runs thro' all that Divine Book of Thomas à Kempis of the Imitation of Christ Lo here an Extract of one Chapter where Jesus Christ thus speaks to the Soul Son let not the fine and subtile Sayings of Men move thee for the Kingdom of God is not in Word but in Power Take heed to my Words which do enflame the Heart and enlighten the Mind which bring Compunction and procure various consolations Never read my Word for this End That thou may be esteem'd the more learned or the more wise but study the Mortification of thy Vices for that will profit thee more than many hard Questions When thou hast read and known much thou must still return to one Principle I am he who teaches Man Knowledge and gives to Little Ones a more clear Understanding than what he can be taught by Man He to whom I speak will soon be Wise and will profit much in Spirit Wo to them that enquire many curious things from Men and care little how to serve me I am he who elevates the humble Mind in a Moment that it may conceive more Reasons of the Eternal Truth than if one studied for Ten Years in the Schools I teach without the Noise of Words without the Confusion of Opinions without the Vanity of Honour without the Debate of Arguments I am he who teaches to despise earthly things to loath present things to seek and relish eternal things to flee Honours to suffer Reproaches to place all their Hope in me to desire nothing besides me and to love me ardently above all things For a certain Person by loving me dearly did learn Divine Things and spoke wonderful Things he profited more by forsaking all than by studying difficult things But to some I utter common things to some special ones to some I appear sweetly in Signs and Figures but to others I reveal Mysteries in much Light There is one Voice of Books but it does not equally instruct all for I am the Teacher of the Truth inwardly the Searcher of the Heart the Understander of the Thoughts the Furtherer of Actions distributing to every one as I shall judge worthy Now Writings whose chief Tendency is to lead us to so excellent a Master to learn in Christ's School and teach us how to labour for the Dispositions which he himself requires of us deserve to meet with some Regard by those who pretend to be his Disciples XXIII 8. Another remarkable Quality of those Writings is that they are so clear and plain and simple The Thoughts of the Studious and of the Learned are out of the common Road of the People and so are their Words and Language too and when they write they can hardly avoid the Terms of the Schools and all affect a certain Eloquence that darkens the Thoughts which we would express both because we have not clear Perceptions of those Truths and we still seek our selves and many who have pretended to Divine Inspiration have written so Mysteriously and under such dark Figures that they cannot be easily comprehended But those Writings are so clear that we may easily and distinctly perceive the Intent of them so plain that Children and the most illiterate People may easily understand them and so simple that there is nothing of humane Art or Varnish to be seen in them XXIV 9. It is no less remarkable that there is a convincing Force and Efficacy in those Writings which does sensibly touch the Hearts of those that read them their Consciences bears them witness of the Truth of things as to themselves and they are convinced of all not that all are so who read any of them no more than all who heard Jesus Christ himself were affected with his Words tho' he spoke as one that had Authority and not as the Scribes tho' never Man spoke like him yet the Pharisees said he had a Devil but others who heard him felt that he had the Words of Eternal Life So some call this Virgin a Devil and Enchantress a mad whimsical Woman Others are so convinced of the Truths of the Gospel contained in her Writings that they are ready to answer she is not mad but speaks the Words of Truth and Soberness Many I know can bear me Witness that upon the reading of her Writings they have felt a deeper Sense of Divine things and their Hearts and Consciences have been more touched than by most of other Writings which they have seen And this can be testified by Persons of different Parties and Perswasions by Learned and Unlearned and it deserves the more Consideration that they are not written in a Way to move the Passions in Flights of Devotion as some would have them pass for but in a simple naked Declaration of Divine Truths All Writings carry along with them certain Impressions of the Spirit with which they are written which we are apt to discern and accordingly to be affected by them If Self be the chief Mover it will be seen thro all the Disguises of the Writer There 's a certain Driness and Deadness in most of Writings and Sermons now adays about Divine Things that they do not at all touch the Heart and even the best of them savour more of the Head of than the Heart of the Spirit of Man than of the Spirit of God and so they cannot rise higher than their Original they may strike and please our Fancy but they cannot move the Divine Faculties of the Soul I cannot give a better Account of this than A. B. does when she complains that tho' there was never more Preaching than in this Age yet never a greater spiritual Famine that they do not give Nourishment to Souls which every Day wax leaner and leaner in Vertue and colder in Charity She says The Word of the Preachers cannot be God's Word for then certainly it would produce its Effects in well-disposed Souls for the Word of God is powerful It would possess the inseparable Qualities of God Righteousness and Goodness and Truth If one of these be wanting it is not the Word of God they may use the Terms and Expressions which Jesus Christ and his Apostles used yet that is not the Word of God They are not called by God but carried to the Ministry by Ambition or some worldly and human Interest Their Sermons are nothing else but Apish Mummeries If an Ape saw an excellent Painter drawing a curious Picture and if in his Absence it should take the Pencils and Colours and so scratch upon the same Table it would entirely Daub all tho' it made Use of the same Pencils and Colours because it wanted the Painter's Spirit this Defect marrs all even what was beautiful there before the Ape touch'd it This is the true Emblem of most of the Preachers and Writers now adays in Religion They have the Scripture as the Pallet wherein are distinguish'd the fine Colours of Vertues with which Jesus Christ began the excellent Portraiture of the Holy Church They
by many others by many of the Practical Writers of Christianity and what needs so much adoe about the Writings of this Woman We ought not to deny to others their just Praise and I wish that not only many but all the Practical Writers of Christianity did breath the same Spirit But because other Writings are good and useful we ought not therefore to despise these if they be so too In things convenient for the Body the Providence of God affords not only what is simply necessary but Plenty and Abundance and what is distasteful to one Palate will relish with another and promote their Health And why should our Eye be Evil because God is Good If he be pleas'd to afford us Plenty and Variety of Spiritual Entertainment tending to mortifie our Corrupt Nature and to bring us to the Love of God and some of it does not please our Taste why should we be so peevish and ill natur'd as not only to throw all away that comes from that hand but decry it as rank Poison and forbid any to touch it as they would escape Damnation when it may be all the Evil lies in the Malady and Distemper within us which it comes to remove and what we will not use nor relish may prove very savoury and healthful to the Souls of others It is strange to see the Disposition of Men. The Poets and Plays both Ancient and Modern tho' they flow from and greatly tend to cherish the Corruption of Humane Nature yet the Learned do Study and Esteem them but Writings of this Nature whose only Aim is to perswade Men to love the Life of Jesus Christ in their respective Communions without setting up a New Sect or Party and to tell them they do it not meets with nothing but Reproach and Contempt upon a Pretence there are in them some Sentiments different from the ordinary tho' they are most consistent with the Essentials of Christianity and are declared not to be necessary to Salvation As if we would hate and persecute our best Friend because his Cloaths differed from ours in their Fashion Some peculiar Characters of her Writings and Sentiments XVI NOW as that which I have mentioned is the great Design of those Writings and for that Reason they ought to be as readily entertain'd as we do other good Practical Books so there are some things observable in them in the Prosecution of that great Design of the Renovation of a Gospel Spirit which in my Esteem do merit a particular Consideration I shall mention some of them And First that which has been already touch'd her making so clear a Distinction between the Essentials and Accessories of Religion and her laying so little Stress upon the last tho' she declares that she had particular Discoveries in them seems to me a particular Character of her Spirit They who set up for a peculiar Knowledge in Divine things or to reform the Corruptions of the Church or to be Guides and Directors of others they presently insert all their little Opinions and Doctrines into their Confessions of Faith make them Articles of their Creed Shibboleths of their Party so that none can be of their Communion who do not profess to believe them and they are more zealous for their particular Forms and Confessions than for the Gospel and Laws of Jesus Christ and are ready to esteem or despise others according to their Zeal or Coldness for these and thus tho' a Man be proud and covetous and malicious and his Spirit quite contrary to that of Jesus Christ yet if he be zealous for their peculiar Doctrines and Forms of such a Party he shall in his own and their Esteem pass for a good Christian they imagining that God lays as great a Stress on their Doctrines and Forms as they do themselves while they call them the Cause of Christ the Jewels of his Crown c. thus most heinously taking God's Name in Vain Others again who pretend to divine Revelation are still upon Mysteries and Visions But A. B. does most clearly and distinctly represent wherein the Essence of Christianlty consists makes that the Butt of all her Writings shews what are the Accessory Truths and tho' she pretends to particular Discoveries in them yet tells they are not Articles of Faith nor necessary to Salvation that they who see no Clearness in them nor Benefit by them may let them alone and tho' we should believe them never so firmly yet without a Gospel-Life and Spirit there was no Salvation XVII 2. The Writings of A. B. do clearly shew the Relation that the several Parts and Duties of Christianity have to one another and the Place that every one holds in Relation to the Whole and this is of no small moment to direct us aright in our Endeavours after a Christian Life and Spirit We may know many of the Parts and Duties of the Christian Religion and seem much Occupied about some of them and yet never make any Advances in a Christian Life all that is directed by Wisdom is done for a fit and proper End and fit and seasonable Means are employed for attaining of that End We see the Footsteps of infinite Wisdom even in the Motions of the brute Creatures The Birds in the Spring gather proper Materials and build their Nests and lay their Eggs and hatch their Young if they should be taken up only about gathering Sticks without putting them to any further Use the Wisdom of their Maker in the Forming of them would not thereby appear Now God has given Man an Understanding whereby he may discern a proper End for his Actions and suitable Means by which to accomplish it We see in all Trades and Arts they have their proper Ends and their peculiar Means to attain to them and if the respective Masters or Apprentices should be still occupied about some of the remoter Means of their Calling without ever directing them to the Attainment of the End of it or should think to attain the End without the Use of the necessary and immediate Means we would think they had lost their Wits If they who pretend to rebuild an House busie themselves only in providing some of the Materials and contriving Models and reading Books of Architecture and hearing Discourses about it and lay some Stones of it upon an old runious Foundation without ever doing more or if they think to get the House built without ever digging deep to lay a good Foundation or using the other consequent necessary Means of Building such but build Castlâ—s in the Air. Now tho' Men are not so absurd and unreasonable in other things yet they are so in Religion They are taken up with some of the remoter Duties of Religion without ever aiming at the End of it or they think to attain the End without using the necessary Means for the Attainment of it and become thereby so darkned in their Minds as not to perceive what Relation the Parts and Duties of
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
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
Origine of the Divine Ministery which for this very Reason is highly necessary to wit that they who live holily and are illuminated by God may shine and go before others Even as an Artificer that is skilful in any Art goes before his Scholars and Apprentices by working that they may imitate him And as in an unknown way we choose a Guide who may lead us into the right and shortest way And as there are certain Signs given whereby we may know if this Artificer understand his Trade and if the Guide know well the best and shortest way so there are sure Marks whereby we may know if any be Holy and enlightned by God and do truly love him This is a sign if he seek those things that are above and not those things that are on Earth if he love not the World nor the things that are in the World And altho' it fall out and falls out but too often that Hypocrites and wicked Persons may outwardly so behave themselves as if they were truly Holy and in the Love of God that by their feigned Piety the Good may be seduced yet God will not permit their Hyprocisie to be always hid especially when the Salvation of others is thereby in hazard V. It is therefore certain and acknowedg'd by all Men of sound Reason that it may be known by manifest and undoubted Signs if any love God and is Holy So all Christians are fully perswaded that Abraham Isaac Jacob Moses and the other Patriarchs and also the Apostles were Holy Men. This we know 1. by the Evidence they gave from their Deeds Words and Writings that they saw clearly that God and things invisible were far more excellent than the Creatures and things visible and were thereby engaged to forsake these things and count them as nothing and only to seek and love those other things with all their Heart Believing that God is and that he is a Rewarder of those who seek him To this Testimony 2. there is added the Testimony of others who well knew the thing and are not moved by any Self-Interest or Advantage to give this Testimony which gives us so much Assurance that we may acquiesce in it as we do in the Testimonies of Historians Geographers and Naturalists in things of which they have been Eye Witnesses in their respective Sciences To this add 3. that so long as there is nothing made appear contrary to these Testimonies there is no reason to call them in Question 4. We may be certain of the Holiness of another and of their Love of God by the Testimony of our own Conscience for he who is truly Holy and possesses the Love of God does rightly infer from the Conformity of anothers Actions to his that that other Person is Holy and loves God But he who has not attain'd to this Perfection may yet be certain of the Holiness of others by observing that their Actions do as far excel and transcend his as the Actions of him who sees clearly and walks at Noon-day do transcend those of a Blind Man or of one groping in the Dark But as for those of an evil Eye as they are Blind tho' they boast that they see so they are not in a State of Judging of others Besides it would serve them to no purpose so long as they remain in that damnable State to know if others be