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 ESSAYS AND ORATIONS, 
 
 AND 
 
 A Sketch of the Proceedings of the General Conference 
 
 OF THE 
 
 EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE, 
 
 Held in. tlae City of ISTew York, October, 1873. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 The Rev. S. IREN^EUS PRIME, D.D., 
 
 A^D 
 
 The Rey. PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D. 
 
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2 EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE, 1873. 
 
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THE BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 MODERN INFIDELITY. 
 
 A PAPER READ BEFORE THE GENERAL CONFERENCE 
 
 EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE, 
 
 New York, October 6, 1873. 
 
 BY 
 
 THEODOR CHRISTLIEB, Ph.D., D.D., 
 
 professor of theology and university preacher at ijonn, Prussia. 
 
 
 M2 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 FRANKLIN SQUARE. 
 
 18 74. 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 
 
 Harper & Brothers, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. 
 
 Theodor Chmstlieb was born at Ludvvigsburg, in 
 the kingdom ofWtirtemberg, on the 7th of March, 1833. 
 He is a fellow - townsman of Dr. David Frederick 
 Strauss, the author of the infidel "Life of Jesus." His 
 father is still living, as dean in Ludwigsburg ; his grand- 
 father and great-grandfather held the same position in 
 the State Church ofWtirtemberg. 
 
 Christlieb received his classical education at Maul- 
 bronn and Tubingen ; in the former place he was a 
 pupil of the famous Greek scholar, Dr. Baumlein. He 
 entered, in 1851, the University of Tubingen, to which 
 Germany is indebted for a large number of profound 
 theologians. 
 
 His teachers at the University were Oehler, Landerer, 
 Beck, and Baur. He learned from all of them, but fol- 
 lowed none exclusively. They needed not to bring 
 him to Christ, as he came to the University, true to 
 his name (Christlieb), a lover of Christ. After having 
 honorably passed his theological examination, he re- 
 
8 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. 
 
 turned home to Ludwigsburg, where he began to write 
 his book on Scotus Erigena. 
 
 In 1857 he took the degree of Ph.D. at the Univer- 
 sity of Tubingen, and went for a year as private tutor 
 to Montpellier, in France. Travels in France and Spain 
 added to his excellent classical and professional edu- 
 cation the broader view and the keener conception of 
 the world and of man which are peculiar to the cosmo- 
 politan gentleman. Nevertheless, he was ready to re- 
 turn to the narrow sphere of a country parson. His 
 first official appointment was in the little village near 
 Stuttgart. But as early as 1858 he received a call to 
 Islington, London, to gather the Germans of that place 
 into an evangelical congregation. 
 
 His labors in Islington bore good and timely fruit. 
 When, after a stay of seven years, lie left, the congrega- 
 tion was well organized, a beautiful church built, and a 
 faithful successor secured in the person of the eldest 
 son of the late Dr. Fliedner, of Kaiserswerth. While 
 in Islington, Christlieb was married to an accomplished 
 English lady of German descent, the* daughter of the 
 late missionary Weitbrecht, of India. 
 
 In 1860 his book on Scotus Erigena appeared. It 
 won for its author the name of a thoroughly learned 
 theologian and a strong thinker. He consequently re- 
 ceived a very honorable call to St. Petersburg as coun- 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. 9 
 
 cilor of the Lutheran consistory of the Baltic provinces, 
 which he, however, declined; but when, in 1865, the 
 pastorate of Friedrichshafen, on the Lake of Constance, 
 was offered to him, he accepted. He used to see there, 
 among the worshipers in his church, the King of Wtir- 
 temberg, who is accustomed to spend the summer 
 months in the quiet retreat of Friedrichshafen. From 
 this place he was repeatedly invited to Switzerland, 
 to deliver, in behalf of the Evangelical Society of St. 
 Gallen, apologetical lectures in different Swiss cities, 
 to counteract the destructive influence of the State 
 Church theologians of Switzerland, who are, with a 
 few exceptions, rationalists and pantheists. These lec- 
 tures were afterward published in a volume under the 
 title " Modevne Ziceifel" and are counted, among the 
 ablest contributions to modern apologetic literature in 
 Germany. An English edition of the book will soon 
 appear in Edinburgh and in this city under the title 
 "Modern Doubt and Christian Belief." 
 
 In 1868 Christlieb w T as appointed Professor of The- 
 ology in the Evangelical Faculty of the University of 
 Bonn, Prussia. His lectures comprehend Pastoral The- 
 ology, "Church Polity, History of Christian Missions, 
 Apologetics, and Philosophy of Religion. Besides, he 
 is chaplain of the university. His predecessors were 
 men of the highest reputation in the Evangelical 
 
 1* 
 
10 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. 
 
 Church of Germany — such as Nitzsch, Rothe, Stein- 
 rneyer; but he is considered to have taken not only 
 their chair, but also to have filled their place. 
 
 In America Professor Christlieb was scarcely known 
 before the General Conference of the Evangelical Alli- 
 ance ; but his appearance among us has made a deep 
 and lasting impression, and he will be ranked hereafter 
 among the leading evangelical divines of the age. 
 
THE BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 MODERN INFIDELITY. 
 
ON THE 
 
 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 MODERN INFIDELITY. 
 
 The question as to the best methods of counter- 
 acting modern infidelity is so wide a one — whether 
 w r e consider it in a scientific, a historical, or a practi- 
 cal and moral light — that it is imperatively necessary 
 for us to confine ourselves in its treatment to two 
 points of view. First, then, we would indicate the 
 chief scientific positions in which attack and defense 
 can be most successfully maintained — -especially draw- 
 ing attention to those points in the great struggle 
 which have hitherto been overlooked ; and second, 
 we shall endeavor to sketch out the practical tasks 
 imposed upon us as members or teachers of a Chris- 
 tian community, as well as on the Church of Christ 
 at large, in the great battle against the unbelief of 
 our day. All questions of detail we will leave to 
 free discussion. 
 
 We Germans are notorious for making long intro-* 
 ductions, but to-day— notwithstanding all that might 
 
14 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 with advantage be said — I prefer to omit prelimi- 
 naries altogether. I will not, therefore, stop to give 
 an exact limitation or definition of the term " modern 
 infidelity," although this notion has not everywhere 
 quite the same extent, as e. g., in England, some opin- 
 ions are called rationalistic, which in Germany would 
 hardly be so designated. I hope, however, to ex- 
 press the view common to us all, when I say that 
 we comprise under the name of "infidel" all those 
 tendencies and systems which militate against the 
 Biblical and Christian view of God and of the uni- 
 verse, which do not consider Holy Scripture as an 
 authentic record of Divine Eevelation, and which in 
 theory or in practice refuse to acknowledge the cen- 
 tral doctrine of our faith, viz., the salvation that has 
 appeared in Christ. The term modern infidelity, then, 
 would designate the same tendencies and schools of 
 thought as they appear at the present day, i. e., arm- 
 ed with weapons furnished them by the philosophy, 
 the historical criticism, and the natural science of our 
 times. 
 
 Finally, we pass by the various schools of unbe- 
 lief with their specific principles, such as Pantheism, 
 Eationalism, etc., since the more important of them 
 will be separately treated of to-day; and we merely 
 glance at the different forms practically assumed by 
 modern unbelief. Among these forms we see every 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 15 
 
 possible gradation of departure from Christian truth, 
 ranging from the indifferentism which still admits of 
 a nominal connection with the Church, to a fanatical 
 and aggressive hatred of all that belongs to it ; from 
 a Pilate's tone of haughty despite, to blasphemous 
 mockery ; or from the learned investigator and critic, 
 who with immense diligence and acuteness endeav- 
 ors to reduce all the Divine elements in Scripture to 
 mere natural phenomena produced by human histor- 
 ical agencies, down to the shallow journalist, who is 
 fain to widen his circle of readers by piquant mock- 
 ery of all " orthodoxy " and "methodism." Essential- 
 ly the same tendency of thought is represented by 
 that critic who, as the result of the long conflict, 
 would have us substitute the new faith (by Messrs. 
 Lessing and Darwin) for the old faith , but who, for- 
 sooth, ardently desires to see the old order of society 
 preserved at least until his eyes are closed, as well 
 as by those fanatical enemies of the present social 
 order, who already anticipate the logical results of 
 the " new belief," i. e., a chaos formed by the destruc- 
 tion of society's present frame-work, of all the ideal 
 elements of life, even of the worship of art-heroes 
 still left to us by Strauss, and the proclamation of a 
 gospel of the flesh which shall teach man to cultivate 
 naught but the palpable and sensuous. 
 
 If, in view of these increasingly radical and threat- 
 
16 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 ening attacks, we inquire after the best methods of 
 repulse, we thereby indicate that there are various 
 methods of differing value. The defense must, of 
 course, vary in its method, on the one hand, according 
 to the nature and extent of the "unbelief, the causes 
 of its origin, and the manner in which it conducts its 
 assaults against our faith ; on the other hand, accord- 
 ing to the position which we desire to defend. But 
 we may safely say that there are, and always have 
 been, certain recognized and well-defined lines and 
 maxims of defense, though differing much from one 
 another in value. 
 
 A thoroughly wrong method — one which is dia- 
 metrically opposed to the spirit of the Gospel, and 
 has not, sad to say, always been used by the Roman 
 Church only— is the suppression of opposition against 
 certain dogmas by physical force, or by merely ap- 
 pealing to the outward authority of the Church. In 
 the same way we reject — and I think you will agree 
 with me in this- — as unevangelical, unfruitful, and 
 productive of confusion, the cognate tendency shown 
 by the extreme ecclesiastical party in the Protestant 
 Church to oppose the unbridled independence and 
 subjective arbitrariness of the criticism of our day by 
 an overstrained assertion of the rights of the priest- 
 ly office, and who would endeavor to raise a barrier 
 against the prevalence of free investigation and spon- 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 17 
 
 taneous appropriation of truth by laying an exagger- 
 ated stress upon the sacramental actions of the Church, 
 which the most advanced of them are already begin- 
 ning to make into sacrificial rites. These theories and 
 tendencies we reject; for a knowledge or appropria- 
 tion of saving grace communicated otherwise than 
 by moral (not magical) means is opposed no less to 
 Scripture than to the spirit of our age! 
 
 The trust that sustains us in this tremendous strug- 
 gle, waged not with men alone, but with all the pow- 
 ers of darkness, must not be founded on ourselves, 
 nor on other weak men, not on any outward assist- 
 ance from the state, nor on forms and ceremonies (for 
 "cursed is the man that maketh flesh his arm," Jer. 
 xvii., 5), but on the Lord himself, who sits exalted at 
 his Father's right hand, as Euler over all, even the 
 raging of his enemies. His presence is not bound to 
 outward forms or traditions. He is the Spirit (2 Cor. 
 iii., 17), and from him proceeds the Spirit of truth. 
 To this his Spirit we must in the last resort leave the 
 work of convincing men's hearts and minds of the 
 truth of Christian Eevelation, without sparing them the 
 trouble of free investigation or of a conscientious decis- 
 ion and self-resolve. In accordance with these prin- 
 ciples, our human task in the battle against unbelief 
 can be no other than to overcome the opponent by moral 
 and spiritual means. First of all, that is, by an earnest, 
 
18 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 spiritually vigorous testimony for Christ, next by a truly 
 scientific delineation of Christian belief as a view of the 
 world and of God, which is strictly coherent and cor- 
 roborated by history and conscience, while at the same 
 time openly acknowledging all its difficulties and ob- 
 scurities; and last, by a practical demonstration of its 
 truth in Christian living and suffering. 
 
 Keeping this fundamental rule in view, we, on the 
 other hand, see unbelief present itself to us socially 
 in different shapes, either isolated in individuals, or 
 systematically formulated in scientific schools, or prac- 
 tically carried out by the press, clubs, unions, etc., and 
 forming a threatening power in our social life. Thus 
 our subject naturally divides into three heads: How 
 may we best counteract Infidelity — 
 
 I. In individuals? 
 
 II. In scientific systems ? 
 
 III. As a social power, practically extending its in- 
 fluence throughout wide circles? 
 
 I. 
 
 Infidelity in Isolated Individuals. 
 
 Under this head w r e will only give a few sugges- 
 tions, in order to have more room for the other 
 parts. 
 
 The following treatment seems to me the wisest: 
 First, we must endeavor to obtain for ourselves (and 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 19 
 
 mostly for the individuals in question too) a clear 
 idea of the special causes from which their unbelief 
 has originated. These may be of very varied charac- 
 ter. They may consist in received tradition, in dis- 
 coveries of modern science, in political or social phe- 
 nomena. Often unbelief results almost as a natural 
 necessity from the whole spiritual and moral atmos- 
 phere of a man's surroundings. Let us put ourselves 
 in the place of such individuals, and not forget (as is, 
 alas, too often done) the share of blame which frequently 
 attaches to the Church herself by reason of her neglect 
 to care for souls, her inward nakedness, her fruitless 
 bickerings about trifles, her narrow-minded party- 
 spirit, all of which constantly do an infinity of mis- 
 chief by alienating from her the hearts of thousands. 
 Such thoughts will produce in us true humility and 
 hearty sympathy w T ith the inward misery of those 
 who are for from God — feelings without which we 
 shall never be able to gain their confidence, nor to 
 lead them to see the innermost causes of their unbe- 
 lief in certain moral failings. 
 
