Letters · Erster Band · Theil II (1773)

Encouragement to a sick person to bear her cross with love, but to bear herself in peaceable humility.

Bd I · Th II · Brief 30 · Der 30te Brief

Addressee — N. N. — a sick "liebe Schwester" (plural euch/ihr → you); undated
Date — undated (no dateline or signature in 1773)
Provenance — Translated from the public-domain 1773 first edition (Theil II, pp. 83–84), in normalized GS 1845 orthography, collated against the 1845 Gesammelte Schriften (Bd 8) and Hartman's 1819 reprint. All public-domain.

The Thirtieth Letter.

Encouragement to a sick person to bear her cross with love, but to bear herself in peaceable humility.

N. N.

Ever since I had the news of your illness, I am manifoldly with you in spirit and heart, since I could not be so with the body. I take part in truth in your condition. I offer you up to the Lord with earnestness; to Him, I say, I offer you up — Him who is a Lord over our soul, heart, and body, and also a Lord over the sickness (Luke 7:7–8), yea a Lord over life and death. Therefore we can indeed be at peace as to whatever comes upon us, because everything comes upon us from the Friend's hand; from the kind, wise, and mighty hand that has an eye only to our true and eternal well-being. Romans 8:28.

Give yourself over, then, only childlike and without fear, to this divine hand, my dear sister, and venture yourself upon it. Let your inner self rejoice that you belong to so good a Shepherd, who can keep, provide for, and make you ready better than you yourself could do! Yes, let your heart rejoice and be glad that you are counted worthy to suffer a little for love of Him!

We are so sluggish and tender in self-denial and in the going-out from Sodom; but the Lord's goodness comes to our aid through the wholesome cross; He takes us by the hand and sets us outside the gate, Genesis 19:16. Praised be His mercy! Now then, bear your cross with love; and where you must sometimes bear your own self along with it, then bear yourself in peaceable humility. I know the Lord has now something special in view with you: only let Him deal with you; He knows what you have need of in the present circumstances. He, who is so near, will give it, and will carry you along with your cross.

Ah yes, Lord Jesus! do Thou this, and Thyself visit the dear sister in my stead! I greet you very heartily.

❦

German

Der 30te Brief.

Aufmunterung an eine kranke Person, ihr Kreuz mit Liebe, sich selbst aber in friedsamer Demuth zu tragen.

N. N. Von dem an, daß ich die Nachricht von eurer Krankheit gehabt, bin ich vielfältig mit meinem Geist und Herzen bei euch, da ich's mit dem Cörper nicht gekonnt habe.

— 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 brief, warm note to a sick sister, and a distillation of Tersteegen's whole theology of suffering. Its comfort rests on a single thought: the sickness is not an accident but comes "from the Friend's hand" — the God who is "Lord over the sickness… yea over life and death," whose hand "has an eye only to our true and eternal well-being." So the counsel is to yield "childlike and without fear," even to rejoice at being "counted worthy to suffer a little for love of Him." The letter's one fine distinction is in its title and repeated at its heart: bear your cross with love, but bear your self — your own weakness and impatience, when it surfaces — in peaceable humility. He reads the cross as the angels' hand on Lot, drawing a reluctant soul "out from Sodom" and setting it "outside the gate." It ends, as several of these do, by handing the whole matter back to Christ in prayer: "do Thou this, and Thyself visit the dear sister in my stead."

A few words and echoes.

Luke 7:7–8. The centurion whose servant Jesus heals from a distance — "say in a word, and my servant shall be healed… I say unto one, Go, and he goeth." Tersteegen cites it for Christ's authority over sickness itself.
Romans 8:28. "All things work together for good to them that love God" — the ground for being "at peace as to whatever comes upon us."
"the going-out from Sodom" / Genesis 19:16. The angels "laid hold upon his hand… the Lord being merciful unto him; and they brought him forth, and set him without the city." Tersteegen turns Lot's rescue into a picture of the cross: God's hand pulling a "sluggish and tender" soul out of what it clings to.
"so good a Shepherd." Christ the Good Shepherd (John 10), who "keeps, provides for, and makes ready" better than we could ourselves.
"bear your cross… bear yourself." The letter's pivot: the cross (what God sends) is to be loved; the self (what rebels against it) is to be borne patiently, "in peaceable humility."
"He, who is so near." Printed in the original as a spaced full-capital pronoun (Versalien) — a small typographic stress on the nearness of the God who will "carry you along with your cross."

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Erster Band, II. Theil, Brief 30 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thii-030.html.

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