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AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF
MADAME GUYON
IN TWO PARTS
MOODY PRESS
CHICAGO
_Printed in the United States of America_
INTRODUCTION
In the history of the world few persons have attained that high degree
of spirituality reached by Madame Guyon.
Born in a corrupt age, in a nation marked for its degeneracy; nursed
and reared in a church, as profligate as the world in which it was
embedded; persecuted at every step of her career; groping as she did in
spiritual desolation and ignorance, nevertheless, she arose to the
highest pinnacle of pre-eminence in spirituality and Christian
devotion.
She lived and died in the Catholic Church; yet was tormented and
afflicted; was maltreated and abused; and was imprisoned for years by
the highest authorities of that church.
Her sole crime was that of loving God. The ground of her offense was
found in her supreme devotion and unmeasured attachment to Christ. When
they demanded her money and estate, she gladly surrendered them, even
to her impoverishment, but it availed nothing. The crime of loving Him
in whom her whole being was absorbed, never could be mitigated, or
forgiven.
She loved only to do good to her fellow-creatures, and to such an
extent was she filled with the Holy Ghost, and with the power of God,
that she wrought wonders in her day, and has not ceased to influence
the ages that have followed.
Viewed from a human standpoint, it is a sublime spectacle, to see a
solitary woman subvert all the machinations of kings and courtiers;
laugh to scorn all the malignant enginery of the papal inquisition, and
silence, and confound the pretensions of the most learned divines. She
not only saw more clearly the sublimest truths of our most holy
Christianity, but she basked in the clearest and most beautiful
sunlight while they groped in darkness. She grasped with ease the
deepest and sublimest truths of holy Writ, while they were lost in the
mazes of their own profound ignorance.
One distinguished divine was delighted to sit at her feet. At first he
heard her with distrust; then with admiration. Finally he opened his
heart to the truth, and stretched forth his hand to be led by this
saint of God into the Holy of Holies where she dwelt. We allude to the
distinguished Archbishop Fenelon, whose sweet spirit and charming
writings have been a blessing to every generation following him.
We offer no word of apology for publishing in the Autobiography of
Madame Guyon, those expressions of devotion to her church, that found
vent in her writings. She was a true Catholic when protestantism was in
its infancy.
There can be no doubt that God, by a special interposition of His
Providence, caused her to commit her life so minutely to writing. The
duty was enjoined upon her by her spiritual director, whom the rules of
her church made it obligatory upon her to obey. It was written while
she was incarcerated in the cell of a lonely prison. The same all-wise
Providence preserved it from destruction. We have not a shadow of doubt
that it is destined to accomplish tenfold more in the future than it
has accomplished in the past. Indeed, the Christian world is only
beginning to understand and appreciate it, and the hope and prayer of
the publisher is, that thousands may, through its instrumentality, be
brought into the same intimate communion and fellowship with God, that
was so richly enjoyed by Madame Guyon.
E. J.
CONTENTS
PART ONE
Chapter 1 13
Chapter 2 19
Chapter 3 25
Chapter 4 30
Chapter 5 38
Chapter 6 49
Chapter 7 60
Chapter 8 68
Chapter 9 76
Chapter 10 79
Chapter 11 84
Chapter 12 89
Chapter 13 100
Chapter 14 108
Chapter 15 113
Chapter 16 121
Chapter 17 128
Chapter 18 134
Chapter 19 140
Chapter 20 148
Chapter 21 156
Chapter 22 160
Chapter 23 167
Chapter 24 173
Chapter 25 178
Chapter 26 185
Chapter 27 191
Chapter 28 197
Chapter 29 205
PART TWO
Chapter 1 219
Chapter 2 225
Chapter 3 231
Chapter 4 236
Chapter 5 242
Chapter 6 248
Chapter 7 255
Chapter 8 261
Chapter 9 266
Chapter 10 272
Chapter 11 277
Chapter 12 282
Chapter 13 293
Chapter 14 302
Chapter 15 309
Chapter 16 316
Chapter 17 326
Chapter 18 343
Chapter 19 353
Chapter 20 364
Chapter 21 374
MADAME GUYON
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1
There were omissions of importance in the former narration of my life.
I willingly comply with your desire, in giving you a more
circumstantial relation; though the labor seems rather painful, as I
cannot use much study or reflection. My earnest wish is to paint in
true colors the goodness of God to me, and the depth of my own
ingratitude--but it is impossible, as numberless little circumstances
have escaped my memory. You are also unwilling I should give you a
minute account of my sins. I shall, however, try to leave out as few
faults as possible. I depend on you to destroy it, when your soul hath
drawn those spiritual advantages which God intended, and for which
purpose I am willing to sacrifice all things. I am fully persuaded of
His designs toward you, as well for the sanctification of others, as
for your own sanctification.
Let me assure you, this is not attained, save through pain, weariness
and labor; and it will be reached by a path that will wonderfully
disappoint your expectations. Nevertheless, if you are fully convinced
that it is on the nothing in man that God establishes his greatest
works,--you will be in part guarded against disappointment or surprise.
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.
Oh, that you could comprehend the depth of this mystery, and learn the
secrets of the conduct of God, revealed to babes, but hid from the wise
and great of this world, who think themselves the Lord's counselor's,
and capable of investigating His procedures, and suppose they have
attained that divine wisdom hidden from the eyes of all who live in
self, and are enveloped in their own works. Who by a lively genius and
elevated faculties mount up to Heaven, and think to comprehend the
height and depth and length and breadth of God.
