to her might be perfect and that he might fully delight himself in her not that he can delight in her for her self being a Subject too remote from his Greatness but for the Love he bears himself But she only receives all the Advantages of this Love for so soon as she gives her full Consent to the Love of her God she enjoys him and all his Graces in such Abundance that if God himself did not hold her in Life she would expire with so many Consolations surpassing her natural Strength What hinders all Men from enjoying this Abyss of Happiness Nothing but Sin alone And what is Sin Nothing but the turning away from God to turn to the Creatures they give divers Names to it and yet all are but one and the same thing to wit a turning away from God to love the Creature Thus I have set down at some length in her own Words her Sentiments about these Matters wherein she makes appear that all Men were created by God for Eternal Happiness and to enjoy him and therefore that God has not by an Eternal Decree reprobated any Man for Daâ—â—tion but is desirous that all should be saved That he gave Man irrevocably a Liberty and Free-will which he has not limited by predetermining the Acts of it from all Eternity or by any other manner of way because he would have him to love him freely and from a most willing Choice That Sin came into the World neither by the Will nor Decree nor Permission of God but by Man's abuse of the Free-will which he had irrevocably given him the greatest Natural Gift that could be bestow'd upon him That Man notwithstanding of his Liberty can of himself do nothing that is truly Good without the Grace of God there being nothing Good but what comes from God That in his Fallen Estate he cannot of himself return again to God without his preventing and concurring Grace That he denies his Grace to none not to the most Wicked That Man in his Corrupt State not being capable of his most inward enlightning Grace he fails not to recal him by sensible Graces Providence Fears of Hell Remorse of Conscience good Desires and Purposes c. That God requires Man's Co-operation with his Grace to which he enables him and will thereupon still give him more Grace That if he deny this Co-operation with God's Grace he destroys himself and puts a stop to the Operations of the Divine Grace That if he entirely and absolutely yield up his Free-will into the hands of God to be wholly directed by him he then takes him into his immediate Direction enters in that Soul and makes his abode with it it does not so much live as Christ lives in it it is one of his absolute Elect and cannot fall away Sure they who consider these things without Prejudice will see how sutable they are to the Nature of God how truly they represent his Power and Righteousness and Wisdom and Holiness and Love and Impartiality and Constancy and Sincerity and Truth and what a Consistency there is between his Attributes and his Providence how clear it is that Man's Sin and Damnation is owing entirely to himself and all his Good to God what reason we have to be deeply humbled to distrust and deny our selves and what great encouragement to Prayer to turn to God with all our Heart and entirely to depend upon him They will see how clearly the Difficulties about Providence are resolv'd which are so unaccountable by the other Systems They who desire a full view of all this and an Answer to the Objections made against it will find it done with great Evidence and Clearness in M. Poirets Oeconomy Divine particularly Tom. 7. De la Providence Vniverselle XIII Another Prejudice against the Sentiments of A. B. is that concerning the Divine Prescience to wit that God would not and did not absolutely and determinately foresee the Sin and Fall of Adam and this some aggravate as a horrible Blasphemy against the Omnisciency of God that he did not know or foresee from all Eternity in a most determinate manner all things that shall come to pass in the World Would Men consider things calmly and without Passion they would not be so rash in censuring others and the often Experiences they may have of the weakness of their own Understandings and how often and how greatly they are mistaken themselves may make them less positive and dogmatical than they are A. B. says That God having created Man after his own likeness he therefore made him altogether free without any Exception or Constraint That he might be lov'd by Man most freely and willingly and that so God might take his Delight in so free and voluntary a Love from Man He therefore would not only not predetermine him in his Actions but would not limit his Free-will so far as to foresee how he should dispose of the same Not but that by his Almighty Power he could have foreseen and known all but he would not so far limit the Liberty he had given as that it should be necessitated by any such foresight Even says she as if a Man because he loves his Wife and finds her Wise would give her an absolute Permission to dispose of his Goods without his being desirous to know how she should do it Now as this is a Principle that does not in the least infringe any of the Divine Attributes so it clears the Riddles of Providence and shews how so great a part of the Creation has degenerated and Sin and Wickedness overspread the World and that without any manner of Concurrence on God's part not the least Blemish on his unspotted Righteousness Goodness Holiness and Purity Whereas in all the other Systems it is acknowledged by all unbyass'd Persons that there are insuperable Difficulties how to reconcile the Righteousness and Goodness of God his Hatred of Sin his Sincerity and Truth with the Events and Mysteries of Providence and whatever Difficulties are brought against God's absolute Predetermination to all Mens Actions how wicked and hainous soever have no less force against his determinate Prescience of them The Two greatest Objections against this Sentiment of A. B. are that 1. It enroaches on God's Omniscience 2. That it is inconsistent with Prophecies and Predictions of future Events To clear the First It is to be considered that God is infinitely Self-sufficient and stands not in need of any other Being in the World nor the Idea of any other Being to make him infinitely Perfect So that all Beings besides himself and all their Idea's are the result of his Arbitrary Will and Pleasure and are therefore form'd of such Natures and Perfections as he in his infinite Wisdom and Goodness was freely pleas'd to grant It was free then to God to form the Idea's of other Beings or not to create them or not to give them Liberty or not to determine to foresee all their Acts or not all this was
Christians I 've sought from my Nativity I liv'd I wrote to shew how such to be Convinc'd the World of â—rrors sins abuses All hate me for 't each one my NAME traduces To death they persecute me every where How should I other Lot than JESUS bear AN APOLOGY FOR M. Antonia Bourignon In Four Parts I. An Abstract of her Sentiments and a Character of her Writings II. An Answer to the Prejudices raised against them III. The Evidences she brings of her being led by the Spirit of God with her Answers to the Prejudices opposed thereunto To which is added A Dissertation of Dr. De Heyde on the same Subject IV. An Abstract of her Life To which are added Two LETTERS from different Hands containing REMARKS on the Preface to the Snake in the Grass and Bourignianism Detected AS ALSO Some of her own Letters whereby her True Christian Spirit and Sentiments are farther justified and vindicated particularly as to the Doctrine of the Merits and Satisfaction of Jesus Christ Non multum Disputandum Nuda enim Veritas seipsam Validissime tutatur probé intellecta genuinâ suâ luce tenebras omnes Dispellit Rob. Leighton Archiep. Glasc Prelect Theol Paraenes p 199 LONDON Printed for D. Brown at the Black Swan without Temple Bar S. Manship at the Ship in Cornhil R. Parker at the Unicorn under the Piazza's of the Royal-Exchange and H Newman at the Grashopper in the Poultry 1699. THE PREFACE I. SVch and so universal are the Prejudices raised amongst all Parties against the Writings and Sentiments of A. B. that the Sight of the very Title Page of this Apology will make some perhaps throw it by which Disdain scorning to look into it others to take it up in Derision and ask What would this Babler say Others to pry into it with an evil Eye with a Design only to carp at it and to pick out here and there some Expressions or Sentiments which differ from the ordinary Systems and put them in such a Dress as may excite the Hatred and Derision of the People II. But being fully perswaded in my Conscience that those Writings do greatly tend to revive the Life and Spirit of Christianity which is acknowledg'd to be so much decay'd and lost amongst all the Parties of Christendom and knowing that there are many well-disposed Persons who are frightned from lookâ—ng into them because of the odious Representations made of them and the Prejudices given them against them who if these Prejudices were remov'd would certainly peruse them with Delight and Profit to their Souls and would sensibly â—eel that the True Doctrine of Jesus Christ and the only way to eternal Life chalk'd out in his Life and Sayings is there plainly and distinctly represâ—nted I shall therefore in all Sincerity without Respect of Parties or Persons write this Apology And I do earnestly beg of Almighty God the Father and Fountain of all Light and Love that he may be pleas'd so to illuminate my Mind with his Heavenly Light and warm my Heart with his Divine Love that I may utter nothing but what flows from or tends to both and that some Rays of both may stream through this Writing to touch the Hearts and Spirits of others III. To dispose Persons to hearken to and to make a right use of an Apology of this Nature it is fit to premise two things First That it needs not prejudice any against A. B. and her Writings so far as not to listen to an Apology for both that they know she is evil spoken of said to be an Enthusiast an Enchantress a Blasphemer a Seducer and the Devil of a Saint that her Writings are said to be full of Heresies Delusions and Errors and that by Persons of all Parties Papists Protestants Lutherans Calvinists Presbyterians Episcopal Persons Anabaptists Quakers and even by the Preachers and Writers and Learned Men of the respective Parties for there is nothing more ordinary than for the most Innocent and the most Vpright to be thus treated Woe to you when all Men shall speak well of you This was the Treatment that Innocence and Truth it self met with our Lord Jesus Christ He was made to pass for a Blasphemer a Sorcerer a Perverter of the Law of God The most Learned and the most Godly in his Age hated him They who in other things stood at the greatest Distance did agree in this Herod and Pilate the Pharisees and Sadducees the Jews and Samaritans So that this may be rather a favourable Prejudice on her behalf at least so far as to allow her a fair Hearing IV. 2. I shall entreat you may not come to read this Apology nor the Writings to which it invites you with an evil Eye They who come to consider Writings or Persons with this Disposition are not capable of understanding them aright themselves or of giving a true Representation of them to others I know no Person tho' never so innocent nor Truth tho' never so clear nor Book tho writ with never so much Plainness Sincerity and Consistency which they who consider with this Spirit may not mistake expose misrepresent and ridicule Nothing more true than our Saviour's Words nothing more confirm'd from daily Experience The Light of the Body is the Eye if therefore thine Eye be single thy whole Body shall be full of Light but if thine Eye be Evil thy whole Body shall be full of Darkness It was from those different Dispositions that our Lord himself and his Doctrine met with such different Entertainment in the World They who were full of Self-love and Esteem and desir'd to love God and the World both to please Him and their Appâ—tites too to get and keep that Rank in the Esteem of Men which they thought they merited and hugg'd the Glosses and Sences they had put upon God's Law by which they had reconcil'd it with the following of their own corrupt Inclinations such look'd on all that Jesus said aud did with an evil Eye they never came to hear him but with a Design to catch him in his Words and they found out ways to put a hard Sence upon every thing The Miracles he wrought they said were done by the Power of the Devil they accus'd him of breaking the Sabbath Day and of countenancing it in his Disciples of Blasphemy in calling himself the Son of God of Pride in speaking well of himself of a Design to destroy the Law and seduce the People by his Doctrine and they made him an Enemy to Caesar in calling himself a King But the sincere and the single-hearted who came with a pure and upright Desire and Intention to understand and to follow the Truth did readily embrace the Doctrine of Jesus Christ the entrance of his Words gave them Light and Understanding and they were so fully satisfied of the great things of God's Law that they were not apt to wrest or mistake his Sayings or Actions in things of lesser moment
or where he spoke more mysteriously as well knowing that he had the Words of Eternal Life They who come then to consider these Writings with a single Eye with a sincere Desire to understand the Truth and to do the same shall know of the Doctrine whether it be of God or whether she speaks of her self V. In writing this Apology we shall give 1st An Abstract of her Sentiments and Character of her Writings 2d Some of the most remarkable Prejudices raised against her and her Answers to them 3d. The Evidences she gives of her being led by the Spirit of God with her Answers to the Prejudices opposed thereunto most of the Prejudices of late raised against her being such as were objected to her in her own Life-time I chose to give her own Defences which upon many Accounts I judge will be more acceptable than what I might offer to say for her 4th An Abstract of her Life Vnto which shall be subjoined some of her Letters which will both serve farther to vindicate her from the Calumnies raised against her and may be of great use to these who do sincerely love the Truth and desire the Salvation of their Souls To all such I hope this will not be unacceptable there being nothing aim'd at but to make us all lay to Heart this great Truth Civitates duas fecerunt amores duo Civitatem mundi quae Babilonia dicitur amor sui usque ad contemptum Dei Civitatem Dei quae Jerusalem dicitur amor Dei usque ad contemptum sui August de Civ Dei ERRATA PAge 6. line 26. for had read has p. 7. l. 4. for do r. diâ— ibid. l. 25. and 26. into r. in p. 9. l. 42. the r. them p. 15. l. 23. love r. live p. 16. l. 20. there r. the. p. 24. l. 39. dele to p. 28. l. 20. after People r. taught ibid. l. 28 blot out be p. 29. l. 8 after not r. from p. 35 l. 37. he r. she p. 39. l. 15. him r. them p. 41 l. 29. since after r. thereafter ibid. blot out had p. 45. l. 42. after with r. an p. 46. l. 28. after them r. and that p. 51. l. 38. his by r. by his p. 56. l. 3. as r. 〈◊〉 p 64. l. 6. not r. none ibid l 28 after makes r. appear p. 68 l. 14. converted r. covered p. 69. l. 25. there r. then p. 73. l. 9. and r. of p. 74. l. 30. there r. their p. 78. l. 23. after it r. is ibid. l 27. tho' r. that p. 80. l. 39. after done r. God p. 84 l. 21. that r. but p. 101 l. â—6 〈◊〉 to it p. 1â—2 l. 33. blot out only p. 1. 3. l. 18 â— minuendam ibid. l. 35. nutri r. neutri p. 1â—8 l. 19. 2. presence r. prescience p. 113. l. 32 r. fatereris 〈◊〉 34. r. Nocendum ibid. 43. r. divinitus p. 114. l. 〈◊〉 iruendum p. 120. l. 27. after these r. says she p. 120. l. 〈◊〉 great r. so p. 13. l. 31 after and r. lay p. 134. l. 2â— after â—ccasion r. to shew p. 135. l. 18. for that O! r. O! that p. 38. l. 8. after withdraw r. from p. 144 l. 13. of r. if p. 152. l. 12. Consultations r. Conclusious l. 19. loving r. living l. 37 object r. objects p. 190. l. 1. he r. they ibid. l. 39. dele upon p. 192 l. 18. his r. this l. 40. his r. this p. 217. l. 41. Spiri r. Spirit p. 213. l. 5. inferiour r. Superiour p. 230. l. 36. blot out or Conditions p. 239. l. 6. Epaphirus r. Epaphroditus ibid. â—mar for Tit. 4. 20 r. 2. Tim. 4. 20 p. 244. l. 39 such r. how p. 247. l. 31. has r. have p. 256. l. 33. declare r. declare p. 257. l. 37. for had r. has p. 271. l. 39. ye r. yet p. 273. l. 9. plea'd r. pleas'd ibid. l. 11. Smoke r. Smoak p. 277. l. 9. blot out to p. 279. l. 42. substance r. subsistance p. 292. l. 28. alie r. ally p. 295. l. 9. Coriathe r. Coriache p. 296. l. 29. Rufus r. Refuse p. 307 l. 39. liquitale r. liquidate p. 317. l. 19 fundamentally r. fraudulently p. 325. l. 32. after to r. be p. 327. l. 25. with it r. it with p. 3â—9 l. 35. after she r. did p. 331. l. 33 Dâ—ustâ—uction r. Destraction p. 334. l. 27. in r. thro' p. 336. l. 21 after consider r. them p. 352. l. 35. blot our to p. 353. l. 4 Men all r. all Men. p. 355. l. 23. pussiman r. pijssimam p. 358 l. 14 Narrater r. Narrator p. 361 l. 11. for r. far p. 374. l. 4 of his r. of this p. 379. l. 12. and r. of p 383. l 24. so tho' l. so that p. 384 l. 23 and 24 Corinthus r. Cerinthus p. 39 l 31. insecti r infecti ibid. l. 34. initi r. miti p. 394. l. 24. Flaterings â— flatering l. 28. for being almost brought in o â— bending almost into Advertisement TWo of Mrs. A. B's Treatises done into English viz. Solid Vertue and the Light of the World maybe had at the same Places where this is AN APOLOGY FOR M. A. BOVRIGNON PART I. An Abstract of her Sentiments and Character of her Writings I. MEN are generally led to take an estimate of Sentiments and Writings from the Opinion they have conceived of the Persons who communicate them and that grounded upon Circumstances which have no necessary connexion with Truth or Error The Poor Man's Wisdom is despis'd and his Words are not heard The Words and Works of Jesus Christ if they had come from a Scribe or Pharisee his Countrymen would have receiv'd both him and them but because they knew his Extract the Meanness of his Education that he had no Learning and that the Learned had no regard for him therefore they despiss'd him Have any of the Scribes and Pharisees believ'd on him Is not this the Carpenter's Son Is not his Mother call'd Mary and his Brethren and his Sisters are they not all with us Whence then hath this Man all these things and they were offended in him II. Thus had the Sentiments of A. B. been the Product of some of the Ancient Philosophers or of the Holy Fathers or even of some learned Head in this Age they would have met with regard But because they come from a Woman void of all Humane Learning and declaring that she is taught of God they are entertain'd with Contempt and Scorn and instead of weighing the Sentiments themselves Prejudices are first heap'd together to disparage her Person and thereby to breed an Aversion against any thing she can say tho' never so true and useful This is very far from the excellent Advice given us by Tho. a Kemp. Of the Imitation of Christ Book 1. Chap. 5. Sect. 2. which I wish we may all follow Let not says he the Authority of the Writer offend thee whether his Learning be
Actions of Men and it is so pure and excellent that her greatest Enemies have been forc'd to acknowledge it to be so that they might be the less suspected when they blame her in other things XI This Account of the Essentials of Religion I have given in her own Words she having summ'd them up in several Parts of her Writings sometimes under fewer Heads and sometimes under more tho' as to their Substance they are still the same And all her Writings have no other Tendency but to awaken in Mens Hearts a Sense of those Divine Truths and to convince them how far they are from them in their Practice She aims at nothing but to perswade Men that they cannot be saved without the Love of God that their corrupt Nature now leads them only to love themselves and the Creatures which is inconsistent with the Love of God that they cannot return to it without denying and mortifying this corrupt Nature which Jesus Christ by his Merits and Intercession has obtained Grace for them to do and this can be done only by obeying his Gospel-Law and following his Example which no body truly does This is the Substance of all her Writings These Truths she inculcates a hundred and a hundred times This is the constant Burthen of her Song Some other Sentiments which she calls Accessory Truths she mentions perhaps but three or four times in all her Writings And because every Palate does not relish them shall therefore those Books be despised and thrown away which do so lively represent the Essential Truths of the Gospel Would we throw away a Box of Pearls because some conceited Friend snatch'd at something amongst them and squeezing it hard at our Nose made it smell as Dung and then cry'd out Fie all is Filth throw all away Sure if these be the Great and Essential Truths of Religion they who love the Religion of Jesus Christ more than Prejudice or Party will greatly value and esteem the Writings of which those Truths are the Marrow the Substance and the All and will no more be scandaliz'd at them because of the Snarling of some than they would despise Pearls because Swine trample on the or Holy Things because Dogs bark at them XII Now that these are the Great and Essential Truths of Christianity will I think be readily granted by all The Holy Scriptures declare unto us that God is Love that they who dwell in Love dwell in God and God in them that there is none Good but God that the Sum of his Law is to love him with all our Hearts and our Neighbour as our selves that while we love the World the Love of the Father is not in us that Jesus Christ became Sin for us who knew no Sin that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him that Jesus Christ is come to bless us in turning every one of us from our Iniquities that unless we repent we shall certainly perish that in his Life and Death he was given us an Example that we should follow his Steps that by Nature we are the Children of Wrath that we cannot be his Disciples unless we deny our selves take up our Cross and follow him that if we be risen with Christ we will set our Affections on those things that are above and not on those things that are beneath that they who are Christ's have crucified the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts thereof that Knowledge puffs up but Charity edifieth that all Knowledge and all Faith without Charity profits us nothing XIII Thus S. Augustine in his Writings and particularly in his excellent Treatise De Doctrina Christiana Lib. 1. makes a Summary of the same Nature Of the Essentials of Christianity He considered all Beings under Three distinct Ranks and Orders Some which are to be enioy'd others which are to be used and others in the middle between these and they formed to enjoy and to use those other Beings The Things to be enjoy'd are those which make us happy The Things to be used are those which help us to attain to that which makes us happy and to cleave to it We who are to enjoy and use those things being plac'd between both if we give our selves to Enjoy the things which we should only use we are stopp'd in our Course and come short of our Happiness being entangl'd with the Love of things below To enjoy is by Love to cleave to something for its self To use a thing is to employ it as a Mean to attain to that which we love as Strangers travelling to their Native Country make use of Horses by Land or Ships by Sea to bring them thither That which is to be enjoy'd is only God the Father Son and Holy Ghost the Infinite and Unchangeable Good We ought to love nothing for it self but God and all other things only in and for God Other things are to be used or avoided as they are Helps or Hinderances of the Love of God All who are capable of Enjoying God as we are that is all our Neighbours we ought to love them as our selves that is to desire or endeavour that they be brought with us to love and enjoy God All Sin and Evil consists in the Loving and Enjoying what we ought only to use the Creatures and their Perfections and the Using what we ought to Enjoy Vtendis frui Fruendis uti This has so darkned and corrupted our Minds that we are not capable of loving and enjoying this infinite Good In order to this they must be cleansed and purified which is as it were a Travelling and Voyaging to our Country This could not have been if Wisdom it self had not stoop'd to our Infirmity and cloath'd himself with our Flesh to obtain Pardon and Grace for Sinners and to give them an Example in their own infirm Nature And as to convey our Thoughts to others we must cloath them with Words tho' thereby they are not defil'd nor chang'd so the Eternal and Unchangeable Word became Flesh and dwelt among us the Truth and the Life became the Way and brought us the wholsom Physick that is necessary to cure the Maladies of our Souls Remedies for every Disease The Sum of all is that the Fulness and End of all the Holy Scriptures is the Love of God and our Neighbours the Being that is to be enjoy'd and those Beings which are capable of enjoying him with us And that we might know and be able to do this the Providence of God has order'd the whole Temporal Dispensation for our Salvation which we ought to use not with an abiding Love but a transient one as we would love a Way or a Chariot that we may love those things in which we are carried for the sake of that to which we are going This is the Substance of that Excellent Book XIV It is true A. B. mentions other Sentiments which are not of the Essence of Religion but then she declares they are not
