unpopular charge of enthusiasm. All
were more or less at variance with the general spirit of the century.
But, in one shape or another, they entered into almost every religious
question that was agitated; and, in many cases, it is to the men who in
their own generation were called mystics and enthusiasts that we must
chiefly turn, if we would find in the eighteenth century a suggestive
treatment of some of the theological problems which are most deeply
interesting to men of our own time.

When Church writers no longer felt bound to exert all their powers of
argument against Rome or rival modes of Protestantism, and when disputes
about forms of government, rites, and ceremonies, and other externals of
religion ceased to excite any strong interest, attention began to be
turned in good earnest to the deeper and more fundamental issues
involved in the Reformation. There arose a great variety of inquiries as
to the principles and grounds of faith. Into all of these entered more
or less directly the important question, How far man has been endowed
with a faculty of spiritual discernment independent of what is properly
called reason. It was a subject which could not be deferred, although at
this time encompassed by special difficulties and beset by prejudices.
The doctrine of 'the inner light' has been in all ages the favourite
stronghold of enthusiasts and mystics of every kind, and this was more
than enough to discredit it. All the tendencies of the age were against
allowing more than could be helped in favour of a tenet which had been
employed in support of the wildest extravagances, and had held the place
of highest honour among the opinions of the early Quakers, the
Anabaptists, the Muggletonians, the Fifth Monarchy men, and other
fanatics of recent memory. Did not the very meaning of the word
'enthusiasm,' as well as its history, point plainly out that it is
grounded on the belief in such inward illumination? And who, with the
examples of the preceding age before him, could foretell to what
dangerous extremes enthusiasm might lead its excited followers?
Whenever, therefore, any writers of the eighteenth century had occasion
to speak of man's spiritual faculties, one anxiety was constantly
present to their minds. Enthusiasm seemed to be regarded with continual
uneasiness, as a sort of unseen enemy, whom an incautious expression
might let in unawares, unless they watchfully guarded and circumscribed
the province which it h