perpetual imprisonment of the Countess and anyone who dared to make her cause their own. Others of Molinos's followers did not fare so well and in the next few years hundreds were imprisoned, and otherwise disciplined. His books were ordered burned and forbidden to the faithful. Such rigorous measures had the expected effect and in a short time the movement which Molinos started disappeared from the surface of human history, and once again organization rolled over and crushed the life out of a sincere and noble effort to enlighten the spiritual state of man. But the influence lived and is alive in the world to-day. Indeed, I believe it is still growing in the world, for with the religious revival which one notes everywhere, with the greatly increased interest in and understanding of mysticism in general, the works of the Quietists are being more and more read and studied and I have no doubt that those who get spiritual light and sustenance from Il Guida Spirituale are greater in number to-day than at any time since Molinos was condemned for heresy. Apart from his own work, the best and most authentic account of his doctrines is from a quaint little volume published in 1688 and entitled Three Letters Concerning the Present State of Italy, written in the year 1687. The work is by an Englishman who lived in Rome during the two or three years previous and who was an eye witness of many of the later public events in Molinos's life. Molinos was not the inventor of the system known as Quietism or Passivity. It was but his expression of the mystical ideal which is as old as man himself, and his does not differ very much from the previous statements given us by the German mystics of the 14th Century or the great mystics of the church to which reference has already been made. Perhaps Molinos and Madame Guyon carried the idea further towards its logical conclusions, and indeed this probably explains the hostility of the church. So long as the exponents of mysticism contended themselves with the enunciation of the possibility of conscious interior communion with God and used the ritual and religious paraphernalia of the church as aids to devotion, ecclesiasticism looked on and admired, and not infrequently extravagantly praised. But when this idea was pushed to its extreme, as it was by Molinos, and it was taught that salvation. was an individual act, depending upon meditation and prayer, and not upon benefit of clergy, the hostility of the institution was at once aroused, for it thought (wrongly) that it was no longer needed. This is why St. Theresa and St. Catherine and John of the Cross, were beatified while Molinos and Madame Guyon were condemned. Fenelon, in his defense of Madame Guyon, showed in his little book The Maxims of the Saints, that everything essential to her repudiated doctrines could be found almost verbatim in the writings of the Saints, but instead of helping her, this only brought down upon his head the censure of his superiors. All this is said simply to emphasize the fact that Molinos's teachings were not new but were a restatement of ageold truths with which we are already familiar under many forms and guises, but which the world needs to have re-stated at regular periods and which we believe are re-stated at the close of every century. This is how a contemporaneous English Protestant speaks of Molinos. "His course of life has been exact, but he has never practised those Austerities that are so much magnified in the Church of Rome, and among Religious Orders: and as he did not affect to practise them, so he did not recommend them others; nor was he fond of those poor Superstitions that are so much magnified by the trafficking men of that Church. But he gave in to the Method of the Mystical Divines, of which, since your studies have not perhaps lien much that way, I shall give you this short account. "That sublime, but mysterious way of Devotion, was not set out by any of the first Writers of the Church; which is indeed a great Prejudice against it: for how many soever they may be, who have fol lowed it in the latter Ages, yet Cassians Collations, which is a work of the middle of the fifth Century, is the antientest Book that is writ in that strain: For the pretended Denis the Areopagite is now by the consent of all learned men thought no Elder than the end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth Century. Yet after these Books appeared, very few followed the elevated strains that were in them: The latter was indeed too dark to be either well understood or much followed. So that this way of Devotion, if it was practised in Religious Houses, yet was not much set out to the World before S. Bernard's time, whose melting strains, tho a little too much laboured and affected, yet have something in them that both touches and pleases: after him many began to write in that sublime strain; such as Thauler, Rusbrachius, Harphius, Suso, but above all Thomas a Kempis, And when for some considerable time that