Holy or not To these may be added 5. as a Testimony of the Holiness of any the Miracles and wonderful Works which such Men do and the extraordinary Light communicated unto them by God But whereas there are also lying Wonders by which false Prophets do seduce many and the Dragon is worshipped by all the World and seeing the Devil has great Knowledge therefore this Testimony alone without the foregoing is not enough to ascertain us of the Holiness of any VI. But that we may come more closely to the matter in hand I say if it can be made appear that the Evidences and Signs which convince us that the Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles were endued with Holiness and the Love of God have place also as to Antonia Bourignon then we may be assured likewise that this Virgin was Holy and in the Love of God VII That Antonia Bourignon testifies this of her self is not doubted by any who has look'd though but superficially into her Writings For she bears Witness in many places of her Sanctity and extraordinary Love of God So that her Adversaries take occasion from hence to reproach her as if it were not sutable to the Sanctity of Holy Persons that they themselves should publish the Grace given them by God and they would most absurdly discredit such a Testimony As the corrupt Jews did for the same Reason reject Jesus Christ because he bore Witness of himself But our Saviour did so little regard this that he said nothing else but I have spoken the Truth and if ye will not believe me believe the Works which I do Thus we see also that Moses David Paul and other Holy Writers were not afraid to declare the Grace given them by God Which Testimony ought not in any wise to be look'd upon as a Token of Pride because these Holy Men were convinc'd that they were nothing that they were come of the corrupt mass of Adam and so worthy of Damnation that of themselves they could not think one good Thought but that all their sufficiency was of God and that they had no Good but what they had received Moreover those Holy Men were commanded by God to bear Witness to the Truth of themselves that they might stop the Mouths of Gainsayers and might encourage the Good to yield up themselves wholly to God who can do even in the weakest when they deny themselves exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think For God has no respect of Persons but he gives to every one liberally And that Antonia Bourignon did truly imitate those Holy Men is abundantly demonstrated in her Writings even to the Confusion of Gainsayers for she was in that State that she endeavour'd always to speak the Truth only whether it made for her or against her not Studying to please Men as becomes the Servants of Jesus Christ VIII But that we may see whether we ought to give Credit to this verbal Testimony of A. B. we come to consider her Actions And these were such that throughout all her Life she sought only God and things Eternal entirely abandoning all the Creatures and things Temporal If you except some Years in which she followed the Vanities of the World not out of Inclination but that she might please Men tho' even then she did nothing that by Christians now adays is reckon'd to be Evil or blameworthy Yet this withdrawing from God did greatly hurt her while she enjoy'd worldly Delights she lost the Divine Ones and that with such bitter Remorse of Conscience that she thought her self in Hell She got no rest
that by this Word the inward Thoughts of his Heart are made manifest and laid open he is forced to fall down upon his Face and to acknowledge that it is God who speaks unto him This one Mark is sufficient to prove the Divine Authority of the Holy Scripture and it is so clear that it may be understood by the most simple moreover it is most certain and infallible To this many other Marks might be added which for brevity's sake I pass over and so much the rather that they are to be had abundantly from those Writers who have designedly treated of the Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures XXII Now that this may be applied to the Writings of Antonia Bourignon both I my self and many Persons of Probity have experienced and do daily experience that those Writings do as clearly lay before us our inward State as if God were immediately speaking unto us Moreover they do so clearly and so lively set before our Eyes the Vanity and Nothingness of all Earthly and Temporal things and the Glory of Heavenly and Eternal things that we are forced unless we would do Violence to our Conscience to love and seek after these last things only and absolutely to forsake and avoid the other And there is no doubt but that all they who sincerely desire to do the Will of God and to embrace and practice the Truth which they know shall experience in themselves the same Effects from the reading of those Writings and give Testimony that they are endited by the Spirit of God XXIII Moreover the Writings of Antonia Bourignon are so consonant to the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament that from hence it appears more clearly than the Sun at Noon-day that the same Spirit has endited both Yea the Writings of Antonia Bourignon are as a Key whereby the Sacred Scriptures are opened and expounded So that the great Mysteries hitherto understood by none are expounded by these Writings and the Difficulties which hitherto have been most intricate are resolved It is also most worthy of Observation that a Virgin so simple as Antonia Bourignon should without Study or Meditation commit to Writing the most solid clear and saving Truths Being moved to write against her natural Inclination only for promoting the Glory of God and the Good of her Neighbour without the prospect of any temporal Advantage but on the contrary foreseeing that she must suffer much because of these Writings as the Event did confirm for because she did so clearly and efficaciously declare the saving Truth the Churchmen and the Learned of all Sects and Parties did prosecute her with Hatred Calumnies and Persecution even to her Death XXIV We judge therefore that we have abundance of Reasons and Arguments to conclude that A. B. was moved by the Spirit of God to write for the enlightning of others The End of the Third Part. An Advertisement to the Reader THEY who esteem the Writings and Sentiments of A. B. will no doubt be desirous to know the History of her Life and they who make it their Business to traduce and defame her to the World do make it necessary to be known thereby to prevent or remove the Prejudices which they may breed in the Minds of well-disposed Persons against Writings which would be so helpful to them in the way to Eternal Life The inward Sentiments of others cannot be known but from themselves or by the Spirit of God and their Sincerity may appear from the constant Tenour of their Actions in the whole course of their Lives and the Story of their Life and Actions may be had both from themselves and from those who have been Eye-Witnesses of their Conversation both Friends and indifferent Persons The Testimony of Enemies in bespattering and defaming them is no more to be regarded than that of false Witnesses when there are unquestionable Evidences to the contrary It is easie also for those who consider things with an evil Eye to give such a turn to the Actions of the Best as may make them hateful and ridiculous witness the Author of Dictionaire Historique Critique in his Character of the King and Prophet David The inward Life of A. B. and the outward likewise for a Course of many Years is written by her self and the Continuation of it to her Death by a Person of known Integrity who was with her for some of the last Years of her Life and was helped in it by her own Memorials and those of her Friends and often led her to relate unto him her whole Life Besides there are some sixty Testimonies some private others publick before Judges Magistrates upon Oath of Persons to whom she was well known which do refer to a good part of the most remarkable Events of her Life From these Originals then I have drawn the following Summary of her Life the fuller Account being to be had from those Writings themselves I know there are many who sit in the Seat of the Scornful and will turn all this into Ridicule at which we need not wonder when even the Penmen of the Sacred Scriptures dâ—es not escape their Lash God's ways are so different froâ— Man's that the natural Man perceiveth not the things that are of God but they seem Foolishness to him We have strong Attachments to Parents Friends Wife Children to our Guides the Learned the Eloquent the Great to Study and Learning and worldly Accommodations and therein gratifie and cherish the corrupt Inclinations of our Hearts God will have Iâ—struments form'd upon different Molds Our Lord would not let them go take leave of their Friends or go bury their Father He engages them to forsake their Wives and Children or if they be free not to be bound God makes Men forsake their Country and their Friends and go they know not where upon his Word only He chooses Children Persons without Learning forbidding them to study or to follow the Conduct and Wisdom of Men. He chooses them Wâ—â—k and Simple without Authority or Power without a Following or Applause keeps them for the most part in Solitude either that they may converse with God or to preserve them from the Persecutions of Men of those especially who call themselves the Church and People of God and when he draws them out of it he lets them be chas'd from one Place to another and at last die in Assliction and Misery How impertinent does this Conduct seem to the Wisdom of humane Reason and yet by these Rules God has form'd Men for his Service in all Ages Abraham Jacob Moses David Elisha Jeremiah Ames â—ohn Baptist â—esus Christ himself all the Apostles and the true Saints who have followed him When Men then are so wise in their own Eyes as to condemn this in the Person of A. B. they must know that they condemn the Conduct of God himself in his Saints who will thereby have their Hearts and Wills wholly disengag'd from self and all worldly
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
small or great But let the Love of pure Truth draw thee to read Do not enquire who said these things but consider well what is said III. It is no less unjust to take the Sentiments of others only upon Trust from a declar'd Enemy to the Person whose Sentiments they are such you know are sure to set them always in a false Light so as to make them hateful and ridiculous If you will take the Doctrine of Jesus Christ himself from the Scribes and Pharisees they shall make him to speak Blasphemy and to be in Compact with the Devil Now this is the unjust Measure given by many to A. B. They take her Sentiments from those only who design to render them hateful and ridiculous who after the manner that they represent them may as easily expose the most Sacred Writings It is just then to hear her self and not to judge of her Sentiments by some Expressions or Passages of her Writings which separately may seem harsh but to compare such with the whole Context and with the main Scope and Substance of all her Writings and this will lead you to interpret them aright I do not desire that you should take her Sentiments upon Trust from me more than from others I aim only to set them in a True Light in opposition to the False Representations made of them And as to my Sincerity and fair Dealing in it I appeal to the Writings themselves IV. Neither is it just to weigh Sentiments by the Doctrines of Men and to despise and reject them if they do not agree exactly with the commonly receivâ—d Systems and Opinions The Doctrine of Jesus Christ is the Rule we are to walk by Men in forming of their Systems are ready to flatter Corrupt Nature It is certain in our practice we all do so and we are well pleas'd with Doctrines that may favour us in this If then her Sentiments be the same in Substance with the Doctrine of Jesus Christ and do not at all tend to sooth and flatter our Corrupt Nature but on the contrary to lead us to mortifie and subdue it we ought not to reject them tho' they do not in all things agree with the Systems of Men. V. Before we set down her Sentiments it is to be considered that as she owns the written Word of God to be the Test whereby we are to examine all Doctrines pretended to be come from God and that none contrary thereunto ought to be receiv'd and desires that hers may be tried thereby So she declares that the Doctrine of Jesus Christ is the last Doctrine that is to come into the World and contains the necessary means of Salvation and that there is no other way to Salvation but what he has chalk'd out to us by his Life Precepts and Counsels So that all her Writings and Sentiments aim at nothing but to convince Men that they do not follow the Life and Doctrine of Jesus Christ and to perswade them to do it as being indispensably necessary to Salvation VI. As to her Sentiments she makes appear that the Truths of Religion may be considered under two Heads 1. There are some Truths and Doctrines in which the Essence of Christianity does consist the Living Knowledge and Practice of which is necessary to Salvation 2. There are other accessory Truths without the express Knowledge and Belief of which one may be Saved VII First As to the Essential Truths of Christianity she supposes before all the Truth of the Holy Scriptures and of the Apostles Creed and that all that is contrary thereunto ought to be anathematiz'd and the Soundness of her Faith in these appears by her Profession of Faith and Religion which she presented publickly at the Court of Gottorp in Holstein which is prefix'd to all her Books and the Tenour of it is as follows VIII Her Profession of Faith 1. I Am a Christian and I believe all that a True Christian ought to believe 2. I am baptised in the Catholick Church in the Name of the Father in the Name of the Son in the Name of the Holy Ghost 3. I believe the Twelve Articles of the Apostolick Symbol or Creed and I do not doubt of one Article of it 4. I believe that Jesus Christ is True God and that he is also True Man as that he is the Saviour and the Redeemer of the World 5. I believe in the Gospel in the Holy Prophets and in all the Holy Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament And I will live and die in all the Points of this Belief which I protest before God and Men to all whom it shall concern In Testimony of which I have sign'd this my Confession with my Hand and seal'd it with my Seal At Sleeswick the 11th of March 1675. L. S. Anthoinette Bourignon IX Now this short Confession is the Abridgement and Foundation of all her Doctrine and of her Life and they who are not willing to be impos'd upon will be so just as to measure and judge of her Sentiments according to this Sincere and Publick Confession of her Faith and not according to the False and Calumnious Representations which some designedly make of them whereby they would have her to pass in the World for the Inventer of a New and Fantastical Religion and so raise in the Hearts of the People an Abhorrence of her and her Writings which aim at nothing but to perswade them to be truly Followers of Jesus Christ This being presuppos'd here follows 1. Her Accounts of the Essentials of Religion in her own Words 1. GOd created Man only to be lov'd by him and for no other End He had no need of Man nor of any other Creature being in himself alone Holy and Perfect Independent upon all things yea whom all obey in Heaven and Earth who is yet able to Create a Thousand Worlds and an Hundred Thousand kinds of Creatures according to his Good Pleasure But his Good Pleasure was to Create Man after his own Likeness that he might take his Delight with him and as there cannot be perfect Love if it be not reciprocal it was God's Will that Man should love his God with all his Power in Requital of the Love which God bear to him and that he should delight in him only since God would needs take his Delight with Man which obliged Man to place all his Affections upon God alone Seeing he was created for no other End he neither could nor ought in justice to turn his Affections towards any other thing than his God but to love him only with all his Heart and with all his Strength 2. God creating Man thus to take his Delight with him and that he might voluntarily love his God he gave him for this End Divine Qualities capable of loving him he created him altogether Free and Perfect he would not bound nor limit the Will of Man whom he would needs make
