her whether there were not any good men or true Christians in our days She said to me No Sir THERE ARE NO TRVE CHRISTIANS VPON EARTH There are indeed diverse persons who seem to be good men and are really so in comparison of the wicked they may indeed pass for Saints before men but before God they are not true Christians for tho they do not act wickedly but frequent the Sacraments and other exercises of Devotion yet nevertheless they have not the LOVE OF GOD nor Charity for their Neighbour in their hearts much less a hatred of themselves or a desire to embrace the Cross Sufferings and Persecutions to follow Jesus Christ On the contrary they so love themselves that all their designs aim at nothing but their own satisfaction even in the most pious things You would be astonisht Sir to see what difference there is between the sight
but I make very small reckoning of this visible and bodily Antichrist because he can seduce none but those who desire to be so He shall be known for a wicked one because he will deal harshly with those who yield obedience to him which will occasion Martyrs and make many good men to be sav'd by the resistance they will make against him These evils are not terrible but to the faint-hearted who are not train'd up to sufferings but I reckon this invisible and spiritual Antichrist of whom I have spoken to you to be far more pernicious because he seduceth the well-meaning under the appearance of a false good this is much more to be fear'd The evil which is manifest is easie to be avoided by those who hate it but the evil which is cover'd with piety and holiness is insensibly follow'd by those who are good and love piety who would never follow Antichrist discover'd nor the evil which they knew to be such I told her that I had never heard of this spiritual Antichrist that I would willingly know who he is and what difference there is between him who is to come in the flesh towards the end of the world and him who crept into the Church from its beginning She answer'd Sir this Antichrist is the Devil who from the creation of the world made war against men that he might make them forsake God and their own Salvation for these ends he made Eve and Adam fall into sin he tempted Cain to kill his brother Abel and is the Author of all the other evils and sins which have since come upon the earth This Devil has always led men to do evil from this he is call'd the Old Serpent because he has shed his infernal venom upon the earth from the beginning of the world But since he knew that God so lov'd the world that he has sent his Son to instruct and save it he has redoubled his rage against men and by new subtilties has endeavour'd to hinder their Salvation that with himself he might draw them into his own miserable wretched Condemnation But perceiving that the word of God was sent to them from heaven not by voices thunders or burning bushes but by a sensible and visible body which the same God had taken for this end that he might teach them palpably by an Organ like to their humane nature the Devil perceiving that he could not any longer have such hold of men because of the vertue of that word which was able to create the universe he deviseth to appear like the Son of God and after the manner of apes endeavour to imitate his actions covering himself with Sheeps skins tho he be the true ravenous Wolf He slipt from the very beginning into the Church which Jesus Christ was going to build that he might oppose and contradict his word under pious pretexts and covered his malice with hypocrisie that he might the better contradict and oppose the doctrine of Jesus Christ and from thence he has truly born the name of Antichrist and there never will be any other Antichrist but this same Devil who was formerly call'd the Old Serpent There is no distinction between him who slipt into the Church in its beginning and him who shall be incarnated towards the end of the world for it is always the same Devil who only takes different methods that he may the better decoy men according to the various occurrences of time He began his Reign from the birth of the Holy Church and has always gradually advanc'd it by continuing still to oppose the Doctrine of Jesus Christ till he has effac'd it out of the memory almost of all men which we may perceive in this age wherein the Doctrine of Jesus Christ is no more in use than if it had never been brought into the world which makes me believe that he is now born since he has full dominion over the hearts of men who instead of persevering in the Doctrine of the Apostles have insensibly follow'd the Doctrine of this Devil and of Christians are become Antichristians for who does not see at present that Wars Discords and Dissentions reign among Christians instead of the Peace which Jesus Christ establish'd It may indeed be said that there is not any longer one stone left upon another of the true Temple that is to say that there are not any longer two Christian Souls united in the same heart and the same will in Jesus Christ and instead of that Communion of Goods which Jesus Christ brought into his Church there is nothing to be seen in it but self-interest and self-seeking without any care for our Neighbour As for the Mutual Charity of loving our Neighbour as our selves it is so despised that he who should put it in practice would be scoff'd at by all Christians much more he who should choose the last place or who should take less when he might have more To give to him who would take from us or indeed to hold up the cheek to receive a blow would be reckon'd a great folly among the Christians of this age who will scarce suffer an offensive word without resenting it or avenging themselves Who is there that takes up the Cross to follow Jesus Christ since every one avoids sufferings as much as he can and instead of the Cross takes all Contentments agreeable to his senses as far as they are lawful and permitted And so of all the rest of the Doctrines of Jesus Christ no body studies to put them in practice on the contrary every one resists them and does the quite contrary without considering that all that is against Christ is certainly Antichrist And as it is not necessary for Salvation that all Christians should see the carnal body of Jesus Christ to render them his true Disciples it is enough that they know and follow his Doctrine even so to be the followers of the Devil it is not necessary that they see this Antichrist in the flesh it is enough that they follow his doctrine which is much more hurtful to Souls than that incarnate Devil can be unto Bodies therefore the furious is not so much to be dreaded as the crafty and concealed he can but wound or kill the Body by his fury but this wounds and kills Souls by cheats and delusions I could not but acknowledge such clear and evident truths neither had I more than one doubt to propose about them viz. whether this Antichrist in the flesh was already born which being supposed how he could make any suffer Martyrdom and occasion the salvation of many of those who should resist him seeing she believed that all Christians were at present become Antichristian so that they could not be disposed for Martyrdom nor for resisting of him whom they loved and followed She said Sir I cannot doubt that this Antichrist in the flesh is born already for the wickedness of the world is risen to the highest
rare that she had not as yet found so much as one person in the world who perform'd these works purely for God That there was thro all a mixture either of vain-glory or of self-satisfaction or of respect to the creatures whereby the Devil could lay hold on them and draw his advantages from them tho the things were good in themselves That he might indeed incite them to visit the poor and the sick out of some natural satisfaction and also to assist the good and to pacify quarrels and contentions all this may be by the inducement of the Devil who seeing a person desirous to please God he will endeavour to divert him by good external actions which he will cause him to multiply in such sort as that they shall leave him neither leisure nor rest and recollection to think on the inward life which a true Christian ought to put in practice The Devil will have profit enough by diverting thus a soul from its own Salvation in permitting them to do good to others as to the body or temporal things which usually bring no glory to God but serve for humane conveniencies and thus he gains all the good who not being aware of all his artifices suffer themselves to be led by this Enemy at his pleasure without knowing him under the colour of a seeming good for otherwise he could not deceive them nor gain them to himself as he has done all the world I trembled to hear such severe discourse which nevertheless seem'd to me to be true for my understanding was open'd by her words I took the boldness to ask her how it was possible that God should give so much power to the Devil and how his Goodness could permit the good to be thus seduc'd and deceiv'd by this Enemy She resolutely said Sir it is not God who gives this power to the Devil but our sins themselves make him so powerful The Devil is as a chain'd Dog who can go no farther than we lengthen the chain to him and cannot bite us if we do not approach him God has given us power over the Devil and has not given the Devil power over us for he can never do an evil thing and it would be a great evil if he had given the Devil power to hurt men He will permit him indeed that we may be tried and purg'd to tempt and wound our body but he can never take hold of our soul without our consent 'T is very ill done to utter this Calumny of God that he permits the Devil to hinder our Salvation This is for want of light for the Devil cannot seduce us if we continue faithful to God We are his Children and the Devil is his Enemy if he has seduc'd all Christians as I was saying it is thro their fault They are not ignorant that these changes and innovations cannot come from God who never changes and tho these deceits of the Devil are done under a pretext of good yet they may abundantly see that they are not conformable to what Jesus Christ has taught us It is therefore our own fault when the Devil deceives us since we do not persevere in the Doctrine of Jesus Christ which is always to be found if we had a sincere desire to search after it Does God act against his goodness when he permits us to fall into the error which we will needs follow it would be rather against his Justice if he should hinder us from it after that he has given us a free will and a free choice The Seventh Conference That God has not forsaken men but men have forsaken God and resisted his grace which he distributes impartially I Said to her Since our Darkness is so great it is plain that God has forsaken us She reply'd Hold Sir God never forsakes any but he suffers us to forsake him when such is our will If we are fallen into so great darkness it is our own fault only because we have left Jesus Christ who is the true Light of the World The farther we are estrang'd from him our darkness is still the greater We have loved darkness more than light by this means we have forsaken God to follow the Devil under whose slavery we groan at present of our own choice and will For could God have done more than he has done to save us could he have instructed us more plainly there must have been something above God to do more for us seeing that he is not content to send us his Servants and holy Prophets to enlighten us but he is come himself to teach us in particular what we ought to do and avoid how we ought to speak walk sit and perform all the rest of our actions so familiarly that no Christian can be ignorant how to work out their Salvation and if they have abandon'd all these benefits of their Lord to follow the spirit of error it is no wonder that they are fallen into darkness and the power of their Enemy for which they ought to blame themselves and smite the breast with regret and penitence if peradventure they may obtain pardon for so great an ingratitude instead of making God the Author of our misery and saying blasphemously that God has abandon'd them of which you also doubt I told her that I should be sorry to blaspheme against God or suspect that he might do evil but that it is usual when we see any fall into the Extremity of sin to say that he is forsaken of God To which she reply'd This is very ill said Sir It is an ill explain'd phrase for God never forsakes the work of his own hands we appertain to him in all respects because he created us he maintains us and we have no good thing but what we have receiv'd from him and if he forsook us we should fall into the Nothing from whence he has taken us A Father or a Mother who have debauch'd Children cannot forsake them nor hinder them from being theirs but they may let them wander after their own wills when they will not follow the instructions of their Father nor yield obedience to him They cease not notwithstanding to be their Children which would appear evidently if they should repent of their debauchery and return to a submission to their Father They would then see how much their true Father loves them which appears in the Parable of the Prodigal Son God is infinitely more good than those evil natural Fathers How then could he forsake his Children whom he has so much lov'd People deceive themselves in many things Sir concerning the works of God I know not how he suffers so long the reproaches and blasphemies which men utter against him every moment They say sometimes God chastiseth me and if we examine it narrowly they are our sins which are the tormenters of our soul and of our body A wicked man will say I have not receiv'd grace from God to do well
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
This is the cause and the origine of all the corruption of the world and that its evil is remediless when a remedy is poyson'd it cannot cure the Disease but rather make it worse as we see the world is declining daily yea every moment to the worse Those who are cut off from the said Church and whom they call Hereticks can never do so great mischief to the true Church as these persons do who call themselves the Fathers and Doctors of the Church tho they are fallen away from the Doctrine of Jesus Christ since no well-meaning persons will follow Hereticks they rather have an abhorrence of them but even well-disposed persons leaning to the direction of those who are intrusted with the spiritual government of the people do insensibly commit infinite evils following the direction of these Doctors while they do not lead them according to the words of Jesus Christ for their own doctrines cannot but poyson the most pious Souls This is a Leprosy which has infected the whole Church of God which is transmitted from one to another so far as that there are no longer any sound members to be found I bewail only those who desire to follow the truth for they know not where to find it for it is not no longer where it ought to be He who believes the contrary is deceiv'd and he who says it deceives others Jesus Christ is the Truth alone The Tenth Conference Of Remission of Sins of Confession and how it is abused I Ask'd her if she did not believe in the Remission of sins since she maintained so confidently that few or none will be saved and that Paradice is shut She answer'd Yes Sir I believe in the Remission of sins In that consists my joy and my hope I have even told you before that assoon as the sinner knocks God opens to him He needs but turn to him to obtain the pardon of his sins how great and numerous soever they may have been It is not for want of mercy in God that I despair of the Salvation of men but because they will not be converted because the most part do not or will not know their sins I have more hopes of the conversion of gross sinners than of persons who make a profession of vertue because of the presumption of their Salvation grounded upon their own Righteousness they cannot be so readily converted as a sinner who knows his evil life he is more ready to repent of it than they who believe that they live well tho it be not true It is of these that Jesus Christ says that he came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance So many Souls will be mistaken at death who think they are certain of their Salvation whereas they are very far from it taking false vertue for the true It is in this that Jesus Christ says that he will judge of Righteousness He cannot judge nor condemn the Righteousness which is truly such before him but he speaks of our Righteousness which is righteous in our judgment and in that of men Such Righteousness will be condemn'd of God because they were not righteous before his piercing eyes as they appear'd unto the eyes of men and to our own Behold why I said that Paradice is shut because I cannot discern at present true Righteousness in the vertuous I ask her Whether sins were pardon'd by the Sacrament of Pennance which is the Confession of sins to the Priests She said Sir there are so many abuses committed by this Sacrament that I believe more sins are committed by it than pardoned for people believe that to obtain the pardon of their sins it is enough that they declare them to the Priest and upon this perswasion they take little care to amend them neither also can they have great contrition for a thing which is so easily effac'd by the small confusion that they have in declaring their sins to the Priest No body would quit his pleasure and the contentment which he finds in sin for so small a trouble as there is in confessing it Hence it comes that we see people continue and even endreâ—se their sins all their life time Thus this Confession which is appointed for their Salvation serves to procure their Damnation because so many Confessions without amendment make profuseness of Sactileges of which they never repent because they believe they shall obtain life with these very means that occasion their death and when the soul is about to be separated from the body they only place the hope of their salvation iâ— the same Confession which has wounded the soul with so great a number of mortal wounds It was a great unhappiness did then befal the world Sir when the Church taught that to live well and to be saved a man must confess often The Catechisms which they teach the Children of Christians are stuâ—tâ—d with such doctrines and in all the Indulgences which the Church bestows she always ordains Confessions as one of the necessary means for obtaining the said Indulgences Every body teaches the doing of what is ordain'd by the Church in this case I would willingly ask if this be not to teach indirectly that a man must in frequently when they teach that he must confess often since Confession does always suppose sin He cannot confess frequently without sinning frequently for they who have not sinn'd have nothing to confess nor can they do it frequently without an express commission of sins that they may have matter of confessing frequently I believe Confessors have invented these multitudes of Confessions that thereby they may draw the people to themselves instead of leading them to Christ A true Shepherd-takes more pains to cure his Seeep and does not neglect its Scab that he may be oblig'd to take it often in his lap as these strange Shepherds do who love rather to draw to themselves souls continually laden with sins than to send them to God by the spirit of true repentance This is an error which was introduc'd into the Church by the cunning of that pernicious Antichrist that he might withdraw the souls of sinners from Christ who calls them saying Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden and I will give you rest and to lead them to men who slatter and keep them in their sins under a false promise of their Salvation for there is none but God only who can pardon sin and men who pretend to be in Gods stead and do not observe his word are Seducers since his word only can pardon sins It is true it was transferred to men with the same vertue which it had in the body of Jesus Christ but this was only as long as they should continue to persevere faithfully in that word and no otherwise The Apostles did all their works by vertue of this word and not by their own authority These Confessors do the quite contrary remitting sins according to their fancies and will
quiet and find leisure to entertain my self with God I think the plagues are so near that shortly there will be no need of Preachers to proclaim the judgments for the plagues will make themselves be felt sufficiently by unbelievers who in my opinion will be converted too late for the pains will be so great that they will not know whither to turn them for fear Never any such thing has been seen since the world was made I 'm afraid only for those who will not believe because they will not be converted and will not prepare for sufferings and being surpriz'd at unawares will be in danger of perishing with the wicked for thus it fell out in the time of the universal Deluge tho it is to be believ'd there were yet some here and there who feared God nevertheless all perished because of their unbelief Eight persons only did escape the shipwrack because they believed the word of Noah And now when we speak of the last times and of Judgment they think we tell them fables yea they reject them as untrue and impertinent discourses One says this will not fall out in my time and thus they thrust it out of their minds This has often troubled me for one must be without Charity who is not grieved to see his Neighbour perish while he will not believe his danger nor will he have help I said to her that the evil could not be wholly desperate so long as there was yet Life in man that he might still be converted that he has always God for his Father who abounds in mercy entreating her to discover these truths to men among whom there were yet some without doubt who would follow them and that Ignorance was the cause of their damnation She said Sir if there were not an infatuation of mind spread thro the whole world I would yet have some hope of the Conversion of some Souls in particular But this Antichrist by his Devilish arts has corrupted the minds of men especially of Christians that he might â—ender them stupid and without reason in the matter of their salvation and of the knowledge of God This stupidity cannot be humane for there are yet too many fine wits in the world to suffer themselves to be deluded by false perswasions that we are Christians and that the Roman Church is guided by the holy Spirit that all the Devotions which are used at present in the Church are things that perfect us or render us holy for there needs no more than a simple human reasoning to perceive that there is no Holiness nor Righteousness nor Charity among men now notwithstanding there were never so many Churches in the world so many Masses so many receivings of the Sacraments so many Priests Monks Religious and devout persons as there are at present Can we conclude that all these things which seem to be holy are withal good since they have produced so many bad effects Could holy things work wickedness in men as we see and feel it If this were only among the Heathens Jews Turks or Hereticks we might have some ground to believe that the Christians had receiv'd the grace of God by means of their Christian exercises and the common receiving of the Sacraments to live better than all those other Sects who are not the people of God or at least to be less wicked than they but we see the quite contrary that the Christians now adays have less of righteousness and charity than the Turks themselves and in the mean time they suffer themselves to be blinded with this amusement that they are Christians and will be sav'd with these seeming devotions and the receiving of the Sacraments Iâ— the Devil had not infatuated all their spirits it would be impossible that there should be so much as one how simple soever who would let himself be perswaded to believe a thing contrary to what he saw with his eyes felt with his hands and comprehended with his mind This is notwithstanding what all people do while they believe they are Christians and will be sav'd after the manner that they live now It is most true that the mercy of God is very great and men may be converted so long as they are yet in life but by what means do you judge Sir that they can be converted As long as they cannot be convinc'd that this outward Church is not the holy Church and that all those means of Salvation which she has appointed are not the true means no body will ever be converted For tho indeed their hearts were moved with compunction and repentance thro the fear of Gods judgments yet they would not return to true faith but would go seek for the cure of their souls in the Sacraments and the pious exercises to which they have been so long accustom'd and thus they would remain in the same state in which they were formerly without ever attaining to true repentance For if I should tell them the truth and teach them the true means of recovering the grace of God they would believe that I design'd to seduce and deceive them So much are they pre-occupy'd with lies and delusions I said to her That this proceeded from ignorance that she ought to declare in particular wherein true faith does consist that without doubt many would yet open their eyes and would embrace it there being many who desire not to be damn'd of whom I was one She answered There is no longer Faith Sir among the People of God It has been banish'd from them since men placed their faith and confidence upon one another from that time God has been forgotten Men have made it be believ'd that they would save one another tho' these Saviours cannot save themselves nor make one hair of their heads Nevertheless by their Perswasions they have made almost all the World to become Idolatrous Every one has forsaken the TRVE FAITH to follow and adhere to these men plac'd in Ecclesiastical Dignities whom they have follow'd and honour'd as Gods believing they had got enough when they knew how to please and content them Nature took its content thus the Mind its satisfaction In one word the true invisible and incomprehensible God has been raz'd out of the memory by these false ones visible and sensible to our Nature they have begun to make the way of Salvation broad whereas Jesus Christ made it narrow and the Divine and Spiritual Church they have rendred humane and carnal and thus they have become still worse till now that we are arrived at the height of all Evil. The greatest of all is that men do not perceive it for they are become insensible through so long a custom I believe indeed there are yet many persons who would not be Damn'd but what means is there to save them when they will not believe that they have abandon'd their true Faith And how can they be made to change so long as they believe that they are
the other a serious recollection of spirit may teach us this We speak of God says she as if he were some Phantom of Paradise as an imaginary thing and of our selves as a temporal and transient thing Where is the man living who can comprehend what God is and in what place he abides It is true we have need of some words to signify what we would say therefore we say that God is in Paradise as in the place of his abode But we must not be so simple as to believe that God has any particular abode for there is nothing which can contain him being greater than all things We say that he is in the Heavens and nevertheless the Heavens are but his Creatures very uncapable of being able to contain him We say that he is on the right hand of his Father whither he is ascended These are all words to signify in our Gibberish our little conceptions but we can never attain to the knowledge of what God is or Paradise or even our own Souls for this cause we make often wrong judgments and the Learned fill our minds in this as in other things with the Idea's of their Imaginations which are of little use for our Salvation and far less for the Glory of God for frequently we give attributes to him which do greatly diminish it to speak after our fashion It is enough for our Salvation and his Glory that we know that there is one God and that he is the fountain of all Wisdom the accomplishment of all Power the perfection of all Goodness who never had beginning and shall never have end that he is an invisible and incomprehensible Spirit and that he has given us an understanding to comprehend all these Divine Attributes through the operations which they produce in our minds We may first know that there is a God because we feel in our selves that we have a dependance upon something which we cannot comprehend since all those things which we see in Heaven and in Earth are not capable of having created us nor of maintaining us for all men and all the stars with all that is created in heaven and in earth cannot add one hair unto our head nor give us one moment of life We must conclude therefore that there is a God above all things who has created all who upholds and governs all by a supream power since nothing can have given being unto its self there must have been of necessity some author of all things who has given them all a being and beginning No body can be ignorant of this truth tho they had nothing but a Pagan light And to perceive that he is the fountain of all wisdom we need but consider this beautiful universe how marvellously well done it is What artifice could keep the Globe of the Earth among the Waters What can give splendour to the Sun Beauty to the Moon Lights to the Stars Who can make a tree a fruit a flower a plant of so many different herbs Who can have made the birds of the air the beasts of the earth and of the sea in so many different kinds And above all who could have formed the body of man so wonderfully shap'd with so many different members How many veins muscles and tendons do concur to tye up this tender flesh What master could ever make such a master-piece must not this proceed from the fountain of all wisdom from which all the wisdom of men is derived which we admire without knowing the author of it except by the operations which we experience in our selve Who can be ignorant of his infinite wisdom while he looks upon the Creation and the upholding of this great Universe Who does not feel that he has not in himself any power if it be not given from a supream power which we do not know Who can be ignorant of that Incomprehensible Goodness while he receives every moment the effects of it All that man has he holds it of the Goodness of God for he could not have merited any thing before that God of his Goodness alone did create him We perceive evidently that he is an Invisible and Incomprehensible spirit for none ever saw God or can comprehend what he is He can never have had beginning having given beginning to all things How can that end which is eternally incomprehensible our soul cannot even comprehend itself nevertheless we may well judge that it is immortal for the Wisdom of God could never have created it to live for so small a time as we are upon earth He would have done a thing which was not good which cannot be for our soul is always in bondage so long as it animates this our miserable body God should not be just if he gave it not another time to rejoyce with him else the end of its creation should be miserable It must needs be for accomplishing the goodness and righteousness of God that it live a blessed eternity so that even he could not have created our body to live only this so miserable short life by far greater reason our soul which he created after his own image and according to his own likeness could not be created to be only a Prisoner in our body where it cannot act but by its co-operation with it no more can God act in us but by the co-operation of our soul because there is an indissoluble union in respect of the one and of the other For God is united with our soul as our body is also united with the same I admir'd these marvellous and unheard of discourses and that I might understand more I told her I had never sufficiently understood how the knowledge of God was unseparable from the knowledge of our selves She said to me Sir this is very easie to comprehend if you will seriously reflect upon it for no body can know that God is the fountain of all wisdom without perceiving at the same time that we can have nothing but ignorance only as experience makes sufficiently appear that no body has wisdom at his wish that it must be derived from that supream fountain whose works being considered it must be presently known and acknowledg'd that all our wisdom how great soever we may have imagin'd it being compar'd with the wisdom of God is nothing but pure ignorance and this not being known we will think that our wisdom is great As a person is always the most beautiful and the most perfect when she is alone but approaching others who have more perfection than she this makes her know what she is truly Even so when we know the perfections of God we know our own imperfections If we know his almighty power we shall presently perceive our own weakness or the perfection of his goodness we shall discover how far ours is from it For this cause I have said that we cannot know God without knowing our selves neither can we know our selves without knowing
