73 at "| Al: f : fy i fas “ 4 . ‘ ty { iy . ve : ee if si af; int pte - *f¢ “4 fig | ; He ff the 4 ” j % i ah hy , ft f , - artis i ‘ i “4 re : - ‘tq +4 aii es A ‘4 ~ 1 oe an He Af i ; “ i eit et 4 2p j te ay “y oT, ia fr ai ai Te he hes Me gti “ He ‘Ts th é et ‘ty titi val i Wi af se TT Aah ale f H "a fi itt te j | ee He AE (ty i a H ie , Tee fe ij iit fe Ay, ’ Hi He me Ha ra ‘ i fit fi sf j li. : ay i ii He ci it iit : va i at bat fi Ag uy ty fi He ne ep alr 5 i qn ra ° i i bi f af he — , AF ni ay tT, ten te sp if if ae ay Me Ate | Ne inti! ' iy dr Fa ‘yj te 55 : sh ly tit i u i : we ita! 5 ' ft; jit ) ‘ti Hi! j iy i i yy V7 th ae Sith fy Hi 4 fe i i i ey it eh rit Ay ia i i ‘ Ag . j Y ty : 'v. Wy 'f ‘Ny y fey a 4 “y As ~~ I fy Le ~~ : d ng a i, _ ty r i f ) \ ‘i i ty j t 'f a ] Ha i qt, Re My : tid ' ti nt i ity Le ity — iti ay - a t) ln iF ont — i ‘fh i & Hip 'y F A at Ny i rT ti 4) i ‘ By 4 ay ‘ij i hi ity ‘iy f — a oe r wile! « At ~ A — iy — i t i i « iy ~ Yy ae ~~ ' ; ~ 4 ant ~~ " ~~ 'f ~~ tf ~~ a ~ i . ~~ i ae a ae if o a E C ‘Ky i I ~ i ~ As i ~ use i : i ii nin * ! ~ nin f \ th ay f t oe ‘} f ~ Pit ‘te Ae, : ~~ i i Hat ‘i sf i ~ 4 ty i Fs (i a ae : en ~ iy Me py if, of an if; ae ay — itty ca My ty j wat ue pie sit ae t > Ha ae 4) ae ~~ j Hi He if; Vi Tae i Hy, \ Jf 4, i x, ee “i ai Wy — — a aaa - ae pa na Ay aie ii Ay Ha mien . ! Me : Mii ~ j iti! ae ae; ae oF i Hi Mi ae — ae ii! (ir: fii i fay rat / ne! y. ii Hn May nt i ia it eh f ue rH ff ets F iy ty i “ le ij Aye ag die! ny At ine : rat 1 \\ ~~ : Ls Ha af ‘f f i Mae ‘ig fe ii ate ste: i ff ii ‘ “ 1) as nn i Le ue Wy a aT ii wv ai “i aye t} ‘ss na ne pa ity ih ‘e ie ) iF no ¥ pi uP by \ td iy ify 41; haf. ‘ ij ig ian ts Fs ihe \ a? ity Ny ae 445 At 1 aa uy if . ‘By ae, "ty \ a “1; ‘ “4: G ‘i ‘ Delitzsch’s Commentary on the Epistle to the fTebrews, Vol. 1., will form part of the second issue, along with the Second Volume of the Minor Prophets. They are happy to intimate that the Series will include a Commentary on Ezekiel, by the veteran Professor Hengstenberg. May they request an early remittance of subscription for 1868? Messrs. CLARK have recently published :— Dr. KRUMMACHER’S David King of Israel; a Portrait drawn from Bible History and the Book of Psalms. Post 8vo, 7s. 6d. Professor BUCHANAN on The Doctrine of Fustification. 8vo, 1os. 6d. Professor HETHERINGTON’S Apologetics of the Christian Faith. 8vo, \os. 6d. Rev. JOHN ADAM’S Exposition of the Epistle of Fames. 8vo, 9s. Professor DOEDES’ Manual of New Testament Hermeneutics. Crown 8vo, 3s. Dr. PREUSS’ Romish Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception traced ae ats Source. Crown 8vo, 4s. Rev. Mr. WRIGHT on The Fatherhood of God. Crown 8vo, 5s. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2021 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign https://archive.org/details/divinerevelationO0aube CLARKS FORHKIGN THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY. FOURTH SERIES. VOL. XVI. perme Auberlen on the Dibine Webelatton. EDINBURGH: T. AND T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET. MDCCCLXVII. , re ; « , i AL : : . ; a Vee LAOLIOE 4 rl i , | , ; : f . Wa hs : P ‘ 2 UT if OT He ‘ : | | q ni LN Pena | ‘* ; i é i | ef i } / ; s n { oe a sang hee if re een t ae 4 | -/ iter d ‘ ‘ } an ‘ i, fe Ps \ ~~ * | . ras Y , if hit i ‘ae e ah ont faiehn eons Hn) fay a au a5 i ; THE DIVINE REVELATION: ‘AN ESSAY IN DEFENCE OF THE: FAITH. BY THE LATE CARL AUGUST AUBERLEN, Px.D., D.D., PROFESSOR AT BASLE, TO WHICH IS PREFIXED A BRIEF MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. Translated from the German by Tip REV) A] Be PATON) BA: PORTISHEAD, BRISTOL. ‘* The first sin is neglect of truth.”’—-FRANZ VON BAADER, EDINBURGH: T. AND T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET. LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO. DUBLIN: JOHN ROBERTSON & CO. MDCCCLXVII. i. ~. a ° t - 4 ; R a . 7 ; aA! Sal XE r .. * s , = ¥ ry TANT “fey reve Y pADAE mia A viels tk tv A vee f Y ; ¥ . ‘He Vi. LS see | ; : aes r a4 : ; ' ‘ ; * in , | ; a hy . - f fi. ‘ - - wae rs . 5 “et LE PE OEE AE ; at. Py 4 oe KOiyngty ke’ AAS AO, ALOMUS ae —_— SS - ‘ ~ - ' be & \4 5 f ' + | h aS é ‘ \ ey * = atee7 s ) ott a 7 bd bs icer te t 17 7 q H ‘fi a t mp dite - i? ; * + 4 “J 10y3 Ba Th Te | wr? ; ‘ ‘ J a * 7 , — ‘ * 3 > ae ‘ ee el * © £ J t inl? Cini teat) nl pipet 3) Peete 1G ey) fae AMEE Hida ye pa Bonus 8x, oa ED fA ROT: THO apres, OO & PRAGs Moti ber of a ia Pe Ty vOUN ’ 7 bd ) J Tul r ee . pa e = ‘he ; ‘ ad x3 i 7 iv: * feet oi is a ae : : + =) oa : nn ‘ } a) Lm yy, f i : ‘i a , i -" “ é ' . | iv 7 ¥ n , (ho Aiea es Pe DEDICATED, WITH RESPECT AND AFFECTION, TO THE THEOLOGICAL FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BASLE, - AS AN EXPRESSION OF GRATITUDE ~ ey FOR THE DEGREE OF D.D, CONFERRED AT THE CELEBRATION OF THE FOURTH CENTENARY OF THE UN IVERSITY, BY THE AUTHOR. PREFACK, ADDRESSED TO FOUR FRIENDS. Pay OCAL circumstances led me some time ago to inves- ey tigate anew the credibility of the Bible miracles. And thus, as the original plan extended after I took the matter in hand, this book originated. Placed before one of the most serious questions round which the great conflict of minds is now waging, and in connection with which the last alternative appears, I was filled with increasing joy and confidence as my work went on. While these, the matters of highest importance to our race, occupied my inmost thought and moved my deepest feeling, you, dear friends, were vividly present to my mind, and I determined to address my com- munications to you. To you, before all, my dear M , as one of my younger theological friends, would I dedicate these pages. You know that German theology, in its most important and influential representatives, has abandoned the position it once held, and no longer rejects miracles; but the tendency to deny them still exists in connection with science, especially that which relates to the Old Testament, and it prevails very widely in the literary world. In our Switzerland, on the other hand, a not inconsider- able portion of the clergy, which has recently established an organ again in the Vozces from the Reformed Church of Switzer- land, occupies essentially the position of Strauss and Baur. In your France, too, and in Holland, a tendency is developing, which, represented partly by able and earnest men, and to which you yourself are not a stranger, seeks to separate history and doctrine in Christianity, and in the latter further to divide 10 PREFACE. Metaphysics from Ethics: it would thus retain only those general moral and religious truths which do not in substance go beyond nature, reason, and conscience. We Germans, who recognise in this tendency a revival, animated and modified by a French esprit, of that which some time ago swayed so many minds among us, have to oppose it in every way, not only in the name of religion, but in the name of science. I shall rejoice if the following pages, though first and chiefly intended for German and Swiss readers, contribute in some degree to this end. The Revue Theologique of Scherer and Colain has noticed with a good deal of interest the treatise of my early departed friend Paret (“ Paul and Jesus :” Year-Books for German Theology, 1858, 1.). That treatise was composed in a similar method with the first part of my book. I hope, there- fore, that my words also may find a friendly reception and attention in your quiet minister’s home, and that not simply because of our personal relations. You, dear L Tiibingen during the first years of my residence there. At that time the two great works of Strauss, the Life of Christ and the Dogmatik, had appeared. Feuerbach, with his work on the Essence of Christianity, and Bruno Bauer with his Criticism of the Evangelical History, were making some noise. We wit- nessed the appearance of the Year-Books, established first by Schwegler, now long things of the past, and also Zeller’s T'heo- , were the companion of my studies at logical Year-Book. Bauer wrote then some of his most important critical works, such as the treatise on the Gospel of John, and the book on the Apostle Paul, which were so eagerly read by us. These men we revered as the pillars of modern culture and science, who represented the result of all previous develop- ment and progress. O how you and I revelled at that time in the gardens of philosophy and poetry! You were witness, however, how I was led back, among other things, mainly by Schleiermacher’s mysticism, so full of life and spirit, to the sanctuary of religion, and learnt to sit again at the feet of the PREFACE. 11 Redeemer. You remember, perhaps, how Bischer’s well-known inaugural address brought about a crisis in my mind; while the conviction was pressed home upon me, though not without a hard struggle, since I had to thank this very teacher for many things, that I dared not share in approval of one who could speak as he did. What further helped me most of all, was the idea, or rather the reality, of the new birth. I saw men before me, and had from a child seen such men, whom I was compelled to recognise as born again. A voice in my inmost soul said to me that I also must be born again. Then it fol- lowed there must be a Being above man, of whom man can be born again—a living God. Further, what the new birth is for the individual, Christ is for the entire race-—the living principle of the transformation from a fleshly to a spiritual life. I was thus led from the centre-point of my own life to the God who is above the world, and to the historical Christ, the crucified and risen. Then I learnt gradually to rise from the enchanted grounds of poetry and philosophy to the paradise of holy writ, and there found again the lost tree of life and knowledge. The help I derived from theosophy is worthy of grateful acknow- ledgment. It opened up to me a view of God and the world which was free and quickening, and not imposed by any mere external authority, and which fitted into the door of Scripture like a key. This science, though indeed it requires revision and inquiry, has been decried only through ignorance of its nature and value. I could to this day point out almost the very spot, in one of the walks at Tiibingen, where a friend, in the last year of his course, once said to me, in the midst of a - scientific conversation, “ What! dare you, in the nineteenth century, defend the reality of miracles?” Now he himself believes in them. These questions have not such an immediate interest for you, in your calling as a jurist; yet I would invite you, just because you are a jurist, to take an interest in the following inquiries. You are accustomed,to deal with acts and documents, and to determine with that conscientiousness which 12 PREFACE. I always so much respected in you, the value of facts. To my mind, you are the representative of historical research. With this feeling I should like to bring you to look at our biblical documents, and invite you to a strict and juridical examination of the sources of this history, so as to discover whether, in respect to the question which shall occupy us, we have a well- assured foundation of fact. JI hope you will not only feel here a fresher air blow toward you than from the deeds I saw in your room, but that you will draw from them a purer and mightier inspiration than from Schiller or Goethe. You, dear H , I became acquainted with ten years later than the foregoing friend. At what a pace the race now moves! Times had quite altered, even then. In the place of Idealism and Pantbeism, had come, as had been foreseen and foretold, Materialism and Atheism; and these have now in turn disappeared, if not from the minds of men, yet from the general attention and regard. At that time you pursued with the greatest success the study of natural science and medicine, at the chief medical universities. More than once you told me with sorrow, that most of the youth of your faculty had gone over to theoretic and practical Materialism. You yourself had a severe struggle to maintain, in the face of the commanding and almost universally prevailing influences of the study of the exact sciences. It has never been easy for you, on the one hand, to preserve, by unintermitted study of the Bible, the heritage of your pious home, and on the other, to keep yourself above the waves, throughout a course of earnest philosophic reading. I don’t know what are your precise opinions con- cerning life and the world at this moment ; but you will, I am sure, take it in a friendly spirit, when I hold out my hand to you in this way, and as far as I may, give you my views on the physical and metaphysical aspects of the question of miracles. I ask, at the same time, your judgment upon them, as I am not by profession a natural philosopher. Take my pages, at the same time, as a greeting from our Basle University, which PREFACE. 13 lately celebrated the jubilee of its 400th year, and was greatly favoured by such pleasing unanimity among all the faculties. Lastly, I venture to lay the following pages before you also, my dear K , who are engaged with the deepest questions in philosophy, and have so often revealed to my mind the true dignity of genuine science. The idea of history, in the highest sense of the word, you are striving to reach. Many things in the book will seem familiar to you, reminding you of conversa- tions we have had, in forest and plain, as well as by the mid- night lamp, and which I reckon among the most precious hours of my life. I lay these lines in your hand, with the earnest desire that you yourself may be able soon to present us with a better gift. Co ALA. Baste, January 1861. : Cron y ae ne huete rare Oe wh 10 qulidot od B ahi {leomto@dt Up yer techy Wp kre gaan ginal bes : tig i “ee Omi asl Bas S Tok he TH ad catia We - v j ny! d cup cee Satis vt cif q aire ald. Sotus eit OP ola vest aaflda a ; Sooifotd old te Qeeotandl toy Bo Ok ate Geena aaa : vitae 2: dotog. oF oben ape iy Lane a ‘ Ti y Tea OTR 7 coe fd f ] bf thasetspe rio} ih; , ar 4 y Hové-ae, ainleg Beneiee ast). te Heat gree oT | ; 4 ¥ y ry h | s ail) +r it: volian } foie Pes how's i ‘é . : oy otal ced sung ath, neni caer pire va ve iy 4 OMe to tone oF node: ane oF) YREG i! Lia wet ete ‘4 ; | 4 ‘ae ttt a) 4 my i M 1. AP Ri a ae Ye Ree et ca na ‘ > t 2 ' © J - J, f hig os cat ~ . J , ' 5 i { ' rt," ‘ = . : » As % CONTENTS. a PAGE MEMOIR, Ps : ’ : : : 17 INTRODUCTION, : : ; F ; : : 29 PART FIRST—BIBLICAL. I, Tur PAULINE EPIsTLES— 1. The Miraculous Gifts in the Apostolic Church, f 35 2. The Miracles of the Apostles (and Jesus), ; ; 38 3. The Conversion of Paul, and the Revelations he received, ; 45 4, The Resurrection of Jesus, : ; : : ‘ 56 II. Tor GospELs— 5. The Cause of the Condemnation of Jesus to Death—The Messiah, 68 Ill. Toe Otp TesTaAmMENT— 6. Isaiah liii., ‘ : ‘ : ‘ : : 76 7. The Prophets, and the Revelations they received, : : 91 8. Mosesand Abraham, . : ; ; : : 123 9. The First Eleven Chapters of Genesis, : ; u 149 PART SECOND—HISTORICAL. I. Tar Great INTELLECTUAL CoNFLICT IN THE CHRISTIAN WoRLD— 1. The Restoration of pure Christianity, and the Antichristian Opposition, : ; . ' ‘ . 