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
does from a Fountain She needed not it seems the Buckets of Study and Meditation wherewith to draw out of the broken Cisterns of others but she had within her a Fountain of living Water still springing up to everlasting Life As this is attested by those who were of her particular Acquaintance and all her Manuscripts are still extant written with her own Hand so a particular Account is given given of this by Mr. Francken Merchant at Amsterdam in his Testimony concerning her where among other things he tells That a learned Man of Amsterdam a Doctor of Law said to him one Day that he could not believe but it was some learned Man who had writ these Letters and publish'd them under the Name of A. B. as not being willing to be known and Mr. Francken assur'd him of the contrary but however he not having had long time to converse with her he would take care to inform himself more narrowly so as to be able to convince him as it fell out for some time since after he had told him he had often found her in her little Chamber with a Piece of Deal Board on her Knees writing without any other Thing but the Paper on which she wrote and the Pen and Ink which she made use of and she leaving off to write upon her Discovering that he was in the Room and because she never wrote but with Attention to the Voice of God in the inward Silence and Recollection of her Spirit he would take up the Paper with her Permission to read it and found it was writ so swiftly that there would be yet ten or twelve Lines fresh and wet Having made this Trial of it his Friend he says was perswaded of it as much as if he had seen it himself having full Confidence in his Sincerity from long Experience and Familiarity XXX 15. That which ought greatly to recommend her Writings to us is the Conformity of her Life and Practice It is the general Complaint concerning those who recommend Vertue and a truly Christian Life to others that they do not practice it themselves that they speak by one Principle and live by another and so their Words have little Force and they destroy Christianity one way more than it is possible for them to build it up another I know some have made an ill Use of the Elogies which have been given of her Life and Spirit by those who were Eye-witnesses of all like Spiders sucking Poison from the Flowers where the Bees gather Honey they exaggerate some of their Expressions far beyond the Intent of them and in Opposition to the Testimonies of those who were living Witnesses of her Life they some eighteen Years after she is dead will needs draw a Picture of her that may represent her very ugly with what Equity and Candour will appear in its due Place However any who shall read impartially the Story of her Life and the Testimonies given of her throughout all the Periods of it â— will conceive better Thoughts of her than what the New Narratives would give of them They will see that she liv'd constantly as one travelling towards Eternity and therein studying in all things to conform her Life to that of Jesus Christ in these and such-like Instances She convers'd always with God and no more with Men than her Duty and Charity requir'd she led a Life of continual Penitence mortifying her corrupt Nature and never gratifying her sensual Appetites in any thing Tho' she might have enjoy'd the Pleasures of her Senses the Delights of her Taste and of her other Senses yet she voluntarily depriv'd herself of them to please God Tho' she had lawfully acquir'd Riches yet would never use them but for pure Necessity Tho' she might have been conveniently serv'd and honour'd according to her Condition yet she despis'd these Honours and Services to imitate Jesus Christ loving rather to live unknown and serve herself than to be serv'd There was nothing observ'd in her Actions contrary to the Righteousness Goodness and Truth of God but they appear'd still to be accompanied with those three Qualities deriv'd from the Spirit of God She never recommended to any the Practice of a Vertue which she did not most exemplarily practice herself She was most humble and self-denied always ready to serve others rather than be serv'd by them and to take to her self the meanest and the least of every thing She did not affect to be thought humble by humble Words Gestures Habits c. nor did she distinguish her self from the rest of the World by any singular indifferent Thing but as to Habit Diet c. conform'd her self to the Customs of the Places where she happen'd to be So great was her Charity that she brought up some hundreds of Girls maintaining fifty of them at a time for the space of seven Years on her own Charges what was allow'd by the Founder being only for ten employing her Time Wealth Strength of Body and Mind in Training them up in all Vertuous Exercises and distinguishing herself in nothing from them as to Diet Bread Apparel c. Such was her Love to Men's Souls that she spared nothing to perswade them to the Love of God and to Imitate Jesus Christ and employ'd her Time and Wealth in writing and publishing the Truths of God for that End She suffer'd patiently all manner of Reproaches and Persecutions for the Sake of Jesus Christ She had an invincible Firmness and Constancy in what was Truth Nothing could shake or alter her She did nothing to please Men She had a constant Equality of Mind in all Conditions She discover'd a wonderful Prudence on all Occasions Let any body but read the Testimonies given of her by those who knew her in her Youth in her old Age and in all States of her Life as they are set down in Recucil des Temoignages and particularly that of Mr. Francken Merchant of Amsterdam and they will see how closely she was a Follower of Jesus Christ in Humility and Poverty of Spirit in a Contempt of all earthly Things in a Life of Labour and Penitence and in the true Love of God and the Souls of Men. Now Writings whose Substance and Essence contains such excellent Truths as those I have mention'd in the Account of the Essentials of Christianity and which have such remarkable Qualities and penn'd by one who liv'd so her self ought certainly to meet with some Regard and not to be immediately thrown away and People frighted from looking into them because there are in them some Sentiments which do not relish and seem to us Extravagant XXXI But perhaps it will be said that those Doctrines which she calls Accessories may be dangerous Opinions and damnable Doctrines and that what she seems to build with the one Hand she pulls down with the other that she makes a Mahumetan Paradise Eating and Drinking and Generation in the Kingdom of Heaven How easie a thing is it
of the World and of all the Creation worthy of God They let us see the Wisdom and Goodness of God in bringing about his great Designs tho' thwarted by the Perversness and Rebellion of Man They give us some glimpse of the unspeakable Glory to which Man is designed to partake of the Joys of God being united to him in Body and Spirit and to receive the Delights of all his Works They shew us that Almighty God design'd this World and all the Creation for some great End more worthy of him than to serve Devils and Wicked Men as a Theatre and Fewel of their Lusts and Instrument of their dishonouring him It is usual for the Learned to form Theories and Systems of Divinity whereby to give a clear Account of the Doctrines of Faith If Men will be pleased to consider these Sentiments in this View only and compare them with the Systems given us by the Divines of all Parties they may come to be convinc'd that they have a greater Tendency to promote True Christianity XL. And as they are very sutable to the known Articles of Faith so they do not contradict the Holy Scriptures but seem to be insinuated and pointed out in them and to serve to clear Thousands of Passages there which otherwise cannot be conceived as A. B. her self makes appear in several Instances 1. That all things were created Good and Beautiful at first without any Deformity appears both from the Nature of God and from his Word He is Perfect and therefore cannot make any thing Imperfect He is all Good and can make nothing Evil All things therefore have been made by him perfectly Good and Beautiful for the Workman is known by his Works A rare Painter or Writer is known by his Pictures or Writings tho' we do not know his Person much more is God known by his Works for he can never fail or commit a Fault in them which the most accomplish'd Spirits amongst Men may do This is then an Eternal Truth that God created all things Beautiful and Good which the Scripture also verifies when it is said that God saw all that he had made and behold it was very Good Which could not be if there were any Evil in it as a thing cannot be Beautiful if it have any Deformity But we see all his Works now are not Good and Beautiful in the Air are Tempests Whirlwinds c. destroying Men by Sea or Land In it is obscure Darkness nothing to be seen through it if it be not favoured with the Rays of the Sun or Stars The Earth has a filthy colour that sullies all that touches it and is of such gross Obscurity that we can see nothing in it and to make it bring forth Fruit Men must employ the sweat of their Body and after all it brings forth often nothing but corrupt Fruit and if it be not cultivated only Thorns and Thistles The Water often swallows and suffocates Men its greatest Masses are salt or filthy The Fire has in it a black Smoak ready to stifle Men if they were not succoured by the Air it spoils the Eyes of those who steadily look on it and consumes Men Beasts and all other things These things cannot be created by God as we see and feel them because they are neither Good nor Beautiful By a clear Consequence then we must believe that the Air has been created clear sweet and agreeable without these Tempests and so of the rest 2. It is as evident that our Bodies have not been created in the State they are now in in which there is nothing good and beautiful no more than in our Minds and that they have been form'd at first in a glorious State appears by this that it being generally acknowledged that Jesus Christ is to restore Man to that primitive Perfection both of Body and Mind in which he was created and the Scriptures telling us That we look from Heaven for our Lord Jesus Christ to change our vile Bodies and to make them like to his Glorious Body and we being told that when at his first Transfiguration on the Mount he was pleased to give his three Disciples some Prospect of that Glory and to let some Rays of his Glorious Body stream forth thro' his Mortality it is said his Countenance did shine as Lightning and his Raiment was white as Snow We may think how glorious the Body of Man was before his Fall and shall be when this Mortal shall put on Immortality and this Corruption Incorruption and Death shall be swallowed up in Victory 3. That Man in his first Creation was endued with a Power of producing his Kind appears in that at the Creation of Man it is expresly said that God created Man Male and Female and bid him be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth and tho' it be in the Original he created them in the Plural and not in the Singular he created him Male and Female yet that does not change the true Sence since God created in Adam all Men who were to proceed from him they were all originally in him And Eve was not as yet formed and he had rested from all his Works before he proceeded to the Formation of her how long after it is not known This seems most evident from the Story of the Creation for the Account of the six Days Works is contained in the first Chapter of Genesis and that God saw that all he made was very good but before the Formation of Eve out of Adam we are told of God's resting on the seventh Day from all his Works which he had made of his planting a Garden and there making to grow out of the Ground every Tree that is pleasant to the Sight and good for Food his placing Man there to dress and keep it his bringing all the Beasts of the Field and Fowls of the Air before Man and Adam's giving each of them a Name his finding it now not good that Man should be alone tho' before he saw all that he had made and behold it was very good his Resolution therefore to make a Help meet for him and therefore he caused a deep Sleep to fall upon Adam and took one Principle out of him called in the Scripture-stile one of his Ribs and so formed the Woman As from all this it seems evident that the Formation of the Woman cannot be supposed to have been upon the sixth Day without a great Straining of the History so it appears that Adam was at first created in such a State of Perfection as to need no Help for the Production of his Kind and that the Formation of the Woman from him was upon his beginning to decline from his God and to delight himself in the Creatures without referring all to God It is therefore said It is not good for Man to be alone tho' before God saw all that he had made and behold it was very good It
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
Antich Decouv Part 2. p. 66 67. she says That Jesus Christ True Man is also True God that his Humanity is most strictly and inseparably united with his Divinity which is the True God and the Eternal Word that created all things and and saves in Christ In the Third Part p. 26 27. she tells how Antichrist has led some to deny the Divinity of Jesus Christ and not to pray to him and shews that he as God and Man can save us immediately if we will follow him that he is the True Eternal God who alone can save as being God and he is our Mediator our Master our Physician as Man who is become our Pledge and Surety to obtain our Deliverance so that they are wretched Creatures who say they will not pray to Jesus Christ since the Salvation of all Men depends on him and without him no Body can be sav'd VII They affirmed that she denied the Merits of Jesus Christ or any Satisfaction made by him for the Sins of Men and this Calumny they have of late renew'd affirming that she falls in with the vile Socinian Heresies and even outdoes them What Socinian has ever taught That Man by his Sin would have perishâ—d eternally and never have obtain'd Pardon had it not been for Jesus Christ true eternal God and true Man and for his Merits the Force and Dignity of which proceed from his Vnion with the Divinity and that he has also obtain'd for Men Time Grace and Means to enjoy this Pardon and the Effect of those Merits and that he cloath'd himself with our Mortality and satisfied for our Sins on his part that we in imitating him might enjoy the Pardon and Recovery which his Merits have purchas'd for us And yet this is the Substance of the Doctrine of A. B. upon this Head as appears through all her Writings as in Temoign de Verite Part 1. p. 201 202 she says Your Preachers say that I reject the Merits of Jesus Christ tho' in truth I esteem them more than any Body in the World I believe I cannot be sav'd but by the Merits of Jesus Christ yea that none was ever sav'd from the Beginning of the World but by the Merits of Jesus Christ for if Jesus Christ had not merited Pardon for all Men with God his Father after Adam had sinn'd all Men had remain'd in a Lost Estate as the Devils have done because they had no Intercessor with God to obtain Pardon for their Sins as Men have had who having Jesus Christ for their Brother obtain'd by his Means the Remission of their Sins I mean not that Jesus Christ has not also satisfied for the Sins of Men since Adam seeing for them expresly he cloath'd himself with our Mortality and came into the World to Redeem us from Eternal Death into which all Men had wilfully precipitated themselves and sunk themselves into a Forgetfulness of God living according to the Motions of corrupt Nature as the Beasts which Jesus Christ perceiving he came from the Bosom of his Father unto the Earth to recal them He comes to shew them the State in which they were and how they had abandon'd their God to delight in other things than in him and by what means they might recover the Grace of God to attain to Salvation And he himself does before them the Works that they ought to do after his Example And