To be wholly before God is the true mystery of the inward life.

The Ninetieth Letter.

To be wholly before God is the true mystery of the inward life.

In the grace of Jesus, beloved brother!

Both your little letters, of the 25th of January and the 22nd of May of this year, I have duly received. The inward inclination to the hidden life with Christ in God makes it so that I have always had some reluctance to enter into more outward acquaintance and correspondence: but God orders it, again and again, contrary to my inclination; and I neither can nor will withstand His hand in anything.

Now I find freedom, dear brother, to testify to you simply, that I heartily love you and often greet you in the Spirit of the love of Jesus, and that your little letters have been pleasant and refreshing to me. I rejoice greatly that God has given you a relish for the drawing toward inward recollection and toward the inward life: to be called to this precious life is a great, but also an undeserved grace of God, which must be answered with much faithfulness. God invites us into His fellowship of love; He will prepare our spirit to be His dwelling and temple; there, in the inner sanctuary, we are to behold His beautiful divine services. Ah, what mercy! Since, then, the outflowings of the love of God toward our unworthy souls are so overflowing, so ought we too, beloved brother, to be right tender, and to withhold ourselves in no point from this eternal Good, since it wants to have us wholly and alone for itself. To be wholly God's is the true mystery of the inward or mystical life, of which people make to themselves such strange and dreadful images. There is nothing simpler, surer, lovelier, and more fruitful than this life of the heart, which is thoroughly known and experienced not by reading and head-straining, but by dying and loving; it is thus more the work of the Spirit of Jesus in us than our own work: to give heed to the workings and drawings of this Spirit, to content it and to follow it, makes us recollected, spiritual men. This Spirit of love, when it is well waited upon, breathes into the soul the mind of Jesus Christ, and forms it after His likeness, as imperceptibly as a child is almost formed in the mother's womb; He leads it ever deeper in, into the forsaking of all things and of itself, and into the unconditional surrender to God; He demands this not with legal severity, but Himself leads the compliant soul within, and gives it supernatural central-inclinations, so that it also gladly wills it, in spite of its selfhood, and follows the Lamb whither it goes with it.

The more we are inward, cleared, and in peaceful devotion, the better and purer we walk. The special exercise of inward prayer or recollection serves chiefly to this end, that we childishly wait upon this tender Guide, and that He may become right mighty in us; there no self-making or forming avails, it only hinders; one must be a formless, poor clay in the hand of the potter. This Hand of love forms us after its own manner; it leads us gently into an unaffected simplicity and sweet lowliness; it makes us gentle and will-less; it teaches us to let all our own aims sink away, and to mean God purely; it sets us in a thorough separation from all foreign and self life, so that God becomes the sole and entire treasure of the soul, and transfigures Himself in it according to His good pleasure. O, well for those who thus forget their own house more and more, and dwell in the house of God — they praise Him for evermore!

Let this, then, be henceforth our whole concern, dear brother! blindly and barely to follow Him who has called us, with so holy a call! I am certain that God wills, by this way, to be sought, and thus to be served in spirit and in truth; however wretched enough I myself be. The true Inward Life is no peculiar or new thing; it is the ancient and true worship of God, the Christian life in its beauty and proper form. Rightly-inward souls make no special sect; if everyone would follow the doctrine and the life of Jesus through His Spirit, then without doubt all would become inward, and the world full of mystics. I know not why I write this, since the dear brother has already received sufficient assurance from the Lord in this way. Let us then only abide by the Lord, and yield ourselves to Him more inwardly, for He is very good, even under all trials, to those who wait upon Him; He is enough for our spirit eternally.

If the Lord, through my frail writing, has let something come to your soul, then be God alone the honor for it, who gives His hungry ones food, even should He make bread out of stones. Is it God's will that we yet see one another face to face, then it will be dear to me; otherwise we will appoint to meet one another in the heart of Jesus, and there greet, kiss, and bless one another in spirit, in the name of Him who has loved us. Offer me up to this Majesty of love, according to the grace which she herself will give; I do the same too, from my whole heart. Jesus bless you, my dear brother! May He make you after His heart, wherein we, though absent, remain bound together. I remain, through the grace of the Lord,

Your

Mülheim, 9 December 1735. — most inwardly-devoted fellow-brother.

German

Der 90te Brief.

Ganz vor GOtt zu seyn, ist das wahre Geheimniß des inwendigen Lebens.

In der Gnade JEsu geliebter Bruder!

Beide seine Brieflein vom 25ten Jan. und 22ten Mai dieses Jahrs habe wohl erhalten.

— 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).