their Imaginations It is not enough to trust to these weak Stays we must take another Aim and direct our Selves towards that Morning Star which appears to our Eyes that we may follow it till we have found this Holy Spirit who must teach us all things The Tenth Conference That the Time is come that Man shall receive the Holy Spirit in Fulness and what hinders them to receive him I Ask'd her How I might find the Holy Spirit For I could not meet with an Assembly of Apostles nor pray with them Forty Days that I might receive him She said Sir you shall receive the Holy Spirit without being in the Company of the Apostles For even they did not receive him in Fulness but in part only and the Promise that Jesus Christ made to send us the Holy Ghost who shall teach us all things had not its full Accomplishment For there were many things which the Apostles knew not and there were also several Faults committed by them after having receiv'd the Holy Spirit It is in these last times that the Holy Spirit comes who shall teach us all things If your Soul were wholy resign'd to the Will of God it wou'd be prepared to receive the Holy Spirit in Fulness For his time is now come Do you not even now feel some Rays of his Light by so many different things which I have told you in our so frequent Conversation Do you not see that many of these things have not been known nor discovered in former times Can you doubt that there is at present a Treasure hid in the Earth which begins to be discovered From whence otherwise shou'd these precious Stones of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ come the so fragrant Roses of true Vertue and so many new Notices which appear in our Eyes as Buds of Paradise Wou'd you have a Holy Spirit visible and carnal Men since the Apostles Days have more Understanding of spiritual things Therefore God has multiplied their Knowledge and refin'd their Understandings that they may conceive the Light of the Holy Spirit by lively Reasons and solid Truths not by material Forms and Figures which were given only for outward Signs capable of being seen by the Eyes of Flesh which did not yet perceive those things of the Spirit For the Holy Spirit not a Dove nor Wind nor Tongues of Fire but an intelligible Spirit who makes us know God and our selves and brings always along with him his twelve Fruits and his seven Gifts all which are spiritual and cannot be seen no more than their Author but by their Operations This is the Holy Spirit which you ought to desire Sir and not a visible and material one Resign your self to God and you shall certainly receive him For his Time is come He is born upon the Earth in Spirit as he was born in Flesh in the Stable of Bethlehem I said to her There were yet many Souls in the World as well as I who earnestly desired to receive the Holy Spirit She said Sir every one will say that he wou'd receive him but I know no body yet who wou'd effectually resign his Will to God's and let himself be ruled and governed by him We still wish for this and that according to our Bent and Inclinations We are sorry for Adversities We do not willingly suffer Tribulations and Crosses We complain of Wrong and Affronts done us We desire to be honour'd serv'd and lov'd and to have our Ease In one Word all our Life is a constant Tract of Self-love and yet we say we are resign'd to God and if this were true we wou'd have no longer self-will but that of God wou'd be our Rule and our Contentment as well in Troubles Adversities and Derelictions as in all sort of Prosperity and Abundance For regarding nothing but the Will of God we wou'd receive all things with Joy But as long as the one 's too sweet and the other too salt to our Taste it 's a sign we yet live to our selves and are not resign'd to God nor ready to follow his Will and so are not dispos'd to receive the Holy Spirit because our self-will hinders him For he cannot operate in a Soul which is not disengag'd from its own Will which still opposes the Gifts and Fruits of the Holy Spirit and directly hinders his Operations It 's thus that I say I know no body yet who 'll be resign'd to the Will of God except in Words but not in Deed. Indeed we wou'd do God's Will as long as 't is conformable to ours but as soon as it opposes that there 's no more Submission We give God our Will as long as all goes right according to our Desires and Wishes but as soon as the contrary falls out we take back this given Will to dispose of it our selves and thus we continue always full of self-love and yet we wou'd receive forsooth the Holy Spirit to joyn him with our Filth and Imperfections to make a very unsutable Marriage as that wou'd be of God with Sin which are two incompatible things as Heat and Cold which can never dwell together Yea truly tho' there were nothing but the Sin of self-love it is a mortal Wound against the Commandment of loving one God alone The Eleventh Conference How Man must resign himself to God I Said to her That I would very willingly resign my self to God and yield myself to be entirely governed by him and to follow all that I shall know to be his Will She said Sir this Resignation has some Exception yet and is not wholly disengag'd For if you wait till an Angel from Heaven come to make known to you what the Will of God is you 'll no ways be resign'd to him but you must take all that befalls you for his Will great or small things all comes from him without excepting any thing For if you are resign'd to him you 'll have no longer Desires of your own and will no longer seek any thing Therefore all that shall befal you shall come by his Order when you take it from his Hand you can never fail even tho' it were the Devil himself or some wicked Creature did it he 'll never permit them to hurt you but in so far as it shall be his Will 'T is true a wicked Man has his Liberty to do what Evil he pleases but God has Power also to preserve us that their Evils do not touch us Or if he permit them to touch us gives us Strength to suffer them and that with Joy and so they can't wound us For all worldly Good and Evil are for the most part but imaginary things and when our Mind is brought to take Afflictions joyfully they seem to us Contentments and no longer Afflictions This depends so strongly upon our Imagination that our Happiness and Misery seems to depend upon it If we imagine that Riches are a Burden Poverty will be a Repose
understood of all the Holy Scripture for even they who pronounc'd it understood it not in its perfect Sense but in part only But now that the Holy Spirit is come upon Earth to give the full Knowledge of them he needs not for this End a Body of Flesh but only to give Men Spiritual Understanding that they may know the Powers of God the Love he bears to Man the End for which he created him and may have the knowledge of True Vertue and of that which is False All these Things shall be known by the Understanding of those Men who will receive the Light of Truth which the Holy Spirit brings now into the World HE IS BORN in the midst of its Universal Darkness in which no Body knows the Truth of any Thing all being falsified or not known The Holy Spirit comes to clear this by Spiritual Notices I blest my good Fortune and the Day in which I met with this Pilgrimess for my Vnderstanding received such Light by her Discourses that I must confess my Soul had perish'd without this Rencounter I asked her How her Words could have such strong Operations on me She said Sir This proceeds from the Holy Spirit who begins to visit your Soul by his Light Receive it with Humility of Heart and he will enlighten you more For he is come to fill the Souls of all those who shall receive the Truth It is by the Operations that you feel that he is born in Souls He is a Spirit and he works in the Spirit of all who seek and desire him We must not any longer seek for visible and material Means For all these things are Hindrances to him Let us only open our Heart and Spirit to receive the Truth and it will teach us all Things For nothing but Lies has undone the whole World The Darkness that Men are in and their forgetfulness of God have come by Lying which has seiz'd on all the World For none are now in the Truth The false Perswasions which they have imprinted on Mens Hearts have made them mistake God and the State of their own Souls There is therefore great reason to bless the Goodness of God who in so miserable a Time sends us his Holy Spirit to enlighten all those who will receive him I believe Sir you are the first but a great Number will follow you For as soon as the delusion shall be discovered the Eyes of many will be opened and their Heads lifted up to return to God abhorring their Errours and the Deceit of their blind Guides They will see that all that they have taught them as Means of bringing them to God have estrang'd them from him and the Sacraments and other Ceremonies of the Church instead of procuring them the Grace of God to love him and to acquire true Vertue have given them rather a Contempt of God and a false hypocritical Vertue This being discovered many will seek the Truth abhorring Lying which has put their Salvation in so great hazard I asked her If the Holy Spirit would not become visible She said No Sir He will not be visible but by the Operations which he will make in Souls whom you shall see disingaged from the Earth and cleaving to God alone We shall see them possess Joy Peace and Patience with the other Fruits and Gifts which will be sure Evidences that the Holy Spirit will dwell in their Souls who notwithstanding shall not be seen by the Eyes of the Body in any Material Form or Figure For the Time is come that God will be worshipped in Spirit and in Truth and no longer in Figures which shall all cease because of the Accomplishment of all Things And all that was figured in the Old Law shall be accomplished in full perfection by the Holy Spirit For the Time is come that all the Promises which God made to Men from the Beginning of the World shall be fulfilled the Alliance that God has promis'd to make with Men shall have its perfect Accomplishment For they shall be his People and he will be their God This has not come to pass as yet Though Men were created to be God's People nevertheless they did not continue so on the contrary they committed so many Infidelities that he was oblig'd to destroy them by a General Deluge and though the Children of Israel were God's peculiar People they forsook him notwithstanding and gave themselves to Idolatry The Jews who were as precisely God's People denied him also and would not acknowledge him when he became Man but revil'd him and hang'd him on a Cross And now the Christians who ought more perfectly to be Gods People despise him in his Sufferings and in his Doctrine So that the Alliance that God promis'd to make with Man could not hitherto be accomplish'd Of necessity the Holy Spirit must come upon Earth to enlighten Men that they may have the Faithfulness requisite for this Alliance of God with Men For a Marriage cannot be compleat if the Spouse be not faithful as the Husband is The Fourteenth Conference Speaks of the Alliance that God will make with Men and of the Coming of Jesus Christ in Glory and that to have a Share in it we must of necessity resign our Will to God and return to a Dependance upon him I entreated her to tell me How and when and wherein this Alliance of God with Men shall be made She said This Will be made by the Holy Spirit who will illuminate Souls make them know their Errours and also the End for which they were created which is nothing less than to be joyn'd and united to God who will take his Delight with Men And they perceiving this shall separate themselves from all Earthly Pretensions and resign themselves to the Will of God desiring no longer to use their own Wills because they have entirely renounc'd them Then shall they have such Dispositions as will invite God down to the Earth to Ally himself visibly and bodily with Men by an inseparable and indissoluble Tye. This is the End for which God cloath'd himself with a Humane Body to make himself like to Man that the Alliance he designed to make with him might be wholly perfect and compleat both in Body and Spirit What God promis'd of Old to Abraham could never be accomplish'd because Men were never resign'd to God as they ought having still us'd their own Free-will without depending upon God This did separate and divorce them from the Alliance which he promis'd them But in this Fulness of Time wherein we live the Holy Spirit is come down to teach us all Things and whosoever shall hear him shall enjoy the promis'd Alliance For Jesus Christ will come very shortly upon the Earth in Glory to Joyn and Allie himself with all those who shall resign themselves to him I cannot precisely tell the Day Sir but that it will be towards the End of the Plagues which are now
well and secure The Thirteenth Conference Of true Faith according to the tenour of the Creed Of the knowledge of God and of our selves by the consideration of his Works I Told her That I did not believe that I had true Faith and that she had sufficiently made appear to me that I could not be right therefore I desired to understand of her wherein true Faith does consist tho' it were but upon my own account for I desired to profit in it She said Sir let us examine a little together our Creed and see if there be so much as one Article of it observed even by the most perfect Christians now-a-days If we believ'd that God is Almighty that he created the Heaven and the Earth could we live without loving and fearing him as we do Could we also attribute to our selves the earthly good things which all the World seeks after and loves since they are all created by God and do all appertain to him in Property which we do daily usurp In the second place If we did believe in Jesus Christ the only Son of God who was conceived of the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary could we reject his Instructions since he is the Son of God the Fountain of all Wisdom Could we follow a Carnal Church seeing she is altogether Spiritual engendred in the Body of Jesus Christ by the operation of the holy Spirit Could we also live in Luxury when God chose a Virgin for his own Mother Would we not endeavour to love Virginity since God has so much esteem'd it Moreover if we believ'd that Jesus Christ the Son of God has suffer'd even so far as to be Crucified Dead and Buried could we live so softly seeking all eases to our Body not willing to suffer any thing that is painful nor affronts nor tribulations when we believ'd that the Son of God has indeed suffer'd for us even to a shameful Death yea was buried as a corruptible Man Would we not imitate or follow him at some distance in case we had the faith that we profess Moreover if we believ'd that he is risen from Death to Life that he is ascended into Heaven were it possible that we could love this present Life while we hope that we shall rise again since Jesus Christ is risen again to ascend unto Heaven Would not this withdraw our affections from the Earth through the hope of ascending unto Heaven with Jesus Christ Were it possible that we would build Houses and make so many other settlements as we do on Earth as if it were our abiding City And if we did believe that Jesus Christ will come from Heaven to judge the quick and the dead were it possible that we would live in so great a neglect of our Salvation with so little care of making ready our Accompts to render them to that great Judge who will demand of us an account of all our Thoughts Words and Deeds Would we not rather lay aside all our worldly Affairs to attend on this which is the most important to us yet on the contrary is often the least of our â—ares And did we believe likewise that there is a holy Spirit and a holy Church is it possible that we would be so little Spiritual so Natural and Earthly so wedded to our Senses in which we live sometimes more brutishly than the Beasts themselves whereas our Souls ought to be wholly Spiritual and Holy since we have a Holy Spirit and a Holy Church And did we believe the Communion of Saints is it possible that every one should be so much wedded to his own Interest and Wealth If Prayers and good Works ought to be all common amongst Christian Brethren how much more ought temporal Wealth to be for the succour of our Neighbour which is very far from Mens dispositions now who study nothing but to keep up and increase their own Wealth understanding no other thing but mine and thine both in Spirituals and Temporals And did we believe in the remission of Sins how would we be penitent and contrite to obtain the pardon of them instead of continuing in them through hardness of heart as we see the most part of men do who finish their Lives in black thoughts and despair instead of having immediate recourse to mercy according to their belief For he who has promised the remission of Sins has not promised them time to persevere in them If this belief were real they would not persevere in them for one day for they are not certain of living so long And did we believe in the Resurrection of the Flesh how could we love and esteem our flesh in a condition so miserable as that of this mortal Life We would greatly contemn it in the hope we had of its Resurrection l in which it should live most happy delivered from so many miseries calamities and maladies under which it groans during its exile in this miserable World which setting aside the hopes of its Resurrection must rather be called Death than Life the belief of this Article would give a disgust of the delights of this present Life and make us aspire towards that to come And did we believe in Life eternal what would we not do to obtain it We would voluntarily forsake Father Mother and all our Goods to obtain this eternal Life for it deserves more than a thousand Worlds which cannot last but for a small time in respect of Eternity whereas we see the most part of men so in love with this miserable Life that they would fain abide here for an Eternity though it be filled with miseries and calamities Do you not see Sir that there is no more faith in the House of God That no body lives conformably to his belief That they place faith only in Words as I have told you formerly They say over it may be every day their Creed and yet they do not observe so much as one Article of it These are nothing but words that vanish into Air and nevertheless they would take it very ill to make appear to them that they have not true faith tho' it be always operative and never idle True faith works always the vertues of which I told you in the Souls which possess it and if these operations are not seen it may indeed truly be said that these Souls have not faith for it can never be any where without operating its vertues no more than the Sun can be without giving his beams Consider it well Sir and you will find my saying true and you will condemn your self I told her I perceived clearly that People lived in a distraction of spirit and that few persons knew themselves That it was no wonder they knew not God since they did not know themselves and that truly we were deceived She replied Sir he who knows God will always know himself and he who knows himself will assuredly know God for the one is linked unto