because they had turn'd away from the Love of God to love the Goods and Riches of this World Jesus Christ came in Poverty that Men might embrace it after his Example And because Men had forgotten God through the Esteem they had of themselves Jesus Christ came in all Humility and Sufferings to give them an Example And because Men had left off their Obedience to God to follow their own Wills Jesus Christ came to shew that he is Obedidient even to the Death of the Cross that he might teach Men how they ought to be subject and obedient even to Death And Jesus Christ has done all this with many other things for the Love he bear to Men and that by such Means he might draw them to his Father that he might live with them to all Eternity giving himself thus in Sacrifice for the Redemption of his Brethren But this Sacrifice was not offered for Men who do not believe in him and do not the Works that he did nor for those who will needs wilfully continue in their Sins after having known the Law of the Gospel c. And in Antichr decouv Part 2. p. 76. They have says she sometimes argued against me that I deny the Satisfaction of Jesus Christ But I believe this is because I do not hold that Jesus Christ has satisfi'd for Men after the Manner that they hold it to wit that Jesus Christ has satisfied for all Men and that they shall be saved by his Sufferings without being obliged to suffer themselves which is a great Error because the Sufferings of Jesus Christ will never be applied to any but those who shall follow his Life and Doctrine But because on the one hand Men are apt to pervert the Doctrine of the Merits and Satisfaction of Jesus Christ to encourage the Indulging of their corrupt Nature and others to despise it and think they can save themselves I think it will not be unacceptable to shew how she discovers the Evil of both as in many of her Writings so particularly in Antechr decouvert Part 3. p. 45 46 c. Those Persons says she she speaks of those who despise Jesus Christ and think they can save themselves without him perish thro' Pride as well as they who say that Jesus Christ has satisfied all for them All of them fall into the same Sin of Pride and Ingratitude tho' by different Ways The one is proud to believe that he shall be saved by his own Works and he is also very unthankful that he will not acknowledge what Jesus Christ has done for him requiting his Benefits with Contempt and Irreverence And the others commit the same Sin of Pride in presuming that they are God's Elect and his Children to whom Salvation appertains tho they do not labour to obtain it and they â—â—ll also into the Sin of Ingratitude in that they will nor render unto Jesus Christ what he has paid for them They now that he was their Pledge and Surety yea that he effectively paid the Penalties due to their Sins yet they will not use any Endeavours to make Restitution to him Would it not be a great Ingratitude for a Person to say to him who had paid his Debt as his Pledge and Surety That knowing his Debt is paid he resolves to live in Idleness without taking Care to return the same Payment to him who had paid it for him Such a Person would be look'd upon by us as wicked and unthankful while we think our selves the Children of God in doing the same things to the Person of Jesus Christ We
the Apostle says Of our selves we cannot think one good Thought but through Christ that strengthens us we are able to do all things It is true says she if we consider only the Miseries and Weakness of Man corrupted by Sin the Gospel-Law is impossible but not if we have regard to the Power of God's Grace This Jesus Christ intimated to his Apostles when he told as to a rich Man's entring into the Kingdom of Heaven that it was impossible with Men but not with God when a Man shall entirely yield up himself to him to be wholly governed by him God will easily operate in him a Gospel-Life and Jesus Christ has said if you who are evil know how to give good things to your Children how much more will your heavenly Father give his holy Spirit to them that ask him It is false therefore to say that the Gospel-Law cannot be kept since it was given for no other End and Jesus Christ brought it from Heaven as the only Remedy of all our Evils and the only Means of our Salvation and has said I have done these things to give you an Example And God will never enjoyn Man to do any thing but what he will give him Grace to accomplish But such is Man's Wickedness that he would impute to God his own Faults and the Blame of his Damnation on him as if he were severe and cruel by laying on him Burthens of Commands that are insupportable that Man may thus be justified and God condemned tho' truly Man only is worthy of Condemnation For God still imparts his Graces to him and all those Laws are special Instances of his Love to Man that by them he might bring him back to the Love of his God for his eternal Salvation And in many Places of her Writings she shews the Possibility of Obeying God's Commands and the Blasphemy of the contrary Doctrine from the Design of them and the End for which God gave them Open your Eyes says she to see this Light of Truth That never any Body will be saved who dies without the Love of God and that no Body can love God if he do not hate himself These are the Sentences which God has often confirmed to me and given me Assurance that they are true and that all the Laws and Commands which God has given to Men are only so many Means to make them return to his Love Now the whole Doctrine of the Gospel is nothing else but so many Means to withdraw Man from Sin that he may recover the Love of God And when this Law teaches him Poverty of Spirit it is to shew him that Covetousness has withdrawn him from the Love of his God and that he cannot return to it without leaving off to covet earthly Goods And when it teaches him to be humble of Heart and to chuse the last Place it is because he had lost the Love of God by loving himself esteeming himself worthy of Honour and Glory tho' he be worthy of nothing but Shame and Confusion And he not knowing this stands in need of a Doctrine contrary to his Errours and Ignorance to make him return to the Love of God which he had lost by his Pride And when Jesus Christ declares that he came not to do his own Will but the Will of him that sent him it is to teach Men that to fulfil their own corrupt and perverse Wills they have left off to do the Will of God and to love him and that if they do not renounce their own Wills to follow the Will of God and thereby to return to his Love they cannot be saved Behold how Jesus Christ has brought Physick for our Diseases being desirous to cure them by Remedies contrary to our Infirmities and yet these Ignorants would gloss away the Gospel-Law as if it were impossible to observe it as they say it is impossible to keep the Commandments of God tho' both these Laws be nothing else but Remedies for our Diseases Christians she says are guilty of Ingratitude when they say they cannot keep the Commandments of God nor the Laws of the Gospel since all these are only true Means to recover the Love of God For all the Commandments are no other thing but Means to loose Mens Hearts from Self-Love and the evil Inclinations that Sin has brought into their Nature All the Commands import no other thing in Substance but that Man must always resist his Self-Love refusing its Desires because being corrupted by Sin it can desire nothing but what is Evil or tends to an evil End which because Men did not well know God would shew them in particular what they ought to do and forbear that they might recover his Love Now tho' he has given his Commands because of our Frailty yet Man is so ungrate as to say it is impossible for him to keep those Commands because of that very Frailty for the Help of which God has given his Commands as Supports to his Frailty He is Evil in that wherein God is Good and takes for Burthens the Helps that God has given him because of his Frailty For if he had not had any frailty God would never have given him any Laws since the Love he bare to God was a Law to it self and had no need of any other Guide or Directour The Summ of her Sentiments in this Matter is that all the Laws of God are given to Man as Helps of his Frailty as Warnings to shew him what Way he has stray'd from God and as indispensable and necessary Means to recover and bring him back again to the Love of God even as if a Father should give his Son who was become an habitual Drunkard or lewd Person strict Commands absolutely to forbear such Conversation and such Houses which would infallibly intangle and keep him still in his Sins that Jesus Christ has in his own Example as a Man shewn us both the Necessity of this and how possible and easie it is to observe them That no Man can observe them by his own Strength but only by the Grace of God that we are first Children before we are Men and our Falls and Stumbles ought not to discourage us but we must get up and go forward and depend upon God and he will be with us as the Child that is learning to walk must not be discouraged by its Falls but must get up and go forward and hold more closely by its Mother That they who are truly regenerated may live in Obedience to God without Sin but are not impeccable may fall from that State and yet recover it again by the Grace of God that to say the Commandments of God are impossible is to deny the Merits of Jesus Christ the Efficacy of his Intercession the Power of his Grace the Usefulness of his Example to assert the Force of the Devil and corrupt Nature beyond that of God to accuse God of the greatest Cruelty in giving us Laws which it
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
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
do not exercise them according to their own Will or as they please but they are resign'd to God that he may do in them and by them when and how he please For Example St. Paul had without doubt the Gift of Miracles he struck Elymas Blind raised the Young Man that fell down dead and healed others And yet nevertheless when he was taken he made none Blind that he might escape from his Persecutors neither did he miraculously heal Epaphirus Trophimus Timothy And even so when the Light of God the Gift of Knowledge c. is given unto the Saints they do not therefore discover all things in that Light and by that Gift according to their Will but being dead to their own Will and resign'd to the Will of God they discover in that Light of God those things only which he is pleased to manifest unto them in it so that if God in his Wisdom see it convenient for them that they be ignorant of the Evils of some with whom they converse whether to exercise them or that some external things may be done to them by these Hypocrites or for other Ends known to his infinite Wisdom then without any Prejudice to the Light of God or the Gift of Discerning of Spirits they shall not know these Hypocrites till God be pleas'd to bring that Gift into act as to that Matter which he uses to do when he sees it necessary either for their own Salvation or that of others or for the Glory of his Name It is a great Error then for us to think that the Gifts of God are managed by Mens Self-will or Self-wisdom and from hence to conclude that that Person to whom the inward Disposition of others was known for some time did not only want the Gift of Discerning Spirits but that also it is from hence evident that it cannot be known from such a Person 's Life and Doctrine that he was led by the Spirit of God since he did embrace in others that which was but Appearance and Imposture only for Truth For David Jeremy another true Prophet they who baptized Simon Magus Paul as to Demas have sometimes taken the Appearance or Imposture of some Hypocrites or Liars for Truth Does it from hence follow that it could not be known by their Life and Doctrine that they were led by the Spirit of God As if the stress of their whole Life and Doctrine were to be laid upon some one or other innocent Mistake Or as if rather from hence it ought not to be inferred that God in his Wisdom saw it expedient that they should be ignorant of the Hypocrisie of such Persons for some time and that the Gift of Discerning of Spirits should be differently directed and applied in those who are acted by the Spirit of God according to his Will who can truly say Not I live but Christ lives in me Thus I have given a plain and true Narrative of the Sentiments of Antonia Bourignon both as to the Essential and Accessory Truths And of the Prejudices generally raised against her and the just Defences she makes for her self by which she clears and removes them and of the Evidences she brings for her being led by the Spirit of God and not by that of the Devil or Nature or her own Imagination and the Answers given to what is oppos'd against it And tho' I might have contracted all into lesser Bounds yet I chose rather to give it in her own Words and to let her speak for her self And now after all I beg leave to summ up the Evidence XXVI If any pretend to be led by the Spirit of God and in the mean time are worldly or sensual or selfish or contradict the Doctrine of Jesus Christ it is evident they are not of God But if any publish to the World a Doctrine that is Pure and Holy tending only to mortifie Corrupt Nature and to recover the Love of God if it be wholly conformable unto and the same with the Doctrine of Jesus Christ and of his Gospel If they who publish it do still live conformably unto it and bring forth the Fruits of the Spirit of God in their whole Life and Practice despising all temporal things and tending only to things eternal and manifesting the Righteousness Goodness and Truth of God in all their Actions if their Words be accompanied with a Force and Power which reaches the Heart and convinces the Conscience If they discover often the secret Thoughts of the Hearts of others and their Dispositions even sometimes tho' their Persons be unknown to them If they be Persons full of Simplicity and Sincerity having no worldly Aim doing nothing to please Men nor to gain their Esteem but declaring the Truth in Simplicity even in things which they know will be most unpleasing to Men and will bring upon them Hatred Contempt and Persecution from Men instead of their Favour and Esteem If they are altogether Illiterate and have acquired no Knowledge by the humane means of Study Reading Conversation and Meditation and yet manifest a clear distinct and comprehensive Knowledge of Divine Things far beyond the most Learned Divines If in declaring those Truths to the World by writing they flowed from them as Water does from a Fountain as fast as their Hand could guide the Pen without musing or meditating what to write or changing and correcting what they had once written or reading it over again and yet all as to the main is of a Thread most rational and clear and consistent and no real Contradiction either to the Holy Scriptures or amongst those Writings themselves as to the Essence and Substance of them And if such declare to the World that of themselves they are sinful Nothings of the corrupt Mass of Adam from whence nothing can come but Evil and that all the Good that is in them and all the Truths they communicate to the World is not from them but from God and the immediate Operation of his Holy Spirit who is pleased to make use of weak and simple Means to confound the Mighty and Wise If all these can be truly said of any these are certainly Evidences that will abide the Verdict of an impartial Jury even tho' there be no visible Miracles as John the Baptist and many of the ancient Prophets did none there being no New Doctrine publish'd but the pressing and clearing of that already declared and confirm'd by Jesus Christ and his Apostles Now this is the Summ of the Plea of Antonia Bourignon and for the Proof of it as to her Doctrine and Sentiments she refers to her Writings which any that please may consult as to her Life and Spirit to those who were daily Witnesses of it of which there are a Cloud of Testimonies made publick as also for the manner of composing her Writings As to the Force and Efficacy of them to those who by their Experience have found and do attest it And these are the
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
