ALLURED into the desert, with God alone, apart,
There spirit meeteth spirit, there speaketh heart to heart.
Far, far on that untrodden shore, God's secret place I find,
Alone I pass the golden door, the dearest left behind.
There God and I—none other ; O far from men to be !
Nay, midst the crowd and tumult, still Lord, alone with Thee.
Still folded close upon Thy breast, in field, and mart, and street,
Untroubled in that perfect rest, that isolation sweet.
O God, Thou art far other than men have dreamed and taught ;
Unspoken in all language, unpictured in all thought.
Thou God art God—he only learns what that great Name must be,
Whose raptured heart within him burns, because he walks with Thee.
Stilled by that wondrous Presence, that tenderest embrace,
The years of longing over, do we behold Thy face ;
We seek no more than Thou hast given, we ask no vision fair,
Thy precious Blood has opened Heaven, and we have found Thee there.
O weary souls, draw near Him ; to you I can but bring
One drop of that great ocean, one blossom of that spring ;
Sealed with His kiss, my lips are dumb, my soul with awe is still ;
Let Him that is athirst but come, and freely drink his fill.
—G. TERSTEEGEN.
" GOD invites us, my dear brother, to the communion of His love. He desires that our spirits should be dwelling-places and temples prepared for Him to inhabit. There, in the inner sanctuary, we may behold Him and adore Him. How great a mercy !
" To be wholly for God, is the true secret of the inner (mystic) life, of which people make to themselves such strange and fearful pictures. And thus do we live, when Christ Himself has become our life. A self-made Christianity, a Christianity of which Christ, living in the inmost soul, is not the source and the life, is not Christianity at all. It is a dead carcass ; an outward form without life and power.
" There is nothing simpler, safer, more lovely, more fruitful, than this life of the innermost heart. It is not reached by reading and effort of the mind, but by dying to all else but God, and is known and experienced by love only. It is, therefore, rather the work of the Spirit of Christ in us, than our own work. This Spirit of love, when we yield ourselves up to Him, pours into us the mind of Jesus Christ, and forms us according to His image, unconsciously to ourselves—leads us ever into a deeper renunciation of all things, and of ourselves, and into an unconditional surrender of ourselves to God.
"God does not require this of us with the severity of the law, but He leads the teachable soul into the mystery of this surrender, and gives to her supernatural longings, so that despite her natural selfishness she delights to do His will, and to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.
" It is the chief object of prayer and of a seclusion of heart from outward things, that we should be brought to attend to the guidance of this tender Guide, and be wholly in His power, and according to His will. No human plans or forms can help in this matter—they only hinder. The soul must be as the clay—formless and passive in the hand of the potter.
This Hand of love forms us according to His own heart.
"And thus we are brought into a simplicity of being, entirely unartificial, and into a lowliness of spirit, which is gentle, and devoid of self-will. All our own objects are given up, and God is our object alone. And we are drawn away from the hold which things around us, and our own hearts, have upon us ; for God has become the one only treasure of the soul, wherein He can glorify Himself as He will. Oh, blessed are they who forget their own house ever more and more, and dwell in the house of God ; for in his temple every man speaketh of his honour !
" Let this be our all in all, dear brother, blindly and simply to follow Him who has called us with so holy a calling. This true and inner life is no questionable or new thing. It is the old primeval service of the heart to God ; it is Christian life in its beauty, and its own peculiar form.
" These souls, alive with the inner life, form no special sect. If each one were simply to follow the teaching, and live the life of Christ, the world would be full of such mystics ; that is to say, people who have not only an outward show of Christianity, but also the hidden man of the heart, the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, so precious in the sight of God.
" Were I to say to you, the mysticism I speak of is that hidden wisdom which God makes us to know (1 Cor. 2:77But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: (1 Corinthians 2:7)), you would perhaps answer, 'That is not explaining to me what it is.' Were I to say (and this is simply the truth) mysticism is nothing more than Christian blessedness in its highest power, its most divine beauty and fulness, you would perhaps say, 'That sounds well, but you have not yet told me in what it consists.' I will see if I can explain it more clearly.
"Mystics are not a sect. They have, as such, no doctrines which distinguish them from all sound Christians. They are by no means to be classed with 'enthusiasts.'