 It is not for nothing that our Lord classes unbelief 
 with hardness of heart ("He upbraided them w T ith their 
 unbelief and hardness of heart," Mark xvi., 14; cf. 
 Luke xxiv., 25). In the first and last resort, all unbe- 
 lief springs, not from the hardness and incomprehensi- 
 bility w T hich the faith possesses for the understanding, 
 
20 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 but from the hardness and perverseness of the natural 
 heart of man, which, will not bow to the mighty and sol- 
 emn truth of Divine Eevelation. This perverseness is a 
 strange mixture — on the one hand, of cowardice, when 
 a man has not the courage to let his inward failings be 
 uncovered in all their nakedness, nor dares to enlarge 
 his own narrow views according to the great ways 
 and deeds of God, but would fain make these fit to the 
 measure of his own small ideas ;* and thus, on the 
 other hand, of overweening self-confidence, when the 
 same man thinks far too highly of human knowledge 
 and accomplishments, and far too little of God's mighty 
 and holy government; when he would attain to every 
 thing by means of his own knowledge and power — in 
 a word, when man would far rather help himself than 
 let himself be helped by God, and thankfully accept 
 the redemption brought by Jesus Christ. In truth, 
 this is the material principle which divides all un- 
 belief and false belief toto coelo from true belief: on the 
 one hand, there is self-help ; on the other, God's help. 
 The pride of the philosophical critic, just as much as 
 that of the natural scientist, is always striving to sub- 
 stitute human activity and spontaneity for human re- 
 
 * ''Animus ad amplitudinem mysteriorum pro modulo suo dilate- 
 tur, non mysteria ad angustias anirai constringantur.-" — Francis Ba- 
 con, De Augment. Scient., x., 1. 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 21 
 
 ceptiveness before God. Instead of soli Deo , its motto 
 is soli Jiomini gloria ! 
 
 Last, but not least, among these general inward 
 causes of unbelief come the positively earthy inclina- 
 tions of the human heart, its proneness to satisfaction 
 in this world, a tendency which is seductively en- 
 couraged by the present materialistic denial of an- 
 other life ; or, to put it plainly in a word, the power 
 of the dollar. This is a far greater hinderance to true 
 belief than all the writings of philosophers and crit- 
 ics put together: this w r orship of Mammon it is that 
 causes a deep and wide-spread disaffection against 
 all ethical and spiritual truth, and a perversion of the 
 moral judgment, against which all mere logical rea- 
 soning is of no avail. The causes of unbelief really 
 lie in the heart and will. However strong outward 
 influences may be, in divine things no one errs en- 
 tirely without his own fault. 
 
 If such be the case, then the most effectual method 
 of opposing unbelief in individuals is that w T hich we 
 may term the ethico-psycliological or isagogic method ; 
 that is, the method which leads inward to the heart 
 and conscience of those addressed. Let me explain 
 myself. 
 
 First of all, w r e should endeavor to lead our broth- 
 er to a clear and sober recognition of the inward causes 
 and the effects of his unbelief on his own moral devel- 
 
22 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 opment ; this, however, not as inquisitors, but with 
 hearty and humble sympathy. "Reflect," let us say 
 to him, "on the first beginning of your doubts. 
 From what region did they come ? Is not, perhaps, 
 your present creed merely the theology of the natural 
 heart? And can you say that this unbelief has been 
 a real blessing for your inner life? Does its increase 
 denote a true moral progress, moderation in happi- 
 ness, comfort and support in misfortune? Oh, give 
 a true and upright account of all this, not to me, but 
 to yourself and God !" 
 
 Later on we should show in how false a manner the 
 doubter usually examines the Divine origin and the truth 
 of the Christian faith. As a rule, he makes the con- 
 venient demand first to be convinced by scientifically 
 exact arguments of the truth of Christian revelation 
 before he will accept it. He ivill first know, and then 
 believe. But this way can not bring him to his goal. 
 We must show the fundamental error of this demand, 
 which consists in a confusion between the region of 
 morals and religion and that of mathematical science. 
 Spiritual truths should not and can not be mathemat- 
 ically demonstrated. First they must be apprehend- 
 ed by the heart and conscience, and they will then 
 prove themselves to the understanding as divinely 
 true and necessary. Were faith a mere matter of 
 demonstration it would cease to be faith, i e., a moral 
 
MODEKN INFIDELITY. 23 
 
 act consisting in a trustful yielding up of self to that 
 which as yet we see not (Heb. xi.. 1). 
 
 Further, we should go on to show that faith and 
 knowledge, far from being opposed, naturally supplement 
 each other, and that true faith is the source of the deepest 
 and highest knoidedge. All learning is necessarily pre- 
 ceded by a submission to the authority of the teach- 
 er; and this preliminary submission of the intellect- 
 ual and critical faculties to the truth of Eevelation 
 brings light into the soul, and lays the foundation for 
 healthy, sober, and clear views as to God, our own be- 
 ing and condition, sin and its cure, and our final des- 
 tiny. Thus faith, i. e., the intrusting ourselves to the 
 light of Divine Eevelation, leads to the knowledge of 
 the most exalted truth; indeed, it is the beginning 
 of it. 
 
 If this way to knowledge seem hard to }'ou, ask 
 3'ourself ichether the Christian faith does not correspond 
 to and supply the deepest needs of the human heart 
 And this is another important point in the treatment 
 of unbelievers. The question turns upon the recog- 
 nition of evil in ourselves. For the whole struggle 
 between belief and unbelief, as has truly been said,* 
 is but the conflict between those who treat sin as a 
 
 * Cf. A. Peip, " Das Credo der Kirche und die Intelligenz des Zeit- 
 geistes," 1872. 
 
24 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 light matter and those who are heavily oppressed by 
 it until they come to Him who takes their burden 
 away and lays His light yoke upon them. Do j^ou 
 glory in your upright moral life? Have you, then, 
 ever turned the whole energy of your moral con- 
 sciousness inward in a strict self-examination ? Even 
 a great thinker like Kant once thoughtfully paused 
 before the universal and unquestionable fact of a 
 " radical evil" within us. And no upright man can 
 help doing the same. But the depth of this convic- 
 tion depends upon the standard which a man applies 
 to himself, upon the idea which he has formed of his 
 aim and destiny. Are }^ou not, perchance, in the 
 habit of comparing yourselves with other men, who 
 are at best but imperfect? In so doing, you degrade 
 your own dignity as one created in the image of 
 God ! Your destiny is the highest imaginable— high- 
 er than ever philosopher or poet placed it. " Be ye 
 holy, for I also am holy." "Be ye perfect, even as 
 your Father in heaven is perfect." Does not a pre- 
 sentiment of this immeasurable destiny live in your 
 soul too? and have you not the irrepressible feeling, 
 that to be truly free, happy, acceptable to God and 
 like him, you must be free from all sin ? 
 
 Now we have seen that the strictest moralists, such 
 as Kant, confess that no natural power can suffice for 
 this ; that even with the greatest moral energy in 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 25 
 
 wrestling with evil your morality remains full of de- 
 fects, and therefore your own exertions can not satis- 
 fy the wants of your heart. And, on the other hand, 
 in the person of Christ you see a moral grandeur, in 
 which healthy eyes, at least, have been able to dis- 
 cover no blemish ; an ideal of perfection respecting 
 which even rationalistic critics have confessed that all 
 human standards vanish before it. What, in view of 
 this, is more reasonable than to conclude that you, 
 poor, fettered, but struggling spirit — unable to free 
 yourself, yet destined to the highest Good — must, to 
 attain your destiny, enter into a personal and living 
 communion with the only perfect One who has ap- 
 peared in the history of our race — w r ith Jesus Christ, 
 the Son of God and Man, the Sin-destroyer and Re- 
 deemer of the world ? And this is the sum and sub- 
 stance of our Christian faith and Christian life ! We 
 believe that the free grace and mercy of God has come 
 to the help of poor man, vainly struggling to free 
 himself from sin and evil ; and this great and all-suffi- 
 cient Divine Help is Christ Jesus. 
 
 If you still wisii to be your own savior, beware 
 lest you fall into a delusion as to the fatal power of 
 the evil which is in you and its conquest. Such de- 
 lusions may flatter our human pride, but are belied 
 by the actual experience of all straightforward men. 
 But the hand of the Divine Redeemer has long been 
 
 9 
 
26 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 knocking at the door of your heart, in answer to all 
 its anxious questionings and complaints, and if you 
 now grasp this hand and intrust yourself to the guid- 
 ance of the highest and purest Light that ever shone in 
 this world, to the God of holiness and his saving grace 
 in Christ, then this act of faith will he your greatest moral 
 achievement: it will be in you a root of all the goodness 
 and greatness attainable by man ; you will receive 
 with this act the Christian assurance of the Divine 
 truth and immutability of your faith, because it sub- 
 stantially approves itself to your conscience in the 
 " demonstration of the Spirit and of power." 
 
 These, in short, are the chief features of the u isa- 
 gogic " method of treating unbelief in individuals. I 
 consider it to be the best and most effective, because 
 the most trenchant and impressive. Of course, how- 
 ever, it must be varied according to the measure of 
 education which the individual has enjoyed, and es- 
 pecially according to his moral condition. The surest 
 way to awaken a response in the other's breast is the 
 personal testimony of grace received, which can throw 
 itself and its spiritual experience into the scale, and 
 stand surety for the truth of Christ's salvation. An- 
 other very important point, especially with scientific- 
 ally directed minds, is to show them that, with their 
 transposition of the relation between faith and knowl- 
 edge, they will never escape riddles, and must, nolens 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY, 27 
 
 volens, accept many things which are utterly without 
 proof, or even absolutely inexplicable. Ay, we may 
 go so far as to say, that without the facts of Biblical 
 revelation, the enigmas of our existence, the world, 
 the Church, and history, are increased tenfold. This 
 indicates to us the weak point of 
 
 II. 
 
 The Scientific Systems of Unhelitf. 
 
 These, nowadays, conduct themselves more than 
 ever as if they represented science par excellence. 
 They will hear of none but scientific arguments, and 
 so against them none but a strictly scientific proced- 
 ure can avail. From the very beginning the Church 
 did not shrink from this struggle, and by means of it 
 she constantly attained a clearer consciousness of the 
 substantial elements of her own belief. Apology was 
 the mother of dogmatical science. However great 
 the harm may be which is done to whole generations 
 by the systems of unbelief, yet it should be borne in 
 mind that every earnest and honorable contest with 
 scientific opponents has, in the end, always enriched 
 the Church's store of truth, brought to light new weap- 
 ons from her inexhaustible arsenal, and demonstrated 
 anew the steadfastness of the foundations of our faith. 
 11 Forward !" then, must be our motto, as against mod- 
 
28 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 era unbelieving science too. The hotter the battle, 
 the more gainful its issue ! 
 
 In answer to the question as to the best scientific 
 methods of defense, I pass by all matters of detail 
 (which will be separately treated of in our confer- 
 ences), and. will now endeavor to delineate ihe funda- 
 mental positions w 7 hich we must take up, in order suc- 
 cessfully to defend our faith, and at the same time to 
 expose clearly the scientific and practical weakness 
 of the opposing systems. 
 
 The first question is : How far does the ground extend 
 which must under all circumstances be defended f Which 
 are the absolutely indispensable articles of our Prot- 
 estant Christian faith ? This brings us to a point that 
 is most important for our subject, and which, it should 
 be the chief business of our dogmatic theology to set- 
 tle: I mean, the clear definition and limitation of the es- 
 sential and fundamental articles of our faith, in contra- 
 distinction to those which are less important and may 
 be left to the free judgment of each individual Chris- 
 tian. In order to carry out its task, our science of 
 defense must learn to treat minor points as such. He 
 who defends too much, and represents doubtful things 
 as absolutely necessary to be believed, will no more 
 succeed than he who defends too little, i. e n mere ra- 
 tional truths, instead of the heart of Christian belief. 
 What is, then, the chief object of our defense as distin- 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 29 
 
 guished from others? Let me explain myself by 
 means of an illustration. 
 
 In every considerable fortress there is a central 
 bulwark or citadel, with various bastions, trenches, 
 etc., the close connection of which forms the strength 
 of this centre. Further out there is the enceinte, in- 
 closing town and fortress w r ith its moat; but the 
 largest circle of all is formed by the outside forts, 
 which hinder the enemy from approaching too near 
 the walls. Our Christian faith is a fortress, strong as 
 a rock, with just such defenses. The central position, 
 or citadel, is— as all believing theologians have long 
 agreed — the redemption and atonement accomplished 
 by Jesus Christ. Union of man with God through 
 this Mediator is the end and aim of all Eevelation. 
 This central dogma of the atonement requires certain 
 presuppositions and certain consequences — in respect 
 both of God and man — which are absolutely indispen- 
 sable if it is to stand firm. 
 
