What a great fortune and good it is, to know and to be assured that God is the One who He is.
The Seventy-eighth Letter.
What a great fortune and good it is, to know and to be assured that God is the One who He is.
In the grace of Jesus, beloved brother!
Without doubt the dear brother will wonder why I have not written to you in so long a time, and have not sooner answered your letters — received, too, somewhat late. I assure you, in all simplicity, that it has not been left undone for any lack of love. The last of my five brothers, and the only one who was in harmony with me in the good, has since died of a consumption; and his long-drawn illness, dying, and the circumstances that followed took many an hour from me — to say nothing of other business in the service of my neighbor. I myself, too, have been continually sickly, and several times this spring have had such sudden contractions and weaknesses in the head that I could not rightly see or set the letters upon the paper, and therefore had to spare my writing-work as much as possible, and in part let it lie altogether — since my own thoughts, and others' too, ran to a very stroke of apoplexy, though I am but seven-and-thirty and a half years old. Just now, for some days, I have had a cold and a chest-complaint, whereby my head is thrown into such an inflammation and weakness that I can scarcely write a little letter, though it is mending again.
I know not what the Lord intends with me. May He give grace that we carry our soul always in our hands, and that the sails be drawn close and narrow together, so that we may not run in aground, but straight, into the harbor of God's perfect rest. When I enter into eternity, I go in as a poor unworthy one, who trusts — yea, wholly trusts — to be received, in a more than common way, out of mercy. Meanwhile I thank the Lord that He has let me live so long that I have known Him, in a sure and inward way; this I may, for all my wretchedness, nevermore deny, to the praise of the free grace of God; I wish myself an eternity, to glorify God for it. Ah, what a good it is — setting aside all feelings, illuminations, and other gifts of grace — only and alone to know: that God is the One who He is! Yea, it is eternal life, to know God.
The craving of men to know much — were it even in spiritual things — is a strong proof that they do not know God. God is in every way all-sufficient; He can, He alone can, He can wholly, He can for ever content and beatify the unbelievably great capacity of our understanding's eye. This one Object without object is enough; all other objects are quite indifferent — even if they did not exist, or would to all eternity not exist. God is Being; God is Truth; and such is He alone. It is a Non-Ens — a non-being — a shadow, at best a painting, that we have for our object, when it is not God Himself whom we embrace and behold.
Ah, what a difference it is, whether reason has whittled itself an image of God and His all-sufficiency, or else, whether God Himself impresses Himself and His glorious knowledge upon the soul! — since this latter can by no means happen where heart and head remain in unrest, and are not duly emptied of other objects, and stand, in humble resignation, turned toward that near Good. I write without reflection. Sat Sapienti! (Enough for the understanding.) Once for all, dear brother: what are even we? What is our life? What is our godliness? What is our doing and leaving-undone? — if this Being is not the ground, the origin, and the goal of it. He knows better than I that it is to be called only show and dream. And meanwhile, how easily one lets oneself be jostled away from the still, inward cleaving to God, from the walk in God, from the regard toward God! One is not enough at home; one goes to work within oneself; one eyes oneself, without often knowing it. I am dismayed, when I look on how seldom our doings happen purely by grace. May the Lord impress upon us ever more deeply the high necessity of the close staying-by and staying-within Him! Amen.
Mülheim, 12 May 1735.
German
Der 78te Brief.
Welch ein großes Glück und Gut es sey, zu erkennen und zu wissen, daß GOtt ist der Er ist.
In der Gnade JEsu geliebter Bruder!
Ohne Zweifel wird der liebe Bruder sich wunderen, warum in so langer Zeit nicht an ihn geschrieben, und seine, doch auch etwas spät, erhaltene Briefe nicht eher beantwortet 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 letter written from illness, and all the more distilled for it. Tersteegen begins by explaining a long silence — the death of his last surviving brother (the loss he had reported in Brief 75) and his own collapsing health: at thirty-seven and a half he has been having attacks in the head that felt like the onset of a stroke, so that he could hardly form the letters on the page. From that edge of mortality he writes what he most wants this brother to keep. It is a single conviction, stated with almost philosophical severity: to know God is the whole of it, and the itch to know much else — even in "spiritual" matters — is a sign that one does not yet know God. "God is in every way all-sufficient… This one Object without object is enough; all other objects are quite indifferent." Everything short of God — every feeling, insight, or gift of grace — is, by comparison, "a non-being, a shadow, at best a painting." But he is careful to distinguish two ways of "knowing": the mind's self-made concept of God ("reason has whittled itself an image") and God's own self-impression on a quieted soul — and only the second is real, and it "can by no means happen where heart and head remain in unrest." The letter's center, said twice, is as plain as it is deep: "only and alone to know: that God is the One who He is! Yea, it is eternal life, to know God." He ends not in triumph but in humility — dismayed at "how seldom our doings happen purely by grace," praying only to stay close to and within God.
A few words and echoes.
- "That God is the One who He is." Exodus 3:14, "I AM THAT I AM" — the divine name as sheer, self-existent Being; to know this God (not a picture of Him) is the one thing needful. Tersteegen makes the argument's odd phrase — daß GOtt ist der Er ist — the refrain of the whole letter.
- "It is eternal life, to know God." John 17:3, "this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God" — eternal life is not merely endless but a knowing, begun now.
- "Carry our soul always in our hands." Psalm 119:109, "My soul is continually in my hand" — to hold one's life loosely, ready to surrender it; fitting from a man who thought he was dying.
- "The harbor of God's perfect rest." The soul's voyage into the true Sabbath-rest that "remaineth… to the people of God" (Hebrews 4:9–11); the drawn-in sails are the self's own strivings furled so grace can steer.
- "This one Object without object" / "God is Being; God is Truth." Scholastic-mystical language: God is not one object among others the mind may set before itself (a Vorwurf, an objectum), but Being and Truth themselves (cf. John 14:6, "I am… the truth"); everything else contemplated apart from Him is Non-Ens, non-being.
- "Reason has whittled itself an image of God." The self-made concept — a carved idol of the mind — set against God's own self-revelation "impressed upon the soul." The warning is against mistaking one's idea of God for God.
- "Sat Sapienti!" The Latin tag verbum sat sapienti, "a word to the wise is enough" — Tersteegen breaks off the argument, trusting the reader to complete it.
- "The regard toward God… the walk in God." The practice of the presence of God — a continual inward glance toward Him ("regard") and a life lived within Him — from which we are so easily "jostled away."
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thii-078 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.