have also the Pencil which is the Word with which Jesus Christ and his Apostles laid on these fine Colours of Vertues in Souls but they want as that Ape the Spirit of that excellent Master which is Jesus Christ They have on Paper the same Words which the Holy Spirit dictated but they have not the same Holy Spirit to apply them in Practice to their own Souls and far less to the Souls of their Hearers XXV 10. Those Writings give us such just and clear Representations of the Truths of Christianity as tend to take us off from Self and from the Creatures and to make us turn unto and depend wholly upon God such as does not favour us in the least Sin and yet encourages the greatest Sinner to turn to God such as leads us to ascribe nothing to our selves but Evil and nothing to God but Good Such as lets us see that nothing can excuse us from obeying the Commands of the Gospel and following the Example of Jesus Christ without which by him tâ—ere is no Salvation It is true of Doctrines as well as Men By their Fruits ye shall know them Such Doctrines as tend to sooth Mens Corrupt Inclinations to teach them how to love God and the World too to gratifie their Appetites here and yet hope to enjoy God hereafter I do not mean in so many express Words but in their natural Tendency such certainly are not of God Now the Doctrines contained in those Writings have quite another Tendency as has been said There we have such true and lively Representations of God as shews us that he is altogether Lovely of his Design in creating Man only to be enjoy'd and lov'd by him without any decree or purpose of damning the greatest part of Mankind as may stir us up to comply with so tender a Love with so generous a Design of the horrid Degeneracy and Corruption of Man now both in Soul and Body as may make us abhor our selves of our Sins their being purely our own deed without any the least Predetermination or Concurrence of God but the contrary as may keep us from excusing our selves or laying the blame on God of the Merits Satisfaction and Intercession of Jesus Christ as may convince us that Pardon and Reconciliation with God and Grace and Means to return to God is to be obtain'd and that only by him of the Necessity and Nature of the preventing concurring and renewing Grace of God as may make us continually seek to him for it and yield up our selves to be guided by it of the Nature and Corruption of our Will as shews the absolute necessity of denying it and yielding it up to God of the Doctrine and Example of Jesus Christ as may convince us that our Corrupt Nature cannot be overcome and we cannot return to the Love of God without obeying his Precepts and following his Example Now Writings of such a Tendency ought not to be despis'd and ridicul'd by the Professors and Preachers of the Religion of Jesus Christ and that they have this Tendency I appeal to any who have read any of them without an Evil Eye XXVI 11. Those Writings do contain also many Divine Explications of the Holy Scripture not after the way of criticizing and reckoning up the several meanings and acceptions of a Word or the various Sences of Inpreters which a Man may be well vers'd in and yet be altogether ignorant of the true sence and meaning of the Holy Scripture where he pretends to Interpret it We see all Sciences have a certain Light by which they are discerned a certain Disposition of Faculties which makes us capable to understand them certain Principles which lead to the Knowledge of them and when these are wanting we grope in the Dark Children and Boys may understand all the Words of a Book of Philosophy of the Propositions in Euclid and yet understand nothing of the Truths contain'd there To understand the Holy Scriptures and the things of God we had need to be endued with the same Spirit and to be in the same Disposition with those who wrote them Now if any will be pleas'd to compare the Expositions given in those Writings of some places of Holy Scripture with the learned Comments of the Interpreters and Criticks of the Age I am perswaded that if they be not greatly prejudic'd they will be convinc'd that her Expositions come from a more Divine Original than than the most of the other that they give a clearer Light more worthy of God and more suitable to the great Ends of Religion that in this the Truth of our Saviour's words is manifest that God hides these things from the Wise and Prudent and reveals them unto Babes and that with great reason she blest God who preserv'd her from drinking in Humane Learning Of all these I shall instance one which deserves a particular Consideration and that is her Exposition of the 24th Chapter of St. Matthew set down in the First Part of La Lumiere nee on Tenebres It is too long to offer to transcribe it here they who are desirous to see it need not want Occasions To this I cannot but subjoin the just Cautions she gives and the excellent Rules for the Interpreting of the Holy Scriptures She makes appear how rash Men are in glossing the Holy Scriptures since the things which concern our Salvation are so plainly set down in them that they need no Glosses and the obscure things cannot be understood but by the same Spirit who endited them and not by Humane Wisdom which is directly opposite to the Wisdom of the Holy Spirit which descends only into humble Souls That they who will needs interpret the Scriptures by Humane Wisdom fall into great Mistakes and understand the Terms quite othewise than the Spirit of God intended Thus it is said that God hardened Pharaoh's Heart the meaning cannot be that he hardens Mens Hearts by making them obstinate in Evil for God can never co-operate to any Evil being the Fountain of all Good But he speaks thus to make us know that he leaves a wicked Man to go on in his Wickedness when he will not be restrain'd But on his part he uses always Goodness towards them that he may convert them both by good Inspirations Admonitions and other proper Means But when their Free-wills are willful to persist in Evil he leaves them to themselves The main Difficulty there is in understanding of the Scriptures arises from this that we do not know the Qualities of God and we are ready to attribute to him such as Men have imagining that he has a Love for some and a Hatred for others And thus every one is wedded to his own Sence and Opinions and will maintain them as the Truths of God But the best Course is still to take the Holy Scriptures in that Sence that draws us more and more to the Love of God and to the Knowledge of our own
Nothingness and to leave all these things which seem disputable to the Wisdom of God reckoning our selves unworthy to be able to comprehend what he is how he does his Works and by what means he saves Men relying on the Faith that shews us that he does all things in Goodness Righteousness and Truth without amusing our selves with any other thing but to put in practice the things which he has openly declar'd to us by his Gospel which are necessary for our Salvation such as Humility of Heart Self-denial the Love of God and the Love of our Neighbour It is better to exercise our selves in these solid Doctrines than to break our Heads in disputing and desiring to comprehend what is in God or how he governs Men Better let our selves be govern'd by him as little Children than to be inform'd how he will govern us It is to this says he that I exhort all the World knowing well that all the rest is nothing but Vanity and Amusement of Spirit For all the Learning and Curiosities of all the Men in the World cannot save us on the contrary their Doctrines Learning and Sentiments do rather withdraw us from God and our Salvation They either furnish us with means of Self-presumption or they slacken our Care to work out our Salvation Those words of Scripture which seem to say that God reprobates or damns Men cannot be understood but by the Signification of them which cannot be known but by the Light of Faith for if we take these words according to our Sense we should speak Evil of God and believe that he is Furious or Evil which cannot be for he is all Goodness all Peace and Tranquility and therefore he who would not utter Slanders against God ought not to stick to the Terms of the Scripture but in so far as they lead us to love and adore God or to the knowledge of our own Nothingness and Charity to our Neighbour for God has neither said nor taught to us but the things which tend to these Truths Thus when we believe that all Grace and Salvation comes immediately from God as it is true because we are Nothings then we honour God and acknowledge his Almighty Power in making so great things by his Grace of nothing and we must needs love him also by this Consideration and beg that he will continue and encrease this Grace and when we believe that God is so Gracious towards us that as soon as a sinner shall repent and turn unto him he will have Mercy on him this reinforces our Love to him in consideration of the Love he bears us so mercifully to Pardon us In these two Senses we may hold different Opinions about Grace and believe that it comes entirely from God and believe also that Men may have it when they will since God never rejects a penitent Sinner But whether we hold the one or the other of these in terms which do not tend to humble us and to acknowledge the Greatness of God that we may love and adore him it is an evil thing and it is a great rashness for Man to interpret and corrupt the Scriptures by Terms which authorize a Remissness in Vertue For they who will Gloss on the Scripture Words might say that God spoke not truly when he said to Jonas yet Forty Days and Ninevah shall be destroyed for the thing did not fall out according to the Terms which were not conditional but absolute Yet notwithstanding we ought not to surprize God in his Words or in the Scripture Terms but we ought to draw profit to our Souls from them conformably to his Designs who speaks only for our Profit He says absolutely that Ninevah shall be destroyed because the Inhabitants merited this Sentence the Justice of God condemn'd their Injustice but how soon they repented and embraced Penitence his Goodness and Mercy did also pardon them We must not therefore say that God did not speak truly but that he judg'd them justly and that he afterwards mercifully pardon'd them without being nice or grumbling about the Form of his Words or Expressions which are design'd only to make us grosly to understand the things according to our Capacity and Weakness These are certainly most excellent Cautions as to the expounding and understanding of the Holy Scriptures where the most necessary Duties are most plainly set down and obscure things cannot be discovered by human Wisdom but by Divine Faith and by the same Spirit that endited them where we ought not to quibble about Words and Phâ—ases but so to consider them as may tend most to the Love of God and Charity to our Neighbours and a deep Sense of our own Nothingness This is the excellent Rule given by S. Augustine hereafter to be mentioned this is the Method which the holy Fathers observed in interpreting the Holy Scriptures which makes their Writings so full of Unction and how desirable a Blessing is it that they who write Commentaries now adays may be acted by the same Spirit but this is thought too mean and simple for the Learning and Criticks of this Age. XXVII 12. The Clearing of Difficulties about Divine Truths in a few Words is likewise a singular Quality of those Writings The Learned we see still wrangle about them to Eternity writing huge Volumes and confounding rather than clearing them by a Multitude of Words and Distinctions The Doctrines about Grace Predestination and the Free-will of Man have been toss'd unsatisfactorily thro' many Ages Multitudes of Volumes written concerning them and yet the greatest Difficulties still left unresolved both Sides having a Mixture of Truth and Error the one that they might give all to God taking from Man what he had irrevocably given him and the other that they might reserve this to Man taking from God and subjecting to the Caprice of Man that which belongs to the pure Grace of God and from both there do follow Consequences most injurious to God and most prejudicial to the Salvation of Men tho' disclaimed by the most Now in two or three Sheets of Paper of those Writings there is more said for the clearing of those Difficulties than in whole Libraries of Volumes This in the â— and 2. Chap. of the 1. Part of Academ des Scavans Theologiens written upon Occasion of Conferences with and at the Desire of a learned and pious Divine Mr. Peter Noels Canon at Maline a Jansenist who had been Secretary to the famous Jansâ—nius Yprensis and had a great Veneration for this Virgin and her Writings to his Death I shall mention another Instance of this Nature of Mr. Gilleman's Canon and Arch-Priest at Gaunt famous there for some Writings who having ask'd her Judgment of the Doctrine of the Casuists then much talk'd of viz. That a Man may be sav'd by Attrition without Contrition by Sorrow for his Sins without the Love of God telling her that he had writ a large Volume against this false Doctrine she told him
that the latter Christians shall live in greater Perfection than those of the Primitive Church did That he will send his Holy Spirit to lay before us those means of Salvation which Jesus Christ taught us while on Earth that we may clearly see how far we are estranged from them and to give us the Light of the Truth that we may see the way to return and to take up again the same Gospel-Means and recover the Dependance of our Will on God without which none can be saved And God will give the full Understanding of all that has been delivered in his Name from the Beginning of the World both by the Holy Prophets and by Jesus Christ and his Apostles or other Saints his Disciples 2. The Original Design of God in the creating of Man being to take his Delight with him for which End he not only made Man after his own likeness but he also became Man that he might live with him in perfect Resemblance to all Eternity and this being now suspended unto Man because of his Sin until that he have accomplished his Penitence to which he is subjected by Sin yet since God does not change nor will ever alter his Designs this time of Penitence being finished Man will enter again into Communion with God as if he had never offended him He will speak to God Face to Face by his Humanity which will be rendred immortal as well as is that of Jesus Christ that they may delight themselves perfectly together upon Earth which will then be rendred Paradice by the lovely Presence of God who for this End became Man and in the End of the World will come in Glory upon Earth to Live and Reign for ever with Men which is as it were The Sum of all the Designs that God has over Men and the Alliance he has often promised to make with Man 3. All the Works of God are Eternal and nothing that he has made shall ever perish And in the End of this World at the Coming of Jesus Christ in Glory all things shall be renewed and restored into that primitive Integrity in which they were at first created All the Evil that is in the Creatures the Fruit of Man's Sins shall be wholly taken away All Nature shall then put off the Corruption Darkness and all the Disorders with which it had been tainted since Adam's Sin All shall become Bright Glorious and Luminous all Corruption shall be removed from the Body of Man and it shall be re-establish'd in that glorious perfect State in which it was at first created And the Soul become perfectly pure shall take its Delights with God and the Body with Heaven and Earth and all the other Creatures For God created them for those Ends and for no other thing that Man might have his full perfect Contentment of Body and Mind in that Life Eternal wherein Jesus Christ shall reign always in Body and Soul with the Bodies and Souls of the Blessed who shall be united in Spirit unto God and in Body unto the Body of Jesus Christ 4. After the Judgment when God shall take all Malignity from the Earth and from all the Creatures the Venom from Serpents Scorpions and other poysonous Beasts Maladies and Infirmities from the Bodies of Men and Beasts and Weaknesses from Spirits All this shall be reduced into some corner of the Earth all in a mass that these Malignities may act together upon the Bodies of the damned and that the Works of their hands be rendered unto them For God never made any of all these Evils He created all things Good Men only by their Wickedness have given Malignity unto all created things and therefore it ought to appertain to them and to be rendered to them by the Right of Justice which will come to pass at the Judgment when the Bodies of the Wicked shall rise also that none of the Works of God may perish and shall be sent into that miserable Corner with all the Evils which shall be removed from the Blessed and from the Earth from Plants Beasts and all the Elements that all these things may serve them only for Delight and Pleasure without being able to do any more Evil as they were in the Beginning of their Creation and all their Malignities which they have contracted by the Sins of Men shall be rendered unto their Authors 5. God having at the First Creation endued all living Creatures with a Power of producing their like and Man in his perfect State being endued with the same Power of producing his like without the help of another he shall be re-establish'd into the same State again So that in the Kingdom of Heaven there will be eternal Propagation but altogether Holy altogether Pure and Deified without concupiscible Appetite but by pure Acts of Love to God which will extend it self to the Production of New Creatures to the Glory of their Creator There there is not Male and Female they neither marry nor are given in Marriage but are as the Angels in Heaven XXXVIII This as a Sum of her Accessory Sentiments and they who shall consider them without prejudice will hardly think that for them she deserves to be treated either as an Heritick or as a Mad Whimsical Woman It has been already said that she does not propose them as Articles of Faith necessary to be believed by all that according to St. Augustine these only are damnable Doctrines which tend to destroy Charity the Love of God and our Neighbour which it is evident those Sentiments do not and it were easie to make appear that many other Doctrines and Practices do which pass among many for very Christian XXXIX Besides it is evident that these Sentiments tend to clear and confirm all the Truths and Doctrines of Christianity and to endear them to us They shew us the great Designs of God's Love in the Creation of Man the excellent State in which he made him and the Happiness to which he design'd him They make appear evidently that all our Evil is from our selves and all our Good from God They shew us the Ground and Reason why Man's Redemption was set about and not the fallen Angels why Jesus Christ took such Interest in Man became Intercessor and Surety for him and why his Mediation was accepted by God his Father and why after other means essay'd he at last cloath'd himself with Man's Mortality why the following of his Counsels and Example is indispensibly necessary to Salvation They represent to us the horrid Corruption that Man is fallen into by Sin both as to Soul and Body and all the Creation by him and how mad we are to gratifie our corrupt Inclinations and to love this present World They direct us to a right use of the Rods and Judgments of God and awaken us to a sence of our present State wherein all the World lies in Wickedness They give us a prospect