 The presuppositions are these : our naturally lost 
 condition by reason of sin, notwithstanding the image 
 of God originally implanted in man, and the saving 
 will of God, caused by his merciful love, which car- 
 ried out the atonement by means of the God-man, Je- 
 sus Christ, the Crucified and Eisen, and thus crowned 
 his revelation to the world by manifesting himself as 
 Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The consequences are : 
 
30 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 the appropriation of this work'. by the individual, ob- 
 jectively, through the divinely -appointed means fur- 
 nished by the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church, 
 i.e., the Word and the visible signs and seals of 
 grace; subjectively, through repentance and justifying 
 faith ; and, finally, the perfection of our salvation in 
 the resurrection, last judgment, and eternal life, when 
 the new creation of grace, or the ravages of sin in the 
 heart, shall be made outwardly manifest. 
 
 These are, as it were, the bastions of the centre in 
 back and front, the properly so-called fundamental 
 truths, a strong chain, in which no link can be dis- 
 pensed with, and hence the chief object to be defend- 
 ed. The enceinte with its moat is the doctrine of Holy 
 Scripture, as the record of Divine Revelation, inexpli- 
 cable if assumed to be the product of merely human 
 authors, and hence both human and Divine, surround- 
 ing with the benignant influence of its living waters 
 the citadel and town of our faith — i. e., our Protestant 
 Church — and making it a united fortress. 
 
 The remaining points, such as the various confes- 
 sional details — e. g., as to the relation between the 
 two natures in Christ, the action of the sacraments, 
 the relation of Divine grace to human freedom, and a 
 hundred other things — may be left for decision to a 
 truly Christian exegesis, historical investigation, and 
 philosophical speculation, as long as the central truth 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 31 
 
 of the God-man and his work, or the soil Deo gloria, 
 is left untouched. These form, as it were, the outer 
 forts, which, should not, indeed, be given up prema- 
 turely, but from which a wise combatant will, in case 
 of need, withdraw to the centre, in order not to ex- 
 haust his strength, but to defend this more securely. 
 The fortress is not conquered though one of the out- 
 posts should fall into the enemy's hands ; nor, indeed, 
 should even one of his missiles injure a stone of the 
 enceinte. 
 
 Do not misunderstand me. I do not say that it 
 may not be in a man's power, nor his duty, to defend 
 many outworks. I do so myself; and merely insist 
 on this, that a successful defense must remain con- 
 scious of the difference between what belongs to the 
 circumference and to the centre, and may not make a 
 non-essential article of faith a condition of salvation. 
 The true method is that which will not allow a grain 
 of saving truth to escape its grasp, which gives to 
 faith what belongs to it, but also does not withhold 
 from freedom its due. 
 
 We now proceed to consider the chief groups of our 
 innumerable adversaries, and to ask after the best and 
 most effectual line of scientific defense as against each 
 one of them. We immediately see that our citadel, 
 the Christian idea of God and of the redemption, is 
 undermined and attacked chiefly by philosophy, the 
 
32 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 enceinte by historical criticism, and the outworks — but, 
 in fact, the whole as well — by our modern natural 
 science. 
 
 The chief maxim for our scientific defense to be 
 drawn from the above is — without in the least timid- 
 ly avoiding matters of detail — at once to reduce all 
 isolated controversies to a difference in first princi- 
 ples, and to compare the views of the opponents, in 
 all their consequences, with those of a Biblical Chris- 
 tianity. This will invariably result in an idea of God, 
 and a conception of evil differing from that of the Bi- 
 ble. A distorted conception of God lies at the root, 
 not only of the pantheistic and naturalistic systems, 
 but also of the attacks on the truth of the Gospel his- 
 tory, the Godhead of Christ, and the Divine origin 
 of Christianity. And an unbiblical conception of sin 
 and its consequences it is which forms the funda- 
 mental assumption of the attacks on the Christian 
 doctrine of redemption and atonement, as well as on 
 the Biblical anthropology. 
 
 These turning-points must decide the fate of the 
 battle, and here we should, take our stand. And first 
 we should use the broad shield of the united and en- 
 tire Christian view of the world ; then with the sword 
 attack the opponent's position, and fearlessly expose 
 his weak and vulnerable points. 
 
 Thus we take our stand against — 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 33 
 
 1. Unchristian philosophy r , by demonstrating the inner 
 logical consequence and unity, the harmony and sym- 
 metrical beauty of the Christian doctrinal system; the 
 wisely planned and holy progress of the Divine Reve- 
 lation, from the first creation to the restoration of all 
 things. How sublime and yet how simply compre- 
 hensible, how suited to the deepest needs of our 
 hearts, are the teachings of the Bible as to the Divine 
 nature, as compared with the abstract, artificially 
 twisted, incomprehensible, modern philosophical con- 
 ceptions of God, which leave the heart entirely cold ! 
 At the same time, it should be shown — and this I 
 would urgently recommend to the notice of apol- 
 ogists — how the isolated elements of truth contained in 
 the non- Biblical conceptions of God converge in the 
 Biblical doctrine, as in a focus, and how in the latter 
 alone God appears as the All-perfect, in whom the 
 idea of the Absolute is realized, while in the for- 
 mer there is always an important element wanting, 
 either spirituality (as in Materialism), or self-con- 
 sciousness (as in Pantheism), or the living, omnipres- 
 ent activity (as in Deism) : all of them elements indis- 
 pensable to the complete conception of the Absolute.* 
 
 * Cf. the details of this argument in the author's work, " Modern e 
 Zweifel am Christlichen Glauben " (2d edition, Bonn, 1870), pp. 227- 
 248 (soon to be published in English by Messrs. Clarke of Edinburgh). 
 
 2* 
 
31 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 In all this our position will be a safer one, if we 
 lean more upon the fundamental ideas contained in 
 Scripture than upon terms from the dogmatic schools. 
 This is especially true with reference to the point 
 which philosophers delight to attack — the Christian 
 doctrine of the Trinity. Let us at once confess that the 
 expression three persons (which is not Biblical) may 
 cause misunderstandings, since it is so easily confound- 
 ed with three individuals; as St. Augustine himself 
 has remarked, u tres persons, si ita dicendse sunt;" and 
 moreover, that the expression " Trinity " is but an at- 
 tempt at a short designation of a mystery, for the 
 clear conception and designation of which in this life 
 neither intellect nor language will ever be adequate. 
 On the other hand, however, let us show how in the 
 triune personality of God is contained both his true 
 infinity and the possibility of his self-impartment in 
 Revelation : the true bridge between God and the 
 world. For in this doctrine the unbending concep- 
 tion of abstract Monotheism has obtained vitality 
 through the idea of a Divine Will of love. Hence 
 this doctrine furnishes a preventive against the dei- 
 fication of nature, and is the only perfect bulwark of 
 vital Theism in the idea of God as the highest pleni- 
 tude of life and love, and it is only philosophical 
 short-sightedness which can refuse this key to the great 
 world-enigma, a key often well used by many a great 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 35 
 
 philosopher. Only when this gulf between the Cre- 
 ator and the created is bridged over will the breach 
 between man and man be closed. Here only have 
 we a firm ground for the realization of the idea of hu- 
 manity, the brotherly unity and equality of all men 
 as regards origin and destiny. This shows the im- 
 measurable importance of the Christian doctrine of 
 the Trinity for the world's culture,* a doctrine which 
 is also remarkably attested by the history of heathen 
 religions. 
 
 No less firmly and deeply founded should our posi- 
 tion in these days be with regard to the defense of mir- 
 acles. The negation of the miraculous proceeds part- 
 ly from a false idea of God, partly from an incorrect, 
 mechanical conception of the world ; and, we may 
 add, for the most part from the arbitrary assumption 
 that, because no miracles happen nowadays, none 
 have ever happened. If God be, as we Christians be- 
 lieve, a free, personal, extra-mundane Will, whose in- 
 fluence, nevertheless, is omnipresent throughout the 
 whole creation, then the approach to every point of 
 this creation must be always open to hirn, and this 
 necessitates the possibility of miracles. Doubtless the 
 created world is relatively independent; but can the 
 
 * Cf. Hundeshagen, "Die Natur und geschichtliche Entwickelung 
 der Humanitatsidee." 
 
36 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 laws of nature — which only act by God's good pleas- 
 ure—form a barrier for him, when, in pursuance of 
 the highest moral and religious ends, it is his will to 
 use extraordinary means? You talk of a " breach of 
 the laws of nature." But first of all tell me, what 
 limit is there to the intensification of natural forces 
 by the power of the Divine Will ? And does not the 
 product of the miracle immediately subject itself to 
 the ordinary course of nature? You complain that 
 miracles would rend the world's economy asunder. 
 Ay, but the first great rent in the original order and 
 harmony was made not by God, but by the sin of 
 man. The abnormal development of our freedom can 
 not only bear, but imperatively demands the salutary 
 interference of God as a w r ork of pity and love. Mir- 
 acles, therefore, do not unnaturally destroy true na- 
 ture, but supernaturally heal distorted nature. In- 
 stead of, as formerly was customary, using isolated 
 miracles as apologetic arguments, we should assign to 
 each miracle, according to its evident dispensational 
 aim, a place in the great organic plan of salvation, the 
 living heart of which is Christ. 
 
 You object, finallj', that no miracles occur at the 
 present day. But can not and must not the periods 
 of the Church's birth and of its growth be governed 
 by somewhat different laws ? Cast a glance into the 
 history of modern missions, and you will see how, at 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 37 
 
 this very day, in the course of founding new church- 
 es, things happen which remind us of the Apostolic 
 times. 
 
 Having thus shielded the Christian belief in God 
 and his personal relation to the world from infidel 
 assaults, let us grasp the sword and attack the weak 
 points of our opponents, by demonstrating the scientific 
 untenableness of their principles. What is Atheism but 
 an arbitrary denial of the universal and immediate 
 certainty of the existence of God, a certainty necessa- 
 rily following from the conditioned character of our 
 self-consciousness, which we feel to be dependent on 
 an absolutely Higher Being? This view is without 
 any deep insight into the nature of the factors which 
 constitute our own consciousness, and it is condemned 
 by the fact of the universality of religion. What is 
 Materialism but an audacious hypothesis, an unsuc- 
 cessful attempt to explain the whole complex of our 
 thought, the origin of our self-consciousness, nay, even 
 our moral ideas, as a product of sensuous perception 
 and the action of matter? Does it not- — in doing 
 away with the freedom of the will and individual 
 responsibility — practically destroy all the moral ele- 
 ments of our life, and render the idea of a spiritual 
 and moral progress illusory? And Pantheism, too — 
 to say nothing of all its other foibles — does it not 
 manifestly move in a logical circle so soon as it en- 
 
38 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 deavors to bring the principle which it presupposes 
 (whether it be the " substance" of Spinoza, or the 
 " absolute Idea" of Hegel) into relation with the 
 world-matter as its causa efficiens? God is supposed 
 ever to be evolving the world from himself, and yet 
 He is only realized in its development. "Where, in 
 this case, is the ratio sufficiens of the reality of the 
 world, and especially of our self-consciousness? and 
 where is there an absolute, final purpose in this eter- 
 nal, aimless circuit of the universe? 
 
 And with what unnatural limitations of the con- 
 ception of God do we meet in the case of Deism and 
 Rationalism? How do they deprive God of his true 
 vitality and divinity, just as much as they do the 
 world of its dependence as a creature! And do not 
 these systems — by their denial of a special Divine 
 Providence — take the innermost nerve out of all mor- 
 al and religious action, and remove the true key to 
 the understanding of the world's or of individual his- 
 tory? 
 
 While acknowledging the isolated elements of 
 truth contained in these systems, we draw the gen- 
 eral conclusion, that by their endeavors naturally to 
 explain the world's enigmas they only multiply 
 them; and that they expect us to believe things 
 much more repugnant to reason and conscience than 
 the Scriptures with all their miracles; e. g., a self-cre- 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 39 
 
 ative world-matter; the origin by self-development 
 of the first organisms ; the self-emancipation of man 
 from the condition of an ape, etc. He who doubts 
 and denies where he ought to believe will often have 
 to believe implicitly where critical doubts would be 
 most fitting ; as, e. g., Strauss, in his last and most rad- 
 ical work, "The Old and the New Belief," has found 
 himself compelled to bow to the most uncertain hy- 
 potheses of modern scientists. 
 
