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- Herausgeber: Sai ePublications
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
As soon as a soul is brought under divine influence, and its return to God is true and sincere, after the first cleansing which confession and contrition have effected, God imparts to it a certain instinct to return to Him in a most complete manner, and to become united to Him. The soul feels then that it was not created for the amusements and trifles of the world, but that it has a centre and an end, to which it must be its aim to return, and out of which it can never find true repose. This instinct is very deeply implanted in the soul, more or less in different cases, according to the designs of God; but all have a loving impatience to purify themselves, and to adopt the necessary ways and means of returning to their source and origin, like rivers, which, after leaving their source, flow on continuously, in order to precipitate themselves into the sea. You will observe that some rivers move gravely and slowly, and others with greater velocity; but there are rivers and torrents which rush with frightful impetuosity, and which nothing can arrest. All the burdens which might be laid upon them, and the obstructions which might be placed to impede their course, would only serve to redouble their violence. It is thus with souls. Some go on quietly towards perfection, and never reach the sea, or only very late, contented to lose themselves in some stronger and more rapid river, which carries them with itself into the sea. Others, which form the second class, flow on more vigorously and promptly than the first. They even carry with them a number of rivulets; but they are slow and idle in comparison with the last class, which rush onward with so much impetuosity, that they are utterly useless: they are not available for navigation, nor can any merchandise be trusted upon them, except at certain parts and at certain times. These are bold and mad rivers, which dash against the rocks, which terrify by their noise, and which stop at nothing. The second class are more agreeable and more useful; their gravity is pleasing, they are all laden with merchandise, and we sail upon them without fear or peril.
Let us look, with divine aid, at these three classes of persons, under the three figures that I have proposed; and we will commence with the first, in order to conclude happily with the last.
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Seitenzahl: 154
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
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SPIRITUAL TORRENTS
BY
Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon
Table of Contents
“Let judgment run down as waters; and righteousness as a mighty stream.” —Amos v. 24.
PART I
CHAPTER I
SOULS UNDER DIVINE INFLUENCE ARE IMPELLED TO SEEK AFTER GOD, BUT IN DIFFERENT WAYS—REDUCED TO THREE, AND EXPLAINED BY A SIMILITUDE.
As soon as a soul is brought under divine influence, and its return to God is true and sincere, after the first cleansing which confession and contrition have effected, God imparts to it a certain instinct to return to Him in a most complete manner, and to become united to Him. The soul feels then that it was not created for the amusements and trifles of the world, but that it has a centre and an end, to which it must be its aim to return, and out of which it can never find true repose. This instinct is very deeply implanted in the soul, more or less in different cases, according to the designs of God; but all have a loving impatience to purify themselves, and to adopt the necessary ways and means of returning to their source and origin, like rivers, which, after leaving their source, flow on continuously, in order to precipitate themselves into the sea. You will observe that some rivers move gravely and slowly, and others with greater velocity; but there are rivers and torrents which rush with frightful impetuosity, and which nothing can arrest. All the burdens which might be laid upon them, and the obstructions which might be placed to impede their course, would only serve to redouble their violence. It is thus with souls. Some go on quietly towards perfection, and never reach the sea, or only very late, contented to lose themselves in some stronger and more rapid river, which carries them with itself into the sea. Others, which form the second class, flow on more vigorously and promptly than the first. They even carry with them a number of rivulets; but they are slow and idle in comparison with the last class, which rush onward with so much impetuosity, that they are utterly useless: they are not available for navigation, nor can any merchandise be trusted upon them, except at certain parts and at certain times. These are bold and mad rivers, which dash against the rocks, which terrify by their noise, and which stop at nothing. The second class are more agreeable and more useful; their gravity is pleasing, they are all laden with merchandise, and we sail upon them without fear or peril.
Let us look, with divine aid, at these three classes of persons, under the three figures that I have proposed; and we will commence with the first, in order to conclude happily with the last.
CHAPTER II
OF THE FIRST WAY, WHICH IS ACTIVE, AND OF MEDITATION—WHAT IT IS—ITS WEAKNESSES, HABITS, OCCUPATIONS, ADVANTAGES, ETC.—GENERAL OPINION—WANT OF OBSERVATION THE CAUSE OF MOST OF THE DISPUTES AND DIFFICULTIES WHICH HAVE ARISEN UPON THE PASSIVE WAY, AND THE ABSURD OBJECTIONS WHICH HAVE BEEN MADE TO IT—SOULS FOR MEDITATION—THEY SHOULD BE LED TO IT THROUGH THE AFFECTIONS—OPINION CONCERNING THEIR BARRENNESS AND POWERLESSNESS—SPIRITUAL BOOKS AND AUTHORS ON THE INNER LIFE, IN CONTRAST TO OTHERS—CAPACITY AND INCAPACITY OF SOULS—THE SIMPLE ARE BETTER THAN THE GREAT REASONERS.