God for he who knows that he is but a pure nothing he must confess that there is something above him from whom he has receiv'd what he is because a Nothing cannot do any thing nor give any thing to its self Every one knows well that there has been a time in which he was not and when he is made he does not know how nor from whence he is taken which obliges him to acknowledge a God the Author of all things and even tho he went not out of himself he must know God All these truths seem'd to me so clear that I knew not how they could be call'd in question tho in the mean time we see no body attains to this knowledge of God or of himself that it must needs be acknowledged that we were fallen into a total forgetfulness of God and ignorance of our selves and that we were assuredly deceiv'd and seduc'd She said to me Sir the deceit is so great that no body can comprehend it We run as it were blindfold to damnation without perceiving it and whereas those who guide us ought to set us again into the right way they are the very persons who deceive us because they themselves are deceived by Satan Wherefore there is nothing to be hop'd for but a total ruine which will be irreparable seeing that it is eternal We are careful enough to avoid the perils of the body but we are too little careful to avoid the perils of the soul which are without comparison much more considerable Man having forsaken his God from whom can he expect Salvation When we leave God assuredly he leaves us not that he withdraws himself from us in respect of himself because he abides always through all without any change But he withdraws himself from us when we withdraw our selves from him for a thing which we leave cannot abide with us it is always as far from us as we are far from it tho we only make this separation It is fit to understand how we can truly say that God leaves us or forsakes us because many understand it amiss in attributing to God the cause of this forsaking It may be said that God has forsaken us now because this is true but we ought always to understand in what manner he leaves us for otherwise we blaspheme against God not by words but intention in conceiving that God does of himself forsake us The Fourteenth Conference How God forsakes us and how we forsake him by distraction of Spirit by which the Devil has seduc'd men withdrawing them from the Love and Gratitude which they owe to God who by all things does most sensibly discover himself to be alone lovely I Ask'd her by what mean we had fallen into such an ignorance and abandoning of God and of our selves She said By the straying of our spirit which has left off to entertain it self with the consideration of the marvels of God Our soul was created to love him and to bless him continually in which consists the continual prayer which Jesus Christ has recommended to us since he became man for we have no other thing to do in this world but this continual prayer God having given us all the rest We see in the Creation of Adam that he had no need to think on any other thing but to bless and love God and if he had entertain'd himself in this praise and love we had never fallen into all the miseries under which we yet groan The Devil who is nam'd the Serpent made it his business to entertain them to the end he might distract them from the Communion which they ought to have with God How soon he got the Woman to listen to him he began to draw her affections which were due to God only towards the fruits of the earth which were given her only for use and not to place her affection upon them from hence he likewise incited her to desire knowledge of good and evil withdrawing the attention which she had to God to apply it unto curiosity and a desire to be great and wise Lo this was the cause why we did abandon God and lose the knowledge of our selves Our first Parents began to do this in the terrestrial Paradise and we have continu'd it from generation to generation until we have arrived unto a total forgetfulness of God and an entire ignorance of our selves For if you will consider it well Sir you will be oblig'd to say that all men say really in their hearts There is no God because all their actions are done as if there were none and this evil proceeds from no other thing but that our spirit has no longer communion with God I ask'd her Whether men now do the same things which our first Parents did in the earthly Paradise and if they let themselves be thus seduced by the Devil She answered Truly Sir they do much worse for they do not follow the suggestion of the Devil in one thing only but in all their actions desires and enterprizes Who does not see now adays that all men have left off to entertain their spirits with God and that they have fix'd them on the consideration of created things hearkening willingly unto things curious and pleasant to their senses as our Mother Eve did And when the Devil proposes to our thoughts any thing which seems to be either pleasant or profitable to our nature who does not presently follow it without restraint and without fear and instead of fixing upon the consideration of the wonderful works of God we are continually busied in seeking our pleasures in the creatures in self-complacency or in the desires and coveting of earthly goods which things do entirely withdraw us from the total attention that we ought to have upon God alone for whom we are created and not for these things which are subjected to us and which God created for our footstools as the earth and metals and we will needs carry them upon our shoulders yea even upon our head and in our heart The Devil represents to us that these earthly pleasures are delightful that these beauties are agreeable that with Money we may do and know every thing and we believe this deceiver and follow his counsels employing the whole time of our life in seeking our pleasures and contentments and in heaping together earthly goods which is the cause that we are diverted from God for our spirit and understanding cannot attend upon two things so distant from one another as is God and the creatures We abandon the All to seek the Nothing as did our first Parents I said to her That Adam and Eve were expresly forbidden to eat of the fruit of a tree and that we are not thus expresly forbidden by God to love the creatures She reply'd He has not only once thus forbidden us but many times in different times and ages The Prohibition which God gave unto our first Parents Sir was
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
Terrestrial and Carnal Church By this the Devil has reaped much and replenish'd his infernal Granaries to our Dammage Therefore I intreat you Sir that you would not seek for the Church in any other Place but in the Centre of your Soul For there is so much Deceit under the Mask of Piety that the most knowing are catch'd by it Many are made Saints who are of the Synagogue of Satan I said to her That I had not that Method to discern and find God in the Centre of my Soul entreating she would declare to me the way how I might find him there She said Sir you will see him by the Eyes of Faith If you believe that God is everywhere he is also truly in your Soul and even in a special and particular manner as a thing which is most like to him He is in the Elements giving them Being and Subsistence else they could not subsist He is in the Herbs Trees and other Plants in giving them Vegetation He is in the Animals giving them Life as he does our Bodies For if God were not in all these things they would resolve into the same Nothing from whence they have been taken for no created thing can keep so much as one Plant of an Herb in Life It is God that does all We see this with our Natural Eyes how much more firmly ought we to believe that he is in our Soul which is Divine and Incomprehensible This Quality comes nearer to God than any other Creature We cannot comprehend what a Soul is no more than we can comprehend what God is It has Qualities so approaching to him that it may with Reason be call'd a dependent Deity For we see indeed the Works which it operates in our Body but we cannot see what it is but by its Operations as we cannot know God or perceive what he is but by the Works which he produces to our Knowledge Our Soul gives Motion to our Body and Agility to our Understanding makes the Memory to remember and moves all the other Powers of the Soul We feel and see that this is done in us nevertheless no Body can comprehend how this is done but we must confess that our Soul is a thing incomprehensible as well as God and since there cannot be many Gods we must conclude that God is the Centre of Souls and that they spring from him as a Branch from the Root And as Trees cannot bear Branches without having a Root so the Soul cannot have a Being if God do not give and produce it By which you may abundantly perceive Sir that of necessity God is the Centre of our Soul and that it cannot move but by him no more than the Body moves it self but by the Motion of our Soul This being so we ought therefore to seek God where he is and he being no where so expressly as in the Centre of our Soul it is there that he must be sought as in the true Place of his Residence And if you ask me the Method and the Way to find him in the bottom of your Soul there is no other but to remove all the Hindrances casting out of your Soul all earthly Affections that you may have no other but for him Your Soul will no sooner be free from all these Earthly Affections than it will fall into God as the Stone falls into its Centre I know no other Method but this Disingagement from our selves and from all other things to find God and to become one with him I have sometimes sought him without me by Actions which did seem good but I have since remark'd that those serv'd for Distractions and the more I acted outwardly so much the more did I stray from my God Therefore Sir become wise by my Loss and do not lose your Time in seeking means out of your self for they serve us often for Hindrances Our Soul is his true Temple and the Place of his Rest Let us only remove all that is between him and our Soul and we shall see him Face to Face to speak after our manner That is to say we shall see him clearly by Faith and shall know him by the Operations which he will make in us and shall taste him by the Repose and Consolation of our Conscience I thought that I understood well enough this Truth and that Faith dictates to us that God is the true Centre of our Soul But to taste him and speak sensibly to him by his Operations and Notices this was above my Capacity entreating her to tell me how this was done She said to me Sir The Soul is a Spirit and God is a Spirit and communicates himself in Spirit not with verbal Words but spiritual Motives Which nevertheless are more intelligible than the finest Eloquence of the World God communicates himself to the Soul as the Sun to his Rays and the Soul to its God as the Rays to the Sun by the great Unity and Dependence there is between God and the Soul When once it is denuded of its self it has no more need of Sight or Mouth to understand God than we have need of Words to understand our own Conceptions So soon as the Soul is disingag'd from it self it is so transform'd into God that it is entirely swallow'd up in him and becomes one thing with him having no longer any Will but his nor Desires but what he wishes and it does not move it self any longer but by the Motions of God So that the Soul and God are not any more but one and the same thing And if you do not taste God and understand not his Will it is assuredly because there is yet some Hindrance Do not afflict your self for this Sir but take the Pains to disingage your Soul as much as is possible for you This is all that you can do For to be troubled that you do not feel nor understand the Motions of God would be a Presumption for if your Soul were capable of it God would abundantly give it He wants your Disingagement fearing that you would abuse his Graces in living yet to your self I was wholly ravish'd with Pleasure to hear how God communicates himself to the Soul But perceiving that I was yet far from this Happiness I ask'd her By what means I might be disingag'd from my self and from every other thing that my Soul might taste God She said to me It is very easie Sir to be disingag'd from every thing by considering what it is For if we were not distracted and wandring in our Mind it would be impossible that we could love our selves or other created Things We cannot do it but through a Diversion or straying of the Mind For if we seriously reflect and consider what we love in loving our selves or other Creatures we must confess that we are Senless For what do we in loving our selves we love a thing very Miserable Impotent Unconstant and of short continuance there being no created thing more
subject to all sorts of Miseries than we are in our selves nothing more changing nothing more weak nothing more perishing Is this capable of our Love An Abridgment of all sorts of Miseries more infirm than any Animals and the things which are without us are yet of far less consideration 〈◊〉 we love Meat and Drink is there any thing more 〈◊〉 for as soon as we have swallow'd them they are corrupted and chang'd into Putrefaction If we love the Pleasures of the Sight this is a thing that passes in a Moment and cannot give Satisfaction The more we would satisfie our Senses the more they thirst for the Eye is never satisfied with seeing no more than the Ear with hearing Even so of the Lust of the Flesh These are all insatiable things of the nature of Salt-Water the more we drink of it the more we thirst And as for the Pride of Life what does it put in us but a Blast of Wind For if a Woman bow or a Man be discovered in our Presence what does that give us These are all but imaginary Goods which put nothing in him that loves them If we would search into these Truths it would be very easie to strip us of our selves and of all created Things For they are not at all lovely but to those who have lost their Wits Our Soul is created for things more great It ought not to debase its self to Objects so unworthy of its Love It is very easie to forsake our selves and all things when we enter into the Consideration of things that are everlasting All our Amusements proceed from this that we come not to the Knowledge of God and our selves For if we knew God we could not any longer love any other thing and if we knew our selves we would hate our selves and all things because we have nothing in our selves which is not hateful Thus all the Love which we bear to our selves and to other things proceeds from pure Ignorance and the want of Serious Reflection on our selves and on all created Things I ask'd her How I might make this Serious Reflection and discover the Nothingness of all created Things And said That I must acknowledge her Saying was true that there is nothing worthy of our Love But I could not discover the cause of the Blindness of my Mind in this since I had a Desire to discover the Truth and to be taken up entirely with God She said Sir the Fault of your Straying as that of all the World proceeds from this That Men amuse themselves with the speculation of visible and sensible things by which they forget the invisible and spiritual And thus they go on always in a Forgetfulness of God and of their own Salvation Men do even serve for a Hindrance to one another For being all full of these Distractions and Wandrings of Mind they speak almost of no other thing One speaks of his Health another of his Meat another of that which seems fair and good to him And thus they fill one another's Minds with earthly Idea's and they neglect the consideration of heavenly things upon which alone their Happiness depends That Application of Spirit which we give to our selves to others to our Affairs Business or other things which respect only this present Life do rob us of that Time and Attention which appertains to God For we are not created for this present Life but only to live for ever with God If we are oblig'd to remain here for some space of Time this is only to satisfie the Justice of God who being offended by us has destin'd this short Life for the time of our Penitence which being finish'd he will pardon us and restore us into our true Country which is his Presence We ought continually to aspire after it without pleasing our selves in our Exile and Prison What Folly to take Pleasure in Sufferings The Riches the Honours and the Pleasures of this World are all troublesome and painful things and we reckon them for Happiness We glory even in our Chains and Fetters Our Sin has discovered our Nakedness and its Shame has oblig'd us to cover our Body and this same Covering which ought to serve us as matter of continual Confusion serves us on the contrary for Vain-Glory which is altogether foolish since our Habits are the Marks of Sin and we wear them to glory in them If you desire Sir to discover these Truths and to be entirely taken up with God fix your Understanding on the Consideration of all the things which are not God and you will find them all Vain and Transitory even your Life it self It passes every Moment and ought rather to be call'd Death than Life for we die daily And from thence ascend to the Consideration of God and of our Soul which are things Solid and Eternal You will by this Mean be oblig'd to love the one and forsake the other But you can never make these serious Remarks if you do not quit the Commerce of Men and abstain from all that is unprofitable and what does not avail for the Glory of God By the means of these Omissions you will acquire a clear Understanding of the Truth and a continual Communion with God For the Cause of our Blindness of Mind proceeds from this that we divert our selves always with Men or the other Creatures who do distract us from the Knowledge of God and of our selves For all that is not God is nothing The Twenty Second Conference That no true Contentment can be had but in God alone How to return thither Of Gifts And of those which are made to Churches which will perish I Receiv'd a great deal of Light by such firm Reasonings to which all Men of the World must needs yield I said to her That I found only a Difficulty to withdraw my self from all things and to think of God only because our Spirit does easily wander She said Sir all the Difficulty there is in doing this is only in our Imagination for in the Practice there is great Contentment For he who entertains himself always with God is in a continual Feast more pleasant even to the Senses than the most sumptuous earthly Banquet would be For the Soul having full Satisfaction the Spirit is in Peace and the Body at rest all the Senses having a Satiety and Contentment whereas in the Commerce of Men none of them can find full Satisfaction for as long as the Soul does not repose in its God it is like a Stone in the Air which never rests until it have found its Centre or like a Fish that is out of the Water which remains without Vigour dries up and dies if it be not put into it again Even so a Soul which is out of God dries up and dies not being able to find true Contentment even as to the Body out of him There is nothing but a Life truly Christian that is free and pleasant for it
flows from God the Fountain of all Joy and Pleasures An Human Life is a Life of Constraint The Life of Sinners is a Life of Slavery There is none but the Life of a true Christian that is fill'd with Delights The Human Life must force it self for to maintain it self aright in State and Honour and constrain its Nature and its Inclinations to yield unto and please Men fearing to offend or disoblige them therefore we are often constrained to bow as a Reed under the Power of the Great or those in Authority having no more Liberty than the Good or Bad Opinion of Men gives us The Life of a Sinner is a real Slavery for he is tortur'd with his own Passions which do often serve as an Executioner both to Body and Soul destroying both the one and the other What Pain is there in doing Evil What Displeasures and Remorse when the Evil is done How is a Sinner hated by others and a Burthen to himself He has not sometimes the Freedom to speak or lift up his Head for fear his Sin be discovered Is it not therefore more easie to abandon all and to entertain our selves only with God than to undergo the Yoke of a Human or of a Sinful Life Seeing he who is resign'd to God lives as a Child without Care who is carried in the Arms of his Father He fears nothing being under the Guard of the Almighty he desires nothing more for he has found all He can seek nothing because all things are found in God Riches Beauty Honour Pleasure all are there in abundance The Soul is joyful the Heart content and the Body in Repose How can you find Difficulty Sir in a thing agreeable and full of all Good It should rather be found in the Life which you lead Tho it be honest yet it is subject to a thousand Disquiets and Cares to maintain you aright and to please every Body To quit all things is to quit very little for to find the All. And not to think but upon God is to do that which naturally we would do upon the ceasing of the eagerness of our Imagination which frames to it self some imaginary Pleasure in the Conversation of Men which is nevertheless interwoven with a great many Displeasures and Discontents All this may be overcome by retiring our Spirit with God I said to her That I wish'd nothing more than to find my self in so happy a State which would yield me Communion with God That for this cause I would willingly abandon a thousand Worlds Begging she would tell me in order what I ought to do for the first She said Sir After that you shall have wholly abandon'd the World present your self before God as the Prodigal Son acknowledging that you have wasted so many Graces which he had imparted to you that you might love him and that you have applied them to please Men. Tell him plainly that you have sinned against him and Heaven And then he will give you the first Robe of Innocence in imbracing you as his Son Resign your self wholly to him as a Child newly born again and then he will govern you in all your Ways learning you to speak to walk to eat and all the rest that hitherto you did not know how to do aright for if you walk'd it has been to seek Temporal Things and if you have eaten it was but for the Maintenance of your Body and if you spoke it was only to please or satisfie Men All which things are Vain and Unworthy of a true Child of God Quit therefore Sir all your old Habits and suffer your self now to be conducted by God who is your true Father Receive from him what shall befal you If Prosperities come upon you bless him if Adversities receive them with Joy for he had no other things whilst in this World but Tribulations Esteem your self happy to imitate him Seek no longer any other thing but what God shall permit to befal you and then you will find that the Lord is good and gracious Tho' Tribulations seem sometimes bitter yet they are made sweet by the Conformity of the Life of Jesus Christ Pains suffered with Jesus Christ are rendred agreeable This Resignation to God is the first part of Blessedness which draws along with it all the rest When you shall be resigned to his Government you will have no longer need of Masters or any other Helps For he alone is your Protector in this Valley of Miseries which will not last but for a Moment in respect of Eternity Let us suffer with him if we would reign with him I ask'd What I should do with my temporal Goods if I should distribute them to the Poor or to Churches or rather to religious Convents She said Sir Keep your Temporal Goods for your Entertainment For he who has not wherewith to maintain himself now-a-days when Charity is dead would have Vexations to seek and find it So much the more that Justice requires rather to retain what we have lawfully acquired for our own Nourishment than to give it away and to be oblig'd afterwards to ask of others This Pretext of Voluntary Poverty hath introduc'd among the Religious great Avarice for after having abandon'd their own they seek with more Greediness the Wealth of Others than ever they did their own Which obliges them to flatter People and often to give way to evil that they may have where withal to live and they are unsatiable to augment and increase it It is a kind of Robbery to take the Goods of others by way of Alms when we have the Means to live upon our own But if you have more than suffices for your Entertainment distribute it to Christian Brethren who have need of it as the first Christians did so that no Body among them had need of any thing because the Rich did impart to the Poor what was necessary for them There being then no Proposal of Building so many Churches and Monasteries as at present which are built more for the Commodity and Pleasures of Monks than for the Glory of God which does not consist in material Temples as it does in the Living Temples of the Souls of true Christians These are the true Temples of God where he will reside to all Eternity But not in these Machines of Stone or Wood which will perish very shortly with their Builder who will be oblig'd to suffer Poverty by Force since they would not suffer it voluntarily according to the Vows and Promises which they make publickly of it If at present you do not find true Christians to whom to give of your Abundance keep it for the Love of God until you shall know them His Mercy will very shortly form a great number of them For to give to the Wicked is to co-operate to their Vices Having remark'd that she spoke of the Destruction of Churches and Monasteries I ask'd her If she
become Man-like to us and then our Souls only were like to him It is a more perfect and accomplish'd Conversation of Body and Soul than that of the Soul only But because God will give in the End an accomplishment to all things in an altogether perfect Sense he would have taken Human Flesh that he might converse with us perfectly even tho' Adam had never sinn'd and tho' there had not been any need of redeeming us by his Death God is not become Man to suffer or to die but to converse with us and reign in us visibly and sensibly upon Earth which will be made the Paradise of the Delights of God with Men. I ask'd her If it was not needful that God should become Man to redeem us since we were all lost by Sin She said No Sir God is not subject to any thing and has no necessity He had no need to become Man to redeem us He might with a Word have render'd us the first Grace seeing that with the same Word he had created the whole World He could have created a thousand Adams and a thousand earthly Paradises with the same Perfection in which he had created the first of nothing whom he might justly have let perish eternally instead of becoming Man to redeem them But he could not take his Delight with Men perfectly unless he made himself Man like to them If Man had been like to God and not God like to Man there would have been some Defect in these Delights at least on Man's part who would not have had perfect Delight without seeing his God like unto him as a Lover takes Pleasure to wear the Colours which his Mistress wears This testifies reciprocal Affection when one renders himself as like as may be to that which he loves This Fountain of all Love could do what he would It was needful therefore that he should become Man even tho' Man had not fallen into Sin to the end he might live with him in perfect Resemblance unto all Eternity in all sort of Delights which Happiness is suspended unto Man until that he have accomplish'd his Penitence to which he is subjected by his Sin Which being finished he will enter again into Communion with God as if he had never offended him He will speak with God Face to Face by his Humanity which will be rendred immortal as well as that of Jesus Christ that they may delight themselves perfectly together upon Earth which will then be rendred Paradise by the lovely Presence of God who for these Ends became Man not that he might suffer or die which he would needs do by accident for the Instruction of Men and their Relief I said unto her That this had never been understood after this manner and that many Fathers had call'd the fall of Adam happy which had caus'd the Incarnation of the Son of God without which Fall God would not have become Man She said Sir This is very ill understood The Fault of Adam ought rather to be call'd very unhappy which has caus'd the Sufferings and the Death of Jesus Christ who would assuredly have become Man not suffering but reigning not despis'd but honour'd by every one not poor and vile but in Riches and in Glory not in Reproach but ador'd by all Men living He would have become Man to reign not to suffer for if the design'd End of his Incarnation had been Suffering and Death the Fathers of the Antient Law would not have had Ground to have so much desir'd and aspir'd after that happy Day that they might see with their Eyes God made Man who should deliver them from their Captivity Could they Desire their Deliverance at so dear a Price as the Passion and the Death of Jesus Christ They would have had a pure Self-love in regarding only their own Deliverance and not the Glory of God which could not be met with in the Reproaches Affronts Pains and Death of Jesus Christ which are all things repugnant to his Glory who could not be honour'd by being hang'd between two Malefactors So many Holy Prophets who have foretold the Coming of Jesus in the Flesh did not speak of his Coming to suffer but of his Coming in Glory When David invites all Creatures to praise the Lord he does not speak but of the Time that he must reign upon Earth For he says Heavens Waters Earth and all Creatures bless the Lord. Nothing of all this has blest him in his first Coming in the City of Bethlehem For even Men themselves did then reject and pursue him to put him to Death As King Herod search'd for him a little after his Nativity If the Angels did sing then Glory to God in the highest and on Earth Peace to Men of Good Will This could not be but by a Prophetick Spirit in regarding his Glorious Coming which will glorifie God and will give universal Peace to all Men of Good Will who shall then be upon Earth seeing that at his Birth as since Men of Good Will have never been in Peace but pursued and persecuted yea even Jesus Christ himself And how should God have been glorified by this Birth seeing that he has been the more blasphemed by Men. I entreated her to tell me for what Reason Jesus Christ became a Suffering Man since he could have redeem'd us without Suffering or becoming Man before the Time of his glorious Coming She said The LOVE Sir which God bears unto Man made him take Human Flesh before his Coming in Glory he perceiv'd that Men would stray always more from him and altogether forget their Duty so that almost no Body would any longer acknowledge God Atheism was almost through all the World Even his own People which were the Jews had made his Law void by their Traditions Every one follow'd the Learned and were lost through Ignorance To remedy which God became Man that he might come and teach them and redress their Faults by Deeds more than by Words For these Ends therefore he takes a Human Body like to us to the End he might walk first in the Life which he would point out unto us and perceiving that Men were undone by the Wealth and Honours of the World he takes a poor Mother who was so despis'd and abandon'd that she was oblig'd to bring him forth in a Stable with all the Inconvenience that Poverty brings along with it And to make appear to Men that Prosperities the Friendships and Caresses of Men did serve for Hindrances of Conversation with God he leaves his Country to go into Aegypt out of all Acquaintance being oblig'd to this by the Pursuits and Persecutions of Herod He labours for gaining his Bread that Men might willingly labour for accomplishing their Penitence At length he begins to teach by Word and to shew to Men wherein they were wanting that they might attain to Salvation He explains to them wherein the Law of God consists and gives them the
Evangelical Counsels for observing it aright He is despis'd and rejected by the Great Men of this World He is also Reproach'd Buffeted held for a Wicked One To shew that the Praises of Men are not to be sought for but their Reproaches rather to be endur'd for the Love of God At last he is put to Death for the Truth enduring all with Patience To teach us to suffer patiently even to Death And all that he has endur'd has been to give us an Example I ask'd her In case Men had not come to so great Extremity of Evil whether she believ'd that Jesus Christ would have come so soon to take Human Flesh She Replied No Sir he would not have come till the end of the World to judge and condemn Men in abolishing Evil He would have come in the glory of all his Majesty with all his Angels not in Contempt and Sufferings He would have come to Reign not to undergo an infamous Death If you read attentively the Prophets Sir you will find that they speak far more of this coming in Glory than of that in Reproach For the coming of Jesus Christ in Glory is as it were THE SUM OF THE DESIGNS WHICH GOD HAS OVER MEN And the coming in Reproach is as it were the Accident of the said Designs Therefore there will be much more spoken of through all the Holy Scriptures Read Sir attentively all the said Scriptures from the creation of the World you will find that they all will aim at this Kingdom of Jesus Christ on Earth with Men for this is the end of their Creation God can never reign fully in Men until the time of this coming in Glory because that they living yet in the liberty of doing evil do not yet give full possession to God to reign in their Souls for very often or at least by accident Sins do rule there Which we have seen in the greatest Saints of the World A David a Solomon all the Apostles and Disciples of Jesus Christ yea all those who have since been esteemed Saints have all in general fallen into Trespasses and have strayed from God for some time By which he could not find in them his perfect reign as he will do after his glorious Coming For then all will be Deify'd Bodies as well as Souls And there will be an end of all Evil. God will then have his full dominion over all Flesh which has never been For the most part of Men in all times have Blasphemed and Despised him tho all were created by him to love him and to adore him They have yielded their honour and love to the Creatures instead of the Creator Is it not fit Sir that these things be one day repaired and that God be worshipped in Spirit and in Truth by his Creatures I said to her That assuredly God would after that manner be adored in Heaven but that I could not comprehend how he could be so here upon Earth She said I perceive Sir that you take for Heaven and Paradise some precise place or some particular part which ferves for a Residence to God And for my part I cannot believe that there is any thing capable of containing God for he is greater than all things and cannot be contain'd by any thing less than himself The Heaven is but his Creature which we say is on high and God has neither high nor low for he contains all Heaven and Paradise is always in him for there can be no other but his Presence and he who is in his Presence is in Heaven and Paradise For my part I know no other They tell us many imaginary things of God and of Paradise which have very little relation to what they are It seems God is like an earthly King who is lodged in some Palace of Wood or Stone These are all Speculations of Men as earthly as their Affections For God cannot have any fixt place for his Residence seeing he comprehends all things When I say that God will be upon Earth reigning with Men the Earth will then be Paradise for in all Places where he is there is always Paradise If God were in Hell Hell would then be Paradise there being no other but the presence of God That makes in all places where it is Heaven and Paradise When this presence is in our Soul our Soul is Heaven How can you not comprehend Sir that God could be truly adored in Spirit and in Truth upon Earth seeing he has so often promised to make an Alliance with Men Must not this Alliance be made upon Earth God being a pure Spirit has no need of any Station but Man having a Body has need of some Place to contain him The Earth was created for this necessity that it might contain the Bodies of Men. Why then should not God come upon Earth to dwell with them seeing they cannot go where God is in that purity of Spirit Of necessity he must either come upon Earth or indeed they could not be entirely united together I asked her When Jesus Christ shall come to reign upon Earth and to Allie himself with Men She said As sooon as the Plagues shall have rooted out all the Wicked or the greatest part of them then He will appear in the Clouds and all the World shall see him You may indeed live till then Sir if God please For my part I hope to see him and to reign with him Eternally In this all my hopes and my joy do consist For this Life is too miserable to take any contentment in it without the hope of this time to come I say it will be very shortly for I see the Measure full and Mens sins are come to the height They cannot be more numerous And if there were not some small Veil of Human respect they would Murther Rob commit Adultery and do all sorts of Abomination publickly as well as they do them before God But Pride keeps these things yet concealed that they may not be despised by Men And as for what passeth only before God or a few Persons they make no more reckoning of it It seems all is lawful provided it be not discovered What greater Evil can be expected The abomination of Desolation is in the Sanctuary Tho Christians be the People of God they have denied his Faith and have abandoned it to become Idolaters of one another Every one has his proper Idol one worships his own Body another his own Spirit another his Learning another his Riches another his Honours another his Children or other Creatures In short none adore God but with their Lips Is it a wonder that the Judgment is near when we see that all Men have abandoned their God Is it not time that he likewise abandon them which he cannot do but according as Man withdraws himself from God by the same consequence God is withdrawn from Man for two things cannot stay together when the one withdraws it self
