Letters · Erster Band · Theil II (1773)

The Refiner is our friend. Will-less surrender into His faithful hands.

Bd I · Th II · Brief 129 · Der hundertundneunundzwanzigste Brief

Addressee — An eine Gräfin — two-line salutation "Wertheste Frau Gräfin! / Vielgeliebte Schwester in unserem Immanuel!": a countess, addressed in the high-courtesy form Dero; recovering from a "Fluss der Lähmung am Arm" (a rheum/flux causing lameness in the arm). Not further identified (1773-only); the third titled-noble addressee of Th II (cf. the Gräfin of Brief 105 and of Brief 121 — plausibly the same correspondent as 121). Courtesy Dero → English you.
Date — Mülheim, 11 October 1737 ("den 11. Oct. 1737"; GS/Hartman agree).
Provenance — Translated from the public-domain 1773 first edition (Theil II, pp. 381–383), in normalized GS 1845 orthography, collated against the 1845 Gesammelte Schriften (Bd 8) and Hartman's 1819 reprint. All public-domain.

The Hundred-and-Twenty-Ninth Letter.

The Refiner is our friend. Will-less surrender into His faithful hands.

Most worthy Lady Countess!

Dearly beloved sister in our Immanuel!

Your kind letter of the 20th of July I received only on the 8th of this month. It was so much the more welcome, because I had already asked of Mr. N. to give me, at the first opportunity, some news of how you were now faring, as regards the flux of the lameness in the arm — of which, even so from afar, I had heard something, not without feeling.

Now, praised be He for His goodness, who this time too has helped through without worse consequences, and has, so far, restored you again! Let the little remnant of our powers and days be wholly offered up to Him, for His service and glorifying, in the name of Jesus! True, it does not go without manifold inward and outward trials, sufferings, and annihilations; but it is temporal and light. The Refiner is our friend; His nearness supports, even when it does not refresh; He lays hold only of the dross, which is in any case long since given over to His gracious judgment; and for the rest He will keep His word, that not a hair from our head shall fall without His fatherly will, which is our soul's blessedness. Therefore we will surrender ourselves to His faithful hands, blind and will-less, through His grace. How often have we given ourselves over to Him and to His saving guidance of grace! How often does He testify that He is our sovereign Lord, and we His property! This we will, even now in this hour — just as if it were our death-hour — ratify and subscribe, as uprightly, thoroughly, and fully as we would do it in that [last] hour, and as the Lord might require it of us. May He only work it truly in us, through Himself, and take us wholly, that we may henceforth be no more our own in anything! Amen.

Mülheim, the 11th of October 1737.

❦

German

Der hundertundneunundzwanzigste Brief.

Der Schmelzer ist unser Freund. Willenlose Ueberlassung in Seine treue Hände.

Wertheste Frau Gräfin!

Vielgeliebte Schwester in unserem Immanuel! Dero Angenehmes vom 20ten Juli habe erst den 8ten dieses erhalten.

— 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 of 11 October 1737 to a countess — the third of the very few titled correspondents in this part, and quite possibly the same lady as Brief 121. She had been ill: a "flux" had left a "lameness in the arm," and Tersteegen, who had heard of it "from afar, not without feeling," writes now that she is recovering, to turn even the illness into an act of surrender.

Its argument. He begins in thanksgiving — God "this time too has helped through, and so far restored" her — and at once offers the recovery back: "let the little remnant of our powers and days be wholly offered up to Him." Then comes the image that gives the letter its title, from Malachi 3: "The Refiner is our friend." The one who sits over the crucible to purify silver is no enemy; "His nearness supports, even when it does not refresh; He lays hold only of the dross" — and "for the rest will keep His word, that not a hair from our head shall fall without His fatherly will, which is our soul's blessedness."

The covenant, re-signed. So the letter ends as an act of will, made in legal language: "How often does He testify that He is our sovereign Lord, and we His property!" — and "this we will, even now in this hour, as if it were our death-hour, ratify and subscribe," as fully as one would in the hour of death. Not a resignation of despair but a signed and sealed self-giving: "May He only work it truly in us… and take us wholly, that we may henceforth be no more our own in anything! Amen."

A few words and echoes.

"The Refiner is our friend." Malachi 3:2–3 — "he is like a refiner's fire… he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver." The furnace is friendship; the fire touches "only the dross."
"Not a hair from our head shall fall." Matthew 10:29–30 / Luke 21:18 — the Father's will that numbers even the hairs; here made the very definition of "our soul's blessedness."
"His property… bought." 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 ("ye are not your own… bought with a price") and Psalm 100:3 ("we are his") — the ground of the "ratifying."
"Surrender into His faithful hands." Luke 23:46 / Psalm 31:5 — "Into thine hand I commit my spirit" — the "will-less" commending of oneself.
"Temporal and light." 2 Corinthians 4:17 — "our light affliction, which is but for a moment."

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Erster Band, II. Theil, Brief 129 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thii-129.html.

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