A short compendium of the whole inner Christianity.

The Twentieth Letter.

A short compendium of the whole inner Christianity.

Beloved brother!

Your kind letter I received through Brother J., and I cannot exactly recall that I should have had any little letter from you to which my answer was desired or needful. If it was a little letter about your present dry state of mind — as it almost appears to me from your latest — then I thought of nothing less than that my answer to it would be expected, since I myself am so wretched and dark, and have so little experience in the ways of the Lord, and you, accordingly, already know beforehand all that I might be able to say to you. I can therefore answer nothing to it now; or else I must, for so long, set aside the picture of myself and of you, and consider the truth as it is in itself, according to my own insight.

The power of the own-life, or of the inward corruption, consists chiefly in self-love and self-will; and the essence and power of the divine life consists in pure love and in Gelassenheit (self-abandonment). When the former — the own-life — decreases, the divine life increases, and neither more nor less. A man may be a saint in his own eyes and in other men's eyes, and nonetheless, at the ground, stick full of self-love and self-will, and so be yet very far from the pure life of grace. Ah! where are the rare souls who do not love themselves? And in how few will it become true, what stands in Rev. 12: that they loved not their lives unto death!

In the beginning, one dies to sin and to the world through faithfulness to the convictions of conscience. Outwardly one is strict, zealous, brave. One has power and breaks through, because the mighty impulse of grace and the fear of the Lord drive one on like a strong wind, and the lovely allurements of various sensible and felt gifts of grace, as it were, carry the soul along — though it seems as if the soul did this alone and of itself. One is like a hero in one's being and doing: but the great noise and the all-too-coarse activity of the sensory powers do not let the mind become rightly still, nor come to itself; and so the inner corruption, for the most part, remains seated at the ground; indeed, self-love is even strengthened, unawares and in the subtlest way, through earnestness, through the gifts, and through the virtues; and self-will shows itself, too, in uncompassionate judgment of one's neighbor; in stiff-mindedness about one's own understanding, undertakings, and exercises; and finally in a thousand strivings, vehement activity, and un-gelassen restlessness in prayer itself.

Therefore the power of the own-life must be assailed at the ground in another way, and more thoroughly rooted out — which must happen partly in an active, partly in a passive manner.

Actively, our self-love is assailed when one denies it everything that would feed it: one avoids all needless and superfluous comfort and gratifications of the senses; one does and says nothing, without weighty cause, by which one knows that others are to praise and esteem us; one gladly wills to be hidden, forgotten, and counted as nothing; one seeks at once to forget the good one might happen to do or say; one strives to keep one's whole intent directed upon God; one does not allow one's thoughts to feed on anything that might cause self-complacency — and so on.

Actively, our self-will is weakened when we would rather obey than command; when we do not do or say the thing upon which our will is set with too great vehemence, and on the contrary do the thing it is loth to go at. Yet this is to be understood only of wholly indifferent matters, and such as can happen without noticeable inconvenience or harm — such as: in going and standing, doing and leaving, reading, speaking, and the like; one seeks to perform one's business faithfully, yet without cleaving and inward vehemence, so that one must strive to be ready every moment to let it stand, at the least beckoning of God's providence, without disquiet; and so too in other things. In short! one strives to become gentle, kindly, and gelassen within, and in one's whole walk; and as soon as something hard or adverse stirs within, one seeks to sink oneself inwardly into the sweet element of meekness. And in this way one can, in a still, inward being, deny oneself a thousand times over, without its making much noise, and so that even those with whom we live do not so much as notice it. But above all things one must take care that the soul not go to work herein in a coarse, legal, anxious, strict manner, but do all things peaceably, gently, through and for the sake of the love of God.

But the very best and most useful activity, by which both — our self-love and our self-will — are assailed and weakened, and which must be, as it were, the soul of the foregoing exercises, is the inward fellowship of faith with God throughout the day, and the prayer of the heart, for which one can and must now and then withdraw oneself. When one lays oneself open, in an inward, gentle, childlike, unfeigned way, before the presence of the Lord, and looks upon Him in faith, then the wings of imagination soon sink: His presence shows and slays the subtlest self-complacency; the hard and fierce powers of nature and of the own-will are broken — made soft, supple, and kindly; and so the soul gradually becomes capable of God revealing and imparting Himself to her in a very pure and essential way. All these activities are sometimes carried out with much pleasure, light, and ease; but sometimes in darkness and dryness: yet on that it does not really depend. Indeed, with some it even comes to this, that the inner sufferings so gain the upper hand that they can no longer practice anything of these things with forethought and attention, or perceive it within themselves: and there good counsel is often dear.

