Letters · Erster Band · Theil I (1773)

Through premature activities the enemy seeks to hold us back from the One-Thing-Needful.

Bd I · Th I · Brief 149 · Der hundertundneunundvierzigste Brief

Addressee — An Karl Sigismund Prueschenck von Lindenhofen (gest. 1744), of Gut Berka bei Eisenach, a burggräflich court official. Addressed as "geliebter Freund und Bruder," "werthester Freund," in the courtesy third person ("des geliebten Bruders angenehmes Schreiben vom 21. Martii," "halte er mir dieses Wenige zu gut," "die Erfahrung wird ihm selbst," "sein Schreiben," "dem geliebten Bruder erwiesen hat"). ⚠ Identification: van Andel 279 wrongly gives the addressee as Pastor Forstmann in Solingen. The print is unsigned (abridged); the autograph subscribes "des geliebten Freund und Bruders schwaches Mitglied. Gerhard Tersteegen" + a P.S. on two accompanying pieces (→ apparatus).
Date — 11 May 1734, from Mülheim (autograph: "Mülheim a. d. Ruhr den 11. May 1734"). ⚠ The print mis-dates it "den 8. May 1734" (the redactor's date); the autograph's 11 May is authoritative.
Provenance — Translated from the public-domain 1773 first edition (Theil I, pp. 414–417) — the print recension — in normalized GS 1845 orthography, collated against the 1845 Gesammelte Schriften and Hartman's 1819 reprint (both GEB²), true date, and the material the print cut. All public-domain.

The Hundred and Forty-ninth Letter.

Through premature activities the enemy seeks to hold us back from the One-Thing-Needful.

In the grace of the Lord, beloved friend and brother!

For a while I have hesitated to answer your agreeable letter of the 21st of March this year, because not without cause am I shy of entering into more correspondence, being already so much engaged, and because I ever more experience that the true and inner Christian life — to which, out of divine mercy, I find myself called — requires a close abiding-by and abiding-within, if in this dying life one would come nearer to the goal of his calling, namely to the essential communion and union with God in the spirit.

Our JEsus was silent thirty years, and hid Himself, that He might instil into us the love of the life of true withdrawnness; and in His open life He spent scarcely four years. Ah! (I often think) could we, the awakened, but hold out only four probationary years in still dying and praying, before we came forth, then our subsequent activities might be a little purer, and less hurtful to the kingdom of God within and without us! This is a secret, but common, temptation of the enemy, and a subtle craft of nature — whereby the former, the enemy that is, or the tempter, would gladly lure us away from the One-Thing-Needful, and through manifoldness weaken our powers; while nature, and its appendage, which would have this dying life grow too narrow and too irksome as well, can, amid all these spiritual and most specious activities from without, the better draw breath and maintain itself, nay strengthen itself; while meanwhile the mystery of iniquity in the ground remains unknown and unmortified.

Therefore let us, worthiest friend, for the love and honour of our God, shut the eyes of our mind to all by-ways and by-works, that in a soft and still spirit we may attend only to our holy calling — which out of so great grace has announced itself in us, and will announce itself yet further in our hearts! In our hearts, not in our head, will the drawing and gathering love of our Shepherd let itself be felt ever more essentially — whose wholesome teachings, of the deepest renunciation of all things, of self-emptyings and contempt of ourselves, of the love of His cross, and of the childlike abiding in Him, shall never grow old to us, but must stay dearer than all the old and new lumber of opinions, of the orthodox as of the separatists alike.

Ah, my God! what is there not, inwardly, to do, to suffer, and to experience in Thy following and communion! How is it possible that we still let ourselves be lured out, to busy ourselves with dolls, we who can behold and experience truth and substance in our own selves? Help us, that we may make a thorough going-out from ourselves and from all that is created, and that our whole love be turned again to Thee, Thou most loveworthy Good and fulness of our love! Amen.

Beloved friend! hold this little to my credit, which so, without reflection, comes into the pen. Experience itself will have given you to know all this better. Love would not let me leave your letter wholly unanswered, since I hope besides that our acquaintance in the Lord will not be unblessed. God be praised for all the mercies He has shown to you too! Let us love Him, for He first loved us! Amen.

Mülheim, the 8th of May 1734.

❦

German

Der hundertundneunundvierzigste Brief.

Durch die frühzeitige Würcksamkeiten suchet der Feind uns von dem Einzig-Nöthigen abzuhalten.

In der Gnade des HErrn geliebter Freund und Bruder!

Eine Zeitlang hab ich angestanden, des geliebten Bruders angenehmes Schreiben vom 21. Martii a. c. zu beantworten, weil nicht ohne Ursach schüchteren bin, mich in mehrere Correspondenz einzulassen, da ohnedem schon so sehr engagiret bin, und ich überdiß immer mehr erfahre, daß das wahre und innere Christen-Leben …

— 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 to a nobleman-correspondent — Karl Sigismund Prueschenck von Lindenhofen — answering a letter of his from March, and dated, in the surviving autograph, 11 May 1734. It begins with a small, honest reluctance: Tersteegen is "shy of entering into more correspondence, being already so much engaged." But the reluctance opens onto one of his most characteristic teachings, a warning against a very spiritual-looking danger — premature activity.

Its argument. The image at its centre is unforgettable, and thoroughly Tersteegen: "Our JEsus was silent thirty years, and hid Himself… and in His open life He spent scarcely four years." Thirty years of hiddenness to four of public work — his rebuke to the eager convert who wants to do at once; his wish for the "awakened" is that they might keep "four probationary years in still dying and praying, before we came forth." The danger is subtle precisely because it looks holy. Premature "spiritual activity," he says, is "a secret but common temptation of the enemy, and a subtle craft of nature": the tempter "lures us away from the One-Thing-Needful, and through manifoldness weakens our powers," while nature — which finds the quiet, dying life "too narrow and too irksome" — is only too glad of the distraction, thriving on it "while the mystery of iniquity in the ground remains unknown and unmortified." Activity, in other words, can be the self's way of not dying. The remedy is inward and quiet: "shut the eyes of our mind to all by-ways and by-works," and listen for "the drawing love of our Shepherd… in our hearts, not in our head." Here he takes his one open — and even-handed — swipe: the Shepherd's teachings must stay "dearer than all the old and new lumber of opinions, of the orthodox as of the separatists alike."

A few words and echoes.

"The One-Thing-Needful" (das Einzig-Nöthige). Luke 10:42 — the "one thing… needful" that Mary chose. For Tersteegen it is essential union with God in the ground of the soul, the thing all busyness draws us from.
"Our JEsus was silent thirty years." The proportion of the hidden life to the public — thirty years to less than four — held up as a standing rebuke to premature "coming forth."
"A subtle craft of nature." His diagnosis of holy-looking busyness: the enemy weakens us "through manifoldness," and fallen nature welcomes the distraction because it spares it the quiet death.
"The mystery of iniquity in the ground." 2 Thessalonians 2:7 — the hidden root of sin that outward activity leaves untouched and "unmortified."
"The drawing love of our Shepherd." Christ as the soul's Shepherd, whose love is felt "in our hearts, not in our head" — the counter to a religion of the head.
"The old and new lumber of opinions, of the orthodox as of the separatists alike." His one open swipe, pointedly even-handed: neither confessional rigidity nor sectarian novelty is the point, but the love of the cross and the "childlike abiding in Him."
"Let us love Him, for He first loved us!" 1 John 4:19 — the note the letter closes on, after breaking, as Tersteegen so often does, straight into prayer.

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Erster Band, I. Theil, Brief 149 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thi-149.html.

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