Important instruction to a scrupulous friend, concerning his inward and outward state.

The Hundred-and-Fortieth Letter.

Important instruction to a scrupulous friend, concerning his inward and outward state.

Much-beloved friend and brother!

Your and your wife's awaited letter I received late yesterday; I do not know whether I shall have time and strength to answer, for I remain always weak according to God's will.

I see you still in the oppressive confusion — I speak of the frame of the mind, not directly of the outward circumstances — and this pains me keenly. You make trouble for yourselves, and much trouble, over matters about which you could be at rest, and also must be at rest, or it will grow too heavy for you. Your outward [lot], and what is bound up with it, is a burden that will bring you toil and suffering enough; you must not lay any new ones upon yourselves from God's side: rather you must take from that side a sufficient counterweight, to bear your other burdens with good courage.

You are to seek to bear, with resigned submission, the suffering and the vexations that you have; you are to work for God; you are to be poor for Jesus' sake, and, in the inner life too, to see your nothingness and misery, as you do see them, and to wait trustingly on the help of the Lord. But how is it possible to do all this — or even a single one of these things — so long as you torment yourselves with the troubled uncertainty: whether you are indeed in the order of God? nay, all but believe that you are not in it, and that it is not God's will? To have to suffer and do something, unable to do otherwise, and yet at the same time to think, "God does not will it" — how is one then to submit? That would be a truly gnawing life, and a kind of hell.

I grant, indeed, that such a temporal hell we should have deserved, by our deviations from God and our strivings against Him; but God is far too good to leave those who give themselves to Him from the heart in the labyrinth of such an anxious uncertainty. His wisdom has devised this wonder: that to such souls the fruits of their sins — namely their sufferings, burdens, darknesses, and so on — must serve as a wholesome medicine and a means of their healing; and in intention, and à posteriore (that is, from behind), such things are God's will for them. One does and one suffers what comes, with regard to God and His good pleasure, as well and faithfully as one ever understands and is able, with hearty longing to do it better daily, and is wholly willing to mend every fault that is made known to us.

In such simplicity of heart live, my dear friend, only with me before the Lord, and believe only — without pondering and comprehending (though even this latter is, it seems to me, easy) — that you, as regards your own person and for the present time, are in the order of God. In the inner life, give yourself over to God as fully and sincerely as you are able through His grace. Should the scruple come upon you, whether you are doing it so — then simply testify to the Lord that you would gladly do it so, and let the scruple fall. Let your surrender go paired with childlike trust, that God will help you for Jesus' sake, and that He will be your God, however motley it may ever look. By this trust God is honoured and you are strengthened. What you do not have, await it with long-suffering. Do your outward duty, and think over your outward duty, in the best way you ever know and are able, as the will of God, Ephesians 6:6. That will lighten the toil. Though you gain but little, yet it is much that you serve God. If your doing miscarries, then seek, without disquiet, to consider and begin it better, and say it sincerely to God: that you would gladly make it good; so is He satisfied, for the present time, with your sincere will and your defective work. In this way you will constantly have no more than one work [before you], and the disorder will become a right order — so that you will then no longer, so contrarily and self-contradictingly, have to write: that you suffer according to the will of God, and live in a disorder. Nor do I know whether you now have any further ground to ask: Must one not be sure of one's way, if one would rightly serve God? Yes, my friend! — by a certainty of faith, but not always by the certainty of a distinct feeling. The first certainty consists in that uprightness of heart according to which one will serve and follow God everywhere and in everything, but of set purpose will in nothing follow one's own will, or refuse to serve God.

This general and sincere ground — which one awakens anew from time to time, and, as occasions arise, sets to work as far as possible — is much better than the passing feeling of a vain, rising ardour.

For the rest, bear your darkness of mind, your frailty, and so on, with humility and trust. Be little, but not fainthearted. You have philosophized long enough over your disorders and wretchednesses; cast yourselves into the hands of your good Physician, just as you are — He knows how to heal you. Jesus is the Physician in the hospital of the incurables: what a comfort for me, for you, and for all who are of this number! I am quite worn out, and can write no more; as indeed I have not, in a long time, set so much on paper. May God Himself work in you what is well-pleasing before Him! I am,

in God, wholly yours.

Mülheim, the 4th of September 1738.

German

Der hundertvierzigste Brief.

Wichtiger Unterricht an einen scrupulirenden Freund, sein Inneres und Aeußeres betreffend.

Vielgeliebter Freund und Bruder!

Sein und seiner Frau erwartete Schreiben erhielte gestern spät; ich weiß nicht, ob ich Zeit und Kräfte werde haben, um zu antworten; denn ich bleibe immer schwach nach GOttes Willen.

— 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).