146
Lausanne – 2nd January 1845
To Mr B R
Beloved Brother
I have read the two letters which you have had the goodness to send me and I proceed, without preface, to tell you something. M’s flesh, sweet, hospitable and flattering, pleases me less than the honest absent-mindedness of H, although it may be less cutting. As to the confidence in each, I do not see a great difference between the two; and you see, as soon as his carnal system and unbelief fall, struck at the base, how all the sweetness disappears with M! ‘It is Jesuitical sophistry’, he says. He will speak of love as much as you want, but never of what touches his conscience. I believe that he is in the saddest state possible. The only true testimony as to him, I am sorry to say it, is to avoid him. He avoids all that could wound the flesh, in avoiding anything that could judge it, because he wants to be able to walk peacefully himself. This gives him an air of amiability, of sweetness and charity, but all this only does the work of the enemy. If he is opposed, one has the air of not having charity; if one is with him without opposition, one consents to the evil he does. God knows to lay this bare, but it is Him who does it. You see that he already has the reputation of a man oppressed, because of what he calls your attacks. It is thus, knowing all the evil that he does to simple souls by these means, that I have taken such a decisive part as to refuse to go and see him or to invite him …
As to H, you have been hurt, dear brother. You should keep above his lack of wisdom or know-how, and show him in love that his letters lacked maturity at least, and also wisdom too. It would have been good for him. I have written to him, perhaps too frankly, but I would have felt that I lacked in charity if I had not told him what I thought. I still do not have an answer; I hope that God will act in his heart.
I dare to urge you, dear brother, not to write much just now. When one studies the ministry or rather the Word with that end in view without being concerned with souls, there is always danger. One can follow ideas. Seeking souls is a remedy; it is necessary to know how to apply our knowledge to their state, without which it is worth nothing. To be clear oneself is not to be clear to others in opening up the truth. Grace and the truth came by Jesus Christ[1]. When our intelligence is too much in activity, the truth ceases to be a link between the soul and God. I have never seen a person reading the Word a lot without acting in charity and in responsibility towards souls, who did not hold something of little importance and often erroneous. The truth is not even a link between my own soul and God. It becomes ‘subjecta veritas quasi materia’[2], and this is doubly detrimental when it is a matter of the Word. If you set yourself to produce a lot, I urge you to produce it for souls, and especially for poor sinners. It is inconceivable what good this does to ourselves, how it makes one become small, and in what way the truth takes its place. I have said ‘produce’ because one cannot study without producing; however what seeks souls is always good in itself; these are the realities of faith and not our ideas, and our own souls find their true place before God. It is evident that this does not divert from Biblical studies; on the contrary, they are much more profitable, because the Spirit of God, having His true activity, according to His nature, acts freely in the communication that He makes to us of divine things. This is what I have often found.
Actually, God acts in us as much as by us, and the first of these things is never agreeable but very profitable. Sometimes those who do not know what it is think that they have lost His love, because He makes them reflect on themselves for their good. It is a sorrowful discipline, but which has for its end to make us enjoy Him more really, and to set us in the truth, at the bottom of our hearts, instead of being happy on the surface which is being very negligent underneath. All this is our fault, but it is God’s goodness which desires that we should enjoy Him more deeply, washing us of all that would hinder, if the conscience were to be in full exercise, making us judge all that. Instead of our being able to see Him entirely simply, He who is our full joy, He puts something hidden on our conscience, without our knowing it, whether it be in the heart or in nature, and at least He stops us in the way. He is faithful in His love; if we know Him, we soon see what He is, and confidence returns even if the work is not finished.
In great haste, your very affectionate brother in Jesus, our Lord and precious Saviour. Greet all the brethren much. I hope, God willing, to see them soon, but I do not know exactly when.
Letter originally written in French, translated by Sosthenes, 2013
Click here for original – If you have any comments on the translation, feel free to let me know.
[1] John 1: 18
[2] ‘truth as a subject matter’
