To a brother who had been deathly ill, on his recovery.
The Forty-Ninth Letter.
To a brother who had been deathly ill, on his recovery.
Dearly beloved brother N.
This morning we receive, through the dear brother N., the welcome news that the gracious Saviour has given you some rest, and that it is turning, with your illness, toward some improvement. Praised be the friendliness of our God for it! And still more will we praise and love Him, when we shall get report that this your improvement continues. To be sure, my dear brother, I would have praised God for it also, had it pleased Him to take you to Himself; for there you would have been out of danger, blessed and glorious, in the beholding, enjoyment, and adoration of the highest Good, our all-sufficient, super-wonderful God; and of the bowing, adoring, and thanking there would in all eternity have been no end — when you, with deepest sinking into your nothingness and dissolving into God's mercies, should have experienced and had to say: My Lord and my God! is it possible that Thou hast brought me hither? Has Thy grace then willed to extend even unto me? O immeasurable abyss over such a one! O free, O eternal grace in the blood of Jesus Christ! I know indeed well, dear brother, who you are; but I know also who the Lord is, and that He would know how to wash your garment too, and make it white, in the blood of the Lamb: praised be His name! Now! when it pleases our Saviour to leave you some days here below with us, and us with you, it is only to cleanse us the more out of the ground, and one day to transfigure us: that too is grace. Behold, Lord! here is Thy wretched servant; be it unto me as Thou hast said. My body, my soul, and this my temporal life is Thine; it must also serve Thy good pleasure alone, and be wholly devoted to it! Amen.
I thank the Lord for this your illness, dear brother! believing that His design is to bring His work thereby to a greater thoroughness, simplicity, and purity. Many a thing then becomes clear to one which was else not so discerned; and the sacrifices which must be made in such a state can bring us much away from ourselves and into detachment. Now, let the Lord be Master, and you a little, quiet, simple child of the heart! You have been prayed for, and given thanks for, by many. All the children here greet you heartily, together with me,
Your weak brother.
Mülheim, the 15th of March 1744.
German
Der neunundvierzigste Brief.
An einen todtkrank gewesenen Bruder über seine Besserung.
Herzlich geliebter Bruder N. Heut morgen bekommen wir durch den lieben Bruder N. die angenehme Nachricht, daß der gütige Heiland dir einige Ruhe gegeben, und es sich mit deiner Krankheit zu einiger Besserung anlasse.
— 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 sequel to the forty-seventh. Wilhelm Weck, whom Tersteegen had committed to God as a dying man, has taken a turn for the better; the news reaches Mülheim "this morning" through a mutual friend, and Tersteegen writes at once. It is a letter of thanksgiving that will not let recovery be mistaken for the main thing — for he had been just as ready to give thanks had Weck died.
"Praised be the friendliness of our God" for the improvement, he begins; and yet, "I would have praised God for it also, had it pleased Him to take you to Himself." He even pauses to imagine the prayer the glorified soul would have prayed on arriving — a rush of wonder at unmerited grace: "My Lord and my God! is it possible that Thou hast brought me hither? Has Thy grace then willed to extend even unto me?… O free, O eternal grace in the blood of Jesus Christ!" Whether by death or by recovery, the one thing is that Christ "would know how to wash your garment, and make it white, in the blood of the Lamb." And if God leaves Weck "some days here below," that too has a purpose: "only to cleanse us the more out of the ground, and one day to transfigure us." So the counsel turns to a prayer of self-surrender — the words of Mary's fiat: "Behold, Lord! here is Thy wretched servant; be it unto me as Thou hast said. My body, my soul, and this my temporal life is Thine." The illness itself is God's instrument: "I thank the Lord for this your illness… believing that His design is to bring His work to a greater thoroughness, simplicity, and purity." The sacrifices a sickbed exacts "can bring us much away from ourselves and into detachment."
The close is quiet and tender: "let the Lord be Master, and you a little, quiet, simple child of the heart!" And Weck is not alone in it: "you have been prayed for, and given thanks for, by many. All the children here greet you heartily." A word on the text is worth adding: both old printed editions open this letter abruptly at "This morning we receive…". Benrath's manuscript copy preserves a first paragraph that the editor of the printed collection cut — a very human paragraph in which Tersteegen, who doctored his neighbors, reports sending Weck actual medicine (physic from the Halle orphanage apothecary, and his own "thyme-spirit") and frets that the high water had delayed the post. That recovered paragraph is given in the editorial apparatus, not here, since this reading text follows the printed copy-text; but it is worth knowing that the spiritual physician was also, that week, a literal one.
A few words and echoes.
- My Lord and my God! John 20:28 — Thomas's confession.
- Behold, Lord! here is Thy wretched servant; be it unto me as Thou hast said. Luke 1:38 — Mary's "be it unto me according to thy word".
- wash your garment… make it white, in the blood of the Lamb. Revelation 7:14.
- into detachment. Abgeschiedenheit — the soul's separation from all that is not God, a key term of the German mystical tradition.
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdii-thiii-049 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.