Mystics are religionists who profess a pure and sublime devotion, accompanied with a disinterested love of God, free from selfish considerations; and who be- lieve that the writings which reveal to them the story of the supernatural have a mystic and hidden sense, which must be sought after in order to comprehend their true import. Under this name some understand all those who profess to know how they are inwardly taught of God. Mystics have existed from the time when men's thoughts began to be turned inward upon them- selves. " In all religious writings in which the affec- tions come in," says a writer in the Saturday Review, " there must be, if it is real, an element more or less of what must bear the name of mysticism. It is simply the same thing as saying that there cannot be poetry without feeling, or art without insight, or affection and friendship without warmth of heart." Yet as there are false poetry and false art, and extravagant and false af- fections, so there is a false and mistaken direction, as
MYSTICS
MYSTICS
■well as a true ami right one, of the religious affections; | and it seems hardly saying too much to affirm that tlie | mischief done to religion and to human society by the | misdirection of the religious affections is, as far as we , can see, out of all proportion greater than that done by intellectual error, and by the divisions created by what i has been deemed intellectual error. Perhaps it is only to be paralleled in the mischief done by misdirected so- j cial affections. Intellectual error at least does not di- | rectly sap men's strength ; and often, in the earnest con- flict to which it leads, it provokes the force which is to overthrow it or keep it in check. But the disasters aris- ing out of the misdirection of the religious affections have been of a more fatal nature. They include not merel\- all the train of evils attending on what is forced, unreal, and hollow, but the irreparable exhaustion, and weakness, and failure of tone, which succeeds the fever of minds wound up to overstrained states of exaltation ; the credulity, the mad self-conceit, and the perverse crookedness which never can be cured; and in oppo- nents and lookers-on, influenced by the reaction of dis- gust, there result the scepticism, the hardness, and the mocking and cruel temper, which the sight of folly, and ; possibly selfishness, clothing themselves with the most august claims and taking the holiest names in vain, must inevitably call forth and confirm. j
Christian mysticism declares, in the language of Pas- cal, that the head has reasons of its own which tlic reason linows not of; or, in the words of Paul, that the wisdom of God is a mystery which the natural man receiveth not (1 Cor. ii, G-IG). In this general sense nearly all Christians now recognise an element of mysticism in the Gospel; i.e. they recognise that Christian experi- ence has dejjths which the natural reason camiot sound; that there are truths which the spiritual sense perceives, but which the natural sense, or reason, cannot recognise or demonstrate, though it may perceive that they are consonant with, or at least not antagonistic to, reason. I It will be readily seen, however, from what we have said above, that this doctrine is liable to perversion; and, historically, it has been perverted. In a histor- ical survey of the Mystics, we liiid tliat thej' embrace various classes, from those who held the orthodox doc- trines of the Church, but in the form of an experi- i ence rather than as a dogma or system of philosophy, to those who not only undervalue but actually repudi- ate all doctrinal theology, and reduce tlieology from a system of truth to a dream. Yet all of them, however widely apart in many respects, agree in this, that they ^ seek to develop in the human heart disinterestedness of , love, without other motives, and profess to feel, in the ' enjoyment of the temper itself, an abundant reward, while passive contemjilation is the state of perfection to which they aspire. They lay little or no stress upon the outward ceremonies and ordinances of religion, but dwell chiefly upon the inward operulioiis of the mind. It is not uncommon for them to allegorize certain pas- sages of Scripture; at the same time they do not deny the literal sense as having an allusion to the inward ! experience of believers. Tims, " according to them, the i word Jerusalem, which is the name of the capital of Jiida;a, signifies, ulkfjoriciilly, the Church militant, mor- ally, a believer, and, mysteriously, heaven." That sub- , lime passage also in (ienesis, " Let there be light, and there was light," which is, according to the letter, phys- ical light, signifies, allif/orical/y, the Messiah, moral- ly, grace, and, mysteriously, beatitude, or the light of glory. All this appears to be harmless, yet we must be careful not to give way to the sallies of a lively im- agination in interpreting Scripture. 'I'hus Woolston is said to have been led to reject the Old Testament by spiritualizing and allegorizing the New. That among this class of devout men there was t)ften genuine piety, with a living faith which realized Christ within them the hope of glory, is not to be doubted. Hut delusion soon S(irang up. and men. given to mental introver-ion, mistook the ilreams of ilieir own distempered ini.igina-