A commendation of the exercise of prayer. Denying is ours, but the killing is God's work.

The Seventh Letter.

A commendation of the exercise of prayer. Denying is ours, but the killing is God's work.

In the grace of Jesus, heartily-beloved sister!

Your Honour's kind letter of the first of this month I received in good time. I see from it that after the spring illness you have neglected prayer too much, and that thence other trouble besides has arisen. It cannot go otherwise. God's grace and the inflowing of life is alone the source of all good that we have and can do; and this we obtain through prayer, wherein we draw near to God and unite ourselves with Him.

A sickliness, or other circumstances, may well cause that one does not exercise oneself in prayer so formally, and in another manner: but prayer itself must never be left off, or we would fall into faintness, darkness, and misery; therefore I have always advised Your Honour, and advise it still, that you not leave it off without weighty cause, and that you expressly set aside some time for prayer and solitude. To take too much for it (as you once did) I by no means advise: but too little (when one can have it) also does not bear fruit enough. Unfaithfulness, misery, unfitness must not hold Your Honour back from it, but rather all the more oblige you to it.

The time for prayer one can and must buy up: but the fitness for it one cannot buy, nor give to oneself. One must come just as one is, so that God may make us as we ought to be. To strain also with the head, for earnestness or for devotion, is indeed of no use; yet you might well raise yourself so gently above the negligence of nature, forget a little the softness or sensitiveness of the body, and through sweet acts of the heart (acts) open, as it were, and move the soul's mouth, like a child that draws at its mother's breast. (Ps. 81:10.)

Through prayer the poorest and worst child of man can become a holy child of God, even if one does not at once and always see and feel it. The child drinks, unawares and often in sleep, its mother's milk, and is nourished without knowing it. Only keep on untiring in prayer and in the other good; it is all sown into eternity: in time the fruit comes up, and one reaps with joy.

Through prayer we obtain light, desire, and power for self-denial; but also, through the faithful exercise in self-denial, we receive light, desire, and power for prayer.

Venture then, for Jesus' sake, from the heart, upon your very self, your own will, your inclination, desire, standing, and whatever else is dearest to nature. Walk valiantly; walk according to your station. But, I say, do it for Jesus' sake, who has bought and called you so dearly; you, I say, dear sister! Is this Jesus not infinitely worthy that, for His sake, you deny a dear vanity, and get through a little trouble and bitterness? O yes! And I trust you will soon find such a sweet taste of the Spirit in these so-called self-denials, that the name "self-denial" will more and more lose itself with you, and you will count yourself happy to be allowed to please Jesus, and to be delivered from all that we are directed to deny.

Only, what we deny is not therefore yet killed; this latter is more the work of God than our own. I deny a thing that I no longer will have anything to do with; that I no longer acknowledge as mine; from which I withdraw my heart and consent, and which I will no longer look upon. And when we do so with regard to ourselves and all evil, then God does all the rest, and we have nothing to do but to occupy ourselves with God through prayer, to look upon Him, and to wait with patience upon His salvation and help; in such wise the Lord then fights for us, and we may be still. (Exodus 14:14 and following.)

German

Der siebte Brief.

Anbefehlung der Gebets-Uebung. Verläugnen ist unser, Tödten aber GOttes Werk.

In der Gnade JEsu herzlich-geliebte Schwester!

Euer Wohledl. Angenehmes vom ersten dieses erhalte zu rechter Zeit.

— 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).