the one withdrawing makes a separation as if they both withdrew So that God is as much remov'd from Man as Man has remov'd himself from him And having thus abandoned God what can we expect but universal Plagues which our universal Evils have drawn down upon our guilty Heads Which Plagues having purg'd our Crimes and burnt the Tares the good Grain will then be gathered into the Granary of God which is the Kingdom of Jesus Christ I ask'd her Whether this Kingdom of Jesus Christ shall remain upon Earth for ever She saith yes Sir It will be Eternal and never end If you believe in Life Eternal which is an Article of our Creed you believe in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ upon Earth I have also told you that there is no other Paradise but the Presence of God And whereas Jesus Christ is God as my word is me his Body must have some Station as also all the other Bodies of the blessed God being a pure Spirit has no need of any Station nor yet our Soul which is also a Spirit A Spirit is through all and comprehends what is at a distance as well as that which is near As our Thoughts have no need of a way to go to Jerusalem They go thither in the twinkling of an eye for they do not stay in any place Even so God has no need of Heaven nor of Earth to stay in being a pure Spirit nor yet our Souls which are in Paradise when they are united unto God But our Body has need of Heaven and Earth and of all the other things which God has created for it because it is material it must also stay upon material things suitable unto its nature Therefore God has created all this World with all that is in it that Man may have his full delights as well in his Body as in his Soul For God makes nothing imperfect but all his Works shall have their compleat Perfections And resolving to create Man a kind of Creature Spiritual and Bodily both together he gives himself to him for to satisfie his Soul which is a Spirit he will give him likewise all created things to satisfie his Body So that the Soul shall take its delights with God and the Body its delights with Heaven and Earth and all the other Creatures For God has created them for those ends and for no other thing that Man might have his full perfect contentment of Body and Mind in that Life Eternal wherein Jesus Christ will reign always in Body and Soul with the Bodies and Souls of the Blessed who shall be united in Spirit unto God and in Body unto the Body of Jesus Christ Behold the alliance which God promised unto Abraham which he did not see but very far of and we see it now very near Do you not think Sir that this Kingdom of Jesus Christ must be upon Earth seeing that he has taken a Human Body like unto ours A spiritual thing cannot support but that which is spiritual But a material must have a stay agreeable to its Nature which is also material Who can or would change that Excellent Order which God has establish'd in all his Works so just and so perfect which alone are worthy of Admiration as the Author is of Adoration Can you yet doubt Sir that Jesus Christ shall reign upon Earth seeing it is a just and necessary thing Would you believe that God should create all this beautiful World only for this miserable Life of Penitence and that at the end of it he should abolish this great Work of his Hands or that he should consume by Fire the whole Universe This would not be a just thing that he had made all these things only for our Miseries This would be as much as to say that God had had little Wisdom I was ravish'd out of my self to hear things so unheard of so admirable and so charming And that I might understand a little more I ask'd her if the Earth and the World would abide for ever She said Yes Sir the Earth and all the rest that God has created will abide for ever in the State in which he established them at their Creation For the whole works of God are all Everlasting Therefore he has created all things with Seeds for to spring and to engender Eternally All which Generations must be made for the delight of Man without Pain or Labour All things would have brought forth their Kind according to their Species in a good and delightful manner x The Sun would have given his light and heat in measure without any Excess the Air without Storms the Sea without Tempests The Fire could not have burn'd us nor the Water drowned us nor the Earth brought forth Thorns nor the Beasts bitten and poyson'd us but all sort of things would have served us for Delight and Recreation So many little Beasts which are upon the Earth and in the Air which seâ—ems useless to us were created to the end that even the least of our Senses might be Recreated Even the diversity of Flies and many other sorts of Animals Herbs Trees and Flowers all these were created not only for the necessities of Men but also for their Delights Which things had nothing but Goodness and Perfection without Sharpness Prickings or Bitings How much more ought Man to be Good and Perfect seeing all these other things which were subjected to him had so much Goodness and Perfection You might ask me from whence it comes that all these Creatures are become Evil seeing they were created so good and perfect I will answer you That the sin of Man has caused all these Disorders and with Justice For all the Creatures of God ought to rise up against Man and take vengeance of his Ingratitude according to their power because he had merited that all that was given him for Joy should serve him for Grief Seeing he who ought to have serv'd for a delight z unto his God turns away from him to offend him his Justice would require that all the Creatures should do the same toward him since he had done it toward his God who had infinitely benefitted him more than any other Creatures which might well offend Man and become his Enemy when he was become the Enemy of God who tho he could not render his Creatures Evil because he is the source of all Goodness from whence nothing that is evil can ever proceed yet he might well permit that his Justice should be exercised by those inferior Creatures when Man had so justly deserved it I asked her If all those Creatures Animate and Inanimate would have an eternal Being She said Yes Sir nothing will perish of all that God hasmade But the evil that is in all these Creatures shall be taken away because it does not come from him and all that comes from Men shall Perish For Example That the Sun burns us and dazles the eyes which look upon him This
begun and will continue yea and will encrease even to the end of the wicked World I begg'd She would yet tell me one thing upon this Head Whether Jesus Christ would come upon Earth before these Plagues or in the time of them or after them She replied He will not come before these Plagues Sir since they are already begun nor in the time of them for that will be the remnant of the Reign of Anti-christ whom Jesus Christ will overthrow by the breath of his Mouth His coming will be the end of that incarnate Devil who will be confin'd for all Eternity into Hell as he shall deserve but the Plagues will go before the coming of Jesus Christ by which the Servants of God shall be tried as Gold in the Furnace They must drink the Cup of Penitence before they enter into the Kingdom of Jesus Christ This is what he enquired of the two Sons of Zebedee if they were able to drink this Cup that is to suffer Tribulations that they might enter into his Kingdom For they will be so great that the like hath never been since the Creation of the World The Plagues are as the Forerunner of Jesus Christ who Preached Penitence and said in Figuring these last Times I Baptize with Water but there cometh one after me who shall Baptize with the Spirit The Water represents Penitence which must prepare us to receive the Holy Spirit which Jesus Christ will bring upon the Earth to Baptize in Spirit all those who shall be washed with the water of Penitence Jesus Christ therefore will come upon Earth in Glory toward the end of the Plagues and at the end of the reign of Anti-christ and he will judge the Quick and the Dead that is the Good and the Bad who shall then remain upon the Earth and will draw the Wicked apart saying unto them Go ye Cursed depart from me into everlasting Fire And to the Good he will say Cowe blessed of my Father Inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the World In sending the Wicked away from him he sends them into Hell For Hell is the privation of the Presence of God as Paradise is the enjoyment of that Presence So that to give Paradise unto the Good he does not send them into Heaven or some particular place but only says Come unto me and you shall Inherit the Kingdom of Heaven By which he shews that this Kingdom is his Presence I entreated her to tell me how Souls shall Perish since she had said heretofore that never any of the Works of God shall perish Now Souls are the Works that he has made those of the Wicked as well as those of the Good for Body and Soul are his Workmanship She said Sir The Souls of the Wicked shall not perish but shall only be deprived of all sort of Good and shall live for ever in all sort of Evil. It would be a far less evil unto them to Perish and be Annihilated because thereby their evils would be at an end But because they are the works of God they will never end but will have a miserable Eternity Being banished from the presence of God they will be sent into the Abyss of endless Miseries as the Good will be preserved in the Abyss of endless Happiness by the presence of God which comprehends all Good Therefore it cannot be found any where else for All is in God And according as they are estrang'd from Happiness they are plung'd into Evil being no other thing but the privation of Good Once contrary from it is always contrary from it In like manner Hell is not Sir what People imagin it to be there needs no material Fire to burn the Devils nor the Souls of the Wicked for they are but Spirits upon which Matter has no power as being a far less thing The Hell of Devils and damned Souls is no other thing but a separation from God who is all Good and in the privation of him consists All Evil For nothing can be Good but the privation of all Evil and nothing can be Evil but the privation of all Good which the Devils and damned Souls do possess when once they have abandoned God who alone contains all Good Wicked Souls who live yet upon Earth have not altogether abandoned God for they have yet some hope in him notwithstanding their Wickedness and therefore they are not as yet fallen into all sort of Evils for they have not forsaken all Good But these Souls which have past the time of their Saving Penitence are Desperate for they cannot any more approach to any Good which consists all in God alone whom they have forsaken of their own will and consequently are abandoned to all sorts of Evil. I said unto her That I had read some Authors of good Note who affirm that there is material Fire in the Hell of Devils and damned Souls She said Sir These Authors may indeed have had some Light that there will be material Fire in Hell as well as things hurtful to Man even Naturally But they have confounded one Time with another not knowing to discern the works of God neither in regard of the joy of Blessed Souls nor of the pains of the Miserable and therefore they have committed great faults in desiring to know things before the time that God would reveal them There will therefore be truly Sir material Fire in the Hell of the Devils and the Damned and likewise Darkness Poyson Thunders and Lightnings bitings of Beasts tempests of Water storms of Wind gnawings of Worms prickings of Flies and Thorns and all things that are hurtful will be materially in Hell Even so blindness of Eyes deafness of Ears leprosie of Body with all other sorts of Maladies and natural Infirmities But this will be only after the Judgment when God shall take away all Malignity from the Earth and from all the other Elements when he shall take away the Venom from Serpents Scorpions and other venomous Beasts and even Maladies and infirmities from the Bodies of Men and Beasts yea weaknesses and imbecilities from Spirits All this shall be reduc'd unto some corner of the Earth all in a Mass that these Malignities may act together upon the Bodies of the Damned and that the works of their hands may be rendred unto them For God has never made any of all these evils He created all things Good Men only by their Wickedness have given Malignity unto all Created things and therefore it ought to appertain to them and to be rendred them by right of Justice which will come to pass at the Judgment when the Bodies of the Wicked shall rise also that none of the works of God may Perish and shall be sent into that miserable Corner with all the Evils which shall be removed from the Blessed and from the whole Earth from Plants Beasts and all the Elements that all these things
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
may hinder this our Conversation with God even tho it were our own Eye which we ought to pluck out if it hinder us The Twenty eighth Conference How we ought to Pray and to understand the Lord's Prayer in its perfect Sense which regards the Dispositions and Graces that shall be bestowed on us in the Glorious Kingdom of Jesus Christ of which there are here Marvellous things spoken I Asked her How I ought to Pray to the end I might attain to this continual Communion She said to me Sir This Conversation is true Prayer which consists in the elevation of ones Spirit unto God And as long as we converse with God we are still in Prayer whether we adore him for his Almighty Power or bless him for his Favours or beg of him his Light and that which is necessary for us This is to Pray always as long as our Spirit is elevated unto God I know no other method of Praying If you ask of me words for Praying I will tell you what Jesus Christ told his Disciples when they intreated him that he would teach them to Pray as St. John did his Disciples Say Our Father which art in Heaven hallowed be thy Name and the rest of the Lord's Prayer in which is comprehended all that we can ever ask of God for his Honour and our Salvation In these words are comprehended all the Adorations which we owe to God all the Thanksgivings which we can render him and all that we may or ought to ask of him for our selves and for all others This is the Prayer which Jesus Christ himself did compose and the only one which he taught his Disciples of which we ought to make more reckoning than of all the Prayers in the World Many Persons give themselves to divers Vocal Prayers composed by some Saints or to a number of Beads saying a great many Paters and Aves without reflection so that if we should enquire of these Petitioners what they ask'd of God by so long Prayers it may be it would be hard for them to tell because all passes in many words without much attention Others who seem more Pious and advanced in Virtue give themselves to some mental Prayers and pass many hours in silence on a design to pray to God But at the upshot of all there does not proceed any fruits from all these Prayers for we see them as imperfect at the end of twenty Years of their Prayers as the first day that they began them Yea very often they break their Head and crack their Brains by the force of multiplied Conceptions one Petition only of the Lord's Prayer well understood is of more worth than all these I said to her That I did not well understand the Petitions of the Lord's Prayer entreating her that she would explain them to me She said to me Sir you ask a thing which a long time ago I judged necessary for all People For I think no body does yet well understand that Prayer But we will need a little time to rest to declare it to you in particular Let us sit down here and I will tell it you First when we say Our Father which art in Heaven Hallowed be thy Name We acknowledge That God is our Father that it is he who has Created and Formed us Who art in the Heavens That is higher than all things We use the word Heaven because we know nothing by our Humane Understanding which is higher than the Heavens and when we would say that God is above all things we say he is in the Heavens to make our Sentiments in a certain manner to be understood And when we say His Name be Hallowed this is to wish that all Creatures may adore and bless him which has never yet come to pass on Earth where Men themselves do Blaspheme his Holy Name on all occasions by Word and Deed. God could not have formed this Petition for us if he were not one day to grant it to us For he could not make us ask a thing which he would not give And whereas all his Works will be perfect it cannot suffice that some particular Souls do hallow his Name It must be in a perfect sense that all Men in general with all other Creatures do hallow him which will not be untill Jesus Christ Reign in his Glory upon Earth Then all things will hallow the Name of God but never before And when we say Thy Kingdom come This is no other thing but to Pray that we may arrive at that blessed Kingdom wherein Jesus Christ shall reign over all the Souls and Bodies of the Blessed and over all Creatures For we have never had this Happiness that God should Reign entirely even in our own Souls Having always given hindrances thereunto by our corrupt Nature yea even in the Souls of the Apostles and other Saints God has never compleatly reigned having always there met with some hindrances or rebellions of their own Will against his He can never reign perfectly in us until he have rooted out all our Evils and Miseries that we may Reign with him Which we have never as yet done tho' we have desired to be wholly unto God we have never reigned over all our Passions and Affections so as that we might reign fully with God But we hope that after the Judgment this Kingdom of God will come unto us This is the hope of our Prayers Thy Kingdom come And when we say Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven We beg also the same Kingdom For in our present state we cannot obtain that the Will of God be fulfilled in us and in others as it is fulfilled in God who is always without any contradiction No body can perceive his own Will to be so united unto the Will of God as that of the Blessed who are dead in the Lord On the contrary many do directly resist his Will and the most Perfect follow it at some distance and not as the Angels and the Blessed do in Heaven For where God is all his Will is accomplished and where he is not all is there contradicted Therefore in this Life we never do the compleat Will of God as we shall do it in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ where Earth and Heaven will be the same thing Then his Will shall be fulfilled in Earth as it is in Heaven which we must always pray for untill we have obtain'd it as also That He give us daily Bread That is what we stand in need of daily for the Soul and for the Body Now likewise we cannot obtain these two things during this Life For he who would have bodily aliment ought always to labour and take pains and be sollicitous both in Body and Mind to obtain his aliment and when we receive it it is but in form of a reward because of our Cares and Labours For otherwise we must dye for want if we did not labour both in Body and
manner that very often instead of calling her Blessed they offend her by those Idolatries which they give to her Image and Jesus Christ himself would not suffer that they should call her Blessed for having born him in her Womb and suckled him with her Breasts By which it appears that it is not in this Life that all Generations call her Blessed that it must needs be that She saw in her Spirit that Kingdom of her Son in Glory wherein her Joy shall be accomplished and her Spirit Shall rejoyce in God her Saviour It will be then that he shall Cast down the Mighty from their Seats and Exalt the Humble Which as yet has never been done For the Mighty have greatly Exalted themselves since the coming of Jesus Christ and the Humble have been as they are yet despised and rejected The Holy Virgin could not lie in her Song called the Magnificat but she spoke of the time to come which she saw as present in her Spirit Which made her rejoyce and utter all the things which must come to pass in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in which all Generations will call her Blessed and all Souls will Magnifie this Glory where the Humble will be Exalted and the Mighty Abased and Humbled I was quite Transported beside my self to hear things so Admirable which had never been heard of and I saw them so clearly in my Vnderstanding that I could not but say within my self It is so these are clear Truths I nevertheless said to her that many of these things are understood of the Empyreal Heaven which is the Divine Place where the Souls of the Blessed will live Eternally with God where the Body and the Soul shall have four Qualities Agility Splendor Impassibility Subtility which being like Spirits will have no longer need of any thing but the presence of God She said Sir these are Speculations of Men who not having the gift of Understanding would nevertheless conceive something of what they do not understand If these Bodies of the Blessed had need of nothing wherefore should God create so many beautiful Creatures to serve only for Man's Misery For Gold Silver Precious Stones and so many other things not very necessary for the maintenance of his Life would then have been created only for his Mischief since they did not serve but for this Life where the most part of Men do Destroy and Damn themselves for Mony Wherefore then would God have created so many fine Fruits and other things for the nourishment of Man only for so short a time of Penitence as this livfe Would it have been worth the pains to have made the Sun the Moon the Stars and all the Elements that they might remain for so small a time Would God amuse himself for a little profit No Sir this will not go as People imagin for all the Works of God are eternal and will never Perish as I have told you heretofore all things will continue in their kinds eternally to serve and rejoyce the Body of Man made Blessed after he shall have finished his short Penitence Gold and the other Metals will serve to build his Houses and the precious Stones to adorn them They will not be Buildings made by Men's hands with the sweat of their Faces but wrought by the power of God who has form'd the Body and will likewise form the abode of the same Body And when the Holy Spirit speaks of the heavenly Jerusalem that its Gates shall be of precious Stones and its Walls of Gold This is not only in a mystical and spiritual Sense but also in a material Sense as all things must be perfect and accomplish'd in their time Spiritually Corporeally and Materially For God cannot do any thing Imperfectly I ask'd her If they should eat and drink in the Kingdom of Heaven She said Yes Sir Do you not see in the Gospel a that Jesus Christ says a little before his Death That he will eat no more of the fruit of the Vine until he shall drink it with his Disciples in the Kingdom of his Father This is applied to the Mystical sense because they know no other thing But it will be also in a Material sense that they shall drink delicious Wine with Jesus Christ besides the Mystical Wine of the admiration of his Glory which will inebriate Souls They shall eat also at the Table of the Lord where Jesus Christ himself says That he will come forth and serve us And when he says Woe to you that are rich that are full for you shall be hungry He adds Blesled are they that hunger and thirst for they shall be satisfied Read Sir the Holy Scripture you will find there in many places that of necessity it must be understood that we shall drink and eat Bodily in the Kingdom of Heaven with all sort of felicity Bodily as well as Spiritual For our Bodies are the Temples of the Holy Ghost in which he will dwell eternally When the Children of Israel were brought out of Aegypt they eat and drank with Delight Their Cloaths and Shoes did not wax old and they increased with their Bodies even their Nails had no need of being cut So particularly did God provide for their Necessities This nevertheless was but the Figure of eternal Life If he provided for them Cloaths Meat and all things which were even delicious without their care or labour tho they still offended him how will he not provide the delights of the Bodies of the Blessed who will bless him always I ak'd her If there would be likewise human Propagation in this Kingdom of Heaven She said Yes Sir there will be Propagation eternally but altogether Holy altogether pure and Deify'd It will be produced more leisurely than in this World because God by his Mercy has here abridged our days to abridge our Penitence But that Kingdom being of eternal duration will give time and leisure to Propagate stayedly without Pain or Sorrow or concupiscible Appetite but by pure union of Charity in God which will extend it self to the production of new Creatures to the glory of their Creator which is very reasonable For since this World was created few Men have been brought forth who have glorified their God On the contrary in all Times and Ages the Devil has derived his Glory from Men for when there were yet but two Persons upon Earth they yielded to the Devil and followed his Suggestions in abandoning their God And when the World was fully replenish'd Men gave themselves to yet greater Evils For at the time of the Deluge eight Persons only of all that great Universe were found obedient to the Word of God And in time of the Children of Israel when they were brought out of Aegypt to go into the promised Land two Persons only did enter into it In the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah Lâ—t alone with his Family did fear God And when God would have
forgiven that People providing that Abraham had found but ten in it he would not have consum'd them And when Jesus Christ himself came upon Earth all was corrupted having made void the Law of God by the Traditions of Men as he reproach'd the Jews with it who were then his People And now Sir since we have had the Doctrin of the Gospel what a small number of Persons do you see who have remain'd constant in it And on the contrary how many wicked Christians are there besides the Turks Jews Heathens and so many other Sects who are Enemies of God Should it not be said that God had created the Earth and so many reasonable Creatures only for the glory of the Devil and his adherents if he did not renew the Earth and make it bring forth fruit for his glory This would be an evil thing which God can never do And that the Creation of Men may be good of necessity there must be a time in which they may glorifie their God And if there were no Generation in the Kingdom of God a very small number would bless him even tho you should sum up the Prophets the Apostles and other Saints this could not suffice to give glory to God for the least favour that he had bestowed upon Men. It must needs be that the Generation of the Blessed multiply eternally as the Generation of the Miserable does multiply temporally from the beginning of the World or otherwise God would not be just I said to her That some Writers had spoken of this reign of Jesus Christ upon Earth but that the Roman Church had condemn'd it as Heresie She said Sir No body can have spoke truly of this Kingdom of Jesus Christ because it is the hidden Treasure which has not yet been discovered nor revealed to any They may well have said something of it according to the Speculation of Men But they could never understand it for the time was notcome to discover it This is the Master-piece of all the Works of God and the accomplishment of all the Holy Scripture Whether the Roman Church approve it or disapprove it that makes nothing Truth continues always Truth Tho all the World should disapprove it it will never change That which is true cannot become a Lie by the approbation or reprobation of Men. There can be no Heresie in that which the Holy Spirit has spoken by the Mourh of the holy Prophets of Abraham David Solomon the Apostles and Jesus Christ himself who have all largely spoken of this Kingdom of Jesus Christ upon Earth as well by Prophecy as Parables and other ways tho the full understanding of it has been reserved for the last Times in which we live at present All the Revelation of St. John speaks of no other thing If they would have received any understanding of it this could not be but by application and not in a perfect Sense And they who said they understood nothing of it have been the most wise because till this time none has understood any thing of it In short Sir the Kingdom of Jesus Christ are the Treasures of God Which he has reserved unto Men of which S. Paul has said That Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard nor has entred into the Heart of Man what God hath laid up for his Servants It were also better to adore all these Mysteries than to dive into them out of Curiosity For the great and the wise of this World do understand nothing of them They will be revealed unto the little ones for such is the will of God For which Jesus Christ blesses his Father That he had hid these things from the great Men and the Wise to reveal them unto Babes I said to her That I was very desirous to know when this Kingdom shall come and how it shall begin She said Sir I do not know the day but that this indeed will be as soon as the wickedness of Men shall be so multiplied that in Justice they will draw upon them his universal Plagues which will purge away all Iniquity Then shall the Son of Man appear in his Glory and Majesty to render unto every one according to his Works In that day the remnant of all Nations shall appear before him for the most part shall be dead with distress and fears and then he will judge them And those who shall be found dead unto his Grace he will banish into eternal Fire But those who shall be found living in his Grace shall be confirm'd in it to live in Body and in Soul eternally with him of whom shall begin the eternal Generation as it began in Adam and Eve our first Parents Then all malediction shall be removod from the Earth and it shall be again blessed All malignity shall be removed from the Elements and every Creature especially the Reasonable ones who shall live without any Maladies or Infirmities either of the Body or of Spirit and Soul Too much heat or cold shall not any more incommode them no evils shall touch them They shall handle fire without being burnt and Serpents without being Stinged Our Passions shall be well regulated there being no longer Lusts there neither of the Eyes nor of the Flesh nor of the Spirit No more Sorrows Griefs or Groanings no more of Love that heats no more of Desire that makes thirsty no more Terror no more Fear no more Forgetfulness no more Sloth no more Pusilanimity no more Cares and Anxieties In short no more of any thing that can hurt shall be found upon the Earth But all things shall serve for the recreation of Men who shall love one another in a perfect unity in Christ Jesus being not only re-establish'd into the Estate of Innocence wherein Adam was before his Sin but with a thousand times more Perfections Man shall possess all things in the glorious presence of Jesus Christ who will wipe away all Tears from his Servants giving them Glories in time to come for their Sufferings by a streight Justice each what they shall have merited in this Valley of Tears for he is the Restorer of all things Ought not Sir all these things to be re-established How many Innocents are there here accused as Guilty How many of these Persecuted wrongfully How many Injustices done to the Just How many sufferings do the Good endure Does not all this cry to God for Vengeance â— Must he not render it and how could he render it in a Spiritual Paradise as they make us believe The Body has here suffered with the Soul Is it not just that it should rejoyce also with it The Body of Jesus Christ which has received so many affronts and sufferings should it not be seen glorious in this World as it has been seen suffering What reparation can be made of all material things in a spiritual Heaven I wish for this glorious Reign that all the World may soe
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
