Madame Guyon Quotes

My earnest wish is to paint in true colors the goodness of God to me, and the depth of my own ingratitude

Here is a true spiritual principle that the Lord will not deny: God gives us the cross, and then the cross gives us God.

A person truly humbled permits not anything to put him in a rage. As it is pride which dies the last in the soul, so it is passion which is last destroyed in the outward conduct. A soul thoroughly dead to itself, finds nothing of rage left.

It appears that having a close walk with the Lord is not religiously acceptable.

you must carry the cross with Christ in this life. Soon enough there will come a time when you will no longer suffer. You will reign with God and He will wipe away your tears with His own hand. In His presence, pain and sighing will forever flee away.

If godliness is not from deep within you, it is only a mask.

Collect yourself in His presence with the one purpose and intent of loving Him. Come to Him as one who is giving himself to God. Behold Him in the most inward recess of your spirit that you can find.

Do not add to the cross in your life by becoming so busy that you have no time to sit quietly before God. Do not resist what God brings into your life. Be willing to suffer if that is what is needed. Overactivity and stubbornness will only increase your anguish.

He destroys that he might build; for when He is about to rear His sacred temple in us, He first totally razes that vain and pompous edifice, which human art and power had erected, and from its horrible ruins a new structure is formed, by His power only.

This spirit gradually decayed, not being nourished by prayer. I became cold toward God.

Andrew Murray once said that what the church and individuals have to dread is the inordinate activity of the soul with its power of mind and will. F. B. Meyer declared that had he not known about the dividing of spirit and soul, he could not have imagined what his spiritual life would have been. Many others, such as Otto Stockmayer, Jessie Penn-Lewis, Evan Roberts, Madame Guyon, have given the same testimony.

The devil is outrageous only against prayer, and those that exercise it; because he knows it is the true means of taking his prey from him. He lets us undergo all the austerities we will. He neither persecutes those that enjoy them nor those that practice them. But no sooner does one enter into a spiritual life, a life of prayer, but they must prepare for strange crosses. All manner of persecutions and contempts in this world are reserved for that life.

Oh, my God, if the value of prayer were but known, the great advantage which accrues to the soul from conversing with Thee, and what consequence it is of to salvation, everyone would be assiduous in it. It is a stronghold into which the enemy cannot enter. He may attack it, besiege it, make a noise about its walls; but while we are faithful and hold our station, he cannot hurt us.

We should accept indiscriminately all His dispensations, whether obscurity or illumination, fruitfulness or barrenness, weakness or strength, sweetness or bitterness, temptations, distractions, pain, weariness, or doubtings; and none of all these should, for one moment retard our course.

Some persons, when they hear of the prayer of silence, falsely imagine that the soul remains stupid, dead, and inactive. But unquestionably, it acteth therein more nobly and more extensively than it had ever done before; for God himself is the mover, and the soul now acteth by the agency of His spirit.

If while reading, you feel yourself recollected, lay aside the book and remain in stillness; at all times read but little, and cease to read when you're thus internally attracted.

The devil is outrageous only against prayer, and those that exercise it; because he knows it is the true means of taking his prey from him.

Let this, then, be done in you; and suffer not yourself to be attached to anything, however good it may appear; it is no longer such to you, if it in any measure turns you aside from what God desires of you.  For the divine will is preferable to every other good.  Shake off, then, all self-interest, and live by faith and abandonment; here it is that genuine faith begins truly to operate.

Whatever truth you have chosen, read only a small portion of it, endeavouring to taste and digest it, to extract the essence and substance thereof, and proceed no farther while any savour or relish remains in the passage: when this subsides, pick up your book again and proceed as before, seldom reading more than half a page at a time, for it is not the quantity that is read, but the manner of reading, that yields us profit.

You yourself must endure the painful process of change. There is much more at work here than your instant maturity. God wants to build a relationship with you that is based on faith and trust and not on glamorous miracles.

63. 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; for there is nothing to hinder it. 64. The Soul then becomes a partaker of the ineffable communion of the Trinity, where the Father of Spirits imparts his spiritual fecundity, and makes it one Spirit with Himself.

The only way to Heaven is prayer; a prayer of the heart, which every one is capable of, and not of reasonings which are the fruits of study, or exercise of the imagination, which, in filling the mind with wandering objects, rarely settle it; instead of warming the heart with love to God, they leave it cold and languishing. Let the poor come, let the ignorant and carnal come; let the children without reason or knowledge come, let the dull or hard hearts which can retain nothing come to the practice of prayer and they shall become wise.

