Spiritual Joy

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

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Further reflections on Jean Guyon's conversion experience:

It is very obvious from her statements, that, in her first experience of the new life, she had great joy. Joy was a marked characteristic of it. But taught by the great inward Teacher, she was enabled to perceive from the first, that it would not be safe for her to estimate either the reality or the degree of her reli­gion by the amount, of her happiness.

It is true there is not only such a thing as joy, but such a thing as religious joy, or joy attendant on religion, and which, therefore, may properly be described, in the language of the Scriptures, as "joy in the Holy Ghost." But this is a very different thing from saying, that joy and religion are the same thing. Joy is not only not religion, but it does not always arise from religious causes. The grounds or causes of its origin are numerous, and sometimes very diverse. A new speculative truth, new views which are at variance with the truth, or even the pleasant intimations of a dream or vision, whether more or less remarkable, (to say nothing of physical causes, and of providential causes,— causes connected with the state of our health and with our situation in life,) may be followed by a pleasurable excitement of the emotional part of our nature, which may be mistaken for true religion.

Certain it is, however, that no joys can be regarded as really of a religious nature and as involving the fact of religion, which are not attended with repentance for sin and faith in Jesus Christ, with the renovation of the desires and with the subjection of the will.

The views of Madame Guyon on this subject were distinct and decided. She took the Savior for her example, who was not the less a religious man, because he was a man of "sorrows and acquainted with grief." She did not seek joy, but God. God first,  and what God sees fit to give, afterwards. She believed and knew, (so far as she thought it necessary to give attention to the subject of her own personal enjoyments at all,) if she gave herself to God wholly, without reserve, God would not be slow to take care of her happiness. 

— edited from The Life of Madam Guyon Volume 1, Chapter 7.

God Deals With Us as Individuals

God deals with us, (certainly for the most part,) as individuals, and not in masses. When he requires men to repent of sin, to exercise gratitude, to love, and the like, the requisition is obviously made upon them as individuals, as separate from and as independent of others. It is not possible to conceive of any other way, in which obedience to the requisition can be rendered. Nor is it conceivable that the remedial effect of the atonement should be realized in any other way than this. How is it possible, if I, in my own person, have suffered the wound of sin, that a remedy, which is general and does not admit of any specific and personal appropriation, should answer my purpose? Furthermore, in dying for all, in other words, in furnishing a common salvation, available to all on their acceptance of the same, Christ necessarily died for me as an individual, since the common mass or race of men is made up of individuals, and since I am one of that common mass or race. And indeed we can have no idea of a community or mass of men, except as a congregation or collection of separate persons. In dying for the whole on certain conditions, he necessarily, therefore, on the same conditions, died for the individuals composing that whole.

A Desire for the Good of All That Exists

Love necessarily has its object. The object of pure love (and we regard this as an important remark) is existence; all percipient and sentient existence whatever. So that love, in distinction from every appearance and modification of affection which is not true or pure love, may be defined to be a desire for the good or happiness of everything which exists. And, in accordance with this view, everything which has a being, from the highest to the lowest, whatever its position, whatever its character, the whole infinity of percipient and sentient existence, simply because it has such an existence, is the appropriate object of pure love.

This is a great truth, and one which, it must be admitted, is difficult to be realized by those who have not an instinct of perception and of affirmation in their own purified hearts. Those who are the subjects of this exalted feeling sincerely desire the happiness of all those, whoever or whatever they may be, who are capable of enjoying happiness while, at the same time, it may be so, that they disapprove and perhaps even hate their character; and, accordingly, they love the evil as well as the good, sinners as well as saints.

We  have a striking illustration of the nature of pure love in the case of the Savior. He loved sinners. "He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." It was not for angels, but for erring men, that he  died. He bowed his head upon the cross for those that persecuted him, reviled him, slew him. He loved men, not because they were good, for such they were not, and certainly not because they were evil, because evil can never be the foundation of love, but because they were existences, — percipient and moral existences. He  saw them created with the elements of an eternal being, but destitute, in their fallen state, of those attributes which would make that being a happy one. He saw them destitute of truth which they might possess, of holiness to which they were strangers, the enemies of God when they might be his friends, the heirs of hell when they might be the heirs of heaven. He loved them, therefore, not because they were good, but because they had a sentient, and especially because they had a moral, existence. It was their existence and not their merit; it was what they were capable of being, and not what they were, which brought him down from heaven.

—edited and adapted from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 4, Chapter 1.