way of writing was discontinued, it was again raised up in the last Age, with much lustre by S. Teresa: and after her by Beltasar Alvares a Jesuit: and as England produced a Carthusian in King Henry the sixths time, one Walter Hilton, who writ the scale of Perfection, a book inferior to none of these I have cited, and more simple and natural than most of them; so of late F. Cressy has publish'd out of F. Baker's papers, who was a Benedictine, a whole body of that method of Divinity and Devotion. The right notion of this way of Devotion is somewhat hard to be well understood, by those who have not studied their Metaphysicks, and is entangled with too many of the terms of the School; yet I shall give it to you as free of these as is possible. "With relation to Devotion they consider a man in three different degrees of Progress and Improvement: the first is the Animal, or the Imaginative state: in which the Impressions of Religion work strongly upon a mans Fancy, and his sensitive Powers: this state is but low and mean, and suteable to the Age of a Child; and all the Devotion that works this way, that raises a heat in the Brain, tenderness in the Thoughts, that draws Sighs and Tears, and that awakens many melting Imaginations, is of a low form, variable, and of no great force. The second state is the Rational, in which those Reflections that are made on Truths, which convince ones reason, carry one to all suteable Acts, this they say is dry, and without motion: It is a Force which the Reason puts upon the Will, and tho upon a great Variety of Motives, and many Meditations upon them, the mind goes through a great many Performances of Devotion, yet this is still a Force put upon the will. So they reckon that the third and highest state is the Contemplative, in which the Will is so united to God, and overcome by that Union that in one single Act of Contemplation, it adores God, it loves him, and resigns itself up to him: and without wearying it self with a dry multiplicity of Acts, it feels in one Act of Faith more force than a whole day of Meditation can produce. In this they saw that a true Contemplative Man, feels a secret Joy in God, and an acquiescing in his Will; in which the true Elevation of Devotion lies; and which is far above either the heats of Fancy, which accompany the first state, or the Subtility of Meditation, that belongs to the second state: and they say, that the perfection of a Contemplative state above the others, appears in this, that whereas all men are not capable of forming lively Imaginations, or of a fruitful invention, yet every man is capable of the simplicity of contemplation; which is nothing but the silent and humble adoration of God, that arises out of a pure and quiet mind. But because all this may appear a little intricate, I shall illustrate it by a similitude, which will make the difference of those three states more sensible. 1. A man that sees the exterior of another, with whom he has no acquaintance, and is much taken with his face, shape, quality, and mien, and thus has a blind prevention in his favour, and a sort of a feeble kindness for him, may be compared to him whose Devotion consists in lively Imaginations, and tender Impressions on his lower and sensible Powers. 2. A man that upon an acquaintance with another, sees a great many reasons to value and esteem, both his parts and his Vertues, yet in all this he feels no inward Charm that overcomes him, and knits his soul to the other; so that how high soever the esteem may be, yet it is cold and dry, and does not affect his heart much, may be compared to one whose Devotion consists in many Acts, and much Meditation. But 3dly, when a man enters into an entire friendship with another, then one single Thought of his Friend, affects him more tenderly, than all the variety of reflections, which may arise in his mind, where this Union is not felt. And thus they explain the sublime state of Contemplation. And they reckon that all the common methods of Devotion, ought to be considered, only as steps to raise men up to this state; when men rest and continue in them, they are but dead and lifeless Forms: and if they rise above them, they become Cloggs and Hinderances, which amuse them with many dry Performances, in which those who are of a higher Dispensation will feel no pleasure nor advantage. Therefore the use of the Rosary, the daily repeating the Breviary, together with the common Devotions to the Saints, are generally laid aside by those who rise up to the Contemplative State, and the chief business to which they apply themselves, is to keep their Minds in an inward Calm and Quiet, that so they may in silence form simple Acts of Faith, and feel those inward Motions and Directions which they believe follow all those who rise up to this Elevation. But because a man may be much deceived in those Inspirations, therefore they recommend to all who enter into this method, above all other things, the choise of a Spiritual Guide, who has a right