affirm the transcendence of God, and still hold the extreme form of pantheism which makes the world the existence-form of God, his whole intelligence, power, and life. But he may be a Monist. He may believe that there is but one Being in the universe, that everything is a form of God, and all life the life of God. Pan- theism is Protean. Some moderns speak of a Christian Pantheism. But any system which hinders our saying " Thou," to God, is fatal to religion.
JEvangelical Mystics. Bernard of Claii-vaux, Hugo and Richard of St. Victor, Gerson, Thomas a Kerapis and others, are commonly referred to the class of evangelical Mystics. These eminent and influential men differed much from each other, but they all held union with God, not in the Scriptural, but in the mystical sense of that term, as the great object of desire. It was not that they held that " the beatific vision of God," the intuition of his glory, which belongs to heaven, is attainable in this world and attainable by abstraction, ecstatic apprehension, or passive reception, but that the soul becomes one with God, if not in substance, yet in life. These men, however, were great blessings to the Church. Their influence was directed to the preservation of the inwai'd life of religion in opposition to the formality and ritualism which then prevailed in the Church ; and thus to free the conscience from subjection to human authority. The writings of Bernard are still held in high esteem, and " The Imitation of Christ," by Thomas a Kempis, has diffused itself like incense through all the aisles and alcoves of the Universal Church.*
§ 4. Mysticism at, and after the Reformation. A. Effect of the Reformation on the Popular Mind. Such a great and general movement of the public mind as oc- curred during the sixteenth century, when the old foundations of doctrine and order in the Church, were overturned, could hardly fail to be attended by irregularities and extravagancies in the inward and outward life of the people. There are two principles advanced, both Scriptural and both of the last importance, wLich are specially liable to abuse in times of popular excitement.
^ See Tholuck, Sujismus seu Theosophia Persai-um Pantheiitica. C. Schmidt, Jissaisw let, Mystiques du l\me Steele. This writer is the author of most of the exeellen' articles in Herzog's Encyklopddic on the Mediasval Mystics. Ulhnann's Reformers before the Refor~ mation. Poiret, Bibliotheca Mysiicorum. Vaughan's Hours with the Mystics. Helfferir.h'f Chi-istiiche Mystik. Dorner, Gesckkkte der Protesiantischen Theologit, 48-59.
80 INTRODUCTION. [Ch. IV. — Mysticism.
The first is, the right of private judgment. This, as understood by the Reformers, is the right of every man to decide what a reve- lation made hy God to him, requires him to beUeve. It was a pro- test against the authority assumed by the Church (i. e. the Bishops), of deciding for the people what they wei-e to beheve. It was very natural that the fanatical, in rejecting the authority of tiie Church, should reject all external authority in matters of religion. They understood by the right of private judgment, the right of every man to determine what he should beheve from the operations of his own mind and from his own inward experience, independently of the Scriptures. But as it is palpably absurd to expect, on such a subject as religion, a certainty either satisfactory to ourselves or authoritative for others, from our own reason or feelings, it was inevitable that these subjective convictions should be referred to a supernatural source. Private revelations, an inward light, the tes- timony* of the Spirit, came to be exalted over the authority of the Bible.
Secondly, the Reformers taught that I'eligion is a matter of the heart, that a man's acceptance with God does not depend on his membership in any external society, on obedience to its officers, and on sedulous observance of its rites and ordinances ; but on the regen- eration of his heart, and his personal faith in the Son of God, man- ifesting itself in a holy life. This was a protest against the funda- mental principle of Romanism, that all within the external organi- zation which Romanists call the Church, are saved, and all out of it are lost. It is not a matter of surprise that evil men should wrest this principle, as they do all other truth's, to their own destruction. Because religion does not consist in externals, many rushed to the conclusion that externals, — the Church, its ordinances, its officers, its worship, — were of no account. These principles were soon applied beyond the sphere of religion. Those who regarded them- selves as the organs of God, emancipated from the authority of the Bible and exalted above the Church, came to claim exemption from the authority of the State. To this outbreak the grievous and long-continued oppression of the peasantry greatly contriljuted, so that this spirit of fanaticism and revolt rapidly spread oyer all Ger- many, and into Switzerland and Holland.
The Popular Disorders not the Effects of the Reformation. The extent to which these disorders spread, and the rapidity with which they diffused, themselves, show that they were not the mere outgrowth of the Reformation. The principles avowed by the