was mine, both inwardly and outwardly ;-perfect obedience to the will of GOD, submission to the church, and honour to JESUS CHRIST in loving himself only; the effect of which soon appeared. When by the loss of ourselves we are passed into GOD, and returned into our origin, our will is made one and the same with that of God, according to the prayer of CHRIST, "As thou "Father art in me, and I in thee, grant that "they also may be one in us." John xvii. 21. Oh but it is then that the will is rendered marvellous, both because it is made the will of God, which is the greatest of miracles; and because it works wonders in him: For as it is God who wills in the soul, that will has its effect. Scarce has it willed but the thing is done.

WHY then, may some say, so many oppressions endured? Why do not these souls, if they have such a power, set themselves free from them? If they had any will to do any thing of that sort, and it were not granted; that would be the will of the flesh, or the will of man, and not the will of GOD. John i. 13.

I ROSE Constantly at midnight, ever waking timely enough to do it. If I wound up my alarm-watch, then I used not to wake in time. I saw that GOD had the care of a father and a spouse over me. When I had When I had any indisposition, and my body wanted rest, he did not awake me; but at such times I felt even in my sleep a singular possession of him. Some years have passed wherein I have had only a kind of half-sleep; but my soul waked the more for GoD, as sleep seemed to steal from it every other attention. The LORD made it known also to many persons,

that

that he designed me for a mother of great peo ple, but a people simple and child-like. They took these intelligences in a literal sense, and thought it related to some institution or congregation: But to me appeared nothing else, than the persons whom it pleased GOD that I should afterwards win over to him, to whom I should serve as a mother, through his goodness; giving them the same union of affection for me as that of children for a parent, but an union much deeper and stronger; and giving me all that was necessary for them, to bring them to walk in the way by which he would lead them, as I shall shew in the sequel, when I shall speak of that state of maternity, or motherhood.

I

CHAP. IV.

WOULD willingly suppress what I am now about to write if any thing of it were my own, as well on account of the difficulty of expressing myself thereon, as because few souls are capable of leadings so little known, and so little comprehended, that I have never read of any thing like it. I shall say something of the interior dispositions I was then in, if it serves you who are willing to be of the number of my children, and if it serves such as are already my children, to induce them to let God glorify himself in them after his manner, and not after their own, I shall think my pains well employed. If there be any thing which they do not comprehend, let them die to themselves, and they will find it much better by experience than from any thing I could say: For expression never equals experience.

AFTER

t.

AFTER I had come out of the trying condin I have spoken of, I found it had purified

soul, instead of blackening it as I had feared. jossessed God after a manner so pure, and so mense, as nothing else could equal. In regard thoughts or desires, all was so clean, so naked, slost in the divinity, that the soul had no selfish movement, however plausible or delicate; both the powers of the mind and the very senses being wonderfully purified. Sometimes I was surprized to find that there appeared not one thought. The imagination, formerly so restless, now no more troubled me: I had no more perplexity or uneasy reflections. The will, being perfectly dead to all its own appetites, was become void of every human inclination, both natural and spiritual, and only inclined of GOD to whatever he pleased, and in whatever manner he pleased. This vastitude, or enlargedness, which is not bounded by any thing, however plain or simple it may be, increases every day; so that my soul in partaking of the qualities of her spouse, seems also to partake of his immensity. My prayer was in an openness and singleness inconceivable. I was as it were borne up on high, out of myself. I believe GOD was pleased to bless me with this experience, at the beginning of the new life, to make me comprehend, in favour of other souls, this passage of the soul into GOD.

WHEN I went to confess, I felt such an immersion of the soul into him, that I could scarcely speak. This ascension of the spirit, wherein GoD draws the soul so powerfully, not into its own inmost recess, but into himself, is not operated till after the mystic death, wherein the soul actually

comes

comes out of itself to pass into its divine object. I call it death, that is to say, a passage from one thing to another: And it is truly a happy passover for the soul, and its passage into the promised land. The spirit which is created to be united to its own principle, (or origin) has so powerful a tendency to it, (that is, to Gov) that if it were not stopt by a continual miracle, its moving quality would cause the body to be drawn after it whithersoever it would, by reason of its impetuosity and noble descent: But God has given it a terrestrial body to serve for a counterpoise. This spirit then, created to be united to its origin, without any medium or interstice, feeling itself drawn by its divine object, tends to it with an extreme violence; in such sort that God, suspending for some time the power which the body has to hold back the spirit, it follows with ardency: But when it is not sufficiently purified to pass into GOD, it gradually returns back to itself; and as the body resumes its own quality, it turns to the earth. The saints who have been the most perfect have advanced to that degree, as to have nothing of all this; and some have lost it towards the end of their lives, becoming single and pure as the others, because they then had in reality and permanence, what they had at first only as transient fruitions, in the time of the prevalence or dominion of the body. It is certain then that the soul, by death to itself, passes into its divine object: And it is what I then experienced. I found, the farther I went, the more my spirit was lost in its Sovereign, who attracted it more and more to himself. And he was pleas at first that I should know this for the sake of others, and not for myself only. In

deed

deed he drew my soul more and more into himself, till it lost itself entirely out of sight, and could perceive itself no more. It seemed at first to pass into him. As one sees a river pass into the ocean, lose itself in it, its water for a time distinguished from that of the sea, till it gradually becomes transformed into the same sea, and possesses all its qualities; so was my soul lost in GOD, who communicated to it his qualities, having drawn it out of all that it had of its own. Its life is an inconceivable innocence, not known or comprehended of those who are still shut up in themselves (or only live to themselves).

THE joy which such a soul possesses in its GOD is so great, that it experiences the truth of those words of the royal Prophet, “ All they who are

in thee, oh LORD, are like persons ravished "with joy." To such a soul the words of our LORD seem to be addressed, "Your joy no man "shall take from you." John xvi. 22. It is as it were plunged in a river of peace. Its prayer is continual. Nothing can hinder it from praying to God, or from loving him. It amply verifies these words in the Canticles, "I sleep but "my heart waketh;" for it finds that even sleep itself does not hinder it from praying. Oh unutterable happiness! Who could ever have thought that a soul, which seemed to be in the utmost misery, should ever find a happiness equal to this? Oh happy poverty, happy loss, happy nothing, which gives no less than GoD himself in his own immensity, no more circumscribed to the limited manner of the creature, but always drawing it out of that, to plunge it wholly into his own divine Essence.

THEN