MYSTICISM AND QUIETISM.[4]
In order that we may properly apprehend the next period in Fénelon's
life it is absolutely essential for us to take a survey of the general
subject of Mysticism, for with that he became now very intimately
concerned. And, happily, it is a subject of perennial importance, having
no less close connection with the present day than with the centuries
past. Indeed the present age has in some respects very special need of
just this element. It is a commercial, materialistic, money-grabbing
age, devoted to the outward and the practical; it is a time when the
triumphs of machinery and invention and industrial progress are sounded
as never before--an extremely busy, bustling time of immense external
activity, when man hastens to get rich and rushes through life at
railroad speed, scarcely finding leisure so much as to eat, much less
for the quiet contemplation of the things of the spirit. And it is the
contemplative, interior, spirit-filled life with which Mysticism has
pre-eminently to do.
The term, it is true, has come to be widely regarded with suspicion, and
used, more or less vaguely, as a word of reproach. With many, perhaps
with most, it carries an unpleasant, offensive suggestion. Its
associations in their minds are with that which is misty or recondite,
visionary and unintelligible; also with that which is fanatical,
extravagant, unreasonable, and somewhat dangerous. That there is some
ground for this impression can not be denied, because under the general
name of Mysticism much has been included, in the long sweep of the
centuries, which can not be admired or defended; much which does not
commend itself to that level-headed common sense according to whose
dictates we like to think that our religion can be and should be
squared. But we are persuaded that this extreme objectionable
development, or manifestation, of the Mystic spirit has been much less
frequent than is commonly supposed, and has no sufficient claim to be
identified with it in the public mind anywhere near as largely as it
usually is. There is a true Mysticism, and a false Mysticism. There are
Mystics every way worthy of highest honor, and there are those not at
all points deserving imitation. It surely is a mistake to lay the chief
stress on the latter, as is so frequently done, and thus to stamp a
stigma upon all. Christian Mysticism is something of which no one can
afford to be ignorant. The Church which neglects it or despises it,
whether through misapprehension or some less honorable cause, is certain
to be a large loser.
What is Mysticism? As has been pointed out by several, it is something
which from its very nature is hardly susceptible of exact definition,
does not readily lend itself to the most precise forms of language. It
is a phase of thought or feeling which continually appears in connection
with the endeavor of the human mind to grasp the Divine essence, and to
enjoy the blessedness of actual communion with the Highest. It springs
inevitably from intense desire for intimate fellowship with God, from
the hottest possible pursuit of the highest ideals. It is a sort of name
for the realization of God as transfused throughout the universe, as
being immanent in material things and in mankind alike. The Century
Dictionary defines Mysticism as "any mode of thought or phase of
intellectual or religious life in which reliance is placed upon a
spiritual illumination believed to transcend the ordinary powers of
understanding." The Standard Dictionary says that Mysticism is "the
doctrine and belief that man may attain to an immediate direct
consciousness or knowledge of God as the real and absolute principle of
all truth. The term is applied to a system of thought and life of which
the chief feature is an extreme development of meditative and intuitive
methods as distinguished from the definitive and scholastic." Similarly
Dr. J. P. Lange, in the Schaff-Herzog Cyclopedia, says: "Mysticism has
been defined as belief in an immediate and continuous communication
between God and the soul which may be established by certain peculiar
religious exercises.... There is a mystic element in all true religion."
Cousin says: "Mysticism is the belief that God may be known face to face
without anything intermediate. It is a yielding to the sentiment
awakened by the Infinite, and a summing up of all knowledge and all duty
in the contemplation and love of Him." Nitzsch, in his "System of
Christian Doctrine," declares "that the religious man, the man of faith,
is, as such, a Mystic; for he in whose consciousness God does not
appear, certainly does not feel God, nor can he know or honor Him; but
he who only thinks Him, without loving Him and becoming pure in heart,
can not know Him vitally; much less can he behold Him spiritually who
desires to see Him with the outward sense. The inner life of religion is
ever Mysticism."
