The Pursuit of God

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The Pursuit of God

as works of Tozer are of this variety. Their contents, while interesting, tend not to be organized around clear themes. A large number of Tozer’s sermons were recorded, and are now available in audio form online free of charge. It is a remarkable experience to be able to listen to Tozer’s live sermon delivery so many years after his death. These may be found at http://sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/ viewcat.php?cid=6. Tozer repeatedly offered lists of Christian mystical writings and writers that he had found personally helpful. His favorite mystics included Nicholas of Cusa, François Fénelon, and Gerhard Tersteegen. 1 Many of their classic writings are readily available today in highly readable translations, most notably in the Classics of Western Spirituality series. But if there is one classic that embodies the very best of evangelical Protestant mysticism, and the themes that were most dear to Tozer, it is almost certainly The Life of God in the Soul of Man (London, 1677), written by a youthful Scottish Puritan by the name of Henry Scougal. His little book later shaped the spiritual lives of a number of prominent evangelical leaders of the eighteenth-century Great Awakening. The evangelist George Whitefield, for example, claimed that it had introduced him to what true religion was all about. It seems more than coincidence, then, that Tozer would write in The Pursuit of God that the exaltation of God over self “is central in the lifeofGod in the soul.”Thisphrasing suggests that Tozer was likely aware of, and appreciated, this little classic of evangelical Protestant mysticism. 2

1 Tozer, The Divine Conquest , 13. 2 Admittedly, it is curious that this particular book’s title is not to be found in any of Tozer’s lists of recommended resources.