An exhortation to endurance at the cross, until one has died upon it.

What this letter is. A short, bracing letter — sent open, "to N. N." — on what it costs to be a Christian: not merely to die, but to stay on the cross until one has died on it. Its whole burden is patient endurance under suffering, held up by the sight of Christ, who suffers with His members and conquered by the very way of the cross.

Its argument. To "name and confess Jesus the Crucified" is already to know where discipleship leads: "if we suffer along, we shall also be glorified along" (Romans 8:17). And the dying is slow — "not all at once, but, as it were, drop by drop" — the blood "of self-love, of self-will, and of one's own life." From the cross Tersteegen draws the hardest counsels gently: "love our crucifiers and pray for them"; let ourselves be handled "as if we had neither hands nor feet free"; and above all resist the one temptation the mockers named — "Not, 'Come down from the cross!'" — but rather, "the head bowed in blind self-abandonment," say with the dying Christ: "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit!" Then the comfort: we do not suffer alone. "When one member suffers, then all suffer, and the Head with us" — and "according to the measure of our self-surrender, Christ suffers with us." So: "be of good cheer… suffer as the Lord wills; but do not disquiet yourselves so much with fear, suspicion, and care. Jesus will care, and turn all to the best." He ends as a fellow-sufferer, not a teacher above them: "I hope to hold you in my poor prayer. Remember me also."

A few words and echoes.

• "If we suffer along, we shall also be glorified along." Romans 8:17 — "if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together." The verse under the whole letter.
• "Die on the cross… drop by drop… the blood of self-love, self-will, and one's own life." Galatians 2:20 ("I am crucified with Christ") and Luke 9:23 ("take up his cross daily") — but Tersteegen's own image is the slow bleeding-out of the self, a dying that takes a whole life.
• "Love our crucifiers and pray for them." Luke 23:34 ("Father, forgive them") and Matthew 5:44 ("pray for them which… persecute you") — the crucified attitude toward those who cause the suffering.
• "Not, 'Come down from the cross!'" Matthew 27:40–42 — the mockers' taunt, "come down from the cross… let him now come down." Tersteegen turns it into the temptation to be resisted: do not come down.
• "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit!" Luke 23:46 — Christ's last word, made the believer's word of total surrender at the cross of self.
• "When one member suffers, then all suffer, and the Head with us." 1 Corinthians 12:26 ("whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it"), with the Head who suffers in His members — Acts 9:4 ("why persecutest thou me?") and Colossians 1:24.
• "Turn all to the best." Romans 8:28 — "all things work together for good to them that love God."