Letters · Zweiter Band · Theil III (1775)

To a sick woman friend; that the one medicine alone can help her: to cleave to Jesus with tender love, and disregard of herself and of all things.

Bd II · Th III · Brief 46 · Der sechsundvierzigste Brief

Addressee — To Anna Maria Elisabeth Schmitz — a woman friend in bodily illness; written in the intimate du (English you). The letter prescribes the "one medicine": to cleave to Jesus and to disregard self and all things. Salutation Hertzlich geliebte Schwester! → "Dearly beloved sister!" (Rule B); subscription Dein verbundener schwacher Mitbruder.
Date — Mülheim, 20 February 1744 — the print closes with subscription + dateline "…schwacher Mitbruder. / Mülheim, den 20. Febr. 1744."
Provenance — *Translated from the public-domain 1775 first edition (Theil III, pp. 138–139), in normalized GS-1845 house orthography. All rendered words are from public-domain prints.

The Forty-Sixth Letter.

To a sick woman friend; that the one medicine alone can help her: to cleave to Jesus with tender love, and disregard of herself and of all things.

Dearly beloved sister!

—— Your bodily affliction arises largely from the mind. One medicine can help you, which is to be had from the dearest Saviour; it is called: to cleave to Jesus with tender love, and disregard of yourself and of all things. If you neglect to use this medicine, then God lets your body feel that something ails the spirit — and that is grace. So use this medicine daily and hourly; and if it should not be at hand, then fetch it — but without money, else you get nothing! Await it with trust from Him who gives it for nothing. Only begin to use it; though at the first it should not be to your taste, keep on; I cannot commend to you enough the exceeding sweetness and mighty working of this medicine: it gives eternal life. On yourself and your hurt you must not dwell, even should it seem desperate; think only of the inwardly-present, mighty and loving Physician: turned to Him with quiet devotion and tender love, use the medicine, and you will surely be healed. I am not jesting. I write so only to express myself fitly. It is all essentially so. May the Lord give you a simple, still heart, and then you will know and experience it. Your miseries do not scare me off — I take hold of you in your weakness: neither must they scare you off, but only ground you the deeper in the knowledge of your nothingness, and in the abandonment of yourself into the hands of the Lord, in whom your salvation lies. If you cannot gather yourself to God with the senses and the thoughts, then do it with the heart; if you cannot find your heart either, then do it with your will. And if you should seem unable even for that, then suffer, and give yourself over to God with contentment and trust. Turning-outward, and busying yourself with your own self, make the miseries into sins. Busy yourself, rather, with Him who, in your heart, waits for you, and has bought you for His bride and full possession, and invites you! Amen. I remain, through His grace,

Your devoted, weak fellow-brother.

Mülheim, the 20th of February 1744.

❦

German

Der sechsundvierzigste Brief.

An eine kranke Freundin; daß ihr die Eine Arznei nur helfen könne: JEsum anhangen mit zarter Liebe, und Unannehmlichkeit ihrer selbst und aller Dinge.

Herzlich geliebte Schwester!

—— Dein leibliches Ungemach entstehet viel vom Gemüth. Eine Arznei kann dir helfen, welche beim liebsten Heiland zu bekommen ist; sie heißt: JEsu anhangen mit zarter Liebe, und Unannehmlichkeit deiner selbst und aller Dinge.

— 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, tender letter of counsel to Anna Maria Elisabeth Schmitz, ill in body. Tersteegen's diagnosis is characteristically inward: "your bodily affliction arises largely from the mind." So the cure he prescribes is not a bodily one but "the one medicine" — and the whole letter is a single extended figure of that medicine, its price, and its use.

The medicine "is to be had from the dearest Saviour; it is called: to cleave to Jesus with tender love, and disregard of yourself and of all things." Its price is the paradoxical price of grace: "fetch it — but without money, else you get nothing!" — the prophet's buy without money turned into pastoral counsel. If she neglects it, God will let the body ache so that she feels "that something ails the spirit — and that is grace." And she is to "use this medicine daily and hourly," persevering even when at first "it should not taste sweet." The pastoral heart of the letter is the same counsel Tersteegen gives again and again: the look must go to God, not to the self. "On yourself and your hurt you must not dwell, even should it seem desperate; think only of the inwardly-present, mighty and loving Physician." Her very miseries are not to frighten her: "Your miseries do not scare me off — I take hold of you in your weakness: neither must they scare you off, but only ground you the deeper in the knowledge of your nothingness." Whatever faculty fails — "if you cannot gather yourself to God with the senses and the thoughts, then do it with the heart; if you cannot find your heart either, then do it with your will" — and if even the will seems to fail, then simply "suffer, and give yourself over to God with contentment and trust."

There is only one wrong move, and he names it: "turning-outward, and busying yourself with your own self, make the miseries into sins." The miseries themselves are not sin; brooding on them is. So the last word is to turn the attention wholly to Christ, "who, in your heart, waits for you, and has bought you for His bride and full possession, and invites you."

A few words and echoes.

disregard of yourself and of all things. Unannehmlichkeit — literally the not-taking-to-oneself; the soul's holy indifference to self and creature, not "unpleasantness."
fetch it — but without money. Isaiah 55:1 — "come, buy wine and milk without money and without price"; and "who gives it for nothing" echoes Revelation 22:17, "take the water of life freely."
the… loving Physician… you will surely be healed. Exodus 15:26 — "I am the LORD that healeth thee"; Matthew 9:12, the physician for the sick.
has bought you for His bride and full possession. Revelation 5:9 — "hast redeemed us to God by thy blood" — with the bride of Christ (Ephesians 5; Revelation 19:7).
desperate. desperat — a Latin loanword; German verzweifelt.

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Zweiter Band, III. Theil, Brief 46 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdii-thiii-046.html.

← Bd II · Th III · Brief 45 Bd II · Th III · Brief 47 →