The first class of souls are those who, after their conversion, give themselves up to meditation, or even to works of charity. They perform some exterior austerities; endeavour, little by little, to purify themselves, to rid themselves of certain notable sins, and even of voluntary venial ones. They endeavour, with all their little strength, to advance gradually, but it is feebly and slowly.
As their source is not abundant, the dryness sometimes causes delay. There are even periods, in times of aridity, when they dry up altogether. They do not cease to flow from the source, but it is so feebly as to be barely perceptible. These rivers carry little or no merchandise, and, therefore, for the public need, it must be taken to them. It is necessary, at the same time, that art should assist nature, and find the means of enlarging them, either by canals, or by the help of other rivers of the same kind, which are joined together and united to it, which rivers thus joined increase the body of water, and, helping each other, put themselves in a condition to carry a few small boats, not to the sea, but to some of the chief rivers, of which we shall speak later. Such beings have usually little depth of spiritual life. They work outwardly, and rarely quit their meditations, so that they are not fit for great things. In general they carry no merchandise—that is to say, they can impart nothing to others; and God seldom uses them, unless it be to carry a few little boats—that is, to minister to bodily necessities; and in order to be used, they must be discharged into the canals of sensible graces, or united to some others in religion, by which means several, of medium grace, manage to carry the small boat, but not into the sea itself, which is God: into that they never enter in this life, but only in the next.
It is not that souls are not sanctified in this way. There are many people, who pass for being very virtuous, who never get beyond it, God giving them lights conformed to their condition, which are sometimes very beautiful, and are the admiration of the religious world. The most highly favoured of this class are diligent in the practice of virtue; they devise thousands of holy inventions and practices to lead them to God, and to enable them to abide in His presence; but all is accomplished by their own efforts, aided and supported by grace, and their own works appear to exceed the work of God, His work only concurring with theirs.
The spiritual life of this class only thrives in proportion to their work. If this work be removed, the progress of grace within them is arrested: they resemble pumps, which only yield water in proportion as they are agitated. You will observe in them a great tendency to assist themselves by means of their natural sensibilities, a vigorous activity, a desire to be always doing something more and something new to promote their perfection, and, in their seasons of barrenness, an anxiety to rid themselves of it. They are subject to great variation: sometimes they do wonders, at other times they languish and decline. They have no evenness of conduct, because, as the greater part of their religion is in these natural sensibilities, whenever it happens that their sensibilities are dry, either from want of work on their part, or from a lack of correspondence on the part of God, they fall into discouragement, or else they redouble their efforts, in the hope of recovering of themselves what they have lost. They never possess, like others, a profound peace or calmness in the midst of distractions; on the contrary, they are always on the alert to struggle against them or to complain of them.
Such minds must not be directed to passive devotion; this would be to ruin them irrecoverably, taking from them their means of access to God. For as with a person who is compelled to travel, and who has neither boat nor carriage, nor any other alternative than that of going on foot, if you remove his feet, you place advancement beyond his reach; so with these souls; if you take away their works, which are their feet, they can never advance.
And I believe this to be the cause of the contests which now agitate the religious world. Those who are in the passive way, conscious of the blessedness they experience in it, would compel all to walk with them; those, on the contrary, who are in what I have termed the state of meditation, would confine all to their way, which would involve inestimable loss.
What must be done then? We must take the middle course, and see for which of the two ways souls are fitted.
This may be known in some by the opposition they have to remaining at rest, and allowing themselves to be led by the Spirit of God; by a confusion of faults and defects into which they fall without being conscious of them; or, if they are possessed of natural prudence, by a certain skill in concealing their faults from others and from themselves; by their adherence to their sentiments, and by a number of other indications which cannot be explained.
The way to deliver them from such a state would be, to lead them to live less in the intellect and more in the affections, and if it be manifest that they are gradually substituting the one for the other, it is a sign that a spiritual work is being carried on within them.
I am at a loss to understand why so loud a cry is raised against those books and writers that treat of the inner life. I maintain that they can do no harm, unless it be to some who are willing to lose themselves for the sake of their own pleasure, to whom not only these things, but everything else, would be an injury: like spiders, which convert flowers into venom. But they can do no injury to those humble souls who are desirous for perfection, because it is impossible for any to understand them to whom the special light is not accorded; and whatever others may read, they cannot rightly understand those conditions which, being beyond the range of imagination, can be known only by experience. Perfection goes on with a steady advancement corresponding to the progress of the inner life.
Not that there are no persons advanced in sanctification who have faults in appearance even greater than those of others, but they are not the same either as to their nature or their quality.
The second reason why I say that such books can do no harm is, that they demand so much natural death, so much breaking off, so many things to be conquered and destroyed, that no one would ever have strength for the undertaking without sincerity of purpose; or even if any one undertook it, it would only produce the effect of meditation, which is to endeavour to destroy itself.
As for those who wish to lead others in their groove, and not in God's, and to place limits to their further advancement—as for those, I say, who know but one way, and would have all the world to walk in it, the evils which they bring upon others are irremediable, for they keep them all their lives stopping at certain things which hinder God from blessing them infinitely.
