That with God in the heart alone are strength and life given to childlike faith.

The Hundred-and-Thirty-Ninth Letter.

That with God in the heart alone are strength and life given to childlike faith.

In Jesus dearly beloved brother!

Your welcome letter, together with the enclosure, I received rightly the day before yesterday. God be praised, who has helped thus far and made all things well — as He does indeed all along make well, even when we grasp it least; and who lets even our evil serve, according to His wonderful wisdom and kindness, for the glorious growth of life, just as the dung serves to fertilize the noblest plants.

O, blessed are they whose God the Lord is, and who, according to their deepest will, desire nothing but to follow Him and to live out of Him! To them all things must work together for their blessedness.

I hope and trust, then, that you, dear brother, and the rest of the fellow-partakers in the Kingdom, will there still find yourselves together in the little place to which we have appointed ourselves — namely, in and by the Lord in the heart, each according to his state and measure; where alone it can be well with us, because there God's strength and God's life are given to childlike faith. Ah! how exceedingly bitter and unsatisfying are all the satisfactions that are sought outside this One! And yet we remain within it so unwillingly. But I know that the Lord loves us, and leads us with great goodness. Therefore, on the one side, He will salt everything for us and tear it out of our hand; and on the other side, He will lure us inward with His love, discipline, and drawings, until He possesses us wholly as His sheep, who are in His hand, whom none can tear out of His hand either. True, we are already (to Him be eternal praise!) in His hand, according to the measure of our surrender and standing; but we are to come nearer still, and to remain more unmoved — for in Jesus He is devoted to us with great love, and He has given us the greatest promises; therefore we too should remain wholly turned toward Him, so that He may in truth become our dearest — yea, our only Beloved. Ourselves we may here not regard at all, else we shall never dare it: we are loved for nothing, and are simply, in a word, to make the beginning by loving in return. Let all the contrary powers of nature and self-will not once hold us up: if only we keep ourselves, to the best of our knowledge and power, separated from all that and turned toward the Lord, then we may nonetheless walk in the childlike spirit of love, wherein alone strength and victory are to be found.

I know not why I write this and so much, since I only meant to give brief news of outward things — because here, on account of the visit, I have scarce enough of my slender head-strength left over for it. ——

I greet N. and all who greeted me on the little slip. I remember you all, in weakness, before the Lord, and expect the like from each one among you; I have great need of it. I hope we shall soon see one another again, and rejoice in the Lord. May He meanwhile be mightily near to us! May He preserve, strengthen, refresh, and further us in His life and in His love, Amen!

Your — and the rest's — faithful-minded, devoted brother.

Amsterdam, the 8th of July 1738.

German

Der hundertneununddreißigste Brief.

Daß bei GOtt im Herzen allein Kraft und Leben dem kindlichen Glauben geschenket werde.

In JEsu herzlich-geliebter Bruder!

Dein Angenehmes samt dem Eingeschlossenen habe vorgestern richtig bekommen. GOtt sey gelobet, der bis hieher geholfen und alles wohl gemacht hat, wie Er's dann allewege wohl machet, auch wann wir's am wenigsten fassen, und auch sogar unser Böses, nach Seiner wundernswürdigen Weisheit und Freundlichkeit, zum herrlichen Gewächs des Lebens dienen läßt …

— 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).