Encouragement to a believing turning to God, and to a devout walk before His face, in whose light the subtlest peculiarities are brought to light and fought against.
The First Letter.
Encouragement to a believing turning to God, and to a devout walk before His face, in whose light the subtlest peculiarities are brought to light and fought against.
In the grace of God, beloved friend and sister!
Your little letters I have received well, both before and since — your last, too, of the 2nd of February, though it came late. That I do not answer sooner and more fully happens by no means from any lack of love, but has its other causes, which I cannot all so readily tell.
As concerns the two maidens you know of, whom I greet in friendship on both their parts, it will surely not be worth the trouble that either they or any of us should be so greatly disquieted over it — In the present we must do all that lies before us to do as wisely and as well as we are able and understand it through God's grace: but what has once happened, we must not go over too much, and over and over again.
For the rest, then, let us in these dangerous days diligently take heed to ourselves, through a devout, still walk before the presence of the Lord our God. In the light of His countenance we best learn to know the hidden spots of our coarse and subtle self-will — which this same light, moreover, like the sun the mist, makes to vanish, so that it grows bright and still in our inner world; whereas otherwise, outside this light, we can never thoroughly know ourselves, still less be delivered from ourselves, but must pass our time in the most wretched darkness, as in a dark dungeon, laden with many bonds, without our even often knowing it ourselves, because we do not come enough to our own selves. Has not, then, our faithful Saviour led captivity captive, and found an eternal redemption? Is He not come to preach to the prisoners, that they should be set free? And why, then, should we love slavery more than freedom, and the anxious darkness more than the blissful light of life? Yet so we do, when we let ourselves be held, in one way or another — however plausible it may seem — in distraction, and do not with our whole will turn away from all that is not pure before God's face. Though it still assail us, though we cannot get free so readily as we would gladly wish — yet let us but freely practise this turning-away of our whole, or entire, will, with a believing turning to God, as soon as we mark anything impure.
But here the deceit often lurks: when we are to fight against our dearest corruptions or peculiarities, we have only an "I would well," but no thorough and entire "I will"; and so our enemy stays, before as after, alive and in force, because he little heeds such blows in the air. But did we once, in the power of God's grace, go to work otherwise, we should soon see how mighty the Lord's hand would grow in us — especially when we, as has been said, exercised ourselves at once in a believing turning to God and a devout walk before His face: whereby all that is otherwise hard becomes easy, when one only sets about it heartily and simply enough. May the Lord Himself teach it us through His grace, and lead us Himself into it!
For the rest, I greet you, beloved friend, and the other God-seeking souls there; but I name none, that I may forget none: for otherwise I love them all, and commend us all together into the arms of the love of Jesus, remaining
Your
well-disposed weak fellow-combatant.
German
Der erste Brief.
Aufmunterung zur glaubigen Zukehr zu GOtt, und andächtigen Wandel vor Seinem Angesicht, in dessen Licht die subtilste Eigenheiten entdecket und bestritten werden.
In der Gnade GOttes geliebte Freundin und Schwester!
Eure Brieflein habe vor und nach wohl erhalten, auch noch euer letztes vom 2. Febr. ob es wohl spät angekommen ist.
— 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. The letter that opens the second Part of the collection — written to a woman Tersteegen calls simply his "beloved friend and sister," a soul already in steady correspondence with him (he is answering her letter of the 2nd of February, come late). It is a letter of encouragement in what he calls "these dangerous days": an invitation to turn to God in trust and to walk quietly "before His face," in the light of His nearness — the light that both exposes what is wrong in us and, of itself, makes it melt away.
Its argument. Tersteegen's picture is of a lamp held up to a dim room. "In the light of His countenance we best learn to know the hidden spots of our coarse and subtle self-will — which this same light, moreover, like the sun the mist, makes to vanish." Left to ourselves, outside that light, we can neither see ourselves clearly nor free ourselves; we sit "in a dark dungeon, laden with many bonds," without even knowing it. But — and here the letter lifts — our "faithful Saviour has led captivity captive" and come "to preach to the prisoners, that they should be set free." So why, he asks, would we love the dungeon more than freedom, the frightened dark more than "the blissful light of life"? The trouble is that when it comes to our favourite faults we manage only a half-hearted "I would well," never a whole "I will," and so the enemy stays comfortably "alive and in force, because he little heeds such blows in the air." The remedy is not more struggle but this one turning: go to work "in the power of God's grace," and "the Lord's hand" soon grows mighty in us, and what was hard becomes easy "when one only sets about it heartily and simply enough."
A few words and echoes.
- "A devout walk before His face." The old command to Abraham — "Walk before me, and be thou perfect" (Genesis 17:1). For Tersteegen this "walking before God's face" is the whole of the devout life: living always in the felt nearness of God.
- "The hidden spots… in the light of His countenance." An echo of Psalm 90:8 — "thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance." The same light that exposes the fault is the light that dissolves it.
- "Led captivity captive." Ephesians 4:8 (after Psalm 68:18) — Christ ascending, leading captivity itself away captive. Paired with "an eternal redemption" (Hebrews 9:12): the deliverance is already accomplished.
- "To preach to the prisoners, that they should be set free." Isaiah 61:1, which Jesus read of Himself in the synagogue (Luke 4:18) — "to preach deliverance to the captives." Tersteegen turns it into a question: given such a Deliverer, why stay in chains?
- "The blissful light of life." John 8:12 — "he that followeth me… shall have the light of life." The opposite of the "anxious darkness" the soul is tempted to prefer.
- "Such blows in the air." Paul's image in 1 Corinthians 9:26 — "so fight I, not as one that beateth the air." A merely wishful resistance the enemy can safely ignore.
- "Self-will" (Eigenheiten). A key Tersteegen word — the small proprietary "peculiarities," the coarse and subtle ways the self quietly keeps hold of itself. The light of God's presence is what makes them visible in the first place.
- "Your well-disposed weak fellow-combatant." His signature — not "shepherd" or "father" but fellow-combatant: one in the same fight, at the reader's side rather than above.
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thii-001 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.