Of the going-under of one's own life, and of waiting upon the revelation of the life of God in the soul. All lies in God's mercy.

The Hundred-and-fortieth Letter.

Of the going-under of one's own life, and of waiting upon the revelation of the life of God in the soul. All lies in God's mercy.

N. N.

It becomes ever clearer to me that God loves your soul, and has particularly directed His eye upon you, to help you, to keep you, and by degrees to bring you thereto, that you set your life and pleasure only in Him, and in the unconditional free submission under all His divine will: Thither all sufferings and hardships aim; and thence springs mainly all sadness, displeasure and insensibility, because namely one's own life sees its going-under before it, and yet does not yet think that such is so firmly resolved, and will go forward without capitulating. Once, so I suppose, that there are at times hours when a little hope must come again to one's own life; whereby it then afterwards falls so much the harder, when God's sweet love-hand nails it again to the cross, and leads thither where one will not.

Now let it be announced to this corrupted part once for all, that the noble spirit and spirit's-will will no more take it up henceforth, or keep any familiar fellowship with it. No, my dear brother! we will from that side expect no more comfort, life nor pleasure, nor, when it should present itself, take hold. And of a truth! we have also no need of it. O! only yet a little weaned, held out under the cross, and the honour given to the faithful and true God in believing waiting, so will soon a far other, true, solely-beatifying life, comfort and pleasure draw near and communicate itself to the spirit; a life, of which a quarter-hour's enjoyment and experience is enough to outweigh a hundred years' waiting and suffering. In His time all will become easy that was before so hard, and unbelievably near and as it were natural, that before hovered before one as a deep abyss, and as a thing not to be reached.

All lies in God's mercy, free communication and working. Only take and assent to all workings and drawings that God gives you; yea follow also such drawings, but only so far as their force extends, and then suffer yourself, yield yourself, and wait. God gives both the willing and the performing after His good-pleasure; but sometimes He gives long beforehand the willing, yea upright, inward, fervent willing, before yet this willing can reach the performing, or the thing willed: This is a pain, but also a purifying bowing pain. At last one must experience that it lies not in the willing: God's mercy must give the thing, and not our willing seize it. Yea, the willing seems at times, like the flower on the tree, to fall off, and to sink into a holy yieldedness, to make room for the fruit itself.

Only be of good courage, my dear brother! I find not otherwise, than that the Lord leads you; hold it out with Him, so peaceably as you can. Look upon yourself, and how hard it falls upon you, not too much. It has fallen incomparably harder to the Saviour, to redeem you and me, and He still bears our load: Ah! let us love Him, for He has first loved us! To the dear old father I pray you especially also to present my hearty greeting. Jesus visit, refresh and strengthen his heart with His grace and divine love, that his age of this time become a childhood and life's-beginning of eternity! Amen Jesus!

Mülheim, the 6th of July, 1750.

German

Der hundertvierzigste Brief.

Vom Untergang des eigenen Lebens, und vom Warten auf die Offenbarung des Lebens GOttes in der Seele. Alles liege an GOttes Erbarmen.

N. N. Es wird mir immer mehr klar, daß GOtt deine Seele liebet, und particulier sein Aug auf dich gerichtet habe, dir zu helfen, dich zu bewahren, und allgemach dahin zu bringen, daß du dein Leben und Vergnügen allein in ihm, und in der unbedingten freiwilligen Unterwerfung unter allen seinen göttlichen Willen stellest: Dahin zielen alle Leiden und Beschwerden …

— 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).