The Heart and the Head

I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye. PSALM 32:8

Madame Guyon was suspicious of the head. She was a highly intelligent woman, widely read and able to argue with bishops, but she believed that the proud intellect was one of the chief obstacles to God. Again and again she set the simple heart against the reasoning mind, and the little ones against the learned. This chapter looks at what she taught about how God guides and teaches the soul, why she trusted the heart so much, and where that trust needs a guard.

Hidden from the wise

Her favourite text on the subject was our Lord’s prayer of thanks.

At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. MATTHEW 11:25

She quotes it more than once in A Short and Easy Method of Prayer, and it closes the book. The simple, she says in her word to preachers, are the most suited to the inward life, because they are more teachable, more humble and more innocent; and since they do not reason, they are not so attached to their own light. The learned, by contrast, are often blind in their own sufficiency and resist God’s inspiration. Her last lament is for the majority who pride themselves on their learning and talent.

There is real truth here, and Scripture confirms it. The knowledge of God is not a reward for cleverness. Many simple believers know God far better than many theologians. And a certain kind of intellectual pride — the habit of holding everything at arm’s length, analysing rather than receiving — really does keep people from God. Paul says as much.

For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. 1 CORINTHIANS 1:21

God’s light on the soul

The clearest example of her teaching on the heart and the head is what she says about self-examination. She does not dismiss it; she says it should always precede confession. But she warns against doing it by our own effort. “When we examine ourselves with an effort, we easily make mistakes.” We call evil good and good evil, she says, and self-esteem easily deceives us.

Her alternative is to expose ourselves to God’s gaze and let Him show us our faults. When we remain exposed to the searching light of God, she says, that Divine Sun brings to light even the smallest specks. The soul that stays near God finds that He is not slow to reveal what is wrong.

Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. PSALM 139:23–24

This is wise and freeing counsel, especially for the anxious and the scrupulous, who can spend hours cataloguing their faults and end more confused than they began. The psalmist does not search himself; he asks God to search him. God’s light is more accurate than our introspection, and kinder.

She applies the same principle to guidance in general. The soul abandoned to God, she believed, would be led by Him, often without being able to explain how. She quotes the promise that God will guide us with His eye — the kind of guidance a servant receives by watching his master’s face, rather than by reading a rulebook.

Where the heart needs the head

And yet the history of her own life, and of the movement associated with her name, shows why this teaching must be held with care.

First, the heart is not an infallible guide. Madame Guyon made several major decisions — leaving Paris, travelling in Savoy, the arrangements for her children, her dependence on one director — on the strength of inward conviction that God was leading her. Some of those decisions may have been right. Others were questioned by wise and godly people, then and since. An inward sense of being led is not self-authenticating.

There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. PROVERBS 14:12

Second, God guides first through His Word, and the Word must be understood with the mind. The Bible is not a collection of impressions; it is a book with grammar and argument and history, and it must be read, studied and thought about. The same Paul who warned against the wisdom of this world told believers to be transformed by the renewing of their minds.

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. ROMANS 12:2

Third, God guides through the counsel of others. The heart left alone will almost always confirm its own desires. Scripture prizes the multitude of counsellors, and the testing of spirits.

Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. 1 JOHN 4:1

It is to her credit that, at least in the preface to her little book, she acknowledged this. She wrote that she submitted “all that I have written to the censure of persons of experience and learning.” She did not always find that submission easy in practice, and her conflicts with church authorities were painful on both sides. But the principle she stated was right.

Heart and head together

So we should not choose between heart and head. The heart without the head becomes credulous, led by every impression. The head without the heart becomes proud and cold, knowing about God without knowing Him. Madame Guyon’s warning against the proud intellect is needed in every generation, and especially among those whose work is thinking. But the remedy for proud thinking is humble thinking, not no thinking at all.

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. JAMES 1:5

Ask God for wisdom. Stay near Him and let His light search you. Read His Word with your whole mind. Seek counsel. And then, having done all that, trust Him to guide you with His eye.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Are you more inclined to trust your feelings or your reasoning in making decisions? What has that cost you?

2. Instead of anxiously examining yourself, pray Psalm 139:23–24 and wait for God to show you what needs to change.

3. Before your next significant decision, test your inward sense of leading against Scripture and against the counsel of two wise believers.

4. If you are a thinking person, ask whether your learning has made you more humble before God, or less.

5. If you are a simple believer who thinks theology is not for you, take up one good book about the faith and read it slowly.

A PRAYER

Lord, You have hidden Your secrets from the proud and shown them to little children.

Humble my mind, and make it a servant of my love for You, not its master.

Search me by Your light, and guide me by Your eye and by Your Word.

Keep me from trusting every impression of my heart, and give me wisdom and wise counsellors, for Your name’s sake. Amen.