Can any thing fall out against the Will of God and which he has not decreed to fall out As I live saith the Lord I delight not in the Death of a Sinner Let no Man say when he is tempted that he is tempted of God O Israel thy Destruction is of thy self God did not decree that Man should sin nor that he would permit him to sin but took care by all means to prevent it and has spar'd no Mean to recover him from it But Man has wilfully destroyed himself God created him out of pure Love to delight himself in him and therefore to make this Love perfect and compleat he created him altogether Free and Perfect He would not bound nor limit the Will of Man whom he would needs make after his own Likeness to be his Spouse and not his Slave or constrain'd to do his Will as are all the other Creatures But Man was created altogether Free as a little God Sovereign and Ruler over the other Creatures and free to use them well or ill as he would If he had received only a limited Will he would have had no Divine Quality for God to take his Delight with him for that two Beings may find Contentment together there must be a Proportion and Sympathy between them God cannot take his Delight with any Creature of a bounded Will he himself being an infinite God there must be in Man some infinite Quality by which he may unite himself to God and that is an absolute Liberty of willing which nothing can constrain This was the most precious thing that God could give to Man for by it he was made like to God for otherwise he should have been a limited Creature in whom God could not take Pleasure Could God take Delight in a thing so unlike himself Could so powerful a God unite himself to such an impotent Creature that had not Free-will to love him God having no Bounds nor Limits could he take Pleasure in a Creature whose Will was bounded And could a limited Will attain to the Love of a God without Limits This is the only thing that makes Man capable of being united to God We see in Nature the Alliance is not true and agreeable if two Persons be not united in their Wills in God if there be Force Limitation or Constraint on either side the Contentment cannot 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 Where there is Constraint there can be no perfect Love the Free Consent and Cooperation of two united must necessarily concur to make the Love compleat As God gave this Liberty to Man when he created him so he will never take it from him for his Designs are unchangable all his Works are Eternal and his Gifts are without Repentance Both Devils and Men shall have their Free-will to all Eternity else they could not do Evil for God never retracts what he has once given he will never retake those Divine Qualities the Divine Soul and Eternal Liberty and cannot bound them because he cannot be changeable in his Gifts nor can he take away what he has been pleas'd once to give If it be establish'd among Men to lay no longer Claim to a thing given how much more ought we to hold that God lays no Claim to the Free-will of Devils and Men to whom he voluntarily gave it The Devils and demned Souls will never use their Liberty to do well being so habituated to Evil and in the Element of it as the Holy Angels and Blessed Saints will never use their Liberty to do Evil it being swallowed up in God From hence it is evident that God did not predetermine Man from all Eternity to Good or Evil by any absolute Decree for this is to constrain that which he would have to be Free to ranverse the Order he had so wisely establish'd and to take from man the most precious thing that he gave him If he had made Man a limited Creature he would have predestinated all Men to Salvation so that none of them should have perished For all that God makes absolutely dependent on him is always Good without any mixture of Evil and it can never be that a limited Creature can do Evil since God can create nothing that is Evil. God endued Man with such an unlimited Free-will that he would not only not predetermine him but also not foresee how he should dispose of that Free-will that he might not thereby limit it or oblige Man to do what he had foreseen His Power and Wisdom is as great yea far more conspicuous in forming him thus Free and letting him fully enjoy the Liberty that he had given him than if he had limited him by Fore-sight and Predestination God being Almighty can save or damn as he pleases and no body can withstand him for all are subject to him but he neither does nor ever will do it but in the Ways which his powerful Wisdom and the Love he has conceived for Man have resolved upon whom he would needs create like unto himself by the absolute Free-will he gave him and would neither constrain him to Good nor hinder him from Evil but would have him his by pure Love with the free Consent of his Will that he might delight in him and Man also might voluntarily delight in the Love of his God Thus we see how Sin came into the World and how Man damns himself God neither willed it nor permitted it that he might bring Glory to himself a most blasphemous Sentiment but against the Will of God Man abused the most precious Gift that could be bestowed upon him his Free-will and turn'd away his Love from God and placed it on himself and on the Creature God does not permit Man to do Evil but by all Means restrains him He permits him only to use the Free-will he has given him and having endued him with an immortal Soul and an eternal Liberty he can no more take away this Liberty without destroying his Nature and making him cease to be Man than he can make a Circle to be a Square without destroying the Nature of a Circle God by giving Man Free-will to make him capable of the greatest Good is no more the Cause of Man's Sin and Reprobation than a Cutler would be the Cause of a Lord 's murthering of his Brother because it was done with a Weapon which he had made for him of well-temper'd Steel of a sharp Edge and for good Uses It would be a cruel Malice to accuse the Cutler of the Murther the Malice is infinitely greater to say that God created us for Damnation or is the Cause of it because he has given us Free-will You see saith S. Augustin how much Good is wanting to the Body where the Hands are wanting and yet he makes ill use of his Hands who
and a great Dishonour done to Jesus Christ but whosoever reads without Prejudice the Sixth Letter of the Second Part of Solid Vertue and the Accessory Letter in the end of that Part will see how rashly they condemn her There she says That Jesus Christ was united always to his Heavenly Father in his Superiour part is most true I have written that he never contracted Sin tho' he contracted all the Maledictions of Sin after he cloathed himself with our Mortality But he resolving to become a Mortal Man subjected himself to all the Miseries both of Body and Mind which Sin had brought into humane Nature and according to this he felt in his natural Will a Rebellion to the Will of God in Sentiment but never in Consent and resisted this Rebellion which he felt in his Corruption for he says I came not to do my own Will but the Will of him that sent me Now if his own natural Will had been so inseparably united to the Will of his Father to what purpose would he have distinguish'd these two Wills since they were but one For he gives us sufficiently to understand thereby that his own Will was Evil since he would not follow it but that of his Father which alone he knew to be Good for there is nothing Good but God and Jesus Christ himself had nothing Good in him but what God did operate there so that as he was God he was most Good most Wise and most Powerful but as Man he was every way frail as all other Men since he voluntarily cloathed himself with their Miseries in the Womb of the Virgin and became then truly Man of the corrupt Race of Adam And in this corrupt mass he felt a Rebellion of his Will against the Will of God which all Men feel in themselves And therefore he behov'd to resist his own Will and contradict it with so much Vehemence that he sweat Blood in the Garden where he says also to shew his wrestings my Soul is heavy even unto Death and to his Father Not my Will but thino be done after his own Will had pray'd If it be possible let this Cup pass from me and even being on the Cross he says My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Could he say in Truth that he was forsaken by his Father if he had not found in his Inferiour part the separation of his Will from that of God he could not believe nor say that he was forsaken of his eternal Father since his Superiour part was never divided from him one Moment For if it had been never so little separated he had certainly fallen into Sin as other Men whereas it may be said to the Praise of Jesus Christ exclusively of all other that he never sinn'd and that his Soul remain'd still pure and immaculate in the Frailty and Rebellion with which he charg'd himself for the Love he bare to us doing as a most faithful Brother who throws himself into a Sink of Uncleanness to draw out his Brother whom he sees perishing without Succour and Help For Jesus Christ according to his humane Nature is truly our Brother come of Adam our common Father and he saw in the Bosom of his Father that we were all lost in the Sink of our Self-will Therefore he would needs throw himself into it to draw us out and save us from those Dangers Would you think it a dishonour if your Brother should voluntarily throw himself into a Sink to get you out of it when without his Help we could not Recover but must perish for ever would you not rather be oblig'd to honour such a Benefactor and to esteem as Jewels the Filth that he had contracted to deliver you from Death How can you think that this is to dishonour Jesus Christ All those things are so clear that it is a wonder how Men find Difficulty in them but they judge of God and his Works as they would of their Equals and would attribute Honour to Christ by the Contempt they have for his Person Seeing he would not be so valuable in his humane Nature if he had not therein a Will rebellious to the Superiour part of his Soul for in that case he would have had nothing to fight against and consequently could not carry the Victory which belongs only to victorious Combatants and not to those who are in Quiet and without Enemies And if Jesus Christ had not charg'd himself with our corrupt Will he could not endure and suffer for in this case all his Sufferings would have been insensible by the inseparable Union with God who is Impassible as well as Immortal And of necessity this Divinity of Jesus Christ behov'd to be in some way separated from his Humanity for to work our Redemption For abiding in this perfect Union with the Divinity he could not satisfie for Man since Man himself owes this Satisfaction to the Divinity seeing he alone had done Evil against the Will of God he also ought to repair it but God ought not to satisfie himself for guilty Man since being Independent on all things he has no need of Men nor of their Satisfaction but Jesus Christ as Man being the true natural Brother of Men would needs for the Love he bare them charge himself with the Miseries and Sins into which they had wilfully plung'd themselves And I think Sir you will find in the Scripture that Jesus Christ was even made Sin for Men. Not that it is to be understood that Jesus Christ ever sinn'd or actually followed the rebellious Will of his humane Nature But the Inferiour and Mortal part gave him Combats and Assaults which Jesus Christ behov'd to resist Jesus Christ also could not in Justice say to Men as he does Be ye Followers of me if it had not been so since their rebellious Wills could not attain to the Perfection of a Will altogether holy and united with that of God And if God required of Men the Imitation of Jesus Christ in case he had not had Rebellion in his humane Nature he should have required of them impossible things as some erroneous Persons would maintain saying and preaching that it is impossible to keep the Commandments of God or the Law of the Gospel and tho' these are Blasphemies against God many believe them because this Doctrine flatters their Corruption and lets them live quietly in their Sins and Negligence on this false Supposition that they cannot keep the Commands of God nor imitate Jesus Christ The Will of Jesus Christ himself his Apostles and all Persons living in the World even tho' they were regenerated in the Spirit of Jesus Christ have all of them their natural Evil-wills and all their Vertues and Perfections consist in resisting them manfully which they must do even till Death for tho' they have overcome their own Wills by force of Resistance yet it is but asleep or mortified and may be awakened or revive by diverse Accidents Therefore a regenerate Person
and no sooner is a Sinner converted but he receives him with joy according to the Parable of the Prodigal and therefore it is said there is Joy in Heaven at the Conversion of a Sinner more than over Ninety and Nine righteous Persons All this shews that God is so far from predestinating any Soul to Damnation that even he himself comes to seek and to save those who would damn themselves as appears by the Good Shepherd that left his many Sheep to go and seek the One Sheep that had gone astray and brings it back on his Shoulders with Joy After all this who can doubt that God has created us all for Salvation and none for Damnation which proceeds only from Mens Self-will and not at all from the Predestination or Presence of God This Doctrine of Predestination to Damnation is she says a most blasphemous and dangerous Doctrine robs God of the Honour due to him shocks all his Attributes of Righteousness Goodness and Truth renders him very unlovely to his Creatures gives those occasion who think they are reprobated to spend all their Life in blaspheming God for creating them to Damnation for no Fault of theirs before they had a Being and not rather leaving them into nothing and discourages them from all Endeavours of becoming better since of necessity they must be damned however and it encourages those who think they are predestinated to Salvation to a Libertine kind of Life since they are perswaded that notwithstanding of this they shall be saved and God will some time or other bring them to Repentance It seems Men have taken up these Sentiments that they may attribute to God the Cause of their Damnation and not to themselves which is a horrible Pride and Blasphemy or to flatter their Wickedness in excusing it by Adam's Sin and that they may not fulfill the Penitence that God has enjoyn'd them by him And being full of Passions themselves without Righteousness Goodness and Truth they would give Authority to their Wickedness by making a God to go before them in the matter of their Passions And as they see those who rule over Men do according to their Inclinations disgrace or favour them so they would make God as partial 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 Yet nevertheless Men are ready to colour this Doctrine with Passages from the Holy Scripture especially some Expressions misunderstood in the Epistles of St. Paul The Apostle Peter when he touches this very Subject and tells us the reason of the Long-suffering of God because he is not willing that any should Perish but that all should come to Repentance he adduces St. Paul's Testimony to confirm the Truth of it and tells us that he has said the same in his Epistles but withal warns us that there are some things in them hard to be understood which the Unstable wrest to their own Destruction pointing out it seems to this very Subject The necessary Duties of Christianity are plainly set down in the Holy Scriptures and other things cannot be well understood but by the same Spirit that endited them and the Rule already mention'd for interpreting the Holy Scripture may be of great use viz. That we so interpret it as may consist with the known Perfections of the Divine Nature and may lead us to the Love of God and to a sence of our own Nothingness and if there be multitudes of Places of Holy Scripture that do plainly lead us to this and some few that are apt to be wrested to a Sence contrary to all these we ought certainly to interpret them by those plain Passages of the Holy Scripture which do clearly represent the Perfections of God Thus she instanceth in that Expression Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated and makes appear that to take it in the Sence of an irrespective and absolute Predestination and Reprobation from all Eternity is inconsistent with the Nature of God and the other plain Directions of the Holy Scripture which shew that God has no respect of Persons She says That all the things of the Old Testament are Figures of the New and that Jacob and Esau are the Figure of a Person sanctified and of him who lives according to corrupt Nature of the Soul that loves its God and the Soul that loves it self This is the Esau and Jacob which the Scripture understands by those Twins come from One Womb for all Men who are born since the Sin of Adam bring with them into the World the good Spirit of Jacob and the Evil of Esau For God gave Adam his good Spirit when he created him and thereafter the Divil by the Consent of the Will of Adam and Eve produced there his Evil Spirit so that those two are engendred in the Soul of all Men before they come out of the Womb They reside in the Womb of the Free-will that God has given us and there struggle before they are in a State to do Good or Evil as Jacob and Esau did in their Mother's Womb which of them should get out first All Men proceeding from Adam do derive from him all his Qualities by Nature and Grace as the Seed and Plant must still be of the Nature of the Tree and Stock from whence it comes an Inclination to Good being the Instinct he retain â— of the Grace of God and an Inclination to Evil the Instinct which he retain'd from the Corruption of his Corrupt Nature So these two Spirits live in Men before they are born as we see the natural Instinct of Beasts as soon as they are form'd as a Duckling come out of the Shell can swim and duck in the Water without being taught by its Mother so this Evil Spirit of Esau gives all Men this natural Instinct to Evil which they still follow if the Spirit of Jacob do not constrain them to Good and hinder them from Evil. Hence comes the War which Man feels throughout all his Life and according to the Victory so is his eternal Lot This Evil Spirit of Esau always gets first out of the Wombs of our Free-will which is rather inclin'd to the things we see than to the Good that is invisible the Pleasures of our Senses rather than the divine and inward Pleasures which we cannot perceive but at a great Distance and through Darkness This we cannot hinder till we have attain'd the use of Reason when we ought by all means to labour that the Spirit of Jacob may get the uppermost in dispite of wicked Esau Those things are true both in the Nature of these two Children and in that of the two-Spirits But Men not understanding the Scriptures do wrest and explain them to a Sence dishonourable to God and blasphemous of him XI But it may be said if there be no such Predestination how then comes any Man to be damn'd How came Sin into the World