This is why in all ages of the Church, when the outward has come to
usurp and absorb attention, when formalism and ceremonialism have
dominated the mind, when scholasticism has gained ascendency, and
especially when a corrupt looseness of morals has set in to degrade the
very ideals of humanity, there have been those who have arisen to make a
stand for a purer, more fervent, more spiritual type of piety. They have
met, of course, with bitter opposition; they have troubled those who did
not wish to be disturbed in their carnal indulgences or worldly
conformities, and they have had various uncomplimentary epithets thrown
at them: such as, Pietists, Quietists, Mystics, Puritans, Quakers, and
Methodists. They have been misrepresented in manifold ways. They have
been persecuted even unto the death. But they have been the salt of the
earth, and the succession has been kept up under one name or another
from the earliest days to the present. They have not always been endowed
with philosophic minds or skilled in the learning of the schools. They
have been keenly conscious of the difficulty, the impossibility, of
completely expressing, in imperfect human words, the deep things of God
revealed to them on the mounts of vision with which they have been
favored. They have struggled hard with the inadequacy of the only
language at their command, and have been driven to a liberal use of
figures of speech, some of them questionable in point of propriety. They
have had a cramped vocabulary, have made mistakes, have not found
themselves able to translate into intelligible terms all that was in
their minds. To mint the secrets of the interior life into the current
coin of language suited to the comprehension of common souls requires a
skill given to but few. And more especially have their expressions been
found unintelligible, or worse, by adversaries not qualified by any
experience to comprehend what it was all about. For, as St. Paul says (I
Cor. ii): "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of
God; for they are foolishness unto him, and he can not know them,
because they are spiritually judged. We speak wisdom among the perfect,
God's wisdom in a mystery, even a wisdom which hath been hidden, which
none of the rulers of this world knoweth. Which things also we speak,
not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth,
interpreting spiritual things to spiritual men." The adversaries were
also eager in many cases to remove out of the way those who, by their
purity of life and their opposition to priestly claims and gains, were
esteemed dangerous to the peace of the Church. We are confident that in
the main this is a fair interpretation of the course which events have
taken. Not but what some of the Mystics have really laid themselves open
to the complaints of their enemies. They have been unguarded in their
language, have been so carried away with ecstasy, as some new precious
truth has burst upon them, that they have stated it too strongly; have
not supplied the limitations and modifications and exceptions which
would have been well, which were necessary for a complete rounding out
of the statement; have taken for granted that the other side had been
sufficiently emphasized before, and that their special mission to
emphasize the neglected point would be recognized; hence they have said
things which, by strict construction and taken in bald literalness, were
not precisely true. All this can be granted without casting any serious
reflection either on their character or their doctrines. Their books
must be read with caution and discrimination. To persons not well
balanced they might sometimes be a source of peril. But this admission
is in no way incompatible with the assertion that they have conferred a
very great benefit upon mankind, that their doctrines, on the whole, are
sound, and that this generation could ill afford to overlook the good to
be obtained by careful studies in this direction.
The first Mystics were really St. John and St. Paul; and their words
have full justification in what they derived from their Divine Master.
Who more positively than the great Apostle to the Gentiles, "according
to the wisdom given unto him," preached a gospel that was foolishness to
some, but which he continually called the wisdom and the mystery of God;
a gospel which proclaims the Divine indwelling, we in Him and He in us,
our bodies the temples of the Holy Ghost, believers being "in Christ"
and "members one of another?" He was a man caught up into Paradise, and
hearing unspeakable words which it was not lawful or possible for a man
to utter. "I die daily," he said, "I have been crucified with Christ,
and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me;" "To me to
live is Christ;" "I have learned the secret, I can do all things in
Him;" "I fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of
Christ;" "Ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God;" "In Him we
live, and move, and have our being;" "The Spirit Himself beareth witness
with our spirit,"--and many other such like things there be, left on
record from his pen to show clearly that he was a true Mystic. Still
more, perhaps, do the Mystics look to St. John for complete
authorization of their position. His Gospel is the spiritual Gospel, the
charter of Christian Mysticism. It is he who tells us, "God is love,"
"God is light," "God is Spirit." The Divine union which he sets before
us is of the closest kind. "Our fellowship is with the Father, and with
His Son Jesus Christ;" "Ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye
know all things;" "The anointing which ye received of Him abideth in
you, and ye need not that any teach you;" "Hereby we know that He
abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us;" "He that believeth
on the Son of God hath the witness;" "He that dwelleth in love dwelleth
in God, and God in him," etc. It is impossible to quote a tithe of the
words in John's Epistles and Gospel which embody the fundamental ideas
of Mysticism. Especially do we find in the marvelous words of Jesus
reported by John alone, as by the one peculiarly fitted to formulate
them, in the thirteenth to the seventeenth chapters of his Gospel, the
seeds and roots of all which have been drawn forth by subsequent writers
on these profound themes.
