Letters · Zweiter Band · Theil III (1775)

To a mother: of the unmerited grace, that the Saviour Jesus would turn in unto her house and heart; and how she must accustom herself to God.

Bd II · Th III · Brief 95 · Der fünfundneunzigste Brief

Addressee — To Anna Margaretha Evertsen, née Werth (1686–1749), in Gemarke (Barmen) — wife of Peter Evertsen (1679–1750), mother of Abraham and Johann Engelbert Evertsen; the whole family stood in Tersteegen's correspondence, and Brief 93 (1 Feb 1748) went to her son. "Unsern lieben Vater, den Herrn N." greeted in the close is her husband Peter Evertsen (the critical edition's ⁸); "in N." = in Barmen (its ¹ and ¹⁰). She died the following year. Salutation "Werthgeschätzte und geliebte Mutter!" — not a Rule B formula; rendered on its own terms → "Highly esteemed and beloved Mother!" Addressed ihr/euch (respect-plural) → you.
Date — Mülheim, 20 February 1748 — five days after Brief 94; the print's dateline and the critical edition's heading concur (1799 collator-verified).
Provenance — Translated from the public-domain 1775 first edition (Theil III, pp. 298–301), 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 Ninety-Fifth Letter.

To a mother: of the unmerited grace, that the Saviour Jesus would turn in unto her house and heart; and how she must accustom herself to God.

Highly esteemed and beloved Mother!

I greet you with this my hand and with my heart, and ask the dearest Saviour that He Himself would bear my well-affectioned greeting and wish of blessing home to your heart, for refreshing, strengthening, and heartening in his service and in his love! Ah yes! in the very moment in which I greet you before his countenance here in Mülheim, he is also near to your heart in N., and will gladly visit you with his love; this we ought simply to trust him for, and open our hearts to him with hungry desire of love.

What think you, my dear Mother? Is it not a great and right unmerited grace, that the loving Saviour Jesus will yet visit your house and heart also, and turn in with you, to your salvation? Yes, it is certainly true: he will let salvation come to your house and heart, unto eternity. How then shall we do? Shall we then say, out of an unseasonable courtesy: Depart from me, for I am a sinful man! O no! With that we should be nothing helped. Rather will we say: Come in, thou blessed of the Lord, for I am a sinful man, and without thee shall never grow better. Come in, O dearest, most long-suffering Saviour! I have let thee wait and knock only too long at my heart's door; yet I see well, thy heart is set upon it: thou wilt help me and love me. Now, come then; I will give thee my poor heart, just as it is. Behold, here is the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me as thou hast said!

Thus, dear Mother, will we do it, and accustom ourselves to our God. Let your heart hold its secret converse with the Lord the whole day long, for he is present with you the whole day. Be not so timid, for God calls you to himself. He knows well that we are wretched; therefore his heart wells up in compassion. Tell him and pour out to him all that you have upon your heart; and if you cannot say it, then just let him see your heart. You cannot deal too simply with God; the simplest speech of your heart is at all times acceptable to him. He marks exactly all the secret sighs and inward desires that are sent to him. Oh! did we unbelieving children but know how dearly the Lord loves the people — of a surety, we should have all our delight in him and in his service.

I greet also in particular our dear father, Master N. May Jesus visit his heart, that it may still grow green in old age, in all that is good! Say to him from me: It seemed to me that his little remnant of life must be a day of preparation and a fore-sabbath unto eternity. His working-days are at an end; all the world may be content with him, that in outward affairs he has finished his work. Now let him, in God's name, make his evening rest from labour, and let the dead bury their dead, so as to follow Jesus, to give his grace unhindered room, and, with us, to spend the little remainder of time for God and eternity alone.

I greet also all the other acquaintance whom I saw last summer there with you. Ah, that not a single one may be lost, but that I may see them all again before God with joy! My soul rejoices, and praises the Most High, as often as I think of it — how wondrously and singularly I came to be acquainted with you, much-beloved Mother, and with your house, in this strange world. Ah yes! of this the Lord alone shall have glory everlastingly, and our soul shall have joy in Him. Amen, Jesu!

