To a Count. Comfort and instruction amid assaults and doubts concerning the faith.

The Seventy-Seventh Letter.

To a Count. Comfort and instruction amid assaults and doubts concerning the faith.

Most highborn Imperial Count!

In the grace of our Saviour, born in lowliness, esteemed and beloved friend and brother!

Your letter, so dear to my heart, of the 12th of last month reached me duly from Cologne, but just at a time when [I] lay sick abed, and even thought on dying: for, though [I] am always ailing and have passing shocks upon this my cottage, now standing into its 52nd year, yet this last attack was more serious than any [I] had known in several years, in that I had to keep to bed and chamber into the fourth week. Now [I] recover somewhat again through the divine goodness: my soul thanks the Lord for this fatherly visitation, in which [I] have still learned something, and much else, though already known, has been renewed in me. O! how worthless all life appears to me that is not truly employed for God and has its eye on Him! How little it matters whether we spend the two or three days of our pilgrimage poor or rich, in joys or sufferings, also inwardly, if only we content our God in Christ! What lies in ourselves? In God is our whole and perfect blessedness. Could we but forget and forsake ourselves, give ourselves over as a prize to our God, and let Him deal with us — only to look upon Him, to occupy ourselves with Him, and to seek and leave in Him all that which we in ourselves can neither have nor keep — then our bonds would soon be broken.

I can say that your dear little letter was a refreshment to me in my sickness, however piteously you describe your own state of mind. My sincere love and friendship, or fellowship in the spirit, has indeed at all times remained unmoved. I have often thought on you before God in my poor prayer, and could also never doubt but that the Lord would not forsake your soul, but that out of God's power you would be kept through faith unto salvation; because I recognized what He, the Lord, has done in your soul. Yet I must confess it was the old love that had fallen somewhat asleep; your letter has awakened the love again — indeed, I find that there is more love at bottom than I had thought. Through this love I can heartily take part in your piteous state (when one member suffers, etc.); for though I look upon this state with other eyes than you yourself, yet I do know what it is to sit as it were forsaken and alone in such darknesses, doubt, and unrest; and therefore I shall surely not be able to forbear to take your soul into my prayer, according to the grace which our High Priest will impart.

Souls that are so deeply seized by grace as I believe you to be, seldom return in a persevering way to the world; the inward sensitivity and taste of the spirit awakened by grace scarcely allow them to hold out among the husks. But when such minds go astray, then it happens for a right medicine, since otherwise they would either run about lifelong without progress, in their narrow notions, sensory exercises, and good stirrings; or else (which is most dangerous) climb up into all manner of spiritual heights, take too much pleasure in themselves, have too great a trust in themselves, too much expectation of themselves — of their light, gifts, work, projects, and undertakings. In a very plausible way the soul keeps such a life in its own hand. Thou hast wearied thyself in the greatness of thy way, and saidst not, I let it be; but because thou findest a life in thy hand, thou art not weary. Isa. 57:10. There the soul runs, as it were, away from the Saviour's school, and remains not under His oversight, nor in the constant dependence upon His guidance; if it then succeeds in its corrupt selfhood, it stands upon the temple's pinnacle. But if the Lord love one, He chastens him, makes him weak, poor, and wretched, that one may learn to abide in Him, and through ever-deeper experiences of one's own impotence and nakedness sink ever deeper into Christ, and let oneself be rooted and grounded in Him. And to this end our own faults and falls (which truly are not to be justified) must often be, to the dearest God, an occasion and a means as well. Praised and beloved be His most gracious wisdom in Christ, that out of our poison He prepares a medicine!

My dearest brother! You esteem the doubts coming into your head about the truth of Holy Scripture, and — concerning your state — the blasphemous, mocking thoughts that fall in, etc., far too highly: do but, in God's name, despise and forget such things, which are to you a burden and not a delight; it is not worth the trouble that you should look after them. Defend yourself not at all against them, and do not so much as examine how far this or that doubt is grounded; by such an examining you would give some weight to a matter of no importance. Faith lies at bottom; we have it, we know it already, and have long believed.