comes from Man who has distempered that excellent Star by his Sin That the Air is stormy that the Water is troubled That the Earth brings forth Thorns and Thistles This is for no other reason but to take Vengeance of the Disobedience which Man hath committed against God The Dog bites The Wolf devours the Serpent Poysons and all those other Evils which the Beasts do to Man this is for no other reason but to render him the Punishment that he has merited by his Sin If the Fire burn him if the Air infect him if the Water suffocate him this is but for a just Punishment If the Earth doth not bring forth its Fruits without Labour this is but for a Penance of Man's Sin In short all the Creatures whatsoever even to a Flea are obliged to hurt Man because of the Disobedience that he has committed against their Creator and this by Right and Justice But as soon as his Penitence shall be accomplished and he shall obtain the absolute pardon of his Sin all shall be re-established in their first Estate and shall not fall away any more for the glorious presence of Jesus Christ will confirm them in Grace maintaining them in eternal Peace all the Creatures with men and they shall do then what they should have done from the beginning of the Creation Man's Rebellion against God ceasing This will then be a continual and eternal delight for all things God will do the will of Man who shall love him and Man will do the will of God upon whom he shall depend All the Creatures will do the will of Man who shall command them In short God Man and all the Creatures will have but one and the same will without any Rebellion Will not this then be a Paradise of all the universal World They have sometimes told us extravagant Stories of Paradise but this was but to make us understand that it should be filled with all sort of Contentments as they say to Children that there they shall eat Sugar with Spoons because Children have their delight in it But nothing of all that is told us of it can be true except what God has revealed of it at present because the time approaches and will not be long in coming I ask'd her If Men will be confirm'd in Grace without being able to sin or fall any more as they have done once in Adam She said Men Sir will not remain without Sin by constraint or necessity because God would have them in a Free State that the love he bears them might be perfect but they canuot fall nor sin any longer for they will be eternally united unto Jesus Christ beholding God in Spirit and that glorious Body in Flesh who will Govern them and take his continual Delight with them which will hinder them from thinking of sinning or falling It is true Adam did converse sometimes with God but in a manner that was not Humane and had also Intervals For if he had always continued in Conversation with God he could not have Fallen But in diverting himself from him to hearken to his Wife and the Serpent he falls into Disobedience through the wandring of his Spirit Now in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ there can be no Straying he will be always present with them he will replenish them with Graces and Joys so abundant that nothing can any more divert them No body will say any longer Know the Lord For all shall Know him and Love him The fault of Adam and the hard Penitence which it occasion'd will make them see abundantly what it is to forsake God Likewise they shall not be any longer subject to Concupicense for they shall all be satisfied in Body and Spirit by the glorious Spiritual and Bodily Presence of Jesus Christ who having removed all their Sins will replenish them with the Holy Spirit in Fulness so that they cannot have any more inclinations to any Evil so much the more that it shall be removed from the whole Earth and that all that is evil shall perish I said to her That all the Interpreters who speak of Judgment say That the last Fire must consume all the World She said Sir These Interpreters could see no farther than their Sight reach'd but hold for certain all that I tell you These are Divine Truths The World will not be utterly Destroyed but all Evil shall be Consumed One part of wicked Men will die by the Sword another part by the Pestilence and Famine and all those Beauties and Riches which have served as Fewel to sin will be all burnt and consum'd by Fire which will purge the whole Earth by its heat And as heretofore the World was once purged by the waters of an universal Deluge even so shall it be then by Fire The World did not perish by the Waters but indeed all wicked Men with all their Wickedness and the Subjects of it The same altogether will come to pass by Fire which will burn and purge all Iniquity without sparing any thing But nothing will perish of the Works of God The whole Globe of the Earth will remain The Heavens and the Elements will be shaken but will not perish no more than the Servants of God for whom he will reserve some little corner of the Earth to save them from Shipwrack as he saved Noah in the Ark. How greatly desirable is it to be of that Little Number I asked her If these things would fall out at the day of Judgment or rather at the coming of Jesus Christ in his Glory She said Sir We speak of Judgment as if it would be done in one day or as suddenly as an Enchantment This will not be done as we think The Judgment is already made I believe I have told you heretofore The irrevocable Sentence is given there needs no more but to put it in execution The Unrighteousness of Men has so opposed the Righteousness of God that it cannot be any longer without Chastisements or otherwise he would not be Just The Sword of Justice must needs cut off all that it meets in opposition to it And at this time all oppose this Righteousness Therefore all must be cut off This is the Sentence wich shall not be revoked because Men will not revoke their Unrighteousness This Sentence will be put in execution not in one day as People imagin but by little and little to give time and leisure to Men to be Converted if they will seriously think on it Wars are the beginnings of Sorrows After that will follow the Pestilence and Famine Earthquakes in several places Yea even Fire it self as the forerunner and giver of Advertisement All this will prove worse until the consummation of all Evil As the waters of the Deluge always continued yea encreased untill they had carried away all the People who then lived upon the Earth so shall it be of the last Plagues which are already
manner that very often instead of calling her Blessed they offend her by those Idolatries which they give to her Image and Jesus Christ himself would not suffer that they should call her Blessed for having born him in her Womb and suckled him with her Breasts By which it appears that it is not in this Life that all Generations call her Blessed that it must needs be that She saw in her Spirit that Kingdom of her Son in Glory wherein her Joy shall be accomplished and her Spirit Shall rejoyce in God her Saviour It will be then that he shall Cast down the Mighty from their Seats and Exalt the Humble Which as yet has never been done For the Mighty have greatly Exalted themselves since the coming of Jesus Christ and the Humble have been as they are yet despised and rejected The Holy Virgin could not lie in her Song called the Magnificat but she spoke of the time to come which she saw as present in her Spirit Which made her rejoyce and utter all the things which must come to pass in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in which all Generations will call her Blessed and all Souls will Magnifie this Glory where the Humble will be Exalted and the Mighty Abased and Humbled I was quite Transported beside my self to hear things so Admirable which had never been heard of and I saw them so clearly in my Vnderstanding that I could not but say within my self It is so these are clear Truths I nevertheless said to her that many of these things are understood of the Empyreal Heaven which is the Divine Place where the Souls of the Blessed will live Eternally with God where the Body and the Soul shall have four Qualities Agility Splendor Impassibility Subtility which being like Spirits will have no longer need of any thing but the presence of God She said Sir these are Speculations of Men who not having the gift of Understanding would nevertheless conceive something of what they do not understand If these Bodies of the Blessed had need of nothing wherefore should God create so many beautiful Creatures to serve only for Man's Misery For Gold Silver Precious Stones and so many other things not very necessary for the maintenance of his Life would then have been created only for his Mischief since they did not serve but for this Life where the most part of Men do Destroy and Damn themselves for Mony Wherefore then would God have created so many fine Fruits and other things for the nourishment of Man only for so short a time of Penitence as this livfe Would it have been worth the pains to have made the Sun the Moon the Stars and all the Elements that they might remain for so small a time Would God amuse himself for a little profit No Sir this will not go as People imagin for all the Works of God are eternal and will never Perish as I have told you heretofore all things will continue in their kinds eternally to serve and rejoyce the Body of Man made Blessed after he shall have finished his short Penitence Gold and the other Metals will serve to build his Houses and the precious Stones to adorn them They will not be Buildings made by Men's hands with the sweat of their Faces but wrought by the power of God who has form'd the Body and will likewise form the abode of the same Body And when the Holy Spirit speaks of the heavenly Jerusalem that its Gates shall be of precious Stones and its Walls of Gold This is not only in a mystical and spiritual Sense but also in a material Sense as all things must be perfect and accomplish'd in their time Spiritually Corporeally and Materially For God cannot do any thing Imperfectly I ask'd her If they should eat and drink in the Kingdom of Heaven She said Yes Sir Do you not see in the Gospel a that Jesus Christ says a little before his Death That he will eat no more of the fruit of the Vine until he shall drink it with his Disciples in the Kingdom of his Father This is applied to the Mystical sense because they know no other thing But it will be also in a Material sense that they shall drink delicious Wine with Jesus Christ besides the Mystical Wine of the admiration of his Glory which will inebriate Souls They shall eat also at the Table of the Lord where Jesus Christ himself says That he will come forth and serve us And when he says Woe to you that are rich that are full for you shall be hungry He adds Blesled are they that hunger and thirst for they shall be satisfied Read Sir the Holy Scripture you will find there in many places that of necessity it must be understood that we shall drink and eat Bodily in the Kingdom of Heaven with all sort of felicity Bodily as well as Spiritual For our Bodies are the Temples of the Holy Ghost in which he will dwell eternally When the Children of Israel were brought out of Aegypt they eat and drank with Delight Their Cloaths and Shoes did not wax old and they increased with their Bodies even their Nails had no need of being cut So particularly did God provide for their Necessities This nevertheless was but the Figure of eternal Life If he provided for them Cloaths Meat and all things which were even delicious without their care or labour tho they still offended him how will he not provide the delights of the Bodies of the Blessed who will bless him always I ak'd her If there would be likewise human Propagation in this Kingdom of Heaven She said Yes Sir there will be Propagation eternally but altogether Holy altogether pure and Deify'd It will be produced more leisurely than in this World because God by his Mercy has here abridged our days to abridge our Penitence But that Kingdom being of eternal duration will give time and leisure to Propagate stayedly without Pain or Sorrow or concupiscible Appetite but by pure union of Charity in God which will extend it self to the production of new Creatures to the glory of their Creator which is very reasonable For since this World was created few Men have been brought forth who have glorified their God On the contrary in all Times and Ages the Devil has derived his Glory from Men for when there were yet but two Persons upon Earth they yielded to the Devil and followed his Suggestions in abandoning their God And when the World was fully replenish'd Men gave themselves to yet greater Evils For at the time of the Deluge eight Persons only of all that great Universe were found obedient to the Word of God And in time of the Children of Israel when they were brought out of Aegypt to go into the promised Land two Persons only did enter into it In the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah Lâ—t alone with his Family did fear God And when God would have
Prayer He himself fasted Fourty Dayes in the Desert and was an hungred But these Reformers speak of nothing but filling their Belly well the better to excite their Lust Are not these who would Reform the Roman Church fine Zealots for the Glory of God We see also that all their Reformation has brought nothing but Schisms and Divisions among the Reformed themselves There is nothing there but Debates and Dissensions They wrote to me some while agoe that Two Preachers of the same Reformed Communion had fallen by the Ears together even in the Temple and the one had rent the others Garment from Head to Foot These are the Effects of their Reformation and of the Remedy they say they have provided for the Abuses of the Roman Church The Scripture sayes That the Tree is known by its Fruit. From whence we may infer how pernicious these Reformations must be which have caused such Mischiefs in Christendom having brought in nothing but Hatred among Christians though Jesus Christ did so much recommend to them To love one another By these Reformations they have despised hated and persecuted one another beat rob'd kill'd and murthered one another without compassion to maintain the Opinion that they have undertaken to believe though all their Opinions be equally bad the one erring one way and the other another So that to maintain the Errours of these Reformers these Christians kill'd and murther'd one another instead of loving one another according to the Counsel of Jesus Christ And these Enmities continue to this Day and they hate and despise one another upon the Account of their Religion though all of them signifie nothing and no Religions can save any Nothing but the Love of God brings Salvation and all these Persons love themselves only and live all according to the Motions of Corrupt Nature Their Religions consisting in nothing but Theory and vain Speculations not at all in Practice But to flatter them with some Piety and Devotion their Reformers have put the Bible in their Hands and some Songs to sing in the Temple since the Priests and Religious Romanists used to sing in the Temple and corrupt Nature has no Repugnance to Songs it rather delights in them as all these Reformers do at this Day who lift up their Voice as well as they can to make their good Voice be heard in the Temple where they sit at their own Ease with the Bible in their Hand on which they profess to read that they may learn to discourse of it though I have not known one Person who puts in practice so much as one Point of the Gospel Lo this is all the Service that these Reformers have learned their Disciples together with the Lords Supper that is performed without Devotion or Piety And notwithstanding of this they call themselves good Christians Evangelical Persons Predestinated or Regenerated Ones and other good Names Though they be as far from Salvation as Heaven is from Earth But these Reformers have known so well how to perswade them of an Imaginary Salvation by their Scholastick Reasons and Glosses that they have thereby so confounded their Spirit as that they receive Lyes for the Gospel That which is most to be admired is that among so many Persons of Vnderstanding who have followed these Reformers none have perceived the Cheat of these Sensual Reformers who teach a Life quite contrary to the Evangelical Life which speaks of nothing but denying a Mans Self bearing down his Flesh and doing Penitence with a Threatning that without this Mean we shall all perish It must indeed be said That from that time Men have been abandoned to the Spirit of Errour and Lying and that Mens Spirit has been quite blinded by Sin and is since still more blinded since yet in our Time we see Persons of a like Temper liâ—t up themselves above others and call themselves the Reformers and Restorers of Israel and separate from the rest of the Reformed that they may live separate from the World in greater Holiness than others Though in their Manners they be as sensual yea more than those whom they have forsaken For having no Accommodation of Worldly Goods and being unwilling to Work but desirous to be well Treated and Served they undertake Reformations drawing over to them Wealthy Persons that they may obtain their Aims and they make all their Goods common In which the Poor cannot but have Advantage and the Reformers Services and a good Time of it according to their Aim since in effect many follow them and give them all their Wealth with which they Eat and Drink and Marry as those did in the Dayes of Noah On which Terms they make them Preachings of Fine Studied Words and fitted for the Gust of the Hearers who are well pleased to have found out a way of Salvation so well accommodated to their Corrupt Natures since they make them believe that they are all ruled by King Jesus They are perswaded by their frivolous Discourses that this is true and thus Men are yet amused by Men as they were in former Times And I can see no other Remedy but that God overturn all these Churches made with Mens Hands that he may establish one made of Spirit and of Life where we shall worship God in Spirit and in Truth Which he makes me hope shall come to pass very shortly since he makes me declare so many Truths with the hazard of my Life to overturn Babel and revive True Christianity Blessed shall he be who shall receive them from God's Hand and shall not resist the Truth as Jannes and Jambres did since these are undone for ever But receive the saving Truth that God has communicated to me in this LIGHT OF THE WORLD which will Illuminate youâ— Soul In the mean time I remain Friendly Reader Your very Affectionate in Jesus Christ ANTHOINETTE BOURIGNON THE LIGHT of the WORLD The third Part. The first Conference Declares that God has never demanded any other thing of man but the dependance of his Will on Gods and that all other Laws are given him by Accident and to discover his Sins HAving been absent for some time from this illuminated Soul I went to find her again to entreat her to pray for me and to tell her I was resolved more than ever to resign my self wholly to God that I might receive his Divine Light She said Sir as soon as you shall make this Resignation of your self and shall deliver up into God's Hand the Freewill that he has given you you shall receive the Holy Spirit which will teach you all things But never turn back again to resume your own will otherwise the last Fault will be worse than the first Since you have now received more Light than formerly walk according to it and do not any more regard the World nor the Creatures for they cannot save you You must fall into the Hands of God whether you will or no No body can escape this whether he live well or