otherwise the Devil threatens to hinder them by all sort of means from marrying or bringing forth Children XLIII Some can hardly believe that all these Girls could have been in Compact with the Devil far less that Declaration of A. B. as from God that so vast a multitude of People on the Earth are in Compact with him A. B. could as little believe it as any for she thought none but the vilest Miscreants were such till there were undoubted Proofs given her of it The voluntary Confession of all the Girls the preternatural Acts done by them in her Presence their Agreement in their Confessions as to their Sabbaths the manner of Dovoting themselves to the Devil c. Their Declaration of all this to the Three Pastors some of them still owning their Confession tho' others were easily perswaded to deny it again finding they were caress'd by the Magistrates for so doing and the Attestation of the Truth of all this by the Three Pastors Copies of which are in the La vie Continuée and the Originals in the Hands of the Writer of it are such Evidences as will satisfie all but they who will not be satisfied And as for the other we need not think it so extravagant if we consider that it is Satan's earnest Desire and Ambition to have Men devoted to him by express Covenant that the more he have of such he is the more capable of doing Mischief to the rest of Mankind than he can do by himself without them that he obliges all who are so to devote to him all their Posterity that he still labours to alie and marry them with the Good that so he may corrupt their Off-spring that they who are thus devoted to him being once habituated to all manner of sensual Delights can hardly ever will to be reclaimed again that in outward Appearance they differ nothing from others but put on for the most part the greatest pretences to Devotion that when ever any of them are discovered and tried if strict Enquiry be made about them their number appears incredible witness the late Trials in the West of Scotland those of Sweden New England and what the Learned Bodinus tells from his own Knowledge That when Pardon was granted to a Sorcerer upon Condition to discover his Compalices he discovered so many of all Ranks that at length he plainly told there would be One Hundred Thousand in that Country XLIV About the end of that time an old Woman of Lisle importun'd A. B. to take into the House a Girl of Nine Years who being discovered to be one of the Coven was immediately thrust out again telling the old Woman that all their Secrets were discovered to the Regent of the Hospital She run about immediately to the Magistrates and the Parents of the Children telling how their Reputation was quite broken by A. B. by saying they were Witches She obtain'd of the Magistrates that Enquiry should be made into the Life of A. B. without her knowledge And the Criminal Clerk took Informations upon Oath in the Town and neighbouring Towns and Villages all which serv'd only to make her Innocence and Purity the more evident for the Witnesses they had pitch'd upon as most animated against her could depone nothing but what was good and praise-worthy and could lay-nothing to her Charge Which he who received the Dpositions admired saying he knew no Body who if their Life had been examin'd from their Childhood by Enemies and with the same Rigour could have undergone the Trial so unblameably without being guilty of something She was afterwards allow'd Witnesses for her Excuspation and when some of them were heard he said there needs no more for there is almost enough already for to Canonize her and declare her a Saint All these Depositions are still in the Register of the Town of Iasle XLV On the 9th of Febraury 1662. they sent the Lieutenant and Sergeants armed and broke open her House and carried her violently to the To 〈…〉 with a great Noise and croud of People who imagin'd she was seiz'd for a Witch because of the Report spread about the Children where they examin'd her most strictâ—y Six Hours and made her give an Account of all the Affairs that concern'd the Hospital which she did with such a presence of Mind as made her remember all and answer most pertinently so they behov'd to acknowledge they could not find any Fault in her Yet they brought her before them after the same manner at several times without granting her Request of calling her in the Evening to avoid Scandal They caus'd bring the Children also to see what they could draw from them against her but they could say nothing against her only some of them said a Servant-Maid of hers had chastis'd one of the Girls with a Wand and not long after that she died So they caus'd seize the poor Servant as if she had kill'd the Girl and resolv'd to do so to the Mistress under pretext that the Correction was by her Order but four Persons declar'd upon Oath that this was most false and that the Gird died by eating to excess of green Fruits out of the Lodging One of the Magistrates said to the Children She accuses you of Witchcraft and going to the Sabbaths Why do you not accuse her too But the Girls how wicked soever trembling at such a black Malice said immediately No No our Mother so they call'd her is no Witch she goes not to the Sabbath Our Mother is a Saint she is all full of God XLVI They conspir'd in the House to take away her Life by Malefices the Devil had Meetings with Twenty Five of them how to effectuate it and with their Consent made an Unguent of divers matters of which there were Balls given to put in her Broth. S. Saulieu was at the Meeting for he also kept the Sabbaths and stirred them up to make her away One of the eldest of them discovered it to her and went with her to one of the Girl 's Bed and found the Ball. She advertis'd the Pastors and they the Magistrates and she was told if she was afraid she might remove and they would place another in her room She staid till she discovered Fourteen Children who had of these Balls to destroy her She then chose a Regent and retir'd entring a Protestation before the Magistrates that she did not abandon the Regency having left one in her Place When the Magistrates examin'd the Girls the eldest declared all the Truth and the Magistrates laboured to make her unsay it which she would nor The others who denied all they sent away cheerful â—â—ing one to another the Magistrates are for us Two Days after she retired the Magistrates thrust the Widow out of the Regency The Jesuits got the Oversight of it there they plac'd one of their Maids they admitted the Girls presently to Confession and Communion making them pass for little Saints and A. B. for Guilty
the Prison 〈◊〉 brought him by the Hangman theâ— ' a Guard to the Place of Execution and caused to be 〈◊〉 her Books which they found in the Coffer and the Letter before him wishing they had her to burn there with them and the Hangman led him out of the Town and they banishâ—d him all Holstein The Pastours read an Ordinance of the Magistrates from the Pulpits forbidding to lodge any of the Friends of this Maid or to keep any Correspondence with them The Animosity was no less every where The Roman Priest the Jesuit of Frederickstadt wish'd he might furnish Fewel to burn her Peter Gerard Patin Priest of the Oratory at Mechlin who staid at Noordstrand and possess'd it for the Society and others of the Oratory detainned her Goods rejoiced in her Persecutions and made several Attempts to rid themselves of her LXVI When she returned to Husum she had a little Security there The Churchmen continued secretly their Pursuits to destroy her And where they become a Party they are an inexhaustible Source of Enmity and as all the People count them holy Men at least zealous for the Truth so they never want Men enough ready to devote themselves to the Execution of their unjust Passions When they forbad her to print any more there was in the Press unfinish'd in Low and High-Dutch the Treatise of Solid Vertue and since it treated of no Controversie she might have finish'd the Sheets that were wanting but she did it not However Surmises being made to the Pastours that the Press was going they obtained Orders from the Court that the Fiscal of Sleswick should seize the Press and what 〈◊〉 to it and under Colour of this by the Instigation or the Pastours and other Enemies he came with Fury Feb. 2. with Force to assist him entred the House with Insolence Cries and Menaces broke up the Chests and Chambers searched thro' all took not only the Press and what belongâ—d to it but many thousands of Books come from Holland a Hundred Reams of White-Paper her Papers and Books which concerned her Goods her Process her Books of Rentals Obligations Titles Papers of the Executory of M. de Cort being two Days a pillaging and all the Rabble about them All was had to the Town-House of Susum and from thence transported in ten or twelve Carts The Fiscal tore the Books in the Streets and gave them to any Body that pleas'd to have them crying Here 's the ungodly and blasphemous Books of Anthoinette Her Loss amounted to more than Six thousand Florins LXVII Yet the Pastors insatiable in their Persecutions continu'd their Complaints at the Court of Gottorp complaining that she was suffered still to write and speak and that any were permitted to go near her the Duke wearied with their Importunities Consents that she shall be put in perpetual Imprisonment and the Order is sent to General-Major Vanderwyck He was a Man of Probity and one that fear'd God and by a remarkable Rencounter those very Persecutions had brought him to know and esteem her for the Soldiers who were Centinels at the General 's Gate having catch'd some flying Leaves of her Book when they were transporting them in Carts the General coming in took out of one of their Hands one of these Sheets which was of the Treatise of Solid Vertue he thinking it had been a Gazette but having read it he was so astonish'd and so touch'd that he sigh'd for the Injustice done to those good Persons of whom he had never heard any thing spoken but ill Is this says he the Doctrine and the People of whom they speak so much Evil and whom they treat at this rate From that time he loved them When he received this Order he was so much touch'd with Indignation and Grief that he immediately went to ask the Prince the cause of his Commission and if he had heard the Accused in their own Defence The Prince said not but the Pastors would not give him rest and said so much ill of her that he must needs remove the Occasion But the General excus'd himself from executing the Order said he could not do it in Conscience and that his Highness should consider that even the Heathens condemn'd no Body without having first heard them that he should not let himself be so much pre-occupied by those Pastors as to hear them only and give Sentence on their Word without hearing the other Party The Prince was touch'd with it and well pleasâ—d he had hindred so unjust an Execution and immediately he generously revoked the Sentence which the Pastors had surpriz'd from him by their cunning Lies A Pattern for all Princes to imitate LXVIII The Pastours finding they had not Audience enough at Court resolve to make the World ring with their Slanders and bloody Reproaches against an innocent Maid Burchardus writes a Book called Christian and Solid Remarks on the blasphemous Errors of Antoinette Bourignon which she answered by a Writing Entituled The Touchstone M. Ouwe wrote another Pasquil called Apocalipsis Haereseos c. but he is so beside himself that he fights with his own Shadow and there could be no better Answer to him than to let him alone All their Writings and Calumnies can never alter the Heart of a good Man that is truly touch'd with a sence of Divine things One Line of Truth is more Powerful than all their Sophistries One of their Designs in writing was to engage her to answer that they might have a Pretence to seize her she being forbid to publish any thing and this they threatned to her Friends She resolved to go where she might be in more Security LXIX In the middle of the hard Winter 1674. which was so Extraordinary both for Frost and Snow she went to Sleswick where she was in as great Hazard as at Susum The late Exploit against her and the Calumnies and Sermons of the Pastors had alarum'd all the People They thought her some strange Monster of a Woman who had written Books which were burnt in some Places and confiscated in other and against which the Pastors thundred with so much Zeal and concluded her worse than the Hereticks that had been burnt To receive her into their Houses they thought was to take in one worse than the Devil and they would not have fail'd to turn her out to the Streets again The People were eanest to enquire for her every where and even as she past sometimes tho' unknown they would be enclin'd to think that it was Aâ—thoinette tho they had never seen her and knew only that she was a French Woman and unmarried and so nimble a Fugitive that she would be whiles here whiles there as it were by a Charm without knowing how She was forâ—'d to change from one House to another for she was no sooner come into any but they would presently think perhaps this was Anthoinette and became so prying and inquisitive that she was still necessitated to seek
which his Highness had granted to the Partners of that Isle that she had nothing to do with the Pastours of Holstein her Enemies that she and 〈◊〉 would let them and their Hearers do and say what â—â—ey pleased that while they gave Offence to no body but liv'd honestly and justly and even brought temporal Advantage to the Inhabitants of the Country and had nothing but just Designs they ought not to oppose them fearing thereby to oppose God That otherwise God would take Vengeance on them and that she was much afraid that he might punish the Country and the Inhabitants in the same Manner that she had been and might yet be treated by them It is like the Discourses of the Pastours made all this vanish but they could not put off what follow'd some Months after However she resolv'd to wait with Patience to see if they would grant her just Requests She applied herself to take a particular Care of forming the Souls of those who were with her according to the Will of God both as to spiritual and temporal She wrote for their spiritual Direction besides many particular Letters one common to them all which is the Second Part of The Renovation of the Evangelical Spirit and for their outward Behaviour began to write the Treatise called Sound Advices and also The Rules of Christians which last is joined to the Treatise called The Stones of the New Jerusalem As she prescrib'd them nothing of herself she ask'd God his Will as to the Government of outward Things for which he gave her particular Rules which are already put into English in the Preface to The Light of the World p. 19. Shortly after this the Court was forc'd to remove the King of Denmark and his Troops passed over all the Country and the President being then secur'd the Pastours applied to the King's Council who then took the Government of the Country to cause her to be seiz'd she immediately after went for Hambourg with one Maid leaving her Friends in the House which she had bought but some Weeks before and the King's Armies came into the Country and ravaged every where and they who would not tolerate a Servant of God who could do them nothing but Good both for Body and Soul were forc'd to suffer private and publick Hardships which were long and severe enough LXXIV She came to Hambourg the last of March 1676. where there was Appearance she might live long enough retiredly in a Place whose Freedom Greatness and Trade keeps them from taking exact Notice of Strangers and private Persons that live there The first Traverse she met with was that she could find no where a free Chamber where she might live retir'd so that after having waited all Day she was forc'd to go lodge in a Soldier 's House who offer'd her a little Chamber where she staid fifteen Months for want of a Retreat elsewhere In the Spring time she applied herself to make a little Garden of a Court which was useless to the Lodging and accommodated it very well and profitably She repaired and whiten'd her Chamber and a Part of the Lodging wash'd her own Linen and serv'd herself in every thing except the Buying of Provisions not daring to go abroad lest she should meet with some of her Acquaintaince She was most exact in all the outward things which Necessity and good