 Finally, we may embarrass these opponents by in- 
 quiring as to the positive and solid results of their specu- 
 lations. "We are very far from wishing to deny the 
 general merits of philosophy. But, we ask, where 
 are the tangible results arrived at by the philosophy 
 which is hostile to Christianity, and which alone we 
 are considering here? Has it solved, finally, any fun- 
 damental question ? How have the different sj^stems 
 during their various changes struggled with and over- 
 thrown one another, while the simple Gospel re- 
 mains, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and 
 forever?" Or is it possible that mere philosophical 
 speculation could be its own aim, apart from any use- 
 ful results ? No ; every science which is not scientia 
 ad praxin, i. e., which does not bear fruit for our life, 
 is inwardly unhealthy, and no longer nourishes, but 
 only puffs up the spirit. 
 
 And what is the present condition of philosophy ? 
 
40 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 Since the systems of " absolute Idealism" have utter- 
 ly broken down, and the reaction against them has 
 led men into the slough of materialism, philosophy is 
 at a loss. The one party loudly cries that we must 
 return to the old teacher, Kant; others wearily labor 
 to arouse some interest by means of historical repre- 
 sentations of past systems, by excursions into the his- 
 tory of literature, or into the natural scientific research 
 of the day. Others, however— and these it is who 
 most attract the world's attention— draw from all that 
 has gone before an awful conclusion, and before the 
 astonished world hoist the flag — or rather let me say 
 the distress-signal — of the most extreme Pessimism. 
 Schopenhauer sees in all existence nothing but mis- 
 ery and suffering, and can find true happiness only in 
 self-dissolution into an absolutely empty Nothing, the 
 Nirvana of the Buddhists. And Edward von Hart- 
 mann, who in his rapidly sold book on the "Philoso- 
 phy of the Unconscious" (a book of which I shall 
 certainly not deny that it has some real merits) ex- 
 hibits to us the workings of this great " Unconscious " 
 in the corporeal and spiritual w r orld, declares it to be 
 a mistake that a world should ever have sprung into 
 existence at all, and even an inexcusable crime if it 
 had been created by a self-conscious God. All hope 
 of happiness in this or in another stage of the world's 
 history is, according to Hartmann, a pure illusion: 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 41 
 
 before us stands the senile age of mankind, in which, 
 after all hope has died away, our raoe " finally aban- 
 dons all claim to positive happiness, and only yearns 
 for absolute painlessness; for the Nothing, Nirvana.' 7 
 Thus far have our most recent philosophers ad- 
 vanced. On the tree of knowledge they now show 
 us, with strange aptitude, the seductively beautiful 
 and variegated tints of autumn, tokens of still despair 
 and utter hopelessness, which with silent eloquence 
 once more proclaim, " Vanity of vanities: all is van- 
 ity." Are not such views, I boldly ask, the most 
 striking proof that it is only that which Divine Eev- 
 elation gives and promises to man which makes his 
 life worth living? Here, again, we clearly see that 
 the faith of the Christian is, in the last resort, the 
 only star-banner of hope amidst the gloom of our ex- 
 istence; ay, the only protection of our moral digni- 
 ty. Boldly, -my Christian friends, let us attack our 
 opponents on this weak point, which is fitted more 
 than any other to discredit unchristian philosophy in 
 the eyes of all who feel their deeper needs. Let us 
 show the world that it is not Christianity, but the 
 anti-Christian philosophy which finally degrades the 
 dignity of man ; that this idea in its fullness flourishes 
 only on the soil of Divine Eevelation, that it is only 
 possible as a deduction from the Christian conception 
 of God, and only to be realized by the Christian plan 
 
42 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 of salvation ; and hence that any unbelieving sub- 
 traction from the fundamental Biblical views of God 
 and the Divine destiny of man must lead to an idea 
 of man and the mundane process which most deep- 
 ly degrades us in our capacity of spiritual and moral 
 beings. For in all naturalistic and pantheistic sys- 
 tems what is the world's history but " the Golgotha 
 of the Absolute Spirit ; the fearfully tragic slaughter- 
 house in which all individual life and happiness is 
 sacrificed only that the development of the universe 
 may go forward undisturbed " (Hegel), and the phi- 
 losophers who march behind may be able to mark 
 and admire the rhythmic movement of the "Idea" 
 through Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis? 
 
 Vainly do we dream of man's personal and living 
 value, and nourish a living hope! And inexorable 
 is the dilemma which we see before us : either to re- 
 ceive Him who says, " I am the Wa} r , the Truth, and 
 the Life," or, rejecting Him, to choose our portion 
 with those other spirits, the most honest of whom 
 must needs declare, "I am the Way, the Truth, and 
 — Death r 
 
 For the scientific defense of our faith against — 
 
 2. Destructive historical criticism, I would recommend 
 the following measures to insure a firm position. 
 
 Above all, do not let us place unnecessary difficul- 
 ties in our own way, and furnish our adversaries with 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 43 
 
 dangerous weapons, by an exaggerated theory of inspira- 
 tion, which in its equal application to all the books of 
 our present Canon can be justified neither by Scrip- 
 ture nor by historical evidence. The very limits of 
 our Canon are not an ordinance of Divine right, inas- 
 much as no prophet ever declared the list of inspired 
 Old Testament writings closed in the name of God; 
 and no apostle superintended the collection of the 
 New Testament books. But must not the Spirit, 
 who leadeth into all truth, have guided those who 
 had to decide as to the limits of the Canon, in order 
 to insure the genuine tradition of saving truth to the 
 later world? As a proof with what correct judg- 
 ment they acted, we should adduce the fact of the 
 startling difference in spirituality which exists be- 
 tween canonical and apocryphal, or, indeed, all non- 
 canonical writings, even those of the centuries next 
 after the Apostolic age. Herein the Canon shows it- 
 self to be a unique and compact whole. 
 
 And from this inner spirit of these writings let us 
 draw the chief argument for the inspiration and norma- 
 tive authority of the Scriptures. The Protestant Church 
 considers the testimony of the Holy Ghost to be the 
 chief criterion of canonicity. First of all, then, we de- 
 fenders should regard the Scriptures as a whole, and 
 proceed to show how they form a compact organism, 
 although the different authors wrote at such long in- 
 
44 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 tervals; how they record the progress of Kevelation, 
 unfolding step by step, in history, doctrine, and proph- 
 ecy, the Divine plan of salvation from the world's be- 
 ginning to its end, and withal, in a simply senten- 
 tious style, pregnant with meaning; how they every- 
 where breathe, in a greater or less measure, the spirit 
 of sacred earnestness, and all tend to one great pur- 
 pose — the honor of God and the welfare of mankind. 
 What a fullness of light and life is contained in them, 
 like a spring flowing throughout all ages. What 
 wondrous all-sufficiency for every need, every age, 
 and every stage of knowledge ; how infinitely above all 
 mere human products! At the same time, attention 
 should be drawn to the regenerating influences of the 
 Bible in the case of individuals, as of entire nations, to 
 the self-manifestation of its Divine truths in the heart 
 and conscience of the reader or hearer. How can all 
 this be explained without the fact of inspiration? 
 
 This criterion of the inward testimony of the Spirit 
 must be kept free from all subjective arbitrariness by 
 its objective corroboration, according to the " analogy 
 of faith," with respect to the several books ; and by a 
 historical criticism (in addition to this inner one as 
 to their actual origin). The testimony of the Holy 
 Ghost and the Church, the attributes of freedom from 
 error, sufficiency, and perfection, pertain primarily to 
 the Canon as a whole. 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 45 
 
 This objective criterion of the analogy of our faith 
 was clearly enunciated by Luther, who says: " The 
 right touch-stone, whereby a Christian man may try 
 all books (of Scripture), is, that he inquire w 7 hether 
 they treat of Christ or not, forasmuch as all Scripture 
 telleth of him.'' We must look at and defend Scrip- 
 ture from its central point, Christ, by applying the 
 above-mentioned central truths, in which all Scripture 
 coincides, as a criterion in judging of the value and 
 authority of the various books and portions. To this 
 kernel of the Scriptures, and this only, does the Holy 
 Spirit bear witness in the hearts of believers, and 
 grants in respect of it an immediate and unmovable 
 certaint} r . 
 
 In matters of detail we should not forget that the 
 Divine Revelation in Scripture is vouchsafed to us in 
 a form not purely divine, but at the same time hu- 
 man ; and that even St. Paul distinguishes what he 
 has received from the Lord from that which is mere- 
 ly his own opinion as well-meant counsel coming from 
 one who has the Spirit of the Lord (1 Cor. xi., 23 ; 
 vii., 25, 40), and that there is certainly an important 
 difference between a portion of Scripture, the author 
 of which distinctly describes his utterances to a direct 
 Divine Revelation or command, and one which is en- 
 tirely silent on this point. Do not let us forget that 
 no theory of inspiration — however convenient this 
 
46 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 might seem to many — can dispense us from the duty 
 of a reverent criticism of Scripture, a criticism which 
 must extend not only to texts and translations, but 
 also to a searching comparison of the different types 
 of doctrine (e. g n Pauline, Johannean, etc.), and of the 
 various ethnographical, historical, and other data, 
 with one another and with profane history. And if 
 this criticism should here and there discover later ad- 
 ditions, interpolations, chronological discrepancies, and 
 the like, to such we may well apply the words of Lu- 
 ther: "If there be found a strife in Scripture, and 
 the same can not be settled, let it alone, it is of little 
 moment, so as it runneth not counter to the articles 
 of our faith." We must not be too timid in such 
 matters. If we indeed believe Christianity to be the 
 revelation of the absolute truth, then an isolated truth 
 may occur when and how it pleases, it can not be 
 dangerous, but in the end only helpful to the Chris- 
 tian faith. What can not be denied need not be 
 feared 1 
 
 But if criticism seeks to cast suspicion on the whole 
 for the sake of a few isolated discrepancies, or if it ar- 
 bitrarily attempts to measure the substance of Eeve- 
 lation by mere human standards, then it becomes de- 
 structive, and then we must draw a hard and sharp line 
 against its false pretensions. 
 
 Above all things, we demand that sancta sancte trac- 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 47 
 
 tentur, with the becoming reverence, with an upright 
 and humble desire for truth. He who will not let 
 himself be apprehended by the spirit of Scripture, will 
 never comprehend its contents. Spiritual things must 
 be spiritually judged. Scripture, therefore, must be 
 meted with its own measure. To apply the standards 
 of merely natural and human events to the self- reveal- 
 ing actions of God is to begin by doing violence to 
 Scripture. This is the fundamental error of all false 
 rationalistic criticism. 
 
 Our first step in opposing this practice is, to expose 
 the false principle on which it rests. Since the days 
 of the Tubingen School, this criticism has arrogated 
 to itself the title of historical, though it is often only 
 philosophical. It claims to examine with historical 
 impartiality, and is often from the first biased by ar- 
 bitrary philosophical assumptions. These men ap- 
 proach the records of Christianity, imbued with a 
 pantheistic or rationalistic aversion to the miraculous, 
 with the intention of rendering the supernatural facts 
 recorded therein as merely human as possible, by 
 means of connecting them with and deriving their 
 origin from contemporary historical phenomena — and 
 of acknowledging as historically certain only what 
 is perfectly transparent and intelligible to them, be- 
 cause it does not exceed man's capacity; just as if 
 God the Lord could not make history with his deeds, 
 
48 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 which far transcend our comprehension — he who is 
 Cause and Aim of all history ! This, in good sooth, 
 is not impartial historical investigation, but rather the 
 result of looking through highly distorted philosoph- 
 ical spectacles ! 
 
 This criticism can not, however, compass its ends 
 without innumerable coups de force and unbounded ar- 
 bitrariness. And this is the second quarter to which 
 our scientific defense has to direct its attacks. To 
 say nothing of the way in which the rationalists and 
 Baur have distorted the specific nature of Christiani- 
 ty, we would merely point out how the efforts of the 
 latter and his disciples have been directed toward 
 transferring the origin of Christianity as the universal 
 religion from Christ and the first Apostles to the au- 
 thorship of St. Paul, just as if he himself had not 
 openly declared that he did not preach himself, but 
 Christ Jesus (2 Cor. iv., 5), and that no man can lay 
 another foundation than that which is laid (1 Cor. iii., 
 11), as if one who declares even an angel to be ac- 
 cursed if he preach another Gospel than that of Christ 
 (Gal. i,, 8) would not indignantly have declined the 
 fame of inventing a new Christianity ! 
 
