Subsequently the mystical Theosophists Valentine Weigel and Jacob &shine built on the teaching of Luther who was in close sympathy with the °German Mystics," a form of mysti cism which in many respects surpassed what most men will call the extravagance of Neopla tonism. A few expressions of Bohme will suffice in this connection. The soul he teaches has its source and origin in the essence of the God head; in its °ground" the light of God is en kindled. Now in and by this divine light the soul is enabled to enter into the very heart of the Deity and to see therein without any inter mediate the primal generation of God in the three principles of being, and the process of be coming of all things. As I then, he says, earnestly uplifted myself to God, the spirit of God broke through me and my spirit broke through unto the inmost generation of the Deity and in this light did my spirit see all things. The influence of Bifthme is seen later in the philosophy of Schilling (q.v.).
Neoplatonic mysticism modified by Protes tant doctrine reappears in the 17th century in the mystical speculations and practices of the Cambridge Platonists Cudworth, Henry More and John Smith. Other noteworthy mystical writers in England during the same century were George Herbert, Francis Quarles, Henry Vaughan, and in the following century William Law.
HI. Christian Mysticism.— A recent writer has greatly simplified this subject by defining mysticism as "the love of God," and he quotes in confirmation an author whose genius and amiable personality have endeared him hardly less to those who differ from him in religious belief than to those who venerate him as Saint Francis de Sales. Speculative theology, he says, tends to the knowledge of God. Mystical theology to the love of God,— mental prayer and mystical theology are one and the same thing. They are neither more nor less than the loving intercourse which the soul holds with God. In this sense every Christian whose practice accords with his profession is more or less of a mystic and differs from the highest mystic, the saint, not in his mysticism but in the degree of his mysticism. The term, how ever, is usually restricted to the higher degree of unitive insight. This simplification of the subject will doubtless be mistrusted, mostly by those who insist on associating all mysticism with mystery and in placing both if not against at least above reason. They should, however, remember that all even human love in a measure transcends reason. Feeling, instinct, sympathy, antipathy, telepathy, likewise, how quickly and far they elude psychological dissection! It may well be then that in the intimate com munion of God with the soul which He per meates there are psychical acts and states of which reason and common sense can give no distinct account, °upraising strains that from the slip and fall away," as was the case in Dante's experience. But while mystical
phenomena have in common with many ordi nary psychical, especially emotional, experiences that they escape rigorous analysis, they lend themselves equally with their familiar analogues to a philosophy and even a certain though higher psychology. This statement will of course be a commonplace to those who are familiar with the great masters of mystical theory, such as Saints Dionysius, the so-called Areopagite, Augustine ((Confessions,' Engl. trans.), Bernard (Engl. trans.), John of the Cross (Engl. trans.), Thomas i Kempis, or the more modern authors mentioned below. For the benefit, however, of those who are not thus informed a very brief summary of the principles of Christian mysticism is here sub joined.
1. As in the macrocosm, the world of living organisms, the law is universal that all life emanates from life, omne vivum ex vivo, and as in the scale of their various kingdoms the higher raises up and assimilates the lower the latter receiving an essentially new and greater perfection from the former, so in the micro cosm, the minor world of the human individual. Here, too, life is from life and life is from above; and the perfection of the lower consists in assimilation to the higher.
2. Beyond the natural life in man, the soul or mind, Christian Mysticism discerns a super natural life consisting radically in a principle of activity higher than that of man's purely mental and volitional operations and consequently en ergizing in higher forms of thought, belief, hope, aspiration, love, etc.
3. The existence and supernatural character of this life and its activities are accepted in the first instance on faith, the data of this belief being found in the Bible, especially the New Testament. The foundations of this faith it is claimed are rational and the workings of the higher life are confirmed by experience and attested by manifest effects.
4. Essentially and objectively this higher life consists in the vivifying operation of the Divine Spirit within the human soul; accident ally and subjectively it consists in the respon sive co-operation of man's mental activities with the Divine influences.