How love among one another must be constituted, if it is to further the love of God.

The Hundred and Thirty-fifth Letter.

How love among one another must be constituted, if it is to further the love of God.

Dearly beloved sister in our sweet Saviour, to whom we belong!

I thought the tempter might perhaps want to disquiet your mind because of that concerning which I reminded you last time; therefore I will tell you simply how I meant it, that you may not take it amiss.

My intention is not at all that I would push back your childlike love; I only wanted to have the frail and the self-willed of this love always more taken away, that it might be so much the more hearty and delightful. The restless, self-willed, all-too-natural, image-forming nature darkens and presses only the spirit, and rather hinders the true love and union in God.

Nevertheless the Lord overlooks these frailties; not only in the beginning, before one knows them, but also at all times, when one only gladly wants to come out. Therefore take heed, that amid all frailties and miseries which you mark in yourself you are not set in unrest and faint-heartedness; only shut the eye gently before them, and sink yourself with quiet trust into the Friend who is so inwardly near. The beholding and the fellowship of this eternal goodness and perfect beauty alone will make us truly good and beautiful.

Therefore, though I am indeed bound to watch over you, and to point out to you your faults so far as needful; yet you need not on that account at all fear that I might withdraw from you, or become strange, because of your faults or miseries; from that the Lord will well keep me, who myself am a frail poor sinner: Such thoughts could harm you, and make you hold yourself covered before me; rather I assure you of my hearty love, and of unmoved spirit-fellowship: But of this I assure you also, my dear daughter, that the more this love is inward and parted from the frail, the more will it be blessed, delightful and strengthening. So then it is pleasant when one can see and speak with one another: But one also remains quiet and content when such is hindered through Providence, and the union in the spirit remains none the less firm. The love among one another which is truly in God is indeed hearty but peaceable, free and pure; this love comes properly not out of nature, but out of God; that is to say, it is not born in distraction, but in and out of the gathering of the mind; therefore it also does not stand in the way of the love to God, but rather furthers it: it gathers the mind, and strengthens in the upright sense, to be wholly for God, and to venture all thereby; it also does not form images, but the spirit remains thereby unhindered, that it can freely and bare turn in to God, without a created image standing in its way.

See, my daughter! such a kind of love and tender spirit-fellowship shall be among us; and I know that you also desire such with me: The Lord will also establish it, as He has then already laid the ground thereto. I know your precious calling. O! how so happy are you, that the All-sufficient Himself will be your heart's comfort and your portion in eternity! Toward this goal we will keep one another company in the spirit and also outwardly, so far as the Lord Himself will give such from time to time. Your furtherance in God is laid very much upon my heart. Only forget yourself very much, and let God be your object, even as He Himself works it. At all times keep the quiet and loving trust toward God. Do not yet despair, I pray you, when now and then a trial comes! Trials must come; but the Lord is with us within, and Himself leads through. O! how soon everything passes by, and the glorious eternity breaks in! Yea, even here God will come to dwell in your heart, and there everything become essential which you would seek in vain at another place. To this end God has let us become known to one another in this strange world; of which I trust that He will have honor and praise in time and eternity.

O! this only does my soul wish: that I may also lead you, my dear daughter, to the fairest Saviour Jesus, and once present you with joy before His face, as His bride dedicated to Him! Such I will not leave off continually to entreat for you. Offer me also up to the Lord!

Your faithfully obliged brother.

German

Der hundertundfünfunddreißigste Brief.

Wie die Liebe untereinander müsse beschaffen seyn, um die Liebe GOttes zu beförderen.

Herzlich geliebte Schwester in unserem süßen Heilande, dem wir angehören!

Ich gedachte, es möchte vielleicht der Versucher dein Gemüth wollen beunruhigen wegen dessen, worüber ich dich letztmal erinnerte; darum will ich dir einfältig sagen, wie ichs gemeinet, damit du es nicht unrecht aufnehmest.

— 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).