A sigh for pure love and a straight God-ward intent.
The Sixty-Seventh Letter.
A sigh for pure love and a straight God-ward intent.
Dear Brother!
May Jesus fulfil all the longing of your heart, and fill us both wholly with His pure love — by whose power all that is self and mixed life in us is consumed, and the whole inclination and aim of our mind is set, in all things, on Him alone and His dearest good pleasure! How beautiful, yet how rare, is a truly single eye! One reflects now hither, now thither, and therefore one is so much hard-pressed and troubled in the very best of one's doing.
Might we be touched more deeply by the magnet of the pure love of God, that our compass might once stand unwavering in a straight God-ward intent! For this pure love of God, in the gracious name Jesus-Immanuel, is near and open to the ground of our soul, and would gladly become power, salvation, and life. Ah! only a detached, childlike attending and yielding is required, and it will soon relieve all care, and form us after its own heart — for which all other art and means are insufficient. Amen!
German
Der siebenundsechzigste Brief.
Seufzer um die reine Liebe und gerades GOttmeinen.
Lieber Bruder!
JEsus erfülle alles Verlangen deines Herzens, und uns beide ganz mit Seiner reinen Liebe, durch deren Kraft alles eigene und vermischte Leben in uns verzehret, und die ganze Neigung und Absicht unsers Gemüths in allem allein auf Ihn, und Sein liebstes Wohlgefallen gerichtet werde!
— 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 "sigh" — a single, ardent breath of prayer — to a "dear brother." It opens as a wish for him and at once widens to "us both": that Jesus would fill them entirely with his pure love, until every self-seeking, divided motive is burned away and the whole aim of the heart rests on God alone. Tersteegen names the trouble exactly — the mind keeps glancing "now here, now there," so that even our best efforts leave us pressed and unsettled. What he longs for is a will held steady, like a compass needle drawn by a magnet, in one straight looking toward God; and his confidence is that this love, present in "the gracious name Jesus-Immanuel," lies near and open to the soul, asking only a quiet, childlike attention and surrender.
A few words and echoes.
- A straight God-ward intent. His phrase for an undivided will that means and aims at God directly, without the mind's side-glances. The whole little prayer is for this one thing.
- The single eye. "How rare is a truly single eye!" — Jesus' image in Matthew: the clear, undivided eye that fills the whole body with light. For Tersteegen it is the simple, God-fixed gaze.
- The magnet and the compass. His favourite figure for love's steadying power: as a lodestone holds the compass needle, so God's love holds the will unwavering. (The soul "drawn" to God echoes the Song of Songs.)
- Jesus-Immanuel. The same "gracious name" he closed the previous letter on — Jesus (Saviour) and Immanuel (God-with-us) — where God's love stands near to the soul.
- A childlike attending and yielding. All that is asked, he says, is a detached, childlike attentiveness and surrender — not clever effort. "All other art and means are insufficient."
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thi-067 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.