even the Learned as well as the Vulgar begin again to acknowledge to be somewhat else than meer Mechanism This Production all the Art of the World cannot imitate but it is derived down from the first of every Kind to the respective Series of Individuals of that Kind thro' all Generations That all Men do thus derive their Off-spring from Adam as to their Bodies no body will deny but the general Opinion of the Learned has been that our Souls are immediately created or infus'd by God into our Bodies and that we do not derive them from our Parents and so from Adam But as God has endued Man with a Power of producing the Bodies of his Off-spring so also it seems evident that he has endued Man's Soul united to his Body with a Power of producing Souls united to Bodies which receive also from their Constituents the same Power of producing other Souls united to Bodies and that altogether like themselves There is no Contradiction in the Nature of the Thing and the Blessing of Multiplying given to Man is as unlimited as that to the other Creatures and the Scripture speaks of the Children in the Parents Loins and by this we easily conceive how the Corruption of Man's Nature is communicated to his Posterity without any Blemish in the Holiness and Righteousness of God for he having created Man Holy and Righteous with a Power to produce his like had he continued so the Souls which proceeded from him had been so too but he being corrupted in his Nature he could derive no other to his Posterity For Propagation is redoubling of the same Being and of the same State in which it is But on the other Hand if Souls are not derived from the Parent but immediately created by God Children may be less said to be the Off-spring of their Parents than the Young of the other living Creatures are from them so that they all do more perfectly produce their Kinds than does Man But above all this will never satisfie as to the other great Truth That all Souls are now impure and corrupt from their Original and Children of Wrath by Nature as the Scripture says It were blasphemous to say That God creates Souls impure ignorant and corrupt and it is no less evil to think that God creating them pure and holy does immediately put them into Bodies where they no sooner are but immediately they are thereby reputed so corrupt and guilty as to merit an eternal Separation from God The devout and profound S. Augustine was so sensible of the Difficulties in this Matter that he was undetermined what Side to take and professed that he had seen nothing that cleared them and he was for bearing with one another as to a Difference of Sentiment in these Things It is absurd to conclude this Sentiment to be false because we cannot conceive how Souls should propagate Souls without communicating of themselves in whole or in part if the last they are divisible and not spiritual if the first they should cease to animate their former Bodies this is to reason about Souls from the Idea's we have of Bodies Do not we experience ten thousand things in the World tho' we cannot conceive how they are We see the Soul produces Thoughts and one Thought produces another and this in infinitum Now it is easie for God to make that in certain Circumstances the Divine productive Vertue of the Soul should beget a Thought which has in it a Principle of Activity as it self has and that this Principle after its Production should not depend any longer on the producing Soul but subsist by it self 8. It has been judged the greatest Uncharitableness for her to declare to the World that there are no True Christians whereas in Truth it is one of the greatest Acts of Charity If a number of Persons were desperately Sick and their Distempers had so craz'd the most of them that they were not sensible of their own Sickness and Dangers tho' they perceived sufficiently the Illness of their Neighbours would it be Uncharitableness to awaken them and tell them of their Danger and direct them to the true Remedies even tho' some of them were using the proper means and tending to recovery it were certainly a Kindness done them all She does not say that there are not among Christians who have good Purposes and good Desires and who are good in Comparison of the Wicked but none who are truly regenerately into the Spirit of Jesus Christ She says * To be a true Christian is to imitate the Actions of Jesus Christ and to obey his Instructions Thus Jesus Christ says To enter into the Kingdom of Heaven we must become as a little Child we must take the last Place we must do Penitence we must be poor in Spirit we must deny our Selves we must love our Neighbours as our selves we must take the Kingdom of Heaven by force we must pluck out the Eye or cut off the Hand that offends us we must leave our Offering to go and be reconciled to our Brother we must love our Enemies and do good to them that hate us that we cannot serve two Masters we must not care for the Morrow but lay up Treasures in Heaven we must enter by the strait Gate that a rich Man will hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven that we must take up our Cross and follow him that we must give an Account of every idle Word that God hides his Secrets from the Wise and Prudent and reveals them to Babes that he came not to be served but to serve c. She appeals to Christians whether they be renewed into this Spirit and makes through all these Instances how far they are from it and how few there are who aspire after it And to make People believe otherwise is but cheating Men into Damnation 9. That the present State of Christendom is a Babel where the Language is confounded and the Builders do not understand one another is but too sad a Truth to be denied If a wise Master Builder design to build a glorious City and give particular Instructions how the inferiour Workmen shall be trained up for it and by what Marks they shall be chosen and what Measures they shall observe in squaring fitting and laying of the Stones and if the Workmen shall be trained up by quite different Measures and chosen for the Office by other Marks and if the Workmen do so far mistake their Measures Rules and Instructions as that some of them say he commanded one thing and others the quite contrary some that the Stones should be hewn after such a way and others after a quite different way and should live in a continual Debate and Scuffle each side contending that they were only in the right and striving to draw as many Stones as they could to themselves and then instead of carefully and wisely hewing them and fitting them for the Building should animate
retained only the outside and the Letter and varnished it over with their Learning and Human Doctrines and so the Blind led the Blind Then instead of the Gospel Simplicity Schools and Universities were multiplied and there was nothing to be seen but Disputes and Controversies Then the Pastors being void of true Charity and of the Spirit of Jesus Christ their preaching could have no Divine Force more than the Motions of Puppets or the Words of Parrots Then they learned to preach the Gospel by Study and Human Learning committing the Idea's of it to their Brain as Men learn other Trades and varnish over their Sermons with the same Words and Expressions that Jesus Christ and his Apostles used without comprehending or conveying to others the Divine Sence of them and what came from the Brain could go no farther than the Brain nothing can rise higher than its Original Then the great Business of Religion is turned upon the Pastor's side into an Art of Preaching where on a Theatre he displays his Learning and Eloquence and on the Peoples side into the work of Hearing and when they have continued daily in those pious Exercises for 20 30 40 or 50 Years they are for the most part no more truly Vertuous than when they began whereas where the Word of the Lord is there is Power Then the Pastors being proud and ambitious and envious and worldly and sensual and selfish they seek their own things under a Cover of seeking the things of Jesus Christ their Actions belie their Words and for their own Credit they so gloss and explain the Doctrine of Jesus Christ as to perswade People they may be good Christians and good Ministers of Jesus Christ and yet gratifie their Appetites and Inclinations Then being void of true Faith and true Charity they place Religion in a System of Opinions and Rites and tho' they agree in the common Principles yet differing in other things of lesser moment they thereupon divide dispute and quarrel form Parties draw all they can to their Side out of a Pretence to the Glory of God inspire them with Hatred and Fury against those that differ from them sooth and flatter the corrupt Inclinations of those of their own Party or the Great and those on whom they depend and stir up Magistrates and Princes to War and Bloodshed to persecute those who differ from them And as they make War against one another by their Disputes so they make Princes and secular Persons to do it by their Swords Thus instead of the Charity Peace and Concord which Jesus Christ left his Disciples they beget Hatred Strife and Envy among them and such is their Influence upon the People that they head their Passions and what they hate and call Heresie so do they Instead of the Self-denial and Mortification to the World which Jesus Christ and the first Pastors practised and taught they teach by their Example how to gratifie Self and love the World and yet seem greatly to honour Jesus Christ and to be Champions for his Religion And if the Salt have lost its savour wherewith shall the Flesh be salted And if they who should be the Light of the World and the Salt of the Earth are thus become Darkness and without Savour how great is that Corruption And how great is that Darkness Those of every Party do plainly discern this Evil in the Guides and Leaders of the opposite Parties but our Self-love blinds and hinders us from considering it in our selves This is not to be understood but that there are Pastors of good Inclinations and right Intentions amongst the several Perswasions and therefore what is said ought not to be applied to them but that this corrupt Spirit of Pride Vain-glory 〈…〉 Avarice the Love of Money 〈…〉 Politicks the pleasing of the 〈…〉 Aversion to the Humility Simplicity 〈…〉 and Cross of Christ prevails 〈…〉 in all Parties under a Cover of 〈…〉 Opinions and so serves still to 〈…〉 the more is a sad Truth that cannot be 〈◊〉 13. That we are in the last Times that the Wickedness of Men is as great and universal as in the Days of Noah that the Abomination of Desolation is in the Holy Place that we are now in the time of the last Judgments of God by which he will sweep the Wicked off the Earth and which shall be more dreadful and terrible than any that ever were A. B. does so sensibly make appear in her Writings particularly in the Light of the World That they are real Enemies to Mens Souls who scoâ—â— at them and divert People from laying them to Heart She makes appear that Iniquity is so great and universal that there is no 〈◊〉 Faith nor Law among Men. People study nothing but to deceive their Neighbours the Father cannot trust his Son nor the Son his Father the Brother 〈◊〉 up against his Brother Friendship is only feigned 〈◊〉 is full of Deceit and Fraud nothing but Pride and Ambition reigning in the Hearts of all Men. Judges are without Equity Priests without Sincerity Cloisters filled with Avarice and the Devout full of Malice which has been at all times in some particular Persons but is at present so multiplied that it possesses almost all 〈◊〉 And Charity is not only wakâ—d cold but altogather frozen and dead in the Hearts of Men. That the Signs of the last Times are all fully accomplish'd particularly those in 2 Tim. 3. 1. c. and Matt. 24. That Mens Lives are the open Book in which these Truths are written and the Holy Scriptures are the equitable Judge which pronounces the Sentence That People scoff at this and no Body will believe it is a most certain Evidence of it For Jesus Christ says that it shall be as in the Days of Noah they were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in Marriage and knew not until the Flood came and took them all away c. She makes appear how the Abomination and Desolation is in the Holy Place if Envy were lost it might be recovered in Cloisters if Avarice were dead it would be revived by the Priests Vain-glory and Pride is no where so prevailing as among the Clergy In a word Simonies and all other Sins abound in that Place which ought to be Holy That these are the Stars which fall every Day from Righteousness and Truth for some worldly Interest or humane Respects She makes appear that Men do not now embrace Penitence nor desire Amendment that they rather grow every Day worse and cannot suffer that their Faults should be truly shewn them That at all times there have been wicked Persons but when all in general do forget him it is to be believed that assuredly we are in the last Times and that the Judgment is given out because the Measure is full That God cannot suffer an universal Evil without an universal Chastisement and now Men having generally all of them abandoned their God have in doing this given Sentence of the
a Christian being a Man full of Zeal and of great Learning and hearing that there were Persons risen up who would destroy the Law and seduce the Simple and that they worshipped the first of these Impostors who was hanged on a Tree and that these new Upstarts were but a Rabble bigotted with that new kind of Folly which was like to hazard the Law of God and this being told him by all his Masters and Teachers the Priests the People his Kinsfolks and Friends instead of informing himself without Prejudice of those Men their Doctrine their Behaviour which would have prevented many false Steps he is carried to reproach and hate and persecute them that he may maintain the Truth of God and cut off Error and Heresie and the Seduction of the People Now what has fallen out in former Times may fall out in this and the most innocent Persons and Writings may meet with the most universal Reproaches and Prejudices It is certainly the Devil's Interest that it should be so and we see how successful his Attempts have been in former Ages He still made it his Business to get on his side those who set up to be the Guides and Leaders of the People and by this means always to oppress blacken and discredit Truth and Innocence II. Now the Person and Writings of A. B. have been loaded with as many Reproaches and Prejudices as any in this Age and that both in her Life time and since her Death Where-ever she went the Church-men of the respective Parties breath'd nothing but Fire and Faggot against her in their Pamphlets and Pulpits made her to pass for the worst of Hereticks and her Writings for a Sink of all Heresies and Blasphemies and thus it was easie to inspire People with Rage and Fury so that if they could have had her to have ston'd her to Death they would have thought they had done good Service and no sooner is one of her Writings translated into English for the spiritual Good of well-disposed Souls but immediately some are pleas'd to sound the Trumpet and to cry out Heresie and Blasphemy Errors and Delusions and this is enough to frighten a whole Island from looking into these Writings and to breed an Aversion against those who esteem and value them because of the Truths of God contain'd in them It was a remarkable Providence that she met with such Opposition from all Parties while she lived whereby as she discovered impartially the Evils of the respective Sects and Parties into which Christendom is divided so also she clearly vindicated her self from being guilty of the Errors and Heresies of which they accus'd her discovered the Impudence of their Calumnies and Slanders and remov'd from well-dispos'd Persons the Prejudices which had been given them against her We need only then give a short Account of what was laid to her Charge and her own Vindication of herself by which her Sincerity her Innocency her distinct and most rational Knowledge of the Truths of Religion her Orthodoxy and the Subservency of her Writings to the great Ends of Christianity will I hope appear to all unbiass'd Readers III. But first let us premise the Complaint she makes in general of the unjust Measures of her Adversaries how void they were of true Charity and Equity What ever Good or Truth was incontestably in her Writings they conceal'd it they lessen'd it whatever was capable of being turn'd to an Evil Sence they perverted it they pick'd out half Sentences here and there throughout her Writings and on these they put a Sence which she never intended concealing in the mean time what went before or after that might serve to clear the true sence and meaning of the Expression Any Doctrine of Christianity that was not so fully exprest in one Place they were ready to accuse her of denying it tho' she most clearly asserted it in another They were ready to catch at her Words and to interpret them according to the Niceness of the Schools not considering the simplicity and plainness with which she wrote she being intent to make known the Truth to all sincere and well-disposed Souls without regarding that nice and captious Wits would be ready to carp and quibble upon this or the other Word and not allow her to explain her self In short the great End of Christianity being to bring Men to the Love of God and the Mortification of their corrupt Nature and Self-will and this being the Butt of all her Writings as is most evident to any who pleases to read them she makes appear that her Adversaries cannot be Lovers of the Truth or of God that their Aim is not to maintain the Truth and oppose Error else they would rejoice to see this great End of Religion to be the Butt and Substance of so many Writings and that there are uncontestably contain'd in them so great a number of Divine Truths all tending to this End They would own and acknowledge this they would wish to meet with the Truth every where even in the things which seem'd to them obscure and disagreeable to it they would see if these were more clearly explain'd in other Places and if they might well bear a Sence that were agreeable to this great End of Religion or if even the Errors which they thought were contain'd there were no ways destructive of the true Love of God and so for the sake of them the whole Writings need not be forbidden and discredited IV. They may be convinced of the Injustice of the Measure by considering only how hard they would think it to have their own Writings so treated how odd it would seem to them if one should deal with the Sacred Scriptures after that Method and what wretched Conclusions an Enemy of Christianity might thereby draw from them and that if it had been their Luck to have been bred up at the Feet of Gamaliel among the Jewish Rabbies or with Porphyr among the Philosophers the Spirit and Measures by which they judge of Persons Sentiments and Writings would have animated them as much against Jesus Christ himself and had they come but Sixteen Hundred Years sooner into the World and been leaven'd with the same Spirit they should have been listed among the Philo-Judaeus's and the Porphyrs and overlooking the Substance of the Doctrine and Life of Jesus Christ would have pick'd out a half Sentence here and a Word or two there and some Passages of his Life that prejudiced Minds would be readiest to judge hardly of and wrest them to such a Sence and give all such a Turn as might make him pas for a Blasphemer a Seducer a Subverter of the Law of God a Teacher of Doctrines that would turn the World upside down one Self-conceited who spoke well of himself and ill of others who were more learn'd and pious than himself in a word give such a Character and Narrative of him patch'd up of some shreds of the Story of his Life and
in his Spirit that he dwelling in our Hearts by Faith may communicate himself to us with all his Graces and Merits It is in the former Sence only that A. B. declares against the common Doctrine Of the Satisfaction of Jesus Christ as if it were a Substitution of total Discharge dispensing with the Obligation that lies on us to live a Life of Penitence and not at all in the Second They who read the Writings of A. B. will see that this is the Summ and Substance of her Sentiments on this Head and that any simple Expressions which seem harsh by themselves are to be interpreted by this Measure And they who consider by what Principles the Generality of the Christian World do I do not say speculate and talk but live and act and what Encouragement the Doctrine and Glosses of Men has given thereunto and how tho' they live in a perfect Contradiction to the Life and Spirit of Jesus Christ yet they hope and believe they shall be saved by his Merits will see how necessary and how seasonable it is to inculcate those Truths upon the Hearts of Men. VIII But because it gives great Offence to some that she says Tho' Christ has satisfied all for us on his part yet that the Merits of his Satisfaction will not be applied to us unless we our selves do satisfie the Justice of God for our Sins and in order to our Purification I shall set down her Sentiment more particularly in this Matter We sometimes stumble at Words and Terms when we grant the thing it self upon the matter and it is like this is the case with many here 1. Then she says That no Man could merit Eternal Life tho' Adam had never sinn'd for all our good Works are but Temporal and bear no proportion to eternal Happiness Heaven and eternal Life is the free Gift of God which he prepared for Man before he created him and so he could not merit it He does not therefore bestow it for our Merits but for his great Mercy and for the Love he bears us He is no Merchant and will not sell his Paradise at any price but will give it freely and he has no need of our good Works or Penitence but because of our Corruption and Infirmity we have great need of them without which we must perish 2. That we having forfeited God's Favour and eternal Life Jesus Christ has merited for us Pardon Grace and Life Eternal upon Condition that we receive and correspond with the Pardon and Grace offered and turn again to God with all our Hearts and embrace the Means that are necessary for this End without which in Justice Pardon and Grace could not be demanded for Man and for our Performance of this Jesus Christ becomes our Pledge and Surety 3. As such he cloaths himself with our Mortality and undergoes all the Parts of this Penitence himself that he might merit Grace and Pardon for Man and might strengthen and direct him how to embrace this Penitence and to follow his Example 4. Upon his Intercession and obtaining of Grace and Pardon for Man the Love of God is not immediatly conferr'd upon Man but the Grace of doing Penitence by which he might recover it And this was a greate Mercy to Man than if God had simply pardon'd him and restor'd him to his Love without suffering the Earth to be accursed or all to be corrupted by Sin since it is to be fear'd Man would have quickly fallen back again into new Sins finding himself as before in all sorts of Delights such as Adam had For we see how Men now turn away their Hearts from God to love the Creatures and themselves even when they see they are so wretched weak and imperfect subject to all sorts of Maladies and to Death and that all the Creatures now do them mischief whereas formerly they honour'd and obey'd them as their Lord and tho' they see themselves and all the Creatures so filthy corrupt and miserable yet they cannot abstain from loving them to the Prejudice of the Love they owe to God How much more would Man have done so in case he had remained as beautiful and perfect after his Sin and all the other Creatures had continued as lovely as before It is to be fear'd he would not have remained in the Love of God if he had recovered it after his Sin by the pure Mercy of God without out the Condition of doing Penitence or without all the other Creatures their being accursed in him since we see Men do yet love this Life that is so miserable and the Creatures that are so wretched and Man feels in himself Contradictions Griefs Displeasures and all sorts of vicious Passions which he cannot govern by his Reason and yet his Spirit is become so brutish that it loves those Miseries and Imperfections tho' he find nothing in himself or the other Creatures but what is worthy of Contempt and Hatred Yet he loves and esteems them to the Contempt of the Love of his God who knowing the Baseness of Man's Heart has given him Penitence as a necessary Mean to withdraw his Affections from this wretched Life that he may turn them to his God who will have Man to love him only And for the same Reason he has permitted all the Creatures which were subject to Man to contract with him the Malediction of Sin that by this Mean occasion might be given to Man to return to the Love of his God the only lovely Object 5. Since this Penitence contains the necessary Means to recover the Love of God and we cannot do this so long as we love Self and the Creatures and this corrupt Love cannot be mortified so long as we gratifie our Senses and our Appetites and enjoy a Paradise here and our Lusts cannot be subdued without feeling the Bitterness Anguish Griefs and Pains of them to extinguish the Sence of the unlawful Pleasure and Delight we took in them Penitence therefore is 1. The turning away our Hearts and Affections from every thing that hinders the Love of God Love not the World c. 2. And in order to this the avoiding all the Occasions that may foster the Love of other things and continually striving against and doing Violence to Self-love Self-will and Corrupt Nature He that will come after me saith our Lord let him deny himself And 3. The embracing willingly the Anguish Bitterness and Pains the Afflictions both inward and outward that must be endured for the purifying of our Hearts and bringing us to the Love of God and let him take up his Cross 6. Jesus Christ has taught us how to undergo this Penitence by his Doctrine and by his Example and follow me 7. It is most unreasonable to think that we are discharg'd from this Penitence because Jesus Christ did thus live and suffer for us for we must have the Spirit of Christ our Old Man must be crucified with him we must be conformed
