PIETISTIC INFLUENCE ON JOHN WESLEY:
WESLEY AND GERHARD TERSTEEGEN

by

J. Steven O'Malley

            It is the contention of this paper that John Wesley's contacts with the Pietists, members of that pervasive post-Reformation renewal movement within continental European Protestantism, stand in need of our closer scrutiny if the extent of their influence on his spirituality is to be adequately understood.  There is extensive analysis of the Moravian influence on Wesley's early spiritual development.[1] Prominent attention has been given to Wesley's theological controversy with Zinzendorf, and with the Fetter Lane Society in London, as a basis for delimiting the Pietist influence as a whole.[2] Kenneth Collins has more recently explicated the ongoing significance for Wesley of Arndt and Hallensian Pietism, whose works, in an abridged English translation, were included in Wesley's course of study for Methodist preachers.[3]

            Our attention will focus on a different stream of German Pietism, which may be identified as Rhineland spirituality. Its influence on Wesley has been given only scant attention. The significance of its role will be examined in the light of the data which this paper marshals.

Wesley and the Rhineland Connection

            Wesley's only visit to this region of the German states occurred during his travel to Herrnhut in September of 1738.[4] However, his acquaintance and even preoccupation with its spirituality had occurred during and after his Georgia mission of 1735-1738. The representatives of this tradition who influenced Wesley began with the Dominican mysticism of Johann Tauler (1300-1361), and proceeded to the distinctive Reformed spirituality of Gerhard Tersteegen (1697-1769).

            It has primarily been non-Wesleyan scholars who have acknowledged Wesley's indebtedness to Tersteegen. Van Andal even asserted, without convincing evidence, that Wesley had taught himself German in order to read Tersteegen.[5] According to one Quaker scholar, Rendel Harris, Tersteegen "...influenced John Wesley, and through him whole masses of English-speaking people."[6] The most authoritative discussion of this connection is that of the former German Methodist bishop, John Nuelson, who, in a little-known German monograph, has argued with precision and elaborate support that the Methodist doctrine of perfection was "decisively influenced" by Wesley's study and devotional use of German hymns. Further, he argued that, of the thirty-three German hymns translated by Wesley, it is a Tersteegen hymn ("Thou Hidden Love of God, Whose Height") that has been most frequently reprinted in British, American, and Canadian hymnals.[7] One of three other Tersteegen hymn translated by Wesley is the beloved "Gott ist Gegenwärtig" that Wesley translates "Lo, God is Here, Let Us Adore!"[8] Wesley discovered the hymns of Tersteegen in his copy of the early Moravian hymnal (1735) that he obtained during his ministry in Georgia.

            What was the overall importance of these thirty-three German hymns for Wesley? In the context of his early effort to achieve the goal of the holy life by a program of rigorous self-discipline, these hymns provided him with a "poetic depiction of his yearnings," and they spoke of a peace he had ardently sought that would assure him of his own personal life in Christ.[9] 

            Three questions that need to be addressed are, first, what was the context in which Wesley discovered the German hymns, in general, and Tersteegen, in particular? Second, who was Tersteegen and what were the distinctive aspects of his spirituality vis-à-vis the soteriology of Wesley? Third, what was the long-term impact on Wesley of the German Pietist hymns, and of Tersteegen in particular?

Wesley In the Context of Pietist Polemics

            Among the thirty-three German hymns translated by John Wesley, four were from Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676) and four from Johann Scheffler (Angelius Silesius, 1624-1677), both being transitional writers from the era of the confessional hymn, such as Luther's Ein Feste Burg, to that of the devotional hymn. The latter group, marked by a consuming love for Jesus, was represented by fifteen hymn writers whom Wesley translated.[10] Gerhardt and Tersteegen, the latter a member of the devotional group, are generally regarded by hymnologists as the most gifted in the entire group of seventeen German hymn writers.[11]

            In the group of devotional hymns, there is a division between the Halle and the Herrnhut camps, with each group represented by four hymn writers.  At that time, tensions existed between these two centers in Europe, owing to Halle's "legalistic" tendencies (from Zinzendorf's standpoint). Some consideration of these points of tension will provide a context for evaluating the distinctively catholic, irenic, and even winsome spirituality of Tersteegen.           

            As the Moravian leader at Herrnhut viewed the disciples of Francke at Halle, those men were elaborating the "morphology" of conversion in such a way that excessive emphasis was being placed on a protracted "penitential struggle" (or Bußkampf), that was to be the precondition for one's climactic "breakthrough" (or Durchbruch) into the assurance of pardon and adoption in Christ. However, from the Halle viewpoint,[12] Herrnhut had surrendered biblical and theological orthodoxy in favor of a "quick" method of inculcating conversion to Christ by means of an immediate, imaginative, affective identification with the Savior.[13]

            That Wesley was aware of these points of tension is evident from the detailed correspondence between the Oxford Methodists and Halle that began in 1733,[14] and from his personal conversation with Spangenberg in Georgia, with whom he had been favorably impressed on the journey to America, and with one of the two Halle pastors whom Halle dispatched to provide spiritual care for the Salzburgers in Georgia. These Halle missionary pastors were functioning under the auspices of the SPCK, with whom they were closely allied.[15] They provided Wesley with details documenting Spangenberg's notoriety: he had been ejected from Halle in 1733 after being charged with schismatic activity, and in particular with the accusation that Zinzendorf had "planted" Spangenberg there in order to introduce "separatist" (e. g., Zinzendorfian) notions of communion and confession.[16] These personality issues furthered the basic theological controversy between Halle and Herrnhut that had been developed by the 1730s.[17] 

            The focal problem for Wesley was that the perception of "the genuine fruit of a true and saving faith, wrought in their souls by the influence of the Holy Spirit," which the officers of the SPCK had seen in the Hallensian-led Salzburgers, came to be recognized by Wesley as present within the Moravians.[18] In short, Wesley's personal spiritual dilemma was compounded by the incompatibility (both theological and personal) between his Halle-leaning SPCK patrons and the Moravians. With these difficulties in view, it is instructive to notice that the two hymnals available to Wesley, whereby he was now assiduously learning German, was the Herrnhut hymnal of 1735 and the Hallensian hymnal of Freylinghuysen.[19] 

