Mysticism has generally apprehended religion rather on its divine than on its human side. It makes haste to lose humanity, and to be glorified. Grievous afflictions have reminded some of the mystical aspirants that they were human still. The spiritual pride of others has betrayed them, first to ostentatious sanctity, and then to shameful sin. Among those who would surpass humanity, some have fallen disgracefully, others ludicrously, below it. There have been those whose transformation proved to be downward to a lower sphere, not upward to an element more rare. They fare like Lucius in the Golden Ass to whom Fotis has given the wrong witch-salve. He extends his arms, he sways himself to and fro, he expects the next moment to find himself changing into a bird. But his hands and feet grow horny, his thickening, irritated skin shoots forth hairs, and behold him metamorphosed into an ass. The theatrical devotion, so frequent among the ornaments of Roman saintship, overlooks common duties, sometimes despises necessary helps, generally mistakes altogether the nature of true greatness. The Christianity exhibited in the New Testament differs most conspicuously from the Mystical Theology in being so much more human. It addresses man as he is; it addresses all; it appeals to the whole nature of every man. It knows nothing of class-religion. It does not bid men exhaust themselves in efforts to live only in the apex of their being—that ἄνθος νόου of which Plotinus speaks.
The history of mysticism shows us, farther, that the attempt to escape all figure or symbol, in our apprehensions of divine truth, is useless, or worse than useless. Such endeavour commonly ends in substituting for a figure which, though limited and partial, has life and heart in it, some vague abstraction, cold and lifeless,—and itself, perhaps, ultimately a figure, after all. It is one thing to remember that language is but language,—that behind all the expressions of love or power lies an infinity that cannot be expressed. It is another to leave behind (as many mystics have striven to do) even the vital breathing metaphors of Holy Writ, and restlessly to peer beyond, into the Unutterable—the Illimitable. Surely the words ‘King,’ ‘Shepherd,’ ‘Father,’ express more truth concerning God than the ‘pure Act’ of philosophy. When I speak of God as near or distant, pleased or displeased, the change may be in me rather than in Him. But in practical result—in the effects I feel—it is to me as though such change of disposition were real. And mysticism must freely grant me this, if it would not play into the hands of scholasticism, its hereditary foe. There is a sickly dread of anthropomorphism abroad among us, which is afraid of attributing to God a heart.
Mysticism has often spoken out bravely and well against those who substitute barren propositions for religious life,—who reject the kindly truth to make a tyrant of some rigid theory or system. But there is danger also on the other side. An imaginative, brainsick man, may substitute religious vagaries, whims, conceits, for religious truth. Men may be led as far astray by mere feeling as by mere logic. While the man of method makes an idol of his theory, the enthusiast may make an idol of his passion or his fancy. To this latter snare we have seen mysticism repeatedly fall a prey. The fanatic and the formalist both essay to build a temple to the Holy Spirit. The formalist is satisfied with raising the structure; and a sorry taper, here and there, makes darkness visible. The fanatic kindles so many lights, and with so little care, that he burns his edifice to the ground, as did the Florentines their Church of the San Spirito, from excessive illumination.
