That the Spirit of the love of Jesus must, through Himself, content, heal, and quicken us.

The Eightieth Letter.

That the Spirit of the love of Jesus must, through Himself, content, heal, and quicken us.

Jesus be our blessing and life eternally.

In Him dearly beloved sister!

May Jesus be the whole fulness, and the one good of our soul — whose rightful jealousy is so great that He does not permit those given over to Him to take any stay or life in anything whatsoever, save only through Him and in Him; for He is it entirely, and would ever more become it in us! It is in truth so, dear sister! The royal love-Spirit of Jesus must become the end of the Law in us, because none but this Spirit alone can fulfil the Law and all righteousness. A soul may (as indeed it is bound to) strive ever so hard to satisfy its conscience through faithfulness to all requirements, yet it never thereby comes to the end, and to thorough redemption and rest: but this is not so easily — and indeed only by degrees, and ever more fully — recognized; it is, moreover, only experienced amid manifold faintings, darknesses, and denudings, which often make the soul quite dismayed. Would one but hold out under these merely passively, without much outward doing or one's own strivings, and give the mind a little room to remain in stillness and simplicity, then one would truly experience how one gradually sinks away from oneself, but also, at the same time, that Another would come into us and take possession of us — namely this very Spirit of the love of Jesus, to content, heal, and quicken us through Himself.

There is in the heart of Jesus an astonishing longing to pour itself, through this Spirit of love and of life, into the hearts of men, since He is risen from the dead. But ah! where does it find free entrance? Who marks and prizes its secret drawings? No one will forsake himself and trust the work wholly into the hand of the Lord — unless here or there it be a poor child that no longer knows how to counsel itself, and is driven by need to sit down at the posts of its door, to watch and wait there daily.

Dear sister! let us then henceforth lay ourselves wholly to this, without long looking at others or even at ourselves — so as, in unconstrained detachment and deep stillness, to keep festival to this so inwardly-near Love, to gaze upon it in faith with an inturned child's-eye, and to follow the beckoning of its eyes will-lessly, without refusing it anything. Will He, this God of love, not do all in us — and, as our proper object and our true home, gather to Himself little by little our spirit, that poor strayed orphan-child, and all our scattered powers of love, and take them for His own, that He alone may become our life and the whole possession of our soul? Yea, He desires nothing more gladly than this, without fearing that we should come short when we must lose all, and even ourselves, for His sake. Ah God! who knows Thee, save only he to whom Thou givest Thyself to be known in Thine own light? And what can one say of Thee, save only that Thou art all good? Thou wilt love us, and we are only to come, that we may be loved by Thee. Yea, Thou wilt possess us — Amen! The Lord who has touched your ground has not departed thence. The unquenchable impression, to want to be His in the most inward way, is a proof of His nearness. May He bless your soul, and give grace. Amen!

German

Der achtzigste Brief.

Daß der Geist der Liebe JEsu uns durch sich selbst befriedigen, heilen und beleben müsse.

JEsus sey unser Segen und Leben ewiglich.

In Ihm herzlich geliebte Schwester!

JEsus sey die ganze Fülle, und das eine Gut unserer Seele, dessen rechtmäßige Eifersucht so groß, daß Er Seinen Ihm Ergebenen keine Stütze oder Leben in irgend etwas zu nehmen zulässet, als nur durch Ihn, und in Ihm, denn Er ist's gar, und will es auch immer mehr bei uns werden!

— 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).