            Amid these attending personal, political, and theological struggles, it also appears plausible to observe, with Ward, that to an extent Wesley "...sought to work out his personal problem in terms of the thirty-three German hymns he translated while he was in Georgia."[20] While it may appear that Wesley made no preferential choice among this group of hymnists, he nevertheless abandoned the mission of the Halle-led SPCK that was directed to the Salzburgers in Georgia when he returned to England in 1738. In short, although he translated hymns of four Halle hymnists, his conversion was not to occur under Hallensian auspices.[21] The Moravian connection had initially been more crucial for him, his having been introduced by Spangenberg and his associates to the possibility and the urgency of an instantaneous conversion and the need for personal assurance of salvation. Nevertheless, Wesley used the greatest amount of editorial deletion and reworking of the content of the Moravian hymns, especially those of Zinzendorf. While their heavy soteriological concentration made them more appealing to him than the Anglican hymns in which he had been reared, his critical handling of the Moravian hymns presaged his personal disenchantment with Herrnhut, which he visited in 1738, following Aldersgate.[22]

            Hence, for differing reasons, Wesley would find himself increasingly distant from the spirituality of the later Hallensians in the 1730s, as well as from major aspects of the Herrnhuters' spirituality, particularly as it was emanating from Zinzendorf and Molther. However, he found in the Tersteegen hymns a spirituality that, as we shall contend, was more congruent with his own spiritual aspirations, and that was singularly free of any trace of the adverse polemical implications that had by then tainted the spirituality of Halle and Herrnhut. [23]  

The Legacy of Tersteegen: The Rhineland

Resource in Wesley's Spirituality

            Samuel Jackson, Wesley's early editor, commented on the importance of Gerhard Tersteegen for early Methodist spirituality in saying that Tersteegen's life exemplifies "the necessity of...entire regeneration, the means of attaining it, and the by-roads which lead astray from it."[24] He was following the lead of Wesley, who was the first to translate any of Tersteegen's hymns into English.

            Although there has been a surprising lack of attention given to Tersteegen by modern Anglo scholars (including Methodists), he has nevertheless recently been lauded by the British Methodist historian W. Reginald Ward as being "...the most fascinating character in the whole history of religious revival."[25] This surprising assertion is embellished by the observation that Tersteegen's extensive literary legacy vividly conveys his winsome spiritual tranquillity and his skill in "...the imaginative exposition of scripture in a class-meeting context which has probably never been equaled."[26]

            The cultural milieu in the Rhineland of Tersteegen's lifetime proved highly susceptible to his message. It was the same milieu that would welcome John Wesley on his continental tour of 1738.[27] Because of frequent, destructive French invasions that resulted in Catholic subjugation of the Reformed communities, those congregations had lost any political control of their future.  Hence, the content of Tersteegen's hymns, as well as his sermons and letters of counsel, was to these people a message of hope.[28] He highlighted the theme of the Christian life as a pilgrimage in an alien world in which the joyous, saving Presence of God in Christ becomes an overwhelming personal reality. He also made provision for conventicles that were intended as waystations for godly pilgrims seeking comfort, encouragement, and accountability in the pursuit of their vocation.[29] Tersteegen worked in the revivalist milieu that had been nurtured in the Ruhr/Rhine area since 1720 by the separatist preacher Ernst Hochmann von Hochenau (1620-1724 ).[30]

            The lower Rhine region was also influenced by political and religious developments in the Netherlands, and Tersteegen, like Zinzendorf, received financial backing from his Dutch supporters. The theological atmosphere in the lower Rhineland (notably Herborn, Duisburg, Marburg, Bremen, and Tersteegen's home city, Muhlheim an der Ruhr) was deeply influenced by intellectual currents from the Dutch universities. The first Pietist in the Reformed Church of Germany, Theodor Untereyck (1635-1693), who had been pastor in Tersteegen's home congregation in Muhlheim, combined the precisionism of Gisbert Voetius with the federal theology of Johannes Cocceius (d. 1669). His aim had been to develop a congregation of family-based house churches that would be the fit bride of Christ in His coming return to this world. He and his successors sought to retain within the church community those persons who had been awakened to radical, separatist spirituality by the followers of Jean Labadie (1610-1674).[31]             

            Untereyck's legacy of church piety was anchored by his use of the irenic Heidelberg Catechism, and it bore fruit with the hymn writer Joachim Neander (1650-80), author of "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty," and F. A. Lampe (1683-1729), the great Neo-Pietist pastor-theologian at Bremen, as well as with Tersteegen, in whom this heritage came into full flower. To this stream, Tersteegen added the influence of patristic and French Quietist ascetic theology, whose works he copiously translated and edited from Greek, Latin, and French into German. On the one hand, he had early been influenced by the "Inspired," radical Pietists associated with the English Philadelphians and the Berleburg Bible circle,[32] but he rejected their excessive ecstasy that he perceived could degenerate into idolatrous self-edification or even demonic torment. On the other hand, Tersteegen never counseled separation from the church and its sacraments; but he also did not regard their observance as being either necessary for salvation or ineffectual to that end.

            In his personal life, Tersteegen has been aptly described as a "recluse in demand."[33] His parents' goal that he should become pastor in the Reformed Church in Germany was frustrated by his father's death in 1703. Although Gerhard received a thorough classical training in the Latin school at Mörs, he was apprenticed to a merchant and finally became a weaver of silk ribbons. He found that the latter trade enabled him to maximize his time for meditation.  By 1728, he became an effective teacher in the conventicles of the Rhineland, and he gave himself to translating Christian ascetic writings, itinerant preaching in the Rhineland and Holland, establishing retreat houses, and maintaining an international correspondence of pastoral counseling with hundreds of persons of diverse social rank. 

            From 1730 to 1750 Tersteegen was forbidden by law to hold conventicles in Germany, though his ministry to Holland continued.  During this period he preached from his home, and freely provided food and medicine for the poor out of his own meager income.  Hearers would sometimes surround his house from sunrise to dusk, hoping for some spiritual insights from this humble figure who had become known throughout the Rhine Valley simply as the "Friend of God."  He finally built a larger house that would be crammed with three to four hundred persons, jamming its windows and halls--thereby evading the prohibition against conventicles. That is, these were not stated meetings. He was simply leaving his doors and windows unlocked as he sang and meditated aloud! 

            Tersteegen never counseled separation from the state (Reformed) church, and his followers remained a vital leaven within it for generations after their mentor's death in 1763. He also anticipated Wesley's criticism of Zinzendorf, faulting him for his manipulative efforts to achieve his personal religious goals, and for confusing imputed justification and sanctification, thereby making room for antinomianism.[34] Tersteegen's most important publication was his volume of original hymns (his Geistliches Blumengärtlein),[35] as well as volumes of sermons, treatises, and letters published posthumously, and his monumental Select Lives of Holy Souls (1733-54). As in the case of Wesley, his interest in Roman Catholic spirituality was a rarity in that polemical age.

