ATTRIBUTED TO
AT ONE TIME SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR OF MADAME GUYON.
"Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breasts."--Isa. xxviii. 9.
1. To rob God of nothing; to refuse Him
nothing; to require of Him nothing; this is great perfection.[11]
2. In the commencement of the spiritual life, our
hardest task is to bear with our neighbor; in its progress, with ourselves, and
in its end, with God.
3. He that regards self only with horror, is
beginning to be the delight of God.
4. The more we learn what humility is, the less
we discover of it in ourselves.
5. When we suffer aridity and desolation with
equanimity, we testify our love to God; but when He visits us with the
sweetness of his presence, He testifies his love to us.
6. He that bears the privations of the gifts of
God and the esteem of men, with an even soul, knows how to enjoy his Supreme
Good beyond all time and above all means.
7. Let no one ask a stronger mark of an excellent
love to God, than that we are insensible to our own reputation.
8. Would you exert all your powers to attain
Divine Union? Use all your strength for the destruction of self.
9. Be so much the enemy of self as you desire to
be the friend of God.
10. How are we directed in the law to love
ourselves? In God with the same love that we bear to God; because as our true
selves are in Him, our love must be there also.
11. It is a rare gift to discover an
indescribable something, which is above grace and nature; which is not
God, but which suffers no intermediate between God and us. It is a pure and
unmixed emanation of a created being who is immediately connected with the
Uncreated Original, from whom he proceeds. It is a union of essence with
essence, in which nothing that is neither can act the part of an
intermediate.
12. The ray of the creature is derived from the
Sun of the Divinity; it cannot, however, be separated from it; and if its
dependence upon its divine principle is essential, its union is not less so. O
wonder! The creature which can only be by the power of God, cannot exist
without Him, and the root of its being, that nothing can come between or cause
the slightest separation. This is the common condition of all creatures; but it
is only perceived by those whose purified faculties can trace the grandeur of
their centre, and whose interior, freed from the defilement that covered it,
begins to return to its origin.
13. Faith and the cross are inseparable: the
cross is the shrine of faith, and faith is the light of the cross.
14. It is only by the death of self that the soul
can enter into Divine Truth, and understand in part what is the light that
shineth in darkness.
15. The more the darkness of self-knowledge
deepens about us, the more does the divine truth shine in the midst.
16. Nothing less than a divine operation can
empty us of the creature and of self, for whatever is natural tends constantly
to fill us with the creature, and occupy us with ourselves. This emptiness
without anything distinct, is, then, an excellent sign, though it exist
surrounded by the deepest and, I may say, the most importunate temptations.
17. God causes us to promise in time of peace
what He exacts from us in time of war; He enables us to make our abandonments
in joy, but He requires the fulfilment of them in the midst of much bitterness.
It is well for thee, O Love! to exercise thy rights; suffer as we may, we will
not return to self, or if we suffer because we have done so, the remedy for the
evil is to devote ourselves afresh with an enlarged abandonment. Strange
malady, the cure of which is only to be found in a worse! O Lord, cause me to
do whatever Thou wilt, provided I do only thy will?[12]
18. How hidden is the theology of Love! O Love,
Thou sulliest to excess what Thou wouldst raise to the heights of purity! Thou
profanest thine own sanctuary; there is not left one stone upon another that is
not cast into the dirt. And what shall be the end? Thou knowest it from the
beginning; it is worthy of so great a Workman that his work should be hidden,
and that while He seems to destroy, He should accomplish it the most
effectually.
19. Ah Lord! who seest the secrets of the heart,
Thou knowest if I yet expect anything from myself, or if there be anything
which I would refuse to Thee!
20. How rare is it to behold a soul in an
absolute abandonment of selfish interests, that it may devote itself to the
interests of God!
21. The creature would willingly cease to be
creature if it could become God; but where shall we find one willing that God
should resume everything He has bestowed without receiving anything in return?
I say everything, and everything without reserve, even to our own
righteousness, which is dearer to man than his existence, and to our rest, by
which we enjoy self and the gifts of God in self, and in which we place our
happiness, without knowing it. Where shall we find an abandonment that is as
comprehensive as the will of God, not only when accompanied by delights,
illumination, and feeling, but under all circumstances and in fact? O it is a
fruit of Paradise that can scarce be found upon the earth!
22. God is infinitely more honored by the
sacrifices of death than by those of life; by the latter we honor Him as a
great Sovereign, but by the former, as God, losing all things for his glory.
This is the reason why Jesus Christ made many more sacrifices of death than of
life; and I suspect no one will gain all without having lost all.
