Letters · Erster Band · Theil I (1773)

Exhortation to the complete and repeated surrender.

Bd I · Th I · Brief 127 · Der hundertundsiebenundzwanzigste Brief

Addressee — An Else Otterbeck — a recurring correspondent (cf. Briefe 112, 119, 121). Addressed "Geliebte Freundin!" with the intimate du/dein (subscription "Dein Mitpilger").
Date — 8 October 1732, from Mülheim.
Provenance — Translated from the public-domain 1773 first edition (Theil I, pp. 363–364), in normalized GS 1845 orthography, collated against the 1845 Gesammelte Schriften, Hartman's 1819 reprint. All public-domain.

The Hundred and Twenty-seventh Letter.

Exhortation to the complete and repeated surrender.

Beloved friend!

How blessed do you not deem a soul that has given itself up wholly, and forever, to God! To that you are called this very moment. Should darkness and unbelief make you doubt whether you have ever rightly made this surrender, then make it again that very instant, as heartily as you can, and henceforth look upon yourself as one who belongs wholly to God. One thing more: it is very pleasing to God, and a joy to all His saints, when we perform even a single deed of surrender to Him, and of self-denial for His sake. Ah! so practice these hero-deeds unceasingly, even against the will of nature; and so God will have His delight, and all the saints their joy, in you, and you will be blessed in this deed — which wishes and prays,

Your fellow-pilgrim.

Mülheim, the 8th of October 1732.

❦

German

Der hundertundsiebenundzwanzigste Brief.

Ermahnung zur völligen und wiederhohlten Uebergabe.

Geliebte Freundin!

Wie so glückselig preisest du nicht eine Seele, die sich völlig, und auf ewig GOtt ergeben hat! Darzu wirst du augenblicklich berufen.

— 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. One of the shortest letters in the collection — a single, urgent paragraph, written 8 October 1732 to Else Otterbeck (who also receives Briefe 112, 119, and 121). It has one subject, named in its heading: the complete and repeated surrender of oneself to God. Else has evidently spoken of how blessed such a fully-surrendered soul must be, and Tersteegen turns it straight back on her: "To that you are called this very moment." The whole letter is about not letting doubt paralyze that self-giving. If "darkness and unbelief" rise up and make her wonder whether she ever really made the surrender, the answer is not to brood over the past but to do it again, immediately — "that very instant, as heartily as you can" — and from then on simply to "regard yourself as one who belongs wholly to God." Surrender, for Tersteegen, is not a single event to be anxiously verified but an act to be renewed as often as needed.

The letter's second half gives a reason to keep at it. Every act of self-giving matters: "it is very pleasing to God, and a joy to all His saints, when we perform even a single deed of surrender to Him, and of self-denial for His sake." So he urges her on with a soldierly, almost joyful phrase — "practice these hero-deeds unceasingly, even against the will of nature" — promising that God "will have His delight, and all the saints their joy, in you." It is a small, concentrated letter of encouragement, signed not with a name but simply "Your fellow-pilgrim."

A few words and echoes.

The complete and repeated surrender. The letter's keynote — Uebergabe, the whole handing-over of oneself to God, to be renewed ("repeated") rather than made once and anxiously guarded.
"To that you are called this very moment." The immediacy Tersteegen presses: surrender is not a distant goal but the present call — available, and to be done, right now.
Against doubt. The pastoral heart of the letter — when "darkness and unbelief" question whether one ever truly surrendered, the remedy is simply to surrender again, at once, rather than to brood.
"Hero-deeds." His striking word (Helden-Thaten) for acts of surrender and self-denial done "against the will of nature" — the hidden, unspectacular heroism of the interior life.
A joy to all His saints. The communion-of-saints note — even one act of self-giving is "a joy to all His saints," an echo of the joy in heaven over a soul turned wholly to God (Luke 15:7, 10).
"Blessed." The word Else herself used, from Proverbs 8:32 — "blessed are they that keep my ways"; the blessedness of the wholly-surrendered soul.

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Erster Band, I. Theil, Brief 127 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thi-127.html.

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