Instruction and reassurance in inward poverty and darkness.

The Hundred and Fifth Letter.

Instruction and reassurance in inward poverty and darkness.

In our sweet Saviour Jesus, dearly beloved sister!

It was right dear to me that I once again received a little letter from your hand, wherein I got some reliable news of your inward and outward condition.

That you are outwardly for this time so far able that you can help yourself in some measure is God's goodness, who will certainly not leave you alone in the solitude: believe that childishly, even when you feel nothing of it. The Lord looks with good pleasure when we, in poverty and lowliness, look upon Him with sweet trust and wait for Him. It is therefore indeed needful that you (when otherwise no hindrance is in the way) take some express time for prayer or recollection: only it is not needful, but hurtful, when you suppose that at such a time you must strain yourself to many activities. Set yourself before God, and turn yourself gently to the near God, as bare, poor and wretched as you may find yourself: but seek unmarked and gently to forget yourself and your misery, only to look upon God in faith. If you cannot forget yourself and sink away from yourself, but must feel yourself, your poverty and distractions, then do not disquiet yourself; unite yourself with God's will, be gladly Nothing, and adore the Allness of God. If you can in an unconstrained way, by an act of adoration, of offering-up, of love, &c., or by a short heart-word, make yourself a moment's relief, well! only all disquieting straining is hurtful to you. We must yield to God, and will to serve Him after His, not after our, way. God's purpose in His present dealing with you is that He will make you poor, small and nothing, that He may become all in you; that our self-love misunderstands, and thinks making small is as much as making fainthearted. Read once the 68th hymn in the Blumen-Gärtlein.

Moreover, dear sister, I cannot see, after quiet proving before God, that you have so great cause to disquiet yourself, even granted that your ailments may by degrees have occasioned you to much sluggishness or softness in the exercise of prayer; for according to your ground-sense and standing you are still just the same. You will be wholly for God; you will gladly venture yourself therein. In this your God, the All-sufficient, the Blessed, the Unchangeable, and in His service, in His adoration, love and union, you see and seek alone your inmost and eternal well-being. That you are poor and wretched hinders nothing; God has long known that, and yet has He taken you up, and taken you up so: so then commit yourself also further to His faithful hand and leading with childlike-closed eyes; He will make it well.

I forget you just as little; do not think so foolishly; yet, since you think so oddly as though you were robbed of God, it is no wonder when you think so of me also. — — I greet you with a brotherly heart, earnestly committing you to the Lord, and remain by grace

Your Mülheim, obliged weak the 28th of January, 1768. fellow-brother.

German

Der hundertundfünfte Brief.

Unterricht, und Beruhigung in inwendiger Armuth und Dunkelheit.

In unserem süßen Heylande JEsu herzlich geliebte Schwester!

Es war mir recht lieb, daß ich wieder einmal ein Brieflein von deiner Hand erhielt, worin ich von deinem inneren und äußeren Befinden einige zuverläßige Nachricht bekam.

— 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).