A letter of comfort to a friend on the death of his wife.
The Eighty-fourth Letter.
A letter of comfort to a friend on the death of his wife.
In the grace of the Lord, beloved brother!
Not without dismay I heard, last Friday or Saturday, the unexpected news of the death of your dear wife — since she had been in my mind, more than usual, eight or fourteen days before.
I feel a true compassion with you in these circumstances; but God has known what was best for both her and you; therein let our spirit rest childlike, without gainsaying the Father in the least — for which my heart, too, helps to ask you every needful grace. God has taken her from you; but I hope, too, that you will have given her to Him, and, amid the weakness of the flesh, have had willingness enough of the spirit to sacrifice to His good pleasure that which was, by nature, nearest and dearest to you. Should the weakness of nature yet assail you too hard, then let the spirit rejoice, in faith, all the more that it now has occasion to make so great an offering.
May the Lord give you inwardly to believe and to experience that He has meant well in this too, and by no means seeks your hurt; He wills that this loss shall be your gain; He takes a creature from you, that He, the Creator, may give Himself to you again in its place — yea, truly He seeks this. He wants to possess the whole room of your heart; in Him you shall find it all again. What a creature has been to you, He will be Himself, and infinitely more. Think on this, my brother! and experience it, so you will yet at last learn to sing Job's hymn of praise through to the end: The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!
May the Lord bless you and your little children in the name of Jesus! Trust Him simply; He will be the orphans' overseer, and will lend a hand, that all burdens be lightened for you. Lose your late wife into the hands of a God who has more mercy than all creatures; she has been caught and held by a thread of His grace — of which I do not doubt; she is gone, and we hasten after her. May the Lord make all things temporal strange and dead to us, and tear apart all the bonds that hold us fettered to anything creaturely, or to ourselves, that He may become wholly Lord in us, and our spirit enter into the sweet element of eternity from now on! I greet and embrace you in love. Greet also, on my behalf, N. N. heartily. May Jesus bless us! Remain,
Your
Mülheim, 15 October 1735. — weak brother.
German
Der 84te Brief.
Trost-Schreiben an einen Freund wegen dem Absterben seiner Frau.
In der Gnade des HErrn geliebter Bruder!
Nicht ohne Bestürzung vernahm ich vorigen Freitag oder Samstag die unvermuthete Nachricht von dem Absterben deiner l. Frau, da sie mir acht oder vierzehn Tag vorher, mehr als gewöhnlich im Gemüth gewesen war.
— 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 of condolence, written to a close friend — Conrad Adolf Caspary — a few days after his wife's sudden death. It is grave and warm, and it wastes no time on empty comfort: within a sentence Tersteegen has turned the mourner's eyes from the loss to the God who permitted it. "God has known what was best for both her and you; therein let our spirit rest childlike, without gainsaying the Father in the least." The center of the letter is a piece of pure mystical theology, offered as balm: God does not merely take away — He takes in order to give. "He wills that this loss shall be your gain; He takes a creature from you, that He, the Creator, may give Himself to you again in its place… He wants to possess the whole room of your heart; in Him you shall find it all again. What a creature has been to you, He will be Himself, and infinitely more." From that height Tersteegen can ask the hardest thing gently — that the widower learn to finish Job's song: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." He does not forget the practical grief either: God will be "the orphans' overseer" to the motherless children, and will "lighten every burden." And he closes with the image that carries his whole hope — the dead wife not lost but handed over: "Lose your late wife into the hands of a God who has more mercy than all creatures… she is gone, and we hasten after her."
A few words and echoes.
- "God has known what was best… without gainsaying the Father." The childlike rest in Providence that is the whole posture of Tersteegen's piety — grief held inside trust, not against it.
- "Amid the weakness of the flesh, willingness enough of the spirit." Matthew 26:41, "the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" — Gethsemane's own division, applied to a bereaved man asked to consent to his loss.
- "This loss shall be your gain… He takes a creature, that the Creator may give Himself." The theology of holy detachment: God empties the heart of created loves so as to fill it with Himself, who is "infinitely more." Cf. Philippians 3:7–8, counting all things loss "for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ."
- "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Job 1:21, verbatim (KJV) — Job's response to the loss of everything; Tersteegen asks the widower to learn to "sing it through to the end."
- "The orphans' overseer." Psalm 10:14, "thou art the helper of the fatherless"; Psalm 68:5, "a father of the fatherless… is God" — the practical promise to a man now raising children alone.
- "A thread of His grace." The dying soul held fast by grace, however slender the hold seems — Tersteegen's quiet assurance about the wife's salvation ("of which I do not doubt").
- "All things temporal strange and dead to us… the sweet element of eternity." The bereavement as summons to detachment (Colossians 3:2–3, "set your affection on things above… your life is hid with Christ in God"); eternity imagined as the soul's true native "element," into which it may already begin to enter.
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thii-084 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.