ANTONIETTA, a famous enthusiastic preacher and pretended prophetess, was born at Lille in 1616. At her birth she was so deformed, that it was debated some days in the family whether it was not proper to stifle her as a monster: but her deformity diminishing, she was spared; and afterwards attained such a degree of beauty, that she had her admirers. From her childhood to her old age she had an extraordinary turn of mind. She set up for a reformer, and published a great number of books filled with very singular notions; the most remarkable of which are entitled The light of the World, and The Testimony of Truth. She was an enemy to reason and common sense, which she maintained ought to give place to the illumination of divine faith; and asserted, that whenever any one was born again by embracing her doctrine, she felt the pains and throws of a woman in labour. Of her pretended visions and revelations we shall give one instance as a sample. In one of her ecstasies she saw Adam in the same form in which he appeared before his fall, and the manner in which he was capable of procreating other men, since he himself possessed in himself the principles of both sexes*. Nay she pretended it was told her that he had carried this procreating faculty so far as to produce the human nature of Jesus Christ.

"The first man (says she), whom Adam brought forth without any concurrent affluence in his glorified state, was chosen by God to be the throne of the Divinity; the organ and instrument by which God would communicate himself externally to men: This is Christ the first born united to human nature, both God and man."

Besides these and such like extravagancies, she had other forbidding qualities: her temper was morose and peevish, and she was extremely avaricious and greedy of amassing riches. She dressed like a hermit, and travelled to France, Holland, England, and Scotland. In the last she made a strong party, and some thousand sectarists, known by the name of Bourignonists. She died at Franeker in the province of Friesland, October 30, 1680. Her works have been printed in 18 vols. octavo.