Letters · Zweiter Band · Theil III (1775)

Tidings of the passing of an important brother. Answers to several important questions concerning the inward life.

Bd II · Th III · Brief 67 · Der siebenundsechzigste Brief

Addressee — To Georg Heinrich Fischer — the third letter to him in this part (Briefe 61, 65, 67), still in the intimate du (English you). Fischer had sent questions on the inward life; the letter opens instead with tidings of a death — a brother the print names only "P.", buried at "H." — and turns his loss into its first lesson before answering the questions one by one. Salutation "Hertzlich geliebter Bruder!" → "Dearly beloved brother!" (Rule B); no subscription in the print — the letter ends at "Amen!" with the dateline block alone.
Date — Mülheim, 15 July 1745 — the print dateline reads Mülheim, / den 15. Julii 1745.; the autograph closes "M. den 15. July 1745." One week after Brief 66 (8 July).
Provenance — Translated from the public-domain 1775 first edition (Theil III, pp. 216–219), 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 manuscript original survives, badly damaged, at the Rhenish church archive in Düsseldorf; the print is a heavy abridgment of it, and what the print cut is recorded in the Apparatus — none of it enters the reader text.

The Sixty-Seventh Letter.

Tidings of the passing of an important brother. Answers to several important questions concerning the inward life.

Dearly beloved brother!

By these lines I must give you tidings that it has pleased the dear God to take our worthy brother P., on the 29th of June, in the morning between three and four o'clock, to Himself into eternity; and he was buried at H. the Saturday following. In his last days he endured great oppression of breath; yet on the Sunday before — he died in the night of Tuesday — he had still, upon her asking, given N. to know concerning the state of his mind, that he found himself in inward wideness and rest of mind; and he sent us all together, once more, his hearty greetings. The poor lose in him a faithful almoner, and we a worthy brother. Yet no! we have not lost him; rather, just as the fellowship of the Spirit is not broken by death, so we may hope, through God's mercy in Christ, soon to see him again. Amen! What a stay I in particular lose in him is in part known to you. Well — the Lord has given, the Lord has taken; the name of the Lord be praised! Nothing is more wholesome and more worthy of love than when life and stay outside God are taken from us, since thereby we can be greatly furthered into God: the creatures thus do us the greatest service when they turn us away to God.

Now I should also answer a little your questions concerning your inward life: I will and must do it briefly. You ask: Wherein does the going-out from oneself consist? In the disdaining and forgetting of oneself, and in the leaving of oneself over to God through faith and love. How does one exercise oneself in this? Through this very thing; that is, that one disdain and forget oneself, whether in the active or in the suffering way, and turn to God with love and trust. Wherein does the passing-over, or entrance into Jesus Christ, consist? And how does one attain to it? It consists in the very thing in which the going-out from oneself consists; for the going-out from oneself is the entrance into Jesus Christ, and the entrance into Jesus is the going-out from oneself. And one attains to it by the very same way — and soon, indeed, if in the active way one is very faithful in self-denial, and in the suffering way very faithful in sweet patience. What are the hindrances, that one commonly does not attain to it so soon? 1. Self-love, out of which arise trust in oneself, the beholding of oneself, care for oneself, and despondency over oneself. 2. The tenderness on account of which God dare not rightly lay hold of many souls, for fear (to speak after a human manner) that they would turn back to the world, or be ruined by despondency. Whence comes it that, when one has in some measure attained to it, one does not abide in Jesus Christ? Precisely from self-love and its fruits; for see, dear brother: by love we enter into a thing — by creature-love into the creature, by self-love into ourselves, by the love of God into God. Therefore love, and you shall be helped. But how do I come to love? Answer: By loving, by praying, and by waiting. But I feel no love of God, only self-love, and find myself imprisoned in myself. Answer: Confess your nothingness gladly; carry your misery before God with sweet trust, and think more upon God — and upon how you ought to love and praise Him, the infinitely good and great God — than upon yourself and your miseries, to bewail them.

This little, dear brother, I write in haste: perhaps it is not enough for you. It is true, I could set it before you more graspably, and answer more distinctly: but just that is a hindrance to you, and comes of the corruption, that you want to have everything so distinct and graspable. Oh, how well we often suppose ourselves to grasp how God's leadings go! And nevertheless, when we ourselves come into that which we have read and grasped, then we cannot make it rhyme; and when we would make it rhyme, then our concept often stands in our way, and hinders us in the thing itself. We should therefore read chiefly to this end only: to nourish our heart, to gather it, and to lift it up to God; and — exercising ourselves in denying, praying, and loving as heartily as ever we can — commend ourselves and our way to God, without always wanting to see how and where we are? Amen!

Mülheim, 15 July 1745.

