On the author's journey and illness. On the divine love-draw. The feeling of inward misery, and the going-out from oneself.

The Eighty-eighth Letter.

On the author's journey and illness. On the divine love-draw. The feeling of inward misery, and the going-out from oneself.

In the gentle love of Jesus, most worthy sister!

Both the dear sister's earlier letter, through Herr N., and the latter, from Frankfurt, I have duly received, and read with true pleasure; God be praised!

It would have been my duty to answer sooner; but it falls out too long to write the reason why I could not before today: love interprets everything for the best. When I received your first little letter, I stood just then in readiness — at the friends' urgent request — to make once more a journey to Holland, where, amid much corrupt and mingled being, I still find many an inward heart that seeks to walk, from the heart, the way of dying and of living. There, too, I fell ill, so that I thought it would come to my end; but God so ordered it that I recovered far enough to travel back again, in a friend's company. Since then I am, indeed, fairly restored again, yet I often relapse, and my vital powers remain rather exhausted, so that I have every reason to suppose the end of my pilgrimage is drawing near. For once, I am urged in every way to carry my soul in my hand, and to enter into the character of a true pilgrim — parted from all that is temporal, to live alone and in common with God. The eternal Good, which draws us thither by free love, and makes us hunger after it, will also, through itself, lead us essentially in. Yea, it is surely His very divine presence, and the inworking of His Spirit in us, that we bear such a deeply hidden longing, and inward inclination in our spirit, to go out ever deeper from creature and selfhood, and to lose ourselves in God, who is our true element and resting-point.

The divine love has touched us in the ground; for the rest we have little need of much driving and running. Love is our weight: if we only remain childlike within, let go, and consent, its gentle power draws us of itself into the ground, where we must be — though it is not always felt and recognized. God gradually takes from the soul all ground and support in itself, and in everything else, that He may become purely its all. Let us not be afraid — it is Love. Whoever wants to hold himself fast, and to preserve his own soul, lives always oppressed; but when we surrender ourselves with closed eyes, without measure or aim, we enter at last into a glad freedom and wideness of spirit, where Love can make of us everything, and takes us along wherever it will have us. Let us be wholly for God, my dear sister! and regard our souls as a thing given to the Lord Jesus, over which we have no more to dispose. He redeems and sanctifies us in His way; we must, and want to, let Him do it; to love and glorify Him is our work, which we do through Him: the rest belongs to Him.

You write: your heart is often full of woe over all the misery of your inward state. It is grace to feel oneself rightly. When God wills that we should feel ourselves, it must be dear to us too; it makes us fit for self-annihilation, and for the going-out from ourselves. No one really forsakes himself but he who has deeply experienced that all holiness is in God alone. But you know, too, that one must not entangle oneself too much in looking at oneself: God preserve me, in the hour of my death, from looking at myself! My spirit cries out at times, in the very midst of all miseries: O how great, and how good, is God! for I long to forget myself, and to look on Him alone. Your seal was the lifted-up serpent. Looking away from ourselves, looking up to Jesus in childlike faith, brings salvation and life.

I greet you heartily, dear sister! in sincere answering love, in the Lord. God be praised for the fellowship of the Spirit which we have with one another! It is often near to me in the Lord; though we may not see each other outwardly, yet I trust firmly it will happen above; nor can I cease to believe that our fellowship in the love of the Lord is, and will be, blessed already here, to the refreshing and furthering of us both. Commend me in your remembrance before God. May Jesus live alone and eternally in our hearts, Amen!

Mülheim, 4 December 1735.

German

Der 88te Brief.

Von des Autors Reise und Krankheit. Von dem göttlichen Liebes-Zug. Gefühl des inwendigen Elends und Ausgang aus sich selbst.

In der sanften Liebe JEsu wertheste Schwester!

Sowohl der lieben Schwester ersteres Schreiben durch Herrn N. als auch letzteres aus Frankfurt habe richtig bekommen, und mit wahrer Vergnügung gelesen; GOtt sey gelobet!

— 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).