The difference between the true and the false stillness and self-abandonment.

The Sixty-Third Letter.

The difference between the true and the false stillness and self-abandonment.

Beloved friend and brother!

This very moment I receive your letter, and will answer it at once in all brevity, because it is already late in the evening and I mean to go out early to-morrow. I see from your letter your outward bodily weakness, with which the Lord hath visited you; I share therein with you, and trust the Lord that He will therewith also reach forth all needful strength and blessing. That your spirit is therewith content — this is God's grace, and wholly good. To unite our inmost will with God and all His ways over us is an easy means to an unshaken peace of mind, and one wherein there is never less danger than when God's ways over us are contrary to the will of nature, and this will of nature also lets its discontent be felt.

The times of suffering are also times wherein we are to be exercised and proved. To your little doubtings I will give some small answer. There is, namely, many a kind of inward stillness and self-abandonment; in particular, there is a false and a good.

When a wholly unmortified man, who with will and knowledge still stands turned with his heart and love away from God toward sin and the creature, nevertheless lays his hands in his lap and lets everything go as it goes — he stands in a false self-abandonment; but if withal he would also by force gather his thoughts and his understanding part and hold them still, in the notion, as though he were thereby so devout and inward, then he stands in a false stillness and emptiness.

When, on the contrary, a soul with her inmost and upright will stands in truth turned away from all that is not God, yet finds in herself no power actually and fully to free herself and to cleanse herself from all cleavings and roots of sin and selfhood — though she would so heartily gladly, rather to-day than to-morrow, see herself wholly sanctified; to which end she has also given herself over to God and to the workings of His Spirit, and would gladly hold still to the same, though it should cost her many a suffering from within and from without: a soul so minded has no cause to fear a false stillness and self-abandonment. On the contrary, if such a soul should seek to work much in a coarse and sensible manner, she would commit an unfaithfulness; she would in some measure withdraw herself from the workings of God, and would only hold up and confuse His work. For indeed our whole work consists in the denial of the creature and of ourselves, and in the pure love of God. Now all this, and much more besides, an inward soul does (each according to his measure) in the single act of inward-turning and still self-abandonment before God; even though she does not always know or think this, which also is by no means needful. Her heart turns itself sincerely away, or stands turned away, from all created things; her will sinks itself in yieldedness into the unbounded good-pleasure of God; the eye of her mind gazes in childlike simplicity upon God alone, whom alone it would intend; her whole love embraces this most inwardly present Good as her One and All; and so forth.

All this, I say, is exercised — and far more besides — through the one childlike act of inward-turning and still self-abandonment; yea, this act often becomes so spiritual, so simple, and so far removed from the senses and from all self-activity, that it may no longer be called an act; and this is the best. But because this is only a work of the heart and disposition, and not so much of the head or of the senses, all manner of distracting thoughts, darknesses, temptations, yea sometimes even impurities may be there against our will, without the soul needing to take them upon herself or greatly disquiet herself; for it stands not in her power to quench all this; rather, by her own working she would only make everything worse: she must merely take no part therein with the will of her heart, and then abide inwardly in all stillness, cheerfulness, and confiding familiarity with God; for often it is the enemy's whole design only this, that by all manner of fear, care, doubt, intruding thoughts, and other temptations he may confuse the mind and lure it forth; and the Lord sometimes permits this, to exercise us and to establish us in the inward. For this is certain: before we become rightly unwavering in this inward way, we must be proved through many outward and inward contradictions and doubts. The most simple are in the least danger.

I must close, for I have no more time at all. I write thus straight on in simplicity; you will know it all better than I. It has been done in such haste that I may well not have expressed myself clearly enough. God bless us in Jesus, and help us with one another. I greet you heartily, together with your N. May God gather her love also in from all things unto Himself, and to that end let the sufferings be blessed! I remain

Your weak fellow-pilgrim.

German

Der dreiundsechzigste Brief.

Unterschied zwischen der wahren und falschen Stille und Gelassenheit.

Geliebter Freund und Bruder!

So eben bekomme ich deinen Brief, und will in aller Kürze sobald darauf antworten, weil es schon spät Abend ist, und ich morgen früh ausgehen will.

— 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).