beware of her said she was guided by an evil Spirit that one such was plague enough in a Community And told her self that the Devil conâ—ducted her that he transform'd himself into an Angel of Light that there needed no other proof than her living without a Director and she would ruine her self if she did not submit to their Direction They pressâ—d her by so many Reasons that she doubted in might be true She had recourse to God but her Spirit being toâ—t with divers Passions she discern'd nothing being wholly in Darkness She went to the Archbishop who being perswaded she was guided by the Holy Spirit thought she ought not to take the Direction of Men. Pere du Bois confirm'd the same She rested upon this yet begg'd leave of the Archbishop to read the New Testament that she might discover her Errors by confronting her Sentiments with the Gospel She no sooner began to read attentively the Gospels than she perceived such a Conformity with her inward Sentiments that if she were to set them down in Writing she should write such a Book in Substance as the Gospel She left off to read more because God taught her inwardly all that she needed and that his Conduct and the Gospel were the same thing XXVI The Archbishop with the Consent of his Council judging the Undertaking to be from God gave her his Blessing and Permission to begin such a Society at Blatton where a Widow-Woman had offered a piece of Ground for which she afterwards paid her and there was a House begun but not finish'd because of the Death of the Pastor G. de Lisle and the Churchmen applied with all Vigour to stop it as they did He ask'd her Whereupon they would live She said upon their little Garden and God would provide for the rest That he never fail'd those who serv'd him truly and if they serv'd him ill far better that all be dissolved than to deceive the World by Hypocrisie He ask'd If she would make Vows She said None He said Each ones Love was not so strong as to make them persevere freely She said They who have it not will not come And if they lose the Love of God when they are there it is far better they return to the World than to disorder others or make them lukewarm XXVII She had communicated to Pere du Bois upon his importunity a Writing wherein she represented that God had made known to her that all the Evils of the Church came from the Churchmen and that they must amend if they would turn away God's Wrath. This Paper was quickly spread abroad of which she complain'd to Pere du Bois who said he was oblig'd in Conscience to do it All the Churchmen and Religious Orders were so far from amending there Faults thereby that it fill'd them with Hatred and Revenge against her uttering many Reproaches some of them declaring that if they could have her they would drown her XXVIII The Jesuits learning the Design she had of re-establishing a Christian Life in a Community set on the Archbishop with so much Earnestness and so many Calumnies against her that they entirely chang'd him and he retracted his Permission She remonstrated to him his Sin in being so easily perswaded by Men to change his Resolutions and to oppose what he knew came from God and forewarn'd him that for a Punishment he should die very shortly as he did about Six Months thereafter Pere du Bois perswaded her to go to Liege where she would obtain her desire but before she return'd the Jesuits had constrain'd the poor Maids to promise by Oath not to follow her and even not to speak to her Two of the best of them Mary Malapert and La Barre the younger died shortly after through the Anguish and Affliction of Spirit in which they put them A. B. says of Mary Malapert that she was the purest Soul that ever she knew and the only Person she ever knew in the World in a State of compleat Regeneration and Union with God which she enjoyed without knowing it well her self not but that when she enjoyed actual Conversation with God she was then most certain of it but when she return'd to her Directors they knew so well to distract her by outward things by constrain'd Rules and clouds of foreign Thoughts that she knew not where she was nor the true State of her Soul And one of the three things for which A. B. always bless'd God was that he had preserv'd her from the Direction of Men. XXIX Having after this staid for some time at Blatton and then by Pere du Bois's Advice with the Countess of Wallerwal who living in Caelibacy and designing to employ her Wealth to the Glory of God desired to see her where she met with nothing but Distraction she was call'd back to Lisle by the Sickness of her Mother who long'd to see her before she died She found her sick to Death who bless'd God that he had granted her desire and foretold her what grievous Afflictions were to befal her After her Mother's Death she resolving to retire again her Father and Friends urge her that all the Laws both of God and Man do oblige her though she had been in a Desart or a Cloyster to come and assist her aged Father in his Affairs She was perswaded so to do and so ordered her Hours of Recollection and the Times of managing his Affairs that she did all to his Contentment Yet tho' Sixty Years of Age he would needs marry without his Childrens knowledge a poor Maid for his Fancy without either Wit or Vertue A. B. staid with them four Months to acquaint her with the Affairs in which time she suffered grievously by her She resolvâ—d to retire and desired of her Father some of her Mother's Goods for her Substance which he utterly refused It is well known that the Laws and Customs of the Low-Coâ—ntries are quite different from those of England or Scotland particularly in this Matter of the Goods of Husband and Wife for the Goods of the Wife being either the Portion given her or any other Goods given her or purchas'd by her self the Husband has nothing but the Use and Profit of the Portion during the Wife's Life and she may dispose of and trade with her other Goods as she pleases and at her Death the Propriety and Profit also of her Portion and all her Goods do belong to her Children or other Heirs and none of them to the Husband A. B. related to her Sister what had past and that their Father said all their Motherâ—s Goods belong'd to him Upon which her Sister's Husband resolvâ—d to oblige him by Law and accordingly presented a Bill to the Magistrate But he being a Man of Wit and Credit drew them into a Process in which they could not get Justice for during it her Brother-in-Law fell sick and died upon which she desisted from that pursuit and retir'd to a little
Religion have to one another This then is certainly a remarkable Property of the Writings of A. B. that they give so distinct a view of the Relation of the several Parts and Duties of Christianity to one another and to the whole How some hold the Place of the end and others of the means some of which are so absolutely necessary in Man's present State that without them he cannot attain the End They make appear that the great end of Christianity is to bring us back to the Love of God and that we can never recover this without the mortifying of our Corrupt Nature and that this cannot be effected but by obeying the Doctrine and following the Example of Jesus Christ so that his Commands are all the necessary Helps of our Frailty teaching us what way to overcome our Corrupt Nature and to return to the Love of God For the End of the Commandment is Charity The Gospel-Law teaches Man Poverty of Spirit to shew Man that Covetousness has withdrawn him from the Love of God and that he cannot recover it without ceasing to covet earthly Goods and it teaches Men to be humble in Heart and to choose the lowest Place because they have lost the Love of God by loving themselves and thinking themselves worthy of Honour and Glory while they merit nothing but Contempt and Confusion Jesus Christ chose a poor and mean State in the World lived in Hardships and Unease in Reproach and Contempt and never did his own Will but the Will of him that sent him to show us what are the things that withdraw us from the Love of God and what are the means we must use to overcome them XVIII 3. The Writings of A. B. do give us most lovely Representations of the Divine Nature such as may serve to enflame our Souls with Love and Wonder when we think on the depth and height and breadth and length of the Love of God in Christ Jesus which passeth all Knowledge They shew us that God's very Nature is Love that there is none Good but God that no kind of Evil comes from him but all Good that it was nothing but Love and Goodness that made him create Man so wonderful a Creature that he might communicate himself to him and dwell in him by his Light and Love and that he might oblige him by the greatness of his Magnificence made a world of beautiful Creatures to attend him and to compleat his Happiness and Contentment would needs become like to him as he had at first form'd Man after his own Image And so far was he from designing that Man should destroy himself that he us'd all means to prevent it and to keep him from abusing the greatest Natural Gift he could bestow upon him Liberty of Will and which he could not in justice take back again for the Gifts of God are without Repentance That Man's Baseness and Fall did not alter God's Love but he resolves to recover him again and continues unalterably his first Design of taking his Delight with him that he accepts of the Intercession and Mediation of Jesus Christ for that End and allows Man Grace and a Time and Means of Penitence that the very Evils that came upon Man and upon the Creatures by his Sin he order'd them all so as that they might tend to his Good and his Recovery thrust him out of a delightful Paradise into an Earth cursed for his sake and bringing forth Throns and Thistles least the Pleasures of the first should now still bewitch his Heart the more and that the Miseries and Vexations of the last might give him Occasions for Penitence and make him return to his God that God has not forsaken Man but Man has forsaken his God that God by all his Works and by his Operations in Man gives him all sort of Occasions to love him That he is not content to send us his Servants and Prophets to enlighten us but he came himself and became in all things like to us yet without Sin that he might redeem and save us That God tempts no Man but every Man is drawn away of his own Lust That he damns no Man for he is the Fountain of all Good and can do no Evil and the Damnation of a Soul is the greatest Evil in the World That he does not permit Sin but permits Man to make use of his Free-will which being the greatest Treasure he could receive it was not just for God to take it back again and if Man abuse it it is for himself so he may do with his Hands and Tongue which are given him for excellent uses That as God is not the Author of any Sin any Moral Evil neither by Influence nor by Decree nor by Permission but it proceeds wholly from Men and Devils by the ill use of the Liberty and Free-will that God gave them so neither is he the Author of any Natural Evil or Malignity that is in the Creatures he 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 Man as being the Works of his Hands That God lets this Malignity continue now in this Time of Trial to withdraw Man from the Love of the Creatures that at the Times of the Restitution of all things he will deliver all his Creatures from the Malignity contracted by the Sin of Man and since it is just to render to each one what belongs to him it is necessary that they who will not return to a Dependance upon their God have for their Portion this Malignity of all the Creatures to all Eternity as being the Work of their own Hands That in the Love of God consists all Good and all Happiness and in the turning away from that Love all Evil and all Misery which Men are not now so sensible of because of the superficial and transient Delights with which the Creatures do amuse and tickle them but upon the removal of that they shall feel it to all Eternity God is not the Author of Death but by one Man Sin entred into the World and Death by Sin and Death has pass'd over all because all have sinn'd It is saith St. Augustine God alone the only Truth the only Salvation of all and the First and Supream Essence from whom every thing is what it is in so far as it is for in so far as it is what it is it is good and therefore Death is not from God For God did not make Death neither does he take Pleasure in the Destruction of the Living for the supream Essence makes every thing to be what it is and therefore it is called the Essence But Death constrains that which dies not to be in so far as it dies for if these things which die should die altogether undoubtedly they would come to nothing But by how much less they partake of Essence by so much they die Now a Body is less
