Of the three birthdays of believers.

The Fifth Letter.

Of the three birthdays of believers.

In Jesus, beloved brother!

That so many dear hearts, there and elsewhere, should let themselves be so concerned about my so poor life and its preservation in the flesh, humbles me in truth very much — although their hearty love is at the same time a refreshment to me, for which may the divine love in turn refresh all their hearts!

Looking back over my life's-calendar, I find much red and much black — I mean many and more miseries, sins, follies, and weaknesses than others who love me might think of me; this I call the black, which displeases me sorely to this hour, yet no longer so terrifies me, because the red (I mean the overflowing grace, and the power of the red blood of Jesus) seems to fall so much the more beautifully upon my eyes against such a black ground. O may the Lord only preserve and further, in me and in all these dear hearts that have, by His good hand, become known and bound up with me, the unappraisable work of His grace! — that I, and we all, may walk worthily, not only toward the Lord who has bought and called us, but also toward His children of grace, among whom we have come and are reckoned, so that of us none may stay behind, but that mine, and all our last birthday, may be kept by angels and the pious with joy and jubilation!

For the children of God have three birthdays. By the first, the natural one, they come out of the dark prison of their mother's body to the light of this lower world; there the child rightly weeps, but the kinsfolk rejoice.

By the second, the grace-birthday — namely, the new birth — they are set, step by step, out of the narrow, dark state of nature into the light of grace: there too, for the most part, the child weeps; but the angels in heaven surely rejoice, as soon as one sinner does penance.

That which we call death, the early Christians named and kept as a birthday of the martyrs and saints. This third birthday — the bodily death, namely — redeems God's children out of this anxious world, out of the narrow prison of this body of humiliation, and out of all pressure and peril of soul, when they are right joyfully born forth and translated into the wide space of the dear, sweet eternity. To be sure, at this last birth too it often goes very unsightly and hard-pressed, so that the child of grace must even groan and weep until it comes through: but all to its best.

Soon it is done, when with Jesus it will be said: It is finished. The angels, as it were, as midwives (if I may so speak), stand already ready at this birth, to take the child, born to blessed eternity, onto their arms, and to carry it, like that Lazarus, into Abraham's — or God's — bosom: there they rejoice with childlike heart that a child is born to the world of light, of love, and of joy; there a birthday is celebrated; there one sings, as you sang there, and I, because I knew it, sang along: Love, who to Thine image madest me, etc. — and to every verse the dear angels sing their Gloria: Glory be to God in the highest, etc. Hallelujah. And thereupon I am — and you too shall be — henceforth to venture it with God, not to shrink from the short birth-pangs (I mean the manifold hardships of the soon-ended pilgrim-way), but we are to compose and bow ourselves nicely, knowing that our labour is not in vain in the Lord. Amen! Lord Jesus, abide with us, for it is toward evening!

My heart greets and blesses you all, and each one in particular. May Jesus speak His Amen to it!

German

Der fünfte Brief.

Von dreierlei Geburts-Tägen der Gläubigen.

In JEsu geliebter Bruder!

Daß so manche liebe Herzen dort und anderswo sich so viel an meinem so schlechten Leben, und an dessen Erhaltung im Fleisch gelegen seyn lassen, solches demüthiget mich in der Wahrheit gar sehr; obgleich ihre herzliche Liebe mir zugleich zur Erquickung ist, wofür die göttliche Liebe ihrer aller Herzen wiederum erquicken wolle!

— 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).