Of light, darkness, and suffering, and how one is to bear oneself in them.
The Hundred and Thirty-sixth Letter.
Of light, darkness, and suffering, and how one is to bear oneself in them.
In the grace of JEsus, beloved friend and sister!
Although the burdens and businesses that I have had — and still have — on account of my brother's sickness and death have hindered me from writing to you, yet they have not been able to hinder me from thinking on your soul, and — weak as I was in it — commending it to the loving oversight of our Immanuel.
Ah! how heartily do I wish it for you, that this rapturous light of heaven (I mean our God-Child) might visit, quicken, and warm the inmost of your soul's ground, or at the very least drive away the gloomy mists and storms of unbelief, and the powers of darkness! And it shall come to pass, too: of this I have good confidence in the Lord. He will let the light come forth out of the darkness — but all in His time, and in His order, and not according to the fancy of our importunate nature and self-will.
The divine Sun of Righteousness first reveals the darkness, and all the unrighteous being within us; and thereupon follows the healing: both the one and the other cannot come about without pain, though it springs from nothing but deep love and mercy; whence it also comes that, the nearer this pure and purifying light draws to the soul, the more the soul just then often complains and laments over darkness, misery, and distress. And it is not always that particular corruption alone which lies nearest to one and hovers before one's eyes, that is to be judged with so many pains; rather, the painful sight and feeling of a grosser sin and fault must often be a remedy to heal us of a subtler and more dangerous self-will, which is often hidden from us. O the depth of the wisdom and mercy of our Redeemer!
The above I had already begun to write to you; and now, since in the midst of writing I receive your letter, I need only finish writing out what I had begun — then your letter is answered, and, would to God, your mind set at rest.
Nothing but the unsearchable wisdom and love of God is to be adored in the whole work of our redemption, as we shall soon behold with our eyes in that glory: His ways are in deep waters of tribulations and sufferings, where no footprint is to be seen; and why then should a poor, foolish child find fault with the Father's dealings, grow impatient and mistrustful, and say: Thou seest my distress, and yet healest me not; I cannot get past it! Let the Father but deal with you, and give yourself over to Him, you hard-pressed, foolish child! or, if you have wisdom, then tell me: Why did God form the waste and empty earth so gloriously in six days, when He could have done it in a single moment? Why must Israel hover forty years long in the wilderness? Why did Jericho fall only on the seventh day? And why did the Serpent-treader JEsus — so long promised and so painfully awaited — come only after four thousand years? Has not the eternal Wisdom made all things well?
So let us then henceforth close our eyes, and remain only foolish children! Yield up and give over your soul, and its whole condition, wholly into the faithful Father-hands of God! The Lord knows that sin is a burden to you. Through disquiet, faint-heartedness, and perpetual mourning you will only be the more weakened, confounded, and made apt to stumble. Only, as far as may be, forget yourself and your miseries, and be commended to God; and to the hidden childlike trust and love (which grace works in the ground beneath all misery) give only gentle place, and nourish it, and receive the blessedness offered out of pure grace!
Finally! There is a soul, my Lord JEsus, which feels nothing but sin within itself, which is full of sins: yet it is not dear to her; on the contrary, she feels over it unspeakable distress; she complains of herself, bewails herself, and accuses herself over it before God and men; she counts hell to be gentler than the yoke of sin; days and hours fall too long for her, to be delivered from this bitter yoke. With all this, she would so inwardly gladly love JEsus, please JEsus, and be JEsus' entire possession. What, then, my Lord JEsus, shall I say to her in Thy name? Shall I not, for Thy sake, assure her that Thou wilt come to heal her? Ah yes! that is Thy mind. So speak it Thyself into her heart, and she shall live, Amen!
One thing more, dear soul! I ask you yourself what I asked JEsus: What shall I say to such a soul? That do tell yourself, and take it to yourself, as if JEsus said it to you.
Your bound one in the Lord.
Mülheim, the 5th of September 1733.
German
Der hundertundsechsunddreißigste Brief.
