for Righteousness sake And by consequence the Doctrine of the learned now adays is altogether Antichristian that is to say contrary to that of Jesus Christ Not that their words are dissonant for they read the same Gospel which Jesus Christ and his Apostles taught but they gloss and explain so the words of the Gospel that they bring forth a quite perverse sence Notwithstanding they live in quiet though all their actions manners and desires be quite contrary to the Gospel Doctrine For every one now idolizes his own proper will And Jesus Christ said That we must renounce it Methinks all Christendom is become at present the people of Ephesus which adored the great Diana with this difference that Christians now adays adore the Corruption of the flesh whereas those adored a Statue of gold or Silver For we see these learned strive who can best find out subtil Inventions by which they may flatter men in their sins or perswade them that they may well follow the motions of their corrupt nature and withall attain to Salvation So that every one follows that Doctrine without perceiving that it is evil That is the reason why every one adores that Diana of corrupt nature as a Goddess And so they bestow all their time and goods to nourish honour and satisfie corrupted nature And more they think there is no evil in so doing while the ministers and learned do the same and promise Salvation to the people that live in that Idolatry But they ought to teach in effect the mortification of their senses the corruption of their natures how much it is ruined by sin and finally the necessity of denying our selves to be saved as Jesus Christ taught by word and works But these savage Pastors will not teach so unto their flocks and will yet less put it in practice themselves Yea nor will not suffer another to teach these Christian Truths It is for that they pursue me every where and would gladly exterminate me because I have written of true Virtue The same befel St. Paul by them of Ephesus who would exterminate him when he taught the truth Saying one to another That they should lose their gain if they suffered Paul to continue preaching Jesus Christ That he would ruin the worship of the great Diana and cause that the Goldsmiths should gain no more in the Workmanship of the Image of Diana It goes just so with these learned ones who are as the masters of the great Diana of corrupt nature which every one adores for his own particular But the Learned are the Masters to gain Money by the worship and adoration of corrupt nature So they speak and teach the people such things as please their corruption and endeavour to please men that they may receive advantages of them which they will not lose When then I begin to speak of true Virtue they are all allarmed against me as they of Ephesus were against St. Paul But these learned take also the Judges to their assistance and persecute me that I should be banisht or be discharged to write or speak of true Virtue Some wish me dead others burnt others that I were thrown in the midst of the Sea that I might speak no more of solid Virtue and so their gain and trade be not diminisht and their shops become unfrequented that is that they sell no more their frivolous Discourses to please men It is that which at last allarm'd them so at Flensburg whither I had gone about some business for the Ministers no sooner had any suspicion that I was in their Town but they preached in divers Churches that I am an arrant and pernicious person that I have a devilish Doctrine and finally no person should lodge me So that I behoved to come out secretly lest I should be massacreed by the Rable and Children whom the preachings of the Ministers had animated against me For they had spoken of me with great spite and horrours proclaming publickly that my Doctrine is worse than that of the Jews Adding beside that my doctrine is a mass of all the old Heresies that ever were in the world Yet I will not teach any thing by my Writings or Discourse but what Jesus Christ taught And if there is any thing contrary to that in them I detest and revoke it as I have often offered to revoke all that they would shew me to be contrary to the holy Scripture But it is not for Errors they persecute me or any evil in my Writings seeing they can shew me nothing such therein They persecute me then because I declare truely what is true Virtue and how a true Christian should live to be a Disciple of Jesus Christ I know well they mask these things saying that there are Errors in my Writings But no person shews me these errors They know not what to say to contemn the truths which I maintain For the Learned said first that I bring nothing of new and that they taught and preached tho same things twenty years agot But when they saw in the Book entituled The testimony of the Truth particulars and truths more clear in divine Mysteries than those they learnt in the Schools they say presently that they are Errors and that never any person wrote such things So that it behoved that God should regulate all according to their studies And should not give any new Graces to men now adays But that he should measure his Light by the rule of their scholastique doctrine and should not send the Holy spirit promised by Jesus Christ who shall teach all Truths Men then resist that Holy spirit and will not hear of other Truths but those they have learnt in the Schools It is every lamentable to see men such enemies of their eternal Happiness in rejecting the Light of the Truth which comes in this last time as the Prophets of God have fore-told That he will pour out his Spirit on all flesh and that your Sons and Daughters shall prophecy and the Old Men see Visions Now because I repeat the same things with many others from God they would kill me as was done to the ancient Prophets they think to hinder by that that true Virtue should be known and far more practised But though they should kill me the Spirit of God shall not die for that And rhe Truth shall always be true For if I should not speak it the Dead would speak or the Stones to declare it unto men And tho these Ministers put me to death God hath yet more than a hunderd millions of persons whom he can use to declare the same Truths which I advance And therefore my Son I exhort you to retain them well and put them in practice for though I were not in the world you must nevertheless save your own soul cost what it will if you will enjoy God to all eternity Which she wishes you with all her heart who loves your Happiness Husum Febr. 5. 