Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	faith_n	soul_n	word_n	7,065	5	4.2672	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41099	The maxims of the saints explained, concerning the interiour life by the Lord Arch-bishop of Cambray &c. ; to which are added, Thirty-four articles by the Lord Arch-Bishop of Paris, the Bishops of Meaux and Chartres, (that occasioned this book), also their declaration upon it ; together with the French-King's and the Arch-Bishop of Cambray's letters to the Pope upon the same subject.; Explication des maximes des saints sur la vie interieure. English	Fénelon, François de Salignac de La Mothe-, 1651-1715.; Fénelon, François de Salignac de La Mothe-, 1651-1715. Correspondence.; Louis XIV, King of France, 1638-1715. Correspondence.; Noailles, Louis-Antoine de, 1651-1729.; Godet des Marais, Paul, 1647-1709.; Bossuet, Jacques Bénigne, 1627-1704. Instruction sur les estats d'oraison, où sont exposées les erreurs des faux mystiques de nos jours.	1698 (1698)	Wing F675; ESTC R6318	100,920	267

Remnants of Interest mixed with Divine Love VIII False INternal Tryals take away for ever both sensible and visible Graces They suppress for ever the distinct Acts both of Love and Vertue they put a Soul into a real and absolute Impotency to discover herself to her Superiors or to obey them in the essential Practice of the Gospel they cannot be discern'd from common Temptations 'T is lawful in that State to abscond from Superiors to substract one's self from the Yoke of Obedience and to seek both by Books and Persons of no Authority the Helps and Lights one stands in needs of even notwithstanding the Prohibition of our Superiors A Director may suppose one to be in these Tryals without having tried before the bottom of the Soul upon her Sincerity Docility Mortifications and Humility He may immediately put that Soul upon purging her Love from all Dross of Interest in the Temptation without causing her to do any interested Act to resist the Vehemency of pressing Temptation To speak at this rate is to poyson our Souls it is to take from them the Arms of Faith necessary to resist the Enemy of our Salvation 't is to confound all the Ways of God 't is to teach Rebellion and Hypocrisie to the Children of the Church IX ARTICLE True A Soul who in these extream Tryals gives herself up to God is never forsaken by him When she asks in the Transport of her Grief to be delivered God does not deny to hear her but because he is willing to perfect her Strength in Infirmity and that his Grace is sufficient to her for it She loseth in that State neither the real and compleat Power within the Line of Power for to fulfil really the Precepts nor that of following the most perfect Counsels according to her Calling and present Degree of Perfection nor the real and internal Acts of her Free-will for that accomplishment She looseth neither preventing Grace nor explicite Faith nor Hope as it is a disinterested Desire of the Promises nor the Love of God nor the infinite Hatred of Sin not so much as venial nor that inward and momentous certainty that is necessary for the Rectitude of the Conscience She loseth nothing but the sensible Relish of Good but the comfortable and affecting Fervency but the eager and interested Acts of Vertues but the After-certainty that comes by an interested reflection bearing to itself a comfortable Witness of its Fidelity These direct Acts and such as escape the Reflections of the Soul but which are yet very real and do conserve in her all the Vertues without spot are as I have already said that Operation called by S. Francis of Sales the Edge of the Spirit or the Top of the Soul This State of Trouble and Gloominess which is only for a while is not even in its own Duration without peaceable Intervals in which some Glimpses of very sensible Graces appear like Lightning in a dark stormy Night which leave no sign of themselves behind To speak thus is to speak equally conformable both to the Catholick Doctrine and to the Experiences of Mystical Saints IX False IN these extream Tryals a Soul without having been before unfaithful to Grace loseth the true and full Power of persevering in her State She falls into a real Impotency to fulfil the Precepts in those Cases where Precepts are urging She ceaseth to have an explicite Faith in Cases where Faith ought to act explicitely She ceaseth to hope that 's to say to expect and to desire even in a disinterested manner the Effect of the Promises in herself She hath no longer the Love of God perceptible or imperceptible She hath no more a Hatred to Sin She loseth not only the sensible and reflective Horror of it but also the most direct and intimate Horror of the same She hath no more that intimate and momentous Certainty which can preserve the Rectitude of her Conscience in the very Moment of her Action All the Acts of those Vertues essential to the internal Life ceases even in their most direct and less reflected Operation which is according to the Language of Mystical Saints the Edge of the Spirit and the Top of the Soul To speak at this rate is to annihilate Christian Piety under pretence of perfecting it It is to make the Tryals designed to purifie Love an universal Shipwreck of Faith and of all