Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon

“ The love which dwells in my heart, is not a natural love, but arises from a depth which rejects, what is not in correspondence with it, or rather what is not in unison with the heart of God. I cannot be with a child without caressing it, nor with a child-like soul without a tender attachment. I do not regard the exterior, but the state of the soul; its affinity and oneness with God. The only perfect union, is the union of souls in God; such as exists in heaven, and on earth after the resurrection, life takes effect in the soul. ”

“ As the winter plunges still deeper the roots of the trees in the earth, so the wintry state of the soul plunges it deeper in humiliation. Remember the confidence of Job, "Although he slay me, I will trust in him." Although stripped of all consolation, and left in the desolation of nothingness, you may yet rejoice in God—out of, and separate from, self. Let the earth be stripped of her foliage; let neither flowers nor fruit appear; yet God is, therefore you may be happy. The mother loves to sacrifice herself for her child, and finds her life in what affords it happiness ”

“ God would teach you, my dear child, there is a silence of the soul through which he operates, filling it with the unction of grace, to be diffused on other hearts who are in a state of receptivity, often more efficacious than words to replenish the soul.
We find this still harmonious action in nature. The sun, the moon, and stars, shine in silence. The voice of God is heard in the silence of the soul. The operation of grace is in silence, as it comes from God, and may it not reach and pass from soul to soul without the noise of words? ”

“ If another soul animated our body, the body would obey this new soul; it would become the moving-spring of its operations. Thus Jesus Christ becomes the life of the new man. And what can be more free, more enlarged, than the soul of Jesus? His nature is divine, eternal, boundless. Alas! to what a narrow point does self reduce us! Who that looks at the freedom and expansion of the soul, as it puts on the new man, Christ Jesus, will not crush the reptile self to the dust, that the life of God may again, as in its first creation, animate the soul? ”

“ Self-love has many hiding-places. God alone can search them out. You seek the honor that cometh from man, and love to occupy a high position. God wishes to reduce you to littleness, and poverty of spirit. Believe me, dear sir, you will grow in grace, not by knowledge acquired from books; not from reasonings upon divine truths, but by an efflux from God. This efflux will reach and fill your soul, in proportion as you are emptied of self. You are so much occupied of yourself in speaking, reading and writing, that you give no place to God. ”

“ It seems to me that all the difficulties of theologians concerning this state, arise from viewing it, not in the light of divine truth and power, but in the light of the creature. It is true, the creature, in itself, is only weakness and sin; but when it pleases God to new-create the soul, and make it one with himself, it is then transformed into the likeness of Christ.
Who will dare limit the power of God? Who will say that God, whose love is infinite as it is free, cannot give such proofs of love as he pleases, to his creatures? Has he not the right to love me as he does? ”

“ It is a union in Jesus Christ. We are one in a sense of our lost condition, and one in self-abandonment. Oh! blessed oneness with Christ, where all evils perish; and there remains only the casualties inseparable from the state of humanity. How wonderful is this operation—the sacred mingling of a poor creature with its God, where all the evils of our fallen nature, are removed from the depths of the soul, and the soul, in its elemental being is lost in its original! ”

“ My interior resembles a drop of water, mingling and lost in the ocean, and no more discerning itself,—the sea not only surrounding, but absorbing it. In this divine immensity, the soul discerns and enjoys all objects in God. All is darkness and obscurity in respect to itself; all is light on the part of God. ”

“ I lose in you the most faithful, and the only friend on whom I could rely, in the persecutions which threaten me. I feel my loss, but rejoice in your happiness, I could envy you. Death only lends a helping hand to rend away the veil, which hides infinite beauties. Our Lord has strongly cemented our souls. May the benediction of the divine Master rest upon you. Go, blessed soul, and receive the recompense prepared for all those, who are wholly the Lord's. ”

“ This indifferent state you notice in me, arises from the state of innocency and infancy in which I find myself. Our Lord holds me so far removed from myself, or from my natural state, that it is impossible for me to take a painful view of myself. When a fault is committed by me, it leaves no traces on the soul; it is as something external, which is easily removed. Do not infer that I am blind to my faults. The light of truth is so subtle and penetrating, that it discovers the slightest fault. ”