            Areas of similarity and dissimilarity with Wesley become readily apparent in the perusal of Tersteegen's work. Both men drew from a breadth of Christian literature; both had a singular devotion to encouraging the operation of saving grace in the lives of the spiritually lost of all levels of society; both maintained an itinerant ministry of evangelism, coupled with organizing discipleship groups; both were gifted in hymnody, and both had a non-sectarian attitude toward their respective state churches. However, Tersteegen had a stronger mystical, and even quietist bent, and he placed less stock in the necessity of the ordained ministry and the sacraments, although he only was speaking against their misuse by spiritually indifferent clergy and members. What is more, Tersteegen remained a layman, while Wesley was an ordained priest. What seems to have most impressed the young Wesley was the spiritual power and unencumbered beauty of expression in Tersteegen's hymns, through which he clearly communicated the praxis of the biblical faith. Tersteegen's focus was on the daily goal of living in childlike simplicity in the presence of God. Hence, his spirituality transcended narrow confessional and cultural boundaries, commending it at once to the young, restive John Wesley.

            Aside from the popularity of Wesley's translation of the Tersteegen hymn, "Thou Hidden Love of God, Whose Height," this hymn might be seen as one of the clearest reflections of Wesley's own spiritual yearning, a yearning that would soon find its resolution at Aldersgate.[36] Adapting its message, that had been lodged in the German idiom, to his own aspiration, Wesley wrote:

                        Thou hidden love of God, whose height,

                        Whose depth unfathomed no man knows,

                        I see from far Thy beauteous light,

                        Inly I sigh for Thy repose.

                        My heart is pained, nor can it be

                        At rest, til it finds rest  in Thee.

Wesley admirably captured the sense of yearning for God's gracious Presence that Tersteegen expressed. However, the original contains nuances of meaning which Wesley overlooked. Tersteegen depicted the hidden love of God as a beautiful kingdom of peace (o friedensreich so schöne!). This love, that he addressed with the personal "You" (Du), had for Tersteegen a Christological focus: he is the Incarnate Son of God, as agape love personified, who is present now, no longer merely as the historical Christ, but rather as the indwelling Savior whom one is to receive through the Spirit-anointed "Name of Jesus."

            The temple which Christ has chosen for His abiding Presence is no longer the transcendent realm of the Triune Godhead, nor is it Jerusalem's temple. Rather, it is to be the inward depths of the contrite soul that makes room ("Raum gebe")[37] for His incarnate, gracious Presence. Tersteegen hinted at that inward realm of the soul when he explained, "Ich seh von ferne deine ruh, und innig dahin sehne."[38]--"I see from afar Your beauteous kingdom of peace." It is cognitively manifested to one through the external reading of the gospel and through its proclamation in sermon, but it is only in the depths of one's inward soul, which he elsewhere called the "Seelengrund," that we are able to desire longingly for His indwelling Presence. This point is clarified in verse 8, where Tersteegen wrote: "herr, rede du zum Seelengrund, da gib mir dich zu hören."[39] Wesley imaginatively recreated this line to say, "Speak to my inmost soul, and say, ÔI am thy love, thy God, thy All!'"[40]

            Both Wesley and Tersteegen shared basic similarities in their soteriology.  Both based the saving operations of grace on the objective ground of Christ's atoning work on Calvary, from which flow the subjective streams of personal grace. For Wesley, the latter were presented under the rubrics of prevening, lefting (relational), and sanctifying (actual) grace.[41] Tersteegen, writing before Wesley's Aldersgate conversion, spoke of God's grace in Christ wooing the sinner, awakening a desire for saving fellowship with the Savior:

                        ...hilff, dasz ich nimmer weiche nur

                        von deiner reinen liebesspur,

                        bis ich den schatz erreiche.

                        Indessen zeuch zu aller stund,

                        und mach mich zu dir kehren.[42]

            Wesley's paraphrased translation:

                        O help, that I may never move

                        From the blessed footsteps of Thy love.

                        Each moment draw from earth away.

                        My heart, that lowly waits Thy call.[43]

            Wesley's prevening, wooing, grace of Christ (based on John 1:9) has a parallel in Tersteegen's Grundneigung[44] (or Òinward inclination"), which is the heart-softening, beckoning work of divine grace that, in the efficacious Name of Jesus, is ever seeking to turn our wayward beings from self to God.  While the mind may have cognitive awareness of this operation, this Grundneigung (i.e., the love of Jesus) is only personally efficacious when its (His!)) habitation begins and is rooted in that inner domain of the soul that he calls the Seelengrund.[45] The latter term is derived from Echhart and Tauler.[46] This realm of our "inner being" is where God "strengthens us in power through His Spirit," so that Christ may "dwell in our hearts through faith" and that the faithful may be "rooted and established in love" (Ephesians 3:16-19 NIV). The context in which Tersteegen develops his equivalent to Wesley's prevening grace is the federal (or covenental) tradition of the Reformed Pietists.[47]  But his major interest lies in the subjective good (or benefit) of God's covenant of grace in Christ for souls that are awakened to a holy betrothal with Him.

            Unlike the Rhineland Catholic mystics who preceded him, Tersteegen did not hold (in a semi-pantheistic manner) that God is inherently present in the depths of every soul, only waiting to be discovered and obeyed through a program of asceticism. Because of original sin, human souls are now bereft of that godly witness; they are closed to Him and darkened.  Hence, it is only through the lefting grace of Christ that this inward "Temple veil" is rent asunder.[48]  This indicates that Tersteegen is also in basic congruity with Wesley on the doctrine of lefting grace (pardon), as completed in Christ and appropriated by the gift of faith.[49] That grace is presumed in the hymn's third stanza, with the statement "You announce Your Presence unto me--I surely discover this only as grace; since I still cannot by myself follow You, I can only call this a just torment; I have only gazed upon Your grace from afar, O Beloved! could I, unswerving, simply implore the train of Your mercy!"

                        Dasz du in mir dich meldest an,

                        ich zwar als grad erkenne;

                        doch will ich dir nicht folgen kan,

                        ichs billig plage nenne:

                        ich hab von ferne was erblickt,

                        O Liebe! könt ich unverruckt

                        nur deiner spur nachgehen!"