Christian Vertues 'T is to say that the Faithful nourished with the Words of Faith ought never to hear without stopping their Ears X. ARTICLE True THE Promises of Eternal Life are meerly free Grace is never due to us or else it would not be Grace God never oweth to us in a strick Sence either Perseverance to the Death nor Eternal Life after the Death of the Body He is not so much as indebted to our Soul to give her Existence after this Life he might let her drop into her Nothing again as it were by her own Weight Otherwise he should not be free in respect to the Duration of his Creature and it would become a necessary Being But altho' God never owes any thing to us in a strict Sence he hath been pleased to give us Rights grounded on his Promises meerly free By his Promises he hath given himself as a Supream Blessedness to a Soul faithful to him and persevere to be so It is then true in this sense that any supposition tending to the believing ones being excluded from Eternal life by Loving God is impossible because God is faithful in his promises He wills not the Death of the Sinner but rather that he may live and be Converted Thereby it is certain that all the Sacrifices which the most Disinterested Souls make usually concerning their Eternal Blessedness are conditional They say my God if by an impossibility thou wouldst condemn me to the Eternal Torments of Hell without losing thy Love I should not Love thee the less for it But this Sacrifice cannot be absolute in an ordinary state In no other case but of the last trials this Sacrifice becometh in a manner absolute Then a Soul may be invincibly perswaded with a reflex perswasion and which is not the intimate bottom of Conscience that she is justly reprobated by God In this state did S. Francis of Sales find himself in the Church of of S. Stephen des Grez A Soul in this trouble finds herself contrary to God in respect to her former infidelities and by her present obduration She takes her bad inclinations for a deliberate will and sees not the real acts of her Love and of her Virtues which by reason of their simplicity do escape her reflections She becomes in her own eyes covered with the leprōsie of Sin though it is only in appearance and not real She can not bear with her self She is offended with those who are willing to quiet her and take away from her that kind of perswasion It matters nothing to tell her of the precise Doctrine of Faith in regard

is united to God without any medium either by the Veil of Faith or the infirmity of the Flesh since the fall of Adam nor by the medicinal Grace of Jesus Christ by whom alone one may in every state go to the Father To speak at this rate is to renew the Heresie of the Beggards Condemned by the Council of Vienna XLI ARTICLE True THE Spiritual Wedding uniteth immediately the Bride to the Bridegroom essence to essence substance to substance that 's to say will to will by that entirely pure Love so often mentioned Then God and the Soul make no more but one and the same Spirit as the Bride and the Bridegroom in Marriage are made but one Flesh He who adheres to God is made one and the same Spirit with him by an intire conformity of the will which is the work of Grace The Soul is then fully satiated and in a Joy of the Holy Ghost which is the bud of Coelestial happiness She is in an entire purity that 's to say without any defilement of Sin except those daily Sins which the exercise of Love can immediately blot out and consequently she may without Purgatory be admitted into Heaven which no unclean thing can enter into for Concupiscence which remains always in this life is not incompatible with this entire purity since it is neither Sin nor a spot in the Soul But this Soul hath not her Original integrity being not exempt either from daily faults or from Concupiscency which are incompatible with their integrity To speak so is to speak with the Salt of Wisdom wherewith all our Words ought to be seasoned XLI False THE Soul in this state hath her Original integrity she sees God face to face she does enjoy him as fully as the Blessed To speak at this rate is to fall into the Heresie of the Beggards XLII ARTICLE True THE Union called by mystical Men essential and substantial consisteth in a simple and disinterested Love which fills all the affections of the whole Soul and which is exercised by Acts so peaceable and so uniform that they seem to be but one though they be several really distinguished Acts. Several mystical Writers have termed these Acts essential or substantial to distinguish them from Acts that are froward unequal and made as it were by the out-goings of a Love which is yet mixt and interested To speak so is to explain the true sense of mystical Writers XLII False THis Union becomes really essential between God and the Soul so that nothing is capable either to break or to alter it any more This substantial Act is permanent and indivisible as the substance of the Soul it self To speak at this rate is to teach an extravagancy as much contrary to all Philosophy as to Faith and to the true practice of Piety XLIII ARTICLE True GOD who conceals himself from the Wise and great ones reveals and communicates himself to the little ones and to the simple The transformed Soul is the