even the Learned as well as the Vulgar begin again to acknowledge to be somewhat else than meer Mechanism This Production all the Art of the World cannot imitate but it is derived down from the first of every Kind to the respective Series of Individuals of that Kind thro' all Generations That all Men do thus derive their Off-spring from Adam as to their Bodies no body will deny but the general Opinion of the Learned has been that our Souls are immediately created or infus'd by God into our Bodies and that we do not derive them from our Parents and so from Adam But as God has endued Man with a Power of producing the Bodies of his Off-spring so also it seems evident that he has endued Man's Soul united to his Body with a Power of producing Souls united to Bodies which receive also from their Constituents the same Power of producing other Souls united to Bodies and that altogether like themselves There is no Contradiction in the Nature of the Thing and the Blessing of Multiplying given to Man is as unlimited as that to the other Creatures and the Scripture speaks of the Children in the Parents Loins and by this we easily conceive how the Corruption of Man's Nature is communicated to his Posterity without any Blemish in the Holiness and Righteousness of God for he having created Man Holy and Righteous with a Power to produce his like had he continued so the Souls which proceeded from him had been so too but he being corrupted in his Nature he could derive no other to his Posterity For Propagation is redoubling of the same Being and of the same State in which it is But on the other Hand if Souls are not derived from the Parent but immediately created by God Children may be less said to be the Off-spring of their Parents than the Young of the other living Creatures are from them so that they all do more perfectly produce their Kinds than does Man But above all this will never satisfie as to the other great Truth That all Souls are now impure and corrupt from their Original and Children of Wrath by Nature as the Scripture says It were blasphemous to say That God creates Souls impure ignorant and corrupt and it is no less evil to think that God creating them pure and holy does immediately put them into Bodies where they no sooner are but immediately they are thereby reputed so corrupt and guilty as to merit an eternal Separation from God The devout and profound S. Augustine was so sensible of the Difficulties in this Matter that he was undetermined what Side to take and professed that he had seen nothing that cleared them and he was for bearing with one another as to a Difference of Sentiment in these Things It is absurd to conclude this Sentiment to be false because we cannot conceive how Souls should propagate Souls without communicating of themselves in whole or in part if the last they are divisible and not spiritual if the first they should cease to animate their former Bodies this is to reason about Souls from the Idea's we have of Bodies Do not we experience ten thousand things in the World tho' we cannot conceive how they are We see the Soul produces Thoughts and one Thought produces another and this in infinitum Now it is easie for God to make that in certain Circumstances the Divine productive Vertue of the Soul should beget a Thought which has in it a Principle of Activity as it self has and that this Principle after its Production should not depend any longer on the producing Soul but subsist by it self 8. It has been judged the greatest Uncharitableness for her to declare to the World that there are no True Christians whereas in Truth it is one of the greatest Acts of Charity If a number of Persons were desperately Sick and their Distempers had so craz'd the most of them that they were not sensible of their own Sickness and Dangers tho' they perceived sufficiently the Illness of their Neighbours would it be Uncharitableness to awaken them and tell them of their Danger and direct them to the true Remedies even tho' some of them were using the proper means and tending to recovery it were certainly a Kindness done them all She does not say that there are not among Christians who have good Purposes and good Desires and who are good in Comparison of the Wicked but none who are truly regenerately into the Spirit of Jesus Christ She says * To be a true Christian is to imitate the Actions of Jesus Christ and to obey his Instructions Thus Jesus Christ says To enter into the Kingdom of Heaven we must become as a little Child we must take the last Place we must do Penitence we must be poor in Spirit we must deny our Selves we must love our Neighbours as our selves we must take the Kingdom of Heaven by force we must pluck out the Eye or cut off the Hand that offends us we must leave our Offering to go and be reconciled to our Brother we must love our Enemies and do good to them that hate us that we cannot serve two Masters we must not care for the Morrow but lay up Treasures in Heaven we must enter by the strait Gate that a rich Man will hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven that we must take up our Cross and follow him that we must give an Account of every idle Word that God hides his Secrets from the Wise and Prudent and reveals them to Babes that he came not to be served but to serve c. She appeals to Christians whether they be renewed into this Spirit and makes through all these Instances how far they are from it and how few there are who aspire after it And to make People believe otherwise is but cheating Men into Damnation 9. That the present State of Christendom is a Babel where the Language is confounded and the Builders do not understand one another is but too sad a Truth to be denied If a wise Master Builder design to build a glorious City and give particular Instructions how the inferiour Workmen shall be trained up for it and by what Marks they shall be chosen and what Measures they shall observe in squaring fitting and laying of the Stones and if the Workmen shall be trained up by quite different Measures and chosen for the Office by other Marks and if the Workmen do so far mistake their Measures Rules and Instructions as that some of them say he commanded one thing and others the quite contrary some that the Stones should be hewn after such a way and others after a quite different way and should live in a continual Debate and Scuffle each side contending that they were only in the right and striving to draw as many Stones as they could to themselves and then instead of carefully and wisely hewing them and fitting them for the Building should animate
and to work in us the greater Detestation of Sin and of our corrupt Nature God thinks fit that we should feel in our Souls the Evil and the Bitterness of Forsaking him without which they can never be purified nor come to see God IX There is another Prejudice which has some Affinity to this and which the generality of Protestants are prepossessed with and that is because she affirms that there is a State of Purification after this Life for such Souls as are truly converted unto God and yet are not wholly purified from their Corruption and so are not immediately capable of enjoying God All corrupt Doctrine has generally some Fond of Truth with which they mingle many other things that tend to promote Men's worldly Interests the Wealth of the Clergy and the Dependance of the People Thus in the Church of Rome they have founded a Purgatory in a Place near to Hell where Souls are tormented by a material Fire from whence they are delivered by some Soul-Masses some superstitious Ceremonies the dying in a Cordelier's Habit and a thousand Fopperies of this Nature But that Souls which die truly converted unto God and yet have not attained to such a State of Purity as to be capable of enjoying him shall undergo a State of Purification before they can see God is more than probable The Sum of her Sentiments as to this are 1. That is evident none can enjoy God who are not in a State of so perfect Purity that there remains in them no Degree of Corruption neither Actual nor Habitual For no unclean thing can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven There is no Fellowship between Light and Darkness And they are only the pure in Heart who shall see God 2. It is certain that they who are truly converted unto God are in a State of Grace and Salvation tho' Sin be yet in him and the Old Adam is not yet dead If a Person full of Sins and evil Habits be in his Heart and Desires truly turned unto God he receives him into his Grace tho' his habitual Sins are not yet rooted out much more him who is greatly advanced in the Mortification of his corrupt Nature but has not yet attained to a State of perfect Purity 3. It is as certain that Conversion and Regeneration are not one and the same thing The first being the turning away from Evil to Good from Sin to God the second being the Renovation of the whole Man after the Image of God a Creature altogether new whose Will is wholly resigned to God who lives no longer but Christ lives in it 4. It is in Grace and spiritual things as it is in Nature and bodily things All things advance to their Perfection by Degrees and not in an Instant God does all things in Order in Number Weight and Measure and conformably to the Nature of the Beings he has formed We are first Children before we are Men and we advance by Degrees to the Stature and Wisdom of Men and put away Childish Things But if the Child come forth of the Womb void of the bodily Life it remains so still We are told of Children and Youth and Men in Christ Jesus and we must not think that all these States are attain'd to in an Instant in the spiritual Life no more than in the bodily 5. It cannot be denied but that many who are saved do go out of this World truly converted unto God but yet not throughly renewed and purified and as on the one hand God will not reject and cast away such Souls as seek him with all their Heart so on the other hand in this State of Impurity they are not capable of enjoying him And therefore God in his infinite Goodness Truth and Righteousness will place them in such a State as whereby all their evil Habits may be wholly rooted out all their Corruption subdued all their Filthiness cleansed and they purified as God is pure 6. This so great and so extraordinary a Change cannot be supposed to be wrought in an Instant nor yet without most sensible Pain and Labour to the Soul in whom this Change is wrought The Soul is of a most sensible Nature and when freed of this mortal Body that stupifies it its Sensibilities must be infinitely more lively and piercing and therefore the Sentiment of being deprived of the glorious Presence of God which it ardently thirsts after and of having within it Dispositions repugnant to this Enjoyment which a Ray from God manifests it to cannot but give it unspeakable Pain and Anguish We see here no sensible Being that is in Disorder can be restored to its right State without Pain and Trouble a broken Leg a disjointed Member a Part of the Body ulcer'd corrupt Humours cannot be rectified without Pain and Trouble It all the Parts and all the Members of a Body were dislocated corrupted and disordered the Pain and Trouble that would be felt in the restoring of that Body would be unspeakably greater All this is but a faint Image of the State of the Soul all its Faculties are more corrupted and disordered than it is possible for the Body to be the Restitution of which by the Operation of the Divine Grace cannot be perform'd even in this State of Stupidity without much Pain and Anguish but after this Life when the Soul is fully awakened it is supported by the Divine Grace to undergo this Change but with Dolours beyond Comparison greater No living thing can pass from one State to another without great Sensibility can enter into a new Element unto which it is not entirely conformable without suffering its Impressions with Pain weak and sickly Eyes cannot endure great Light without Pain nor a weak Body strong Nourishment without Trouble So a Soul falling into the Element of Eternity of the Divine Light and of the Fire of the Divinâ— Love if it be yet weak and ill â—sposed if iâ— have yet many contrary Disâ—â—sitions many things to be consumed many Habits to 〈…〉 out this cannot be done without great Sufferings Not that God chastises in Wrath nor that he deâ—â—â—nts to torment the Soul but that the Soul full of contrary Dispâ—sitions full of Darkness cannot receive his Light nor feel the 〈◊〉 of his Love without most sensible and dolorous Sentiments till by the Force and Continuance of these Impressions they have banish'd out all that is contrary to his Divine Light and Love which then transforms the Soul wholly into its own Nature It is unreasonable to oppose that Passage of Scripture that the Blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all Sins for the Meaning of it is not that because Jesus Christ has shed his Blood we ought to be cleansed from our Sins without Mortifications and sufferings but the quite contrary for the Blood of Jesus Christ is the Grace that he has merited by his Blood whereby we may be purified from our Sins by Sufferings and by a Conformity to his Sorrows and Death And
the Grandeur of Charity or the Love of God that of Reason and that of worldly Empire and Honour Alexander and others have excell'd in the last and seem Great to the Eyes of Flesh Archimedes and others have excell'd in the second and seem Great to the Eyes of Reason Jesus Christ appear'd in none of these Grandeurs had neither Learning nor worldly Greatness and was of no regard neither to the Eyes of the Flesh nor those of the Great Philosophers and of Reason but O! how Great was he in the Eyes of Charity how Meek and Humble and Patient and Self-denied in a Life of absolute Poverty Contempt and Pain for the Love of God and Men. Now all the Writings and Actions of A. B. tending to draw Men into this Kingdom of Charity and the Love of God which is of a quite distinct Rank and Order from that of humane Reason as well as of worldly Greatness it was no wonder that she put no great Value on the one more than the other they being both unspeakable Hindrances in the way to it and the second more than the third She shews that there is in the Soul a Principle for above humane Reason and that is Divine Faith which does not consist in believing only with the understanding the Twelve Articles of the Creed which may be done by a humane Faith as we believe the recital of some History when a Person worthy of Credit relates it this gives not to the Soul any Divine Vertues which God only can operate in us Faith is a Divine Light which God infuses in the Soul which makes us to know and desire Eternal things and despise Temporal It is not a natural Quality as our Reason but a Divine Quality which proceeds from God as the Beams do from the Sun as nothing can make us see the Sun but the Sun himself It was communicated to all Men at their Creation lost by their Fall renew'd by the Merits and Grace of Jesus Christ When it shines in our Souls it warms them with the Love of God and Men who bear his Image and Likeness and produces Charity And this Charity regulates all our Life and gives weight and measure to all our Actions For Divine Faith is always living and operating It partakes of all the Divine Qualities Righteousness Goodness and Truth So that he who has Faith in his Soul cannot be Unjust nor a Liar nor a Deceiver nor Wicked nor seek his own Interest his own Glory his own Pleasure or Satisfaction seeing all these respect time and earthly things Humane Reason is an Inferiour Principle that may indeed convince us that there is a God the Author of Nature who made and sustains all things but this cannot produce in our Souls Faith and Charity Vertues derived immediately from God and not from Nature or the Understanding of Man which is a frail Creature limited to Earth and Time And to think to know or comprehend God by the natural Understanding is a greater Folly than the Heathens committed in worshipping the Sun All Men being now void of humane Faith take up with a humane Belief and divide and dispute and quarrel and hate and despise one another without knowing wherefore and without perceiving that the Folly they have in themselves is more to be despised than what they require in their Brother The active Exercise of our Reason when depriv'd of the Light of Faith serves but the more to confound and darken us it keeps us in a vain Amusement makes us neglect the necessary means of obtaining Divine Faith blows up the Heart with Pride makes us despise the most Divine Truths when they do not accord with our Principles and value our selves beyond others tho' humble ignorant Persons are more to be regarded as being more disposed to receive the Light of Faith than those Learned who have drunk in the Doctrine of Men. She blesses God that preserv'd her from this for then she should have been uncapable of receiving that of the Holy Spirit Jesus Christ call'd the Simple and Ignorant to be his Disciples and Apostles it was they whom he train'd up to instruct and teach others the way to Salvation When a Learned Nicodemus came to him he told him that unless he became as a little Child he could not enter into the Kingdom of God He founded no Colleges nor Academies to train up his Followers in all sorts of Learning but taught them by Word and Deed to deny themselves in all earthly things and to take up their Cross and follow him True Religion is preserved or received by the same means by which it is at first instituted and established They who say in another case that Christ being more faithful than Mâ—ses in all the House of God who yet left not a Pin of the Tabernacle unmade and therefore he surely could not be wanting in ordering what was fit for his Church may examine their own Measures by this Rule She says The Schools and Doctrine of Men have corrupted the true Sence of the Scriptures and by their Learning authorize all sorts of Sins that it seems the Schools are expresly instituted to forge Cases of Conscience capable of leading Men to Hell For what need is there to Gloss the Gospel and the Life of Jesus Christ They are clear Truths which Jesus Christ taught by Word and Deed that we must be poor in Spirit humble in Heart desirous to suffer Persecution for Righteousness sake and to do to others as we would have them do to us but to corrupt all these things the Learned make Glosses that it is not against Poverty of Spirit to labour or trade that we may get Money and make some Fortune in the World and to flatter Men the better to their Ruine they add by Word that we must possess Riches as not possessing them which is a great Deceit for Men are not now so dispos'd as those of the Old Testament who receiv'd Temporal Goods from God as a Blessing to employ them to his Glory not having their Hearts any ways wedded to them as those of our Time who incessantly covet Riches desiring still more and more It is an infallible Truth that all who would be saved must love God with all their Heart And if we ask those Divines if it be not lawful for a Man to love his Father Mother Wife Children Kinsfolk Friends yea his Country Money House Honour Divertisements Meat Drink Cloaths and every other Creature they will answer yes because they love them themselves and yet imagine they fulfil the Command of God of loving him with all their Heart and to disguise this Lie the better they will say We must not love all these things inordinately giving us to understand thereby that our Hearts may be well divided into so many different Affections without sinning which has so authoriz'd the neglect of the Command of loving God with all our Heart that no Body thinks it is needful They live and die in
