Direction toward an image-less and will-less child-form.
The Seventy-First Letter.
Direction toward an image-less and will-less child-form.
My in-Jesus most inwardly-beloved Sister!
May the peace of God anoint your spirit.
The first dear letter, of the 24th of June, I received by post in good time, and read with true delight. The latter, by Friend B., I also received rightly, though late. Praised and beloved be our dear Immanuel for the acquaintance and fellowship He has given us in Him! Yes, I know that He has given it, and that He will ground it for a blessing, and complete it in us unto His eternal transfiguration. Did I not know that our fellowship in the Lord is such as it is, I could the less have quieted myself over my long silence; I do not therefore even adduce any cause for this silence, because I have in truth not been silent, but often — when the Lord vouchsafed me to draw near to Him — have been reminded of the dear sister S., to say and wish to her, with a glance in spirit and in truth, more than I could do by the pen and by means of the gross senses. Yes, the Lord is in our midst; but this very nearness of His draws our whole heed, love, and all the soul's powers unto Himself; the least glance aside is condemned; it wounds the purity; it disturbs the peace. Love requires something so noble, straight, and whole: one feels, too, that oneself is to be contented with nothing less. I know it will be even so with you. This highest Good will and shall be our One and All — yea, the object and centre upon which our whole [being] is bent, and in which it will blessedly stand still and rest, when all mediations are consumed and love takes essential possession of us. Ah, that it might happen this very day! But self-will attains nothing; or, when it attains something, it spoils it. In the inner communion with God, the self's own motions and hard powers of will stand most speciously in the way; the mind would gladly have this or that, would gladly find itself before God so or otherwise; but one wills it with one's own vehemence — and then the soul will not reach what it desires until it has first let its own willing and seeking sink down into death and into Gelassenheit. Often we think a thing far off, and we only make it far off through our gross and self-ish part; therefore I say sometimes: one must not seek God, but only find [Him]. Ah, were we but childlike enough! The soul often yearns most inwardly after the annihilation and completion in God — as we both also do; but Wisdom, to that very end, sometimes goes such contrary ways with the soul that it can by no means find its way into them — only so that the self's own willing and running may catch nothing, and God's free mercy alone keep the place. Therefore there is nothing better than only to remain, image-less and will-less, sunk into the lap of love, like the little children who stand resigned to the Father's beck, and trust all things to His goodness. It is not our work, but the Lord's. Jesus has opened this door for us in His blood; He will save His people from their sins; they are not to do it themselves. Therefore it is fitting that we look not much upon sin, misery, weakness, etc., but give ourselves over to Jesus, and choose Him alone, and in every way, for our object; for He is [our] all, and He shall be, ever more, all in us. Amen!
Jesus! Thou art near; Thou seest what our inmost says to Thee, for Thou hast laid it in us; to Thee are we offered up for ever. Complete the offering after Thine own good pleasure, through Thyself! Amen!
German
Der einundsiebzigste Brief.
Anweisung zu einer bilder- und willenlosen Kindergestalt.
Meine in JEsu innigst-geliebte Schwester!
Der Friede GOttes salbe deinen Geist. Das erste liebwerthe Schreiben vom 24. Juni p. Post habe zu rechter Zeit erhalten, und mit wahrer Vergnügung gelesen.
— 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 contemplative letter to a much-loved sister on what he calls becoming an "image-less and will-less child" — a soul emptied of its own pictures of how things ought to be, and of its own willfulness, resting like an infant in "the lap of love." He begins by treasuring their fellowship in Christ and explaining his long silence: he has not really been silent, since he has often turned to her "in spirit" while near to God. The heart of the letter is the problem of self-will. God is already near; the trouble is that "the self's own motions and hard powers of will" get in the way, looking reasonable even as they obstruct. So the soul must let "its own willing and seeking sink down into death" and into Gelassenheit — a resigned letting-go — trusting that the work is "not our work, but the Lord's." He compresses it all into an aphorism: one must not seek God, but only find him. The letter ends in a prayer spoken directly to Jesus, offering both of them up to be completed "through Thyself."
A few words and echoes.
- The will-less child. His ideal here is not passivity but trust: a child who "stands resigned to the Father's beck" and leaves everything to his goodness, free of self-images and self-will.
- Our One and All. God as the soul's sole and total object — the one thing it rests in "when all mediations are consumed." Tersteegen sets this phrase off in the original for emphasis, and the English italics keep it.
- Gelassenheit. An old German word for resigned releasement, or letting-go, kept here untranslated because no single English word carries it; the will's "sinking down" out of its own striving.
- Seek and find. His pointed saying: since God is already near, the soul's task is not anxious seeking but simple finding. Anxious seeking, he says, only "makes it far off."
- Save his people from their sins. His assurance that our transformation is God's doing and not ours echoes the angel's word about the name of Jesus (in Matthew) — "he shall save his people from their sins."
- In spirit and in truth. When he says he greets her "in spirit and in truth," he borrows Jesus' words to the woman at the well (in John) about true worship.
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thi-071 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.