Letters · Erster Band · Theil I (1773)

Of the compassionate love of Jesus in the cross, and its benefit.

Bd I · Th I · Brief 85 · Der fünfundachtzigste Brief

Addressee — Elisabeth Schröters, at Krefeld — the "Schwester Lisbet" greeted in Brief 82; now (August 1765) on a bed of suffering. Addressed "Herzlich geliebte Schwester!" (intimate du).
Date — 10 August 1765, from Mülheim.
Provenance — Translated from the public-domain 1773 first edition (Theil I, pp. 231–232), in GS 1845 orthography, collated against the 1845 Gesammelte Schriften and Hartman's 1819 reprint. All public-domain.

The Eighty-fifth Letter.

Of the compassionate love of Jesus in the cross, and its benefit.

Dearly beloved sister!

Weak as I am, I must yet — with this convenient opportunity — greet you once more in my own hand. I desire to do so in the name of Jesus Christ, who would bless you and say to your soul: Peace be with you! I understand and see from your cousin's letter that the Lord still holds you in the melting-crucible: this I regard, on the one hand, with brotherly compassion and earnest intercession — but I think withal: how great and how tender must the compassion be with which the dearest Saviour Jesus looks upon the sister on her bed of suffering, even in the very moment that He Himself reaches her the cup of suffering! Did He not know that it is so unavoidably necessary and salutary for her to go through this way of suffering, His loving heart could not bear it; He would soon say: It is enough. And could the dear sister so regard her sufferings, she would, with David, say after him with comforted courage the 116th Psalm — or at least the 13th verse of that Psalm: I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord; and so forth. Now, may the Lord grant these eyes of faith and this heart, together with all persevering patience and pliancy under His hand! Yea, He is faithful, He will also do it; to Him we belong, in body and soul; He has bought us dearly, and to Him we have deliberately given ourselves over: so are we to regard ourselves. No foreign power can, without His will, harm us by a single hair.

Consent from your heart to your misery and nothingness! But give also to God the honor — whose love and mercies are an abyss, far more unfathomable than the abyss of your wretchednesses. Let one abyss then call to the other! And let this be now your prayer, when you can otherwise not pray. I too, before God, will not forget you in my sighings. I greet you once more heartily, and hope soon to hear that the very divine grace which laid you low has also raised you up again, to His praise. The dear friends known here greet you likewise.

❦

German

Der fünfundachtzigste Brief.

Von der mitleidigen Liebe JEsu im Kreuz, und dessen Nutzen.

Herzlich geliebte Schwester!

Wie schwach ich auch bin, so muß ich doch mit dieser bequemen Gelegenheit auch noch eigenhändig grüßen. Ich begehre solches zu thun in dem Namen JEsu Christi, der dich segnen, und zu deiner Seele sagen wolle: Friede sey mit dir!

— 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 tender letter of comfort to a long-suffering sister — Elisabeth Schröters of Krefeld — written to her sick-bed. Its heart is what Tersteegen calls the compassionate love of Jesus in the cross: the Saviour who with his own hand reaches her the cup of suffering, watches her bear it with an almost unbearable tenderness, and would say "It is enough" the very instant it had done its purifying work. So she is invited to lift that same cup as David's "cup of salvation," and to let the bottomless abyss of God's mercy answer the abyss of her own misery.

A few words and echoes.

Peace be with you. The risen Christ's own Easter greeting (John), spoken now to her soul.
The melting-crucible. Her long illness seen as the refiner's crucible — the fire that purifies gold (an image from the prophets and Psalms).
It is enough. The Lord's word that would end the trial the moment its work is done (as with Elijah).
The cup of salvation. Tersteegen turns David's line in Psalm 116 — "I will take the cup of salvation" — against her cup of suffering, so the two become one.
Deep calleth unto deep. The letter's central image (Psalm 42): the abyss of God's love and mercy answering the abyss of the soul's need.

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Erster Band, I. Theil, Brief 85 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thi-085.html.

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