_En Route_ and _La Cathédrale_. The naked Fetishism of the latter book
almost passes belief. We have a Madonna who is good-natured at Lourdes
and cross-grained at La Salette; who likes "pretty speeches and little
coaxing ways" in "paying court" to her, and who at the end is
apostrophised as "our Lady of the Pillar," "our Lady of the Crypt." It
may perhaps be excusable to resort to such expedients as these in the
conversion of savages; but there is something singularly repulsive in
the picture (drawn apparently from life) of a profligate man of
letters seeking salvation in a Christianity which has lowered itself
far beneath educated paganism. At any rate, let not the name of
Mysticism be given to such methods.]
[Footnote 333: I refer especially to the horrors connected with the
belief in witchcraft, on which see Lecky, _Rationalism in Europe_,
vol. i. "Remy, a judge of Nancy, boasted that he had put to death
eight hundred witches in sixteen years." "In the bishopric of
Wartzburg, nine hundred were burnt in one year." As late as 1850, some
French peasants burnt alive a woman named Bedouret, whom they supposed
to be a witch.]
[Footnote 334: The degradation of Mysticism in the Roman Church since
the Reformation may be estimated by comparing the definitions of
Mysticism and Mystical Theology current in the Middle Ages with the
following from Ribet, who is recognised as a standard authority on the
subject: "La Theologie mystique, au point de vue subjectif et
experimental, nous semble pouvoir être définie; une attraction
surnaturelle et passive de l'âme vers Dieu, provenant d'une
illumination et d'un embrasement intérieurs, qui préviennent la
réflexion, surpassent l'effort humain, _et peuvent avoir sur le corps
un retentissement merveilleux et irresistible_." "Au point de vue
doctrinal et objectif, la mystique peut se définir: la science qui
traite _des phénomènes surnaturels_, soit intimes, _soit extérieurs_,
qui preparent, accompagnent, et suivent la contemplation divine." The
time is past, if it ever existed, when such superstitions could be
believed without grave injury to mental and moral health.]
[Footnote 335: This language about the teaching of the Roman Church
may be considered unseemly by those who have not studied the subject.
Those who have done so will think it hardly strong enough. In
self-defence, I will quote one sentence from Schram, whose work on
"Mysticism" is considered authoritative, and is studied in the great
Catholic university of Louvain: "Quæri potest utrum dæmon per turpem
concubitum possit violenter opprimere marem vel feminam cuius obsessio
permissa sit ob finem perfectionis et contemplationis acquirendæ." The
answer is in the affirmative, and the evidence is such as could hardly
be transcribed, even in Latin. Schram's book is mainly intended for
the direction of confessing priests, and the evidence shows, as might
have been expected, that the subjects of these "phenomena" are
generally poor nuns suffering from hysteria.]
[Footnote 336: At a time when many are hoping to find in the study of
the obscurer psychical phenomena a breach in the "middle wall of
partition" between the spiritual and material worlds, I may seem to
have brushed aside too contemptuously the floating mass of popular
beliefs which "spiritualists" think worthy of serious investigation. I
must therefore be allowed to say that in my opinion psychical research
has already established results of great value, especially in helping
to break down that view of the _imperviousness_ of the ego which is
fatal to Mysticism, and (I venture to think) to any consistent
philosophy. Monadism, we may hope, is doomed. But the more popular
kind of spiritualism is simply the old hankering after supernatural
manifestations, which are always dear to semi-regenerate minds.]
[Footnote 337: It is, I think, significant that the word "imagination"
was slow in making its way into psychology. [Greek: Phantasia] is
defined by Aristotle (_de Anima_, iii. 3) as [Greek: kinêsis hypo tês
aisthêseôs tês kat energeian gignomenê], but it is not till
Philostratus that the creative imagination is opposed to [Greek:
mimêsis]. Cf. _Vit. Apoll._ vi. 19, [Greek: mimêsis men
dêmiourgêsei ho eiden, phantasia de kai ho mê eiden].]
[Footnote 338: Reuchlin, _De arte cabbalistica_: "Est enim Cabbala
divinæ revelationis ad salutiferam Dei et formarum separatarum
contemplationem traditæ symbolica receptio, quam qui coelesti
sortiumtur afflatu recto nomine Cabbalici dicuntur, eorum vero
discipulos cognomento Cabbalæos appellabimus, et qui alioquin eos
imitari conantur, Cabbalistæ nominandi sunt."]