 In order to deprive the Founder of Christianity of 
 his specific dignity as the Son of God, this false crit- 
 icism has, as we all know, endeavored to turn his 
 miracles into natural events or myths, and to give his 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 49 
 
 testimonies and teachings respecting himself the im- 
 press of fabrications and opinions of a later age ; and 
 especially to cast a slur upon his absolute sinlessness. 
 As if it were not impossible — witness even the con- 
 fession of a Eousseau — to invent such a picture of 
 Christ as that which the gospels give us! As if — 
 even supposing all four gospels to be spurious — the 
 four unimpeached epistles of St. Paul were not enough 
 to prove clearly the God-manhood and the perfectly 
 holy mediatory character of the Crucified and Eisen 
 One! And as if even the most arbitrary criticism 
 of the gospels had not left as genuine some self-testi- 
 monies of Christ, in which he lays claim to attributes 
 which positively exceed any mere human standard, 
 e. #.,in the passages which relate to his second com- 
 ing as the Judge of the world ! Here we see criticism 
 reach the crowning point of arbitrariness, and talk 
 of "fanaticism" and "unjustifiable self-glorification" 
 (Strauss). Be it so; but let these critics bear the 
 crushing burden of bringing evidence which may 
 give us the faintest glimmering of an understanding 
 how such serious moral and intellectual defects could 
 co -exist in the same individual with the otherwise 
 perfect sobriety, clearness, and quietness of His words 
 and actions, and with the lofty moral dignity of His 
 whole nature. Is it not wholly absurd, we ask, to 
 suppose that the religion of humility and love could 
 
50 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 have taken its origin from a fanatic so eaten up by 
 pride? But if Christ uttered these testimonies of 
 himself, like all his other words, with deliberation 
 and truth, then he must be the One for whom the 
 Church has ever taken him — the only-begotten Son 
 of the living God. 
 
 Time would fail us to detail all the futile blows 
 which this criticism has dealt against the New Testa- 
 ment history, the most flagrant of which were the 
 efforts (finally given up by Baur himself) to explain 
 naturally the conversion of St. Paul, even at the 
 cost of making him an utterly inexplicable psycho- 
 logical monstrosity, or even an epileptic/ I would 
 only remind you what a firm barrier we have against 
 all such attacks in passages like 2 Cor., xii., 12, where 
 St. Paul, in an epistle confessedly genuine, appeals to 
 his signs and wonders and mighty deeds before those 
 under whose eyes they had taken place. And, I ask, 
 would not a writer who asserts such things of him- 
 self be utterly demented if he were not perfectly cer- 
 tain that they were true? 
 
 All these attacks based on an aversion to the mi- 
 raculous, and especially the denial of the Eesurrec- 
 tion, may be consigned to a well-merited grave by the 
 one unanswerable argument: You can never explain 
 the enigma of primitive Christian belief, its world-con- 
 quering power, and its world-regenerating effects, nor 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 51 
 
 the existence of the Christian Church itself, if Christ 
 was not and did not do what the gospels tell of him. 
 By trying to explain primitive Christian history as 
 a chain of merely natural occurrences, you turn it 
 upside down, and make it an insoluble enigma. By 
 your denial of the superhuman element in Christ, 
 and especially of his resurrection, you are compelled 
 to seek the mainspring of so immense a movement 
 as that of Christianity in persons, circumstances, and 
 relations which can not bear the weight of such a 
 superstructure; and in the end j t ou ask us to believe 
 that the kingdom of Truth took its origin from mis- 
 understanding, error, self-deception, and dishonesty ! 
 The logical law of the sufficing cause makes all your 
 efforts vain. 
 
 At this point we may call attention to the inward- 
 ly inevitable process, in which this criticism often 
 overleaps itself, and not seldom becomes utterly ab- 
 surd. Thus, no sooner had Strauss endeavored to de- 
 rive the chief motive of the n^tlis ascribed by him to 
 the primitive disciples and churches, from the idea 
 then current among the Jews as to the Messiah, than 
 Bruno Bauer treads on his heels, declaring that the 
 idea of the Messiah, as far as regards its existence be- 
 fore the rise of Christianity, is also a myth ! Again, 
 after many critics have for years doubted the truth 
 of the reports of the Resurrection, there comes Koaclc, 
 
52 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 and informs us that Christ was crucified, not in Jeru- 
 salem,, but on Mount Gerizim! 
 
 Hence negative criticism has been considerably beaten 
 back upon several points. Just compare the present 
 state of results in the criticism of the gospels with 
 that of a few decades since. The Synoptics, which 
 had then been pushed onward into the second centu- 
 ry, have already step by step been brought back into 
 the first. Even in the question as to the time when 
 the Gospel of St. John was written, the Critical School 
 has receded from the year 160 (Baur) to the beginning 
 of the second century (Keim 100-117), i. e., a time when 
 St. John may still have been alive. And if Keim 
 in a recent work declares that the prevailing theolo- 
 gy of the day can not, without sacrificing the truth, as- 
 cribe to this gospel a direct historical value, he there- 
 by shows that he himself does not object to sacrifice 
 the truth, which is that at the present day more than 
 ever the ascription of its authorship to St. John is 
 being defended not only by such critics as Ewald, 
 Dusterdieck, Meyer, Eiggenbach, Van Oosterzee, Go- 
 det, but even by Weizacker, Eitschl, and others. * 
 
 That favorite instance of our opponents, the inner 
 
 * And most lately of all against Keim and Scholten, by Leuschner, 
 in his work, "Das Evangelitim St. Johannis, mid seine nenesten We- 
 dersacher." 1873. 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 53 
 
 relation of the Synoptics to the fourth Gospel, has far less 
 weight, since the fact has been generally recognized 
 , that a superhuman view of Christ's person can not 
 possibly be ignored as contained in the first three 
 Gospels. To say nothing of the account of our Lord's 
 childhood (the authenticity of which has lately been 
 convincingly proved by Steinmeyer*), we have passages 
 such as Matt, xi., 27 ("All things are delivered unto 
 me of my Father : no man knowetk the Son but the 
 Father," etc.) ; cf. Luke x., 22, respecting which even 
 a critic like Eeuss confesses that " the whole of St. 
 John's Gospel is, as it were, but a circumscription of 
 these utterances." And the works of our day on New 
 Testament doctrinal teaching show that all the germs 
 of the Pauline and Johannean doctrines are contained 
 in the words of our Lord, f 
 
 Another help against the arbitrariness of criticism, 
 and the scientific light-mindedness with which it often 
 seizes on mere isolated notices from profane history 
 as proof positive against the Scriptural accounts, is 
 often afforded by the most recent archaeological re- 
 search. T would remind you, e. g., of the proofs for 
 
 * "Die Geschichte der Geburt des Herrn, und seinerersten Schritte 
 im Leben." 1873. 
 
 f Cf. Bernhard Weiss, "Lehrbuch der biblischen Theologie des 
 neuen Testaments." 2d edition. 
 
54 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 the truth of many facts recorded respecting Egyptian 
 history in Genesis and Exodus, which have lately 
 been furnished hypers,* in the interests, not of Chris % 
 tian faith, but of science, and the deciphering of old 
 Chaldaic inscriptions respecting the flood by Mr. G. 
 Smith, of London. But especially I would refer you 
 to U. Sehrader's late work,f in which a number of 
 the notices scattered throughout the Old Testament, 
 respecting the history of the Assyro-Babylonian em- 
 pire and the Assyrian monuments (from the tower in 
 the plain of Shinar down to the fall of Babylon), are 
 remarkably confirmed, even in their details ; so much 
 so that Egyptologists have been corrected by Assyr- 
 ologists in respect of their chronology where it differs 
 from that of Scripture. Have we, then, not a right 
 to say with Gellius-: " Obscuritates non assignemus 
 culpae scribentium, sed inscitia3 non assequentium?" 
 
 In such questions the scientific defense of our faith 
 must not shirk the trouble of going into details, for it 
 is in these that negative criticism seeks its strength. 
 But the representatives of the latter should be shown 
 how often they make small differences into great con- 
 tradictions ; how they endeavor, by means of uncertain 
 hypotheses, to decide questions which it is impossible 
 
 * " JEgypten und die Biicher Mosis." I Bd., 1868. 
 t u Die Keilinschriften und das alte Testament/' 1872. 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 55 
 
 to settle authoritatively ; how often they give them- 
 selves the air of being able precisely to characterize 
 the inner development of an author or of his age, so 
 as to be justified, in the case of certain differences be- 
 tween earlier and later writings, to deny the possibil- 
 ity of their originating from the same man. What 
 they announce as a " certain result of theological sci- 
 ence,' 7 not seldom, in truth, owes its origin to subject- 
 ive taste and arbitrary choice. They are far too lit- 
 tle conscious of the limits to real scientific demonstra- 
 tion ; and often, when they suppose that they have 
 produced the nonplus ultra of scientific acuteness, it 
 is but a flight in the airy regions of imagination. 
 Truly, often "much learning hath made them mad." 
 In view of all this, we must protest aloud against the 
 arrogance of this modern theological school, especially 
 against the manner in which they present to the pub- 
 lic in popular exegetical works — cf., e.g., "Die Pro- 
 testantenbibel neuen Testaments," a work now ap- 
 pearing under the auspices of the Protestantenverein — 
 as Gospel truth, "the ascertained results of historical 
 and Biblical investigation ;" while these are accepted 
 only by a minority of theologians, and many of them 
 men of waning credit. And if they go so far as to 
 give themselves credit for being the promoters of 
 greater life in the Church, they should be clearly 
 shown how miserably unpractical and insufficient their 
 
56 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 stand-point is to attain this end ; how, by their denial 
 of inspiration, they utterly destroy the living interest 
 of the mass of men in the Bible, by changing it into 
 a merely historical and literary interest. Not a few- 
 students of theology are, by means of this method of 
 treating, or rather maltreating Scripture, becoming 
 thoroughly disgusted with the study of exegesis. 
 
 Finally, we should seek to deprive this school of 
 criticism of the charm of novelty. What more is it — 
 with its resolution of actual facts into mere insipid re- 
 ligious ideas — than a new edition of the old Gnosti- 
 cism? And will it not die away just as this did, if it 
 offers for the religious need of the Christian people 
 evaporating ideas or crumbling stones, instead of the 
 living Bread from Heaven? This school, indeed, 
 seeks to retain Christ as an ideal. But can a mere 
 idea redeem the world? Sin, unhappily, is a mighty 
 reality, and only Divine realities can overcome it. 
 This is the true reason why, as long as there are sin- 
 ners in need of salvation, the world can not give up 
 the Word of Life. 
 
 Our defense against the attacks of 
 
 3. Modem anti-miraculous natural science will have 
 to be conducted in a somewhat similar manner, since 
 its principle of the denial of the miraculous is identi- 
 cal with that of the destructive critical school. Dar- 
 win and his followers are working out the same fun- 
 
MODERN infidelity. 57 
 
 damental idea as Baur and his disciples, viz., to bridge 
 over by natural means all the chasms in history and 
 nature, so as to get rid of all supernatural agencies. 
 And both schools, though originally quite independ- 
 ent of one another, have at length happily met in the 
 person of Strauss, as we see in his last work, " The 
 Old and New Belief." 
 
 In order to maintain a firm position against the at- 
 tacks of natural science, we must first consider ike pur- 
 pose for 'which the Scriptures, as a whole, were given, and 
 thus draw a sharp line between this aim and that of 
 scientific investigation. 
 
 The aim of Scripture is to show us the way of sal- 
 vation, and this it does by communicating religious 
 and moral truths, which the apprehension of man, 
 darkened as it is by sin, could never have discovered 
 by itself. But in no respect is Scripture intended to 
 play the part of a hand-book of natural history or phi- 
 losophy, or to give us physical information which is 
 of no essential importance for our faith. The Bible 
 should not, therefore, be called upon as arbiter in 
 questions of pure natural science, which do not in the 
 least affect morals or faith. Not even the highest in- 
 spiration could have been intended to lift the Biblical 
 writers above the view of nature current in their day, 
 or to give them the clear insight into natural science 
 which was reserved as a reward for the patient toil of 
 
58 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 later generations. Its purpose was to enable them to 
 enunciate the truths of Divine Revelation, as far as 
 they were connected with physical relations, in a form 
 which should not militate against the objective truth 
 of these relations, and should leave room for all fu- 
 ture discoveries in that region. For this reason the 
 Bible speaks of natural phenomena simply in the lan- 
 guage of every-day life, which gives impressions as 
 they are received. 
 
 Certainly, however, Scripture, in its enunciation of 
 religious truths, can not altogether avoid touching on 
 physical ground, especially in the history of creation. 
 But where it does enter upon the region of nature, it only 
 does so as far as is absolutely necessary to ground and 
 establish our faith — to instruct man as to his true des- 
 tiny, and to make way for correct notions of the re- 
 lation of God to the world, while excluding all false 
 ones. Thus Materialism and Naturalism, as well as 
 Pantheism and Emanatiomsm, are equally excluded. 
 Then the physical processes are fragmentarily sketch- 
 eel in a few bold strokes, as far as they are necessary 
 to form the basis of the history of Revelation, to which 
 the record forthwith proceeds. Evidently, then, this 
 record is by no means complete from a physical point 
 of view. On the contrarj^, innumerable questions are 
 left open, to be answered by our investigation. But 
 in no case are physical relations brought in for their 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 59 
 
 own sake.* Entire silence is kept on all points which 
 do not form part of the foundation of religious truth. 
 How few physical details do the first and second chap- 
 ters of Genesis contain in comparison with heathen 
 cosmogonies ! 
 