Spiritual Man S. Paul speaks of that 's to say a Man acted and led by the Spirit of Grace in the way of pure Faith This Soul hath often both by Grace and by experience for all things of simple practise in the tryals and exercise of pure Love a knowledge which the Learned who have more science and humane Wisdom than experience and pure Grace have not She ought nevertheless to submit with heart as well as mouth not only to all the decisions of the Church but also to the Conduct of her Pastors as having a special Grace without exception to lead the Sheep of the flock XLIII False THE transformed Soul is the Spiritual Man of S. Paul so that she may judge of all the truths of Religion and be judged by no body She is the Seed of God that cannot Sin Unction teacheth her all so that she hath no need of being instructed by any body nor to submit to superiours To speak at this rate is to abuse the passages of Scripture and turn them to ones ruine 'T is to be ignorant that Unction which teacheth all teacheth nothing so much as obedience and suggesteth all truth of Faith and of practice only by inspiring the Ministers of the Church with an humble Docility In a word 't is to establish in the midst of the Church a Damnable Sect of Fanaticks and Independents XLIV ARTICLE True THE Pastors and Saints of all Ages have used a kind of an Oeconomy and secret in not speaking of the rigorous trials and of the most sublime exercise of pure Love but to those Souls to whom God had given already both attraction and light to it Though this Doctrine was the pure and simple perfection of the Gospel noted throughout the whole body of Tradition the Ancient Pastors proposed usually to the generality of Just Men no other than the practise of interested Love in proportion to their Grace and thus gave Milk to Infants while they distributed Bread to strong Souls To speak thus is to say what S. Clement Cassian and divers other Holy Authors both Ancient and Modern do constantly affirm XLIV False THere has been in all Ages among those that live Contemplative Lives a secret Tradition and such as has been unknown even to the body of the Church her self This Tradition would include secret Opinions beyond the truths of universal Tradition or these Opinions at least would be contrary to those of the common Faith and would exempt Souls from exercising all those Acts of an explicite Faith and dislimited Vertue which are no less essential to the ways of pure Love than to that which is interested To speak thus is to annihilate Tradition instead of multiplying it It is the way to make a sect of secret Hypocrites in the Bosome of the Church without her being ever able to discover them or to free her self from them Hereby the impious secret of the Gnosticks and Manicheans will be revived and all the Traditions of our Faith and Morals undermined ART XLV True ALL the Internal ways that are most eminent are so far from being above an habitual state of pure love that they are but the way to arrive at that bound of all perfection all inferiour degrees do not come up to this true estate The last degree which Mystick Writers call by the name of Transformation or Essential Union without any Medium is no more than a simple reality of this love without a peculiar interest This when true is the most safe state because it is the most voluntary and meritorious of all the states of Christian Justice and because 't is that which referrs all to God and leaves nothing to the Creature But on the contrary when 't is false and imaginary it is the heighth of illusion The Traveller after many Fatigues Dangers and Sufferings arriving at length upon the top of a Mountain from thence discerns at a distance his Native City and the end of his Journey and all his toils he is presently

Poyson XVIII False WE ought to conform our selves to all the Wills of God and to his permissions as to all his other Wills We ought therefore to permit Sin in our selves when we know God is about to permit it We ought to love our Sin though contrary to God by reason of its abjection which purifies our love and takes from us all pretence and desert of a reward Lastly the attraction or inspiration of Grace requires from Souls in order to render them more disinterested for the Eternal reward the breaking of the Written Law To Speak at this rate is to Teach Apostacy and to put the Abomination of Desolation in the most holy place it is not the Voice of the Lamb but of the Dragon XIX ARTICLE True VOcal without Mental Prayer that 's to say without the attention of the Mind and the Affection of the Heart is a Superstitious Worship which honoureth God with the Lips while the Heart is far from him Vocal Prayer is not good and meritorious but in as much as it is directed and animated by that of the Heart It is much better to recite but a few Words with great recollection and Love than long Prayers with little or no recollection when they are not Commanded To Pray both without attention and Love is to Pray as the Heathens did who thought to be heard for the Multitude of their Words One Prays no further than one desires and one doth not desire but by how much one loveth at least with an interested Love Nevertheless Vocal Prayer ought to be respected and consulted as being good