Letters · Zweiter Band · Theil III (1775)

Of the difference between sensual and pure brotherly love. Of suffering, and the childlike embrace of God's good-pleasure.

Bd II · Th III · Brief 16 · Der sechzehnte Brief

Addressee — Anna Maria Kohl, Mülheim — a sister of the Mülheim circle whose husband had lately been gravely ill and was recovered. Salutation "Herzlich geliebte Schwester!" (Rule B → "Dearly beloved sister!"). Intimate du → English you.
Date — Mülheim, 20 January 1741 — print dateline "Mülheim, den 20. Jan. 1741.". The first of the 1741 letters.
Provenance — All rendered words from public-domain prints.*

The Sixteenth Letter.

Of the difference between sensual and pure brotherly love. Of suffering, and the childlike embrace of God's good-pleasure.

Dearly beloved sister!

Your little letter I duly received; it was the more welcome to me because in so long a time I had seen nothing from that quarter, which also did not sit quite right with me. Everything must be purified through the fire: what is not God and God's work vanishes in the trial; so it goes too with brotherly love and union — for whatever is sensual and self-owned is separated out more and more. But so far as one stands planted in a tree of life, and receives life from one root, love remains unchangeably firm in the spirit, and grows only purer and more blessed through the trial.

My heart is toward you, as also toward the others who have given themselves to follow the Lamb in truth, in unfeigned love, as yesterday and the day before; and I wish to stand ever deeper and firmer in Jesus, our Head, in whom and out of whom we, as members, hang together and flow into one another; to which end the blessed cross, from without and within, under God's blessing, must chiefly help. And so, for one thing, I have indeed a brotherly fellow-suffering with the sufferings that meet you, and would gladly, if I could, take some of it on with you: yet I cannot on that account count you unhappy, nor call the suffering a plague — except only in so far as one ought and will not; though even this unwillingness is broken, under the persevering love-torment, and brought to full surrender.

Of your husband's illness I had not heard the least; I saw it first from your little letter. Praised be the Lord, who has raised him up again! May He be glorified both by the illness and by the recovery. Yes, Amen!

I too remain still, as ever, in my accustomed frailty, though with unceasing alternations; so that I have, or can say, nothing certain or settled therein. Throughout I am unfit for writing and for long dealings with people: yet all is still quite bearable. My spirit, through God's mercy, will not have it otherwise. The quiet adoration and childlike embrace of the present good-pleasure of God gives essential welfare and peace to a soul that wills nothing but God; for He cares unendingly for us, so that we can entrust ourselves to Him in the dark. Yet everything must go through the cross and through trials, whatever is to be truth and substance; for man always wants to be and to make it himself, until through hardship he must be brought to the knowledge and the right letting-go of himself: yet the Lord does it Himself, with great goodness and wisdom, because He weighs exactly our weakness and incapacity; He will not ruin us, but purify us and draw us inwardly to Himself. He that has said, "When I shall be lifted up from the earth, I will draw them all to me," — may He accomplish such also in us according to His good-pleasure, and to His transfiguration in us! I greet you in hearty love — — through grace I remain unmoved

Your devoted brother.

Mülheim, 20 January 1741.

❦

German

Der sechzehnte Brief.

Vom Unterscheid der sinnlichen und reinen Bruder-Liebe. Vom Leiden und kindlicher Umfassung des Wohlgefallen GOttes.

Herzlich geliebte Schwester!

Dein Brieflein habe richtig erhalten; es war mir um so viel angenehmer, weil in so langer Zeit von dannen nichts gesehen hatte, welches mir auch nicht völlig recht war.

— 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. The first letter of 1741, and the first Tersteegen wrote to Anna Maria Kohl, a sister of the Mülheim circle. Her husband had been gravely ill and was now recovered; her own short note had reached him after a long silence. Out of that small occasion he writes one of his most concentrated pages on love, suffering, and the "childlike embrace" of whatever God is presently doing. The letter opens on a hard, clean thought: "Everything must be purified through the fire: what is not God and God's work vanishes in the trial." Brotherly love is no exception. What is "sensual and self-owned" in our affections gets burned away — but that is not a loss: "so far as one stands planted in a tree of life, and receives life from one root, love remains unchangeably firm in the spirit, and grows only purer and more blessed through the trial." The affection that survives the fire is the only affection worth having.

He will not sentimentalize her trials. He feels them with her — "a brotherly fellow-suffering with the sufferings that meet you" — and would gladly carry some himself; yet he refuses to "count you unhappy, nor call the suffering a plague." Suffering only becomes a plague "in so far as one ought and will not" — that is, when the will digs in against it. And even that resistance, he adds, is meant to break "under the persevering love-torment, and brought to full surrender." The phrase is characteristic: the torment is love's. Then the letter's still center. Worn down, unfit for writing or company, he does not fight it: "My spirit, through God's mercy, will not have it otherwise." What sustains him is "the quiet adoration and childlike embrace of the present good-pleasure of God" — the whole of his spirituality in a phrase: not to reach past the present moment toward some better state, but to worship God in exactly this one. "A soul that wills nothing but God" can "entrust itself to Him in the dark," precisely because it is not trying to see.

The closing turn is pure Tersteegen: the reason everything must go "through the cross and through trials" is that "man always wants to be and to make it himself." The cure is not more effort but being disarmed of it — "the right letting-go of himself." And the surgeon is gentle: "the Lord does it Himself, with great goodness and wisdom, because He weighs exactly our weakness." He ends on the drawing word of Jesus — "When I shall be lifted up from the earth, I will draw them all to me" — turned into a prayer that the same drawing be finished in us.

A few words and echoes.

What is not God and God's work. An echo of Gamaliel's test (Acts 5:38–39) turned inward: what is merely ours does not survive the fire.
A tree of life / one root. Cf. John 15:1–5 (the vine and the branches) and Romans 11:16–18 (the root bears the branches) — union as shared life, not shared feeling.
The Lamb / our Head. Revelation 14:4 (following the Lamb) and Ephesians 4:15–16 (Christ the Head from whom the members are knit) — the same image of members "hanging together and flowing into one another."
Love-torment. Liebes-Marter — the trial is not punishment but love's own labor to bring the will to "full surrender."
The present good-pleasure of God. das gegenwärtige Wohlgefallen GOttes — the recurring Tersteegen theme: God's will is not elsewhere, it is in the present "now."
Lifted up from the earth. John 12:32 — Christ's own promise, made into the letter's closing petition.

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Zweiter Band, III. Theil, Brief 16 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdii-thiii-016.html.

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