How one is to conduct oneself in the state of darkness and suffering. That God knows so wisely to preserve His own from self-presumption.
The Hundred-and-fourth Letter.
How one is to conduct oneself in the state of darkness and suffering. That God knows so wisely to preserve His own from self-presumption.
Dearly beloved sister in the grace of Jesus!
Your welcome letter of the 26th of November I duly received in its time, but just as I was sick and outwardly in the dark. In many a year I have not had so serious an attack of bodily illness, so that I even wondered whether it might perhaps have come to the end with me here. There were fevers and a severe cough, together with other attacks. In three weeks I have not come out of my chamber more than once, and sat or lay in the dark, because head and eyes would bear no light. Now I am somewhat better again, yet have not yet been out, since I still remain feverish, full of rheum, and weak in the head. Help me thank the dear God for His fatherly chastening. I can say that I acknowledge it with gratitude. God bless it to me, that the fruit in view may not wither, but ripen!
What you write besides of your present state of darkness and suffering, I have laid before the Lord in my prayer, and hope by His assistance to do so further. I so gladly take part in the weal and woe of my fellow-members, with whom Providence has made me acquainted. But what shall I say, dear sister? This life is for suffering, and that unending life for enjoying — especially for us, who by grace belong to a crucified Saviour, on the condition that our portion shall not be in this life. It may well be that the condition of your body, with too little exercise, also distresses, darkens, and burdens the mind; but let it come from this side or that, it is still suffering, and suffering from God. In God's name, only shoulder your load, and carry your cross after the Lord with good courage; He will help in secret — that I trust Him to do.
We must suffer; we say that we are also willing to suffer; but we poor, self-loving, or at least ease-loving children know how to bring forward a thousand objections why we cannot well accommodate ourselves to just this present suffering; now we find this fault with it, now that, and thereby only make the burden heavier for ourselves. Let us simply accept from God whatever comes, commend ourselves to Him, and let Him choose for us. We cannot spend the two or three days of this wretched life more profitably than in willing suffering. If you say, "I am not willing," then I cannot believe you. God has indeed given you a willing spirit, though the flesh is weak. But this you say: "You fall out of the one sin into the other." Now that would not be good, if it were true; but I think that in your present darkness you also form many a frightful imagination, and fancy sin where there is none, especially when you want to examine and reason much. Be that as it may: in the darkness one can easily make missteps, though one does not make them gladly; therefore confess yourself guilty in everything (without examining). Sink yourself with trust into Jesus, as best you can, and then forget the things again: in this way God attains His final purpose through your stripping.
But in such states one unknowingly causes oneself many faults and sufferings precisely by not being willing to suffer; from this come secret discontent, sadness, and vexation — qualities one carries along everywhere and brings into everything, so that much does not suit one, and thus through unwillingness many a thing is done amiss. Therefore only be content, dear sister, with the present leading over you! A soul that wills neither world nor sin, but in the ground wills nothing else than to be wholly for God and after His heart — such a soul has nothing to fear in the dark, and is never forsaken by God, though it may so seem to her.
You distress yourself, though without cause, over the saying: "Whoever loves Me keeps My commandments." Then suffer, and fulfill this commandment of Jesus, and prove thereby that you love Him. Ah, what a noble love it is, to be willing to suffer without any feeling of love! You think your little savings are now lost, at which you have been saving for twelve or thirteen years — by no means! The heavenly Father has taken the money-box into safekeeping, in order to give it back to you in its time with gain, together with the inheritance; for it is true, we often receive pennies to save, but the children must not always play with the money-box — they must also go to school. But since silly children often put all sorts of good-for-nothing things into the money-box as well, the Father may well throw those away; let us not grow unwilling over it! With Him our things are best kept.
Ah, my God, when I behold the misery of our deeply ingrained selfhood, and how subtly this poison mixes itself into everything, and makes us unawares become thieves of holy things, in that we arrogate to ourselves what is God's — then I must adore and praise the ways of the divine wisdom, which in this life leads her children in manifold ways by the ways of suffering and inner poverty, for our preservation.
Venture yourself upon it, then, dear sister! Seek not your own in the service of God; love no longer in childish fashion; entrust your soul to God, and let Him keep it; but you — work, suffer, and praise God in the suffering, for He is now as worthy of it as before. Yet a little while! Soon comes the end.
I write thus without reflection, when I only meant just to send a greeting. On the whole you will still be able to grasp my meaning. — — I can now write no more, because I am quite tired and faint. Jesus live!
Your
Mülheim, the 12th of December, 1748. — devoted weak fellow-brother.
German
Der hundertundvierte Brief.
Wie man sich im Stande der Finsterniß und Leiden zu verhalten habe. Daß GOtt die Seinige so weislich vor eigener Anmaßung zu bewahren wisse.
In der Gnade JEsu herzlich geliebte Schwester!
Dein Angenehmes vom 26ten Nov. habe seiner Zeit wohl erhalten, aber just wie ich krank und äußerlich im Finstern war.
— 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 companion of the hundred-and-third letter, written the same December day to another sister — Elisabeth Schröters of the Krefeld circle — and opening with the fullest account Tersteegen ever gives of the illness that had nearly killed him that autumn: her letter of the 26th of November had arrived "just as I was sick and outwardly in the dark"; "in many a year I have not had so serious an attack of bodily illness, so that I even wondered whether it might perhaps have come to the end with me here" — fevers, a severe cough, three weeks in which he left his chamber only once, sitting or lying in the dark "because head and eyes would bear no light." The convalescent's verdict on it all is the letter's keynote: "Help me thank the dear God for His fatherly chastening… God bless it to me, that the fruit in view may not wither, but ripen!" Her darkness and his sickroom darkness then become one subject, under the old title's two heads: how to behave in darkness and suffering, and how wisely God preserves His own from self-presumption.
