To pass further to a Brief touch of a few of the many Memorable things in her Life from her own Manuscripts , and from the faithful and judicious record of her Life continued .

ANtonia Bourignon was born in the City of Lisle in Flanders , on the 13 th . of January , 1616. of honourable Parents . As her Spirit and Tongue began to be loosed from the Sleep and silence of Infancy , the first Expression she was capable to give of what impression her Soul received , was a grain of admirable and divine Wisdom , which fructified unto everlasting Life . At the age of four years , her Parents having instructed her piously in the Gospel and Life of Jesus Christ , she asked still , Where are the Christians ? Let us go to the place where Christians live : Where are they whom Jesus Christ taught ? Take me to them that live as Jesus Christ : O most profound and divine ! They in their worldly Wisdom would undeceive her , saying , that there in Flanders they were Christians , and followed Christ . She said , That could not be ; for Christ commended Poverty , they were altogether for Riches ; Christ despised honours , and Pleasures , choosing meanness and trouble : but they were earnest for what he rejected , and shunned his choice , ( that they lived no ways like Christ ) O Great God! (a) (a) Ps. 8. Out of the mouth of Babes and sucklings thou hast perfected Praise . (b) (b) Ps. 119. Thy Words and thy Entertainments enlighten and make wise even Little Children ; when great Doctors , growing old in their Studies , with all their Followers , are in Darkness , blind and naked , without knowing it . Lo a little Child , her eyes and mouth scare opened , discerning a worldly Life from a Christian , and far beyond the old Philosophy Studied procedure , seeking a man among men , most natively tattling out , where are the Christians , amidst Christians ? men fight and dispute , and write and preach , and what not , who shall have the best Religion , and Christianity most pure and flourishing : Lo God will bring them to agreement ; and how he sets a Girle of four years old amidst them , and puts in her little Mouth these stammering words , where are the Christians ? Let us go to the Country where Christians live ; words ( duely considered ) of a profound divine Wisdom , of more saving light and profit than millions of lifeless Sermons , and volums of rational Speculations : and this is the Grain of Seed which fructified unto all the fruit of her life , which was only a continued urging , advancing , pressing and increasing that first Thought and Desire .

It is true in the Old and New Testament , that God will perfect his Praise out of the mouth of Babes : but in the World we must expect the Truth and Praise of God from a mouth that can speak Latin , or even Greek and Hebrew ; and for the more assurance , there must be a great many of these wise Heads assembled to make a Synod or Council , not to sleight our Theological Doctoralities and Masterships by giving heed to this babe . So they laughed her iterated and earnest Demands to silence ; yet neither that nor the ruder treatment she met with , as it encreased , were so far from extinguishing that divine spark God had kindled in her , that they served still to encrease its flame : for this first repulse made her turn more in to God in her own heart , detecting the Vanity of worldly things , she sought of him the Grace to live as Christians did , and even then every thing was to her occasion of turning to him with different prayers , suitable to him who was her only Councellour and Companion , until her sister , much addicted to the Vanities of the World , would needs have her follow , she said to every body , she had no spirit to converse and accommodate her self to others ; and by that artifice the Devil prevailed so far as to make her follow the company and mode of the Youth of the World , only to please them , to shew that she had spirit enough to appear brisk ; in which she succeeded so well , or rather so ill , that quickly she obscured her sister , gaining the favour and goodliking of all , and pleasing her Parents extreamly , being of a meek , humble , affable and jovial Humour , and a good Spirit , that her Father employed her in his affairs , which she managed with a great deal of dexterity and industrie . But all this cost her the loss of that communion she had formerly with God , as familiar as one Child with another .

