In England we see it espoused in the spiritualizing of Solomon's Temple by Bunyan, and Brown's parallels of O.-T. facts with the history of the Jews, etc. INIr. Will- iam Law (author of the iSerious Call, etc.), and the very able opponent of bishop Hoadly, degenerated in the lat- ter part of his life into all the singularities of mysti- cism; and some suppose that his extravagant notions were one means of driving the celebrated Gibbon into a state of infidelity. "Mr. Law," says Vaughan, "sup- posed that the material was the region which originally belonged to the fallen angels. At length the light and Spirit of God entered into the chaos, and turned the angels' ruined kingdom into a paradise on earth. God then created man, and placed him there. He was made in the image of the Triune God (whom, like the Ilutch- insonians, he compares to 'fire, light, and spirit'), a liv- ing mirror of the divine nature, formed to enjoy com- munion with Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and to live on earth as the angels do in heaven. He was endowed with immortality, so that the elements of this outward world could not have any power of acting on his body; but by his fall he changed the light, life, and spirit of the world. Ho died, on the very day of his transgres- sion, to all the influences and operations of the Spirit of God upon him, as we die to the influences of this world when the soul leaves the body ; and all the influences and operations of the elements of this life were open to him, as they are in any animal, at his birth into this world; he became an earthly creature, subject to the dominion of this outward world, and stood only in the highest rank of animals. But the goodness of God would not leave man in this condition : redemption from it was immediatelj' granted; and the bruiser of the serpent brought the life, light, and spirit of love once more into the human nature. All men, in conse- quence of the redemption of Christ, have in them the first spark, or seed, of the divine life, as a treasure hid in the centre of our souls, to bring forth by degrees a new birth of that life which was lost in paradise. No son of Adam can be lost except by turning away from the Saviour within him. The only religion which can save us must be that which can raise the light, life, and Spirit of God in our souls. Nothing can enter the vegetable kingdom till it have vegetable life in it, or be a member of the animal kingdom till it have the ani- mal life. Thus all nature joins with the Gospel in af- firming that no man can enter into the kingdom of
MYSTICS
804
MYTH
heaven till the heavenly life is born in him. Xothing can be our rij^hteousness or recovery but the divine nature of Jesus t.'hrist derived to our souls." liut the eminent .Swedish tlioolof^ian, Emmanuel Swedenborg, figures more conspicuously than these, if we regard him inerelij as an expositor of the Scriptures. As he, however, .iscribes his spiritual interpretations to a spe- cial source, he will elsewhere occupy a more distinct and appropriate place, and we now simply advert to him as believing and teaching that (iod had made him the ve- hicle of new revelations. We refer our readers to the articles New Jerus.vlem Citcacir and Sweuexbokg for details of his views and their progress.
We are not altogether strangers to mysticism even in our own day. Only a few years have elapsed since we were asked to believe in the supernatural revelations made to the followers of Edward Irving (q. v.); and the Spiritualists of North America profess to hold converse with the spiritual existences of another world. See Si'iRiTL'ALisM. But, passing by these, we find a class of Jlystics in the Intuitionists on both sides of the At- lantic, who substitute the subjective revelation of con- sciousness for the objective revelation of the written Word. As examples of practical mysticism we must here refer also to the history of the Beghards, the Fla- gellants, Miinzers, Anabaptists, and the famous Peasants' War in Germany, and the institution of the Jesuits.
Another fact is worthy of notice in connection with this subject. It is that mysticism has always been most flourishing in times of general religious formalism — a striking illustration of the tendency of any extreme to generate its opposite. The laws of I^rahminism brought forth the mystic Buddhism ; the Jewish Talmudism gave rise to the mystic Cabala (q. v.) ; the Spanish the- ology of the Inquisition found its counterpoise in the mysticism of the Alombrados; Jesuitism in quietism and Jansenism ; the old Protestant scholastic orthodoxy in Protestant mysticism.
Enough has now been said to show plainly that the theology of the true Mystics exhibits two distinct phases: a side towards earth, on which the legend on the medal is obscure and without meaning; and an ob- verse side, bright with the light of heaven; union with the Eternal through sacramental grace is its impress of truth, and flowing from that grace a loving exercise of the great duties of Christian life. It is closely allied with Quietism. A very diiferent kind, and yet an es- sential form of mysticism, is that avowed by Sehlegel; one closely similar to the rhapsodical notions of I'loti- nus, when he says that whereas human consciousness, in which subject and object arc insuperably blended to- gether in idea, cannot form to itself a notion of the Ab- solute, which is unity, still an adequate idea of the Ab- solute may be gained by the contemjilative or intuitive faculty, independently of thought or consciousness; it is a rapid illumination, a sudden rapture, too fleeting for analysis, for it eludes reflection and baflles conscious- ness. Reflection is, in fact, its death. In this mystical condition of the mind all distinction between subject and object vanishes. There is no longer the Deity on the one hand, the soul on the other. The soul identi- fies itself with the Deity. It is on this side that mys- ticism passes into pantheism.