Letters of Madam Guyon

by Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon

A VIEW OF SELF.

The activity of the natural selfish life, is the greatest obstacle to your progress. Allow of nothing which gives sustenance to this life. Be on your guard against applause. Applaud not yourself when you have done well. Admit no reflections in regard to the good you have accomplished, so that all that nourishes self-complacency may die.

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. If you discovered the depth of inward corruption in your heart, your courage would fail! On this account, God conceals from us, in part, the view of our sins, and discovers them to us, only as he destroys them.

Rest assured, God loves you. He will take care of you. Have faith in his love and mercy. You will see farther by and by. When you are in trouble, do not fail to write me. Have good courage, and all will be well. You are very dear to me in our Lord.

STATE OF A SOUL IN UNION WITH GOD.

Although, in the latter part of my life, I do not perceive those marked states of abandonment and submission, neither of interior sorrows, such as I formerly experienced, this does not prove that these distinct states no longer exist; but the soul having become more fully established in God, it makes less account of them, or is less affected by external impressions. As pure flowing water leaves no trace where it passes, so these distinct states leave no durable impression. The soul seems to have lost its own qualities of resistance and aversion, and runs, without ceasing into its Original. It is on this account I cannot write so fully of my states of mind as formerly. My soul, in its depths, rests in God. "My peace, says Christ, I give unto you."

I pray for the church; I mourn at times that God is so little known and loved; but these feelings are transient, and the soul is ready to take any impression that God gives it. While it seems to have no consistency of its own, so to speak, it adapts itself to the state of others with wonderful facility. Sometimes even relating amusing stories, to children, and to those who cannot be entertained in any other way.

The soul, in this state of union with God, is sometimes permitted to foretell things to come, which appear very obscure to man, but which are, nevertheless, infallibly true, because proceeding from God. The knowledge of the event, and its full explanation, will come in the fulness of time. The soul is ready for anything; ready for nothing. All that is true comes from God; what is not true, from the creature. The soul does not seek to justify itself, nor produce humiliation, but passes on, disregarding self, and absorbed in God.