Plato has been called "the Father of European Mysticism." Dr. Inge says:
"Both the great types of Mystics may appeal to him,--those who try to
rise through the visible to the invisible, through nature to God; and
those who look upon this earth as a place of banishment, upon material
things as a veil which hides God's face from us, and who bid us seek
yonder in the realm of ideas the heart's true home. Plato teaches that
the highest good is the greatest likeness to God; that the greatest
happiness is the vision of God; that we should seek holiness, not for
the sake of reward, but because it is the health of the soul, while vice
is its disease; that goodness is unity and harmony, while evil
disintegrates; that it is our duty to rise above the visible and
transitory to the invisible and permanent."
The Church has never lacked during its history for those who have
followed this line of thought and cultivated this kind of experience.
Clement of Alexandria has been called "the Founder of Christian
Mysticism," a Neoplatonist among the Fathers; followed by Dionysius the
Areopagite, and a lengthy line of successors, large among whom looms the
noble Bernard of Clairvaux, the glory of the twelfth century. Without
tracing out the story in detail it will be enough for our purpose to
refer briefly to those who, in the few centuries before Fénelon, stood
forth most prominently as leaders in this realm of truth, and so
prepared the way for him.
In the fourteenth century we find a most remarkable band of devout
believers who called themselves "Friends of God," to signify that they
had reached that stage of Christian life when Christ, according to His
promise, would call them "no longer servants but friends." They were
composed of persons from all classes of society, and from all the
religious orders. Most prominent among these were Master Eckhart--styled
"Doctor Ecstaticus"--vicar-general of the Dominican order, a man of
uncommon purity of life and great excellence of character, one of the
profound thinkers of the Middle Ages; Henry Suso, who has been called
"the Minnesinger of Divine Love," and who was wont to say, "A man of
true self-abandonment must be _un_built from the creature, _in_built
with Christ, and _over_built into the Godhead" (he was prior of the
Dominican convent at Ulm, where he died in 1365); Nicholas of Basle; and
John Tauler. Nicholas was a layman who wielded a powerful pen and was
also a great preacher; thoroughly devoted to religion from his earliest
days. He traveled much through Germany, propagating his opinions in a
quiet, unostentatious manner, and gradually there grew up around him a
society of Christians composed of men and women likeminded with himself,
who loved to honor him as their spiritual father. It seems to have been
largely his personal influence which held them together, for they fell
to pieces after he was burned at the stake for heresy, near Poitiers,
about 1382.
John Tauler--"Doctor Illuminatus"--born at Strasburg, 1290, and dying
there in 1361, was still more distinguished, although indebted to
Nicholas for being led out into the light. This took place when he was
over fifty years of age. Nicholas, coming to Strasburg to hear the
famous preacher, speedily detected his deficiency in spiritual
experience, and the lack of true power attending the Word on this
account. With rare humility, Tauler, a learned theologian, received this
rebuke from the uneducated layman, and so profited by it that he was
able, though not without long struggle, to enter into complete freedom.
Then he preached in a very different manner, and the first time he
opened his mouth in public fourteen persons fell as if dead under the
Word, and nearly thirty others were so deeply moved that they remained
sitting in the churchyard long after the congregation was dismissed,
unwilling to move away. For eighteen years after this second conversion
he made great progress in the divine life, rising to a place of highest
esteem with his brethren, and being rightly reckoned among the chief of
God's children on earth.
Properly to be counted among these Friends of God can be set down the
unknown author of "Deutsche Theologie," or "Theologia Germanica," which
contained so much truth that it had the distinguished honor of being put
upon the Romish Index of prohibited works. Luther ascribed it to Tauler.