and to work in us the greater Detestation of Sin and of our corrupt Nature God thinks fit that we should feel in our Souls the Evil and the Bitterness of Forsaking him without which they can never be purified nor come to see God IX There is another Prejudice which has some Affinity to this and which the generality of Protestants are prepossessed with and that is because she affirms that there is a State of Purification after this Life for such Souls as are truly converted unto God and yet are not wholly purified from their Corruption and so are not immediately capable of enjoying God All corrupt Doctrine has generally some Fond of Truth with which they mingle many other things that tend to promote Men's worldly Interests the Wealth of the Clergy and the Dependance of the People Thus in the Church of Rome they have founded a Purgatory in a Place near to Hell where Souls are tormented by a material Fire from whence they are delivered by some Soul-Masses some superstitious Ceremonies the dying in a Cordelier's Habit and a thousand Fopperies of this Nature But that Souls which die truly converted unto God and yet have not attained to such a State of Purity as to be capable of enjoying him shall undergo a State of Purification before they can see God is more than probable The Sum of her Sentiments as to this are 1. That is evident none can enjoy God who are not in a State of so perfect Purity that there remains in them no Degree of Corruption neither Actual nor Habitual For no unclean thing can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven There is no Fellowship between Light and Darkness And they are only the pure in Heart who shall see God 2. It is certain that they who are truly converted unto God are in a State of Grace and Salvation tho' Sin be yet in him and the Old Adam is not yet dead If a Person full of Sins and evil Habits be in his Heart and Desires truly turned unto God he receives him into his Grace tho' his habitual Sins are not yet rooted out much more him who is greatly advanced in the Mortification of his corrupt Nature but has not yet attained to a State of perfect Purity 3. It is as certain that Conversion and Regeneration are not one and the same thing The first being the turning away from Evil to Good from Sin to God the second being the Renovation of the whole Man after the Image of God a Creature altogether new whose Will is wholly resigned to God who lives no longer but Christ lives in it 4. It is in Grace and spiritual things as it is in Nature and bodily things All things advance to their Perfection by Degrees and not in an Instant God does all things in Order in Number Weight and Measure and conformably to the Nature of the Beings he has formed We are first Children before we are Men and we advance by Degrees to the Stature and Wisdom of Men and put away Childish Things But if the Child come forth of the Womb void of the bodily Life it remains so still We are told of Children and Youth and Men in Christ Jesus and we must not think that all these States are attain'd to in an Instant in the spiritual Life no more than in the bodily 5. It cannot be denied but that many who are saved do go out of this World truly converted unto God but yet not throughly renewed and purified and as on the one hand God will not reject and cast away such Souls as seek him with all their Heart so on the other hand in this State of Impurity they are not capable of enjoying him And therefore God in his infinite Goodness Truth and Righteousness will place them in such a State as whereby all their evil Habits may be wholly rooted out all their Corruption subdued all their Filthiness cleansed and they purified as God is pure 6. This so great and so extraordinary a Change cannot be supposed to be wrought in an Instant nor yet without most sensible Pain and Labour to the Soul in whom this Change is wrought The Soul is of a most sensible Nature and when freed of this mortal Body that stupifies it its Sensibilities must be infinitely more lively and piercing and therefore the Sentiment of being deprived of the glorious Presence of God which it ardently thirsts after and of having within it Dispositions repugnant to this Enjoyment which a Ray from God manifests it to cannot but give it unspeakable Pain and Anguish We see here no sensible Being that is in Disorder can be restored to its right State without Pain and Trouble a broken Leg a disjointed Member a Part of the Body ulcer'd corrupt Humours cannot be rectified without Pain and Trouble It all the Parts and all the Members of a Body were dislocated corrupted and disordered the Pain and Trouble that would be felt in the restoring of that Body would be unspeakably greater All this is but a faint Image of the State of the Soul all its Faculties are more corrupted and disordered than it is possible for the Body to be the Restitution of which by the Operation of the Divine Grace cannot be perform'd even in this State of Stupidity without much Pain and Anguish but after this Life when the Soul is fully awakened it is supported by the Divine Grace to undergo this Change but with Dolours beyond Comparison greater No living thing can pass from one State to another without great Sensibility can enter into a new Element unto which it is not entirely conformable without suffering its Impressions with Pain weak and sickly Eyes cannot endure great Light without Pain nor a weak Body strong Nourishment without Trouble So a Soul falling into the Element of Eternity of the Divine Light and of the Fire of the Divinâ— Love if it be yet weak and ill â—sposed if iâ— have yet many contrary Disâ—â—sitions many things to be consumed many Habits to 〈…〉 out this cannot be done without great Sufferings Not that God chastises in Wrath nor that he deâ—â—â—nts to torment the Soul but that the Soul full of contrary Dispâ—sitions full of Darkness cannot receive his Light nor feel the 〈◊〉 of his Love without most sensible and dolorous Sentiments till by the Force and Continuance of these Impressions they have banish'd out all that is contrary to his Divine Light and Love which then transforms the Soul wholly into its own Nature It is unreasonable to oppose that Passage of Scripture that the Blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all Sins for the Meaning of it is not that because Jesus Christ has shed his Blood we ought to be cleansed from our Sins without Mortifications and sufferings but the quite contrary for the Blood of Jesus Christ is the Grace that he has merited by his Blood whereby we may be purified from our Sins by Sufferings and by a Conformity to his Sorrows and Death And
they will become no less for this Saying and if there are none at least some will be awakened out of their Security and endeavour to become so If A. B. had said that God by an unchangeable Decree from all Eternity had predestinated the greatest part of the World to Damnation it might then indeed be said that she is void of Charity to God and Man But when she declares that God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to Repentance and yet that all Men were living in a Contradiction to the Life and Spirit of Jesus Christ she could not do them a more charitable Office than to warn them of their Danger Will they say the Psalmist was uncharitable and damn'd all the World because he tells us the Lord look'd down from Heaven upon the Children of Men to see if there were any that did understand and seek God they are all gone aside they are altogether become filthy there is none that doeth Good no not one Every Man ought to weigh the Truth or Falshood of this Saying as to himself and see if he can make this particular Exception to the general Saying There is no True Christians upon Earth let him set at the Foot of it Except I my self And if his Conscience dare not write down this Exception he has reason to thank the Charity that put him to the Trial without regard whether it be true or false as to others which will avail him nothing so long as it holds as to himself And as to the other part of the Prejudice that God will make her and her Writings the Mean of the Renovation of the Gospel Spirit She says It is God who enlightens Understandings who warms Wills with his Love who produces Charity in Souls in short who is the only Giver of all Good without any Creatures being able to cause to be born in the Soul of another the Spirit of Regeneration which is to live again to God and to die to ones self This is a Masterpiece of the Works of God much more rare and precious than the Body of Man and nevertheless he will not do it but by the means of Creatures who shall be subject to him and will hear his Voice who will make others Partakers of the Light which God communicates to them that by it they may be enlightned and know their Errors and the Way to become True Believers The Understanding the Speech and the Hand of such spiritual Mothers is the Matter with which God will beget his True Children making them comprehend his Truths by the Words Writings and Actions of those who shall receive the Word of God immediately who are few in number because Men are now so diverted in the Affairs and Business of this World that they cannot hear the Voice of God tho' he speak continually to their Heart And to supply their Weakness and the Wandrings of their Spirit his great Goodness causes to speak and write by sensible and visible Objects the things which may render all those True Believers who truly desire to become so And that her Writings are of this Nature full of Divine and Saving Truths Simple and Solid Milk for Babes and Meat for strong Men suted for all Capacities and all Ages they manifest themselves as the Light does to those who are not Blind And as to their reproaching her that being a Woman yet she would presume to instruct the World when St. Paul would not suffer a Woman to speak in the Church and therefore calling her in Contempt and Old Wife she said That for her being a Woman she could not hinder it since no Body forms themselves they must ask God if they would know why he created her a Woman and not a Man that she her self had been displeas'd at it but since God made her know it was his Pleasure she was content for she lov'd rather to be a little Atom in the Will of God than a whole World in her own Will And when she began to teach by her Writings it was by an express Command of God which she long resisted for which she begs Pardon for she could not resolve on this because she was a Woman who has never so much Authority in matter of Doctrine as a Man But she came over all humane Respects and expos'd her self to all their Mockeries She says If the Truths of God must be rejected because they are dictated by a Woman all the Great and Learned that ever were in the World ought also to be rejected seeing all are equally come of a Woman Why should they then despise their Origin since God does not despise it but makes use of them to operate his greatest Marvels and always Figures the Church his Spouse by a Woman Women are as capable of receiving the Graces of God as Men there being no difference between their Souls and the bodily difference respecting Nature only in which even Woman ought to be more regarded than Men seeing when God would needs become Man he would have a Woman for his Mother but not a Man for his Father and he has done his greatest Wonders by the means of Women What Triumphant Victory did Judith obtain against Holofernes and Esther in the Deliverance of God's People And whereas it is said it is not permitted Women to teach the Apostle she says ordains the aged Women to teach the younger and to instruct their Children and Family in the fear of God and both in the Old and New Testament we read of many Women-Prophetesses foretelling things to come And the Apostle says it is an honour to a Woman to prophesie with her Head covered She says they ought to let God speâ—k by a Woman if it be his Pleasure since he spoke in former Times to a Prophet by a Beast that he bestows his Graces and Wisdom on whom he pleases and Man ought not to ask him why he does so That before God it is not Man or Woman that signifies any thing but the Spirit of Righteousness and Truth That they ought not to regard whether she be Man or Woman but whether what she says be Just and True That she writes by an express Command of God doing this as secretly as she can shut up in her Chamber That Men are now less dispos'd to receive his Divine Light than Women since their Hearts are blown up with Pride to apply all Glory and Authority to themselves instead of referring it to God and cannot endure that a simple Woman as she should speak of Divine Things least their Learning should be less esteem'd So those Great Philosophers will not let God do his Marvels by the means of a Virgin but will oblige him to operate by Great Divines not remembring that he has said * He has chosen the weak things of the World to confound the things that are mighty and the foolish things of the World to confound the wise and base things of the World and
from the Natural Spirit that cloaks it self with the Spirit of God for this Divine Spirit never tends but to Divine Things If you had observed Sir that that fine Spirit which you attribute to me had been applied to get Wealth or to gain Praise or to Conversation to take Pleasure with Men you would have had some Reason to say that I had nothing but a natural Spirit or if you had discovered in my Words any Ornament of Language to make me be esteemed Eloquent or in my Writing any Affectation of speaking well that I might be praised these would be all Marks of a human Spirit I would gladly ask you Sir if you have ever seen me acted by this natural Spirit First if I have ever done any thing to gain Money Or if I have desir'd any sensual Pleasures or fed my self with Praises or lov'd the Conversation of Men Have you not rather perceiv'd that I ask nothing of any Body For I can say in Truth that if they would give me Riches I would not accept of them for my own Goods are a burthen to me and the two things I hate in the World are Honour and Sin the Conversations and Divertisements of the World are a Weariness to me and if I affected to be prais'd for my Words or Writings I would study to speak well to write well and to spell well whereas I have nothing but a simple vulgar Language nakedly to signifie my Thoughts without Curiosity or any Circumspection And for my Writings do you not see they are without any Study or Ornament full of Faults of Writing and Orthography without any human Regard or Reflection Do you think I have not enough of Spirit to correct all these Faults and to learn in a little time to write and spell perfectly that Men might see my Skill I am far from these Sentiments for I would never learn any thing of Men because I desired not to be prais'd by them One would have freely taught me Orthography another Poesy another the Mathematicks another the Latin Tongue and I despis'd all this to content my self with writing on my Knees on a little piece of Board the things that God sheds into my Spirit without desiring to make any Reflection to see if I wrote well or ill or if what I say will please one or displease another whether they will be well receiv'd and approved or despis'd or censur'd I have no other aim in Speaking or Writing but eternal things without caring for temporal and earthly things having no Pretensions upon Earth but only that of pleasing God and stirring up my Neighbour to his Love This cannot proceed from a Natural Spirit which is confin'd to earthly things and cannot aim to please God nor at eternal things for Nature cannot find its Pleasure and Satisfaction in a God which it does not see and feel What is beyond Sense is not Food agreeable to Nature more than precious Stones can be Food for Horses for neither of these are Aliments proportioned to the Nature of either For the Natural Senses will no more be filled with God and things Eternal than a Horse will be satisfied with Jewels for his Food but he loves the Grass and Hay far better as Food more sutable to his Nature Even so it is of the Natural Spirit and Senses they do far more esteem things earthly and sensual than God who is an Invisible Spirit or things Eternal which they do not perceive and feel with their Senses Whence we may draw a sure Consequence that he who does not seek or desire the Goods and Pleasures which tickle our Senses has the Spirit of God and lives supernaturally and he who seeks nothing but God and things Eternal cannot have this from a Natural Spirit and when you will needs say that my Writings proceed from a Natural Spirit you must prove that they aim at some Profit Pleasure or Praise from Men. If I desired to Profit by them I would endeavour to please them and to gain their Friendship and if I desired to take Pleasure among them I would draw them to me as you do and if I desired their Praises I would speak that which they would willingly hear and would not say that they are not true Christians For if I would say that all who have visited me are vertuous Souls and true Christians undoubtedly every one would esteem me and greatly praise me but when I do the quite contrary I shew it is the Spirit of God who acts in my Writings since they aim at nothing but to make known the Truth of God which alone can guide Souls to eternal Life and that the same Writings speak nothing but of despising earthly and temporal things There cannot be a more evident mark of Distinction between the actings of the Spiri of God and that of Nature than what is assign'd by her the last tending only to things Temporal and the other to things Eternal and that the Spirit she was guided by had this constant Tendency to God and Eternity and not to Honour Praise Wealth or Pleasure or any Temporal and Earthly things appears by the whole Course of her Life and Conversation XXII 4. It was alledged as another Presumption that she could not be led by the Spirit of God but by her own wild Imagination that they say she was ready to ascribe to the Spirit of God even all her Mistakes in writing or citing of Passages of Scripture naming Peter for Paul or the like and for an Evidence of this they cite the Story concerning M. Noel a Divine in Flanders who when he first read some of her Writings they being full of Faults of Orthography and Language and not so methodically ordered and the same things often repeated in different places tho' after a different manner he offered to put them in a better Order and Stile without changing the Essence of the Truth but when she ask'd Counsel of God it was said to her What rashness is it for Men to offer to Correct the Works of God All this may be very true and yet it does not follow that she ascribes all her Mistakes to the Dictates of the Spirit of God yea she plainly affirms the contrary and that all the Mistakes and Errors she falls into are from her self and not from God When you ask says she If there be any thing humane in my Motions Words and Deeds This Question seems to me Ridiculous Since being a humane Creature as well as others I must have natural Motions and Faculties as others have otherwise I should be an Angel or a Statue of Wood Stone or Metal which Instruments God never makes use of for declaring his Truths to Men. But the Devil has oft spoken by such Oracles But God spake by his Holy Prophets Natural Persons as others are who through their natural Frailty did often commit very great Faults yea sometimes gross Sins Must we doubt if Moses had the Spirit of God and
