Acquaintance with righteous children of God is a great grace. Of the distinction of the poor use in intercourse with the same; and which the right use is.

The Fifty-seventh Letter.

Acquaintance with righteous children of God is a great grace. Of the distinction of the poor use in intercourse with the same; and which the right use is.

Dearly beloved brother!

I thank you for your pains, that you have given me news of the weakly circumstances of our dear brother N. I look upon this weakness with brotherly compassion, and unite my weak prayer and wish with yours and that of the other dear children there, that God would yet leave us this dear brother a while in our midst, when it is His gracious will!

The unrest of war and other circumstances hinder, that one cannot so freely visit one another, as otherwise. Spiritual sluggishness and dark powers now also take possession of many a mind. Many dear acquaintances grow old, or sicken: And how many has death in few years not taken away from before our eyes of our fellow-pilgrims! If we ask with Jacob's sons: Why has the Lord done this to us? Then each one will find his own answer in the conscience.

The great grace, that one is counted worthy to come into the acquaintance, intercourse and fellowship of righteous children of God, is seldom duly prized, and applied according to God's purpose. So long as one stands in the first love, and walks finely small and simple; so long it goes heartily, although childish weakness runs along with it. Afterward one becomes clever, finds in the one this, in the other that to blame, whence strife, lovelessness and estrangement follows, because few or none are right according to our conceit. One becomes great with oneself. It is said: None can yet give it to the other; one often scatters oneself more, than that one should edify oneself. One would hold oneself alone to God and to prayer, and love all the others and commend them to God: Each one must go his way. Yes, yes, finely said, poorly practiced. Has the wolf only once the little sheep from the flock alone in the wilderness, then he will already know how to deal with it. Others do not use the fellowship with God's children rightly to their own furtherance and profit: One really scatters oneself with them; one does not keep one's heart, when one is with them; or one occupies oneself with the faults and weaknesses of the others; whereas one should yet be a bee and not a spider; and so one could often still collect the purest honey of virtue even from the smallest little flower. The one does too much of the matter in intercourse, the other too little. If now one accounts the communion of saints too slight, or one does not make oneself rightly use of the same, then God takes His children from us, or threatens us, through the same's sicknesses or danger, that He would take them away. And so it goes also in regard of all means of grace and those instruments which God uses for our best. Mark it yet: Why has the Lord done this to us? Days could come, when many a one might wish sighing only to see and to speak with the least of the devout once, and will not be able to have it. Only we should also walk worthily of such blessed fellowship.

Others go astray to the right with their sensual license, puppetry or attachment, and seek as it were their pastime, their sensual joy and pleasure among the devout, more than their own edification and furtherance. Now God does not give the pearl for playing, then He takes it from us. He grants a pure pleasure, but only so much the more cheerfully to go on upon the way of the cross and of self-denial. The sensual strong attachment is also of no worth. True, we should highly prize and tenderly love God's children; their life or their dying, their being sick or well must not be indifferent to us; that it also was not to Paul and to other believers. See Phil. 2:26–28. and Acts 20:37. and 38. Chiefly must those be dear and of worth to us, who labor upon our soul; Galatians 4:14. and 15. Only our weakness seldom lets us, here also, hit the right middle path. We should yet use God's children, as all means of grace, only in order to come to God and to His fellowship in the Spirit, and through the gifts and anointing-powers communicated to the others to be strengthened and furthered. And there God is indeed sometimes necessitated, that He well threatens to take away one of His children, in order to bring us into the right order; or that He really takes it away, not to harm us, but to further us, and to make us ever more spiritual, and more capable of His essential immediate fellowship. And thereto belongs the little saying which our dear Savior said at His departure to His disciples: It is good for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter comes not to you.

Once for all, we are not at home here, but on the journey. We must love one another as fellow-travelers to the fatherland of eternal blessedness. One cannot always remain sitting together on the journey; that would indeed be delay and misery. Many a one would so always want to keep the devout with him in this miserable world, to rejoice, strengthen and edify himself with them in the good: Now, that we also will do, but as fellow-travelers, that is, so long as God leaves us together here, in hope of an eternally-perfect being-together. We cannot and will not remain here always; the one must die before, the other after; that is to say, end the burdensome journey, and go home to the Father; whither we all have directed our heart and face: What is then to be done about it, whether the one arrives some days before? This great truth, that we namely have here no continuing city, but should seek the one to come (Heb. 13:14.) the Lord will teach us through the falling-sick and dying of His children. We should always remember our homeland, and learn finely in time to have our heart and walk there, where we shall eternally be.

Let us love one another heartily, you children, but not as children of this, but of the world to come! Let us so love one another, as we shall love one another eternally! Let us so look upon one another in faith, not as we now look for a pair of days in the imperfection, but so, as we then shall look without end, namely perfectly beautiful, and without blame, in the kingdom of our Father. To eternity! to eternity! there, there our sweet Savior Jesus waits for us; there, there so many angels wait for us, so many of the blessed, and so many of our dear acquaintances who have gone before us; there, there we shall remain without ceasing with Christ, and without ceasing with one another. Sela! So let us comfort one another with these words! Amen.

I thought, dear brother, not to write so much, as my time is very straitened, and I am always called away, may therefore also well be somewhat unclear: If you will read it to others or communicate it, thereto you have the freedom. — —

Because the time is gone, and my head is very weak, I close herewith, and greet once more with a brotherly heart. Jesus live and reign in all our hearts!

Your Mülheim, obliged weak the 13th of August, 1761. brother.

German

Der siebenundfünfzigste Brief.

Die Bekanntschaft mit rechtschaffenen Kindern Gottes ist eine große Gnade. Vom Unterscheid des schlechten Gebrauchs im Umgang mit denselben; und welches der rechte Gebrauch sey.

Herzlich geliebter Bruder!

Ich dancke dir für deine Bemühung, daß du mir von den schwächlichen Umständen unsers lieben Bruders N. Nachricht gegeben. Ich sehe diese Schwachheit mit brüderlichem Mitleiden an, und vereinige mein schwaches Gebät und Wunsch mit dem deinigen und der übrigen lieben Kinder daselbst, daß uns GOtt diesen lieben Bruder …

— 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).