It is in his style, and contains his sentiments; but it is now
considered more probable that it originated a little later than his
time, and was written by some other member of the band. It was their
usual practice to conceal their names as much as possible when they
wrote, lest a desire for fame should mingle in their endeavors to be
useful. Luther placed it next to the Bible and St. Augustine as a source
of knowledge concerning God and Christ and man. Baron Bunsen ranks it
still higher. And many others have expressed their supreme indebtedness
to it for help in respect to the perfect life. It has continued up to
the present day to be the favorite handbook of devotion in Germany.
Concerning the views and doctrines of these Friends of God, although
some of their expressions and opinions may be objected to, considering
the corrupt age in which they lived they must be pronounced worthy of
high praise. They insisted, first of all, on the uttermost
self-renunciation, yet they avoided the system of penances and
austerities common in the monasteries. Neither idle contemplation nor
passive asceticism found favor with them; they were evangelical and
practical, full of good works and the imitation of Christ both in
patient suffering and active usefulness. They were animated by an
exalted reformatory spirit which threw them out of touch with the
ecclesiastics around them. Though they did not in all cases fall under
the ban of the Church, they may still be regarded as forerunners of the
Reformation. Their Mysticism was a powerful protest against the terrible
corruptions of the Romish Church and the cold, barren speculations of
scholasticism. They craved and secured direct communion with God,
unrestricted by human interposition; an immediate vision of the
Almighty, undimmed by any separating veil and unchanged by any
distorting medium. The highest form of the Divine life in a man seemed
to them to be perfect resignation to the will of God, and they counted
prayer to be the best means of bringing about this state of resignation.
"To pray for a change in one's circumstances," they said, "is to pray
that what God sends may be made subject to us, not that we should submit
ourselves to it; and so tends to produce self-assertion, not
self-renunciation." Nicholas taught that "when self-renunciation is
complete, the soul of man, having become entirely resigned to the Divine
will, becomes so entirely assimilated to the Divine nature that it has
continually a near fellowship with God; he is always in familiar
intercourse with the Spirit of God, who communicates to him all Divine
knowledge." "All things to the beloved are of God; all, therefore, are
indifferent." That religion which sprang from fear of punishment or hope
of reward they counted of little worth, and considered love to be by far
the highest state, the only one truly worthy of the Christian.[5] Their
union with Deity was not that of pantheism but of passionate love, and
great prominence was given to the will as the mainspring on which all
developments of the higher life depend.
The following quotations from "Theologia Germanica" will convey in a few
words what may be called the root ideas of the book and of the men whose
spirit it so well embodies:
"A true lover of God loveth Him alike in having and in not having, in
sweetness and in bitterness, in good or evil report; for he seeketh only
the honor of God, and not his own, either in spiritual or natural
things. Therefore he standeth alike unshaken in all things."
"All disobedience is contrary to God, and nothing else. In truth, no
thing is contrary to God; no creature, nor creature's work, nor anything
that we can name or think of, is contrary to God or displeasing to Him,
but only disobedience and the disobedient man. In short, all that is, is
well-pleasing and good in God's eyes, saving only the disobedient man."
"The man who is truly godlike complaineth of nothing but of sin only.
And sin is simply to desire or will anything otherwise than the one
perfect good and the one eternal will, or to wish to have a will of
one's own."
"Sin is to will, desire, or love otherwise than God doth. Things do not
thus will, desire, or love: therefore things are not evil; all things
are good."
"He who is truly a virtuous man would not cease to be so to gain the
whole world; yea, he would rather die a miserable death. To him virtue
is its own reward, and he is content therewith, and would take no
treasure or riches in exchange for it."
"Union with God is brought to pass in three ways; to wit, by pureness
and singleness of heart, by love, and by the contemplation of God."
A still greater name among the Mystic writers, coming a bit later than
those already mentioned, is that of Thomas à Kempis, born near Cologne,
in this same West Germany where the Friends of God flourished, in 1386,
and dying about 1470. His "Imitation of Christ" stands easily at the
head of its class, first in popularity and usefulness among manuals for
devotion. "The epic poem of the inner life," it has lent the fragrance
of its sanctity to every language of the civilized world, and has been a
prime favorite for nearly five hundred years with all those who have
made largest advancement in holy things. Only a few extracts need be
given to show how closely it is in line with what has already been said,
and what remains to be said, concerning the topic of our chapter:
"When a man is so far advanced in the Christian life as not to seek
consolation from any created thing, then does he first begin perfectly
to enjoy God; his heart is wholly fixed and established in God who is
his All in All."