Madame Guyon noted in her book, “Short and Easy Method of Prayer” that, “Religion applies the remedy to the outward body while the disease lies at the heart.”41 That is why we must disciple men into the “prayer of the heart” rather than just the “prayer of understanding.” She states, “For all that is of man’s own power or exertion must first die, be it ever so noble or exalted.” Why? Because, “Nothing is so opposed to God as self-sufficiency.” She writes, “Activity obstructs union, for God being in infinite stillness, the soul must participate in this stillness. Else the contrariety between stillness and activity would prevent assimilation; therefore the soul can never arrive at divine union without the repose of the will.

We must, however, urge it as a matter of the highest import, to cease from self-action and self-exertion, that God himself may act alone: He saith by the mouth of his prophet David: "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). But the creature is so infatuated with a love and attachment to its own workings, that it imagines nothing at all is done if it does not perceive and distinguish all its operations.

To pastors and teachers Compose catechisms particularly to teach prayer, not by reasoning nor by method, for the simple are incapable thereof; but to teach the prayer of the heart, not of the understanding; the prayer of God's Spirit, not of man's invention. Alas! By wanting them to pray in elaborate forms . . . you create their chief obstacles. The children have been led astray from the best of fathers, by your endeavouring to teach them too refined, too polished a language . . . A father is much better pleased with an address which love and respect in the child throws into disorder, because he knows it proceeds from the heart, than by a formal and barren harangue, though ever so elaborate in the composition. The simple and undisguised emotions of filial love are infinitely more expressive than all language and all reasoning.

Come, ye dull, ignorant, and illiterate, ye who think yourselves the most incapable of prayer! Ye are more peculiarly called and adapted thereto. Let all without exception come, for Jesus Christ hath called all. Yet let not those come who are without a heart; they are not asked; for there must be a heart, that there may be love. But who is without a heart? Oh come, then, give this heart to God; and here learn how to make the donation.

Paul called it prayer “without ceasing.”[13] The Spanish Carmelite Saint John of the Cross called it “silent love” and urged us to “remain in loving attention on God.” Madame Guyon—the French mystic—called it a “continuous inner act of abiding.” The old Quakers called it “centering down,”[14] as if abiding was getting in touch with the bedrock of all reality. The Jesuit spiritual director Jean-Pierre de Caussade called it “the sacrament of the present moment,” as if each moment with God is its own Eucharist, its own movable feast.[15] A. W. Tozer called it “habitual, conscious communion” and said, “At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for His redeemed children to push in to conscious awareness of His presence.”[16] Dallas Willard loved to call it “the with-God life.”[17] So many saints, with so many names for life with Jesus. But my undisputed favorite is from a monk named Brother Lawrence, who called this “the practice of the presence of God.

Now when the soul by its efforts to abandon outward objects and gather itself inwards, is brought into the influence of the central tendency, without any other exertion, it falls gradually by the weight of Divine Love into its proper centre; and the more passive and tranquil it remains, and the freer from self-motion and self-exertion, the more rapidly it advances, because the energy of the central attractive virtue is unobstructed and has full liberty for action. All our care and attention should, therefore, be to acquire inward recollection: nor let us be discouraged by the pains and difficulties we encounter in this exercise, which will soon be recompensed on the part of our God by such abundant supplies of grace as will render the exercise perfectly easy, provided we be faithful in meekly withdrawing our hearts from outward distractions and occupations, and returning to our centre with affections full of tenderness and serenity. When at any time the passions are turbulent, a gentle retreat inwards into a Present God easily deadens and pacifies them; and any other way of contending with them rather irritates than appeases them.

Those who tread these paths should be informed of a matter respecting their confession in which they are apt to err. When they begin to give an account of their sins, instead of the regret and contrition they had been accustomed to feel, they find that love and tranquility sweetly pervade and take possession of their souls: now those who are not properly instructed are desirous of withdrawing from this sensation to form an act of contrition, because they have heard, and with truth, that it is requisite: but they are not aware that they lose thereby the genuine contrition, which is this Intuitive Love, infinitely surpassing any effect produced by self-exertion . . . Be not then troubled about other things when God acts so excellently in you and for you.

To pastors and teachers If all who laboured for the conversion of others were to introduce them immediately into Prayer and the Interior Life, and make it their main design to gain and win over the heart, numberless as well as permanent conversions would certainly ensue. On the contrary, few and transient fruits must attend that labour which is confined to outward matters; such as burdening the disciple with a thousand precepts for external exercises, instead of leaving the soul to Christ by the occupation of the heart in him . . . O when once the heart is gained, how easily is all moral evil corrected! It is, therefore, that God above all things requires the heart. It is the conquest of the heart alone that can extirpate those dreadful vices which are so predominant, such as drunkenness, blasphemy, lewdness,envy, and theft. Jesus Christ would become the universal and peaceful Sovereign, and the face of the church would be wholly renewed. The decay of internal piety is unquestionably the source of the various errors that have arisen in the church, all which would would speedily be sapped and overthrown should inward religion be reestablished . . . O how inexpressibly great is the loss sustained by mankind from the neglect of the Interior Life!