“ As when we charge a vessel, the more ballast we put in, the lower it sinks, so the more love we have in the soul, the lower we are abased in self. The side of the scales which is elevated, is empty; so the soul is elated only when it is void of love. "Love is our weight," says St. Augustine. Let us so charge ourselves with the weight of love, as to bring down self to its just level. Let its depths be manifested by our readiness to bear the cross, the humiliations, the sufferings, which are necessary to the purification of the soul. Our humiliation is our exaltation. ”

“ When the man of sin is destroyed, and the new man established in the soul, it finds itself in perfect liberty. As a bird let loose from its cage, the soul goes forth, unfettered, to dwell in the immensity of God. The natural selfish life restricts the soul at every point; and even God, the great I am, is unseen, or deprived of his glory.
When Paul asked, "Who shall deliver me from this body of death?" he added, "I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord." That is, when by the grace of God, the new man is established in my soul, I shall be delivered. ”

“ O, that you might become reduced to the simplicity of the little child! It is the child who approaches the nearest to Jesus Christ. It is the child whom he takes in his arms and carries in his bosom. O, how lovely, how attractive, is child-like simplicity! May the sufferings you are now experiencing, render you, child-like and submissive to all the will of your Father. My ill health forbids my writing more fully. God loves you, and you are very dear to me in him. ”

“ Souls which are in the natural life, have real faults, as a paper written over with ink is strongly marked, therefore they see and feel them. But souls, transformed into God, have faults, as a writing traced on sand when the wind is high, the wind defacing it as soon as it is traced. This is the economy of divine wisdom, relating to souls in union and harmony with God. Oh! the greatness and simplicity of the way of Truth! ”

“ To speak the truth, and the truth only, is all I desire. I have this morning prayed, rather to be taken out of the world, than to disguise the truth. I have proclaimed it, in its purity, in the great Congregation, and it will be seen that Thou, O Lord, hast distilled it in my heart; or rather, O Sovereign Truth, that Thou art there thyself, to manifest thyself plainly, and that Thou dost make use of weak things to confound the strong. God is truth and love. ”

“ The intellectual part of man can be in some degree united to God; but the soul loses itself in God, only by the loss of the will and by love. This loss of the will is the true ecstasy, which is a permanent state, and is effected without any violence to nature. When love is the controlling exercise, the will follows, and the soul is reduced to unity; as in the natural exercise of love, the stronger the love, the greater the submission of the soul to the object beloved. Sacred love does not bind parts, but draws it fully, until it is absorbed wholly in this divine oneness. ”

“ You, my friend, will not be led by great crosses and severe sufferings, but in the way of helpless infancy. The child-like, yielding soul is necessary for you; therefore God has chosen a child, myself, to be your helper. Forget yourself as the man to whom many eyes are turned, and become the little, helpless one, who cannot take care of itself, but lets another care for it. The pride, presumption and vanity, of the natural man, must give place to the littleness and simplicity of the child. ”

“ God does not give you the sweet rain which, falling, clothes all the surface of the soul with verdure, but he gives you the deep well-spring, by which means you live and flourish, and produce, not herbs and flowers, which are born and die in the same day, but substantial fruits, ripening for eternity. David said, the life of man upon the earth is as grass, which groweth up in the morning, and withers in the evening. ”

“ Here is consummated all the glory, God derives from their existence. All beside are only the means approaching this final end, this glorious termination, and absorption of the soul in Deity. Here is the light which ravishes the soul. A light which does not precede, but follows the soul in its progress; unfolding more and more, as a man in a dark cavern, discovers the concealed places, only when he has remained in it for some time.
This is the pure Theology in which God instructs the angels and the saints. ”

“ As a painter draws upon his canvas what image pleases him, so God is now preparing your soul, by these inward crucifixions, to draw upon it his own likeness, He cherishes you as the mother her only son. ”

“ Possess your soul in peace as much as possible; not by effort, but by ceasing from effort; by letting go everything that troubles you. Be quiet, that you may settle, as we leave water to settle when agitated. When you discover your errors and sins, do not stop, under whatever good pretext, to remedy them. Rather abandon yourself at once to God, that he may destroy, in you, all that its displeasing to him. I assure you, you are not capable of yourself, to correct the least fault. Your only remedy is abandonment to God, and remaining quiet in his hands. ”