Madam Guyon

"I am deeply grieved that so many in this present day, even some good people , allow themselves to be led astray by the enemy. Hasn't God warned us against " false prophets and lying wonders of the last days?" All true prophets have spoken in the name of the Lord "Thus says the Lord." The enemy gains great advantage because people love extra-ordinary manifestations, signs and wonders. I believe the inordinate love of external signs is used of the enemy to draw people away from the Word of God and from the inward way of faith. The signs that come from God encourage you to die to yourself. Manifestations that come from God will humble, quiet and edify you. Elijah appeared alone among four hundred prophets of Baal. These prophets were all stirred up and were attracting much attention by their loud prophesying's. But when Elijah was told by the angel that he would se the Lord on mount Horeb, he went out and hid in a cave and he saw the earth tremble. God was not there. Then came the whirlwind. God was not there. Then there came a gentle little breeze. God was in the still , small voice.

The only true and safe revelationi is an inward revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ in the quiet of your spirit. " My sheep hear my voice." This does not take away from your freedom or the natural operation of your mind. Instead a beautiful harmony between you and God is the result. " (Intimacy With Christ pg 21-22, Jeanne Guyon)

"If my love could help comfort you it would, for I feel a tender sympathy for you beyond words. I am more certain than ever that God wants you entirely for Himself. Live in a state of complete reconcilliation as much as possible. Do not dwell on coldness, temper or contemptuous conduct of anyone. The actions of others should not determine your conduct. All that should concern you is glorifying God.

Endure your problems out of love for Christ, who preferred grief to pleasure. Also, do not violate your conscience to please anyone. Consider your present situation as a way to show God that you love HIm through a willingness to sacrifice yourself. Dont reject the cross9 or should I say the crown) Let all this be settled between you and God in a quiet manner in your closet so that no one sees your inward struggles. As you bear the cross daily-and it is a true crucifixtion-I am sure God will sustain you out of His great love. God is with you: therefore all that befalls you is equally good. God loves you, let this fix everything." (Intimacy With Christ pg 29, Jeanne Guyone)

HI Goldminer, there was a reason the Catholics locked her up in the Bastille :) ...........brother Frank

"Be assured that God does not invade the unwilling soul and overpower the believer. The turmoil you experience is your resistance to what God is seeking to accomplish. When you let go of all that is standing in His way, you will find yourself swept into Him. This is what is called death to self: but this term is really a contradiction because when this happens, your spirit can never be more alive. Your spirit then lives the true life of God.

As your will is lost in God's will you still have purposes, but these purposes are God's desires within you and have nothing to do with yourself. God reigns from the center of your spirit, and everything that is not of HIm dissolves in HIs presence. As you pass into fuller union with God you are changed and transformed by Him.

As you are made more Christlike, you begin to take on HIs qualities. One of these qualities is that of wanting fellowship with others who are on the same journey as you. It is somewhat like a stream which flows into a river. From that point on, it flows wherever the river flows."
(Intimacy with Christ-pg 47, Jeanne Guyon)

"This is RUBBISH!
Mortification is the realization that I am crucified with Christ, not turning inward.

Her books are a very subtle road into mysticism. I know I have written very crudely and with little reasoning or analysis. Discernment is not just a the ability to express good apologetics, but also a gift of the Spirit."
Narrowpath

Narrowpath: You could not be more correct. Thank you. It is dangerous rubbish also, that has destroyed perhaps millions of seekers who have fallen into the ditch of this PAGAN, DEMONIC mindset.

Below are some of my comments, intermingled, but mostly the most scholarly efforts of G. Richard Fisher, of PERSONAL FREEDOM OUTREACH. All statements are researched and noted.

Jeanne Guyon was not a Christian by faith, nor was she ever born again by the Holy Spirit of God. She was a mystic that believed God was in us all, and that we could and should find Him within.

She believed in sinless perfection attained through her bizzare devotion. If she was a champion of anything, she was a champion of pagan ascetism , in the extreme forms of it.

At 19 she met a priest who told her: “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.”

Guyon wrote of no conversion, only a presupposition that Christ was always in her heart.

Thus she started her incredible lifelong journey within. She responded to the Lord,

“Thou wast in my heart, and demanded only a simple turning of my mind inward, to make me perceive Thy presence. ... The kingdom of God is within you.”...Guyon

Guyon, thinking that God had always been in her heart, also believed that the fire would “devour all that was left of self” and that here would be no more “troublesome faults or reluctances,” bringing about a perfect, sinless state of life.

While she warned of the dangers of visions, dreams and ecstasies, her only rule for evaluating such experiences was “The Giver alone must be our object and aim.” She had little regard for the biblical Christ, settling for what she called Christ “in the center of the soul, a construct of her own imagination.

In her autobiography, Guyon wrote that “divine wisdom is unknown.” She made no attempt to speak of God’s revelation of Himself in nature and creation (Psalm 19:1, Romans 1:1) and the specific revelation of God in Jesus Christ and His Word.

She taught that we can know of God by “passing forward into God,”.. going into a mindless, meditative state where we can get in touch with the Christ within the self, merge with that Christ and be lifted into ecstasy.

The school of mysticism that Guyon adhered to, sometimes called Quietism, was an extreme form of Roman Catholic mysticism that emphasized the cleansing of one’s inner life and included the belief that one could see Christ visibly. Before Guyon’s day, in the Middle Ages, this took strange forms in erotic “bride mysticism” with some visionaries believing they were married to Jesus.

