Letters · Erster Band · Theil I (1773)

Comforting encouragement to a dying brother.

Bd I · Th I · Brief 86 · Der sechsundachtzigste Brief

Addressee — A brother/friend named Färbers, at Krefeld (Creivelt) — gravely ill / dying. Addressed "Herzlich geliebter Bruder!" (intimate du). The 1773 prints him anonymously ("an einen sterbenden Bruder").
Date — 8 April 1755, from Mülheim an der Ruhr.
Provenance — Translated from the public-domain 1773 first edition (Theil I, pp. 233–234), in GS 1845 orthography, collated against the 1845 Gesammelte Schriften and Hartman's 1819 reprint; identity and date from Tersteegen's autograph. All public-domain.

The Eighty-sixth Letter.

Comforting encouragement to a dying brother.

Dearly beloved brother!

Your little letter I have received, and read with pleasure. My soul greets you heartily again, in the name of Jesus Christ; may He be your strength and your comfort in all suffering, your true life in so-called dying, and your abiding good and great salvation in blessed eternity! Do not let the tempter, dear brother, frighten or bewilder you in your thoughts, as though you were being deceived. It is indeed the truth: we are sinners; we are full of wretchedness; in us there is nothing that is pleasing to God, and nothing to which we can hold; this we must and will admit. Yet He, for all that, is God — the good God — who has, out of grace, sought us, and you too, dear brother, and loved us, and given us a heart willing to love Him; out of grace He will also uphold you and receive you; of this I am sure. Let yourself, then, be left behind. Shut your eyes to yourself. Entrust yourself wholly to the gracious God, and let yourself fall quietly into the abyss of His gentle love, which in Jesus is so near to you! There, there will He Himself work in you a childlike trust — a trust to which you must, without hesitation, give place.

I trust it to God's mercy that we shall soon see one another again, with pure and everlasting joy, before the throne of the Lamb. Go, meanwhile, only in peace, my brother! — to worship, behold, praise, and love yet more perfectly, together with the blessed in eternity, this our sweet and blessed God, our highest good, and to lose yourself blessedly in Him. Yea, amen! Hallelujah! May He Himself, Jesus Christ our Saviour, bless you from now on unto eternity, Amen!

❦

German

Der sechsundachtzigste Brief.

Tröstlicher Zuspruch an einen sterbenden Bruder.

Herzlich geliebter Bruder!

Dein Brieflein habe erhalten, und mit Vergnügen gelesen. Meine Seele grüßet dich herzlich wieder in dem Namen JEsu Christi, derselbe sey deine Stärkung und dein Trost in allem Leiden; dein wahres Leben im sogenannten Sterben, und dein bleibendes Gut und großes Heil in der seligen Ewigkeit!

— 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, tender letter of comfort to a brother who is dying. The 1773 prints it without a name — simply "to a dying brother" — but it was written to a friend named Färbers, at Krefeld. Tersteegen meets the man's fear directly: yes, we are sinners with nothing in ourselves to hold on to — but God is good, and it is He who, out of sheer grace, sought us and loved us first and will keep us to the end. So the dying man is told to stop looking at himself, to shut his eyes to his own wretchedness, and simply to let himself fall, quietly, into the abyss of God's gentle love. The letter closes not in dread but in a blessing and a Hallelujah, looking straight past death to a reunion before the throne of the Lamb.

A few words and echoes.

We are sinners. Paul's plain verdict that all have sinned (Romans) — admitted freely, and then answered wholly by grace.
Out of grace. The letter's engine: God sought, loved, and will keep us "out of grace" — Paul's "by grace ye are saved" (Ephesians).
Let yourself fall into the abyss. Tersteegen's characteristic image of surrender: not a struggle but a dropping — letting go into the bottomless depth of God's love.
The throne of the Lamb. The reunion he looks toward — the vision of Revelation, where the blessed stand before the Lamb.
Go in peace. The gospel farewell (as Jesus said to those he had healed and forgiven), here spoken to a man setting out on his last journey.
Bless you from now on unto eternity. The ancient blessing — "The Lord bless thee and keep thee" — stretched here to cover all eternity.

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Erster Band, I. Theil, Brief 86 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thi-086.html.

← Bd I · Th I · Brief 85 Bd I · Th I · Brief 87 →