192 2. The Development of the opposing Principles in the History of the Church, ; ; ? : : 7 196 16 CONTENTS. IJ, THe ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM— ne 1. The Elder Protestantism, : : ; > ; 202 a. The Material Principle, . 5 ; ; 205 (1.) Grace, ; : j ; i ; 205 (2.) Sin, . : : ; : ; 221 b, The Formal Principle, ; ; : : : 228 (1.) The Use of Scripture, : F ; : 229 (2.) The ine of Inspiration, ' ; 233 2. Rationalism, . ; ; ee ; 7 ; 248 a. Reason and Nature, : , ; , : 248 (1.) The Rationalistic-Humanistic Development in the different Departments, ; » : : 248 (2.) Results, : e : : é : 260 b. The Criticism of the Bible, : ; ; : 266 (1.) The Criticism of Rationalistic Dogmatism in its dif- ferent Phases, A ; ‘ 7 ; 270 (2.) Result, : ; ‘ ; : ; 295 III. Tox DEFEAT oF RATIONALISM— 1. The Beginnings of it in the Eighteenth Century, : ‘ 300 a. Spener and Pietism, . ; , 300 b. Bengel and his School, >. t : : i 308 c. Oetinger, Crusius, and others, ; ‘ : ; 322 2. The Defeat of Rationalism in the Nineteenth Century, ‘ 350 a. The Theology which originated with Schleiermacher, : 354 b. The Church and Biblical Parties, 4 ; P 375 ce. Philosophy and Theosophy, ’ : ‘ : 399 NOTES, . ; : ; ; : : 417 INDEX, . ; ; ee 27 OINT MEMOIR. § eee ARL AUGUST AUBERLEN was born on November - =| 19, 1824, at Fellbach, in Cannstatt, Wiirtemberg, where his father, a schoolmaster, is still hyving. He attended the village school there till his ninth year. If the old saying is true, Pectus facit theologum, then Auberlen is indebted for the foundation of his theological culture to his father, who conducted his education on Christian principles; to the Christian spirit of the church there, which is for the most part in thorough earnest about and with the truth; and lastly, to hallowed impressions from the early death of his mother. Thus there arose in the mind of the boy the wish to become a minister. In order to secure the preliminary preparation, he was sent to the neighbouring city of Esslingen, in 1833, to attend the Padagogium. In the four years and a half which he spent there, besides acquiring the prescribed knowledge of language, he became fond of mathematics through the careful and stimulating instruction of one of the teachers, and showed considerable aptitude for the study. In 1837 he received the instruction previous to confirmation, and it was accompanied with inward blessing. He was confirmed by Dean Herwig In the same year he was received into the under theological seminary at Blaubeuren, and in autumn of 1841 into the upper one at Tiibingen. In Blaubeuren, the moral earnestness of Professor Schmoller exercised a wholesome influence on the B 18 MEMOIR. character of the young Auberlen. In his linguistic studies he had a partiality for Hebrew, but was specially interested in the comparison of languages with one another. Among other subjects, history was his darling study. Aiming at the greatest possible universality of knowledge, philosophic thought was awakened, to which, with his friend Wagenmann, now pro- - fessor at Gottingen, he gave himself especially during the last summer of his stay at the'seminary. Besides this, he moved with great delight in the fair regions of German literature, especially the poetry of Goethe. The course of instruction in the seminary at Tiibingen led to the continuance of these his- torical, philosophical, and literary studies. In philosophy, Pan- theism was regarded at that time by the students, and by most of the professors, as the Alpha and Omega of wisdom. Hegel’s system took hold of Auberlen’s mind, chiefly because it seemed to be the historically necessary expression of all modern culture and opinion. “My ideal,” he writes, “was that humanity of Goethe and Hegel, according to which I sought to unite the ereatest universalism of knowledge and mental activity with personal and social culture. I studied belles lettres, sesthetics, and the history of art. JI resumed my mathematical studies. A lecture which I heard on the history of States led me to think of attending a course on law.” The note-books filled with extracts furnish a proof of his great industry. As he was about to enter on the study of theology, a great change gradually took place in his thoughts and aims. “I thank God,” he writes, “that my mind was soon led from that diffused breadth into greater depth. The religious memories of early childhood never quite left me. They were kept alive by my constant connection with my home, and by association with friends from other lands; and I became more and more conscious that modern thought — and the fundamental principles of Christianity were irreconcil- able.” In several of the professors his inquiring mind found useful guides. Through long years, Dr. Schmid, who will long be remembered by many natives of Wiirtemberg, had stood MEMOIR. 19 alone as a witness for the truth; yet during the residence of Auberlen an important change took place, through the influence of Dr. Landerer, and more still through Dr. Tobias Beck. It is the last to whom Auberlen is most indebted, especially in respect to his relation to the Scriptures and the fundamental views of the kingdom of God. But the Spirit of God acted on him not only from without, but from within, exciting and lead- ing him into the truth. “A voice in my inmost soul said that I must be born again. Then there must be a being higher than man, of whom he may be born anew—a living God. Further, what the second birth is for the individual, Christ is for all humanity. He is the living principle of the transformation of the fleshly nature into the spiritual. I was thus led back from the innermost point of my own life to the living God, the historical Christ, the crucified and risen.” The inaugural address of Fr. Bischer, professor of esthetics, did him good service. “This occasion, on which I felt compelled to take up a different posi- tion from the most of my friends, made the break with my own earlier opinions more distinct in my own mind.” Theological study now became in increasing measure the study of his life. Thus it came about, that when he left the university in the autumn of 1845, and began his ministry, he could proclaim the truths of the gospel from the heart. Nor was science forgctten then. “I read and studied with great eagerness Rothe’s Theological LHthies, which, along with some other books, at that time fell into my hand. By its remarkable union of biblical truths with modern speculation, it had a very considerable influence on me.” He was occupied specially at that time with the writings of his genial countryman, the prelate Oetinger, who had died eighty years before. Auberlen’s whole thought on theology was placed on a new foundation through this great disciple of the great Bible student, Johann Albrecht Bengel. The ground Oetinger took was a real, and as far as possible, corporeal conception of divine and invisible things. The task -which Oetinger set him- self was, to seek out the fundamental ideas from which the holy \7 20 MEMOIR. men of God started, the knowledge of which would be the key to open the Scriptures, as well as nature and history, to the knowledge of man. This, which Oetinger proposed for himself, supplied Auberlen also with a new impulse to a thorough study of the thoughts of the Bible. His first scientific work was the result of his reading of the numerous works of this theosophist. It was an Exhibition of Octinger’s System, and appeared in the year 1847, when our friend was twenty-three years of age. The year 1846-47 he spent in travelling, for the purpose of education, through Germany, Belgium, and Holland. In May 1848 he was called to be vicar (curate) to the Rev. Wilhelm Hofacker of Stuttgart. This» position was of great importance in connection with his practical education, and the general course of his life. A beginner could not have found a better instructor for the ministerial office than this eloquent, able, and pure-souled man, whose whole being lived in the divine truth. Hofacker was carried off by a nervous fever in his forty-third year, a few months after Auberlen began his labours. What was especially memorable in this man, was the way in which, like a true priest, he carried the Evangelical Church on his heart day and night during that troublous time (it was the year of revolutions, 1848). In the spring of 1849, Auberlen returned to the theological seminary at Tiibingen as Repetent (sub-tutor). “Here,” he writes, “I was very anxious to exert a good influence on the youths, not only in scientific but in religious matters, so as to contribute my share to make them true evangelical theologians and pastors.” He took advantage repeatedly of the right of Repetents to deliver lectures. In the winter of 1849-50 he lectured on the method of theological study; in the summer of 1850, on the history of revelation. This was a direct preparation for the situation of professor of theology at Basle, to which he was afterwards called. Before he moved to Basle, however, he entered on the married life. His wife was Clara Mentzel, MEMOIR. al daughter of Dr. Wolfgang Mentzel of Stuttgart. This marriage also was a result of his residence in the house of Wilhelm Hofacker ; he found his bride there. In Basle, especially since the founding of the Missionary Institute in 1816, the influence of Wiirtemberg has made itself felt in several ways. And though Auberlen found a soil here in many respects unlike that of his home; though his favourite study of the “last times” was not popular, nor the societies he organized, successful; and though frequently the indifference to these things seemed to him a crime, yet he could enter on this new turn of his life with the words of happy gratitude, “ My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit doth rejoice in God my Saviour.” And what must have quickened him ever afresh in his troubled moments, must have been the zealous, and at the same time free and peaceable way, in which the affairs of the kingdom of God were treated in Basle. He had received his invitation from a voluntary association, which had for its object the maintenance of pure doctrine at the university, either in concert with the official teachers, or, if necessary, In opposition to their lectures. The time when Auberlen was called was a period of restoration at this university. The proposal to abolish it had just been rejected by the Council, and in connection with this act a new love for it had been enkindled among the people. In his inaugural address, which discussed the relation of recent theology to the Bible, he laid stress chiefly on the doc- trine that the Scriptures were distinguished from all other books, as a natural product, that has grown up and become full of life by divine method, is from a product of human art; and that the position of the theologian must not be above the Scripture, nor beside it, but only zm it, so that he becomes rooted in it, and through the Holy Spirit becomes one with its principles. His work was crowned by God with rich blessing. His whole nature, manner, and speech had indeed something youth- ful about them, so much go that one of the Council of Education said, after the inaugural address, “He is a mere boy yet!” It 22 MEMOIR. was the boy with the sling, however; and the students perceiv- ing this, had great confidence in him. His word fell into good soil, and there is no doubt that many of his hearers will pre- serve a grateful recollection of him all their life long, and that many churches, especially in Switzerland, are sharing already, and will continue to share, in the blessing which the Lord gave by the word of the deceased to those who heard him. When he entered the pulpit, too, he was able to open his mouth with joy and boldness, and many a mind received his declaration of the glad tidings. He began his career as professor by lectures on the doctrines of John and Paul, and an exposition of the pas- toral epistles. He soon invited the students also to a continu- ous reading of the prophetic scriptures of the Old Testament. In the third semester (session) he announced his Exposition of the book of Revelation, and a course on the book of Daniel. His interest in history had, since his study of Bengel and Oetinger, been concentrated on the progress of the kingdom of God. His attention was turned with special earnestness to the latest developments of this kingdom, which are to precede the end of the world. He manifested his reverence for the Old Testament, by giving special honour to the most disputed book of it—the prophet Daniel. With clear, open eye he carried on the inquiry into Daniel, and read at the same time, ever correct- ing his own earlier views or the received traditions, Zachariah, his cotemporary Haggai, and also the last herald of the future, Malachi. The fruit of these investigations was his comprehen- sive work on Daniel and the Revelation of John.t This work has won many friends for Auberlen wherever the German lan- guage is known, and far beyond these limits; in a very short time a second edition was called for. He published his ideas on the development of the whole kingdom of God, in a missionary discourse at Barmen in 1859. There are some excellent suggestive hints in it on the old dispensation, which 1 Translated into English by Rev. Adolph Saphir. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. MEMOIR. 