“Let your own soul first be filled with God’s Spirit; and then, and not otherwise, will you be in a situation to communicate of that divine fulness to others. No man can give what he has not; or if a man has grace, but has it in a small degree, he may, in dispensing to others, impart to them what is necessary for himself. Let him first make himself one with the great Fountain, and then he may always give, or be the instrument of giving, without being emptied.”
Madame de la Mothe Guyon (1648-1717) in Life, Religious Opinions and Experience of Madame de le Mothe Guyon by Thomas Upham (London: Sampson Low, 1858) 214.