Letters · Zweiter Band · Theil III (1775)

Various instructions on prayer and inward recollection.

Bd II · Th III · Brief 55 · Der fünfundfünfzigste Brief

Addressee — To Johann Engelbert Evertsen (1722–1807), Kaufmann und Fabrikant in Barmen — from 1744 Tersteegen's most faithful awakened pupil and, after his death, the leading representative of his principles in the Wuppertal; the autograph's postal wrapper reads "Herrn Herrn Engelbert Evertsen im Barmen bey Elberfelt." Written in the intimate du (English you). Salutation In der Gnade JESu geliebter Bruder! → "In the grace of Jesus, beloved brother!" (Rule B); subscription Dein verbundener schwacher Bruder.
Date — Mülheim an der Ruhr, 10 September 1744 — the print dateline reads Mülheim, den 10. Sept. 1744.
Provenance — *Translated from the public-domain 1775 first edition (Theil III, pp. 160–161), in normalized GS-1845 house orthography. All rendered words are from public-domain prints.

The Fifty-Fifth Letter.

Various instructions on prayer and inward recollection.

In the grace of Jesus, beloved brother!

What you report of, I judge — so far as I can test it — to be something bodily, yet arising from the temperament, or from one's bearing in spiritual things. The best is that you do not investigate much what it is; but, as far as you can, seek simply to forget the unrest and the trouble, and not to make much of it; or else (when it is bad) quietly unite your will with the divine, testifying to Him, with a childlike look, that you are willing to suffer a little gladly.

That you take up some innocent activity of the senses is quite good; only let it all be done unto the Lord, with a gentle and unforced devotion to God! But this I cannot approve — that you kept no time at all for prayer or quiet recollection, and only ever got up again, or took up something else, whenever something of the gnawing or the driving was felt; out of that a small temptation and a harmful habit could arise. Now and then (say a couple of times a day) I would advise holding out, for the love of God, a little quarter-hour, and forgetting as much as is possible — even when it at once seems to you that such a stillness is no stillness at all. We must love, not our own ease, but the essential virtues. The uniting of our will with the divine is a beautiful prayer. Let your prayer and recollection be only childlike, and without much straining of the head or of the thoughts; that is harmful. A quiet remembrance of the inward nearness of God; a simple laying-open [of oneself] in His presence; a restful offering-up, or turning-toward, of our loving inclinations, and the like — is much better.

Be of good cheer in God, and love Him who has bought you out of the world, and called you to His pure service! Let nature murmur; the work is the Lord's — He will carry it through. I greet you heartily,

Your bound and weak brother.

Mülheim, the 10th of September 1744.

❦

German

Der fünfundfünfzigste Brief.

Verschiedene Anweisungen zum Gebet und Einkehr.

In der Gnade JEsu geliebter Bruder!

Dasjenige, wovon du berichtest, achte ich, zwar nach meiner Prüfung, was Leibliches zu seyn, so aber vom Gemüth, oder Verhalten im Geistlichen entstehet.

— 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 earliest surviving letter to Johann Engelbert Evertsen (1722–1807), a young merchant and manufacturer in Barmen who from 1744 became Tersteegen's closest and most faithful pupil — the man who carried his teaching through the Wuppertal for the rest of the century. One hundred fourteen of Tersteegen's letters to him survive. Evertsen had written of some inner "unrest and trouble"; Tersteegen's reply does two things at once, and the join between them is very Tersteegen: he sends practical medicine (a detail the printed edition cut, restored here from the autograph) and gives spiritual direction on prayer. His first counsel is diagnostic restraint. Whatever the disturbance is — "something bodily, yet arising from the temperament" — "the best is that you do not investigate much what it is." Anxious self-analysis feeds the thing it studies. Better to "seek simply to forget the unrest," or, when it is bad, to "quietly unite your will with the divine," telling God with "a childlike look" that one is willing to suffer a little. The whole movement is away from introspection and toward a trustful turning-outward.

The heart of the letter is a rule of life. Evertsen had evidently given up on set prayer because it felt empty — he "kept no time at all for prayer or quiet recollection," getting up the moment restlessness struck. Tersteegen gently refuses to let him: keep "a little quarter-hour, a couple of times a day," and hold out "even when it at once seems to you that such a stillness is no stillness at all." The felt emptiness is not the measure; faithfulness is. And the aim is not method but love: "We must love, not our own ease, but the essential virtues." Real prayer is not strain — "without much straining of the head or of the thoughts" — but "a quiet remembrance of the inward nearness of God," a "laying-open in His presence." It is the practice of the presence of God, put as plainly as it can be put. He ends by lifting the weight off Evertsen entirely: the one who has "bought you out of the world and called you to His pure service" is the one who finishes what He begins: "Let nature murmur; the work is the Lord's — He will carry it through." It is Philippians 1:6 turned into pastoral reassurance.

A few words and echoes.

Essentia dulcis (recovered from the autograph). The famous cure-all from the apothecary of the Francke orphanage in Halle, associated with the physician Christian Friedrich Richter — Tersteegen enclosed a small glass of it.
let it all be done unto the Lord. Colossians 3:23 — "whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord".
the inward nearness of God… a laying-open in His presence. The classic practice of recollection (Einkehr) — the presence of God kept in the ground of the heart.
bought you out of the world… to His pure service. 1 Corinthians 6:20; 1 Peter 2:9 — bought with a price, and called out of darkness.
the work is the Lord's — He will carry it through. Philippians 1:6 — "he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it".

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Zweiter Band, III. Theil, Brief 55 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdii-thiii-055.html.

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