23. Reason should not undertake to comprehend the
last destructions; they are ordained expressly to destroy our reason.
24. God has means more efficient, more conducive
to his own glory, and more edifying for souls, but they are less sanctifying.
These great and dazzling gifts are very gratifying to nature, even when it
seems to give way beneath their weight, and thus nourish its secret life; but
distresses, continual dyings, and unprofitableness for any good, crucify the
most vital parts of the soul, which are those which prevent the coming of the
kingdom of God.
25. In our solemn feasts, some strive to do
something for Thee, O my God! and others, that Thou mayest do something for
them; but neither of these is permitted to us. Love forbids the one and cannot
suffer the other.
26. It is harder to die to our virtues than to
our vices; but the one is just as necessary as the other for perfect union. Our
attachments are the stronger as they are more spiritual.
27. What is a help to perfection at one time, is
a hinderance at another; what formerly helped you in your way to God, will now
prevent your reaching Him; the more wants we have, the further we are from God,
and the nearer we approach him, the better can we dispense with everything that
is not Himself. When we have come there, we use everything indifferently, and
have no more need but of Him.
28. Who can say to what extent the divine
abandonment will carry the poor soul that is given up to it? or rather, to whom
can we describe the extremity of sacrifice which God exacts from his simple
victim? He raises him by degrees, and then plunges him into the abyss; he
discovers new points to him day by day, and never ceases until he has
sacrificed everything God wills, putting no other bounds to his abandonment
than God does to his decrees. He even goes further, submitting to everything
that God could do, or his sovereign will ordain. Then every selfish interest is
given up; all is surrendered to the Author of All, and God reigns supreme over
his nothingness.
29. God gives us gifts, graces, and natural
talents, not for our own use, but that we may render them to Him. He takes
pleasure in giving and in taking them away, or in so disposing of us, that we
cannot enjoy them; but their grand use is to be offered in a continual
sacrifice to Him; and by this He is most glorified.
30. Naked faith keeps us in ignorance,
uncertainty, and oblivion of everything in reference to ourselves; says
everything, excepts nothing, neither grace nor nature, virtue nor vice; it is
the darkness concealing us wholly from ourselves, but revealing so much the
more of the Divinity and the greatness of his works; an obscurity that gives us
an admirable discernment of spirits, and dislodges the esteem and love of self
from its most secret recesses. Pure love reigns underneath, notwithstanding;
for how can a soul go about to consider its own interest, when it cannot so
much as look at itself? Or, how could it be pleased to look at what it cannot
see? It either sees nothing, or nothing but God, who is All and in all, and the
more it is blinded to self, the more it beholds of Him.
31. There are but few men who are led by their
reason, most of them are fewer, indeed, who act from an illuminated faith, or
from reason enlightened by faith; but shall we find a single one who admits no
guide but a blind faith, which, though it leads him straight to God by the
short road of abandonment, seems, nevertheless, to precipitate him into abysses
from which he has no hope of ever escaping? There are, however, some such
souls, who have noble trust enough to be blindfolded, and led they know not
whither. Many are called, but few are willing to enter, and they who have most
fully surrendered themselves to the sway of their senses, their passions, their
reason, and the distinct illuminations of faith, are they who have the greatest
difficulty in plunging into the gulf of the blindest and most naked faith;
whereas the simple souls enter with ease. It is the same as with the
shipwrecked; those who know how to swim, or who have perhaps seized a plank of
the ship, struggle and contend for a long while before they drown; but those
who cannot swim, and who have nothing to sustain them, are instantly submerged,
and, sinking without a struggle beneath the surface, die and are delivered from
their suffering.
32. The spirituality of most spiritual persons is
nothing but presumption. When the Divine Truth penetrates to their centre, it
discovers many a theft from God in their course, and teaches them that the only
way to secure themselves is by an abandonment without reserve to God, and
submission to his guidance; for, whenever we endeavor to bring about our own
perfection, or that of others, by our own efforts, the result is simply
imperfection.
33. The soul that is destined to have no other
support but God himself, must pass through the strangest trials. How much agony
and how many deaths must it suffer before losing the life of self! It will
encounter no purgatory in the other world, but it will feel a terrible hell in
this; a hell not only of pain--that would be a small matter--but also of
temptations its own resistance to which it does not perceive; this is the cross
of crosses, of all sufferings the most intolerable, of all deaths the most
despairing.
34. All consolation that does not come from God
is but desolation; when the soul has learned to receive no comfort but in God
only, it has passed beyond the reach of desolation.
35. By the alternations of interior union and
desertion, God sometimes makes us feel what He is, and sometimes gives us to
perceive what we are. He does the latter to make us hate and die to ourselves,
but the former to make us love Him, and to exalt us into union.
