How one should be faithful and constant, too, on the way of inner prayer.

The Forty-sixth Letter.

How one should be faithful and constant, too, on the way of inner prayer.

Beloved brother!

Your welcome letter I have just received, and it was dear to me to get some news thereby of your state and exercise. I have nothing in particular to answer to it, except only that both — your disposition and the manner of your inner prayer — seem to me good and suited to your state; and I believe, too, that you will please the Lord therein. This last word can be enough to establish you in your way, so as thus, with closed eyes, to follow this track faithfully and constantly. I say faithfully and constantly, because I suspect on good ground that it is in these very points that things sometimes fall short.

Faithfulness toward God requires, without falsehood and in all points, our whole self; it is the inviolability of our divine betrothal; the following of the inner drawing or leading, without pondering and looking back; and a patient endurance in trials and sufferings. In such a faithful disposition you have given yourself over on the whole, and you do also enter into it now and then quite inwardly and heartily, according to the measure of your grace. But might you, dear brother, become — once for ever — really unmoved and constant in this disposition! How wretched, indeed, is the weakness and fickleness of the human heart! Who could believe it possible that one could, in one hour, so heartily give oneself over to God, and, in another hour, enter again so utterly into oneself and all manner of impurities? — Save only he who knows that, in the time of divine visitation, or of inner recollection, one stands in the light of grace, but in the time of "outgoing" one walks in the light of nature, which is darkness itself. Let us trust no light that would shine before us in the time of outgoing!

As regards your particular exercises, be not inconstant in them either; only keep to the order, as you set it out in your letter. Do not give too much way to the reluctance of nature and the unruliness of the senses, which, under specious pretext, so easily want to omit or shorten the times of special recollection. But strive also to perform everything, and especially the exercise of prayer, as far as possible without inward constraint, with hearty love and inclination. "Narrow without, wide within" is my old rule.

I do not think it will be needful to remind you that your usual readings must be inward, or at least of such matter that you may not, in using them, step far out of the way: the taste of the mind will itself be able to serve as the rule therein. May God also fulfil in you His precious promise, and lure you ever more thoroughly out of yourself and all that is created! May He lead you into the sweet wilderness of inner solitude, and there speak kindly to your soul. See Hosea 2:14. God's speaking is working; He speaks and works nothing but peace, innocence, simplicity, friendliness, love, humility, and all virtues in the heart. O how beautiful! May He let us experience it in substance! Remember me too — which I do not desire out of habit. I greet you in the spirit of love, and remain

Your

Mülheim, 21 October 1731.

poor brother.

German

Der 46te Brief.

Wie man auf dem Weg des inneren Gebets auch treu und beständig seyn müsse.

Geliebter Bruder!

Dein Angenehmes bekomme so eben, und war mir lieb, einige Nachricht dardurch von deinem Zustand und Uebung zu bekommen. Ich hab eben nichts Sonderliches darauf zu antworten, als nur, daß mir beides, dein Sinn und die Art deines inneren Gebets gut, und deinem Stand gemäß …

— 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).