[Footnote 339: The mystical Rabbis ascribe the Cabbala to the angel
Razael, the reputed teacher of Adam in Paradise, and say that this
angel gave Adam the Cabbala as his lesson-book. There is a clear and
succinct account of the main Cabbalistic docrines in Hunt, _Pantheism
and Christianity_, pp. 84-88.]
[Footnote 340: But the notion that the deepest mysteries should not be
entrusted to writing is found in Clement and Origen; cf. Origen,
_Against Celsus_, vi. 26: [Greek: ouk akindynon tên tôn toioutôn
saphêneian pisteusai graphê]. And Clement says: [Greek: ta aporrêta,
kathaper ho theos, logô pisteuetai ou grammati]. The curious legend of
an oral tradition also appears in Clement (_Hypolyp. Fragm._ in
Eusebius, _H.E._ ii. I. 4): [Greek: Iakôbô tô dikaiô kai Iôanê kai
Petrô meta tên anastasin paredôke tên gnôsin ho kyrios, outoi tois
loipois apostolois paredôkan, oi de loipoi apostoloi tois
hebdomêkonta, ôn eis ên kai Barnabas.] Origen, too, speaks of "things
spoken in private to the disciples."]
[Footnote 341: The following extract from Pico's _Apology_ may be
interesting, as illustrating the close connexion between magic and
science at this period: "One of the chief charges against me is that I
am a magician. Have I not myself distinguished two kinds of magic?
One, which the Greeks call [Greek: goêteia], depends entirely on alliance
with evil spirits, and deserves to be regarded with horror, and to be
punished; the other is magic in the proper sense of the word. The
former subjects man to the evil spirits, the latter makes them serve
him. The former is neither an art nor a science; the latter embraces
the deepest mysteries, and the knowledge of the whole of Nature with
her powers. While it connects and combines the forces scattered by God
through the whole world, it does not so much work miracles as come to
the help of working nature. Its researches into the sympathies of
things enable it to bring to light hidden marvels from the secret
treasure-houses of the world, just as if it created them itself. As
the countryman trains the vine upon the elm, so the magician marries
the earthly objects to heavenly bodies. His art is beneficial and
Godlike, for it brings men to wonder at the works of God, than which
nothing conduces more to true religion."]
[Footnote 342: This was a very old theory. Cf. Lecky, _Rationalism in
Europe_, vol. i. p. 264. "The _Clavis_ of St. Melito, who was bishop
of Sardis, it is said, in the beginning of the second century,
consists of a catalogue of many hundreds of birds, beasts, plants, and
minerals that were symbolical of Christian virtues, doctrines, and
personages."]
[Footnote 343: The analogy between allegorism in religion and the
hieroglyphic writing is drawn out by Clement, _Strom._ v. 4 and 7.]
[Footnote 344: The distinction, however, would be unintelligible to
the savage mind. To primitive man a _name_ is a symbol in the
strictest sense. Hence, "the knowledge, invocation, and vain
repetition of a deity's name constitutes in itself an actual, if
mystic, union with the deity named" (Jevons, _Introduction to the
History of Religion_, p. 245). This was one of the chief reasons for
making a secret of the cultus, and even of the name of a patron-deity.
To reveal it was to admit strangers into the tutelage of the national
god.]
[Footnote 345: I do not find it possible to give a more honourable
place than this to a system of biblical exegesis which has still a few
defenders. It was first developed in Christian times by the Gnostics,
and was eagerly adopted by Origen, who fearlessly applied it to the
Gospels, teaching that "Christ's actions on earth were enigmas
([Greek: ainigmata]), to be interpreted by Gnosis." The method was
often found useful in dealing with moral and scientific difficulties
in the Old Testament; it enabled Dionysius to use very bold language
about the literal meaning, as I showed in Lecture III. The Christian
Platonists of Alexandria meant it to be an esoteric method: Clement
calls it [Greek: symbolikôs philosophein]. It was held that [Greek: ta
mystêria mystikôs paradidotai]; and even that Divine truths are
honoured by enigmatic treatment ([Greek: hê krypsis hê mystikê
semnopoiei to theion]). But the main use of allegorism was pietistic;
and to this there can be no objection, unless the piety is morbid, as
is the case in many commentaries on the Song of Solomon. Still, it can
hardly be disputed that the countless books written to elaborate the
principles of allegorism contain a mass of futility such as it would
be difficult to match in any other class of literature. The best
defence of the method is perhaps to be found in Keble's Tract (No. 89)
on the "Mysticism" of the early Fathers. Keble's own poetry contains
many beautiful examples of the true use of symbolism; but as an
apologist of allegorism he does not distinguish between its use and
abuse. Yet surely there is a vast difference between seeing in the
"glorious sky embracing all" a type of "our Maker's love," and
analysing the 153 fish caught in the Sea of Galilee into the square of
the 12 Apostles + the square of the 3 Persons of the Trinity.
