A token of love and a blessing-wish to a pious preacher. The necessity of self-denial and sanctification must go paired with the doctrine of reconciliation in Christ.
The Twenty-sixth Letter.
A token of love and a blessing-wish to a pious preacher. The necessity of self-denial and sanctification must go paired with the doctrine of reconciliation in Christ.
May Jesus live!
In the Same, dearly beloved brother!
Your welcome word to me from N. I duly received in its time. May Jesus fulfill the wish of your heart upon me, and upon all of us in this place! May He transfigure Himself ever more fully in our hearts through His Holy Spirit, so that our heart, mind, and walk may transfigure Him again in return!
Sitting in His divine presence, I desire to greet and kiss you, dear brother, in the sweet name of Jesus, and out of His so inwardly-near fullness to wish you everything that can gladden you and make you pleasing to your Lord. Praised be the divine goodness, whereby we have become known to one another outwardly as well! May it be for blessing, for refreshment, and for the glorifying of our God! This I trust to the Lord — and that in Him, our blessed Head, our love and fellowship will daily grow closer and more inward. It seems to me our sweet Master is calling us kindly in to Himself; He wills to make us innocent children of the heart, who live turned inward in Him and let Him alone live in them; who give themselves over, unformed and will-less, to the drawing, the leading, and the working of the Spirit of His love. Ah, Jesus! set us Thyself, with Mary, at Thy feet! Let everything that is in us fall silent and keep holy-day before Thee, that we may hear Thy words of eternal life, Amen!
We thank the Lord, and you too, dear brother, once more for your brotherly and edifying visit; I do not believe it will remain unblessed. Not only the beloved fellow-called-ones named in your letter, but also several others unknown to me by name have asked that their hearty greeting be conveyed to the dear brother. —
Now I greet you once more in sincere love. May Jesus bless and accompany you further on your journey, and bring you back in peace to your post! Remember me before God; I hope to do the same. Assuring you of my heartfelt love, I remain, by grace,
Your
bound and feeble brother.
Post Scriptum.
My brother! because I love you, I must speak freely. I am sorry that you have taken on, in expressions and thoughts, so much from the H—— — more than you believe — and have let yourself be shaped, as it were, into their plan; though I well know that you otherwise speak of the reconciliation in Christ out of your own feeling. You know how venerable this truth is to me: but according to the manner of teaching of Christ and the apostles, I must keep the two things together, so that no antinomianism (a) may arise from it. Christ, His apostles, and their nearest followers assuredly do not use such language as today's Antinomians (b) do. The Law is a schoolmaster unto Christ, not to be dismissed from its office. Even in true believers the Spirit of Christ takes on the form of a sweet lawgiver. Rom 8:2, 14; ch. 3:27; Titus 2:11 and 12. I clearly mark the enemy's cunning in today's law-stormers. Christ's precious blood is the fair pretext; but the enemy's aim is, through a too-easy and shallow gospel, to lure the awakened souls out of the blessed exercise of the inward Christianity of power and sap, and out of the real experience of all the divine communications to be found therein, into a sensual game — while the ground of the harm stays unmortified, indeed unrecognized. Therefore the servants of God must, in these days, be all the more intent on this: that they proclaim Christ and His gospel whole, and press the necessity of abiding-within, of self-denial, and of sanctification in Christ, without which no one shall see God's face. So I still hold to what I said of it in the "Letter of Warning" (c). Arnold is evangelical in his sermons; a single leaf in him is weightier than all that the above-mentioned have had printed.
O my brother! the kernel-truths of the inward Christian life — so certain, so essential — are, alas! in these days neglected and overlooked. Ah! this priceless pearl is not known. Jesus, make us children of the heart! Forgive me, dear brother, that I write so much and so freely. It seemed to me I had to say it, once for all, from the heart. Pray for me, and be assured that I love you tenderly. Greet for me your dear helpmeet.
(a) A doctrine that abolishes the Law. (b) One who drives such a doctrine, or a law-stormer. (c) It is the 5th piece in the book "Way of Truth."
German
Der 26te Brief.
Liebes-Bezeugung und Segens-Wunsch an einen frommen Prediger. Die Nothwendigkeit der Verläugnung und Heiligung, muß mit der Lehre von der Versöhnung in Christo gepaaret gehen.
Es lebe JEsus!
In Demselben herzlich-geliebter Bruder!
Dein mir Angenehmes aus N. habe seiner Zeit richtig erhalten. JEsus erfülle den Wunsch deines Herzens an mir, und an uns allen dieses Orts!
— 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 first Theil-II letter to a man, and a striking pair of opposites bound in one sheet. The body is pure warmth — a preacher had visited Tersteegen, and this is the thank-you and blessing that followed, breathing prayer for the brother, his flock, and their friendship "in our blessed Head." But the postscript turns candid and doctrinal. "Because I love you, I must speak freely": the brother has, Tersteegen fears, absorbed too much of the vocabulary and "plan" of the H—— — the Herrnhuters, i.e. Zinzendorf's Moravians — leaning so hard on the comfort of "the reconciliation in Christ" and the "precious blood" that the demand for self-denial and sanctification quietly drops out, and antinomianism ("law-storming") slips in. Tersteegen's own position is balanced and firm: he reveres the doctrine of reconciliation, but "according to the manner of Christ and the apostles" the two must be kept together — "the Law is a schoolmaster unto Christ, not to be dismissed from its office." The passage is a window onto the real theological fault-line of 1740s German Pietism, between Tersteegen's inward, sanctification-minded mysticism and the Moravians' blood-and-grace immediacy.
A few words and echoes.
- "the H——" (denen HH.). The 1773 print abbreviates; it means the Herrnhuter, the Moravian Brethren under Count Zinzendorf, whose "blood-and-wounds" devotion and free-grace preaching Tersteegen thought could breed a lawless ease.
- "antinomianism" / "law-stormers" (Antinomismus / Gesetz-Stürmer). Tersteegen's own footnotes define them: "a doctrine that abolishes the Law," and "one who drives such a doctrine." His charge is not that the Moravians deny the atonement but that they let it swallow the call to holiness.
- "the Law is a schoolmaster unto Christ." Galatians 3:24. The scripture-string that follows (Rom 8:2, 14; 3:27; Titus 2:11–12) is Tersteegen's proof that grace itself teaches and disciplines — "the Spirit of Christ takes on the form of a sweet lawgiver."
- "a single leaf in him is weightier…" — Arnold. Gottfried Arnold (1666–1714), the radical-pietist church historian and devotional writer, whom Tersteegen deeply admired, held up here as the model of a truly evangelical preacher against the fashionable antinomians. (His name is set in roman type in the original, as a cited author.)
- "set us, with Mary, at Thy feet." Mary of Bethany, who "sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word" (Luke 10:39); joined to "Thy words of eternal life" from Peter's confession (John 6:68).
- "the Christianity of power and sap" (Kraft- und Saft-Christenthum). A homely Tersteegen phrase for a living, inwardly-nourished faith as against a "too-easy and shallow gospel."
- "pearl." The pearl of great price (Matt 13:45–46) — here "not known" by an age that overlooks the inward life.
- "without which no one shall see God's face." Hebrews 12:14, "holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord."
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thii-026 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.