Yet God had pity on that poor Creature wandring from him , he gave her often inward invitations , even amidst her divertisments , and will you then leave me for another ? shall you find a Lover more perfect and faithful than I am ? This pierced her heart so as to make her flow into Tears ; but upon occasions she would charm her serious thoughts , and the habit of Vanity , and Tentations got the ascendant on her : at length God sent more assistance to his call , by filling her spirit with the terrible thoughts of Death , Judgment and Eternity . Sometimes she would regret , rent her cloaths , and detesting her vanity , throw away all her Ornaments of Folly ; again she would yield to the tentation of company and Divertisments . In these conflicts God fortified her , she became pierced with so great fear of the Judgment of God , that she durst not shut her eyes because of her sins , which she thought were so great that no body ever had committed the like ; not that she had done any evil or unhonest thing after the world , whose honesty is consistent with turning away from God , and going to all the Devils provided regularly and in form with approbation and priviledge : but because she had left her sweet Entertainments with God for worldly Divertisments , after she had received so many Graces from him , she saw that so great a sin that Hell and all the pains of Hell were not sufficient to punish her ingratitude . God seeing her correspond to the tracts of his divine Mercy , redoubled them on her , that she was swallowed up of contrition , passing the whole nights on her knees , crying from the bottom of her Soul , Lord , what wilt thou have me to do ? Ah! Lord , what shall I do that I may be acceptable to thee ? My God , my God! where art thou ? what shall I do that I may find thee again ?

After she had tasted long and deep of that bitter desolation , wherein the soul finds it self as abandoned and rejected of God , which they that have tasted call the Pains and Sorrows of Hell , as Job and David , and other Saints , God began to heal : The first return she had of God into her Soul was ( in answer to that continual Prayer , Lord what wilt thou have me to do ? ) the whole of the Gospel , these words , Forsake all earthly things ; separate your self from the affection of the Creatures ; renounce and deny your self .

Her Vicissitudes of Desolation and Consolation succeeded until God purified her from all task or stain of her vain conversation ; and usually these inward piercing afflictions were preparatives to some particular Graces or favours of God .

And it is incredible what floods of Tears and of Contrition it cost her before she recovered her former Familiarity with God , and her no less incredible strict severe Austerity in a mortifying Life , which she continued many years by a principle of justice , and its first mover was the love of God : until God appointed her to return to an ordinary way of living , while God's extraordinary divine communications to her flowed more and more , during all her life , like a stream , still encreased until its ending a mighty River into the vast Ocean , which in the same degree encreased in her soul that Constancy , divine Love and all Virtues and Graces as not moved were more established by all the assaults which the craft and malice of Hell did eagerly spue out all her life while she pursued her first search of True Christians : which when she could not find any true knowledge of a Christian Life and self-seeking among all the devout and Religious Persons , whose earthly-mindedness she easily discovered through all their fair Pretexts , she turned the more in to God in her Heart , where he trained her in the true Christianity , and told her , She must not seek it in the World , but in her own heart with God , and in Solitude ; whereupon she did over the belly of all Opposition , Tentations , Allurements of Friends , Riches , and all worldly advantages , most generously and constantly forsake all , seeking that beloved solitude where she might enjoy God without disturbance . God gave her a Spiritual solitude , retiring her Heart and Soul from all that was not himself , yet retained her from other to make her a Light to lead other good Souls out of the Egypt of this World , into the same Wilderness of heavenly-mindedness . The traverses she met with , her constant Advance , and all the steps of her conduct so signally disposed by the immediate hand and Councel of God , as its unaccountable and vast , so it is beyond the bounds and design of this short preliminary to insist on ; who desire a more satisfying Account , may be satisfied by the History of her Life , written partly by her self , partly by a faithful and judicious eye and ear Witness .

Her desire was to be unknown and unnoticed ; yet many persons of good-will of several sorts came to her acquaintance , who owed and owned unto her ( as the Instrument of Gods Spirit ) their Conversion , their Enlightening , their Inflaming in divine Love , their Comforting and Strengthening , and their Eternal Life ; testifying , as they were living and standing Testimonies , that her Words , her Writings , her Works , and all her Life had an unutterable divine efficacy and power of converting and saving Souls that were well disposed , infinitly beyond all the enervate and lifeless Means and Ordinances in the hands of the most elaborate and erudite heads , exercising that trade for their dayly bread , without the spirit of it ; under which , alas ! its too visible , and by all that have but the least spark of ingenuity confest , and of sincerity regreted that we live most part so little or not at all moved from our earthly biass of self , which declines us so much to Hell , that if we get but a little survey of the Earth , we never attain , nor it may be seek , any true glimpse of heavenly things : which gives us to notice the same proportion of illuminating , enlivening and invigorating force of painted Preachings to real ones , as there is of the sun painted on a board to that in the Firmament .