The aphorism. Her state he answers first with sympathy — what she wrote he has "laid before the Lord in my prayer" — and then with the sentence the old print sets in its emphasis type, the letter's coined maxim: "This life is for suffering, and that unending life for enjoying" — especially for those "who by grace belong to a crucified Saviour, on the condition that our portion shall not be in this life." Even the body's share is faced squarely: too little exercise may well darken the mind, "but let it come from this side or that, it is still suffering, and suffering from God. In God's name, only shoulder your load, and carry your cross after the Lord with good courage; He will help in secret."
The unwilling sufferer diagnosed. Then one of Tersteegen's shrewdest paragraphs: we all say we are willing to suffer, "but we poor, self-loving, or at least ease-loving children know how to bring forward a thousand objections why we cannot well accommodate ourselves to just this present suffering" — any cross but this one. The dialogue turns direct: "If you say, 'I am not willing,' then I cannot believe you. God has indeed given you a willing spirit, though the flesh is weak." Her second fear — "You fall out of the one sin into the other" — he meets with the physician's calm: in the present darkness she "fancies sin where there is none," especially by too much self-examination. The prescription is pure Tersteegen: "confess yourself guilty in everything (without examining). Sink yourself with trust into Jesus, as best you can, and then forget the things again: in this way God attains His final purpose through your stripping." And the general law follows: most of our suffering in such states we cause ourselves "precisely by not being willing to suffer" — unwillingness breeds the discontent that spoils everything. The soul that "in the ground wills nothing else than to be wholly for God" has "nothing to fear in the dark, and is never forsaken by God, though it may so seem to her."
The money-box. Her scruple over the saying "Whoever loves Me keeps My commandments" is turned inside out — then suffer, and you are keeping it: "what a noble love it is, to be willing to suffer without any feeling of love!" And then the letter's most charming stroke: she thinks her Armüthgen — her "little savings," twelve or thirteen years of spiritual gains — is lost. "By no means! The heavenly Father has taken the money-box into safekeeping, in order to give it back to you in its time with gain, together with the inheritance." Children get pennies to save, but they "must not always play with the money-box — they must also go to school"; and when silly children stuff it with good-for-nothing things, the Father quietly throws those away: "With Him our things are best kept." Behind the nursery picture stands the whole doctrine of the letter's title: God wisely takes even our spiritual property out of our hands, lest we grow proprietary about grace — for, as the sudden apostrophe confesses, our selfhood is so subtle a poison "that we unawares become thieves of holy things, in that we arrogate to ourselves what is God's."
The close. The charge gathers it up: "Seek not your own in the service of God; love no longer in childish fashion; entrust your soul to God… work, suffer, and praise God in the suffering, for He is now as worthy of it as before. Yet a little while! Soon comes the end." And then the convalescent's pen fails, mid-greeting as it were: "I can now write no more, because I am quite tired and faint. Jesus live!"
A few words and echoes.
- fatherly chastening… the fruit in view. Hebrews 12:6–11 — "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth," unto "the peaceable fruit of righteousness"; his odd, tender word is that the chastening's fruit is beäugt — eyed, watched for.
- fellow-members. 1 Corinthians 12:26 — members of one body, suffering and rejoicing together.
- This life is for suffering, and that unending life for enjoying. The letter's maxim, stressed in the old print and carried by all three witnesses of its text.
- our portion shall not be in this life. Psalm 17:14 — "men of the world, which have their portion in this life" — reversed for the heirs of the other portion.
- carry your cross after the Lord. Matthew 10:38 (the edition's own note) with Matthew 16:24.
- He will help in secret. The Father "which seeth in secret" (Matthew 6:4, 6).
- a willing spirit… though the flesh is weak. Matthew 26:41 — "the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" — with Psalm 51:12's God-given "free spirit" behind it.
- appointed to suffering. Behind the whole counsel stands 1 Thessalonians 3:3 (the edition's note): "that no man should be moved by these afflictions: for yourselves know that we are appointed thereunto."
- confess yourself guilty in everything (without examining). The anti-scrupulosity rule: guilt admitted wholesale, introspection declined — then "forget the things again."
- your stripping. Entblößung — the denudation by which God empties the soul of its imagined property; kin to the "inner poverty" below.
- Whoever loves Me keeps My commandments. The saying as she and he carried it by heart — a homely fusion of John 14:15, 21, and 23; the apparatus gives the exact texts.
- your little savings… the money-box. Armüthgen — literally her "little poverty," her hoarded pittance; the heavenly Father's Spardose keeps it "with gain, together with the inheritance" (Matthew 6:20; the talents "with usury," Matthew 25:27).
- thieves of holy things. Sacrilege in the strict sense — Romans 2:22; Malachi 3:8's "will a man rob God?" — committed invisibly whenever grace is claimed as one's own.
- the divine wisdom… leads her children. Wisdom personified as in Proverbs 8, schooling her children by "the ways of suffering and inner poverty."
- Seek not your own. 1 Corinthians 13:5 — love "seeketh not her own" — here even of one's own in God's service.
- Yet a little while! John 16:16; Hebrews 10:37 — the convalescent's horizon.
- Jesus live! The exhausted pen's last word — an exclamation, half blessing, half battle-cry.
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdii-thiii-104 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.