Mme Guyon, The Torrents (1683)
 | Dans lequel sous l'emblème d'un TORRENT, on voit, Comment Dieu, par la VOIE DE L'ORAISON passive en FOI, purifie et dispose prochainement les âmes qui doivent arriver ici à une vie nouvelle et toute divine. |
Chapter VII. Section 1. The third degree of the passive way of faith. The dead.
This degree of death is extremely long, and sometimes lasts twenty or thirty years, at least unless God has special plans for the souls. And as I have said that very few pass the other degrees, so I say that far less pass this one. Many people have been astonished to see very holy persons, who have lived like angels, die in terrible anguish, and even despairing of their salvation. One is astonished and does not know why this is. It is because they have died in this mystical death; and as God wished to promote their advancement, because they were near their end, He redoubled their sorrow, as with Tauler.
One will say to me about this: they were saints and consumed according to their degree and in their degree. But they have not gone through this, which does not prevent them from being saints; and a great many who have been canonised by the Church have only experienced this degree in dying; and many have never entered it. Also when I see souls who say that they are rushing so quickly, I cannot hold back from saying that they are mistaken. They are all consumed, I vow, yes, in states which are inferior that they perhaps will not pass from; but to have passed that, I say that this is not so. And that will be verified afterwards.