Order required and said this pleased God more than the most sublime Contemplations which often gratifies Self-love and thereafter gives Occasion of Disorder and Displeasure to the Soul by the Confusion that Negligence has brought in outward things Whereas outward Labour even in the meanest things humbles the Heart simplifies it begets an entire and exact Submission to God a laudable Charity and Care for our Neighbour and a certain Repose and Contentment of Soul which did more satisfie S. Joseph in being a Carpenter than were the Doctors of the Law in preaching in Moses's Chair She told how S. Terese having begun to write one of her sublimest Works and having interrupted it for to Spin when her Religious Nuns begg'd she would continue to write she answered them that she must first have done with her Distaff This A. B. told sometimes smiling to those who would perswade her not to employ her self in outward Labours that she might bestow all her Time in writing spiritual Things LXXV She wrote then the Second Part of Solid Vertue and the excellent Preface to The Renovation of the Evangelical Spirit and the Preface before The Blindness of Men now adays for she resolv'd to prepare all her Writings to be published after that God had made known to her that such was his Will for by them the Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached thro' all the World There were several Persons who came to her at this time from several Parts and being convinced of the Truth offered her all the Services they were capable of And she offered them always unto God that she might know how to behave with them She was again surrounded with Afflictions on all sides In Sleswick her Friends were robb'd beaten and wounded by the Soldiers and Rabble and forc'd to leave the Lodging and flee into the Woods and from thence thro the Snow into the Town of Kiel In Noordstrand the Peasants stole the Beast and other Goods she had bought with her Money her Friends there neglecting to sue after them She herself at Hambourg was seized with some Fits of Sickness which brought her very low And perceiving that some Friends who were then with her were troubled with the Thoughts of her being to be taken from them shortly by Death she said Why do you make such Reckoning of me I am nothing but a human Creature Fix upon God and cleave to him From him you must call for Help him you must strive to please You are to have no Concern at all for me as to my Person It is to God only and to his Spirit that you must cleave If I come to die what matters it You must not for this leave off in the least to cleave unto God and continue faithful unto him If you trust in me you will deceive your selves I may die as any other Person And if God did not still preserve my Life as by a Miracle amidst so much Weakness and Perils I should have been dead already a thousand times They were so perswaded of this particular Protection of God that it made them too confident that God would yet preserve her Life for a long time One of them said to her I do not believe that you can die so soon whatever Evil befall you And I says she do certainly believe I may die even at this Moment What reason have you to believe the contrary Because replied he God has given you Promises which are not yet fulfilled and we are sure that God will not be wanting in his Word He has promised that you shall have Children who shall imitate you
their Purity notwithstanding their Contradiction to Mens Lives in whose hands they are to be a standing Miracle and the Doctrine of Jesus Christ to be the last and most perfect Doctrine that is to come into the World and the Standard by which all others are to be examin'd and tried and desires no body may receive her Sentiments but in so far as they are agreeable thereunto and condemns the Practice of the Roman Church in with-holding the Use of the Scriptures from the People as a heinous Injustice and Impiety Tho' she does not think that God has bound up himself only to this way of communicating his Light but may when he pleases immediately communicate the same to any Person without the Use of the Holy Scriptures and such Persons may forbear the reading of them as she did without despising them as one needs not be taken up with reading his Friend's Letter when he is immediately conversing with him And for an Evidence of it she appeals to the Truths which she declares are communicated to her by God if they are not the same in Substance with those contained in the Holy Scriptures XI The Author comes next to some of her Opinions which she her self has often declared are not necessary to be believed and which if Men please they may count them Dreams and Fancies He calls them wild and barbarous and indeed as he conceives and represents them he would make some of them appear Extravagant enough tho' a candid Interpretation of them will render them both amiable and useful Thus what Wildness or Barbarity is there in Asserting that Jesus Christ and his Church are one that it is his Spirit internally animating influencing and informing the Souls of Men that makes them Members of his Mystical Body which is the Church or in Asserting that the last Judgment by which she means the Universal Plagues by which God will in a Course of many Years destroy the Wicked from off the Earth is at hand Few who seriously consider the State of the World will think this a wild and barbarous Notion but the Scoffers who walk after their own Lusts and say Where is the Promise of his coming She maintains no Mahumeâ—an Paradise but such a one as Man would have enjoy'd in the State of Innocence when as yet he had no Lust or Concupiscence Vnto the Pure all things are Pure but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing Pure but even their Mind and Conscience is defiled She says with our Saviour That the Saints after the Resurrection neither marry nor are given in Marriage but are as the Angels in Heaven She condemns human Learning no farther than it fosters Pride Amusement Self-conceit and the Lust of the Eye or Curiosity and destroys Charity and the Love of God There is no greater Absurdity in saying that Jesus Christ thought fit to appear in our human Nature void of human Learning no Mathematician no Philosopher nor Critick than to say that he appear'd poor and despised of all not having where to lay his Head since he thought fit to deny himself of all that we make the Object of our Vanity and Concupiscence XII What the Author is pleas'd to say of M. Poiret that he was craz'd and is still so reputed being utterly false can do him no Hurt with such as are either acquainted with himself or his Writings but it shews that Mens Passions will make them rashly utter false and extravagant Things which they themselves do not believe For the Author himself in the next Page reckons him among the Men of Sence and Learning who have written in Defence of A. B. abroad It is no wonder then that some in Britain admire his Books for he is no superficial rambling Writer as they discover more than an ordinary Degree of Sence and Learning so they direct to the solid Knowledge and Practice of true Christianity Freed from the false Glosses of Parties and the Disguises of Self-Love and corrupt Nature the Charge of his denying the Divine Prescience is clear'd in the Apology * They do also endeavour to make him odious by publishing an Expression which they say he used in a private Conversation with two Gentlemen of their Acquaintance M. Poiret himself says it is not easie for him to remember the Conversations he hath with all who come to see him nor if he had such an Expression to any but that if he had those Gentlemen may think he had Reason for what he spoke and he is well pleased that all the World know it that as he is fully perswaded that God is so he is perswaded that A. B. was illuminated and inspired by his Holy Spirit Both these are Truths but it does not follow that he looks upon both as of equal Moment or that he believes them upon equal Grounds XIII After the Author has formed so grievous and unjust a Charge laying aside a Christian Temper he proceeds in his 8. Sect. to sound the Trumpet and excite others to Fury and Indignation and in his late Book of the History of Sin and Heresie p. 33. he repeats over the same Charge with all the hard Words that Spite and Fury could invent and insinuates his Fears of a Growing Sect and Party It is strange to see Men more alarm'd and enrag'd against Enemies created by their own Fancy than they are against real ones If the Author of the Preface were once out of the Heat that his Imagination has put him in it were easie I should think to convince him that these he calls Bourignianists are no such Enemies as he has fansied to himself I can assure him they do heartily own that our Reconciliation with God is obtain'd only by the Merits and Satisfaction of Jesus Christ That the Word of God contained in the Holy Scriptures is the Standard by which we are to try and examine all Doctrines That no Inspiration can come from God that does not fill the Soul with Humility and Charity or That instills under the Sheeps Clothing of Devotion and Piety any Heresie or any thing that tends to Schism or to withdraw Obedience from their lawful Bishop or to set up new Sects and that Corruptions in the Church are better amended by living in the Communion of it and there by good Example to reclaim than by open Desertion to set up opposite Factions which heightens Animosities embitters Spirits renders them deaf to one anothers Advices and often proceeds to Blood and Slaughter as the Author of the Preface does so rationally conclude it in the Marks he gives to distinguish between Inspirations from God and Diabolical Enthusiasm And if there be any thing in the Writings of A. B. contrary to these or to the Doctrine of Jesus Christ they do openly disown and disclaim the same and stand up for them no farther than they tend to promote the great Interests of Christianity Truth Holiness and Peace XIV I come now to
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
to all the World by a great many Elogies of all Sorts that Men all might extol her and adhere to her for the Making up of a New Sect. In the Second he gives this Idea of herself as if her great Design was to boast that she was endued with all Sort of Prerogatives that she might draw Souls to follow her as if she aim'd to be the Head of a Party in Religion and to draw Disciples after her Now there is nothing more false than all this for the Friends of A. B. had no other Aim but to seek after the Truth as it is in Christ Jesus 2. And having found the Truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ most purely and savingly represented in the Writings and Conversation of A. B. they do highly valuâ— them and endeavour to conform their Hearts and Livâ— unto them 3. They desire that these Truths in 〈◊〉 Purity and Force may be communicated unto others 〈◊〉 the Glory of God and the Salvation of their Souls 4. And therefore thought themselves obliged to vindicate the Author from the many Aspersions Calumnies and Reproachâ—â— cast upon her at the Instigation of Satan by wicked and malicious Men by declaring what they had seen and known for many Years of this Virgin that so the Weak migâ—t 〈◊〉 be frighted away from the Truth by the malicious 〈◊〉 of Slanderers As for A. B. herself the bent of her 〈◊〉 was to live retir'd with God and to conceal rather 〈◊〉 publish his Graces to her Soul and thus she did for 〈◊〉 than fifty Years and would have done so still had 〈◊〉 God commanded and Providence order'd her such 〈◊〉 sions as oblig'd her to publish these Truths 1. 〈◊〉 present there are no true Christians upon Earth 2. 〈◊〉 what Means the Spirit of true Christianity is to be 〈◊〉 according to the true Precepts of the Gospel which 〈◊〉 disguised by the Glosses of Men. 3. That they who 〈◊〉 not sincerely labour after this would be shortly 〈…〉 by the just Judgments of God The various 〈…〉 and Objections that were brought against her 〈…〉 to declare several other Truths in Vindication of 〈…〉 and Doctrine and thus she is obliged to declare to 〈◊〉 that God who makes Use of weak and simple Me 〈◊〉 confound the Wise had sent her to make know◠〈◊〉 Truths of Jesus Christ to others that by the 〈…〉 God those Things are done in her from the doing of which they excuse themselves as if they were impossible to others she was obligâ—d to speak of God's Mission his Call to teach others and the Gifts and Capacities he bestows for that End and that there might be no Obstacle in her to hinder others from embracing the Truths of Jesus Christ she clears herself from the reproachful Calumnies and Lies form'd against her by the contrary Vertues and Favours which God had bestow'd on her and by the unquestionable Evidences and Testimonies of those to whom she was well known This is true Matter of Fact and these were the Occasions and Reasons which led both her and her Friends to speak of the Graces of God bestowed on her XIX The Doctor 's first Narrative contains his Character of A. B. taken as he says from her Friends with his Inferences from it and then his Collection of the Reasons why they have such Sentiments of her with his Censure of them In the First there is not one Instance of a fair and ingenuous Narration but many of great Injustice Disingenuity and foul Dealing most unbecoming a Writer of Narratives For XX. 1. The Method he follows palpably discovers that his great Aim was to blacken her If one designed to make a beautiful Person appear ugly he could not do it more effectually than if he should first deprive her of all Life and Spirit then take off the Skin of the Body and dismember it all in Pieces and quite invert the Order of its Parts and take withal only some Bits of it to set them together and at last bespatter all with Filth and Spittle crying Here is the Woman And such is the Doctor 's singular Way of making Characters They who have reaped great spiritual Advantages from the Writings and Conversation of any Person do speak of such a Person with more Esteem and Admiration than others who not having had such Experiences will think their Expressions extravagant especially when half Sentences are taken out by themselves and pieced with others at a great Distance from them and yet this is the Doctor 's Way of making up the Character of A. B. skipping from one Book to another from one Chapter to another to pick out the half Sentences that might be serviceable to his evil Design In the rest of his Narrative he takes out little Passages of her Life here and there without narrating ingenuously the true Circumstances of them he dresses them up with his fine Reflexions and so exposes them to the World as a Character of her Life The Answer he gives to this in his Letter to his Friend at London Art XIV is frivolous and needs no Reply it shews only how willing he is to say any thing rather than ingenuously confess a real and a heinous Sin 2. The Doctor 's foul Dealing appears farther in making up this Character by borrowing Pieces of it not from her own or her Friends Writings but from those of hers and their avowed Enemies as the next Day some of the Doctor 's Temper and Acquaintance will it may be take her Character as given by her Friends upon his Word and so fill it with horrid Untruths Thus he takes a Part of their Character of her from the Author of the Leipsick Transactions which Part is shewn to be a most abominable Falshood in the Monitum ad Acta Erudit Leips and what Regard is to be had to the Testimony and Judgment of the Collector of the Leipsick Acts in this Matter appears by the Account of a Friend of his who speaks thus of that Subject Firmiter persuasus sum fuisse Bourignoniam Virginem pussimam c. I am firmly perswaded that the Virgin A. Bourignon was most pious and her Heart the Temple of the Holy Spirit her Doctrine as to the main is holy and sound and her Books most worthy to be perused by the Serious As to her Sentiments concerning some Mysteries she wrote no doubt according to her Perswasion and it savours nothing of Folly or Enthusiasm if you shall read her Writings without Prejudice â—and a sectarian Infallibility even tho' you be of another Opinion your self I impute it to human Weakness if she thought that no Body would be saved but they who embraced her Sentiments yet she herself uses to distinguish between the Sentiments about the Mysteries of Religion and the Doctrine of Godliness The Collectors of the Leipsick Acts have pass'd a severe Censure against her and our Author M. Poiret Yet I knew the Author of that severe Censure wrote