Roman Catholicks tho' this they hold for an Article of Faith that none can be saved out of her Communion This is very ill conceiv'd since God is universal and he 's to be found every where by those who seek and worship him For he 's not fix'd to any material Body All Souls who take their Delight in him are his Spouses call them by what Name or Religion you please For all these different Names or Opinions do not make a Christian but only the Practice of the Doctrine of Jesus Christ makes a Christian And all those who put in Practice the Doctrine of the Gospel are Christians and Disciples of Jesus Christ even tho' they were Turks or Heathens Of which Professions I believe several condemn and judge the nominal and professing Christians since God has no Respect of Persons and will judge all Men according to their Works This the Scripture confirms saying by your Works you shall be judged and by your Works you shall be condemn'd And Jesus Christ himself taught the Truth of God his Father to the Samaritan Woman and to many other Nations who were not Jews saying to his Apostles Go teach all Nations He that believes shall be saved He even ate and conversed with Sinners to see if any of them would receive the Truths of his Father and put them in Practice and tho' at first he rejected the Canaanitish Woman as a Dog yet he shew'd her Grace and Mercy by her Conversion and persevering Humility For the same Reason he says to Christians that Publicans and Sinners shall enter into the Kingdom of God and the Children of the Kingdom shall be cast out which still farther confirms this Truth That Religion does not save a Man but the Love of God that sanctisies him This made me get over all Humane Respects and declare the Truth of the things which were ask'd me by so many different Conferences all about the Roman Church For at that time I knew no other Religions and with Compassion I booked upon all those who died out of the Romanâ— Church as damn'd as our Divines taught So that being ask'd by a Romish Priest I answered plainly to all his Questions Vpon which many took Occasion to say that I had chang'd my Religion and was become an Enemy of the Roman Church which is not true since being born in it I will live and die therein without changing Name or Religion but only my Manners and Life And will endeavour to be regenerated in the Spirit of Jesus Christ and to follow and imitate him even to Death letting Ignorant Men say and judge of me as they please In the mean time I offer this LIGHT OF THE WORLD to all good Souls who seek the Truth and desire to become true Christians that they may truly discern Reality from Appearance For this prevails now through all the World among all sorts of Sects and Religions where every one cleaves to the Bark and does not touch the Wood fancying that Vertue consists in having a fine Religious Name of that of the Reformed the Evangelicks the Catholicks Yea that they are persons guided by the Holy Spirit of which the Quakers boast though all these sorts of Names are false and not at all suitable to the Life and Manners of those who call themselves so For if they who are called Reformed were truly so we would see the Reformation in their Life and Manners Whereas we find they all live according to Flesh and Blood which the Scripture says shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven They are neither reformed in their Moveables nor their Apparel nor in their Eating or Drinking They seek in all the finest and the best They labour and trade diligently that they may have wherewith to maintain themselves in Pomp Excess or Plenty as much as they can without bridling their fleshly Appetites or their Sensualities in any thing still coveting more that they may give it as much Satisfaction as they can that in this World they may have Ease Honours and Pleasure Thus they are called Reformed though in Effect they will not reform themselves in the least thing for the Kingdom of Heaven By which we see that they who call themselves Reformed bear a false Name that makes them Hypocrites and Deceivers of others and of themselves As those also are deceived who call themselves the Evangelicks For in all their Works and Practices there is nothing conformable to the Gospel but all directly opposite to it For they do not observe so much as one Point of the Evangelical Councils For instead of loving voluntary Poverty they love the Abundance and Riches of this World unsatiably and they who ought to be the Guides to those Evangelical Perfections are the farthest remov'd from them abandoning their Flocks and Churches to find others that afford them more temporal Profit They are far from imitating the Apostles who said freely I have received and freely I give thee since these modern Evangelicks give at the greatest Price and to him that bids most And therefore they do not justly bear the Name of Evangelicks since they neither teach nor Practise so much as one Council of the Gospel and have nothing but false Names and Parades that they may appear to be in the Sight of Men what they are not at all in the Sight of God No more than those are Catholicks who bear the Name since to call one a Catholick is to say he is a Person joyn'd in the Communion of Saints which these are not who call themselves Catholicks since we perceive not any Holiness in their Lives but much Vice and Injustice accompanied with Hypocrisie and seeming Vertue without any Reality or Sanctification They boast that they are Abraham's Children without doing the Works of Abraham or that they are Christians without observing the Commands of Christ They content themselves to be called Catholicks without conforming their Lives to those who liv'd holily upon the Earth whose Lives and Histories they read without endeavouring to become holy as they were whose Feast s they solemnize tho' they shall never be in their Communion nor truly Catholicks till in their Lives they follow their Vertues and walk in the streight Way that leads to Life So that this Name of Catholick will condemn them rather than justifie them whereas they presume to be preferr'd by God to all other Religions because they are of the most Holy and Perfect Religion according to the Name of Catholick which they bear This would really be if their Souls were united to Jesus Christ in the Communion of Saints which only and no other thing makes a Catholick By which we see that these Persons bear a false Name since they presume of their Salvation because of the Name Catholick and be-believe they are in the true Church out of which they say there is no Salvation This would be true if the Roman Church were the only Communion of Saints But because
Souls who are not sanctified are not truly Catholick neither will they be saved for their Religion since no Religion saves unless the Heart be truly Religious or truly Catholick In which also those who are called Quakers do greatly deceive themselves who through a foolish Imagination fancy that they are guided by the Holy Spirit as soon as they have begun to conform themselves to this Sect as if it had more Force to sanctifie Men than all the other Religions together even the most perfect none of which can save so much as one Soul For there is nothing that saves but the LOVE OF GOD and not a Religion Every one ought to hold the Religion that serves him as a Mean to attain to this LOVE without taking his Religion for the End of his Salvation if they would not be greatly deceived at Death thinking to plead their Religion which they imagine to be the best as the Quakers believe they have the Holy Spirit and so take the Name of Quakers tho they have him only by Imagination and false Persuasions and the Devil makes them believe they are better than all the rest of Men because they have quitted outwardly the gross Sins of Drunkenness Theft Lying and the like tho' in their Manners they be as vicious as others presuming that they have the Holy Spirit which they have not living in an Esteem of themselves and a Contempt of others calling themselves spiritual while they remain carnal despising all the Means of Piety and Devotion to adhere to their own Caprices and they imagine they are illuminated by the Holy Spirit when they are mov'd only by their own disorderly Passions which do often precipitate them into fruitless Sufferings and Persecutions with the Scandal of their Neighbour So that no body has Ground to believe that he shall be saved for being of the Quakers Opinion no more than the being of any other Sect or Religion since all these Names do nothing to the Salvation of Souls But to be sav'd of Necessity we must be renewed in the Life of God And the Scripture says Obedience is better than Sacrifice This shews that it 's better to be resigned entirely to the Will of God to be ruled thereby than to profess any Religion how good and holy soever we think it to be These material Bodies do not save the Soul but the Love that it bears to its God will save it and nothing else In which Men deceive themselves when they lay the Stress of their Salvation upon some means which they make use of to be saved How good soever these outward things be they give nothing to the Essence of the Soul which is wholly divine and spiritual and cannot attain to Salvation if it be not united to its God who created it for this End tho' the Blindness that Sin has brought upon Man's Spirit does not often persuade him that he shall be saved by other Means as by going oft to Church frequenting the Sacraments hearing many Preachings or spiritual Books or in being able to discourse of these things in giving to the Poor out of his Abundance in making long Prayers and so many other Actions which they call pious as if God to save us had need of these things Which is a great Delusion For it is only our Infirmity and Weakness that has need of these outward Things For it is written that the true Worshippers shall worship God in Spirit and in Truth and not in the Temple nor on the Mountain That is to say not in material Temples nor in Mountains of high Speculations but the Spirit and the Heart must be truly possest with the Love of God without which no body will be saved Not that I would reject or despise all these pious Means or good outward Works as these Reformed do blindly reject all sorts of good Works as evil since these good Works may serve as effectual Means to attain to this Love of God seeing the covetous Man mortifies his Avarice by giving his Goods to the Poor and he who cannot pray to God in his House for the Distraction of his Affairs does well to go to Church that he may be the more recollected Or he who feels more Compunction and Piety in his Soul in frequenting the Sacraments or has more inward and saving Light by going to Sermons or reading the Scripture or some other spiritual Book he is oblig'd to use all the Means which lead him to the Love of God without despising the least Mean that may help his Weakness in raising him to the Love of God since every one is oblig'd to seek the Means of his Perfections I blame only the Abuse that is made of these things in taking them for the End of Salvation whereas they are only Means to assist Humane Weakness which forgets easily Eternal and invisible things if she be not often put in Remembrance of them by outward things But I blame those who are so ignorant as to believe that they shall be saved for being of some Religion or for using the Sacraments and doing some good Work since these things do not sanctifie us being of themselves dead Works which cannot give Life to our divine Souls and the Devil himself might do all these outward things tho' he shall never be sav'd I believe indeed some captious Spirits will take Occasion to say that I am not truly Catholick in speaking against the Vse of the Sacraments and other Ceremonies of the Roman Church but I cannot preserve my self from the Calumny of partial Persons who love their Darkness rather than the Light that I offer them from God who has given me his Holy Spirit promis'd by Jesus Christ which teaches me all Truth since Jesus Christ himself could not avoid the being calumniated imprison'd persecuted and at last put to Death by means of the Jewish Priests who said they were in God's stead and sate in Moses's Chair as the Priests of all Religions say now While in the mean time they outragiously persecute the Truths which I learn immediately from God without Study without Meditation Discourse Reading or any other Means which would rather prove a Hindrance to me than an Illustration of the Light of the Holy Spirit who endites to me all things necessary for the Salvation of Souls and gives me also his Gift of Strength to bear joyfully those Persecutions and Outrages which these more than Pharisaical Priests exercise against me For they will not suffer that the Truth of God should come to light by any but themselves tho' they 've rendred themselves most unworthy of it because they will not apply themselves to the Imitation of Jesus Christ nor to the Sanctification of their Souls and if these be wanting they shall never understand the inward Voice of God 'T would be a great Vertue in them if at least they would suffer another to understand it But they can't attain to this Christian Vertue of rejoycing in the Good of another They
cry out against me as the Jews cry'd out against Jesus Christ Away with him away with him Crucifie him And I believe if the Priests had me in their Power they would gladly cut me off and would have done it long ' ere now But God sav'd me from their Power that I might yet farther declare his Truths to good Souls who seek and desire them which in Obedience to God I 'll do even at the Peril of my Life since Jesus Christ expos'd his to teach me the Way of Salvation And I entreat the Reader to peruse with Attention this Second Part of the Light of the World waiting till the Third follows He shall therein find the Wisdom of the Holy Spirit the Truth of God and the Light of Truth which must teach all Truth The Truth of the Impartiality of Christian Charity and of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and particularly the discerning of true Vertue from that which is but apparent and the Errours crept into Holy Things more clearly than they 've ever yet been discover'd in the World Receive it therefore as a Present of great Value from her Hand who loves only the Salvation of your Soul and continues Friendly Reader Your very Affectionate in Jesus Christ Anthoinette Bourignon THE SECOND PART OF THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD The First Conference How the Opinions of the Learned are injurious to God they being ignorant of his Works Of God's Presence and of his Grace Of the Liberty Power and Weakness of Man and of the State of Infants before the Vse of their Reason I Said to her That never any Body had known so much of the Works of God and that many Disputes and Questions had been raised in the Church to discover such Secrets She said Sir I have often trembled upon the hearing so many Blasphemies as they thunder out against God by such Disputes One makes God the Author of Evil another makes him the Complice another unjust and partial some attribute to him the Cause of Mens Damnation others the Want of their Salvation every one judges of the Works of God according to his Fancy Liking and Inclinations The Learned do greatly deceive themselves while they will needs comprehend by humane Sentiments his Divine Works If any simple Woman of a humble Heart would seriously consider the Works that God does in her Interiour she might give a better Definition of all his Secrets than all the Doctors of the World wou'd ever do with their Learning They amuse themselves in contending about Words or some Terms that they lay down upon which to found their Disputes and thereon they raise great Buildings without any solid Foundation and the more they will dive into the Matter the more they trouble it because God hides his Secrets from the great and the wise of the World and reveals them to Babes and to the simple for he says Except you be converted and become as little Children you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven making appear sufficiently that it will not be by Philosophical Reasons or Disputes that we shall discover the Truth of his Works but by a dove-like Simplicity I said to her That many believed that Man has his full Liberty to do evil but that he is not so free to do well She said These are all Errours for Man has even more Advantage and Inclination to do good than evil if he did not go out of himself by diverting himself to hear the Discourses of Mens Inventions for God having created him for Salvation did consequently imprint in him the Instinct of doing good and the Will also because good is always agreeable and lovely Evil then must needs be contracted from without us for God being the Centre of our Soul cannot but lead it unto Good and if it followed its self it s Bent and Inclination it could not do Evil because Evil is without us we being led to it either by the Devil or some other Creatures without us who stir our Passions and the Powers of our Soul to pervert them to the Will of doing evil otherwise 't is far more easie for us to do good than evil And as the Ray cannot be separated from the Sun so the Soul cannot be separated from God the Fountain of all Good because it has the same Relation to him that the Ray has to the Sun If our free Will did not put a stop to the Rayes of Grace they would enlighten our Soul continually and could not cease from illuminating and warming it But Sins and vicious Affections do stifle and oppose this Light which being hindred cannot any longer shine into our Souls and then during this Darkness they fall from one Precipice into another The Fault is not that this divine Sun ceases to shine for one Moment but that our Sins put a stop to it which if they were removed this Divine Sun would as suddenly shed forth his Rays We must not labour as we think we ought to obtain the Grace of God but we must only labour to remove the Hindrances which we give to it because Grace always offers it self being inseparably fix'd in God who is the ter of our Soul He cannot leave it But our Sins hindring him keep us from enjoying the Effects of this Grace I said to her That Man indeed received Benefits from God in his Creation and his Graces did abound in him But since he fell into Sin he has lost these Graces and is become unable to do good She said Sir you wrong the Goodness of God to speak or believe so For God has not withdrawn from Man tho' he fell into Sin He contains in himself all things and cannot retire from any thing He is as much the Center of our Souls since Sin as he was before and can never go out of any Place because he comprehends all in himself This being so he does not deny his Graces to any Body For they are where-ever he is and being in the Center of our Souls his Graces consequently are there with him but it is our Fault only that they do not there perform Operations It is true if our first Parents had not sinned we had been born in the state of Innoceence and in coming into the World had not brought with us a Hindrance to Grace which we have contracted by our first Parents but by accomplishing the Penitence that God enjoyn'd them for the said Sins we enter again into the same Grace of our first Parents since God treats with us as if we had never offended him their Sins not being able to change the Grace of God but to subject us indeed to Penitence till we arrive at the Use of Reason and then being transplanted out of the free Will of our Parents we enter into our own If from that Instant our Will desires to reunite it self to that of God we shall receive the Effects of his Grace but the Mischief is we
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
of God and to his admirable secrets She said Sir God will never damn any Body for being the source of all Good He cannot do any Evil and the Damnation of a Soul is the greatest Evil of the World The loss of all the Wealth and all the Bodies of Men together is nothing in comparison of the Loss of the Soul of the meanest Infant How durst you believe that God would do so great an Evil as to damn it I have already told you Sir that People do nothing but blaspheme against God on all Occasions and this for want of not considering sufficiently his Works which are comprehensible to our Senses If our Understanding did apply it self seriously to consider them they are all so clear so just and good that no body can with Reason form a Doubt about them God has created all Men unto Salvation and none to Damnation having given to every one Grace sufficient for his Salvation If some are damned it is their own Fault and always with their own free Will God has Power to save One and damn Another but he will never do it because his Almighty Power will never depart from his Righteousness and his Goodness We make God as it were the Complice of our Passions when we say he saves one Child and damns another whom he could not have created but to save them without doing an Evil and an unjust Thing which the Child might reproach him with who should find it self damn'd before it was capable of committing any Sin It might say with Reason Wherefore hast thou created me to damn me It had been better for me to have continued in the Nothing from whence thou hast taken me than to have damned me after my Creation Those who referr to the Almighty Power of God in the Damnation of an Infant do tacitely condemn him of Injustice for God should use his Almighty Power Unjustly which he cannot do There cannot be admirable Secrets in that which is not Nothing is to be admir'd there I said to her That at least God did permit a Child to be born of an Heathen Parent or of an evil Christian or to die before the receiving of Baptism She said God permits this as he permits all other things On God's Part the Heathen were born to Salvation as well as good Christians if they are become Evil or Heathenish it is their own Fault because he has created all Men in creating of Adam who was certainly chosen by God to Salvation with all his Posterity And having given to him as to all others a Liberty and Free-will he must needs permit every one to use it according to his Pleasure for otherwise he would not be just to hinder every one from enjoying this Gift of his Free-Will 'T is thus that all Evils are committed in the World Not that God permits Evil but he only permits Men to make use of their Free-Will This is a most good thing that God does not withdraw from Man that first Liberty which he gave him as the greatest Treasure which he could ever receive and if he abuse it 't is for himself For after that God has made all things beautiful and good he does not change them any more but le ts second Causes act If they be well applied he permits not a bad Use to be made of them but he cannot hinder it when Man does it of his Free-Will For Example God has given to Man the Industry to make Knives for the necessary Uses of his Entertainment This is a good and very convenient thing but if with the same Knife he comes to kill his Brother can it be said that God has permitted him no ways for if he had ask'd permission of God he would have forbidden him Even so is it as to the Children which are born of Heathen Parents or Evil Christians or other Enemies of God This is not his Permission but the Wickedness of those who are become Enemies of God through their pure Malice and if they beget Children God will not hinder them because he has ordain'd this natural Production which he will never change for it is very Good in it self as are all the Works which he has made Man does all Evil only by the Consent of his evil Will and not at all by the Permission or Consent of God who cannot but do all Good without ever permitting Evil except indirectly in permitting Man to use his Free-Will The Second Conference Of the State of little Infants which come from good or evil Parents And of Baptism I said to her That Infants who die without Baptism and are come of good Christians are damn'd without their own Consent or that of their Parents who dedicate them to God together with their own Souls and so they cannot have co-operated to the Damnation of their Children She said Sir here are many things to be considered because Parents are often guilty of the Death of their Children through Negligence or Intemperance and a thousand other Accidents which fall out as to this Matter I believe many will be found guilty of Murther before God who are not aware of it But as for Infants who die before Baptism without the Fault or Co-operation of their Parents these are certainly saved by the Will and Desire of the Free-Will of their Parents for God can damn none but those who die in sin either actual or original Now the Children who die before the Use of Reason cannot have committed actual Sins for they are not yet capable of them and if their Parents are true Christians they have certainly satisfied the Penitence due for the Sin of Adam If their Children partake of their Sins till they have attain'd the Use of Reason by the same Consequence they partake of their Merit and their good Works because they are still reputed the same thing being sympathetically but one Body and one Soul tho' in Effect they be two and that separated when the Child comes to the Use of Reason So that when a Father and Mother having begot their Children in the Grace of God do offer and consecrate them to him with all the Power of their Free-Will if they come to die e're they are baptized they go assuredly to enjoy God as did all the Children who died before Circumcision in the Old Law as in the New those of the first Christians who died e're they were baptized in which State a great many died because then it was not the Custom to baptize young Children as they do now I ask'd her If she believed that Infants begotten of truly Catholick-Parents who had offered them to God dying without Baptism could be saved and that they who died after Baptism having been begotten of wicked Parents who of their Free-Will had given them to the Devil were damned She said Yes Sir the first are saved by the Free-Will of their Parents and the second are damned by the Will of theirs because both of them the Good and
the Bad had the Free-Will of their Children joyn'd to their own and might save and damn the Soul of their Children as they might save and damn their own Soul because they were inseparably joyn'd and united together for Good and for Evil So that Baptism cannot save the Soul of a Child who is without the Grace of God thro' the Free-Will of his Parents and the want of this Baptism cannot hinder the Salvation of an Infant who is in the Grace of God thro' the Free-Will of his Parents tho' he should die without being baptized For if this outward Baptism be so necessary to Salvation the Primitive Christians and they who followed them would have baptized young Infants and likewise all those immediately who came in to be Christians On the contrary they kept many in the State of Catehcumens for a long Space of Time during which they might die as 't is to be believed many did Those who had the Will to follow Jesus Christ perfectly should they have been damned for not having receiv'd the outward Sign of Baptism No no Sir It does not go so before God as Men make us believe For a real Desire only to be a Christian is capable to save us even tho' we should die without Baptism because God searches the Heart and trys the Reins having more Regard to the Baptism of Desire than to that of Water which is given only to confirm the Will of the Heart of Man and if we should be surprized with Death e're we have made this outward Confirmation we should not for this cease to enjoy Eternal Life and to reign with God in his Glory I said to her That many Fathers had written of the Necessity of being baptized and that it was taught thro' all the Roman Church that Baptism gives Salvation to all those who receive it that it even cleanses from all actual Sins if we have been defiled with them before Baptism She said I know not what the Fathers say nor what is taught by all the Romanists but I declare to you what God makes me know and understand in the Inward of my Soul I do not think that all they who are baptiz'd shall be sav'd for Jesus Christ has said that they who believe and are baptiz'd shall be saved Now Infants newly born are not capable of believing and if their Parents be wicked they likwise have not Faith to believe in the Name of their Children how therefore can Baptism work Faith since Jesus Christ places it before Baptism Faith must be the chief Piece for working Salvation which being wanting Baptism can do nothing How would you therefore have wicked Children to be saved by Baptism For Example A Sorceress being with Child gives her Soul to the Devil and also that of the Child which she bears and as soon as it comes into the World it is carried to Baptism and thereafter dies By what do you think that this Child should be saved If it be not capable of having Faith and if its Parents have denied God should the Water of Baptism alone have more Force than the Free-Will of its Parents who would give it to the Devil with the Consent of their Will Can God resist their Will after having given them the Power of enjoying this Free-Will both in regard of their own Salvation and that of their Children We see that by an exact Justice Subjects bear the Punishment of the Sins of their Kings as David's People were chastized for the Adultery and Murther which their King had committed How should not Children bear it with much more Reason for the Sins of their Parents who have much more of Union and Dependance than the King with his Subjects who has nothing over them but a voluntary Submission which they yield to him I said to her That no Christians doubted but that a Man must be baptized to be saved and that none could enter into Paradise without having received Baptism To which She replied Sir if this were true it would be a great Unhappiness to many good Men who are dead long ago because many were not baptized aright thro' the Fault of the Priest who may be did not pronounce the Words of Baptism thro' Neglect or his Mind being carried otherwise or he had not the Intent to baptize or which is worse if the Priest who baptized was a Sorcerer as it falls out but too often and instead of baptizing Children in the Name of God he should give them to the Devil all these Persons ill baptized must according to your Saying be damned even tho' they should have lived holily in case this Baptism were so necessary to Salvation God would be cruel thus to damn Persons for the Fault of some wicked Priests who had no Relation neither to their Souls nor their Bodies Nevertheless it should be in his Power to save or damn all those whom he should baptize Truly Sir these Sentiments which they have of God are insupportable to me because they contradict his Justice and Truth They must be ignorant of him to believe that he would yield up the Salvation of his People to the Disposal of some wicked Man who adhering to the Devil might give him all the Souls of those whom he should baptize If he left us the Free-Will to save or damn our selves and that he himself would not reserve this Power over us but still leave our Free-Will to act without forcing us to Salvation nor yet hindring our Damnation when such is our Will how should he give to a Man the Power of being able to damn us by an evil Baptism There can be no Appearance of Truth in this and if it be difficult for you to believe that Parents have the Free-Will of their Children in their Power how is it not much more uneasie to you to believe that a Priest should have the Power to damn so many Persons thro' his Fault of not having the Intention to baptize them aright For Parents have contributed to the Formation of the Body and the Soul of their Children whereas this Priest has never known them And what Jesus Christ said to the young Man in the Gospel that to be saved he must keep the Commandments would not be true in case Baptism were so necessary seeing he who should keep them without being baptized could not be saved since Salvation depends on Baptism I was so convinc'd by such powerful Reasonings that I knew not what to reply Nevertheless I yet said to her that Faith was necessary to Salvation with Baptism but that it is supposed the Faith of the Parents supplies that of the Children and that the Godfather and Godmother are likewise taken to confirm it in Name of the Children She said Sir it is an ill-contriv'd thing to baptize Children before the Use of Reason For they cannot have Faith and their Parents or Godfathers and Godmothers are also sometimes void of it They content themselves
