QUIETISTS, the name of a somewhat numerous class of mystical sects, who, in dif ferent ages, have held that the most perfect state of the soul is a state of quiet, in which the soul ceases to reason, to reflect, whether upon itself or on God, and, in a word, to exercise any of its faculties, its sole function being passively to receive the infused heav enly light, which, according to their view, accompanies this state of inactive contempla tion. Under the various heads. FENELON, HESYCIIASTS, •RETIIREN OF THE FREE SPIRIT, MOLINOS, MYSTICISM, most of the details of the doctrine of the Quietists have been explained. Some of these are of a purely speculative character, and involving bui little of practical consequence, whether for good or for evil. But there is one most per nicious class of errors, which, however eschewed by the leaders of the various schools, has seldom failed to characterize the practical working of the system the vulgar crowd of its followers. From the belief of the lofty and perfect nature of the purely passive state of contemplation, there is but a single step to the fatal principle in morals, that in this sublime state of contemplation all external things become indifferent to the soul, which is thus absorbed in God; that good works, the sacraments, prayer, are not necessary, and hardly even compatible with the repose of the soul; nay, that SO com plete is the self-absorption, so independent is the soul of corporeal Sense, that the most criminal representations and movements of the sensitive part of the soul, and even the external actions of the body, fail to affect the contemplating soul, or to impress it with their debasing influence. These results will be found detailed under some of the heads
named above. The chief Quietist sects have been the Mossalians or Euchites, in the 4th c.; the Bogomili, in the 11 c.; the Beghards and Beguines, in the 13th c.; the Ilesy chests, in the east, about the same period; the Brethren of the Free Spirit, in the 14th c.; Michael Molinos, in the 17th c.; and others of less note.