The Autobiography of Madame Guyon | Page 3

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.
CHAPTER 2
I was