Mysticism and Outward Ordinances. 213 self-surrender differs wide as the Poles are asunder from inactivity. No true mystic withdraws himself wilfully from the business of life, no, not even from the smallest business.' 1 The worst that can be said is that the mystic teaching on this head has been sometimes misunderstood, and perverted to an abuse which no true mystic ever intended. (2.) It is not so easy to vindicate mysticism from another charge which has been brought against it, viz., that it tends to make men think lightly of the outward ordinances of religion. It is true that the more moderate mystics expressly disclaim any such intention; but even these lay so much more stress upon the duty of retiring into the inner temple of one's own heart that it can hardly be wondered at if their more extravagant disciples have concluded that worship in any other temple was a matter of minor consideration. Take, for example, the following passage from Tauler, the most reasonable and practical of mystics, on the Christian progress :-'They turn their thoughts inward, and remain resting on the inmost foundation of their souls, simply looking to see the hand of God with the eyes of their enlightened reason, and await from within their summons to go whither God would have them. And this they receive from God without any means, but what is given through means, such as other mortal men, is as it were tasteless; moreover, it is seen as through a veil, and split up into fragments, and within it is a certain sting of bitterness. It always retains the savour of that which is of the creature, which it must needs lose and be purified from, if it is to become in truth food for the spirit, and to enter into the very substance of the soul.'' Behmen is never weary of dwelling upon the blessedness of this introversion Ewald's Briefe über die alte Mystik und den neuen Mysticismus, p. 280. 2 Sermon for Advent Sunday. 214 Behmen on Outward Ordinances. of the soul. 'Turn away your heart and mind from all contention, and go in very simply and humbly at the door of Christ into Christ's sheepfold; seek that in your heart ;'1 and many more passages to the same effect. His admission of the possible use of outward ordinances is very faint and reluctant, and contrasts strangely with the fire and enthusiasm with which he speaks of the blessedness of retiring into the temple within. 'Where,' he says, 'the living knowledge of Christ is, there is the altar of God in all places where the hungry soul may offer the true, acceptable, holy offering in prayer, &c. Not that we would hereby wholly abolish and raze the stone churches, but we teach the temple of Christ which ought to be brought along into the stone church, or else the whole business of the stone church is only a Cain's offering, both of preacher and hearer. . . Cain goes to church to offer, and comes out again a killer of his brother.' Ewald gives from his own experience a curious instance of the results of this kind of teaching. 'I am preacher,' he writes, 'in a place where there are many Behmenists. They attended no church, took no part in the Lord's Supper. But, on closer acquaintance, I found among them some very candid, moral, and wellinstructed men. I asked the cause why they attended no church; they answered me that they edified themselves every Sunday and feast-day with Behmen's writings. I persuaded some of them to come to my church, and I gave myself much trouble to speak in their language, which was already popularised through the expression and imagery of the Bible.' But it could hardly be expected that many clergy could adapt themselves so conveniently to the idiosyncrasies of the Behmenists. 3 2 The Threefold Life of Man, Behmen's Works, vol. ii. chap. xi. p. 125. 2 Mysterium Magnum, Behmen's Works, vol. iii. chap. xxvii. p. 132. 3 Briefe über die alte Mystik und den neuen Mysticismus, p. 225-6. Law on Outward Ordinances. 215 Law himself personally never neglected the means of grace; he and all who were under his influence attended every service, week-day and Sunday, at their own parish church, and he never intended one syllable of his teaching to direct his readers otherwise. But some of his sentiments might not unreasonably be construed as depreciating outward ordinances. Take, for example, that magnificent passage in the 'Spirit of Prayer,' which gave such deep offence to John Wesley: 'This pearl of eternity is the Church, or temple of God within thee, the consecrated place of divine worship, where alone thou canst worship God in spirit and in truth. In spirit, because thy spirit is that alone in thee, which can unite and cleave unto God, and receive the working of His Divine Spirit upon thee. In truth, because this adoration in spirit is that truth and reality, of which all outward forms and rites, though instituted by God, are only the figure for a time, but this worship is eternal. Accustom thyself to the holy service of this inward temple. In