An exhortation to faithfulness to the call of God.
The Thirty-Fourth Letter.
An exhortation to faithfulness to the call of God.
Dear brother!
Although I know of nothing particular to write, yet I must greet you on this occasion, and so let it be seen that I still desire, through divine grace, to remain an unworthy member of those who acknowledge Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, highly blessed unto eternity, as their one only Head, their one only fountain of salvation, and their one only end.
In this mind I embrace you all in love, granting and reaching out to you, so far as in me lies, whatsoever may sanctify you and purely content you in God. Let us indeed, my beloved, become rightly faithful to the Lord in our calling: He is so good a God — as you yourselves know better than I — how should we yet wish to keep back anything beside Him! Even as though He were not all-sufficient. Only ever stiller, simpler, and more inward, turned toward this One Thing! In Him we find all.
Bear with my freedom, and remember me before God. I have lately finished the life-account of a certain person, whose motto had been: The brevity of the labour; the eternity of the rest. Lord! imprint this ever upon our minds, that we grow not weary.
German
Der vierunddreißigste Brief.
Aufmunterung zur Treue an den Ruf GOttes.
Lieber Bruder!
Ob ich gleich nichts Sonderliches zu schreiben weiß, so muß ich euch doch mit dieser Gelegenheit grüßen, und also sehen lassen, daß ich noch begehre, durch göttliche Gnade ein unwürdiges Mitglied derer zu bleiben, die JEsum Christum, das fleischgewordene Wort, hochgebenedeiet in Ewigkeit, für ihr einziges Haupt …
— 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 short, warm note with "nothing particular to write" — Tersteegen writes anyway, simply to greet a brother and the circle around him and to renew his own desire to remain "an unworthy member of those who acknowledge Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh… as their one only Head, their one only fountain of salvation, and their one only end." The middle turns into gentle exhortation: to become "rightly faithful to the Lord in our calling," and to stop trying to "keep back anything beside Him" — as if God "were not all-sufficient." His counsel is a single, quiet direction of the soul: "Only ever stiller, simpler, and more inward, turned toward this One Thing! In Him we find all." He closes by mentioning that he has just been reading the life of a certain person whose motto he passes on as a prayer: "The brevity of the labour; the eternity of the rest" — asking that God would "imprint this ever upon our minds, that we grow not weary."
A few words and echoes.
- The Word made flesh. His confession of Christ echoes the opening of John's Gospel — "the Word was made flesh" (John 1:14) — naming Him the church's "one only Head."
- This One Thing. The heart of the letter is a call to simplicity: to be turned, ever more stilly, toward "this One Thing" in whom "we find all" — the many cares gathered into one.
- All-sufficient. His rebuke of divided hearts — wanting to "keep back anything beside Him" — rests on God's all-sufficiency: if He is enough, holding anything back is folly.
- The brevity of the labour; the eternity of the rest. The borrowed motto that closes the letter — labour short, rest eternal — offered as an antidote to weariness in the Christian calling.
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thi-034 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.