 A Discourse Concerning the Love of God (1696) was written in explicit critique of John Norris, the most important English proponent of the philosophy of Nicholas Malebranche. Norris had, in 1690, attacked Locke in Cursory Reflections upon a Book Call’d Essay Concerning Human Understanding. This may in part explain Masham’s hostility to Norris, in spite of the fact that she was dedicatee of another book by him: Reflections on the Conduct of Human Life (London, 1690). However, the immediate context for A Discourse was the debate about the nature of love, which was a theme in Norris’s writings, especially his Practical Discourses (1691, to which she makes direct reference), and his correspondence with Mary Astell published as Letters Concerning the Love of God (1695). Lady Masham’s critique of Norris and Astell is also aimed, indirectly, at Nicolas Malebranche. Further in the background to it was the so-called  Querelle du Quietisme, the debate on amour pur [pure love] between Malebranche, François de Fénelon and Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet which was sparked by the mystical writings of Madame Guyon.