On brotherly openness; the presence of God; the two landscapes; willingness for the cross, and inner sweetnesses.

The Hundred and Twenty-second Letter.

On brotherly openness; the presence of God; the two landscapes; willingness for the cross, and inner sweetnesses.

Beloved brother!

Your last little letter was very pleasant to me; as indeed I always gladly hear something of your state: I also believe it is good, and pleasing to the Lord our God, when you write to us now and then, secretly, how you are inwardly led — not as though we were wiser and would govern, since we ourselves, as blind children, must every moment hold to the governance of grace; but because God is wont commonly to bless simple openness greatly, and the soul remains so much the safer from all self-propriety and deceit when it submits itself and discloses itself.

So then, as children, let us give one another the hand, and together walk on out of ourselves, and out of all created things, into God, where our only and eternal resting-point is.

The presence of God in your soul is a grace for which you cannot enough glorify His divine Majesty. The more the heart is purified and made detached, the more essentially will His presence reveal itself in the ground. It is indeed the truth, as you write, that this is a work at which you have labored nothing; wherefore to God alone the honor must remain. And daily experience will teach you ever better how you cannot hold yourself to it by your own willing, speculating, or working, but only through dying, through simplicity, humility, and bare resignation; and that this inward way can endure not the least self-propriety.

It is certain that two kinds of landscapes are found in the mind of believers; according to the lower, or outer, corrupted part we can see what we are in ourselves without grace, that we may never, in self-propriety, take to ourselves the good that the Lord might bestow on us. Otherwise it is surely best of all to leave the whole corrupted part, as it were, lying there as something that does not concern us, and to hide ourselves in the secure castle of the spirit with God, who is the pure Love.

The longing for thorough dying, and the willingness for all cross and suffering, is without doubt from God, and a needful working and fruit of all the other graces: but because, with our best longing, something subtly self-ish always wants to mingle in, and because grace alone must also carry this longing into effect and fulfill it, therefore it is that one must sink oneself, with this good longing, back into God, and become just as if one had — as you say — no will or longing, save after God's good pleasure: hereby, however, the longing is not really taken away, but only purified.

As for the sweetnesses you feel, even in your mouth, one must not exactly desire them when one does not have them; but when God gives them, one must offer them up again, with humility and thankfulness, to the Lord, and look most of all to what fruits it works in us: to the contempt of ourselves; to the love of God; and to a detached walk in His presence. God be praised alone for everything!

Let it now impress itself deeply upon you, beloved brother, that God is present with you and in you; that He is a God of love, who hates nothing but sin and self-propriety, so that you may believe it evermore, even when you should not see or feel it: for here is the time of suffering and dying for us; in eternity we shall enjoy Him perfectly, according to His mercy; but God knows our weaknesses, wherefore He comforts and strengthens us in manifold ways. Praised be His name, that He will nevermore leave us alone! Since He then loves us, let us love Him in return!

Brother H. and I greet you heartily; remember us before God, as we also hope not to forget you. In closing, I remain, through grace,

Your weak fellow-pilgrim.

Mülheim, the 1st of April 1732.

German

Der hundertundzweiundzwanzigste Brief.

Von der brüderlichen Offenherzigkeit; Gegenwart GOttes; zweierlei Landschaften; Willigkeit zum Kreuz und inneren Süßigkeiten.

Geliebter Bruder!

Dein letzteres Briefgen ist mir recht angenehm gewesen; wie ich dann allezeit gern etwas von deinem Zustand vernehme: Ich glaube auch, daß es gut, und dem HErrn, unserm GOtt gefällig sey, wann du uns nun und dann insgeheim einmal schreibest, wie du innerlich geführet wirst …

— 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).