Christ's atoning blood, powerfully-working grace, and divine power outweigh our sin-miseries and all the power of the enemy.

The Fifth Letter.

Christ's atoning blood, powerfully-working grace, and divine power outweigh our sin-miseries and all the power of the enemy.

In the grace of God, beloved friend!

I hope the present lines will find you in the contented state in which we lately left you. With this little, I have only meant to show that you, and your condition, are still in constant remembrance with us. It will by no means have slipped from you how, at our last visit, we sought to set before your eyes both your deep corruption and also the unfathomable mercy of God in Christ. The former was shown you to this end: that you might recognize the necessity and the fitness of God's painful ways over you, and rightly resign yourself to them, so that thereby the holy and good purpose of God in your soul might be reached.

This final purpose of the Lord — in your outward afflictions as in your inward — is by no means that He destroy you, or bring you to despair: for this eternal Love does not will that any should be lost; but rather that what is in the heart be made manifest — namely, nothing but corruption: bodily and spiritual conceit and self-complacencies, dissimulations, self-will, self-love, world-love, and countless other abominations. And this, so that you might thoroughly recognize and sincerely confess such things — also despair of yourself, and learn to bow like a poor little worm under the mighty hand of God — yet, alongside, that you might give yourself, so naked and bare, yes, so lost and condemned in yourself, with closed eyes, to the bottomless mercy of God in Christ; that He may deal with you, in body and soul, yes, in time and eternity — with you, and all that is yours — according to His most gracious good pleasure. And this was the reason we sought, on the other side, to set before your eyes the greatness of the divine compassion — by which neither His will nor His power can fail to help you, and all of us, out of all the corruption of our heart, to the eternal glorifying of His free grace.

Will you object, beloved friend, your committed sins and unfaithfulnesses? Will you object the unbelievable perverseness of your heart, and your dreadful insensibility through it all, together with the great power of Satan over you? — then I grant you all of it. I believe, yes, I know, that you have more and heavier sins on your conscience than you have confessed; the corruptions of your heart, too, are more and greater than you yourself yet know; and the bonds of Satan hard enough. Only — lay the eternal atoning blood of Jesus over against your committed sins; the powerfully-working grace of His Spirit against your corruption; and His divine power against all the power of the enemy, upon the scales — and then see which of the two will keep the overweight. Only give and entrust yourself to Him in sincerity — though it be in the greatest insensibility — with all that presses you, outwardly and inwardly: as He will then Himself gladly give you all the grace needful for it. And if you cannot recognize or perceive this, then believe it, against your own thinking, to such friends as will surely not deceive you; and bear in mind that spiritual blindness is itself a part of your inner corruption, and that you are therefore, especially at present, in no state to judge of yourself — much less of God — but may fairly give more credence to the judgment of other good friends than to your own.

So abandon yourself, then, to the Lord — unconditionally, at His mercy — and wait in all humility and longsuffering for His help, without prescribing to Him, in any manner, time or measure. Strive also, in regard to outward things, to give yourself up wholly to God's disposing. All that is visible and temporal is paltry. Besides, the Most High directs it all, in the end, to blessing, for those who seek Him. Could you but fit yourself into the mind of Christ, how soon would you look on everything with quite other eyes! — namely, with a love that embraces contempt, poverty, and suffering: the very things Jesus so greatly loved, and which we too must come to regard as lovable. May He Himself give you such a heart!

Raise yourself up in this way in the Lord, and He will soon grant grace, that you may collect yourself again, and so order and arrange the outward circumstances — not only with your M——, but with the whole household — that you may be fit to devote yourself, wholly and anew, to the true service of the Lord, through the working-together of His Spirit; which I, with friendly greeting, wish you from the heart.

Your devoted friend and weak intercessor.

German

Der fünfte Brief.

Christi Versöhnblut, kräftig wirkende Gnade und göttliche Macht überwiegen unsere Sünden-Elenden und alle Macht des Feindes.

In der Gnade GOttes geliebte Freundin!

Ich verhoffe, daß euch Gegenwärtiges in dem vergnügten Zustand antreffen werde, in welchem wir euch letztens gelassen haben. Mit diesem Wenigen habe ich nur zeigen wollen, daß ihr und euer Zustand sich bei uns noch in beständigem Andenken befinden.

— Opening lines of the original German. The complete transcription of all 605 letters appears in the forthcoming Encounter Press critical edition; Brief 1 is shown in full as a sample.

German text: public domain (1773–75 first edition / 1845 Gesammelte Schriften).