23 was an earthly kingdom, and on the new, which is the king- dom of heaven. The relation of the kingdom of God to the church, and of the church to the kingdom of the thousand years, 1s also clearly set forth. The views incidentally given of modern heathendom, church and state, progress and culture, are all calcylated to be of great service. From the many assaults made on this book, he resolved to carry still further the work of proof. He seemed then to take time to breathe and reflect. He resembled the disciples in the interval between the resurrection and the ascension. They could at one time look on and touch with their hands Him who, at another time, just when their hearts burned within them the most, left them alone, then appeared to them again with the brightness of the morning, and revealed to them His heart of love. But in that very revelation He rebuked them most, if they thought that they knew and possessed Him in the deepest sense. Auberlen now became better known. He received a call to a vacant professorship at Konigsberg, and another to Barmen as inspector of missions. He felt, however, that the roots of his life were sinking deeper and deeper in Basle. His rela- tions extended, and the scope of his influence widened in the city, especially by public discourses on missions, and by Bible classes which he held in various family circles. His whole inward life was rising in the power both to give and receive. The ideality of youth bloomed again with new beauty, and the pinions of his mind stirred and spread for nobler flight. The discourses on Schleiermacher were an expression of this movement of his inner life. They were delivered in the hall before a mixed audience,.and were immediately published by request. He had been moved to deliver these lectures by the two first volumes of Schleiermacher’s correspondence, which had just appeared. This was the first public declara- tion of his relation to Schleiermacher. After the works which he had published, it was to be expected that he would be an D4 MEMOIR. opponent; and he was so just as much in his general views as in his view of the Old Testament in particular. And while he had, in common with Schleiermacher, a true feeling for all that was truly human, he held the same ground with him as to mysticism. He gladly acknowledged, then, and afterwards in his history of revelation, the intellectual height, originality, and universality of the man who, it may be said, had discovered anew the nature of religion, had liberated theological science from the shackles of philosophy, had felt the true pulse, as it were, of “ Christian life,” and in the word “ fellowship of life with God,” had found for it the true and simplest expression. He kept up frequent and earnest intercourse both with his Wiirtemberg friends and with the professors of the university, belonging to the. faculties of philosophy, law, and medicine. His intercourse: with a much respected medical friend drew his attention to the letters of Albrecht von Haller, the great naturalist, upon the most important truths of revelation. He afterward, as his colleague Hagenbach had done with the letters of Euler the mathematician, sent forth a new edition, with an introductory preface, in 1858. He took part also in the quiet work of the friends of Israel at Basle, and now and then under- took the instruction or special training of converts or inquirers. At that time a religious crisis had come on in Basle. Fora long time a disciple of Beck had attacked the Christian faith and the biblical documents in the most determined manner, both in a newspaper and in the meetings of the Council. Besides this, he challenged believers to public discussion. In the minds of several friends, the wish grew up that Auberlen would meet him. He did so: The opposition of the sceptic during the discussion turned on miracles. Auberlen’s reply was founded on those apostolic epistles which are universally acknowledged to be genuine. He sought to establish what was disputed from what was acknowledged. He succeeded in doing » what he wished, but came home from the disputation very much exhausted. It had brought many things, however, clearly into MEMOIR. 2D the light, and he was strongly impelled to continue the work thus begun. Instead of devoting his summer holidays to rest, he threw himself with a consuming zeal into this work, and in a short time completed the first volume of his chief work, Zhe Divine Revelation: an Apologetic Essay (1861). What he pro- posed in this work was substantially to show the history of the revelation God had given and superintended, to be real history, and then to show it to be rational history. He says himself concerning it, that he wished to invite the student of history to a severe and legally exact examination of the sources of the history, to discover whether there was or was not a well-assured foundation of fact. In opposition to historical philosophers, he undertook to demonstrate that the narrative of facts was clear and transparent, lighted up throughout by the pervading idea, that the positive was the ideal, that the actual, z.e. what had been accomplished by God, was rational; we should see not only the miracles in the law, but the law in miracles; in the law of biblical miracles, the divine ideas and laws of all historical life. The work is rich im profound observations on the Bible and on history. In the history of revelation he was chiefly occupied with the connection between divine acts, words, and powers, and with that between the Old and New Testament, which, since it has been supernaturally arranged, gives an explanation of the wonderful Messianic idea. The general aim of Auberlen’s scientific labour was to trace the course of the divine revelation, the walk of God with humanity from the beginning of creation ; to show the close articulate connection of the whole, which, having many members, is yet throughout swayed and animated by the unity of the same divine thought. He wished tc exhibit the Scripture as the photograph of that method and course of revelation drawn by the Spirit for us. His equipment for such a task was very complete: he had great decision, united with a disposition to receive and gladly acknowledge every true dis- covery of science; a restless and wide-embracing spirit of inquiry; his eye and thought were free, he never forgot that 26 MEMOIR. truth is one; he had a sound imagination, by which he could enter into the peculiarity of all that came before him in history, and a delicate and acute judgment. If he not seldom surprises us with a thought which shows the light of the divine idea that connects the single circumstances with the whole,and by means of the whole illuminates them, the cause of this is to be looked for in that simplicity of his nature, with which he let the words of the Lord, the prophets, and the apostles influence him. The words of Christ, “If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light,’ have been singularly illustrated in the whole scientific life of our friend. The language in which he clothed his thoughts also bore this character: noble simplicity with vivid clearness were its glory. Sometimes he compels us to follow the swift course of the thought; sometimes bids us go deeper and think the more, as the words flow quietly on. Hitherto, the Lord had granted him an experience of lite almost without sorrow, even in his domestic life. He had five children, two of whom died very young; the other three, how- ever, grew up prosperously. Exhausted by the excessive effort: of his last work, toward the end of the vacation 1860 he sought recreation and strength by a visit to Stachelberg, in the Glarner country. A slight cold, however, confined him to bed soon after he went there; and though he began a new course of lectures in the following winter session, he never altogether recovered from this illness: his whole system was injuriously affected. He was obliged to spend the whole summer nearly at Euren, He was able to give lectures during the winter at his own house to a considerable number of students. He was greatly fatigued by them, however. His strength was fairly broken. Reading and writing, even speaking, became very difficult. But as the outward public life ceased, the inward became the more active. Many students came to read to him, and other acquaintances, and friends came to see him on ap- pointed evenings of the week. These gatherings for reading and conversation—during which the invalid, exercising great MEMOIR. wi self-command, was cheerful and attentive, and often stimulated the others by some remark, or sometimes in lengthened converse forgot his weakness altogether—remain for those who shared in them a pattern of Christian patience, which could sacrifice what was most dear, and heartily thank God for one hour of peace and freedom from pain after days of suffering. How great the sacrifice he must have offered at that time, can only be known by those who know the joy of labour, but who, by the will of God, are kept from it. He recovered better than could have been expected from an affection of the chest, which attacked him late the previous summer; but the fourth winter was, in the main, like the three foregoing ones. That cost him many a heart struggle. He had need of strong faith, to exhibit and feel entire resignation to the will of God. But his faith did not fail. And how mightily the Spirit carried on the good work begun in him to the end! With the first signs of the returning spring, he again became weaker. The affection of the chest had meanwhile advanced. For the last fourteen days of his life he was confined to bed. When his wife said to him, on 30th April, that the physician had spoken of his condition as being very critical, he was sur- prised, was quiet for a moment, then expressed his joy that the Lord had determined to call him home so soon, Two. days before, he was able to attend to the arrangements necessary for the publication of the manuscript of a Wirtemberg theologian who had died in early youth, eighty years before. The issue of these manuscripts was one of the last things he undertook, and he spent the peaceful hours he enjoyed during the winter on it. Of such hours, in which he could study, many were granted to him in the course of the winter. He had been able to dictate to his wife the beginning of the second volume of his Diwine Revela- tion, so far that we are able to print them along with this. His work now done, and knowing that his death was not far distant, he awaited with calm joy his entrance into eternity. His death- 1 This fragment is not published with this translation. 2 28 MEMOIR. bed was a living commentary on the words, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory ?” When, a few hours before his death, one observed that the disciples of Christ pass along the same way as Christ—first death and the grave, then the resurrection and ascension—and therefore they are not afraid of death and the grave, he answered, as well as the difficult breath allowed, “Of the fear of death, God be praised, I know > Nee: nothing ; and added the last verse of Paul Gerhard’s hymn, “Tf God be on my side, then let who will oppose :” ‘* My heart for gladness springs, It cannot more be sad ; For very joy it laughs and sings, Sees nought but sunshine glad. The sun that glads mine eyes Is Christ, the Lord I love ; I sing for joy of that which lies Stored up for us above.” ! Even the thought of his dear wife, and the three children, of whom the youngest, the little son, went to school on the day of his father’s death, was not painful to him, for he knew the Father of the widow and orphan as his Father. On Monday the 2d May, shortly before noon, he gently fell asleep. He who “was dead, and is alive for evermore,’ writes the word of life deeply in the heart of his disciples. Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory, through Jesus Christ our Lord! There- fore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, inasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. [From a sketch of the life of the deceased, by Dr. W. Fr. Gess, and two articles in the Hirtenstimmen.—F. G.] 1 The translation in Lyra Germanica by Susannah Winkworth. INTRODUCTION. WERE there any acts of God? Has God spoken? These ws] are the questions which shall here engage our atten- tion. When God speaks and acts, we call it revelation. For as a man in his actions and words reveals his inward being, so also God. Word and deed are the revelation of personal life. These expressions may be called anthropo- morphic ; but it lies in the very nature of the case, that God, to reveal Himself to men, anthropomorphizes Himself. The terms, works of God, word of God, have hence, and with right, passed into general use, and even into scientific language. The question of revelation thus reduces itself at last to the other: Does a living God, a personal living God, exist? If there is such a God, He will act and speak. A mere distant, inactive, and speechless God would not be a living God; indeed, would be no God at all. The world would be to Him a limit. From the very nature of divine words and works, it is evi- dent that they could not proceed from the creature with his powers and means. If so, revelation would be a revelation of the world, not of God. If there is an actual revelation, it must be, according to the true idea of it, supernatural, miraculous. The question of revelation is connected with that of miracles. God, revelation, miracle, are nearly-related conceptions. As revelation points back to God as its invisible author, so it points forward to miracle as to its visible manifestation. We must therefore, first of all, consider this question. The question of miracles, as already indicated, has two sides, 29 30 THE DIVINE REVELATION. a historical and a metaphysical. The historical is: Have miracles actually happened ? 