The Pulpit Commentary — Colossians — Section 113

decoration, and under the sensuous impressiveness of a eplendid and elaborate rltuallem, But thi_s is no~ wha_t "the Father s~eketl~" (John iv. 23, 24), and such aids to devotion often hrnder his children from seekmg hnn. Our worship must. indeed havo ite forms• and order and propriety (1 Oor. xiv. 4.0) must be studied in 'their r~crulatiou and i~ all the apP?intme~ts of the house of God. And men of varying tc~peram~nt and mental habit arc aided by a greater or less degree, and by different kinds of outward expression in their worship. Dut when the form is cultivated for its o~ sake and the s~ns~1ous ~nd the artistic predomin~te over and displace tho spiritual, the e'nd of "·orsh1p itself 1s frustrated, and the service that professes to be rendered to the Most High becomes a mockery to him, and a blind to his worshippers that eITectuo.lly hides him from them. Yet this tendency has often a strong attraction for devout and humble spirits," delighting in humility" (vcrs. 18, 23); who love to worship, and readily bow before any superior influence, but are not so anxious to" worship what they know" (John iv. 22). A multiplying of the objects of worship (vcr. 18) very commonly attends the excessive elaborntiou of its forms; for both are due to the samo cause, and are the manifestations of a religion weak in spiritual faith in God. The dissatisfaction and emptiness of soul which ensue on seeking God thus, lead to our making still more cumbrous and exacting the forms of devotion, and to our resorting to new mediators and new methods of approach to Lim, till Christian worship sinks into a round of ritual performance and semi-idolatry, and becomes an imposture iu itself and an aversion to thoughtful, truth-seeking men. 3. There was, in the third place, a strong vein of false mysticism in tlte Oolossian heresy. This element, in the nature of the case, is more difficult to distinguish and to delineate than those already set forth. The mysticism of Greece was chiefly derived and fo<l from Oriental sources. Pythagoras, in the latter half of the sixth century B.c., founded a school of mystical and ascetic philosophy, whose principles were largely adopted in the comprehensive system of Plato. 'l'he Pythagorean and Platonic mysticism was at this time greatly in vogue, especially in· Asia Minor and in Egypt, where it found a congenial soil. Tile Alcxandrine school of Philo imported its principles into Judaism. Tue Neo-Platonism, in which, in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., pagan philosophy made a last splendid struggle for existence, and which bas left deep marks of its influence on the development of ()hrisLian thought, was a revival of Greek mysticism in a more intense and religious form. The Montanism of the second century, a product of the same Pbrygian soil on which the Colossian heresy sprang up, attested the persistence of the mystic tendency within the Church. Its later manifestations, as allied no,v with pantheistic rationalism, now with devout ceremonialism, now with rigid asceticism, we cannot endeavour here to follow. 'l'hertl bas always been in the Church a mystical school, side by side with the rationalistic, and the ritualistic or sacerdotal. And, within certain limits, the mystic principle has its rights, and must be recognized as essential to spiritual religiou. To mysticism, tbo spiritual consciousness of the individual is the source and the test of truth, God is to l,e reached by intuition. Meditative contemplation, aided by suitable init!ato~y and disciplinary symbolic rites, is the way of salvation, whose goal is absorption m the Divine nature. Such was the teachin" of ancient mystics geuerally; and the esoteric doctrines introduced at Colossre were, doubtless, of the same stamp. '!'hut God, iudced, reveals himself by his Spirit to the individual consciousness, is the teaching of St. Paul, and, as we believe, of the whole Bible (Rom. viii. 16; Gal. i. 1G; Ps. cxxxix., etc.). But when the inner consciousness, the spilitual reason, is regarded as in itself the primary source oi revelation, then error begins and hallucination supervenes. The mind turns itself in upon its own self-generated phantasies, inskad of fixing its gaze on the historical revelation of God and setking to comprehend and mirror its glory (2 Cor. iii. 18; iv. 6; Rom. i. 20; Ps. x.ix., etc.). The Colossian errorist, walking in the light of bis self-confident, self-contemplating reason, saw visions of angels as be imagined, and beard messages and teachings that were but the echo of his own speculations. With these deceived and deccivino- subjective imaginings the apostle confronts the actual historic Person and work of Christ, as the supreme Object of contemplation and of trust (eh. i. 13-15, 21, 22, 27-29; ii. 6, 7; iii. 11, 15-17). Only through "belief of the truth" come the testifying and sanctifying visitations of "the Spirit of the truth" (2 'l'hess. ii. 9-14; Eph. i. 13, 14; Acts ii. 38; xix. 1-7). The objective revelation of God to the soul and the subjective attestation and experience of its power OB. D, 1-23.] 'l'HE EPISTLE TO 'flIE COLOSSIANS. lOi