and also that the World is Judg'd that you may not flatter your self with false Hopes believing that it will last yet and so continue in sloth I have also shewn you true Vertue that you be not deceived by that which is so but in appearance having also declared to you the Sins against the Holy Ghost and those which we commit in another that you may not be ignorant of any thing that can hinder this Resignation to God For the Ignorance of Good and Evil would insensibly ruine us and whereas we are fallen into the Times of Universal Darkness the Common Enemy might very easily deceive you as he does all the World perswading you that you are resign'd to God when you live yet intirely to your self Therefore I have explained to you so many Things one by one that you might discern aright Truth from Lies and that you might certainly resign your self to God according to your desire And because you can never do good without departing from Evil nor depart from that without knowing it I have therefore endeavoured to discover to you the Good and Evil that Reigns at present in the World that I might give you the certain Marks whereby to know if you are truly resign'd to God or not and since the Commandments of God and also the Law of the Gospel are given us to discover what hinders us to be resign'd to him That by this means we may remove all the Hindrances of our Resignation to God Voluntary Poverty serving as a Mean to free our Self will from the desire of perishing Goods Chastity to free this Will from desiring Carnal Pleasures and Obedience to deliver us from the desire of fulfilling our own Will and so of all the other Evangelical Counsels which teach us to depart from that which hinders our Resignation to God Therefore I judg'd it necessary to declare to you all the Things that hinder this Resignation to God and those also which may serve as Means to facilitate this Resignation which is the only Essential Thing that God demands of all those who would be saved I asked her If it will be enough for me absolutely to resolve that henceforth I will depend upon God and no longer use my own Will in any thing She said This Resolution Sir is a great Beginning but 't is to be feared that we shall not put it effectually in Execution because of our inveterate Evil Habits Our Self-will having always born sway how can we entirely subdue it except by the Means that Jesus Christ has pointed out to us in his Gospel which are as so many Steps to ascend to this Resignation For otherwise we might make false Suppositions as we have done hitherto But when we shall put in practise the Doctrine of the Gospel we shall thereby discover how far we have advanced in this Resignation to God For if our Frailty had not needed these Means God would not have taken Humane Flesh to come and teach us them For he can do nothing that is useless We must therefore fix here Sir and receive this Doctrine of the Gospel in its plain Literal Sense which will teach us all things plainly to our Senses by following of which we shall certainly attain to this Resignation For this is the true the shortest and the most certain way Though indeed God sent at divers times Prophets and holy Persons to tell Men by what Means they might recover this Resignation to God yet none of them has done it so perfectly as Jesus Christ did when he was upon Earth For he has omitted nothing but has taught all so precisely that Men will never stand in need of any other Instructions For this is the last Mercy that God will shew to Men who must not look for any thing after the Doctrine of Jesus Christ And what was taught before or since is not at all comparable to this Doctrine of the Gospel If we would be sav'd we must embrace and follow it for it teaches us all the necessary Means for fulfilling the Law of God The Thirteenth Conference Shews That the Doctrine of Jesus Christ is the last that God will send into the World And that the Holy Spirit comes to give now the perfect Vnderstanding of it I asked her How this Doctrine of the Gospel could be the last Means that God would give to Men to bring them to Salvation since we look yet for the Holy Spirit who in these last Times must teach us all Things She said Sir The Last Times began when God became Man He brought along with him upon Earth his Last Mercy teaching Men by Word and Deed all that they ought to do and avoid without omitting any thing of all that shall be necessary for them even to the End of the World So that none have need of any thing else to be taught them It is true we shall have the Holy Spirit in the End of these Last Times into which we are now fallen and he is already born upon Earth But he comes not to bring us new Means of Salvation but only to lay before us those which Jesus Christ taught us when he was in the World that we may clearly see how far we are now estranged from them and to give us the Light of Truth that we may see the Way to return and re-take the same Gospel-means that we may recover the Dependance of our Will upon that of God which is his First and Onely Essential Command without which no Body can be saved For this is the least Thing that we owe him and if we do not fulfil it our Ingratitude is so great that we cannot in Justice be saved I asked her If the Holy Spirit was born in Flesh as Jesus Christ was in his Time And what things he would teach us more than Jesus Christ has done She said Sir The Holy Spirit is the same God with Jesus Christ who was the Word of God as the Holy Spirit is his Understanding There is but One God only but there are divers Powers And as our Understanding knows more than our Mouth speaks so the Holy Spirit will give more Light than did the Words of Jesus Christ though all comes from one and the same God and one and the same Source What Jesus Christ said was understood by Men only in part and the same Things shall be understood in a perfect and compleat Sense by this Wisdom of the Holy Spirit He needs not take a Body of Flesh to speak to Men For Jesus Christ did that sufficiently so that he needs speak no more But there is need of more Understanding For the Last Times are near their End And before the World end God will give the full Understanding of all that has been delivered in God's Name from the Beginning of the World both by the Holy Prophets and by Jesus Christ and his Apostles or other Saints his Disciples Nothing has been fully
The Light of the World A most True Relation of a PILGRIMESS M. Antonia Bourignon Travelling towards ETERNITY Published by Mr. CHRISTIAN de CORT Late Director of the Isle of Noordstrand Superior of the Oratory and Pastor of S. John at Mechlin Divided into Three PARTS Which deserve to be Read Understood and Consider'd by all who desire to be Sav'd Written Originally in French and faithfully Translated into English To which is added A Preface to the English READER LONDON Printed in the Year 1696. ISAIAH ix 2. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light They that dwell in the land of the shadow of death upon them hath the light shined TO THE ENGLISH READER Of whatsoever Party or Perswasion THE Degeneracy of the Christian World in all its Sects and Parties from the true Spirit of Christianity and the primitive Institution of Jesus Christ is the general observation of all Men and the Regret of those who are truly sober and serious And as the Corruption of the best things is always the most vile and abominable witness Devils and Men so that of the Christians is a By-word and a Scandal among the Jews Turks and Heathens and they may rise up in Judgment at the last Day and condemn us we being sunk farther below the common Principles of Human Nature as well as Religion than themselves The Moral Vertues of Justice Temperance c. are banished farther from the Minds and Conversation of Christians than they are from among the Turks and Heathens and we are so far removed from the Spirit Life and Doctrin of Jesus Christ that ours may be truly term'd Antichristian He denied himself in all things and we deny our selves in nothing He never did his own Will but the Will of Him that sent him and we ever do our own and not the Will of God He was perfectly dead to the Honours and Riches and Pleasures and Learning of this World and we only live to them He had a toilsom and laborious Life far from Ease and full of Crosses of Contempt Reproaches and Contradictions from Men and we still seek our Ease where we can have it will force others to bear the Cross rather than take it up our selves and would rather be contemned by God than even for Righteousness-sake endure Reproaches and Contempt from Men He was meek and lowly in Heart and with great meekness suffer'd the Contradiction of Men and Pride and Haughtiness is the Spirit we are acted by even when we most disclaim it and we cannot bear with Contradictions from any without inward Resentment and Displeasure Whatever he did was always accompanied with Righteousness and Goodness and Truth and whatever we do has one or all of the contrary Qualities Injustice Malice or Hypocrisie In short Charity was the living Principle of his Heart and Life and all his Actions were continual Streamings and Effects of the Love of God and of all Men and Self-love even to a Contempt of God and Hatred of Men when they shock us in any thing is the secret Spring by which we are always acted The Lives of Christians are as flat a Contradiction to his Commands as to his Life and Spirit He bids us seek the lowest Place and we are never at rest but climb as high as others will let us He bids us take the Beam out of our own Eyes and we are still spying the Motes in our Neighbours He would not have us lay up for our selves Treasures upon Earth and all our Care is about earthly things He would have us seek first the Kingdom of God and the Righteousness thereof and that is the last and least of our Endeavours except in Word only He bids us deny our selves and take up our Cross daily and in every thing we seek our selves and rather than take up the Cross will stick at no Injustice to avoid it He commands us to love one another and for a Trifle we bite and devour one another Now one would think strange how the Professors of Christianity can reconcile their Practice with the Hopes of Heaven while their Lives are so contrary to the Gospel But as the comparing the Lives and Temper of the Christian World at present with the Life and Doctrin of Jesus Christ does plainly shew their Contrariety to his So if we shall enquire into the several sorts of Corruption and Degeneracy of the Age wherein he lived recorded in the Gospel and which he did chiefly set himself against and upon what Grounds they nevertheless did presume of God's Favour and of being his Children and shall compare them with ours we still find the same Leaven spreads still and tho we have other Names yet we have still the same Corruptions and the same Spirit It is not in one Age or one party that these Corruptions do prevail but more or less in all Ages and among all Parties and tho' Names and Faces change yet in every Age Men's Natures and Dispositions are for the main the same It was not needful therefore that Jesus Christ should appear in every Age to make known their Vices and Corruptions the Reproof of the Age wherein he liv'd is the Reproof of all and what he said to the several Sects among the Jews he says to us and we may read our Faults and Judgment in theirs There are three sorts of Persons especially spoken of in the Gospel the Publicans and Sinners the Sadducees and the Scribes and Pharisees The first were gross and scandalous sinners known for such by all their Company avoided for that Reason and they self-condemn'd as acting against the Light and Checks of their own Consciences The second were the Wits and Sparks and mighty Men of Reason of that Age. They could not believe a Resurrection nor the being of Angels and Spirits these seem'd not consistent with their Reason nor with the Ideas they had of this present World and therefore they deny'd them even as if blind Men should deny the being of Light and Colours because they cannot feel them with their Hands nor touch them as they do other Bodies with the End of their Staff The third were the most Religious People of the Age wherein they liv'd they were had in great Veneration by all they were not guilty of the scandalous Vices of the Publicans they abhorr'd them so much that they would not eat with them they read and studied the Scriptures much they were much in Devotion and made long Prayers they were exact Observers of the Sabbath-day would reprove a Man that came to be heal'd or that pluck'd an Ear of Corn on it they were very exact and scrupulous in little things so afraid of breaking the Command of Paying Tithes of all their Increase that they would not omit even their Mint Anise and Cummin But in the mean time they despis'd the weighty Matters of the Law Righteousness Mercy and the Love of God they were Proud and covetous and wordly-minded they did all to be
confound the Wisdom and the Learning of the World that they may strive rather to be well pleasing to God than men that fleeing all earthly loves which prove bitterness in the end they may give their hearts wholly to him who is altogether lovely whose love is unchangeable who will not disappoint them but will reward their Love with infinite Light and Joy and Love That they who pretend to be led by the Spirit of God may beware of taking God's name in vain and of vouching God's Spirit for all their Dreams and Imaginations for where the Spirit of God resides there his fruits are and the Soul that posses him has it's Affections wholly remov'd from Temporal and Earthly things and set upon those which are Spiritual and Eternal That the Pastors of the Church may see at whose Doors the Guilt of the universal Evils of Christendom are like mostly to be laid that they may fear and tremble when they hear that Salt which has lost it's Savour is good for nothing but to be cast out and troden under foot of Men that by the grace of God they themselves may be taught true Humility Self-denial and a contempt of all Earthly things without which Spirit they are no more capable of Teaching others however they repeat the Words of Christ and his Apostles than an Ape can make a good Picture tho' he take up and use the Painters Pencils and Colours In one Word that all may be brought to deny themselves and to follow Jesus Christ in the true Love of God and of one another and that the Judgments of God being now abroad upon the Earth the Inhabitants of the World may learn Righteousness For a further Vindication of these Writings and the Sentiments contain'd in them I shall here Subjoyn the protestation made by P. P. after his having Answered the Calumnies and Reproaches which some had publish'd against them in the V. Sect. of La paix des bonnes Ames pag. 278 279 280. But says he if all that said does not satisfy I will make and do at present make this PROTESTATION before God and before all Men that is That M. B. her Friends and I never had have not yet and shall never have by the Grace of God other Sentiments or Designs than to believe and live as true Christians professing by word and deed all that is Fundamental in true Christianity and which is comprehended in the Apostles Creed That we receive the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as Divine and Infallible and reject all that is contrary thereunto That we believe and adore the adorable and incomprehensible Trinity the Father the Word or the Son and the Holy Spirit God three and one eternaly Blessed the inward distinctions of which by what name soever they be call'd Real Relative Hipostatical Personal Substantial are as true as they are truly incomprehensible by the mind of Man That we hold Jesus Christ to be true Eternal God and true Man to be the Saviour and Redeemer of the World to be the Mediatour beetween God and Men who by his Merits by his Satisfaction by his Righteousness by his Life and by his Death is the Author of Salvation to all those who imitate him or to speak with the Apostle to all those who obey him That we ascribe the Glory of all Good purely to the grace of God and all Evil purely to the fault of Man and of the Devil That we make the essence and perfection of true Christianity to consist in Self-denyal in continual Prayer in the Love of God and of our Neighbour and in the imitation of our Saviour That we consider all other speculations as accessory for which it is good not to condemn any body but to leave every one at liberty to embrace or lay them aside as they find them helpful for the advancement of the essential part That the true Key whereby to come to the Knowledge of Divine things is Humility and Prayer and not the forc'd speculations of Human Reason That all States the Ecclesiastical the Political the Oeconomical are Establish'd by God and that the Honour and Submission which is measured out to them and regulated by the word of God is respectively due to them That when evil is reproved this does not concern those States directly nor good men in them who are free of it but only the abuse and the ill behaviour of the wicked That if in the Writings of M. B. or of her Friends there be any thing that is obscure or that seems contrary to what has been said we offer to clear and reconcile it or to disavow it in case it cannot be made appear that it cannot be well explain'd and that it is not a mistake of words We protest against all that may be cited from her writings or objected by way of consequence against what I have said as against so many shameful Manglings Malicious Interpretations deceitful Calumnies injurious Consequences in which God will do us Justice if Men are not just to us I protest also against all those who offer to pass hard Censures upon what concerns M. B. her Friends or my self without having read the principal of her writings or my system as against unjust and unreasonable Judges at least as against Persons very inconsiderate and unworthy of Credit In short I believe I have reason to require that they who shall be convinc'd to have laid to our charge a hundred falshoods and others who shall believe them without reason may not again be admitted the one in the Quality of Accusers and the other in that of Judges but rejected the one as notorious Impostours and the other as wilfully stupid AN ADMONITION TO THE READER Dear Reader SInce 't is my earnest desire that the perusal of this Divine Work of which this is the first Part may be profitable and advantageous to you I cannot forbear wishing that you may give no place in your mind to certain prejudices with which the most part of the World suffer themselves to be so miserably deluded that they would believe themselves deceived if they did not follow them Permit me to speak to you a word or two of some of those pernicious and deceitful prejudices which you must either banish out of your mind or forbear the reading of this Book as you would not bring upon you your own Condemnation by retaining those things which may cause you to make an ill use of it In the first place I advise you not to regard the appearance state or quality of Persons nor any thing that is purely external and so consequently can neither add nor substract from the Truth which has no dependance on things of that Nature Let the speaker be a Man or a Woman let instructions come from this or that place let the persons who are reproved be great or small Turks or Christians many or few you must not be surpriz'd at any of these circumstances Truth and Falshod may