            Wesley's translation:

                        This mercy all, that Thou hast brought

                        My mind to seek her peace in Thee;

                        Yet while I seek, but find Thee not,

                        No peace my wandering soul shall see.

                        O, when shall all my wanderings end,

                        And all my steps to Thee-word tend?[50]

            Concerning sanctifying grace, Tersteegen, like Wesley, declined to follow Zinzendorf's conflation of justification and sanctification, emphasizing instead the need for steady, daily growth in the praxis of saving grace that follows justification. Tersteegen's view of sanctification that leads to the state of Christian perfection was more gradualist than crisis-oriented. The latter became dominant in the nineteenth-century holiness movement, thereby fully shifting the emphasis from gradualism (Tersteegen) to a balancing of gradual and crisis aspects (Wesley) to the second-blessing "crisis" emphasis of the nineteenth century.

            In Tersteegen, the magnetic stirring of God's prevening grace in the soul (the "Grundneigung") that becomes efficacious by virtue of Christ's lefting grace in breaking the inward stronghold of demonic darkness, is of one piece with the ongoing, transforming grace of sanctification, whereby one is increasingly shorn of self-love and renewed after the image of God in Christ.[51] Tersteegen conceptualized somewhat differently than Wesley[52] the progress of grace in the life of the awakened Christian, referring to the depth dimensions of the soul over against its cognitive and volitional aspects. In Tersteegen's view, the living Christ seeks to inaugurate his resurrection life in the believer at the point of the "Seelengrund," and then, from that center, to expand His gracious influence to encompass the cognitive, volitional, affective, and relational aspects  of one's existence. In turn, there is to be a communication of this Life with other awakened Christians, thereby forming the basis for a genuine, "unpartisan" (unparteiisch) communion in Christ that transcends outward church divisions because it is based on the common ground (Gemeinsamengrund) of redemptive fellowship in the living Christ.[53]

            Tersteegen depicts this course of sanctifying grace when he writes in verse four of his hymn (literal translation): "Is there something in all the world beside You that I want to love? Ah! Take it away, until there's nothing left in me, save You alone. I know I must let go of all things, before I can abide without wavering in Your peaceful bosom."

                         Ist etwas das ich neben dir

                         in aller welt wolt lieben?

                         Ach! nimm es hin, bis nichts in mir

                         Als du seyst Ôuberblieben:

                         ich weiß, ich muß von allem loß,

                         eh ich in deinem friedens-schooß

                         kan bleiben ohne wancken.

            Wesley's translation:

                         Is there a thing beneath the sun

                         That strives with Thee my heart to share?

                         Ah, tear it thence, and reign alone,

                         The Lord of every motion there:

                         Then shall my heart from earth be free,

                         When it has found repose in Thee.[54]

            It may also be noted that Wesley produced two different translations of this hymn--one before and one after Aldersgate. In the earlier translation of the second half of verse four (ich weiß ich muß von allem loß/eh ich in deinem frieden-schooß/kan bleiben ohne wancken), Wesley had written: "From earthly foes I must be free/Ere I can find repose in Thee." The later translation shifts from saying that peace through faith is the result of being freed from earthly lusts to affirming that the peace attained through faith itself produces freedom from the earthly: "Then shall my heart from earth be free, when it has found repose in Thee."[55] The latter rendering also better fits the German original, which served as Wesley's model.

            One other Tersteegen hymn that Wesley translated, Gott ist gegenwärtig ("Lo, God is here!") is regarded as the favorite hymn of all German Pietists within the German tradition.[56] However, it has had less usage in the English hymnals, and a nineteenth-century translation of this hymn by Catherine Winkworth has had a wider circulation.[57] This hymn celebrates the theme that both Tersteegen and Wesley find central: the most urgent task is now not to seek God in His past actions nor in His future comings, but in His present appearing in the living Christ. "Let all within us feel His power, And silent bow before His face. Who know His powers, His grace who prove, Serve Him with awe, with reverence love." (Gott ist in der mitten! Alles in uns schweige, und sich innigst vor ihm beuge; wer ihn kennt, wer ihn nennt, schlag die augen nieder, kommt, ergebt euch wieder.)[58] 

            A comparison of the eight Zinzendorf hymns that Wesley also translated with those of Tersteegen reveals the theological differentiation that existed between these two Pietists. Wesley clearly stood in greater theological proximity to the latter. For Zinzendorf, the great theme was submission to Christ as the crucified Lamb of God, but this theme was often embellished with a highly sentimental and even erotic bridal imagery that Wesley regularly deleted as he refashioned and ennobled these hymns.[59] By contrast, Tersteegen's hymns convey more clearly the confessional aspect that bore witness to an inward appropriation of the "ordo salutisÓ (or Heilsordnung) that charted the growing Presence of the indwelling Christ in the life of the believer. Unfortunately, Nuelsen's pathbreaking study of Wesley's German hymns does not really identify this underlying theological difference between Zinzendorf and Tersteegen.[60] Zinzendorf highly accentuated the Lutheran teaching that the righteousness established by Christ's righteousness is solely imputed to the believer by faith, although Luther's faith in the proclaimed Word is replaced by Zinzendorf's highly affective adoration of the crucified Lamb of God.

            However, Tersteegen, like Wesley, emphasized that righteousness is first imputed to the believer (the Christus pro nobis), but is then to become progressively imparted through the indwelling Spirit of God (as the Christus in nobis). Hence, throughout his poetry and prose, Tersteegen typically spoke of the believer's progressive transformation by the indwelling Christ as the renewal of the imago Dei. As we have noted, these themes anticipated major aspects of Wesley's post-Aldersgate soteriology, although the idioms in which they are expressed are quite distinct. Despite the fact that Wesley's translation of the Tersteegen hymns predated Aldersgate, it is here contended that these hymns decisively helped Wesley to articulate for himself that transforming life in Christ to which he aspired, and which he would soon appropriate.

