“I was poor in the midst of riches, and ready to perish with hunger near a table plentifully spread and a continual feast. Oh, Beauty, ancient and new! Why have I known thee so late? Alas, I sought thee where thou wast not, and did not seek thee where thou wast…”

“I was poor in the midst of riches, and ready to perish with hunger near a table plentifully spread and a continual feast. Oh, Beauty, ancient and new! Why have I known thee so late? Alas, I sought thee where thou wast not, and did not seek thee where thou wast…”     – Madame Guyon

“I, being in the Bastille, said to Thee, O my God, If thou art pleased to render me a spectacle to men and angels, thy holy will be done! All I ask is that thou wilt be with and save those who love thee.”

“All that I know is that God is infinitely holy, righteous and happy; that all goodness is in Him; and that, as to myself, I am a mere nothing.”

“Viewed in relation to the creature, everything is dark — viewed in relation to God, everything is light.”

“The greatest satisfaction I can have is the knowledge that He is what He is; and that, being what He is, He never will be otherwise. If I am saved at last, it will be the free gift of God; since I have no worth and no merit of my own.”

“I live, therefore, as well as I can express it, out of myself and all other creatures, in union with God. It is thus that God, by His sanctifying grace, has become to me All in all…. I find God in everything which is, and in everything which comes to pass. The creature is nothing; God is ALL…”

“When God was pleased to call me to Christ’s mission, which is a mission of peace and love to the sinful and the wandering, He taught me that I must be willing to be, in some sense, a partaker in Christ’s sufferings.”

“God allows suffering, but never allows wrong. I see clearly that it is His will that I should remain in prison and endure the pains which are connected with it; and I am entirely content that it should be so. I can never buy my liberty at the expense of sacrificing my daughter.”

“It was God who put it into their hearts and gave them the determination to do it… After bringing me down, He was pleased to raise me up again.”

“They only did what God permitted them to do, which enabled me always to keep God in sight… When we suffer, we should always remember that God inflicts the blow. Wicked men, it is true, are not infrequently His instruments; and the fact does not diminish, but simply develops their wickedness. But when we are so mentally disposed that we love the strokes we suffer, regarding them as coming from God, and as expressions of what He sees best for us, we are then in the proper state to look forgivingly and kindly upon the subordinate instrument which He permits to smite us.”

“But the misfortune is that people wish to direct God instead of resigning themselves to be directed by Him. We wish to take the lead, and to follow in a way of their own selection instead of submissively and passively following where God sees fit to conduct them. And hence it is, that many souls who are called to the enjoyment of God himself and mot merely to the  gifts of God, spend all their lives in pursuing and in feeding on little consolations.”

“I henceforth take Jesus Christ to be mine. I promise to receive Him as a husband to me. And I give myself to Him, unworthy though I am, to be His spouse. I ask of Him, in this marriage of spirit with spirit, that I may be of the same mind with Him — meek, pure, nothing in myself, and united in God’s will. And, pledged as I am to be His, I accept as part of my marriage portion, the temptations and sorrows, the crosses and the contempt which fell to Him.          — Jeanne M.B. de la Mothe Guyon, Sealed with her ring.”

How very narrow is the gate that leads to a life in God! (Mt 7:14) How little one must be to pass through it, it being nothing else but death to self! But when we have passed through it, what enlargement do we find! David said, “He brought me forth also in a large place” (Ps. 18:19). And it was through humiliation and abasement that he was brought there. – from Madame Guyon’s autobiography Ch. 22

A little bird I am,
Shut from the fields of air,
And in my cage I sit and sing
To Him who placed me there;

Well pleased a prisoner to be,
Because, my God, it pleaseth Thee.

My cage confines me round,
Abroad I cannot fly,
But though my wing is closely bound,
My soul is at liberty;

For prison walls cannot control
The flight, the freedom of the soul.

I have learnt to love the darkness of sorrow; there you see the brightness of His face.
–Madame Guyon

“I entreat you, give no place to despondency. This is a dangerous temptation–a refined, not a gross temptation of the adversary. Melancholy contracts and withers the heart, and renders it unfit to receive the impressions of grace. It magnifies and gives a false colouring to objects, and thus renders your burdens too heavy to bear. God’s designs regarding you, and His methods of bringing about these designs, are infinitely wise. -Madame Guyon

“God does not contradict Himself. It is true that he who seeks God, yet is unwilling to forsake his sins, will not find Him.  But he who seeks God and forsakes sin will certainly find Him.” – Madame Guyon

“God is greatly grieved at the lack of trust among His children. Yet He delights when we come to Him in simple, childlike confidence.” – Madame Guyon