Comfort and instruction to a troubled tempted mind, how it must mistrust itself, and outwardly follow the counsel of good friends.

The Hundred and Eighth Letter.

Comfort and instruction to a troubled tempted mind, how it must mistrust itself, and outwardly follow the counsel of good friends.

Much-beloved and highly esteemed sister in grace!

Both your letters have come safely to me. Your state of suffering and temptation I have seen from them with very much compassion, weighed and brought before the Lord. He, the LORD can help you. Not from yourselves, not from any creature, not from this and that, but only from Him, must you expect your help. I confess it, you have it hard and sour: But take courage! Cast not away the confidence! It must go so! The end will be peace! That you think of your dearest friends: that they often would not have insight enough into your state, does not surprise me at all: because your heart does not think, or cannot think, of the Lord Himself (who yet is the essential Love), that He looks upon and treats you with so much love and mercy as He does. Only the black veil of unbelief, which now hangs before your eyes, is the cause that you represent God and your friends to yourselves otherwise than they are. God has absolutely no pleasure in our pains: But in order to free us from our evil ground, He is often constrained to do us hurt. Our evil is the firewood to this fire. Submit yourselves therefore to the lovely ordinance of God, then will all go well! This I especially request to be noted; namely that by the evil I understand not so much the deed, as the ground from which all evil deeds come. Methinks you do not duly see where your evil sits, that causes you all sufferings. You have, worthy sister, certainly done ill, that without sufficient cause, and what is more, without counsel of good friends, you have given notice on your house, and have rented another, which perhaps is not better for you. Only, that from this mishap you draw such consequences as you do, "as if you had now sinned against the Spirit of God; had now hardened yourselves against the Lord; He would now punish you with death, and you would be eternally lost," and that you let yourselves thereby be brought into such confusion, anguish and despair: that is plainly of the enemy! who makes use of your evil ground that is in you (and from which the Lord will free you) to bring you into this temptation and confusion. If you have then now failed herein, (as you have:) then confess it openly before God and your friends, ask forgiveness, and make of your fault or sin a good and not an evil use. When children somewhere break a dish, or are disobedient, then they are indeed punished, but not driven out of the house: Through childlike bowing and promising to do it no more, the account is settled. See Micah 7:8. — 1 John 2:1. Only walk on again courageously, and make a good use of your stumbling!

This good use consists not alone in this, that another time you go more carefully to work; but also chiefly in this: that you, beloved sister, let yourselves be led by the evil deed to the discovery and sincere confession of your evil ground. This would be a blessing for you, that would make good your stumbling tenfold; and this the Lord also eyes and expects, who will lead you thither. Learn then from this, that your pleasure or displeasure does not hang upon the house, but upon the frame of your mind. Inwardly well: All well. You must have all too good thoughts of yourselves, (do not wonder that I speak so) that you let yourselves be so troubled over this matter. Is it possible that you already fall into a swoon at the sight of One wound or sin? Do you then not believe that you have yet more and greater? Good poor sinners are deeply bowed through the seeing of their sins, but not so troubled and thrown over the heap. So long as we do not become sincerely humble, we resist God, and He resists us, 1 Peter 5:5. and this makes so pressed. Assent sincerely to your nothingness and wretchedness, and that you find yourselves and will find yourselves as you are: Then is the Lord with you, and your bands will break.

You must surely have all too mean thoughts of the riches of the mercy of God in Christ Jesus. Remember what I said to you above of the disobedient children. If someone who had offended you asked you with pain for forgiveness: would you not also forgive him? Shall then the mercy and goodness of God be surpassed by that of a sinful man? Or is such only for those who through their faithfulness and virtue make themselves worthy of it? By no means! Our faithfulness and virtue also (if they are to be of worth) we must expect and receive from God's mercy and goodness. O! may the LORD give us duly to prize the blood of the Son of God; of the Lamb of God, that has borne the sins of the whole world! —— In this abyss must penitent sinners lose themselves with all their sins: So will all sins be consumed like a little straw in a fiery glow! This is the comforting saying and promise: If we repent of our sins, then is He faithful and just, that He forgive us the sins; and then also cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9.

