What are Christian mystics?

But dwelling in God is by dwelling in love. Care is needed here lest we wander into the by-paths of imagination and, like the mystic, lose ourselves in the ecstasy of folly. The mystic is self-engrossed being occupied with his wants, wishes and desires. The intelligent believer is occupied with Christ and perfectly satisfied, his heart being filled with peace and joy as the result of being occupied with the object set before him by the Holy Spirit. There can be no real intimacy apart from the fulfilment of this condition, namely, he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God. We rise then from the ways, work and counsels of God to God Himself. Beyond this we cannot get now, but in the company of the Holy Spirit we come forward into time on the way to an eternity of bliss where we shall ever dwell with and in God. But it is not only what we get in all this but what God has got for Himself in the fulfilment of His own eternal plan, in the triumph of that grace which has secured for Himself the creature of His choice.

The Word of God deals with the state of His saints. It throws light upon the progressive work of the Spirit in our souls. All this truth, which we speak of commonly as subjective, is of great importance, and we do well to maintain it, firmly holding it in its true connection with the great objective realities themselves, since every action of the Spirit within us subjectively is in strict accord with the objective reality by which He works.

Mysticism, however, does not preserve the Scriptural order and balance as between these two sides of truth. In its eyes the subjective side appears so great that the objective realities are largely obscured. We say largely because it does not deny God's revelation in Christ, nor the reality of the work He accomplished for us, nor that which He will yet accomplish for us at His coming again. It admits these things theologically, and then relegates them into the background of the picture in order that the foreground may be the more effectually occupied with the Spirit's work within us. Consequently to the mystic this subjective side of things becomes the only thing worth consideration. The consciousness of the thing becomes in his thoughts virtually the thing itself. He talks therefore continually about his consciousness, his apprehension, his experiences; which is only another way of saying he is wrapped up in himself. He speaks of Christ, but views Him as the One, who produces these impressions.

Nor is this all. If people could be found marked only by these characteristics, it is doubtful if the term “mystic” could be properly applied to them. The essence of mysticism lies in this, that the seat of authority is transferred in the mind of the mystic from the external Word of God to the spiritual consciousness — the “spiritual man” — internal to themselves. Homage of quite an orthodox kind may be verbally rendered to the Scriptures, and yet they may be largely displaced. The spiritual conception of the mystic, who flatters himself that he is indeed a spiritual man, are all important to him. He soars above and beyond the Scripture. Its letter he disdains, even if he does not speak against it. It has little or no restraining effect upon the flights of his imagination. He quotes it of course, but only as supporting or illustrating or adorning his own conceptions of truth. His conceptions become the primary thing on which the main emphasis must be laid. Scripture must be interpreted in the light of those conceptions, and its words become of secondary importance.

The First Epistle to the Corinthians, though by no means so full of this as that to the Ephesians, brings before us the principle of this truth: "As is the heavenly such are they also that are heavenly; and as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." The first thought is, that we are heavenly now; and the second is, that though we are heavenly, we do not yet bear the image of the heavenly, but we shall. What a deliverance from mysticism! Mysticism is merely the craving of the heart to feel within what it would desire to have; but faith avoids this occupation with self, and enters into the truth of God. It may be a mystery; but it is one unveiled, and which God makes to be most real and intelligible by the power of the Holy Ghost, for God, of His own grace, has counselled, done, and given it all to us in Christ.

Now mysticism, while boasting much of its feelings, never gets beyond desire; while simple Christianity, giving the knowledge of salvation, puts us into full possession of the love of God. I know that He loves Christ; that love has saved me; it was He who desired me. In love He had need of me; and this love is perfection in Christ. In peace I contemplate this love, and I adore it in Christ. I dwell in Him and He in me.

219 I have never seen a mystic whose idea of love was not entirely at fault in its nature: it was something in man, which needed to be satisfied, instead of being something in God, which satisfied the heart deeply, infinitely, and perfectly. Thence unheard-of efforts to abase oneself, to vilify oneself, and to speak evil of oneself, as if a saved one could be anything in the presence of a Saviour, instead of being nothing and forgetting himself in the presence of so much love. When one is truly delighted in the presence of God, and beholding His excellent beauty in His temple, is one occupied with the hideous forms which hide themselves in the heart of man? I think not. We think of Him. He has given us the right to do so, by a grace which has really set aside all that we were as alive out of Christ, as in the flesh. Do we then make no humbling experience of self? I say not so. Yes, there are moments when God reveals to us the frightful secrets of that heart in which no good exists; but we do not boast, we do not say much of it, if we have truly seen God. If we try to find in man, in his love to God, something as good as the love of God to us, then we talk about it, and fancy we are humbling ourselves. This is but the vanity of the heart which knows not God, and knows not itself either; it is the true character of mysticism.