"The harmless word ' enthusiast ' is nowadays only used in a bad sense. It is used to signify men or women, learned or unlearned, who give themselves out as special instruments or messengers of God, expecting others to receive their ideas and fancies and opinions as something divine, something to be regarded as the word of God itself. But they show plainly enough in their acts that they are not moved by the Spirit of God, but by their own spirits. Such people are most hurtful enthusiasts.
"But to this fraternity those by no means belong who are called by Paul the ' sons of God,' and of whom he says, in Romans viii., that they truly and necessarily have the Spirit of God, who dwells in them, leads them, rules them, and works in them all that is good and holy and blessed—a fact which is proved by the fruit they bear.
" Is it not rightly to be called a pitiable folly, that many theologians, when they enter the lists against their opponents, such as Pelagians, Socinians, &c., make a valiant fight for the necessity of the inner working of the Spirit and grace of God, for this is inseparable from the doctrine they would defend. But when they have actually to do with people who have the real practical experience of this work of the Spirit, they at once assail them as enthusiasts and visionaries.
"Yet they are in the habit of singing out of their hymn books on Sundays-
"' Lord, all good in work or thought
By Thy Spirit must be wrought.'
" Mystics are not people who make a great talk of spirituality. They affect no mysterious, high-flown, dressed-up language, but speak of that which they know in those words taught by the Spirit, which most simply and clearly express their meaning. They speak little, but do and endure much. They deny themselves in all things. They pray without ceasing. Their one only secret is their secret intercourse with God in Christ.
"In a wide sense, one may describe mysticism as practical theology, or the carrying out into practice the blessed life of Christ. In order to this, the grace of God must have transformed the heart, for it is not merely natural morality which is in exercise.
" In a narrower sense, mysticism may be described as that condition of the experimental knowledge of God which Paul, and all mystics who have followed him, have known as `enlightenment.' The apostle prayed specially for believers that the eyes of their understanding might be enlightened. This therefore is something entirely distinct from the first opening of the eyes at conversion.
" Many other things are connected with this blessed life—abiding in Christ, cleaving to the Lord, walking in His presence, worshipping Him in the Spirit and in truth, cleansing ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit (which is something quite distinct from the first purging of the conscience from dead works), the shedding abroad of the love of God in the heart, a love which casteth out all fear, the anointing which teacheth all things, the beholding the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, the revelation of God to the soul, His dwelling in the soul (which was a promise made to the believing Corinthians), the life of God, when it can be said that the man, the I, lives no longer, but Christ lives in him, the citizenship of heaven, the peace of God which passeth all understanding, the being made perfect in one, and much besides.
"These, and countless other passages, which we find printed in black and white in our Bibles, describe that which I would call mystical theology, of which people make to themselves such alarming pictures.
"It is not, however, the case that even advanced Christians are in practical possession of all these things in the same way, in the same measure and fulness. But accordingly as a vessel is emptied, according to its size and capacity God fills it with the supernatural gift. (Supernatural and mystical are the same thing.) God is very rich, and very ready to give. Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.' But man, alas ! poor as he is, is unwilling to receive.
"After the first fall of the Church from her primeval fervor and purity, there were still always to be found pious and God-seeking men, here and there in Christendom, from whom God, the Saviour of all men, did not withdraw Himself, but did them good, and kept alive the faint flame which warmed their hearts. He accepted graciously the little service they rendered, and answered to their faith and courage as far as it went.
" But they nearly all remained stationary at a certain point. They used what they called the means of grace,' they had a knowledge of the letter rather than of the spirit of the word of God, they performed well-meant religious exercises, and they had from time to time a passing enjoyment, arising rather from natural feeling than from the Spirit. Their teachers knew of nothing better, and therefore desired nothing better.
"Thus the inner life, that which I call mysticism, became rarer, and more unknown, and at last was looked on with suspicion. For shortcoming, and for all spiritual deficiency, a plaster was prepared ; but to look for the working of the Spirit of God, and to leave room for it in the plan of Christian life, was called heresy and enthusiasm. And so has it continued in Christendom up to the present day.
"A mystic takes for granted, to begin with, as the immovable foundation, all the truths of Holy Scripture, especially the work of redemption wrought out by Christ. But he does not therefore assume that we should be continually and only insisting upon this foundation, and praising God for that alone. He is aware that gold and pearls and precious stones should be built upon it. And, therefore, he is unwilling to tolerate the wood, hay, and stubble that take their place.