You have too much wrong love and trust toward yourselves; but too little love and trust toward God. Is that not unseemly? You think and care far too much for your body, for its health and life: just as if it belonged to you; as if health and life hung upon your care: since we yet do not know what is best for us! You also care in such wise for your soul, and hold it so fast: as if you were your own keeper and savior! Are then not both your body and your soul God's? Have you not also given them over to Him, when you first found yourselves as lost? And do you not wish to renew this surrender still at this moment? Do then so, beloved sister, with inward truth; also as often as self-love will bring you into troubling care over yourselves. Commit your body, your health, your life, your soul, your time and your eternity, to God; but letting yourselves go and losing yourselves in His faithful hands: then are you in safety, and raised above all tormenting care! —— O most dearly valued one! do not think that God should not love you infinitely more than you love yourselves; and that He should not infinitely better care for you, take you up, keep you and take you into safety, than you yourselves! Yes! He will do it: if you only so give yourselves to Him and entrust yourselves to Him! And this also will He work in you.

You follow all too much your own thoughts; and all too little the thoughts and counsel of the children of God your good friends. Have you then not cause to believe that your light is still small? And that you, especially at present, in confusion, darkness and temptation, are therefore not in a state to judge duly of yourselves and of the things that are at hand? Should it therefore not be more becoming and God-pleasing, that you entirely not build upon the dangerous looking up and appropriating of a passage from the Bible; or upon your own changeable, occurring and tossed-about thoughts: but that you simply and childlikely believe what others (who certainly know you better than you yourselves) judge of your state and counsel you? O! how pleasant and wholesome would such a childlike submission be for you! And that you also in regard to your house or dwelling submit your will and judgment wholly to another (e.g. to N. N.). How wholesome would it be, if you said by yourselves to the Lord: "O Lord! I have brought myself into the press, thereby that I have followed myself: Have mercy upon me poor child, and bring me to rights! And because in my present darkness and confusion I cannot distinguish, to choose what is well-pleasing to Thee; and I also will no longer follow myself: so will I give the matter over to this N. N. Give Thou therefore into her heart what she shall counsel me: (either to move in, to remain, or to seek another dwelling.) Whatever she will then ever counsel me, that will I receive believingly from Thee, and as Thy dearest will; submit myself willingly therein; and also whatever may come and follow from it, as coming from Thee, receive for good, through the help which I expect from Thee. Amen!" ——

See, beloved sister! this is the brotherly counsel which I give you; and I know none better. If you follow this: then am I assured that it will go well with you, and you will find peace for your soul. I repeat it yet: The houses do it not. Inwardly evil: All evil! Inwardly good: All and everywhere good! It is also the same to the LORD where we dwell; but not how that we dwell. A royal palace is too narrow for him who lives for himself; and a little hut glorious and great for him who lives to the LORD! I pray God from the ground of my heart: that He bless and lead you; that He make you known to yourselves: that you may deny and forsake yourselves; and that He make Himself known inwardly to you: that you may love Him, and entrust yourselves to Him unconditionally. Amen! With brotherly heart I greet you, and remain through God's grace, &c. &c.

Mülheim, the 28th of February, 1755.

German

Der hundertundachte Brief.

Trost und Unterricht an ein beunruhigt versuchtes Gemüthe, wie es sich selbst mißtrauen, und im Aeußern dem Rath guter Freunde folgen müsse.

Vielgeliebte und werthgeschätzte Schwester in der Gnade!

Beyde eure Schreiben sind mir wohl geworden. Eueren Leidens- und Versuchungs-Stand habe ich mit sehr vielem Mitleiden daraus ersehen, erwogen und vor den HErrn gebracht.

— 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).