Anatomists tell us of what they term vicarious secretion in the bodies of men. One organ is found, in some cases of injury, to produce the secretion proper to another; and so we survive the hurt. I think some process of the kind must supervene for the benefit of our minds. With many of the mystics, I doubt not, the heart performed, in their spiritual œconomy, the functions of the head. A careful scrutiny of the mystical theology will show, I am confident, that several of its prominent doctrines are, in fact, most valuable correctives, and probably took or maintained their place as such. These doctrines, some of which by no means commend themselves to the non-mystical mind, are the preservatives of the mystic from his peculiar dangers. Mysticism leads to an excessive and morbid introspection. How necessary, then, that doctrine of ‘unconsciousness’ reiterated by John of the Cross and Fénélon,—itself an extreme, but indispensable to counteract its opposite. Mysticism has taught many to expect a perceptible inward guidance. How necessary, then, the doctrine of ‘quiet,’—that the soul should be abstracted in a profound stillness, lest the hasty impulses of self should be mistaken for a divine monition. Mysticism exalts the soul to a fervour and a vision, fraught with strange sweetnesses and glories. How necessary, then, that doctrine of the more elevated Quietism which bids the mystic pass beyond the sensible enjoyments and imaginative delights of religion—escape from the finer senses of the soul, as well as the grosser senses of the body, into that state of pure and imageless contemplation which has no preference or conception of its own. If Quietism is not to become a fantastic selfishness, a sensuous effeminacy, a voice must cry, ‘Haste through the picture-gallery—haste through the rose-garden—dare the darkness, wherein the glory hides!’
The lawless excesses of which mysticism has been occasionally guilty should not serve to commend spiritual despotism. The stock alternative with the Church of Rome has been—‘Accept these fanatical outbreaks as divine, or submit to our rule.’ Unfortunately for this very palpable sophism, the most monstrous mystical extravagance, whether of pantheism, theurgy, or miracle, is to be found in the Romish Church. Angelus Silesius, Angela de Foligni, and Christina Mirabilis, are nowhere surpassed in their respective extremes. The best of the Romish mystics are questionable Romanists. Tauler and Madame Guyon were more Protestant than they were aware. Even the submissive Fénélon is but a half-hearted son of the Church, beside that most genuine type of her saintship—the zealous Dominic. Innocent folk are sometimes inclined to think better of a system which could produce a man like Fénélon. They forget that, as a product of the system, Fénélon was a very inferior specimen—little better than a failure.
There is a considerable class, in these restless, hurrying, striving days, who would be much the better for a measure of spiritual infusion from the Quietism of Madame Guyon. She has found an excellent expositor and advocate in Mr. Upham. The want of leisure, the necessity for utmost exertion, to which most of us are subject, tends to make us too anxious about trifles, presumptuously eager and impatient. We should thank the teacher who aids us to resign ourselves, to be nothing, to wait, to trust. But it is to be feared that such lessons will have the greatest charm for those who need them least—for pensive, retiring contemplatists, who ought rather to be driven out to action and to usefulness. There is a danger lest passivity should be carried too far—almost as though man were the helpless object about which light and darkness were contending, rather than himself a combatant, armed by God against the powers of night. It seems to me, too, better to watch against, and suppress as they arise, our selfish tendencies and tempers—our envy, pride, indifference, hate, covetousness—than to be always nervously trying (as Fénélon does) to catch that Proteus, Self, in the abstract.
Finally, in the mischievous or unsuccessful forms of mysticism we have the recorded result of a series of attempts to substitute the inner light for the outer. When mysticism threw off external authority altogether, it went mad—as we have seen in the revolutionary pantheism of the Middle Age. When it incorporated itself more and more in revealed truth, it became a benign power—as on the eve of the Reformation. The testimony of history, then, is repeatedly and decisively uttered against those who imagine that to set aside the authority of Scripture would be to promote the religious life of men. The Divine Spirit is with us yet; and the healing, elevating wisdom of the inspired page unexhausted still. The hope of our age lies, not in a conceited defiance of controul, but in our ability more fully to apprehend the counsels God Himself has given us. Argument may be evaded. To speak in the name of religion may seem to beg the question. But to resist the verdict of the past is not the part of any thoughtful man. He who hopes to succeed in superseding letter by spirit—in disseminating a gospel more spiritual than that of scripture, by somehow dispensing with the vehicle which all truth requires for its conveyance,—who hopes to succeed in any attempt approaching this, where more powerful minds, sometimes more favourably situated, have met only with defeat—such a fanatic must be dismissed with pity as totally incurable.
It grows late. Good night all. If I can get back earlier I will.
Yours,
Henry Atherton.