Letters · Erster Band · Theil II (1773)

That God and His communion alone are truth and being, and that the Cross and dying beget in our spirit a new life in God.

Bd I · Th II · Brief 148 · Der hundertachtundvierzigste Brief

Addressee — An eine Schwester — salutation "Meine in JEsu hertzlich-geliebte Schwester!": a woman, addressed in the intimate du. Not further identified (1773-only). Intimate du → English you.
Date — Mülheim, 13 February 1739 ("den 13 Febr. 1739"; GS agrees). References a prior letter "im vorigen Jahr den 31ten Octobr." (31 Oct. 1738).
Provenance — Translated from the public-domain 1773 first edition (Theil II, pp. 432–435), in normalized GS 1845 orthography, collated against the 1845 Gesammelte Schriften (Bd 8) and Hartman's 1819 reprint. All public-domain.

The Hundred-and-Forty-Eighth Letter.

That God and His communion alone are truth and being, and that the Cross and dying beget in our spirit a new life in God.

My heartily-beloved sister in Jesus!

My last to you I wrote in the past year, on the 31st of October, and it will doubtless have arrived rightly.

I do not doubt, dear sister, that it will yet go well with you before the Lord, and that experience will more and more clarify and seal it, that God and His communion alone are truth and being, life and peace. True, it is not otherwise than that the natural own-part has everything cut off thereby — but what does this intruding man, or unman, concern us? He has made us trouble enough; now let him starve too, as he is long since given over to judgment. It is more the truth than we can believe, that every dying and abiding under the Cross always begets in our spirit a new life and glory in God. Dying and suffering we feel; but the fruit that is born of it we do not always see, for selfhood might attack it — so that it withered — and might hold us up in our going-on. Therefore God keeps the pearl guarded in His hand, and often veils it in thorns and darkness, that we may let ourselves still deeper to Him, and reach the goal He has assigned us.

But this is certain: God never takes anything temporal, spiritual, or divine from us, except only that He may communicate Himself to us in an essential way, after the required preparation. We always want to grasp the thing, hold it fast, and attain it by working; experience shows the opposite — that being passive and letting-be is better. In holding there is pain and want; in letting-go, freedom and satisfaction. In the ways of darkness and suffering, too, the soul is strengthened and upheld by a deeply hidden quieting of its ground, where it stays as passive and detached as possible from other comfort.

Why do I write of this matter? I do not know. Perhaps it comes in useful to you or me today or tomorrow. Only wait a little: that too is grace and blessedness. He is faithful who has called us with so holy a calling. This lies, once for all, indelibly imprinted in our hearts: we will be wholly and eternally God's. May the Lord lead us to the goal through sweet and sour ways! To Him I give, before His face, unconditional power over us. Lord, bless the sister!

Dear sister! outwardly it remains with me in a weakness that constantly alternates, as before. Most of the time I am unfit for anything on account of weakness; now and then I have a day when I am a little livelier. I must simply remain willing in the present, with steady secret assent, that God and His ways are good, and that I do not desire them one hair otherwise: so speaks the Spirit; reason would sometimes chide enough. May the Lord bring all that is ours to a deep silence before His honour-worthy and lovely presence! Amen, Jesus! In that same name I greet you heartily, dear sister, and remain, by grace,

Your

devoted brother.

Mülheim, the 13th of February 1739.

❦

German

Der hundertachtundvierzigste Brief.

Daß GOtt und seine Gemeinschaft allein Wahrheit und Wesen, und daß das Creuz und Sterben unserm Geist ein neues Leben in GOtt gebähre.

Meine in JEsu herzlich-geliebte Schwester!

Mein letzteres an dich schrieb ich im vorigen Jahr den 31ten Octobr., und wird solches ohne Zweifel richtig angelanget seyn.

— 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 13 February 1739 to a sister, following one he had sent the previous October. It is a compact statement of Tersteegen's whole doctrine of suffering: that "God and His communion alone are truth and being, life and peace," and that the Cross, far from robbing the soul, is precisely how God gives Himself.

The Cross that begets. "It is more the truth than we can believe," he writes, "that every dying and abiding under the Cross always begets in our spirit a new life and glory in God." We feel the dying; the fruit is often hidden, because "selfhood might attack it, so that it withered." So God hides it on purpose: "He keeps the pearl guarded in His hand, and often veils it in thorns and darkness, that we may let ourselves still deeper to Him."

God takes only to give. Then the certainty at the letter's centre: "God never takes anything temporal, spiritual, or divine from us, except only that He may communicate Himself to us in an essential way." Every loss is a clearing. And the practical corollary is Tersteegen's constant theme of Gelassenheit: we want to seize the thing by effort, but "experience shows the opposite — that being passive and letting-be is better. In holding there is pain and want; in letting-go, freedom and satisfaction."

The weak man who consents. He ends, disarmingly, with his own frailty: "outwardly it remains with me in a weakness that constantly alternates." Most days he is "unfit for anything," now and then "a little livelier." His whole religion in that state is one act: "steady secret assent, that God and His ways are good, and I do not desire them one hair otherwise." The parting prayer: "May the Lord bring all that is ours to a deep silence before His honour-worthy and lovely presence! Amen, Jesus!"

A few words and echoes.

"God and His communion." 1 John 1:3 — "that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father."
"Every dying and abiding under the Cross… a new life." John 12:24, the grain of wheat that dies to bear; 2 Corinthians 4:10, "the dying of the Lord Jesus… that the life… might be made manifest."
"The pearl in His hand." Matthew 13:45–46 — the pearl of great price.
"He is faithful who has called us." 1 Thessalonians 5:24 — "Faithful is he that calleth you"; 2 Timothy 1:9 — "called us with an holy calling."
"That He may communicate Himself." 2 Peter 1:4 — "partakers of the divine nature."
"Being passive and letting-be" (leidend seyn und Lassen). Tersteegen's Gelassenheit — the resigned, receptive stillness in which God works.

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Erster Band, II. Theil, Brief 148 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thii-148.html.

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