 It is important to remark the distinction that, w T hile 
 the statement of religious truth is always precise and 
 clear, that of physical facts is so broad and general that 
 room is left for all later discoveries of details. Indeed, 
 they are given in such a shape as to unfold their hidden 
 truths with the advances of sciencef — and this, I think, 
 is no small proof of their inspiration. Take, e. g., the 
 creation of light on the first, and the sun not until the 
 fourth day — for which statement the Bible cosmogony 
 has been ridiculed by innumerable infidels, from Cel- 
 sus down to Strauss. How brilliantly has this been 
 justified by modern natural science, which has shown 
 that the earth possesses light in itself, and did so, 
 probably, in a far greater degree at the time when the 
 trees now found in the coal-beds were growing; for 
 these have no annual rings, a fact which points to the 
 conclusion that the earth did not then derive her light 
 from the sun, and consequently had no change of 
 
 * Cf. Eeusch, " Bibel und Natur," 3te Aufl., p. 34. 
 t Cf. S. Garratt, " Veins of Silver, "chap. i. : "Inspired Words and 
 Unfolding. Truths." 
 
60 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 seasons. The sun itself is now generally believed to 
 be an opaque body, the light of which is produced by 
 the combustion of its atmosphere ; and light itself is 
 attributed to the "undulations of ether, which would 
 account for its not being created, but merely called 
 forth from the chaos to exist in a separate form. 
 Physical discoveries will often prove to be keys to 
 the understanding of Scriptural data, and show how 
 these could not possibly have been furnished by their 
 authors without Divine enlightenment. But we must 
 not be too quick in the interpretation of such passa- 
 ges, and, above all, not make Scripture say things which 
 it does not distinctly enunciate. Hoio often— -as Whew- 
 ell truly says"*— has one thought himself to he defend- 
 ing a Scriptural truth, when he was merely fighting for 
 an interpretation of his own. 'which ivas presently shown 
 to be false/ 
 
 If we have drawn a limit, beyond which the appeal 
 to Scriptural authority should not go, we must also 
 indicate the bounds of natural science as against re- 
 ligions teaching. We must, from the very first, take 
 exception to the claims of natural scientists, when 
 they ignore all religious and moral truths, and apply 
 to incommensurable magnitudes the standard of math- 
 ematics; when they commit the absurdity of making 
 
 * "History of the Inductive Sciences," i., p. 403. 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 61 
 
 our belief in the supersensuous and spiritual world 
 dependent on the results of microscopic or telescopic 
 researches; when they go beyond the investigation 
 of present phenomena, and pretend to give an authen- 
 tic account of the processes by which the world origi- 
 nated — processes which are entirely out of the reach 
 of exact investigation, and only permit of speculative 
 theories; and when they will not acknowledge the 
 fundamental fallacy of all naturalistic theories as to 
 the world's origin, viz., that they make the present 
 order of things the criterion of the process of creation, 
 and will not acknowledge the influence of other forces 
 than those which are still at work. In all this natu- 
 ral science oversteps its limits, and argues from anal- 
 ogies which we can not allow. 
 
 If, however, both side's keep within the limits of 
 their respective tasks, then they must necessarily be 
 united at last If the Bible and Nature both contain a 
 Eevelation from God, they can not really contradict one 
 another. Where this would seem to be the case, it is 
 because either God's words or his works have been 
 misinterpreted. In such a case we must not immedi- 
 ately cast away the Word, in order not to give offense 
 to the cultivated, but quietly wait for a reconcilia- 
 tion ; again examine the exegesis of the passage in 
 question ; but at the same time see whether natural 
 scientists are not giving us doubtful conjectures, in 
 
62 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 which they have often been mistaken, instead of really 
 certain results. 
 
 This is all the easier for us, from the fact that there 
 have always been distinguished natural scientists who 
 did not believe in the possibility of a contradiction 
 between the Bible and Nature, from pious patriarchs 
 of science, like Copernicus, Newton, and Kepler, down 
 to men of our own day, like A. von Haller, Euler, 
 Littrow, Yon Schubert, Wagner, Eoper, in Germany ; 
 or Buckland, Hugh Miller, Sir John Herschel, Brew- 
 ster, Whewell, in England ; or Cuvier, Lavoisier, Mar- 
 cel de Serres, La Faye, etc., in France. 
 
 Indeed, we can answer the contempt with which the 
 science of the day looks down upon Holy Scripture, by 
 pointing to a number of important matters in which 
 a union has been effected, or at least made ivay for. As 
 far as we know the chief stages of the earth's devel- 
 opment, they agree in point of order with the six 
 days 7 work of Genesis i. The fact that a fluid state 
 of the earth's crust preceded the formation of the 
 mountains, answers to the description of the second 
 day. The first numerous appearance of the terrene 
 flora in the comparatively early coal-period, and the 
 later appearance en masse of the terrene fauna in the 
 tertiary period, corresponds in its chief features to 
 the second, third, fifth, and sixth days. Astronomy, 
 again, has proved in a startling manner, by means of 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 63 
 
 the spectral analysis, the unity of the Cosmos, and the 
 near relationship which the elements of the other ce- 
 lestial bodies bear to those of the solar system. We 
 begin to see proof positive for Cuvier's far-seeing ut- 
 terance: " Moses has left us a cosmogony, the exacti- 
 tude of which is confirmed day by day in an admira- 
 ble manner." With regard, moreover, to the Biblical 
 computation of the age of the human race, geologists 
 and palaeontologists are declaring that, according to 
 the newest data, the period of about six thousand 
 years is in all probability correct. And, finally, mod- 
 ern astronomy and physics decidedly support the 
 probability of the cessation in due time of the motion 
 of our solar system, and the destruction of the earth 
 through the exhaustion of the forces hitherto at work. 
 
 No w T onder that, as things stand, a considerable 
 number of theologians declare the harmony between 
 Scripture and science to be complete, or at least 
 capable of becoming so. And we may at least gather, 
 as the result of their efforts, the declaration that an 
 ideal harmony in respect of the chief features may be 
 established without doing violence to either side. 
 
 Meanwhile, truth demands that we should confess 
 that this harmony at present does not extend to all de- 
 tails ; e.g., theologians are not agreed as to whether 
 the da}^s of Genesis i. may be stretched out so as to 
 meet the requirements of the immeasurably long pe- 
 
64 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 riod postulated by geology. The first specimens (not 
 the masses) of the different stages of creation do not, 
 as far as scientific research has extended, follow strict- 
 ly in the order of the six days, for the lowest plants 
 and the lowest animals appear simultaneously in the 
 geological strata; and to bring all the data in the 
 Scriptural account of the deluge into accordance with 
 the present results of science would be rather diffi- 
 cult. 
 
 But may we not hope for a future solution of these 
 difficulties, seeing that neither exegesis nor, still less, 
 natural science are by any means complete? God 
 does not grant to one generation to solve all enig- 
 mas : coming ones will have to work at them, too. 
 But the measure of corroboration hitherto afforded 
 by science to Scripture gives us a right to treat with 
 well-merited contempt the ridicule cast upon Scrip- 
 ture by so many scientists. 
 
 And as against such attacks we may proceed to 
 point out the foibles of natural science, which she has 
 of late often exhibited with the rashness of youth, 
 especially in her younger departments. 
 
 How categorically, e. g., was the volcanic theory in 
 geology pronounced to be the only true one, in oppo- 
 sition to the Neptunian, and how signally has it been 
 deposed from the position of sole ruler by the chem- 
 ical investigations of Fuchs, Schaf hautl, Bischof, and 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 65 
 
 others!* What uncertainty is shown in the calcu- 
 lations of geologists — e. g., as to the time required 
 for the cooling of the earth's crust, their estimates dif- 
 fering, not by thousands, but by millions of years ! 
 How much jugglery, in fact, has been carried on by 
 natural scientists in respect of enormous numbers! 
 How often have they endeavored to give their calcu- 
 lations as to the formation of the different strata a 
 learned gloss by amounting to millions of years ! And 
 now sober investigators are, on the ground of careful 
 observations, beating a retreat ; and, instead of the fa- 
 vorite millions of years usually held up to the aston- 
 ished public, are computing much more moderate 
 periods. The age of the mammoth, the great bear, 
 and the reindeer, which scientists (especially French- 
 men) have been trying to separate by thousands of 
 years, are now by thorough investigators, like that 
 of Fraas, placed quite close together. And the lake 
 dwellings, too ; how has their origin been relegated 
 to immemorable antiquity, in order to throw discredit 
 on the Biblical account of man ! And now scien- 
 tists are beginning to turn up their noses at the idea 
 of the stone, bronze, and iron ages being successive 
 epochs; so that we may confidently assert that none 
 
 * Proving, e. g., that the formation of quartz could only have origi- 
 nated from the action of water. 
 
66 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 of these remains extend back more than a few cen- 
 turies beyond Caesar, and hence are not even older 
 than historical times. And so, after all, the six thou- 
 sand years of the Bible are not so utterly insufficient 
 to accommodate all the remains of ancient civilization. 
 But in what hot haste were scientists at the time to 
 spread these now exploded notions in all kinds of 
 popular publications! 
 
 Without heeding the outcry of the scientific rabble 
 against our " vulgar belief,"* let us quietly expose 
 before the eyes of our flocks this mode of proceeding, 
 and let us show them how large a portion of scien- 
 tific " knowledge" is based only upon grounds of like- 
 lihood, which may very well some day give way. 
 
 And how has our task been lightened in the chief 
 controversy of our day — that as to the origin of man — 
 by the extravagancies which naturalists would have 
 had us believe. Our firm defense of the Biblical doc- 
 trine is this: That the derivation of man's existence 
 as a religious and moral being from the creative act 
 of God, who formed him in his own likeness, and. des- 
 tined him to attain to it, agrees so clearly with our ivhole 
 moral and religious self-consciousness, with the histor- 
 ical development of the human race, and with the per- 
 
 * " Kohlerglaube," an opprobrious epithet applied by German infi- 
 dels to the Christian faith. 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 67 
 
 sonal experience of all true Christians, that it is the 
 only reasonable doctrine, and alone worthy of man's 
 dignity. We need but place it side by side with the 
 scientific fancies of former times on this subject, now 
 often ridiculed by sober naturalists themselves, and 
 the choice will not be a hard one. 
 
 But the controversy has assumed a more serious 
 aspect since Darwin and his school have endeavored 
 to connect the genealogy of man with the highest 
 mammals, viz., the anthropoid apes. The counter- 
 proof is not our affair, but that of savants by profes- 
 sion. Fortunately, the most recent discussion of the 
 question seems unfavorable to the relationship.* But, 
 even supposing the outward differences were proved 
 to be ever so small, would not the present intellectual 
 and moral (to say nothing of the religious) condition 
 of man, notwithstanding the small superiority in his 
 organism, be all the more a riddle? No representa- 
 tion of the psychical processes in inferior animals, 
 their instincts, notions, memory, etc., however it may 
 sublimate them, will be able to disprove that in this 
 respect the lower animals have made no progress for 
 the last several thousand years; that they have never 
 
 * "Witness the defeat of Carl Vogt at the Stuttgart Conference of 
 Natural Scientists (autumn, 1872) by Virchow, Luschka, and others 
 at the head of a large majority. 
 
68 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 discovered the inner laws of these phenomena, nor 
 have been able to distinguish their individual Ego 
 from their momentary condition. 
 
 For such facts — and this is our firm position of de- 
 fense — there is no other explanation than this, that 
 in the soul-life of the beast there is no comprehension of 
 the individual Ego; there is no self-consciousness of 
 the spirit distinguishing itself from its isolated affec- 
 tions, functions, conditions, as well as from all objects 
 without it. And this is the specific distinction, the im- 
 passable gulf between man and beast. The same is 
 no less absolute from a moral point of view: on the 
 one hand we see free, personal, self determining life; 
 on the other the iron rule of nature's law, by means 
 of sensual affections and instincts. Even millions of 
 years, and the innumerably minute stages of progress 
 which naturalists postulate, can never bridge over the 
 chasm ivhich divides the natural from the moral law. ' 
 And if these men (and Strauss also) flatter themselves 
 that it is the greatest possible honor for man to have 
 raised himself from the depths of animal life to the 
 present height of moral consciousness, we reply : If 
 man is, as you say, a mere creature of nature, then 
 all that he does takes place by virtue of absolutely 
 binding natural laws, and it is no merit in him thus 
 to have raised himself, since he could not help it. Un- 
 less our moral consciousness proceeds from an abso- 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 69 
 
 lutely good and holy will of God, all our moral ideas 
 are merely conventional and changeable, and there is 
 no such thing as good and evil ^er se. Thus all moral- 
 ity is radically destroyed, and he who believes in a ge- 
 neric difference between the morally good and evil 
 must also believe in the specific pre-eminence and Di- 
 vine origin of man. 
 