things which are despis'd yea and things which are not to bring to nought things that are that no Flesh should glory in his Presence And thus he destroys the Wisdom of the Wise and brings to nothing the Understanding of the Prudent so that it shall be said where is the Wise Where is the Scribe where is the Disputer of this World This they will acknowledge was the way of God's Dealing in former Times and why would they have him to alter it now when the Pastors Doctors and Teachers the Learned the Scribes and the Disputers of the Age are as full of their own Wisdom of their humane Studies and Learning as ever the Scribes and Pharisees the Wisemen and Philosophers were when God rais'd up Publicans and Fishermen to confound their Wisdom and Learning by the Simplicity of their Words That it is not St. Paul's Meaning that God may not thus communicate his Light and Truth to a Woman as well as Men for the Good of others is evident from the Sayings themselves In his time when the Faithful met together it was not as now when a Man who has his Head full of Learning declaims an Hour or two alone very often with Conceitedness enough to the People who must take for good Coin all that he says is such and which he stamps with Passages of Holy Scripture But then there were mutual Conferences where each of the Faithful were allow'd to tell their Sentiment or ask that of his Brethren and Elders but that all might be done in Order St. Paul ordains that their Women might not be of the number of the Interlocutors either by telling their own Thoughts or asking those of others but that they should do this at Home and even there should not pretend to teach their Husbands but learn of them It is evident then he speaks of ordinary Women married and encumbred with the Cares of their House who have need to learn and yet would be thought very Knowing and it is a Rule of Decency to avoid Confusion But at present they would have St. Paul's Meaning to be that Women enlightned by God in a free State always employed about Divine things should I do not say abstain from speaking publickly but even not write in secret in their own Houses the saving Light that God communicates to them and commands them and that when there is no fear of Confusion since such being very rare it is not to be fear'd that their number will bring Confusion This is as far from his Opinion as Falshood from Truth who a little before allows a Women to Prophesie if she have the Gift of it provided she be vail'd who knew that Anna spoke in the Temple and had seen Four Virgins Prophesie which were the Daughters of Philip the Evangelist Thus those envious Usurpers of the Key of Knowledge and Instruction are they become such absolute Masters of it as to oblige God to give it to no Body but to them A Passage of the Life of Tâ—resâ— is remarkable to this purpose as they spoke to her one Day of those Words of St. Paul and she thought on them God said to her Tell them not to be directed by one single Passage of Scripture but let them consider other Places and ask them if they will bind up my Hands XXIII They accused her of intolerable and blasphemous Pride in speaking well of her self in pretending to know the Accomplishment of the Holy Scriptures yea and to understand them better than they who wrote them that she calls her self a Mother of True Believers and that she exalts her self above the Prophets Apostles the Virgin Mary yea above God himself It is easie to give an ill turn to ones Words but Charity thinks no Evil and interprets them by the whole Tenour of their Life Spirit and Sentiments 1. That she exalted her self more than the Prophets Apostles the Virgin Mary c. she said was an impudent Lie for I know very well says she that I am a simple humane Creature as all other Men come of the corrupt mass of Adam And I do not say that I am either Prophet or Apostle or Virgin Mary or God himself as this Bucchardus says but I declare I am a frail Creature as all others to whom nevertheless God has sent his Light of Truth to communicate it to Men. Did they believe truly that there is a living God they durst not treat so ill the things which are declared from God and cause to be burnt by the Hangman the Books which the Holy Spirit has dictated of which they may have Evidence both from God and Men for they who see me write know very well that I do it without any humane Speculation or Study and that this flows from my Spirit as a River of Water flows from its Fountain and that I only lend my Hand and my Spirit to another Power than mine Many Persons are Witnesses of this God also has given me a more sure Testimony by imparting to me his Righteousness his Truth and his Charity for these things cannot come from Nature which being corrupt cannot produce any Good nor any Divine Vertues because I am come from the corrupt mass of Adam as all the rest of Men there could not be in me any Righteousness Truth or Charity which are all Divine and Supernatural Vertues which come not into the Souls of Men but by the work of the Holy Spirit for none but God only is perfectly Just and True And no Body can glory in the Righteousness Truth and Charity that he possesses without having a disordered Mind because these Vertues are no ways in the Person but in God alone who imparts them to whom he pleases And he who has receiv'd any of these Vertues ought to glorifie God and not to glory in himself for them as by the Grace of God I do not glory in my self And I do not fear that any Body can prove that I ascribe any Perfection or Vertue any manner of way to my self for God has given me too much of the Light of Truth to do this having made me see clearly that all Good comes from God and all Evil from Man and from the Devil which two Creatures being equally withdrawn from God the Fountain of all Good are fallen into all sort of Evil. And therefore nothing can proceed from the corrupt Nature of Man but Evil and Sin for this cause a Man can have no occasion of glorying in himself for his Vertues which are not his nor at his disposal And therefore Bucchardus has said most injuriously in his Book that I esteem my self more than the Prophets Apostles c. of whom I do not know to what Degrees of Grace they arriv'd that I should compare them to the Graces that God has imparted to me I know well that I am a poor Creature subject to many Miseries and Infirmities which makes me often humble my self before God and Man But I well know also
that God dwells in my Heart by his Righteousness Truth and Charity and that he makes me govern all my Actions by the square of these Vertues which is a sufficient Evidence to me that it is God who guides me since the Devil and Nature have nothing of these Vertues And therefore there cannot be a surer Testimony that a Soul is guided by the Holy Spirit than when it is possest with the Righteousness Truth and Charity of God I imagine if Bucchardus heard that I say I have the Truth Righteousness and Charity of Moses he will condemn me more than ever having done it so often thro' his Book tho' I had not there spoken openly of the Graces which God had given me But the being condemn'd by so imperfect a Man can do no hurt to my Soul For God knows it is he who commands me to do this and it matters little whether it please or displease Men it is enough to me when it pleases God Yet I will not say that I have the same Degrees of the Vertues Righteousness and Charity that Moses had For God has not reveal'd to me how much of them he imparted to him but I will only say that my Soul is possest in proportion with the same Charity Righteousness and Truth that Moses had but if he had a Pound of each of these Vertues and I an Ounce only I do not at all know neither will I ask for the Vertue of another does not concern me it is enough for me that I be faithful in what is committed to me If God has given me his Divine Love I must do all my Actions and form all my Intentions for this Love without seeking in any thing my own or the Satisfaction of Men and if God has given me his Righteousness I must exercise this Vertue equally in things great and little according to my Employ doing always justly to every one even to my Enemies And God has so planted this Righteousness in the bottom of my Soul that I cannot suffer Injustice towards the Beasts far less towards any Person And the Truth that God has imparted to me is so rooted in my Soul that I suffer for it all sort of Persecutions And tho' it be hard for me to suffer so much for having told the Truth which God commands me I cannot cease to do it For it is better to obey God than Man As to the Accusation of Pride for saying that she underderstood all the Holy Scriptures without having read them that it was enough for the Fathers that they understood what Men had need of then that God now reveals the Secrets which he would then have kept to be hid that the Prophets have indeed declar'd all that must come to pass but neither they themselves nor any others understood their Sayings that all this was spoken without blasphemous Pride appears by the rest of the Discourse and the comparing it with all her Writings That the Prophets had Visions of things to come which they themselves did not perfectly Understand cannot be denied that God may give a fuller understanding of them near the time of their Accomplishment is no absurd nor impossible thing that he has been pleas'd so to do to this Virgin all her Writings do testifie that she declares this without Pride as it appears in all her Writings so in that very place cited Where she says Yes Sir I may say it with Confusion that it has pleas'd God to communicate his Secrets to me which he has hid from the Wise and Great of the Earth If such has been his Will who can reprove it or find fault with that which he finds Good Is not he the absolute Lord of all things That which he will he can do without Man's being able to contradict it for no Body is capable of giving Law to him he is as Powerful as Just and Good let us only adore his Designs Tho' I were evâ—n the most wicked Creature in the World he might serve himself of me in what pleases him and then might damn me in the end if I have merited it All things being subject to him all must obey him the Infernal Powers as well as the Celestial and Terrestrial Nothing can resist his Almighty Arm I must submit if God will declare his Marvels by me I cannot hinder him If he will speak by a Stone or Wood he ought to be heard with respect And as to the Expression in one of her Letters wherein she calls her self a Mother of True Believers for which the Anabaptists or Mennonists accuse her of blasphemous Pride she unanswerably vindicates her self I do not wonder says she that those Mennonists are scandaliz'd at it for they do not know from what Fund it is taken and while they think I am led by the same Spirit with them they must needs be scandaliz'd at the simple Truth with which I express my Sentiments They think I would do better to study humble Words to speak soberly in what relates to me and that I ought not to tell so openly the things which God communicates to me for they practice the quite contrary to my Sentiments and yet think they possess the finest Vertues They have for a Maxim to learn to speak humbly and have for Rules to be simply apparel'd to be strictly united to their Party and not to converse nor drink or eat with those who are cut off from it and far less to assist them any manner of way And all these things are contrary to what God has planted in my Soul To study to speak humbly of ones self having a proud Heart is a great Pride accompanied with Deceit and Lying The Pride consists in desiring to be thought Humble before Men by speaking humbly the Lying consists in saying often that which is False for he who says he is Weak and has no Good in him is sometimes so proud at the Bottom that he cannot endure that another should have so mean Thoughts of him and would be ill content to hear some one say that he has not Vertue or that he is not in a State of Perfection Do you not remember Sir that some of those learned Persons ask'd you if I durst say that they are not regenerated in Jesus Christ while none of their Actions do discover this Regeneration For we see them as much wedded to earthly things as other Men for they are well pleas'd to be honoured and served and esteemed by every Body If they were regenerated all these Desires would be dead in them the Spirit of Poverty Sufferings Humility and Charity would effectually live in their Souls for Regeneration consists in dying to ones self to live to God and if they were dead to the World they wuold seek the things which are above and no longer those which are on Earth And yet they who are sunk into the Traffick of the World and gain as much as is possible for them would have it be believ'd that
it I take Cant for a multitude of Words without any True and Divine Sence and not flowing from an inward Life and Spirit and of this there is but too much in the World But the Writings of A. B. are of another Temper and no Body will nauseate them upon this Head but they who have a secret Disgust for the Holy Scriptures God's Ways are not as our ways When we write we seek our selves we strive to discover our Reason and our Learning and study what may please the Curiosity the Fancy and the Niceness of others The Holy Writings are most unlike to ours both as to Matter and Manner and Method and Stile they are not written to please the Learned the Orator the Philosopher the Critick the Curious but to bring down every lofty Imagination and to mortifie our Self-conceit to Comfort the Humble and the Afflicted to give Light and Knowledge to the Poor and Simple and to send the Rich away empty They repeat again and again the great and necessary things of God's Law to mortifie our Niceness and Curiosity and to beat them in upon us by all means while we think it enough to know these things tho' we are not so happy as to do them Now Writings that partake so much of this Spirit will not be despis'd on this Head by any sincere Christian XXVII Some endeavour to render her Sentiments ridiculous concerning the State of the Blessed in the Life to come and they say she establishes a Mahumetan Paradise Eating and Drinking and Generation in the Kingdom of Heaven making the Earth to become that Heaven and that it shall be a Place of all sensitive Delights Vnto the pure all things are pure but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure but even their Mind and Conscience is defiled I would gladly ask such if Adam had continued always in the State of Innocence perfectly Pure and Holy whether they would have called his State a Mahumetan Paradise and a sensual Life If there were no Concupiscence in Man's Nature but a most ardent pure and habitual Love of God the Beauties and Delights of all the Creatures would serve to enflame the Soul still the more with the Love of God There needs no more but to understand her Sentiments to be convinced of the impudent Falshood of their Reproaches She says then That the Earth and all this visible World being wholly renewed and restored to that glorious State in which it was at first formed of which in the First Part shall be the Seat of the Kingdom of God with Men for ever where Jesus Christ God-Man will reign with the Blessed both as to his Divinity and Humanity That Heaven as to the Soul is the Presence of God and we are in Heaven when we are in God and God is in Heaven as he is in the Souls of his Saints as Augustin interprets Our Father which art in the Heavens but as God has given us both a Body and Soul he has given us also a Paradise of both the Soul can have its compleat Paradise in the Presence of God but the Body must have a material and bodily one like it self For this end the Earth and all this visible World and all that therein is were created and for the same Reason God would have become Man tho' Man had never sinn'd that he might live with him both bodily and spiritually and to make his Happiness compleat And therefore he being unchangeable in his infinitely Wise and Good Designs he will certainly make not an imaginary but a real divine and corporeal Reparation of all things to last for ever for his Recompences are Eternal and will purge