A comforting address to a friend sick unto death.
The Twenty-Third Letter.
A comforting address to a friend sick unto death.
In the grace of Jesus, dearly beloved friend and sister!
This very moment I receive your little letter, and hear with a brotherly compassion that the Lord has laid you sorely low, you also, by a painful and dangerous sickness. Well then! submit yourself resignedly to this mighty hand of God, as His creature, and as His child, that belongs to Him — with whom He can and may do whatever pleases Him. All His ways are holy, worthy of adoration, and pure goodness. May He Himself preserve in you the childlike faith that this way of purification, too, is pure goodness and no wrath. If nature would object otherwise, then let the spirit say with Jesus: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it!
This our Jesus has drunk the cup of wrath for us in His most exalted sufferings; therefore we who give ourselves up to Him suffer no plagues properly so called, no punishment-sufferings, but we are chastened for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness. He would make us small and clean, that we may be pleasing to Him. He would help us off, more and more, from every stay in ourselves and in all that is created, that we may leave ourselves thoroughly and solely to Him, and seek our whole salvation in Him alone. Jesus will not leave you alone, but will remain most inwardly near you with His sustaining power, to strengthen your spirit and carry it through with patience, faith and love; as I ask this of Him, and shall keep asking it, from the bottom of my heart.
Should it come with you to a passage into eternity, oh! then look not round at yourself, neither at your faithfulness nor your unfaithfulness — for you have nothing in yourself but sins and miseries — but let yourself fall, with closed eyes and childlike confidence, as a naked sinner who expects nothing but grace in the blood of Jesus, into the abyss of the eternal mercy and love of God, just as you are. The Jesus to whom you have given yourself, and give yourself still, who has loved you and loves you still — He will then take you up and take you in, to serve Him more perfectly above in His eternity, to love and adore Him more perfectly than you have done here: there I hope to find you again, if it should happen here no more. May He bless you out of His sanctuary, and be with your spirit in need and death! Yea, Amen, Jesus! ... I remain
Your faithfully-minded brother.
Mülheim, 10 October 1741.
German
Der dreiundzwanzigste Brief.
Tröstlicher Zuspruch an eine tödtlich kranke Freundin.
In der Gnade JEsu herzlich geliebte Freundin und Schwester!
So eben bekomme ich dein Brieflein, und höre ichs mit einem brüderlichen Mitleiden, daß der HErr dich auch durch eine schmerzliche und gefährliche Krankheit stark darnieder geleget hat.
— 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 dying woman — Gertrud Lütges, a friend of the circle of whom almost nothing else is known — written the same day her little note arrived: "This very moment I receive your little letter." Tersteegen, just returned from Holland, answers a deathbed with a single, steady consolation: the hand that has laid you low is the hand of your Father, and all His ways — this one too — are "pure goodness and no wrath."
The argument moves in three steps. First the submission: not resignation to fate, but a child's yielding to "this mighty hand of God," sealed with the word of Jesus in Gethsemane — "the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it!" Then the ground of it: because Christ has drunk the cup of wrath, what reaches us is no punishment but a Father's chastening, "for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness." And then the counsel that makes this letter one of the treasures of the collection — for the hour of crossing over: do not look round at yourself, "neither at your faithfulness nor your unfaithfulness"; fall with closed eyes, "as a naked sinner who expects nothing but grace in the blood of Jesus, into the abyss of the eternal mercy and love of God, just as you are." He ends where a dying friend needs him to end: "there I hope to find you again."
A few words and echoes.
- sick unto death. The old phrase behind the heading (cf. Isaiah 38:1); three times in this letter the print sets the name Jesus in full capitals — at the greeting, at the word of the cup, and at "the blood of Jesus" — which the small capitals preserve.
- the mighty hand of God. 1 Peter 5:6 — "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time."
- the cup. John 18:11 — the print sets the quotation apart in its own typeface, kept here in italics.
- chastened for our profit. Hebrews 12:10 — "but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness"; Tersteegen's "no plagues, no punishment-sufferings" is this verse pressed to a deathbed.
- "just as you are." The whole Gospel of these letters in four words — nothing brought, nothing inspected, everything received.
- "bless you out of His sanctuary." Psalm 20:2.
- "be with your spirit." 2 Timothy 4:22 — the farewell with which the first Amsterdam letter also ends (there, "Jesus be with our spirit").
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdii-thiii-023 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.