Note 53 — [Steele.

Bayle, in his life of this devotee, 1697, says that Antoinette Bourignon was born at Lisle in 1616, so deformed, that it was debated for some days in the family, whether it was not proper to stifle her as a monster. Her deformity diminishing, they laid aside the thought. Although she was of a morose and peevish temper, and embroiled in troubles most part of her life, she seemed to be but forty years of age when she was above sixty; never made use of spectacles, and died at Franeker, in the province of Frise, in 1680. From her childhood to her old age she had an extraordinary turn of mind. She published a multitude of books, filled with singular doctrines, such as might be expected from a person who roundly asserted, on the express declaration, she said, of God Himself, "That the examination of things by reason, was the most accursed of all heresies, formal atheism, a rejection of God, and the substitution of corrupt reason in his place." She pretended to inspiration, and boasted of extraordinary communications with God; but appears to have been exceedingly defective in the essential duties of humility and charity. She was a woman of such ill conditions and odd behaviour, that nobody could live with her; and she seriously maintained, that anger was a real virtue. She contrived to accumulate money, but continued always uncharitable upon principle, alleging the errors of her understanding in defence of the inhumanity of her conduct.