36. It is in vain for man to endeavor to instruct
man in those things which the Holy Spirit alone can teach.
37. To take and receive all things not in
ourselves, but in God, is the true and excellent way of dying to ourselves and
living only to God. They who understand the practice of this, are beginning to
live purely; but, outside of this, nature is always mingled with grace, and we
rest in self instead of permitting ourselves no repose, except in the Supreme
Good, who should be the center of every movement of the heart, as He is the
final end of all the measures of love.
38. Why should we complain that we have been
stripped of the divine virtues, if we had not hidden them away as our own? Why
should we complain of a loss, if we had no property in the thing lost? or why
does deprivation give us so much pain, except because of the appropriation we
had made of that which was taken away?
39. When thou canst not find thyself, nor any
good, then rejoice that all things are rendered unto God.
40. O monster justly abhorred of God and man!
after being humiliated in so many ways, I cannot become humble, and I am so
pampered with pride, that when I most endeavor to be humble, I set about my own
praises!
41. Some saints have been sanctified by the easy
and determined practice of all the virtues, but there are others who owe their
sanctification to having endured with perfect resignation the privation of
every virtue.
42. If we do not go so far as to be stopped by
nothing short of the power of God, we are not entirely free from presumption;
and if our abandonment is bounded by anything short of the possible will of
God, we are not yet disengaged from appropriation; and presumption and
appropriation are impurities.
43. I have never found any who prayed so well as
those who had never been taught how. They who have no master in man, have one
in the Holy Spirit.
44. He who has a pure heart will never cease to
pray; and he who will be constant in prayer, shall know what it is to have a
pure heart.
45. God is so great and so independent, that He
can find means to glorify Himself even by sin.
46. While our abandonment blesses or spares us,
we shall find many to advise it; but let it bring us into trouble, and the most
spiritually-minded will exclaim against it.
47. It is easy enough to understand the course of
such as go on from virtue to virtue, but who can comprehend the decrees that
send some dashing from one precipice to another, and from abyss to abyss? or
who shall bring aid and comfort to these hidden favorites of God, whom He
gradually deprives of every stay, and who are reduced to an inability to know
or help themselves as utter as their ignorance of what sustains them?
48. Who can comprehend the extent of that supreme
homage which is due to the will of God?
49. Those who are abandoned are cast from one
precipice to another, and from one abyss to another, as if they were lost.
50. The harmlessness of the dove consists in not
judging another; the wisdom of the serpent in distrusting ourselves.
51. Self-seeking is the gate by which a soul
departs from peace; and total abandonment to the will of God, that by which it
returns.
52. Alas! how hard it is to will only the will of
God, and yet to believe that we do nothing but what is contrary to that will!
to desire nothing so much as to do His will, and not even to know what it is!
to be able to show it with great confidence to others, but not to find it for
ourselves! When we are full of His will, and everywhere penetrated by it, we no
longer know it. This is, indeed, a long and painful martyrdom, but one which
will result in an unchangeable peace in this life, and an incomprehensible
felicity in the next!
53. He who has learned to seek nothing but the
will of God, shall always find what he seeks.
54. Which is the harder lot for a soul that has
known and loved God, not to know whether it loves God, or whether God loves
it?
55. Which of the two would the perfect soul
choose, if the choice were presented, to love God, or to be loved by Him?
56. Tell me, what is that which is neither
separated from God nor united to God, but which is inseparable from Him?
57. What is the state of a soul which has neither
power nor will? and what can it do, and not do?
58. Who shall measure the extent of the
abandonment of a soul that is no longer self-possessed in anything, and which
has an absorbing sense of the supremity of the power and will of God?
59. Who can take in the extent of the interior
sacrifices of Jesus Christ, except him to whom He shall manifest them?
60. How can they be delivered from the life of
self, who are not willing to abandon all their possessions? How can they
believe themselves despoiled of all, who possess the greatest treasure under
heaven? Do not oblige me to name it, but judge, if you are enlightened; there
is one of them which is less than the other, which is lost before it, but which
those who must lose everything have the greatest trouble in parting with.
THE END.
[11] To appropriate nothing to ourselves, either of God's grace or glory, but to refer it all to Him; to yield up everything to Him with a cheerful and delighted heart the moment He asks for it; and to be so absolutely content with his will, as to be able to confine our petitions to the simple prayer, "thy will be done," which, in truth, contains all prayer--this is, indeed, great perfection!--Editor.
[12] A proviso which the truly abandoned soul will not find necessary, or rest easy under.--Editor.