Letters · Zweiter Band · Theil III (1775)

Of our great misery and corruption. Means and ways to be delivered from it.

Bd II · Th III · Brief 56 · Der sechsundfünfzigste Brief

Addressee — To Helene Wuesten — the same sick woman as Brief 43, wife of Johann Wuesten, Kaufmann in Solingen; written while her husband was away from home, so that she had "somewhat more opportunity" for prayer. Addressed in the polite euch / ihr (English you); she is called "liebe Schwester." Salutation In der Gnade JESu von Hertzen geliebte Schwester! → "In the grace of Jesus, sister beloved from the heart!" (Rule B); subscription Euer verbundener schwacher Mitbruder. The letter also greets "die liebe Schwester N.", invited to read it too.
Date — Mülheim, 17 September 1744 — the print dateline reads Mülheim, den 17. Sept. 1744.
Provenance — *Translated from the public-domain 1775 first edition (Theil III, pp. 162–165), in normalized GS-1845 house orthography. All rendered words are from public-domain prints.

The Fifty-Sixth Letter.

Of our great misery and corruption. Means and ways to be delivered from it.

In the grace of Jesus, sister beloved from the heart!

Your kindly-received little letter was welcome to me. You want to know in what sense I had thought of you? And whether perhaps your condition has been revealed to me by God? I answer: that the particulars of your inner state are perhaps not known to me. But this much I do know — that you are wretched and corrupt, as I and other children of Adam are; yes, that you too have your particular weaknesses and failings, which often carry you away. Yet along with this I know, too, that God, notwithstanding, loves you, seeks you, and shows you many mercies, in order to show you, tangibly, that He means honestly by you, and would have you wholly for Himself. This has at certain times unsettled your mind, and at times deeply affected it, and put you into an earnest frame — to give yourself wholly to this God-of-love; but the frequent lapses have made the mind timid, so that scarcely any honest resolve dares rise up any more, out of the fear that it would all go, after all, as before. That is just the element of unbelief, in which one lives wretchedly, and in which our Christianity has no right ground nor progress.

Now, that it will not go rightly forward with you does not lie so much in this — that you are wretched, spoiled, and frail; for against that we have a Savior who can forgive and redeem — but rather in this: that the ground of deliverance from such misery is not laid and exercised enough, in a sweet trust toward this Savior, and in a simple and, where possible, constant converse, communion, and loving turning-toward — with and to this inwardly-present Friend of the heart — even without seeing and feeling. For I am certain that through this exercise of heart-prayer, or of the loving turning to Jesus into your heart, all your harm would be helped, and all your bonds would easily and unnoticed be broken.

Through the remembrance of an object so all-sufficient and holy, you would blessedly lose the remembrance of yourself and of all evil. Your necessary household affairs do not hinder you in this exercise, when they are done before God and for love of Him; rather, you are hindered partly by unbelief, and then also by this — that in your business and in your dealings with people you neglect the sweet remembrance and the company of the Friend of the heart, and let yourself now and then into needless talk and distractions that estrange the mind from the Lord, even when there is really nothing evil in them.

Since I knew, now, that your husband was not at home just then, I thought: perhaps the dear sister has now somewhat less unrest, and somewhat more opportunity, to exercise herself in prayer and in the quiet turning to God. That I then offered up to God, with the request that He might bring it to mind, and let this time and opportunity be truly blessed, and so on.

See, dear sister, in this way have I thought of you in the simplicity of my heart, and so do I look upon your condition. God gives me, too, a heart to offer up your inner and outer state much to His Majesty; for I wish nothing more than that I might see you wholly [given] to God. Be of good cheer in our sweet Savior, who will surely help you: think much on His nearness, love, all-sufficiency, almightiness, and faithfulness; but think little of yourself, and least of all of the world, and of what is in the world and happens. May God strengthen and bless you in your present circumstances and condition, Amen!

Greet also the dear sister N. She may read this too for herself, since I have no time to write more. When you come together, you must strengthen one another in trust and in the love of Jesus, as also in the love of prayer and of gathered stillness, but not deal much in outward or needless things. The Lord be with you and your house! I remain, through grace,

Your bound and weak fellow-brother.

Mülheim, the 17th of September 1744.

❦

German

Der sechsundfünfzigste Brief.

Von unserm grossen Elend und Verderben. Mittel und Wege um davon erlöset zu werden.

In der Gnade JEsu von Herzen geliebte Schwester!

Euer wohl erhaltenes Brieflein ist mir angenehm gewesen. Ihr wollt wissen, in welchem Sinn ich an euch gedacht hätte?

— 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 Helene Wuesten, the Solingen merchant's wife of the forty-third letter; her husband was away, and she had written asking, half-anxiously, whether Tersteegen had been given any special insight into her soul. His answer is a small masterpiece of pastoral honesty and redirection. No, he says, he has no revelation about her particulars — but he knows the one thing that matters, and it is the same for everyone. He grants the misery fully, and levels it: she is "wretched and corrupt, as I and other children of Adam are." But the diagnosis immediately turns kind: "God, notwithstanding, loves you, seeks you, and shows you many mercies… that He means honestly by you, and would have you wholly for Himself." Her real trouble is not the wretchedness — Christ forgives that — but a paralysis: repeated lapses have "made the mind timid, so that scarcely any honest resolve dares rise up any more, out of fear that it would all go, after all, as before." That fear, he says, is "the element of unbelief," and it is what actually stalls her.

The way out is not more strain but a settled practice: "a sweet trust toward this Savior, and… a constant converse, communion, and loving turning-toward this inwardly-present Friend of the heart — even without seeing and feeling." The last phrase is the crux: the exercise does not depend on feeling anything. And its effect is liberating precisely because it is self-forgetful: "through the remembrance of an object so all-sufficient and holy, you would blessedly lose the remembrance of yourself and of all evil." The morbid self-watching that has made her timid is cured not by watching herself better but by looking away — at God. What makes the letter memorable is how concrete it is. Tersteegen has noticed that her husband is away, and turned even that into intercession: "perhaps the dear sister has now somewhat more opportunity… that I then offered up to God." He tells her to think "much on His nearness… but little of yourself," greets a second sister and invites her to read the letter too, and asks the two of them, when they are together, to "strengthen one another" and not "deal much in outward or needless things." It is spiritual direction that knows the shape of an actual household.

A few words and echoes.

children of Adam. Romans 5:12–19 — the common inheritance of the fall.
God… loves you, seeks you. Luke 15; Luke 19:10 — the God who seeks the lost.
even without seeing and feeling. 2 Corinthians 5:7 — "we walk by faith, not by sight."
an object so all-sufficient and holy. allgenugsam echoes John 10:11 (the good shepherd) and 2 Corinthians 9:8 (God able to make all grace abound) — God as the sufficient object of the heart's remembrance.
lose the remembrance of yourself. The mystical self-forgetfulness of Gelassenheit — the self dropped in the contemplation of God.

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Zweiter Band, III. Theil, Brief 56 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdii-thiii-056.html.

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