Foreword

JEANNE MARIE BOUVIERES DE LA MOTHE GUYON was born on the 13th day of April 1648, in Montagris, France. Mme. Guyon’s life is a glorious testimony to what the power of God can do in a person’s soul.

From her earliest childhood her mind was turned toward God. Her upbringing was divided between her home and different convents. When she was only 16 years old her father married her off to a 38 year-old man. This marriage turned out to be a constant source of suffering for her. Her husband, mother-in-law and an older maid made her life almost unbearable. But these sufferings drove her closer to God.

A meeting with a Franciscan monk one day turned out to be the turning point of her life. His words to her were, “It is, Madame, because you seek without what you have within. Accustom yourself to seek God in your heart, and you will there find Him.” “From that day,” she said, “I was aware that the kingdom of God was within me, that Jesus was my king and that my heart was His kingdom, where He alone was Lord.” Her desire for prayer was almost insatiable. She rose at four o’clock in the morning in order to seek God’s face. She had a great need for this because from the day she made a clear stand for God, persecution and trials were her lot. She entered into the following covenant with Jesus: “I henceforth take Jesus Christ unto myself as the Bridegroom of my soul; I give myself entirely to Him, unworthy though I am, to be His bride. I desire of Him in this marriage of spirit with spirit, that I might be of one mind with Him, humble and pure; to be nothing in myself, but one with the will of God. Just as I am, I obligate myself to be His. I accept as part of my marriage lot the temptations and cares, the cross and the reproach which fell upon Him.”

In 1676 her husband died. After this she lived a few years in quietness with her children. However, from her 34th year on, she lived a wandering life; persecution, imprisonment and exile were her lot. The storm broke loose with a vengeance when one day, in the simplicity of her heart, she uttered the words, “Sanctification by faith,” without knowing or even thinking to what extent this would come to affect people. This was a further step in the development of the doctrine of justification by faith about which the Protestants were already enlightened. From this time on the Catholics declared her to be a heretic. But the Word was born within her heart by the eternal wisdom and by obedience to this deep and holy conviction, which is the soul’s inner voice. She proclaimed this truth, even though bonds and prison awaited her. This revival of holiness gradually spread, and one soul after another began to understand this secret of sanctification by faith. But persecution followed in its wake.

Madame Guyon represented what she herself called the apostolic life. Persecution made it necessary for her to travel from place to place. Wherever she came the Spirit moved. On one occasion she went to Marseilles in the morning, and by afternoon the whole city was in an uproar against her because her little book “A Short and Easy Method of Prayer,” had preceded her.

Madame Guyon was a diligent worker. One would often see her with pen in hand. Her exposition of the Bible alone fills 40 volumes! She wrote while in prison and while traveling. This book on prayer has resulted in limitless blessing, but it also brought her much persecution. For many years of her life she was locked up in prison—the last time in the infamous Bastille in Paris. From this place of suffering this holy woman wrote: “When things were carried to the greatest extremities, being then in the Bastille, I said, ‘O my God, if Thou art pleased to render me a new spectacle to men and angels, Thy holy will be done’ . . . What does it matter what the people think of me or let me suffer, if in all this brief time they separate me not from the Savior whose name is engraved in the depths of my heart. Their blows will serve to remove the imperfections which still remain in me, that I may be presented blameless before Him.”

After many years in prison she was set free, but her health was completely broken. On June 9, 1717, at Blois, in her 69th year, she fell asleep in Jesus. She exchanged her sword for a crown.

Her books have been published in many lands, and still after 200 years they are being printed again and again and distributed far and wide. Her influence has been very great. Many great men of God have drawn rich treasures from the writings she has left behind.

Blessed be every remembrance of her.

March, 1912.