with doing the outward Ceremonies without considering what is done Baptism is an outward Sign to shew that he who is baptized gives up and consecrates himself to the Service of God and will live in the Doctrine of Jesus Christ renouncing the Devil the World and its Pomps This is what he ought to do in the inward of his Soul who desires to be baptized and then to come publickly to the Font of Baptism to confirm the Vows and Promises that he has made to God in his Heart that they may be publickly known and own'd by the Church But in the Baptism of new born Infants nothing of this can concurr For the Infant being weak has not yet the Will to give it self to the Service of God or to follow the Doctrine of Jesus Christ nor yet to renounce the Devil and the World and its Pomps For it has no Sense nor Understanding more than a silly Beast and the most Part of Parents who ought to supply the Defect of the Infant have not Faith themselves and cannot teach them to follow the Doctrine of Jesus Christ since they themselves will not do it On the contrary so soon as their Children begin to have any little Judgment they teach them to follow the World and its Pomps which is very far from minding them that they have renounced it by Baptism What Effect therefore can this outward Sign have when nothing is effectuated in the Heart of him who receives it neither by himself nor by his Parents And when Godfathers and Godmothers speak in the Name of the Infant they lye For they say that he desires to be baptized and the Infant cannot have this Desire They say that he renounces the Devil the World and its Pomps and as soon as these outward Ceremonies are ended they never think more on what they have promised in the Child's Name far less do they acquaint him with it when he is grown up to the end the Child may remember the Promise which he made at Baptism For in doing this they would give a Reproof to themselves because neither Father nor Mother nor Godfather nor Godmother nor any Body at present observes the Doctrine of Jesus Christ tho' all Christians are outwardly baptiz'd They would count him a Fool or a very Precisian who should affirm that we are oblig'd to keep and observe the Evangelical Life because it is not any longer in use They would even be ashamed to renounce the World and its Pomps because the most wise and the most holy follow the World and its Pomps The Wise say that one must live civilly and maintain himself in Honour and the Saints at present say that a Man must accommodate himself to the World that we cannot make a World by our selves We see the most Reformed Monks study to please the World desiring to be lov'd and honour'd by it and would be very sorry to be hated by the World as Jesus Christ foretold his Servants should be On the contrary every one seeks to draw the World to himself and to have its Friendship to the end that having gain'd the Heart he may likewise gain the Purse Are not these fine Christians in Parade and not in Effect For they have no sooner renounc'd in Baptism the World and its Pomps than they think of nothing but to follow and to love it as if their Promise were nothing but a Formality of Words They do with God as they would do with a Fool promising him a great many things to please him without having any Desire to give him them Baptism ought not to be received but by him who resolves in himself to consecrate himself to God and to follow the Doctrine of Jesus Christ which he ought to know before he be baptized and resolve of his own Free-Will that he will follow it quitting the Maxims of Men which are all contrary to those of Jesus Christ The Christians of old did so No body was made Christian but they who of their deliberate Will would consecrate themselves to God and follow the Doctrine of Jesus Christ but at present they force every one to be baptized before they have the Use of Reason without knowing what they do or what they promise I said to her That the Custom of baptizing Children in their Infancy was Instituted on good Grounds to the end no Christians might die before they were baptized that all those who died in their Childhood might assuredly be saved She said Sir I believe rather that the Devil invented this to the end no Christian might be saved as it falls out that very few shall be saved of those who are baptized in their Infancy because when they are outwardly baptized they believe they are sufficiently assured of their Salvation which is the greatest Mistake in the World For Baptism operates nothing in our Souls no more than the other Sacraments but according to their Disposition How can a Child without Judgment have the Dispositions requisite for receiving Baptism If their Baptism were delayed till they had their full Reason we would certainly yet find true Christians for they who had no Mind to follow Jesus Christ would not be baptized unless it were out of Hypocrisie But at present every body thinks himself a good Christian if so be he have been outwardly baptized without considering that this Sign gives nothing to our Souls if we have not suitable Dispositions If they were not baptized in their Infancy all those who desire to be saved would study to know what is necessary for becoming true Christians and would have no Rest till they had obtained this Happiness but at present every one rests satisfied with this outward Baptism not considering that to be Christians they must follow the Instructions of Jesus Christ without which it had been better they had never been baptized It is just the same as if a Servant should go hire out himself to serve some Prince or Lord and as soon as he had got on his Livery should quit his Master to give himself to Robbery setting himself to steal and rob in the same Habit which would serve him the better to catch his Prey For the Merchant who should see him clothed with some Prince's or Lord's Livery would not be aware that he were a Robber till he saw the Effects of it But if this Robber were some Day seiz'd by Justice he would be more severely punish'd for having committed his Thefts and Robberies in some Prince's Livery than if it had been in his own Habit. Even so it is when a Person is baptized and immediately abandons himself to the Vanities of the World he deceives God and the World and renders himself subject to greater Chastisements than if he were not baptized because this outward Sign which should serve him to obtain Grace serves for his greater Condemnation as the Liverty serves the Robber We see the Devil has found out this Invention to baptize young Children knowing well that
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
and that by submitting their Wills to Superiours they might learn to submit them to God She said Sir this School of Perfection is not good for there they cannot learn true Vertue if it be not there He who truly desires to resign himself to God would do very ill to enter into Monasteries now For the Spirit of God is departed from them The first Founders informed themselves whether those who wou'd enter into a Religious Life were endued with or aimed at the Love of God and Charity for their Neighbour And these Institutors at present ask how much Money they have to bring with them into the Monastery And if they have Friends to give them Money after they are come there This is a general Custom They must have one of these Qualifications else there is no Entry into the Cloysters They must also have a good Body a good Voice and good Health unless Money supply all the rest and for it they wou'd receive the Devil himself if he came there with abundance of Money How can Vertue be found there since nothing but Money and Gain is there sought for So that a vertuous Soul who should enter there would be constrained to yield to the Prevalence of Vice or else to go out again For if such a one thinks to learn Submission to God by Submission to some Superiour he will be very far from it Because their Will is still contrary to that of God who does all things that are just good and true whereas these take Wealth unjustly against the Intention of their first Founders who desired to live in Poverty They act also against the Goodness of God when they will receive none but the Rich or those by whom they may reap Advantage whereas Jesus Christ receives every one without Respect of Persons They act also against the Goodness of God when they teach their Novices holy Gestures and Countenances while the Heart is far from it and they do not teach them any true Piety but that only which has the Appearance of it and is not true So that the Novice cannot learn to subject himself to God by his Submission to Men who in all things are contrary to him Therefore I am sorry that a truly sincere Person should enter into a Monastery For there he will find himself deceived and will lose the Vertue that he had before he came thither For there God is not to be found any longer I ask'd her yet one more Question upon this Head that is Whether one who in Simplicity believes that the Monasteries are yet governed by God and goes thither with a Design to lead a better Life than in the World and being there Endeavours to live well as to his own particular without following the evil Maxims which he sees are practised by others would do Ill to go there or to stay among them having taken the Vows She said Sir this is a great Question but I will answer it since I have promised to answer to what you ask One who in Simplicity believes that God does yet govern the Cloysters would not sin by entring into them But if he discover the Reality of the Evil he is obliged to depart from them even tho' he were profest provided it be in his Power For before God his Vow is null because he is disappointed of the Conditions for which he made it which were to learn Perfection and to be ruled according to God's Spirit These supposed Conditions being wanting he by Consequence may in Conscience and before God break his Vow but not before Men who by the greater Force will maintain their Authority So that one who has taken his Vows going from them tho' for a good end and his greater Perfection shall by them be held for and treated as an Apostate In this Case he must conform himself to the Sufferings of Jesus Christ and endure Persecution for Righteousness It were better therefore not to enter into them fearing lest he have not Strength enough to endure Persecutions But if he have been there for a long time and cannot find the way to get out from them he must resolve upon a long Martyrdom For they will not only hinder him to live well as to his own particular but they will oblige him by Force to follow the evil Maxims of others For the Devil is of this Temper that he will never suffer Good where he can hinder it and these Persons being guided by the same Devil will not suffer another to do good where they can hinder it Hereby we see evidently that their Malice is not humane but devilish For humane Malice extends it self only to Evil by its own Malice and Infirmity or ceases to do good thro' Sloth or the Corruption of its own Will which is never enclin'd to do Good Nevertheless it esteems and honours the good Deeds of others tho' it be not enclin'd to follow or imitate them This is the utmost that humane Malice extends to but it never goes so far as to hinder another stom doing good How great soever this Sinner be yet he willingly recommends himself to the Prayers of the Good But devilish Malice hinders all the Good it can as these Monks do at present I said to her I was much troubled to understand that there were such Mischiefs in the Cloysters because some of my Friends were there whom I esteemed to be good Men and desirous to please God She said Sir If they are such they must be persecuted there else I will not believe that they can be truly the Servants of Jesus Christ and yet remain in the Cloysters without Persecution A truly good Man can no more abide in the Cloysters than Water can abide in the Fire There are many indeed who seem to be good Men and have a good natural Temper to be at every body's Service as Hackney-Horses are These are not good Men tho' they seem to be such because like a Reed they bow with every Wind. The Devil and wicked Men make use of such Persons to cover their great Wickedness because by some such Simpletons the World will judge that all are good and simple But if your Friends be Men of Understanding and of solid Vertue they will easily perceive that all is corrupted in the Monasteries and if they love the Righteousness of God they cannot be silent but will speak against Iniquity in doing of which they shall be oppress'd with Persecution If you speak to them in particular Sir and if they trust you with a true Relation of what passes among them they will tell you yet more than I do For I know not the Particulars of what passes in these Cloysters but only in general that they are abominable before God of which their Behaviour in general is Evidence enough to those of good Understanding who will observe it that they may conceive it aright The greatest Evil is that they cannot discover these Truths in any body because they are so powerful and
body tho' they shou'd say I am Christ For Christ is not here and there but only in the Doctrine that he left us by his Word He who believes any other thing is deceived I said to her That if this were true many Souls would be deceived because all they who profess to serve God do follow the Counsel and Direction of some Man and if he be of those who belong to the Devil they may deliver many Souls to Satan She said Sir this is lamentable in our Days wherein they have introduc'd these Directions of Men by which so many are led to Damnation even tho they were not directed by some Sorcerer they are at least turned away from God to adhere to Men. This is a great Hindrance to Vertue and the Salvation of Souls For as long as we adhere to the Creatures we shall never find God The one must go out before the other enter and these Guides instead of leading Souls to God do withdraw them from him even tho' they were good Men because God is jealous and will not suffer a Rival nor our Hearts to be separated or divided If so many Souls be engag'd to the Devil by these Directions it is because they chose rather to be lov'd by Men than God This gives the Devil Power to gain them by the Means of these Directors who are much more lov'd and follow'd than God is For he is often forgotten that they may remember these Men. Wives esteem them more than their Husbands Daughters more than Father and Mother and Men take more of their Counsel than that of Jesus Christ Thus every one furnishes Matter for the Devil to be deceiv'd by him It is by this Door he enters to make himself universal Emperour of the whole World He had gain'd many before the Coming of Jesus Christ but since he slipt into the Church by these Directions he possesses all the Wicked with their own Will and the Good indirectly by the Conduct of his Adherents whom he has introduc'd into the Church For Jesus Christ did never establish such Directions in his Church nor yet his Apostles nor their Disciples If this had been an Institution of the Holy Spirit it wouâ—d have been observ'd by the Primitive Christians who had more Zeal to gain Souls to God than these new Directors have For they rather draw them to themselves than lead them to God This often makes the Guides and those who are led by them to perish and go both together to the Devil I ask'd her By what Means I might avoid the Seduction of these false Prophets since they had the chief Ranks in the Church how I might discover them from the true ones If the one be Priests and Religious Persons as well as the other She said It will be very hard for to discern them unless you read diligently the ancient Prophets There you will find how the true and how the false Prophets have spoken For both the one and the other are this Day guided by the same Spirits The holy Prophets were and still will be led by the Holy Spirit and the false ones were and still will be led and directed by the Devil as well at present as under the old Law There is only this difference of times that then there were many holy Prophets and now there are few or none because the Number of the False is so encreast that they have almost swallowed up the Good And as God is not visible by the Eyes of the Body neither is the Devil visible after that Manner both being invisible Spirits who nevertheless render themselves visible by their Operations For he who is guided by God will still speak o the Truth without regarding whether it please or displease Men On the contrary he who is led by the Devil will still speak as Men are willing to hear Remark well Sir in the holy Scripture you will find that all the false Prophets did then always tell good News and promised to every one Peace Prosperity and Assurance whereby they deceived all the World This is even practised at present For if you take notice of all these Priests and Religious Persons you shall hear them always promising Peace and Safety to every one and that even in temporal Affairs whether as to the State or as to particular Persons You hear them always telling good News and promising that all shall go well So that if you remark the Discourses of these false Prophets of the old Law and the Preachers and Confessors at present you shall hear them all speak almost the same Language For the most Pious now-a-days study to please Men and to tell them things agreeable to their Senses and hereby they destroy all the World For if they were in the Spirit of God they wou'd tell the Truth and wou'd preach to all the World that the Abomination is in the Sanctuary and that it is high time to turn to God That the Ax is laid to the Root to hew down the Tree and to break down that great Statue of the Church which Sin has rendered abominable in the sight of God and also that the Life of Christians is very far from true Christianity and that the best of them live in a Presumption of their Salvation and in other Sins against the Holy Ghost Which is most true But instead of doing this they praise and exalt the Church as if she were holy and they persuade People that they are Christians when they are baptized and tho' they do not at all live according to the Rules of true Christianity that yet nevertheless they shall be saved In which they deceive and seduce them For there are no true Christians but they who observe the Doctrine of Jesus Christ and no body can be saved but he who keeps the Commandments of God the first of which is to love God with all our Heart and our Neighbour as our selves which no body does Nevertheless all these false Prophets tell the People that they shall assuredly be saved and that all shall go well with them Is not this a sure Mark to discern false Prophets from the true because the False flatter us always for our Ruin and the True reprove us for our Salvation He that wou'd deliver himself from being deceived must diligently examine whether these Church-men speak to us according as they are willing to hear or if they truly reprove what is blame-worthy of which sort we shall find so very few that almost none will speak the Truth when it is displeasing to People especially to those who are in Places and Dignities For this cause our Times are justly called perilous Times since the Evil is so masqu'd with Vertue For if the Evil were manifest there wou'd be no danger because all good Men wou'd avoid it and so wou'd put themselves out of Hazard of being deceived whereas when it is covered over with Piety and Vertue
the Holy Spirit speaks so succinctly that one Word makes me comprehend many things He gives Subtilty to the Understanding to conceive great Things by one of his small Motions It is just as if one were in a fine Room well adorned with divers Furnitures and Rarities But there were no Light in it whereby to see all these things In such a Case it wou'd require a great many Words to make him who had never seen them understand in particular all the fine things and Furniture that were in the Room telling him here are such and such Pictures such Tables such Seats and such like Things and yet we could not make him comprehend well the Beauty of this Furniture and Rarities But if a Light were brought into the Room tho it were but that of a Candle in a Moment it would give more Knowledge of all the Things that are in the Room than all the Discourses that were uttered to make them known So it is with the Light of the Holy Spirit when it enters into a Soul it makes it know and comprehend all things very clearly Nevertheless these things cannot be seen by Souls who are yet in the Darkness and Obscurity of their own Passions Many Words and Discourses must be used to make them understand the Rarities that are in the Works of God It is thus Sir that I tell you all my Words do not come immediately from the Holy Spirit But indeed all the Substance of what I say Because I never had any other Master nor any other Study but that of purging my Soul from Earthly Affections By this I received the Light of all the things of which I have spoken to you with many more which nevertheless I could not make you understand but by Words and Discourses accommodated to your Capacity which are not all precisely endited by the Holy Spirit Word for Word except that in general they are produced by the Gift of Wisdom which the Holy Spirit always brings along with him into the Soul where he resides giving it the Skill to express it self and to make Divine Things be understood by those who are in Darkness Therefore Sir you are not deceived in believing that my Words come from the Holy Spirit For it is true if you take them in Substance But if you would maintain a precise enditing of Words the Enemies of the Truth might surprize you in some Terms not well express'd or some Word of a contrary Signification or other Faults of my Language which come from my Weakness or Ignorance For the Holy Spirit can commit no Faults He always gives his Light perfect and compleat to the Soul that is purified from it self But he does not always give precise Words and Terms to make it be understood by others because it does not remain always precisely hearkning to the Enditing of the Holy Spirit being often distracted by Earthly Objects which divert it sometimes without its being aware and in this Diversion it may commit many Faults even tho' it had received the Holy Spirit For this Cause our Life is always dangerous and we ought still to watch that we be not surprized by our Enemies I asked her How she could see by the Light of the Holy Spirit things which consist in Matter of Fact as the Deportment of the Jews and Christians and others She said Sir this is manifested to my Understanding even as Divine Things are without any Distinction except that the Soul receives more Contentment in conceiving and understanding the Things of God than those which respect Men tho' all come from the same Source nevertheless they have different Effects For when God shews to the Soul his straight Righteousness his universal Goodness his pure Truth it is filled with Wisdom and solid Vertue by those which it remarks in God and when he makes it see his Glory Majesty and his Almighty Power the Soul is filled with Joy Honour and Strength in Consideration of the Qualities of its God But he no sooner makes appear to it the deplorable State to which Men are reduced now than the Soul is afflicted and thirsts with a Desire to see them converted unto God who also shews unto it all the necessary Means for this Conversion And as a Physician cannot rightly cure a sick Person or Patient without seeing first the Cause of the Disease or laying open the Sores of his Evil even so does God towards a charitable Soul that is touched with a sensible Regret to see its Neighbour perish and with a Desire to succour him with all its Power Then God makes it see the Sores that is the Faults and Sins of his People more distinctly than if it conversed daily with them even though it has never seen them by the Eyes of the Body Nevertheless it knows them better than they who converse daily with them Because the Light of God pierces to the Bottom of Souls and the Sight of Men perceives only outward things Therefore many are often deceived and take what is false for true But God judges always with an upright Judgment And when the Soul has Bowels of Charity to help its Neighbour God shews it the State in which he lives and also the Means by which he may rise again from his Fall This is the Reason why God makes Matters of Fact which respect our Neigbour to be as well perceived as divine Things and that by the Light of the Holy Spirit which is so much the brighter the farther it is removed from Humane Light and Natural Knowledge For this Cause Sir I retire so much from Men and will learn nothing from them because their Wisdom hinders and obscures the Light of the Holy Spirit and according as I am removed from them accordingly I approach to true Knowledge For sometimes I wou'd tell you better what passes among the Turks or other remote Places than what is done in my Presence For my Eyes may deceive me But the Holy Spirit cannot deceive me I asked her How this Light had its Original If the Holy Spirit did immediately declare things to the Soul or if the Soul did propose them first She said Sir this is done differently For sometimes the Holy Spirit gives Notices of the Things which the Soul never saw nor thought of At other times he makes it understand something which it saw or understood imperfectly But for the most Part the Light is demanded by the Soul when it prays for it or for somewhat else Then if it be well recollected it receives the Understanding of what it asked either God grants it or makes it see wherefore he denies it or else what it ought to do or forsake to co-operate with the Designs of God and to obtain its Request Behold how the Lights of the Holy Spirit have their Rise All that is needful in this is to disengage our Soul from Earthly Affections and to resign it to the Will of God Then he governs and illuminates it in such sort
his VVorks It must needs be that all things be very shortly overturned for no body knows God any more nor his VVorks I acknowledged my Fault in having so often spoke evil of the VVorks of God saying to her that it was only thro Ignorance and not thro' Malice She said Sir Ignorance excuses not Sin You are always obliged to know that God is a perfect Good from whom no Evil can ever proceed and that all his Works are accompanied with Truth and all sorts of Perfections And that he can never do any imperfect thing and therefore you ought not to wish that any thing were otherwise than he has appointed it for all the Wise Men who are were or shall be upon the Earth cannot have all together the least Wisdom of God and all that they have they have from him Is not this general Rule sufficient to make your Spirit submit to these Ordinances especially as to this Free-will of Men which he has ' given them as a Pledge of assurance that they are his real Children in acknowledgment of which they ought to bless and praise him day and night because he could never testifie more Love to them than by this liberty he has given them to love him For my part I can say in truth that I would chuse rather that God should annihilate me than take from me the Liberty to love him Therefore I resent it so much when I hear it said That it would be better not to have Free-will for I feel by Experience that it is the only thing that unites Men to God and that also which can make them enjoy Eternal Happiness no body can comprehend but he who experiences it what Consolation the Soul receives when it can unite this Free-Will to God This is so perfect an Alliance that nothing can be found in Grace more accomplish'd no more than there can be any thing found in Nature more perfect than that two Persons united in their Wills in God join also in Body this compleats their Contentment but if there were force limitation or constraint on either side the Pleasure could not be compleat This is the Figure of the perfectly free Union that the Soul ought to have with God and if the Soul were constrain'd or forc'd to this union God could not take perfect delight in it because to have a compleat Contentment in the Union of two things they must needs equally concur to it I said to her That I must confess I had been in great Darkness and that I had never conceiv'd that so great a Good did proceed from Free-will no more than the happiness which is found in Marriage when two Persons are united in Body and in Mind She said This is because People consider things only superficially and on the outside without piercing into their Sources for it is the Free-will of Man only that gives him a perfect Union with God without which he could never come to love him perfectly therefore among all the Spiritual Graces that God has imparted to him this Free-Will is the greatest good as also Marriage among natural Goods is the most perfect though Men do very frequently abuse both making use of their Free-Will to damn themselves and of Marriage to sin This is not God's Fault who has ordained both the one and the other holy and perfect but only Man's who abuses the most perfect Gifts of God as well in Grace as in Nature Ought we for this to desire that he had not bestowed these Graces on Man This would be to own that Man's Wickedness should make the Goodness of God to cease which cannot be for God will never cease to be good because Man is evil He remains still the Fountain of all Goodness and the giver of all Good though the men of the World be wicked God will never change for the Goodness or Wickedness of Men nor for any other thing because he continues always that which he is Let Man do what he will with all the other Creatures they shall never be able to make God desist from the least Righteousness Goodness and Truth which he possesseth in himself and will always exercise without regard to the goodness or wickedness of Men. Their abuse of his Graces will never hinder him from extending his Goodness towards them If they use them well they shall receive the promised reward and if they they use them ill they shall meet with the just Punishment without any mutability in God It pleased God to Create Man after his Likeness and so he was made for God's Power is equal to his Will and he would have this Man also joined to his Like as God was to him that is to say entirely spiritually and bodily Now Man could not be like to God by his humanity for God was not corporeal or natural neither could he be like to God by a bounded and limited Will and Spirit because God has a free Power to do or not to do any thing God then must needs have given to Man the same free Power of his Will or otherwise he could not be like to him in any thing And since he would create Man after his own Likeness he was obliged to give him the free disposal of his own will there being nothing else in which he could resemble God By which we see that Free-Will is the greatest spiritual Gift that Man has receiv'd from God since without it he could not any way resemble Him And afterwards to render this resemblance most compleat God took a natural Body and a reasonable Soul like to Man that he might in all respects resemble him that is divinely by the free Power of his VVill and after the manner of Man by the Body and Soul which Jesus Christ assumed in due time that not only Man might be like God but that also God might be like to Man that there might be a perfect and compleat Contentment between God and Man which will appear after the end of all Evil when God shall reign with Men on Earth Divinity and Humanity together joining themselves inseparably by an indissolvable and eternal alliance of Will Body and Spirit by a perfect Bond and Union This is the final Cause for which God became Man that they might dwell together in an Eternal holy Union the figure of which he shew'd in the Earthly Paradise when he created the Woman to give Adam his compleat and perfect contentment for though indeed he had been created with his Free-will to be able to love God and take delight in him and also in all the Creatures which were made subject to him yet his Contentment was not fully perfect for God was to be the delight of his Soul and all the other Creatures of his Senses But his Body did not see its like therefore God says It is not good for Man to be alone let us make a help like to him Because God will make all his
Works perfect in all respects He is not satisfied to have created Adam in the enjoyment of his Free-will by which he might have his VVill united to God's he gives him also all beautiful things to recreate his Sight and all â—avoury things to recreate his taste all pleasant things for his hearing all things necessary for his Entertainment and he will needs also give him a Companion suitable to his Person that both as to Body and Soul he might have perfect Contentment compleat in all respects therefore he instituted Marriage that the Souls which are united together by will in God might be also united in Body and that Man by this Figure might see how compleat and perfect the Union must be that he must have with God in all respects and without any defect The Third Conference Speaks of the Perfection and of the abuse of Marriage I said to her that Marriage was very holily instituted but that it was very ill observ'd because no body observes narrowly the works of God She said Sir this is the cause why the VVorld is condemned for God is no longer known nor lov'd in it and no body is sensible of this Fault They use their Free-will to satisfy themselves every one willing and desiring that which is pleasant to his Senses or advantageous for his Interest in this VVorld They will all that which God does not will and notwithstanding they hope to be saved and make a contrary use of all that God has given us Marriage is a Holy thing and may well be called a Sacrament for God has instituted it and all that he has done is Sacred and Holy But what do we see in rhe use of this Sacrament but the Sin of Lust and filthiness people carrying more disorderly in it than the Brute Beasts They joyn Bodies when their Desires and Wills are far divided The ends for which God instituted it are no longer regarded by married Persons It is their only desire to satisfie their Lust or Avarice For the rest they only mind it but by accident And as there is nothing more holy and perfect than the Bond of Marriage for two Persons who have dedicated their Wills to God because it unites three things which make now but one to wit the will of God and the wills of the Married Persons who by excess of their united VVills unite also Bodies in the Spirit and Design of God so on the contrary there can be nothing more wicked than two Bodies united by Carnal Concupiscence for this Alliance is the source of all sorts of Sins yea the Abyss of all Evils And as those who are united to God have by being married with a Person equally united to God a perfect Contentment both of Soul and Body so those who live after their own will have by marrying with their Like still some discontent both of Body and Soul because their Souls not being in God they cannot have Peace and their Bodies being joyn'd without Love cannot be satisfied nor contented but they are in Body and Soul as in a temporal Hell which prepares the way to Hell Eternal for these Bodies united without Souls and VVills can produce nothing but Sin through the Lust of the Flesh besides Contention and Strife with a thousand other kinds of Excess Vain-glory Luxury gluttony to which Married Persons excite one another So that their whole Life is nothing but a constant course of sinning which extends also to their children thro' the bad example of the Parents who train them up in evil customs and they increase the number of the wicked Hereby the world grew still worse and its wickedness is still increased and the perverse generation is become so numerous that the Evil is without Remedy for no body is aware of it because every one treads the same path Custom is changed into Nature And whereas they ought to marry for the Two Ends that God gave them that is to preserve a perfect Unity among his true Children and to increase the number of them by generation they usually marry to satisfie their Concupiscence and so they beget Children for the profit of the Devil Thus the works of God are perverted by evil practices for of all that God has done in Nature there is nothing more holy than the Matrimonial Conjunction which by a perfect Union binds persons in Love for otherwise God might have made men engender as the Fishes or in any other separate manner which his Almighty Power and Wisdom could have provided for But resolving to have in Nature a figure of the Union of his Three Powers and of the entire and perfect Alliance which he would make with man he ordain'd that their generation should be by the conjunction of two persons that he might keep them always inseparably united to his will in body and will by a Bond of Charity and gave them a natural bent and inclination to this conjunction which is the most perfect thing in the world if it were observed in the spirit of charity I said to her That it must be acknowledg'd no body understood the works of God and that they made an ill use of all especially of this Matrimonial Conjunction from whence so many sins did proceed and instead of regarding it as an holy thing it was matter of shame and blushing amongst the most sober persons She said Sir 'T is sin that renders it shameful even as that of Adam made him see his Nakedness and gave him ground thro' confusion to hide and cover himself If he had remain'd in innocency he would never have been ashamed of being Naked but it was his sin only that caused this shame He had no need of covering himself before he sinn'd for his body was more beautiful and more artificially contriv'd than ever the most costly Stuffs with which he could cover himself but the imagination being disorder'd by sin made him see beautiful things as if they had been filthy This has remain'd even till now in the imagination of all men who esteem that to be good and beautiful which they imagine to be so and reckon that also to be filthy and evil which seems so to their imagination Hence it comes that they look on natural things as shameful but if they regarded them in Truth and Innocence all would seem good and beautiful to them for God could never make any thing evil but man perverts all good into evil and by his sin corrupts all things the most innocent become the most wicked by sin It must be acknowledged Sir that the way in which men now joyn for generation is very filthy and makes chast souls blush because they observe nothing there but the sin which is in it which is infamous For this cause they are asham'd of it But if this sin were remov'd they would see nothing in it but what is pleasant as if two little children should play together quite naked there would be nothing but pleasure in this because of