Wesley's Veneration of German Pietist

Hymns, Tersteegen's in Particular

            The fact that Wesley's spiritual crisis in Georgia had a felicitous ending must be attributed to his absorbing work on the thirty-three German hymns.[61]  Prior to his encounter with these hymns and their singers, justification by faith was a theoretical doctrine not yet connected with personal life in Christ. Wesley had been scrupulous in carrying out his high-church Anglican principles and his impeccable adherence to its rituals, but to this was interwoven his growing taste for Christian mysticism.[62]

            He was first awakened to the personal meaning of saving faith through simple German believers who showed him that faith is something living that transfigures all events of life. Then, to these contacts was joined his discovery of the German hymns, especially the joyous, confident, faith-confessing hymns of the German Pietists. Wesley could not sing all these personal hymnodic testimonies of lives savingly transformed through Jesus Christ nor could he try to find English words corresponding to theirs without his thought and life being transformed by them. In his Journal entries for this period, he did not indicate which hymns he was studying nor which he prefers; he simply enters "German verses," or "translated verses."[63] He was at this task from three to five hours per day. These were not just beautiful poetic expressions; they became an active force in leading him toward saving faith. As he sang them day after day, they testified to that faith that, in Böhler's terms,[64] he was to preach although he did not yet possess. It also kept before him in more vivid terms the goal of Christian perfection that he had been actively seeking through full consecration since 1725.[65] 

            Was Wesley's interest in the German Pietist hymns only a passing phase, or did it have lasting impact in his mature years? First, there is a significant place where his debt to Tersteegen was later acknowledged. In his mature treatise "The Plain Account of Christian Perfection" (1766), a kind of spiritual autobiography, Wesley quoted passages from a sermon he preached in 1733 at Oxford on the "Circumcision of the Heart." In "The Plain Account" he underscored the convictions that he and his fellow Oxford Methodists had entertained by restating his version of verse four from Tersteegen's "Thou Hidden Love  of God, Whose Height," that he had composed in 1736:

                        Is there anything beneath the sun

                        That strives with Thee my heart to share?

                        Ah, Tear it thence, and reign also,

                        The Lord of every motion there.[66]

            Commenting on this verse, Wesley viewed Tersteegen's prayer as encompassing "awakened" seekers of salvation, such as he had been, as well as convinced believers. He wrote: "I never heard that anyone objected to this. And indeed who can object? Is not this the language, not only of every believer, but every one that is truly awakened? But what have I wrote, to this day, which is either stronger or plainer?"[67] Here was an acknowledgment of decisive influence from Tersteegen's hymn in Wesley's doctrine of perfection. Referring to this hymn, Nuelsen significantly concludes that here "John Wesley found the clearest expression of his teaching of salvationÓ and that it was "...a conviction he held before his conversion, which he never gave up afterwards."[68] 

            While he was under the scourge of the Georgia colonists who were anxious to be rid of their "tiresome soul warden," Wesley increasingly took refuge in composing English verses from the German hymns. In that setting, Wesley drew comfort from this composition, derived from the final stanza of Tersteegen's Verborgne Gottes Liebe Du:

                        Each moment draw from earth away

                        My heart, that lowly waits Thy call.

                        Speak to my inmost soul, and say,

                        "I am Thy Love, Thy God, Thy All!"

                        To feel Thy power, to hear Thy voice,

                        To taste Thy love is all my choice.[69] 

            Back in London, the German hymns continued to exercise an important role in Wesley's search for Christian assurance, and those upon which he relied were by no means limited to the Moravian hymns.[70] Nuelsen is probably correct in surmising that the reason why Wesley translated no more German hymns after 1738 was because it was no longer a practical necessity for him; his brother Charles was now exercising his considerable gift in hymn writing.[71]  The long-term influence of the German hymn on his doctrine of justification by faith was acknowledged by Wesley in a sermon he preached in November, 1765, entitled "The Lord Our Righteousness" (Jeremiah 23:6), in which he stated:

This is the doctrine which I have constantly believed and taught, for near eight and twenty years. This I published to all the world in the year 1738.... The hymns published a year or so after this, and since republished several times, a clear testimony that my judgment was still the same, speak full to the same purpose.[72]

            The fact that for fifteen years Wesley carried during his travels the thirty-three German hymns, plus some composed by Charles, in a handwritten manuscript,[73] indicates their personal importance to him in strengthening within him his disposition to walk in the presence of Christ. It appears as significant that the page most worn was the one containing Richter's Ich habe nun den Grund gefunden translated by Wesley as:

                                    Now I have found the ground, wherein

                                    Sure my soul's anchor may remain,

                                    The wounds of Jesus for my sin

                                    Before the world's foundation slain:

                                    Whose mercy shall unshaken stay

                                    When heaven and earth are passed away.[74]

            In relying upon this motif, Wesley placed his major emphasis on the objective ground (Grund) of salvation in Christ's atonement that is counterbalanced by the Holy Spirit's subjective witness within the heart of the believer.[75]  By comparison, Tersteegen's Gott ist Gegenwärtig (that Wesley translated as "Lo, God is here! let us adore") placed relatively greater emphasis on the Seelengrund (the inner ground of the soul) as the primary arena of God's redemptive activity in the present life of the believer. For Tersteegen, the historical Calvary is the necessary outward ground of our salvation, but this must now become the personal, existential Calvary within the most intimate part of one's inward life if God's redeeming Presence is to become an ongoing, vital reality.

            Both men lived in the tension between the objective and the subjective grounding of Christ's redemptive work, although Wesley looked to the objective ground as the chief locus of meditation, while, for Tersteegen, it was instead the subjective ground.[76] At a deeper level, however, it is really not correct to refer to Tersteegen's piety as subjectivist, as, for example, in the sense of Schleiermacher's "feeling of dependence" (Gefuhl). On the contrary, in his letters of counsel Tersteegen frequently warns against the idolatry of introspection.[77] What he is advocating is an inward focus of the heart on the utterly transcendent "Name of Jesus Emmanuel" as the subject of devotion, whose inward worship effects the full-blown soteriological transformation of the grace-apprehended worshipper.[78]

            Like Wesley, Tersteegen did not purport to be teaching unique doctrines, though he held to the evangelical doctrines of salvation more deeply than did the established Protestant churches. In words that reflect Wesley's outlook, Tersteegen wrote: "My way is to preach the gospel quite simply--God was in Christ, reconciling the world Himself." Then he added: "This God and Savior is

inexpressibly near to us, knocking at the door of our hearts, and entreating us to turn from our sins and be reconciled to Him.  Every uneasy sense of our danger, every insight into our utter corruption, darkness, and powerlessness, every sorrow and lamentation on account of sin, are the work, wholly and solely, of this love of God in Christ Jesus near us and in us.[79]

            Wesley had begun his search for this inward witness of God's gracious Presence while at Oxford and in the wilds of Georgia. Coming full circle, he would close his life on earth by paraphrasing the theme of Tersteegen's greatest hymn, when he confessed: "The best of all is,  God is with us!"[80]

Conclusion

            It has been our contention that the Rhineland spirituality of Tersteegen represents a significant aspect of the Pietist influence on John Wesley in his formative life stage. This influence has been insufficiently recognized and evaluated as a contributing factor in Wesley's own spiritual formation. It served for him as a complement and, to no small extent, as a corrective to the increasingly legalistic piety of Halle, on the one side, and on the other, to Zinzendorf's often unduly sentimental emphasis upon Christ as the Lamb of God, in whom our positional righteousness and holiness is appropriated as immediate and complete at the outset of saving faith.