Guyon and the Quietists went further, into something called essence mysticism. They believed that their being was merged with God’s being and the two became one. This unbiblical idea survives today in the New Age and other non-Christian religions.

It was this extreme, manic form of devotion that eventually caused her troubles, and condemnantion by the Catholic church. Quietism, or in Guyon's mind, becoming a burning bush of God [from within], consumed her life as a Catholic, and the nature of the movement wrested control and power out from the Vatican.

The Papal hierarchy could not have society buzzing around in silent mindlessness, and thereby rejecting the tenets of the MASS, CONFESSION, AND TITHE....so...she was condemned as a heretic.

She claimed to lose self-will, becoming reclusive and believing she had been absorbed into God’s being. She wrote of things like death of the senses and the death of understanding, equating union with Christ with some kind of mystical, inner-death experience.

When Guyon did refer to Scripture, she distorted it to teach something about an inner, meditative state. Guyon’s problem was that she was absorbing the writings and teachings of the mystics of that day.

One such mystic was Jesuit Francois Fenelon (1651-1715). At the request of the Pope, Fenelon burned his writings to stay in favor with Rome. Guyon would face prison over hers.

Guyon’s mystical mindlessness, her intermittent deification and perfectionistic ideas need to be exposed and rejected.Guyon’s beliefs do not even come close to biblical Christianity.

What she proposes is sheer essence mysticism and Catholicism mutated into even more horrible errors. That man could become like God was one of the first lies held out by Satan to Adam and Eve (Genesis 3 :1-7).

This is an exert of an article by G. Richard Fisher;

"MADAME GUYON"....COUNTERING THE MYTH OF DEIFICATION AND SINLESS PERFECTION.;

This is intermingled with some of my comments...and the entire article, with EXTENSIVE FOOTNOTES AND DOCUMENTATION may be found at ....,,,http://www.pfo.org/mguyon.htm

[thank you-Richard Fisher]

"It is important to be very careful and compassionate in correcting others. Speak only when you are alone with a person, and then do it only as you sense it to be God's timing. As you are not free from faults yourself, do not expect too much from others. Be humble and childlike and others will be better able to hear what you have to say. Jesus was full of compassion and long suffering. He patiently accepted his less than perfect disciples, even Judas, without anger, bittereness or coldness.

How lovely Jesus was. He " did not break the bruised reed." He does not rule by tyranny-neither should his followers. His people should use no heavy-handedness in dealing with others, but should say with John "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world."

The Lord "rejoiced in spirit," in a way that we find nowhere else in Scripture when He said " I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them to babes," How happy and relaxed we are in the presence of a little child, for a child does not instill fear in us, It is in this childlike spirit of meekness, compassion and innocence that we should seek to help others."
(Intimacy with Christ, Jeanne Guyone)

"There is a balance between the spiritual experience we have with Christ and the written Word of Christ. Neither will contradict the other. That is why she [Guyon] was led out of the falsehood of the Catholic church."

JB1968...

JB, She was never "led" out of the Catholic church. She remained a Catholic until her death, at 70. Her rejection by the Roman Catholic Church was based on a hyper Catholic doctrine called Quietism, where she sought a sinless perfected state of total possession by the inward Christ,[ and the one she apparently believed dwells in all men...]....and believed she had attained it.

Bishop Fenelon, a RCC biggie and a fellow mystic "friend" of Guyon, was also brought before the carpet together at the Vatican for the same brand of occult, radical "Catholic" mysticism. He repented and burnt his writings, while Guyon hung on defiantly, and was sentenced to [ served ] 7 years in prison.

She remained loyal to the RCC after her imprisonment until her death. She was never born again, [from her own account of her "conversion" ] and suffered imprisonment rather than repent of her mystic faith; a radical Babylonian offshoot of Catholic asceticism.

"If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." When the old man of sin is destroyed and the new man is established within you, you experience a new freedom. As a bird let loose from its cage, you go out. totally free. to dwell in immeasurable hieght and depth and bredth of God.

The old self life blinds you in every way so that God is not able to abide there and is deprived of what is really His. When Paul asked, " Who shall deliver me from this body of death," he added " I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." When, by God's grace, Jesus is given His rightful place in your heart, you will be delivered.

When such deliverence came, Paul cried out in wonder " I live, and yet not I, Christ lives in me." He was no longer interested in himself, but in this new man, Jesus Christ, who had come to live and act in him. He was steered by Christ, just as you steer the course of your body, If someone else sat at the controls of your body, the body would obey this new conductor. This conductor, would engineer the body's operations. Likewise, Jesus Christ is the life your new man lives by. And who is more free and more expansive than Jesus? His nature is divine, eternal, and without bounds.

So you can see how tragically you will be imprisoned if you cling to the old self. When you look at the freedom and spaciousness that come from living in Jesus, you then want to let that serpant of self be crushed underfoot by Christ. Then the life of God may ( as in the first creation) bring you life.

This freedom to be carried about on eagle's wings brings you into the heart of God. The dove that rested on Jesus was a symbol , not only of innocence, but also of freedom. Jesus gives your spirit the freedom to soar and dwell in God. May it please God to let you experience this wonderful freedom. Give your old self up and you will find unspeakable freedom in the one who is All in All."
"Intimacy in Christ-pg 15-16, Jeanne Guyon"