Several who with good applause had long exercised the function of conducting and directing Souls , as Ministers and Fathers in the Church , not of the least erudition , but of the most uprightness , made it their happiness to learn at this illiterate Maid the empty Vanity of their former fruitless Labours , and to begin again from the A , B , C , of Solid Virtue , under her direction , owning more Solid Light and Divine Life from some few Rays of her Spirit , than from all their Schools and Books , Studies and Preachings .

Notice only one notable Matter in the way ; In an Hospital of poor Girles she charitably governed , she discovered them all to be Witches in express compact with the Devil , and that a vastly surprising greater part of the world than is usually by the innocent thought , are such , by evidences satisfying and convictive to the most doubting that will not be obstinate .

Passing from her first appearance in the World to her first publique appearance to the World .

On the second of December 1667. she departed from Mechline in Flanders , and came to Amsterdam , with design to satisfie the solicitation of her friends , and God's will of having the Truth promulgate and known by the printing her Writings , entituled , The Light of the World ; and at the convenient season of sailing to go for Holstein , where in the Isle of Nordstrand she had bought a Farm from Mr. de Cort , the Director of the said Isle , and Proprietor of most of it , who was going with her . In honour and imitation of the obscure mean Life of Jesus Christ , that she might be unknown , she hired a little House by the shore , in a very retired place ; but falling soon into a sore and dangerous sickness , she was obliged to yield to Mr. de Corts bringing a physitian of his acquaintance , who with another he had told of her , coming to know her , could not abstain from telling others , that quickly her fame was through all the Country ; and one of her Letters to the Dean of Lille , which is the 5 th . Letter in the second part of Light arisen in Darkness , and is the first of all her Works that was printed , coming out in the beginning of the year 1668. made her so famous , that every one was earnest to see her , and converse with her .

She seeing it God's will to manifest her , resolved to give free entry and audience to all that pleased . She was then visited for about a year and a half from all places by persons of all sorts of Professions , Religions and Opinions , by Theologues , Phylosophe's , Rabbins , imaginary Prophets , and all the most curious and expert in all Arts and Sciences . Almost all did easily discover in her the divine Light whereby God would revive his love in their Souls , with most sensible and convincing Touches and Motions of his spirit ; but they could not come to the Marriage of the Lamb for their Farms , their Merchandises , their Offices and Callings , their Wives and Children ; and the Love of the World and the things of the World were in them , and stiffled the Love of the Father , and all the Protestations they had made to follow Christ , forsaking all for him , excepting two or three , who forsook all , and followed the Truth of God in her to death .

Of the many memorable things passed in these Visits , you shall be diverted but with two or three .

Before she had any Acquaintance or Visits there , Mr. de Cort told her , that the Anabaptists were good and pious men , having a great esteem of the Graces which God bestowed on her ; and that they protested , if they might come to her , it should be in Humility , as little Children , submitting to the Light of God : She answered promptly , That is not true , these are great men , who will hardly submit themselves to the truth , and become little Children ; God revealing their disposition to her better than themselves knew it . And they shewed at first to be touched ; but no sooner did she , without designing any person , discover the nature and properties of Hypocrisie , and the general corruption even in the most devout and holy , but they finding themselves pinched , rose all up against her by the artifices descried in the Letters she wrote then in the 3. part of Light arisen in Darkness , and 2. and 3. Part of the Funeral of False Theologie . Mrs. B. in one of her Letters to them , having written ( not considering ) when she sought after them , that there were no more true Christians , and God told her she should be the mother of true believers . Lest that especially that mother of true believers should stumble these erudide heads , she would score it out ; but God said to her , what 's written , let it stay written : and indeed no sooner had they that in their hands , but they made such a dirty hubub , her Pride , her Pride , that though her after-writings satisfie any that have common sense on that head , these men have not yet come to themselves .

Mr. Serrarius famous enough for his correspondencies and his Writings , was of the first that knew and recommended her every where ; he would lead her every where as a living Gospel , that should enlighten all the world ; he would cause print all her Writings , and even of his Titles and Prefaces to them yet extant : but seeing at length that she would not swerve from the pure Truth God revealed in her , to second his particular Opinions of the restoring a Levitical Worship of the Jews , and his esteem of a certain Seducer at that time arisen in Palestine , he rejected her for his own Imaginations .

