heaven, is the continued witness to all true believers (Romans viii. 9).1

'There is many a one that hideth his temptations to infidelity, because he thinketh it a shame to open them, and feareth to generate doubts in others; but I doubt the imperfection of most men's care for their salvation, and of their diligence and resolution in a holy life, doth come from the imperfection of their belief in Christianity and the life to come. For my own part, I must profess that when my belief in things eternal and of the Scripture is most clear and firm, all goeth well in my soul, and all temptations to sinful compliances, worldliness, or self-pleasing, are but as nothing. Therefore no petitions seem to me more needful than these two, "Increase my faith," and "Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief."'

1 This passage, as coming from a man of Baxter's deep experience and extraordinary personal holiness, seems to me in our present day of great value as an evidence of man's need of heart-acquaintance with God, 'so that he may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.'

MADAME GUYON ON THE BLESSEDNESS RESULTING FROM ENTIRE CONFORMITY WITH THE DIVINE WILL.1

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HE peace I now possessed was holy, heavenly, inexpressible. God was given back, and all things with Him. Being brought into harmony with the will of God, I possessed not merely (as I had done before) consolation, but the God of consolation; not merely peace, but the God of peace. longer felt obliged to say that when I would do good, evil was present with me. Doing good was

I no

1 However exceptional Madame Guyon's personal experience may have been, her writings have for the general Church an inherent value, which it seems they can never lose. When her lofty premises are once granted, and the soul has gained the level at which she starts, it is like a journey over a high range of country, where there is no more mounting of the hill Difficulty; her directions as a guide are clear, coherent, and eminently rational; in her teaching, ardent as was her nature, there is nothing fanatical or visionary. Her very language has the charm of an extraordinary idiomatic ease, the simplicity of one whose mind, to apply what Sir Joshua Reynolds says of that of the true artist, is so thoroughly imbued with the principles of beauty and perfection, as to keep all rules without consciously thinking of any.

In her writings, however, as in those of Tauler, St. John of the

now my nature.

The principle of action did not seem to be from motives applied from without, but rather to be involved in a life springing up and operative within. All was done in God and for Him, and it was done quietly, freely, naturally, continually.

'I had a deep peace, a peace which seemed to pervade the whole soul, a peace resulting from the fact that my desires were fulfilled in God, and my will in harmony with the Divine providences. Outwardly I might suffer much, but interiorly, in the centre of my soul, there was divine and supreme peace. The lower soul, as connected with outward objects, might be troubled and afflicted, but the higher or central soul, considered in its relation to God and the Divine will, was entirely calm, trustful, and happy. The troubles at the circumference did not affect the Divine peace of the centre.

Cross, and others, which tend like them to a certain absorption in God, we seem to miss in some degree the clear presentation of the Redeemer, and at the same time to have lost sight of our own sinnerhood, that (as say the Moravian brethren) needful and happy point.' Also froin their utter excision of natural feeling they seem to check the principle of warmth and expansion natural to all life. The soul is free certainly, but 'free among the dead.' Writing to her closest spiritual friends, she is careful to say that no one creature, however strictly united to her by natural or by spiritual ties, is more dear than another to her, who sees all in God, and God in all. Yet this surely was not the experience of St. Paul, who speaks to Timothy as being his greatly beloved, his own son in the faith, and tells us that at a certain place he had no rest in his spirit because he found not Titus his brother.' The Good Shepherd Himself calls forth His sheep by name.

'In this state I did not practise the virtues as virtues. The effort, if I had made one, would have been to do otherwise; it was my life to do them.'

Speaking of what she calls the 'life of simplicity,' she says, 'A soul living by faith is necessarily a soul truly consecrated. Such a soul seeks nothing for itself, it seeks all for God. Like a wheel within a wheel, it moves within the midst of God's providences, leaving itself to be conducted by them. Harmonising with God, and with God's directory of events, the result is that outwardly the life seems most common. It is a simple life, a true life, a just life, a life always in the right place, though that place may be one of trial and suffering, but without noise, or violence, or passion. Such was the life of Jesus Christ,1 who was but little known until His last years. Such a soul is calm and happy amidst the pains of the senses, the annoyances of the creatures, and all sorts of adversities. The human manner of acting has passed away. The undue eagerness, the unholy

1. Consider, soul, and ponder well
Love's patient, perfect miracle,
The silver silence of those mute
Calm thirty years, the golden fruit

That followed them, and wouldst thou grow
Apace, when He, thy Lord, was slow?'

'He that believeth shall not make haste.'

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violence of passion, the unguarded word, the impurity which comes of self-seeking, all are gone. The soul leaves itself to the operation of God upon it in the simple and humble way of acquiescent and co-operative union. After a time its new life becomes entirely natural to it.'

We may compare with this remarkable passage the deeply affecting words of James Naylor, one of the early Friends of whom Charles Lamb writes, that when a terrible delusion by which he had been so far overcome as at one time to allow himself to be worshipped by some fanatical followers, 'had given way to clearer thoughts, could renounce his errors, in a strain of the beautifullest humility, yet keep his first ground, and be a Quaker still.' He had erred greatly, he had sorrowed and suffered both from outward persecution of the harshest kind, and from the inward grief of repentance, deep, sincere, and fervent, not to be repented of.' His end, wretched as to outward circumstances, was peace, unspeakable peace, in the fulness of reconciliation and return to Him from whom he had for a while wandered, and who had doubtless spoken to his spirit that Divine sentence, ‘For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee.' His soul ere it departed had shaken off every coil and fetter, and