2z.e. have they been credibly at- tested and handed down? The metaphysical is: Can miracles happen at all? Is not the very idea of miracles inconsistent with a right view of God and the world, and their relations to each other? Strauss, as is now pretty generally acknowledged, has confounded these two points of view, and has thereby con- siderably injured the scientific value of his book. When he can find nothing against the history, the knot is always cut by the metaphysical principle of the impossibility of miracles. We shall seek to avoid this error, and always keep the two questions distinct. At the first glance, it might seem more in harmony with the nature of the subject, and with the laws of science, if we began with the question of the possibility of miracles, and then in- quired into the reality of them. This is the way by which most of our opponents, as Strauss himself, have come to the rejection of miracles: they could not succeed in reconciling belief in miracles with their philosophic and pantheistic views. But precisely because these views, notwithstanding the pretence of freedom from such influence, clearly are presumptions, which are opposed by certain presumptions on our side, so it 1s mani- festly more just to place this point in the second line, and to see whether the other does not furnish a common ground on which the discussion may be carried on. In this mode of handling the subject we are quite following the spirit of the present day. Metaphysical theories are now comparatively little esteemed. People wish for something actual, for facts lying palpably and surely before their eyes. This tendency is not, indeed, altogether to be commended; on the contrary, the friend of true science will mourn the prevail- ing neglect of philosophy. Yet he may comfort himself with the thought that this state of things will come to an end as soon as a great philosopher arises, who shall comprehend the realities of being more truly and fully than the idealism of our INTRODUCTION. 31 most recent systems has done. At present, however, it must appear a natural reaction against the arrogance of speculation and its methods—which, because one-sidedly constructive, have been actually destructive—that in all departments of science, especially in the investigation of nature and history, a tendency toward the actual and the real, a tendency to put the ideal in the background, is prevailing. We must learn, however, to determine not the facts according to our theories, but our theories according to the facts. Are these facts puzzling and full of mystery to us ? What then? Are nature and the world of men about us without mysteries? No reasonable man will contradict the maxim of Bacon of Verulam: “Animus ad ampli- tudinem mysteriorum pro modulo suo dilatetur, non mysteria ad angustias animi constringantur.” We begin, therefore, with the investigation of the actual, and go first into the question, Whether miracles and super- natural revelations are handed down to us in such a way that unbiassed inquiry is compelled to recognise them as historical facts? But here a new difficulty at once appears. Our oppo- nents do not acknowledge the genuineness of the biblical docu- ments, and they question in particular the genuineness and credibility of all the New Testament historical books. Only the Epistle to the Romans, the Epistles to the Corinthians, the Epistle to the Galatians, and the Apocalypse, are accepted by the school of Baur as genuine records of apostolic Christianity. In the Old Testament, a part of Isaiah, with Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and most of the minor prophets, are undisputed. We are very far from agreeing with this criticism, or acceding to its results, and call attention to the fact that it also, in spite of (in their view, indeed, because of it) all their preten- sion to purely historical investigation, starts from the assump- tion of the impossibility of miracles. In reference to the New Testament, Baur says: “The chief argument for the later origin of the Gospels is, that they, each one for itself, and still more all together, represent so much of the life of Christ in a way that 32 THE DIVINE REVELATION. cannot possibly be true.” Respecting the Old Testament, says Knobel, De Wette approving: “ Wherever in the Hebrew his- tory numerous myths and legends [7.e. miracles] are found—as, for example, in that of the Patriarchs, that of Moses, Balaam, Samson, Elijah, Elisha—we have accounts which were first drawn up a considerable time after the events. Where, on the contrary, the facts are given naturally—as, for example, in the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, 1 Maccabees—the composition of the histories was generally, if not always, cotemporary with the events, or followed soon after. This is a historical canon which cannot admit of a doubt.” 0 i i, Mh THE OLD TESTAMENT. 159 scale than the later beginnings, just because they lay the foundation for the present state of things, and therefore an- other and different state must be at the foundation of them. He who stumbles here at the outset, should remember the historic testimony of another book, the interior of the earth, which brings before us an original world of more colossal relations than those now existing. On the other hand, those who believe the testimony of Scripture, ought not to forget that what we have before us here is not a historical occurrence. It happened before history. It is not, however, the less actual. It only took place in a different way, and under different con- ditions of hfe; just as men nine hundred years old are yet real men, but different from those only ninety years old. The more remote any event lies from the present period, we are the less able to measure it aright with our present standards. This will be true in particular of the occurrences in Paradise, and this point of view will remove many difficulties. In hke _manner, we know little or nothing of the modes of our activity in the future ages of our hfe. If these three catastrophes are the primeval facts on which the present state of the human race on the earth are founded, their effects must of course be still traceable, and we shall be able here to argue from the effect to the cause. We shall now give some illustrations of this remark. We have already drawn attention to the fact that the word Gojim stands in the Old Testament for both nations and heathen. It thus embraces both nationality and religion. Now this fact is full of significance in reference to this point. It indicates the truth that there are just as many religions as there are nations, for every nation has its own gods. The second distinctive element between the different nations is language. Hence both the confusion of tongues and the dispersion of the people are connected with the building of the tower at Babel as one act (Gen. xi. 9). Nationality, religion, language—these are the three primal elements in the historic life of nations. Ethno- 160 THE DIVINE REVELATION. oraphic, linguistic, and historical inquiries into the earliest periods, are now causing them to be acknowledged in their relations to one another; but Genesis presents them to us in their inward unity, on the ground of the ancient traditions. This circumstance should dispose us to look favourably on the narrative. It is a strong testimony to the deep truth in it. It is Schelling, as is well known, who, in his Philosophy of Mythology, enters on the discussion of these fundamental questions, with much greater earnestness than had previously been customary. He has led the investigation into entirely new paths. From the nature of the thing itself, he arrives at more positive ground in reference to the historic record in Genesis, and especially to that part which relates to the Babylonian tower. In his introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology, the criticism of former theories concerning the origin of it, leads him to the question, How did nations originate? And in answering this question, he lays down the following positions. Nations neither always were, nor did they _begin to be of themselves. No merely physical explanations of the separation of nations is sufficient. “The human race could not have left that state in which there was no distinc- tion of nations, but only of tribes or families, without an intellectual crisis having occurred, which touched the very foundations of the mind. We can only wonder, that what is so manifest was not seen at once. For we cannot conceive of dif- ferent nations without different languages, and surely language is connected with the intellect. If the difference between the nations is not a thing that has existed from the first, but which originated from a former state, then the same is true of languages. These are principles of which people do not com- monly think, or which they are prevented from thinking of by a subtle, over-refined criticism, which enfeebles and obscures the mind. But they are statements which, as soon as they are made known, must command assent. Here we are at one with the oldest record of the human race, the Mosaic writings, which THE OLD TESTAMENT. 161 many have such repugnance to, simply because they don’t know what to do with them: they neither understand nor know how to use them. Genesis places the origination of nations in connection with the rise of different languages; in such a way, however, that the confusion of languages is the cause, the origin of different nations the effect. This narrative is taken from actual recollections, which are still found even among other nations. A confusion of language cannot be con- ceived, except in connection with an intellectual movement, a violent disturbance of the general consciousness. This dis- turbance must have affected the mind most vitally and pro- foundly, in its very roots; and if there is to be a confusion of languages, it must be a movement which should shatter the bonds which had hitherto held men together: that mental force must give way, which had hitherto resisted every tendency to separate development. This force could only be a God who filled the whole consciousness of the soul, who was common to all the race; a God who, as it were, comprehended and drew them all into His own unity. Polytheism, spreading then, as ever, made a continuance of this unity of the race impossible. This cause of the inward change is indeed not actually men- tioned in Genesis; but by naming the next cause, the confusion of language, it at least indicates the remote and final cause, the rise of Polytheism. Of these indications let me mention here only one. It names the scene of the confusion Babel, the site of the future great city. Historical inquiries that have been perfectly independent, have led to the conclusion that the transition to actual Polytheism took place in Babylon.. The very idea of heathenism, 2.¢. strictly, of the formation of separate nations, is thus inseparably connected with the name Babel, in such a way that, to the last book of the New Testament, Babylon stands as the symbol of all heathenism, and all that is to be regarded as heathen. Babel is really, as the old narratives say, a contraction of Balbel, a word which is doubtless onomato- poetic. Singularly enough, the imitation of sound which has L 162 THE DIVINE REVELATION. disappeared from the word Babel is preserved in the Greek word BépSapos, which properly means one who speaks unin- telligibly, and is formed from the oriental word Balbel by the common change of the consonants 7 for 7. By a similar imita- tion of sound has arisen the Latin bulbus, the German babeln, babbeln, (Swabian) plappern, French babiller, babil (English, babble). The connection of religious movements with changes of language is not more mysterious, than that certain peculi- arities of the physical constitution should be connected with a particular form of religion. What could the speaking with tongues in the church at Corinth be, except a consequence of religious impressions? We are too little accustomed to regard the principles which determine the involuntary religious move- ments of the soul as principles of general application, and which therefore, under given circumstances, may be the causes of other, and even of physical effects. At all events, it is evident that the rise of nations, confusion of tongues, and Polytheism, are, in the Old Testament mode of thought, related ideas and connected phenomena. The origin of mythology will be found at the point of transition when a people have not yet risen into separate existence as a nation, but are just on the point of dividing and becoming such. This must be true also of a language. It is determined first when the nation is formed. Those names among the Grecian divinities which are manifestly not Grecian, which are pre-historic, are to be traced to that point at which the languages are not separated, but are only in process of separation. From that, too, may be explained some similarities in languages which are otherwise constructed on entirely different principles. In no nation does a language arise quite free from connection with the previous unity of speech, which amid all diversity seeks to maintain itself. For to such a unity, the power of which is felt even in the separation, all the phenomena as well as the conduct of the nations, so far as it can be traced through the mist of that remote age, point. Not an outward impulse, but the thorn of inward unrest, the feeling THE OLD TESTAMENT. 163 that they are no longer the whole of the human race, but only a part of it—that they no longer belong to the absolutely ONE, but have become subject to some particular God or Gods: this — was the feeling which drove them from land to land, from coast to coast, until each saw itself alone, separated from all that was foreign to it, and found itself in the place destined for it, and appropriate to it (comp. Deut. xxxu. 8). This fear lest the unity of man should be- entirely lost, and, with that, all truly human consciousness, suggested to them not only the first in- stitutions of a religious kind, but even their first municipal arrangements, the purpose of which was no other than to pre- serve whatever remnants of pristine unity had been saved, and to save them from further disintegration.” * So far the words of Schelling, which we gladly quote, be- cause, though we do not bind ourselves to them in detail, or in all their consequences, we agree with them on the whole. We would add the following observations from the ethical point of view upon the question we are now discussing. The idea of humanity is one of the most beautiful and one of the truest ideas of our time, because in its genuine form it is a Christian idea, though it has often been torn away from its Christian foundation, and then abused and falsified. Exten- sively, however, the idea of humanity is coincident with the idea of the unity of our race. All men are brothers. It is the violence that is done to this feeling, the indignity cast on human nature, that so shocks us in the slavery of the negro race, and led, e.g.,an Alexander von Humboldt actively to oppose it to the end of his days. It is the same deep feeling and principle which, transferred from social to international relations, is ever suggesting to noble souls the idea of universal peace and the brotherhood of nations, and which makes them regard war as a frightful curse, and which ought not to be. And yet all peace congresses and the like are mere chimeras: it is a new age of the world which will first turn the swords into plough- ‘See Note M 2. 