1684. St. vet ANTONIA BOURIGNON The
illustrare adultisque ad subtilia ineptis persuadere valeat Cujus exemplum paucis ab hinc annis nobis tulit Flandria in virguncula infante septimum aetatis annum nondum egressa quae cum vitam hanc spatio brevem curriculo miseram satis cerneret mortales tantopere ea capi obstupuit cum Jesum Christum vitam immortalem suis acquisivisse audivisset enixe continuo parentes rogavit ut se in Christianorum regiones ducerent cum autem ipsi Christum in Flandria coli responderent hoc incredibile exclamavit Christum enim paupertatem laudasse illis autem nummos numen esse illum dignitates sprevisse illos autem has ambire flendo arguebat et Quis talia fando Temperet a lachrymis That is Such is the efficacy of this reasoning that it is able to illuminate infants in the dawning of their age and to perswade aged people that are not apt or disposed for subtil thoughts whereof Flanders hath a few years ago furnished us an example in an infant Girle not past the seventh year of her age who when she perceived well this life to be of a short continuance and miserable course was astonisht that mortals were so much taken with it and having heard that Jesus Christ had purchased Eternal Life for his Followers she earnestly and continually asked her Parents that they would take her into the country of the Christians and when they answered that Christ was worshipped in Flanders she rejected that as incredible and argued with tears Christ commanded Poverty but they loved money as their God he despised Honours but they coveted them and who could relate or speak of these things without weeping I add one A. de H. which may be something of a Directory to those in the like case with the Writer a renowned Phisitian in the Town of Middleburg in Zealand whose former Writings communicated to the world give testimony how just and penetrating his spirit is when he had well begun to make the matter in question the object of its consideration gives his rawest thoughts in a plain familiar Letter to Mr. P. thus Reverend SIR AFter by your counsel and recommendation I began to read Mrs. Antonia Bourignons Writings I felt as it were a fighting against them and they seemed to me not to deserve so much praise yet considering that your esteem must depend on a well-grounded knowledge because you knew the Gentle-woman you conversed with her and have accurately examined her writings Hence I began to read more attentively whence immediatly a sublim wisdom laying open man's interiour displayed it self The numerous difficulties that occurred in the beginning do evanish as my reading is with more attention Yet I cannot as yet assent unto all perhaps because I have read only few of them and have put fewer of them into practise without which these vritings seem not understandable as also the intelligence of Holy Scripture is promised only to them who obey the will of God That seems to me the greatest difficulty that practice may keep pace with knowledge which to overcome we must seek strength from the Father of Lights which is seldom done according to his will Our corrupt Nature lays many obstacles in the way and the seducing world strengthens it especially in the Art to which I have perhaps without God's conduct addicted my self in which a thousand distractions do dayly occur an Act so uncertain and so filled with Deceipts that I doubt if it may be exercised with a safe Conscience before I would demonstrate and amend its Errors but I know not the source of Errours Sin And in vain is the redress of Evil sought from him who is in Evil. I readily assent to Mrs. Antonia Bourignon that Christians must live otherwise than men do now adays Thoughts of this sort Sir have exercised me since I read your Divine Oeconomie and Mrs. Bourignons Writings and had given me occasion to speak with you if my intended Journey into Holland had succeeded but that being hitherto hindered I would give you these lines to the end you may give me counsel to the reading of these Writings with the greatest fruit and to overcome the corruption of my nature I willingly grant there are so many wholsome Counsels in them that it may seem superfluous to desire more If you think so I am content and recommending my self to your Prayers that God would perfect the work he has begun in me I shall remain Reverend SIR Yours in Christ A. de H His succeeding Letters so much breathed out conviction of Sin Righteousness and Judgment as might stumble worldling hearts But why it were a work beyond a Volum to alledge all that might be adduced of the mighty power and efficacy of her Writings in allarming the Consciences enlightening the Minds and inflaming the Desires to the overturning of the Works of Darkness and contempt of all worldly things to seek only eternal ones and all such as it were to attribute robbery to another