come to reign on the Earth with Men to render Justice to every one and to root out all Evil and recompence the sufferings of the Righteous without this perswasion you can never support the Evils which hang over our Head for without knowing these Truths it will be impossible not to fall into despair or murmuring against God if we know not his Righteousness Goodness and Truth with which he does all things Thus we cannot besaved without Faith which discovers the Truth All these things are true of Judgment of Antichrist and of the coming of Jesus Christ in Glory but if you will not believe them you resist the known Truth which is a Sin against the Holy-Ghost that shall never be forgiven The Sixth Conference Discovers the Signs that the World is Judged and that ANTICHRIST Reigns now I said to her I would be very careful not to commit any Sin against the Holy Ghost though I knâ—w not yet the Truth in every thing entreating she would afford the means to discover the Truth of all the things she told me to wit the Judgment the Reign of Antichrist and the coming of Jesus Christ in Glory She said You would infallibly believe them if you would seriously remark what you may see with your Eyes and conceive with your Humane Understanding for these things are so far advanced that one may feel them provided his Mind be not infatuated For first as to the Judgment as I have already told you it is easy to see that the world is Judged because sins are universal and no body will Repent There is every where the Lust of the Eyes the Lust of the Flesh and the Pride of Life of which no body Repents and Amends and there can be no forgiveness where there is no amendment and therefore of necessity the World is Judged because these evils are not among some particular persons as they have been in all times but they are generally among all men both small and great If you observe them narrowly you will find Sir that these three sins reign infallibly in the Hearts of all men of whatsoever condition those in whom you cannot discover them are very often the greatest Hypocrites who know better to dissemble and cover their sins And for the second The believing that we are now in the Reign of Antichrist you need only Remark narrowly by what Spirit Men are led because they who are led by God follow his Righteousness his Goodness and his Truth On the contrary they who are led by the Devil oppose themselves to this and if you Reflect upon the Actions of Men now you will find nothing in them but Injustice Malice and Lying which are three qualities of the Devil opposed to the Righteousness Goodness and Truth of God This is so common at present that there is nothing to be seen but Injustice Malice and affected Lies I said to her in my opinion there were some men who seemed to follow Righteousness and Truth tho it must be acknowledged the greatest part live in Injustice and Deceit She said Sir Judg righteously and examin everything to the bottom You grant already that the greatest part of men now live in Injustice and lies All the World finds this by experience And when the greatest part is for the Devil we may well fear that he will shortly have the whole for as rotten Apples spoil the sound ones so Men corrupted by the Devil are still corrupting and drawing in those who are yet sound If all men in general or almostall were on the Devils side the Reign of Antichrist would be at an end for he could gain no more he would be pleased to have all his Adherents with him to Hell for the reason why he keeps them in Life here and raises them to places and preferments is that they may serve him in corrupting others and in doing all the mischief to the good that may be Now there would be no need of this if all in general were dedicated to his service he could go no farther and God would not continue the World in being to wait for men's Conversion for those who are Dedicated to the Devil will not be converted as some other sinners would be who have not yet renounc'd God nor given their Souls to the Devil as his sworn Votaries or Sorcerers do who are precisely dedicated to the Devil of their own free will as the greatest part of men have done This may appear sufficiently by their Malice which is not only human but Devilish also for human Malice extends it self no farther than to that which is pleasant or profitable to the Malicious Person but at present we see men's Malice so black that he who acts it has neither pleasure nor profit by it and nevertheless they afflict the good and ruin sometimes the wealth and honour of their Neighbour without any profit to themselves And lies are so common tho frequently without any advantage that the truth is seldom or never spoken from whence it appears that it certainly comes from the Devil for men could not arrive at such a malice as that is which we see now reign in the World If I told you Sir that I had these truths by any particular Revelation from God you would entertain it may be some scrupulous doubts about it but I refer you to your own experience that you may know by human Reasons that we are fallen into the last times that the Judgment is past on the whole World And that this is now the Reign of Antichrist For as to the coming of Jesus Christ in Glory I cannot make it appear to you so precisely as the things that are already come to pass but if you read attentively the Holy Scriptvres they will plainly enough declare it to you for of all contain'd in them there is nothing more spoken of than of the coming of Jesus Christ on Earth in Glory From the beginning of the World we are told that Jesus Christ was to become man to Reign with men on Earth and tho he had not been man to suffer he had become man to Reign Because he would take and give to men a perfect contentment of Conversing together with them in Body and Soul Divinity and Humanity I cannot make you see this Sir by the Eyes of the Body because the time is not yet come Therefore I send you to the Holy Scriptures But as for the Judgment and the Reign of Antichrist you may see it with your Eyes and comprehend it with your Natural understanding For it is visible and comprehensible by him whose Spirit is not infatuated and who seeks to discover the Truth The thing is so manifest that it speaks out it self Many say blindly We are in the end of the VVorld and they perceive not that they speak truth Others say The Devil reigns over all and they see not that this is the Reign of Antichrist who Rules as
Universal Emperour of the whole world They Judg by the effects without searching into the cause The Devil hinders this for he well knows that if the cause were discovered many would be Converted therefore he darkens their minds that they may never come to the Knowledg of the Truth because it would confound him I said to her I perceived clearly enough that the world was Judged because sin abounds in it and no body will be Converted But that we were in the Reign of Antichrist I did not perceive so clearly for we have always been taught that he shall be a Visible and corporal man * She said Sir it is well that you see the World is Judged You shall perceive the rest sufficiently for the Reign of Antichrist is yet more manifest Antichrist that is to say against Christ He whose understanding is not dark'ned may easily see if men follow Christ or if they go in a way contrary to what he walked in while he was on Earth And you see that Christians now adays live a quite other Life than what Jesus Christ led and they not only do not follow him at a distance but are directly opposite to him for there Pride Reigns instead of Humility and Avarice instead of Poverty and instead of Charity there is nothing but Envy and so of all the other things which Christ Jesus Taught us They act wholly in opposition to him and they do not consider that all that is contrary to Christ is Assuredly Antichrist The time is come wherein men would fain have a God and Devil Visible to their Eyes that might go before them This is great and thick darkness because neither God nor the Devil are visible For they are Spirits who cannot be known but by their Operations when they are good or evil according to the Spirit that Animates them Hereby we shall know by what Spirit the World is animated at present For the Spirit of God is always Just Good and True and that of the Devil is always evil without Righteousness and without Truth By these real Signs we may certainly discern if Christ rules the World or Antichrist We need not go to consult Oracles to make this Discovery for all Men of good judgment may make a sufficient trial and see it with their Eyes and feel it with their Hands by taking the Marks which discover the solid truth For if they will needs make this discovery by the signs of apparent Vertues they will remain in their Darkness because the Devil has so disguised and coloured his wickedness with outward Devotions and Piety that he thereby deceives all the World We must come to the Essence of Vertue to see if it be God or the Devil who animates these outward Devotions for if they be of God they will always be accompanied with Righteousness Goodness and Truth But we see but too much the contrary for the most part of those Devout Persons at present are without Righteousness or Equity There was never seen so much going to Church receiving the Sacraments and so little Fidelity so many Pater nosters and so little Truth so many good Words and so little true Charity Do you not see Sir that all order of Justice is renvers'd and that there is more regard of doing Justly before Men than before God And yet these are the best now who do justly before Men for the most part deceive and deal unfaithfully as well before Men as before God For Iniquity is become so common that now almost they are not ashamed to commit it publickly If a man go to Church and frequent the Sacraments he passes for a good Man though he be no ways just If we consider well all the Qualities of the Devil we shall see them all practis'd in the behaviour of Men now he is a Liar an Hypocrite and Unconstant a Deceiver and Unfaithful abounds in all kind of Malice Proud Arrogant Envious Contentious without Faith or Honesty Obstinate in Malice and in a desperate Rage These Qualities are but too much practis'd by the most part of Christians and yet we perceive not that this is now the Reign of Antichrist Men must be extreamly blinded that they do not see this more clear than the Day because the evil is too manifest But many Minds are so infatuated that they cannot believe what they perceive so manifestly by their Understandings but they wait to believe this Antichrist till they shall see him in a Humane Form Which is a very small matter in respect of his Doctrine for that Body can never cause Damnation to our Souls as his Doctrine will do which being contrary to Christ leads us to Perdition Since Jesus Christ is the way we can never attain to Salvation but by him contrary ways lead to Damnation it matters little whether we are led into them by a Body or by a Spirit since we are undone as to Salvation I ask'd her If we ought not to believe that this Antichrist will be sometime corporeally visible in a Humane Form She said Yes Sir I believe this will be toward the end of his Reign for he has set himself to counterfeit all the Actions of Jesus Christ and to ape what he sees he has done And perceiving that Christ became a Natural Man he also will move his Sorcerers to produce Men by the operation of the Devil which is done many times for there are certainly many of these Antichrists born already in the World who make great Havock in the Church and have in their Train those who are most in Authority and as the Apostles of Jesus Christ laboured to introduce Truth into the World these incarnate Devils labour to introduce Lies into it and to sow Tares as they did good Grain I doubt not also but they have a Head of their Iniquity who will appear openly when his wickedness shall be discover'd and when he cannot deceive any longer under the Cloak of Holiness he will deceive then by pure Wickedness and will exercise cruelty towards all those who will not be his Followers That time Sir will not be so dangerous as the present is because he shall be known for the Devil and now they follow him as if he were God Therefore he keeps himself so long concealed and does not appear bodily for he could not do so much prejudice to Souls if he were known He has spread Darkness through all the World that no body may discover him exercising all his wickedness UNDER PRETEXT OF GOOD THINGS OR OF NATURAL OR CASUAL THINGS that no body may believe that all the evils which we see do come from this Antichrist and that no body may be on his guard because he does not appear yet in human Flesh This blinds all the World for tho they see all the qualities of the Devil rule in men yet they will not believe these so solid marks as they would do if they saw him bodily which bodily appearance is not
real For the Devil is pure Spirit and has not the Power of forming to himself a Body unless it be a fantastical one or else by the Seed of some Sorcerer which is abominable I said to her It was not to be doubted that we live certainly in the time when Antichrist Reigns by his Doctrine and his Operations because Men in the general have all or the greatest part of them the qualities of the Devil She said Sir there is no reckoning to be made of any other thing but what concerns the Salvation of Souls for if the Devil be followed in his Doctrine and in his Works he needs no more to make himself Master of our Souls He 'll do no more hurt to men by his Body than he does by his Spirit and if it were not to Ape God he would never take a Natural Body for he knows well enough how to make a body of Air or some other matter to deceive Sorcerers whose imagination he so blinds that they believe they see and feel some real body tho it be only Phantastical By this he prevails with them to commit all sorts of Evil pretending to dwell with them that he may still prophane the works which God has introduc'd for an Holy end So that the Natural Body of the Devil is not so much to hurt men as to bring Glory to the Devil when he shall be discovered and shall be corporally Honoured and follow'd by all his Adherents as Jesus Christ was by his Disciples And that he may leave none of the works of Jesus Christ unimitated that he may pervert them he must also take a body of Flesh that he may likewise Reign Bodily thereby to consummate his wretched Kingdom which began as soon as God became man and has still encreast even till this present time without being known or revealed And since God has the goodness to Reveal him at present he should be discovered if it were possible to all the world that he may no longer deceive any body under the mask of Vertue and that those who will needs follow him may know what they do For the Body of Jesus Christ went not thro' all the world in order to the forming of his Church but he has herein only introduc'd his Doctrine which sanctifies the Souls of those that follow it tho they have never seen his body 't is the same as to the Doctrine of the Devil which corrupts Souls tho they should never see his Body They are as Diabolical in following the works of the Devil as others are holy in imitating the actions of Jesus Christ whose Body they never saw I said to her It was a great Loss that these Truths could not be publish'd to all the world for all are ignorant of them and believe there is no Antichrist until he appear in his humane Body She said Sir 't is lamentable that these things so prejudicial to so many Souls must be conceal'd and that the Marvels of God which are so important cannot be discover'd The last Times are come Antichrist Reigns over all And Jesus Christ will come quickly to Reign here in glory The forerunning plagues of Judgment are begun and no body will believe any thing of all this because we cannot speak of them openly You are the first Sir to whom I have declared these secrets Make a good use of them I shall reckon it a gain tho none but your Soul alone should receive the Light of them The world is deceived and will be while they do not open their Eyes to the Truths I have told you They are nevertheless from God and cannot fail if all the world will needs ruin themselves Sir save your self For tho none of these things should fall out in your Life-time and you should not see the utmost extremities of the Plagues nor the Body of Antichrist nor yet the coming of Jesus Christ in Glory yet it will be most expedient for you that you believe all these things which will open your eyes to discover your particular faults and the dangers in which you live and will give you prudence to avoid the deceits in which we live at present Make use of the occasion Sir without contending out of curiosity about words and the times of every thing because the Judgment still falls out when we die and it will never be recall'd Tho even there were not a general Judgment yet there is always our particular Judgment which precisely respects us and if all the People of the world perisht by the Deluge excepting eight persons it was thro' their unbelief for if they had believed the words of Noah they would have been sav'd in his Ark Even so now those shall Perish who will not believe the Truths that I tell you from God They shall certainly Perish in the Ship-wrack because they will not save themselves in time it will be in vain for them to ascend into their Houses of Honour and Glory that they might avoid the Plagues which will follow them every where I said to her That I could not doubt any longer of the things she told me because of the Operation of her words in my Soul which could not but come from God But I wish'd earnestly that many might enjoy the same effects She said Sir Your desire will be fulfilled for many will receive this Light tho very few among the Christians because they are so obstinately wedded to a presumption of their Salvation being falsely perswaded that they shall be Saved by their frivolous Devotions These will resist the Truth and believe they are Holy and Perfect till they shall see themselves swallowed up of the Plagues and when it shall be too late they will cry for Mercy without any hope of succour no more than in the days of Noah for it is not written that he took so much as one into the Ark after the Deluge was begun Those who had not formerly gone into it did all perish even as those shall do who will not now believe that we live in the days of Antichrist They must of necessity be deceived by him and Perish What remedy can there be for their evils since they seek not to be healed because they are insensible of them as they would be of a Leprosie We must flee from them that we may not contract such a dangerous malady as this blindness because they shall be destroyed before they know it It shall be with them says Jesus Christ as it was in the days of Noah They Ate they Drank they Married without any apprehension Even so tho they see and feel the beginnings of sorrows by Wars they do not apprehend them to be the last Plagues they endeavour to escape and avoid them by Human means going from one place to another without remembring what Christ says That two shall be grinding at one Mill the one shall be taken the other left or even two in
of all honour which then all the world will render to him and just to render compleat Justice to every one There are so many innocent persons afflicted and Saints unknown and despised on the other hand there are so many wicked men honour'd rais'd to places and Honours and even held for Saints All these being Dead and the Truth as to them undiscover'd must not God avenge the quarrel of the Good and make appear the wickedness of the wicked that he may be Just Good and True I said to her That every one look'd for these Reparations in the day of the general Judgment which must be done in a little time or suddenly where every one shall be recompenc'd in Heaven according to his Merits or Sufferings She said Sir They will make God a God of Confusion What appearance is there that this Judgment can pass in a day or suddenly since the whole world must appear there It should be necessary that all the men in the world should after the manner of an Enchantment be Transported to the same place in an instant who could hear in that croud the Justification of the Righteous If it were to be done only by word they would not hear one by reason of another and if every one in particular must be spoke to to declare his good or evil Deeds it would need a long time before all were repair'd Years would not suffice to Judg so many men as have been upon the Earth Truly Sir all the speculations of men are nothing in respect of the Truth but Chimera's in the Air. God took six days to Create the World deliberately and in order as he has done all his works by weight and measure without any disorder or confusion He made Noah prepare an hundred years before the Deluge and when it came it began to Rain which Rain lasted forty days The Plagues are now begun and will follow in order even to their end and the Judgment will also go on in order so deliberately that there shall not be the least confusion in it for that can come only from men and not from God who does all in Order Neither is there any imaginary Heaven as people fancy it where every one shall be Rewarded or Restored for Heaven is no other but the presence of God who contains all things and can't be contain'd by any because he is greater than all things We are in Heaven when we are resign'd to him whether we live or die we are still in Heaven when we are in God Now being thus Divinely in God we do not notwithstanding receive the material and bodily reparation of the sufferings which we have materially and bodily endur'd And as God has given us both a Body and Soul he has also given us a Paradise both of Body and Soul For this cause God would have become Man even tho man had never sin'd for God makes all his works perfect and compleat The Soul can indeed have its compleat Paradise by the Presence of God because it is a Spirit like to him but the Body can have no Paradise but a Material and Bodily one like it self because it is of a Material Nature it cannot have a perfect happiness by a Spirit or Divinity Lo this is the reason why Man that he may be happy must of necessity have his Paradise in the world which was Created by God for no other end but to serve for a Paradise to Man whom he was pleas'd to Create of a Bodily and Spiritual Nature both together and he has also prepar'd for him both a Bodily and Spiritual Blessedness which are the Presence of God as to the Spiritual and for the Corporeal the Earth and the World and all that therein is By which you may see Sir the truth of the coming of Jesus Christ upon Earth to Reign with Men that their eternal Blessedness may be compleated and that every one may have a Reparation by fulfilling all Righteousness not in a speculative or imaginary way or of a short continuance but a Real Divine and Corporeal Reparation which will last for ever For God's Recompences are not Temporal and Finite but Eternal as coming from an Eternal God who can't give finite or imperfect gifts Consider Sir all these Truths and you will perceive sensibly why Christ must come to Reign upon Earth and that he has not taken an human Body to Reign in the Empyreal Heaven which is Divine but only to Reign on Earth for this Divinity has no need of any Body but this body has need of and must of necessity have some material place to contain it such as the Earth is And if to repair an injury done to any it be needful to make the reparation in the same place and before the same persons where the injury was done why should not God repair upon Earth the injuries received there On Earth they shall be repaired as on Earth they have been committed The Eighth Conference Shews that M. Anthoinette Bourignon is sent from God to declare the Truth to Men. I said to her that I was now convinc'd of all that I must confess before all the world that she possest the Holy Spirit for a humane Spirit could never give so clear an understanding of all the marvels of God She Said Sir you are not deceived in believing that I possess the Holy Spirit because he lives in me and teaches me all that I have told you for I have never learn'd any thing from any man neither would I learn of them because they are in darkness and do not know the Truth in any thing They believe they are very Learned and they are nothing but ignorants being turn'd away from the Truth by so many Novelties which they have made them believe They will needs maintain the Roman Church to be holy and own her Councils as acted by the Holy Spirit while neither the one nor the other is true For the Church is the Babylon of confusion and the Councils are the means by which the Devil has withdrawn Christians from the Law of God they having Ordain'd so many outward things that the inward may be forgotten and that thro so many Natural things People may think no more of the Spiritual Their Commands their Sacraments their Indulgences are all diversions from Salvation to obtain which there is nothing needful for all persons even those who are without God's Grace and straying from the way of Salvation but the observing the Commands of God and the Doctrine of the Gospel for God will never give any other Commands and Jesus Christ will never give any other Counsels than those he has given us by his Doctrine of the Gospel He says That he is not come for the Righteous but for sinners This being so all sinners who desire to be converted must take up this Gospel-Life by which they shall certainly attain to Salvation since Jesus Christ is
the way to it But the Devil to divert men has introduc'd by these Councils so many diverse things that this Doctrine is destroyed To discover this Truth Sir you need but observe mens Behaviour This will give you certain Evidences of it for you will see that all trust on the Councils the Sacraments and the Ordinances of the Church and no body observes the Counsels of the Gospel which are so banish'd out of the minds of men now that they reckon them foolishness I intreated her to tell me if she was sent from God to delare the Truth to men She said Yes Sir I AM SENT FROM GOD TO BRING LIGHT TO THE WORLD AND TO BEAR WITNESS OF THE TRUTH as he does all his works in Righteousness Goodness and Truth and never surprizes any Body He has SENT me to tell That the Last Times are come That the World is Judged and the sentence is irrevocable That the Plagues are begun and will not cease till all evil be rooted out and that Jesus Christ will come shortly on the Earth to finish this and then he will continue to Reign with men of good will who shall enjoy Eternal Peace I AM SENT with a Commission to declare all these things to men to the end that peradventure some of them may be Converted and Repent that they may Reign with Jesus Christ in his Glory But wickedness is come to so great an height that the Truth can't be declar'd to Men at least they will not any more receive it They love nothing but Flattery and lies and reject the Truth because it agrees not with their way of Living for he who will continue in his Sins and Errors will say that we trouble him by Declaring the Truth to him and he who will not amend will say that we raise scruples to him by telling him the Truth that reproves him Thus all the World perishes without being desirous to be helped I AM CERTAINLY SENT FROM GOD to declare the Truth of every thing But no body will hear it but in so far as it is agreeable to them and does not reprove them Should I study Sir to please Men or God A Messenger ought not to receive either Good or Ill when he is but the Minister of good or ill News without having caus'd them I have lov'd the Roman Church for I was born and baptized under her and have punctually follow'd her Ordinances and the decisions of her Councils when I knew them But since God has made me see that she is unfaithful to him and has forsaken him to join herself to the Devil ought I not to declare these truths to my Christian Brethren who are ignorant of them that they may not perish in their ignorance They would be much to blame to render me evil for good and to persecute me for procuring their Salvation for I have no advantage by declaring these truths to them except the obedience I owe to God and the charity I have for their Souls for otherwise I should beware of speaking things that are so disagreeable to them I ask'd her What person on Earth could be so wicked as to persecute her for declaring simply the truth that comes from God without any passion She said Sir all good men will perceive abundantly by my words that I am not mov'd by any vicious passions but by a pure desire of declaring the truth because I neither seek nor pretend to any thing from any body The friendship and hatred of men is all one to me there is nothing but the pleasing or displeasing of God that touches me Notwithstanding the Devil having so great a number of his adherents who are in authority he will excite them to rise up against me because of the truth which discovers his wickedness He has for a long time ruled in the Church under a colour of Holiness by which means he has gain'd the most Pious to be his Followers without their perceiving it But as soon as the Truth shall be shewn them they will easily discover his deceits and will abhor them This will enrage him against me and he will pursue me with all his force But I do not fear that he shall be able to touch me for God is my defence I will not fear all those Enemies how Powerful soever they may be The Lord whom I serve is above all things I have never done Evil to any Body but all sort of good to all according to my Power Nevertheless I shall not fail to be pursu'd and Persecuted by all those who are the Devil's adherents because by my means his head will be bruised and he will gain none any longer but by force for his falshoods and deceits will be discovered and brought to Light for those who desire to see and know them God indeed never forces any Body but he sends his Light into the World that every one that pleases may receive it I AM CREATED FOR THIS and cannot be silent when it shall be time to speak I will speak both in publick and private when it shall please God but still the truth without straying from it I doubt not but at first they will suspect me to be a Heretick because the Roman Church condemns as such all those who do not yield to her sentiments and for my part I look on all those as Hereticks who are contrary to the doctrine of the Gospel among which those Romanists are the first But this is a maxim which the Devil ordinarily observes to lay the blame on others of all the evils which he does himself By this means they will find the way to declare me a Heretick because they have denied the Doctrine of Jesus Christ I said to her That the Roman Church would be a strong adversary for she has great power and authority and will yield to nothing that is not agreeable to her Doctrine * She said Sir the power of that Romish Church shall be very shortly taken away by the Lord of Hosts who will destroy her in such a manner that of all those magnificences there shall not be one stone left upon another All her members shall be disjoynted and dislocated and without power She must bear rule yet for a little time and exercise her villanies outwardly as she has done for this long time inwardly her murders and imprisonments are at the door to the end her evil may have its full accomplishment both inward and outward Till then God will let her go on because his justice never inflicts a perfect punishment till the evil be perfect and compleat in all respects for evil always begets punishment according to the greatness of the evil the punishment is measured out I have no apprehension of her power because he who has given it will take it from her She will not do so much evil in killing bodies as she does now in killing Souls for it will be the happiness of those who shall die for