164 THE DIVINE REVELATION. shares. These phenomena are, however, but the outmost points of the universal fact, which is as manifest as it is surprising, that the unity of our race never finds any historical expression in the life of men outside of Christianity and the church. The human race is split up into a number of separate nations, each one of which forms an exclusive whole for itself. This is so much the case, that they understand one another neither out- wardly nor inwardly, neither in language nor religion. Indeed, generally one nation regards all others as barbarous compared with itself, looks on them as enemies, and considers itself the “middle kingdom.” Egoism, which in the individual is the root of sin, is much more sharply defined among nations. It is just as far from being agreeable to the true nature of man in the one case as the other; it is something abnormal, and at the same time humbling; it is guilt, and at the same time mani- festly punishment. The great majority of nations stand on a very low stage of life, which is hardly worthy of man at all. And who has not felt it lying like a curse resting upon the most civilised nations, when, being in the company of foreigners, and you felt that there was an inward harmony between you, yet you could at best very imperfectly communicate your thoughts and feelings? Humanity cannot set its entire life in motion: instead of being a living and happy organism, it is a mass of disjointed members. If we are in real earnest in regard to this thought, as we ought to be where we have to do with what is and ought to be, we must conclude that there was some transeression com- mitted long ago, by which the organism was rent and divided. We are led to ask history and ancient traditions whether they know of any such occurrence. Genesis gives us the building of the tower at Babel as the ‘solution of the problem. It shows us, in the sons of Noah and their posterity, that the original purpose was that mankind should develop regularly in organic order, but that the whole racé in ungodly arrogance withstood this natural development and gradual extension, and, instead of THE OLD TESTAMENT. 165 seeking inward unity in God, sought outward unity in a colossal sensible work of their own hands; and that God then, by means of the confusion of tongues, caused dispersion and dis- ruption to take the place of orderly diffusion. While mankind, by their pride in building the tower of Babel, have departed from God, and have lost God, they at the same time have lost themselves. Only in God, who as the source and upholder of all created life, is the bond of union to all, could they be truly one amid all diversity. By tearing asunder the bonds of union with God, they have also torn the bonds that unite the various members one to another. Therefore inversely, the reconcilia- tion of man with God is also their reconciliation with one another (Eph. 1. 14, etc.; Luke ii. 14). There was, in real truth, no longer a humanity; there were only detached nations, whom God suffered to walk in their own ways (Acts xiv. 16). Every apostasy from God is at the same time a subjection to the world and its princes. So it was here. The nations left to themselves, to go no further into the demonic background of heathenism, came more and more under the dominion of natu- ral forces, climate, soil, etc. etc., which they could no longer counterbalance with a spiritual power. From this fact are to be explained the diversities of races, to which, it is true, differ- ences in the three sons of Noah have in some degree contri- buted, which obscure so greatly the unity of the whole. From it, too, the circumstance that only a comparatively small portion of mankind has ever reached historical importance,—those, namely, that dwell in the temperate zone; while the hot and cold regions hinder the development of their inhabitants so much, that they are sunk down into a half animal life. Hence, too, lastly, are explained all the divisions and limitations, egoisms and hostilities, of the nations, of which we spoke above. In closing here, we shall take the liberty of quoting the local tradition regarding the tower of Babel, which has lately been discovered in one of the very oldest manuscripts. Oppert, one of the most celebrated of the explorers of Assyrio-Babylonian 166 THE DIVINE REVELATION. antiquity, who travelled to Mesopotamia under the auspices of the French Government, and who has published the results of his journey and researches in a splendid work, gives in the Journal Asiatique, 1857, a cuneiform inscription with an inter- linear version: he also has had it printed in Hebrew letters, and adds an explanation. The inscription is on a cylinder, which Rawlinson discovered in the ruins of Babylon. The writing is by Nebuchadnezzar, who, in the words of Oppert’s translation, says, among other things, “The Temple of the seven lights of the earth (the planets), the ancient monument of Bor- sippa, was built by an ancient king; since then are reckoned forty-two generations; but he did not reach the summit of it. Men had left it (the tower) since the days of the flood which confused their languages. Earthquake and thunder had shat- tered the bricks, and thrown down the tiles of the roof; the bricks of the walls were cast down and formed heaps. The great god Merodach has put it into my heart to build it again ; I have not altered the place, nor disturbed the foundations. In the month of Salvation, on the auspicious day, I pierced the unburnt bricks of the walls and the burnt bricks of the casings with arches. I inscribed the glory of my name on the frieze of the arches.” As our knowledge of the cuneiform writing is still very imperfect, we must wait for more light before we can be sure of the accuracy in all details of Oppert’s translation. Ewald has raised doubts'as to some of the conclusions. But if Oppert’s translation is confirmed, then we have two points worthy of notice. In the ruins of Borsippa, the castle of the ancient Babylon which lay in the south-west of the city between the outer and inner surrounding walls, there is now a heap of ruins which popular tradition calls Birs Nimrod (Nimrod’s Tower), and also the Tower of Languages, and maintains that it is part of the ancient Tower of Babel. Modern scholars have of course rejected this as a myth, and look on the ruins as merely the remains of the temple of Belus, built by Nebuchad- 1 See Note N.2. THE OLD TESTAMENT. 167 nezzar, and described by Herodotus. That inscription would prove that both are right, as Nebuchadnezzar intentionally built his temple on the site of the ancient tower. The architectural document—for so we may call the inscription—gives the local tradition concerning that building of the ancient time, which is still well known at the very place. ‘This local tradition con- tains the essentials of the case, just as Genesis does: it is a vast building, which remains unfinished, in consequence of a great catastrophe, and the confusion of tongues dates from that time. The chronological point, however, is not less important. As Nebuchadnezzar reigned 604-561 before Christ, and the build- ing of Babel is to be placed, according to biblical chronology, in the twenty-third century before Christ, there are about sixteen hundred years’ interval between the two; and this har- monizes with forty-two generations, reckoning thirty-five to forty years to each. In reference to recent opinions which charge Genesis with errors in chronology to the extent of thousands of years, this fact is of great importance. We now come to consider the flood. This is an occurrence in the natural world, and can be reflected therefore only in the state of the earth, not in the condition of mankind. It is so reflected very abundantly, as geology shows us. This science points us, in a way that seems to leave no room for doubt, to a whole series of great catastrophes that have occurred on this globe in the earliest ages. This, however, does not exclude, but include, the confirmation of the deluge as the last of them. Because of this plurality of catastrophes in creation, geology has often in recent times been used as a weapon against Genesis. It ought much more to have been considered a strong confirmation of the biblical account of the world; for 1t most completely demolishes the doctrine of the eternity of the pre- sent state of the world, and the permanent sameness of the condi- tions and relations of life. Geology, however, is still too young and incomplete a science, to warrant us in drawing very certain inferences from its different statements, either for or against the 168 THE DIVINE REVELATION. Bible. It is the same with respect to this as with respect to Egyptology and its centuries. Let these sciences quietly develop themselves, and theology at the same time; at the end their true unity will come out, as surely as the God of revela- tion is no other than the God of nature and history. There may and must be another testimony to the reality of the flood, in addition to that from the condition of the earth itself, if the father of the renewed human race was a witness of it, as Genesis says he was. This would be in the popular traditions of the nations. An event of such tremendous mag- nitude must have left many traces of its occurrence in the recollections of the posterity of Noah. And so it is in fact. Alexander von Humboldt says: “The traditions of the deluge held by the human race, which we find scattered over the earth like the ruins of a great shipwreck, are of the greatest moment in the philosophy of history. The cosmogonic tradi- tions of the nations have everywhere the same character,— a family resemblance which produces astonishment. In the main, with respect to the destruction of the animated creation and the renewal of nature, the traditions hardly vary at all, though every nation gives them a peculiar local colouring. On the great continents and the smallest islands of the Pacific, it is believed that the men who were saved fled to the highest mountain in the neighbourhood; and the event always seems the more recent, the more uncultured the people, and the less the distance the knowledge they have of themselves goes back. If we examine,” Humboldt adds, with special reference to America, “the Mexican remains of the period antecedent to the discovery of the New World, if we penetrate into the forests of Orinoco, when we see how insignificant and isolated the European settlements are, and in what circumstances the independent tribes exist, we can never think of ascribing this unanimity to the influence of missionaries and Christianity. It is just as improbable that the nations on the Orinoco have come to hold the idea of a great flood of waters, which for THE OLD TESTAMENT. 169 a time destroyed the germs of organic life, from the circum- stance that they found products of the sea high up on the | mountains.”! Lactantius writes (ii. 10): “Factum esse dilu- vium ad perdendum tollendumque ex orbe terre malitiam, constat inter omnes. Idem enim et philosophi et poete scriptoresque rerum antiquarum loquuntur, in eoque maxime cum prophetarum sermone consentiunt.” We shall quote some of these traditions of a flood from Liicke’s very full collection,—one from the East Indies, the second from North America, the third from Central America. They shall thus be from nations that are widely distant from Israel and from one another.’ “The tradition found in many of the ancient writings of the Indians was first brought to light by Jones, from one of the Purana. According to it, the tradition in substance is as fol- lows: When, at the end of last Calpu (ze. the great epoch of Brahma), the giant Hajagrivah stole the sacred Bedas, and the human race thus lost the truth and ordinances of God, Vishnu came to the earth in the form of a fish, in order to sustain the Vedas and virtuous men. At that time there lived a pious and virtuous king, named Manu Satjavrata (perfecter of the good). This man was loved by the Lord of the universe, who wished to save him from the destroying flood, which was caused by the wickedness of the times, and gave him, in the form of a fish, the following directions: ‘Seven days from this time, O thou subduer of the enemies, shall the three worlds be overwhelmed in an ocean of death; but in the midst of the great waves, a ship sent by me for thy use shall stand before thee. Then shalt thou take with thee all wholesome herbs, all manner of seeds, and, accompanied with seven holy ones, surrounded with the irrational creatures in pairs, thou shalt enter into the ark and abide in it, safe from the flood, on a boundless ocean, without light, the beaming splendour of thine own companions excepted. If the ship be struck with a violent wind, thou 1 See Note O 2. 2 See Note P 2. 170 THE DIVINE REVELATION. shalt moor it to one of the horns of a great sea-serpent: then will I be near thee; I will guide the ship with thee and thine, and remain in the ocean till a night of Brahma is ended. Then shalt. thou know my true greatness, which is named rightly the highest divinity. By my grace all thy questions shall be answered, and thy soul receive the very highest instruction.’ After the fish had given the king these instructions, it dis- appeared. The sea then rose beyond the shore, and inundated the whole earth; and soon the waters were greatly swollen by fearful rain from far-spreading clouds. The king, when he saw the ship drawing near, entered into it with the highest Brahmins (the seven wise ones, Richis), provided the whole- some herbs, and did all according to the commandment of God. Then the god appeared in the form of a fish upon the vast ocean: it shone with the splendour of gold. It was a million miles large, and had an immense horn, to which the king made the ship fast. When the waters of the destroying flood had meanwhile assuaged, the god arose, struck the Demon Haja- eriva, and again secured the sacred books. In Bhagavad we read: When the flood was at an end, the eight persons came out and worshipped Mishnu.” “In the New World,” says Liicken, “the traditions of a flood are almost more abundant than in the Old. We may start from the Esquimaux in the utmost north, and travel to the other extreme of America: traditions of a great flood in the olden time meet us everywhere; the barbarians, when asked concerning their origin, always tell us that they are the descendants of the men who were rescued from the flood. And this is spoken of in such striking terms, and so like the Bible account, that we cannot wonder that the astonished Spaniards believed, when they discovered America, that the Apostle Thomas had preached Christianity there. We must regard it as a work of Providence, that this world, which was unknown to the rest of mankind for perhaps thousands of years, and pursued its own course of culture separated from them, was THE OLD TESTAMENT. 17h suddenly, amid the light of the historic age, discovered, and now shows in its traditions a harmony with the traditions of the Old World, which must convince the most incredulous, that they are one race, and must have drunk of the same fountain of life. The tradition of the Dog-rib Indians is very remarkable. This tribe of savages dwells far north on the Mackenzie River, and they have a tradition among them also concerning the fall. ‘Chassewee, their ancestor, lived, as they say, with his family on a strait between two seas (evidently Behring’s Straits; and this points also to their origin). There he constructed a weir for the purpose of catching fish; these came in such numbers that the strait was choked up, and the sea overflowed the land. Chassewee went into a canoe, taking all manner of four-footed beasts and birds with him. The water covered the earth for many days; but at length Chassewee said, This must not con- tinue, we must find land again; and he sent a beaver to search for it. ‘The beaver was drowned, and they saw its corpse float- ing on the water. Chassewee put a musk-rat on it, and sent it away for the same purpose. The second messenger was long away; and when it came back again, it was almost tired to death, but had a little earth in its paws. The sight of this earth made Chassewee glad; but he first of all looked to the welfare of his faithful servant, stroked the rat with both hands, and took it into his bosom till it revived. Then he took the earth, moulded it with his hands, and laid it on the water. It then gradually increased in size, till it formed an island in the ocean.’—(Franklin’s Second Voyage to the Polar Sea.) We find the tradition, in nearly the same form, among all the North American Indians ; in Central America also, the same particu- lars, especially the sending forth of animals on the falling of the waters, are related, and in some instances they are still more strikingly corroborative of the Bible. That the aborigines of America conceive of America as an island, is a remarkable testimony to their migration thither from Asia.” In the Mexican city of Cholulu is found a wonderful pyra- li THE DIVINE REVELATION. midal temple or Teocalli (“house of God”), which was con- secrated to the first man, Quetzalcoatl. There is a tradition connected with this temple, which connects in a remarkable way the flood and the tower of Babel. It is related by Alexander von Humboldt, in his work on the Cordilleras, as follows: “ Before the great inundation, in the year 4008 after the creation of the world, the land Anahuai (Mexico) was inhabited by giants. All those who did not perish in the flood were, with the exception of seven, who had taken refuge in caves, transformed into fishes. “When the waters had subsided, one of the giants, named Xelhuac, the architect, went to Cholullun (Cholulu), where he erected an artificial hill, in pyramidal form, in memory of the mountain Tlalock, which had served him and his six brethren as a place of refuge. He had the bricks for this purpose made in the province of Tlamanalco, at the foot of the sierra of Cocotl ; and in order to convey them to Cholulu, he placed men in a line, to pass them from hand to hand. The gods looked on this structure, whose top was to reach unto heaven, with dis- pleasure, and, indignant at the presumption of Xelhuac, hurled fire down upon the pyramid. Many of the workmen perished ; the work was not continued, and it was in consequence conse- crated to the god of the air, Quetzalcoatl (the first man of the golden age). This story,’ adds Humboldt, “reminds us of the old traditions of the Orientals, which the Hebrews record in their sacred books. The Cholulanians still preserve a stone, which is said to have fallen like a ball of fire from the clouds on the pyramid. This aerolith has the form of a turtle. To show the age of this fable about Xelhuac, Father Rios (who had, 1566, communicated the same tradition before from hiero- elyphic pictures) observes that it was contained in a hymn which the Cholulanians sang at their festivals, while they danced round the Teocall, and that this song began with the words, Tulanian hululaéz, which do not occur in any of the Mexican dialects. Everywhere, all over the globe, upon the THE OLD TESTAMENT. Lis ridges of the Cordilleras, as on the island of Samothrace in the Egyptian Sea, fragments of the original languages have been preserved in the religious usages of men.” So far Humboldt. With regard to the last remark, compare the words of Schelling, quoted above, upon the remains of the languages of the pre- historic period. | It is important especially to note, that, as Humboldt shows, the pyramid of Cholulu has the same formation as the tower of Belus at Babylon, according to the description of Herodotus. This agrees fully with what is gathered from the inscription ‘of Nebuchadnezzar concerning the tower of Belus at Babylon. Liicken’s supposition concerning it is also beautifully confirmed. That temple was to be expressly a restoration of the ancient tower of Babel, and was therefore constructed after the pattern of that, as it was still to be seen in the ruins and in tradition. Liicken carries the comparison still further. He connects the pyramidal structures, which are found not only in Mexico, Babylon, and Egypt, “but in almost all quarters of the globe, and which are everywhere the most ancient buildings and monuments of the nations,’ with the tower of Babel. Such buildings are the Indian pagodas, the Buddhist Stupas, the Chinese Thas, the Morais on the South Sea Islands, etc. Schelling, in the same strain, says (p. 116): “The nations sought to maintain themselves in external unity by these monuments, which clearly belong to a pre-historic era, which are found in all parts of the known world, and which, by their greatness and the mode of erection, testify to an almost superhuman strength. We are also involuntarily reminded by them of that fatal tower, which the most ancient record mentions where it speaks of the dispersion of the people. The builders say to each other, ‘Come, now, let us build a city, and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth.” Here, again, we might pause to ask for rational reflection upon those traditions that we find to exist among the remotest 174 THE DIVINE REVELATION, nations. To us, at least, it seems the most reasonable mode of explaining this wonderful harmony, evident particularly in the details, by regarding it as a common reminiscence of an actual occurrence. He who has adopted the mode of explaining all such matters by the theory of mythicism, and measures all things by his “critical principles concerning mythology and the history of ancient religions,’ will of course seek some way of escape from this conclusion, or will prefer, above all, to pass these matters by, or at least to treat them superficially. But for him to whom facts are something that demand serious consideration —and of such thinkers there are some now, as ever—the wonder will perhaps be, in the words of Plato, the beginning of know- ledge. He will perceive that these oldest traditions of the ° human race confirm the historical credibility of the Mosaic narrative, down to its details, just as much as they do the inner purity and elevation of them, compared with the myths of heathenism. In regard to this latter view, it is especially seen how Israel alone, along with the fact, retains the deep, divine idea of it. The heathen, while they preserve with great fidelity the outward circumstances, clothe them in fantastic and national vesture. The difference is the same in kind as that between the canonical and apocryphal Gospels. Thus, that which the gifted Herder says concerning “the oldest document of the human race,’ has still its truth, and science will perhaps cause it to be more fully recognised than he himself thought. “Its sound has gone out into all the earth, and its very words into all lands! Whence is it that the remotest nations have their knowledge of it? How comes it that they built on it religions and mythologies; that it is, in fact, the simplest foundation of all their arts, institutions, and sciences? If from it things may be made plain and clear as sunlight that are as chaos, as a riddle, and dark as night when it is denied, or when men prate of their hypotheses ; if from this a whole antiquity may be reduced to order, and a line of ight be drawn through the most confused events of THE OLD TESTAMENT. 175 the early history of nations—light which, like that in Coreggio’s picture, shines from the cradle of the race,—what then have ye to say, ye manufacturers of myths, ye who would profane the revelation of God 2”? We now go further back still, to the first catastrophe of all —the fall. This is only too much like the third, as it, too, has left the deepest traces of its effects in the condition of man- kind. What the tower of Babel is to nations, the fall is both to humanity as a whole, and to the individual. The evil, as it actually exists in us, demands for its explanation such an original act and transgression as that which is recorded in Genesis, if that fact be rightly analyzed. In the operations of our moral consciousness, there is mani- festly a collision of contradictories. On the one side, we feel ourselves responsible for sins; on the other side, we know that the movements of our nature, which constitute the real incite- ments to sin in us, are involuntary; and the same conscience which tells us that we are accountable for sin, tells us also that we are responsible for nothing which is not a free act of our own. To explain this, we must notice, first of all, a difference which is implied in what we have already said,—namely, the difference between the sinful act and the sinful condition— denoting by this latter term our natural being viewed as the source of sinful propensities. It is clear that we have to answer for our sins, so far as they are acts, free actions, by which, in- stead of repressing them, we have helped the sinful propensities to break out and obtain the mastery. The question can therefore only be, whether and how far we are responsible also for the sinful state. This state is our natural one; we are born in it; we bring it with us to the world, before a free decision is possible: hence theology calls it hereditary sin, in distinction from actual sin. For anything we have inherited, we clearly cannot be responsible in the same sense that we are for what 1 See Note Q 2. 176 THE DIVINE REVELATION. we have done ourselves. At the same time, the circumstance that we feel ourselves answerable for our actual sin, leads to an inference also respecting hereditary sin. From this fact it is clear, at least, that the hereditary sin does not serve to excuse the actual sin. This it must have done, however, if we had been obliged to acknowledge in it a natural necessity, in connec- tion with which there could be question of guilt at all If we could feel ourselves absolutely innocent in regard to hereditary sin, then we could hardly charge ourselves with any guiltiness in regard to actual sins, as we know that they always spring from the incitements that rise from the hereditary sin—the flesh. Not the sinfulness itself, but only the degree of it, per- haps could then seem to us a matter in which to accuse our- selves. On the whole, we could then say with right: It is my nature to act so, I cannot do otherwise; and as to that which it is a necessity for me to do, I need neither reproach myself for it, nor fear that I shall be punished for it, Spinoza would be right, then, in declaring penitence unphilosophical, and Carl Vogt in opposing the righteousness of punishment. If we did not acknowledge hereditary sin as something which ought not to be, and which might not be, then it would cease to be evil, and all sin with it. There must therefore be some sort of ouilty transgression at the root even of the hereditary sin, from which I cannot altogether acquit and free myself, though it does not touch me personally. I am involved in guilt which I have not drawn upon myself. This, however, is a new contradiction, which requires its solution. But the idea of that which is inborn, inherited, helps us here too. Man is not an isolated being; he does not stand in isolated glory. The roots of his being lie in his relation to the species ; generation is the mysterious origin of the indi- vidual. The individual is organically connected with the family, with the nation, and with humanity. A dishonoured father leaves behind an inheritance of shame to his children; a bank- tupt, debts which come on the whole family. Thus, we are not THE OLD TESTAMENT. 