Letters · Erster Band · Theil II (1773)

On anger and its cure. On a secret temptation, to be borne in resignation and humility.

Bd I · Th II · Brief 102 · Der 102te Brief

Addressee — "In diesem leutseligen Immanuel hertzlich-geliebte Schwester!" — a woman, intimate du → you; unnamed. Struggling with anger (Zorn) and a hidden self-reliance.
Date — Mülheim, before Easter 1736 ("vor Ostern, 1736"; Easter fell 1 April, so Holy Week / late March 1736 — the season of Brief 101). Subscribed "Dein … verbundener Bruder und Fürbitter."
Provenance — Translated from the public-domain 1773 first edition (Theil II, pp. 305–308), in normalized GS 1845 orthography, collated against the 1845 Gesammelte Schriften (Bd 8) and Hartman's 1819 reprint. All public-domain.

The Hundred-and-second Letter.

On anger and its cure. On a secret temptation, to be borne in resignation and humility.

Jesus receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.

In this gracious Immanuel, heartily-beloved sister!

Although I still may write or speak little or nothing, on account of persistent weakness of nature, yet I find myself constrained to answer at once a few words to your letter.

If you could but believe it simply: I have known your condition — both your good and your evil — longer and better than you think, and the wisest Physician, who out of grace has taken you into His cure, knows your hurt yet more thoroughly. It is true, your anger is fierce, and your fire kindled from hell; but the same has crept into far more things than has yet been known to you: it mingles itself into the hatred against sin and sinners, into the longing after sanctification, into prayer, into love, and into all inward and outward doings — everywhere in which there is sometimes too much nature-fire, which has its origin in the unbrokenness of the will and in subtle presumption.

For the healing of this hurt you have been directed from without, and called from within, to the fellowship of childhood and of the Child Jesus, to let yourself be drawn and hidden in His innocent, gentle, pure, and sweet love-sense, through Him who was assured to be so near to you within. And precisely by this — yea, by this alone — can and will your hurt be healed without fail, if only you sink yourself, in faith, into this so near and open fountain of love, and, in trusting waiting, let yourself be sweetened through by the ever-reconciling powers of the Child Jesus.

Your other, unexpected evil will work nothing but good, if you bear it and bear with it in a God-pleasing way. This mud shall open your eyes in many respects; this soap shall wash off hidden stains that make you uglier in the eyes of God than this outwardly-clinging dirt does; for I know that the inner will is on the whole free — as the great distress and suffering over it sufficiently assure. A covert looking-and-trusting upon yourself, and a lack of true lowliness, have caused this evil, and will also, through this evil, be lifted away, by divine co-working.

Only suffer in resignation, and I assure you that you will yet gather grapes from these thorns. Nothing is more apt to strip you truly bare, and to bring you to nothing in yourself, than just this temptation. Now you see it — what I have so often reminded you of — namely, that you had not compassion enough with other sinners. See to it, then, that you now do not also fail in patience with yourself, lest, by impatience and despair, you make your evil greater and yourself more unpleasing to the Lord. Suffer all with humility that you cannot change, and know, after all, that none is good but the one God. It was not for the sake of your virtues that He showed you so many mercies, and it will not be for the sake of your miseries that He will let you lie. I have always turned you away from yourself, to Jesus. Look not on yourself — you are sin, like me and all Adam's children. Think not on yourself and your miseries, but lose yourself inwardly in the innocent, gentle childhood of Jesus. Follow His tender drawings confidently, but more gently and more nakedly than ever before; this little Child will have you wholly for Himself: give yourself to Him, and yield yourself to Him, and He will surely find means and ways, by Himself, to sanctify you fully — which is His work, that no flesh should glory before His face. Forget yourself, and love Jesus, in whom I greet you heartily, and, through His grace, remain,

Your

Mülheim, before Easter, 1736. — devoted brother and intercessor.

❦

German

Der 102te Brief.