"There is no other occasion of perplexity and disquiet but an unsubdued
will and unmortified affections."
"Self-denial is the test of spiritual perfection, and he that truly
denies himself is arrived at a state of great freedom and safety. It is
no small advantage to suppress desire, even in inconsiderable
gratifications. Restless and inordinate desires are the ground of every
temptation."
"Abandon all, and thou shalt possess all; relinquish desire, and thou
shalt find rest."
"No evil is permitted to befall thee but what may be made productive of
a much greater good. Receive all with thankfulness, as from the hand of
God, and esteem it great gain."
"For all that befalleth me I will thank the Love that prompts the gift,
and reverence the Hand that confers it."
"O Lord God, holy Father, be Thou blessed now and forever! For whatever
Thou willest is done, and all that Thou willest is good."
"The righteous should never be moved by whatever befalls him, knowing
that it comes from the hands of God, and is to promote the important
business of our redemption. Without God, nothing is done upon the face
of the earth."
"Perfection consists in offering up thyself, with thy whole heart, to
the will of God; never seeking thine own will either in small or great
respects; but with an equal mind weighing all events in the balance of
the sanctuary, and receiving both prosperity and adversity with equal
thanksgiving."
"All is vanity but the love of God and a life devoted to His will."
Passing over St. Theresa and St. John of the Cross[6]--particulars about
whom may be found in Vaughan--and denying ourselves, through limitations
of space, all quotations from Rodriguez and Scupoli,[7] who flourished
in the sixteenth century, and wrote divinely about Divine things,
leaving the world heroic examples of holiness,--we come to St. Francis
of Sales and Molinos, both of whom had close connection with Fénelon,
although in different ways. Francis--born in 1567 and departing to glory
in 1622, who has been called "the noblest, tenderest and most devoted
Mystic of the Catholic Church after the Reformation"--more than any
other, was Fénelon's teacher in matters pertaining to the inner life,
even as Scupoli had been the teacher of Francis. Fénelon never wearies
of recommending to the correspondents whom he is instructing in
spiritual things the perusal of the works of this delightful and
inspiring writer. He says to one: "You can read nothing better than St.
Francis of Sales. Everything he writes is full of comfort and love;
although his whole tone is that of self-mortification, it is all deep
experience, simple precautions, high feeling, and the light of grace.
You will have made a great step when you are familiar with such mental
food." Upon another he urges "a half hour spent in meditative reading of
the Gospels in the morning, and an evening portion of St. Francis de
Sales." To the Elector of Cologne, when about to receive episcopal
consecration, he says, "Read the Life and Works of St. Francis de
Sales." We do not wonder at these counsels. The two men, the two
Francises, were entirely congenial, marvelously alike in heart and head,
with similar vivacity, urbanity, and grace of manner, polish of style,
profundity of insight into the soul, and practical knowledge of the
world. Both had high rank in State and Church, strong intellects,
intense devotion to God, and ability to express truth in a simple,
lucid, attractive way. They were alike in that the profound piety they
taught was not, as in the previous age, reserved for the cloister, but
was quite compatible with mingling in the world, requiring no great
change of habits, but an entire change of motive. Even the life at court
might be continued and graced with cheerful obedience to the whole will
of God; all the actions of the day could be sanctified by a perpetual
prayer offered up in their midst and by a sincere intention to please
God; the humble every-day virtues were extolled, and no austerities
recommended. Thus religion was made commensurate with the whole of life,
and the saint could join in all that others did, except sin. No
difference can be found in their doctrines, or even their forms of
expression, and it seems like an irony of fate that the Bishop of Geneva
should be canonized in 1665 by the same Church which condemned, in 1699,
the Archbishop of Cambrai. The fictitious and factitious reasons that
led to the latter will be detailed a little later.