Words yea these Niceties of the precise Truth of Terms are things on Earth esteemed by vain Men who seek Praise and Curiosities more than the Essence of the Means of their Salvation and the Holy Spirit will not encourage these Niceties but inspires always Simplicity For this Cause I do not reflect upon the Mistake that I oft times commit of naming Peter for Paul or Wood for Stone It is enough to me that I make the Substance of the thing be understood that Men may return to the Love of God And he having permitted me to cause to be printed all my Writings has not appointed in what Time by what Person in what Place or by what Means I might do it I must therefore apply my natural Spirit to find out these Means I have writ of it to my Friends and advertised them that it was the Will of God that this should be done for his Glâ—â—â— And if I had not acted naturally in this these Persons could not know this express Will of God because they are not yet so disengaged that they may hear the Voice of God Ought I therefore to hold my Peace and not to write because the Holy Spirit does not dictate to me all the Words and because I make use of those which I speak in my homely vulgar Language And must I prove otherwise than by my Words that it is the Holy Spirit who acts in me They who consider this without an evil Eye will I am perswaded be convinc'd that she is far from attributing her Mistakes and Defects to the Dictates of the Spirit of God and that yet it might be very well said to him who was desirous to reduce her Writings to a greater Exactness free of all Mistakes What Rashness is it for Men to offer to correct the Works of God For God thinks fit to chuse weak and foolish things to confound the wise and mighty and to make his strength appear in their weakness that when we see the great and substantial Truths of God declared by one of such Simplicity without Disguise and Affectation without all Human Learning and the Artifices and Exactness whereby we recommend our Writings to the World we may clearly see that it is not her own Natural Spirit that by its Industry and Application searches out and discovers those Divine Truths tho' its Defects and Weakness appear in applying to declare them to the World but that it is the Spirit of God And as they who are very intent upon the cultivating of their Minds with Human Learning are very unconcern'd as to fine Cloaths and other outward things about which others are very nice and ready to laugh at their unfashionableness so one who is wholly taken up with the great and substantial Truths of God and Eternity and intent to impress them on the Hearts of others has no regard to niceness of Words and Terms is not curious to avoid little Mistakes about lesser and accidental Matters but earnest only to inculcate to them the great things of Eternity And that this was the Disposition of A. B's Spirit appears thro' all her Writings It may be Joshuah knew not whether it was the Sun or Earth that stood still and Esay thought that Hezekiah would undoubtedly die of his Disease and S. Matthew that Jeremy had written that which Zachary had said and that there were two Thieves who upâ—raided Jesus Christ on the Cross tho' S. Luke tells it was but one of them and Jesus Christ himself that there were Figs on a Fig-Tree when there were none But what will some say is not this to take from the divine Writers their Authority and Force This is as ridiculous as if a Man dying for Hunger would not take the Bread offer'd him under a Pretext that he who offer'd it was mistaken in some Words when he offered it as that he said it was bak'd such a Day whereas it was on another Day or that it came from Peter's House whereas it came from John's or that the Corn it was made of came from France when it was from Germany from whence the poor famish'd Man would fancy that the Bread could not nourish him that it was not good that they who were mistaken in this might be mistaken in taking it may be Poison or Tares for Corn or Arsnick for Meal But what ought such Mistakes to be imputed to the Holy Spirit God forbid they belong only to the Creature And when it pleases the Holy Spirit for so saving Ends as to recommend Simplicity the study of Purification the cleaving to the one thing needful to teach those who desire to be enlightned by God that they must leave off the ways of humane Exactness and Speculation and of confounding the Understanding with a Thousand barren and needless Curiosities which certainly devour much precious time without making us well-pleasing to God or advancing one step in his Love but have rather turn'd us away from it and occupied and blown us up with these useless Vanities That the Holy Spirit I say should permit for so saving an Advantage some Mistakes which regard Accidental Foreign and Accessory things to remain some time in the Instruments which he makes use of most certainly and infallibly in the things that concern the way to Heaven What is there in all this that derogates from the Glory of God the Salvation of Souls or the Divine Authority of those sent by God to guide Man without fail to this supream End The Difference that is observed amongst Persons inspired by God and sometimes of the same Person from himself comes from this that they have not the same Gifts by Nature or are not equally enlightned or the same Person is not so much at one time as at another even touching Divine Things when they are Accessories Thus the Apostles knew not from the Beginning that the Gentiles would be called to the Gospel and therefore at first they lived exactly after the Manner of the Jews But when God gave and encreased this Light they acted and spoke otherwise must we conclude from this that they were first deceived or that the Holy Spirit did not inspire them or did not inspire them aright Not at all But that at first it was not necessary it should be made known to them till the saving Doctrine of the Gospel were established among the Jews So that we must hence conclude only that the Holy Spirit gives and encreases his Light as he sees it expedient for Men's Salvation Thus A. B. in her younger Years had not received the Light which respects the glorious State in which Adam was created before Eve and therefore spake of Adam then according to the common Opinion but afterwards in a more sublime Manner XXIII 5. It was again objected to her that she contradicted both the Holy Scriptures and her self and therefore could not be led by the Spirit of God To this she replied That this cannot be true indeed if her Writings be endited
by the Spirit of God who cannot contradict himself for God is Yesterday and to day the same unchangeable and always equal to himself from whom no Variableness nor Contradiction can proceed But if her Adversary would examine all the Holy Scripture after the Manner he had done her Writings he would find many more such seeming Contradictions in the Bible For indeed there are many more according to the narrow Apprehension and shallow Judgment of Men who being earthly and carnal cannot understand spiritual things or those endited by the Holy Spirit and they forge in their little Brains Errours out of most solid Truths and Contradictions out of the greatest Conformities From hence have sprung so many Errours Schisms and Divisions in the Church of God because every one would understand the Scripture after their own Mode they have invented so many different Religions and each says This is founded on the Holy Scripture tho' very often they have different Sentiments and contradict one another in the same Truths while every one thinks he understands them aright Tho' they are uncapable of understanding Divine Things for the same Spirit that endited the Holy Scriptures gives the Understanding of them and when the Spirit of Man undertakes to do it he still falls from one Errour into another and loses himself in that great Ocean of Divine Wisdom which he cannot understand nor comprehend It does not trouble me that there appears to be Contradictions in my Writings to the Judgments of Men since they will hardly find two Prophets speak the same Words upon the same Matter and the four Evangelists do not relate the same Things after the same Manner Must it therefore be said that there are Contradictions in the Holy Scriptures as this Benjamin Furly says there are in my Writings God commands to honour Father and Mother and Jesus Christ says we must hate Father and Mother adding that he who does not forsake Father and Mother and all things cannot be his Disciple How will this Benjamin reconcile these two Passages For to honour Father and Mother is a thing quite contrary to the hating and forsaking them And Jesus Christ says that he is not come to bring Peace upon Earth but War between Father and Son c. And elsewhere he says my Peace I give you In one Place he says Drunkards and Gluttons shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and elsewhere he says that that which enters into the Mouth does not defile the Soul Truth is invincible and does not change for all that may be thundered against it but it is the more established when it is opposed and contradicted by ignorant Persons as this Benjamin who cannot discern Truth from Lying and from Contradictions He confounds one time with another and will needs give general Rules for all sorts of Occasions and when these Rules are not punctually observed at all times he thinks that Persons do change or contradict themselves And if he had been an Apostle of Jesus Christ when he lived upon Earth he would have often reproved him as at present he does me For when Jesus Christ was afraid of his Enemies he bids his Apostles buy Swords and if they wanted money to do it that they should sell their Garments and a little after he commands to put up the Sword and threatens that he who strikes with the Sword shall be strucken by it If this Benjamin had been in S. Peter's Place when he cut off Malchus's Ear he would certainly have been displeased at Jesus Christ and blamed him for Inconstancy and Contradiction because he could not discern the time when he ought to strike and when he ought to forbear He reproaches me that I have written somewhere that I might say something that is not true without lying or sinning He does not consider that there are material Lies which are not Sins He would have Words precisely spoken which are true according to his Caprice for it is a chief Article of the Quakers to justifie themselves before Men for they study precise Words that they may not commit a material Lie and they dare not call a Christian by that Name without adding as they call them fearing to Lie by calling him a Christian when he is not truly such For my part I am far from these Maxims for I never regard the pronunciation of Words but the Essence of the Truth of the things which I advance If I express them in this or that Term it is all one to me provided I deceive no Body and that I make the things to be understood which I would signifie But there is this difference between the Spirit that guides me and the Spirit that guides that Sect that they would be esteem'd by Men for good Men and for the People of God whereas I am not concern'd how they esteem me for I am content with the Testimony of my own Conscience and seek not the Approbation of Men far less will I say any Words to the end they may think that I am Just and guided by God It suffices me that I know it and God knows it for it is written He who would please Men is not the Servant of Jesus Christ Therefore I will freely speak a material Lie when I believe the thing is true for Example I have often said that I was Two Years younger than I find I am since I caus'd one to search the Register of my Baptism I grant I have thus made many material Lies yet without sinning thereby or lying since a Lie is a Deceit or Falseness of the Heart that kills the Soul which I could not do by saying that I was Two Years younger for I aim'd not thereby to deceive any Body nor to speak against the Truth I have uttered many such material Lies I love rather to possess the Essence of Truth in the bottom of my Soul than to speak verbally true Words through Hypocrisie For what else is it to call Men by the Name of Christians and to add to it as they call them than Hypocrisie and Contempt of the Truth such as the Jews had when they said to Pilate that he ought to write on the Cross of Jesus Christ that he was King of the Jews by adding to it as he said which Pilate would not add saying only What is written is written as I also answer to this Benjamin when he would teach me to speak Words which are true before Men For I know well that all whom I call Christians are not truly Christians before God yet I will not learn from the Quakers to add to the Name of Christian as they call them since this seems to me superfluous and I have no other Intention in calling them simply Christians but to make it be understood of whom I speak to wit that I speak not of the Jews or Heathens but of those only whom I call Christians yet without design to maintain that they are true Christians Since I declare elsewhere that I
know no true Christians it cannot be understood that I know them for true Christians because I call them by that Name but I conform my self in this to the Disposition of those who hear me and not to the Truth of what they are Which if I would follow I behov'd sometimes to call those nominal Christians Atheists or Antichristians which scarce any Man would understand therefore to make my self be understood I must use common and ordinary Terms and pronounce them as briefly as I can since we must give an account of every idle Word I ought not to add uselesly to the Name of Christians as they call them since it is understood well enough of it self without pronouncing those Words as the Quakers do To make appear how fully she clears her self as to Contradictions which they were ready to impute to her I shall here adduce one Instance I understand says she by yours that my Writings have had some good Operation in your Soul but withal that you have found as it seems to you some Contradiction in them in that I say absolutely that to be a true Christian one must abandon all that he possesses and nevertheless you find in one of my Letters that a Man must keep his Goods for his Necessities since the World is now without Charity and they would leave the Just without help in his need Both these things are most true and do not at all contradict one another for a Man must absolutely abandon the Love of earthly Goods if he would become a true Christian Jesus Christ has very often affirm'd this Truth in his Gospel and said that he who does not renounce all that he possesses cannot be his Disciple I bring no Novelties when through all my Writings I press this Necessity of forsaking all things to be a Disciple of Jesus Christ since Jesus Christ his Apostles and all who have received the Holy Spirit say the same thing and there is but one Truth which is God which says through all the same thing So that they who speak otherwise are Liars and Seducers of the People who flatter Men to destroy them under the Pretext of Glosses and false Reasons which they draw from the Holy Scriptures without any Ground This I have declar'd sufficiently in my Writings as you have well observ'd and approved as you say seeing I very much blam'd a Woman of Friesland who was yet careful what she should eat and drink and wherewithal she should be cloathed after she had resolved to become a true Christian as you have remarked in the Second Letter of the Fourth Part of La lum née en tenebres And I am still of the same Sentiment that when one relies upon temporal things and will not voluntarily abandon them to follow Jesus Christ he cannot be his Disciple and that Woman will never be one so long as she is not disengag'd from temporal Goods Tho' she be now gone out of her Country with a design to embrace a Gospel Life she cannot attain to it because of the Affection she has still for her Ease and Conveniences which proceeds from Self-love being anxious for the temporal Part and fearing Want And I can assure all those who are still in that Disposition that they are not true Christians But when I wrote to one of my Friends in the 24th Letter of the Fourth Part of La lum née en tenebr as you alledge that he â—ought to keep his Goods for his own Necessities or that of others without leaving them to his Friends or giving them to the Poor now adays I had reason to do it because this Man was more disengag'd in his Soul from temporal Wealth than that Woman and had already resolv'd to abandon them all so that his Heart was free to possess them as if he did not possess them which a Person wedded to them could not do tho' it seems to him he could and he will say so with his Mouth for there is nothing more deceitful than the Heart of Man which none knows but God and he to whom God reveals it And I had reason to advise this Man to keep his Goods and that Woman that she should not care for the Morrow without any Contradiction in my Advices but in the Disposition of those Two Persons whom you mention Since the one was free to possess Wealth without sinning and not the other and a good Physician ought always to consider the Original of his Patient's Disease if he would heal him For if he ordain the same Physick for all sorts of Maladies he would kill more than all the Executioners together So you must not think that there is a Contradiction in my Two Letters mentioned by you but that there are Two divers Remedies for Two different Diseases to wit one Remedy against the Love or Desire of earthly things and another against too great Liberality or Indiscretion Again A. B. says somewhere That no Body ever was or can be saved but by the Merits of Jesus Christ and some Pages after in the same Treatise she says that no Body can be saved by the Merits of another This seems contradictory as well as those Two Propositions the one of St. Paul and the other of St. James Man is justified by Faith without the Works of the Law and Man is justified by Works and not by Faith only This last Contradiction â—s reconciled by saying that St. Paul understands that the Principle which admits in us that true Righteousness which God places there is Faith and that Works are not that Principle But St. James means that that Principle which admits in us the Righteousness of God is Faith but that Faith is not destitute of Works for if Faith were without Works it were a dead Faith which would justifie no Body Thus these have no Contradiction and yet are harder to reconcile than any Passages of the Writings of A. B. Thus as to the forecited Passage when she says that no Body is saved but by the Merits of Jesus Christ her meaning is that Jesus Christ is the Author and meritorious Cause of the Salvation of Men who will accept of this Salvation by the ways that God teaches them and when she says that no Body can be saved by the Merits of another this signifies that none who will not co-operate to their Salvation by the ways that God preâ—cribes them câ—n be saved by the Merits of Jesus Christ or that the Merits of Jesus Christ will not save those who will not follow the way of Salvation Thus you see how easie it is for critical and captious Spirits to find Contradictions where there are none that the Holy Scriptures themselves have many seeming Contradictions tho none in Truth that they who are led by the Spirit of God write in great Simplicity regarding the Essence and Substance of divine Truths and not the niceness of Terms and how captious Spirits may misinterpret them and divine Truths had need to be read and
greatest Evidences that can be given to those who were not Eye-Witnesses nor have experienc'd that Efficacy of her Writings themselves XXVII And seeing by the Testimony of her greatest Enemies these Writings are valued and esteem'd by some who have the Reputation of being Men of Sense Learning and Probity and that there are others highly deserving that Character still alive who were Witnesses of her Life and Spirit and have found so much of the Divine Power accompanying those Writings as has made them abandon the Love and Care of all Temporal things to mind and prepare for Eternity And seeing they are known to be Men of no Hypochondriack nor Enthusiastick Spirit do not pretend to immediate Revelations themselves are not led by the heat of Fancy or Imagination but were addicted to all the sorts of rational Learing and to the mechanical Philosophy wherewith the World now abounds this may so far Counter-ballance the Prejudices raised by some other Men of Reputation for Learning and Parts who never read those Writings till they came to them with an evil Eye with a design to expose ridicule and confute them this I say may so far Counter-ballance that Prejudice as to encline People not to throw them away as unworthy of their notice but impartially to weigh and consider what they say XXVIII And I am the more bold and earnest to perswade this because they contain the matters of the greatest Importance in the World They encourage no New Sect nor Schism set up no New Creeds teach no Disobedience to Superiours Civil or Ecclesiastick no Contempt of the Holy Scriptures or Divine Ordinances they do not teach Men to distinguish themselves from the rest of the World by a Preciseness in Words Gestures Apparel or other outward indifferent things But they clearly manifest the horrid Corruption of our Nature the indispensable necessity of the Love of God to be saved the only means to recover it by following the Life and Doctrine of Jesus Christ how contrary all Men walk to this and yet flatter themselves with their false Glosses on Christ's Life and Doctrine and the great and universal Judgments that God is now to bring upon the World as he did in the Days of Noah its Wickedness being as Universal and at as great a Height With many other important Truths which I cannot now repeat And as they are of such Weight and Moment so they are so clearly and rationally represented as to convince our natural Reason XXIX It needs divert none from laying to Heart those great and necessary Truths because they may meet with other accessory things which they cannot relish they are told they may lay them aside suspend their belief of them they may be sav'd without them And whereas it is replied That they being declared to be revealed by the Spirit of God we ought to believe them It is answered That it is not necessary to Salvation to believe that those Writings are Divinely inspir'd many may believe the Divine Essential Truths contain'd in them because of their Agreement with the Holy Scripture and labour to form their Lives and Hearts accordingly and yet not be perswaded that she had immediate Revelation besides the same Spirit that declares even those accessory Truths declares also that they are not necessary to Salvation and that they who do not relish them and are not bettered by them may let them alone Even as God of his infinite Bounty has provided not only for the Necessities of Man's Life but also variety of Entertainment of which some is agreeable to some Palates and naufeous to others It is not needful that every Man should eat of all sorts of Food but it is fit he take that only which is most convenient for his Health not despising other Food because he cannot relish it for it may be very agreeable and healthful to others however he may let it alone God grant us all the Spirit of divine Charity and a sound Mind and that whereto we have already attain'd the Essential Truths we all acknowledge we may walk by the same Rule and mind the same things And then if in any thing we be otherwise minded God will reveal this unto us Advertisement IN Opposition to all the Prejudices rais'd against the Writings of A. B. this may be a favourable one for them that whereas her Enemies do all they can to frighten People from looking into them and would have them to know no further of them than what they think fit to put into their Narratives those on the other hand who give good Characters of them aim at nothing thereby but to perswade People impartially to read and consider the Writings themselves and not to trust them upon their Words no more than those who bespatter them even as we Protestants perswade the People to read the Holy Scriptures and those of the Roman Church do all they can to hinder them as being conscious that they make against them And as thus the Intention of these Witnesses is much more Candid and Just than the other so their Testimony will by all impartial Judges be esteem'd no less Weighty The one are Eye-Witnesses and the other only upon Conjecture Inferences or Hearsay and they who thrust in to be Evidences upon no better Grounds give occasion to suspect them as false Witnesses and to put them to the Oath of Calumny e'er they be admitted And as they had far the Advantage of knowing the Truth of what they declare beyond these others so their Ability to make a right Judgment and their Probity is unquestionable of these I shall instance only in two The one is the great Anatomist and Naturalist Dr. Swammerdam whose Writings are well known and esteem'd by all Enquirers into the History of Nature and it is certain that that Genius does not lead to a Brainsick Enthusiasm but after that he had seen some of the Writings of A. B. and convers'd with her he was fully perswaded in his Conscience that she was led by the Spirit of God and found the happy Effect of it upon own his Heart and Spirit The other is Dr. Ant. de Heyde known also to the World by some curious Enquiries and Observations in the History of Nature and in Physick who for many Years had no small Contempt and Aversion for A. B. and her Writings so that it was the force of Truth only and no favourable Prepossession that brought him to esteem them who has now abandon'd all earthly things to follow his Master Jesus Christ and such powerful a Mean they were for this End appears from this following Account which he permits to be communicated to the World being heartily desirous to contribute for the Good of those who labour under the same Indispositions A DISSERTATION OF Dr. Ant. de Heyde Famous Physician of Middleburg in Zealand CONCERNING The Sanctity and Divine Illumination of Antonia Bourignon Translated from the Original Latin M. S. Quest 1. If A. B. did