The history of the doctrine of "signatures," which is the cryptogram
theory applied to medicine, is very curious and interesting, "Citrons,
according to Paracelsus, are good for heart affections, because they
are heart-shaped; the _saphena riparum_ is to be applied to fresh
wounds, because its leaves are spotted as with flecks of blood. A
species of _dentaria_, whose roots resemble teeth, is a cure for
toothache and scurvy."--Vaughan, _Hours with the Mystics_, vol. ii. p.
77. It is said that some traces of this quaint superstition survive
even in the modern materia medica. The alliance between medicine and
Mysticism subsisted for a long time, and forms a curious chapter of
history.]
[Footnote 346: Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim, a contemporary of
Reuchlin, studied Cabbalism mainly as a magical science. He was
nominally a Catholic, but attacked Rome and scholasticism quite in the
spirit of Luther. His three chief works are, _On the Threefold Way of
Knowing God, On the Vanity of Arts and Sciences_ (a ferocious attack
on most of the professions), and _On Occult Philosophy_ (treating of
natural, celestial, and religious magic). The "magician," he says,
"must study three sciences--physics, mathematics, and theology."
Agrippa's adventurous life ended in 1533.]
[Footnote 347: Theophrastus Paracelsus (Philippus Bombastus von
Hohenheim) was born in 1493, and died in 1541. His writings are a
curious mixture of theosophy and medical science: "medicine," he
taught, "has four pillars--philosophy, astronomy (or rather
astrology), alchemy, and religion." He lays great stress on the
doctrine that man is a microcosm, and on the law of Divine
manifestation _by contraries_--the latter is a new feature which was
further developed by Böhme.]
[Footnote 348: "I saw," he says, "the Being of all Beings, the Ground
and the Abyss; also, the birth of the Holy Trinity; the origin and
first state of the world and of all creatures. I saw in myself the
three worlds--the Divine or angelic world; the dark world, the
original of Nature; and the external world, as a substance spoken
forth out of the two spiritual worlds.... In my inward man I saw it
well, as in a great deep; for I saw right through as into a chaos
where everything lay wrapped, but I could not unfold it. Yet from time
to time it opened itself within me, like a growing plant. For twelve
years I carried it about within me, before I could bring it forth in
any external form; till afterwards it fell upon me, like a bursting
shower that killeth wheresoever it lighteth, as it will. Whatever I
could bring into outwardness, that I wrote down. The work is none of
mine; I am but the Lord's instrument, wherewith He doeth what He
will."]
[Footnote 349: This is from Bp. Warburton. "Sublime nonsense,
inimitable bombast, fustian not to be paralleled," is John Wesley's
verdict.]
[Footnote 350: See Overton, _Life of William Law_, p. 188.]
[Footnote 351: I have omitted Böhme's gnostical theories as to the
seven _Quellgeister_ as belonging rather to theosophy than to
Mysticism. The resemblance to Basilides is here rather striking, but
it must be a pure coincidence.]
[Footnote 352: And of English Mysticism before the Reformation; cf. p.
208.]
[Footnote 353: From the _Spirit of Prayer_. The sect of Behmenists in
Germany, unlike Law, attended no church, and took no part in the
Lord's Supper.--Overton, _Life of William Law_, p. 214.]
[Footnote 354: This stimulating doctrine, that the soul, when freed
from impediments, ascends naturally and inevitably to its "own place,"
is put into the mouth of Beatrice by Dante (_Paradiso_, i. 136)--
"Non dei più ammirar, se bene stimo,
Lo tuo salir, se non come d'un rivo
Se d'alto monte scende giuso ad imo.
Maraviglia sarebbe in te, se privo
D'impedimento giu ti fossi assiso,
Com' a terra quieto fuoco vivo.
Quinci rivolce inver lo cielo il viso." ]
[Footnote 355: It may be interesting to compare the following passage
from George Fox, which dramatises the irruption of natural science,
with its faith in fixed laws, into the sphere of the religious
consciousness:--"One morning, while I was sitting by the fire, a great
cloud came over me, a temptation beset me; and I sat still. It was
said, _All things come by Nature_; and the elements and stars came
over me, so that I was in a manner quite clouded by it. And as I sat
still under it and let it alone, a living hope and a true voice arose
in me, which said, _There is a living God who made all things_.
