On lovers of the writings of Madame Guyon who do not at all live accordingly. How simple the inward life is, and in what manner God Himself is the source of it in the soul.

The Hundred-and-Twentieth Letter.

On lovers of the writings of Madame Guyon who do not at all live accordingly. How simple the inward life is, and in what manner God Himself is the source of it in the soul.

In the grace of our most precious Immanuel, dearly beloved brother!

Your kind letter, together with the enclosed copies on Romans, I have duly received. You desire to know my opinion — how it is possible that the French envoy at N. (who in former time also visited the friends at R.) can be a lover of the inward [life], and yet let himself be used for such affairs? This I must answer with an "I know not"; I do not understand it, and leave it to the dear Saviour; I do not believe, however, that Madame Guyon would have approved such a manner of life. That in France, too, the lovers of the writings of this blessed lady join in all pomp, grandeur, and revelry astonishes me just as much as it does you. The like I have also observed, here and there, in Germany — which was in part the very occasion that I formerly edited Bernières' Hidden Life; and thither, too, aims what I said in the preface to the second volume of the Lives, §7, and in other places, since many such persons have come before me.

It is certainly so, then — as you say, and as Madame Guyon so often said, and as I too have noted with much pleasure in the writings of the dear brother N. — namely, that the denial of oneself and of all creatures, in the entire surrender to God, is the foundation of the inward life. The evangelical doctrine of self-denial and the cross of Jesus leads straight to the inward life — that is, to the life of Jesus in us. Meanwhile we ought, as children, not to think much about others, still less to judge them, but only to learn our daily lesson nicely. I see it, in the meantime, thus: that self-love, in many a one, would gladly be a mystic too, and some therefore want to live before they have died; others, on the contrary, want to die before they have lived, and to strip themselves bare before they have been clothed. Sapienti sat! (that is, enough for the wise). Certainly! there is nothing surer, simpler, and — that I may so speak — more natural than the true inward life; but because it is so childlike, reason overlooks it, and makes for itself the strangest ideas and doubts about it — which cannot be otherwise, for it dwells in another land. In Arabia one understands no German, and in Germany no Arabic, unless one has stayed a good while in the country. The inner Guide must lead us in there; blessed is the soul that knows and believes Him!

God has become unspeakably near to us, as a God of love, in the name of Jesus; He is more inward to us than the inmost in us; He touches, out of grace, our ground with His love, as the magnet the iron; from this arises an aversion from the created, and a ground-inclination to seek and find God, and to be wholly for Him — which ground-inclination is tender or dry, distinct or general, according to the soul's capacity and God's good pleasure. If this ground-inclination is cultivated by childlike abiding and faithful following, it becomes ever more central, purer, and so forth, and the soul is made ever more simplified, detached, and inward; and so one also obtains ever more certainty of the truth of God and of the things of His Spirit — but a certainty that rests on experience, not on conclusions of reason. In the ground of the soul a certainty is laid, which fully sets at rest, however general and dark it may often be. But if the soul turns itself outward, makes reflections, and judges things with the activity of its reason, then doubt and unrest come — unless it happen at the fitting time, and with the leave of the inner Master; therefore the innocent children of the heart remain the most restful and blessed. I know not why I write this; it will be taken in simplicity and love.

I greet and embrace you, dear brother, in the Spirit of the love of Jesus, and commend myself to your remembrance before the Lord — who make our life, willing, and working ever more complete! Amen.

Your

Mülheim, the 4th of April 1737. devoted fellow-brother.

German

Der hundertundzwanzigste Brief.

Von Liebhabern der Schriften von Mad. Guion, die ganz nicht darnach leben. Wie einfältig das inwendige Leben, und welchergestalt GOtt selbst der Ursprung davon in der Seele sey.

In der Gnade unsers theuresten Immanuels herzlich-geliebter Bruder!

Dessen angenehmes Schreiben, samt beigelegten Exemplarien über die Römer, habe wohl erhalten. Der liebe Bruder begehret meine Meinung zu wissen, wie es möglich, daß der Fr.

— 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).