Letters 1526 verses
1GOD knoweth best what is needful for us, and all that He does is for our good.
2If we knew how much He loves us, we should always be ready to receive equally and with indifference from His Hand the sweet and the bitter: all would please that came from Him.
3The sorest afflictions never appear intolerable, except when we see them in the wrong light.
4When we see them as dispensed by the hand of GOD, when we know that it is our loving FATHER who abases and distresses us, our sufferings will lose their bitterness, and become even matter of consolation.
5Let all our employment be to know GOD: the more one knows Him, the more one desires to know Him.
6And as knowledge is commonly the measure of love, the deeper and more extensive our knowledge shall be, the greater will be our love: and if our love of GOD were great, we should love Him equally in pains and pleasures.
7Let us not content ourselves with loving GOD for the mere sensible favors, how elevated soever, which he has done, or may do us.
8Such favors, though never so great, cannot bring us so near to Him as faith does in one simple act.
9Let us seek Him often by faith.
10He is within us: seek Him not elsewhere.
11If we do love Him alone, are we not rude, and do we not deserve blame, if we busy ourselves about trifles which do not please and perhaps offend Him.
12It is to be feared these trifles will one day cost us dear.
13Let us begin to be devoted to Him in good earnest.
14Let us cast everything besides out of our hearts.
15He would possess them alone.
16Beg this favor of Him.
17If we do what we can on our parts, we shall soon see that change wrought in us which we aspire after.
18I cannot thank Him sufficiently for the relaxation He has vouchsafed you.
19I hope from His mercy the favor to see Him within a few days.[4] Let us pray for one another.
20I am, in our LORD, Yours, &c.
21[1: Gal.
22i, 10; Eph.
23vi, 5, 6.]
24[2: The particulars which follow are collected from other accounts of Brother Lawrence.]
25[3: I suppose he means that all distinct notions he could form of GOD, were unsatisfactory, because he perceived them to be unworthy of GOD; and therefore his mind was not to be satisfied but by the views of faith, which apprehend GOD as infinite and incomprehensible, as He is in Himself, and not as He can be conceived by human ideas.]
26[4: He took to his bed two days after, and died within the week.]