"At the same time a true mystic can and does, in the right season, speak, read, and hear of the first A B C of Christian truth with unfeigned adoration of heart, and with the deepest reverence. A proud and haughty mystic is a contradiction in terms.
"Finally, I recall with deep sorrow the fact that, in our days, in the case of newly-converted souls, the necessity of advance and pressing forward in holiness of life, is not sufficiently insisted upon ; whereas, the Scripture is so clear and full upon this subject. In the Scripture we find that holiness includes a real and actual cleansing from sin and pollution, in the renewing of the inner man, in a changing from glory to glory after the image of Him who created us, in conformity to Jesus Christ. Let us seek after all these things, praying earnestly, and withdrawing ourselves into the seclusion of the inner sanctuary of communion with God, who is so inexpressibly near to us, who desires, by the power of the resurrection of Christ, by the spirit of holiness, to sanctify us wholly, to work by us, to live and move in us."
It will be seen by this letter that the " Mysticism " of Tersteegen is, in other words, the simple childlike intercourse of the believing soul with God, by no effort of the mind, but by the working of the Holy Spirit. We find nothing of Jacob Behmen, nothing of Mrs. Leade, in this teaching, taken as it is from the Bible only.
And therefore it was a teaching that met the need of those to whom God speaks in His Word—the poor, the sinful, the ignorant, and the simple. The manufacturers of MUlheim, the peasants in the villages, the weavers, the swineherds, learnt from the lips of Tersteegen that there was another life which could be lived by them, not by going apart into some solitary place to see visions and dream dreams, but by entering in at all times into the holiest place, through the blood of Jesus, into the meeting-place of the child with the Father, of the redeemed with the Saviour.
"If we speak of miracles," wrote Tersteegen, "the greatest miracle in the lives of the saints is that which they worked continually, and which we through grace must also work. It is this : They lived in the world ; but were not of the world. They carried about with them a weak and corrupt nature, but at the same time they did not live according to its desires, but, on the contrary, they lived a life above nature, a supernatural life.
" Their best and highest ecstasy was this, that their heart was detached from the enslaving love of the creature and of themselves, to cleave to God alone in pure and fervent love.
" The most glorious revelation granted them was that of which the Lord Jesus speaks in John xiv.: He that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love Him, and will manifest Myself to him.' These are miracles, and ecstasies, and revelations which must necessarily belong to each one of us, if we are the children of God, according to the measure of our faith and love."
It was a strange surprise to many a man and woman in the busy little town, when the message came to them that there was a life for them to live here below amongst the sound of factory wheels, and mongst toils and cares, and buying and selling, which was a higher life than the life of the angels in heaven, and a sweeter life than the first life in paradise.
"O man," Terstecgen said, " whoever you are stand still for a moment, and think earnestly of the high dignity for which you were created and sent into the world by God. You were not made for time and for passing things, but for God and eternity, and to have your heart filled with God and with the things eternal.
"You are here for a while that you may seek the blessed face of God, from which sin has turned you away, so that you fix your eyes only on the things below ; whereas if you were turned to Him, you would be filled through and through with light and holiness, and God would have in you His pleasure, His joy, His peace, and His contentment, and you would have yours in Him.
" In this one thing all your gladness and blessedness consist, in time and in eternity, which nothing beside God can give you. The outside things of this world can scarcely bring you any pleasure, even for the short time of your weary life. You have within you an eye that is not satisfied with seeing, a mind that can find no rest except in that which is all-sufficient, and of endless loveliness, and this is in God alone.
"Have you a true desire to find Him, and to see face ? See that you do not hinder yourself by your own endeavours. God is a Spirit, and near to your spirit. You need not seek and wander far abroad, and weary yourself with the reasonings and reflections and questionings of your mind, and the straining of your head ; for by these means you will wander farther from God and the knowledge of His truth.
" God is a Spirit, apart in the seclusion of His holiness from this coarse world, apart from the domains of the senses and of reason. And it is when your spirit, your love, your delight, and all your thoughts are withdrawn from this world, and it is as a strange land to you, that you will see His face, and hear His voice.