Immediately the cloud and temptation vanished away, and life rose over
it all; my heart was glad, and I praised the living God."]
[Footnote 356: So we may fairly say, if we remember that we are
speaking of what transcends time. Neither Böhme nor Law looks forward
to a golden age on this earth.]
[Footnote 357: Henry More's judgment is as follows: "Jacob Behmen, I
conceive, is to be reckoned in the number of those whose imaginative
faculty has the pre-eminence above the rational; and though he was a
good and holy man, his natural complexion, notwithstanding, was not
destroyed, but retained its property still; and, therefore, his
imagination being very busy about Divine things, he could not without
a miracle fail of becoming an enthusiast, and of receiving Divine
truths upon the account of the strength and vigour of his fancy;
which, being so well qualified with holiness and sanctity, proved not
unsuccessful in sundry apprehensions, but in others it fared with him
after the manner of men, the sagacity of his imagination failing him,
as well as the anxiety of reason does others of like integrity with
himself."]
[Footnote 358: Canon G.G. Perry, in his _Students' English Church
History_, disposes of this noble group of men in one contemptuous
paragraph, as a "class of divines who were neither Puritans nor High
Churchmen," and makes the astounding statement that "to the school
thus commenced, the deadness, carelessness, and indifference prevalent
in the eighteenth century are in large measure to be attributed." It
is of these very same men that Bishop Burnet writes, that if they had
not appeared to combat the "laziness and negligence," the "ease and
sloth" of the Restoration clergy, "the Church had quite lost her
esteem over the nation." Alexander Knox (_Works_, vol. iii. p. 199)
speaks of the rise of this school as a great instance of the design
of Providence to supply to the Church what had never before been
produced, writers who do "full honour at once to the elevation and the
rationality of Christian piety.... In their writings we are invited to
ascend, by having a prospect opened before us as luminous as it is
sublime.... They are such writers as had never before existed.... No
Church but the English Church could have produced them." Of John Smith
he says, "My value for him is beyond what words can do justice to."
The works of Whichcote, Smith, Cudworth, and Culverwel are happily
accessible enough, and I beg my readers to study them at first hand. I
do not believe that any Christian could rise from the perusal of the
two first-named without having gained a lasting benefit in the
deepening of his spiritual life and heightening of his faith.]
[Footnote 359: A writer who signs himself S.P. (probably Simon
Patrick, bishop of Ely), in a pamphlet called _A Brief Account of the
new Sect of Latitude Men_ (1662), vindicates their attachment to the
"virtuous mediocrity" of the Church of England, as distinguished from
the "meretricious gaudiness of the Church of Rome, and the squalid
sluttery of fanatic conventicles."]
[Footnote 360: Compare with these extracts the words of Leibnitz: "To
despise reason in matters of religion is to my eyes certain proof
either of an obstinacy that borders on fanaticism, or, what is worse,
of hypocrisy."]
[Footnote 361: See Appendix C.]
[Footnote 362: The classical reader will be reminded of Lucretius,
iii. 979-1036. Smith, however, would not have relished this
comparison. He devotes part of one sermon to a refutation of the
Epicurean poet, in whom he sees a precursor of his _bête noire_,
Hobbes!]
[Footnote 363: Compare with this the following passage of Jean de
Labadie (1610-1674), the founder of a mystical school on the
Continent: "Plusieurs sont bien aises d'ouyr dire qu'ils sont
justifiés par Jesus-Christ, lavés de leurs péchés en son sang par la
foí, par la repentance et par le baptême chrestien, et volontiers ils
I'embrasent comme Justificateur, comme crucifié et mort pour eux; mais
peu prennent part à sa croix, à sa mort, pour se faire spirituellement
mourir avec Luy, crucifier leur chair avec la sienne, et porter en
eux-mêmes les vives marques de sa croix et de sa mort. Peu le goutent
comme Justificateur au dedans par l'Esprit consacrant et immolant le
vieil homme à Dieu et par une pratique vraiment sainte, laquelle
dompte le péché."]
LECTURE VIII
"For nothing worthy proving can be proven,
Nor yet disproven; wherefore thou be wise,
Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt,
And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith!
She reels not in the storm of warring words,
She brightens at the clash of Yes and No,
She sees the Best that glimmers through the Worst,
She feels the sun is hid but for a night,
She spies the summer thro' the winter bud,
She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls,
She hears the lark within the songless egg,
She finds the fountain where they wail'd 'Mirage!'"