is most true and if I could say in truth the contrary I would be lov'd and follow'd by all those who believe they are in a state of Grace But because I can't speak a Lie every one leaves me that they may flatter themselves with fine Hopes Truth seeming to them more hard than Damnation though the one be much more lovely than the other Because Truth enlightens alwayes the Understanding though it be sometimes hard to Sense yet it can lead us to Salvation and make us happy to all Eternity whereas Damnation renders us for ever miserable 'T is a trouble to us to be told that we are out of the way of Salvation and we ought rather to be grieved for being ignorant of the truth in those Things which concern our Eternal Happiness The ignorance of this occasions our Damnation Therefore Sir never be troubled any more to hear me tell the Truth in evil Things for it is much more useful than to have it declared in good Things For if I should say to you that you are in a state of Salvation your Soul should receive no advantage thereby On the contrary it might be tainted thereby with Vain-glory or contract a sloth in that which is good And iâ— I should say to you that the Roman Church is Holy and guided by the Holy Spirit it would be of no advantage to you since you obey her as much already as if she were really Holy You could not gain any thing by my saying so So that to know the Truth of Good is much less profitable than to know the Truth of Evil from which one cannot preserve himself without knowing it This the Devil knowing he has found the way to introduce into the Church a Maxim That we ought never to speak evil of any though it were true They call this the Sin of Detraction that her Evil may be still concealed and none may dare to discover it for fear of committing a sin It were good we knew in what place the Holy Spirit has declared That to tell the Truth of Evil is a sin For if this were true Jesus Christ would have committed many sins when he publickly called the Priests and Pharisees Hypocrites Generation of Vipers and so many other Names discovering their Wickedness and Falsehood saying That they were whited Sepulchers fair without but within full of dead mens bones and that they made clean the out side leaving the in-side full of uncleanness Could all these Truths discovered by Jesus Christ be sins of Detraction as they have perswaded all those which declare such Truths since all that Jesus Christ did while he was upon Earth was to give us an Example Is it not evident enough Sir that the calling that sin to declare the Truth of another mans Evil has been invented by the Devil to cover his filthiness and that all sort of sins and Evils might be cherished by the privacy of them For the most part of good men endeavour to excuse and cover them believing they do well in it though notwithstanding it be a very ill thing because it is hurtful Three several ways First to him that does evil who will not amend so easily while his evil is conceal'd as if it were discovered Secondly It is very prejudicial to him to whom the evil is done because it is very hard to avoid or guard against an unknown Evil And Thirdly To the Person who conceals anothers Evil who co-operates to the Evil of him that does it and of him that receives it and nevertheless they call that great Good of declaring the Truth of Evil the Sin of Detraction This unhappy Silence makes all sort of Abominations daily to encrease in the sight of God because they having lost his Fear they lose also that of Men since their sins cannot be discovered without offending God This is also a Doctrine which the Devil hath invented with so many others to the end that every one may follow Antichrist while they think they are doing well For if it were a sin to declare the Truth of Evil Jesus Christ would not have done it of his Apostles themselves calling St. Peter publickly Satan and reproving him in all his Faults as the Apostles afterwards did their Disciples But these new Masters teach That it is a sin to declare the Truth of Evil without any other ground but that of covering their Wickedness that their Evils may not be discovered and they may commit them the more by continuing in the Reputation of being good Men though they be wicked If they had considered well the Nine ways by which we may sin in another they would find that 't is a sin to conceal the Truth of Evil whereas they teach that 't is one to discover it I entreated she would explain to me the meaning of these sins which we commit in another and if we are guilty of them that I might guard against them She said Sir We are as guilty of the sins we commit in another as of those which we our selves commit for God regards not so much the Action as the Intention Sins being Spiritual Things have no need of Material Acts. God searches the Heart and the Reins and not so much the Feet or the Hands These inward Sins are so much the more dangerous than the outward because we take less heed of them for they are not so manifest and known though notwithstanding they be mortal and damnable sins Every one excuses himself of them before Men Which he cannot do before God for Ignorance never excuses sin If we are very careful and diligent to know and discover what is necessary and profitable for our Body we are obliged to be much more so as to our Soul 'T is not enough that one says he knows not these sins because every one is obliged to know them and our Salvation or Damnation depends upon them For he who sins ignorantly goes ignorantly to Hell We are created for no other end but for Salvation This is the only Affair of Importance that concerns us most nearly for setting aside Salvation all is perishing For this cause we must study to discover what Sin is Therefore to satisfie your Demand I will explain the Nine Ways by which we offend God in another First We commit sin in counselling to do evil How many are there who are guilty of this sin without perceiving it If you have a Friend affronted you will say to him I would not suffer this Affront without revenging my self Or you will tell him You would not have the Heart to suffer it and such like things Or if we give any Counsel that is not according to the Righteousness Goodness or Truth of God or if we counsel any to do evil for our pleasure or profit or otherwise These Counsels are as many Sins as the wicked Actions which those commit whom we have counsel'd to do them whether they be in Word or Deed because our
understood of all the Holy Scripture for even they who pronounc'd it understood it not in its perfect Sense but in part only But now that the Holy Spirit is come upon Earth to give the full Knowledge of them he needs not for this End a Body of Flesh but only to give Men Spiritual Understanding that they may know the Powers of God the Love he bears to Man the End for which he created him and may have the knowledge of True Vertue and of that which is False All these Things shall be known by the Understanding of those Men who will receive the Light of Truth which the Holy Spirit brings now into the World HE IS BORN in the midst of its Universal Darkness in which no Body knows the Truth of any Thing all being falsified or not known The Holy Spirit comes to clear this by Spiritual Notices I blest my good Fortune and the Day in which I met with this Pilgrimess for my Vnderstanding received such Light by her Discourses that I must confess my Soul had perish'd without this Rencounter I asked her How her Words could have such strong Operations on me She said Sir This proceeds from the Holy Spirit who begins to visit your Soul by his Light Receive it with Humility of Heart and he will enlighten you more For he is come to fill the Souls of all those who shall receive the Truth It is by the Operations that you feel that he is born in Souls He is a Spirit and he works in the Spirit of all who seek and desire him We must not any longer seek for visible and material Means For all these things are Hindrances to him Let us only open our Heart and Spirit to receive the Truth and it will teach us all Things For nothing but Lies has undone the whole World The Darkness that Men are in and their forgetfulness of God have come by Lying which has seiz'd on all the World For none are now in the Truth The false Perswasions which they have imprinted on Mens Hearts have made them mistake God and the State of their own Souls There is therefore great reason to bless the Goodness of God who in so miserable a Time sends us his Holy Spirit to enlighten all those who will receive him I believe Sir you are the first but a great Number will follow you For as soon as the delusion shall be discovered the Eyes of many will be opened and their Heads lifted up to return to God abhorring their Errours and the Deceit of their blind Guides They will see that all that they have taught them as Means of bringing them to God have estrang'd them from him and the Sacraments and other Ceremonies of the Church instead of procuring them the Grace of God to love him and to acquire true Vertue have given them rather a Contempt of God and a false hypocritical Vertue This being discovered many will seek the Truth abhorring Lying which has put their Salvation in so great hazard I asked her If the Holy Spirit would not become visible She said No Sir He will not be visible but by the Operations which he will make in Souls whom you shall see disingaged from the Earth and cleaving to God alone We shall see them possess Joy Peace and Patience with the other Fruits and Gifts which will be sure Evidences that the Holy Spirit will dwell in their Souls who notwithstanding shall not be seen by the Eyes of the Body in any Material Form or Figure For the Time is come that God will be worshipped in Spirit and in Truth and no longer in Figures which shall all cease because of the Accomplishment of all Things And all that was figured in the Old Law shall be accomplished in full perfection by the Holy Spirit For the Time is come that all the Promises which God made to Men from the Beginning of the World shall be fulfilled the Alliance that God has promis'd to make with Men shall have its perfect Accomplishment For they shall be his People and he will be their God This has not come to pass as yet Though Men were created to be God's People nevertheless they did not continue so on the contrary they committed so many Infidelities that he was oblig'd to destroy them by a General Deluge and though the Children of Israel were God's peculiar People they forsook him notwithstanding and gave themselves to Idolatry The Jews who were as precisely God's People denied him also and would not acknowledge him when he became Man but revil'd him and hang'd him on a Cross And now the Christians who ought more perfectly to be Gods People despise him in his Sufferings and in his Doctrine So that the Alliance that God promis'd to make with Man could not hitherto be accomplish'd Of necessity the Holy Spirit must come upon Earth to enlighten Men that they may have the Faithfulness requisite for this Alliance of God with Men For a Marriage cannot be compleat if the Spouse be not faithful as the Husband is The Fourteenth Conference Speaks of the Alliance that God will make with Men and of the Coming of Jesus Christ in Glory and that to have a Share in it we must of necessity resign our Will to God and return to a Dependance upon him I entreated her to tell me How and when and wherein this Alliance of God with Men shall be made She said This Will be made by the Holy Spirit who will illuminate Souls make them know their Errours and also the End for which they were created which is nothing less than to be joyn'd and united to God who will take his Delight with Men And they perceiving this shall separate themselves from all Earthly Pretensions and resign themselves to the Will of God desiring no longer to use their own Wills because they have entirely renounc'd them Then shall they have such Dispositions as will invite God down to the Earth to Ally himself visibly and bodily with Men by an inseparable and indissoluble Tye. This is the End for which God cloath'd himself with a Humane Body to make himself like to Man that the Alliance he designed to make with him might be wholly perfect and compleat both in Body and Spirit What God promis'd of Old to Abraham could never be accomplish'd because Men were never resign'd to God as they ought having still us'd their own Free-will without depending upon God This did separate and divorce them from the Alliance which he promis'd them But in this Fulness of Time wherein we live the Holy Spirit is come down to teach us all Things and whosoever shall hear him shall enjoy the promis'd Alliance For Jesus Christ will come very shortly upon the Earth in Glory to Joyn and Allie himself with all those who shall resign themselves to him I cannot precisely tell the Day Sir but that it will be towards the End of the Plagues which are now
nor any Created Thing because he contains all in himself But he has chosen our Will for himself that it being united to his own he might take his delight and pleasure in it Consider a little Sir how far we stray from the Designs of God while we thus use our own Will in all Things without discovering the Wiles of Satan who under good and pious pretences leads us at his pleasure from a Dependance upon God and yet we do not perceive it I said to her That it was an Infatuation of Spirit that no Body saw precisely the necessity of this Dependance but they imagin'd it was enough to believe in the general that God is our Creatour and that we have receiv'd all from him She said Sir Faith without Works is dead It is not enough that we believe by way of Speculation That we have received all from God but on the contrary this belief will render us more guilty For to believe that God is our Creatour and that all Things appertain to him and notwithstanding of this Belief to desire to rule upon Earth as Soveraigns of our own Will and not to submit it but by constraint to all that God permits to befal us against our own Inclinations this is directly opposite to our Belief and so is it to believe also that we received all that we have from God and nevertheless to use all these things according to our Appetites and Inclinations as all the World does For he who has received a good Judgment applies it to acquire Sciences Offices or Dignities in this World forgetting that this Judgment pertains not to him but God only gave it him that it might be applied to know and love him and if he apply it to any thing else he must render a strict account of it Nevertheless no Body considers this Every one thinks he is Master and Lord of his own Understanding and may dispose of it independently according to his own Will It is the same also with him who has Wealth he makes himself Lord and Master of it even as if it belong'd to him in property He employes it in Glory Pomp and Vanity or other Pleasures of his Body or Mind or in the Things to which he finds himself most inclin'd as if he had created these Riches himself and held them of none and while he says by Word that he has received all from God yet notwithstanding he will not use them but according to his own Will And thus by his Deeds he belies what he say by Word Thinking to deceive God he deceives himself and is his own Ruine For while we will use our own Will in all things we withdraw from a Dependance upon God which is so necessary for our Salvation The Fifteenth Conference Shews how every thing must be used to keep us in a Dependance upon God I asked her How every thing ought to be used that we may have this entire Dependance upon God She said Sir We must first consider for what End we were Created And seeing that it was to Love and Serve God we must apply our selves to nothing else except by the by in necessary Things reserving all our Affections for him who Created us for these Ends And whether we have Wit or other Talents of Body or Mind or Riches Honours and Prosperity we must never use these Things but for the Glory of God Because all pertains to him and we are but the Stewards of them liable to give an Account And we ought to manage them so well that nothing may be used but by the Appointment and Will of God which we ought always to inquire into and follow and never our own Will for it ought still to depend upon him who gave it Could God demand less of us than the Dependance of our Will on his after he had given us our Body with all its Properties and our Soul with all its Faculties and this Beautiful World with all that is in it to enjoy them fully at our Wish with Joy and Ease demanding nothing else for so many Gifts Graces and Prerogatives but the Resigning of our Wills to his notwithstanding of which Man is so ungrateful unthankful and unreasonable as to deny it to his God his Creatour This Dependance of our Will so small a Gift that God asks of us should it be refus'd him when we know that all comes from him and that his Goodness has so advantagiously bestowed Favours on us Truly Sir this Ingratitude deserves that all the Creatures rise up against Man to take Vengeance of the Injury he has done his Creatour in denying him the Dependance of his Free will and that he will dispose of it himself Even insensible Things are obliged by strict Justice to avenge such an Ingratitude Which will be very speedily done Because the Measure is full All Men harden their Hearts and stop their Ears against Gods Demand Of resigning their Wills to his Will None will hearken to it any longer Therefore the Sentence of Universal Rods is given out and shall not be revoked Because none will revoke the Resolution that every one has taken of following their own Will in every thing and will not depend upon God as if we were our own Soveraigns I said to her There were yet some Persons in the World whose Wills were resign'd to that of God She said Sir I know none of them But I do not know all the World If there be some yet scattered up and down the World God will take them into his particular Care But the General Judgment shall not be delayed for this The Plagues shall encrease still even till the Consummation of all Evil and if they go on leisurely it is to give Time and Leisure to Men of Good Will that they may be converted and repent of their Ingratitude yeilding up to God the Free-will that he so freely gave them to use it according to his Will This is now done by few or none We hear nothing else said but I will be resign'd to God while in effect all the World follow their own Will Some give themselves eagerly to Study some to Trade some to the Law to Offices Benefices and that uncessantly till every one has obtained their Pretensions And we settle our selves upon Earth as an abiding City or as if we were created for this Miserable Life here we build Tabernacles as if we were to remain in them always while we see our Friends and Neighbours dye in a little time and we know that none stays here but every one dyes in his turn some sooner and some later without knowing at what Hour our turn will come We are born in Miseries in which we live and dye without seeing any other End for our selves but Death which may make us sufficiently comprehend that we are not created for this Life but we must look for another For God could never have had so low an End in creating us as the the
Holy I have told you of the Reign of Antichrist that you may not let your self be deceived by false Appearances of Piety declaring to you that more than Three Fourths of the World are in confederacy with him that you may work out your Salvation with Fear and may trust your self to No body for the most Wicked are the greatest Hypocrites that they may deceive the better I have told you That we are in the Judgment and that the last Plagues are begun that you may not put off your Conversion to another time for that which remains to us is short I have told you that Jesus Christ will come upon Earth to judge the Good and the Wicked and that he will root out all Evil that you may aspire after that Happiness and may decline the Misery of those who shall be sent into Hell I have told you that Jesus Christ will abide upon Earth to Reign there with all the Just for ever that the Expectation of this Glorious Coming may give you Strength to bear with patience the Rods and Tribulations which must shortly fall out such as the like hath not yet been seen I have told you that the World will last for ever and that none of the Creatures shall perish in their Kinds that the Hope of your Blessedness may not be founded upon imaginary Goods and that you may in some manner comprehend what Contentment the Souls and Bodies of the Blessed shall have when all Malignity shall be removed from every thing and all the Elements and other Creatures shall serve for the Delight of Man who shall rule over all being united to Jesus Christ in Body and Soul And this that you may willingly despise the Delights of this present Life in the Hope of those of which are to come I have told you that the Jews shall be converted to God and shall be his People and that the Catholicks shall be cast off and rejected that you may never despise any Body since the Jews the most despised of all Nations shall be the most exalted and of Stones shall be made Children of Abraham and that you may willingly quit the Maximes of the Roman Church which for her evil Deeds shall very shortly be rooted out I have told you that Man is created for no other end but to take his delight with God that you may no longer seek for any thing upon Earth and that you may despise all Things to enjoy this Conversation with God having told you also that this present Life is only a time of Penitence that all your Labours may be done in this Spirit of Penitence to which God has subjected all Men for their Sins In fine I have told you Sir That all the Laws the Prophets and all Vertues do consist in the Resignation of our Will to that of God that you may not be distracted by so many other different things but may pass your Life joyfully under this Dependance upon God which is the least thing we can give to God for so many good Things we have received from him which he permits us to enjoy provided we will depend upon him in all Things I have also shewn you That so many divers Means which the Priests Monks and the Religious have taught us for working out our Salvation are things that withdraw us from it by which we are seduced and deceived For they make us depend upon Men more than upon God Which is an Idolatry that has infected all Christendom in which no Body studies any longer to resign his Will to that of God but every one enjoys and disposes of Things at his own Will as if he were his own Soveraign One will be Great and another Rich one will Rule over others and will be Obey'd and Serv'd one goes in a Coach another upon Horse In short Every one will follow his Delights and Pleasures according to his own Inclination believing notwithstanding that they work out their Salvation because the Priests and Monks promise it to them These are new Gods and new Saviours who have changed the Order established by God our Father and Creatour and the Duties which his Son Jesus came to reach us They lead us in the Way to Hell perswading us that 't is that to Paradise With these Perswasions every one suffers himself to be deceived and seduced there being none now in Christendom who believe that they cannot be saved without resigning their Will to that of God This nevertheless is an Eternal Truth that will never change let Man do what he will If he do not acknowledge the Dependance he has upon God in all Things he shall never be saved and if he do not take up the Counsels of the Gospel as the true Means taught by God for returning to this Dependance he shall never be saved For God teaches nothing that is useless but only Things precisely necessary to which all the World ought to submit This no Body does for they believe Men more than God Though the most part are Rul'd by the Devil who gains the most part of Men to himself by the Means of these wild Shepherds who abandon the Flock to the Power of the Infernal Wolf to destroy them with themselves for ever taking them off from God to draw them to themselves I have told you also That there are no longer any true Christians upon Earth that you may become one and may not blindly suppose your self to be so For there can be no Christians but they who obey the Doctrine of Jesus Christ All others are deceived in believing they are For God does not change upon the Changes of Men We are now as much obliged to depend upon God as Adam the First Man was and as much obliged to Labour the Ground as he though we had committed no other Sin but what he did in us We must also now follow the Doctrine of Jesus Christ as the Primitive Christians did because this Doctrine is immutable and will never change Therefore he who does not follow it is no true Christian and cannot be saved without becoming so No Body should flatter himself in this Matter We must imitate Jesus Christ or perish for ever Because both by the Will of Adam and by our own we are all fallen into this Sin of Ingratitude that we will not depend upon God And therefore we have need to take up the Law of the Gospel that we may return to a Dependance upon God which is so just and reasonable Though God had never demanded it of Man he is bound both by Divine and Humane Right to render to God this Submission of his Will and he would certainly do it if he were not diverted from it by Men like himself Because even Natural reason obliges him to depend upon him from whom he receives all Things This Humane Wisdom has diverted having found out so many Reasons and Arguments to favour our Self-will that all People believe they may lawfully follow it without
said Sir This Submission is the Preparation required For if you set up for the Doctour or for the knowing Man you will oppose the Light of the Holy Spirit the Source of all Wisdom It must alwayes be believed and acknowledged that he is wiseâ— than all the Doctours that ever were in â—he World and that we learn more by a small â—ay of his Light than by a Hundred Years of very assiduous Study Therefore reckon all your Learning Ignorance and become as a Child newly born again that you may receive these new Notices which will give you more Light than all the Fathers had together Because they never discovered the hid Treasures for the Time was not yet come Every one spoke of it according to his Conceit and not according to what it really was For it was a Sealed Book that none was worthy to open but Jesus Christ himself after he was put to death and Crucified To this very Time there is nothing in all the Holy Scripture fulfilled but this Death which will make way for the Wonders of God that have remained hid till now and begin to be revealed to those who shall be humble in Heart But the Wise shall perish with their Wisdom Therefore I exhort you Sir to Simplicity and Submission that you may be worthy to receive the Light which breaks forth in our Days and to behold the New Jerusalem descend from Heaven adorned as a Bride in the Day of her Espousals The Alliance of God with Men will then be accomplished The Earth will then be renewed All Creatures will quit their Malignity which shall be confined to the Center of the Earth to torment the Bodies and Souls of all those who would not submit their Wills to God They shall receive Pains and Anguish according to the Measure of their Sins being overwhelmed with the Malignities which were caused by these Sins The Eighteenth Conference Speaks of Hell and of the Damned which shall be they who have followed their own Will which is the cause of all Evil and that few are disposed to quit it that they may resign themselves to God and receive the Divine Truth I asked her If all Men who will not submit their Will to God shall be confined to Hell She said Yes Sir assuredly they shall None shall escape Hell who have followed their own Will And this most righteously For God cannot save him who withdraws from him and who with his full Reason and the Consent of his Will will independently follow his own Inclinations as if he were Soveraign and without a Creatour We know well enough we cannot save our selves and that our Salvation depends upon God and yet we hope to be saved though we have quitted our Dependance upon God and adhere to our selves This is a false Perswasion which the Devil and the World set before us to make us insensible of our Misery For God will never save him who will not depend upon him If through Frailty we commit some Acts of Independence upon God and afterwards repent of them we may yet hope for Pardon But when we see that all Men live and dye in following their own Wills and will not leave it off being readier to murmur against God than to yield up their Wills to him he must of necessity render to them according to their Works God made no Malignity in the Elements nor in any other Creatures having created all good and perfect But Sin and the Self-will of Man has brought a Malignity into all Things And therefore it belongs to him as being the Work of his Hands And if it be just to render to each one what belongs to him it is necessary that Man have for his Portion the Malignity of all the Creatures to all Eternity as being the Works of his Hands that the Fire burn him the Water swallow him up the Wind bluster the Earth be Thorns to prick him the Dogs bite him the Wolf devour him the Lion tear him the Serpent poyson him and all the other Creatures shall spue out their Malignity upon Man who brought it upon them by forsaking his Dependance upon God I said to her That upon this Supposition all shall be damned Because none resign their Will to God since every one enjoyes it as much as is possible for them She replied Sir I have told you long ago that Paradise was shut and that none did any longer enter into it Because no Body resigns his Will to that of God The Maximes of the Church have so blinded Mens Spirits by so many different wayes of Salvation that none consider the Obligation that lies on them to resign their Wills to God They think to be saved by going to Church frequenting the Sacraments c. though nevertheless they follow their own Will in every Thing This ruines all the World and has caused the general Judgment For God having beheld all the Earth found not one who was resigned to him nor so much as one that did good All having forsaken God to follow their own Wills And this general Evil has caused the general Sentence which is irrevocable Because there is Time no longer If any desires to be converted he must make haste For the Last Times are near their End They began when Jesus Christ became Man and by Grace have continued till now to give Man a full Measure and abundance of Time for his Conversion Time is come to its End Yet a little Suffering and the Judgment will end and the Wicked shall go to the Abyss of all Evils and the Converted to the Enjoyment of all Good which shall never end and that not only spiritual but also bodily and material For all the Creatures will render their Duty to Man as soon as he shall pay his Duty to God They were created to serve for the Delight of Man as he was created to serve for the Delight of God And as soon as he shall be converted and enter into a Dependance upon his God he shall experience that the Beasts and Elements shall submit also to the Will of Man For for this they were all created And if we see the Beasts and Elements rebel against Man this is for no other reason but because he rebels against his God For else all inferiour Things would be entirely subject to Man if he were entirely subject to God even though it were in this Miserable Life We have Examples of this in the Life of many Saints who because they resigned their Wills to God had in this Time of Penitence the Power to command the Elements and to be familiar with the Wild Beasts One carried Fire without being burnt by it Another stay'd the Sun And several have tam'd Wild Beasts and commanded the Wind and Tempests of the Sea with so many other Wonders playing with Serpents and recreating themselves with Birds which assembled by
the Command of some Servants of God This is a certain Proof that it is Sin only that gives all the Malignity to every Thing and that nothing but the Rebellion that Man has raised against his God renders all the Elements and other Creatures Rebels against him If we would from this time yield up our Will into God's Hands and submit our selves entirely to him we should immediately find that all Things would subject themselves to us without any constraint How greatly does Man wrong himself when he will needs dispose of his own Will He makes himself miserable in this World and far more in that to come Whereas by being willing to depend upon God he has all under his Power together with Eternal Bliss What Infatuation of Spirit is it that we will not do a Thing so good so just and so reasonable as to resign our Will to that of God! If Men were taught this as they are other frivolous Devotions it would be impossible that any would deny God so profitable a Submission But they let themselves be amused by the Discourses of Men who propose a Salvation without being able to give it These are those false Christs and false Prophets of whom Jesus Christ has so often told that we must take heed of them who have deceived all the World so that none think any longer of resigning themselves to God or of doing saving Penitence I said to her There were yet divers Persons who desired to be resigned to God and also to do Pennance which cannot be avoided in this World She said Sir You take the Bark often for the Wood For those who say they will be resigned to God have nothing but outward Words For if they were truly so they would be governed by God and would no longer labour for the Earth but only for Heaven Even the Labour that is necessary for the support of Life would be done only to fulfil their Penitence appointed by God But when we see them aim at Places Honours and Dignities or Deal and Traffick to acquire Riches or Pleasures that one would be a Priest another a Religious one build Cloysters another Houses as if he were to abide in them for ever All these Things with a Thousand others are infallible Evidences that God does not govern our Will For he could not move us to make Tabernacles here since he has sent us hither only to undergo a short Penitence He could not incite us to build what must be so quickly destroyed Neither Jesus Christ nor his Apostles and Disciples built Temples or Houses being contented with what was simply necessary In which the Heathens will rise up against us in the Day of Judgment who did so despise the shortness of this Life that they would not build Houses contenting themselves with a Tub to cover them from the Injuries of the Season Others threw their Mony into the Sea not judging it necessary for so short a Life though since that Time ours is much shortned Neither can it be true that we are willing to do Pennance because every one avoids Sufferings as much as he can and to do saving Pennance it must be voluntary and suffered for fulfilling the Will of God For else we may suffer much without Meriting as Robbers and Thieves do I said to her That this ought to be preached through all the World that they who would perish through Ignorance might hear the Truth and be converted She said Sir You may do as you please As for me I retire For I am not sent to preach but simply to declare the Truth as I have done to you You may have sufficiently remarked in all my Discourses and my Life if there were any Affectations or Passions which should move me to tell you these Things I am perswaded in the sight of God that I have no Self-Interest in it nor any desire to please or displease Men nor to affect the speaking new or marvellous Things No Sir I am not led by that Spirit but by that of Jesus Christ who had such Compassion for Men that for them he endured a bitter Passion and the Death of the Cross If you preach these Things to Men of good Judgment and who thirst after the Truth they will gladly hear you and yield themselves and return to God For they will easily see that here is no Flattery for any Body nor yet Contempt or sensual Animosity but pure solid Truths which none can resist but they who are in League with Satan and love Lyes and resist the Truth Those will very hardly receive Truths that are so opposite to them they will induce effeminate Spirits to reject these Things as evil perceiving that the knowledge of these will take from their Master the Devil the Power to deceive by Falshood and Hypocrisie and that he will be forced very quickly to discover his Mischievous Reign Because he shall not be able to catch Souls any longer under the colour of Piety and Holiness as he has done hitherto And his furious Reign shall be far less dangerous For so soon as he shall be known for the Devil no Body will follow him any longer except they who wilfully yield up themselves to him Whereas at present every one follows him blindly But so soon as his Malice shall be discovered he shall have no longer Power over Innocent Souls Tell the Truth boldly Sir to all good Men in Confidence But beware of the Adherents of the Enemy and of those who let themselves be governed by his Spirit though they be not precisely in Covenant with the Devil Because these will do you much Mischief when they think they are doing well For they who have their Minds infatuated do serve the Devil as well as Sorcerers themselves The one directly and the other indirectly You will still discover them by the resistance which they will make to the Truth for they will not so much as hear it Because they know very well they cannot change the Truth They endeavour at least to reject and despise it that no Body may receve it This will be the Devils last Effort For as soon as the Truth shall be known it will strongly resist him and at last will break his Head Observe still Sir the Disposition of those to whom you would declare these Truths And when you find opposition from them leave off speaking to them For those who shall be disposed to profit by the Truth will give Ear to it willingly and with Hungry Desires will search even to the Bottom that they may discover the Essence of it For no good Men can resist the Truth nor the Things which are proposed to them without having examined whether they be Good or Evil But the Wicked will resist it before they know it And if they can catch a Word different from their School Terms they will take it in a quite contrary Sence Therefore Sir do not amuse your self with Questions and Disputes For this would