            Tersteegen's piety, that was also free of the mutual polemicism in which Halle and Herrnhut were then embroiled, assisted Wesley at the time of his deepest spiritual crises as he quested for gracious pardon and a transforming new life in Christ. The turning point in Wesley's quest was reached in the Moravian milieu of Aldersgate, but it was the Tersteegen hymnody to which Wesley later appealed in his mature treatise on Christian perfection when he sought to offer personal testimony and theological clarification on behalf of his early crisis of faith. Finally, Wesley's Tersteegen-imprinted last words further bear witness to the durability of this Pietist legacy.

Endnotes:

[1]           Among the more positive analyses of that relationship, we may cite F. Ernest Stoeffler, "Pietism, the Wesleys, and Methodist Beginnings in America," in Continental Pietism and Early American Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 1976), 184-221; and Leon O. Hynson, "John Wesley and the Unitas Fratrem: A Theological Analysis,"  Methodist History  (October, 1979), 26-60.

[2]           Hence, Outler asserts that the doctrine of assurance, in relation to justification by faith, is decreasingly emphasized by Wesley after 1738-Albert Outler, ed., John Wesley (New York: Oxford, 1964), 209-210.

[3]           Kenneth J. Collins, "The Motif of Real Christianity in the Writings of John Wesley," The Asbury Theological Journal (Spring, 1994), 49-62.

[4]           John Wesley, Journal, standard ed., Nehemiah Curnock, ed. (1909-1916), II, 3-63.

[5]           Cornelius Pieter Van Andel, Gerhard Tersteegen; Leben und Werk; Sein Platz in der Kirchengeschichte (Neukirchener Verlag, 1973), 250.

[6]           Rendel Harris, "The Influence of Quietism on the Society of Friends; A Lecture Delivered at Bryn Mawr College.  April 30, 1900," (Philadelphia: Leeds Press, 1900), 11.  An abridged translation of Tersteegen's letters was published by Samuel Jackson-Jackson, Life and Character of Gerhard Tersteegen with Selections from His Letters and Writings (London, 1834), 2nd, ed.

[7]           John L. Nuelsen, John Wesley und das Deutsche Kierchenlied (Nashville, TN:  The Historical Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1938), tr. by Theo Parry, Sidney H. Moore, and Arthur Holbrook, as John Wesley and the German Hymn  (Yorkshire: A. S. Holbrook, 1972), 38, 78. Nuelsen finds that this hymn appears in 33 hymnals of Methodist and other church bodies that were in use in 1938.

[8]           Nuelsen, Wesley and the German Hymns, 49.

[9]           Nuelsen, 44.

[10]          The other members of this group were Ernst Lange (1650-1727), Joachim Lange (1670-1714), Winckler (1670-1722), W. C. Dessler (1660-1722), S. C. Gmelin (1679-1707), L. A. Gotter (1661-1735), G. Arnold (1666-1714), Rothe (1688-1758), each with one hymn; C. F. Richter (1676-1711), G. Tersteegen (1697-1769), and Freylinghuysen (1670-1739), with two each. Among the Moravians: N. Zinzendorf (1700-1760), with eight, and Spangenberg (1704-1792), Anne Dober (1713-1739), and Maria Böhmer (d. 1743) with one hymn each-Nuelsen, 43.

[11]          See Julius Smend, Vorträge und Aufsätze zur Liturgik, Hymnologie und Kirchenmusik (Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann, 1925). Smend recognizes (99) the three greatest German hymnists to be Luther, Gerhardt, and Tersteegen.

[12]          Herrnhut is viewed from the Halle-viewpoint of its second generation leader, G. A. Francke, the son of A. H. Francke (d. 1727).

[13]          See W. Reginald Ward, The Protestant Evangelical Awakening (Cambridge: The University Press, 1992), 134-141: "Zinzendorf [and] the Conflict with Halle."

[14]          "At a very early stage, certainly by the summer of 1733, the younger Francke had reviewed reports of what was afoot in Oxford, and the German community in London had sent translations of the first defense of that circle in print-The Oxford Methodists (London, 1733)-which was to have a longer run in Germany than in England" (Ward, 4). Ward cites numerous reports at Halle of the Oxford Methodists, including Wesley's mission to the Salzbergers in Georgia, between 1733 and 1740. For his part, Wesley received detailed information about the Halle-Moravian split from both sides of that conflict.

[15]          With the massive expulsion of Protestants from Salzburg by the Catholic imperial rulers in 1731-37, leaders of the SPCK who had continental roots (Ziegenhagen and Samuel Urlsperger) raised funds and fashioned the organization that transferred the British party of Salzburgers to Georgia. The SPCK also committed to long-term support for the Salzburg pastors and to every party that sought to minister to them.  John Wesley's acceptance of the invitation to share in the Georgia mission followed Governor Oglethorpe's plan to support the Salzburgers in the cause of their resistance as Protestants. See R. Wright, Memoirs of James Oglethorpe (London, 1867), cited in Ward, 309.

[16]          For Halle, these "separatist" notions included the practice of the love feast and footwashing. Spangenberg's use of separatist language to criticize the Halle institutions stirred Halle's ire. These criticisms included its "legalistic Methodism," that included an elaborate method for converting American Indians in 25 stages - G. C. Knapp, Beyträge zur Lebensgeschichte A.G. Spangenbergs (Halle, 1884), 3-66, 93-119; see also Zinzendorf Werke: Ergänzungsband, IX, 90-91; these citations are discussed in Ward, 134 and 140.

[17]          Zinzendorf had previously been closely affiliated with A. H. Francke, but relations had soured after Francke's death when his son, G. A. Francke, headed Halle with a more anxious, legalistic mentality. See Ward, 135, 136.

[18]          Ward, 310.

[19]          The two Tersteegen hymns translated by John Wesley were found by him in these hymnals, where they had been reprinted after their first appearance in Tersteegen's Geistliches Blumengärtlein (first ed. 1729).

