Of the difference between the state under the law and under grace; as also between the active and the passive state.

The Fourteenth Letter.

Of the difference between the state under the law and under grace; as also between the active and the passive state.

Dear brother!

I am not at all in a condition to explain myself much or clearly: my inward frame and my outward weakness both forbid it; and your question is not to be answered in so few words. The writings of enlightened souls, which you have in abundance, can content you better in this than my writing.

You would gladly know the clear difference between the active, or legal, state and the passive state under grace and the Spirit of Jesus. That you want to know everything so clearly is, in truth, a fault and a hindrance. Your anxious carefulness makes you seek props and certainty in your understanding, and you already lean on it far too much; and to these clarities one then holds fast, so that afterwards they serve for mis-formation and hindrance, whenever we cannot bring everything into agreement with our preconceived concept — whereas all our notions are in fact exceedingly precarious before we have experienced the thing itself. For this reason, and because God's leadings are so very various, I do not much like to speak or write so precisely of the difference of the soul's states, even had I the illumination and fitness required for it, both of which I lack. Yet I will see whether I can say something; but it must remain for you alone, for through the confusion of my head I am unfit to express myself.

It appears you take the legal and the active state for one state, and the state under the grace of Jesus and the passive state likewise for one state — which yet, properly, and speaking after the Scripture, stands far otherwise; though in a higher sense one may in the end take it so as well. The legal state is described in Romans 7, and the state in Christ, or under His grace, in Romans 8. A man may have attained this latter state, and stand under grace as a Christian, and yet be still very far from the properly passive state, in which the soul no longer lives and works, but Jesus Christ in her. According as the soul that stands under grace draws near to God by denial and prayer, her activities in turn become more spiritual, more uniform, and gradually decrease; while the influences — the workings of God, or of the Spirit of Jesus — gain ever more the upper hand. By no other means and way does the soul come out of the active into the passive state and life of God than by the denial of the created and of her own life, will, love, and understanding, and by prayer. Those who strike out another way fall into false liberty and false resignedness.

Whoever sets his heart and trust on the created and on himself is neither under the law nor under grace, but in nature, and a child of the world. Whoever sets his heart and trust on God in Christ alone, he is a Christian; he is under grace. To turn one's heart to the creature and want to set one's trust on Christ — that is deceit, and a false gospel. Whoever indeed stretches out his heart, his soul's desire, after God, and seeks his soul's rescue, but does not yet set his trust on Christ — undertaking instead all sorts of things to quiet himself and make himself pious — he is under the law, in much labor, frailty, fear, and unrest of conscience, or else in self-conceit and his own righteousness. But all states have their steps, and at times it is mixed and changeable in souls.

A soul that at first has stood a while under the law, and has hungered penitently and with upright earnestness after grace in Christ, may well receive once — often quite soon — a passing glimpse of the sweetness of grace, at times a very sensible one. And there the soul is not yet, properly, under the grace of the new covenant and in Christ, as she might well suppose, but it is an enticement thither, a strengthening in the battle of repentance and of the denial of the world. Sometimes this joyfulness is largely self-made, or natural, and thus nothing but imagination. But it also happens that to the soul, after such a legal beginning, the forgiveness of her former sins in the blood of Jesus Christ is really made over to her — whether by a tender, thorough trust, or by a more express assurance; and then she is no longer under the law but under grace; she is in Christ, to whom, and to whose mind, inclinations, and fellowship she is inwardly inclined.

But she is in Christ only as to the beginning; she is not yet rooted and grounded in Him. The whole process of conformity with Christ's life, suffering, death, and resurrection only then rightly begins. Paul was really in Christ, and yet he still says what we may read in Philippians 3:8–15. Such a soul, in Christ as to the beginning, does not yet rest with her trust wholly and barely in Him, but far more in herself — in the feelings of grace, indeed in the given lights, powers, and virtues, which she gradually, unknowing, appropriates to herself as her own good. If with such souls it does not always go according to wish, but in darkness and dryness, then they quail and flounder again; they let themselves be taken captive again under the law by a thousandfold fear, care, unrest, their own undertakings and activities, to make it good again — when they should simply remain, with heart and trust, barely in Christ, without regard to the felt, yielding themselves to Him and letting Him care for the outcome; and see, instead they fall only into their own activity and anxious carefulness. God then also condescends again in manifold ways, and gives the soul again something felt; and then He takes it away again, that she may gradually learn to forsake herself, to trust in Him, and to give His Spirit a free hand. And in this manner most, it seems, are purified by alternations and led to God.