Mr. Comenius , so famous among the Learned , his Learning not having puft him up , as it does ordinarily , fell out with Mr. Serrarius because of his injustice against Mrs. Bourignon , and retained a Veneration for her all the rest of his Life , and on his Death-Bed desired a last visit of her : saying , O That Holy Maid ! where is she then ? may I be so happy as to see her yet once before I die ? all the Knowledge and Sciences I have attained , are but productions of reason and of Human Spirit and Study ; but she has a Wisdom and Light that come only from God immediatly by the Holy Spirit . After she had seen him , and was gone , he said of her with transports of joy to them that visited him , I have seen an Angel of God! God has sent me his Angel to day .

God did also let her see how far the best cultivated human spirit is blind , and far from the Kingdom of God , by conferences she had with some Cartesians , both Divines and meer Phylosophers : she had a discourse with the Professors Heydan and Burmannus ; but Nicodemus was too great a Doctor , to understand Christs Language or learn of him ; though so blind as to deny that the Spirit blows where he lists at present , and his Voice to be heard , to infer that we must not abandon our Vessel to the conduct of his divine Inspirations , but steer by human spirit and reason . She wrote to him on that occasion Letter 12. of the first part of the Funeral of false Theologie .

The Phylosophers would perswade her that she came near to their Principles , but God shewed her their Nullity and errour . She told them their disease , that they would comprehend all by the activity of human Reason , and not give place to the Illumination of divine Faith , which requires a cessation of our Reason and Spirit , that God may display that divine Light , which gives the only true Knowledge of God ; but the mean pass that Reason with all its equipage of Ideas and clear and distinct Conceptions will be at to defend or regulate it self before God at Death felt a Cartesian gentleman even in this life , who in the profound stupid security they are all leavened with after their once doubting to the full , Scorned Mrs. Bourignons admonitions , saying , laughing ; You call your self the Mother of believers by the Truths you say you perswade and make them believe ; and I who have clear and evident demonstrations , by which I can perswade reasonable spirits , and make them believe much better ; I shall be the Father of believers .

But this poor Father of believers , who was otherwise a man of spirit of a good beneficent nature , and a person of quality , being a little after in a deadly Disease , in the flower of his age , God opened his eyes to see his poor state , and lament his error ; he began to cry with Tears night and day , O my understanding ! my understanding ! whereto hast thou brought me ! Alas ! my Reason I relied so much on , what assistance canst thou give me now ? Thou canst not now give me Salvation , nor the hope of it ! I must be damned , there can be no mercy for me . A friend comforting him the best he could , he wholly disconsolate asked continually , Think you than there is yet any mercy to be hoped for my Soul ? and then looking and tossing about cryed again , My understanding ! my understanding ! alass ! whereto hast thou led me ! Then to the first Friend , Go tell desire that good soul ( Mrs Bourignon ) to pray to God for me ; that I may obtain pardon of that sin : for otherwise I am damned ; or I must suffer a flul long Purgatory : O! if I could recover from this Disease , I would turn wholly to God , and would follow altogether another way : but when he told Mrs. Bourignon of it , she answered : he shall not recover , but he shall die ; for if he did recover , he would fall deeper in that pernicious Error . As in effect he did , in a good and sound Judgment , in great contrition , adoring Jesus Christ crucified ▪

God having shown her experimentally by that frequent conversation , how little hope remains of converting the world , by the little welcome , and less Correspondence the Truth met with , even with the best and wisest of all sorts ; he brought her with the two or three , that , seeing the means of purifying their souls to the Love of God , and working out their salvation , in her company , would sell all for that Pearl of great Price , maugre the tentation that lost the young man in the Gospel ; for they had great Riches and Reputation too : I say , he brought them from Holland to Holsatia . And as from the beginning , God did in all her after course unto himself , serve himself of the manifold Malice and Persecutions of Satan against the Truth and Light of God , to confound that blackfiend and all his Hellish Works of Darkness ; his violent Persecutions to extinguish it , served but as wind to kindle it ; his Attempts to cut off the Messenger of it in one place , served but to carry her further to more places and persons , as with a general embassage , his secret Blows God did more secretly often forewarn her of in spirit ; his outward open Violences he often no less wonderfully averted ; his calumnies and Accusations of Heresie did but bring the Truth to more admirable and dazling Evidence and bring to light more and more divine and saving mysteries , which ript up all his hellish Heresies and Mysteries of Iniquity , to the gnawing of his malicious spirit , and all the like instruments of his fury , while the Bread of Life was aboundantly dispensed to hungry souls , whom it shall nourish unto Eternal Life , when all the Wicked shall be cut off , and the Meek shall inherit the Earth .

