The Reformation of the Heart: The Making of ‘Mysticism’ in Seventeenth-Century England

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay considers the significance of various efforts – both Protestant and Catholic - to revitalise or revolutionise British religion in the seventeenth century, often seen as compromised by secular entanglement, using the resources of medieval and contemporary mysticism. The engagement with the Rhineland mystics and their Reformation disciples was central to this project, which helped to create the category of ‘mysticism’ in the English language, as a subversive but vital element in religious life. It is a central argument of this paper that modern ‘mysticism’ did not emerge simply as a polemical construct. Neither can it be attributed to a reaction against ‘the Enlightenment’. Instead, mysticism – understood as a quest to recover a distinct spiritual way in religion, part of a continuous tradition through Christian history – had an agency and provenance of its own. This quest often and increasingly took the form of dissent from the established churches.