To a countess: how the love of God, become intimately near, leaves the soul no rest in itself or in anything created.
The Hundred-and-Twenty-First Letter.
To a countess: how the love of God, become intimately near, leaves the soul no rest in itself or in anything created.
Most worthy Lady Countess!
In Jesus dearly beloved sister!
Your kind letter, which I received about the end of last year, has given me new occasion to thank the dear Father heartily, that His gracious providence has let us become acquainted with one another in this foreign land, and has given, in the childlike pilgrim-mind, a communion of the spirit. Blessed be His name for it in eternity! May He increase, purify, and ground ever more our communion with Him and with one another!
One experiences it ever more powerfully, that the Lord is good, and a lover of souls; He insinuates Himself into the mind in all manner of ways, and it is precisely His near love-of-God that secretly affects our ground and instills into us a central inclination, which — when it is childlike guarded and tended — allows the soul no life nor abiding in itself, or in anything created, but makes one wish to be and remain wholly and most inwardly God's. O how tenderly this eternal Good desires us! True, one finds oneself and one's misery everywhere; but this too must be felt, for the glorifying of grace, that we may so much the more inwardly forsake ourselves, to take our salvation and refuge solely in the revealed name of Jesus. I trust and wish, into the unending eternities, to bow my knees in this name of salvation, and to glorify God, that He has bestowed on us poor children, in the same, so sure a hiding and perfect salvation: may He draw and hide us Himself therein, that in this tabernacle we may be secretly covered, in life and in death, Amen!
This winter through, I have had to pass — as to the outer hut — somewhat wretchedly and ailingly. It has, indeed, seemed for some days as if I were recovering; but it is, as I well feel, unsteady. If only the scaffolding stand so long, until the building is finished, then the short and light afflictions soon fly past. O Thou God of eternity, hold us by Thee, and make us eternal! Amen.
Mülheim, the 10th of April 1737.
German
Der hundertundeinundzwanzigste Brief.
An eine Gräfin, wie die innig nah gewordene GOttes-Liebe der Seele keine Ruh in ihr selbst noch einigem Geschaffenen läßt.
Wertheste Frau Gräfin!
In JEsu vielgeliebte Schwester! Dero angenehmes Schreiben, so ich um das Ende des vorigen Jahrs bekommen, hat mir neuen Anlaß gegeben, dem lieben Vater herzlich zu danken, daß Seine gütige Vorsehung uns in dieser Fremde mit einander bekannt werden lassen, und in dem kindlichen Pilger-Sinn eine Gemeinschaft des Geistes gegeben hat: Gesegnet sey Sein Name dafür in Ewigkeit!
— 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 to a countess — one of the very few titled correspondents in this part — written 10 April 1737. They had met "in this foreign land" (Tersteegen's word for the pilgrim exile of this life), and she had written to him around the New Year. The whole letter is a meditation on one thing: what it is like when the love of God has come "intimately near," so near that the soul can no longer rest anywhere but in Him.
Its argument. The Lord, he says, "is good, and a lover of souls; He insinuates Himself into the mind in all manner of ways." His nearness "secretly affects our ground and instills a central inclination" — a pull toward the center — which, if it is "childlike guarded and tended," leaves the soul "no life nor abiding in itself, or in anything created." One still meets "oneself and one's misery everywhere"; but even that serves "the glorifying of grace," by driving the soul to take "salvation and refuge solely in the revealed name of Jesus."
The winter, and the scaffolding. Then the letter turns personal and bodily. He has spent the winter "as to the outer hut" — the body — "wretchedly and ailingly," and any recovery feels "unsteady." His image for it is unforgettable and quite cheerful: "If only the scaffolding stand so long, until the building is finished, then the short and light afflictions soon fly past." The sick body is only the scaffolding; the real building is eternal. He ends not with a signature but with a prayer straight to God: "O Thou God of eternity, hold us by Thee, and make us eternal!"
A few words and echoes.
- "A lover of souls" (ein Liebhaber der Seelen). Wisdom 11:26 — "thou sparest all: for they are thine, O Lord, thou lover of souls" — joined to the Psalmist's "O taste and see that the Lord is good" (Psalm 34:8).
- "Refuge… in the revealed name of Jesus." Acts 4:12 — "there is none other name under heaven… whereby we must be saved." The word Tersteegen uses, Retirade, is a soldier's term for a place of retreat — the Name as the soul's stronghold.
- "To bow my knees in this name of salvation." Philippians 2:10 — "that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow."
- "The outer hut… the scaffolding… the building." 2 Corinthians 5:1 — "if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God… eternal in the heavens." The body is tent and scaffolding; the abiding house is God's.
- "The short and light afflictions soon fly past." 2 Corinthians 4:17 — "our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding… weight of glory."
- "Hide us… secretly covered." Psalm 27:5 — "in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me" — and Psalm 31:20, "in the secret of thy presence": the hiding of the soul with God.
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thii-121 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.