❦

German

Der siebenundsechzigste Brief.

Nachricht von dem Absterben eines wichtigen Bruders. Beantwortung etlicher wichtigen Fragen, das Inwendige Leben betreffende.

Herzlich geliebter Bruder!

Durch diese Zeilen muß dir Nachricht geben, daß es dem lieben GOtt gefallen, unsern werthen Bruder P. den 29ten Junii, Morgens zwischen drei und vier Uhr, zu sich in die Ewigkeit über zu nehmen, und ist er Samstags darauf zu H. begraben worden.

— 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 third letter to the same brother in this part (after Briefe 61 and 65), and two letters in one. Fischer had sent questions about the inward life; before answering them, Tersteegen has a death to report. The printed collection, discreet as always, names the dead man only "brother P." and his burial place "H."; the manuscript original of this letter, which survives — badly damaged — in a Düsseldorf church archive, names him: Adrian Pauw, the faithful almoner of the poor, who died on the 29th of June between three and four in the morning and was buried at Haemstede the Saturday after. The letter's first movement is his deathbed and what his death teaches; the second is a little catechism, Fischer's own questions quoted back to him and answered one by one.

The tidings. The report is spare and luminous: in his last days great oppression of breath; on the Sunday before the end, asked how it stood with his soul, he had it told that he found himself "in inward wideness and rest of mind," and sent greetings to them all. The poor lose their almoner, "and we a worthy brother. Yet no! we have not lost him" — the fellowship of the Spirit is not broken by death. Then the letter turns the loss on the writer himself: what a stay he loses in this man, Fischer partly knows — and the confession of Job follows at once, the Lord has given, the Lord has taken; the name of the Lord be praised! Nothing is more wholesome, he adds, than when our life and stay outside God are taken from us: the creatures do us their greatest service when they turn us away to God. The old edition's compiler, we may note, cut what the manuscript says more plainly — that with this death went much of the writer's own outward livelihood.

The little catechism. Five questions, and one answer wearing five forms. The going-out from oneself consists in disdaining and forgetting oneself and leaving oneself over to God; one practises it actively and passively; the entrance into Christ is the going-out from self — the two are one motion, and one arrives soon if one is faithful in self-denial in the active way and in sweet patience in the suffering way. The hindrances are two: self-love with its brood — self-trust, self-beholding, self-care, self-despondency — and that tenderness of soul on whose account God, to speak humanly, dare not lay hold of many as He would. Why does one not abide in Christ once arrived? Self-love again. The remedy is of a piece: "by love we enter into a thing — by creature-love into the creature, by self-love into ourselves, by the love of God into God. Therefore love, and you shall be helped." And to the objection that one feels no love of God at all, only a self imprisoned in itself: confess your nothingness gladly; carry your misery before God with sweet trust; and think more upon Him than upon yourself and your miseries.

The close. Written in haste, and it says so. He could answer "more distinctly," he grants — but the demand for distinctness is itself the hindrance, part of the corruption that wants everything graspable. We suppose we grasp how God's leadings go, until we ourselves come into what we have read — "then we cannot make it rhyme," and our concept stands in the way of the thing. So the reading-rule with which the letter ends: read chiefly to nourish the heart, to gather it, and to lift it up to God; and, denying, praying, and loving as heartily as we can, commend ourselves and our way to God, "without always wanting to see how and where we are?" The question mark is the letter's own, and it carries the whole point. Amen!

A few words and echoes.

brother P. The printed collection's discretion; the damaged manuscript original names Adrian Pauw, almoner of the poor, buried at Haemstede — and shows that the compiler also cut the letter's business matters, its household news, and its hurried subscription "in haste."
oppression of breath. Benautheit — the old word for the constriction of the dying; his serenity under it is the report's whole content.
inward wideness. Inwendige Weite — the opposite of that constriction: room, air, rest of mind at the edge of eternity.
the Lord has given. Job 1:21, confessed over a loss that touched the writer's own livelihood.
the going-out and the entrance. The letter's one doctrine: Ausgang aus sich selbst and Eingang in Christum are a single motion seen from its two ends.
the active and the suffering way. Wirksamer / leidender Weise — what we do, and what we undergo; faithfulness in the first is self-denial, in the second sweet patience.
tenderness. Zärtlichkeit — the fragility on whose account God handles some souls gently, "for fear (to speak after a human manner)" of losing them to the world or to despondency.
make it rhyme. Reimen — concepts and experience refusing to fit; the reason reading is for nourishment, not for grasp.
your nothingness. Dein Nichts — to be confessed "gladly": the glad side of the mystical poverty.

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Zweiter Band, III. Theil, Brief 67 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdii-thiii-067.html.

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