An encouragement to brotherly love.
The Twenty-Third Letter.
An encouragement to brotherly love.
Beloved brother!
Jesus bless you, my worthy members there, all together! Let us love one another fervently, out of a pure heart! "O how lovely is this!" cries the Spirit of God in the 133rd Psalm; there the Lord promises blessing and life, ever and eternally. Let us draw pure love out of the eternal fountain of love, which is so near and so open to us in the spirit. We are not to look upon one another after a human manner, but as those whom God, in His mercy, has looked upon and called to His blessed fellowship. We must, for the most part, see and heed only the good in one another; and when we do look upon what is frail, it must happen in such a way as God Himself looks upon it. I know not why I write this so simply, here, since you yourselves are therein taught of God. May He, the Lord, ever again raise up our sinking and scattered mind, and draw it to Himself, that we may be found ever watching!
German
Der dreiundzwanzigste Brief.
Aufmunterung zur Bruderliebe.
Geliebter Bruder!
JEsus segne euch, meine werthen Mitglieder daselbst, alle miteinander! Lasset uns einander brünstiglich lieben aus reinem Herzen!
— 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).
Translator’s notes
What this letter is. A short, warm word to a brother and the whole circle "there" — an "encouragement to brotherly love." Tersteegen blesses them "all together" and urges, "Let us love one another fervently, out of a pure heart." He reaches for Psalm 133 — "O how lovely is this!" — where the Lord promises, over those who dwell together in unity, "blessing and life, ever and eternally." Real love, he says, draws "out of the eternal fountain of love, which is so near and so open to us in the spirit." So we should look on one another "not after a human manner," but as people "whom God, in his mercy, has… called to his blessed fellowship" — seeing "for the most part… only the good," and, when we must see "what is frail," seeing it "as God himself looks upon it." He ends with a prayer that God would "ever again raise up our sinking and scattered mind, and draw it to himself, that we may be found ever watching."
A few words and echoes.
- Love one another, out of a pure heart. The letter's whole burden, in the apostle's words — a "fervent" love among the friends that flows "out of a pure heart."
- How lovely, when brethren dwell together. He anchors that love in Psalm 133, the psalm of unity, where God commands "the blessing, even life for evermore" upon a people at one.
- The eternal fountain. His picture of where love comes from — not from ourselves but drawn "out of the eternal fountain of love," God himself, "so near and so open" within.
- See as God sees. His gentle rule for community: look mostly at "the good" in one another, and when you must notice a fault, look at it "as God himself looks upon it" — with mercy, not a "human" eye.
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thi-023 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.