power than that of the adorable Majesty of our God and that in all ranks and sorts of persons of different Countries Professions Capacities and Tempers and of all Religions and Sects and generally all that seek God in Truth and sincerity in whatever circumstances have to the measure of that Truth and Sincerity joyned hands embraced approved and acquiesced in the substantial essence of the words and way of Eternal Life here every where and only recommended many of which have been and are impartially speaking the most sound and profound Spirits of the age at least in the European World and as far as the Latin Tongue serves to propagate the communication of Thoughts and that as well in the general quality of a solid judgment and penetrating spirit as in the specification by determining the same to particulars Subjects and Studies whether Theologie or Law or Phisick or Philosophy in all of which some sufficiently attested to the literate World capable of its greatest attempts yet in them God hath reserved that Candour that they would not be disobedient to the heavenly Call but counted all loss and dung for the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ though alas the number of such is lamentably small in all sorts In fine Let whosoever is weary and heaven loaden come resolutely absolutely and constantly hither and he shall assuredly by divine assistance find rest to his Soul and the peace which the world cannot give nor take away even amidst all outward Adversities yea and inward tentations beyond the reach of all the Rhetorique in the world yea and all the force and cunning of Earth and Hell to unstable the Foundation either means or end if he continue faithful under Christs Yoak To pass further to a Brief touch of a few of the many Memorable things in her Life from her own Manuscripts and from the faithful and judicious record of her Life continued ANtonia Bourignon was born in the City of Lisle in Flanders on the
they would willingly be great and rich that they may have Means to please their Senses and these Pleasures ruin Soul and Body For since Nature was corrupted by sin all the senses of man are become brutish and insolent and know no more what is good or evil for them intemperate without order or measure and therefore the Scripture says that the Eye is never satisfied with seeing nor the Ear with hearing to show how our senses are disordered and insatiable the more the eye sees the more it would see and so the ear hear and they are never satisfied It is the same with the Feeling Smelling and Taste the other three senses For whenever a man gives himself to satisfie his senses he is never fully satisfied nor content For in every place he may find something that smells unpleasantly and though he carry about Musk and Civet that will not hinder that he breath not in the bad Exhalations and Vapours of the Air caused by the corruption and filth of the bodies of Men and Beasts although he had but the stink of his own body since all that proceeds out of it is nasty and putrid which cannot satisfie his smell which desires always good smells and agreeable and in loving that we can never be content nor satisfied And yet less can we satisfie the sense of feeling it being insatiable They would have fine Linnen Silks soft Beds smooth Coverings and other things agreeable to the touch which is not content with things that are sufficient But the sense of Taste exceeds all the others in disorder and intemperance For he that will satisfie his taste and delicacy renders himself miserable and in continual dissatisfaction For when he hath one food that is good he desires another as better the Wine is too sharp or stale for him the Beer is too sweet for his delicate taste he longs always for what he hath not and what he cannot get so insolent are mans natural senses that they often tyrannize over the spirit with a thousand tortures of Desires Intemperances Lusts Excess and Gluttony which bring Diseases Poverty and Death And yet they call him happy who hath the means to satisfie his senses without discovering that they are corrupted by sin and therefore they beget all sorts of Evils which she prays you to discover who wisheth your good Holstein near Gottorp Castle 15. Febr. 1672. St. vet ANTONIA BOURIGNON THE VI LETTER Humility is attained by Knowing our selves To the same who is admonished to learn Humility by knowing the truth of our Corruption and Sin which is the disorder of our natural senses My Dear Child I Cannot entertain you too much of the Corruption of man and the Miseries to which he is subject during this miserable life to prevent your ever placing your affections on it but that you may learn the Humility of Heart which Jesus Christ teaches which will follow upon the knowledge of your self but you shall never attain it unless you examin in retail the miseries and infirmities of your body and spirit since it is that knowledge which should teach you the Humility of Heart which Jesus Christ requires For if you remain in the general ignorance of men you shall never attain to it you will always think you deserve Honour and Esteem seeing others like your self honoured and esteemed and that they also take their pleasures and sensualities more than you do But trust me my Dear Child that conduct proceeds from the blindness of their minds and from the profound darkness in which they are without perceiving it and they blind one another still more by their practice for one thinks he is as good as the other and that he may do what another doth and so one follows another blindfoldly and thinks he doth but what is suitable for an honest man to do But however great the number of blind are that