SOURCE: An introduction to The Inner Way: Being Thirty-Six Sermons for Festivals by John Tauler, Methuen & Co., 1901, pp. ix-xliii.

In the following excerpt, Hutton portrays Tauler as both mystical and practical, as more than an allegorist, and as a man influenced by his time. Hutton debunks common misconceptions of mysticism and distinguishes between its different varieties.

Iii

Notes on Tauler’s Teaching

Only to Tauler’s Sermons must recourse be had to ascertain his teaching; and even of these, as has been noted, a critical edition is desirable. The other works once attributed to him, and printed as his in the Latin version of Surius, are now accounted doubtful, if not certainly spurious. These works are:—(1) “The Following of the Poor Life of Christ”; (2) “Exercises on the Life and Passion of our Saviour Jesus Christ”; and (3) “Divine Institutions,” also called “The Marrow of the Soul.” All these are...