The joy in God and His children is alone a true and abiding joy.
The Sixth Letter.
The joy in God and His children is alone a true and abiding joy.
In the grace of Jesus dearly beloved brother!
I would have given news sooner of my safe arrival, had I not been hindered from it, a couple of days after the homecoming, by a strong flux in the head and in the eyes. May only the power of God be made perfect in our weakness! Then little depends upon the rest.
Beloved brother! I thank you and the other brothers once more for the love enjoyed there. God be praised in everything — and for this too, that I had the pleasure of visiting the fellow-pilgrims there once more in love! God will grant that we rejoice in one another eternally, and He in us, and we in Him: this alone is a true and abiding joy; all other is a deceiving vapor. Through our Saviour Jesus this joy is brought back to us; in that He humbled himself, He would lift us up from joy and delight in the created, to set our joy and good pleasure on Him alone, on His grace and infinite perfection — from which, in our state of nature, we are so strange and so far. Ah, what grace! God becomes a child, that the sinner may not be terrified before His Majesty, but rejoice in His love, and with good pleasure behold Him and His ways. (Luke 2:10.) And from the ground of this friendship-love so founded, we are now to be intent upon this also: that the Lord may again have His joy and His good pleasure in us, and have it ever more fully. The short rule of perfection is that we deal and walk with God as with our best friend — whom one loves without falseness, whom one trusts without suspicion, before whom one uncovers oneself without shame, and bears him company without weariness; who pleases us in all that He is and does, and whom we ever seek to please with all that we are and can.
That you, and I with you, may become such friends of God is my soul's inmost wish.
Mülheim, the 6th of November 1739.
German
Der sechste Brief.
Die Freude in GOtt und seinen Kindern ist allein eine wahre und bleibende Freude.
In der Gnade JEsu herzlich geliebter Bruder!
Ich hätte schon eher von meiner glücklichen Ueberkunft Nachricht gegeben, wo ich nicht ein paar Tage nach der Heimkunft durch einen starken Fluß im Haupt und in den Augen daran wäre verhindert worden.
— 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 thank-you letter after a journey. Tersteegen has been to visit the brothers across the Rhine and come safely home — delayed in writing only by "a strong flux in the head and in the eyes," which he waves away in a single breath: "May only the power of God be made perfect in our weakness! Then little depends upon the rest." The letter is his thanks for the love enjoyed there — and then, before it can become mere courtesy, it turns the visit's joy toward its source.
The letter's heart is a single distinction. "God will grant that we rejoice in one another eternally, and He in us, and we in Him: this alone is a true and abiding joy; all other is a deceiving vapor." The joy of the brothers is real precisely because it is joy in God; every other joy evaporates. And its ground is Christmas: "God becomes a child, that the sinner may not be terrified before His Majesty, but rejoice in His love" — the letter quotes the angels' word to the shepherds (Luke 2:10, the reference standing in the old print itself), and the printer set the answering word of Luke 2:14 — that God may again have His good pleasure in us — in emphasized type. From there comes the letter's most quotable sentence, its definition of the walk with God as a friendship: "that we deal and walk with God as with our best friend — whom one loves without falseness, whom one trusts without suspicion, before whom one uncovers oneself without shame, and bears him company without weariness." Perfection, in one rule: treat God as the Friend He is. The letter ends wishing nothing else: "That you, and I with you, may become such friends of God is my soul's inmost wish."
A few words and echoes.
- The power of God made perfect in weakness. 2 Corinthians 12:9 — "my strength is made perfect in weakness" — set off in the old print's letterspaced emphasis.
- Fellow-pilgrims. Mitwallende — those walking the same pilgrimage; Tersteegen's standing word for the brothers and sisters scattered from house to house.
- A deceiving vapor. Ein betrüglicher Dunst — the mist that looks like substance until you grasp it; all joy not grounded in God.
- Luke 2:10 and 2:14. "Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy" — and "on earth peace, good will toward men": the letter's two Christmas anchors, the first cited, the second emphasized.
- Friendship with God. Cf. John 15:14–15 — "Henceforth I call you not servants… but I have called you friends."
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdii-thiii-006 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.