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Bourignonists, (2)

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Bourke, Richard

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the followers of a visionary in France called Antoinette Bourignon, who was born at Lille 1616, and died at Franeker 1680. She taught that man is perfectly free to resist or receive divine grace; that there is no such thing as foreknowledge or election; that God is ever unchangeable love toward all his creatures, and does not inflict any arbitrary punishment, but that the evils they suffer are the natural consequences of sin; that religion consists not in outward forms of worship nor systems of faith, but in an entire resignation to the will of God, and those inward feelings which arise from communion with God. She held many extravagant notions, such as the following: that Adam, before the fall, possessed the nature of both sexes; that, when she was in an ecstasy, God represented Adam to her mind in his original state; as also the beauty of the first world, and how he had drawn it from the chaos; and that every thing was bright, transparent, and darted forth life and ineffable glory; that Christ has a twofold manhood, one formed of Adam before the creation of Eve, and another taken from the Virgin Mary; that this human nature was corrupted with the principle of rebellion against God's will. Her works were collected and published under the title Toutes les oeuvres de Mlddle. A. Bourgnon (Amst. 1679-1684, 19 vols. 12mo), by her disciple Poiret, who also wrote her life (2 vols. 12mo, 1679). Many of her writings have been translated and published in England. She had more disciples in Scotland than in any other country, and in 1701 the General Assembly condemned her writings as "freighted with damnable doctrines." See Apology for M. Ant. Bourignon (Lond. 1699, 8vo); The Light of the World (Lond. 1696, 8vo); The Academy of Learned Divines (Lond. 1708, 8vo); Confusion of the Builders of Babel (Lond. 1708, 8vo). -Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. 3:480, 481; Stowell, Work of the Spirit, 268 sq; Landon, Eccl. Dict. ii, 359.