 Similar moral arguments obtain against those who 
 deny the homogeneous descent of the human race from a 
 single pair. He who tears asunder the human race in 
 its origin makes the different branches of it enemies 
 instead of brothers, and destroj 7 s with their consan- 
 guinity the last bond of mutual love and esteem. 
 
 The physiologists, however, who maintain this* may 
 fight our battle against the Darwinists ; for, if the lat- 
 ter are trying to annihilate every boundary between 
 the species, the former make demarkations where, ac- 
 cording to Scripture, none exist We may quietly 
 allow our opponents to direct their attacks against each 
 other, till the truth which lies in the middle alone re- 
 mains. Darwinism may perhaps result in the reduc- 
 tion of the present multitude of species to consider- 
 ably fewer principal types (which can only be favor- 
 able to the Biblical account of the Flood), but the 
 weighty arguments of the poh 7 genists will prevent 
 
 * As Edwards, Forbes. Agassiz, Burmeister, and others. 
 
70 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 these types from being annihilated. The latter class of 
 naturalists should, however, remember that the ques- 
 tion as to the origin of the human race is, in the last 
 resort, a matter of history ; and this science, as applied 
 to languages and religions, is pointing with increasing 
 probability to one original tribe, the cradle of which 
 lay in Western Asia, so that the possibility of the Bib- 
 lical theory is becoming more and more established. 
 Here, too, we may say, What God hath joined, let not 
 man put asunder. 
 
 As things stand, we shall not join in the apprehen- 
 sion expressed by Schleiermacher, that natural science, 
 when fully developed to a complete sj^stem of cosmol- 
 ogy, might result in an intellectual starvation of theol- 
 ogy. Nay — if I am not deceived — the relations be- 
 tween natural science and theology appear of late to 
 have talcen a turn for the better. This, because the 
 stand-point on either side is beginning to become clear- 
 ly marked. Many prudent and far-seeing natural phi- 
 losophers have begun to acknowledge that their sci- 
 ence has, in many cases, overstepped its boundaries, 
 and therefore warn their younger or more hot-blooded 
 colleagues to abstain from "undue interference in other 
 departments. May we, then, not nourish the hope 
 that in due time both these bright stars shall revolve 
 around a common centre, in mutual harmony and 
 friendly rivalry discovering the great deeds of God? 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 71 
 
 But, besides these comparatively detailed methods 
 of offense against the different scientific attacks, there 
 remains to be considered the defense of our whole line 
 against infidel theory and practice combined. For 
 these tendencies are now showing themselves in prac- 
 tice and form as — 
 
 III. 
 
 A growing Social Power in the Life of our Day both in 
 Church and State. 
 
 This form of unbelief is, without question, far more 
 dangerous than infidelity in individuals or in philo- 
 sophical systems. I would recommend, in this respect, 
 a double method of defense. First, a more negative 
 one, which has hitherto been carried on only sporadic- 
 ally, but which, in order to take due effect, should be 
 treated as a whole : viz., an exposure of the miserable 
 consequences of infidelity as shown in history, in contradis- 
 tinction to the wholesome effects of healthy Christian 
 faith. This may be called the historical method of de- 
 fense; it is, however, at the same time a cutting at- 
 tack. Our Lord himself pointed it out when he said, 
 " By their fruits ye shall know them" (Matt, vii., 16); 
 and the proof of the actual corruptness of these fruits 
 will make impression upon many who are deaf to all 
 other arguments 
 
72 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 How should we furnish this proof? Not by setting 
 up ourselves as judges over the persons of our oppo- 
 nents, nor so as to do them injustice, by forgetting how 
 many of them are upright and learned men ; but by 
 showing the influence of their tendency of thought as 
 actually exhibited in the collective life of Church and 
 State since the last century, and comparing its effects 
 in the different spheres of society. 
 
 On an attentive consideration of the spirit which 
 animates our opponents as a body, the first thing which 
 strikes us is the extraordinary overweening pride 
 with which most of them treat all positive believers.* 
 They lay claim to be the only representatives of sci- 
 ence, and have repeated this so often to the people, 
 that in Holland, Germany, and Switzerland, the great- 
 er part of the press echoes this opinion as a matter 
 of course, and lays all " orthodoxy," i. e n belief in the 
 Bible, under the reproach of ignorance and narrow- 
 mindedness. And with this haughty spirit the theo- 
 logians among them plentifully imbue their congrega- 
 tions. They flatter the spirit of the times, and puff 
 np the " educated" consciousness of an age already in- 
 toxicated with culture, till its pride reaches an unbear- 
 able pitch, by means of their high-flying critical treat- 
 
 * Cf. Hofstede de Groot, " Pie modern e Theologie in den Nieder- 
 landen," 1870, p. 29, et seq. 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 73 
 
 ment of the Gospel history ; indeed, many of them 
 often go so far as to rouse all the passions of intoler- 
 ance against the "parsons," i. e., the representatives of 
 the old faith. When they are in a minority, they cry 
 for tolerance, and preach the doctrine of equal rights 
 for every persuasion. But when they are the ruling 
 party, sovereign Reason shows herself to be most intoler- 
 ant, and denounces those who cling to the old faith as 
 the enemies of progress, and of all truly humane cul- 
 ture. 
 
 If we go on to consider their method of attack (and 
 except the merely scientific representatives), we can 
 not help seeing what a despotism of phrases and com- 
 monplaces they have founded, so that thousands blind- 
 ly applaud the half or not at all understood mottoes 
 of the day ; and what a confusion of ideas must be 
 laid to their charge! The clear meaning of sharp- 
 ly definite Scriptural ideas accepted by the Church 
 is gradually put aside, and another meaning sub- 
 stituted for it, so that, while the shell remains, the 
 true kernel is gone. During one thousand eight hun- 
 dred years, e. g., the word "resurrection" has been 
 understood in the whole of Christendom to apply to 
 the body of Christ ; now, however, they change the 
 meaning of the word into that of a continued exist- 
 ence of any kind, and declare as irrelevant the ques- 
 tion whether our Lord's body was raised to a new 
 
 4 
 
74 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 life or not. In the Church the old forms are for 
 the most part preserved ; and in this case they con- 
 tinue to pray to Christ as ordered, though otherwise 
 they consider him to be only the son of Joseph, and 
 prayer itself a subjective outpouring of the heart's 
 emotions, without objective effect on the course of af- 
 fairs. Is this perfectly upright and truthful? Some 
 are soon tired of this incongruence between the rites 
 and liturgy of the Church and their own inward con- 
 victions, and enter other more congenial callings ; but 
 the growing generation is by these means (though not 
 exclusively by them) disgusted with the study of 
 theology. In man}^ however (especially during the 
 first half of this century), this incongruence has been 
 overcome by the earnest demands of life and holy of- 
 fice, which, though they left the university as Eation- 
 alists, convinced them of their error, and led' them to 
 preach salvation through Christ alone. Does all this 
 bear witness to the healthy character of unbelieving 
 principles? 
 
 But let us look more closely at their fruits in the 
 inner congregational life >of the Church. Infidelity has 
 of old emptied the churches and given an impetus to schis- 
 matics, because it can not satisfy the deeper spiritual 
 needs. What a display has infidelity made of its 
 weakness in the pulpit by reason of its denial of the 
 miraculous element in the great facts of salvation ! 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 75 
 
 Let him who wishes to see instances take but a look 
 at the utilitarian preachers of the times of " illumina- 
 tion." It is well known that these men did not dis- 
 dain, even on high festivals, to stoop so low as to in- 
 struct the people in. their sermons about farming, hy- 
 giene, vaccination, or cattle-feeding. And now? There 
 is no scarcity of high-flown words. But does the one 
 thing needful — faith in Christ, conversion, and regen- 
 eration — still form the central object in the modern 
 pulpit? Alas! not even for an earnest penitential 
 sermon can one of these men collect his energies. Is 
 not this a serious state of affairs? 
 
 And what of the liturgical fruits of unbelief? Just 
 glance into the liturgies current during the zenith of 
 Eationalism in the last century ; read those finely 
 rounded phrases and paraphrases about God, virtue, 
 and immortality, self- ennoblement, and Jesus Christ, 
 the Eastern sage of olden times, and confess that you 
 would hardly have believed so utter a want of taste 
 to be possible. Or glance over the hymn-books of 
 that time, with their miserably watered old hj^mns, 
 and their practically as well as theologically shallow 
 and pitiable humanitarian odes. And how is it in our 
 day? Why, if formerly there was at least the shadow 
 of a worship, now the attempts made in Haarlem, 
 Groningen,lSreufchate], to establish a truly "modern" 
 Divine service, have, by their miserable failure, gone 
 
76 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 far to prove the utter futility of all such endeavors. 
 la due time, then, worship would have to cease alto- 
 gether. 
 
 In the matter of Church constitution and government 
 (in which believing theology, it is true, has made many 
 mistakes also), the chief historical achievement of unbe- 
 lief (in Germany) is the " Territorial System" — a the- 
 ory which considers the Church and its government 
 to be only a part of the State, and its constitution 
 as such, and must lead to the former being entirely 
 emerged in the latter. And at this day unbelief seeks 
 to betray the inalienable rights of the Church to the 
 State, and to prove the omnipotence of the latter, as 
 against any act of Church discipline meant to defend 
 the positive doctrine, hoping that the State may soon 
 pronounce for the equal rights of all parties within 
 the Church. Modern unbelief seeks to efface the spe- 
 cific distinction between Church and State, and there- 
 by robs the former of its vital power.* 
 
 Again, look at the influence of unbelief in the active 
 congregational life of the Church, in the institutions for 
 the extension of God's kingdom, and sec the paralysis 
 which follows its ascendency. The German -Danish 
 mission in Tranquebar flourished vigorously during 
 the former part of last centurj^, till the triumph of Ea- 
 
 * This paragraph applies more especially to Germany. 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 77 
 
 tionalism at home dried up its supports and caused it 
 to wither away. And how do these liberal unbe- 
 lievers seek to hinder and malign the work of mis- 
 sions at the present day by distorted criticisms! But 
 as to doing better themselves, which would be the 
 best criticism, they have not lifted up a finger. The 
 institutions of our inner missions, too, have almost all 
 of them been founded and supported solely by the 
 love and liberality of believers, while unbelievers have 
 done little else than embitter their existence by re- 
 peated attacks.* 
 
 But perchance unbelief has proved itself to be a firm 
 support of the State, and a source of moral strength in 
 public and political life? The best tests of a prin- 
 ciple are furnished by times of public distress and 
 danger. As soon, e. g., as a war is imminent, the power 
 of unbelief in a nation immediately sinks in a marked 
 manner, and even unchristian journals at once begin to 
 speak more of God and divine help. An involuntary 
 instinct fills the churches ; the need of a higher assist- 
 ance is plainly felt, and the fine phrases of unbelief can 
 not give this. These facts are questionable enough for 
 the support under trouble which unbelief can afford. 
 And when the thousands upon thousands of wounded 
 
 * Witness the venomous attacks on the "Kauhe Haus " at Ham- 
 burg (Dr. Wichern's institution). 
 
78 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 need spiritual consolation, how little can unbelief afford 
 this ! In the last war — I say it deliberately, for I have 
 witnessed it myself in the war — this task devolved al- 
 most entirely on believing ministers, often at the re- 
 quest of their free-thinking colleagues. Here the pas- 
 toral bankruptcy of the rationalistic clergy was clear- 
 ly evident in their total inability to satisfy the spiritual 
 cravings of the suffering and dying. It-would be laugh- 
 able, were it not rather to be wept over, that unbelief 
 should ever attempt to minister to the spiritual needs 
 of man. 
 
 But, putting aside such seasons of distress, what are 
 the political and social fruits of unbelief in a general 
 way ? History very plainly tells us that apostasy from 
 the faith very soon deprives a nation of its power and au- 
 thority. As in the family, when its life is not based 
 upon the fear of God, all domestic bonds are soon de- 
 stroyed by the unfettered power of selfishness, so that 
 dangerous laxity or arbitrariness is substituted for ear- 
 nest discipline in the education of children — so, too, 
 in civil and national life. The people that will not 
 bow to divine authority will eventually break through 
 the bounds of all human order in endless revolutions. 
 The self-love, which would fain be wiser than divine 
 revelation, at last snaps all the bonds of society. The 
 new faith (of Strauss), practically carried out, is the Com- 
 mune, which during its ascendency was always talk- 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY; 79 
 
 ing of philosophy. Unbelief will ruin every nation 
 which does not in time resist its all-poisoning influ- 
 ences. 
 
 The result of historical investigation shows that all 
 these results of unbelief have the same inner ground, 
 viz., that it is without the Spirit of God, which alone 
 creates and preserves all true life. But if the fruit be 
 evil, then the tree and its roots are evil also ; and foolish, 
 indeed, is he who would gather grapes of thorns or 
 figs of thistles. 
 