Part of the reason is connected with the history and fate of Miguel de
Molinos, commonly esteemed to be the founder of the Quietists. He was a
Spanish theologian, born of noble parentage near Saragossa, December 21,
1627. He acquired a great reputation at Rome and elsewhere for purity of
life and vigor of intellect, but steadily refused all ecclesiastical
preferment. In 1675 he published his "Spiritual Guide," which in a few
years passed through twenty editions in different languages, and was
warmly hailed by people of marked piety in many lands. But it was soon
bitterly attacked, especially by the Jesuits, who quickly perceived that
Molinos' system tacitly accused the Romish Church of a departure from
the true religion, and that his whole doctrine would militate against
the power of the priesthood and the importance of ceremonialism.
Although he had a vast number of friends, some of them eminent for
learning and piety, and even high in worldly rank, and though the
pontiff himself, Innocent XI, was partial to him, he was, in 1685, cited
before the Inquisition and subjected to close examination as well as
rigid imprisonment. It is said that as many as twenty thousand letters
were found in his house, which, if true, shows the degree to which the
movement he headed had spread, and the hunger of great multitudes for
spiritual food. His trial lasted two years, and in 1687 sixty-eight
propositions, purporting to be extracted from his book, were condemned,
and he was declared to have taught false and dangerous dogmas contrary
to the doctrine of the Church. He was compelled to pass the remainder of
his life in the dungeons of the Inquisition, where he died, after many
years of close confinement, in which he exhibited the greatest humility
and peace of mind.
The principles of his book have been much misunderstood and
misrepresented. The following statement is believed to be substantially
correct. He taught that Christian perfection consists in the peace of
the soul, springing from a complete self-surrender into the hands of
God, in the renouncement of all external, temporal things, and in the
pure love of God free from all considerations of interest or hope of
reward. A soul which desires the supreme good must renounce all sensual
and material things, silence every impulse, and concentrate itself on
God. In a state of perfect contemplation the soul desires absolutely
nothing, not even its own salvation; it fears nothing, not even hell;
the one only feeling of which it is conscious is utter abandonment to
God's good will and pleasure; it is indifferent to all else; and nothing
which does not reach the will, where alone virtue resides, can really
pollute the soul. The system was termed Quietism, because it laid so
much stress upon inward quiet, passive contemplation, and silent prayer;
also upon freedom from hope and fear, the great agitators of the human
mind.
It is a very vulgar error to suppose that the Mystics taught abstention
from good works, or outward inactivity; for none were busier in blessing
their fellow-men, as the twenty thousand letters above mentioned might
indicate, as well as the ceaseless endeavors in this direction put forth
by Madame Guyon, Fénelon, and the rest. Mystics are not impracticable
dreamers; they have been in a very marked degree energetic and
influential. Their passivity simply meant a calm yet glad acceptance of
all God's dispensations. They were also abundantly active in the highest
sense, since the old faculties were transformed and uplifted and no
longer shackled by the cramping chains of sin, but enabled to do far
more for the good of mankind and the glory of God in their happy,
healthy working than they ever had done before. They laid great stress
upon faith, rather than rites or austerities, as a means of
justification and sanctification, a peculiarity which seems at the
bottom of the remark of the Romish ecclesiastic who wrote, under date of
July 10, 1685, "I am informed that a Jesuit named Molinos has been put
into the Inquisition at Rome, accused of wishing to become chief of a
new sect called Quietists, whose principles are somewhat similar to
those of the Puritans in England." There is sufficient similarity
between the Quietism of the seventeenth century and the Pietism and
Methodism of Germany and England in the eighteenth century to give us a
friendly feeling toward it. That the former was not so well guarded as
the latter; was less directed to practical ends; was not in control of
such cool, sensible minds; ran very easily into abuses; had stronger
pantheistic leanings; was more open to the objection that it taught a
strained, impossible perfection utterly out of reach of all but the few,
and attainable by those few perhaps only under very favorable
conditions,--may be freely granted. But it does not, and need not,
prevent our sympathies going out strongly toward those who, in that
earlier day and amid much difficulty, struck out the high path on lines
not essentially at variance with those who, in easier times of greater
enlightenment, came after them. The Mystics, with all their
extravagances, possessed more of the truth of God than could be found
elsewhere within the wide domains of the Roman Church. The Reformers
recognized this, and sympathized far more deeply with them than with the
schoolmen.
