Letters · Erster Band · Theil I (1773)

A heartfelt wish of peace.

Bd I · Th I · Brief 29 · Der neunundzwanzigste Brief

Addressee — "Lieber Bruder!" — a brother (with his house and the beloved there).
Date — none given in the 1773/GS print.
Provenance — translated from the 1845 Gesammelte Schriften (Bd I), collated against the 1773 first edition (both PD)

The Twenty-Ninth Letter.

A heartfelt wish of peace.

Beloved brother!

I wish unto you and to your house, and likewise to the rest of the beloved there, from the Lord His divine peace — that the same may keep your hearts and minds unmoved in Christ Jesus! May this divine peace, which is so graciously offered, in the name of Jesus, to our inward man, announce itself ever more powerfully, with its stilling and alluring motions, within our spirit; that we may at last grow wise, and let ourselves be gathered out of all the disquieting manifoldness of that which is outward, into the unity of the true inward, wherein alone, and for ever, it is well with us! See Psalm 4, the two last verses.

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German

Der neunundzwanzigste Brief.

Inniger Friedenswunsch.

Lieber Bruder!

Ich wünsche dir und eurem Hause, wie auch den übrigen Geliebten daselbst, von dem HErrn Seinen göttlichen Frieden zu, daß derselbe eure Herzen und Gedanken in Christo JEsu unverrückt bewahren wolle!

— 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 single breath of blessing — "a heartfelt wish of peace" — to a brother, his household, and "the rest of the beloved there." Tersteegen wishes them "from the Lord his divine peace," that it may "keep your hearts and minds unmoved in Christ Jesus." Then he prays that this peace, "so graciously offered, in the name of Jesus, to our inward man," would "announce itself ever more powerfully, with its stilling and alluring motions, within our spirit" — until "we may at last grow wise, and let ourselves be gathered out of all the disquieting manifoldness of that which is outward, into the unity of the true inward, wherein alone, and for ever, it is well with us." He points, for the rest, to the last two verses of Psalm 4.

A few words and echoes.

The peace that keeps. His blessing draws on Paul's "peace of God," which "keeps our hearts and minds" — a peace that holds the soul "unmoved in Christ Jesus."
Stilling and alluring. Two motions he ascribes to this inner peace: it "stills" the restless soul, and it "allures" — draws us, sweetly, inward toward God.
From manifoldness to unity. The letter's contemplative heart: to be "gathered out of all the disquieting manifoldness" of outward things "into the unity of the true inward" — the many quieted into the One.
Psalm 4 at the close. He sends his friend to the psalm's last verses — gladness put in the heart, and the peace in which one may "lay me down… and sleep… in safety."

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Erster Band, I. Theil, Brief 29 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thi-029.html.

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