great desire of Vertue and an absolute resolution of embracing an Evangelical Life having discovered sufficiently by her Discourses that without this no Body will be saved Her Words have so enlightened my Understanding that all the Learning I had acquired seems to me as Darkness and Ignorance in respect of that divine Wisdom which is so mercifully poured out upon the Earth by the Organ of a silly Maid I wish that every one had seen her and heard her as I have done and might receive thereby the same Operations which my Soul has felt for I look upon her Acquaintance as a greater favour than all the Graces and Favours which God has bestowed on me in this World yea even than my Creation it self for that would serve me in little stead without the working out of my Salvation which would have been in great danger if I had not attain'd to the knowledge of my Self and of the Designs and Marvels of God which I have learned and discovered by the means of this Creature and she has certainly been sent me as the only means of the perfection of my Soul and of all those who will profit by the recital of this Narrative which I find my self obliged to publish for the profit of many This is the true Treasure hid in the Earth He who shall find it ought to sell all that he has to buy this Ground to the end he may discover and find this Treasure and take it up with Joy as the most precious Thing of the World I cannot hinder some who wish Evil or are Enemies to the Truth from finding or pretending something that is not agreeable to them for the Light does always offend Blear-Eyes who cannot endure the Light and the Truth which reproves is never agreeable to our Senses But I would admonish them to beware of reprehending or making themselves Masters of the holy Spirit I behov'd for some time to suspend my Judgment as to the Belief of some Points of Doctrin for I had learn'd them from my Masters in another sense but since I have laid aside all these Authors who have written us their Sentiments and fix'd on the sacred Text of the holy Scriptures I have found so much Conformity in them with the Life Manners and Words of this Pilgrimess that no Doubts could come any longer into my Mind and I could not without betraying my Conscience give her so much as one Contradiction Since that gives me an infallible proof that this Soul is truly possest by the holy Spirit who has brought forth in her his Twelve Fruits his Seven Gifts and the Eight Beatitudes which Jesus Christ has taught I should believe I committed a great sin to think that any other Thing might proceed from such a Source than what is Divine so much the rather that I have always remarked that this Soul did act in nothing naturally but by supernatural Motives never being moved but by the motion of the holy Spirit In confirmation of which I would be ready to spend the last drop of my Blood to the end that none might reject this Light to love rather their Darkness as Jesus Christ has foretold that many would do but that every one may embrace it for Salvation to the end we may altogether enjoy the Kingdom of Jesus Christ which is here so particularly treated of with eternal Joy and Contentment Which is earnestly wisht you by Friendly Reader Your most affectionate in JESVS CHRIST Christian de Cort Superiour of the Oratory and Pastor of St. John at Mechlin At Mechlin the 10th of August 1667. M. A. B.'s Confession of Faith which she presented at the Court of Gottorp to oppose the Calumnies which the Church-men had spread that they might raise Suspicions of the Purity of her Faith I. I Am a Christian and I believe all that a true Christian ought to believe II. I was baptized in the Catholick Church in the Name of the Father in the Name of the Son in the Name of the Holy Ghost III. I believe the Twelve Articles of the Creed or the Apostles Symbol and I do not doubt of any one Article thereof IV. I believe that Jesus Christ is true God and that he is also true Man and that he is the Saviour and Redeemer of the World V. I believe in the Gospels the holy Prophets and all the holy Scripture both of the Old and New Testament And I will live and die in all the Points of this Belief which I protest before God and Men to all those whom it shall concern In Testimony whereof I have signed this my true Confession with my Hand and seal'd it with my Seal At Sleeswick the 11th of March 1675. Anthoniette Bourignon L. S. A Catalogue of the BOOKS written by M. A. B. born at L'Isle in Flanders 1. THE Life of M. Antonia Bourignon 2. God's Call and Men's Refusal in 2 parts 3. Light arisen in Darkness in 4 parts 4. The Grave of false Theology driven out by the true coming of the holy Spirit in 4 parts 5. An Advertisement against the Quakers 6. A Treatise of solid Vertue in 2 parts 7. The Light of the World in 3 parts 8. The Academy of learn'd Divines in 3 parts 9. The Testimony of the Truth in 2 parts 10. Innocence manifested and Truth discovered 11. The Touchstone 12. The Blindness of Men now in 2 parts 13. Antichrist discovered in 3 parts 14. The new Heaven and the new Earth 15. The holy Perspective 16. The last Mercy of God 17. The renewing of the Gospel Spirit in 3 parts 18. The Stones of the New Jerusalem 19. The Persecutions of the Just 20. The Morning Star 21. The Confusion of the Builders of Babel 22. Saving Instructions and Advices The most part of these Works are Translated from the French into the Dutch and High Dutch the first part of Solid Vertue the Touchstone and the first part of the renewing of the Gospel Spirit are also in Latin A Table of the Conferences of this first Part of the Light of the World The First Dialogue or Conference OF Gods dealing with A. B. particularly how he immediately instructed her from her Infancy The opposition of Men. Of Christian perfection and of the deplorable state of Christians Pag. 1. The second Conference Of the Judgment of God Of the last times and of the Men of the last times 17. The third Conference The methods by which Christianity has begun to decay from the times of the Apostles and has continued so to do to such a degree that at present there are no more true Christians upon Earth to wit 1. The admission of false Brethren 2. Appropriation 3. Debates 4. Partialities 5. Scholars 6. Disputes 7. The Victory of the Devil 23. The fourth Conference Of the Qualities and Manner of acting which ought to have been in the Guides of the Church to uphold it in its good Estate against all Enemies and not give way to the Spirit of Antichrist as they
degree that it can come to and the Devil has gain'd an inward dominion over the hearts of all men not that wickedness is manifestly at the highest degree in the judgment of men for it will appear more clearly when they shall commit all sort of sins publickly without being afraid of any the evil will seem then greater but it will be less in the sight of God for it will then be no more accompanied and disguised with Hypocrisie as it is at present The Devil having gain'd the hearts of ill men will remain no longer conceal'd He is desirous to reign publickly and openly assoon as he can for his greater Glory As long as there were here and there some good Souls he kept himself hid to the end he might gain them but at present he can so well disguise his malice that all serve him the wicked with good will as his hired Servants and the good serve him by constraint as his Slaves From hence I infer that the time of his Reign is come and that he will appear very shortly visibly in the flesh And to satisfy the second doubt proposed viz. how there shall be Martyrs of Jesus Christ and of those who shall obtain Salvation by the Perfecutions of this discover'd Antichrist this shall be an effect of the last Mercy of God who will yet once send his light into the world according to his promise That the light shall arise in darkness and that the darkness shall be as noon day That is to say that in this time of darkness in which we live at present wherein the Truth is not any longer discern'd from Lies Faithfulness from Deceit nor Righteousness from Iniquity that God will make his Light to arise in this Darkness and that these who shall receive it shall open their eyes and see the blindness of their understanding and reject the spirit of errour into which they were fallen thro the false perswasions of this invisible Antichrist and shall embrace the spirit of truth which is the Doctrine of Jesus Christ and by this means dispose themselves to Martyrdom and to saving sufferings in the Quarrel of Jesus Christ for many are now detain'd the Slaves of the Devil thro ignorance and inadvertency believing even that they follow Jesus Christ when they follow this strange Shepherd thro his delusions I thought it impossible to believe that the Devil had dominion over the hearts of all men because I knew many who make profession of being good men who in effect are observ'd to addict themselves to pious and religious works exercising themselves in both publick and private Devotions employing themselves according to their Callings in succouring their Neighbour and owning the quarrel of good men in making peace and agreement between those who have quarrels and debates She said Sir it is by these works which seem good and pious that the Devil deceives the good and renders them his Slaves making them to do his will without their perceiving it It is for this reason our times may well be called dangerous because the darkness is so thick as that good is not any longer discern'd from evil Those are esteem'd good men who do often frequent the Churches and Sacraments and are present at the publick Solemnities and they who do so believe themselves to be good men and to live well but believe me Sir if this be not done in the true Spirit of Christianity these are all but amusements for the life of a Christian is an inward and spiritual Life consisting in the LOVE and Respect we owe to God and CHARITY to our Neighbour for God This Love is an inward Passion of our Soul which is known to none but God himself as also this Charity for our Neighbour These inward passions are sometimes discover'd outwardly by external operations as to suffer willingly for him whom we love to be subject in all things to his will to honour him with all our power by these solid vertues it is discover'd if we be good men not by making a profession of being so for this profession of being good proceeds often from a presumption of our Salvation which is a sin against the Holy Ghost A sinner who knows his sin is often a better man than this presumptuous person The Sixth Conference How the outward worship of God and the outward works of Charity towards our Neighbour are corrupted by the Devil And from whence this Power proceeds I Desir'd to be satisfy'd concerning all these points of good works which I had observ'd to be yet in use among those who profess to be good men to see whither the Devil would produce such operations in his Adherents I ask'd her first If it was not a good work to go often to the Church or to its Solemnities She answer'd It is very good to go to Church to hear the Word of God since Jesus Christ himself went thither to teach it for there is distributed or at least ought to be that word which gives food or nourishment to the souls of the faithful But I pray you Sir says she reflect a little seriously with me on the way of going to Church and of teaching the Word of God there which is now observ'd and see if you will not be oblig'd to confess that by what is now done in Churches the Devil receives much more honour than God therefore he incites his Adherents to go thither often and the Ministers to perform the Solemnities there frequently They go to Church out of custom and being there they behave themselves even as they do in profane places The Solemnities there are so vain that they serve rather to satisfie the senses than to move devotion Among a thousand persons who follow Processions you will scarce find one who has his heart lifted up to God! Sermons are made more out of vanity and heard more out of curiosity than to profit by them Behold the Theater of the World at present judge now whither all these things can pass for good works in the sight of God and if the Devil has not ground to excite them to these actions from whence he derives so much his advantages When once he could perswade men that a Christian Life consists in outward actions he perverted all the good so that they do rather follow him than Jesus Christ because these visible and outward things make a stronger impression on the natural senses than those spiritual things which Jesus Christ has taught and commanded us I felt in my soul that this was true but desiring to learn more I said to her that for those who apply themselves to their Neighbours as to visit the poor and the sick to own the quarrel of the good to quiet and appease strife and contentions that these works could not come from the suggestion of the Devil She reply'd All these things are good if they were done in the spirit of Charity and purely for the Love of God but that this was so
and instead of saying to sinners go and sin no more as Jesus Christ did to the persons whose sins he pardon'd as to the Paralitick and to the Woman taken in Adultery these Confessors say come again to Confession and we will still absolve you Jesus Christ says If thou hast a quarrel with thy Brother leave thy Offering and go be reconcil'd with thy Brother and these Confessors with a word send them quickly to the Altar without Reconciliation Do they not act directly in opposition to Christ I said to her that I had never searcht so deep in this matter but that I would willingly know if it be not of Confession that Jesus Christ speaks when he says That which you bind or loose in earth I will do it also in heaven and then when St. Peter ask'd If he should seven times forgive his brother who had offended him Jesus Christ answers not only seven times but seventy seven times She reply'd Sir take heed this light is not from men I never spoke so openly to any body but I see plainly that you will profit by it To give a solution to your first question Whether Jesus Christ did not speak touching Confession all that you shall do on earth I will do in heaven this is certainly as to the remitting and retaining of sins but it is not after the manner that men understand it for God never gave this authority to men in themselves but to his Church which is nothing else but his word and therefore this authority does reside always where this word resides Moses and so many other Prophets who wrought so many Wonders in the world perform'd them by vertue of this word and not by their own authority and power They went always to God to know what they ought to do and they wrought according to his will in no ways according to their own for man has nothing of himself but an impotence instead of power but the word of God has power in all places where it resides even tho it should reside in a wicked soul Therefore sometimes even the beasts have wrought miracles By vertue of this word the heavens and the earth do subsist It has the same vertue to remit and retain sins in the bodies of Confessors that it had in the natural and humane body of Jesus Christ for it is always the same which proceeds from Almighty God The only difficulty that I find is to know whether it can still reside in the Confessors at present who do not follow the rules of this holy doctrine God has indeed promis'd to pardon sins to penitent sinners and these Confessors do pardon them to sinners persevering and continuing in their sins so that if it were true that these Confessors could pardon sins according to their own fancy a man would only need to be in favour with some of them to be assured of his Salvation It would be in vain therefore for Jesus Christ to have suffered and endured so much to â—each us humility patience penitence and all the rest if these Confessors with Absolvo can thus forgive us all our sins Every one might indeed live as he pleas'd as they do now without caring much for God since he might obtain Salvation by the means of a man who would call himself the Saviour and Forgiven of sinners I think a man must be deprived of all