"I could now no longer pray as formerly. Heaven seemed shut to me, and I thought justly too. I could get no consolation, nor make any complaint thereupon; nor had I any creature on earth to apply to, or to whom I might impart my condition. I found myself banished from all beings, without finding a support or refuge in any thing. I could no more practise any virtue with facility. Such as had formerly been familiar to me seemed now to have left me. 'Alas!' said I, 'is it possible that this heart, formerly all on fire, should now become like ice?' Laden with a weight of past sins, and a multitude of new ones, I could not think God would ever pardon me, but looked on myself as a victim of hell. Whatever I tried for a remedy, seemed only to increase the malady. I may say that tears were my drink, and sorrow my food. I had within myself an executioner who tortured me without respite."
We believe the case of Madame Guion to be by no means singular. Many aim at high attainments in religion, with the utmost sincerity of intention, but, being ignorant of the true way of peace, to which a more scriptural view would infallibly lead them, they load the conscience with heavy burdens, till it sinks under the weight of the oppression. Peace of mind is not to be found in self-inflicted austerities, in overstrained efforts, nor even in the way of internal holiness. This is seeking the living among the dead. We first find God, not by what we try to do for ourselves, but in a firm reliance on what Christ the Lord has done for us. "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." This is the only true ground of acceptance. This is the foundation laid in Zion. "He is our peace." Holiness follows, but does not go before; it is the effect, but not the cause. Mysticism inverts the order, and seems to give more honour to the sanctifying Spirit, than to a crucified Saviour and Redeemer.
However specious, therefore, the counsel given by the priest might seem to be, and powerfully as she was impressed by it for a season, yet it failed in imparting the whole truth. He led her to derive peace from contemplating Christ within; but true peace can flow only from contemplating Christ without. The "water" and the "blood" are emblematical of a double operation. Each is necessary, Christ in the heart for sanctification, Christ on the cross for justification and pardon of sin. To neglect the latter, and to fix our inmost thoughts on the former only, what is it but to make a Saviour of sanctification, and to render the cross of none effect?
In the midst of her internal disquietude, the husband of Madame Guion dies. "At last," she writes, "after having passed twelve years and four months in the crosses of marriage, as great as possible, except poverty, which I never knew, though I had much desired it, God drew me out of that state to give me still stronger crosses to bear, and of such a nature as I had never met with before."
Her life from this period was a continual scene of trials and persecutions, to which her views and principles uniformly exposed her.
Relieved now from all external restraint, this devoted woman dedicates herself to the Lord by a solemn surrender, which she calls a marriage contract, and engages to live wholly to him and to his glory for the remainder of her days.
Her state of mind, and the joy and happiness which it led to, are thus expressed.
"At this time I found that I had the perfect chastity of love to God, mine being without any reserve, division, or view of interest;—perfect poverty, by the total privation of every thing that was mine both inwardly and outwardly;—perfect obedience to the will of God, submission to the church, and honour to Jesus Christ in loving himself only."
"The joy which such a soul possesses in its God is so great, that it experiences the truth of those words of the royal prophet, 'All they who are in thee, O Lord, are like persons ravished with joy.' To such a soul the words of our Lord seem to be addressed, 'Your joy no man shall take from you.' John xvi. 22. It is as it were plunged in a river of peace: its prayer is continual: nothing can hinder it from praying to God, or from loving him. It amply verifies these words in the Canticles, 'I sleep, but my heart waketh;' for it finds that even sleep itself does not hinder it from praying. Oh, unutterable happiness! Who could ever have thought that a soul, which seemed to be in the utmost misery, should ever find a happiness equal to this? Oh happy poverty, happy loss, happy nothingness, which gives no less than God himself in his own immensity, no more circumscribed to the limited manner of the creature, but always drawing it out of that to plunge it wholly into his own divine essence.
"What then renders this soul so perfectly content? It neither knows, nor wants to know any thing but what God calls it to. Herein it enjoys divine content, after a manner vast, immense, independent of exterior events; more satisfied in its humiliation, and in the opposition of all creatures, by the order of Providence, than on the throne of its own choice.