Letters · Zweiter Band · Theil III (1775)

On the harm of faint-heartedness, and the profit of trust in God.

Bd II · Th III · Brief 37 · Der siebenunddreißigste Brief

Addressee — To Heinrich Sommer, at Mülheim — and, through him, his circle of friends (euch); written from Amsterdam. Addressed in the intimate du, widening to the whole circle (English you). Salutation In der Gnade unsers theuren Heylandes hertzlich geliebter Bruder! → "In the grace of our dear Saviour, dearly beloved brother!" (Rule B).
Date — Amsterdam, 19 July 1743 — the print dateline reads Amsterdam, den 19. Julii 1743. The middle of Tersteegen's Amsterdam July-1743 series (Briefe 36–38).
Provenance — *Translated from the public-domain 1775 first edition (Theil III, pp. 112–113), in normalized GS-1845 house orthography. All rendered words in the reader text are from public-domain prints.

The Thirty-Seventh Letter.

On the harm of faint-heartedness, and the profit of trust in God.

In the grace of our dear Saviour, dearly beloved brother!

Your kind letter of the 16th of this month, together with the enclosure from Brother H., I duly received yesterday; from which I see, on the whole, that things still stand with you all more or less in the usual way — for which the Lord be praised!

I trust that the Lord will hold His hand and eye over you all, and will let His faithful protection, grace, and goodness come to you in body and soul; so that you may have much joy in God, and out of this joy receive all strength and all courage for self-surrender, for the overcoming of all else, and for the willing embrace of the short sufferings. For I simply do not know what faint-heartedness profits in the Christian life, except only to make our enemies strong and ourselves weak — whereas, on the contrary, God receives honour thereby, and we great profit, when we entrust to Him much, indeed everything: not because we are holy, but because we have so gracious and so mighty a Saviour, who would so gladly make us holy and blessed, if only we, with sincerity, give ourselves over to Him in His gracious workings and ways. May He then Himself work this childlike trust in us, for Jesus' sake. Amen! ——

I greet you, and remain Your all's devoted brother.

Amsterdam, 19 July 1743.

❦

German

Der siebenunddreißigste Brief.

Vom Schaden der Kleinmüthigkeit, und vom Nutz des Vertrauens zu GOtt.

In der Gnade unsers theuren Heilandes herzlich geliebter Bruder!

Dein Angenehmes vom 16ten dieses nebst Einschluß von Bruder H. habe gestern richtig erhalten, woraus so überhaupt ersehe, daß es mit euch sämtlich noch ohngefähr im Gewöhnlichen stehet; wofür der HErr gelobet sey!

— 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 middle of three letters Tersteegen sent from Amsterdam in July 1743, this one to Heinrich Sommer at Mülheim and the friends around him. Its subject is named in the old rubric: the harm of faint-heartedness and the profit of trust. Tersteegen had received word that the circle was faring "more or less in the usual way," and he writes to steady them. The argument is blunt and practical: "I do not know what faint-heartedness profits in the Christian life, except only to make our enemies strong and ourselves weak." The remedy is not to wait until one feels holy enough to trust, but to trust because of who God is: "not because we are holy, but because we have so gracious and so mighty a Saviour, who would so gladly make us holy and blessed." Trust honors God and does us good; the smallness of heart that hangs back does the opposite. The letter ends by handing even this back to God, whose work it finally is: "May He then Himself work this childlike trust in us."

The old printed edition abridged this letter — it cut a short closing passage that survives in a manuscript copy. In it Tersteegen apologizes for not writing separately to another brother ("Brother N," i.e. Wilhelm Hoffmann), because he had been "so pressed to go to a sick woman," and sends him warmth and a homely word: his "usual powder will serve him best," and if he can take "a few little drops of childlike surrender along with it, then it is so much the better." The passage is given in full in the editorial apparatus; it is not part of the reader text, which follows the printed copy-text.

A few words and echoes.

the willing embrace of the short sufferings. 2 Corinthians 4:17 — "our light affliction, which is but for a moment."
faint-heartedness… to make our enemies strong. 2 Timothy 1:7 — "God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."
May He then Himself work this childlike trust in us. Philippians 2:13 — "it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure."

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Zweiter Band, III. Theil, Brief 37 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdii-thiii-037.html.

← Bd II · Th III · Brief 36 Bd II · Th III · Brief 38 →