judgment not to discover this deceit whereas at the same time so many persons live and die in this blindness This is a grosser darkness than that of Egypt As to the second point whether it be in Confession that we must forgive seventy seven times That cannot be authoriz'd by this passage since we find no where that Jesus Christ did forgive sins more than once to those to whom he pardon'd And if a sinner were truly penitent he would be careful not to fall again so often but if he be not penitent he is not capable of obtaining pardon so much as once for Absolution does always suppose Contrition otherwise it would not be available St. Peter asks how often he shall pardon his brother who offended him but Penitents have not offended their Confessors when they go to Confession these so numerous pardons respect the indulgence that we owe to our Christian brethren that we may leave vengeance to God alone but they do not at all regard sacramental Confession The Eleventh Conference Outward Devotions imposed by men are not of true Faith Of the true Church which cannot err in what it imposeth The Doctrines of Jesus Christ and those of men True Prayer HAving heard all these reasons I felt my self in very great perplexities not knowing what â—o reply to such firm reasonings I said only that the Hereticks were not always to blame when they spoke against the Abuses of the Roman Church She said to me Sir I never convers'd with any Hereticks and I desire not to know what their sentiments are in this matter I was born and baptiz'd under the authority of the Roman Church and I never yet travell'd out of it where I might meet with any Hereticks to know what they say of Catholicks but I have learn'd all that I tell you in a profound recollection of spirit join'd to a serious experience I have made frequent Confessions and perform'd all the other particular Devotions of Christians as my Parents did with an exact observance but when it pleas'd God to enlighten me I perceiv'd clearly that Faith does not consist in the wearing of a pair of Beads a Belt or a Scapulary nor yet in hearing many Masses or confessing often and communicating as they taught me but that it consists in the belief and practice of what God has commanded and taught us That all these outward devotions did rather serve as means to withdraw and distract us from the continual attention which we ought to have upon God Therefore I have quitted them all and have fixâ—d upon the Truth of the Gospel which I knew from my tender youth tho I could not follow it because they taught me otherwise In which I fail'd greatly by the Counsel of men God drew me to himself and they drew me to them I regret nothing more than the time that I have spent in following them for all that they call Devotions is nothing but amusement which keeps us tied to the earth and to the creatures Our affections are towards our ghostly Fathers their Masses and Sermons their Churches and the means of adorning them and to all that is sensual which hinders them from being united in God I ask'd her whether all these outward devotions were not good and saving since the Church had instituted and approven them and if she could err in what concern'd the Faith and the Instruction of the faithful She answer'd No Sir the Church can never err in any thing for she is the wisdom the goodness and the power of God the fountain of all
come to tell you that this is the Will of God you will never do it for God has no Will to make you leave it more than he had any to make you undertake it It concerns every one to examine what Mean will be most proper for him to facilitate his Salvation One may sufficiently perceive in his Conscience without consulting any Body whether Offices Estates and Benefices have been to us the means of more Union with God than if we had not possess'd them and if they have made us draw others to the same Union If we do not find this it is to be feared that our Offices and Benefices have not been sought for or possest for the Love of God but for some Human Accommodation which respects nothing but the Earth This being discover'd it is in your Will to resolve if now you desire to labour for Heaven or rather for the Earth I said to her That I would not pretend any longer to any thing upon Earth that I was very sorry that I had had some Pretensions thereto but that I durst not quickly abandon all without the Advice of some learn'd Person fearing that I might do evil She replyed Sir You are yet far from the Kingdom of Heaven when you will needs advise with Men if you shall follow Jesus Christ Has not he said He who leaves not Father and Mother and his own self cannot be his Disciple Now would you go to ask Counsel of any Man when Jesus Christ has given you his Where could you find better Men are all interested in their own Judgment and will never advise but what they judge most advantagious for Men they having no Light to perceive any other thing They are Flesh and judge according to the Flesh Would you refer what concerns the Salvation and Perfection of your own Soul to their Judgments You must needs perish with them For the Wisdom of Man is foolishness before God All the Evils of the World do proceed from this That Men are govern'd and advised by one another Is it not said somewhere Wo to the Man that puts his Confidence in Man I have also told you That if the Blind lead the Blind both shall fall into the Ditch For my part I can say in Truth That I do not remember that I ever committed any Faults but when I believ'd the Counsel of Men. We ought to go to the Source Sir and let alone the Streams The Gospel is left us in Writing for our Eternal Rule If the Apostles and other Disciples of Jesus Christ had gone to ask Counsel of Men they would never have follow'd him For Men would have call'd it a Folly to abandon all as they do yet to this Day For being of the Earth they respect nothing but the Earth and are blind in the things of the Spirit We can never do ill to follow the Counsels of the Gospel but indeed we may in following the Counsels of Men how learn'd soever For their Doctrines are of this World and that of Jesus Christ is of God The Seventeenth Conference How to discern whether the Motions which do press us to leave the Outward Hindrances to Divine Communion be from God or not That there are likewise Inward Hindrances and that one ought not to be wedded even to good Means I Said to her That I had not Light enough to be sure of my own Motions and to discern whether they are from God or from the Devil or from my self She said That it was good to discern them that the Motions from God do incite always to humble things which the Devil and Nature do oppose because they are things despised by Men and therefore these Enemies do abhor them What comes from God incites to Sufferings and to Patience the things which come from the Devil and from Nature do incite to seek our Ease and Pleasures without desiring to suffer any thing The things of God do lead to Poverty and Self-denial the Devil and the Flesh do desire Riches and seek to be esteem'd and praised In fine Sir says she what comes from God is always conformable to the Doctrine of Jesus Christ For God cannot be contrary to himself Therefore the Light which you have receiv'd that moves you not to seek any longer for any thing upon Earth is but too sufficient to assure you that this Motion comes from God because neither the Devil nor Nature would ever rid themselves of their Pretensions upon each For they cannot profit by any other thing Nature could not sin any more without aiming at earthly things and the Devils could have no hold of a Soul which did not aim any longer at any thing upon Earth We might walk surely on such a Resolution without waiting for Counsel from Men who with their Wisdom do often quench the Lights of the Holy Spirit It were far better to consult the Gospel I was constrained to yield to such Truths I said to her that I would abandon all and would follow her all the Days of my Life She said with Joy Sir How happy will you be to abandon all Your Soul will be at liberty to fly unto God Your Spirit will be calm and your Body better disposed You will experience thereby both Bodily and Spiritual Good But I intreat you do not resolve to follow me always for as for my self I am willing to die alone and as for your concern it will be a greater Perfection that you be disingaged from all Creatures to the end you may wait upon God alone All Company how perfect soever it be is not God He requires our Heart so pure that he does not suffer that it should be divided So long as I can be helpful to you I love indeed to discourse with you But I wish rather that you may speak with God who is the Fountain of all Light He can teach you more in one Moment than all the Men of the World would do in a thousand Years So soon as you shall have found his Conversation you will not be able to take Pleasure any longer in any other Speak to him always Sir until that he answer you He will do it assuredly According as you shall separate your self from the Creatures accordingly you draw the nearer unto God There needs but to remove the Hindrances and this Divine Sun will shine fully into our Souls warming them with his Love He has infinitely more Desire and Affection to receive us than we have to seek him even tho' we be great Sinners he rejects no body he rather embraces them as the Father did his Prodigal Son You are his Child and the Work of his Hands Go to your Father with great Confidence He loves you He seeks you and calls you Do not delay any longer Go forward seek no longer for any other thing but him alone With extream Joy did I hear this Discourse asking her by what means I might find this Communion with God
Terrestrial and Carnal Church By this the Devil has reaped much and replenish'd his infernal Granaries to our Dammage Therefore I intreat you Sir that you would not seek for the Church in any other Place but in the Centre of your Soul For there is so much Deceit under the Mask of Piety that the most knowing are catch'd by it Many are made Saints who are of the Synagogue of Satan I said to her That I had not that Method to discern and find God in the Centre of my Soul entreating she would declare to me the way how I might find him there She said Sir you will see him by the Eyes of Faith If you believe that God is everywhere he is also truly in your Soul and even in a special and particular manner as a thing which is most like to him He is in the Elements giving them Being and Subsistence else they could not subsist He is in the Herbs Trees and other Plants in giving them Vegetation He is in the Animals giving them Life as he does our Bodies For if God were not in all these things they would resolve into the same Nothing from whence they have been taken for no created thing can keep so much as one Plant of an Herb in Life It is God that does all We see this with our Natural Eyes how much more firmly ought we to believe that he is in our Soul which is Divine and Incomprehensible This Quality comes nearer to God than any other Creature We cannot comprehend what a Soul is no more than we can comprehend what God is It has Qualities so approaching to him that it may with Reason be call'd a dependent Deity For we see indeed the Works which it operates in our Body but we cannot see what it is but by its Operations as we cannot know God or perceive what he is but by the Works which he produces to our Knowledge Our Soul gives Motion to our Body and Agility to our Understanding makes the Memory to remember and moves all the other Powers of the Soul We feel and see that this is done in us nevertheless no Body can comprehend how this is done but we must confess that our Soul is a thing incomprehensible as well as God and since there cannot be many Gods we must conclude that God is the Centre of Souls and that they spring from him as a Branch from the Root And as Trees cannot bear Branches without having a Root so the Soul cannot have a Being if God do not give and produce it By which you may abundantly perceive Sir that of necessity God is the Centre of our Soul and that it cannot move but by him no more than the Body moves it self but by the Motion of our Soul This being so we ought therefore to seek God where he is and he being no where so expressly as in the Centre of our Soul it is there that he must be sought as in the true Place of his Residence And if you ask me the Method and the Way to find him in the bottom of your Soul there is no other but to remove all the Hindrances casting out of your Soul all earthly Affections that you may have no other but for him Your Soul will no sooner be free from all these Earthly Affections than it will fall into God as the Stone falls into its Centre I know no other Method but this Disingagement from our selves and from all other things to find God and to become one with him I have sometimes sought him without me by Actions which did seem good but I have since remark'd that those serv'd for Distractions and the more I acted outwardly so much the more did I stray from my God Therefore Sir become wise by my Loss and do not lose your Time in seeking means out of your self for they serve us often for Hindrances Our Soul is his true Temple and the Place of his Rest Let us only remove all that is between him and our Soul and we shall see him Face to Face to speak after our manner That is to say we shall see him clearly by Faith and shall know him by the Operations which he will make in us and shall taste him by the Repose and Consolation of our Conscience I thought that I understood well enough this Truth and that Faith dictates to us that God is the true Centre of our Soul But to taste him and speak sensibly to him by his Operations and Notices this was above my Capacity entreating her to tell me how this was done She said to me Sir The Soul is a Spirit and God is a Spirit and communicates himself in Spirit not with verbal Words but spiritual Motives Which nevertheless are more intelligible than the finest Eloquence of the World God communicates himself to the Soul as the Sun to his Rays and the Soul to its God as the Rays to the Sun by the great Unity and Dependence there is between God and the Soul When once it is denuded of its self it has no more need of Sight or Mouth to understand God than we have need of Words to understand our own Conceptions So soon as the Soul is disingag'd from it self it is so transform'd into God that it is entirely swallow'd up in him and becomes one thing with him having no longer any Will but his nor Desires but what he wishes and it does not move it self any longer but by the Motions of God So that the Soul and God are not any more but one and the same thing And if you do not taste God and understand not his Will it is assuredly because there is yet some Hindrance Do not afflict your self for this Sir but take the Pains to disingage your Soul as much as is possible for you This is all that you can do For to be troubled that you do not feel nor understand the Motions of God would be a Presumption for if your Soul were capable of it God would abundantly give it He wants your Disingagement fearing that you would abuse his Graces in living yet to your self I was wholly ravish'd with Pleasure to hear how God communicates himself to the Soul But perceiving that I was yet far from this Happiness I ask'd her By what means I might be disingag'd from my self and from every other thing that my Soul might taste God She said to me It is very easie Sir to be disingag'd from every thing by considering what it is For if we were not distracted and wandring in our Mind it would be impossible that we could love our selves or other created Things We cannot do it but through a Diversion or straying of the Mind For if we seriously reflect and consider what we love in loving our selves or other Creatures we must confess that we are Senless For what do we in loving our selves we love a thing very Miserable Impotent Unconstant and of short continuance there being no created thing more
