To a merchant, not to give up his business entirely yet. Encouragement to follow his inner call.

The Ninety-fourth Letter.

To a merchant, not to give up his business entirely yet. Encouragement to follow his inner call.

In the grace of the Lord Jesus, dearly-beloved brother!

Both your letters I have duly received, and for various reasons have not been able to answer before today, although I have since been much with you in my heart. May the Lord become ever more mighty over us, and draw, through His so inwardly-near love of God, all our heart-inclinations away from all other objects into His heart, that we may become One Heart in Him, Amen!

As concerns your business, my unpresuming counsel remains, as I also reported in my previous letter, that you not yet do away with the matter entirely; you must take it, just as it comes, as an exercise of self-denial, of suffering, and of faith — because I judge that your spirit does not yet have the firmness in God requisite thereto, to remain without sensory occupations. Therefore I hold a sensory occupation that one awaits from Providence and does with self-denial to be still less harmful than if you were to choose for yourself some other object and play-of-the-senses, which yet would not fail to appear. Meanwhile restrict the affairs as much as possible, that they may not too greatly burden the spirit, and that some time may always be left over for some solitude; I say "as much as possible," because I well know that a business does not let itself be so restricted, or one always has occasion to be tried, now through unbelief, now through covetousness — which assaults should by no means terrify, nor make the courage faint, but should so much the more press us to forsake ourselves and all other supports, so that the spirit may hunger into Him alone, and cleave solely to Him who wills to be with us when we go through the fire and when we go through the water, that neither of the two may harm us. Nowhere is there firmness but solely in God, whom we find essentially, when the firmness in ourselves and in all other objects is taken from us: the way thither is wondrous, but the end glorious. O how poor, and O how rich will our spirit be, when it shall have nothing more outside of God! Amen, Lord! fulfill it soon in us!

It is certainly so, dear brother, as you report in one of your letters, that much belongs to loving God without one's own aim: only one must not pack up the Much all at once, but only give oneself over, in the present moment, to the leading of God, with such completeness as one knows and can. God, who has begun it, He will also do it; if one finds oneself, that too is grace; one must then only lose oneself again where one has found oneself; for none has forsaken himself but he who has first found and felt himself. The main thing consists in this, that one follow the high calling of God, which touches our spirit with His love, and awakens in us a deep-hidden longing and inclining, to forsake the creature and ourselves, and to unite ourselves again with our Origin: to wait upon this drawing (be it now in bareness, or in feeling) and to give oneself over to it — let that be our one and unmoved thing! In the senses there work now good, now evil powers; now the sun shines in, and then one is lively, awakened, and fervent; now other influences of the evil one come forth therein, and one becomes again as dead and wretched as one was before fervent and devout. Whoever will become steadfast must not there stand still, but incline himself with his spirit into God, and cleave to Him — which thoroughly sanctifies us.

That otherwise, in your present station, all manner of lessons and trials will befall you, I can easily imagine; only bring everything before God, and do not go long carrying the things within yourself. Through one's own pondering nothing is accomplished, but everything is only the more confused and spoiled. Your and my bodily constitution give us constant occasion to carry our soul as in our hands, and not to gape much about.

To commend your and your children's souls heartily to God is surely the most needful will-making; yet it could also do no harm, for peace of mind, if you were besides to make a will; if only it could be so done that, besides the relatives, you made a third person executor of the will — namely a skilled and stout-hearted friend who could have a hand in everything and see that all went rightly. This, however, just falls so into my thoughts; otherwise I grow ever more childish in worldly matters.

That I wrote in my previous letter that, if God should call me thereto, I would gladly pack up with you and be your servant — I did not write in jest, but partly to attest my sincere willingness gladly to help you bear your burden according to my duty; partly also to show that we must, in God's will, be ready for every work — only that we handle everything as faithful servants, and not as lords and owners. Otherwise I am not so simple as to have supposed that you had aimed at me, when you wrote of a faithful servant; brother N. understood that wrongly. It only occurred to me whether you had perhaps also thought of brother N. when you wrote of a faithful servant, and that I said to him simply, without thinking further about it. Your brotherly offer, to come and dwell with you, I likewise take as a testimony of your sincere love, which I hope always to answer with just as sincere a returning-love; otherwise the divine will still holds me bound to this place; and also, for the two or three days that I still have to live, it will hardly be worth the trouble to think of changes. God will grant us the pleasure that we dwell together, here and in eternity, in the heart of Jesus. Amen.

I must close, dear brother! because my head already can do no more, having been somewhat weaker again for some days. I greet and embrace you in spirit, together with each and all there who gladly will become children; I therefore name none by name, lest I might forget to name any; else they often, and especially, come into my mind, when I refresh myself with them and keep the love-feast with them in spirit. May the Lord bless the N., and give grace, that she may learn to recite her daily lessons ever better! In all Martha's business from without, may she become a true Mary in spirit, who holds herself as at the feet of Jesus, and listens to His discourse; all manifoldness must flow together, ever more, into this One. Jesus speaks to us through the discipline and the enticement of grace in our hearts; but He speaks to us also through His divine providence in all the things that come to us, all the day through, to do or to suffer: and all these speakings of Jesus aim only at this One, namely that we thoroughly die to ourselves in all things, so that thereby we may be transferred into His divine life and into His inward fellowship, wherein alone eternal life is to be found. That the Lord may give the N. and us, with one another, to experience this essentially, wishes from the heart

Your

Mülheim, 27 January 1736. — devoted brother.

German

Der 94te Brief.

An einen Kaufmann, seine Handlung noch nicht ganz dran zu geben. Aufmunterung seinem inneren Ruf zu folgen.

In der Gnade des HErrn JEsu vielgeliebter Bruder!

Deine beiden Briefe habe richtig bekommen, und verschiedener Ursachen wegen nicht eher als heute beantworten können, wiewohl ich seither mit meinem Herzen viel bei dir gewesen bin.

— 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).