In the late medieval era, a renewed concern for the inner life emerged. This new kind of mysticism affected the medieval sermon. Mystic John Tauler did not completely abandon the scholastic rules for preaching, but he did alter them freely. It may be said that he practiced a devotional style of preaching.
The content of his preaching reflected his contemplative strivings in the Christian faith, namely, union with God through various mystical stages, to complete absorption with God where all distinctions of reality cease to exist. His preaching was full of power, a glowing fire of God’s love and drawing grace. The influence of Tauler’s sermons can be seen in Thomas á Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ. This mystical style emerges frequently in church history, particularly in those times when people have grown weary of an intellectualized preaching.
A Mystic Preaching Spiritual Renewal
Of the great mystics John Tauler, doubtless, is the foremost of his class in that age. Tauler lived on the Rhine in the fourteenth century, having been educated at the University of Paris, then the greatest of all seats of learning. In a time of great political and social evils, of protracted civil war, followed by a terrible struggle between the pope and the emperor, a time of frightful pestilence, a time of dissolute morals even among priests and monks and nuns, Tauler labored as a faithful priest.
After years thus spent, he was, at the age of fifty, lifted to what some call a higher life through the influence of a young layman, the head of a secret society that was trying to reform religion without leaving the church. It was after this renewal period that Tauler preached the sermons that were taken down by hearers and remain with us to this day.
We ought to study these mystical writings. They represent one side of human nature and minister to men and women in every age. Our age is intensely practical. Yet, many persons readily accept the idea of higher spirituality. Do not most of us so neglect this aspect of Christianity in our studies and our preaching as to leave the natural thirst for it in some hearers ungratified, and thus prepare them to catch at, and delight in, such ideas and sentiments when presented in an extravagant and enthusiastic form? If we do not neglect the scriptural mysticism—as found in the writings of John and also of Paul—we shall see less readiness among people to accept a mysticism that is unscriptural.
Tauler did not, however, preach mere mystical raptures. He searchingly applied the religious principle to the regulation of the inner and the outer life and urged that ordinary duties be performed in a religious spirit.