Important reminders upon the words: Let us go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing, etc.

The Thirty-seventh Letter.

Important reminders upon the words: Let us go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing, etc.

Dearly beloved brother in our sweetest God-child Jesus!

Your pleasant little letters I have duly received, one after another. God be praised, loved and honored for His protection and help hitherto. Let His eye be further open over us in grace, that especially as to the mind none of His little sheep be scattered astray, but through all things only more driven near and in!

I am with my heart much with you, dear brother, and with the rest there. N. asks at Christmas for a morsel that is only so large as a line. What shall I say to you, you hungry children? I call to you all what the shepherds said at Christmas: Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which the Lord hath made known unto us! I will say so much, and wish us all from these great truths a renewed and remaining impression.

1. After God has become man in Christ, and has drawn near to us, the most wretched of all can, and the most unworthy of all may, draw near to God, to be helped. Bethlehem (in German, House of Bread) is near to every one inwardly; through heart-prayer and inward turning we must seek, wait for and find it, what can still our hunger, content our heart and thoroughly bless us. Ah no! the thing is not far: Our God, our all-contenting Good, is now inmost-near, and waits for us.

2. We should remain standing at no means, knowledge or gifts, but let all only awaken us and serve us, to go further to Christ Himself, and not rest until we have found the Same, in the power, in our inward part. The shepherds had angel-visages, preaching and music, but they wanted the little Child Himself, and said: Let us now go even unto, etc. Had we already great heavenly gifts; we must have the Giver Himself. Du hast mich zwar angeblicket, und gelabt, etc. (See Neander p. 76.) To be sure we should not lightly esteem nor cast away the means, namely God's instruments, or their written and oral testimonies: No! they are as it were the angels, (Gal. 4:14,) who proclaim to us the Saviour so near, sing us a little song of His loveliness, and point us to the Bethlehem of the heart. Only we should not remain standing thereat. Neither a heavenly nor an earthly angel gives us the salvation. We must have Jesus.

3. We shall nevermore find Jesus, and the thoroughly-remaining salvation and contentment in Jesus, save through the way of renunciation and denial of ourselves and of all that is perishable. The shepherds could not possibly come to Bethlehem, or they had to leave their pasture and their flocks, and venture it thereby: So neither we. The heart, the love, the delight, the trust must go off from and out of all things, or we do not find the Christ-child. The heart must be no filled restless inn, but as it were a parted, empty still stall; there Jesus finds room. O souls! a trifle, harbored with knowledge and will, can take the place that Jesus ought to take. O! keep it well, that where perishable delight goes out, there unperishable delight goes in; and nowhere else. Come, so you shall see it.

4. Love the humility of the heart, smallness, lowliness, and pliancy. We are pointed to Bethlehem's stall, not to the palaces of Jerusalem. All high-mindedness, all thoughts as if one were something; to will to be something; to will gladly (even in one's piety) to be looked at, loved and preferred: All such follies stand in the little Child Jesus's way, that He cannot impart Himself to us duly. By willing to be something we fell to hell. To will to be nothing is the way to heaven. The Highest becomes in Bethlehem the smallest; the richest becomes the poorest; the mightiest bows Himself under all, and lets Himself down even to His enemies. O souls! humble yourselves, bow yourselves, submit yourselves under all and under every man. God becomes a child, to atone for our high mind, and at once to show the way and the point how we can be united with God again, namely in the point of childhood, through smallness, simplicity, pliancy and innocence. Jesus, make us as thou art!

5. If we are so minded, dearest hearts, we have ground to trust childlikely upon our good God. From humility comes the true trust. Let us only go even unto Bethlehem, there we can see it, how God loves us. God so loved the world, etc. He clothes His highness with the child's-smallness, His holiness and glory with a covering of manhood, that we may not be affrighted, but His drawing-near may be tolerable to us, yea attractive. If you feel, if you find in your inward part something sweetly-attractive, whereby you are drawn away from all unto God's nearness and communion; O! then follow in the dark; follow childlikely, and without looking upon your miseries and unworthinesses: Think then, you are near Bethlehem's stall, at the little Child Jesus, who invites you to Himself through His divine sweetness, to unite Himself with you blessedly, and to make you true children of God. That this grace may befall me and you all, that grant the God who has given us His Son! Amen.

Dear brother! I am to write only a line, and they become so many. You will take it in good part, and share it among you. I greet you heartily and remain through grace, etc.

Mülheim, the 21st of December, 1758.

German

Der siebenunddreißigste Brief.

Wichtige Erinnerungen über die Worte: Lasset uns hingehen gen Bethlehem und die Geschichte sehen, 2c.

Herzlich geliebter Bruder in unserem süßesten GOtt-Kinde JEsu!

Deine angenehme Brieflein habe vor und nach richtig erhalten. GOtt sey für seinen bisherigen Schutz und Beistand gelobet, geliebet und geehret.

— 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).