to awake the Thoughts and the Affections which it expresses as having been taught by the Son of God to his Apostles and practised by the whole Church in all Ages To make light of this Sacrifice of Praises this fruit of the Lips that does confess the Name of the Lord would be an impiety Vocal Prayer may be troublesome for a while to those Contemplative Souls who are yet in the imperfect beginnings of their Contemplation because their Contemplation is more sensible and affecting than pure and quiet It may be also burthensome to Souls who are in the last Tryals because every thing in that state disturbs them But one ought never to give them for a rule to forsake without the permission of the Church and without a true impotency known to be so by their Superiours any Vocal Prayer which is obligatory Vocal Prayer taken with simplicity and without scruple when it is according to the Command may well be troublesome to a Soul in relation to those things we have already noted But it is never contrary to the highest Contemplation Experience even shews that the most Eminent Souls in the midst of their most sublime Communications have familiar Communications with God and that they read or recite with a loud Voice and in a kind of Transport some inflamed Words of the Apostles and Prophets To Speak so is to explain the soundest Doctrine with the most correct Words XIX False VOcal Prayer is nothing but the gross and imperfect Doctrine of beginners It is intirely unprofitable to Contemplative Souls They are by the eminency of their state dispensed with as to the reciting of Vocal Prayers Commanded them by the Church because their Contemplation eminently comprehends what is more edifying in the different parts of Divine Worship To Speak at this rate is to despise the Reading of the Scriptures it is to forget that Christ hath Taught us Vocal Prayer which contains the perfection of the highest Contemplation It is to be ignorant that pure Contemplation is never perpetual in this Life and that in its intervals one may and ought to recite faithfully the Office which is Commanded and which of it self is so apt to nourish in our Souls the Spirit of Contemplation XX. ARTICLE True REading ought not to be done either out of Curiosity or desire of judging of our State or deciding it according to what we Read nor out of a certain relish of what we call Witty and sublime We ought not to read the most holy Books nor even the Scriptures but with dependency upon the Pastors and Directors who are in their stead 'T is they who are to judge whither each faithful Christian is prepared enough if his Heart is sufficiently purified and Docible for each different Reading They ought to distinguish the Food that is agreeable to every one of us in particular Nothing causeth so much illusion in the interiour Life as the indiscreet choosing of Books 'T is best to Read little and make long interruptions by way of recollection that we may let Love more deeply to imprint in us the Christian truths When recollection causeth our Book to drop out of our hands we must let it fall without scruple We shall take it up again time enough afterwards to renew in its turn our recollection Love Teaching by its Unction surpasses all the rational discourse we can make upon Books The most powerful of all perswasions is that of Love Nevertheless we must take in hand again the outward Book when the inward Book ceaseth to be open Otherwise the empty Spirit would fall into a rambling and imaginary Prayer which would be a real and pernicious idleness This would bring a Man to neglect his own instruction about necessary truths and forsake the Word of God and never to lay solid foundations both of the exact understanding of the Law and of revealed Mysteries To Speak thus is to Speak according to Tradition and to the Experience of holy Souls XX. False THe Reading of the most holy Books is unprofitable to those whom God teacheth entirely and immediately by himself 'T is not necessary that such persons as these should have laid the foundation of common instruction They need only to wait for all the light of truth that doth arise from their Prayer As for their Readings when they are moved to any they may choose without consulting with their Superiours such Books which Speak of the most advanced states They may Read the Books that are suspected or censured by their Pastors To Speak at this rate is to destroy instruction which is the food of Faith It is to substitute instead of the pure Word of God an interiour Fanatical inspiration On the other side it is to permit Souls to Poyson themselves with contagious Readings or at least such as are disproportionate to their true needs It is to teach them dissimulation and disobedience XXI ARTICLE True WE ought to distinguish between Meditation and Contemplation Meditation consists in discursive acts that can be easily distinguished the one from the other because they are distinguished by a kind of a noted motion because they are varied by the diversity of Objects they are applied to because they draw a conviction concerning the truth of the conviction of another truth already known because they draw an affection from several Motives methodically assembled Lastly because they are done and reiterated with