Letters · Erster Band · Theil II (1773)

How one is to lay the blame on oneself in quarrels.

Bd I · Th II · Brief 77 · Der 77te Brief

Addressee — "Geliebter Bruder!" — a man (intimate du → you); Johannes Ritterskamp, the Otterbeck correspondent, as in Brief 61; the "N." he had quarreled with was probably Adolf Bäumer.
Date — Mülheim, 20 April 1735 (dated + subscribed "Dein … verbundener Mitbruder" in 1773)
Provenance — Translated from the public-domain 1773 first edition (Theil II, pp. 234–235), in normalized GS 1845 orthography, collated against the 1845 Gesammelte Schriften (Bd 8) and Hartman's 1819 reprint. All public-domain.

The Seventy-seventh Letter.

How one is to lay the blame on oneself in quarrels.

Beloved brother!

I had already heard something of the vexations in the house, but had neither time nor opportunity to write about it. Now it is dear to me that it has so far been laid to rest again; I trust, too, that it will yet come right further, wherever on the one side or the other something has remained behind. But do not you, for your part, dwell on that; only see to it that your own thorns be burned up through the fire of love; sink yourself right deep into this furnace, and shun not the heat, until the glow has become your element.

Only be inward and of good cheer, though the flame should seize upon everything — for in our very best there is still combustible matter. In regard to others, and now also in regard to N., lay the blame on yourself, in unfeigned humility, with yourself; as I also certainly believe that you may, through this or that imprudence, sometimes give occasion to suspicion and temptation — in which case N. is much to be excused, and the root of the weed is rather to be traced into your own field.

In a brotherly living-together there are all sorts of fine means of testing and sanctification, wherein the profit is unspeakable, if only the single eye looks no further than to God and to oneself in all that happens. — Let us formally declare war on our own life, and favor it in nothing, that we may rightly please the Lord, and our feeble spirit be brought through to the glorious liberty of the children of God. The Lord be with your spirit! Remember me — not out of habit; I hope to do the like. I greet you in love, and remain

Your

Mülheim, 20 April 1735. — devoted fellow-brother.

❦

German

Der 77te Brief.

Wie man sich in Mißhelligkeiten selbst Schuld zu geben.

Geliebter Bruder!

Ich hatte schon etwas von denen Verdrießlichkeiten im Hause gehöret, aber weder Zeit noch Gelegenheit gehabt, darüber zu schreiben. Nun ist mirs lieb, daß es so weit wieder beigeleget worden; vertraue auch, es werde sich ferner schon geben, wo an der einen oder andern Seite noch etwas zurückgeblieben wäre: Daran gedenke du aber deines Orts nicht …

— 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 short letter of peacemaking, written when a quarrel in the shared house on the Otterbeck had just been settled. Tersteegen refuses to take sides or reopen the case. Instead he turns the reconciled brother's gaze inward: the residue of the dispute is not to be brooded over but burned — "see to it that your own thorns be burned up through the fire of love; sink yourself right deep into this furnace… until the glow has become your element." The counsel that follows is the hardest and most characteristic: total self-blame. Even where the other party ("N.") seems at fault, "lay the blame on yourself, in unfeigned humility… N. is much to be excused, and the root of the weed is rather to be traced into your own field." Community, on this view, is not an obstacle to holiness but a workshop for it — "all sorts of fine means of testing and sanctification" — provided "the single eye looks no further than to God and to oneself." The letter ends on Tersteegen's lifelong war-cry against self-will: "Let us formally declare war on our own life, and favor it in nothing," so that "our feeble spirit be brought through to the glorious liberty of the children of God."

A few words and echoes.

"Your own thorns burned up through the fire of love… this furnace… until the glow has become your element." The refiner's fire of God's love (Malachi 3:2–3); the thorns are Isaiah 27:4 ("who would set the briers and thorns against me in battle? I would… burn them together"). To make the glow one's "element" is to become so at home in the purifying fire that suffering-in-love is one's native air.
"The root of the weed traced into your own field." The parable of the tares (Matthew 13:24–30) turned inward: before blaming the weeds another has sown, look for their root in your own ground — cf. Hebrews 12:15, the "root of bitterness."
"The single eye looks no further than to God and to oneself." Matthew 6:22, "if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light" — the undivided gaze that sees only God to obey and self to correct, and so is not scandalized by others.
"Declare war on our own life, and favor it in nothing." The mortification of self-will (cf. Romans 8:13, "if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live"); the "own life" is the self that must be dethroned so Christ may reign.
"The glorious liberty of the children of God." Romans 8:21, verbatim (KJV) — the freedom on the far side of that inner war.
"The Lord be with your spirit!" 2 Timothy 4:22 (cf. Galatians 6:18) — Paul's parting blessing, here the letter's.

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Erster Band, II. Theil, Brief 77 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thii-077.html.

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