177 able to free ourselves from the impurity of the race. If it is not individual guilt, it is a guilt of the whole, of which each of us must bear a part. In this sense, also, each of us must say, Homo sum, nihil humani a me alienum puto. This organic partnership in guilt is expressed in a hundred ways amone men. Every one feels that he has some share in the sins of his family, his native city, his country, even though he has no direct hand in it. On this fact rests, ¢.g., the profound meaning of a day of humiliation. Hereditary sin thus does not suffice as an excuse for us; but the knowledge of sin is deepened and pointed, when we know that we have been born of a fallen race, that the total life to which we belong is impure. David well understood this, when in a penitential (not self-justifying) psalm he says, “ Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps. lh. 7). But, because the whole of mankind are thus tainted, we are obliged to go back to the first man. If the whole race, as such, is in a corrupt state, which is hereditary, and yet, in the sense we have indi- cated, is responsible, then the first man, the progenitor of the race, must have sinned in freedom. Man must have been originally pure and good; the fall must have been his act, involving his personal guilt. He could, and should, have avoided sin; the sphere of his freedom must have been greater than ours; he must have had full lberty of choice between good and evil. Only if the sinful state is no mere physical state, but one ethically conditioned,—if it 1s the product of a free act, so that the act, with the accountability for it, still vibrates through the whole condition,—only then does hereditary sin not serve to ex- cuse the actual sin, only then is the contradiction between the “ frichtful necessity of sinning” and freedom and responsibility removed. My sin tells me that Adam sinned; my sense of euilt tells me that he sinned in a different way from me: he was completely free. Hereditary sin, «.e. the universal sinful state of men, fur- nishes a proof of the derivation of the human race from one M 178 THE DIVINE REVELATION. progenitor. If there were several, then there must have been several acts of apostasy, similar to one another; and sin, in its diffusion, would then be something accidental, while, in reality, the entire life of man and of nature shows itself conditioned by the same evil power. “By one man,” says Paul, briefly and strikingly (Rom. v. 12), “sin came into the world.” A true analysis of the moral consciousness thus serves as an essential confirmation of the biblical narrative of the fall; and we see here again, how correctly Genesis deals with the facts of our condition, and alone satisfactorily explains them. Once we have learnt to state the questions of our experience accurately, the Bible always gives us the right answer. What the Bible positively records, will always show itself to be the truly rational view, the only ratio sufficiens for all that actual experi- ence in the most diverse regions brings before us. Robespierre once said, “If there were no God, we should have to invent one.” We may apply these words to the Bible, and the explana- tions it furnishes. Were there no such history of the origin of sin, we should have to invent it, if we could; for it is only when the divine light falls upon our condition and experience, that we really comprehend it. Heaven must first illuminate the earth, before the earth can be rightly seen. But in the inward harmony of Scripture and experience, of divine revelation, and what men see, feel, and pass through, lies the mystery, the treasure of wisdom and knowledge. Moving on this path, the Bible will become by degrees as rational and ideal as language itself. We are delighted when we find our thoughts expressed for us beforehand in language, this immediate expression of the Spirit and of the universal reason, and when we find that language itself philosophizes for and with us. The holy Scrip- tures appear at first sight to be very different from language in ~ this respect. They seem further removed, and more foreign ; yet it will be found true in this sense also, “The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart, the word of faith ~ THE OLD TESTAMENT. 179 which we preach” (Rom. x. 8). The Scriptures, in a genuine sense, are the word of the Spirit; they speak the true lan- guage of the Spirit. They are, in this sense, the Scripture (writing) zar éZoy7v,—the one writing of the Spirit in the world, the Spirit in which all other writings share only in endless degrees of remoteness. The more we succeed in rising into the Spirit, and to a truly spiritual mode of thought, the more will the Scripture become manifest as the nearest and most closely related to us, as well as the clearest and fullest of light. Then it becomes true, sia révra nal avpwarwa TUT Oe But this narrative in Genesis is stil further confirmed in the course of this regressive scrutiny. If the sin of the human race rests on a free act of Adam, that could not be the first cause of it. It must have some other ground. Every existence, and especially every personal one, is linked by an inward bond to its origin. The first men, too, must thus have been bound to God by a natural tie of the deepest piety; as Melancthon so beautifully says in the Apology for the Augsburg Confession : “They were happily joyous of heart toward God, delicately susceptible toward all good and divine things; they lived in and from God, as the child lives in and from the mother,” If, now, the thought of breaking loose from God, the thought of spiritual parricide, had arisen in their own minds, they would have set themselves against God in their own deep selfishness : evil would not be something foreign to man; man would be evil itself; he would have satanized himself. And then the evil could not have been removed out of human nature; humanity would not be capable of redemption. Just because man is nota devil, must there be a devil. Evil in its human form, when it does not constitute the substance of the created personality, and where it leaves room for redemption, is to be explained only by temptation. Thus the two ideas at which the natural mind most readily stumbles, because they belong to the sphere of the mysterious— 180 THE DIVINE REVELATION. the idea of hereditary sin and the devil—are manifestly, in re- ality, much more the saviours of the true dignity of man. What declamation we have had on the degradation of our race by the doctrine of hereditary sm! Who, however, does most to main- tain the honour of man ?—he who regards the present fleshly and mortal state as the normal and only possible one for him, or he who teaches that we were born and created for something better; and that the whole of our present condition is only an interpolated period dating from the fall! No one has ever spoken more highly of the dignity of man than Genesis, with its doctrine of the creation of man in the image of God, and the fall of the first created. And no one ever more gently judged sin, or maintained the better Ego, the substantial good in man, more energetically than Genesis, with its narrative of the temptation of our first parents. As the origin of evil in man eannot be otherwise explained than as Genesis does it, on the one hand, by a free act which establishes his guilt, and on the other by temptation, which makes redemption a possibility, so the Mosaic narrative, in de- scribing its origin, describes also its nature in a way which is self- evidently true. The first act is, that the tempter seeks to loosen the bands of childlike trust which bound nian to God (iii. 1, ete.) ; that he sows first unbelief and then disobedience in the heart of man. He must tear away the solid ground on which their existence rests from beneath their feet, by casting suspicion on the eternal love, as if God were envious, and thus inciting them | to rebel against it. Upon the relation of man to God rests, in the first instance, the difference between good and evil. The Seriptures know no morality without a religious basis, no moral law to which man would be bound by anything in his own nature apart from God. But man in his inmost soul is bound to the living and holy God. The will and command of God, as revealed to the first man (ii. 16, etc.),—that is the good, the moral law. Sin, ‘as a departure from the divinely ordained order of life, is &vowsa (1 John iii. 4). To think of determining THE OLD TESTAMENT 181 the difference between good and evil apart from God, is to come near wiping it out altogether. Without God, the highest, the indestructible standard of good, is wanting; and sin is only understood in its true nature and in its whole depth, when it is seen to be an offence against the majesty of the living God. The first element of sin is thus departure from God, godlessness, unbelief, which first as mistrust allows itself to suspect the person of God and obscures His fatherly love, and then is mani- fest as disobedience, which does not regard His commandment as holy and binding. In the relation to God itself, the religious in the stricter sense, the inward attitude of person to person, the disposition of the heart goes before the moral activity. Upon this, too, rests the reciprocal relation of justification and sanctification, faith and works. The tempter gives weight to this first suggestion, which does not succeed at once (vers. 2, 3—again a fine trait, giving dignity to man as compared with Satan), by a second (ver. 5). He drops into their mind the poison of self-exaltation, by repre- senting to them that they would rise from their position of dependence as creatures, and be as God, knowing good and evil. Here the craft of Satan is most fully displayed. In denying the threatening of death, he cunningly weaves together truth and falsehood. It is truly the will of God that man shall rise to the higher stage of a consciously free life; it is the will of God, and our destiny, created as we are in the image of God, that we shall become like God: our whole nature, by reason of the Spirit of God which is breathed into us, longs for the per- fection of its life (see Rom. vi. 29; 1 John 11. 2; Matt. v. 48). But as a creature, man has to pass through a course of develop- ment, under the hand of God, to reach this end. Only in that spirit of subjection to God which corresponds with his nature ; only through a willing acknowledgment of his position as a creature, and active discharge of its duties in an act of obe- dience, which therefore God demands, and must demand, 1s the advance to a higher stage of life possible. Only as reward for 182 THE DIVINE REVELATION. fidelity toward Him, can the free creature receive the crown of eternal life. While God first of all only shows man the way and not the goal, because he was to trust Him and be faithful to Him, the tempter, on the other hand, shows the alluring end, and promises to spare them the way, in order to persuade them to enter upon a path which makes the attainment of the prize impossible. Satan promises likeness to God in a moment, without trouble. Man is only to cast God away, to transgress His command: then his eyes are opened—then he finds him- self at once in a new region of being; he awakes as out of a sleep to self-consciousness, to a knowledge of good and evil; and therein he is like God. It is this casting away of all divine bands, which hitherto have only kept the eyes of man closed— this free self-consciousness, this clearing up of his knowledge— which makes mana god. This is the thorn of self-exaltation which the serpent planted in the human heart; and this is the connection which comes out here in so noteworthy a manner, between the exaltation of self and the knowledge which is separated from life and action. Being and consciousness are set in the place of regular growth, sense of duty, and doing the will of God. Man, as a personal creature, has of course a principle of independence and of self-movement in himself. This he exercises normally, however, when he gives himself fully and freely to God. The tempter says, on the contrary: “You need only not to trouble yourself about God; you need only to act and to know yourselves, to live according to your own will: then are ye as God.” He brings into the front the personality and the egoism, and pushes the idea of the creature aside; he perverts the fact of being in the image of God into the deification of self. Self-seeking, which, putting God aside, makes God of self—makes self the centre of all things—is the second element in the nature of sin. To this comes a third, which, after the serpent has thus prepared the way, makes its appearance in Eve herself. This is desire, love of the world, gratification of the senses (ver. 6). THE OLD TESTAMENT. 