Letters · Zweiter Band · Theil III (1775)

That recollection, gathering, inwardness, and the nearness of God are not in the soul's power, but are grace.

Bd II · Th III · Brief 65 · Der fünfundsechzigste Brief

Addressee — To Georg Heinrich Fischer — the same brother (of the Otterbeck circle) who received Brief 61 five weeks earlier, then despondent at looking back on his own faults. Now something has happened in his inward life — a felt nearness of God, since veiled — and this letter tells him both the experience and its veiling are grace. Written in the intimate du (English you). Salutation "Hertzlich geliebter Bruder!" → "Dearly beloved brother!" (Rule B); no subscription — the letter closes with the dateline only, as Brief 61 does.
Date — Mülheim, 2 March 1745 — the print dateline reads Mülheim, den 2. März 1745.
Provenance — Translated from the public-domain 1775 first edition (Theil III, pp. 211–213), in normalized GS 1845 house orthography, collated against the 1798/99 second edition (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin). All rendered words come from public-domain prints. The copy-text sets the running title of p. 213 to "66ter Brief." although the upper half of that leaf still carries the close of this letter (the head is set for the letter that begins on the page — the same habit as at p. 211/Brief 64); p. 212's verso head is the generic "Geistliche Briefe."

The Sixty-Fifth Letter.

That recollection, gathering, inwardness, and the nearness of God are not in the soul's power, but are grace.

Dearly beloved brother!

What has passed in your inward being I recognize as God's work and grace. Recognize it, you also, as His work — but also as grace; then you will wonder so much the less at their veiling, and their fruit will then remain for ever, though the felt element of it should go away: this latter is transient, but not the essence and the fruit of inner peace, faith, and the rest. You see what a change God can work in a moment — such as we can acquire by no faithfulness, no recollection, no force, or the like; He brings everything in us to shame and to desperation, and then He helps out of grace.

The ease which is imparted to the soul through the felt nearness of God (so that nothing is easier for it than recollection) might, in a covert way, make it believe that this gathering, inwardness, and nearness of God were in its own power, and that it could set itself in them whenever it would; for this and other reasons God draws the veil a little over it again, that the soul may learn by experience that it is grace, and not to be reached by its best recollecting. So much the more can you now believe that God has done it, since you cannot now give it to yourself when you will. Then let all remain given back to the Lord! Meanwhile you now know indeed that God is, and is, moreover, He who He is. Though it is not yet a fully-born, abiding state of the divine union, yet God has shown you a grace which you shall have to acknowledge in eternity, and which many in this age do not attain who are better and more faithful than you and I. Your misery and faintheartedness have compelled Him to it more than your faithfulness has.

You may believe without misgiving — but also without scrupulosity — that you have again gone amiss somewhere. Meanwhile preserve the inner contentment: love detachment, especially the detachment of the heart, toward which the inner contentment inclines; as well as the loving recollection, toward which it inclines no less. But do not examine much and minutely; rather let your faith, your love, and your whole mind toward God be unchanged and the same as when you found Him so near; for God also, in Himself and in regard to you, is just as near, as good, and as worthy of love as He was then. Pray for me; I gladly do the same.

Mülheim, 2 March 1745.

❦

German

Der fünfundsechzigste Brief.

Daß die Einkehr, Sammlung, Innigkeit und Nahheit GOttes nicht in der Seelen Gewalt, sondern Gnade sey.

Herzlich geliebter Bruder!

Was in deinem Inwendigen vorgegangen, erkenne ich als GOttes Werk und Gnade. Erkenne du es auch als sein Werk, aber auch als Gnade; so wirst du dich über deren Bedeckung so viel weniger verwunderen; und sodann wird deren Frucht ewig bleiben, sollte gleich das Empfindliche davon weggehen: Dieses letztere ist vorübergehend …

— 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 second surviving letter to the same brother within a few weeks. Brief 61 (23 January 1745) had answered his despondency at looking back on his own faults; now, in early March, something has happened in his inward life — a felt nearness of God, an ease of turning inward, of which this letter speaks as of a thing already given and already partly withdrawn. Tersteegen writes to secure the gift against two opposite mistakes: doubting it, and claiming it. It was God's work and grace, he says — and its veiling is grace too.

The doctrine, which the title states whole. Recollection, gathering, inwardness, the nearness of God — the very things the awakened soul most wants — are not in the soul's power, but are grace. The danger of the felt nearness is precisely its ease: nothing is easier for the soul, while it lasts, than the turning inward, and so, "in a covert way," it comes to believe these states are its own to enter at will. For this cause and others, God draws the veil again — not to take the gift back, but so that the soul may learn by experience that it is grace, and not to be reached by its best recollecting. The felt element passes; "the essence and the fruit of inner peace, faith, and the rest" remain.

"God is, and is, moreover, He who He is." The sentence gathers the burning-bush name (Exodus 3:14) and the ground-confession of faith (Hebrews 11:6) into one clause: what the brother now knows is not something about God but God Himself, the very One that He is — and that knowledge, Tersteegen tells him, outlasts every withdrawal of feeling. Even without an abiding state of divine union carried to full birth, a grace has been shown him "which you shall have to acknowledge in eternity" — and it was his misery and faintheartedness, not his faithfulness, that drew it down.

The close. The counsel is characteristically double: believe without misgiving that you have failed somewhere again — and believe it without scrupulosity, the anxious brooding that turns confession into another form of self-scrutiny (the very sickness Brief 61 had diagnosed). Preserve the inner contentment; love detachment, especially of the heart; love the loving recollection; and do not examine much. Faith, love, and the whole mind toward God are to stay what they were in the hour of nearness, "for God also, in Himself and in regard to you, is just as near, as good, and as worthy of love as He was then." There is no subscription; the letter ends, as Brief 61 does, with the dateline alone — and before it, "Pray for me; I gladly do the same."

A few words and echoes.

the felt element. Das Empfindliche — the sensible, experienceable side of grace, opposed throughout to its essence: "this latter is transient, but not the essence and the fruit of inner peace, faith, and the rest."
recollection and gathering. Einkehr and Sammlung, distinguished in the title's list: the one the act of turning inward, the other the soul collected out of its scatterings. They belong together, and the English keeps a separate word for each so the reader can track both.
inwardness and the nearness of God. Innigkeit and Nahheit GOttes — the remaining pair of the title's four; all four, the letter insists, "are not in the soul's power, but are grace."
the veil. Die Decke — God "draws the veil a little over it again," not to take the gift back but so the soul may "learn by experience that it is grace."
God is, and is, moreover, He who He is. Exodus 3:14 and Hebrews 11:6 gathered into one clause — the burning-bush name, and the faith that "must believe that he is" precisely when the feeling is withdrawn.
scrupulosity. Scrupuliren — the confessor's word for anxious, brooding self-examination: believe the failure "without misgiving — but also without scrupulosity," leave it, and go on.
fully-born. Ausgebohren — the birth-image applied to the abiding state of divine union, which this grace is not yet, and need not yet be for the gift to be real.

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Zweiter Band, III. Theil, Brief 65 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdii-thiii-065.html.

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