On inward detachment and will-lessness — and that only therein can God pour His life and His peace into the soul, unmingled.

The Hundred-and-Forty-Third Letter.

On inward detachment and will-lessness — and that only therein can God pour His life and His peace into the soul, unmingled.

My Jesus! bless the dear sister with the overshadowing of Thy divine power of love, and possess her wholly, Amen!

In this Jesus, dearly beloved sister!

I will not fill this sheet with the reasons why I could not sooner answer your two kind letters of the 1st of April and the 30th of May. Enough! — that our fellowship remains in the spirit, and that you too are content that, in answering your ever-welcome letters, I follow the unforced inclination of my mind, and as bodily weakness may allow.

Outwardly I am still in my usual state — that is, sickly, with manifold changes; and even when, for a day or an hour, I have some liveliness in nature, I may scarcely look at it, or else it is otherwise again: I dare not enter into it, to make anything of it or the like. I must simply will to have it just as it is, and rejoice as inwardly in the present divine good pleasure as if my heart's wish were fulfilled in the most exact way. And so it is, indeed; if only we, like the little children, have our delight in the Lord, then He gives us, in everything too, what our heart wishes — though reason and nature often think otherwise. The eternal Love will have us detached, blind, and will-less in its hand; when we are willing and follow it therein, then the kingdom of God is come near — the kingdom one otherwise awaits from afar; yea, this eternal Good can reveal and transfigure itself within us, and pour into us His life and His peace out of that other world: but one cannot buy it, hunt it down, nor make it. We are only shown and led into the naked, simple child-shape, where, in the active- and will-less detachment, the Father gives us what pleases Him.

Ah, dear sister! how palpably one learns, in the school of silence, that everything not awaited and received from the Lord in the inmost simplicity and stillness of one's own ground is very human and mingled, and unworthy to come before God. Few — ah, few! — let their wings sink, with the prophetic-mystical creatures (Ezekiel 1:24–25), before the presence of the Lord; I mean, their harsh powers of will and nature in spiritual and divine things, so as to keep holy-day to the Lord alone in His holy temple, in the stillness and serenity which He Himself works.

Ah, Thou our near and only Good! What are we, that Thou lettest us so draw near to Thee? We give ourselves over to Thee, because Thou wilt it so. We would not be presumptuous, and of ourselves make something before Thy presence. We would sink, through Thy drawing, into the gentleness, humility, and passivity of a heart-child, that Thou mayest possess us, and pour into us, unmingled, Thy divine life and virtues!

That is your mind too, my sister! and in this land of detachment we often meet and embrace one another in spirit, and there we are embraced by the love of God in Jesus, and by His eternal mercies. God resisteth the proud — who still have, can, will, and make so much — but to the humble heart-children He giveth grace; and more they do not even desire, because they find that, in the pure ground of grace, they possess all holiness, though they can not and will not take it, as their own possession, home with them into their house.

Now, dear heart-child! fare well in this grace of Jesus, and do not let the two or three days of our pilgrim-life vex you, along with me, for the love of the Lord! You know with me (O blessed knowing!) that our God is an all-sufficient Good; we will let ourselves be satisfied with Him alone, even here already. That He may remain and become to you, as such a one, unremovably near, I wish from the ground of my heart.

Offer me up, when it is given you [to do so], to the Lord, for completion! I do the like, however weakly it may go.

Mülheim, the 28th of October 1738.

German

Der hundertdreiundvierzigste Brief.

Von inwendiger Abgeschiedenheit und Willenlosheit, und daß GOtt der Seele darin sein Leben und seinen Frieden erst unvermischt einflößen kann.

Mein JEsu! segne die liebe Schwester mit der Ueberschattung Deiner göttlichen Liebeskraft, und besitze sie ganz, Amen! In diesem JEsu herzlich-geliebte Schwester!

— 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).