Letters · Zweiter Band · Theil III (1775)

The privilege of the simple. Of undiedness, and of temptations between the sick and their nurses.

Bd II · Th III · Brief 28 · Der achtundzwanzigste Brief

Addressee — Salutation "Hertzlich geliebter Bruder!" (Rule B → "Dearly beloved brother!"). Intimate du → English you. The letter greets, through him, a sick sister ("die krancke Schwester N.") and speaks of a third party, "the brother you know of."
Date — Mülheim, in Rogation week 1742 — print dateline "Mülheim, in der Creutzwoche.", with no year.
Provenance — All rendered words from public-domain prints.*

The Twenty-Eighth Letter.

The privilege of the simple. Of undiedness, and of temptations between the sick and their nurses.

Dearly beloved brother!

—— Do greet the sick sister N. right heartily for me; I wish her the nearness and peace of Jesus, in which she has enough for living and for dying. Let her give herself over to Him without hesitation, and let Him do with her, in time and eternity, what He will: He will not deceive her.

Dear brother! when simple people are not self-willed, then they are very pleasing to God, and free of a thousand selfhoods which cost us reasoning heads many a purging before anything good can come of it. Of really simple souls (to which we too must be made through the life in Jesus) it stands written in the life of St. Mechtild that they are like doves sitting in the Saviour's lap, in which He takes His delight.

The undiedness in the brother you know of I have in part known. God be thanked, who has disclosed it to him too! May He also give grace that with him, and with us, it may from now on be wholly crucified and buried with Jesus, so that we may live to see a glad Easter day. I am still so weak that it makes me sad when I hear my brothers' faults — so much so that yesterday I was quite ill of it, when I ought fairly to have been thinking of myself. And yet I love the brother heartily.

But you too must still have a great deal of life in you, that you feel it so sharply, dear brother, when others are not bowed and dead enough. Will you not then learn, for once, to eat your bread with the crust on it? Sometimes — indeed often — God permits it only for our sakes that others behave so, or otherwise, toward us; which can happen especially in sicknesses, with the sick, since the tempter can exercise both parties, the sick and their nurses, by God's permission. When you have opportunity, read some time in Ruusbroec, in his tract on the seven enclosures, the fifth and the sixth chapter. It would be a fine thing if the sick would only practise the Sixth well, without thinking about the Fifth; and if a nurse had only the Fifth before his eyes, without thinking about what follows it.

I ask the Lord that He would be near you there too, and would keep you, even among men, in true detachment, as alone with God! Because I am always being interrupted, I must close — commending you to the Lord, and myself to the prayer of you and the other children; greet them all together from us.

Your weak brother.

Mülheim, in Rogation week.

❦

German

Der achtundzwanzigste Brief.

Vorrecht der Einfältigen. Von Ungestorbenheiten und Versuchungen zwischen Kranken- und Krankenwärtern.

Herzlich geliebter Bruder!

—— Grüße mir doch gar herzlich die kranke Schwester N. ich wünsche ihr JEsu Nahheit und Frieden, woran sie genug hat im Leben und im Sterben; dem übergebe sie sich ohne Bedenken, und lasse Ihn mit sich machen in Zeit und Ewigkeit, was Er will: Er wird sie nicht betrügen.

— 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 letter to Wilhelm Weck, written in the spring of 1742 — the print dates it only "in Rogation week," the days before Ascension, without a year. It is a sickroom letter of an unusual kind: not to the patient, but to the people around her. A sister of the circle is ill — ill enough that he speaks to her of dying; a brother whom both correspondents know is proving difficult; and Weck himself, it seems, has been finding his fellow-Christians hard to bear. Tersteegen answers all three at once.

The heading calls it a privilege, and the letter means it: "when simple people are not self-willed, then they are very pleasing to God, and free of a thousand selfhoods which cost us reasoning heads many a purging." The simple are not the second rank — they are ahead, and the clever must be made simple, "through the life in Jesus." He seals it with a picture he had found in the life of St. Mechtild and printed himself a year later in his own collection of saints' lives: such souls are "like doves sitting in the Saviour's lap — in which He takes His delight."

Then the sharp turn, and it is aimed at the recipient. Weck feels his brothers' failings keenly; Tersteegen admits he does too — "yesterday I was quite ill of it, when I ought fairly to have been thinking of myself" — and then names the diagnosis for both of them: "you too must still have a great deal of life in you, that you feel it so sharply when others are not bowed and dead enough. Will you not then learn, for once, to eat your bread with the crust on it?" The crust is other people. And in a sickroom it cuts both ways: the tempter, he says, "can exercise both parties, the sick and their nurses." For that he sends Weck to a book — the fifth and sixth chapters of a tract by the old Dutch mystic Ruusbroec, which are exactly the chapter on caring for the sick and the chapter on being sick. Read the one meant for you, he says, and not the one meant for the other person.

A few words and echoes.

undiedness. Ungestorbenheit — Tersteegen's word for what in a person has not yet died with Christ; the letter's hope is that it may be "wholly crucified and buried with Jesus" (Romans 6:4).
a glad Easter day. Written some five weeks after Easter, so the Easter meant is the inward one — the rising that follows the dying.
the privilege of the simple. Matthew 11:25 — "thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes."
doves in the Saviour's lap. The image from the life of St. Mechtild, the thirteenth-century Saxon nun; cf. Song of Solomon 2:14, "O my dove… let me see thy countenance."
"He will not deceive her." Romans 10:11 — "Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed."
the tempter … by God's permission. 1 Corinthians 10:13 — no temptation but such as is common to man, and none beyond what we are able to bear.
in true detachment, as alone with God. Abgeschiedenheit, the standing term of these letters: not withdrawal from people, but freedom in the middle of them — which is why he asks it for Weck "even among men."

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Zweiter Band, III. Theil, Brief 28 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdii-thiii-028.html.

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