according to his Perswasion I got at a publick Auction that Copy of the Works of A. B. which the Author of the Censure made use of and with great wonder I observed the Weakness of Man The Author was a wise Man of great Judgment and Sincerity but what cannot Prejudices do that grow up with us I found many Places marked with a little Line on the Margent which if you consider them alone cannot but make the Doctrine of A. B. look suspicious yea blasphemous but if you join them with what goes before and follows after in her Writings they have an excellent and pious Sence The Author who while he liv'd was most dear to me and whom I am bound to honour now he is dead had such Prudence Judgment and Sincerity that he would never have made such Exceptions if the preconceiv'd Opinion of a Sect as it daily happens tâ— others had not bewitch'd him nevertheless I am perswaded that if he had lived till now he would have come to see his Errour This is the Judgment of Dr. Christianus Thomasius Counsellor to the Elector of Brandenbourg and Professor of the Law in the University of Hale in Saxony and is published in one of his Discourses before the Treatise De Eruditione solida c. which he caused to be reprinted in Germany and I wish with all my heart that Doctor Cockbourn and his Friend may impartially consider it and it may please God to open their Eyes and let them see their Mistakes 3. So zealous is the Doctor to blacken her that to compleat the Extravagancy of the Character he ventures to translate their Words falsly and even of those False Translations will tack together two half Sentences that are more than a Page distant in the Original as if they had been written in the blasphemous Way that he represents them in one Breath Thus Narr 1. p. 4. lin 7 8 9. he makes the Author of the Continuation of her Life say of her She is the divine Sun of Righteousness and with the same Breath She is pure Truth and the only Truth that can guide one to Heaven and eternal Life As if he had affirm'd both of her and both in one Period whereas they are in two different Paragraphs and neither of them spoken of her The first is a Petition put up to Almighty God by the Author of the Vie Continuée p. 599. That he would please to fix him in the Heaven of his Truth that the Dragon might not be able to cast him upon the Earth by his Violence nor by his Artifice That says he I may then always receive the Light of the Divine Sun of Righteousness in which thou hast placed thine Handmaid And then in the next Section when he had appealed unto God the Searcher of Hearts concerning his Integrity in seeking after Truth and his Impartiality in examining the Life and Writings of A. B. concerning his Readiness to disprove if he could with all the Application of his Mind have found any thing in them favouring Corruption or Sin or contrary to the Glory of God c. he continues his Appeal in these Words Is it not with the utmost Sincerity of my Heart that I protest openly that the Words of eternal Life have been with an incomparable Purity Clearness and Solidity in this Soul which thou hast sanctified and are yet in her Writings Certainly the Way that is recommended there as necessary to Salvation is the only and true Way this is the Life and Doctrine of Jesus Christ and there is no Danger to give up our selves to it entirely for this is Truth it self This is the Truth This is the pure Truth Thus we see there cannot be a more palpable Disingenuity in citing and translating than this is which can bear no Apology bâ—t an ingenuous Acknowledgment of the Pevarication Again Nar. 1. p. 9. lin 18. he makes M. de Cort complain that no body makes Prayers to her in the Times of Universal Scourges The Oâ—iginal is ni la point faire prier and the true Translation is they do not desire her to pray I shall not enquire what Sence the Doctor would have the Reader put upon his Translation but must say that he himself should not have aggravated his Guilt by calling that a close and literal Translation Art XIII of his Letter when he cannot be ignorant that it is both a false and a foul one Again Nar. 1. p. 17. he makes the Author of the Preface Apologet. prefix'd to her Life pag. 97. say that A. B. was the purest most disinterested and self denied Soul and the most resigned to God that ever was upon Earth The Words in the Original are Or je puis dire avec verite que M. Bour. estoit une ame des plus pures des plus degagées c. and the true Translation thus that she was one among the Souls which have been most pure c. his false Translation would have him to exalt her above all humane Creature the true lists her only among the Saints of the first Form among the hundred forty four thousand which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes Again Nar. 1. p. 74. forming an Argument against her Chastity from a Passage of her Life and her own Account of it La Parole de Dieu n. 158. and by the way I must say that no Lover of Purity would have perverted this Passage to the Sence that he has done nor is there any thing in the Embraces of Parents and Children that can be supposed to defile the Imagination of a Soul such as hers was in a truly regenerate State and in a profound Recollection and Communion with God he falsely translates theâ— last Part of it The Original is Je pensay de concevor cinque Personnages que je tiens gens de bien The true Version I thought I conceived Five Persons whom I reckon to be good Men. But the Doctor must render it Five comely Persons that it might serve his Design and afford Matter for impure Jest 4. It is no fair dealing in a Narrater to affirm things as spoken or written by others in his own Words without giving Evidence for them But the Doctor in his own Words tells us That if she may be believed Christ only laid the Foundation for her Works and did no more but prepare the way for her Design That the last and greatest Manifestation of the Divine Wisdom Power Love and Goodness was reserved to her and therefore she is and must be a greater Person than Jesus Christ himself And says he if we will take the Words of the Anonymous Author of La vie Continuee and some others this Woman was above all that 's Humane That God designed she should be the greatest Blessing that ever was conferr'd on Mankind That they set her on the same Level with Jesus Christ That they draw a Parallel betwixt him and her and do make him the Type of her
must be owned that she consulted Men and Books very little for she had both in great Contempt And yet within Eight Lines he says That her sublime Thoughts were suggested by her Conversation with others by Sermons which she heard and by Conferences with Confessors Priests and Learned Men. The Doctor who is so ready to fasten Contradictions upon others would do well to clear himself of them here he seems to contradict himself with his Pen in his Hand O but says he no matter how she came by them unless they be Solid and True But if they be both Solid and True it is certainly worth the while to consider both them and the Source of them His Calumny of her despising the Scriptures is already answered It had been good the Doctor had given us a Specimen of the fine Thoughts of the metaphysical mean Person of his Neighbour Parish he has been unkind to his Acquaintance there that he never let them know of this fine Wit he might have given a Narrative of him in Bourignianisin detected As for the Singular Talents of his Weaver he may meet with such in every Parish XXVIII One of his great Talents in his Narratives lies in making long Common Places and then giving such a turn to some Expression of A. B. or of her Friends as may amuse the Reader and make him think that they act or write contrary to the Vertues or Divine Truths about which he has been preaching or are guilty of the absurd things he has been exposing and when he comes to the Application he speaks not Truth in one Article but hâ—s the Art of darkning and confounding things instead of putting them in a true Light this appears in his XXV Article as well as in all the former It is not true that the Appearance of Comets is given as a Reason for having Mrs. A. B. in so high esteem for they were not mentionâ—d as Signs of her but as Presages of the approaching Judgments of God which she also declared concerning which the Author of the Vie continuè had good Reason to regret that the Devil should prevail so far as to get Books and Sermons published to efface our of Mens Hearts the Fear of God's Judgments which might arise from the Considerations of such wonderful Appearances by tâ—lling that Comets are Natural things and so there is no Reason to be apprehensive of them as if the greatest 〈◊〉 were not inflicted by natural Means as that Author there considers to excellent Purpose And as A. B. does in the Place cited on the Margent Many Signs says she have appeared in Heaven in the Sun in the Stars fearful Comets menacing great Evils which did affright some at first But so soon as the Devil had leisure to make his Adherents study to find out Reasons shewing that these were but Natural things he made the Fear of these Threatnings of God sent as the Fore-runners of his Justice to evanish out of their Minds c. It seems Men mock now at God's Warnings calling them Natural things The Deluge was made by a Natural Rain and the last Plagues will be made by Pestilence War Famine and Fire all Natural things But the Devil to divert us from believing that these things are the Beginnings of the last Plagues makes it be said by his Adherents That these are Natural things that no Body may turn to Repentance So nothing could occur more naturally in the writing of the Life of such a Person giving warning of such approaching Judgments than to excite Men also to consider Gods Warnings from the Heavens From all which there was not the least Ground for the Doctor to make the Inferences which he does or to call his Brother Fool not fearing the Danger incurred by so doing But the Doctor with his Friend the Author of Pensces diverses sur les Cometes will tell us They are all the superstitious Observers of Comets who look upon them as Presages of Divine Wrath and that Eclipses were sometimes as formidable and Comets now come to be better understood And in all Appearance the better they are understood they will become the more dreadful and terrible not only as Presages and Warnings of God's Judgments but also as the most dreadful and immediate Instruments of them XXIX As the true Reasons for which A. B. and her Writings are esteemed by some are not at all weakened by the Doctor but rather confirmed so neither is the Testimony of M. de Cort and M. Poiret being Men led by Truth more than Passion or Fancy by all that he alledges to the contrary What she said at the Age of Four Years being so weighty a Truth and the Text of her whole Life is most deservedly laid before the Doctors and Teachers by the Author of her Life and the 〈◊〉 that every good Man will make of it will be to sâ—arch his own Heart and not to lesten the weight and due Impression of any of God's Calls even out of the Mouths of Babes and Sucklings What he says to disparage the Purity of her Soul as well as of her Life shews only the Disorder of his own Mind who from Spiritual things studies to excite in himself end others impute Imaginations Vnto the 〈◊〉 all things are pure The Contradiction he finds out in M. Poiret lies only in his own Fancy Jesus Christ the Saints the Holy Scriptures do certainly send forth an Odour of Truth Charity Holiness Chastity and of all Vertues but this is not perceptible but only by them who are rightly disposed and who truly seek God Whereas they who love Falshood and Impurity are so far from feeling those Impressons that their Passions are rather excited to the contrary as appears by the Enemies of the Gospel So the Writings and Conversation of A. B. might make Divine Impressions of Charity and Purity upon some and yet the Spite and Malice and evil Passions of others might be thereby the more enflamed and that this is neither a Falshood nor a Contradiction daily Experience does testifie As to the Passage cited out of the Preface to M. Poiret's Divine Aeconomie whosoever shall read it at length as it is in the Preface it self will find the Thought so just and so excellent that he will see the Doctor has bewrayed only the Weakness of his own Understanding in censuring of it We see the Art that is now most magnified for finding out the Truth and upon which the Mathematicians do so much value themseves and I hope the the Doctor is a Friend to the Mathematicks tho' not to the Metaphysicks is that of shutting out all Idea's foraign to the thing in Question that the Mind may search after the Truth without Respect to its former Conceptions of it upon which the Truth does not at all depend If there be unquestionable and sufficient Evidences of the Divine Illumination of a Person this is not a sufficient Ground to despise them or to disparage
the Judgment of others who think well of them that there are many things in them which appear unto us wild and uninrelligible God may reveal things under most mysterious Figures altogether dark and hidden from us and yet before the Consummation of all things may make them plain and evident as we see in Ezekiel Daniel and the Revelations We must not therefore despise them because we have unquestionable Evidences of those Persons their being inspired by the Spirit of God So rather than with the Doctor to speak Evil of the things which I do not know I will conclude Quae intellexi optima sunt puto item quae non intellexi XXX I have detained you so long upon the Doctor 's first Narrative that I shall need to say little of the second for what answers the first serves for an Answer to the second also where he has done nothing toward the satisfying Peoples Expectations which he rais'd by his big Promises I shall let it pass with three or four Remarks only 1. He continues still to give false Representations of her It is not true that she pretends to a Sanctity above the Prophets or the Apostoles a Sanctity next to that of God nor to a comprehensive Knowledge Natural and Divine and all manner of speculative Truths nor to the Knowledge of all matters of Fact at what distance of Time and Place or how secret sover nor that she contradicts her self as if she asserted sometimes that both the Divine Truths which she declares and all the Words by which she utters them were inspired by the Spirit of God and sometimes the first only nor that she makes Jesus Christ a Type of her nor that she is the Mother of all that shall be converted unto God her Sayings import no such thing when they are considered without Prejudice in her own Writings as is made appear already 2. Notwithstanding of the Narrator's great Sincerity and that he intends to set down her own Pretences in her own Words without adding to or diminishing from or curtailing any Passage which may be necessary to qualifie the Meaning of them yet so earnest is he to make her odious that he forgets himselfe and either by truly curtailing the Passages or by his Comments on them he makes her speak quite otherwise than she intended So that they who would not judge rashly may please to read them in her own Writings without the Doctor 's Curtailings and Glosses Thus as to his false Glosses when he says My Thoughts Words and Actions must have the Three Qualities of Righteousness Goodness and Truth else I should be as a sounding Brass c. Does this infer that she arrogates to her self a Sanctity above the Prophets and Apostles and next to God himself Souls truly regenerate are Partakers of the Divine Nature Christ lives in them Piety cannot be true as he himself grants without a Perfection of Parts tho' not of Degrees without an Universal Conformity to the Will of God so that their Thoughts Words and Actions must be both Just Good and True now as one Star differs from another in Glory so do regenerate Souls Her Words then imply no more but that God had truly renewed and regenerated her by his Holy Spirit and not that she exceeded all others in Sanctity as his malicious Gloss would have it Thus when she says I do not remember I ever committed any Faults but when I believed