650 
MYSTICS. 
of God, free from all selfish considerations. The Mystics, to excuse 
their fanatic ecstasies and amorous extravai^ancies, allege that pas- 
sage of St. Paul, “ The Spirit itself inaketh intercession for us, with 
groanings that cannot be uttered.” “ Now if the Spirit,” say they, 
reign in us, we must resign ourselves to its motions, and be swayed 
and guided by its impulse, by remaining in a state of mere inaction.” 
Passive contemplation is that state of perfection to which the Mystics 
all aspire. 
This mystic science sprung up towards the close of the third cen - 
tury, The authors are not known, but the principles proceeded from 
the known doctrine of the Platonic school, which was also adopted by 
Origen and his disciples, namely, that the divine nature was diffused 
through all human souls, and that the faculty of reason, from which 
proceed the health and vigour of the mind, was an emanation from 
God into the soul, and comprehended in it the principles and ele- 
ments of all truth, human and divine. The Mystics denied that by 
study men could excite this celestial flame in their breasts ; and 
therefore they disapproved highly of the attempts of those who, by 
definitions, abstract theorems, and profound speculations, endeavoured 
to form distinct notions of truth. They maintained that silence, tran- 
quillity, repose, and solitude, accompanied with such acts as tend to 
extenuate and exhaust the body, were the means by which the hidden 
and internal w'ord was excited to produce its latent virtues, and to 
instruct men in the knowledge of divine things. Those, say they, who 
behold with a noble contempt all human affairs, who turn away their 
eyes from terrestrial scenes, and shut all the avenues of the outward 
senses against the contagious influences of a material w'orld, must 
necessarily return to God, when the spirit is thus disengaged from 
the impediments that prevented that happy union. And in this bless- 
ed frame they not only enjoy inexpressible raptures from their com- 
munion with the supreme Being, but also are invested with the ines- 
timable privilege of contemplating truth undisguised and uncorrupted, 
in its native purity, while others behold it in a vitiated and delusive 
form. 
The number of the Mystics increased in the fourth century, under 
the influence of the Grecian fanatic, who gave himself out for Diony^ 
sius the Areopagite ; and by pretending to higher degrees of perfec- 
tion than other Christians, and practising greater austerity, their 
cause gained ground, especially in the eastern provinces, in the fifth 
century. A copy of the pretended works of Dionysius was sent by 
Baibus to Lewis the Meek in 824, which kindled the flame of Mysti- 
cism in the western provinces, and filled the Latins with the most 
enthusiastic admiration of this new religion. In the twelfth century, the 
Mystics, by searching for mysteries and liidden meanings in the 
plainest expressions, forced the word of God into conformity with 
their visionary doctrines, their enthusiastic feelings, and the system of 
religion which they had drawn from the expansions of their irregular 
fancies. In the thirteenth century they were the most formidable 
antagonists of the schoolmen ; and towards the end of the fourteenth 
many of them resided, and propagated their tenets, in almost every 
part of Europe. They had, in the fifteenth century, many persons of 