Mülheim, the 20th of February 1748.

❦

German

Der fünfundneunzigste Brief.

An eine Mutter, von der unverdienten Gnade, daß der Heiland JEsus in ihr Haus und Herz einkehren wolle, und wie sie sich an GOtt gewöhnen müsse.

Werthgeschätzte und geliebte Mutter!

Ich grüße euch mit dieser meiner Hand und mit meinem Herzen, und bitte den liebsten Heiland, daß Er selber meinen geneigten Gruß und Segens-Wunsch mit Nachdruck an euer Herz wolle überbringen zur Erquickung, Stärkung und Aufmunterung in seinem Dienst und in seiner Liebe!

— 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 letter to the mother of the young man of the ninety-third letter — the family had taken Tersteegen in "last summer" on his travels, and the whole household stood in his correspondence. It is built on one image, sustained from the heading to the last line: Jesus as the Guest who wants lodging. He "would turn in unto her house and heart" — the innkeeper's word, the word of the Zacchaeus story — and everything the letter teaches follows from what one does with such a Guest at the door.

The two answers at the door. The centre of the letter is a little drama in quoted speech, and the old print sets both speeches in its quoting type. There is a wrong answer, and it sounds humble: Depart from me, for I am a sinful man — Peter's own word, unmasked here as "an unseasonable courtesy," politeness deployed against the Guest. And there is a right answer, which says the same true thing about the sinner and draws the opposite conclusion: Come in, thou blessed of the Lord, for I am a sinful man, and without thee shall never grow better. The reason for refusing him becomes the reason for admitting him. The prayer that grows out of it ends with borrowed words that fit a mother better than anyone: Behold, here is the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me as thou hast said.

Getting used to God. The letter's homely programme is in its heading: how one must accustom oneself to God. Not raptures — habituation: "Let your heart hold its secret converse with the Lord the whole day long, for he is present with you the whole day." The counsel descends to the very bottom of inarticulacy: "if you cannot say it, then just let him see your heart. You cannot deal too simply with God."

The old man's evening. Then the letter turns, through the mother, to her aged husband, and gives him the gentlest retirement notice in the collection: his little remnant of life is "a day of preparation and a fore-sabbath unto eternity" — the Friday evening of Mark's gospel, kept before an eternal Sabbath. "His working-days are at an end; all the world may be content with him… Now let him, in God's name, make his evening rest from labour, and let the dead bury their dead." The Feierabend — the workman's knocking-off hour — becomes the last season of a life. He died two years later; she, within one.

A few words and echoes.

turn in. The guest's word — to stop and lodge at a house; the letter's controlling image, from the Zacchaeus story.
unmerited grace. The argument's word, and the letter's doctrine: the visit is not earned, which is why courtesy cannot meet it.
unseasonable courtesy. Humility at the wrong moment is only etiquette — and it bows the Guest back out the door.
thou blessed of the Lord. Laban's welcome at the well-side, turned to Christ — the Old Testament's come-in answering the gospel's depart-from-me.
waiting and knocking. "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock" — with the confession that the knocking has gone unanswered "only too long."
the handmaid of the Lord. Mary's fiat, placed in a mother's mouth.
hungry desire of love. Appetite, not sentiment — the heart opened the way a mouth is.
secret converse. The all-day hidden colloquy with a present God; conversation in its old sense, a way of living with someone.
wells up in compassion. His heart "seethes" — the old strong verb for a pot boiling over.
a day of preparation and a fore-sabbath. Mark's two words for the Friday before the sabbath, made an image of old age.
evening rest from labour. The Feierabend — the hour the tools are laid down; here, laid down for good, "in God's name."
let the dead bury their dead. The Lord's own word for leaving worldly business to the world, quoted to license an old man's leaving it.
grow green in old age. The psalm's palm-tree, "they shall still bring forth fruit in old age."
wondrously and singularly. Providence's strange particular leading — the family met "in this strange world" was no accident.
Amen, Jesu! The letter has no subscription at all: the doxology is its signature.

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Zweiter Band, III. Theil, Brief 95 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdii-thiii-095.html.

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