away from all the Creatures the Malignity and Corruption that Sin has brought upon them And in this State every individual Saint being restored in Body and Soul to the State in which Adam was in his greatest purity before the Woman was formed out of him shall produce his like of himself alone through all Eternity from a Principle of the Love of God and by an ardent Desire that there may be still more Creatures to love and praise the Divine Majesty This then shall not be a corrupt lustful and shameful Propagation like to that of this corrupt World but altogether Pure Holy and Glorious as we see in a manner an earthly Figure of it still in all the Plants and Trees In the Resurrection they neither marry nor are given in Marriage but are as the Angels of God in Heaven Now what is there in all this unworthy of God or unsutable to the State of the Blessed or contrary to the Holy Scriptures or to the Nature of things It is certain none of the Works of God shall perish but all shall be restored to their primitive Perfection The Scripture tells us there shall be a new Heaven and a new Earth Whose Habitation would the Earth have been if Man had never sinn'd and if the Earth had never been accursed And whose Habitation shall it be when it is renewed and made a new Earth When Men fancied all the Works of God to be shut up as it were in a round Sphere and the Earth to be its Centre and the Planetary and Starry Heavens so many firm and solid Orbs moving round about it and the Empyreal Heaven above all this Sentiment about the Earth might have been thought absurd But in the Age we live in wherein is made known the vastness of the Universe and that all the fix'd Stars are probably Suns and Centres of different Systems of the whole and all the other Planets as well as our Earth among which it moves replenish'd no doubt with variety of living and intelligent Beings we have reason to admire the Providence of God in giving Discoveries to a simple unlearned Woman of the State and Habitation of the Blessed sutable to what is now known of the Frame of the Universe which is also fully confirmed from the Holy Scriptures as was shewn in the First Part and does so clearly demonstrate the unchangeable Wisdom and Goodness of God who having created Man in a Pure and Happy State and the Delights and Beauties of this World for his Accessory Felicity and the Devil by his Craft and Subtilty having perverted both and made this Earth for many Ages nothing but Scenes of Wickedness and Misery yet God by his infinitely Wise Conduct and Providence brings about at last the perfect Renovation of Man and of his Habitation the Earth and of all the Creatures and makes it an Eternal Paradise of unspotted Purity and Bliss Whereas on the other Hand it is most unaccountable how infinite Wisdom and Goodness who changes not after he had form'd Man and this World in so excellent a State and both are corrupted by the Devils should continue the Earth for so many Ages to be the Theatre of their Wickedness and then entirely destroy it Might it not then be said as she expresses it That God
and extraordinary XX. 2. It is objected against her being led by the Spirit of God that many have had Visions and Revelations and yet not from God but that they have been acted either by the Heat of their own Imagination or by Illusions from the Devil who can transform himself into an Angel of Light and work upon the Fancies and Imaginations of corrupt Men so as to make his Illusions pass for Immediate Communications from God and therefore she may be reckoned among the Enthusiasts and Visionaries with which the World abounds Enthusiast is a Word which at first had a Good meaning viz. one truly led by the Spirit of God but now generally it is taken for one who falsely pretends to it and is not And of such there are several sorts of false Enthusiasts in the World tho' all of them do not go under that Name 1. Many there are who indulging still their corrupt Nature and being strongly acted by their own Imagination or by Impulses of the Devil pretend to Divine Inspiration and vent impious absurd and corrupt things as inspir'd by God By their Fruits ye shall know them Others are become Idolaters of their Reason make it their God But the most ordinary false Enthusiasts are they who least of all will own the Name those I mean who pretend to be Embassadours from God and that to resist them is all one as to resist the Spirit of God and that their Sermons and Explications of the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the Word of God tho' in the mean time they have not the Spirit of Jesus Christ are far from being enlightned by him venting their own Notions Passions Errors and Wranglings for the Word of God wresting it to speak as they would have it and in the mean time hating and persecuting those who are truly taught of God and calling them by the odious Names that belong to themselves True Divine Inspiration so far as we can conceive it from the Representations of those who have been truly and immediately Illuminated of God may be considered under these Two general Heads 1. Either God communicates himself his Light and Truth immediately to the Soul without the Intervention of any sensible Idea or Image Or 2. He makes use of sensible Images to affect the Soul and that after different manners by Dreams Visions Voices c. and it is in these especially and not in the former that the Devil labours to ape God and to delude Souls or that Men are deluded by their own warm Imaginations and the Devil's Illusions or their own Fancies pass for Divine Visions c. Now that the Motions and Sentiments of A. B. were not the Effect of such an Enthusiasm seems evidently to appear from her own Writings It is best to hear her self That I may satisfie says she to a great Lawyer the Question so oft proposed by you how I understand and speak with God I shall tell you in Simplicity what I can say of it God is a Spirit the Soul is a Spirit they communicate in Spirit they are not verbal Discourses but spiritual Notices Intelligences Spirituelles which nevertheless are more intelligible than the best Eloquence of the World God makes himself to be understood by the Soul by inward Motions which the Soul understands and comprehends according as it is freed of earthly Idea's and in so far as the Faculties of the Soul do cease the Motions of God are so much the more intelligible unto it The Notices of God are infallible when the Soul is free of all Images and in a Forgetfulness of all created things but they are doubtful when it acts by Imaginations and seek Sensibilities or any other thing that is not purely God The Saints themselves have in this Point committed Mistakes by Visions vocal Words Extasies or other Sensibilities to which the Imagination contributes God is a Spirit the Soul purified is transform'd into him and has no need of Words nor of Sight to understand him more than we need an Eye or a Tongue to understand our own Conceptions It is hard to declare how this is done it must be hard also to believe it and in Effect it is subject to Deceptions and Illusions of the Devil or the Imagination if these inward Notices and Knowledge be not declared by a Person whose Life and Words are conformable to the Gospel as being inspir'd by one and the same Spirit The rest of this Letter is transcrib'd above There is nothing more Difficult for Man's Understanding than to discern Spirits to know if they are of God or of the Devil or from Nature to discern this a Divine Light is necessary for the same things which the Spirit of God operates that of the Devil or of Nature may do also If the Spirit of God make a Soul say that which is to its Praise by a Spirit of simple Truth that of the Devil will make the same things be spoken through pure Pride that of Nature to get Esteem being so subtile in its Flatteries that it will sometimes utter things to its Contempt that it may appear Humble before those who hear them The same thing may be Holy Diabolical or Humane according to the inward Intention and Motion of the Soul that operates which God alone knows evidently in which so many deceive themselves who presume to discern Spirits and to guide Souls by their own natural Light These are the Blind who lead the Blind and both fall into the Ditch I entreat you to remark that the Holy Spirit is not visible to be seen by the Eyes of the Body where he resides but he manifests himself sufficiently by the Operations which he produces in those Souls which possess him They are adorn'd with all his Gifts and Fruits which are sure Marks of his Operations for neither the Devil nor Nature can work such Effects no more than natural Fruits can be brought forth without the Trees by which Fruits we discern the Trees so ought we to discern Souls that are filled with the Holy Spirit for to regard only the Bark which are the outward Actions and Words there is occasion of being greatly deceived for the Devil covers himself with the Garment of seeming Vertue and Sanctity and under this deceives the most Pious and the most Learned The Twelve Fruits and the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit and the Eight Beatitudes have always their Operations in the Person who possesses the Holy Spirit who cannot reside any where without them more than the Sun can be without Light so that it is in vain to seek other Signs whereby to discern this Spirit since these only are the true Oneâ— So that we may know if a Person be animated by the Holy Spirit or by the Devil or by Nature by the Operation of his Works we need only consider them with a single Eye with a pure Intention without Curiosity or Affectation and then we cannot be deceived for God
promises that if our Eye be Single our whole Body shall be full of Light and if it be Evil it will be full of Darkness For tho' a Soul have not in it self the Holy Spirit yet it shall have the Understanding enlightned to discover him in others provided it behold them with a single Eye without Dissimulation or Surprize but in the Simplicity of a Child as Jesus Christ says we must be in if we would enter into the Kingdom of Heaven They who see me write know well that I do it without any Study or humane Speculation and that it flows from my Spirit as Water flows from its Fountain and that I do nothing but lend my Hand and my Spirit to another Power than mine And God gives yet a more sure Testimony by imparting to me his Righteousness Truth and Charity For these things cannot come from Nature which being corrupted can produce no Good nor any Divine Vertues because I am come of the Corrupt Mass of Adam as all the rest of Men there could not be in me any Righteousness Truth and Charity which are all Divine and Supernatural Vertues which cannot enter into the Soul of Men but by the Work of the Holy Spirit This gives me a sufficient Testimony that I am led by God since the Devil and Nature have nothing of those Vertues And therefore we cannot find a surer Evidence that a Soul is led by the Holy Spirit than when it is possest of the Righteousness Truth and Charity of God For if we desire to see Miracles for a Proof we may be deceived since the Devil can do Miracles or things which seem Supernatural but he can never have in him the Righteousness Truth and Love of God The Good Spirit and the Evil may be known by the Qualities which they have The Spirit of God has in him a Peace and Sweetness that comforts the Soul and draws it to an inward Quiet But the Spirit of the Devil disturbs the Understanding disquiets it and robs it of Tranquility and Rest The Spirit of God acts sweetly and strongly in Peace and Tranquility of Mind All that comes from the Spirit of God is always accompanied with the Qualities of God which are Goodness Righteousness and Truth And that which comes from the Spirit of the Devil carries always the Qualities of the Devil which are Malice Injustice and Lying The Evil Spirit may sometimes move to do a good thing to draw Evil out of it but that seeming Goodness can never be accompanied with Righteousness and Truth which are the inseparable Qualities of God which the Devil may sometimes separately make use of to deceive Men aping the Works of God but he can never do a thing that is Good Just and True altogether since this appertains to God only who cannot be divided in any of these Qualities God does not speak to me by Voices Thundrings and Lightnings as he did of Old to the Prophets or as he spake to Tobit by Angels in the Likeness of Young Men or as he spoke to Jacob in the Vision of a Ladder upon which Angels did ascend and descend or as he spoke to Joseph in a Dream saying to him Take the Child and the Mother and flee into Egypt For I durst not rely upon all these things in which the Devil and the Fancy of Man may mingle themselves and make such things be seen and heard as if they came from the Spirit of God But I fix on the solid Truth of God on his Righteousness and on his Love because in such things the Devil can have no hold I have sometimes had Dreams and Visions coming from God as I may afterwards make appear by Experience but I do not rely on these Dreams and Visions unless the same things that I have seen and dream'd be confirm'd unto me by a secret Notice Intelligence after the manner that I converse ordinarily with God For so soon as the Soul is free of all Image and delivered from the agitation of its Passions and the Imagination ceases to operate then I hear the Voice of God and his Reasoning not with my Ears but with my Understanding And after this manner he makes me see and hear all that I need to know both for my own Conduct and that of others which many have experienc'd and found that I have told them the most secret things of their Hearts which neither Men nor Devils could know Never amuse your self with Discourses Visions or Revelations made to you or others if you do not perceive assuredly that they are accompanied with the Qualities of the Good Spirit of God or otherwise you will be easily deceived Remark always if what you say or do be accompanied with the Righteousness Goodness and Truth of God and then you shall assuredly hear God speak to your Soul For if you walk in these Qualities you will be in God and the Devil can deceive you no longer by Illusions or false Imaginations as he will easily do so long as you do not possess those essential Vertues of the Righteousness Goodness and Truth of God in which you ought always to walk if you would not be seduced by Satan The Devil can give Visions Ravishments or supernatural Extasies to Sorcerers yea make them foretel things to come being a subtile Spirit and foreseeing afar and by conjectures what will come to pass and he may make them fall out by the means of his Sorcerers who being powerful and numerous may by their Power and Authority bring about what has been Fore told Therefore it is fit to receive nothing for Truth but the things which lead us to a more strict Union with God and Denial of our selves These things are always Good even tho' they should come from the Devil himself we cannot be deceived in believing them I can never have the least doubt as if it were an evil Spirit that communicates himself to my Understanding for the evil Spirit could not in my Judgment produce so good and so constant Operations such as the Love of God and the Hatred of ones Self Moreover he could not separate the Soul from the Pleasures of this Life nor remove from it the coveting the Riches and Honours of the World nor give it a full Contentment in the want of all humane Consolation nor yet Joy in Hardships and Contempt All these things cannot come from the Devil for he is too opposite to all these Vertues and leads ordinarily to all sort of Evil tho' at first he cover them with Vertues The End of his Operations make appear sufficiently the Deeds of the Author and make known the Workman by his Works Thus you see how certain Marks she gives whereby to distinguish true from false Enthusiasm the Conduct and Inspiration of the Spirit of God from the Illusions of the Devil or Ones own Imagination and how Men may preserve themselves from being impos'd upon by the last That where a Soul is