God in His holiness, His majesty, His righteousness, His love, has found His rest in the work and Person of Christ: I have found mine there. The mystic never has rest, because he vainly seeks in man what he ought to seek in God, who had accomplished all before he ever thought about it. This is why they seek a disinterested love; but where? In man! Poor worshippers of man deified in their imagination; of a man who will never be found! Here sin is in him, in heaven he will think only of God. This is why the imagination plays so great a part in mysticism, and Satan can so often deceive by it, because the imagination and the heart of man are called into play. I do not say that spiritual affections are never there: far from it; nor that God never reveals Himself to such affections. I doubt not that He does it and thus renders the person happy, but you will find him, after all, occupied with the affections and not with God Himself. It is the chief defect of mysticism. In a word, I see it in an effort of the human heart, trying to produce in itself something strong enough in the way of affection to satisfy a heart awakened by the excellence of its Object: for I am now supposing a true awakening of the heart.

Mysticism on the other hand, whether Catholic or Protestant, dissatisfied with the worldly case and self-complacency of the evangelicals, is ever pining after a deeper reality, but seeks it within. Hence the continual effort of the pietist school is to die to self and so to enjoy God, unless perhaps with the few who flatter themselves that they have arrived at such a state of perfection as they can rest in. But for the mass, and I suppose indeed all whose conscience retains its activity, they never go beyond godly desires and inward strainings after holiness. They cannot dwell consciously in God's love to them as a settled fact known in Christ, producing self-forgetfulness in presence of His own perfect grace which made Christ to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. The system tends even in its fairest samples to turn the eye inwardly in a search after a love which may aspire to resemble as closely as possible the love of God, and so satisfy itself with the hope of a life ever higher and higher. Hence pious sentimentalism, which is little more than imagination at work in religion, reigns in the heart, not grace through righteousness.

"One of the strongest implications of the doctrine of Evolution," writes Fiske, "is the Everlasting Reality of Religion" ("Through Nature to God," p. 111). Cf. Max Müller, "Origin and Growth of Religion," Lect. ii. Spencer (op. cit., vol. i. § 146) and Tylor ("Primitive Culture," p. 428) alike discredit the entire deficiency of any tribe of mankind in religious ideas. At the root of Religion lies Faith (see note on 18:8), with both emotional (the dominant) and intellectual elements, crude forms of which pass under the name of "Superstition." The form of religion at the same time highest and deepest is called "Mysticism" (see "Psychology of Religion," pp. 154-173, 244 f.), one expression of the Christian form of which is found in Paul's words, a "life hid with Christ in God" (Col. 3:3: cf. Gal. 2:20). This has nothing to do with the "Mysteries" or worship of pagan deities of the Earth or Sea, as to which see Sir W. Ramsay's article in "Encyclopaedia Britannica," or Sir R. Anderson's "The Bible or the Church," ch. 8 and the late Archdeacon Cheetham's Hulsean Lectures on "The Christian Mysteries."

A recent masterly book on Christian Mysticism is that of Dr. Rufus Jones, the American Quaker scholar. A man's religion, as the word is used by Christians, is that which expresses, from his own point of view, his relations to a supernatural Being. All the leading religions, beginning with Judaism (see Abrahams, ch. vi.), have produced mystics, whose tone of mind in the Christian element is described as "spiritual."

Bonaventura, a native of Tuscany, entered into the order of the Franciscans in the year 1243 at the age of twenty-one. He completed his studies at Paris, and with such success, as to acquire the title of the "seraphic doctor." He died in 1274, as cardinal-bishop of Albano. His works were less voluminous than his contemporary, Thomas Aquinas, and less intellectual, but more devotional. "His works," it is said, "surpass in usefulness all those of his age, in regard to the spirit of the love of God and christian devotion which speaks in him, that he is profound without being prolix, subtle without being curious, eloquent without vanity, ardent without inflation; his devotion is instructive, and his doctrine inspires devotion." On being asked, when dying, from what books he had derived his learning, he answered by pointing to the crucifix, and he was in the habit of referring to the scriptures rather than to St. Francis, the founder of his order. But we must wait a little longer before we find the all-important doctrine of justification through simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ taught by the learned. Bonaventura as a theologian represents the mystics. He might have been the author of the "Imitation of Christ," said to be written about this time by Thomas a Kempis. But never was book so misnamed. It begins with self, and ends with self. The internal emotions of the soul absorb the mystic. It is monastic Christianity. The love of Christ is purely unselfish: He laid down His life to save His enemies. "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." And faith can say, "He loved me, and gave Himself for me." (Rom. 5; Gal. 2)

“The mystic never has rest, because he vainly seeks in man what he ought to seek in God, who had accomplished all before he ever thought about it. … This is why the imagination plays so great a part in mysticism, and Satan can so often deceive by it, because the imagination and the heart of man are called into play. I do not say that spiritual affections are never there: … but you will find him after all, occupied with the affections and not with God Himself. It is the chief defect of mysticism. In a word, I see it in an effort of the human heart, trying to produce in itself something strong enough in the way of affection to satisfy a heart awakened by the excellence of its object. …”

Scripture is not entirely dispensed with, but the main emphasis is laid on “sensitiveness and spirituality,” or, what the speaker considers to be such. It comes to this: that if we are spiritually sensitive we shall accept the teaching, and to refuse it merely displays spiritual insensitiveness. Scripture is relegated to the background in order that mystical impressions may occupy the foreground.