Von Licht, Finsterniß und Leiden, und wie man sich darinnen zu verhalten.
In der Gnade JEsu geliebte Freundin und Schwester!
Obzwar die Beschwerden und Beschäftigungen, die ich wegen des Krankseyns und Sterbens meines Bruders gehabt habe, und noch habe, mich verhinderet haben, an dich zu schreiben; so haben sie mich doch nicht hinderen können, an deine Seele zu gedenken, und selbige, wiewohl in Schwachheit, der Liebes-Aufsicht unsers Immanuels anzubefehlen.
— 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 letter on darkness and suffering, written 5 September 1733 to Christiana Maria Griesenbeck — the tenth in this run of letters to her — and written, as its first line tells us, out of Tersteegen's own grief: "the sickness and death of my brother." (Wilhelm Adam Tersteegen died that year.) So it is not consolation offered from a height; it is a man in the dark writing to a woman in the dark. Its subject is exactly that: "light, darkness, and suffering, and how one is to bear oneself in them."
Its argument. Tersteegen's central thought is that God's light, when it comes near a soul, first makes the darkness visible — and that this is itself the beginning of healing, not a sign that God has withdrawn. "The divine Sun of Righteousness first reveals the darkness … and thereupon follows the healing." That is why a soul often feels worse just as grace draws nearest: the light is showing it what was always there. And neither the seeing nor the healing, he says, "can come about without pain, though it springs from nothing but deep love and mercy." From this he draws a hard, freeing counsel: stop demanding to know why. "Why then should a poor, foolish child find fault with the Father's dealings?" — as if it could turn on God and say, "Thou seest my distress, and yet healest me not." He piles up God's slow ways in Scripture — six days to make the world He could have spoken in a moment, forty years in the wilderness, seven days around Jericho, four thousand years before Christ came — and lets the question answer itself: "Has not the eternal Wisdom made all things well?" Better, then, "to close our eyes and remain only foolish children," and to "yield up your soul … into the faithful Father-hands of God" — because "through disquiet, faint-heartedness, and perpetual mourning you will only be the more weakened."
The prayer at the end. Then the letter does something very like Brief 135: it turns the recipient's own case into a prayer, only here the prayer is spoken not for her but to Christ about her. "There is a soul, my Lord JEsus, which feels nothing but sin within itself … yet it is not dear to her" — she hates the sin she feels, "counts hell to be gentler than the yoke of sin," and longs only "to love JEsus, please JEsus, and be JEsus' entire possession." Tersteegen lays this soul before the Lord and asks, almost as her advocate, "What shall I say to her in Thy name? … So speak it Thyself into her heart, and she shall live." And then, very tenderly, he hands it back to her: "One thing more, dear soul: … tell it to yourself, and take it, as if JEsus said it to you." The comfort she is to keep is Christ's own word of healing, spoken over the very soul that feels nothing but sin.
A few words and echoes.
- "The Sun of Righteousness." Christ, from Malachi 4:2 (Luther 3:20): "unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings." The letter's whole image — light that heals by first exposing — hangs on this verse.
- "He will let the light come forth out of the darkness." 2 Corinthians 4:6: "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts."
- "His ways are in deep waters … no footprint to be seen." Psalm 77:19: "Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known." God's dealings leave no track we can trace — hence the counsel to stop asking why.
- "O the depth." Romans 11:33: "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!"
- "The Serpent-treader." An old name for Christ from Genesis 3:15, the first promise of a Redeemer — the seed of the woman who shall bruise the serpent's head. Tersteegen's point: even this, the hinge of all history, God let wait "four thousand years."
- "Remain only foolish children." Not a counsel of ignorance but of trust — to stop insisting on understanding God's reasons and rest, as a small child does, in the Father's hands (cf. Matthew 18:3; Psalm 131:2).
- "Your bound one in the Lord." Tersteegen's signature here (Dein Verbundener im HErrn) — literally, "your one bound / joined [to you] in the Lord," the language of a fellowship knit together in Christ.
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thi-136 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.