God's faithfulness and our unfaithfulness are abysses. How one is to bear oneself under the impressions of graces and lights.
The Hundred-and-Thirty-Sixth Letter.
God's faithfulness and our unfaithfulness are abysses. How one is to bear oneself under the impressions of graces and lights.
Dear brother!
Your little letter and rhymes are right refreshing to me. God grant — yes, He will confirm it all — through His Holy Spirit! I unite myself with this your mind from the heart. God's faithfulness, and our ingratitude and unfaithfulness, are abysses. One abyss calls to another, as David says. Rightly does it move, bow, and rouse us, as often as we think on it. Ah, that I, with you, might be truly faithful to such a God of all grace as ours is! I look and pray for it, from His mercy, for you and me. Only, dear brother! when we catch sight of the aforesaid abysses, we must not be so much dismayed over them as calmly sink down into them; so it works what it must work, according to God's design.
Souls that are called to the truly spiritual life must receive all impressions, lights, and graces as passively as possible, and leave them where they are received: when such souls carry what God gives in the spirit, with good intention, too much into the senses, the impression seems at first to increase; they grow very ardent, or emotional and glad, but imperceptibly the spirit becomes dry and faint. Something of this kind, I think, has befallen you too. Sometimes the sensibility, without the soul's doing, is stirred to devotion, to glad tears, and so on; then one must not resist it either; but all must end in the annihilation of oneself and a suffering surrender to God. At the beginning, and with souls that have not the call, it goes otherwise. God is God, unchangeable in His love and loveliness, whether we see and feel it or not. Let us ground the matter upon faith — which is a secret and universal knowledge, or ground-impression, of God — whereby the soul is moved to forsake itself and all things, and to cleave to this hidden Good alone, even as He is near to us in Christ. I can no more, and had not thought I could do so much. Remember me,
Your
poor brother.
Mülheim, the 3rd of May 1738.
German
Der hundertsechsunddreißigste Brief.
GOttes Treue und unsere Untreue sind Abgründe. Wie man sich bei den Eindrücken der Gnaden und Lichter zu betragen.
Lieber Bruder!
Dein Brieflein und Reimen sind mir recht erquicklich. GOtt wolle, ja Er wird es alles bestätigen durch Seinen Heiligen Geist!
— 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, warm reply of 3 May 1738 to a brother who had sent Tersteegen "a little letter and rhymes." It does two things: it names the two "abysses" between which the soul lives — God's faithfulness and our own unfaithfulness — and it gives a piece of careful counsel about how to handle spiritual "impressions, lights, and graces" without letting them dry the soul out.
The two abysses. "God's faithfulness, and our ingratitude and unfaithfulness, are abysses. One abyss calls to another, as David says" — the line is Psalm 42:7, "deep calleth unto deep." Set against the bottomless depth of God's faithfulness is the bottomless depth of our own inconstancy, and the sight of both should "move, bow, and rouse us." But the counsel is not alarm: "when we catch sight of the abysses, we must not be so much dismayed over them as calmly sink down into them."
Graces, and the danger of the senses. The heart of the letter is a warning the brother evidently needed. Souls called to the inward life should receive graces "as passively as possible" and not drag them "too much into the senses" — because when they do, "the impression seems at first to increase… but imperceptibly the spirit becomes dry and faint." Feeling may be stirred, and one need not fight it; "but all must end in the annihilation of self and a suffering surrender to God." And the ground beneath all feeling is faith, not sensation: "God is God, unchangeable in His love and loveliness, whether we see and feel it or not… ground the matter upon faith… and cleave to this hidden Good alone, even as He is near to us in Christ."
A few words and echoes.
- "One abyss calls to another, as David says." Psalm 42:7 — "Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts." The faithfulness of God and the faithlessness of man, each unfathomable.
- "God's faithfulness… our unfaithfulness." 2 Timothy 2:13 — "if we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself"; and Lamentations 3:22–23, "his compassions fail not… great is thy faithfulness."
- "Receive… passively… not too much into the senses." John 4:24 — "they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth"; the life of grace is in the spirit, not the feelings.
- "This hidden Good… as He is near to us in Christ." Colossians 3:3 ("your life is hid with Christ in God") and Romans 10:8 ("the word is nigh thee") — God possessed by faith, not by sense.
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thii-136 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.