290 COUNTESS DOWAGER OF HUNTINGDON. merous sect in Great Britain and Ireland; and by her will she appointed a committee to dispense her bounty in both kingdoms. The religious principles of Lady Huntingdon have been long known as being those of Whitfield; while her unbounded benevolence bore testimony to the purity of her intentions, having in the course of her life expended above 100,000. in public and private acts of charity; she died at her house in Spa-Fields, near London, June 17th, 1791, aged 84 years. The pious actions of this good lady were highly praiseworthy, her active virtues, her zealous desire to lead Christians more and more to understand the power, wisdom, and goodness of God. She did great good, particularly to persons in the lowest ranks of life, where the sufferer was very poor and penitent, with great bodily and mental affliction. But if every man of rank and fortune were to form any separate mode of religious worship, different from the establishment of the pure principles of the reformed Churches of England and Scotland, (which were the work of great and good men, and wholly supported by the Holy Scriptures, which are not kept concealed, but laid open to all who can read and understand) the evil of such different systems would be great. Both public and private virtue, and true Religion, would be injured. There is no perfect happiness in this world. COUNTESS DOWAGER OF HUNTINGDON. 291 The Countess of Huntingdon had various vexations; she complained to her friends of the constant opposition and contradictions she daily suffered, and she described, in her private letters to her intimate friends, the very great troubles of her life. MADAME GUYON. THIS lady was of a noble family in France; she was very famous in the latter years of Louis the 14th: when Madam Maintenon and the pious Fenelon, who was Archbishop of Cambray, were the friends of Madame Guyon, while she suffered most severe treatment from numerous enemies. She had been the wife of a young respectable gentleman, and was left a widow, with three children, at 28 years of age. Her early life was rendered happy and comfortable in a Convent of Nuns, who had caressed her, as being a young person of good fortune. She found the world, after her marriage, full of trouble and vanity, and she could not be the same object of great attention which she had experienced while in a Convent. When Madame Guyon found herself a widow, with three children, her heart became oppressed, and she sought retirement. She formed ideas of a state of absolute perfection in this life, which it is quite impossible to attain; she had forgotten these words of our divine Redeemer to his disciples, He said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. This commandment from our Saviour is found twice in St. Matthew, once in St. Mark, and twice in St. Luke. Pride, Madame Guyon had imagined she could herself learn, and could teach others, to avoid all crosses and vexations by a calm, cool, inflexible, sedate quietness, by which the mind was to be elevated in this life far above the troubles of the world. the great enemy of mankind, had inspired her with this erroneous idea: she, being a Catholic, had not read the Gospel of Christ with the faithful humility of the Protestant Christian; she believed herself full of wisdom. She had not seen or remembered these words Take heed that the light which is in thee be not darkness'. If this lady had exerted herself, when left a widow, to educate her three children, instead of being the leader of a sect, who were to be Quietists wholly forgetful of the necessary and active duties of life, she would have acted more wisely. Her disciples were to view all events with indifference, and be passive in mental reveries, void of anxiety, by which both body and mind would be injured. The Almighty created mankind for action, without which the blood will not properly circulate. The health of the human frame requires cheerful and constant exercise. The soul in a state of inaction, falls into stupor and sadness, and indolence, and thus passes melancholy days and nights. 1 Luke xi. 35. The parable of the talents is, like all the New Testament, beautiful: he who wrapt his talent in a napkin was not acceptable to God; but this lady had believed she would be distinguished greatly by her talents for Quietism. She did pass some years with her family, but she afterwards left them, and passed a life of great trouble, which is recorded in the History of Louis the XIVth. Madame Guyon had lived sometime a widow with her family, but was suddenly struck with an impulse to abandon them and follow her destiny, whatever it might be. She had lived in the most strict retirement, like a Recluse, from the world, both before and after her marriage; she went to Paris, and got acquainted with the Bishop of Geneva there, who persuaded her to go to Switzerland, and complete an establishment at Gex for newly-converted Catholics; she took her daughter with her to Gex, in 1681. Her parents wrote to her to resign to them the care of her children and all their fortune, only reserving to herself a moderate pension for subsistence: hereupon the new establishment at Gex, observing her humour, put the Bishop of Geneva in mind that she should bestow her fortune on the new establishment there, and be herself Superior of that House; but she declined this, not approving of their regulations. The Bishop and the society there were offended, and requested her to quit the house. She went next to Turin, and Grenoble, and last to the Verceil, where the Bishop invited her to stay, and had great respect 13 |