But I see, in the writing, that the letter is already growing too long, before I have even properly spoken of dryness, or of the ways of suffering by which our self-love and self-will are slain. Since I can neither, in any case, say much of it, nor do I wish to; I will be quite brief therein. There are manifold kinds of dryness, darkness, and inner suffering, according to the states and constitutions of souls. Some have suffering and consolation, light and darkness, with many short alternations; others, however, are in long-continued states of suffering. Some sufferings go before, to bring the soul from her coarse activity and outward piety (if I may so speak) onto the aforesaid way of inward self-denial and prayer; in which sufferings most souls already fail the test, but either turn back again to the world, or else force themselves with violence back into their coarse workings, and so often run round in a circle their whole life long. Some sufferings go, too, alternating, paired with the aforesaid exercises; other very deep sufferings follow afterward as well. Some sufferings we cause ourselves; others are a leading of God.

To recognize whether our sufferings are a leading of God, there must be found in us: 1. A fear of offending God. 2. A longing for sanctification. 3. An inability to help oneself. 4. Low thoughts of oneself, according to the inner ground, etc. This being presupposed, then surely all our darknesses, dryness, temptations, assaults, and sufferings of every kind serve not to our harm, but only to disempower our self-love and our self-will, and at last to root them out entirely. As for the states of suffering: there often comes, instead of earnestness, pleasure and ease in the good, [or] sluggishness, listlessness, and burdensomeness; instead of the gifts, darkness, dryness, and incapacity; and even, instead of virtue, manifold temptations, assaults, and rebellions; all manner of corruptions and self-properties, and whatever such sufferings there are; so that sometimes the poor soul might almost utterly despair. Whoever, now, holds out well in these sufferings — be they of whatever kind they will — his self-love is ever more slain; he becomes rightly and thoroughly poor in spirit; he learns, in a thorough, sincere way, to believe of himself that he has, is, and is capable of nothing good in himself, and learns at last, with his whole heart — O wished-for at last! — to pray after the children: Thine is the kingdom; Thine is the power and the glory, unto eternity. Yes, Amen!

The refractory will, which in the subtlest way still long defends and resists itself, must at last — O blessed at last! — with Christ bow the head on the cross and sink into death; out of which there is then born a gentle, quiet, and pure life, of which, from experience, I know nothing to say.

Now I ought, indeed, in fairness, also to say briefly in what way a soul, for her part, should rightly conduct herself in sufferings: but these reminders would have to be ordered according to the various circumstances and kinds of suffering; for sometimes the sufferings are so constituted that one can hardly give or practice many rules, but it is much if one can suffer. These following seem to me serviceable in all manner of inner suffering and dryness. 1. Such a soul must not want to help herself by her own exertions and force; neither through all manner of changes in her inner or outer exercises, nor through bodily severities, racking of the brain, searching, meditating, or much reading: by which things one only hinders oneself, and sets spirit and nature into all the greater darkness and vexation. 2. Especially, read no books that require much pondering of the understanding, however good they may otherwise be, but such books as can nourish and strengthen the heart, without bringing many images into the head; yet also not too much at once, but moderately, simply, and gently. 3. Not to grow weary if it lasts long already, but to hold out in the utmost stillness until the hour of the Lord comes: and where it almost seems that she can do nothing for His sake, that she nevertheless, for His sake, strive to suffer something. 4. As far as possible, to keep herself inwardly detached, and not, without need and willfully, to turn out too much into the senses, or even to seek pleasure and life in the creature, which she cannot find in God. 5. To keep her usual times for inward prayer and withdrawal, even though it were somewhat vexing to her, and she even supposed that it went worse with her at the time of prayer than otherwise. 6. To distinguish well the inner will of the mind from the contrary stirrings of nature and of the enemy, and, with the former, in all temptations, enticements, and sufferings, to incline herself gently and quietly away from all evil, into God, as much as she can, and to strive to forget it and regard it as something that does not concern her. 7. Not to look too much at herself and her own state, but at God alone, and to occupy herself heartily with Him in faith; committing and surrendering herself, however — body, soul, and spirit — to Him, the faithful Creator, for time and eternity: and all this in union with the suffering Jesus.

Of these weighty truths of the inward life it is not possible to speak so, in a short letter. You will, dear brother, well see that I have touched on much, on which not a little depends, only as with a single word, and that mostly in general terms; for upon your person, as mentioned at the beginning, I have not reflected, since you indeed already know it better than I. Nor could I have done it, since your state and leading are not particularly known to me, and the leadings, in manifold circumstances, are yet just as different as the faces of men. Perhaps God may yet once give us occasion to speak together by word of mouth. I offer you up, from the ground of my heart, to the faithful High Priest and Shepherd of our souls, Jesus Christ, for the furtherance and completion of His work in your soul. Remember me, too, the weak one, whose wretchednesses are known to God alone.

German

Der zwanzigste Brief.

Kurzer Begriff des ganzen inneren Christenthums.

Geliebter Bruder!

Dein angenehmes Schreiben habe ich durch Br. J. erhalten, und weiß ich mich eben nicht zu erinnern, daß ich ein Brieflein von dir sollte bekommen haben, worauf meine Antwort ist verlanget worden oder nöthig war.

— 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).