will not help you in particular and that broad way will always lead to perdition tho many tread it The great number of miserables will not lessen your condemnation on the contrary it will augment your pains and miseries far from any ways mitigating them Therefore is it that you must not regard if others be blind and know not themselves esteeming themselves and following their sensualities for you shall not give an accompt for them There shall only your own works follow you at Death and according to them shall you be judged God affords you now the occasion of Discovering the truth of all things beware of neglecting it but bless the Lord for it is a great mercy he shows you beyond so many thousands of persons who perish for want of knowing themselves and for having never discovered the truth of things as they are before God They amuse themselves to look one to another without penetrating into the state of man and what he is whence he is and whither he tends though it is a thing of so great import on which our eternal salvation depends Therefore I exhort you to lay to heart the knowledge of your self seeing that must rule all your actions and make you become humble of heart as Jesus Christ teaches us to be The truth of all things should deliver you from all evil that is also the mistress of virtues for if you possess the Truth of God that shall teach you all virtues and deliver you from all vice for the cause why man is vicious and not virtuous is because he knows not the truth of things and takes the Shadow for the Body the Bark for the Wood and so goes from evil to worse For if he knew truly what sin is and what virtue he would deliver himself from the one to attain the other since he would see clearly that sin is a meer Tyrant which tortures Soul and Body and that virtue is beautiful good sweet and pleasant And so he could not retain himself from hating sin and loving virtue seeing that is good and equitable but for lack of knowledge of things they love what they should hate and hate what is lovely and to show you what sin is know that in it self it is nothing but a disorder of corrupted nature For when God created man he was well ordered temperate and regular in all his natural functions and he might enjoy the pleasure of all his senses without doing evil because all that God made was good and he created beautiful things to please his sight and all the melodies of Beasts Men and all melodious things to afford pleasure to the hearing and all Flowers and pleasant smells for his smelling and all smooth and agreeable things for his feeling and all good and savory things to afford pleasure to his Taste so that he could allowably enjoy the Pleasures of all his five natural senses because all the other Creatures were created for the pleasure and recreation of Man who was so perfect that he used all these things only for his recreation with just order weight and measure
encline to and you shall follow assuredly the Spirit of God So shall you carry the victory over that evil spirit who troubles you now Ply and submit your understanding under the Holy Spirit and never believe your self wiser than him in any thing For men are now abandoned to the spirit of error and their best Sciences are but Ignorance their Wisdom Folly And although you think sometimes to have reason to contradict me do it not And after you shall see that your reason cannot be better than mine which you may experiment while I remain Your well-affected in Jesus Christ ANTONIA BOURIGNON Holstein near Gottorp Castle May. 19. 1672 St. vet THE XX. LETTER Spiritual Diligence is necessary to Salvation To the same to whom is shewn a Fourteenth snare of the Devil more pernicious than the rest viz. Spiritual Negligence He is moved to Spiritual Diligence by consideration of the diligence usually bestowed on temporal things which the Children of this World administer with more Care and Prudence than the Children of Light do Spiritual Things My Son I Perceive it appears some what difficult to you to watch continually so narrowly over all your Words and Actions But believe me if you do it not the Devil will assuredly surprise you in every thing And you shall obey him without knowing it For he is a most cunning spirit who watches always without rest And therefore it is necessary despising all difficulties to resolve absolutely for the combat if you will obtain salvation and tend to true Virtue For without fighting there is no Victory and except you apply your spirit to watch diligently over all your actions and words you shall fall into all sorts of evil And therefore is it that they call Negligence a mortal or capital sin Now Negligence is not understood to be a mortal sin as signifying the want of bodily travail and labour for many persons are not oblieged to bodily labour having other occupations of Body and Spirit more profitable and necessary sometimes than bodily Labour And when they apply themselves to those good and useful things they fall not into that sin of Negligence which is called mortal for every one ought to occupy himself in different things according to his condition or disposition A sick person cannot labour bodily and sometimes also not in Spirit neither because of his Infirmity and so he falls not into the mortal sin of Negligence for he may by acting resignation to the will of God be more diligent than one that labours both in Spirit and Body A good Master of a Family labours often more in eying and watching over his Servants than he that delves the Ground An Artist labours more by ordering well the Building of a House than the Workman that builds it And so with other persons who perform their duty every one in his