that A. B. was Holy and in the Love of God and that to such a Degree that this Love seem'd to flow from her into them and other well-disposed Souls because many are brought by her to abandon their own Wills and the Creatures that they may Love God only and subject themselves wholly to his Will And I am perswaded that her Writings will have such Operations in all those who shall read them with a sincere and hearty desire to find the saving Truth and to endeavour to walk in it in so far as they know it Unless they be so far possest with Prejudices as that they will admit of nothing for Truth but what is consonant to their formerly receiv'd Opinions looking upon every thing that differs from them or seems contrary unto them as Lies and Error This is as if one looking always through a coloured Glass by which all Bodies would appear to him of the same Colour should imagine and affirm that other Men who look with the naked and single Eye are perfectly mistaken when they say that they see clearly that every Body has its own distinct Colour XVIII Unto these Four Evidences of the Sanctity of A. B. this Fifth ought to be added to wit the wonderful Works that A. B. did and the extraordinary Divine Lights that God communicated to her To reckon up all these we behov'd to narrate her whole Life and to adduce all her Writings which are full of such wonderful Works and Light Therefore let every one that loves the Truth apply to these Writings and which soever he shall be pleas'd to peruse he will by them be sufficiently convinc'd of this matter But that some Instance of this may be given it is to be considered that this ought to be look'd upon as a great Miracle in A. B. that she so generously fought against her corrupt Nature that she wholly subdued it not by her own Strength which could do nothing but Evil but by the Grace of God through which the weakest can do all things This Miracle ought to be more esteemed than raising the Dead giving Sight to the Blind and such like which serve only for this present Life and therefore may be performed by Men who are not Holy But to overcome corrupt Nature is an infallible mark of Holiness for the obtaining of which all other Miracles ought to be done otherwise they avail nothing but on the contrary do much hurt Among the innumerable Divine Lights communicated to Antonia Bourignon this is the chief that she had explain'd the Truths of the Gospel more clearly and efficaciously than any has done hitherto demonstrating that an Obedience to them is absolutely necessary for Salvation and rescuing them from the Glosses and false Expositions by which the Learned have so perverted the Truths of the Gospel that almost every Christian promises Salvation to himself although he do not walk according to these Truths XIX Since then it seems to appear sufficiently from what has been said that A. B. was Holy and in the Love of God it will be now fit to consider the Second Question proposed to wit If she was moved by the Spirit of God to write and to enlighten others For answer to this Question there needs nothing be adduc'd but what has been said as to the First Question For it A. B. was Holy and in the Love of God she would not have committed so great a Sin as to pretend that she was moved to write by the Spirit of God if it was false or if she was not certain that it was most true But that I may answer something in particular to this Second Question it is to be considered how we may be assured that any Writing is endited by God In order to this let us enquire how it appears that the Holy Scriptures were written by Men led by the Spirit of God as all Christians do believe XX. That we may proceed aright in this Enquiry it is to be remarked that God gives unto Men Breath and Life and all Things for in him we live and move and have our Being Nevertheless he has given to all Creatures the Faculty whereby to continue in their Being or to exist For God is Eternal and his Gifts are without Repentance therefore his Works do never perish besides they are endued with a Power of multiplying themselves and producing their like It is true many things perish but these are not the Works of God but Corruption and Vanity brought into the World and yet coming into it by Sin and Lust But besides these Faculties of preserving themselves and producing their like God gave to Man the Liberty of turning himself to God that he might be govern'd and ruled by him or of acting by the Strength already given him without asking new Strength from God If he do so he departs from God the Author of all Light and Good and then such a Man of necessity becomes Miserable and is sunk in Darkness as appear'd in the Fall of Adam and is to be seen daily in those who follow their own Wills that is who act by the Strength once given them and will not ask new Strength from God nor yield up themselves to be govern'd by him But if a Man yield up himself to God and ask help from him in every thing he goes about he will find God ready to help him Even as one in a very close Chamber is in the Day-time immediately enlightned by the Sun how soon he permits the Windows of the Chamber to be opened and the more Windows there are opened he receives the greater Light XXI From what has been said it appears that when we say that the Holy Scripture is endited by God we understand thereby that the Holy Men who committed it to Writing did so wholly deny their own Strength whether innate unto them or acquired by Diligence Learning and Meditation that they willingly acknowledged that thereby they could do no good nor any thing that was acceptable to God but did so entirely yield up themselves to be govern'd by God that they no longer lived to themselves but God did live and operate in them Now that we may be assured that the Holy Scriptures were penned by such Men we must examine what Operation the Holy Scriptures have in our Souls When then we experience that the Thoughts of our Hearts are manifested by them which can be done by none but God who alone knows the Heart and if this Holy Scripture be a powerful Mean for loosing our Hearts from the Love of Temporal things and drawing them to the Love of God and of things Eternal For the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any Two-edged Sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of the Soul and Spirit the Joynts and Marrow and is a discerner of the Thoughts and Intents of the Heart overthrowing every Imagination and Thought that exalts it self against God So that an Unbeliever perceiving
and God who had so much comforted her in Prayer all the time that she was despised now withdrew from her and her Prayers were without any fervour Her Conscience often check'd her when she did or said any thing to please the World but she had not the courage to withdraw from it But God had pity on her who had abandon'd him to turn to the Creatures She oft-times felt inward Motions from God and even in the midst of her Divertisements and Dancings she had sometimes secret Reproofs from him piercing her Heart with those inward Words Will you forsake me then for another Will you find a Lover more compleat and more faithful than I am But a little after Company and Divertisements got the Ascendant and even when she was excited by those inward Motions to abandon all she would reply Then I should never have Pleasure It is fit for one to take some Pleasure in their Youth VII Then God seeing that his gentle Motions avail'd nothing took more severe means to recover her and fill'd her Spirit with fearful Apprehensions of Death Judgment and Hell the hearing of the Deaths of others and Sermons about Death and Judgment did before that touch her but very little like the Stories of Foreign Countries and she would not let her self think that she was concern'd in them But when God was pleas'd to open her Eyes and let her see she must Die and appear at the great Judgment then unexpressible Apprehensions seiz'd her and all the Day long when she was alone she would say to her self Poor Creature What will become of thee Thou must die all the things of the World cannot save thee from this fearful Death thou caâ—st not escape it And what wilâ— thou say when that Hour shall come This she often repeated both in her Mind and by Word They with whom she convers'd observing her Sadness endeavour'd to chear and divert her but all in vain For then she had a disgust of all Recreations and earthly Pleasures And when she forc'd her self to take Contentment in any thing she thought it was said to her Heart To what purpose takest thou Pleasure since thou must die For what will this serve thee before God But the sensitive part of her Soul was very displeas'd to see it self thus afflicted and said in its mute Language Thou shalt never be well if thou put not these Fancies out of thy Head but will die very shortly if thou continue in such Apprehensions This made her leave oft for some time But as soon as she came to her self the superiour part said Forget Death as much as you will it shall not forget thee It is a folly to think to free thy self of it by shutting it out of thy Memory It will find thee every where and does not wait till thou be ready but comes at its time unlook'd for and when thou shalt think least of it And if the Idea of it only does so affright yea put thy Life in hazard how will the reality of it make thee afraid when thy Soul shall be in Danger Give place to those Truths without flattering thy self with any Reasons VIII These were the Debates which toss'd her Spirit without ceasing She resolv'd then to quit all the World and prepare for Death and prevent it since it followed her so hard But she found great Difficulty to do it being Young and in the midst of all worldly Advantages so that she might promise to her self as much of worldly Pleasures Honour and Wealth as any of her rank Nevertheless the thoughts of Death had yet greater force when she thought on the future State She said to her self It is very true Mirth is agreeable Pleasures are sweet and Wealth delightful but this lasts but for a little time Death will come and change all and all must be parted with with a lamentable regret and it may be an eternal Punishment for a good of so short continuance So that perceiving clearly this Truth she prayed earnestly to God to give her Grace to think always upon Death and never to let it be out of her Mind for any thing that might befall her which she obtain'd after a long perseverance in this Prayer And to fix it the more upon her Spirit she went oft to the Church-yard where looking on the Bones of the dead she said See my Body what will become of thee Thy own Head and thy own Hands will be very shortly thrown into this Company and she was afraid to look upon them and forc'd her self to approach them being naturally timorous and to handle them saving O miserable Creature Wilt thou have a Horror for thy self Draw near boldly Thou shalt be a Thousand times more vile when the Worms shall eat thee and this will be the greatest Honour that can befal thee to be ranked with these Bones here IX This gave her a great disgust for the Body which she formerly cherish'd and a hatred and severity against her self and after her Sister was married she retir'd from all sort of Company staid alone in her Chamber entered upon a very austere Life Lying hard Sleeping little Fasting much mingling what she did eat with Ashes to mortifie her Taste wearing hair cloath next to her Skin and afflicting her Body and praying and weeping the most part of her time for Grief that she had left the sweet Conversation she had with God to please her self in the Divertisements of the World She visited the Poor and Sick frequented the Churches and Sacraments not knowing by what means she could recover the Favour of God which she had lost through her own Fault She durst scarce sleep in the Night fearing to fall into Hell while asleep and that the Earth would not bear her So terrible were her Apprehensions of the Judgments of God that she durst not shut her Eyes because of her Sins which seem'd to her so great that none had ever committed the like not that she was guilty of any Crime or wicked Deed but because she had forsaken the sweet Conversation that her Soul had with God to please her self with the Divertisements of the World after having received so many Favours from God which deserved the Thanksgiving of her whole Life This appear'd to her so great a Sin that Hell was not sufficient to punish it She continued in those Austerities and Mortification for Seven Years and would have done so still if God had not commanded her when she was Twenty Five Years of Age to leave this and lead an ordinary Life Her Mortifications were not the Effect of a melancholy Humour nor accompanied with it for she was of the most serene and chearful Temper even to her Death But she chastis'd her self with an inward Contentment and Tranquillity out of a Principle of Justice And her Floods of Tears flowing from the Love of God whose Friendship she had lost through her own Fault were attended with a secret and most solid Pleasure
out another At last a Friend hired for her in his own Name a little Chamber being but the half of a Room divided in two by so thin a Wall that all that was done or spoken was heard in the other where lived Persons pre-occupied with the common Fame and Animosity There she remain'd under the Protection of God alone lying during the Nights of a cold Winter on the Floor without putting off her Cloaths without Bed Straw or Covering Nevertheless the Peace of God fill'd her Heart with Joy to see that her State and Treatment was a Copy taken from the Original of the Life of her Suffering and persecuted Saviour who because he declared the Truth was so persecuted by the Priests and Pharisees as to be obliged to flee here and there so that he could not enjoy the Advantage which the most miserable Beasts have who have safe Retreats Holes and Nests while he had not where to lay his Head Here she wrote the Treatise called The Touchstone She was then in an extream want of all things Her Friends were all disperss'd in Holland Husum Noordstrand and elsewhere Her Mother-in-Law caused confiscate her Goods and Revenues at Lisle to the King of France his Profit under a Pretence that there being War between France and Holland she was in an Enemies Country which was false she having left Holland before the War was proclaim'd She gave them to the Hospital of Lisle which she had govern'd to free them from this unjust Confiscation LXX Lies prevail but for a time and however Men have been pre-occupied yet at last they desire to be rightly informed and so it fell out here Those of Judgment and Understanding were desirous to know at the bottom what the Doctrine of that Maid was against whom the Pastors were so enrag'd The pillaging of the Books and the scattering Sheets of them here and there contributed much to this Both great and small found thereby that she had been greatly wrong'd The Inns and Private Houses were full of these Leaves wrapping up their Tobacco and other small Wares so that many who had occasion to read them were so convinc'd of the Truth as to pronounce her Innocent and the Pastors Guilty of wronging her by their Calumnies At the Court they began to speak well of them and to read them The General declar'd openly for them the Grand President M. Kielman and others began to esteem them Some in a Conversation at Court having said that if the Accusations of the Pastours were Falshoods she ought to have answered them Another answered that nothing ought to be inferred from her Silence she being forbid to write against them and that if his Highness should permit her to answer she would do it very quickly The Duke said if it depended upon his Permission he gave it willingly The President caused her to be acquainted with this and immediately she caused to be delivered to him a fair Copy of her Answer The Touchstone He read it with great Satisfaction and gave it to many of the Court They were thereupon perswaded of her Innocence The President offered to cause her Press and Books to be restored She said all this would serve her for nothing so long as they kept her out of her Inheritance at Noordstrand which the Fathers of the Oratory unjustly occupied also she offer'd to satisfie all the Creditors as it should be found just The President promised to assist her in it LXXI Thus she breathed a little more freely the Prince took her again into his Protection her Friends who were scattered return'd to her again She staid in a convenient Lodging with four of them peaceably from the Year 1675. to the next The Churchmen of Holstein were not a little enraged to hear of giving her Possession of Noordstrand They renewed their Clamours at Court and when they could not get it stopp'd they suggested to clog it with a thousand Restrictions sometimes that she should possess it upon Condition of printing nothing sometimes that she should not publish her Doctrine her People should not speak of it to any Body she should be answerable for all the Words and Actions of her Friends and such like under Pain of losing all her Goods When she shewed the Invalidity of these Projects they proposed others the Nullity of which she as evidently made appear So that at last the President said he was weary of these Priests and their Absurdities still renewing their old Complaints without being willing to hear Reason On this Occasion there passed several Letters between A. B. and the Superintendant Nieman But he would yâ—eld as little to Reason and Equity as he thought it dishonourable for a learned Doctor to yield to a Maid in spiritual Things These Letters to him are in the Second Part of The Testimony of the Truth LXXII The President finding him to be as unreasonable as the rest saw there was nothing to be done with them and advised her to make and present to his Highness a short Confession of her Faith because Great Men are not taken up in the Reading of Controversies and so her Replies and Duplies with the Priests would be of little Use But a short Confession of Faith would confound their Lies and convince the Prince She did so and it is already set down in the First Part of this Apology After this People were entirely perswaded of her Innocence and that the Pastours Accusations were Slanders tho' they ceased not to say that her Profession was contrary to her Sentiments and would catch at and tear out Pieces of Sentences in her Writings to prove it but it is evident that what they do or can cite out of her Writings contrary to the Articles of this Confession is fundamentally dismembred and falsly interpreted and the Consequences they may draw from her Writings contrary to this Confession are false Consequences which she wholly disclaims and if there be any thing obscure and ambiguous in her Writings it may and ought to be taken in a Sence and Signification agreeable to this Confession which is the Key the Rule the Substance and the Abridgment of all her Writings LXXIII Yet the Churchmen prevailed so far at Court as to protract the Affair of her Establishment at Noordstrand and to make them relent and at last give over their Inclination to do her Justice upon which she openly declared her Sentiments to the Court in Writing That God had expresly sent her into the Country of Holstein that she might there lead a retired and Christian Life with her Friends and that he promised to take in his Protection the Country that should receive her and to shed his Blessings there while hiâ— Plagues should be felt over all the Earth That for this Effect she desiâ—ed they would let her go into the Isle of Noordstrand to the Succession of M. de Cort which the Oratorâ— detained unjustly from her and that she might there enjoy the Liberties and Privileges
in the Preface to the Light of the World not to affix such a Sence to any single Expressions or Passages of A. B â—s Writings as runs contrary to the whole Tenour of them and to a Protestation concerning the Summary of her Sentiments with Respect to the Essentials of Christianity there inserted for thus the best Authors may be traduced by the most shameful Manglings malicious Interpretations deceitful Calumnies injurious Consequences c. One would have thought that after all this he should not have followed these Measures himself and yet we find him palpably forming the high Charge of 1. Blasphemous Pride 2. Overturning all Priest hood and Ordinances of the Gospel 3. Vncharitableness and damning all the World 4. The misrepresenting the Design and Import of the Gospel 5. The perverting the Doctrine of the Gospel 6. A Contempt of the Holy Scriptures and lastly of wild and barbarous Notions against her upon the same False and Disingenuous Proceedings and not abstaining from the Furious and Spiteful Words Cloven Foot the Devil of a Saint Mad Craz'd Bigotted How false this Charge is how ill founded how contrary to the Temper of her Spirit and the strain of her Writings the Author might have observed from her own Writings if he had considered without Prejudice or Passion and may now further see in the Apology I need not fully resume the Particulars but only touch upon and direct him to the Places where he may have Satisfaction concerning them V. She is vindicated from the 1. of Blasphemous Pride in the Second Part of the Apology p. 166 c. where it appears that she is far from exalting her self above the Prophets or Apostles or Fathers far less above Jesus Christ himself that she acknowledges her self a poor frail Creature of the corrupt mass of Adam subject to Sins and Infirmities who greatly straied from God in her younger Years that of her self she has nothing but Evil and that all Good comes from God and that since it may please God in the latter Ages of the World by some of his Servants more clearly to explain and unfold the hidden Prophecies and Parables of the Old and New Testament when the time of their Accomplishment draws near it will not be found that those to whom God shall please to make such Discoveries are thereby exalted above the Prophets or Jesus Christ himself or that they by owning and declaring them do exalt themselves Thus A. B. when she speaks of God's Graces to her does it with the greatest Humility as is evident from these very Places cited by the Author whence he culls his half Sentences where she assumes to her self no Prerogative above the most Wicked of all Creatures or even a Stone or Wood wherewith she declares God might have served himself in declaring of his Marvels if it had been his Pleasure whom yet she cannot resist since he pleases to declare his Marvels by her and that he may damn her if she has merited it in the End being absolute Lord of all things to this Purpose her own Words in the 136 and 137 p. of the Light of the World are fully cited in the 169 p. of the Apology And thus also p. 132 of the Light of the World I would be very presumptuous says she to believe that these so clear Interpretations come from my self Yea on the other hand it should pass for an Instance of great Self-denial and humble Resignation unto the Will of God in any who will even by the Command of God declare themselves to be the Organ of his Spirit for more clear Explications of those things that have been formerly express'd in dark Similitudes and Parables when they know assuredly that they will meet with nothing but Scorn and Reproach from Men upon that Account And if this be the Case of A. B. as the Thrid Part of the Apology gives strong Presumptions for it and many are perswaded it is then her Declaration of the Truth of this is no Instance of Pride or that she exalts her self above others but a great Instance of Self-denial and humble Resignation To this Purpose she expresseth her self I must not says she because of the Reproach and Confusion I may meet with conceal that which God will have published and observed It does not become a poor Worm of the Earth to give Laws of God He knows by whom and how he will operate without regard to out Meanness and Unworthiness As to that other Proof of her Blasphemous Pride taken from the high Characters given her by others whom he calls her Bigotted Disciples some of them twenty Years after her Death as that in the English Preface to the Light of the World it is a new way of Reasoning owing I think purely to the Author Yet there she is not preferred to the Blessed Virgin for tho' to be the Organ of the Light and Spirit of God is more than to be the Organ or Mother of his humane Body yet to be the Organ both of Spirit and Body is more than to be the Organ of any one of them and this is not denied to the Blessed Virgin When because of the high Characters given her by some while she lived it was objected to her that she affected the Praise of Men and suffered M. de Cort and others highly to extol the inward Graces that God imparted to her She said That if such had felt the Operations of God in their Souls by her means as M. de Cort and some others had done they would have said the same that they did not praise her Person in which there was nothing praise worthy but the Light and Truth of God which they saw and heard by her means This she said did not puff her up since the Works of God which she remarked did humble her Heart the more she discovered them for I discern says she the Spirit of God from that of Nature and see clearly that all that comes from God is Good and all that comes from my self is Evil so that I have no Ground to glory in my Evil and I know no Good out of God this Rule keeps me steady from fallâ—ng into Vainâ—glory It is no wonder that some judge that I please my self with the Praises of Men in suffering that Preface to be published when they will needs measure me by themselves they cannot judge otherways but that I take Pleasure to hear my own Praises feeling in themselves that they could not hear their own Praises without vain Complacency and measuring every one by themselves every one thinks another is as he himself is A Thief trusts no Body thinking that another is as much Thief as himself A lewd Person cannot believe that another would live in Continence when he has a fair Occasion to satisfie his Lust and so a proud Person cannot believe that one would hear their own Praises without having their Heart puff'd up with Pride because he himself cannot hear his Praises
