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138 Law's Admiration of some Romanists.

orthodoxy, is diverted from feeding in these green pastures of life, whose just abhorrence of Jesuitical craft and worldly policy keeps him from knowing and reading the works of an Alvares du Pas, a Rodigius, a Du Pont, a Guillorée, a Père Surin, and such like Jesuits, has a greater loss than he can easily imagine. And if any clergyman can read the Life of Bartholomeus a Martyribus, a Spanish archbishop, who sat with great influence at the very Council of Trent, without being edified by it, and desiring to read it again and again, I know not why he should like the Lives of the best of the Apostolical Fathers; and if any Protestant Bishop should read the "Stimulus Pastorum," wrote by this Popish Prelate, he must be forced to confess it to be a book that would have done honour to the best archbishop that the Reformation has to boast of. O my God, how shall I unlock this mystery of things? in the land of darkness, overrun with superstition, where Divine Worship seems to be all show and ceremony, there both among priests and people Thou hast those who are fired with the pure love of Thee, who renounce everything for Thee, who are devoted wholly and solely to Thee, who think of nothing, write of nothing, desire nothing but the Honour, and Praise, and Adoration that is due to Thee, and who call all the world to the maxims of the Gospel, the Holiness and Perfection of the Life of Christ. But in the regions where Light is sprung up, whence Superstition is fled, where all that is outward in Religion seems to be pruned, dressed and put in its true order, there a cleansed shell, a whited sepulchre, seems too generally to cover a dead Christianity.''

No one can read this splendid passage without seeing that Law's admiration of many Romanists was in spite of, not in consequence of their Romanism. The errors of Rome he thoroughly abjured, her persecuting spirit he

An Appeal to all that Doubt, &c., 'Works,' vol. vi. p. 282.

Law no Romanist.

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thoroughly abhorred. 'The error of all errors,' he writes, 'and that which makes the blackest charge against the Romish Church, is Persecution, a religious sword drawn against the liberty and freedom of serving God according to our best light, that is against our "worshipping the Father in spirit and in truth": This is the great Whore, the Beast, the Dragon, the Antichrist.' But he adds: 'Though this is the frightful monster of that Church, yet even here, who, except it be the Church of England, can throw the first stone at her? Where must we look for a Church that has so renounced this persecuting Beast, as they who have renounced the use of Incense, the sprinklings of Holy Water, or the Extreme Unction of dying persons? What part of the Reformation abroad has not practised and defended persecution? What sect of Dissenters at home has not, in their day of power dreadfully condemned Toleration?' Certain practices of the Church of Rome-e.g. the celibacy of her clergy, her recommendation of the state of virginity, her comparative freedom from State control -Law also approved of, but, in spite of all this, he was no Romanist.

'An Appeal to all that Doubt, &c., 'Works,' vol. vi. p. 284.

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Law becomes a Mystic.

CHAPTER X.

ON MYSTICISM AND MYSTICS.

A VAST interval in point of thought separates those writings of Law which we have been hitherto considering from those which subsequently came from his pen. The 'Case of Reason,' and 'Letters to a Lady inclined to enter the Church of Rome,' were written between 1731 and 1733; his next work was not published until 1737. Almost immediately after the former date he became acquainted with the writings of Jacob Behmen; and before the latter date he had virtually embraced, though not yet, perhaps, in all their fulness, those views which made him known as emphatically The English mystic.' The occasion, causes, and results of this transformation in Law's mind will be noticed presently. Before doing so, it seems necessary to say a few words on the subject of mysticism generally.

And, first of all, let us not be frightened by the name. The term mysticism' implies something vague, obscure, impalpable, something, in short, which English people, of all people, from their natural love of clearness, specially abhor. Whether its original reference be to the initiation of the privileged into that which is veiled from common eyes, or whether it refer, as the literal derivation of the word seems to imply, to the closing of the avenues of the senses, that the mind may be susceptible of supra-sensuous impressions, or whether we adopt any other of the

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numerous definitions of the word,' the name 'mysticism'

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misled by a name. the appellation of mystic' was not chosen by the mystics themselves. They called themselves the spiritual,' or the 'illuminated,' if they called themselves by any special name at all, which they rarely did. But they seldom, as a rule, called themselves mystics. That is simply a term of reproach applied to them by their enemies, and applied most loosely and indeterminately to men who held the utmost variety of opinions. In order, therefore, to do common justice to the heterogeneous mass of writers who are lumped together under the opprobrious appellation of 'mystics,' we must divest ourselves of all sinister associations connected with the name, and strive to look at them as they really were.

Again, we must beware of taking exaggerated forms of mysticism as its normal type. No form of thought that ever existed in the world could bear to be judged by such a test; and as mysticism is specially liable to exaggeration, it would be specially unfair to mystics to judge them by such a standard.

1 It has been defined or described in the following ways:

'Theologica mystica est sapientia experimentalis, Dei affectione divinitùs infusa, quæ mentem ab omni inordinatione puram, per actus supernaturales fidei, spei, et charitatis cum Deo intime conjungit.' . . . Mystica theologia, si vim nominis attendas, designat quamdam sacram et arcanam de Deo divi. nisque rebus notitiam.' [He then explains the well-known classical usage of the term μvorpiov.]-Isagoge Balthasaris Corderii Soc. Jesu Theologi ad Mysticam Theologiam S. Dionysii Areopagitæ.

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La mystique est la science de l'état surnaturel de l'âme humaine manifesté dans le corps et dans l'ordre des choses visibles par des effets également surnaturels.' Dictionnaire de Mystique Chrétienne, par l'Abbé Migne.

'Le mysticisme consiste à substituer l'illumination directe à la révélation indirecte, l'exstase à la raison, l'éblouissement à la philosophie.'-Victor Cousin, Religion, Mysticism, Stoicism.'

'Mystische Theologie entstand, als die Menschen von Gott abgefallen waren, und sich Wiedervereinigung mit ihm sehnten.'-J. L. Ewald, Briefe über die alte Mystik und den neuen Mysticismus,' p. 20.

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What Mysticism is.

And, once more, we must beware of confounding the accidents with the essence of mysticism. For not only is mysticism peculiarly liable to be pushed to extremes, it is also apt to gather around it a number of accretions which are really no part of itself. We must in this connexion beware of the old 'post hoc ergo propter hoc' fallacy. Many mystics have advanced from mysticism pure and simple to build up wild theories for which mysticism has no right to bear the blame.

Bearing these cautions in mind, let us now examine what this much-abused system really is.

'The Divine Word (Logos) is instilled into all men. In all something Godlike has been breathed. You bear the image of God.' This is the starting-point, one might almost say the postulate, of all mysticism.

The complete union of the soul with God-this is the goal of all mysticism; and the Christian mystic would add, through a mediator, Jesus Christ.

The means by which this union is to be effected are faith and love, which to the mystic are hardly distinguishable, even in thought, and are quite inseparable, in fact, for love implies faith, and faith can only work by love.

As, according to this view, the soul is in itself a part of the Divine Nature, the mystic must seek this union by looking, not without, but within. God is within him, and he is only separated from God when he turns away from his own inner Divine nature. Not that the true mystic— at any rate the true mystic of later days--despised the world without; that, too, spoke to him of God; but the true sanctuary of the Deity was within his own soul; his gaze therefore must be introverted if he would find true union with God.

In seeking this union with God, all thoughts of self must be entirely abandoned; he must be content, yea,

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