To the sincere mind that would love God, no vicissitudes do harm. To look upon God, and to let oneself be looked upon by Him.

What this letter is. A short, luminous sequel to the great prayer-letter (Brief 119) — written to the same Else Otterbeck, and headed by a little motto that could stand over Tersteegen's whole spirituality: "Let Adam die, let Jesus live in us!" She had written twice; she is holding firm in her resolve "to renounce all things and to love God with the whole heart," and Tersteegen's first word is simply gladness and a prayer that "the Lord Himself uphold and fulfill this in you."

Then the letter's real work, in two moves. First, reassurance about the ups and downs. The alternations every serious soul knows — "light and darkness, dryness and relish" — "do no harm, so long as this sincere disposition of the heart stands firm." And if you do slip? No drama: "with a quiet sorrow, turn yourself back again — and this as often as needed, until at last you fall no more." Hold to "the inward, sincere ground given by God," and don't get entangled in "the contrary part" of yourself. Second, he repeats his "former lesson" — the teaching of Brief 119, now compressed into a rule of life: "Look upon God, and let yourself be looked upon by Him, both within and outside of prayer." Carry the sense of God's "incomprehensible, loving, and glorious presence" with you "at all times and in all places"; adore and love Him; "do everything before His eyes, for His love and honor, without any secondary aim." And when you notice things stirring in yourself, good or bad, don't fixate — "gently turn your eyes away" and "offer it up to the present God, that He may examine and judge it."

The letter ends on a small, memorable maxim about the two gazes: "You must look upon God and what is His; and God must look upon you and what is yours." Keep the eyes on God; the one who "looks much upon his own self" ends up "either faint-hearted or high-minded" — despairing or proud. The whole thing is Tersteegen's practice of the presence of God in miniature, and a gentle liberation from anxiety about one's own spiritual weather.

A few words and echoes.

• "Let Adam die, let Jesus live in us." The head-motto — the old self (Adam) put to death, Christ living in its place (Romans 5–6; Galatians 2:20, "yet not I, but Christ liveth in me"). The program of the whole letter in six words.
• "The vicissitudes … do no harm." The pastoral heart: spiritual highs and lows, "dryness and relish," are weather, not substance; what matters is the steady, sincere set of the will toward God.
• "My former lesson." An explicit back-reference to Brief 119 — "to pray is to look upon the ever-present God, and to let oneself be looked upon by Him." This letter restates and extends it into all of life, "within and outside of prayer."
• The two gazes. "You must look upon God and what is His; and God must look upon you and what is yours." The double movement of the presence of God — our attention to Him, and our exposure to His.
• "Faint-hearted or high-minded." The twin dangers of self-preoccupation: looking much at oneself breeds either despair (kleinmütig) or pride (hochmütig); the cure is to look at God instead.