the Counsel of Men. It is far from her Meaning that she was born without Sin or that Original Corruption was perfectly cured in her as appears by all her Writings and by that very Place cited but that as Plants and Trees seem all Dead and without Life in the Winter-Season till the warm Spring make them all bud anew and discover the Life and Spirit that was in the Root so Mens natural Corruption which seems dead and mortified is awakened and exerts it self according to the diffirent outward Occasions conformable to the Variety and Difference of People's Inclinations and that this was her weak side by which her Self-love and Vanity did exert it self Again when she gives a convincing Reason for what she says or speaks of her self with the greatest Humility or limits general Sayings so as to confine them to her true Sense and Meaning all this he very cautiously keeps out and conceals as appears in the Citations out of the Light of the World in the 9 11 17 20 and 21st p. of the Narrative Thus where she wonderfully Illustrates how the Holy Spirit communicates to pure Souls such a comprehensive Divine Light and Knowledge as cannot be express'd by many Words the Doctor industriously skips it over and joins the foregoing and following Senâ—ences together I have need says she to express my self by humane Reasons and Comparisons because otherwise they could not understand me for the Holy Spirit speaks so succinctly that one Word makes me comprehend many things He gives Subtility to the Understanding to conceive great things by one of his small Motions It is just as if one were in a fine Room well adorned with Variety of Furniture and Rarities but there were no Light in it whereby to see all these things In such a Case it would need a great many Words to make him who had never seen them understand in particular all the fine Things and Furniture that were in the Room telling him here be such and such Pictures such Tables such Seats and such like things and yet we could not make him comprehend well the Beauty of this Furniture and Rarities But if a Light were brought into the Room tho' it were but that of a Candle in a Moment it would give more Knowledge of all the things that are in the Room than all the Discourses that were uttered to make them known So it is with the Light of the Holy Spirit when it enters into a Soul it makes it know and comprehend all things very clearly Nevertheless these things cannot be seen by Souls who are yet in the Darkness and Obscurity of their own Passions many Words and Discourses must be used to make them understand the Rarities that are in the Works of God So far A. B. All this is left out by the Doctor except only the first and last two Lines the rest did not serve his turn he design'd to confound and darken all and they gave too distinct and convincing a Light They who shall be pleased to peruse that whole Conference will see how little Ground there is for his scurrilous â—ests if we consider the thing in Thesi without relation to A. B. that when the Spirit of God does immediately enlighten a Soul he does not endite all the precise Words that it ought to make use of in explaining that Light and Truth to others only that he brings along with him the Gift of Wisdom to express it self so as to make the Divine Truths to be understood It cannot be mistaken
deceitful and transitory World For my part I see all these things as clear as the Sun I will therefore despise and forget them that I may think only upon durable Goods whcih will never end If you will accompany me you may do it for God has created you free placing you between Fire and Water that you may choose which you please best The Fire will warm you with a Desire of having Riches Pleasures and Honours in this World And the Water will make you to embrace Penitence that you may resist the Devil the World and the Flesh which are the Three Enemies of your eternal Bliss You have already taken up a Resolution to travel towards Eternity and to quit the way of the World which in effect you do not as yet perfectly do Therefore you cannot accompany me until you shall be altogether free from earthly Goods and shall have quitted the Desire of pleasing Men For these things would always make you stumble in our Journey 13. For sometimes a Man must lose or spend earthly Goods upon Occasions respecting Eternity which would be troublesome to you so long as you have yet any Affection for these Goods And in the way to Eternity we must often displease Men. Therefore Jesus Christ says that he who would please Men is not his Disciple And elsewhere he says that he came not to bring Peace upon Earth but War between Father and Son Brother against Brother Husband against Wife c. to shew that he who would travel towards Eternity must fight against all those who travel towards the World even tho' it were against his nearest Kinsfolk and Friends For if one would shâ—ken that he may please them he will never arrive at Eternity for they will still hold us in the way without coming to the End For our nearest Relations are the most powerful Enemies that we meet with in travelling towards Eternity when they will not accompany us we must therefore quit the Desire of pleasing them for this Cause Jesus Christ said that he who forsakes not Father Mother Sisters Brethren and all things for his Name is not worthy of him Whereby he shews what Foundation of Vertue those ought to have who would travel towards Eternity 14. They ought first of all to offer unto God all the Goods which they possess to be employed only for his Glory and no longer according to our Desires or that we may follow our Sensualities Secondly A Man must leave off the Desire of pleasing Men since in pleasing them of necessity he must displease God because their Desires are altogether different from those of God and respect only their own Interests and therefore they cannot approve that we should abandon the World and its Riches and Pleasures of which they partake so long as we possess them to satisfie them You see why it is that we must lose their Friendship if we would have God's and undertake this War into which Jesus Christ is come to engage us against the Flesh and our nearest Relations 15. People think that it is well done to preserve Peace among them which I grant so long as they will travel with us in the way to Eternity There is nothing more desirable in this World than Peace and Concord between Friends and Neighbours But when they detain or hinder us from travelling towards Eternity we must break that Peace which ominates nothing but the Wrath of God For it is one of the Signs of his last Plagues when Men shall promise to themselves Peace and Security then says the Holy Spirit is the Time of their utter Ruine Thus it befalls a Person who undertakes to travel towards Eternity and will maintain Peace with those who yet travel towards the World We must declare WAR against them if they retard or hinder us from advancing towards Eternity for their Friendship is not so considerable as our Eternal Salvation which they cannot give us but they may serve as a mean of our Damnation For these two Points the Love of Riches and the Desire to please Men have been the Occasion of the Eternal Ruine of a great many even well-meaning Persons 16. For so long as we have yet an Affection for earthly things we cannot travel towards Eternity We must be altogether free and aspire only after our blessed Country taking for our Necessity the least that is possible for us of earthly things that we finish our Voyage the least of Honour of Offices of Money of Apparel of Meat and Drink that we can And with this we shall indeed travel together towards Eternity adn chearfully perform the Voyage For tho' we should find in our way Labours Cares Sufferings Persecutions Contempt Reproaches Prisons or Death all this will seem Light to us in the Hope of that Eternal Blessedness For if he who travels after the World thinks himself happy in gaining Money by his Pains Cares or Labours how much more ought he who looks for the Eternal Reward in travelling towards Eternity He will be loth to stop to gather up the Sand of Gold and Silver which would be very heavy to him in travelling towards Eternity I advise you therefore to cast it far from you and then I will take you by the Hand that we may the better accomplish our Journey In expectation of which I remain Your faithful Friend in God A. B. Amsterdam Octob. 23. 1670. FINIS I. The ill Entertainment such an Apology will meet with II. The Apologistâ— pâ—â—posâ—to write it notwith staâ—ding and why III. Writings not to be despised because they and their Author are evil spoken of by all IV. Not to read them with an evil Eye V. The Method and Manner of this Apology I. Men ought to consider what is said and not who says it Matt. 13. 55. II She treated otherwise III. None ought to take Mens Sentiments on Trust from others especially Enemies IV. Nor to weigh them by the Systems and Opinion of Men. V. She owns the Scriptures for the Test of all Doctrines and the Doctrine of Jesus Christ for the last and compleat Doctrine of Salvation and this the Butt of all her Writings Renouv. de l' Espr Eva. Pref. pag. 110. VI. The Truths of Religion of two sorts Essential and Accessory VII The Ground of all the Holy Scriptures and the Apostleâ— Creed VIII Her Profession of Faith prefix'd to all her Writings IX Her Sentiments to be measur'd by her Confession X The Essentials Man created only to love God a. Renouv de L. Espr Evang. Pref. p. 102. b ibid. p. 6. c Light of the World Part 1. p. 138. Renouv. Pr. p. 12. Endued for that End with perfect Liberty and other Divine Qualities d Man has damn'd himself by turning his 〈◊〉 from God iâ—id pref p. 10â— e ib. p. 128. His Misery now f ibid. Jesus Christ has obtained Mercy and Grace for them All Men so by Nature and cannot recover themselves g ibid. p. 102. h ibid. p 103. To recover the
necessary to Salvation and that we may let them alone and suspend our Belief of them if we see no Clearness and Evidence in them and that she aims at nothing but to perswade Men to the Love of God and to observe the Laws of the Gospel as the necessary Means to recover it It is best to hear her speak for her self in this Matter I protest says she before God and Men that I aim at nothing by all my Words and Writings but to perswade Men to return to the Love of God from whence they are fallen by the Glosses Explications or new Inventions of deceitful Men who do falsly promise Salvation to those who live and die in their Self-love and despise the Practice of a Gospel-Life Seeing such shall never inherit the Kingdom of Heaven when they despise the Designs of God and the Means and Graces which he gives them that they may rise again and deliver themselves from this Damnation These are the Practice of the Gospel-Law which only can save them because of the Frailty of Man's Nature They will never save themselves from Damnation if they do not embrace the Gospel-Law which is the last and most perfect of all the Laws that God has given or ever will give to Men And I do not pretend to teach any other neither do I teach Errors as these Adversaries of the Truth of God do affirm for God will never change and Jesus Christ brings it to us in the last Hour We must not look for any other nor for New Prophets for he has prophesied all and taught what Men ought to do and avoid even to the End of the World T is true indeed I speak of several things in my Writings which are not in so many Words in the Gospel but these are not things which every one is obliged to believe or the belief of which is necessary to Salvation I write them out of abundance and to reinforce the Courage of those who understand and relish them But they who do not relish or understand them may let them alone Their belief or unbelief of these things neither adds nor takes any things from me I have obtain'd all my Design when I have shewn clearly that no Body shall be saved but they who shall take up the Practice of a Gospel Life as God has reveal'd to me leaving every one free to do it if he will since God forces no Body neither do I. I have spoken several times in my Writings of the Creation of the World of the Glorious Estate in which Adam was created how Jesus Christ was born of him in his State of Innocence with many Divine Mysteries unheard of by Men. But this is but a Cluster of Grapes of the Garden of Eternal Life as those sent from the Children of Israel brought a Cluster of the Grapes of the Land of Promise to make them comprehend the Abundance and the Fruitfulness of it even so I have spoken of those high Secret Mysteries which God has reveal'd to me that I might give a Sample of that which God has prepared for those who observe his Gospel Law But I do not positively teach those unknown Wonders as Articles of Faith I declare them only for to strengthen my own Soul and those who sincerely desire to become True Christians teaching them also many things which no body has taught hitherto because the time was not come to know them since we read in the ancient Prophets that God says to Daniel Seal up these Words until the last Times and in the Revelations there is spoken of a Book closed sealed with Seven Seals which none could open but the Lamb slain All these things with many others do sufficiently testifie that God would conceal from Men many Secret and Divine Mysteries till the last Times for God has done nothing for Men which he does not make known to them before the World end And if now I declare unto them things which they have not as yet heard they ought so much the more to esteem them and enquire narrowly that they may discover whether they be true or profitable for the Salvation of Souls and not reject or despise them blindly as Fools do who condemn all that they do not understand uttering Reproaches against those who speak to them for their Good And if these Preachers did this out of Ignorance they would be in some manner excusable but it must needs be out of pure Malice that they condemn the Essential Truths of the Doctrine of the Gospel which I teach substantially through all my Writings bringing only all other things by way of Comparison or to make my self be the better understood that People may by divers means recover the Love of God which all have lost and even also his Fear And that every one may find in my Writings divers means sutable to their Dispositions I speak much of the Judgments of God of his Rods and Chastisements which we are to look for that if some are touch'd with Threatnings and disposed to return to God by Fear and Trembling they may embrace these Warnings of the last Judgments And if others are rather drawn unto God by Promises and the Glory that God has prepared for them after Death such may meditate seriously upon them that by those Considerations they may be inflam'd with the Love of a God so bountiful to his Creatures And if others are dispos'd to return to God by discovering the Falshoods and Errors which are now in Christendom I speak of them abundantly in my Writings So that nothing is wanting there for him who truly desires to search he has certainly the Occasion to find by the reading of my Writings seeing there are there means in abundance for all sorts of Dispositions But the whole Butt or the White at which I draw in declaring so many Marvels of God is no other but to shew Men that they will not be saved but by taking up anew the Practise of a Gospel Life as the Christians of the Primitive Church did for God is Yesterday and to Day the same and Jesus Christ that Divine Physician has brought the last Receipt of his Gospel-Law which we must take and swallow until the last Day of Judgment if we desire to be saved XV. Thus she declares that she aims at nothing in all her Writings but to perswade Men to return to the Love of God and to put in practice the Laws of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the only essential and necessary means thereunto and whatsoever else is contain'd in them is only to bring Men to the practice of those great Duties they being differently mov'd according to their different Dispositions and these things they may either embrace or let alone according as they find them helpful or not to the Practise of the great Duties of the Gospel and the Truth of this appears by the constant Tenour of all her Writings But some are apt to say This is what is done