Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon

“ In proportion as its Transformation is perfected, the Soul finds a more extended quality in itself. Everything is expanded and dilated, God making it a partaker of His infinity; so that it often finds itself immense, and the whole earth appears but as a point in comparison with this wonderful breadth and extension. Whatever is in the order and will of God, expands it ”

“ THERE is no more to be said here of degrees; that of Glory being all that remains, every means being left behind, and the future consisting in our enjoying an infinite stretch of life, and that more and more abundantly. (John x. 10.) As God transforms the Soul into Himself, his life is communicated to it more plentifully. The Love of God for the creature is incomprehensible, and his assiduity inexplicable; some Souls He pursues without intermission, prevents them, seats Himself at their door, and delights Himself in being with them and in loading them with the marks of his Love. ”

“ And so true is this, that they find themselves more acquainted with the truth; I mean that truth implanted in their interior, and which causes everything to yield to the Will of God. This divine Will becomes more familiar to them, and they are enabled, in their insipid way, to penetrate a thousand Mysteries that never could have been discovered by the light of reason and knowledge. ”

“ You will, perhaps, remind one that I have before stated that, in the first contest of amorous activity, Nature and the Senses had become, as it were, extinguished and subdued. It is true; but the Spirit of Self, by the very victories that Grace had thus acquired for it, has become high-minded, more tenacious of what it esteems good, and still more indomitable. God, who is determined to subdue it, makes use for that purpose, of an apparent resurrection of that same nature which the Soul supposed dead. ”

“ Whoever shall become acquainted with the admirable Economy of Grace and the Wisdom of God in bringing man to a total sacrifice of Self, will be filled with delight, and, insensible as he may be, will expire with Love. ”

“ for we never know how strongly we cling to objects until they are taken away, and he who thinks that he is attached to nothing, is frequently grandly mistaken, being bound to a thousand things, unknown to himself — after death, I repeat, the Soul is entirely rid of Self, but not at first received into God. ”

“ God destines these Souls for the assistance of others in the most tangled paths; for, having no longer any anxiety in regard to themselves, nor anything to lose, God can use them to bring others into the way of his pure, naked and assured Will. Those who are still Self-possessed, could not be used for this purpose; for, not having yet entered into a state where they follow the Will of God blindly for themselves, but always mingling it with their own reasonings, and false wisdom, they are not by any means in a condition to withhold nothing in following it blindly for others. ”

“ ATTACKED thus on all sides by so many enemies, without life and without support, we have no recourse but to expire in the arms of Love. When death is complete, the most terrible states cause no further trouble. We do not recognize death from the fact of having passed through all these states, but by an absolute want of power to feel pain, to think of or care for Self, and, by our indifference to remaining there forever, without manifesting the slightest sign of vitality. Life is evidenced by a Will for or repugnance to something ”

“ It is now impossible for the Soul to take what it has not, or to put off what it has. It receives with passive willingness whatever impressions are made upon it. Its state, however overwhelming, would be free from suffering, if God, who moves it towards certain free things, gave them the necessary correspondence. But as their state will not bear it, it becomes necessary that what God wills they should have, should be communicated by means of suffering for them. ”

“ Nothing must be made a pretext for reserving or retaining the slightest atom, for the least reservation is the cause of an irreparable loss, as it prevents our death, from being total. We must let God work his absolute pleasure, and suffer the winds and tempests to beat upon us from every quarter, submerged, as we may often be, beneath the tumultuous billows. ”

“ Its powerlessness is no longer painful but pleasant, because it is full of the Life and Power of the Divine Will.
51. The dead Soul is in Union, but it does not enjoy the fruits of it until the moment of its Resurrection, when God, causing it to pass into Him, gives it such pledges and assurances of the consummation of its Divine Marriage, that it can no longer doubt: for this immediate Union is so spiritual, so refined, so divine, so intimate, that it is equally impossible for the Soul to conceive or to doubt it. ”

“ It is called a departure, that is, a separation from Self in order that we may pass into God; a loss, total and entire, of the Will of the creature, which causes the Soul to be wanting to itself, that it may exist only in God. Now, as this Will is in everything that subsists in the creature, however good and holy it may be, all these things must necessarily be destroyed, so far as they so subsist, and so far as the good will of man is in them, that the Will of God alone may remain. Everything born of the will of the flesh and the will of man, must be destroyed. ”

“ It would be wrong for such persons to say that they do not wish these means; that they desire God only. He is anxious that they should die to a certain interior support of Self, which causes them to say that they desire God only, and if they were to reject these means, they would withdraw themselves from the order of God, and arrest their progress. But, being given simply as means, though fruitful in grace and virtue, however secret and concealed, they finally disappear when the Soul finds itself united with the means in God, and He communicates Himself directly. ”

“ This knowledge is the more admirable, as it is the spring of all the felicity of the Soul, and the solid foundation of interior progress; for those Souls who tend toward God merely by the intellect, even though they should enjoy a somewhat spiritual contemplation, yet can never enter into Intimate Union, if they do not quit that path and enter this of the Inward Touch, where the whole working is in the Will. ”

“ But just in proportion as this activity decays, and is lost in an amorous passivity, so does our strength of resistance sink and diminish, and, as this degree advances, and the Soul becomes more and more passive, it becomes more and more powerless in combat. As God becomes strong within, so do we become weak. Some regard this impossibility of resistance as a great temptation, but they do not see that all our labor, aided and assisted by Grace, can only accomplish the conquest of our Outward Senses, after which God takes gradual possession of our Interior, and becomes Himself our purifier. ”