"God dwells in eternity. He is evermore the same. To Him there is no before nor after, but an everlasting now. And if you would have communion with Him, avoid all needless looking back and looking forward ; lay down all your questionings and reasonings and cares, and be as an innocent child in His presence, enjoying the blessed moment of the present, leaving it to Him to lead you and to care for you.
" God is a Being with no parts, no limit, beyond all thought and comprehension. He is neither this nor that, but all in one. Therefore, if you would have communion with Him, yield gently up all your this and that, all your own peculiar, limited, childish thoughts and imaginations of Him. Let your reason be taken captive by simple faith, and enter with your spirit into the wide, boundless land of stillness and of peace, with nothing to shape and limit your thoughts of Him, especially when you draw near to Him in prayer.
" God is purity itself, true and clear as the unclouded light. And in fellowship with Him all that is in your heart must be pure and clear and true.
Let the single eye of your heart look straight to God, with no other object besides ; no mixture of self-seeking, and of side aims and purposes; no known or unknown hypocrisy or pretense or show. And should any false or mixed motive rise up involuntarily, bring it honestly and restfully into His presence, and lay it before His face, where it will vanish away ; and let the clear sunlight of His countenance shine down upon all your thoughts and purposes, spread out in simplicity before Him.
" God is a Being, loving, gentle, and tender. He is love. And he who dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him. Therefore, if you would walk with Him, be gentle and tender and full of love in all your works and ways. Let the spirit of the love of Jesus tame and sweeten the rough, oppositious, crabbed tempers of your natural mind, melt down your hardness, and bend your obstinate self-will ; and should any of the bitterness of the old nature rise up, let yourself sink down at once into the deep sea of the gentleness and love of God.
" God is a Being, still, and peaceful, dwelling in the still eternity. Therefore should your mind be as a still, clear mountain tarn, reflecting the glory of God as in a mirror, where the image is unbroken and perfect. Avoid, therefore, all that would needlessly disturb or confuse or stir up your natural mind, from without or from within. Nothing in the whole world is worth being disturbed about. Even the sins you have committed should humble you, but not disturb you. God is in His holy temple. Let all that is in you keep silence before Him—silence of the mouth, silence of all desires and all thoughts, silence of labour and toil. Oh, how precious and how useful is a still and quiet spirit in the eyes of God !
" God is a Being, joyful, satisfied, and blessed. Let your spirit therefore be glad and satisfied. Avoid all anxious cares, all taking of offence, all murmuring and gloominess, which cloud the heart, and make it unfit for intercourse with God. Turn gently away when you perceive any of these things likely to beset you. Let the world and passing things be strange and foreign to your heart ; but let it be at home with God, in the intimacy of love. Be as strict as you will with yourself, and your evil passions and self-love and self-will ; but with God be free as a loving child with a Father, confiding restfully in Him, seeing in Him the Friend of your innermost heart, and imagining in Him nothing but perfect love.
" Let things around you all go to pieces. Let your body bear the cross and pain and weariness. Let your soul be sorrowful and barren. But let the spirit be untouched by all these things, still and glad, dwelling above the clouds and mists of lower things, satisfied and at peace with God within, and His will without.
" I would give you some advice which is important as to all this. First, since outward things and needful business are apt to distract the heart when it is still unpracticed in communion with God, it will be good and useful for you purposely to set apart a little time now and then during the day, when you may shut your eyes to the things that are seen, and shut out from your heart all worldly business, and collect yourself in the presence of God, each one as often as his circumstances will allow.
"And, secondly, above all things bear in mind that all is of grace, and not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth. Therefore we must not imagine that by our own diligent striving and racking of our brains we shall find and see God. Our part in drawing near to God can be only an inward, gentle, still, and peaceful yielding or bending of our will, our love, and our heart, the force being in the working of God, in the hidden drawing of His love, which we must take notice of and follow in simplicity of heart, all our own working being still and silent.
" When we perceive that the Lord would raise us up to Himself, or collect our thoughts, or still us and soothe us ; or when we feel the deep blessedness, the childlike fear, which marks His presence with us, then we should yield ourselves up fearlessly to His mighty working, and be still, and welcome Him, in all simplicity, into the seclusion of our hearts.