the midst of it is the fountain of living water, of which thou mayst drink and live for ever. There the mysteries of thy redemption are celebrated, or rather opened in life and power. There the Supper of the Lamb is kept; the bread that came down from Heaven, that giveth life to the world, is thy true nourishment: all is done and known in real experience, in a living sensibility of the work of God on the soul. the birth, the life, the sufferings, the death, the resurrection and ascension of Christ are not merely remembered, but inwardly found and enjoyed as the real state of thy soul, which has followed Christ in the regeneration. When once thou art well-grounded in this inward worship, thou wilt have learnt to live unto God above time and place. For every day will be Sunday to thee, and wherever thou goest thou wilt have a priest, a church, and an altar along with There 216 thee.'' Mysticism and Dogmatic Theology. John Wesley drew inferences from this passage which Law never intended, but Wesley was a practical man and saw whither, as a matter of fact, such doctrines tended when imbibed by ordinary mortals. (3.) Mysticism,' wrote Alexander Knox, 'is hostile to Christianity, because it necessarily disqualifies the mind for that distinct and intelligent contemplation of Immanuel. The contemplation of the deity, to which the embodied spirit is unequal, is contrary to the incarnation.' This is But far too strongly stated, but it points to a peril against which all who have a tendency to mysticism should be on their guard. Law over and over again affirms, as Behmen affirmed before him, that the doctrine of the Christ within in no wise weakened his belief in the historical Christ who was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate ;' and all the more moderate mystics affirm the same. there is among the more extravagant mystics unquestionably a tendency to ignore the glorious truth that by the incarnation God, as it were, came down from the clouds in order to prevent men from losing themselves in the clouds. This question, however, is in fact part of a greater: Does mysticism tend to sap the foundation of dogmatic theology? Here, again, we must answer, Not necessarily, but still there is a danger of the system being so perverted. To men who are accustomed to soar to the lofty heights of mystic ecstasy, 'to lose themselves in the divine dark,' it is apt to appear slavish, grovelling work to be tied down to articles of faith. Law himself was by no means free from this danger. He is never weary of crying down the learned labours of divines, apparently forgetful of the fact that, after all, Christianity is, in one sense, an historical religion, which requires its proofs like any other history, that after all it is a system of distinct articles of belief, which must Spirit of Prayer, Law's Works, vol. vii. p. 74-5. 2 Remains, vol. ii. p. 333. Mysticism and Philosophy. 217 be defended and proved like those of any other system. Mysticism avowedly addresses itself to the feelings, not to the reason; the eighteenth century was essentially an age of reason not of feeling; each mode of viewing the matter has something to say for itself; each has its peculiar snares; and assuredly, if there be danger on the one hand of the heart of religion being frozen out by cold dogmas, there is, at least, equal danger on the other, of the rationale of religion evaporating in mere heat of feeling and in airy speculation. (4.) The charge against mysticism of giving too little prominence to Christian dogmas is unquestionably a grave one, which the Christian mystic cannot afford to neglect; but he need not be so careful to answer another similar objection raised against his system on the grounds of philosophy. It may be necessary, from the philosopher's point of view, to explain philosophically this phenomenon of the human mind; but certainly, from the mystic's own point of view, any such explanation would seem strangely out of place. Sensationalism, idealism, scepticism, mysticism, eclecticism,'' would appear to him to be what the logicians call a cross division. He would ask himself 'What in the world am I doing in this galley?' He has been conscious of no such intellectual process as that by which the historian of philosophy supposes him to have arrived at his conclusions, if we are to call those conclusions which he would call simply intuitions or illuminations. He would say in effect to the philosopher, 'Settle these matters among yourselves. I know nothing about all these processes of the human mind; one thing I know, whereas I was blind, now I see, and that is enough for me.'2 This is Mr. Morell's division of the various systems of philosophy. See his History of Philosophy, passim. 2 'We cannot,' writes Dr. Dorner (Hist. of Prot. Theology Eng. Tr. i. 52), with some recent writers, regard it (mysticism) only as a kind of philosophy, or as the preliminary stage of a modern speculative mode of thought, |