TENNYSON, _The Ancient Sage_.
"Of true religions there are only two: one of them recognises and
worships the Holy that without form or shape dwells in and around us;
and the other recognises and worships it in its fairest form.
Everything that lies between these two is idolatry."
GOETHE.
"My wish is that I may perceive the God whom I find everywhere in the
external world, in like manner within and inside me."
KEPLER.
"Getrost, das Leben schreitet
Zum ew'gen Leben hin;
Von innrer Gluth geweitet
Verklärt sich unser Sinn.
Die Sternwelt wird zerfliessen
Zum goldnen Lebenswein,
Wir werden sie geniessen
Und lichte Sterne sein.
"Die Lieb' ist freigegeben
Und keine Trennung mehr
Es wogt das volle Leben
Wie ein unendlich Meer.
Nur eine Nacht der Wonne,
Ein ewiges Gedicht!
Und unser Aller Sonne
Ist Gottes Angesicht."
NOVALIS.
NATURE-MYSTICISM--_continued_
"The invisible things of Him since the creation of the world are
clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made, even
His everlasting power and Divinity."--ROM. i. 20.
In my last Lecture I showed how the later Mysticism emancipated itself
from the mischievous doctrine that the spiritual eye can only see when
the eye of sense is closed. After the Reformation period the mystic
tries to look with both eyes; his aim is to see God in all things, as
well as all things in God. He returns with better resources to the
task of the primitive religions, and tries to find spiritual law in
the natural world. It is true that a strange crop of superstitions,
the seeds of which had been sown long before, sprang up to mock his
hopes. In necromancy, astrology, alchemy, palmistry, table-turning,
and other delusions, we have what some count the essence, and others
the reproach, of Mysticism. But these are, strictly speaking,
scientific and not religious errors. From the standpoint of religion
and philosophy, the important change is that, in the belief of these
later mystics, the natural and the spiritual are, somehow or other, to
be reconciled; the external world is no longer regarded as a place of
exile from God, or as a delusive appearance; it is the living vesture
of the Deity; and its "discordant harmony,[364]" though "for the many
it needs interpreters,[365]" yet "has a voice for the wise" which
speaks of things behind the veil. The glory of God is no longer
figured as a blinding white light in which all colours are combined
and lost; but is seen as a "many-coloured wisdom[366]" which shines
everywhere, its varied hues appearing not only in the sanctuary of the
lonely soul, but in all the wonders that science can discover, and all
the beauties that art can interpret. Dualism, with the harsh
asceticism which belongs to it, has given way to a brighter and more
hopeful philosophy; men's outlook upon the world is more intelligent,
more trustful, and more genial; only for those who perversely seek to
impose the ethics of selfish individualism upon a world which obeys no
such law, science has in reserve a blacker pessimism than ever brooded
over the ascetic of the cloister.
We shall not meet, in this chapter, any finer examples of the
Christian mystic than John Smith and William Law. But these men, and
their intellectual kinsmen, were far from exhausting the treasure of
Nature-Mysticism. The Cambridge Platonists, indeed, somewhat
undervalued the religious lessons of Nature. They were scholars and
divines, and what lay nearest their heart was the consecration of the
reason--that is, of the whole personality under the guidance of its
highest faculty--to the service of truth and goodness. And Law, in his
later years, was too much under the influence of Böhme's fantastic
theosophy to bring to Nature that childlike spirit which can best
learn her lessons.
The Divine in Nature has hitherto been discerned more fully by the
poet than by the theologian or the naturalist; and in this concluding
Lecture I must deal chiefly with Christian poetry. The attitude
towards Nature which we have now to consider is more contemplative
than practical; it studies analogies in order to _know_ the unseen
powers which surround us, and has no desire to bend them or make them
its instruments.
Our Lord's precept, "Consider the lilies," sanctions this religious
use of Nature; and many of His parables, such as that of the Sower,
show us how much we may learn from such analogies. And be it observed
that it is the normal and regular in Nature which in these parables is
presented for our study; the yearly harvest, not the three years'
famine; the constant care and justice of God, not the "special
providence" or the "special judgment." We need not wait for
catastrophes to trace the finger of God. As for Christian poetry and
art, we do not expect to find any theory of æsthetic in the New
Testament; but we may perhaps extract from the precept quoted above
the canon that the highest beauty that we can discern resides in the
real and natural, and only demands the seeing eye to find it.