Letters · Erster Band · Theil II (1773)

A weighty reminder and instruction on the occasion of a raging epidemic.

Bd I · Th II · Brief 2 · Der zweite Brief

Addressee — An eine ungenannte Schwester — the print anonymizes her as "N. N."; mid-letter she is addressed "Daß ihr, liebe Schwester!" (a woman, polite Ihr/euch). The letter also greets her circle ("ihr und übrige liebe Bekannten"), and reports the death of *"die alte N.
Date — Undated in the print — no dateline and no signature (the letter ends on a benediction). Internal setting: written during a grassirende Seuche (epidemic) that has spared her town and circle so far but taken "die alte N. N."; no year attested.
Provenance — Translated from the public-domain 1773 first edition (Theil II, pp. 6–9), in normalized GS 1845 orthography, collated against the 1845 Gesammelte Schriften (Bd 8) and Hartman's 1819 reprint. All public-domain.

The Second Letter.

A weighty reminder and instruction on the occasion of a raging epidemic.

N. N.

From your kind letter I see, indeed, with pleasure, that you and the other dear friends have thus far, through God's protecting hand, been kept from the epidemic raging there — to which, however, the aged N. N. has had to yield up her outworn body, letting her spirit, we may hope, fall to rest in the hand of Jesus. Our own place the Lord has, of His goodness, spared until now from this plague, which otherwise has raged markedly all round about. How long the Lord will spare us from it, and grant us time for preparation, we do not know; and because we do not know it, we rightly do not delay, but do — for God's sake, and with a willing heart — now that which we, and all, must do in the end: namely, to leave this world of shadows and these passing dreams, and to turn ourselves to God and His eternity truly, and ever more fully, and to make ourselves rightly known and at home, in spirit, with our Father and our fatherland.

Whoever knows no other man than his animal body, and no other fatherland than this miserable world, he must indeed grow afraid when the death-bell tolls in such a way. And it were still to be heartily wished for many a poor child of earth that it might grow holily afraid, so as to save its precious soul betimes out of the Sodom of this world (Genesis 19:16, 17 and 22) and to find the true Zoar.

O how near is the place of hiding! — the true fatherland of our spirit, so noble and eternal, which is the truly essential man; the sweet, wide eternity that has, through Jesus' death, been unlocked to us again and brought near (Matthew 4:17 and Luke 17:21). And what a mercy it is, only to be called to become a child of that eternal world! Let everything that is in us bow down, out of thankfulness for this high grace, and yield itself anew, unconditionally, to the lovely call to the inward and eternal Being! Love will lead and help. For the rest — since we are the Lord's — we may believe that not even a little hair of our head falls without the will of our heavenly Father. May He Himself but keep us, at our post, ready for all that God wills!

That you, dear sister, love the withdrawal and separation from all manifoldness and lingering, and practise it as best you can, and are, as it were, greedy to press forward into the stripping-away of all that is not God — that is dear to me. What else you report of your conduct, I cannot but call good. The thorough forsaking and going-out from ourselves we must indeed await from the hand and working of God, and meanwhile bear our infirmities with humility and quietness; but also, even as we bear ourselves and our infirmities and feel them in the occasions that arise, let us sink gently with them into Jesus — so will they vanish, and we be gradually made ready for a fuller forsaking of ourselves, when Jesus becomes our life.

It is good that you, for want of feeling or of effectual power, continue harmoniously in the exercise of prayer. Little depends on whether we are in this state or that, if only we do not knowingly cause the dryness or the darknesses. True love nestles itself to the will of the Beloved; it does the thing childlike, as best it can, and would gladly do it well; it thinks not, or but little, of how it fares, because all its pleasure stands in the pleasure of its Beloved.

Do but love, for Jesus' sake, the outward and little occasions for dying-off. Take everything from God's hand! We can nowhere bow ourselves too much, if only we do not bow beneath sin. May the gentle love of Jesus flow through you — then you will everywhere be able to practise love.

❦

German

Der zweite Brief.

Wichtige Erinnerung und Unterricht bei Gelegenheit einer grassirenden Seuche.

N. N. Aus eurem Angenehmen ersehe ich zwar mit Vergnügen, daß ihr und übrige liebe Bekannten durch GOttes beschützende Hand bis dahin noch vor der daselbst grassirenden Seuche bewahret worden seyd; woran doch die alte N. N. ihren abgelebten Körper noch hat aufopfern müssen, und ihren Geist verhoffentlich in JEsu Hand zur Ruhe fallen lassen.

— 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 written in the middle of an epidemic. The recipient — a woman, left unnamed here (the print prints only "N. N.") but addressed warmly as "dear sister" — belongs to a circle that has so far been spared, though an aged member of it has just died of the plague. Tersteegen writes not to frighten but to steady: the tolling of the death-bell, he says, is a mercy if it wakes us to turn homeward to God while there is time.

Its argument. Someone who has "no other fatherland than this miserable world" must dread the death-bell; but the believer sees how near the "place of hiding" is — the eternity that Jesus' death has "unlocked… and brought near." So do now, willingly and gladly, what everyone must do at the end: "leave this world of shadows and these passing dreams, and turn to God." The comfort under it all is the Father's care: "not even a little hair of our head falls without the will of our heavenly Father… May He Himself but keep us, at our post, ready for all that God wills!" Then the letter turns to quieter, practical counsel for the sister: keep faithfully to prayer even when feeling and power are dry; do not fret over your own state, for "true love nestles itself to the will of the Beloved" and cares only to please Him; and "love the outward and little occasions for dying-off. Take everything from God's hand."

A few words and echoes.

"The Sodom of this world… the true Zoar." When Sodom was destroyed, Lot was hurried out to the little refuge-town of Zoar (Genesis 19:16–22). Tersteegen turns the story into an image: flee the perishing world, as Lot fled the burning city, to the safety that is God.
"Not a hair of our head falls without the will of our heavenly Father." Matthew 10:29–30 — not a sparrow "shall fall on the ground without your Father," and "the very hairs of your head are all numbered" (cf. Luke 21:18). The Father's minute care — down to the sparrow and the single hair — is the ground of the letter's calm before the plague.
"Since we are the Lord's." Romans 14:8 — "whether we live… or die, we are the Lord's." Whichever the epidemic brings, the believer already belongs to God.
"Unlocked… and brought near." Jesus' own preaching that "the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matthew 4:17) and "the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21). The eternal "fatherland" is not far off but close by, opened through His death.
"True love nestles itself to the will of the Beloved." The heart of Tersteegen's counsel: love does not take its own temperature or fret over dryness — it simply wants what the Beloved wants, and does its childlike best.
"This world of shadows and passing dreams." Tersteegen's recurring picture of earthly life — real enough to feel, but fleeting, like shadows thrown on a wall or a dream one wakes from.

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Erster Band, II. Theil, Brief 2 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thii-002.html.

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