For the more particular Account of her divine Pilgrimage , see the History of her Life , and take here a short Bill of that heavenly chear now dispensed in her Writings , that took up the spare hours of her many diversions at Amsterdam .

The funerall of false Theologie ; in the first part of which she shews the Confusion , the Ignorance , Corruption , Insensibility and foundamental Errors of Christians , and even of Conductors and modern Divines . In the second , their Presumption , Envy , Pride , Obstinacy , and Head strongness . In the third , that all their Theorie and Practices are no more but Pharisaical , without divine Faith . In the fourth , that the Devil has great power over men ; over the wicked and even over the best , whom by these other he turns away from following God , and engages them to co-operate to the Evil of others , and makes them draw back after they have abandoned the World . That is a work of singular efficacy and profit . Scarce did ever man read it without being touched in his soul , even the most wicked , who became pale , and as struck dead with it .

Upon occasion of some converse she had with some Cartesian Philosophers , she composed The Holy Perspective ; wherein she shews , that Men , and particularly Christians , have lost the Light of God , which is true and divine Faith , to be led by corrupt Reason , and by a false or most faint Light they draw from nature , so perverse , brutish , carnal , and gross as it is become by sin : that this is it that has destroyed all Christian-religion , and brought it to the Blindness and Darkness wherein it is immersed : and that God may restore it its first state , there is no other way but to abandon that false Guide of Reason , and to resign our selves to God , that he may himself revive in us that divine Light of Faith which we have extinguished .

The New Heaven and New Earth : in which is shewn , in what Glory the World and Man were created : how they have miserably faild from it ; how they entertain and even encrease their Misery ; and by what means they ought to return into the disposition God requires to restore them to their first Glory , and renew all the world . God showed her in Spirit the Glory and Beauty of the first World , not supportable by corporal Eyes . All was bright , transparent , shining with Light and unspeakable Glory .

God's last Mercy : in which by a reason enlightened by Faith , not perverted by human Studies and Prejudices , she leads every man of good judgment to a conviction of the spiritual things which Faith discovers , and unto which every man's Reason , when conducted by a person that is illuminated by Faith , renders so convincing Testimonies , that they who will yield themselves to its Touch , are moved and pressed to ask of God a saving and divine Knowledge of them by the Light of Faith .

With all these are intermixed many other divine Lights and profound Mysteries , which God had reserved to this end of the last hour , able to enlighten , to quicken , to inflame to strengthen , to encourage , and to ravish any that have not renounced all interest in heavenly things .

If any find difficulties in her Writings , consider , that she having no further human Learning than that having learnt it , she did once read the New Testament , and finding it the same with what God spake in her Soul , she closed the Book to apply seriously to the doing of it , seeking no more reading , meditation , conferring or other study , than that of purifying her soul from earthly Affections and sins , in following Jesus Christs Doctrine and Example . She could not speak after the Rules and with the Cautions of human Literature , far less by the pedantry of the Schools ; it were then most cruel injustice to judge her by them .

Again , we must not suppose when she treats of a matter , what she does not mention in that place , that she denies it , nor require her to treat so fully ( more than her scope there requires ) as the Scholastiques , who handling a matter at their tour , adduce all they can relating to it .

In the Third place , to understand her Writings , as all others divinely inspired , the Key is a good Will , Humility and Prayer : to a Malign , a Corrupt , Proud , Self-wise and Self-powerful Reader no entry in them , no favour from them , but that of Death .

And the center , end and aim of these Writings being the Love of God , by renouncing our selves , the Creatures and sin , the Devil , the World and the Flesh ; the farther we are from this , the greater discord and contradiction between these Writings and our corrupt hearts and blind spirits : and if ever we will be reconciled , it must be by valuing , loving , esteeming , and submitting to them , as they are conducive to these ends , and the difficulties will all quickly evanish : this way the Disciples of Christ , of Prophets and Apostles entered into their Masters Doctrine .