Letters · Erster Band · Theil II (1773)

That one ought not to fear nor doubt, but calmly leave oneself to God.

Bd I · Th II · Brief 117 · Der hundertundsiebzehnte Brief

Addressee — An eine Freundin und Schwester — "Geliebte Freundin und Schwester!", a woman, intimate du, who had written of a passive "sinking-down" of the mind in prayer and feared it. Not further identified (1773-only); plausibly the same "Freundin und Schwester" as Briefe 114–115 (adjacent, identical salutation). Intimate du → English you.
Date — Mülheim, 3 March 1737 ("den 3. Mart. 1737" — März; GS/Hartman "3. Merz").
Provenance — Translated from the public-domain 1773 first edition (Theil II, pp. 348–349), in normalized GS 1845 orthography, collated against the 1845 Gesammelte Schriften (Bd 8) and Hartman's 1819 reprint. All public-domain.

The Hundred-and-Seventeenth Letter.

That one ought not to fear nor doubt, but calmly leave oneself to God.

Beloved friend and sister!

You need have no fear at the mere sinking-down of your mind out of activity into the stillness and will-lessness of which you write: only stay with it, and sink away, too, from the doubting thoughts, and leave yourself to God just as you are. Though I have said that you should now and then exercise some gentle, inward acts of faith and love, yet my meaning therein is not that you should force yourself thereto with great violence and disquiet your mind; everything must happen so unconstrainedly, peaceably, and childlike: but if the ground of it be disturbed, then one is still. Far less have I therefore meant to make the mere sinking-down into God and His good pleasure suspect to you; by no means! Stay with it, so long as God gives you peace and blessing in it. But because, at work or otherwise, when one has much time, the mind does not always remain so still, but one can be scattered into nature and the senses, therefore I have counseled only such gentle, unconstrained acts of the heart. You must not fear and doubt so much. Enough! — that you desire to go out of all things, and to be wholly for God. He bless you!

Your

Mülheim, the 3rd of March 1737.

Fellow-pilgrim.

❦

German

Der hundertundsiebzehnte Brief.

Daß man nicht fürchten noch zweifeln, sondern sich ruhig GOtt überlassen müsse.

Geliebte Freundin und Schwester!

Du darfst bei dem bloßen Niedersinken deines Gemüths aus der Wirksamkeit in die Stille und Willenlosheit, wovon du schreibest, keine Furcht haben: Bleibe nur dabei, und entsinke auch den zweifelmüthigen Gedanken, und überlaß dich GOtt, so wie du bist.

— 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 reassurance, written 3 March 1737 to a woman who had written — anxiously — of a change in her prayer: an activity of mind falling away into "stillness and will-lessness." She feared it. Tersteegen answers, gently and from every angle, that she need not: "You need have no fear… only stay with it, and leave yourself to God just as you are."

Its argument. He is careful here to correct a possible misunderstanding of his own earlier counsel. Yes, he had told her to make "gentle, inward acts of faith and love" — but never by force: "everything must happen so unconstrainedly, peaceably, and childlike." And no, he had never meant to cast the quiet "sinking-down into God" itself under suspicion — "by no means!" The little acts of the heart are only a help for the times when work, or too much leisure, scatters the mind "into nature and the senses"; they are not a duty to be anxious over. The whole counsel resolves into one line: "You must not fear and doubt so much. Enough! — that you desire to go out of all things, and to be wholly for God." He signs, as often, "Your… fellow-pilgrim."

A few words and echoes.

"Stillness and will-lessness" (Stille und Willenlosheit). The prayer of quiet — the mind's own activity falling still so that God may work. Tersteegen's whole counsel is: do not fear the stillness, and do not force the activity.
"Leave yourself to God just as you are." The heart of the letter, and of his spirituality: a calm self-surrender (sich ruhig GOtt überlassen) that echoes the Psalmist's "Commit thy way unto the Lord… rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him" (Psalm 37) and "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46).
"Unconstrainedly, peaceably, and childlike." The mark of what is genuinely of God, for Tersteegen, is that it is never forced — the childlikeness of Matthew 18:3.
"He bless you!" (Er segne dich). The old priestly blessing of Numbers 6:24 folded into a single parting word.

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Erster Band, II. Theil, Brief 117 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thii-117.html.

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