The Key of the Interior

Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. PROVERBS 4:23

It would be easy to read Madame Guyon as a teacher of private spirituality only: a guide for souls who want to be alone with God and leave the world to its business. That is not how she saw herself. Near the end of A Short and Easy Method of Prayer she turns from the individual to the church, and addresses preachers, pastors and all who have the care of souls. Her claim is bold. If people were taught to pray from the heart, she says, the life of whole communities would be reformed. Prayer is not an escape from the reform of life; it is its root.

Winning the heart

Her argument is simple. Most attempts to make people better, she says, address only the outside. Preachers give their hearers a thousand precepts for outward observance, and see little fruit, and that fruit does not last. But if they sought to win people by the heart, leading them first to prayer and the inner life, they would see many and lasting conversions. “When once the heart is won, other defects are easily corrected.”

Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. MATTHEW 23:26

She has the Lord’s own logic on her side. The Pharisees polished the outside of the cup and left the inside full of greed. Our Lord did not tell them to stop caring about the outside. He told them to begin with the inside, so that the outside might be clean also. That is her whole point. Reform that begins with rules produces, at best, respectable behaviour laid over an unchanged heart. Reform that begins with the heart produces behaviour that grows naturally from within.

She makes the same argument about virtue earlier in the book. Virtue that is not given inwardly, she says, is a mask, like a garment that can be taken off and will wear out. Virtue that grows from union with God is real and lasting. And she cries out: if all could learn this simple way of prayer, how easily the whole church would be reformed!

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. EZEKIEL 36:26–27

The key given to all

She pleads with pastors not to keep this key from ordinary people. The excuse, she says, is that there is danger in this way, or that ignorant people are incapable of spiritual things. She rejects both. What danger can there be in walking in the only true way, which is Jesus Christ, in giving ourselves to Him and looking to Him continually? And the simple, far from being incapable, are the most suited to it.

But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. LUKE 18:16

Then comes one of the tenderest passages she ever wrote. We have tried, she says, to make studied prayers, and by arranging them too much we have made them impossible. We have estranged children from the best of Fathers by trying to teach them a polished language. “Go, poor children, and speak to your Heavenly Father in your natural language.” However rough it is, it is not rough to Him. A father loves best the speech that is broken by love and respect, because it comes from the heart.

Anyone who has ever felt that their prayers were not good enough — not fluent enough, not theological enough, not like the prayers of the minister — should read that passage and take heart.

Error and prayer

She adds a striking claim: “Error only takes possession of the soul in the absence of faith and prayer.” If people could be taught to believe simply and to pray, she says, instead of disputing among themselves, they would be gently led to Christ.

That sentence, written by a woman who would soon be accused of error herself, deserves reflection. She is not saying that doctrine does not matter. She is saying that doctrine alone, held as a matter of argument, does not keep a soul safe. People drift into error when their faith has gone dry and their prayer has stopped, and they argue about truths they no longer live. The best defence of the faith is a church that prays.

What must be added

Her plea is powerful, and much of it is right. But it needs two additions.

First, the outside matters too. She sometimes speaks as though outward precepts were almost useless and inward prayer would reform everything else at once, with a natural ease. That is too optimistic. Our Lord commanded His apostles to teach disciples to observe all that He had commanded, and the letters of the New Testament are full of concrete instruction about speech, money, marriage, work and worship.

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. MATTHEW 28:20

A converted heart still needs to be taught. Good habits need forming; old ones need putting to death. The Spirit works through instruction and discipline as well as through prayer.

For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. ROMANS 8:13

Second, reform of life is not only personal. The Scriptures call God’s people to justice, mercy and care for the poor, and the prophets did not wait for everyone to learn inward prayer before denouncing oppression. Prayer is the root of a reformed life, but the fruit must include love of neighbour in all its practical forms.

For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world. TITUS 2:11–12

With those additions, her word to preachers stands as a rebuke to every church that has tried to reform people from the outside in. Give them first the key of the interior, she says. Teach them to seek God in their hearts, to return to Him when they wander, and to do and suffer everything to please Him. That is not a substitute for teaching. It is the soil in which teaching grows.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Where in your life have you tried to change your behaviour without dealing with your heart? What happened?

2. If you teach, lead or parent, ask whether you give more rules than you give the key of the interior. Teach one person this week how to pray simply.

3. Pray today in your own natural language, without trying to sound spiritual.

4. Think of a doctrinal argument you care about. Pray for the people on the other side of it before you argue again.

5. Choose one concrete act of justice or mercy to do this week as the fruit of prayer.

A PRAYER

Lord, I have tried to reform myself from the outside and found that nothing lasts.

Win my heart, and let everything else be corrected from there.

Teach me to pray to You in my own plain words, as a child to a father.

Make Your church a praying church, and let prayer bear fruit in holiness, justice and love. Amen.