Delibrate Consecration

The consecration of ourselves to God, which is so inseparable from the progress and perfection of the divine life, should be made DELIBERATELY. — A consecration, made in this manner, viz. with calmness and deliberation, is due to our own characters, as rational and reflecting beings. As God has made us perceptive and rational, he desires and expects us, especially in important transactions, to act in accordance with the principles he has given us. It is not reasonable to suppose, that God would be pleased with a consecration, made thoughtlessly and by blind impulse, rather than by deliberate reflection. Man has deliberately rebelled and gone astray, and it is due to himself and his Maker, it is due to truth and to holiness, that he should deliberately and reflectingly submit and return; that his repentance of sin should be accompanied with a clear perception of his sinfulness; that his determination to do God's will should be attended with some suitable apprehensions of what He requires; and that his fixed purpose of future obedience should be sustained by the united strength of all appropriate considerations.

— edited from The Interior or Hidden Life (2nd edition, 1844) Part 1, Chapter 4.

God Deals with Us as Individuals

God deals with us, (certainly for the most part) as individuals and not in masses. When he requires men to repent of sin, to exercise gratitude, to love, and the like, the requisition is obviously made upon them as individuals as separate from and as independent of others. It is not possible to conceive of any other way, in which obedience to the requisition can be rendered. Nor is it conceivable that the remedial effect of the atonement should be realized in any other way than this. How is it possible, if I, in my own person, have suffered the wound of sin, that a remedy, which is general and does not admit of any specific and personal appropriation, should answer my purpose? Furthermore, in dying for all, in other words, in furnishing a common salvation, available to all on their acceptance of the same. Christ necessarily died for me as an individual, since the common mass or race of men is made up of individuals, and since I am one of that common mass or race. And indeed we can have no idea of a community or mass of men, except as a congregation or collection of separate persons. In dying for the whole on certain conditions, he necessarily, therefore, on the same conditions, died for the individuals composing that whole.

It would seem to follow, then from what has been said, that the faith, which we especially need, is a personal or appropriating faith; a faith which will disintegrate us from the mass, and will enable us to take Christ home in all his offices to our own business and our own bosoms. We must be enabled to say, if we would realize the astonishing cleansing and healing efficacy there is in the gospel of God that he is MY God, of the Savior that he is MY Savior. We must be enabled to lay hold of the blessed promises, and exclaim, these are the gift of MY Father, these are the purchase of MY Savior, these are meant for ME.

It was thus, that patriarchs, prophets, and apostles believed. This was the faith of those consecrated ones, of whom the world was not worthy, recorded in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. Hear the language of the Psalmist as an illustration of what is to be found frequently in the Scriptures. How precise, how personal, how remote from unmeaning generalities. "I will love thee, O Lord, MY strength. The Lord is MY rock, and MY fortress, and MY deliverer; MY God, MY strength, in whom I will trust; MY buckler and the horn of MY salvation, and MY high tower." And it is worthy of notice, that the first word of the Lord's prayer has this appropriating character; "OUR Father, who art in heaven." 

— The Interior of Hidden Life (2nd edition 1844), Part 1, Chapter 5.

Pentitence

Oh, say when errors oft and black
Have deeply stained the inmost soul,
Who then shall call the wanderer back,
Who make the broken spirit whole?
Who give the tortured and depressed
The grateful balm, that soothes to rest?

When storms are driven across the sky,
The rainbow decks the troubled clouds,
And there is one, whose love is nigh,
Where grief annoys and darkness shrouds;
He'll stretch abroad his bow of peace,
And bid the storm and tempest cease.

Then go, vain world, 'tis time to part,
Too long and darkly hast thou twined
Around this frail, corrupted heart,
And poisoned the immortal mind;
Oh, I have known the pangs that spring
From pleasure's beak and folly's sting.

Hail, Prince of heaven! Hail, Bow of rest!
Oh, downward scatter mercy's ray,
And all the darkness of my breast
Shall quickly turn to golden day.
With Thee is peace; no griefs annoy;
And tears are grateful gems of joy.

— American Cottage Life (1850).

Oh, What a Fearful Thing It Is

Oh,  what a fearful thing it is,
That, from the better way,
Attracted by illusive bliss,
We love to go astray.

At first we slightly turn aside,
Nor think to travel long,
But  more and more we wander wide,
And, more and more go wrong.

Oh, poor and erring wanderer, stay!
Nor thus forsake thy God;
With hasty step regain the way
Thine earlier footsteps trod.

Oh, happy he, who loves to weep
With penitential tears,
And thus has strength divine to keep
His path in coming years.

— American Cottage Life (1850).