God’s purpose of love in the chastisement of His own. Direction how to bear oneself under it.
Addressee, date, and source
The Eighty-Seventh Letter.
God’s purpose of love in the chastisement of His own. Direction how to bear oneself under it.
My dearly beloved brother in the grace of Jesus!
Though I have nothing particular to write, yet I find myself constrained to report that your two letters, of the 10th and the 13th of this month, were welcome to me to receive — and not to me alone, but also to the other members here, who have taken part with me in your circumstances there. Blessed be the Lord, that He wounds and also heals again, and in the midst of His judgments is mindful of His sparing mercy and goodness.
The kings of the earth say they wage war only for peace’s sake; whether that is true, and how they understand it, I leave to them. But of our God of love and King of peace it is the very highest truth. He does not hurt His creatures from His heart; and when our condition unavoidably requires it, then He hurts only that He may do good. He does not smite, except that He may be able to embrace and to gladden. He neither needs nor seeks subjects for His own sake, and yet He seeks them as though He had need of them; but He seeks them only that He may make His subjects themselves free, glorious, and blessed — and so we become such, in the measure that our hearts truly become subject to Him in return. And when His government becomes rightly great in us, then of the peace in the soul there is no end; Isaiah 9:7. For who has ever resisted Him and been able to find peace? Job 9:4.
How heartily, then, were it to be wished and desired for us all together, and for all N. in particular, that under these divine chastisements and judgments now going abroad, and still hanging over us, we should sit down quite still before the all-searching eyes of our God, and let Him seek out and root out where we have hitherto, grossly or subtly, resisted His rightful claims upon our hearts. Ah! does not the Spirit call to us: Lay down your arms, you foolish children! Resist your Benefactor no longer, and submit yourselves in truth to your God, lest it grow too hot for you! See how quickly it repents Him that He must use the rod, and how happy you might become, if you fell at His feet, and, abjuring all strange lords, gave yourselves over unconditionally to be His subjects!
Now then, my dearest brother! so let us go about it with God: let us submit ourselves yet more fully to our most gracious God, and heartily wish and pray the same for all the rest. O Jesus! Thy kingdom come! Thy will be done! and let ours die and be buried! Amen. The cross is a pledge of love out of the Beloved’s hand, etc.
Your weak brother.
Mülheim, the 13th of October, 1747.
German
Der siebenundachtzigste Brief.
Liebes-Absicht GOttes bei Züchtigung der Seinigen. Anweisung wie sich dagegen zu betragen.
Mein herzlich geliebter Bruder in der Gnade JEsu!
Ob ich gleich nichts Sonderliches zu schreiben habe, so finde mich doch angedrungen, zu melden, daß mir deine beide Briefe vom 10ten und 13ten dieses zu empfangen angenehm gewesen sind, und nicht allein mir, sondern auch den übrigen Mitgliedern hieselbst, welche mit mir Theil genommen an euren dasigen Umständen.
— 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. Written from Mülheim on 13 October 1747 to a friend at Crefeld, seventeen days after the letter printed here as the eighty-sixth and to the same man. An epidemic was still running there. Two of his letters had come; this is the reply, and it is almost entirely one sustained argument — that the God who is hurting them means them well, and what follows from that.
A few words and echoes.
- purpose of love. One of three love- compounds in the letter — purpose of love, God of love, pledge of love — and they are meant to be heard together.
- chastisement. The paternal, corrective word, not punishment.
- bear oneself under it. Both how to conduct oneself and what is being borne.
- constrained. Not merely moved; the word for being pressed by an inward necessity.
- your circumstances there. A plural “your” — he is answering the whole Crefeld company through one man.
- sparing mercy. Mercy that holds the blow back — the point, in a plague year.
- from His heart. Not “willingly”: the German keeps the organ.
- do good. The German pairs hurt and do well, and then makes God the Well-doer; “Benefactor” below carries it.
- subjects. In the political sense throughout; the paragraph is built on kingship.
- government. The word Isaiah’s prophecy uses of the Messiah’s throne, and Tersteegen has moved that throne inside the soul.
- going abroad. Of an epidemic and of judgments at once — the period idiom does both.
- all-searching eyes. Eyes that try and prove, not merely look.
- grossly or subtly. A standing pair in this devotional vocabulary; the subtle resistance is the dangerous one.
- lay down your arms. A surrender formula, prepared by the kings at the paragraph’s head.
- Benefactor. A title, and one the New Testament uses pointedly of kings.
- too hot for you. A household phrase dropped into a solemn passage.
- the rod. The instrument of the “chastisement” in the heading.
- abjuring. Formally forswearing an allegiance — the legal word, and the sentence runs on the legal fiction.
- strange lords. The biblical register, and behind it Isaiah’s “other lords have had dominion over us.”
- pledge of love. A surety, a token given in security.
- &c. The eighteenth-century “etc.,” showing the verse goes on.
- what the print omits. About a third of the letter: the address, a note on his headaches, a paragraph of news of who at Krefeld was ill or recovering, a couplet in its place, greetings to sixteen people by name, and the signature; the print gives no sign of the cut.
- The cross is a pledge of love, etc. A rhymed couplet he expected his friend to finish; it has not been traced.
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdii-thiii-087 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.