truly purified and the Communications of God's Spirit are to the inferiour Understanding without the use of the Imagination or Senses or the imprinting on them Images Visions or Voices there neither the Devil nor Man's Imagination can have any hold that the Devil cannot work on the Imagination of such as he does on Wicked and Brain sick Persons That when Visions Voices and sensible Raptures are communicated to such that they may be assured that they are from God they ought to apply to him in that inward way in which he is pleas'd to communicate himself the Soul being delivered from the agitation of its Passions and the Imagination That the Spirit of God brings along with him Peace and Tranquility of Soul and his Divine Qualities of Goodness Righteousness and Truth and his Operations are both good and abiding but the Spirit of the Devil disturbs the Understanding robs it of Tranquility and Rest and that which proceeds from that Spirit carries always with it the Qualities of the Devil Injustice Malice Hypocrisie These are the distinguishing Evidences for ones self And for others that they may not be impos'd upon by any pretending to be led by the Spirit of God when it may be they are guided by the Illusions of the Devil or their own Fancy that there is no Hazard of being mistaken if we follow that only which is conformable to the Gospel tho' it were declared by a wicked Person or the Devil himself that there cannot be a surer Testimony that one is led by the Spirit of God than if he produce in them his Fruits and Gifts and impart to them the Divine Qualities of Righteousness Goodness and Charity and by their means produce the same good Effects in others That the evil Spirit may sometimes move to do a good thing to draw Evil out of it but can never do that that is Just and Good and True altogether which comes from God only and tho' the Devil cover his Wickedness at first with seeming Vertues yet the End of all his Operations shew from whom they come Thus A. B. lays no stress on Visions Extasies Raptures or other Sensibilities to which the Imagination contributes and where the Devil and Fancy may impose but upon the immediate Notices of God to the Understanding and for the Truth of this and her Sincerity in it appeals to the Fruits of God's Spirit and the Divine Qualities which he had implanted in her Soul and by which she constantly steer'd all her Actions And that no Body may be deceived by her declaring things as Truths from God which are not she desires they may receive them only in so far as they are conformable to the Gospel and then there is no Hazard of being deceived those Truths being so well confirm'd already and so necessary for all who would be saved and in so far as they lead us to a more strict Union with God and Denial of ones self And these are always Good tho' the Devil should declare them we cannot be deceived in believing them XXI 3. It was said that she was a Woman of a fine natural Spirit of a clear and piercing Judgment and a lively Imagination and being retir'd and thoughtful it was no wonder tho' she had clear and extraordinary Thoughts and Sentiments beyond others all this might be the Effect of the excellency of her Natural Spirit and not from the Spirit of God This Thought always readily occurs to those who upon the reading of her Writings are convinced of the excellency of her Sentiments and it was objected to her self I shall here set down her own Answer You ought to have more Charity for me than to call me Wise and of a good Natural Judgment when you judge that I am Proud for your saying serves only to make me more so I have always said that I am nothing but a simple Child and now I hear Divines and the Learned say that I have a great Natural Spirit which makes me say and write things which so many Persons do admire I have always referr'd them to the Spirit of God who produces them immediately in me and now you would have me so Presumptuous as to believe that all this comes from my self or from my Natural Judgment I should be a wise Girl indeed if I had found out so many excellent Truths without School or Study without Books and without Masters I believe it is Ignorance that makes you speak so and that you know not what the Spirit of God is nor what a Natural Spirit is and cannot distinguish that which comes from Nature from that which comes from Grace as not being sufficiently advanced in the Wisdom of the Holy Spirit I am afraid my Judgment may offend you but I will make it appear to you that it is most true and that you have not yet penetrated nor discovered how the Spirit of God acts and how the Spirit of Nature acts and not having this Touchstone which discovers fine Gold from the Counterfeit you easily take the one for the other You will needs hold the rank of Masters whereas it were your Happiness to be good Scholars To shew that I have more Charity for your Soul than you have Ill-will for mine I will declare what the Spirit of God is and what the Natural Spirit is that you may no longer be mistaken I will tell you what Operations proceed from both these Spirits and how they must be animated The thing is clear and certain easie to be understood by those who will use their Reason and they who do not use it are Beasts for nothing distinguishes a Man from a Beast but Faith and Reason I set down therefore for the chief Mark and Ground of discerning Spirits that the Spirit of God has this Quality that he never acts and operates but for things Divine and Eternal or tending to Eternity and that the Natural Spirit never acts nor aims but for things Earthly and Temporal For all that is from Nature tends to its Centre which is the Earth and Time where Nature is bounded to delight it self without knowing or tending to any other thing but what is conformable to Nature When you would know then if it be Nature that directs the Actions of a Person remark only if by what they say or do they aim only at things earthly and transitory in this case you may well judge that they have but a Natural Spirit and not the Spirit of God since this never acts but for Divine things tending to Eternity So that when you see Persons labour to gain Money or to have Pleasure and Satisfaction in this World it may be absolutely said they have but Natural Spirits and cannot thereby find God nor Life Eternal for tho' they flatter themselves and say that they trade only to make a right use of their Wealth and study that they may make a right use of their Learning all this is but for Time and earthly Things proceeding only
then as to the Substance and Essence of the Truths tho' it may be as to Faults of Speech through its own Weakness and Ignorance which Faults come from it self and not from the Holy Spirit And yet it is not the Will of God that it should be taken up about the Correcting of these Faults both because this would divert its immediate Attention from God and make it lose the Divine Light and withal his immediate Force and Power is seen in its Weakness Again in the 17th p. of his Narrative when he cites a part of this 18th Conference of the 2d Part of the Light of the World to prove that she pretended to know all matters of Fact whatsoever he leaves out that which serves to qualifie the Meaning of it All that is needful in this says she is to disingage our Soul from earthly Affections and to resign it to the Will of God then he goâ—verns and illuminates it in such sort as that it cannot be ignorant of any thing that it ought to know For as for simple Curiosities we ought never to ask or desire them but only that which is well-pleasing to God or profitable to our Neighbours the Knowledge of which things God does not deny to Souls who are faithfully dedicated to him Thus the Spirit of God made known to Peter the matter of Fact of Ananias and Saphira and to Elijah that of Gheazi where is there Occasion from this for all the Narrators idle Jests in the 19th and 20th p. of the Narrative 3. The Doctor starts a great many Questions upon a false Supposition p. 31. it being already told in the English Preface to the Light of the World that not M. de Cort but M. A. B. did write all the Conferences of the Light of the World which are now published 4. I am sorry that he seems to have drunk in the Hetetodox Sentiments of his new Friends and to declare himself so much Pelagian as to deny all kind of Vnion betwixt a regenerate Soul and God For one of the Articles of his Impeachment of A. B. seems to import no less for he accuses her because she asserts that there was some kind of Union betwixt her and God and that he dwelt with her in some ineffable and incomprehensible manner I thought that all God's Woorks had been incomprehensible and that if he dwell in any Soul it is in an ineffable manner And Jesus had said if any Man love me he will keep my Words and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our Abode with him and St. Paul declares that Christ lived in him and that if any Man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his I thought all this did import some kind of Union betwixt a regenerate Soul and God If any will please to read the half Sentence if you knew me you should also know God in the Original it self they will see how far she is from his Insinuations of Parallelling her self with Jesus Christ or making her self equal with God If says she I should say things contrary to the Gospel do not believe me For you ought not to believe any thing because I say it to you but only because it is really true And if you knew me you should also know God because he is one and the same Spirit in all things So far as you shall discern Righteousness Goodness and Truth in any Person so far shall you discern God living in them and no farther The Doctor wilfully mistakes her Meaning in the other Passage he cites Light of the World Part 2. Conference 17. p. 128 129 and keeps out of the midst of it that which clears it most She makes not a Distinction betwixt a Doctrine as from of a prophetical Spirit and as immediately from God as he would insinuate but that what God thought fit to declare more darkly by the Prophets now about the time of their Accomplishment he declares them more manifestly with such Clearness and Reasons as bring along with them their own Evidence And that he communicates now a Light not of prophecying things to come but of shewing the approaching and present Accomplishment of what has been foretold already The Prophecies says she of the Antient Prophets will all of them very shortly be fulfilled there is no need of any longer having obscure Prophecies because we are fallen into the last Times wherein all the Prophecies shall cease and we shall see them all entirely accomplished and we shall not receive any more new ones because the King of all the Prophets will himself govern his People and will give an entire Accomplishment to all that has been prophesied of him so tho' Sir you shall not need to say that you hold these Truths from a Prophet because the Work does always bear witness who the Workman has been Thus A. B. in the midst of the Passage which the Doctor has cited No doubt when the Doctor began this Narrative he resolved to be Ingenuous and to curtail no Passage that might qualifie her Meaning But when he writes against A. B. it will not do with him Naturam expellas furcâ licet usque recurret 5. M. Poiret being still alive the Narrator should have dealt by him as a prudent Man and a Christian Pastor he should have pleased to tell him his Fault and endeavour'd to restore him in the Spirit of Meekness if there were any Defects and Errors I am perswaded he would have found him easily convinced of them for he is none of the crack'd whimsical bigotted Heterodox and Blasphemous Fouls which he and his Friend represent him to be He is a Protestant Minister whom Providence has discharged from the exercising of his Office by the Dissolution of his Congregation through the Miseries of Wars he has a sound Mind a solid Head a clear Understanding a penetrating Reason and Judgement a cheerful Temper and a sincere Mind He is not wedded to any Party or Person farther than they are united to the Truth as it is in Christ Jesus he values the Writings of A. B. because they contain the true Doctrine of Jesus Christ rescued from the false Glosses of corrupt Nature and because her Life and Spirit were conformable to her Writings he most firmly believes and adheres to all the Articles of the Christian Faith and labours to have them transcribed in his Heart and Life and values no other Sentiments nor Reasonings but as they tend to promote the Interests of Christ's Gospel The unjust and unaccountable Representations given of him by the Narrator and his Friend have made me give you this Character of him and that this is a true one his Writings are irrefragable Evidence which whosoever disparages betrays only the wrong set of his own Heart and Understanding As for that Letter which has given Occasion to the Doctor 's hasty Excommunication of him and made him inconsiderately rank him with Mahomet Ebion
own Favours both from Scripture and Reason and argues against the Philadelphian in that View I think moreover that when the Doctor in the heat of his Opposition against Pretences to Inspiration argues thus as if it were impossible or unheard of for one to be deluded and yet not to be sensible of it or to exclaim against a thing of which he himself is as guilty as any puts a Sword in the Hand of the Deists whereof they may very dexterously turn the Edge against such as were unquestionably inspired since they who truly bore that Character did very much cry out against false Prophets and many of them I believe did not justifie their Pretences to Inspiration by working Miracles In fine I think the Doctor needed not have made such a Bustle about the Import of neither a Friend nor an Adversary since it seems obvious that the Philadelphian meant no more than one who is neither a fond Friend nor a fierce Enemy III. I proceed next to glance at some things in the Doctor 's Second Narrative He introduces it with a very fair Promise assuring us that he will set down her own Pretences in her own Words without adding to them or diminishing from them or courtailing any Passages which may be necessary to qualifie the Meaning of them This if he keeps to it is a very honest and candid Resolution And indeed could he assure also that he will put no other Meaning on her Words but her own nor distort them to a Sense that she never intended he might then very plausibly invite his Readers to depend on his Citations without needing to consult her Writings But I much doubt if this can be expected from one who examines in the View and with the Design that the Doctor doth We know that a great many who pretend to make free and impartial Enquiries gloss or rather pervert the Holy Scriptures themselves in favour of their own Prejudices That I be not uneasie to you I shall only touch on a very few things and by my Animadversions on them you may judge if the Doctor be as Candid and Impartial as he pretends to be or hath kept his Promise 1. He charges A. B. as arrogating to her self a Sanctity above the Prophets and Apostles without the Alloy of humane Passions or Infirmities a Sanctity which is next to it or rather the same with that of God himself Now let any free and disinteressed Spirit determine if the Passages which the Doctor adduces will amount to this Assertion I would ask him Is it not our Duty to have Truth Righteousness and Goodness in all our Thoughts Words and Actions And if so is it not attainable by the Grace of God And if A. B. by this Grace attained to some singular Measures of them ought that to have been made her Crime and Reproach Doth she arrogate any Truth Righteousness or Goodness to her self as the Cause and Author Where doth she say That she arrived at these Heights of Sanctity that the Blessed are possessed of For I think that to pretend to these were to assume to ones self a Sanctity without the Alloy of humane Passions or Infirmities But why doth the Doctor assert That a Sanctity without this Alloy is the same with that of God Is not the Sanctity of Angels without it Shall we then say that theirs is the same with that of God Further are not the Actions of such as are made Partakers of the Divine Nature in the Apostle's Phrase more than humane that is Do they not come from a higher and more noble Principle than what is meerly Natural And when a Soul hath attain'd to this Bliss when Christ is formed in him when he is the Master and Guide and Inspirer of his inward Man must it be accounted Blasphemy or a Rivaling the Deity to say that his Actions are not Humane This is certainly all that is meant by that Passage which so scandalized the Doctor A. B. owns indeed that by the Divine Grace she arrived at great Measures of Sanctity but yet such as others might attain to by a faithful Dependance on that same Grace and she encouraged all that conversed with her generously to aspire after it What if she had delivered her self in the Words of the Psalmist I am undefiled in the Way I keep God's Testimonies I seek him with my whole Heart I also do no Iniquity I walk in his Ways Would the Doctor have quarrelled it Is not this the Character of every truly Righteous Person The Doctor p. 5. after a scornful Preamble brings an injurious Aspersion upon A. B. he will have it that either she was born without Sin or that Original Corruption was perfectly cured in her and so that she was not as others liable to Sin without external Temptations How is this proved Why because she says For my part I can say in in Truth that I do not remember I ever committed any Faults but when I believed the Counsel of Men Now if I have any Sense this Passage overturns what the Doctor would establish by it For does not our yielding to outward Temptations evidently suppose that there is something within us that complies with them and what is that but our Original Corruption For I think it is very plain that if Original Corruption were perfectly cured in us there would be nothing within us on which outward Temptations or evil Counsel could get hold Achan's taking the goodly Babylonish Garment which he saw among the Spoils and Judas's complying with the Offer of Thirty Pieces of Silver did discover the covetous Dispositions of their Hearts When I believe and listen to the evil Counsels of another and thereupon commit Faults this seems clearly to demonstrate that there is something within me that likes and agrees to the wicked Suggestions that are made to me which plainly implies a Depravation Very often it comes to pass that outward Temptations do awaken and discover some latent and hidden Corruption or wicked Inclination that the Person was not sensible of before Doubtless St. Peter did not know that latent Cowardice and Infidelity that were in his Heart till the outward Temptation gave him the Discovery of them so that tho' it were true that one did never actually sin but by means of outward Temptations yet it will not therefore follow that he hath no internal Corruption or that he is exempt from that Degeneracy of Nature that is common to all the fallen Posterity of Adam The Doctor for all that he talks here since he reads A. B's Books could not be Ignorant that she frequently acknowledges the Degeneracy of her Nature and that she was of the same Make and Frame with the rest of lapsed Mankind Take this one Passage for the Proof of it If I had not known says she that my own Will was Evil and Corrupt I should never have learned to resist it since there is not any thing more agreeable to our