 In our attack on unbelief we must expose these its 
 fruits : It boasts itself of helping progress, and hinders 
 it; it inscribes "culture" on its banner, and threatens 
 us with a new and a worse barbarism; it promises 
 to bring in the age of true humanity, and yet it in- 
 jures the dignity of man, so as to deprive him of any 
 specific moral value, because it overlooks the fact that 
 humanity can only be saved and prosper by means 
 of Divinity. 
 
 "We must protest, then, against unbelief in the 
 name — not only of Scripture, of faith, and of God 7 s 
 honor, which it tramples in the dust ; not only of our 
 spiritual experience, which it does not understand — 
 but also of reason, which it leads astray. "We must 
 protest against it in the name of a healthy Church 
 life, of fruit-bearing preaching and care of souls; of 
 the truth and purity — ay, even of the good taste and 
 
80 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 aesthetics of our worship ; in the name of a healthy 
 discipline and constitution of our congregational life ; 
 of the independence of the Churrfh, which by it is be- 
 trayed to the State ; of the Church's energy and power 
 of increase ; of self-sacrificing and self-denying love ; 
 of Home and Foreign Missions, which it tries to para- 
 lyze; in the name of all practical tasks of the Chris- 
 tian life, for which it has neither a deeper understand- 
 ing nor yet energy to carry them out; in the name 
 of morals and all true humanity, which it undermines 
 and destroys, since it separates them from religion, and 
 saps its divine foundations. We must protest against 
 it, not only as Christians, but as citizens and patri- 
 ots who truly love their country, because the pros- 
 perous future of a nation — its freedom and power, its 
 flourishing and healthy development — essentially de- 
 pend upon its honestly holding fast to the Gospel as 
 the Truth and the Life from God. 
 
 But this historical defense will not meet all objec- 
 tions, by reason of its negative nature; and I would 
 therefore point out to you a more excellent, positive 
 way, which I may call the practical religious method— 
 I mean the actual proof of the Christian truth by means 
 of a Christian life. 
 
 When we look at the growing power of unbelief, 
 and the infinite variety of agencies employed in its 
 propagation, from the journals and associations of 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 81 
 
 mere Humanitarianism, down to those of the most 
 radical Communism, with its secret societies, and trav- 
 eling agents and lecturers, it is evident that such a 
 social power can not be met merely by scientific and 
 historical arguments. These may suffice to convince 
 individuals; but against the close columns of unbe- 
 lief the Church must use her last and most effective 
 weapon, i. e., the practical and moral superiority of 
 her representatives in an all-embracing love and holy 
 life. This practical religious method is the most 
 convincing of all, and truly irresistible, and must in 
 the end gain over all those who are of the truth. 
 This it was that worked so mightily in the first ages 
 of the Christian Church, and will continue to do so 
 to the end. Without it, infidelity will nowhere be de- 
 feated; and the growth of the latter is owing, in a great 
 measure, to the fact that the Church has too much neg- 
 lected this branch of testimony. Truth is plentifully 
 witnessed for in words and books, but not enough in 
 life. 
 
 But speaking as I am before those who, I trust, 
 have long since been striving to give practical effect 
 to this testimony, I may confine myself to a few hints 
 as to the way in which it may be rendered most 
 effectual. 
 
 And, first of all, let us remove from theological and 
 Church life the stumbling -blocks which have hinder- 
 
 4* 
 
82 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 ed so many from believing — the everlasting quarrels 
 about things upon which salvation does not depend ; 
 the jealousy of one another; the narrow-mindedness 
 at home and (alas, too) abroad, which can not loving- 
 ly enjpy the brother's success, because he does not 
 wear quite the same ecclesiastical uniform; and, in- 
 stead of all this, let the flame of believing and wide- 
 hearted evangelical love among the various denomi- 
 nations burn more brightly than hitherto. A great, 
 positively believing oecumenical Evangelical Alliance — 
 notwithstanding all variety in matters ecclesiastical, 
 and esteem for the forms of faith delivered to us — 
 is in itself a practical apology, which makes impres- 
 sions upon thousands, a justification of the indestruc- 
 tibility of our fundamental faith, a Christian Evangel- 
 ical International, which may oppose the atheistic In- 
 ternational with superior spiritual weapons. Let us, 
 in order to establish more firmly the unity of our 
 one fundamental position, ever draw more clearly 
 the line between the Essential and the Non-essential; 
 and let us protest against the destructive error which 
 maintains that no such line is to be drawn, but that 
 all tendencies have equal rights in the Church. Our 
 German liberalism has not, in this respect, attained 
 to so correct a judgment as the same party in En- 
 gland and America. These would say to those in 
 our Evangelical Church, who, e. g., attacked the Apos- 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 83 
 
 ties' Creed, "Why do you not go to the Unitarians?" 
 while with us they are struggling to prove the admis- 
 sibility of their continuance in a Trinitarian Church, 
 by which means we shall eventually legalize Ration- 
 alism. You must help us to attain greater precision, 
 even at the cost of a numerical diminution in the 
 Church. Better for a Church to be small, but united 
 and decided, than large and broad, but inwardly torn 
 and divided against itself. 
 
 And when we have drawn the necessary boundary- 
 lines, let us, for the sake of the unity, seek to give 
 a more extensive visible representation of it (by 
 means, e. g. : of an interchange of pulpits), so that the 
 various Churches may be strengthened by the faith- 
 ful testimony of men of another communion. Let us 
 force the unbelieving world to confess, as did the 
 heathen of old, " See how these Christians love one 
 another," and thereby we shall overcome a hundred 
 prejudices. 
 
 This spirit it is which ice should seek to implant ih 
 our evangelical congregations and people. Let us seek 
 to bring about a more living communion between the 
 churches, a greater interchange of their special gifts 
 and experiences, and place the single congregation in 
 connection with the course of events in the universal 
 kingdom of Christ, AVe should make them better 
 acquainted with the most important of these events, 
 
84 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 so that, if one member suffer, all the others may suffer 
 with it; and if one be glorified, all the others may re- 
 joice, as belonging to one body whose head is Christ. 
 
 In addition to this, it is our duty at the present 
 day to arm the members of our churches more fully 
 against the specious arguments of infidelity. This should 
 be done by laying a deep foundation in religious 
 instruction, especially in that for Confirmation and 
 preparation for Holy Communion, by weekly Bible- 
 classes or lectures, in which the members of our 
 flocks should be taught more of the unity of Scrip- 
 ture, by Sunday-schools, young men's associations, 
 reading-rooms, circulating libraries, associations for 
 missions, the poor, the sick, etc. Thus a vigorous 
 Christian social and congregational life would be put 
 forward in opposition to the infidel associations, and 
 it would act as a firmly forged chain, from which one 
 link could not easily be lost. 
 
 When we have, by all these means, built a power- 
 ful dam of Christian life against the swelling floods 
 of unbelief, we should— while not forgetting alwaj^s 
 to keep these our foundations in repair — strive to win 
 back lost ground by words and deeds. We must 
 fearlessly witness for the faith, not only in the pulpit 
 before our own congregations, but also in public lec- 
 tures (as is now frequently done) before the unbeliev- 
 ing world. The mere fact of a man standing up, in 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 85 
 
 the face of all the scorn of an infidel press, and openly 
 declaring his belief in the Christian faith, notwith- 
 standing his perfect acquaintance with all the argu- 
 ments of its opponents, is an encouragement to many 
 undecided ones. Then, again, let us confess what a 
 mistake in many places Christians (especially in Ger- 
 many) have made in leaving the development of the 
 public press almost entirely in the hands of infidels or 
 semi-infidels, especially of Jews and their confederates. 
 To meet this need we must found Christian journals, 
 which shall correct the lamentably misguided public 
 opinion ; and, since this is beyond the power of isola- 
 ted persons, w r e should form more Evangelical Societies, 
 whose object it must be to spread Christian literature 
 in every form, from the largest to the smallest works. 
 And let us seek to connect all these associations, as 
 much as possible, for the sake of mutual assistance. 
 In this respect I would recommend to your notice a 
 proposal, emanating from Holland, to form an " Inter- 
 national Association for the defense of the Christian 
 faith against its actual aggressors." 
 
 A most important point in this practical work (es- 
 pecially for Germany) is that laymen should be more 
 induced to assist in the ivork of the Church, and that the 
 latter should not tire in laboring for the better "keeping 
 of the Sabbath, and for the release of millions of white 
 slaves kept in bondage by Sunday labor, which can 
 
86 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 only be accomplished by a legal protection of Sunday 
 rest and freedom. 
 
 But, amidst all this work, never let us forget the 
 personal preparation in secret. If we are to conquer in 
 our struggle against unbelief, it must be less exclusive- 
 ly than hitherto with word and pen, and more on our 
 knees. Often while we fight hard we pray too little. 
 Instead of at once fulminating against unbelievers, let 
 us first wrestle for them with the power of intercesso- 
 ry prayer, that they may be enlightened by the Lord. 
 No word or writing should go forth in this Holy War 
 unaccompanied by prayer. Let no combatant enter 
 the arena without putting on the spiritual as well as 
 the intellectual panoply, that he may not fore as did 
 the seven sons of Sceva. And let none who strive in 
 the right spirit be left alone. Though we may not 
 everywhere be able to succor and defend, yet the 
 arms of our prayer can embrace the whole globe. 
 Thus only can we become so filled with the Spirit 
 that the image of Christ, the great Captain and Con- 
 queror in the battle, shall shine out of every action 
 and victoriously enlighten our opponents, when they 
 see in our whole walk and conduct greater love and 
 self-denial, greater self-sacrifice, greater quietness and 
 firmness in distress and danger. The Christian is the 
 world's Bible, and the only one which it reads. If 
 we take care that in this book be plainly shown the 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 87 
 
 loving spirit, the grandeur, and the winning friendli- 
 ness of Christ, then we shall see many hearts open to 
 receive this actual testimony of Christian life and suf- 
 fering. For many of our opponents in secret envy us 
 our Christian comfort in misfortune and under heavy 
 losses. Their hearts are often stirred by a deep yearn- 
 ing after the support which bears us up, and this su- 
 periority of Christian life can often drive the hardest 
 heart to seek help of our Lord. 
 
 In fine, only life can beget life. Where we wish to 
 defend the Word of Life, our own life can not be sep- 
 arated from the Word. The strongest argument for the 
 truth of Christianity is the true Christian, the man filled 
 with the Spirit of Christ, The best means of bringing 
 back the world to a belief in miracles is to exhibit the 
 miracle of regeneration and its power in our own life. 
 The best proof of Christ's resurrection is a living 
 Church, which itself is walking in new life, and draw- 
 ing life from him who has overcome death. 
 
 Cyprian writes of Christians in the third century: 
 "In their dress, their food, their manner of life, they 
 follow the customs of the country, and j^et they are 
 distinguished by a universally remarkable way of liv- 
 ing. They take part in every thing as citizens, and 
 they endure every thing as strangers. Every coun- 
 try is their native land, and in every country they are 
 foreigners. They live in the flesh, but not after the 
 
88 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING 
 
 flesh. They dwell upon earth, but they live in heav- 
 en. They love all men, though all men persecute 
 and malign them. When they are cursed, they bless ; 
 and when they are killed, they hail the day of their 
 death as their true birthday. 77 
 
 Before such arguments ancient Eome herself — the 
 mightiest empire of the world, and the most hostile to 
 Christianity — could not stand. Let us live in like 
 manner, and then — though hell should have a short- 
 lived triumph — eventually must be fulfilled what St. 
 Augustine says, "Love is the victory of the truth. 77 
 
 Already the world is beginning to be divided into 
 the two great camps of the unbelieving and the faith- 
 ful. In many, unbelief has probably become incura- 
 ble. Before such we can only confess the truth for 
 a testimony against them. The Antichrist who de- 
 nies Father and Son can be destroyed, not by men, 
 but only by the Lord in the brightness of his com- 
 ing. But the holy task that falls to the lot of every 
 Christian is to continue to do battle for the truth after 
 the measure of his strength, in the power of that vic- 
 tory which Christ has already gained for us, and 
 which he has promised one day to complete. May 
 not only individuals, but may every Protestant peo- 
 ple recognize that it ought to contribute its special 
 gift toward the great world-apology for Christianity : 
 Germany, her deep and earnest science ; England, her 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY. 89 
 
 trustful meditation on Scripture, her faithfulness in 
 pastoral work, her open-handed charity ; America, * 
 her energetic activity and liberality, her fearlessness 
 in public testimony for the truth, her indelible love 
 of freedom — and all others, great or small, the talent 
 intrusted to them. If all thus unite in holy zeal for 
 God, the victory can not be wanting. Forward, then, 
 my brethren, and let us not weary of the strife ! Our 
 field of battle is the wide world; our aim, the honor 
 of God ; our support amidst strife and suffering, the 
 certainty that our faith already is the victory which 
 hath overcome the world ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
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