state and vocation So that we must not believe that that sin of Negligence is committed by them that labour not corporally but by all them that neglect to watch over their souls and to discover the tentation of the Devil Seeing such neglect their eternal Happiness and consent tacitly to the tentation of the Devil which is certainly a mortal sin and causes Eternal Damnation that is it wherefore this Negligence is accounted among capital sins and ought to be called Mortal since it causes Death to the Soul For he that through Negligence does not resist the Devil he leaves his soul a prey to him And he that searches not all means to find true Virtue shall never obtain it but dying without it shall never come to eternal Happiness And therefore you must of necessity have spiritual Diligence if you would be saved For it were but flattering of your self to think that God will receive your Excuses when you shall say I did not know that the Devil had so much Subtilty and Power over us to tempt us or if you should think to excuse your self before God by your Frailty and Weakness you could not abstain from sin and could not attain to true Virtue because you could not find the way For all these Excuses and false Reasons God will not accept because he searches the Reins and tryes the Consciences and sees the least motions of our wills And he knows without needing witnesses what Diligence we have given to watch over our Souls and what Diligence to evite sin and follow true Virtue For God is not as men who amuse one another by the false Philosophy which they 've learnt in the Schools which serves only to maintain wickedness and excuse the malice of their likes They invent smooth words to make wickedness appear Truth and please themselves with these fine words and suffer themselves to be perswaded that Falshood is Truth when adorned with the fine terms and words of their false Philosophy But God regards the Essence and Reality of the thing and sees even to the bottom of our Souls and so he knows if we have done all Diligence in earnest to discover the deceits of the Devil and find the means to arrive at true Virtue and finding that we have done neither the one nor th' other we are condemned without place for Excuses And so my Child you must not be deceived Think not to find Excuses before God when you have lived in spiritual Negligence for he will not accept them He hath given you a Body and Spirit and that to apply them both diligently to eschew evil and follow good But the misery is that men now adays are fallen into so profound an ignorance that they employ body and soul in Care and Diligence to acquire the things of the earth and render themselves by that means incapable of having spiritual Diligence for when a Vessel is filled with dung there can be nothing that is good put in it Alas what are all the Cares of the business and affairs of the world other than Dung which hath filled your Spirit You were a diligent Merchant and your care and diligence hath heaped up money to you but now what will you do with that money you cannot expend it for Meat and Drink and Cloathing nor can you carry it with you at Death and if you leave it to your Relations they shall thereby become more vicious and proud So that every way you must acknowledge that your spirit hath been always filled with the dung of cares and diligence for earthly things And it is no wonder that so you could not discover the wiles of the Devil nor the means which advance unto true Virtue because your Diligence was employed about other things But now when the Goodness of God hath discovered to you the truth of these things you must endeavour to use that Diligence to discover the tentations of the Devil and the means to arrive at Virtue which formerly you used in your temporal affairs I believe you would not then let slip any occasion wherein you saw any profit without accepting it and that you suffered
or temporal or for the good and edification of our Neighbour In all such cases the Devil will play the dumb and keep us silent when we should speak At another time hee 'l play the Orator making us speak and discourse what we ought to be silent of and so will draw from our words great sin For both good and evil persons are often offended at our words If we speak the Truth they are not capable to hear it For it is as a two-edged sword and so even pious persons themselves cannot support it while it reproves since correction is never agreeable in the time when it is administred but if we speak falshood or say any thing to please men the wicked as well as the good shall be thereby stumbled For our example will fortifie the wicked in their wickedness and falshood and the good shall be offended that we who profess Virtue are not true in every thing and will yet please the world and worldlings So that on every hand we give advantage to the Devil in speaking or keeping silence And that as long as we have not obtained spiritual Diligence to watch over all our words and actions For if you will my Child reflect upon your self you shall experience that you do or say nothing without sinning But because the Devil holds you yet in Spiritual negligence you perceive it not but by chance For he obscures your memory that you should not remember what 's necessary and represents to your mind what you ought to forget And by that makes you do his will as well in Spiritual as in temporal concerns for it is indifferent to him by what he ensnares you But he will be loath to tempt by evil actions such as seek to become Jesus Christ's Disciples He tempts them but by Omissions knowing that they will not follow his suggestions in evil things though readily in omissions and