A letter of encouragement to all the friends in E., toward a cheerful advance on the spiritual pilgrim-way.

The Seventy-ninth Letter.

A letter of encouragement to all the friends in E., toward a cheerful advance on the spiritual pilgrim-way.

Beloved friend and brother — and likewise my other fellow-pilgrims in E., dearly beloved according to the high calling of grace!

Since you set so much store by me that, on a rumor of my declining bodily strength, you would show me your simple love — through the coming-over of the dear brothers and otherwise — and would greet me, as it were, for a farewell: I find myself bound, by these few lines, to attest my answering love to you all, and to give you word with my own hand: that the Lord, in whose hand life and death stand, has again markedly revived me in my weakness, which had been serious enough.

No, my traveling companions! I take no leave yet. I am still with you on the pilgrim-road — the Most High knows how long. Once more I lay my weak hand, brotherly, in your hand, and call to each one: Save your soul, and look not behind you; stay not, either, in all this region! Escape to the mountain! (Genesis 19:17). Ah yes, may the Lord call this unceasingly into the heart of every one of us, that we grow not secure, but, in the course begun, press forward with unwavering courage and undiverted eyes-of-the-soul, till we may reach the goal of our calling by divine grace. None of us has gone out so deep but that he needs a yet deeper going-out. There is no standing still outside of God. Remember Lot's wife! Whoever gives himself over, rightly and constantly, to the governing of the Spirit of grace, to him no rest is left anywhere in creature or in selfhood, and he is led further — yea, far further — than reason's eyes can see. But herein we are to give no room to any unbelief or fear; for we have not received a servile spirit, that we should fear once more and say: Who can live so? So far we cannot attain! — rather, we have received, and in Jesus there is offered us, the Spirit of power and of love, who will give us willing hearts and work all good in us Himself, wherever we hunger after it and stand resigned to Him. Nor need we look far out ahead, and, in self-love, imagine ourselves into and force ourselves into states and exercises we have not yet reached: let each one only look well before himself, that he stumble not; or, better said, let each one look, in faith, to the Lord within him, and let himself be led, by His eye, into the ways of dying and of living. And thus we run — but through patience — in the combat appointed us, looking unto Jesus (Hebrews 12) as our pillar of cloud and of fire, until, through the wilderness of a short dying, we enter into the Canaan of an unceasing life, into the rest which God Himself is. Thither I direct you, my dearest ones; there let us meet one another — from now on in the spirit, and shortly face to face — to greet and to kiss; only, that none of us stay behind, let us remember one another before God. But may Jesus, our highly transfigured High Priest, take and bear all our names upon His heart, until we reach it, Amen! This wishes

Your

Mülheim, 15 May 1735. — weak, yet through God constant fellow-pilgrim.

German

Der 79te Brief.

Aufmunterungs-Schreiben an die sämtliche Freunde in E. zum muntern Fortgang auf dem geistlichen Pilger-Weg.

Geliebter Freund und Bruder, wie auch meine übrige nach dem hohen Beruf der Gnade herzlich-geliebte Mitpilger in E. Da ihr euch so viel an mir gelegen seyn lasset, daß ihr auf ein Gerücht meiner abnehmenden Leibes-Kräften, durch die Ueberkunft der lieben Brüder und sonsten mir eure einfältige Liebe erweisen wollen …

— 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).