“ In this state of Resurrection comes that ineffable silence, by which we not only subsist in God, but commune with Him, and which, in a Soul thus dead to its own working, and general and fundamental Self-appropriation, becomes a flux and reflux of Divine Communion, with nothing to sully its purity ”

“ After being thus deprived of all things, both inward and outward, which are not essential, the work begins upon those which are; and in proportion as the virtuous life becoming a Christian, which we regarded with so much complacency, disappears, we are likewise spoiled of a certain interior delight and substantial support. As this support becomes weaker and more subtile, the more perceptible becomes its loss. It is to be remarked, however, that there is no loss except to our own consciousness, as it still exists in the Soul, but imperceptibly and without apparent action. ”

“ It is vigorous in the beginning and introduces the Soul into the perceived, which is a purer and less exquisite pleasure than the first; from the perceived, into Faith sustained and working by Love; passing in this Way from the sensible to the spiritual, and from the spiritual to Naked Faith, which, causing us to be dead to all spiritual experiences, makes us die to ourselves and pass into God, that we may live henceforth from the Life of God only. ”

“ Many spiritual persons have given the name of death, to the earlier purifications, which are, indeed, a death in relation to the life communicated, but not a total death. They result in an extinguishment of some one of the lives of Nature, or of Grace; but that is widely different from a general extinction of all life. ”

“ To make this intelligible, we must know that God did not deprive the senses and faculties of their life, to leave them dead; for though there might be life in the Centre of the Soul, they would remain dead if that life were not also communicated to them. It increases by degrees, animates all the powers and senses which, until then, had remained barren and unfruitful, enlarges them in proportion to its communication, and renders them active, but with an activity derived and regulated from God, according to His own designs. ”

“ Fidelity in this degree requires us to suffer Spoliation to the whole extent of the designs of God, without being anxious about ourselves, sacrificing to God all our interests both for time and for eternity. ”

“ In proportion as you become enfeebled and destitute of every operation and activity of Love, however insignificant, the Will, which was founded in that vigor of Love, becoming weaker day by day, gradually disappears; and vanishing thus, it is certain that it takes no part in anything that is passing in the man, but is separate. But as it does not manifest itself anywhere, by any sign, it affords no assured support to the Soul, but the contrary ”

“ It is a tarnish which is destroyed by a general, indistinct suffering, having no relation to the means of death, since they are passed away and completed; but it is an uneasiness arising from the fact of being turned out of Self, without being received into its great Original. The Soul loses all possession of Self, without which it could never be united to God; but it is only gradually that it becomes fully possessed of Him by means of the new life, which is wholly divine. ”

“ God frequently exacts strange sacrifices from Souls thus transformed in Him; but it costs them nothing, for they will sacrifice everything to Him without repugnance. The smaller sacrifices cost the most, and the greater ones the least, for they are not required until the Soul is in a state to grant them without difficulty, to which it has a natural tendency. This is what is said of Jesus Christ on his coming into the world ”

“ This is caused by the loss of our active, inward force; for although the Soul, in the second degree, imagines itself to be in silence before God, it is not entirely so. It does not speak, indeed, either in Heart or by Mouth, but it is in an active striving after God and constant outbreathing of Love, so that, being the subject of the most powerful amorous activity, exerted by the Divine Love towards Himself, it is continually leaping, as it were, towards its object, and its activity is accompanied by a delightful and almost constant Peace. ”

“ In the beginning, when God turned its look inward, he so influenced it against itself, that it was obliged to cut off all its enjoyments, even the most innocent, and to load itself with every kind of affliction. ”

“ But, before entering upon the effects of this admirable life, let me say, that there are some who do not pass through these painful deaths; they only experience a mortal languor and fainting, which annihilate them, and cause them to die to all. ”

“ We do not die spiritually, once for all, as we do naturally; it is accomplished gradually; we vibrate between life and death, being sometimes in one and sometimes in the other, until death has finally conquered life. And so it is in the resurrection; an alternate state of life and death, until life has finally overcome death. ”

“ It remains dead and insensible to everything that concerns itself, and, let God reduce it to what extremity He will, feels no repugnance. It has no choice between being Angel or Demon, because it has no longer any eyes for Self. ”

“ The Soul in that state, perceiving no more prayer, and not being able to set apart fixed seasons for it, since all such exercises are taken away, is led to think that it has absolutely lost all kind of devotion. But when life returns, Prayer returns with it, and accompanied by a marvellous facility; and as God takes possession of the senses and faculties, its devotion becomes sweet, gentle, and very spiritual, but always to God. ”

“ When God raises a Soul, that is to say, receives it into Himself, and the living germ, which is no other than the Life and Spirit of the Word, begins to appear, it constitutes the Revelation in it of Jesus Christ, (Gal. i. 16,) who lives in us by the loss of the life of Adam subsisting in Self. ”

“ As soon as we cease, from inability, to practice mortifications of our own fashioning, those of Providence take their place — the crosses which God dispenses according to our degree. These are not chosen by the Soul; but the Soul, under the interior guidance of God, receives such as He appoints. ”

“ But it is far otherwise when the life becomes advanced in God; for though they have nothing distinct for themselves, they have for others, and their illumination for the use of others, though not always received by those for whom it was intended, is the more certain as it is more immediate, and as it were natural. ”

“ It is stripped without mercy, then, equally and at the same time, of everything both within and without, and what is worst of all, is delivered over to temptations; and the more fully it is thus given up to temptation, the more completely is it deprived of strength to resist them from without; thus it is weakened still farther at the very time when it is subjected to more violent attacks, and finally its internal support is removed, which, while it served as a refuge and asylum, would be an evidence of the Goodness of God, and of its Faithfulness to itself. ”