so he makes them forget or neglect the things that are for the Glory of God and the Salvation of their Souls or that of others Now he gains much more with good persons by these Omissions than he could do by actions seeing evil actions displease welmeaning persons and are reprehensible before men And therefore they would not commit them although the Devil did tempt them if it were only for avoiding a bad example or scandalizing their Neighbour But sins of omission are more secret and difficult to discover and consequently more dangerous for souls which have not spiritual diligence For they fall insensibly and without perceiving it in spiritual negligence And when they are fallen therein they often know not that they have sinned Attributing that neglect to the weakness of their Memory or infirmity of their Understanding without perceiving that the Devil occasions the forgetting of things necessary for the soul and body of man which is a subtil Snare of Satan So my Son you must watch well lest he surprise you ignorantly For it will not be enough before God to say I thought not of it or I forgot Seeing we are always bound to think of and remember the things that are necessary and salutary hence is the proverb He that sins ignorantly goes ignorantly to Hell And it is said somewhere That Ignorance does not excuse Sin To shew that spiritual Diligence is especially necessary for him that would work out his Salvation and that God admits no excuses in what man is oblieged to do I believe among men every one will be ready to justifie and excuse himself for being all frail and imperfect they flatter and excuse also such as are like themselves when they love them Then they attribute to fragility what proceeds from spiritual negligence but God who tryes the Reins and searches the Consciences makes another judgment of our actions and omissions He will condemn for sin whatever we have neglected to do for his glory and our Salvation or for the Salvation of others when it was in our power It will not be enough to say to God I have not found if you have not done necessary duty to search There are persons so imprudent to believe that God will not take an accompt of them for what they have not known In which they shall find themselves far deceived at Death For we are always oblieged to search what we need to find And we should absolutely know the means by which we may arrive at Salvation as are the Commandments of God and the Gospel Precepts And he that performs not what is there ordained cannot be saved It will not be enough for him to say I did not know what God required nor the Gospel-law seeing he is oblieged to know both and to do all possible diligence to learn them that he may do them If then we have not that spiritual Diligence for our Salvation we shall never obtain it For we are oblieged to know what is necessary to Salvation and the ignorance of these things will not excuse the sin So much the rather because Jesus Christ says Seek and you shall find pray and you shall receive knock and it shall be opened to you Which is not to say as many ignorants alledge that Jesus Christ hath satisfyed all for us seeing he exhorts us to seek the Kingdom of Heaven to pray to knock and to do all that we can to obtain it Teaching thereby that that spiritual diligence is necessary to Salvation And these perswade themselves that they shall obtain it by the diligence of another Which is but a flattery to Destroy us while the Apostle admonishes us so much To watch and pray that we enter not into Tentation For if the merits of Jesus Christ had satisfied all what need had we to watch and pray we needed but to remain in ease and quiet in expecting that Jesus Christ had satisfied all for us Then we needed not to do any thing For it should be in vain to knock pray and search if all were found and obtained by the merits of Jesus Christ Which may well let you see my Son that men are at present given up to a Spirit of Error and that they know not the truth of things for they make one another believe Falshoods for Truths and would by their glosses annul the Doctrine of Jesus Christ and his Apostles But that Doctrine excites always unto Spiritual Diligence for Jesus Christ says We must pray always and without ceasing That is to say that we must always be diligent to watch over all our words and actions Otherwise we shall not speak one word without committing sin nor do any action that shall not be defiled so long as we remain and live in corrupt nature wherein we are born For that corruption loving it self turns to its own glory and profit all that we do or say Which is a continual sin which we cannot evite but by Spiritual Diligence or continual Prayer which is the same thing For being continually attacqued by sin we must continually combat it or yield and
receiveth every thing which human wisdom hath diverted having found so many Studies and Arguments to favour our proper will that all men believe it to be lawful to follow it without offending him who pleased to reserve it for himself Sir these are all blind who lead the blind and all fall into the ditch Be you never of that band but believe in the Light which God sheweth you I have spoken TRUTH unto you not affecting to be believed or followed but only to tend and aim at your Salvation All that I have told you is necessary for you if you will use it well because we cannot love God without knowing him nor follow Virtue without comprehending it we cannot also evite the Deceit without discovering it nor escape the Paws of the Devil without turning away therefrom make good use of all these things and you shall be happy in this world and in the other I doubt not but my manner