Through the denial of the creatures one finds Jesus and the love-fellowship with one another.
The Hundred and Twenty-fifth Letter.
Through the denial of the creatures one finds Jesus and the love-fellowship with one another.
In the grace of Jesus, dearly beloved sister!
Or should I say little sister? — because you are truly still so small and weak that I would not have thought it. Ah! what a living and painful proof of the little enlightenment and the great misery of the called in these days it often is to me, when I see that they so highly esteem so small a measure of grace in me (though it is indeed far more than I deserve), and look upon me — who yet, according to my own thinking, might very well be spared in the world.
Now then, compose yourself in God and His will, you weak child! Have we not so often stammered together of the denial of all creatures out of love for Jesus? Am I then not also one, and indeed a poor, creature? God now wills this offering of you; do not let it be so wrung from you, but let it be a free-will offering, and so it will be a blessing to you. Say to your inwardly-present Soul-Friend that He alone is enough for you, and go on repeating this to Him, with tender looks of love, until not only is your mind stilled again in this, but until He has also essentially become your All in you; but to me, and to all else, say without hesitation the 19th little saying of the Blumengärtlein: Go, creatures, go; I can spare you all, and so forth. Thereby the true love toward one another is not annulled or lessened, but becomes purer and stronger.
Inwardly, in the fellowship of our most precious Jesus, we can essentially find and bless one another, even in absence. Sink down into it with me, quite softly and quietly, into this heavenly Being; there embrace Jesus alone; and there let Him have you wholly, according to all His good pleasure. And even then and there, I trust, He will move you to offer me, wretched one, up to His love-leading and His protection, also on this my journey — as I then most urgently entreat it, since I shall have need of much wisdom, strength, and grace in every way.
Be assured that I shall also never forget your soul, to whatever place I may ever come. But because I would travel into various towns and places, and do not intend to stay away long, I cannot promise that I shall find much time for writing — though I shall several times give word here of my condition. I must also now close for lack of time, because even while writing I get two more letters to answer, and have besides to make myself ready for departure.
We travel then together as spiritual pilgrims, out of ourselves and all created things — loosed, bare, softly and stilly — into the heavenly Being in Christ Jesus, wherein we find and greet one another eternally. Amen! Jesus.
Your weak fellow-traveller.
Mülheim, the 15th of May 1732.
German
Der hundertundfünfundzwanzigste Brief.
Durch die Verläugnung der Creaturen findet man JEsum und die Liebes-Gemeinschaft unter einander.
In der Gnade JEsu vielgeliebte Schwester!
Oder soll ich Schwesterlein sagen? weil du würklich noch so klein und schwach bist, daß ich es nicht gedacht hätte.
— 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 farewell letter, written on 15 May 1732, just as Tersteegen was about to set out from Mülheim on a journey into the Netherlands. It is addressed to Christiana Maria Griesenbeck — the same "sister" of Briefe 120, 123, and 124 — and it takes as its theme the phrase in its heading: through the denial of the creatures one finds Jesus, and the love-fellowship with one another. The tender opening ("Or should I say little sister? — because you are truly still so small and weak") tells us she has taken his coming departure hard. His whole counsel is to turn that grief into an offering. His going away is itself one of the "creatures" she must be willing to let go of — not by having it "wrung" from her against her will, but freely: "God now wills this offering of you… let it be a free-will offering, and so it will be a blessing to you."
The heart of the letter is where he sends her: away from the departing friend and toward the friend who never departs. "Say to your inwardly-present Soul-Friend that He alone is enough for you," and keep saying it "with tender looks of love," until Jesus "has essentially become your All in you." And to everything else — himself included — say the line from his own hymn-book, the Blumengärtlein: "Go, creatures, go; I can spare you all." The paradox he insists on is that this renunciation does not cool their friendship but refines it: the true love between them "is not annulled or lessened, but becomes purer and stronger." They will still "find and bless one another" inwardly, "even in absence." So he asks her, in that inward place, to "offer me up" to Jesus' "love-leading and protection" for the road ahead — "since I shall have need of much wisdom, strength, and grace in every way." The letter ends the way it has taught her to live: "We travel then together as spiritual pilgrims, out of ourselves and all created things… into the heavenly Being in Christ Jesus, wherein we find and greet one another eternally."
A few words and echoes.
- "Little sister." The affectionate Schwesterlein — he calls her this because she is still spiritually "small and weak," and has felt his leaving keenly; the whole letter is written to that tenderness.
- Denial of the creatures. The letter's governing idea: a "creature" is anything short of God that the heart clings to — here, Tersteegen's own presence. To "deny" it is not to stop loving but to hold it loosely, offering it up to God.
- A free-will offering. His key move — the difference between a sacrifice "wrung" out of us and one given freely; only the free-will offering becomes "a blessing." An echo of the Old-Testament freewill offering (Psalm 54:6).
- The inwardly-present Soul-Friend. Jesus as the friend who is always within and never leaves — over against the human friend who must go; "He alone is enough for you" carries the note of grace that "is sufficient" (2 Corinthians 12:9).
- "Go, creatures, go; I can spare you all." The 19th saying of Tersteegen's own Geistliches Blumengärtlein (1729) — the renouncing word he gives her to say to everything but God.
- Purer and stronger. The paradox at the letter's center: love truly surrendered to God is not lost but purified — "not annulled or lessened, but purer and stronger."
- Spiritual pilgrims. The closing image — the two of them journeying inwardly together "out of ourselves and all created things," even while apart; the language of the "pilgrims and strangers" who seek a heavenly country (Hebrews 11:13; 1 Peter 2:11).
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thi-125 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.