It seems to me that we must act in the divine life as in a school. The scholars are not kept always in the same class, but are passed on to others more advanced. O human science! you are so little worth, and yet with you men do not fail to take every precaution! O science mysterious and divine! you are so great and so necessary; and yet they neglect you, they limit you, they contract you, they do violence to you! Oh, will there never be a school of religion! Alas! by wishing to make it a study, man has marred it. He has sought to give rules and limits to the Spirit of God, who is without limit.
O poor powerless souls! you are better fitted to answer God's purposes, and, if you are faithful, your devotion will be more pleasing to Him, than that of those great intellects which make prayer a study rather than a devotion. More than this, I say that such souls as these, who appear so powerless and so incapable, are worthy of consideration, provided they only knock at the door, and wait with a humble patience until it be opened to them. Those persons of great intellect and subtle understanding, who cannot remain a moment in silence before God, who make a continual Babel, who are so well able to give an account of their devotion in all its parts, who go through it always according to their own will, and with the same method, who exercise themselves as they will on any subject which suggests itself to them, who are so well satisfied with themselves and their light, who expatiate upon the preparation and the methods for prayer, will make but little advance in it; and after ten or twenty years of this exercise, will always remain the same.
Alas! when it is a question of loving a miserable creature, do they use a method for that? The most ignorant in such a matter are the most skilful. It is the same, and yet very different, with divine love. Therefore, if one who has never known such religion comes to you to learn it, teach him to love God much, and to let himself go with a perfect abandonment into love, and he will soon know it. If it be a nature slow to love, let him do his best, and wait in patience till love itself make itself beloved in its own way, and not in yours.
CHAPTER III
OF THE SECOND WAY OF THE RETURN OF THE SOUL TO GOD, WHICH IS THE PASSIVE WAY, BUT ONE OF LIGHT, AND OF TWO KINDS OF INTRODUCTION TO IT—DESCRIPTION OF THIS CLASS, AND OF THEIR STRIKING ADVANTAGES—VARIOUS NECESSARY PRECAUTIONS AND OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING THIS CLASS, THEIR CONDUCT, PERFECTIONS, IMPERFECTIONS, AND EXPERIENCES.
The second class are like those large rivers which move with a slow and steady course. They flow with pomp and majesty; their course is direct and easily followed; they are charged with merchandise, and can go on to the sea without mingling with other rivers; but they are late in reaching it, being grave and slow. There are even some who never reach it at all, and these, for the most part, lose themselves in other larger rivers, or else turn aside to some arm of the sea. Many of these rivers serve to carry merchandise, and are heavily laden with it. They may be kept back by sluices, and turned off at certain points. Such are the souls in the passive way of sight. Their strength is very abundant; they are laden with gifts, and graces, and celestial favours; they are the admiration of their generation; and numbers of saints who shine as stars in the Church have never passed this limit. This class is composed of two kinds. The first commenced in the ordinary way, and have afterwards been drawn to passive contemplation. The others have been, as it were, taken by surprise; they have been seized by the heart, and they feel themselves loving without having learned to know the object of their love. For there is this difference between divine and human love, that the latter supposes a previous acquaintance with its object, because, as it is outside of it, the senses must be taken to it, and the senses can only be taken to it because it is communicated to them: the eyes see and the heart loves. It is not so with divine love. God, having an absolute power over the heart of man, and being its origin and its end, it is not necessary that He should make known to it what He is. He takes it by assault, without giving it battle. The heart is powerless to resist Him, even though He may not use an absolute and violent authority, unless it be in some cases where He permits it to be so, in order to manifest His power. He takes hearts, then, in this way, making them burn in a moment; but usually He gives them flashes of light which dazzle them, and lift them nearer to Himself. These persons appear much greater than those of whom I shall speak later, to those who are not possessed of a divine discernment, for they attain outwardly to a high degree of perfection, God eminently elevating their natural capacity, and replenishing it in an extraordinary manner; and yet they are never really brought to a state of annihilation to self, and God does not usually so draw them out of their own being that they become lost in Himself. Such characters as these are, however, the wonder and admiration of men. God bestows on them gifts upon gifts, graces upon graces, visions, revelations, inward voices, ecstasies, ravishments, &c. It seems as though God's only care was to enrich and beautify them, and to communicate to them His secrets. All joys are theirs.
This does not imply that they bear no heavy crosses, no fierce temptations: these are the shadows which cause their virtues to shine with greater brilliancy; for these temptations are thrust back vigorously, the crosses are borne bravely; they even desire more of them: they are all flame and fire, enthusiasm and love. God uses them to accomplish great things, and it seems as though they only need to desire a thing in order to receive it from God, He finding His delight in satisfying all their desires and doing all their will. Yet in the same path there are various degrees of progression, and some attain a far higher standard of perfection than others; their danger lies in fixing their thoughts upon what God has done for them, thus stopping at the gifts, instead of being led through them to the Giver.
