Comfort and instruction to an awakened person who was in the temptation to think that some particular sin was to blame for her bodily illness.
The Fifty-First Letter.
Comfort and instruction to an awakened person who was in the temptation to think that some particular sin was to blame for her bodily illness.
Dearly beloved sister!
I have compassion on your illness, but much more on your unbelief. Even were it so, as you seem to believe — that some particular sin had brought on this illness — a thing you could indeed tell me more nearly of, where the Lord made you well again — should one on that account throw away one's confidence, and think that one would be eternally lost? Yes, so it would indeed rightly come to pass, if you did not turn, penitent, out of your sins into Jesus' infinite grace. A straw must vanish in the fire; [so vanishes] a world full of sins in Jesus. Or has Jesus shed His blood only for our sins of yesterday, and not also for today's and tomorrow's? Or perhaps not for each and all? Assuredly! not a single one is excepted: that is grace. But shall we sin upon grace? God forbid. Much, much, much will we love Him — for to us many, many, many sins are forgiven — until, in the loving, we forget all that is called sin, and become forever quit of it.
Be then of good cheer, dear daughter: Jesus has forgiven you these sins too. Go, thank and love Him for it, and be glad to suffer a little, out of love; but come no more, henceforth, so near the serpent that might have bitten you — hide yourself, rather, in Jesus' bosom! Amen. I greet you, and remain
Your bound and weak fellow-brother.
Mülheim, the 12th of April 1744.
P.S. Have the hymn in the Neander read to you sometime: "I love Him nonetheless," &c.
German
Der einundfünfzigste Brief.
Trost und Unterricht an eine erweckte Person, die in der Versuchung stund, als ob eine expresse Sünde an ihrer leiblichen Krankheit Schuld.
Herzlich geliebte Schwester!
Ich habe Mitleiden mit deiner Krankheit, aber vielmehr mit deinem Unglauben. Sollte es auch so seyn, wie du scheinest zu glauben, daß eine expresse Sünde diese Krankheit veranlasset hätte, so du mir doch näher bedeuten könntest, wo der HErr dich wieder gesund machte; sollte man dann deswegen das Vertrauen wegwerfen …
— 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 second letter to Anna Maria Elisabeth Schmitz (see the forty-sixth), still ill — but the trouble Tersteegen addresses now is inward, a scruple that had become a temptation. She had fallen into thinking that some particular sin had brought her illness on, and that she might therefore be eternally lost. The whole letter is a demolition of that fear with the plainest gospel.
"God forbid." Tersteegen grants her nothing and everything at once: "I have compassion on your illness, but much more on your unbelief." Even if a specific sin had caused it — a premise he treats as unprovable — the conclusion she draws is false: is Christ's blood shed "only for our sins of yesterday, and not also for today's and tomorrow's? Or perhaps not for each and all? Assuredly! not a single one is excepted: that is grace." The image he throws down is almost violent in its comfort — a rhyming couplet: "A straw must vanish in the fire; [so vanishes] a world full of sins in Jesus." A whole world of sin is no more against Christ than a straw against a furnace. His only guard is the old one against presuming: "But shall we sin upon grace? God forbid" (Romans 6).
"For to us many sins are forgiven." The turn is to love, and the ground of love is forgiveness — the gospel's own order (Luke 7:47): "Much, much, much will we love Him — for to us many, many, many sins are forgiven — until, in the loving, we forget all that is called sin." He calls her, once, "dear daughter," and sends her off absolved: "Be of good cheer, dear daughter: Jesus has forgiven you these sins too… be glad to suffer a little, out of love; but come no more so near the serpent that might have bitten you — hide yourself, rather, in Jesus' bosom." He ends, as a pastor might, by prescribing a hymn: one from the Neander collection he himself had enlarged — "I love Him nonetheless."
A few words and echoes.
- some particular sin. expresse Sünde — an express, nameable, particular sin.
- throw away one's confidence. Hebrews 10:35 — "Cast not away therefore your confidence."
- shed His blood… for each and all. 2 Corinthians 5:15; 1 John 2:2 — "he is the propitiation… for the sins of the whole world."
- But shall we sin upon grace? God forbid. Romans 6:1–2 — "Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid."
- to us many sins are forgiven. Luke 7:47 — "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much."
- the serpent that might have bitten you. Numbers 21:6–8 — the fiery serpents in the wilderness.
- the hymn in the Neander. Tersteegen edited and enlarged Joachim Neander's Glaubens- und Liebes-Übung (the "Great Neander," Duisburg 1736); the hymn "Ich hab Ihn dennoch lieb" stands there as no. 516.
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdii-thiii-051 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.