Other chosen souls are in due time, once sufficiently established, purified sharply indeed; yes, it goes right earnestly and sorrowfully, when such souls — to whom God has given himself to be known and loved inwardly, and who accordingly neither can nor will have rest or pleasure outside Him — lose not only the sensible graces and communications but also the desire and ease toward all good that went paired with them; while at the same time their deep-ingrained perversity, self-hoods, and utter inability to better or to keep themselves is uncovered to them — which with some goes very thoroughly, and lasts long. This is the state of the inner purifications, which in many things looks like the state under the law, and yet is very far distinguished from it, as I have explained (if I remember rightly) in the letter against the false liberties.*) Here the soul must of necessity give herself over passively, lose herself, and leave herself to God; but under the law she must cry after Christ and His grace, await it in humility, and meanwhile fight actively against the evil. This state of the purifications is also really distinguished according to its steps, according to the constitutions of the soul, and according to God's purpose over her. And in such a condition one finds more and more how exceedingly hard it is for a man to become truly subject to the righteousness of God (who will have the honor alone), to stand off from all trust in himself and his own, and to entrust himself wholly and barely to pure grace, without to all eternity expecting anything further from himself.

*) See the last letter in the first Part.

But if the soul endures these purifications, denudings, and annihilations according to God's will, and forsakes herself wholly, then she is also wholly taken into God: Christ becomes her essential righteousness in her, and the ground-beginning of her life and of her inner and outer doings; she is wholly poor, unsightly, and weak, and yet also wholly rich, unconquerable, and very innocent; she is united with God, who lives in her, and she in God — as the experienced can testify of this more fully.

These deeper sufferings, and the blessedness after them, fall especially to those chosen souls who have a drawing, or calling to the inward, and are to be led in it to completion. This drawing to the inward some receive earlier, others later; commonly, however, it arises after the soul has been stripped of the first earnestness and of the sensible grace-gifts enjoyed thereupon. Then her intelligible meditations and own activities, outward and inward, are made distasteful to her and taken from her; instead she finds in herself a secret inclination to outward and inward stillness and detachment. If she remains in a general, love-full devotion to God and His presence, she finds herself well; if she would do something more by meditations, exertions, or vocal prayer, she is at once scattered, restless, and dry; her inmost part would be detached from everything and be wholly for God, and so forth. If now the soul holds out in this being-still and trusting with such simplicity, she becomes thereby capable of great and precious graces: she loves God thus in her detachment and rest, and He will love her in return — yes, reveal himself in her. And then everything she seemed to have lost is given her again, far purer, and so forth.

But according as God's purpose is over such souls, He is wont afterwards (as touched on above) to lead them still through various ways of purification, humiliations, and death to His purest God-life, and to full union or oneness with Him.

I write thus in haste, and with so weak a head that I can hardly collect myself; I therefore doubtless say much out of order, and what does not serve the matter, if not downright wrong. Take for yourself out of it only what serves you, and then make nothing of the rest.

But when one dissuades you, or another soul, from your own activity and anxious carefulness, this aims not in the very least at a false resignedness or unbound carelessness. When one gives God one's heart and entrusts oneself wholly to Him, one loses indeed the restless frettingness and care for oneself which arises out of self-love; but one cannot give God one's heart and at the same time live in willing distraction. One keeps oneself detached; one loves prayer; one does, outwardly and inwardly, what one believes pleases God and is dearest to Him; one would gladly be right faithful and exact in everything — only the fretting manner of it must go; one lets God care for the outcome; one does not look round so constantly at oneself, does not institute a thousand examinations, does not take up new exercises or resolutions daily, will not help oneself now into this, now into that good frame of mind; but one yields to God; one bears all frames of mind with peace — even the dryness, the sufferings, the temptations and miseries — childlike adoring God in everything, loving and glorifying Him with a quiet spirit. Evil, however, one neither wills nor does; by no means: but should such a thing even really happen, or the soul suppose it happened to her unknowing, one does not at once become so utterly despondent, sullen, and restless; one gladly confesses one's guilt and misery, and bears this pain and this annihilation before God with peace; and thus out of humility is born a pure trust in God, expecting henceforth nothing from oneself, but everything from God.

See, brother, I say much, and perhaps nothing that contents you — and me, truly, far less. — — I pray that Jesus may possess your soul, and may will to lead you the right and best way. Pray also for me; I need it sorely. Am

Your poor weak brother.

Mülheim, the 23rd of November 1740.

German

Der vierzehnte Brief.

Von dem Unterscheid zwischen dem Stand unter dem Gesetz und unter der Gnade; wie auch zwischen dem wirksamen und leidentlichen Stand.

Lieber Bruder!

Ich bin gar nicht im Stand, viel und deutlich mich zu können erklären: Meine innere Beschaffenheit und äußere Schwachheit lassens beide nicht zu; und deine Frage ist mit so kurzen Worten nicht zu beantworten: Die Schriften erleuchteter Seelen, die du überflüßig hast, können dich darin besser vergnügen …

— 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).