sense and a true taste of those matters, and is by Consequence a Competent Judge in them. "This is all that I will lay before you in general, for giving you some taste of Molinos's Methods; and by this you will both see why his followers are called QUIETISTS, and why his Book is Entitled il Guida Spirituale. But if you intend to Inform your self more particularly of this matter, you must seek for it, either in the Authors that I have already mentioned, or in those of which I am to give you some account in the sequel of this Letter. Molinos having it seems drunk in the principles of the Contemplative Devotion in Spain, where the great Veneration that is paid to Saint Teresa gives it much reputation, he brought over with him to Italy a great Zeal for propagating it. He came and setled at Rome, where he writ his Book, and entered into a great commerce with the men of the best Apprehensions, and the most Elevated thoughts that he found there. All that seemed to concur with him in his design for setting on foot this sublimer way, were not perhaps animated with the same principles. Some designed sincerely to elevate the World above those poor and trifling Superstitions, that are so much in vogue, among all the Bigots of the Church of Rome, but more particularly in Spain and Italy, and which are so much set on by almost all the Regulars, who seem to place Religion chiefly in the exact performing of them."* Mr. John Bigelow published a little monograph upon Molinos in 1882, from which we quote the following extracts: "The substance of his teachings was that the soul of man is the temple and abode of God, which we ought, therefore, to keep as clean and pure from worldliness, and the lusts of the flesh, and the pride of life as possible. "The true end of human life ought to be, as far as possible, the attainment of perfection. In the progress to this result, Molinos distinguishes two principal stages or degrees, the first attainable by medita *Three Letters Concerning the Present State of Italy, written in the year 1687, pp. 13-19. tion, the second, and highest, by contemplation. In the first stage the attention is fixed upon the capital truths of religion, upon all the circumstances under which religion has been commended to us, objections are wrestled with, and doubts which might trouble the soul one by one are resolved and banished. In this stage it is the reason, mainly, that acts, and often, if not altogether, in opposition to the will or the natural man. One, however, does not reach the higher stage of devotion till the soul ceases to struggle, till it has no farther need of proofs or reflection; till it contemplates the truth in silence and repose. This is what is termed retirement of the soul and perfect contemplation, in which the soul does not reason nor reflect, neither about God nor itself, but passively receives the impressions of celestial light, undisturbed by the world or its works. Whenever the soul can be lifted up to this state, it desires nothing, not even its own salvation, and fears nothing, not even hell. It becomes indifferent to the use of the sacraments and to all the practices of sensible devotion, having transcended the sphere of their efficacy. "The Divine Majesty knows very well that it is not by the means of one's own ratiocination or industry that a soul draws near to Him and understands the divine truths, but rather by silent and humble resignation. God does the same with the soul when He deprives it of consideration and ratiocination. Whilst it thinks it does nothing and is, in a manner, undone, in times it comes to itself again, improved, disengaged, and perfect, having never hoped for so much favor.1 Prayer he calls the sword of the Spirit,—prayer frequent and prolonged, 'It concerns thee only," he adds, "to prepare thy heart like clean paper wherein the Divine Wisdom may imprint characters to his own liking.' "Those who endeavor to acquire virtues by such abstinence, maceration of the body, mortification of the senses, rigorous penances, wearing sack-cloth, chastising the flesh by discipline, going in quest of sensible affections and fervent sentiments, thinking to find God in them, such Molinos considered were in what he termed the external way, the way of beginners, which, though to such it might be useful, never would conduct them to perfection, 'nor so much as one step towards it, as experience shows in many, who, after fifty years of this external exercise, are void of God, and full of themselves (of spiritual pride), having nothing of a spiritual man but the name." " "The truly spiritual men, on the other hand, are those whom the Lord, in his infinite mercy, has called from the outward way in which they have been wont to exercise themselves; who had retired into the interior part of their souls; who had resigned themselves into the hand of God, totally putting off and forgetting themselves, and always going The Spiritual Guide, p. 12. Our citations are made from the English version of 1699. |