This divine wisdom is unknown, even to those who pass in the world for
persons of extraordinary illumination and knowledge. To whom then is
she known, and who can tell us any tidings concerning her? Destruction
and death assure us, that they have heard with their ears of her fame
and renown. It is, then, in dying to all things, and in being truly
lost to them, passing forward into God, and existing only in Him, that
we attain to some knowledge of the true wisdom. Oh, how little are her
ways known, and her dealings with her most chosen servants. Scarce do
we discover anything thereof, but surprised at the dissimilitude
betwixt the truth we thus discover and our former ideas of it, we cry
out with St. Paul, "Oh, the depth of the knowledge and wisdom of God!
how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out." The
Lord judgeth not of things as men do, who call good evil and evil good,
and account that as righteousness which is abominable in His sight, and
which according to the prophet He regards as filthy rags. He will enter
into strict judgment with these self-righteous, and they shall, like
the Pharisees, be rather subjects of His wrath, than objects of His
love, or inheritors of His rewards. Doth not Christ Himself assure us,
that "except our righteousness exceed that of the scribes and pharisees
we shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." And which of us
even approaches them in righteousness; or, if we live in the practice
of virtues, though much inferior to theirs, are we not tenfold more
ostentatious? Who is not pleased to behold himself righteous in his own
eyes, and in the eyes of others? or, who is it doubts that such
righteousness is sufficient to please God? Yet, we see the indignation
of our Lord manifested against such. He who was the perfect pattern of
tenderness and meekness, such as flowed from the depth of the heart,
and not that affected meekness, which under the form of a dove, hides
the hawk's heart. He appears severe only to these self-righteous
people, and He publicly dishonored them. In what strange colors does He
represent them, while He beholds the poor sinner with mercy, compassion
and love, and declares that for them only He was come, that it was the
sick who needed the physician; and that He came only to save the lost
sheep of the house of Israel.
O thou Source of Love! Thou dost indeed seem so jealous of the
salvation Thou hast purchased, that Thou dost prefer the sinner to the
righteous! The poor sinner beholds himself vile and wretched, is in a
manner constrained to detest himself; and finding his state so
horrible, casts himself in his desperation into the arms of his
Saviour, and plunges into the healing fountain, and comes forth "white
as wool." Then confounded at the review of his disordered state, and
overflowing with love for Him, who having alone the power, had also the
compassion to save him--the excess of his love is proportioned to the
enormity of his crimes, and the fullness of his gratitude to the extent
of the debt remitted. The self-righteous, relying on the many good
works he imagines he has performed, seems to hold salvation in his own
hand, and considers Heaven as a just reward of his merits. In the
bitterness of his zeal he exclaims against all sinners, and represents
the gates of mercy as barred against them, and Heaven as a place to
which they have no claim. What need have such self-righteous persons of
a Saviour? they are already burdened with the load of their own merits.
Oh, how long they bear the flattering load, while sinners divested of
everything, fly rapidly on the wings of faith and love into their
Saviour's arms, who freely bestows on them that which he has so freely
promised!
How full of self-love are the self-righteous, and how void of the love
of God! They esteem and admire themselves in their works of
righteousness, which they suppose to be a fountain of happiness. These
works are no sooner exposed to the Sun of Righteousness, than they
discover all to be so full of impurity and baseness, that it frets them
to the heart. Meanwhile the poor sinner, Magdalene, is pardoned because
she loves much, and her faith and love are accepted as righteousness.
The inspired Paul, who so well understood these great truths and so
fully investigated them, assures us that "the faith of Abraham was
imputed to him for righteousness." This is truly beautiful for it is
certain that all of that holy patriarch's actions were strictly
righteous; yet, not seeing them as such, and being devoid of the love
of them, and divested of selfishness, his faith was founded on the
coming Christ. He hoped in Him even against hope itself, and this was
imputed to him for righteousness, (Rom. 41: 18, 22,) a pure, simple and
genuine righteousness, wrought by Christ, and not a righteousness
wrought by himself, and regarded as of himself.
You may imagine this a digression wide of the subject, but it leads
insensibly to it. It shows that God accomplishes His work either in
converted sinners, whose past iniquities serve as a counterpoise to
their elevation, or in persons whose self-righteousness He destroys, by
totally overthrowing the proud building they had reared on a sandy
foundation, instead of the Rock--CHRIST.
The establishment of all these ends, which He proposed in coming into
the world, is effected by the apparent overthrow of that very structure
which in reality He would erect. By means which seem to destroy His
Church, He establishes it. How strangely does He found the new
dispensation and give it His sanction! The legislator Himself is
condemned by the learned and great, as a malefactor, and dies an
ignominious death. Oh, that we fully understood how very opposite our
self-righteousness is to the designs of God--it would be a subject for
endless humiliation, and we should have an utter distrust in that which
at present constitutes the whole of our dependence.
From a just love of His supreme power, and a righteous jealousy of
mankind, who attribute to each other the gifts He Himself bestows upon
them, it pleased Him to take one of the most unworthy of the creation,
to make known the fact that His graces are the effects of His will, not
the fruits of our merits. It is the property of His wisdom to destroy
what is proudly built, and to build what is destroyed; to make use of
weak things to confound the mighty and to employ in His service such as
appear vile and contemptible.
This He does in a manner so astonishing, as to render them the objects
of the scorn and contempt of the world. It is not to draw public
approbation upon them, that He makes them instrumental in the salvation
of others; but to render them the objects of their dislike and the
subjects of their insults; as you will see in this life you have
enjoined upon me to write.