Vom Zorn und dessen Genesung. Von einer geheimen Versuchung, die in Gelassenheit und Demuth zu tragen.

JEsus nimmt die Sünder an und isset mit ihnen.

In diesem leutseligen Immanuel herzlich-geliebte Schwester!

Ob ich wohl noch wenig oder nichts darf schreiben oder reden wegen anhaltender Schwachheit der Natur; so finde mich doch gedrungen, alsbald auf deinen Brief einige Worte zu antworten.

— 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 spiritual direction to a woman whose besetting sin is anger — written in Holy Week, under a motto of scandalous grace: "Jesus receiveth sinners, and eateth with them." Tersteegen's diagnosis is unusually acute and unsettling. He does not merely name the temper; he traces how deep its "fire" runs: "your anger is fierce, and your fire kindled from hell," but it has "crept into far more things than you yet knew" — even, disturbingly, into her religion, "into the hatred against sin and sinners, into the longing after sanctification, into prayer, into love." The zeal itself was contaminated by "too much nature-fire," whose real root is not temper at all but "the unbrokenness of the will and subtle presumption" — a hidden self-reliance beneath the visible fault.

His cure is entirely characteristic: not more effort, which would only feed the fire, but the Child. She is "called from within to the fellowship of childhood and of the Child Jesus," to be "drawn and hidden in His innocent, gentle, pure, and sweet love-sense." The healing is by immersion, not exertion — "sink yourself, in faith, into this so near and open fountain of love… and let yourself be sweetened through by the ever-reconciling powers of the Child Jesus."

Then comes the letter's shrewdest turn. A second trouble — some "unexpected evil," an outward humiliation — he reframes as medicine: "this mud shall open your eyes; this soap shall wash off hidden stains that make you uglier in the eyes of God than this outwardly-clinging dirt does." And the deepest counsel is mercy toward herself: the very woman who "had not compassion enough with other sinners" must now beware of lacking "patience with herself," lest "by impatience and despair" she double the damage. The ground of that patience is pure grace — "it was not for the sake of your virtues that He showed you mercy, and it will not be for the sake of your miseries that He will let you lie." So, as always, he turns her eyes off the self and onto Christ: "you are sin, like me and all Adam's children… lose yourself inwardly in the innocent, gentle childhood of Jesus… Forget yourself, and love Jesus."

A few words and echoes.

"Jesus receiveth sinners, and eateth with them." Luke 15:2 — the Pharisees' complaint, which Jesus answers with the parables of the lost sheep, coin, and son. Set as the letter's motto: the ground on which an angry, failing soul may still come.
"In this gracious Immanuel." Matthew 1:23 (Isaiah 7:14), "they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us" — the sister and writer are together "in" the God-with-us.
"Your fire kindled from hell." James 3:6, "the tongue… setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell" — anger's fire traced to its source.
"The wisest Physician… has taken you into His cure." Matthew 9:12, "they that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick" — Christ the physician who knows the hidden disease better than the patient. (Cur, an old loanword for medical treatment, is set in roman type in the print — see the note on typography.)
"This mud shall open your eyes." John 9:6, Christ making clay to anoint the blind man's eyes — an affront that becomes sight. Joined to Jeremiah 2:22, "though thou wash thee with… much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked" — the "soap" that scours the hidden stain.
"You will yet gather grapes from these thorns." Matthew 7:16, "Do men gather grapes of thorns…?" — inverted by grace: from these very thorns of temptation, fruit.
"None is good but the one God." Mark 10:18 (Luke 18:19), "there is none good but one, that is, God" — the humility that dissolves both self-praise and self-despair.
"Lose yourself… in the childhood of Jesus." Matthew 18:3, "except ye… become as little children" — the gentleness of the Christ-child as the specific antidote to the fire of anger.
"That no flesh should glory before His face." 1 Corinthians 1:29, "that no flesh should glory in his presence" — the sanctification is His work, precisely so that the self can claim no credit.

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Erster Band, II. Theil, Brief 102 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thii-102.html.

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