may serve them only for Delight and Pleasure without being able to do any more evil as they were in the beginning of their Creation and all the Malignities which they have contracted by the Sins of Men shall be rendred unto their Authors The Fire of Hell will not be like that which we see because it is now a mixture of the works of God with the malignity of the works of Men as all other things are God has given unto Fire a sweet and agreeable Light and Heat and Sin has given it blackness and to burn These two evils shall be removed and confin'd to Hell that it may burn and blacken the Bodies of Men who have thus spoil'd the works of God by their Rebellion There will not be in Hell Elements or Beasts or other things as God has made them but only the malignity which every one of all these Creatures has contracted by sins For Example the Venom will be removed from Serpents and other creeping things and will be reserved for Hell As also the fury from Lions and Bulls that they may converse with the Blessed with Meekness and Gentleness and that nothing may be able any longer to give them pain that Fire may give heat and light without burning that the Air may surround them without being troubled that the Water may refresh and recreate them without being moved that the Lyons Serpents and all other wild Beasts may sport with Men for their Delight and Recreation and that all things may remain on the Earth to render the Body of Man happy that with his Soul it may have a perfect eternal contentment seeing that the Body has born with the Soul the saving Penitence which God had ordain'd it Whereas on the contrary the Bodies of the Wicked have rebelled against this Penitence and desiring to take their Delights instead of Sufferings To which the miserable Soul acquiescing they have justly merited to suffer joyntly in Hell which will likewise be Material and upon Earth that it may act upon Bodies as well as Souls which was not necessary before the Judgment since that Devils and Damned Souls had no need of a material Place for their being Tormented for all the evil of Souls consists in the privation of the Presence of God The Twenty seventh Conference That a care to withdraw from the Plagues is even a self Love and than the Conversation of our Souls with God suffices us in all Places I Said to her That I saw evidently we drew near to the end of the World because God gave these Discoveries of many things which never any body had understood That her Light was not Human And I entreated her for the love of God to tell me where that little corner of the Earth might be which God would reserve for his Servants that I might save my self during the Plagues She said to me Sir be not curious to know where this material Place will be which God will reserve for his Friends I my self durst not ask him fearing to seek my self or my own repose We are yet in the time of Penitence If we would withdraw that we may not suffer this would be but self-Love We shall be every where in security when our Soul shall be united with God and even tho our Body should feel the Plagues our Soul shall be comforted in the midst of Sorrows as S. Lawrence was in the midst of burning Coals and so many other holy Martyrs Let us rather think of conversing always with God than of putting our Body in a place of Security because it will be always secure in conversing with God If there be a danger which he would not have us suffer he will warn us of it always in time as he did Noah Lot and so many others of Friends He will not permit any thing to befall us but that in which he would try or purge us Do not so much desire to know the place where you may retire as to know the place where God resides to converse with him For in this alone consists all our safety both Bodily and Spiritual You might indeed withdraw bodily into some place of Security where your Souls notwithstanding would not be sure of being Saved And if this were it would be but a poor Safety for our Life is so miserable that to lose it is more desirable than to preserve it were it not the fear of not having yet accomplish'd the Penitence due for our Sins Otherwise Death is pleasant and this Life grievous were it not that it may have God to converse with Without this there is nothing but Miseries I asked her In what place I might find this continual Conversation with God that I might be every where in Security and not fear Death She said Sir You must not go out of your self for God is the Centre of your Soul You must not seek him among the publick Places of the City as the Spouse in the Canticles did who was beaten by the Soldiers But re-enter into your self and you will find him He is no where more particularly than in the Souls of Men. These are his real living Temples where he rests at Noon that is in his most clear Light There entertain your Spirit with him and he will entertain himself with you He is more desirous to hear us than we are to speak to him neither going out nor in nor any other affairs whatsover can hinder this inward Conversation On the contrary it perfects all things So soon as our Affections are taken off from all other Objects and set upon God alone we will find him every where and he will never cease to give us his Graces to accomplish perfectly all our Enterprizes how little so ever they be for his Spirit was the true Wisdom which is not ignorant of any thing no more of Temporal things than of Spiritual This Spirit perfects all sort of things There is no place or condition be what it will that can divert us from this Conversation when our Affections are carried toward it Make a little Experience of it Sir and you will find what I say to be true You could not any longer fear Death in possessing the Author of Life for whether we live or die we will be always in the Earthly Paradise in which nevertheless we may indeed sin as Adam did because there are yet in this miserable Life so many things which may divert us from God that without great violence we cannot remain in this Spiritual Conversation but if Nature must do so great violence to it self at Death to separate from the Soul why may it not do a less to separate it self from that which hinders our union with God It is in this that Jesus Christ says if your Eye your Foot or any other Members of your Body do offend you cut them off pluck them out and cast them from you To shew that we must force our selves to part with all that
and acknowledge the Justice of God which will leave nothing of all our good deeds without a recompence no more than our evil deeds without a punishment which every one shall receive by the just ballance of his Righteousness To accomplish which we must in this World have reparation of all the wrongs which have been done us and the falshood must be discovered the Mask must be taken off from all Men that their deceits and their hypocrisies may be known How they have dealt fraudulently with the Innocent All must be discovered at the coming of Jesus Christ in Glory and all things even material which have served for our reproach must serve for our glory As to S. Lawrence's his Grid-Iron and to S. Andrew his Cross And so of all the other Martyrs and chiefly the Instruments of the Passion of Jesus Christ which will shine in his glory like precious Stones and that materially for otherwise there could not be had a perfect and compleat reparation if we looked but for a spirtual Paradise because we suffer here in Body and Spirit both together This Kingdom approaches Sir for the Plagues are already begun I said unto her That no body believ'd that the last Plagues were begun nor the Kingdom of Jesus Christ upon Earth She said Sir The incredulous will go with Sorcerers For he who has no belief of this Kingdom can never well suffer the Plagues which go before it There is nothing but k this hope alone that can give force to sustain those so great Persecutions that there never were any like unto them It is therefore to be feared that these incredulous will perish with the Wicked For if we do not believe that we are fallen into the last times and that the Plagues are begun we will assuredly be deceived by that pernicious one Antichrist who reigns in Persons in Authority whom we take sometimes for Holy and Vertuous and believe that we do well to let our selves be guided and govern'd by them if we lay aside the doubt or belief that we are fallen into that dangerous time foretold by Jesus Christ wherein Evil is covered with Piety And if we do not believe that the Plagues which are begun are the beginnings of Sorrows with which God will purge the Earth we shall easily be brought to Murmour against him Yea we shall fall it may be into Despair in seeing the best Christians Persecuted by Persons who seem worse than our selves yea Churches ruined the Religious banished and all that they call a Church overturn'd and opprest in its source All this will give occasion to Blaspheme against God in case we do not know the wickedness of Men which had drawn down these Plagues upon our Heads We will commit a thousand sins of Murmurs against our Enemies and also against the disorders of those who ought to govern us Setting our selves to seek Human Succours which will sometimes do us more harm than our Enemies and thus we should suffer miserably as do Thieves and Murtherers Whereas did we believe that we are fallen into the last times and that the Plagues are begun we would return to God by Penitence taking all from his Hand as well the Rod as the Bread For all these things must come to pass and by Sufferings we must enter into his Glory as Jesus Christ has pav'd the way I said unto her That I my self could hardly believe that the last plagues were begun and also that Jesus Christ would come to reign upon the Earth were it not that she gave me the view and understanding of these things She said Sir this proceeds partly from want of Application of Spirit and partly because the Devil has bewitched the Spirits of all Men that they may not discover the truth of their Happiness nor of their Misery For if this were known many Persons would get out of Darkness and would follow the Light of Truth Whereas by that infatuation of Spirit the Good perish with the Wicked And thus he gains all to himself To give you a firm belief that Jesus Christ will come to reign upon Earth Sir apply your mind seriously to the reading of the Holy Scriptures You shall find through all that they declare this glorious coming and all that Man shall receive thereby This has been figured from the beginning of the World and by all that has past in it since all has been nothing but the Figures of this glorious Reign of Jesus Christ You have now a little prospect of this by what I have declar'd unto you Search into the matter you will find the thing more true than all the other mysteries of our Faith There is no more obscurity in it for the time is come for the understanding of it What the Fathers in past times have explain'd with so much pains and so imperfectly will be easie to you and in a perfect sense No body will be able to doubt or be ignorant of it who will submit his Spirit unto God with Humility of Heart All that Jesus Christ and the Apostles have said has been fulfilled but in part But you will find the accomplishment and the perfect sense in this glorious Reign of Jesus Christ By discovering assuredly that all which they thought fit to declare cannot be understood of any other thing but of this Reign Remark all the Petitions of the Lord's Prayer which I have elsewhere explained to you No body can imagine that all that we ask in that Prayer can be obtained during this miserable Life and it must needs be granted that we pray for another Life which we do not yet know and that this Life also must be material as well as spiritual For if it were only divine we would not ask for daily Bread nor that the will of God should be done there or that his Name should be Hallowed For all these things are done always in the Empyreal Heaven where no body has need of material Bread Spirits being filled with the presence of God There is nothing there likewise to be forgiven for no body there offends his Brother Temptations are banish'd from thence and Evils cannot enter there The blessed Life that we look for must needs be material as well as spiritual in which we shall have need of all the things which we ask in the Lord's Prayer since they cannot be obtain'd in this present Life and Jesus Christ could not have made us ask for unprofitable things or for those which he would not give This could not be done by a God who can do and know all things For it would be altogether unprofitable to ask what we cannot obtain here and it would be a superfluous thing to ask that of which we would have no need in the Empyreal Heaven as they imagine Paradise to be all the other Doctrins of Jesus Christ are also like to the petitions of that Prayer For when he says seek the Kingdom of
Roman Catholicks tho' this they hold for an Article of Faith that none can be saved out of her Communion This is very ill conceiv'd since God is universal and he 's to be found every where by those who seek and worship him For he 's not fix'd to any material Body All Souls who take their Delight in him are his Spouses call them by what Name or Religion you please For all these different Names or Opinions do not make a Christian but only the Practice of the Doctrine of Jesus Christ makes a Christian And all those who put in Practice the Doctrine of the Gospel are Christians and Disciples of Jesus Christ even tho' they were Turks or Heathens Of which Professions I believe several condemn and judge the nominal and professing Christians since God has no Respect of Persons and will judge all Men according to their Works This the Scripture confirms saying by your Works you shall be judged and by your Works you shall be condemn'd And Jesus Christ himself taught the Truth of God his Father to the Samaritan Woman and to many other Nations who were not Jews saying to his Apostles Go teach all Nations He that believes shall be saved He even ate and conversed with Sinners to see if any of them would receive the Truths of his Father and put them in Practice and tho' at first he rejected the Canaanitish Woman as a Dog yet he shew'd her Grace and Mercy by her Conversion and persevering Humility For the same Reason he says to Christians that Publicans and Sinners shall enter into the Kingdom of God and the Children of the Kingdom shall be cast out which still farther confirms this Truth That Religion does not save a Man but the Love of God that sanctisies him This made me get over all Humane Respects and declare the Truth of the things which were ask'd me by so many different Conferences all about the Roman Church For at that time I knew no other Religions and with Compassion I booked upon all those who died out of the Romanâ— Church as damn'd as our Divines taught So that being ask'd by a Romish Priest I answered plainly to all his Questions Vpon which many took Occasion to say that I had chang'd my Religion and was become an Enemy of the Roman Church which is not true since being born in it I will live and die therein without changing Name or Religion but only my Manners and Life And will endeavour to be regenerated in the Spirit of Jesus Christ and to follow and imitate him even to Death letting Ignorant Men say and judge of me as they please In the mean time I offer this LIGHT OF THE WORLD to all good Souls who seek the Truth and desire to become true Christians that they may truly discern Reality from Appearance For this prevails now through all the World among all sorts of Sects and Religions where every one cleaves to the Bark and does not touch the Wood fancying that Vertue consists in having a fine Religious Name of that of the Reformed the Evangelicks the Catholicks Yea that they are persons guided by the Holy Spirit of which the Quakers boast though all these sorts of Names are false and not at all suitable to the Life and Manners of those who call themselves so For if they who are called Reformed were truly so we would see the Reformation in their Life and Manners Whereas we find they all live according to Flesh and Blood which the Scripture says shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven They are neither reformed in their Moveables nor their Apparel nor in their Eating or Drinking They seek in all the finest and the best They labour and trade diligently that they may have wherewith to maintain themselves in Pomp Excess or Plenty as much as they can without bridling their fleshly Appetites or their Sensualities in any thing still coveting more that they may give it as much Satisfaction as they can that in this World they may have Ease Honours and Pleasure Thus they are called Reformed though in Effect they will not reform themselves in the least thing for the Kingdom of Heaven By which we see that they who call themselves Reformed bear a false Name that makes them Hypocrites and Deceivers of others and of themselves As those also are deceived who call themselves the Evangelicks For in all their Works and Practices there is nothing conformable to the Gospel but all directly opposite to it For they do not observe so much as one Point of the Evangelical Councils For instead of loving voluntary Poverty they love the Abundance and Riches of this World unsatiably and they who ought to be the Guides to those Evangelical Perfections are the farthest remov'd from them abandoning their Flocks and Churches to find others that afford them more temporal Profit They are far from imitating the Apostles who said freely I have received and freely I give thee since these modern Evangelicks give at the greatest Price and to him that bids most And therefore they do not justly bear the Name of Evangelicks since they neither teach nor Practise so much as one Council of the Gospel and have nothing but false Names and Parades that they may appear to be in the Sight of Men what they are not at all in the Sight of God No more than those are Catholicks who bear the Name since to call one a Catholick is to say he is a Person joyn'd in the Communion of Saints which these are not who call themselves Catholicks since we perceive not any Holiness in their Lives but much Vice and Injustice accompanied with Hypocrisie and seeming Vertue without any Reality or Sanctification They boast that they are Abraham's Children without doing the Works of Abraham or that they are Christians without observing the Commands of Christ They content themselves to be called Catholicks without conforming their Lives to those who liv'd holily upon the Earth whose Lives and Histories they read without endeavouring to become holy as they were whose Feast s they solemnize tho' they shall never be in their Communion nor truly Catholicks till in their Lives they follow their Vertues and walk in the streight Way that leads to Life So that this Name of Catholick will condemn them rather than justifie them whereas they presume to be preferr'd by God to all other Religions because they are of the most Holy and Perfect Religion according to the Name of Catholick which they bear This would really be if their Souls were united to Jesus Christ in the Communion of Saints which only and no other thing makes a Catholick By which we see that these Persons bear a false Name since they presume of their Salvation because of the Name Catholick and be-believe they are in the true Church out of which they say there is no Salvation This would be true if the Roman Church were the only Communion of Saints But because
