How one must deny the sensual life, and follow the drawing of grace.

The Eighteenth Letter.

How one must deny the sensual life, and follow the drawing of grace.

N. N.

It does not surprise me at all, dear sister, that it goes so with you, as you write: but it grieves me nonetheless. Ah! shall a soul whom God has honoured with so inward and precious a call — a heart that He has touched with His love of God, and for which He has intended quite other delights — let herself be taken and bewitched by such trifles? Let this bond be broken, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and this pleasure be offered up to His love!

Were I your guide, you would banish the clavier for two months, so as to play nothing in that time. I am not against the playing in itself; when I come, you shall play for me once, and I will sing, if God will: only, it must also stay merely a pastime, and not become a chief work. Should one let one's heart be so fettered by such a thing? I cannot praise it. One thing, though, is praiseworthy in it — that you do acknowledge your faults; which I hope will already be in part amended before the letter arrives.

It does not otherwise surprise me, I say, that it goes so with you in this and in some other things; and I can therefore have the greatest compassion with you. Sensual Christians are strong in the senses, strong in themselves, because the glances of grace and the feelings overflow even into the outward. The spiritual — that is, Christians drawn nearer to the inner life — are strong only in the spirit and in God, but exceedingly weak in themselves and in the senses; grace has concentrated itself more, or drawn itself into the ground. This grace they must follow, and live childlike and inwardly-turned, if they will not commit gross faults; and if they really do fall into faults, then no straining, no reflecting, no self-resolve helps such souls either — for by all this the soul goes ever again into itself, into its own sensual working, in which is nothing but misery and weakness: it must sink itself into the ground, where grace, where God is, if it would be helped.

See, dear sister, the reason why you have not been able to help yourself from the thing: you set about it wrongly. Confess your fault simply, and let yourself, like a weak child, fall into the bosom of Love. For the rest, forget this alien power, as well as all the other assaults. By looking at the enemies the children grow quite fainthearted; but by forgetting both their enemies and their own weakness, they conquer over all. Do so too, then, dear sister; the Lord has already forgiven you your fault; love Him a little for it. Only walk with a loving look of faith, and a trustful sinking-in toward the Friend so near, and you will do heroic deeds, even almost without thinking of it, and be able for everything — because the Lord Himself is then mighty in weakness.

I write this with a running pen, because I have not so much free time as God well gives you: do give this time back to the Lord, without gambling it away. I hope not to forget you, and your husband too; and do not take it as a mere compliment when I ask that you also would remember me before God.

German

Der achtzehnte Brief.

Wie man das sinnliche Leben verläugnen, und dem Zug der Gnaden folgen müsse.

N. N. Es wundert mich gar nicht, geliebte Schwester, daß es so gehet, wie sie schreibet: Aber es jammert mich doch.

— 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).