they will not be reduced from their supposed Errors by Noise and Banter All to the best of my Understanding that A. B. pretends to is only to be an Instrument in Christ's Hands and that no otherwise than by publishing these Truths that he by his Spirit communicated to her and which his Power and Grace alone was afterwards to make effectual Now let it be supposed but not granted that it was so What Disparagement is it to our Redeemer to make use of a poor contemptible Creature in order to accomplish great Designs Was it any Dishonour to him that his Apostles in his Name and Power converted more to the Christian Religion and wrought more Miracles than he did himself when he dwelt in mortal Flesh V. Perhaps it may be thought I am byassed in Favours of A. B. and therefore not so capable to discern that Latet Anguis in Herba I am sure if I am so my Prejudices are of no old Date they are not yet so rooted but sober and just Reasonings might discuss them and reclaim me from my Mistakes neither I think can it be said that they have been fortified from any prospect of Reputation or worldly Interest But whatever my Prejudices may be I can sincerely declare that what determined me to have an Esteem for this Person 's Writings was a Conviction that they not only recommended the great and essential Duties of the Gospel distinguished them from the Accessories discovered the Mischief of Sects and Parties and the Vanity of laying Stress on nice and airy Speculations but also because they suggested solid Principles which might serve as an Antidote against the Infusions of Atheists and Deists Pelagians and Socinians Antinomians and Fatalists and false Pretences to Inspiration And tho' I met with some things in them that seem'd a little odd and startling yet I choosed rather to suspend my Judgment since even her self does not impose them on any than forego what appear'd to me so very solid and useful Some LETTERS OF M. ANT. BOVRIGNON Whereby her True Christian Spirit and Sentiments are farther justified and vindicated particularly as to the Doctrine of the Merits and Satisfaction of Jesus Christ as is to be seen in the Third and Fourth Letters All of them are most worthy to be perused by those who sincerely love and impartially seek after the Truth and the Salvation of their Souls LETTER I. Concerning the Love of God Written to a Pastor at Mechlin and is the 15th of La lum nec en tenebr Part I. SIR I. I Know not how one of sound Judgment can love any other thing but God seeing there is no created thing that is worthy of our Love as he is being the Fountain of all Good Wisdom the Giver of all Wisdom the Beauty that creates all Beauty the Righteousness of the Righteous the Goodness of all Goodness the Accomplishment of all Perfections in short the only Object worthy of our Love without whom nothing is Lovely neither in Heaven nor in Earth Nothing without him can satisfie our Soul nothing can content it nothing can give it Perfect Pleasure nothing can make it happy neither now nor hereafter It is he who created us it is he who preserves us it is he who will judge us If Good of its own Nature is always Lovely why then does not the Soul employ all its Powers to love the Original the Perfection and the Consummation of all Good which is God II. If Likeness beget Love how can your Soul which was made after the Similitude of God live without loving him What other Lovely Object can it find without God whom only it resembles What Original or Pattern is there among all perishing Things to this Divine and Immortal Soul which cannot find its like but in God himself III. If Benefits do oblige even Nature it self to love its Benefactors how ought the Soul to love its God when he has given it all that it posseseth and has promised infinite and eternal Goods beyond Comparison in the Life to come He has given the Soul which he created of nothing He not only made it after the Similitude of the Angels of Heaven but after the likeness of God himself so that all Souls are by Creation made little Gods Could this God of Love give unto Man greater Goods and Gifts to make himself be loved by him than this Divine Creation of his Soul Immortal as himself The Body which he formed to be the Keeper and Sheath of this Soul could it have more Perfections Is there any thing in Nature more Admirable than the Body of Man animated with all the Powers of the Soul with an Understanding to conceive with a Memory to remember with a Will to act so that the very Body is in some manner an Image or Resemblance of the HOLY TRINITY IV. Could God give unto Man more and greater Gifts than he has done to oblige him to love him For after having given him a Being and Life he upholds and maintains it with all necessary things which he has likewise created for the Entertainment of this Man to whom he has subjected so many Creatures under his Power having made him Superiour over all the living Creatures and given him Authority as the Master-piece of the Works of God the Earth for his Foot-stool the Air to breath in the Fire to warm him the Water to refresh him the Fruits to nourish him the Flowers to recreate him in short all the visible and material things that God created were only for the Body of Man What must he have laid up for his Soul which is beyond all Comparison more valuable as being Divine created after the Image of God If he has made so many admirable Things for the entertainment of the Body which must die and remain for so short a time upon Earth Should not all those Gifts all those Benefits oblige Man to love such a Benefactor Seeing he has not received and can never receive any true Good without this Giver of all Good V. How can he be without loving him when he considers his Love which was not satisfied with having freely imparted unto us so many Gifts but after that this ungrateful Man had abused so many favours by turning away from his Creator to join himself to the Creature valuing the Gifts more than the Giver presuming to merit yet more he rebels against his Orders will needs out of Ambition of Spirit know more than it pleas'd his Creator and breaks his Commandment that he might equal himself unto him This God of Love who in a Moment could have punished all these Ingratitudes by an eternal Damnation unto which he had banish'd the fallen Angels lov'd Man more than the Angels and having more regard to the Love he bear him than to his Disobedience he pardons his Sin and forgives his Fault upon Condition of a temporal Penitence VI. This Testimony of Affection from a God towards his Creature
to it by his Free-will So that if one at present did submit his Will to that of God as Jesus Christ did he would certainly feel the same Operations of Divine Vertues that he felt in his Soul and would likewise do the outward Miracles that he did if there were need for them for the Spirit of God is not lessened and his Power was not limited to the Person of Jesus Christ only seeing he says that his Delight is to be with the Children of Men. He does not speak of one singular Man but of all Men who submit their Wills to his and renounce the Corruption of the old Adam to be cloathed with the new which is Jesus Christ 11. Those will find sufficiently by Experience that it is very possible to imitate Jesus Christ yea that it is easie and agreeable when they are denuded of that old Adam For Jesus Christ himself says that his Yoke is easie and his Burthen light This Truth it self cannot lye that it should be true that it is impossible to bear this Yoke But carnal Persons do certainly lye while they say that it is impossible to imitate him since he did nothing as Man but that which another Man may do being posses'd with the Holy Spirit for Gâ—d is impassible and cannot have endur'd the Sufferings of 〈◊〉 Christ It was his Humanity only that suffered assiâ—â— by the Grace of God which will not be denied to thoâ—â— that ask it seeing God is the common Father of all Men and promises to give his Holy Spirit to them that ask it His Promises are infallible the Scripture assures us of this saying Heaven and Earth shall pass away but my Words shall not pass away bringing the Comparison of an evil Father who would not give his Son a Stone instead of Bread nor a Serpent for a high Fish asking them How then shall not your heaâ—â—â— Father give his Holy Spirit to him who asks him 12. Truly my dear Child I can scarce reason more to make appear those Truths which are so clear I have spoken of them several times and they still bring me new Arguments to maintain the Corruption of our miserable Times wherein Men have invented so much silly Stuff whereby to flatter such as themselves and to make them live and die in the Sentiments of corrupt Nature falsly perswading them that they cannot attain to the Perfection of Jesus Christ that they may not use any Endeavours to attain to it for it would be in vain to endeavour that which is impossible Therefore we see Men to the Eâ—â—y of one another give up themselves to Pastimes take their Pleasures and heap up Riches as if they were created for this looking for Salvation as it were in Recompence for their Sins Which is very sad and will make many to be deceiv'd at Death who in this Life think that they are good Christians because they have not committed the gross Sins of Theft Whoredom or Drunkenness and have frequented Churches and Sacraments prayer much and given much Alms All this will avail nothing before God if we are not animated with the Spirit of Jesus Christ 13. For God will know no Men but those who at Death shall be cloathed with the Spirit of Jesus Christ which is Charitable Humble poor in Spirit in short adorned with all his Vertues and to be a Christian one must imitate him as he himself has said For his Doctrine is not a History to be read or heard out of Curiosity but is all Lessons which we must retain to put them in practice else we shall falsly bear the Name of Christian which signifies no other thing but a Person dead to the Flesh to live unto the Spirit or one who has renounced the Corruption of the old Adam to live renewed into the Spirit of Jesus Christ 14. It is far more safe to believe that Jesus Christ by his Death and Sufferings has merited for us the Grace of dying to our selves that we may live unto him than to believe that he has satisfied all for us while we rest upon this false Pillow abiding in the Sentiments of our Nature eating drinking and doing all other things according to our Sensualities This is the broad Way that leads to Peâ—dition and many there are who walk in it but you my dear Child take the narrow Way that leads to Life even tho' there be few that walk in it Every one will bear his own Burthen If your Friends will not walk in it leave them rather than follow them seeing Jesus Christ says that we must can off the Member or pluck out the Eye that offends us and that he who leaves not Father and Mother Wife and Children for his Names sake is not worthy of him I do not require of you the Perfection that Jesus Christ had but that you tend to it and aspire after it as much as is possible for you In doing of which you will oblige her to love you who subscribes her self Yours wholly in God Antho. Bourignon Amsterdam July 1â—th 1670. LETTER IV. That God does not pardon Sin without Penitence To the same Wherein is declared that Men fall every Day of new into Adam's Sin turning away from God to love the Creature and that they can never be saved without being revived into the Spirit of Jesus Christ who has merited for us the Grace to imitate him This Letter is the Eighth of La lum nèe en tenebr Part iii. My dear Child 1. I Wonder how it is possible that your Friends should say that I reject the Merits of Jesus Christ and that I do not look upon them as the Means of our Salvation seeing that I do not look for Salvation for my self but by the Merits of Jesus Christ who came into the World to redeem us after that we had been all lost by Sin and by it sold and delivered up into the Power of the Devil 2. For Sin is no other thing but a turning away from God to turn towards the Creature The Angels did first thus turn away when they saw themselves so Beautiful and so Perfect they were pleased in themselves desiring to be like unto God And thus they became Devils Enemies of God and of all his Works looking on them with Envy and Jealousie labouring as much as was possible to destroy and corrupt them Therefore the Devil tempted Man as soon as he perceived his Creation that he might hinder the Designs which God had of taking his Delight with him and Man by the Instinct of the Devil turn'd away from his God to regard the Creatures in regarding of which he coveted and lov'd them against the Prohibition of his God thus withdrawing himself by his Will to cleave to the Satisfaction of his humane Nature which we do yet daily 3. And this turning away from God is call'd Sin which brought forth Death to the Soul of Adam and to all Men in him seeing Adam had in his Loins all the Men that are
