"WHERE is a God ?" doth weary Reason say
" I see but starlit skies."
" Where is the sun ?" So calleth at noonday
The man with sightless eyes.
Thou little child, from thee God is not far ;
Look inwards, not above
Thou needest not to roam from star to star,
For God is Love.
—G, TERSTEEGEN.
SUCH were the simple sermons of the reformer of Pietism. They are to be had in print under the title, Discourses for awakening and for the awakened, intended for their furtherance in Christian life, and their growth in holiness. "They are," say Goebel, "spoken from heart to heart, impressive, powerful, and concise, and read to this day with much blessing by a large circle of readers. They are in strict accordance with the text, the language is dignified and beautiful, deeply scriptural and Christian, the thoughts clear and true, and the illustrations very striking." The words spoken so simply remained fixcd in many hearts, and a single sentence would bear much fruit.
" Let us not have a Christianity without Christ. A Christian without Christ is a lamb without a shepherd, a sucking child without a mother, a dead corpse without a soul."Thus, till his increasing weakness prevented his constant preaching, did he point the souls around him to Christ, and Christ alone.
Tersteegen was now growing old. He could no longer make the long, rough journeys of former years. He limited his visits to neighboring towns, and meanwhile received the numberless visitors who came to him from far and near with a loving welcome, though he was often spent and exhausted from the want of quietness and rest. After the year 1756 his more distant visitors were fewer, for the unhappy country was again overrun by the troops of France and Prussia, during the third Silesian war of Frederick II., known to us as the Seven Years' War.
It was about this time that Tersteegen read, at the request of a friend, the French poems and other writings of Frederick the Great. His friend desired his opinion of them, and for this purpose sent to him the book published in 175o, and entitled (E uvres du Philosophe de Sans Souci, revised and corrected by Darget and Voltaire.
"I admire the author's keen intelligence and voluminous reading," wrote Tersteegen, "his flowing and attractive style and poetical gift. . .. He describes the nothingness of life, the errors and follies, the vain imaginations and toil of men in all classes, with lively colours, and a skillful, well-practiced hand. But setting aside the style and the poetical gift, I do not think that the wisdom of Solomon is required to remark upon the foolishness and vanity of all men and of their doings. A small amount of experience and honesty teaches these things to a very ordinary man.
" His moral teaching is this, 'Here on earth every mortal must enjoy the little pleasures of the present moment ; for this is the only true good. As to the sad future, we must not trouble ourselves concerning it, but leave it hidden in its darkness.' Why, great man, why then a sad future ? Does thy heart, perhaps, tell thee more than thy pen dares to express ? Poor philosophy that has no counsel for this dark future !
"'As years go by,' writes the author, 'in this passing time, I will at least strew flowers along my path, paint everything in its brightest colours, and make life pleasant. Disagreeable truth is of less value than these my sweet delusions.' This sounds little like philosophy, not to mention Christianity.
"Our observant author, who deifies the poor freethinker Voltaire, has doubtless found many stumbling-blocks amongst those who are called Christians, but are not ; who are called clergy, ministers, and pastors, but who serve not the Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly. And why should one call black white, and folly the worship of God ? Is not a man right in casting away the refuse, the domineering pride, the bitter dissensions, the senseless violence with which consciences are fettered, the errors, the superstition, the credulity, the hypocrisy ? But let us not cast away the child in emptying the bath. This is a folly on the other hand unworthy of an intelligent man.
"It is said Christianity arises from fear. Supposing it does, if Christianity is good, the fear from whence it sprang must be good also. But to my mind, atheism and deism spring much more truly from fear. It is a bad conscience which makes a man desire to get rid of God and of eternity. That is a bad fear. The one fear leads to homage, the other to rebellion, a very different thing.
"I observe also that our author does not write consistently with the rules of sound philosophy ; for on the one hand he rightly and honestly admits the weakness of our understanding, and the narrow limits of our powers of thought ; on the other hand he disposes of the most solemn, of the deepest, the most important matters, in the most arbitrary manner, without assigning the smallest proof of his assertions. He considers that all knowledge must be communicated to the understanding by the senses. As regards material things that is true, but the knowledge of spiritual divine things needs to be communicated to man by a higher power than himself.
" This higher power is also granted to us by God, If we are as yet incapable of using it, we act reasonably by doing as a blind man does. He has to regard others as competent witnesses till his own eyes are opened.
