A Request Withdrawn & A Court Case

Reflections on
the Life of
Madame Jeanne de la Mothe Guyon.

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Writes to a person of distinction and merit for his advice. Withdraws her request. Result, and remarks upon this incident. Marks of distinction between the wholly and the partially sanctified mind. Lawsuit. Her conduct  in  connection with it. Remarks.

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Another incident, which seems to me to indicate her progress in inward sanctification, may properly be introduced here. 

"One day," she says, "laden with sorrow, and not knowing what to do, I wished to have some conversation with an individual of distinction and merit, who often came into our vicinity, and was regarded as a person deeply religious. I wrote him a letter, in which I requested the favor of a personal interview, for the purpose of receiving from him some instruction and advice. But reflecting on the subject, after I had written the letter, it seemed to me that I had done wrong. The Spirit of God seemed to utter itself in my heart, and to say, 'What l dost thou seek for ease? Art thou unwilling to bear the Lord's hand, which is thus imposed upon you? Is it necessary to be so hasty in throwing off the yoke, grievous though it be? ' 

Purification Not Eradication

It seems to have been the doctrine of some advocates of Christian perfection, especially some pious Catholics of former times, that the various propensities and affections, and particularly the bodily appetites, ought to be entirely eradicated. But this doctrine, when carried to its full extent, is one of the artifices of Satan, by which the cause of holiness has been greatly injured. It is more difficult to regulate the natural principles, than to destroy them; and there is no doubt that the more difficult duty in this case, is the scriptural one. We are not required to eradicate our natural propensities and affections, but to purify them. We are not required to cease to be men, but merely to become holy men.

— Religious Maxims (1846) XXXIV.

The Loss of Our Own Will

It is not sufficient, that the lower principles of our nature are brought into subjection; it is not sufficient to possess affections purified and sanctified; God requires, in addition to these results and evidences of the rectification of our inward nature, the subjection of the will; an equally important and perhaps still more difficult work. One of the results of the highest Christianity, a Christianity far different from and far above that which is merely nominal, or which is but little better than nominal, is the LOSS OF OUR OWN WILLS. It is not meant by this, that we may not have a will different from that of our fellow-men, nor is it meant, that we may not have a strong, energetic will; but that we ought not to have, and that as Christians, who aim at the highest results of the divine life, we cannot have a will of our own, in distinction from and at variance with the divine will.

In this last sense, he, who approaches nearest to an annihilation of his own will, approaches nearest to the state of entire sympathy and harmony with the Divine Mind. The prostration of our own will, in such a sense that it shall not in any respect oppose itself to the will of God, seems to be the completion or consummation of those various processes, by which the inward spirit is purified. When the will in its personal or self-interested operation is entirely prostrated, so that we can say with the Savior, “Lo, I come to do thy will,” then the wall of spiritual separation is taken away, and the soul may be said, through the open entrance, to find a passage, as it were, into God himself, and to become one with Him, in a mysterious but holy and glorious union. Then and not till then, can it be truly said that the warfare against God has ceased, and a perfect reconciliation taken place, enabling those who have arrived at this blessed state to exclaim with the Savior, (perhaps in a modified but still in a true and most important sense,) “I AND MY FATHER ARE ONE.”

— from The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 9.

Bear Patiently the Defects of Others

"Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye." — Colossians 3:13 KJV.

There are but few practical directions, which are more important to those who desire to be wholly the Lord’s, than the direction that we should bear with entire meekness and patience the infirmities and defects of others. The adoption in practice of any other principle than this necessarily involves us in continual disquietudes and troubles.
 

We should bear patiently with the infirmities and defects of others in the first place, because the doctrine of faith requires it. The doctrine of faith... will not admit of exceptions and distinctions, We do not, and cannot, have acceptable faith in God, unless we have faith in him to the full extent of what he claims to be, and of what he is. ...faith restores God to events, and makes him present in all things that take place; and also, ...faith identifies every thing with God’s superintendence, and accordingly makes every thing, with the exception of sin, an expression of his will. The doctrine of faith, therefore, requires us to believe, that God, in his permissive will at least if not in his direct agency, sustains a connection, and sustains it for good and wise purposes, even with human infirmities.
 

We should bear with patience the infirmities of others, in the SECOND place, because, in their results to ourselves, they evidently tend to our own purification. And this remark tends to illustrate what has already been said, viz., that God for wise purposes has a connection even with human infirmities. It is very clearly a part of God’s spiritual economy to purify his people by means of the various crosses which he lays upon them. We are not at liberty to make crosses for ourselves, but are cheerfully and quietly to meet and endure them, when they come upon us in the divine providence. Now, the infirmities of men, the many and trying infirmities of all around us, are a cross, which the divine providence lays at our feet at every step of our progress in the path of life. To be obliged to meet and to bear these infirmities is an affliction, oftentimes a heavy affliction. But it has a purifying power. It strikes a blow at self love. It makes us better.

— from The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 6.

The Fire of Love

If thou would'st slay thy wrong desire,
Thy hate and ills of every kind.
Plunge them in LOVE'S consuming fire;
Love is the furnace of the mind.

Whate'er their kind, degree, or name,
The evils, which thy heart enthrall,
It matters not, LOVE'S mighty flame
Shall burn or purify them all.

'Tis true, it costs thee much of pain,
And thou dost seem to suffer loss;
But wisdom bids thee not restrain
The fire, that only burns the dross.

The golden ore, which thou hast cast
In LOVE'S consuming fire and strife,
Fears not the fiercest furnace blast.
But brightens in its flames of life.

— Christ in the Soul (1872) LXI.

The Value of Affliction

The remark is somewhere made, and very correctly, that  "it is a great loss to lose an affliction."  Certain it is, that afflictions have great power in purifying the mind. And if it be true that mental purification, in other words, holiness, is a result of all others the most desirable, we may properly attach a great value to whatever tends to this result. Prosperities flatter us with the hope that our rest is here; but afflictions lead our thoughts to another and better land. "Whom the  Lord  loveth he chasteneth; and scourgeth every son that he  receiveth."

— Religious Maxims (1846) XXXVIII.

Holiness Joins Us to God

It  is of the nature of holiness to unite with whatever is like itself. It flies on eagle's wings to meet its own image. Accordingly the soul, so long as it is stained with sin, has an affinity with what is sinful. But when it is purified from iniquity, it ascends boldly upward and rests, by the impulse of its own being, in the bosom of its God. The element of separation is taken away, and a union, strong, sincere, and lasting, necessarily takes place. "He, that is joined unto the Lord, is one spirit." — 1 Cor. vi. 17.

— Religious Maxims (1846) XXXV.