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truth_n	according_a	holy_a	word_n	2,175	5	3.9389	3	false

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

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

with all interessed motives of hope and fear Fear is brought to perfection by purifying it self it becomes a delicacy of love and a filial reverence in peace And it is then that chast fear which remains for ever and ever Likewise hope far from being lost is perfected by the purity of love and then it is a real desire and a sincere expectation of the fulfilling of the promises not only in general and in an absolute manner but also of the accomplishment of the promises in us and for us according to the good pleasure and will of God nay by the only motive of his good pleasure without any intermixture of our own interest This pure love is not yet satisfied with desiring no other recompence but God himself A slave entirely mercenary who should have a distinct faith of revealed truths might be willing to have no other reward but God alone because he would know him clearly as an infinite good and as being himself his true recompence or the only instrument of his felicity This mercenary Man in the life to come would have nothing but God alone but he would have God as Beatitude objective or the object of his Beatitude to refer it to his formal Beatitude namely to himself whom he would make happy and constitute himself as his ultimate end On the contrary whosoever loveth with a pure love without any mixture of self-interest is acted no more by the motive of his interest He wishes Beatitude to himself only because he knows that God will have it so and will have every one of us to desire it for his own glory If by an impossible supposition by reason of the promises which are meerly free God would annihilate the Souls of Just Men at the moment of their separation from the body or deprive them of the fruition of himself and keep them eternally under the temptations and miseries of this life as S. Austin supposes it or even make them to suffer far from him all the pains of Hell during all eternity as it is suppos'd by S. Chrysostom after S. Clement the Souls of this third state of pure love would not love or serve him with less fidelity Once more 't is true that this supposition is impossible upon the account of the promises because God hath given himself to us as a rewarder We cannot any more separate our happiness from God beloved with final perseverance but those things which cannot be separated in respect of the object may happen really to be so in respect of the motives God cannot fail of being the felicity of the faithful Soul but she may love him with so much impartiality that the enjoyment of a beatifying God increaseth not in the least the love she hath sor him without minding her self and that she would love as much though he were never to be the cause of her happiness Now to say that this abstraction of motives is but a vain subtilty is to be ignorant both of God's jealousie and of that of the Saints against themselves It is to give the name of subtilty to the nicety and perfection of Pure Love which the tradition of all Ages hath put in this abstraction of the motives This way of Speaking is precisely conformable to the whole general tradition of Christianity from the most Ancient Fathers to S. Bernard to all the most famous Scholastick Doctors from S. Thomas to those of our Age lastly to all those Mystical Men who have been Canoniz'd or approved by the whole Church in spight of all the contradictions they have suffered Nothing in the Church is more evident than this tradition and nothing would be more rash than to oppose it or to endeavour to shift it off This supposition of the impossible case here mentioned far from being an indiscreet and dangerous supposition of the Mysticks is on the contrary formally in S. Clement of Alexandria in Cassian in S. Chrysostom in S. Gregory of Nazianzen in S. Anselm and in S. Austin who have been followed by a great number of Saints II. False THere is a love so pure that it rejects that recompence which is God himself so that a Man will not have it any more in himself and for himself though we are taught by faith that God will have it in us and for us and commands us to will it as he doth for his own glory This love doth carry its impartiality so far even as to consent to hate God eternally or to cease from loving of him or else it tends to the destruction of filial fear which is nothing else but the niceness and delicacy of a Jealous love or it aims to the exstinguishing in us all hope forasmuch as the purest hope is a peaceable desire to receive in us and for us the effect of the promises in conformity to the good pleasure of God and for his pure glory without any mixture of self-interest or else it tends to the hating of our selves with a real hatred so that we cease from loving in our selves for God's sake his worth and his image as we love it out of charity in our Neighbour The speaking at this rate is to give with a horrid Blasphemy the name of pure love to a brutish and impious despair and to the hatred of the work of our Creator It is by a monstrous extravagance to affirm That the principle of conformity with God makes us contrary to himself It is a going about by a chimerical love to destroy love it self It is to put Christianity out of the hearts of Men. III. ARTICLE True SOuls must be left in the exercise of love that 4. Love See pag. 8. which is yet mixt with the motive of interest as long as the power of grace shall leave them in it One ought also to reverence these motives scattered through all the Books of holy Scripture in all the most precious monuments of Tradition and in all the Prayers of the Church We ought to make use of these motives to repress passions to consolidate virtues and to disintangle our Souls from all things of this present life However this love though less perfect than that which is fully disinteress'd hath nursed up in all ages a great number of Saints and greatest part of holy Souls do never attain in this life the perfect impartiality of love you disturb and cast them into temptation if you take from them the motives of self-interest which being subordinate to love serve to hold them up and to animate them in dangerous occasions It would be to no purpose and indiscretion to propose them a more elevated love which is out of their reach as having neither internal light nor the power of grace for it Nay those who begin to have some knowledge and foretaste of it are yet very far from having the reality of it Finally those who have attained its imperfect reality are very far yet from having the uniform exercise of it turned into an habitual state What is

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