The soul should not be surprised at feeling itself unable to offer up to God such petitions as it had formally made with freedom and facility; for now the Spirit maketh intercession for it according to the will of God ("with sighs too deep for words" - Romans 8:26-27).

When you come before the Lord, it is not necessary that you think upon the Lord. It is only necessary that you continue in your progress.

Rest. Rest. Rest in God’s love,” Madame Guyon had written. “The only work you are required now to do is to give your most intense attention to His still, small voice within.

In the past three hundred years many people who paid attention to the inner life received help from Madame Guyon. She definitely had a measure of the stature of Christ. Not only did she have a measure, but her measure was quite substantial. Among the audience today, I do not believe that there is one person whose measure of the stature of Christ is greater than that of Madame Guyon’s. But still I must ask, where was Madame Guyon? She was in the Catholic Church, a place that we all condemn. Can we say that the Catholic Church was relatively correct because Madame Guyon had such a great measure of the stature of Christ?

God does not transform you on a bed of light, life, and grace. His transformation is done on the cross in darkness, poverty, and death.

See God’s hand in the circumstances of your life. Do you want to experience true happiness? Submit yourself peacefully and simply to the will of God, and bear your sufferings without struggle.

Follow Him simply wherever He may lead you and you will not have to think up big plans to bring about your perfection. Your new life will begin to grow naturally.

You who have given yourself to the Lord during some pleasant season, please take note of this: If you gave yourself to Him to be blessed and to be loved, you cannot suddenly turn around and take back your life at another season… when you are being crucified!

Here is a true spiritual principle that the Lord will not deny: God gives us the cross, and then the cross gives us God. —Guyon

Spiritual Progress Francois Fénelon, Madame Guyon & Pere Lacombe

AS LONG AS YOU LIVE BY YOUR OLD NATURE YOU WILL BE open to all of the injustices of men. Your temper will get you into fights, your passions will clash with your neighbors, your desires will be like tender spots open to your enemies’ arrows. Everything will be against you—attacking you from all sides. If you live at the mercy of a crowd of greedy and hungry desires, then you will never find peace. You will never be satisfied because everything will bother you. You will be like an invalid who has been bedridden for many years—anywhere you are touched you will feel pain. Your self-love is terribly touchy. No matter how slightly it is insulted, it screams, “Murderer.” Add to this all the insensitivity of others, their disgust at your weakness (and your disgust at theirs), and you have the children of Adam forever tormenting each other. The only hope is to come out of yourself. Lose all your selfinterest. Only then can you enjoy the true peace reserved for “men of good will.” Such people have no other will but God’s. If you come to such a place, then what can harm you? You will no longer be attacked through your hopes or fears. You may be worried, inconvenienced, or distressed, but you can rest in Him. Love the hand that disciplines you. Find peace in all things—even in going to the cross. Be happy

COME OUT OF YOURSELF AS LONG AS YOU LIVE BY YOUR OLD NATURE YOU WILL BE open to all of the injustices of men. Your temper will get you into fights, your passions will clash with your neighbors, your desires will be like tender spots open to your enemies’ arrows. Everything will be against you—attacking you from all sides. If you live at the mercy of a crowd of greedy and hungry desires, then you will never find peace. You will never be satisfied because everything will bother you. You will be like an invalid who has been bedridden for many years—anywhere you are touched you will feel pain. Your self-love is terribly touchy. No matter how slightly it is insulted, it screams, “Murderer.” Add to this all the insensitivity of others, their disgust at your weakness (and your disgust at theirs), and you have the children of Adam forever tormenting each other. The only hope is to come out of yourself. Lose all your selfinterest. Only then can you enjoy the true peace reserved for “men of good will.” Such people have no other will but God’s. If you come to such a place, then what can harm you? You will no longer be attacked through your hopes or fears. You may be worried, inconvenienced, or distressed, but you can rest in Him. Love the hand that disciplines you. Find peace in all things—even in going to the cross. Be happy with what you have. Wish for nothing more. Surrender to God and find true peace. —Fénelon LIVE DAY BY DAY YOUR SPIRITUAL WALK IS A LITTLE TOO RESTLESS AND uneasy.

To have time for it, I left off prayer which was to me the first inlet of evils.

If you read quickly, it will benefit you little. You will be like a bee that merely skims the surface of a flower. Instead, in this new way of reading...you must become as the bee who penetrates into the depths of the flower. You plunge deeply within to remove its deepest nectar