without deriving Vain glory from them This befals all those who live still in the Sentiments of corrupt Nature But I am says she by the Grace of God arrived at that State that the Praises and Reproaches of Men are all one to me and I make no more reckoning of the one than of the other because of the small Esteem I have of the Judgment of Men who often praise that which they ought to despise and despise that which they ought truly to esteem If says she M de Cort has said in his Preface that I have more Light than all the Authors that he had ever read this does not infer that he would place me above the Prophets Apostles or Jesus Christ himself as you alledge but he would only declare that he received more Light by my Discourses than by reading of all the Authors he had ever seen yea even the Scripture it self since it is obscure in some places whereas our daily Conferences gave him more Clearness and my Practice made him penetrate the true Sence of the Scriptures in which he had read many things whereof he understood nothing at all If the Author had not been hasty to condemn her but had calmly heard and considered what she had to say for her self he would not perhaps have past so hard a Censure but would have been convinc'd that the most humble may speak well of themselves and suffer others to do so too and that without the least Tincture of Pride or Vain-glory. If we would first set our selves to cast out the Beam out of our own Eye we should then see clearly to take the Beam out of anothers VI. The Second Accusation that she overturn'd Priesthood and the Ordinances is evinced to be as palpable a Mistake as the former in the Second Part Of the Apology pag. 154 155 c. It was no fair dealing in the Author to pick out some few Words of a Passage and not relate the whole as it is in p. 54. of the First Part of the Light of the World And whereas you ask says she whether all these outward Devotions which are now in use in Christendom are good and saving I doubt it very much for Christ taught no such Varieties of Devotions as we see now adays but he taught solid inward Vertues as Faith Hope and Charity these are the Instructions of Jesus Christ but they who are at present call'd Churchmen teach no other thing but to resort to Churches to frequent Sacraments and to say a great many vocal Prayers by rote and number and with these outward things they make them believe that they are True Christians which cannot be since Christianity consists in an inward spiritual Life for it is Divine and not Humane Which Words might have born a more favourable Construction than the overturning of all Priesthood and the Ordinances of the Gospel they being truly levelled against the Corruptions of the Ordinances and might have been so understood especially if the Author had considered that A. B. had never yet been without the Bounds of the Roman Communion whose Churchmen all Protestants do accuse of laying the Stress of Religion too much upon the Varieties of their outward Devotions and Ceremonies And when it is told that A. B. has written an express Apology for Pastors the Pastoral Office and the Publick Ordinances it is I must say a singular way of answering to reply that those Enthusiasts are all Contradictions to themselves and opposite to one another as if one could not blame the Abuses of the Priesthood and outward Devotions and yet stand up for the Office of Pastors and the Ministry without a Contradiction Sure the Holy Scripture is a good President which establisheth these and yet condemns the Abuses of them in a thousand Places calling the Pastors Deceivers Dumb Dogs Hirelings Hypocrites Thieves Wolves and many other Names of this nature God abhors his own Institutions when corrupted Church-men have their Corruption as well as others and to flatter them in them is but to sow Pillows to their Arm-holes When the Pastoral Office is turn'd into a Trade whereby Men chiefly propose to get a Living and Reputation in the World when the great End of it is despised and the Duties of it done superficially in order to these other Ends This is a Priestcraft that should be decried and they who have the greatest love to Christianity will be most forward to do it and it is in this Respect only that A. B. condemns the Abuses of the Priesthood and the outward Ordinances and not the Function and the Offices themselves VII The Author's Third Point of her Vncharitableness and damning all the World is cleared in the Apology A. B. declares that God would have all Men to be saved and that no Body can be saved without being regenerated into the Spirit of Jesus Christ the Spirit of Charity Humility and Poverty and without leading his Life and that in the mean time all generally have strayâ—d out of the Paths of his Life and are Strangers to his Spirit If this be a certain Truth then to cry aloud and give warning of this is an Act of the greatest Charity If mortal and pestilential Diseases had overspread the whole Earth and the Contagion were universally derived from Parents upon the Children and the most part were insensible of their Disease and could hardly be perswaded that they were sick if notwithstanding it should please God to raise up a skilful and infallible Physician who had provided certain and undoubted Remedies taken them first himself and left plain Directions how to use them and great numbers at first by following his Rules and Example had fully recovered their Health If yet in process of Time the generality of Men few or none excepted left off to follow the Precepts would not be confined to such strict Rules of Physick as to Air Diet Company Self-will c. as if they were all contagious and thought the Physician 's Rules and Example unpracticable but yet made a Fashion of honouring him and proceeded so far as to restrain the grossest outward Eruptions which would make them loathsome to their Neighbours tho inwardly they still laboured under mortal Diseases and could hardly be convinced of it Would it be thought want of Charity in any to give loud Warning of this to the World If any had recovered or were upon the recovering Hand would they think themselves greatly injured by any who should say that now there were none in Health and they did not see how any could recover after the manner the lived now They would rather think it might well be said so the Number being so few that they might be called none at all and this might perhaps excite and awaken some of those who remained still insensible of their State to take the true Measures for their Recovery That this is a true Figure of the Spiritual State of the World at present is but too evident
speak with the Author of Bourignianism detected who might have allowed one of the Writings of A. B. to be put in English and recommended as useful to advance the Interest of true Christianity without making such a Noise about it yet it no sooner comes to his Hands but he presently raises the Hue and-Cry Delusions and Errours and magnifies it into a new and growing Sect that he might get himself a Name and have the Glory to encounter and as he hop'd to defeat it But the Doctor is not so dreadful an Enemy as he would seem at first On-set they who bluster most are not always the most dangerous They who have read the Writings of A. B. and find that the Marrow and Substance of them are the Essential Truths of Christianity and that her singular Sentiments which she says are not necessary to be believed do not contradict those Essential Truths do justly wonder what has moved the Doctor to raise all this Dust and Clamour I know he once profess'd a great Veneration for Thomas à Kempis his Book de Imitatione Christi but he being a Mystick and one who seems to own his being immediately enlightned by the Spirit of God it may be the Doctor despises him now as in his late Letter he declares he has long since turn'd off such Conversation and a deceas'd Friend of his had not only a great Esteem for that Book but also for others of the same Nature such as the Life of M. de Renti c. The Person I mean was the most pious and learn'd H. Scougall of whom the Reverend Dr. Burnet now Bishop of Sarum gave so deserv'd a Character in his Preface to Bishop Bedal's Life and with whom he prevail'd to let him publish his Devout Treatise of the Life of God in the Soul of Man to which he was pleas'd to prefix a Preface and to subjoin a Discourse of his own of a Spiritual Life which little Book also contains an excellent Idea of the Divine Life in the Soul and particularly a Notion of Faith far above the Common and approaching as near as any I know to that of A. B. viz. that it is a kind of Sense and feeling Perswasion of Spiritual Things and has the same Place in the Divine Life that Sense hath in the Natural Now the Doctor professing a great Esteem for these Writings and acknowledging that they contain the Marrow and Substance of Christianity and the Writings of A. B. being the same in Substance and she requiring no Regard to be had to her accessory Sentiments but in so far as any should find them useful for increasing in them the Love of God some think it unaccountable why the Doctor should fall so foul upon her for her accessory Opinions and does not rather honour her for the sake of the main Truths and more favourably and candidly construct the others XV. There are Variety of Dishes in spiritual as well as in bodily Food and that may be very agreeable and healthful to one Palate which another cannot relish why should the Doctor then set up to be a Taster to all the World and because his nice and learned Palate cannot relish some course and homely tho' very substantial Fare should he therefore cry out There is Death in the Pot and frighten all others from tasting of it as far as his Testimony can have Influence We do not use to drive our Flocks from a good Pasture even tho' all the Herbs in it be not equall◠nourishing They who have a true Sense and Relish of Divine Things if they were reading the Writings of A. B. would be so affected with the Divine Truths contained therein as they would quite pass over the accessory Opinions they would run to the Pearls and gather the wholsom Food and apply themselves only to Things which direct them to the Love of God and the mortifying of their corrupt Natures The Doctor should have considered the Woe pronounced against all them by whom Offences do come and not rashly have laid a Stumbling-block before his Brethren and by his abusive and unlovely Characters endeavoured to raise Prejudices against and frighten many from A. B's Writings where they might have reaped so much Good and Profit and been brought to a true and lively Sense of Divine Things XVI The Doctor is unjust in his Title Page where he calls his Narratives The Delusions and Errours of A. B. and her Growing Sect. I know no such Sect in the World A. B. was grieved there were so many Sects already so far was she from designing to make a new one I know none who esteem her Writings that are form'd into any Sect. I know of no separate Meeting nor new Rites nor other Symbols that distinguish this Sect. There be Romanists Calvinists Lutherans there be of the Episcopal and Presbyterian Perswasions who esteem those Writings as they do other good Books yet they form no new Sect or Party there are none farther from the Spirit of a Sect than they unless this be called a new Sect to endeavour after the Spirit of the Primitive Church viz. an entire and brotherly Union in Divine Charity XVII He is neither kind nor just to his Country men in telling the World the Infection has seized many in Scotland and some of the better Sort who have been reputed Men of Sence Learning and Probity They might have read those Writings as they do other good Books without being branded for Hereticks and Sectarians he might have discovered what he thought to be Delusions or Errours without defaming his Country-men or bringing up an evil Report upon them his Books might have instructed and confuted them without pointing them out I am perswaded the Doctor would think it a crying Sin to proclaim those Persons to be Thieves Robbers and Murtherers tho' I think his saying so would do them no great Hurt and if he would consider things calmly he would find it no less and perhaps a greater injustice to tell the World they are become Hereticks Blasphemers Idolaters and new Sectarians and so thereby as far as in him lies to murther their Reputation make some to despise and abhor them and excite others to persecute them as Men unworthy to live But as a Conquerour he was resolv'd upon to a Triumph and to add to the Glory they must be led at his Chariot XVIII The Doctor has taken up two long Narratives in fighting with his own Shadow the first in proving that we ought not to believe the high Characters which M. de Cort M. Poiret and others give of the Person and Sentiments of A. B. upon their bare Word and the second that we are not to believe the Characters she gives of herself and her own Sentiments upon her own Testimony without sufficient Enquiry and Evidence And in both these I know none will contend with him In the First he would make Men believe that the great Business of her Friends is to recommend her
and not him but her the last and highest Expression of God's Love to Mankind And that all her Words and Writings are Sacred as Scripture it self and ought to have the same Authority For these and such like Expressions he should have given us his Vouchers for the Places cited by him import no such thing but we are hopeful no impartial Reader will believe the Doctor in these upon his own bare Credit and Authority after the Sample he has given of his way of writing Narratives 5. It is against natural Equity as well as Christian Charity to draw hateful Consequences from or put Sences upon the Sayings and Writings of others which may load them with Reproach and Hatred Which the Sayings do not necessarily infer but are capable of a more benign Interpretation which are against their known Principles and openly and sincerely disclaimed by them But such is the Doctor 's way The Persons whom he traduces having a deep Sence of the Divine Truths of God and of the Gospel of Jesus Christ contain'd in the Writings and shining forth in the Life and Spirit of A. B. were perswaded that all who would peruse them with sincerity and simplicity of Heart would find great Profit to their Souls and therefore they recommended them with much concern to others but were far from intending to affirm those things to which the Doctor perverts their Words or the odious Consequences which he widely draws from them As that A. B. is the greatest that ever was born of a Woman above all the ancient Patriarchs to be preferred to Moses and the Prophets to John the Baptist and the Apostles and at least ought to be honoured equally with Jesus Christ who is said to be God Blessed for ever that she was as much without Sin as he and her Body of a better Frame That it is a clear Consequence from what they say That she must either have always been personally united to the Deity and so to be esteemed God-Woman or else that her Body and humane Nature were not real but a meer Phantome by which God was pleased to declare his Will to Man That all her Words and Writings are of the same Authority with the Sacred Scriptures That there ought to be a Commemoration of her in the publick Liturgies as well as of our Lord Jesus Christ and instead of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ now we should say the God of A. B. and the Spirit that spoke by her The Persons cited by the Doctor do abhor such Consequences their Words compared with the rest of their Writings will not bear them And in the Sence he puts on them they disclaim them as none of theirs Every Body can best explain their own Sense and Meaning and what is apt to be misunderstood in one Place Equity requires that we interpret it by another where a Man does more distinctly express and explain his Mind in relation to that very thing The Doctor knows how M. Poiret vindicates himself in his Answer to M. Juricu's Critique of him M. Jurieu says he is offended that I have an Esteem for A. B. tho' I have less Attachment to her than he has to Calvin and many of his Hearers have to him I have never regarded through all but the Wisdom and Truth of God and it was always indifferent to me by what means God would make it known to me by a Man or a Woman by one Learned or Unlearned by a Catholick a Calvinist a Lutheran c. I will approach to it not because of the Organ that God makes use of but because of the Truth that he communicates thereby It would be ridiculous to insult over a Person of Sense who goes to a Fountain as if he went thither out of Love to the Wooden Pipe Yet as to me this is the admirable Procedure of M. Juriâ—u c. Thus M. Poiret clears himself in his Answer to M. Jurieu and if the Doctor will accept of it I shall give him his Vindication of himself in a Letter to a Friend upon Occasion of the Doctor 's First Narrative As saith he I never recommended Mrs. A. B. for any oâ—her Reason but because she proposes the Doctrine of Jesus Christ with all Clearness and Purity and draws Souls to none but to him so it is against Truth and Equity what the Narrator says of me in Opposition to St. Paul who desired to know nothing but Jesus Christ Crucified that I it seemed desired to know nothing but M. A. B. To recommend an INstrument that leads to none but Jesus Christ is that to recommend this Instrument in Opposition to Christ or to him who recommends none but Christ By this Reasoning neither Saint 〈◊〉 nor any other ought to be recommended Beâ—â—â— I have published many Books wherein I have not 〈…〉 one Word of her as usually I do not speak of 〈…〉 any unless they speak of her to me first and 〈…〉 I gave of her were extorted by the 〈…〉 Slanders and Persecutions of her Adversaries 〈…〉 was very far from exalting her above Jesus 〈…〉 as he would insinuate against the Truth but sincâ— I saw that good Souls might be deprived of that sâ—ving Profit which they would reap from her Writings if they were diverted from them by the Evil Impressions of Defamers I only aimed simply to bring them to an even Ballance by this Consideration that there are other Persons convinced that she M. A. B. was quite another Person than she is represented to have been by her Defamers who never conversed with her â—â—ver knew her and whose Character of her while they decry one who had no other Design but to recommend the Practice of the Doctrine of Jesus Christ is contrary to Righteousness and Charity Whereas the recommending of such Persons and the interpreting Candidly all they say is by St. Paul ascribed to Charity And as for any Personal Attachment to Mrs. A. B. I am so free from it as I have already publickly declared That if the Universal Defamation of her might serve to advance the Glory of God and the Salvation of Men I should be well pleas'd that she were calumniated every where without Reply Thus for M. Poiret XXI After the Doctor has patch'd up her Character and given his Comment upon it he is at great pains Artticle XII to prove that which no Body denies viz. That we ought not to receive A. B. as so highly dignified of God and her Scheme of Religion and System of Opinions as divine and absolutely necessary to be followed upon the bare Authority and Testimony of those Men whom he had formerly quoted For as to the embracing her System of Opinions as absolutely necessary they do not require any such thing A. B. her self does expresly declare That she does not require any to believe the Truths she writes because she says they are revealed to her by the Spirit of God but to examine if they be not the Truths