since or shall be born by his Seed in Generation And by this means all Men have perish'd in him having contracted the Corruption that we do yet feel in our Nature for tho' God did pardon Adam and Men in him his Sin as to the guilt yet he did not remove the Miseries of Spirit and the Corruption of Flesh which the same Sin had brought upon him seeing even to this Day we feel Inconstancy Ignorance and Wickedness in our Spirit and Corruption Pains and Death in our Flesh 4. God cannot have made all these things since they are Evil and he can do nothing but Good being himself the perfect Goodness from which no Evil can ever proceed but he has left to Adam and his Posterity the Miseries which their Sin had brought forth that thereby Penitence might be done for it during this Life which is our time of Trial For seeing the Justice of God could not promise the Pardon of Sin without Satisfaction it was needful by a straight Justice that the same Flesh which had taken Pleasure to turn away from him should likewise suffer Pain that it might return unto him 5. But Men since Adam instead of accepting of this Penitence and suffering willingly the Miseries of this Life to satisfie the Justice of God rebell'd against him and endeavour'd to charm their Miseries by striving to reject Sufferings and to take their Delights instead of Penitence and thus they straied more and more from God so that at last they quite forgot him to delight in themselves God of his Goodness raised up Prophets from time to time as Moses and others to withdraw Men from these Errors He gave them Laws and Ordinances that they might discover their Sins and amend them by returning unto him and repenting that they had forsaken him but very few heard his Voice and many hardned their Hearts chosing rather to adhere to themselves and follow their Sensualities than willingly to take up the Penitence ordain'd by God for this short Life so that all Men in general have at last corrupted their Ways and walked according to the Concupiscence of the Flesh in a forgetfulness of God and thus have all merited Damnation and that incomparably more than Adam since he fearâ—d God and repented how soon he heard his Voice not daring to appear before him out of great Confusion for his Sin 6. But Men after him have voluntarily damn'd themselves and given the Devil Power to rule over their Souls whom they do insensibly obey more than God for while they follow their natural Will they do indirectly follow that of the Devil seeing these two Wills of the fallen Angels and of Men are equally rebellious against God and those Men who follow the Will of their corrupt Flesh may be well called the Devil's Angels for one is always his Angel whose Will he does if he submit his Will to God's he is the Angel of God for Angel imports Subject or Obedient Those Men who obey the Law of the Gospel are the Angels of Jesus Christ for this Cause the Scripture says that the Son of Man will come attended with his Angels which are not pure Spirits according to the Angelical Nature but Men who have followed the Will of Jesus Christ 7. This being so he may be well call'd our Saviour for if he had not come at last into the World all Men had perished He alone is the Foundation of our Salvation since Sin and I confess before all Men that the Light of Faith teaches me that I could not be saved without the Coming of Jesus Christ upon Earth and I will always ascribe my Salvation to the Merits of his Sufferings So far am I from rejecting them as your Friends do blindly believe And I have much more reason to say that they reject the Merits of Jesus Christ since they say that they have not Grace to imitate Jesus Christ while they look only to the Power of their corrupt Nature without making use of his Sufferings which have merited for us the Grace to be able to imitate him yea to obtain the Perfection of God himself if we will apply his Merits to our Soul and let his Spirit fill it since Truth it self says to us Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect Jesus Christ will require nothing of us that 's impossible no more than his Father but he says Seek and ye shall find knock and it shall be opened to you ask and ye shall receive This does not teach us that we cannot attain to the Perfection of Jesus Christ but even to aim at that of our heavenly Father 8. Remark well my dear Child the Sentiment of your Friends and you will find that it cannot come but from the Devil and this under a good Pretext of ascribing their Salvation to the Merits of Jesus Christ For if they truly believed that his Sufferings have merited for them the Grace of God they could not in Truth say that they are too weak to imitate Jesus Christ since this Grace of God gives strength to the Weak to overcome the Corruption of our Nature from which we ought never to ask Advice if we may imitate Jesus Christ For if his Apostles and Disciples had ask'd Advice from their Wives their Children Fathers and Mothers Brethren and Sisters undoubtedly they would not have counfell'd them to forsake them that they might follow Jesus Christ since no man hates his own Flesh which seeks its own Advantages so that if the Apostles and Disciples of Jesus Christ had ask'd Counsel of their Flesh and their Selfwill if they could follow Jesus Christ they would never have been Apostles nor Disciples seeing without the Grace of God we can do nothing but know our Frailty and Weakness 9. But since Jesus Christ is come into the World to reconcile us unto his Father and to bring us back to him by his Grace there is no longer any cause of Fear on God's part We may do what we will by the assistance of this Grace which is never denied to him who seeks and asks it so much the more that Jesus Christ is come to merit it for us by his Sufferings but not to merit Salvation for us while we continue to cleave to our corrupt Nature by which we may see clearly the Falshood of that Doctrine that Jesus Christ has satisfied all for us after the manner that so many understand it for this makes them sleep the sleep of Death since they reject the Grace that Jesus Christ has purchas'd for us of his Father to embrace the means by which we may overcome the Flesh and live unto the Spirit of Jesus Christ follow his Example and imitate his Virtues that hereafter we may follow him in Eternity where none shall enter but he who shall be cloathed with the Spirit of Jesus Christ 10. This is that of which I was desirous to warn you for fear that you let your self be deceived by false Appearances hearing those poor
you or would wrong your Health 6. For I YIELD IN NOTHING TO NATURE knowing well that it is corrupt and begets all sort of Sins which kill the Soul and make it lose a Blessed Eternity Of necessity we must contradict it and deny all its Desires or otherwise it will lead us to all sort of eternal Miseries which few Persons do conceive For we see every one follows his own Will without thinking that he does Evil for they do not sufficiently perceive that our SELF WILL BRINGS FORTH ETERNAL DEATH as in Truth it does which I see by the Eyes of Faith And Jesus Christ has also taught us it when he says that he who does not deny himself cannot be his Disiple I cannot find more express Terms to make Man understand that he must not follow his own Will but absolutely deny it all that it asks Nevertheless we see that the best enclin'd now adays think themselves happy that they can follow their own Will which is always enclin'd towards earthly and tempoâ—al things and never towards Eternity which is unto it invisible and incomprehensible 7. For this Cause I can never Accompany one who travels towards the World and follows his own Will I must still wâ—lk alone so long as I shall not find others being like a desolate Widow who has no Companion nor Consolation in this World which is even very grievous to Nature Because it is always sociable and is pleas'd with the Society of those like to it which I have not as yet met with in this World having being always obliged to travel alone for I have found none to joyn my self unto tho' I have still sought after them and inform'd my self where are THOSE SOULS WHICH TRAVEL TOWARDS ETERNITY without having hitherto discovered any 8. I have convers'd with the Religious and Devout Persons of our side and have found them all seeking after earthly things for if they study and preach it is to recommend themselves to Men or to get their Living And secular Persons who are engag'd in the Practice of Physick or in Merchandizing do all to gain Money or to acquire Honour and Pleasure in this World So that none of those can accompany me in the way to Eternity and therefore I must walk alone or turn backward to the way of the World Which I will never do choosing rather to die alone in the way of Salvation than to follow a croud in the way of Perdition seeing the great number of the damned would never ease my Pain but rather encrease it by the encrease of the number of damned Souls Therefore I will continue in the way to Eternity tho' I should travel ALONE in it even to Death choosing rather to be alone with Jesus Christ than in a great Company with the World and Hell I know indeed my dear Child that you do not desire to follow the World or Hell but in effect you still follow them so long as you yet seek any other thing than Eternity You think you will not seek any other thing since you have resolved to quit the World But believe me so long as you yet seek to please Men and that you are afraid to displease them you are still in the way of the World And so long as you take pleasure here in the Honour or Prosit of the World you cannot relish the Delights or the Repose of Eternity And if you have yet an Esteem for Wealth it is certain you are not come to the Knowledge of eternal good things for these make one always to despse earthly Goods finding them to be vain and unworthy of our Love 9. By which you may certainly discern if you are in the way of Eternity or in that of the Earth and Time according as your Aims and Designs tend unto the one or the other This is a general Rule for ALL Men of the World by which they may measure if they are in the way to a BLESSED ETERNITY or in that which leads unto a MISERABLE ETERNITY by examining if their Cares Desires and Affections are towards earthly things or indeed towards things Eternal 10. Not that one must live in Idleness in this World for he ought continually to labour in it to accomplish the Penitence that God has enjoyn'd us But our Labour ought to respect Eternity the Glory of God the Salvation of our Soul or that of our Neighbour and all that is without this is Evil. For if one labour for this World he receives here the Recompence of his Labour and therefore he has no more to pretend to for Eternâ—ty For otherwise God would not be just seeing he who has laboured that he may gain Money having gain'd it has received the Reward of his Labour and has no Right to pretend to any other thing for he desired no other thing If you labour that you may get an Office and you obtain it your Labour is well rewarded by the obtaining of that Office If you labour in Traffick and Business that you may gain Money and if this succeed according to your Desires you must not look for any other Recompence but the Money that you have gained If you study that you may accomplish your self before Men you are rewarded by the Praises which they give you and the Esteem they have for you You see all that a Person can pretend to who labours for the Earth and for Time God cannot in Justice give him a Blessed Eternity when his Labours have no other End but the Earth towards which he travels all the Days of his Life as we see all Men do now and they think themselves Wise and Happy when they dextrously seek after their Advantages in this World For he who does it not is despised by them and look'd upon as a Fool. 11. This is the way in which all Men do travel wherein it would be impossible for me to follow or imitate them for I look upon all these things as Follies and Amusements of Satan For what can it profit a Man if he attains to some Office or Benefice or that he has heaps up Money that he may take his Delights in this World Death puts an end to all and the Praises of Men which he has acquired by improving himself are nothing but a blast of Wind which drives away the Ashes of our Corruption by forgetfulness out of their Memories And the poor Soul finds it self deprived of eternal Glory which it can never recover after this transitory Life which is the only way to a blessed or miserable Eternity It is a Folly and Deceit to hope for it He must content himself with the Earth which he lov'd and with Men whom he desired to please 12. Behold my dear Child what Recompence the Earth and Men can give them for all the Services which they shall render them nothing but the Pain and Sorrow of being forced to abandon them and Remorse of Conscience for having sought after earthly things and travelled towards a
Works is a dead Faith in which while they remain they will never obtain Salvation seeing a living and operative Faith is necessary which cannot be recovered but in the imitation of Jesus Christ for otherwise no body can recover the Grace of God which he has merited for us for those only who will embrace the Gospel Law for it only teaches us how to return to God and points out all the things which have withdrawn us from him 18. If the Gospel Law did not tell me that I must be poor in Spirit I would never have known that the Goods of the World could withdraw me from God and if the same Law did not tell me that I must be humble in Heart I would have remained in the Pride in which Nature begot me and if the same Law did not teach me that I must deny my self take up my Cross and follow Jesus Christ I would never have known that the Love of my self drew me away from the Love of God or that my natural Inclinations did incline me to Sin I would never have done Violence to them that I might take the Kingdom of Heaven by force but having learned in the School of Jesus Christ the Truth of my Duties I will follow them and walk in the Light that he has purchas'd for me by his Sufferings and will not lean upon the Opinions of blinded Men who take Lies for Truth for I know well that for me the Gospel Law was made and that without the observing of it I cannot be among those whom the Father has given unto Jesus Christ and for whom he prays unto his Father I hope you also will be of that number my dear Child that having been in this World united in the Spirit of Jesus Christ we may be united together with him for ever Which she wisheth who remains Yours wholly in God A. B. Amsterdam Jul. 15. 1670. LETTER V. A Traveller to Eternity minds not earthly things To a Child of God who did not sufficiently comprehend that the Cares of this Life were an Hindrance to the Perfection of the Soul and was troubled to hear me say that it behoved me to tarvel alone to Eternal Life seeing he was desirous tobear me Company Shewing him that all the things of this World are vain and when we make it our Business to acquire them or to please Men we are not to look for an Eternal Reward This is the Twelfth of La lum née en tenebr Part iv My dear Child 1. I Know that you are troubled to hear me say that I am all alone in the World since you desire to accompany and follow me Your Desire is good in this but my Proposition is true that I am all alone in the way through which God leads me You ought not to be troubled to hear the Truth but rather to discover what must be done to accompany me I TRAVEL TOWARDS ETERNITY and I see all the World travelling towards the Land of their Banishment which is this miserable World after which every one aspires for I have not yet found one Person who seeks nothing but eternal things only 2. All Men of sound Judgment say that they aspire after things Eternal while their Thoughts Labour and Studies are taken up about what respects the Earth and Time Is it possible that they can have such a Blindness of Spirit as to believe that they desire eternal things when they despise them â—or â—e who seeks after the Goods of this World gives a sure Evidence that he despises Eternity Since it gives a full Satisfaction to the Man who desires it and he can no longer desire any other thing For all that is Temporal and Transitory seems to him Dung and Filth of which he makes use of the least â—e can and would flee in the Air towards Eternity without any wise touching the Earth if his Body were not of so 〈◊〉 Matter and obliged to take such gross Food for its 〈◊〉 But they who travel towards the World are still desirous of Silver and Gold that by this means they may make themselves to be served and honoured that they may take their Delight in Eating Drinking Walking commodious Apparel in adorning their Houses with fine Moveables and rich Ornaments that they may satisfie their Five Natural Senses of Sight Hearing Smell Taste and Feeling 3. So that it is no wonder that a Person who travels towards Eternity finds herself alone in the way since all the Men that we see now do so desire and seek after all these things studying and labouring with all their Power to obtain them and they will not despise or forsake them for all the Reasons that can be told them They would indeed have Eternity without resolving to forsake temporal things tho' Jesus Christ tells us That we cannot serve Two Masters without being unfaithful to the one or the other They wrest this Passage according to the Sensuality of their Inclinations and they will needs follow them and have eternal Life also which is impossible Therefore I do not understand Men now neither do they understand me and for this Cause we cannot stay together 4. I must indeed out of necessity be among Men But as soon as it shall be possible for me I will leave them to follow the way that God points out to me and leave them to follow those ways which they will needs choose for their Damnation I will not say my dear Child that you walk in this way of Damnation since you have an effectual Desire to be saved and to accompany me But you are yet travelling towards the World which is not as yet crucified in you you do not yet know how one must die to it in all things I am therefore troublesome to you in RESOLVING TO WALK ALONE and you give me more trouble to oblige me to follow you in travelling towards the Earth and Temporal things where I cannot accompany you without continual Strife and Debates for there is not a temporal Action or Word which is not blameworthy in this way that leads to Eternity For I should no sooner hear you speak of things which respect the Earth only but I would reprove you for them as idle Words and unprofitable for Eternity And if by your Actions you should labour for earthly things I would complain of your Employ and reckon your Labour to be vain 5. You see how I would be a Burthen to you and you would be insupportable to me And therefore our Journey would be melancholly and troublesome both for you and me and worse than that of two Persons who did not understand one another by Signs nor Words Nevertheless your Company does not offend me for I love it because of the good Desires which you have neither will I reprove you by way of Correction or Reproof but out of good Inclination for your Perfection which I love as my own But your Nature will feel Troubles thereby which perhaps would be insupportable to