Letters · Erster Band · Theil I (1773)

Exhortation to willing suffering.

Bd I · Th I · Brief 103 · Der hundertunddritte Brief

Addressee — An Christiana Maria Griesenbeck (née Engels, 1707–1741), Mülheim — his most frequent correspondent; addressed "Geliebte Schwester!" with the polite Ihr/euch (with a single intimate dich in the commendation — "daselbst dich lassende, liebe Freundin!" — and the subscription Dein).
Date — 25 June 1730, from Mülheim — nearly two months after Brief 102 (30 April), same correspondent.
Provenance — Translated from the public-domain 1773 first edition (Theil I, pp. 294–295), in normalized GS 1845 orthography, collated against the 1845 Gesammelte Schriften, Hartman's 1819 reprint. All public-domain.

The Hundred and Third Letter.

Exhortation to willing suffering.

Beloved sister!

Time and occasion do not at present permit me to write much to you; and what I could now say to you, you already know: yet because I know that you always deign to look upon my hand with kindly eyes, I have wished, even so, hereby to greet you heartily in the name of Jesus and in His love, and to show that I am still alive, and that amid all my miseries I have not yet forgotten you.

I look at times in spirit upon your inward and outward sufferings, and wish you much strength and grace from the Lord, that according to His good pleasure you may suffer, live, and die in love and out of love. Ah, let us then suffer for God with heartfelt good pleasure, so long as we are in the body: after a little while we shall no longer have the good occasion to attest to the Lord our weak love-in-return through willing suffering. For what else has the Lord prepared us a body? Save that our spirit might now say after the Savior: Lo, I come, to do and to suffer, O God, thy will. Hebrews 10:5.

May God give us the childlike mind to accept all, all that comes upon us, as His will — though we must never consent unto sin. May He preserve in us the faith that, in our childlike entering-in, we be not hindered from His loving Father-heart, but may lose ourselves therein in the spirit, and find our constant refuge and dwelling, here and in eternity! Therein I commend us together, and, leaving you there, dear friend, must now close, in hope that we shall soon behold and love one another everlastingly in this sweet City of Peace, to the praise of Jesus, who lives in us! I greet you heartily, and remain

Your weak fellow-brother.

Mülheim, 25 June 1730.

❦

German

Der hundertunddritte Brief.

Ermahnung zum willigen Leiden.

Geliebte Schwester!

Zeit und Gelegenheit lassen zwar gegenwärtig nicht zu, vieles an euch zu schreiben; und was ich euch auch jetzt sagen kann, wisset ihr schon: Weil ich aber weiß, daß ihr meine Hand immer mit geneigten Augen anzusehen würdiget, habe ich euch doch hiemit im Namen JEsu …

— 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 note to Christiana Maria Griesenbeck — written almost as a wave of the hand across the distance ("to show that I am still alive, and that amid all my miseries I have not yet forgotten you"). Its whole burden is one thought: that suffering is not merely to be endured but is a gift of opportunity. So long as we are still in the body, Tersteegen says, we have the good occasion — which we will not have in eternity — to prove our love to the Lord by bearing His will gladly. The body itself was given us for this: that our spirit might echo the words Scripture puts in Christ's mouth, "Lo, I come… to do and to suffer, O God, thy will." He prays for the "childlike mind" that accepts everything as God's will (with one firm exception — never consenting to sin), and closes looking past all present hardship to the "sweet City of Peace" where they will one day meet.

A few words and echoes.

Willing suffering (williges Leiden). Not grim endurance but suffering embraced gladly, as a way of loving God back — the "weak love-in-return" (schwache Gegenliebe) we can still offer Him while in the body.
"Lo, I come… to do thy will, O God." From Hebrews 10 (quoting Psalm 40), where the coming Christ says a body has been prepared for Him precisely to do God's will. Tersteegen adds "and to suffer," making the doing include the bearing — the whole point of the letter.
"For what else has the Lord prepared us a body?" A direct play on the same passage ("a body hast thou prepared me"): the body's purpose is this loving obedience-in-suffering.
The childlike mind (kindlicher Sinn). His recurring image of the soul as a trusting child who takes whatever the Father sends — here sharpened by the one thing a child of God must never accept: sin.
The sweet City of Peace (süße Friedens-Stadt). The heavenly Jerusalem, the "city of peace," where the parting of this letter is healed in an everlasting seeing and loving.

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Erster Band, I. Theil, Brief 103 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thi-103.html.

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