the Conscience and that all these outward Things are nothing but Grimaces when they are not done from an abundance of inward Sentiments and that it is said to such Persons This People worship me with their Lips and their Heart is far from me All Christendom is full of this Blindness and they believe that God is served by outward Things Nevertheless it is a certain Truth That God has no need of material Things but desires only the consent of our Will to take his pleasure in us Which he cannot do so long as we will take our pleasure with the Creatures or with any Earthly Things even though according to our Opinion they should be good Things Because he is jealous of our Heart and will not suffer a Corrival and he has reason For it appertains to him alone Because he created it without the Interposition of any other Notwithstanding Man is so unthankful that he denies him his Heart and his Will and would content him with Words and outward Gestures and will not open his Eyes to discover the Truths which would save him from Damnation My Heart is oppressed with Grief Sir to see all the World perish and I cannot help it because they will not receive the Truth I am very far from desiring to leave my Neighbour out of disdain But I am obliged to leave him because he will not be converted to the Truth and the Holy Spirit sayes We ought not to speak that which does not profit I see the Vice of all Men clear as the Sun and I do not think that one can be saved in the State in which they are at present And yet I cannot save them by my Conversation Because they make not a good use of it If I declare their Vices in particular they are ill satisfied or at least they would cover and excuse them Which is evidence enough that they will not amend them and if I point out the Vices indirectly or in general then no Body will take it to himself but will excuse himself by some Formality or Reasoning and if any one lay them to Heart for a Time Men and Business do quickly banish these good Purposes And so nothing is put in practice My Time is lost And my Words are rendered useless whereas I would be profiting something in conversing with God Behold these are the Causes and Reasons why I will remain alone not to conceal the Light For I would have it Lighted for all the World and I know not a more perfect Contentment in this Life than the Meeting and Society of many Hearts united in Jesus Christ as also I know nothing more uneasie than the Conjunction of Persons of contrary Wills For I cannot change for them and they will not change to follow me This is the Combat I said to her That at least some would change to follow her and to save their Souls She said Sir You would be greatly astonished to see the way the World would take to change Every one forsooth would resign his Will to God provided he govern it according to their own Inclinations God must accommodate himself to them and they will not accommodate themselves to God Even so many would indeed follow me it so be withal they may follow also their own Will Which cannot be done For he who follows it is the Enemy of God and if I am his Friend how could I dwell with those who are his Enemies without a continual Constraint Contradiction and Debate All their Actions proceeding from this Self-love would be blameable If I do not reprove them I am unfaithful to God and if I reprove them I become their Enemy and withal they will not amend but will become rather worse applying themselves to remark if they can find any defects in my Actions for a Revenge and if they do not find any they will endeavour at least to despise my Intentions by measuring them according to their Line and interpreting them according to their Sentiments And thus they will offend God and trouble my Repose without any profit Therefore I foreseeing this would do very ill to associate with any Body unless I had assurance before-hand that they would resign themselves truly to God For else this would be to render my self a Slave and others miserable without any Contentment And as God takes his delight and pleasure with Souls whose Wills are united to his so he thrusts behind him those who are not in the Unity of his Divine Will even so ought I to thrust away from me those who will not truly resign their Wills to that of God because it is a kind of Martyrdom to live together bodily being divided in Will As it would be a Paradise of Delights to live with Persons who have their Wills equally resigned to that of God Which makes the true Paradise and perfect Contentment For God and these Souls would be but one and the same Thing I said to her That she ought to associate her self with sincere Persons and that her Company would be of great Advantage to them for attaining to this Resignation to God She said It is true Sir in case their Will were truly good But all that I remark in these Persons who would follow me and be saved is nothing but Wouldings not absolute Wills They say they would be converted they would follow me and be resigned to God while in effect they do neither the one nor the other before God Because these Wouldings proceed only from their own Will They would be converted being afraid of Damnation they would follow me that they may be saved and resign themselves to God only in Word or as long as the Will of God goes along with theirs Lo this is the good Will that I have experienced in those who would follow me and even at present I know no other For I perceive very often that they aim yet at their own Interest Honour or Pleasures So that it they were with me I would reprove all their Actions none excepted Which would be very irksome to me and troublesom to them yea even insupportable For so long as they are not truly designed to God they live still according to their Natural Senses which will not suffer Reproofs and Nature is so Proud that it will not acknowledge its Fault nor suffer disesteem presuming to be more wise and accomplished than its equals so that all that I should do to these Persons would only be to disquiet and vex them because they are so in love with their Vices and Imperfections that they even despise those that do not follow them So that I should live in a continual Constraint among others for I could not speak according to my Sentiments For they are not capable of them and I could not shew them their Faults because they presume to be as wise as I neither could I be profitable in their Company when they will not follow the Spirit that guides me but every
one abounds in their own Sense and will not submit themselves to the Truth without which Submission no Body can attain to this Resignation The necessity of this Dependance must be known or else they will not subject themselves to it For if they see not the necessity of doing this every one will believe he is in a State of Salvation in whatsoever Condition he be and thus every one will insensibly perish and my Company could not save them And since God has given me Liberty wherefore should I continue a Slave to Men when I cannot be profitable to them for the Glory of God I said to her That God was pleased to undergo the Slavery of our humane Nature for the Salvation of his Creatures and that she ought to be furnished with the same Spirit that Jesus Christ had She said Sir By his Grace I am so and I do so earnestly desire to see all Men saved that I would willingly dye for every one of them if I had as many Lives But I am well assured that my Conversation my Words and my Life cannot save them if they do not resign themselves of their own free Will to the Will of God Though all the Saints both Angels and Men pray together they will never procure the Salvation of so much as one Soul unless it resign its Will to God For this is a necessary Thing The Saints may indeed pray and the Angels solicite and all Men help any who has withdrawn from God to obtain this Dependance upon him But all this will avail him nothing if he do not of his own Free-will truly yield up his Will to God and deny his Self-will Very few comprehend this Nevertheless this is an Eternal Truth that will never change For God created Man only for this I said to her That I my self did not well comprehend this Necessity of Depending upon God entreating that she would explain it to me She said Sir Be attentive and consider my Discourse well Perhaps it will give you some Light in this Matter Consider first that God said Let us make Man after our Image and Likeness This was not said in vain but it had its full effect and Man was made after the Image and Likeness of God Consider a little Sir wherein you shall find the Likeness of God in Man It is not in his Natural Body For God is a pure Spirit and has nothing that resembles a Body Neither can this Likeness to God be found in the Animal Soul of Man because this Animal Soul has no more than the Beasts so far is it from resembling God for it extends no farther than to give Life to the Body for a certain Time whereas the Life of God is Eternal without Beginning and without End and a Temporal Thing cannot resemble an Eternal Therefore this Likeness of Man to God cannot be found in the Animal Soul of Man no more than in his Body And if one would seek for it in the Faculties of the Soul which are the Memory the Understanding the Will we shall find that these Three Faculties have no resemblance to God For they are imperfect and limited Which God cannot be Our Memory is very frail and sometimes does not remember on the Morrow what we did the preceding Day Our Understanding is in like manner subject to great defects taking False Things often for True And our Will is sometimes so insolent that if it were not bridled by Reason it would often precipitate us into irreparable Mischeifs All which Things are in nothing like to God since he is without any Imperfections or Defects perfect in all Things and without Bounds or Limits whereas the Faculties of our Soul are all limited as the Faculties of the Souls of Beasts are who have sometimes a better Memory than Men For if a Dog or a Horse be ill used in any Place he will remember it for a long time They have also a Will to do and to leave what they are naturally enclined to though it be bounded and limited as well as that of Man for neither the one nor the other can put their Will in Execution because they have not the power to do all that they can desire Which God can do in all Things By which we see that Man is not in any of these Things like to God For his Understanding is not capable of comprehending any thing but what he sees or hears as are the Beasts also So that by the Faculties of the Soul of Man we cannot perceive that he is like to God since he has an Eternal Memory an unlimited Understanding and an unchangeable Will To which the Faculties of the Souls of Men are not at all to be compared Wherein then can it be said that God has made Man like to himself Search into it with me Sir You will find that he is like to God in nothing but in his Free-will And as God has this Free Power over all Things so he gave to Man this Free Power over his own Will that he might dispose of it as it should please him in this alone he is the Image of God Because this Liberty is to him Eternal and Independent As God is Soveraign independent from all Things So Man is Soveraign of his own Free-will independent from all Things except that he acknowledge that this Liberty is given him of God that he neither has nor holds it of himself As God has and holds all Things of himself Otherwise Man is a Deity by his Free-will for by it he can do and leave any thing For God never retakes what he has once given neither will he ever retake the Free-will of Man but will let them enjoy it to all Eternity as being an Eternal Gift It will never end as long as God shall be God Man shall have his free Will both during this Life and also in the other in Paradise or Hell He shall have through all this Divine Quality of a Free-will which God gave him when he created him He shall not take it from him in Paradise because this is the only quality that Man has whereby he is capable of being united to God all the rest being only bounded and natural are not at all-capable of approaching a supream Deity The One and Twentieth Conference Speaks of the Free-will of Man in which alone he is like to God That God has given it to Man for ever That he has annexed to it all his future Graces And that never any Good nor any Evil will befal any Body in Time or in Eternity but by Free-will according as we shall yield it up or not to a Dependance upon and Resignation to God I said to her That we had been taught That Man had indeed Free-will when he was created But that by Sin it was so lost that he could not use it any longer to do good She said Sir Free-will shall never be diminished but will continue alwayes such as it was
She said How cruel is it to hear Sir That God should destinate a Masse of Reprobates This is as if they would say that God is wicked from the Creation of Men for if he were not he would not have created a Masse of Reprobates to be miserable to all Eternity do what they will This necessity of being damned reflects upon God For if he had not created them to Damnation they could not be miserable to all Eternity And God could not create them for Damnation but out of pure Malice setting aside this he would rather have left them in nothing than to create them for Reprobation Truly Sir a greater Blasphemy cannot be uttered against God than this for it shocks all his Qualities of Righteousness Goodness and Truth which are his Eternal Qualities without which he can never do any thing If he had created one part of Men for Damnation he should not have done a just thing since these Reprobates did not merit Damnation before they had a Being and could not in Justice be Reprobated without having deserved it Neither could God exercise his Goodness in determining the Damnation of any Since this Damnation is the greatest Evil in the World How should he be good in doing so great evil to Men And how should he be true in reprobating those of whom he sayes that his delight is to be with them since they are the Children of Men He must want Judgment and Reason who believes that God created a Masse of damned The Superstition of Christians must have invented this blaspheming against God to authorise their Authority and to shew that God also uses Authority over Men as they will use it over their like This is against Truth For God is not partial nor will he ever use Passion towards any All these Words and Disputes are so many Names of Blasphemies of which the Whore in the Revelation is full For I do not believe that any other Sect or Nation sayes that Reprobation is determined of God I asked her What I ought to believe in this Matter that I might not blaspheme against God She said Sir We ought to go to the Original of Man and see in his Beginning how he was created God took not two Masses of Earth to create the one of them for Salvation and the other for Damnation But only one Masse of Earth with which he created one Man only for Salvation creating in him all the Men that ever were or shall be He created them all in general in the State of Innocence and Salvation and for this end gave abundance of Graces both Spiritual and Bodily and that equally to all without exception of any giving to all a Divine Soul and a Free-will that they might be capable to do all manner of good And seeing God created all Men in Adam he could not have created any for Reprobation but all for Salvation none excepted This being so as it truly is no Body could be created for Damnation as they would very unreasonably make it be believed For if some must be necessarily Damned or Saved they should not have Free-will Which none can deny For all Men received a Divine Soul and Free-will in Adam who was the first of the Elect and after him all his Posterity For God never will'd that any should perish but that they Live And seeing he wills that they Live how could he create them for Reprobation since there can never be any Contradiction in God Never believe Sir that any was created for Damnation But if any damn themselves it is contrary to the Designs of God and because they will needs use their Free-will to apply it to evil For if they followed the Will of God and the good Impression that he has given them they could never damn or destroy themselves even though they had sinned Because God desires not the Death of a Sinner but that he should be Converted and Live By which we see that God does not Reprobate the Sinner more than the Just but desires that all should be Saved and none Reprobated as they Maintain But Men now being full of Vices and Passions of Love and Hatred without any thing of Righteousness Goodness and Truth they would fain give Authority to their Malice by making a God to go before them in the Matter of their Passions And as they in taking Dominon over Men do according to their Inclinations disgrace or favour them they would make God as partial as they know they are themselves saying that he damns some and saves others according to his Pleasure Which will never be For God is no more subject to Passions than to change We ought alwayes to come to the Truth and retake the Original and the Essence of Things without amusing our selves with the Discourses of Men who say and do according to their Advantages and if they are not enclined to use their Free-will aright they would fain lay the blame on God saying They have not his Grace or They are not of the Number of those who are predestinated to his Salvation Which makes a great many perish through Sloth or Negligence saying If they are Elected they shall certainly be saved and if they are Reprobated they shall certainly be damned do what they will This is contrary to the Truth For God did not create Man a kind of limited Creature And though it seems sometimes as if God determined good or evil Fortunes yet nevertheless it is not true For he will not determine against the Free-will of Man who shall still be capable of using it well or ill But because our Understanding is bounded it can comprehend only the Accidents it sees without discovering their Sources or Originals For Example We see a Man become poor though he Labour and is no Prodigal We say immediately it is God that afflicts him by evil Fortune while it is for want of Foresight or Management in his Affairs I said to her That it was not believed that God created Man for Damnation but that God Reprobated Man after his Sin which had undone them all She said Sir You will find this absurd For if all Men were created in Adam they are all also fallen in Adam and consequently there could not be a Masse of Predestinated after Sin Because all in general were Reprobated and Damned by the same Sin of Adam He having sinned with his Free-will there was no longer any thing sound in it For if he had not given a full Consent of his Will to Sin none would have been Damned because of the Imperfection of his full Consent as we do not commit a Mortal Sin when our Will does not give full Consent to Evil and no Body doubts but Adam gave the full consent of his Will in disobeying God and consequently he is damned and all Men with him none excepted For he could not have a divided Will nor one part sound and another damn'd Because there was
the Sun the Moon the Stars and all the Heavens he must confess that the Authour of all these Things is perfect and looking on the Earth the Trees the Plants and Elements he must discover an incomprehensible Divinity who had the Skill to make all these admirable Things Which obliges all that are Reasonable to Love him And when Man considers himself and sees the Art there is in the Fabrick of his Body in the Faculties of his Soul in the Subtilty of his Spirit he must confess that there is a God the Authour of all this to whom all Things ought to be ascribed Because no Creature is able to do any such thing By all which things a Man comes more perfectly to the Knowledge of God than by Sciences and the Expositions of all the Doctors of the World who have nothing but Limited Sciences The Twentieth and Third Conference Shews That it is by Faith only that we can be Saved which coming from God works still Resignation Even among the Heathens c. I said to her That all this Knowledge of God was nothing but the Faith of a Heathen that it was not capable to work Salvation that to be saved we must have a Divine Faith She said Sir You are ignorant yet of a great many Things For that Faith which you call Heathen is Divine because it comes immediately from God who has imprinted in the Soul of all Men this Divine Light that leads them to the Knowledge of the true God This is a Grace infused without the Concurrence of any Men which is much more perfect then the Faith we give to the Things they propose to be believed by us in the Roman Church many of which are very absurd and neither respect the Glory of God nor our Salvation They give us for an Article of Faith That there are Three Persons in God Though nevertheless no Creature can comprehend what is in God but by his Operations which we see with our Eyes as that he is Almighty that he is All just all Good and True Because all that we see he operates in us and in other Creatures bear these Three Qualities But to know if there be Three Divine Persons in God this surpasses our Capacity Because God is an incomprehensible Being and was never discovered by any so as to know what there is in his Divinity They propose also to us many Things for Articles of Faith which are not of its true Essence seeing no Body can be saved without Faith and they continually propose to us new Things for Articles of this Faith which our Forefathers never believed as such And if we cannot have true Faith now without believing them it were to be feared that our Forefathers were not Saved since they did not believe those new Things which are now proposed to us as Articles of Faith They never believed that the Virgin Mary was conceived without Original Sin and now they would make this Belief to pass for an Article of Faith Though nevertheless there is no appearance of Truth in it For the Virgin came out of the Masse of Adam as all the rest of Men And she did also undergo the Penitence common to all the Children of Adam having gained her Bread by Bodily Labour and suffered the Malignity of all the Elements and her Son Jesus himself shiver'd for Cold in the Stable of Bethelem shewing that he was a real Man descended from Adam subjecting himself to the same Penitence that our First Father had received and accepted from God in the Remission of his Sin Why should they now lay it before us as an Article of Faith that the Virgin was conceived without Sin since all Humane Creatures which are born of Parents who live under the Dependance of God having accepted the Penitence that God enjoyn'd Adam are all born in the Indulgence that God gave to Adam Wherefore should there be a particular Article of Faith for the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin as also for the Infallibility of the Pope seeing all these Things have no respect to the true Faith which must work out our Salvation For if the Virgins Conception was Immaculate or if the Pope be infallible this makes nothing for our Salvation nor as to the Knowledge we ought to have of a God upon whom all Things depend This Light infused in my Soul is true Faith and the Dependance that I desire to have upon the same God is the Work of my Faith What need is there to add yet to this the believing that the Pope is infallible since I have the same Light of Faith that tells me No Man can be infallible Since Adam created in Innocence and endued with all the Grace and Holiness that can be met with in any Man did fall and by failing so grosly shew that he was not infallible may not a Man who is a Sinner fail or err All these Faiths and Beliefs are not divinely infused by God into our Soul as that Faith is which makes us know a God above all Things All good All-just All-mighty but Incomprehensible This Faith Sir which you call Heathen is the True Faith which is able to work Salvation in all those who in consequence of it do through Love resign themselves to the same God I asked her If she believed the Heathens would be saved since they are not baptized She said Yes Sir All the Heathens who knew God by his Works and resigned their Will to him shall assuredly be saved For they had operating Faith True Faith in believing that there is One Almighty God who created the Heaven the Earth and all Things and they had the Works of Faith when they were resign'd to the Will of the same God Which appeared in all those who despised the Things of this Life for that which is to come They could not have done this but by a Divine Light that God infused into their Souls Because the Brutish Senses cannot despise the Pleasures of this Life For they know no other and Nature cannot betray it self by despising what is good for it to choose what is evil for it When we see one who may have Honours Riches and Pleasures in this Life and who yet quits them to be dispised poor and afflicted we may well believe that he has the Light of Faith infused by God into his Soul Because neither the Devil nor Nature would ever induce him to do such Things For no Body hates his own Flesh and the Devil incites alwayes to satisfie Nature And if we see one whom we call a Heathen quit the Conversation of Men and retire into a Solitude we may well believe that he has the true Light of Faith which makes Nature break off conversing with its like For Society is a most Lovely Thing Man is a Sociable Creature above all the other Animals and if the Beasts are sad when they are alone how much more must Man be so when he Lives according to Nature unless it
to know if really she has the Quality of our true Mother and if she be allied with our true Father who is unchangeable in all his Qualities to whom this Spouse ought to be alwayes conformable We must see if what they call our Mother has the Spirit and the Works of our Father and if we find no Likeness in her we must renounce her and hold her as a Deceiver and a Liar unworthy of our Affection The Twentieth and Seventh Conference Shews The true Marks whereby to discover where the True Church is and that it concerns every one to examine it I asked her How I might discover where my true Mother the true Church is What Marks there are whereby to know her that I may not be deceived She said Sir You shall discover her by this that she will follow the Footsteps of Jesus Christ and be wholly conformable to his Doctrine There is but one Church only as there is but one onely God and there is so strait a Bond and Alliance between God and the Church that they are but one and the same Thing as it is said that in Marriage Two are but one Flesh so in the Alliance of God with the Church two are but one Spirit God is the Bridegroom and the Soul is the Bride As it is said concerning Adam Let us make a Companion meet for him for it is not good that Man should be alone This is the Figure of what he had said before Let us make Man after our own Likeness because it was found meet that God should delight himself with something that was like to him For this cause he created the Divine and Eternal Soul and plac'd it in the Body and Understanding of Man that it might multiply and communicate it self For it is the Property of Good to be communicative This Divine Soul being form'd in Time must live for ever else it should not have been Divine nor capable of being united and ally'd to God who created it for these ends And as Adam and Eve ought to have been united in Heart Body and Will so the Soul ought to be united in Love Understanding and Will with God Not that Natural Love nor that Humane Understanding no more than our bounded Will Because all this has no Sympathy with God and they are but the Case wherein God has shut up this Divine Soul which is Free and Eternal as God This Divine Reason and Free-will make the Church by the Alliance that God makes with it which is much more strait than the Alliance that this Divine Soul makes with the Animal Soul of Man which do so nearly approach one another that no Humane Spirit is able to distinguish them no more than any can distinguish the Free and Rational VVill from God himself Because he has so straitly united them that the Soul is God and God is the Soul as the VVill of Eve was that of Adam so the VVill of the Soul is that of God By which you may still discover Sir where the Spouse of God or the True Church is Because where she is to be found she carries still along with her the same Qualities of her VVell beloved and when you do not find them in those who call themselves the Church believe firmly that they are all Cheats For the Spouse of God will be alwayes comely and there can be no Blemish in her Because she shall never be parted from the Qualities of her Husband alwayes Just Good True and All-powerful And when you shall see Sion Jerusalem Judea or Rome such as you call the Church to be fallen away from these Qualities never believe that she is your Mother the Holy Church Upon these Accounts Jesus Christ has so often warned you to beware of false Christs and false Prophets For they come to delude and deceive many Do not let your self be deluded Sir For there shall never be but one True Church which shall be united to God VVhosoever has not this Unity is not the Church but they are Seducers of the People who under this Cloak of God's Spouse do seduce many You must lift up your Head and look on high to see whence the Church took her Original and you will perceive that the Church is no other but the Alliance that God made with the Divine Soul of Man which he made his Spouse though she was unworthy of it He so ennobled her that he would joyn himself to her and ally with her by an indissoluble Alliance which can never end for the Two Parties are Immortal to wit God and the Divine Soul But to take for the Spouse of God Persons who are no wayes in the Spirit of God nor in Union with him and to reverence them as the Church is to wrong the Honour that we owe to God To see a Church seek the Honours Pleasures and Riches of this VVorld and to believe that she is the Spouse of God is to derogate from her Divine Quality and to ascribe the Honour to Vice that is due only to True Vertue VVe should not thus let them cover our Eyes as they do to those who are going to be hanged that they may not see their doleful End VVe must take off this Bandage that we may look about us and learn where the True Church is which can save us and not suffer our selves to be led on blind-fold to Eternal Death by VVords or false Appearances since Truth only is capable to save us I said to her That I had never yet discovered Souls united to God and that nevertheless I believed I was in the Church She said Sir You are deceived For the Church is no where but in the Souls that are united to God no more than a Woman can be the Spouse of a Man who has never approached her We must not believe that the Church consists in wearing a Garment of Purple or Red or Fine Linnen These are rather the Marks of the Reprobation of the falsely Rich Man who was buried in Hell and the Scripture brings no other cause of his Damnation than these Fashions of Apparel and that he was Rich and a Feaster If all these Things were Marks of his Damnation why should they be now a dayes the Marks of the Holy Church God is not changeable He cannot now unite to himself what he then Reprobated and Condemned No no Sir the Spouse of God will never be vain nor proud nor polluted with any sin For she is all pure Do not think that you are in the Church when you are under Persons who seek Riches of this World for such Souls are Adulteresses and have abandoned their lawful Husband and live in Adultery with the Kings of the Earth Which ought to make you abhor her instead of cleaving to her If you have never met with Souls resigned to God you have never found the True Church Because there never was any other and never will be hereafter She must