Souls who are not sanctified are not truly Catholick neither will they be saved for their Religion since no Religion saves unless the Heart be truly Religious or truly Catholick In which also those who are called Quakers do greatly deceive themselves who through a foolish Imagination fancy that they are guided by the Holy Spirit as soon as they have begun to conform themselves to this Sect as if it had more Force to sanctifie Men than all the other Religions together even the most perfect none of which can save so much as one Soul For there is nothing that saves but the LOVE OF GOD and not a Religion Every one ought to hold the Religion that serves him as a Mean to attain to this LOVE without taking his Religion for the End of his Salvation if they would not be greatly deceived at Death thinking to plead their Religion which they imagine to be the best as the Quakers believe they have the Holy Spirit and so take the Name of Quakers tho they have him only by Imagination and false Persuasions and the Devil makes them believe they are better than all the rest of Men because they have quitted outwardly the gross Sins of Drunkenness Theft Lying and the like tho' in their Manners they be as vicious as others presuming that they have the Holy Spirit which they have not living in an Esteem of themselves and a Contempt of others calling themselves spiritual while they remain carnal despising all the Means of Piety and Devotion to adhere to their own Caprices and they imagine they are illuminated by the Holy Spirit when they are mov'd only by their own disorderly Passions which do often precipitate them into fruitless Sufferings and Persecutions with the Scandal of their Neighbour So that no body has Ground to believe that he shall be saved for being of the Quakers Opinion no more than the being of any other Sect or Religion since all these Names do nothing to the Salvation of Souls But to be sav'd of Necessity we must be renewed in the Life of God And the Scripture says Obedience is better than Sacrifice This shews that it 's better to be resigned entirely to the Will of God to be ruled thereby than to profess any Religion how good and holy soever we think it to be These material Bodies do not save the Soul but the Love that it bears to its God will save it and nothing else In which Men deceive themselves when they lay the Stress of their Salvation upon some means which they make use of to be saved How good soever these outward things be they give nothing to the Essence of the Soul which is wholly divine and spiritual and cannot attain to Salvation if it be not united to its God who created it for this End tho' the Blindness that Sin has brought upon Man's Spirit does not often persuade him that he shall be saved by other Means as by going oft to Church frequenting the Sacraments hearing many Preachings or spiritual Books or in being able to discourse of these things in giving to the Poor out of his Abundance in making long Prayers and so many other Actions which they call pious as if God to save us had need of these things Which is a great Delusion For it is only our Infirmity and Weakness that has need of these outward Things For it is written that the true Worshippers shall worship God in Spirit and in Truth and not in the Temple nor on the Mountain That is to say not in material Temples nor in Mountains of high Speculations but the Spirit and the Heart must be truly possest with the Love of God without which no body will be saved Not that I would reject or despise all these pious Means or good outward Works as these Reformed do blindly reject all sorts of good Works as evil since these good Works may serve as effectual Means to attain to this Love of God seeing the covetous Man mortifies his Avarice by giving his Goods to the Poor and he who cannot pray to God in his House for the Distraction of his Affairs does well to go to Church that he may be the more recollected Or he who feels more Compunction and Piety in his Soul in frequenting the Sacraments or has more inward and saving Light by going to Sermons or reading the Scripture or some other spiritual Book he is oblig'd to use all the Means which lead him to the Love of God without despising the least Mean that may help his Weakness in raising him to the Love of God since every one is oblig'd to seek the Means of his Perfections I blame only the Abuse that is made of these things in taking them for the End of Salvation whereas they are only Means to assist Humane Weakness which forgets easily Eternal and invisible things if she be not often put in Remembrance of them by outward things But I blame those who are so ignorant as to believe that they shall be saved for being of some Religion or for using the Sacraments and doing some good Work since these things do not sanctifie us being of themselves dead Works which cannot give Life to our divine Souls and the Devil himself might do all these outward things tho' he shall never be sav'd I believe indeed some captious Spirits will take Occasion to say that I am not truly Catholick in speaking against the Vse of the Sacraments and other Ceremonies of the Roman Church but I cannot preserve my self from the Calumny of partial Persons who love their Darkness rather than the Light that I offer them from God who has given me his Holy Spirit promis'd by Jesus Christ which teaches me all Truth since Jesus Christ himself could not avoid the being calumniated imprison'd persecuted and at last put to Death by means of the Jewish Priests who said they were in God's stead and sate in Moses's Chair as the Priests of all Religions say now While in the mean time they outragiously persecute the Truths which I learn immediately from God without Study without Meditation Discourse Reading or any other Means which would rather prove a Hindrance to me than an Illustration of the Light of the Holy Spirit who endites to me all things necessary for the Salvation of Souls and gives me also his Gift of Strength to bear joyfully those Persecutions and Outrages which these more than Pharisaical Priests exercise against me For they will not suffer that the Truth of God should come to light by any but themselves tho' they 've rendred themselves most unworthy of it because they will not apply themselves to the Imitation of Jesus Christ nor to the Sanctification of their Souls and if these be wanting they shall never understand the inward Voice of God 'T would be a great Vertue in them if at least they would suffer another to understand it But they can't attain to this Christian Vertue of rejoycing in the Good of another They
Man must be his own Enemy or of an effeminate Heart if he have not the Courage to leave his own Country that he may avoid his Tyranny and Severity and live in Repose and Tranquillity I said to her That this Comparison was not sutable and that I had not found the Roman Church Tyrannical She said Sir that is because you have always submitted to her Laws without considering whether they were good or evil and the good Impression they cunningly gave you of her Merits made her Burthens tho' very weighty seem light to you If you have done it in Innocence God will pardon you because you perceived no other thing at that time But at present when God sends you his Divine Light that you may discover the Dangers in which you have walk'd amidst your Darkness do not resist it by Doubts or Scruples which the Devil will put into your Mind which have no other Foundation but a Pusillanimity and Softness of Heart which more regards Natural Sensibility than the Perfection of the Soul to which if you would attain you must hear what God teaches and commands you without amusing your self with so many other different things which Men propose to you who are not to be trusted But God can never deceive you no more than he can suffer any Mutation or Change He is our lawful King who has always governed us by Fatherly Affection and Love And even when Men had offended him thro' Excess of Wickedness he sent them his Word cloathed with our Humane Nature that he might bring us to acknowledge our Fault that we may return to him by Love and not by Force For the whole Doctrine of Jesus Christ is filled with the Light of Counsels and Admonitions not with forc'd Commands or violent Drawings but gentle and willing making no Change to the first Law of God but ouly an Explanation and Illustration of it For Jesus Christ gives us no new Commandment by his Gospel but enlarged the Means by which we may the better observe the first Commandment of God declaring to us what we ought to do and to avoid for this End But this Church which succeeded him has indeed chang'd the Government For instead of preserving the Spirit of a most gentle Father she has taken that of a real Tyrant and wicked one I ask'd her If she held the Roman Church to be that which succeeded Jesus Christ and his Apostles She said Yes Sir the Roman Church was in her Beginning the true Spouse of Jesus Christ who had received all the Riches of the Gospel the true Word of God and the Wisdom of the Holy Ghost But since she left that she has fallen into the Misery into which Adam fell when he would quit his Dependance on God and become his Enemy that he might depend on none but himself Adam was the same Person after his Sin that he was before it but he was not cloathed with the same Graces nor with the same Spirit For he was ashamed and confounded subject to all sorts of Miseries bodily and spiritual ignorant inconstant and malicious with all the other Miseries under which we now groan Even so is it of the Roman Church which was established with all the Graces of the Holy Spirit but since she would needs depend upon her self and establish her own Authority she has lost the Grace of God with all the spiritual Gifts with which she was adorned and has consented to the Suggestions of the Devil as Adam did and has ever since been estranged from God and encreased in Wickedness as Man did after Sin Tho' he was the same by Nature he was not the same by Grace For by his Free-Will he had denuded himself thereof and cloathed himself with Wickedness The same has befallen the Roman Church Since she changed the Order in which God had set her and would needs give Orders and Praecepts to her self after her own Way â— and according to her own Inclinations she is fallen from the Grace of God and sunk into all sort of Miseries Tho' Jesus Christ had chosen her for his true Spouse she has falsified her Faith and the Fidelity she ow'd to her lawful Bridegoom to go joyn her self to the Kings of the Earth whereas Jesus Christ has had so carefully warned her That his Kingdom was not of this World yet she would needs reign heâ—e and rule over all Earthly Powers whereas her dear Husband would only suffer and be despised Thus she has withdrawn from him to her Loss to commit Adultery with the Honours Grandeurs and Riches of the World and therefore has deserved to be called THE GREAT WHORE in the Revelation I said to her That Jesus Christ had promised to his Church that he would never leave her asking how this could be that she was now abandon'd to so sad a State She said Sir Jesus Christ will never be wanting in his Promise and has never left his Church no more than a Man ceases to be espoused to a Wife tho' she falsifie her Faith to him She continues always his Wife but he may both by Divine and Humane Right repudiate her and with just Reason when she will needs continue in her Whoredoms he ought in good Conscience to reject her and thrust her away as unworthy of his Company Even so God cannot abandon his true Church He will still uphold her tho' she were but in one Soul only She shall never perish For she shall be always united to the Spirit of her Husband who is God Immortal and Unchangeable who cannot change nor forsake any thing but when those Men who represent the Church do falsifie their Faith to him and will needs take their Pleasure in worldly Riches Grandeurs and Honours they withdraw from and forsake their lawful Husband for this Earthly Trash and instead of continuing the faithful heavenly Spouse they become Harlots by cleaving to earthly Honours and Pleasures By which you may see Sir that Jesus Christ has not left his Church but has only repudiated the Harlots whom he has discovered in it who are not such by Faults or Falls that are casual of which she repents or desires to amend but by so long inveterate Habits that she will never change from them but by Death Therefore there is nothing to be looked for but the Destruction of that BABYLON and the Fall of that GREAT WHORE who is spoken of in the Revelation For she will never leave her Whoredoms but by a total Falland Ruine which shall be irrecoverable I ask'd her How it came that God had not preserved his Church in the same Place where he had established her tho' it were but in one Person only That this would be a great Happiness to find it in the Colledge of Rome She said Sir God hath no Respect of Persons and has no fix'd Place being universally in all things Even so is it
to this your Neighbour and also to your self in case you have need of what you have given him For Charity well order'd begins always at ones self and he who should give his Goods to another and leave his own Debts unpaid wou'd commit Robbery by taking from him to whom 't is due to give it to another out of tender Compassion Therefore I say we must always observe whether our Works be accompanied with Righteousness remarking whether this necessitous Person wou'd do any saving Good with our Gifts whether they would draw him out of spiritual and bodily Miseries whether he shall not abuse them by employing them to do evil Then the Giving him will be accompanied with the Righteousness of God provided you have what is superfluous to give him But when you have only pure Necessaries 't is not just to give them to others unless they be in some Extremity of Want Then you must succour your Neighbour as much as you are able yet without casting your self into the Extremity from whence you wou'd bring another For this wou'd neither be just nor good For a Man shou'd never ruine himself voluntarily This is to do an ill thing and against the Goodness of God To do therefore a Work of Charity that has the Righteousness Goodness and Truth of God stamp'd upon it we must firstsee if it be true that the Person whom we wou'd assist is really poor This is the Truth of God For there are now so many Cheats and Lyes that the most part of the Poor are so thro' their own Fault because they will not work or they are prodigal and Cheats or they will not manage but are careless of the Goods that God has bestowed on them In all these Cases the Person is not truly poor and therefore we cannot find the Truth of God in our Alms neither can we therein find his Goodness because it would be ill for the Salvation of him to whom we give it Neither would it have his Righteousness for it would not be just to feed by Alms any in their Sloth or in other Sins of Gluttony or Carelesness You see clearly Sir that it is necessary to remark always by what Spirit we do our Actions or else we shall commit great Faults without perceiving them If you find some Difficulty in this serious Reflection yet this should not make you omit it For our Salvation and that of our Neighbour does well deserve all this Trouble If so many Men of Wit and Quality do so earnestly study to render themselves honest civil and accomplish'd in the Eyes and Judgment of Men how much more ought you to do to renderyour self such in the Sight of God This Difficulty will be well rewarded by your Salvation and that of so many others Whereas these Persons are often obliged to bow their Wills as Reeds at the Will of those whom they honour who nevertheless can give them nothing but perishing Things either some Breath of Honour or transient Pleasures or some Riches that perish by a Turn of Fortune and yet for this they force and torment themselves exceedingly Sir let other Mens Folly make you wise Study as much to gain the Favour of God as they do to have that of Men For your eternal Happiness depends upon it You can never follow God if you do not embrace his Truth Without it all your Works are vain and temporal ending with your self I told her That I would absolutely study from benceforth to become agreeable to God but that I never yet had Light enough to discern in all my Actions whether the Righteousness Goodness and Truth of God was to be found in them She said Sir this comes from no other thing but Inconsideration of Mind For if it would apply it self it would certainly know all that it ought to do and omit more clearly than your Eyes perceive sensible Objects Apply only the Understanding that God has given you for the Perfection of your Soul and you shall learn all things As soon as you shall firmly resolve to seek no longer for any thing upon Earth but only to seek the Glory of God you shall obtain the Light of the Holy Spirit which will teach you all things There is nothing to be feared on this Occasion but the Bent that we have to the Earth which if we follow we should soon lose the Star which shou'd guide us to the Place where God dwells Therefore I exhort you never more to look behind you nor to aim at any thing on Earth For all that we can see or hope for here are but Chains and Bands to withdraw us from God our alone Saviour Therefore Sir forsake your self and all things For they are Enemies of your true Good The Love we bear to Men hinders us from the Love of God and the Love of our selves renders us his Enemies which Things stifle in our Soul the Light of the Holy Spirit But if we are resolved to seek and love no longer any thing but the Glory of God we shall soon perceive if what we speak think or do be for this Glory or not by the least Diligence or Care to do it Only you must be firm in your Resolution that you will do nothing but what shall be for this Glory and thrust far from you all other things as unworthy of your Pretensions Then shall we walk with a steady Pace and shall no longer do any thing but what shall have these three Qualities of the Righteousness Goodness and Truth of God For all that is for his Glory brings still these Conditions along with it his Glory being inseparable from his Essence his Essence from his Righteousness Goodness and Truth nothing can be wanting there any longer The Thirteenth Conference That Persons illuminated by God may serve as powerful Means for Salvation but it 's God only who can give it and that now the Company of Men is dangerous I Said to her That all these things were true but that my Soul was not yet purified enough to discover them so precisely and that her Company was necessary for me that I might learn to practise that Righteousness Goodness and Truth She said Sir I believe indeed my Company may serve you as a Mean to preserve you on Occasions but it is not necessary for this For God alone is sufficient who'll guide you thro' all provided you continue firmly faithful to him For you know not me yet and if you knew me you wou'd see in my Practice all the things that I tell you by Word My Thoughts Words and Deeds must have the three Qualities of which I have spoken to you else I shou'd be like the Brass that sounds outwards and has nothing within it self I have remarked that you have not yet discovered these Truths and therefore my Conversation would be useless to you and a great Hindrance to me For you not perceiving God in my Words and Works would not follow them and
