How far one is to go in yielding; and that to please God alone must be the end therein.

The Hundred and Nineteenth Letter.

How far one is to go in yielding; and that to please God alone must be the end therein.

N. N.

I have rightly received your pleasant of the 10th as well as the latter of the 17th. — —

With melancholy and hearty sympathy I see the dear sister's continuing sufferings.

Ah! when we then must yet suffer out of need; So let us only suffer unto our death!

Our spirit is therefore to sing with Malaval; although reason and selfhood think otherwise. Submit yourselves yet, dear sister, under the cleansing hand of a loving God! A cleansing, bowing, but also supporting hand! This love-hand (not the hand of visible or invisible enemies) you must regard in it all, however wonderful it also appears. O! how soon will you kiss this hand, when you only shall see it! And that will well drive the enemies away otherwise, and give your heart freer air, than all making of the cross. We are to die, and we will die; and so long as there is something to die in us, we must and will suffer; not we, but our Leader shall choose the sufferings.

I repeat it; you have only to do with Him, not with dark spirits. Your condescendence (your yielding) must by all means not go so far, that you should offend God, or come too long and too far away from your heart: Otherwise however a loving, yielding, longsuffering conduct, with due modesty, is the most wholesome of all for you and for those with whom you have to do. So has Jesus overcome over all wrath- and hell-powers; So must we also overcome the enemies; although it will not happen so soon. Yea, in your bowing, in your yielding, etc., you must not so much have the pretension that this or that should work upon the other, after your thoughts, as rather this pretension and aim, that you only please God, and may conduct yourselves according to the manner of the Spirit of Jesus. O! dear sister, do not yet become weary! something glorious shall thereby be wrought in us; and others, who seem to crucify us, can yet run before us. — —

I seek to hold you according to your circumstances heartily, although frailly, and to suffer with you. Be of good courage in the Lord! I greet and bless you before God's face, as also your worthy husband, etc.

German

Der hundertundneunzehnte Brief.

Wie weit im Nachgeben zu gehen; und daß GOtt zu vergnügen, allein der Endzweck dabei seyn müsse.

N. N. Ich hab E. E. Angenehmes vom 10ten sowohl als letzteres vom 17ten richtig erhalten. — — Mit Wehmuth und herzlicher Theilnehmung ersehe ich der lieben Schwester fortwährende Leiden.

— 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).