To bring a political comparison: one knows and believes in England that George is lawful king; one does not esteem it when even a poor Highland Scot might doubt it; one does not convene a Parliament to examine such a doubt; one does not regard the Pretender's Protest; one would, by that very act, give it a weight it otherwise has not. The atheists, within us and without us, are only stiffened and strengthened when one so carefully examines and answers their scruples. Let us answer as that lad answered his preacher in the catechizing, when the latter asked: What do you do when you find something in the Bible that you do not understand? I think (said the boy) in such a case that God is wiser than I am; He will understand it well enough. Let us then only go on believing what we believe, without regarding the counter-fencing of reason. Whoever is banished into the Scottish Highlands (to keep to the above comparison) might well now and then have to hear refractory speeches. Patience! When we come again to London, then we shall not ask long, but see with our eyes who is king in England.

Meanwhile you can now see that it is truth, what I have so often testified, and sought to signify to you also at our former being-together: namely, that it is more dangerous than one thinks, when one sets the essence of faith in the developed assurance of the forgiveness of sins; for thereby it happens that some sanguine, lightly high-spirited, rash temperaments are, in their own and others' eyes, great heroes of faith; and, on the contrary, many an upright mind causes itself a thousand troubles, anxieties, and vain toil, and in good meaning resists God, when the Lord does not see fit to give it, for the time, such assurances or other sensible feelings, or withdraws such from it again — for the sake of its own presumption and security; or that faith, in the fire of assaults, of sufferings and trials, may be made proven through patience. 1 Pet. 1:6,9; Jas. 1:3. As indeed the fruit-bearing branches also need much pruning and cleansing. John 15. Though I otherwise do not deny that we ourselves, through distractions, deviation, and unfaithfulness, cause ourselves many an inward need, dryness, and darkness, of which we might well have been spared; but here too, humble apology and submission under God's chastening Father-hand is the best medicine. Job 7:10; Jer. 10:19. The must, which stands in Jeremiah in the German translation, should read would; in the original text there stands nothing less than a must.

Now you think you have no faith. Why! what is it, then, that makes you so dissatisfied with your own state? that everything which stirs against God in you is such a torment to you? that you esteem yourself so unworthy of all good? What is it, then, that makes you sigh so unceasingly and with many a thousand tears? What is it that makes you so anxious and troubled — whether your prayer is sincere? whether your doing pleases God? whether you have faith at all? It is nothing other than faith itself; this is the driving-wheel of all these things. Had you no faith, you would not go to work so. Faith, in its ground and essence, is the new life-movement given by God out of grace, whereby a poor sinner is ever driven to Christ and to all good; therefore Scripture describes it as a coming to Christ (John 6:30 [i.e. 6:37]); as a receiving of Christ (John 1:12); as a patient abiding with Christ, even under the cross, without giving way (Jas. 1:13 [i.e. 1:12]; Heb. 10:39); as a foundation and driving-wheel of all holy and good works (Heb. 11, the whole chapter).

So let us then only go on in faith, and through faith run in patience in the contest that is appointed us! I say in patience; for surely, that so very restless manner, the vehement expostulating and straining in prayer, does not savour enough of evangelical humility. God will not be forced; at the beginning, indeed, He accommodates Himself manifoldly to our weakness and will (John 21:18); but we are to learn more and more to accommodate ourselves to Him, to become truly subject to Him, and truly, like a clay, to give ourselves over into His hand, that He may form us after His mind, and not after ours.

The passage cited above from Jer. 10:19 should read: O woe is me! at my dreadful ruin the punishment is right grievous; yet I think: this too is a suffering sent by God; I will therefore bear it willingly, until He procures me help again.

German

Der siebenundsiebzigste Brief.

An einen Grafen. Trost und Unterricht bei Anfechtungen und Zweifeln über den Glauben.

Hochgeborner Reichsgraf!

In der Gnade unsers in der Niedrigkeit gebornen Heilandes werthgeschätzter und geliebter Freund und Bruder! Dero mir von Herzen Angenehmes vom 12ten Passato erhielte richtig von Köln, aber just zu einer Zeit, wie krank zu Bett lag, auch wohl ans Sterben gedachte: Denn, obzwar immer kränkle …

— 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).