Infallible and to use his Almighty Power As also to receive Honour appertains to God only and he who seeks and desires it is a Robber and receives what does not belong to him Moreover if you refer yourself in all things to the Church she will oblige you to things against God and your Conscience and make you to acknowledge that some Saints are Hereticks as if the knew of me she wou'd condemn me for such tho' I act only by the Holy Spirit and all the Books that handle the pure Truth are condemned and forbidden by this Church There is no longer any thing but Lying that triumphs in her For she even teaches that we may have the Pardon of our Sins without a precise Love of God which overturns all the Law and the Prophets For they are established and have spoken for no other End but to teach this Love which Man owes to God And now there are Glosses and Arguments found out to disguise this Love and to give it the Mantle of self-love with which they promise us Salvation that they may make us perish insensibly without knowing it For all they who do not precisely love God go to the Devil Say the Church what it please it cannot change the Ordinance that God made from the Beginning of the World I see nothing there but Tricks and Distractions For instead of saying to us what Jesus Christ said to the Young Man in the Gospel If thou wouldest enter into the Kingdom of Heaven keep my Commandments For the obtaining of this Kingdom she teaches us a thousand Fopperies which Jesus Christ never taught us by Indulgencies Confraternities Cords Girdles or Scapularies and Devotions to Images All this to me seems so far from the Spirit of Christianity that I am pain'd at the Heart when I think on 't I believe all these things serve only to dazle Mens Spirits that they may never come to the Knowledge of the Truth and to amuse us as they do the Children with Rattles to charm our Miseries I said to her I would fain discover where the Holy Spirit was that I might follow him She said Sir he is now come in the World You shall know him by Truth Righteousness and Goodness For he is the same with God There are not in God three Persons as People imagine because all that we can say of God is only that he is perfect Love all-just all-good and all-true Behold Sir all that we can know of God in this present Life and when we are told that there are three Persons in God it is to be understood that there are three Powers that Love is his Essence that his Word communicates this Love and that his Understanding makes Man to comprehend it This Love being the Essence of God never beginning and also will never end which Love was communicated to Man from the Creation But seeing he understood it not sufficiently God made his Word to become Flesh that it might be the better understood by an Organ sutable to our Senses Jesus Christ therefore is no other thing but the Word which communicates to Man this Love that is in God and the Holy Spirit is the Wisdom ' that gives the Understanding to comprehend this Love Behold the three Persons that must be known in God these are the LOVE the WORD that declares this Love and the VNDERSTANDING that comprehends it Now the Essence of Love was from all Eterniry But Men cou'd not know it but since the Creation and even then imperfectly Therefore the Goodness of God found out the Means to make it known by this humane Body which he took for this end when he came to treat familiarly with Men he becoming Man to make them see manifestly how much he lov'd them And not being yet satisfied with this to communicate this Love so sensibly he moreover sends his Holy Spirit to teach them all things You shall know him Sir by the principal Qualities of God which are Righteousness Goodness and Truth which are always inseparable from the Spirit of God Remark well if what is told you be still accompanied with these three Qualities I ask'd her If the Holy Spirit comes into the World in Flesh as Jesus Christ did at his Birth She said No Sir there is no need of his coming in the Flesh to communicate himself to Men as Jesus Christ did because he comes not to shew them any new thing for working out their Salvation Jesus Christ having sufficiently taught them all things tho' Men have not comprehended it and now the Holy Spirit comes to give unto the Mind the Understanding of the same things which Jesus Christ taught while he was on Earth Even as Jesus Christ came not to destroy the Law of God but to perfect it so the Holy Spirit comes not now to destroy the Doctrine of Jesus Christ but to perfect it and to give the perfect Understanding of it to all those who will receive it 'T is not Needful that for this end he take a Humane Body because he brings no new Words but new Notices that may be conceived by Mens Spirits These Notices being spiritual have no need of a natural Body that they may be communicated to the Spirits of Men. If you wou'd receive him Sir you must become a Child and submit your self wholly to God and then you will find the Effects But never let your self be deceived by false Appearances For there are now many false Prophets that come in God's Name and are of the Synagogue of Satan as I told you formerly Try always if they who speak to you do possess these three Qualities of God Thereby you shall assuredly discover them For if you let your self be amused with good Words or even by the Gifts of Prophesies or Miracles the Devil can counterfeit enough to deceive you Reject also all those who praise or flatter you Because the Devil does ordinarily use these Means to deceive those whom he desires to gain to himself The Spirit of God is always firm and true full of Righteousness and Goodness There is no need that he make himself visible to the Eyes of the Flesh he shall be sufficiently felt by the Sentiments of the Soul and the Eyes of the Spirit He shall illuminate all Flesh and enlighten the Spirits of all those who will hear and follow him But there must be an humble Heart and a Spirit entirely yielded up to God The Sixteenth Conference How we must beware of false Christs and false Prophets which seduce all the World and are so much followed at present How to discern true Prophets from the false and that it would be to no purpose at present to aim at the Conversion of Christians by preaching the Truth to them I Ask'd her How it was possible to beware of these false Prophets since there were so many of them and that they were disguised with Vertue and Holiness She said
the Fattest Prebendaries thirsting still insatiably for more Honour Pleasures and Riches that they may Rule in this World instead of Enduring and Suffering in it in Imitation of their Master and Captain Jesus Christ who says so clearly to them I have done all to give you an Example and Be ye Followers of me But those Persons at present do directly the contrary despising Lowliness and Humility abhorring Poverty and avoiding Sufferings as much as they can Are not these Adulterers who falsifie their Faith promised to Jesus Christ in Baptism to renounce the Devil the World and its Pomps And after their Oaths they go and take up what they have renounced conforming themselves to the World and its Pomps and Vanities as much as they can And in the mean time they will still bear the Name of Christians which signifies the Spouse of Jesus Christ As in effect those Persons really were if they had continued in his Spirit and the Imitation of Him From which they being fallen they are nothing now but unfaithful Whoremongers and Adulterers worthy to be cast off by their Lawful Husband as they infallibly shall be for He cannot acknowledge them for Christians when He sees them in their Manners wholly Antichristian It must not be imagined that this Evil is only in the Roman Church as all the Reformed would perswade themselves calling the Roman Church commonly The great Whore in the Revelation since all and every one of these Reformed are more Whores than their Mother the Roman Church from which they have separated not to Reform her but to Deform her the more by rendring her a greater Beast than she was in her self For we see these Reformed live much more licentiously than those who continue in the Roman Church who being under Discipline are regulated and restrained in their Manners whereas the Reformed being subject to none live as Beasts every one following his own Will and the Inclination of their corrupt Natures This is that which made all these Reformers to depart from the Roman Church that they might make New Institutions accommodated to their Looseness For since they were resolved to give the Reins to their Brutish Senses they could not abide any longer under the Obedience of a Superiour and being inclined to follow Carnal Pleasures they must depart out of the Roman Obedience where they had taken Vows and Oaths of Chastity for else they had been cast into Prison as perjured and impious And that they might have Money enough to satisfie the Pleasures of their Taste they must be followed by Rich Persons who might furnish them with Money in abundance For this Cause they made Schisms in the Roman Church and they Established New Churches every one after his own Fashion who contradicted one another and understood one another no more than the Builders of the Tower of Babel and in this they were followed by many Honourable Persons who thought there was some Good Thing in the Reformed and so much the rather that they were agreeable to Corrupt Nature which they flattered and nourished in its Vices For these Reformers did not bid the People separate from the Roman Communion that they might live in Gluttony and Whoredom This would have been too infamous and reproachful among Good Men but they told them the Abuses of the Roman Church proposing to reform them Though in Truth it was but that they might lead a Licentious Life shake off Piety and Truth and give Loose Reins to the Motions of their Corrupt Nature and let it follow its Desires and Inclinations without constraint For if they had designed a Pious Reformation they would not have despised the Good Things that were in the Roman Church and would only have resisted the Evil which they judged to be there and Reformed that Evil first in themselves that by their good Example they might have led others to Reform themselves too since Example is an Effectual Preaching But these Reformers proceeded after quite another manner and rejected the Good with the Bad without distinction Because if they had maintained what was Good in the Roman Church they would have been obliged to observe it them themselves This they had no mind to do being resolved to lead a Licentious Life and to give Loose Reins to all their Brutish Senses They could not subject the People to the Obedience of a Superiour since they themselves would not at all depend upon one Therefore first of all they perswaded the People to shake off a Dependance on the Pope and other Superiours that they might live every one after their own Way as the Beasts who have neither Fears nor Cares but eat and drink well This is against all Decency since no Country no Common wealth no Family can be well ordered and governed without a Head a Superiour or a Father of the Family to whom the rest are subject And I pray you FRIENDLY READER what would a City or a Province be if it had no Magistrate no Superiour No other thing but a Den of Thieves Robbers and other Malefactours who would hinder all Good Men from dwelling there And though Superiority be so good useful and necessary even in the Civil State yet these Reformers reject it as an Evil Thing and will depend on none but themselves and live independently that they may the more follow the Swinge of their Brutish Senses whose Motions they let loose without Restraint These Reformers did not only cast off Obedience by their Reformation but also the Confession of Sins in particular For they would not declare to another the Luxury and the Excess which they had a mind to perpetrate and they could not enjoyn others what they would not do themselves Therefore they rejected and even despised this Confession though the Scripture sayes expresly Confess your Faults to one another And Confession in its self is Good and Holy humbling the Heart and serving for a Bridle and Restraint to Sin in Time coming All this sort of Good these Reformers rejected together with the pretended Errours they said they had discovered forgetting that the Scripture says Try all things and hold that which is good I will not excuse the Errours and Abuses which have crept in among these Auricular Confessions since I blame them more than these Reformers themselves did as may be seen in this LIGHT OF THE WORLD But they ought not to pluck up the good Grain with the Tares That belongs to the Lord to separate them in the Day of Harvest and not to these Reformers to come before the Time and pluck out of the Holy Church the good Things which Christ had planted there Such as Fasting and Abstinence are which these Reformers have so absolutely rejected and despised though in the Scripture Fasting is recommended for the Apostle sayes Be ye sober and watch And elsewhere it is said Sanctifie your Fast And Jesus Christ speaking to his Apostles of one possest sayes to them This kind goeth not out but by Fasting and
still his Spouse though there were but one Soul only as there was but one when Adam was created alone This Number of many only makes those Blessed who are of the Number For God on his part takes as much delight with one Soul only that is resigned to Him as He would do with a Hundred Millions For there is nothing to do with Quantity when the Business is about Quality If an Hundred Millions of Souls are resigned to God they make altogether but one only Church which could consist as well in one Soul only as in this great Number Because the Spouse of God is One And as in Nature a Man may have as much Contentment in Marrying a Wife who is Little and Tender as one that is Big and Lumpish Without comparison God is as much Honoured though there were but one Soul only in the World that were resigned to him as if all Men in general were so who only can receive themselves the Honour of their Happiness every one for his own particular For nothing can be taken away nor added as to God who is and comprehends all Things His Alliance that he has made with the Soul of Man is not encreas'd or diminished by the great or small Body of his Church He will still have his Spouse with whom he will take his delight in the kind that he created which was but one Man alone She shall still be preserved as the Rose among Thorns How wicked soever the World may become his Church will still remain there in her kind The Church will always have her Beauty and her Qualities as much in one Soul alone as in an Hundred Millions which altogether would make but one no more than if there were but one alone After this manner God in all Ages has had his Church upon Earth But in how many Souls it consisted is known only to God The People of Israel were called the People of God among whom there were assuredly Souls resigned unto him These made up the Church in their Time and no others Even so among the Jewish People and also the Catholicks The Church of God has alwayes been among them since Gods Alliance with Man could never fail But to believe that all that Masse of People who call'd themselves the People of God were the Church is to deceive our selves Because there never will be any other but the Souls which of their Free-will do resign themselves to the Will of God All others are only Carnal and Material Churches I said to her That we strayed much and greatly erred in believing that all who are called the People of God do make up the Church and that at present she consisted of Christendom which Jesus Christ authorised and said that what she did on Earth should be done in Heaven She said Sir Men are blind and walk where they see nothing I believe that the Spouse of God resides among Christian People though it were no more but in one Soul alone But to believe that this Church consists of that great Number of Persons who are called Christians is greatly to deceive our selves Because of them God may say truly My People have forsaken me Which appears by the whole Behaviour of these Christians now who live wholly as if there were no God every one being so wedded to his own Will as if it had only been given him to satisfie himself and using the Authority that God gave his Church as if they were Soveraigns and independent upon him All which things are inconsistent with the Spouse of God which moves not but by the Motion of her Husband of whom she knows she holds all things and she never ascribes any thing to her self How should this Masse of Christians compose the Church since among them we do not observe almost any who will resign their Wills to the Will of God And those who make their Profit of the Authority that Jesus Christ gave his Church are Robbers and take what belongs to another For when Jesus Christ said Whatsoever you shall do here on Earth I will do in Heaven He spoke to his Spouse and not to his Enemies as those Persons are who cleave to their own Wills who do very impertinently usurp the Title of the Church or Spouse of God For his True Spouse is in nothing contrary to her Husband Being united by a Holy and Divine Will So that they cannot disclaim one another and therefore what she shall do on Earth shall be done also in Heaven by their Unity of Wills which are still conformable Though this Will be wrapt up in the Spirit and Body of the Spouse which is yet on Earth it is nevertheless united to that of her Husband which is in Heaven And therefore what the one does the other approves Because one and the same thing cannot be against it self I said to her That this Quality of Vnion of Will to that of God was a Divine Thing and invisible to Bodily Eyes asking her how I might discover and know the True Church and Spouse of God She said Sir You will perceive it sufficiently even by the Eyes of the Body if you seriously apply your Spirit to discover her Qualities For St. John in his Revelation paints out all her Qualities under the Figure of a Woman who sits in the Sun and has the Moon under her Feet and upon her Head Twelve Stars This Woman is the True Church and the only Spouse of God She is first seated in the Sun that is that the Spouse of God reposes alwayes in the Light of Truth and never turns aside from it that she does not walk therein as a Passenger but sits in it as in her Place of Repose Secondly that she has the Moon under her Feet That is that all Things that are mutable and changeable as the Moon such are the Goods the Riches the Honours and Pleasures of this World are all trod under feet by the Church or Spouse of God Thirdly That she bears on her Head Twelve Stars These are the Twelve Fruits of the Holy Spirit with which the Spouse of God is still inseparably adorned because the Spirit of God where he resides is never barren There he always brings forth his Fruits and there also he still bestows his Gifts By which Sir you may sufficiently discover in what Soul the Church resides If you do not find all this Furniture never believe blindly that the Church is in those who do not possess these Qualities or Conditions which are the True Marks of the Church without which you can never own that she is the True Spouse of God For these Marks are inseparable from Her and where you shall not find them you must immediately desist from believing that you have found the Church Because there can be nothing but Delusion where they say she is without these Qualities For she never goes without them And therefore be not amused though they say to you This is the Church