[20]          Ward, 311.

[21]          In its later phase, the Halle teaching on soteriology became highly structured in a legalistic manner, as is illustrated by the Halle tract cited above.

[22]          When Wesley stated his admiration for the elder Francke while at Herrnhut, "...whose name is indeed as precious ointment," he was denied communion by the Moravians as a "homo perturbatus." -Wesley, Works 3rd ed.: T. Jackson, ed. (1829-31), Journal, I, 263-4.

[23]          F. Ernest Stoeffler has referred to Tersteegen as "...perhaps the best loved spiritual advisor of his day, the writer of some of the most treasured hymns in Protestantism, and the author of edificatory books which have held their own in spite of the shifting moods of the modern intellectual climate" (Stoeffler, German Pietism in the Eighteenth Century, Leiden: Brill, 1973, 191).

[24]          Samuel Jackson, ed. The Life and Character of Gerhard Tersteegen (London, 183), vii-viii.

[25]          Ward, 230.

[26]          Ward, 235-236. He also notes that, of the leaders of the awakenings of the eighteenth century, only Jonathan Edwards, Charles Wesley, and Gerhard Tersteegen have left a literary legacy that exceeds their pastoral and evangelistic ministries.

[27]          Ward, 25.

[28]          Ward, 236.

[29]          Tersteegen founded his first conventicle at Otterbeck, and remnants of these groups persisted into the early twentieth century, when they became obstacles to the advancing "German Christian" religious program of the National Socialists. S. K. Scholder, The Churches and the Third Reich, 2 vols. (London, 1987-88), II: 5, 13-14, 63, 160. Tersteegen's chief twentieth century critic, who was later allied to this Nazi influence, was H. Forsthoff, who was also one of his major biographers. See esp. Forsthoff's "Tersteegen's Mystik," in Monatsheft Rheinischer Kirchengerchichte 12 (1918), 128-191, 193-201.

[30]          Tersteegen was converted under the preaching of the Reformed pastor Wilhelm Hoffmann. -Stoeffler, 194.

[31]          Labadie had passed into separatism after serving in the Jesuit and Reformed traditions, and his followers constituted a radical social and political protest against the established religious patterns in France, Holland, and Northwest Germany. See T. J. Saxby, The Quest for the New Jerusalem, Jean de Labadie and the Labadists (Dordrecht, 1987).

[32]          The eight-volume radical Pietist commentary, the Berleburg Bible, was produced by this circle under the leadership of J. M. Haug, at their center in Wittgenstein-Berleburg. See Stoeffler, 211-216.

[33]          See L. G. Harvey, ed., Gerhard Tersteegen: Recluse in Demand; Life and Letters; I (Hampton, TN: Harvey & Tait, n.d.).

[34]          See the discussion of Tersteegen in J. Steven O'Malley, Early German-American Evangelicalism; Influential Pietist Sources in Discipleship and Sanctification (Metuchen, NJ:  Scarecrow, 1995).

[35]          Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliches Blumengärtlein (1st ed., 1729). The original may also be found in the Herrnhut Collection (1727), 483.

[36]          Nuelsen (pp. 38, 78) draws this inference.

[37]          See the excellent discussion of Tersteegen's concept of Raum gebe in Hansgunter Ludewig, Gebet und Gotteserfahrung bei Gerhard Tersteegen (Göttengen:  Vindenhoeck U. Ruprecht, 1986), 208-217.

[38]          Tersteegen, "Verborgne Gottes-Liebe Du," in Nuelsen, 119.

[39]          Nuelsen, 120.

[40]          Nuelsen, 120.

[41]          See Wesley, "The Scripture Way of Salvation," Works (1872 ed.), VI, 43-53, where he grounds all aspects of saving grace in the Person and work of Jesus Christ.

[42]          Nuelson, 120.

[43]          Nuelsen, 120.

[44]          See Ludewig, 292-308.

[45]          Ludewig discusses these medieval precursors of Tersteegen's Seelengund in an introductory section, 89-94.

[46]          Tersteegen also finds exegetical basis for the Seelegrund theme, Weg der Wahrheit (Stuttgart: Steinkopf, 1926), 174, 367-8.

[47]          Leaders of Reformed Pietism included Johannen Cocceius, Campegins Vitringa, and Friedrich A. Lampe.

[48]          See Gerhard Tersteegen, "Faith and Justification," in Gerhard Tersteegen:  Sermons and Hymns (Shoals, IN: Old Paths Tract Society, n.d., tr. by Emily Chisholm), 66-73.

[49]          Compare with John Wesley, "Justification by Faith," Works (1872 ed.), V, 53-64.

[50]          Nuelsen, 119.

[51]          See Gerhard Tersteegen, "True Godliness," in Sermons and Hymns, 110-122.

[52]          It is more characteristic for Wesley to allow his portrayal of the state of sanctifying grace to be guided by the descriptive language of Scripture. See Wesley, "On Perfection," Works (1872 ed.), VI, 411-423.

[53]          Furthermore, this understanding of the "unpartisan" nature of redemptive fellowship in Christ guided the thinking of the early followers of Otterbein and Boehm in the United Brethren in Christ, who identified themselves as an "unpartisan" (unparteiisch) fellowship, unlike the "closed" and socially stratified nature of other German church bodies (both state church congregations and sectarians). See Arthur Core, ed., Philip William Otterbein; Pastor and Ecumenist (Dayton:  EUB Board of Education, 1968), 121.

[54]          Nuelsen, 119. This aspiration for holiness of heart and life continues in verses 5-8 of the hymn, that Wesley freely translates:

            Entdeck mir meine eigenheit                      O, hide this self from me, that I

            die dir stets widerstrebet                           No more, but Christ in me may live!

            und war noch unlauterkeit                        My vile affections crucify,

            in meiner seelen lebet:                              nor let one darling lust survive.

            soll ich erreiche deine ruh,                         In all things nothing may I see,

            so muß mein aug gerade zu                       Nothing desire or seek but Thee!

            dich meynen und ansehen.

[55]

            O Liebe! mach mein hertze frey                 O love, Thy sovereign aid impart,

            vom überlegen, sorgen;                              To save me from low-thoughted care;

            den eignen willen, brich entzwey.                Chase this self-will through all my heart

            wie sehr er steckt verborgen:                      Through all its latest senses there.

            ein recht gebeught, einfältig kind                Make me Thy duteous child, that I

            am ersten dich, O Liebe, findt;                  Ceaseless may, "Abba, Father," cry.

