Thoughts on the words: Nothing but God and His good pleasure.
The Twenty-Second Letter.
Thoughts on the words: Nothing but God and His good pleasure.
Dear brother!
May God fulfill your hearty wish in me and upon me! According to my ground, I desire nothing but God and His holy good pleasure in all things. Through the exceeding mercy of God, this disposition remains over in me, under all shakings. I come back to it again and again: Nothing but God and His holy good pleasure. O mysterious word! How soon are you spoken — but how long must one go to school, ere one can rightly understand and grasp you! Many an unpracticed child who has cried out so loudly, "I know my lesson," must afterward stand red with shame when he is to recite it! O you bitter, and o you sweet word: Nothing but God and His good pleasure. When one rightly understands and rightly utters it, nature takes fright, as often as she hears it — like a malefactor who must hear his death-sentence, after which he goes off, wretched and forsaken, and gives up all hope of this life.
Yet I say it in Thy name, O Lord! Nothing but God and His good pleasure. Yes, I say it gladly, and repeat it often, because the spirit finds in it a great sweetness, which one cannot express. It is as when a hungry man speaks of a food he would like to have; or as when a lover hears and speaks of his beloved, and is refreshed as often as he hears that name. More plainly put: the captive and faint spirit feels, through a hidden divine impression, that in the purity of the state at which these words aim, his true freedom, his life, and full rest are to be found — into which he also enters, in some measure, as often as it is spoken in a fitting manner. But ah! how little is it spoken fittingly — this weighty word! Lord! let me repeat it a thousand times a day: Nothing but God and His good pleasure! But let me utter it aright — more with the mind than with the mouth — humbly, deliberately, inwardly, and as before Thy countenance, so long, until I attain to this: that I have and wish nothing more than Thee and Thy good pleasure. Amen!
German
Der zweiundzwanzigste Brief.
Gedanken über die Worte: Nichts als GOtt und Sein Wohlgefallen.
Lieber Bruder!
GOtt wolle deinen herzlichen Wunsch in und an mir erfüllen! Ich verlange nach meinem Grunde nichts, als GOtt und Sein heiliges Wohlgefallen in allem.
— 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. An intense little meditation on a single phrase — his answer to a friend's "hearty wish" for him. The phrase is "Nothing but God and his good pleasure," and the whole letter turns it over like a jewel, repeating it almost as a litany. "According to my ground," he says, "I desire nothing but God and his holy good pleasure in all things," and by God's "exceeding mercy" this stays with him "under all shakings." But the words are easier said than lived: "how soon art thou spoken — but how long must one go to school, ere one can rightly understand and grasp thee!" He gives three pictures of it. It is a lesson the boasting "unpractised child" cannot yet recite without standing "red with shame." It is a "death-sentence" at which our self-seeking nature "takes fright," like a condemned man. And yet it is a name the "lover… is refreshed" to hear, "a great sweetness which one cannot express" — for the captive spirit senses that in this one word lie "his true freedom, his life, and full rest." He ends in direct prayer: "Lord! let me repeat it a thousand times a day… but let me utter it aright — more with the mind than with the mouth… until I attain to this: that I have and wish nothing more than thee and thy good pleasure."
A few words and echoes.
- Nothing but God and his good pleasure. The refrain that is the whole letter — the soul reduced to a single desire. "Good pleasure" is God's own gracious will (Paul's word), which the surrendered heart makes its only wish.
- Bitter and sweet. The same word is both: bitter to the self, which hears in it "a death-sentence" and takes fright; sweet to the spirit, which tastes in it "true freedom… life, and full rest."
- The unpractised child. His homely image — the boastful pupil who cries "I know my lesson" and then cannot recite it — for how easily we say this word, and how long we must learn to mean it.
- More with the mind than with the mouth. His closing prayer catches the whole difficulty: to speak the phrase not glibly but "humbly, deliberately, inwardly, and as before thy countenance," until saying it and being it become one.
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thi-022 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.