summumque odium testetur adversus me qui hominem incognitum resque ejus tetigi nunquam Quaestio mihi suit cum aliis circa rem quae ipsum non concernit Contendebant nonnulli licet veritates egregiae donaque non vulgaria in A. B. ejusque scriptis essent eam tamen non esse audiendam siquidem è Scripturis non pateat Deum velle homines per sominam docere provocabantque uti hoc ostenderetur provocatus qui alias tacuissem ostendere conatus sum Deum in Scripturis declarasse quod placeat ipsi in ultimis temporibus soemina aliqua sive foemineo sexu uti tanquam instrumento quo lumen Christi di inâ—sque veritates evangelii multis efficaciter communicet ad unam Dei gloriâ—m hominumque salutem atque hoc est meum illud crimen qâ—od omni haeresi ac insaniae anteponit ob quod ipsemet ad rabiem usque videtur in M. A. B. in me insanire Si mens ille Theologa esset aut Christiana diligeret me quamvis inimicum ex Christiana indole omnia in meliorem partem tentaret interpretari quae in bonum utcunque capi possunt licet incommode enunciata charitate sua tegeret si qui errores defectus non possâ—nt à charitate sua excusari misericordia moveret eum pro errante Deum deprecari ut per Gratiae lumen mihi subveniret tum homines caeteros ad eandem erga me charitatem commovere memor ipse propriae suae infirmitatis timensque ne si in eos qui opinione sua ceciderunt insolentius insurgat permittat Dominus superbae insolentiae osor eum profundius cadere quam ab ullo alio factum sit Verum nil simile in ejus scriptis in quibus è contra tantum demonstrat coram omnibus sibi animum essâ— malevolum de inventione mali gaudere quaerentem quaevis aliis bene dicta depravantem irrisorem bonorum adversarium ut omnes istis qualitatibus infecti sint efficere gestientem quod sane doleo licet non invito animo hanc amplector occasionem osorem ac inimicum mâ—um dilectione benedictione prosequendi rogans Deum ex animo ut ipsi sit propitius eum è malis suis eripiat donetque luminoso miti ac humili spiritu servatoris nostri cujus misericordia ego quoque summe indigeo A Second LETTER CONTAINING Some short REMARKS upon Bourignianism Detected Second Narrative and the Author's Letter to his Friend SIR I. THo' I am sensible that I have very good Reason to be diffident of my self and to entertain always a profound Sense of the weakness and fallibility of my Understanding and of my unfitness to pass a Judgment on the Performances of great and learned Men yet since you have put that Honour upon me as to desire once and again that I should give you my Sense of the Reverend Dr. Cockburn's 2d Narrative and the Letter annexed I might justly challenge my self Guilty of a piece of Rudeness if I deny'd your Request and therefore I resolv'd not to decline doing that which perhaps might afford you a little innocent Divertisement I have always I think own'd to you that I am an impartial Enquirer after Truth and I hope if my Heart deceive me not I shall through the Divine Grace be ready to embrace it and rejoice in it where-ever I find it And it is my humble Petition to the Father of Mercies the God of Light and Truth that he would never suffer me to espouse the Interests of any Persons or Parties any farther than they have Truth and Goodness on their side A general Verdict on the whole of the Doctor 's Performance might be dispatch'd in a few Lines but I suppose this would not be Satisfying and therefore I conclude that giving you my Thoughts together with the Reasons of them in some particular Instances will be more agreeable and more fully answer your Expectations II. The perusal of the Doctor 's Letter to his Friend gave me Ground to make the following Reflections which I shall impart to you with all the Succinctness that is possible for me and you may judge of the Justice and Reasonableness of them 1. Whatever Comments Enthusiasts may make on providential Events yet they whom the Doctor calls M. B's Admirers and Followers who do not pretend to be inspired Persons are not very forward to interpret the Language of these Dispensations However I find the Doctor himself notwithstanding the Censure he passes on the bold and temerarious Pretences of Enthusiasts to know the secret Reasons of providencial Occurrences scruples not to fall a guessing and even determining of the Intent and Meaning of that Dispensation which hath lately befallen himself He is very suspicious that A. B.'s Disciples may have entertain'd some secret Triumphs in their Bosoms on the Account of his being forced to retreat to Holland and is at some pains to abate the Joy of these imaginary Jo Poeans But for any thing I know he is out in his Conjecture and might have spared himself the Trouble of what he wrote on that head I very much doubt if our being put in more advantagious Circumstances for accomplishing the Designs that we are very 〈◊〉 and intent upon and which we may fancy to be very useful be a good Assurance to us of the Countenance and peculiar Interposal of Divine Providence in our Favours 2. The Doctor in these Passages where he tells us what are and what are not the Grounds of his appearing against A. B. hath several very pretty and just Reflections Such generals go well away with every Party It is the Justice of their Application that will be disputed Yet I question the Truth of some of his general Maxims such as for Instance that true Piety like Gold is current every where and at all times I am sure it was not so in the Days of our Saviour and his Apostles The great thing that hath engaged his Zeal in this Attack is his supposed Discovery of Errors Heresies and Delusions The mutual Charge of pernicious Doctrines is what hath set the several Sects by the Ears The Doctor indeed advances his Charge against A. B. to a very great height affirming that the whole Scheme of her Principles hath a Tendency contrary to the Christian Constitution This Assertion I know will oblige some to tell him that it would seem he had not yet well digested his Thoughts on that Matter However if he solidly evince this he will do a great Kindness to many who for the Present think that they are not wholly ignorant of the Designs and Tendency of the Christian Constitution In the mean time the Doctor modestly acknowledges that he is not infallible 3. In the preceding Narrative the Doctor had asserted that neither the Virgin nor any other Saint was so much honoured by the Roman Church as A. B. is by her Followers Now I presume
they will not be reduced from their supposed Errors by Noise and Banter All to the best of my Understanding that A. B. pretends to is only to be an Instrument in Christ's Hands and that no otherwise than by publishing these Truths that he by his Spirit communicated to her and which his Power and Grace alone was afterwards to make effectual Now let it be supposed but not granted that it was so What Disparagement is it to our Redeemer to make use of a poor contemptible Creature in order to accomplish great Designs Was it any Dishonour to him that his Apostles in his Name and Power converted more to the Christian Religion and wrought more Miracles than he did himself when he dwelt in mortal Flesh V. Perhaps it may be thought I am byassed in Favours of A. B. and therefore not so capable to discern that Latet Anguis in Herba I am sure if I am so my Prejudices are of no old Date they are not yet so rooted but sober and just Reasonings might discuss them and reclaim me from my Mistakes neither I think can it be said that they have been fortified from any prospect of Reputation or worldly Interest But whatever my Prejudices may be I can sincerely declare that what determined me to have an Esteem for this Person 's Writings was a Conviction that they not only recommended the great and essential Duties of the Gospel distinguished them from the Accessories discovered the Mischief of Sects and Parties and the Vanity of laying Stress on nice and airy Speculations but also because they suggested solid Principles which might serve as an Antidote against the Infusions of Atheists and Deists Pelagians and Socinians Antinomians and Fatalists and false Pretences to Inspiration And tho' I met with some things in them that seem'd a little odd and startling yet I choosed rather to suspend my Judgment since even her self does not impose them on any than forego what appear'd to me so very solid and useful Some LETTERS OF M. ANT. BOVRIGNON Whereby her True Christian Spirit and Sentiments are farther justified and vindicated particularly as to the Doctrine of the Merits and Satisfaction of Jesus Christ as is to be seen in the Third and Fourth Letters All of them are most worthy to be perused by those who sincerely love and impartially seek after the Truth and the Salvation of their Souls LETTER I. Concerning the Love of God Written to a Pastor at Mechlin and is the 15th of La lum nec en tenebr Part I. SIR I. I Know not how one of sound Judgment can love any other thing but God seeing there is no created thing that is worthy of our Love as he is being the Fountain of all Good Wisdom the Giver of all Wisdom the Beauty that creates all Beauty the Righteousness of the Righteous the Goodness of all Goodness the Accomplishment of all Perfections in short the only Object worthy of our Love without whom nothing is Lovely neither in Heaven nor in Earth Nothing without him can satisfie our Soul nothing can content it nothing can give it Perfect Pleasure nothing can make it happy neither now nor hereafter It is he who created us it is he who preserves us it is he who will judge us If Good of its own Nature is always Lovely why then does not the Soul employ all its Powers to love the Original the Perfection and the Consummation of all Good which is God II. If Likeness beget Love how can your Soul which was made after the Similitude of God live without loving him What other Lovely Object can it find without God whom only it resembles What Original or Pattern is there among all perishing Things to this Divine and Immortal Soul which cannot find its like but in God himself III. If Benefits do oblige even Nature it self to love its Benefactors how ought the Soul to love its God when he has given it all that it posseseth and has promised infinite and eternal Goods beyond Comparison in the Life to come He has given the Soul which he created of nothing He not only made it after the Similitude of the Angels of Heaven but after the likeness of God himself so that all Souls are by Creation made little Gods Could this God of Love give unto Man greater Goods and Gifts to make himself be loved by him than this Divine Creation of his Soul Immortal as himself The Body which he formed to be the Keeper and Sheath of this Soul could it have more Perfections Is there any thing in Nature more Admirable than the Body of Man animated with all the Powers of the Soul with an Understanding to conceive with a Memory to remember with a Will to act so that the very Body is in some manner an Image or Resemblance of the HOLY TRINITY IV. Could God give unto Man more and greater Gifts than he has done to oblige him to love him For after having given him a Being and Life he upholds and maintains it with all necessary things which he has likewise created for the Entertainment of this Man to whom he has subjected so many Creatures under his Power having made him Superiour over all the living Creatures and given him Authority as the Master-piece of the Works of God the Earth for his Foot-stool the Air to breath in the Fire to warm him the Water to refresh him the Fruits to nourish him the Flowers to recreate him in short all the visible and material things that God created were only for the Body of Man What must he have laid up for his Soul which is beyond all Comparison more valuable as being Divine created after the Image of God If he has made so many admirable Things for the entertainment of the Body which must die and remain for so short a time upon Earth Should not all those Gifts all those Benefits oblige Man to love such a Benefactor Seeing he has not received and can never receive any true Good without this Giver of all Good V. How can he be without loving him when he considers his Love which was not satisfied with having freely imparted unto us so many Gifts but after that this ungrateful Man had abused so many favours by turning away from his Creator to join himself to the Creature valuing the Gifts more than the Giver presuming to merit yet more he rebels against his Orders will needs out of Ambition of Spirit know more than it pleas'd his Creator and breaks his Commandment that he might equal himself unto him This God of Love who in a Moment could have punished all these Ingratitudes by an eternal Damnation unto which he had banish'd the fallen Angels lov'd Man more than the Angels and having more regard to the Love he bear him than to his Disobedience he pardons his Sin and forgives his Fault upon Condition of a temporal Penitence VI. This Testimony of Affection from a God towards his Creature
crudiamur S. Aug. de Vera Relig c. 15. IX Of a State of Purification after this Life L'Eroile du Matin Let. 25 26. Le Temoign de Verite p 1. n. 53 66. Gul. Forbesii Considerationes modestae purificae p. 266 267 X. Of Predestination Tomb. de la fauss Theol. Part 2. Let. 3. L'Acad des scav Theoi p. 1. ch 1. Le Nouv. Ciel p. 25 c. Le Temoign de Verite Part 1. n. 22 56 67 109. Light of the world Part 3. Conf. 22. XI Of Free-will Academ de Scav. Theol. p. 1. ch 1 2. Light of the World Part 3. Conf. 2 21 22. Le Nouv. Ciel p. 67. Renouv. de l'Espr Evang avantprop n. 11. 18 24 25 31. * Vides quantum boni desit Corpori cui desunt Manus tamen Manibus male utitur qui eis operatur vel saeva vel turpia Sine Pedibus aliquem si aspiceres fatereris de esse Integritati Corporis plurimum bonum tamen eum qui ad nocendam cuipiam vel seipsum dehonestandum Pedibus uteretur male uti Pedibus non negares Oculis hanc Lucem videmus Formasque internoscimus Corporum Oculis tamen plerique pleraque agunt turpiter eos militare cogunt Libidini Et vides quantum bonum desit in facie si Oculi desint Cum autem adsunt quis hos dedit nisi bonorum omnium Largitor Deus Quemadmodum ergo ista probas in Corpore non intuens eos qui male his utuntur laudas illum qui haec dedit bona Sic liberam voluntatem sine qua nemo potest recte vivere opportet bonum esse Divinitùs datum potius eos damnandos qui hoc bono male utuntur quam cum qui dederit dare non debuisse fatearis Cum in Corpore ergo Oculum concedas esse aliquod bonum quo amisso tamen ad recte vivendum non impeditur Voluntas libera tibi videtur nullum bonum sine qua recte Nemo vivit Non enim quicquam tam firme atque intime sentio quam me habere Voluntatem eaque me moveri ad aliquâ—d fruendum Quid autem meum dicam prorsus non invenio si Voluntas qua volo nolo non est mea quapropter cui tribuendum est siquid per illam Male facio nisi mihi Cum enim bonus Deus me fecerit nec bene aliquid faciam nisi per Voluntatem ad hoc potius datam esse a bono Deo satis apparet Motus autem quo huc atque illuc convertitur nisi esset voluntarius atque in nostra potius Potestate neque laudandus cum ad Superiora neque culpandus Homo esset cum ad inferiora detorquet quasi quendam cardinem Voluntatis Neque omnino monendus esset ut istis neglectis aeterna vellet adipisci atque ut male nollet vivere vellet autem bene Hoc autem monendum non esse Hominem quisquis existimat de Hominum numero exterminandus est S. August de Libero arbitr Lib. 2. c. 18. †Ibid. Lib. 3. c. 1. XII Of Grace Acad. de 〈◊〉 Theolâ—g p. 1. c. 1. Renouv. de l' Espr Ev. Pref. n. 22. Academ Theol. p. 1. c. 1. Light of the World part 1. Cons 8. Acad. de Theol. p. 1. c. 1 2. XIII Of the Divine Prescience L' Etoile du Matin p. 157 Divine Dialogues Part 1. p. 80 81 c. XIV Of the Possibility of keeping the Commands of God and of Perfection Renouv. de l' Esp Evang. avant prop. p. 18 19. Renoâ—v de l' Espr Ev. part 2. p. 66 67 68. Aveagiement des Hommes p. 60. The Summ of her Sentimentâ— as to the Commands of God Dr Henry More s divine Dialogues Dial. 5. â— p. 117. â— p. 422. a Rom. 5. 5. b Rom. 13. 10. c 1 Joh. 5 3 4. d 1 Joh. 3. 9. c. * Serm. 291. de temp * Luk. 1. 5 6. M. Poiret Oeconomie divine Tom. 6. p. 467 468 469 c. XV. Of Impeccability not to be attained in this Life Tomb. de f. Th. part 2. p. 115 116 c. XVI Of the Inferiour Will of Jesus Christ enclin'd to please it self Solid Vertue Part 2. Lett. 6. Acces Lett. The reasonableness of her Sentiment in this Heb. 4. 15. XVII Of the State of Infants L'Etoile du Matin p. 159 16â— c. The reasonableness of this Sentiment L'Oecon Divine Part 3. p. 299 300 c. XVIII Of Reason La Sainte Visiere Tomb. de la â—ausse Theol. Part 1 Let. 12. Appel de Dieu Part 2. p. 58 59. The Nature and Order of the Faculties of Man M. Poiret De Erud Solid supersic falsa XIX Of forming a new Sect. Le Temoign de Verite part 2. p. 45 46. XX. That she despised not Sermons Sacraments Pastours Le Temoign de Verite part 2. p. 199 200 c. Le Temoign de Verite Part 2. p. 74 75. XXI Nor rejected the Holy Scriptures Tomb. de la fausse Theol. part 2 p. 78 Light of the world part 1. p. 101. Lum nec en tenebr P. 2. p. 81. Tomb. de la fausse Theol. Part 1. p. 17 18. * Homâ— itaque flde spe Charitate Subnixuâ— eaque inconcusse retinens non indiget Scripturis nisi ad alios Instruendos itaque multi per hac tria in Solitudine sine Codicibus Vivunt unde in illis arbitror jam completum esse quod dictum est sive Prophetiae evacuabuntur sive Longuae cossabunt sive scientia destruetur c. Aug. de Doctr. Chr. Lib. 1. Cap. 36. XXII That there are no True Christians c. Tomb. de la fauss Theol. Part 2. p. 155. Psal 14. 2 3. That God would make her and her Writings the Mean of renewing the Spirit of the Gospel Tomb. de fauss Theol. Part 2. p 161 162. Temoign de verite Part 2. p. 43 44 61 62. 1 Cor. 1. 27 28. 1 Tim. 2. 11 12. 1 Cor. 14. 34 35. Preface Apologâ—t p. 21 2â— 23. XXIII The Accusation of Pride 1. That she exaâ—ted her self above Prophets Apostles Pierre de Touch. p. 257. Ibid. p. 209. 2. That she understood the Holy Scriptures without having read them c. Light of the World Part 1. p. 136 137. 3. That she calls herself a Mother of true Believers Tomb. de f. Theol. Part 2. P. 41 42 43. Ibid. p. 58. 4. That she extols her self as a Pattern Joh. 8. 52 53. Psal 119. 99 100. XXIV O her affixing Doctrines on others which they deny Joh. 7. 20. Ezek. 9. 9. Is 22. 13 28. 15. Mal. 3. 14. Vide pref apolog Le Temoign de Verite Part 1. p. 90. XXV Of wrong Explications of the Holy Scriptures Aug. de Doct. Chr. Lib. 3. c. 27 M. Weyeri Effata Eff. 1. Aug. de Doct Chr. L 1. c 39. Light of the world Conf. 28. XXVI Of Tautologies and Repetitions Sâ—e the Truth of Christian Religion By Abad P. 1. S.
3. c. 2. and 5. Oeconomie Divine p. 5. Preface XXVII Of her making a Mahumetan Paradise Matt. 2â— 30. XXVIII The Conclusion I. Pretence to Divine Inspiration a great Prejudice in this Age. II. For different Reasons 1. Some disbelieve all Revelation 2. Others Any since Christ and his Apostles 3. Both confirm'd from false Pretences to Divine Iâ—spiration III. No great Hopes of convincing the first tho' enough to awaken their Consideration if truly Rational The second cannot think it impossible or improbable IV. God created Man to communicate himself to him and the things of God cannot be understood but by the Spirit of God St. Chrys in Prefat ad Homil. in Matt. * Aug. de Doct. Chr. Lib. 1. c. 10. 11. a John 1. 1 4 5 9 14. b John 14 21 22 23. c 1 Cor. 2. 14. d Rom. 8. 9 14. V. Of which they whom he employs to save others must have a sutable Measure VI. He us'd to send such when Priest and People were corrupted VII Who had no outward Qualities to recommend them 1 Kings 19 19. 2 Kings 7. 1 2. Jer. 29. 26 27. Amos 7. 14. Matt. 11. 18. Joh 8. 48. VIII They despis'd not the Word and Ordinances of God but declar'd Peoples Abuse of them IX The Devil rais'd up false Prophets to oppose and discredie them X. It is neither impossible nor improbable that the Spirit of God should immediately enlighten Souls now as well as before the Coming of Jesus Christ XI There are strong Presumptions that he will do it a Joel 2. 28. b Act. 2. 16 17. c Act 2. 38 39. Jer. 31. 33 34. Isa 11. 9. XII There have been some such in all Ages XIII The present and future State of the World calls for it Is 11. 4 5 c. c. 12. 2 3 c. c. 60. 1 2 19. 21 22 c. c. 11. 9 11. c. 30. 26. c. 44. 3. Jer. 31. 31 33 34. Ezek. 36. 25 26 27. c. 39. 29. c. 47. 1 12. Zech. 12. 8. Matth. 11. 11. Rev. 11. 8 15. c. 21. 2 3 4 6 12 14 15 16 17. XIV Characters of the Spirit of Elias to come Dr. H. M. Divine Dialog Dial. 5. p. 355 359 a Mal. 3. 1 2. 3. b Is 40. 3 4. 5. c Mal. 4. 5. Rev. 16. 16. Matth. 17. 10 11. d Kings 18. 8 9 c. Matth. 3. 3 c. XV. We ought not to reject all Pretensions to Divine Revelation nor blindly to receive any but to try them XVI The Pretensions of A. B. deserve this Enquiry XVII A Summ of the Evidences she brings of being led by the Spirit of God Lum nee en tenebr Part 1. p. 2 3. Tomb. de la fauss Theol. Part 1. p. 77 78. Ibid. p. 76. 〈◊〉 Acad deâ— scav Part 2. p. 3. Ibid. p. 13. Ibid. p â—â— Ibid. p. 21. XXVIII M. Pascal's distinguishing Mark of the Divine Authority of the Christian Religion XIX The Prejudices against her being led by the Spirit of God proposed and cleared by her self 1. The want of Miracles answered Tomb. de la fausse Theol. Part 1. p. 11. Ibid. p. 13. 1 Cor. 13. 1 2. Ibid. p. 26 Ibid. p. 27. XX. 2. That all might have been from the Devil or her own Imagination answered La Lum nee en tenebr Part 1. Let. 1 Ibid. p. 8. Ibid. p. 53. â—cad de Sâ—av Theol. Part 2. p. 22 29. Pierre de Touch. p. 293. p. 295. Tomb. de la fausse Theol. Part 3. p. 49. Pierre de Touch. p. 299 300. Tomb. de la fausse Theol. Part 4. p. 57. Part 1. p. 69 70. Lum nee en tenebr Part 3. p. 184. XXI 3. That all might be the Effect of a great Natural Judgment answered Tomb de la fausse Theol. Part 2. p. 124 c. XXII 4. That she ascribed all her Mistakes to the Spirit of God answered La vie Continue p. 271. Iâ— Aveugâ—ement des Hom Part 2. p. 172. c. Acts 12. 12 13. c. XXIII 5. That she contradicted the holy Scriptures and her self answered Avertis contr le Trembl p. 8. Avis salut p. 84 85. c. XXIV 6 That the Predictions set down in her Writings did not come to pass answered Joh. a Cruce Ascensus Montis Carmeli Lib. 2. Cap. 19. 20. 2 Cor. 3. 6. Jer. 4. 10. Luke 24. 21. Acts 1. 6. John 11. 60. 1 Cor. 2. 14. Joh. 12. 16 1 Sam. 20. 38. Jer. 26. 6 7 8. Jon. 4. 2. Avertis contr le Trembl n. 96. XXV That she was imposed upon by Impostors is no Argument that she had not the Spirit of God a Acts 13. 20. 28. b Phil. 2. 27. Tit. 4. 20. 1. Tim. 5. 23. c Psa 55. 14 15. Jer. 11. 19. 1 Kings 13. 2 Tim. 4. XXVI The whole Evidence summ'd up XXVII What Weight the Testimony of others may have XXVIII The Importance of the Matter in those Writings XXIX That the accessory things need deter none Phil. 3. 15 16. I. What Holiness is Col. 3. 1. 1 Joh. 2. 15. II. To be discern'd by Divine Light only III. Illustrated by the material Light IV. Two sorts of spiritually Blind The 1. capable of seeing the 2. not V. Five Testimonies of Holiness in any VI. All these as to A. B. VII 1. Her verbal Testimony of her self valid and no sign of Pride VIII The Testimony of her Actions IX 2. The Testimony of others X. Her Solitude XI Her Selfâ—enial XII Her firm perseverance to Death XIII The purity of her Virgin State XIV Of Faith Hope and Charity Heb. 11. 1. XV. That these did live and operate in her XVI 3. The contraâ—y to those Evidences not made appear XVII 4. The Testimony of the Conscience of others XVIII The wonderful Works she did and the Divine Light given her XIX The Second Question answered by answering the First XX. Natural Gifts cannot make Happy without a continual Dependance upon God XXI How it appâ—ars the Holy Scriptures were endited by the Holy Spirit XXII That the Writings of A. B. were endâ—ted by the Holy Spirit XXIII They are consonant to the Holy Scriptures and a Key to them XXIV The Conclusion I. A. B. her Birth and Parentage II. Her Mothers Aversion to her and why III. The serious Thoughts of â—er Childhood IV. Her early Conversation with God V. She turns towards the World VI. God witâ— draws from her VII New Motions from God and her Combats thereupon VIII The thoughts of Death fix'd upon her Spirit IX Her Conversion and Peniâ—ence X. Instructions from God XI She would go into a Monastery XII God's Call XIII She leaves her Father's Hâ—use XIV Is discovered and delivered XV. The Pastor of Blatton's Esteem of her XVI His Life XVII Her Consolations when shut-up in the Church of Blatton XVIII The Archbishop of Cambray comes to see her XIX She returns home with her Parents XX. Her Confessor XXI The Reason of God's choice of her XXII She â—eaves again her Father's House XXIII Her