Full Consecration: The Second Death

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

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Renewed consecration, in which she gives up all without reserve.

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And here, I think, we may mark a distinct and very important crisis in the history of her spiritual being. Taught by sad experience, she saw the utter impossibility of combining the love of the world with the love of God. "From this day, this hour, if it be possible, I will be wholly the Lord's. The world shall have no portion in me." Such was the language of her heart ; such her solemn determination. She formed her resolution after counting the cost, — a resolution wbich was made in God's strength and not in her own; which, in after life, was often smitten by the storm and tried in the fire; but, from this time onward, so far as we know anything of her history, was never consumed, — was never broken. She gave herself to the Lord, Not only to be his in the ordinary and mitigated sense of the terms, but to be his wholly, and to be his forever; to be his in body and in spirit; to be his in personal efforts and influence; to be his in all that she was and in all that it was possible for her to be. There was no reserve.

Keeping Time

Whate'er our thoughts or purpose be,
They cannot reach their destined end,
Unless, oh God, they go with Thee,
And with Thy thoughts and purpose blend.

KEEP TIME WITH GOD, and then the power,
Which in His mighty arm doth lie,
Shall crown the designated hour
With wisdom, strength, and victory.

Be not too fast, be not too slow;
Be not too early, not too late;
Go, where His orders bid thee go;
Wait, when His orders bid thee wait.

KEEP TIME WITH GOD. Await His call;
And step by step march boldly on;
And thus thou shalt not faint nor fall,
And thus shalt wear the victor's crown.

— Christ in the Soul (1872) LXXI.

The Crucifixion of Natural Desires, Purposes, and Aims

If we would be what the Lord would have us to be, we must be willing, in the spirit of inward crucifixion, to renounce and reject all other natural desires, and all our own purposes and aims. We do not mean to imply in this remark, that we must be so far lost to feeling and action as to be absolutely without all desires, purposes, and aims whatever; but that there must be a crucifixion and excision of all desires and purposes, which spring from the life of nature, and not from the Spirit of God. In other words, it is our duty, as those who would glorify God in all things, to check every natural desire and to delay every contemplated plan of action, until we can learn the will of God, and put ourselves under a divine guidance. Every desire must so far lose its natural character as to become spiritually baptized and sanctified, before it can be acceptable to God; and every plan of action also must, in like manner, have a divine origin.