"The author is right in admitting the weakness of human reason, but it is making an unfair use of this admission, if we put it forward to prove that we are not in duty bound to see certain things which we are determined not to see. And he entirely forgets the weakness of the human understanding when it suits him to deny the things which he is unwilling to admit. For example, he excludes all divine rule and forethought from the ordering of this world, and from the circumstances of life ; for his understanding, which he admits to be extremely limited, cannot perceive any divine government of things.
"On the other hand he supposes a certain vague abstraction which he calls destiny — fate, chance, necessity, upon which the course of circumstances depends. And in supposing this, a hundred other things, which he has previously supposed, necessarily topple over. He who is destined to act as a fool in this world is unfairly treated if you require of him wise conduct. A man destined to be a thief and a villain must needs play his part on the stage of this world. Away then with all moral rules, with all law, with all penalties, with all government. How is the author to proceed, if perchance he be a prince or king ?
"I should like to learn what it is that he means by destiny. Should he seriously endeavour to answer this question, I think he would find himself in a labyrinth. Such men remark a great deal of physical and moral evil in the world. They cannot, without contradicting themselves, ascribe it to God. They will not ascribe it to themselves. Therefore there is something, called destiny, that is answerable for all evil. Now what is destiny ? and where is it ? Is it an evil deity, as the Manichaeans imagined ? This would not now be regarded as reasonable. Are we to understand by it the eternal and unalterable chain of events, the one the necessary consequence of the previous ones ? Still the question remains, Who made this chain ? Look at it which way we will, the difficulties about the origin of evil remain unanswered by man.
"Are we not speaking in a clearer and more reverent manner when we say, All that God has done is in order, and is good ? Disorder and evil are not from God, but have arisen from the opposition of the will of reasonable creatures to God and to His will.
" But it is the will of God, in His goodness, to deliver His creature, man, from the power of evil by fitting ways and means which He has Himself prescribed. Amongst other means, He makes use of physical evil (which He has not created, but which He makes to subserve His purposes) as a remedy for moral evil, in the case of those who trust themselves to His healing power. If we cannot understand all His ways in this respect, let us remember that it is not necessary for a patient, in order to be cured, to understand the why and wherefore of all the prescriptions of his physician. For him it is needful only that the prescription should be legible and clearly expressed.
"As to the immortality of the soul, our author denies it, because the ' limited understanding' of which he speaks cannot understand it. He does not assign any other reason for denying it ; for his comparison of the soul to a flame, and his theory that as we are conscious of nothing before we were born, so we shall be conscious of nothing after our death, are purely unfounded fancies.
"The comparison of the soul to a flame is besides extremely inappropriate, and by no means supports the idea he means to express. The being of the flame is derived from the wood or oil which nourish it. The being of the soul, on the contrary, is not derived from the body, but just the reverse. The wood would last longer and remain longer whole without the flame than with it ; but the body only acquires life by the existence of the soul. The flame destroys the being of the wood. The soul does not destroy the being of the body, but maintains it. The flame can retain its existence as long as any of the wood remains ; but the soul leaves the body in many cases when the body is in its most perfect condition.
" Let us on our side regard the soul as a flame, but the ground of its being, the power of God, the ground of the blessedness of its being, the love of God. But if the soul rejects the love, the power remains ; and the inextinguishable power remains the ground of the immortal soul.
" Our author calls it pride and presumption to assume to have any knowledge, or to desire any knowledge, of divine and unseen things, and of our future lot after death. 'For man,' he says, 'has no organs capable of perceiving such things.' But is it less presumptuous to proceed at once to deny these things, of which he has just said we have no organs capable of perceiving them ?
" We might say, ' Would it not be better to remain in doubt ?' were it not that one contented to doubt will soon be fearless in denying the truths of God. In ordinary matters we do not turn into ridicule all that is beyond our own powers of observation. Newton and others have discovered and inferred many things in the universe that I and others cannot perceive. If in the case of these things, I preferred to remain a sceptic, it would scarcely matter. But were it as important for me to make sure of the existence of the moons of Saturn as of heaven and hell, I should certainly procure for myself the best telescope that was to be had, even if I had to go begging to pay for it."
Such extracts from Tersteegen's criticism of the " philosopher of Sans Souci " will give some idea of this letter. It was addressed in all probability to his friend Hecker, at Berlin, who was in a position to show it to the king. It is said that Frederick read it carefully. " So the quiet in the land ' are capable of that ! " he said. He desired later, when he was at Wesel, to see Tersteegen, and speak to him. But Tersteegen was incapable of even this shorter journey. His constant illnesses increased during the last years of his life, and that conversation never took place.