of speech may have given you pain and difficulty because they do not accord with your Philosophy Theology or other Scholastique Sciences But believe that I have never made profession of any human Sciences I love rather to be ignorant of than to know them and if I could learn in a quarter of an hour all the Sciences of the Schools I would not employ so little time thereto because I know that human Sciences are great Impediments unto the Holy Spirit and also that the time is come when God shall destroy the Wisdom of the Wise and bring to nothing the Prudence of the Prudent and so I cannot use fine Discourses but such only as make known the native Truth the words the terms may well be debated and controlled but never the true sense which is true I will not dispute with the Wise seeing God shall shortly overcome them by the effects of my words nor also polish my Language because the simple nativeness pleaseth God more than the rhetorical Eloquences subject unto vanity for he that speaks that he may speak elegantly is filled with vain-glory willing to renounce which I seek only simple words that may express my conceptions I believe Sir that you have sufficiently understood me and that I can say no more to you to co-operate unto your Salvation there remains no more but to put it in practice Which you shall do more easily in solitude or the desert than elsewhere because of the corruption of men which are great letts unto us and also the power which the Devil hath at present over their spirits to bewitch them that are yet sound and entire Flee then Sir that you may evite all these dangers lest you might be diverted from your good proposal and should look back as Lot's Wife who was changed into a Statue of Salt Yet a little Penitence and after God will deliver you to enter into the joy which shall never end That is it I wish unto you in giving you Adiew I was grieved to hear that she would leave me praying her not to withdraw seeing I would follow what she had taught me which was nothing else but Self-denial and Dependance upon God She said unto me Sir it shall be more pure that you remain alone for I am only a Creature as you are and we must cleave unto the Creator alone without interruption he shall conduct you at his pleasure provided you be abandoned unto his will you need no more instructions of any person I have told you more than sufficient to conduct you unto union with God It should be hereafter only repetitions of things foresaid which should bereave your time and mine which it is better to employ in the practice than in repetitions Leave me in my liberty and take you also yours God hath not created us together He shall save us though separated in body True Union consists in a conformity of will with God and not in particular Conferences I must confess I have often distracted my self from entertainments with God to speak to you of so many divers things but I judged them necessary for your Salvation therefore have they not been grievous unto me but now when you know the truth of many things it is not necessary to speak more unto you God shall always teach you enough provided you continue faithful unto him He hath never refused what men ask for their Salvation You must have no more any other pretensions Let the World be overturned Let the Romish Church perish Let the Elements be moved against sinners all that cannot touch you provided you keep you firmly united with God Leave willingly every thing to find that union If I be with you or not it is a small matter provided you be with God that should suffice because he alone can save you and none else There is always mixture when a Creature cleaves to its like I have often despised them who hold themselves addicted to persons although it were under some pious pretext I will not do my self what I despise in others I said unto her That she had promised to explain to me the 24. Chapter of St. Matthew that she should at least give me it before she left me She said Sir I do not willingly fail of my Promise give me the text of that Chapter and I shall explain it unto you word by word wishing that all men of good-will might see it that they might discover that it is of this present time that that chapter speaks Every one reads it without understanding it notwithstanding there are pleasant advertisments to beware of this dangerous time wherein we live at present These are not Fables made at pleasure but Truths proceeded out of the mouth of Jesus Christ himself which every one ought well to apprehend and follow the councels which he gives They are most salutary and most proper for escaping the evils to come which hang over our heads I must give it in writing for an eternal remembrance that men may observe if all that it contains shall not be effected in our time Do not oppose what you shall find contrary to your studies or old impressions because the Holy Spirit shall give perfect and unheard of intelligences of the Holy Scriptures because we are arrived in the fulness of time If you will receive them with Humility of Heart you shall understand all things in perfection but you must become a Child and cease from being a Wise Man because God reveals his secrets only unto little ones and hides them from the great and wise of the earth We must not resist the Holy Spirit and say such a Father explaineth it so or otherwise because the fulness is always more than a part You shall find what I say more clear than whatever the Holy Fathers have said because the time of the fulfilling of every thing is come but we must render simple our understanding as little Children or otherwise we cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven I brought unto