It should be said, also, that the Quietists vehemently repudiated the
constructions put upon their writings by their enemies, and the evil
inferences which were drawn from them. They protested against what
others professed to find there as being no part of their real belief. It
seems to us that they have a perfect right to be heard in explanation of
their tenets, and much allowance must be made for those endeavoring to
find expressions that would convey such profound and lofty thoughts.
Professor George P. Fisher, in his "History of the Christian Church,"
says, "The real ground of hostility to Quietism was its tendency to lead
to the dispensing with auricular confession and penances and outward
rites altogether."
It will be sufficiently evident from what has been now written that
there is Mysticism _and_ Mysticism; and that that which has the best
right to the name lies very close to the most essential truth of the
best religion, inseparable from it so far as it is to answer the deepest
yearnings of the human heart. If religion is not to be made wholly
objective, reduced to a round of external performances, accounted
synonymous with philanthropy and morality; if its subjective side is to
have proper recognition as the controlling one; if being is to take rank
above doing, as we firmly believe it should,--then we are all Mystics in
the true sense of the word. Since we have to do with "the love of Christ
which passeth knowledge," and which must be known by some higher faculty
than the understanding; since the new birth is fitly compared by the
Master to the mysterious coming and going of the winds of heaven, and
can not be completely comprehended by the human reason; since the method
of God with the soul of man passes all metes and bounds of man's finite
mind, and the operations of the Holy Spirit can not be wholly fathomed
by cold intellect,--Mysticism has extremely close relations with all
parts of supernaturalism. It is grounded in a profounder philosophy than
those can offer who assume to scout and scorn it. We as Methodists,
especially, believe firmly in feeling, and in a first-hand knowledge of
God as the privilege of each genuine believer. We hold fast to
experience as having rights which logic and dogma must respect; we have
exalted life above theory, and the vision divine above dead orthodoxy;
we maintain that there is a God-consciousness, as well as a
self-consciousness and a world-consciousness; and that spiritual facts
can be, and should be, verified in personal experience. We count the
words of Pascal divinely true: "The things of this world must be known
in order to be loved; but the things of God must be loved in order to be
known."
"Mysticism," says Professor J. E. Latimer, "has ever been a reaction
from formalism and dogmatism in religion. When Christian men have been
relying upon the letter, the Mystic has always exalted the spirit. When
the Church has been content with mere dogmatic statement and
intellectual orthodoxy, a Mystic revival has come to rehabilitate its
spiritual life, and sends new streams of power along its arid channel."
Do we not greatly need this revival now? We do not believe there is any
special danger to-day from one-sided subjectivity and morbid
introspection. The peril is altogether the other way. Our great want is
a profounder apprehension of the basal truths of the spiritual life, and
their practical translation into individual experience. The knowledge of
God is widespread, but it is superficial. Piety is very bustling, but it
is not deep. The utterances of the Savior and His apostles are taken at
a large discount, and the mass of believers are easily content with a
low condition of spirituality. Hence the Church is feeble, and fails to
impress itself strongly upon the world. It would be immensely benefited
by a large infusion of the spirit of the true Mystic, who wages the most
deadly war with all carnality; who has a terrible moral intensity; who
renounces absolutely all that dims the radiance or shadows the image of
the Perfect One in the mirror of the soul; who is determined, so far as
in him lies, to bridge the gulf that separates him from his Maker and
make the closest possible approach to God. Of Rabbi Gamaliel, a genuine
Mystic, it is reported that he prayed, "O Lord, grant that I may do Thy
will as if it were my will, and that Thou mayest do my will as if it
were Thy will." Charles Wesley, another Mystic, is very bold and says,
"Let all I am in Thee be lost,
Let all I am be God."
Why should it be thought a thing incredible with any that man may become
a partaker of the Divine nature? If to a small extent, why not, when all
the conditions are favorable, to a very large extent? Why should not the
Church in general, and the Methodist Church in particular, get a new
grip on this much neglected but every way fruitful truth of the Divine
indwelling and the Divine immanence, God in all and all in God, the
universe but the will of God expressed in forms of time and space,
humanity reaching its highest point of development when it most
completely entemples Deity, nature a symbol of God, God revealed in His
works? Just so far as this shall be accomplished will the Church swing
out into a wealthy place, and march forward to large conquest. Complete
surrender will be the prelude to complete possession, and complete
possession will straightway be turned into complete victory over every
foe.