            Du ist mein hertz und wille.

            Ach! nein, ich halte nichts zurück,             Ah, no!  ne'er will I backward turn:

            dir bin ich gantz verschrieben:                   Thine wholly, Thine alone I am!

            ich weiß es ist das höchste glück,                Thrice happy he who views with scorn

            dich läuterlich zu lieben:                          Earth's toys, for Thee his constant flame.

            hilff, daß ich nimmer weiche nur                O, help, that I may never move

            von deiner reinen liebesspur,                     From the blest footsteps of Thy love!

            bis ich den schatz erreiche.

            Indessen zeuch zu aller stund,                   Each moment draw from earth away

            Und mach mich zu dir kehren,                  My heart, that lowly waits Thy call:

            Herr, rede du zum seelen-grund,                Speak to my inmost soul, and say,

            da gieb mir dich zu hören.                        "I am Thy love, Thy God, Thy All!"

            Ach! setze mit Maria mich                       To feel Thy power, to hear Thy voice,

            zu deinem füßen inniglich:                        To taste Thy love, is all my choice!

            dis eins will ich erwehlen.

            Nuelsen, 63.

[56]          On the wider influence of this hymn, see Ludewig, 99-308.

[57]          Within the United Methodist tradition, Winkworth's translation (rather than Wesley's) of Gott ist Gegenwärtig is found in The Hymnal of the Evangelical United Brethren Church (Harrisburg and Dayton: Board of Publication, 1957), 4.

[58]          Nuelsen, 139, no. 19.

[59]          Hence, Wesley translates Zinzendorf's Reiner bräutigam meiner Seelen ("Pure Bridegroom of my Soul") as "Jesus, to Thee, my heart I bow," and he deletes 24 original verses, many of which exaggerate the bridal imagery, as in schenken mir aus deiner Brüsten, gieb mir beyde milch und wein ("give me from your breasts both mild and wine"), and Mache mir zu gifft und galle, den gemengten huren-tranck ("May the perverted drink of the whore be to me as poison and gall"). The latter verse is a reference to Christ in the six verses he retains. See Nuelsen, III.

[60]          Although Nuelsen notes the excessive bridal mysticism of Zinzendorf, he does not acknowledge this distinction between the hymns of Zinzendorf and Tersteegen as a whole, and tends instead to speak of the German devotional hymns as being of one stream.

[61]          Nuelsen, 34.

[62]          Concerning the latter, see Robert G. Tuttle, Jr., Mysticism in the Wesleyan Tradition (Grand Rapids, MI:  F. Asbury, 1989).

[63]          Nuelsen, 36.

[64]          Peter Bohler's well-known comment to Wesley in London was to "preach faith till you have it and then because you have it, you will preach faith."  Journal, I, 442.

[65]          Works, XI, 366-367.

[66]          Works, XI, 369. Wesley also cites Paul Gerhardt's "Jesus, Thy Boundless Love to Me" in the same treatise on "Christian Perfection," Works, XI, 369.

[67]          Works, XI, 369.

[68]          Nuelsen, (38) is here including, in addition to the Tersteegen hymn, the second verse of Paul Gerhardt's "Jesu, Thy Boundless Love to Me."

[69]          G. Osborn, ed., The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley (London:  Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1868), I, 72-73.

[70]          When Böhler presented John Wesley with four witnesses to the doctrine of Christian assurance, Wesley, moved to tears, responded by leading in singing "My Soul Before Thee Prostrate Lies," that he had translated from the verse of the Hallensian hymnist Christian Friedrich Richter. J. P. Lockwood, Memorials to the Life of Peter Böher (London, 1868), cited in Nuelsen, 40.

[71]          Though Charles did not read German, he held frequent and sustained conversations with Moravians, including Zinzendorf and Böhler, and he was familiar with John's translated hymns, which had first appeared in print in 1737.

[72]          To illustrate his point, he cites the first stanza of his reworked translation of Zinzendorf's "Jesu, Thy Blood and Righteousness," Works, V, 241.

[73]          Nuelsen, 47.

[74]          G. Osborn, The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, II, 279.

[75]          This priority in the Wesleyan "ordo salutis" is expressed by Charles Wesley in the verses of "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling" (Osborn, IV, 219).

[76]          To explain further, Wesley would place more emphasis on the historical presence of Christ, as mediated through the means of grace, while Tersteegen's emphasis fell upon the contemporary, immediately present  Christ, whose ongoing royal residencies to be within the inner life of the awakened child of God. Wesley also placed greater stock in the ecclesial context of Christian worship, as seen in the third rule of his "General Rules;" but Tersteegen spoke of the "inner sanctuary of the heart, or the Seelengrund. He explains this in figurative terms: "The Name of Jesus is the altar, the flame that goes forth is God's love, which burns more brightly as the smoldering is purged, and the truth and sincerity, whereby, we now live, are the flames of that fire." That is to say, divine truth is not known to natural human reason; it is a gift of the living Christ, whose indwelling Presence reveals truth, that can then inform the mind and activate the will and the affections. See Gerhard Tersteegen, "Inward Prayer," in Sermons and Hymns, 35-37. Note: This quote follows my unpublished translation from the original German, as contained in Gerhard Tersteegen, Gesammelte Schriften (Stuttgart, 1843), 156.

[77]          In his pastoral letters, Tersteegen advised, "I do not point you to yourself. I know, that like me, you are a child of Adam. You have not yet reached the end of this path, but your course is correct. The eternal love of God only wants that you and I let ourselves fall into its lap, just as we are, Amen. Let it be so!" Also, "...sweetly turn your inward eye from yourself. Fix it inwardly upon Him in whom is all your salvation" (Tersteegen, Recluse in Demand: Life and Letters, 125, 129.

[78]          Tersteegen wrote on inward prayer as follows: "Our spirits thus become the temples in which the glory of God, as in the Holiest of Holies, is near unto us. The altar is the Name of Jesus; the sacrifice is our heart, our will, our all. The love of God which enflames our desires after Him, by means of His secret operation, is the eternal fire..." (Gerhard Tersteegen, Sermons and Hymns, (Hampton, TN:  Harvey and Tait, n.d.), Vol II, 37.

[79]          Gerhard Tersteegen, Life and Letters, 28.

[80]          Richard Rodda, A Discourse Delivered at the Chapel on Oldham Street, Manchester, March 13, 1791, on Occasion of the Death of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M. (Manchester, England: J. Radford, 1791), 22.

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