" Thou wouldst thus, as time goes on, make the experience that thou hast not only an outward man, with body, senses, and reason, a man belonging to this present time and to outward surroundings ; but an inward man, a spirit of high nobility, whose home and birthplace are in eternity, and having faculties and powers to see and to enjoy God and eternal things, to be satisfied completely, to be at peace in the gladness and the rest of God.
"Thy love, thy heart, all the fervour of thy longings and desires, would at last (and this is the end and purpose of our creation and redemption) be emptied of all else ; and the heavenly delight, the immeasurable God, would be poured out into this measureless vessel, and fill it and possess it.
" To this everlasting love, this all-satisfying Being, thou wouldst cling with all the united powers of thy love and delight, with the tenderness of the innermost heart. As an innocent child embraces his well-beloved mother, and draws her to himself, so wouldst thou embrace the Eternal Love, and be embraced by Him with the blessed embrace of the everlasting arms. With this the bosom Friend of thy soul thou wouldst delight to sit alone, shut into the innermost chamber, the depths of thy heart far, very far, from all outward things, from all beside the Beloved.
" In this sweet solitude thou wouldst be satisfied from thyself (as it is written in Proverbs xiv. 14), because of the nearness of the all-satisfying joy. That is to say, thou wouldst be so perfectly satisfied, and filled and soothed alone with thy God, that thou wouldst not turn to give a moment's glance at all the glory and the riches and the pleasures of heaven or of earth. But filled with the glow of His mighty love, thou wouldst become gentle and loving and tender—thou wouldst thyself be love.
"In the light of God wouldst thou see light, even the truth itself ; and this light would be mirrored in the stillness of thy glad and peaceful soul. Thy face, without shame or fear, would meet the blessed, unveiled face of thy God. His eyes would meet thine eyes in the fulness of the depths of love, God and the soul redeemed rejoicing together in that tenderest embrace. As a little child thou wouldst look into His face with joy, with the unquestioning eyes of innocent love; and His eyes would rest upon thee as the eyes of a tender mother who delights herself in her child ; and thus it is that all the soul is sanctified, and we are changed from glory to glory by beholding Him.
" Thus wouldst thou have thy mind and memory filled to the full with the purest and the deepest joy and peace. All thy delight, thy joy and blessedness, would be in God ; and His delight and pleasure would be in thee. He would dwell in thee and rest in thee, as on His throne of peace and stillness ; and thy spirit, that had wandered so long as a homeless orphan in strange lands, would sweetly rest at last in its own home and resting-place, and lie down on the bosom of the Father in untroubled peace, hidden far from all strife and turmoil in the still eternity of God.
"In this immeasurable, this boundless land of peace, thou wouldst dwell untouched and untroubled by the stormy winds of the old passions and desires, far withdrawn from all disturbing joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, which rave outside the haven of perfect peace.
" Be not, therefore, so foolish, so perverse, 0 glorious creature, made after the image of the eternal God, in making thy royal—I will not say, divine—spirit, with its glorious faculties, the degraded slave of the small and poor and empty things of this passing world ; of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. For it was for this God sent His Son, to redeem thee from such slavery, and to bring thee into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.
" Think that, according to thy noblest faculties, thou art a child of eternity ! God Himself the Father and the Fatherland of His redeemed. There is thy city and thy home ; the world a place of exile ; thy body a prison and a dungeon. Wilt thou not open the door at which the King, the Lord of hosts, is knocking, that He may come in, and abide for ever in His glory and His love ?"
If it touches our hearts to read the message of love sent by God to His enemies—" Christ died for the ungodly "—is it not yet more touching to read in His word, and to hear from the mouth of His servants, His message to His own children who had lost even the need of communion with Him ? How few were there then—are more to be found now ?—who having drawn near to the great altar of sacrifice, were even aware of the holy place, and the most holy place beyond it — the holy place into which the priest-worshippers might enter, and the holiest into which the High Priest entered alone ; but now no more alone, for His own are one with Him.
It is to be remembered, in reading Tersteegen's words, that he was not describing to lost sinners how they might be brought near to God ; but his message was to the dim-sighted, lukewarm believer, who was content to know his sins forgiven, and to set out on a course of good works having man for their object, whilst the heart of God remained an unexplored, an unknown land. But the need of the heart of God is not satisfied without communion with His own, though their hearts so little know the need of communion with Him. Far and near were many guided by Tersteegen to the secret place of the Most High, and they found there strength and guidance for their outward service.