Encouragement to take the suffering from God, and to unite oneself with His will.

The Hundred-and-forty-first Letter.

Encouragement to take the suffering from God, and to unite oneself with His will.

N. N.

Your agreeable of the 6th of July I could not possibly answer, by reason of extraordinary exhaustion, being also just then occupied with foreign visitors. I have been so weak, that I had no faculty even to think upon the least thing, or to recollect ten orderly words. Now it is, God be praised! somewhat more bearable; yet with alternations; but because the body is not left the required rest, the powers remain sinking.

That the then journey to S. so ill agreed with you, grieves me: Meanwhile our Over-Overseer and Leader will without doubt have had His holy purposes thereunder, aiming at your salvation. When He, the Lord, will exercise us, crucify us, or teach something under the cross, then no explaining and defending helps, but to abandon oneself with good courage, and to look upon Him Himself, not however upon an instrument of the sufferings, and to venture one's nature and reason thereby. This I can say in general, because you also do not specially declare wherein the matter consisted, which perhaps is also not needful for me to know. Learn then to accommodate and bow yourself a little, and from your inward occupation with God to draw so much sweet force, that all harsh, vexatious powers of nature be quieted and made childlike.

I thank the Lord therefore, that He gives you a heart's-hunger and quiet inclination to the union with His will, and to the sinking-in and losing in the sea of His love. Only follow without hesitation this general and dark inclination, which yet draws heart and inclination from all created things, and imparts to the spirit in a secret manner nourishment and force from its origin, though one cannot so reason thereupon. It is well true, that the inward will must sincerely separate from all, before it can thoroughly unite with God: It is also true, that God comes to us beforehand in many ways, and by a gracious drawing allures to His union, and that the childlike following of this drawing is the best and easiest way, truly to be separated from all. Venture yourself thereby, dear brother, and be of good courage in God in all experience of your misery! We are loved freely and nobly; let us love again freely and nobly. I greet and embrace you in the spirit.

Mülheim, the 23rd of July, 1750.

German

Der hunderteinundvierzigste Brief.

Muthgebung, das Leiden von GOtt anzunehmen, und sich mit dessen Willen zu vereinigen.

N. N. Dein Angenehmes vom 6ten Julii konnte wegen außerordentlicher Entkräftung unmöglich beantworten, da auch just mit fremden Besuch besetzet war.

— 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).