183 The testing command had this meaning. By means of an external cosmical object, to which man was drawn by no want of his—to pass by which was therefore easy—it might be seen whether man would freely decide for God or for the world, for the higher or for the lower, for the spirit or for the flesh, for the good or for the evil. The matter stood quite simply and abstractly. The tree had no importance in itself. It was of account merely as a means of exercising freedom. This its name tells us: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, however, this tree, the forbidden one, acquires in the eyes of the woman a charm greater than all the unforbidden ones. God has now lost reality in her mind, and the world attracts her with the power of enchantment by means of an object in itself of no importance; the tree seems to the senses so sweet. The senses now obtain the mastery, and sin is committed. The flesh has obtained the victory; the true order of life is inverted. As the higher powers have forsaken God, their true ground and rest, the lower powers become dominant. Men are now, it is true, greatly advanced in point of know- ledge. But they would have advanced also if they had decided normally; for it is not sin, as Hegel, Schiller, and others say, but the trial of freedom, which is the condition of the transition from childhood, and the advance to the higher development of the mind. But if they had decided rightly, the advance in knowledge would have been accompanied with a similar advance in the whole sphere of man’s being, ethical as well as physical. Their nature and being, however, have by no means fared as the tempter had represented. They have essentially sunk very deeply ; they have in reality become subject to death, as God had said. Instead of having become a god, man has much rather become an animal, like the serpent, as he has given him- self over to the dominion of the senses. Instead of having become spirit, like God, he has become flesh. The words in ver. 7, where with great simplicity and irony a reference is made to the words of the serpent, express the profound and 184 THE DIVINE REVELATION. actual truth: “Then the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.” That these three parts of the idea of sin are not accidental, but substantially express it and exhaust it,,is shown not only in the fact that all sin that comes before us in life may be re- ferred to them, but also in the fact that they correspond to the three fundamental elements of man’s being and consciousness, —spirit, soul, body—the God-consciousness, self-consciousness, and world-consciousness. These have all become corrupted and perverted. They have become respectively, alienation from God, selfishness, love of the world. The first and highest ele- ment of human nature—the spiritual—is negatived, obscured, made powerless; the two others—the lower—are pushed into extreme but unhealthy prominence and activity. Man has become physical and fleshly. Unbelief is the negative; the union of self-seeking, and the lust of the senses, is the positive element in the idea of sin. Man no longer wishes for God; he is bent on having the creature in both ways, the mental and natural, the subjective and objective ; he will have his own Ego, and the world too. According to Gen. iii. 5, 6, selfishness and sensuousness are related to one another in such a way, that selfishness is, as 1t were, the soul ; sensuousness, the body of sin: the first is the deep, invisible root; the second, the external manifestation. The Ego, separated from God, seeks in the world the elements on which it lives. Genesis thus compre- hends the various opposing theories of men on the nature of sin, the theory of selfishness, which in recent times is repre- sented by Julius Miiller, and that of the senses, by Schleier- macher and Rothe. It leads both ethical theories back to a religious basis; and in that matter modern thought has a ereat deal to learn. tedemption, then, opposes faith to un- belief, love to selfishness, the hope of a new world to the lust of this world. The narrative of the fall in Genesis will bear, I think, to be closely looked at. There are powerful reasons supporting it no —— LS est THE OLD TESTAMENT. 185 less than the account of the flood and the tower of Babel. As the existence and state of Israel, and all its beliefs, serve to confirm the Pentateuch, so the actual state of the world, the life of nations, the consciousness of sin and of God, as well as the traditions of all nations, confirm this “ oldest document of the human race.” If the mythical theory considers the pre-historic age from the outset as a conquered territory, we rejoice that historic studies have in recent times turned also in the direction of this period. This is the case in all departments, both theological and philosophical. Shall I say more of that which the first three chapters of Genesis teach concerning God, the creation, the world, man ? A “rational” theology, cosmology, psychology, are here in nuce. We have already pointed out some particulars. The very first verse of Genesis moves like a saving ark over the waters of heathenism, and announces ideas of God and the world, and their mutual relations, such as we seek for elsewhere in vain. The words (i. 27), “God created man in His image, in the image of God created He him,” proclaim the position and dignity of man, in a way to which nothing in the old and nothing in the new world can be compared. In the parallelism, which is at most like a repetition, it seems, to use the exquisite words of Ewald, as if the hand of the writer had trembled for joy. The other passage relating to the creation of man will always hold its ground, as the true foundation of a correct anthropology ; for the extremes which have been in conflict through the centuries in this sclence—materialism and spiritual- ism, sensualism and idealism—are here brought together, and that in a much profounder and more suggestive manner than might at first sight appear. Where such stars shine, there we recognise the heavens, even though there be dark spaces between. Written monu- ments, like Gen. i. 1-11. 3, and ii. 4-i1i. 24, have a right to pre- sent us with difficulties; and these are not wanting, whether we 186 THE DIVINE REVELATION. consider each by itself, or look at the two in connection with each other. The first difficulties are such as are inevitable in records so entirely pre-historic ; as to the others, recent inquiries have placed the relation of the two in so clear a light, that what is intelligible here, and which is so great and magnificent, is much more than that which has not yet been penetrated; and exegesis and theology have certainly not more of such unex- plored territory than other sciences. The first part, the Elo- histic, shows us what nature is, and what is man’s relation to it; the other, the Jehovistic part, shows what history is, and man’s place in it. In the first, man, in his connection with nature, and his high superiority to it, in his kingly aspect toward it, is drawn in such a pure, noble, and lofty style, that it would much better become modern Pantheism and Materialism to learn from it than to mock at it. How, for example, is the difference between man and the animals, which in the hands of many moderns threatens to disappear altogether, simply and strikingly brought out by two touches! Man is said to have been created with all solemnity in the image of God, and in one pair; while the beasts always came forth from their elements at the Creator’s word, and in teeming multitudes! Man appears as the top-stone and lordof nature; but the true glory of him is centred in his relation to God, in whom he is destined to find his Sabbath rest. Here the second portion comes in, in which Elohim appears as Jehovah. Jehovah comes into relation to man in history and redemption, and therefore has appointed a place for revealing himself—the garden in Eden (vers. 4-14). There Adam is first alone with God. He receives from God the command by which his freedom should be called into exercise ; and thus man should become a factor in the development of the world (vers. 15-17). This is the beginning of history. The relation to God is the first of all relations. It precedes all relations of man to man. Even the most intimate of these, that of man and wife, attaches itself to it (vers. 18-25). Here the connection between history and religion, which has often come THE OLD TESTAMENT. 187 before us already, appears: it corresponds in the wide sphere to the relation between religion and morals in the individual, in its essential principles and signification. All history is de- veloped out of the relation of man to God, and upon it. First of all (ch. iii.), sin, judgment, and grace (promise) are connected with it. That all history, all life of man, individual and col- lected, has its root in religion, is a fundamental idea, in the apprehension and application of which we have yet much to learn, and long to labour. Thus we meet, both in detail and in general, points of light which are not only clear and distinct in themselves, but cast their ight far into the course of history itself. He who is in earnest about the truth, will, even if there are difficulties which cannot all at once be removed, at least not rashly decide or throw away, but will remember the words of Socrates concern- ing Heraclitus the obscure, which have cheered me often in studying these chapters: “What I have understood,” says the wise man, “is genuine and solid; that also, however, which I have not understood, I think is so too—only it needs a Delian diver.” Our investigation has become unintentionally dogmatical ; and indeed there is no better apology for the first chapters of Genesis than that which lies in this simple fact. If one will speak of them, one must enter into the deepest questions con- cerning evil—the nature of God and man; and so, wice versa, in discussing these questions, we are always carried to these chapters, they are so manifestly the very ground on which the foundations and principles rest. As we proceed, we find that the whole doctrine of the new covenant hangs upon them, because the second Adam presupposes the first ; the redemption presupposes the fall. Indeed, these primeval testimonies must permeate more and more fully all our thought, if our ideas of God and creation, man and sin, are not to be utterly unworthy of both. Even our believing theology has not yet risen on all sides to the height of these chapters. This defect casts broad shadows 188 THE DIVINE REVELATION. over systems which have otherwise a great deal of light. But we may learn from them this especially, not to restrict our thoughts on theology within too narrow a sphere, not to limit them to the field’commonly occupied by systematic theology, but to give them that philosophic width and universality toward which theosophy has been striving, and which it has fore- shadowed. For in the first chapters of Genesis lie the foun- dations of all the life of the world: marriage and family— labour and raiment—city and state—civilisation and art—the relation of man to nature and the world of spirit—nations, languages, religions, etc. There are rich and fruitful hints also for ethics. These fundamental chapters teach Christians, as they taught the Israelites, Homo sum, nihil humana a me alienum puto. This is a wonder, says Herder,’ to which the worshippers of reason have not yet given a name—“ the story of the fall of the first man. Is it allegory? history ? fable? And yet there it stands, following the account of the creation, one of the pillars of Hercules, beyond which there is nothing—the point from which all succeeding history starts. What a piece of work then follows: the cry of murder—the mark of Cain—the song of Lamech—a series of names of men living hundreds of years, like cedars—giants—and the flood, and an ark! Our philosophic wits must, forsooth, deal with the swaddling-bands of our race as if they were ashamed of them. They pretend to wish that the deluge had swept them away, or at most, had allowed them to appear only in the juggler’s commentary. And yet, ye dear most ancient and undying traditions of my race—ye are the very kernel and germ of its most hidden history. Without you, mankind would be, what so many other things are—a book with- out a title, without the first leaves and introduction. With you our race receives a foundation, a stem and root, even in God and father Adam. And they are all taken in so simple and childlike a manner from the mouth of the ancestral story under 1 See Note R 2. THE OLD TESTAMENT. 189 the trees of the East, and so faithfully detailed by Moses as he found them, the echo of eternal times.” And Herder writes to Hamann, “ Believe me, my dear friend, the time will come when the revelation and religion of God, instead of criticism and politics, as now, will be the simple wisdom and history of our race.” PART SECOND.—HISTORICAL. Seg author, looking back over the way he had been i traversing in the first part, perceived that the whole question of miracles and revelation had become more than he himself at first thought—one of con- sciousness. The matter is thus brought to quite a modern point of view; and in the controversy with our opponents, we involuntarily make use of their own categories. They will have all the less ground for complaint against us: we have in this respect, too, followed them to their own territory. The great matter now in the discussions on revelation, is the con- sciousness, the self-consciousness of the church, of the apostles, of Jesus Christ,—the consciousness and self-consciousness of Israel, the prophets, and Moses. If miracles and revelation are not facts, then the whole of these forms of consciousness are essentially self-deceptions and illusions. This may be demon- strated from the Scriptures, even by the admission of the most negative criticism. That FrvERBAcH has only carried the modern deistic and pantheistic mode of thought to its legitimate consequences, we were long ago convinced. But we were surprised to find, that our extended historical and critical investigation of the sacred Scriptures carried us on all points to the same result. The alternative would thus, of course, finally be: Is the world a lunatic asylum, or is it a temple of the living God? Tertwwm non datur, 190 INTRODUCTORY. 191 On the ground of this result, we have acquired a scientific right, on the supposition of the credibility of the Bible, to enter upon a dogmatic exposition of the divine revelation, and to place by the side of our regressive view a progressive one, in which would be exhibited not each particular of it in its truth, but the entire development, in accordance with the divine plan, and in harmony with reason. In order, however, to do this with advantage, we shall try first to make ourselves acquainted historically with the question on which we are engaged. The real point in hand can be fully understood only from looking over the whole field of our modern intellectual life. For the contest concerning divine revelation is not merely a single dis- puted question—it is not only a controversy in the domain of theology ; but it is the great intellectual conflict of the last few centuries, and its roots le still further back in the far past. Even from external reasons, because the opposing views have erown up on Protestant ground, but much more from internal reasons, we must first of all go back as far as the Reformation. We shall not attempt a complete representation, nor an ex- haustive internal account of modern mental development, but shall give only a sketch of it in its bearing on the main religious questions with which we are concerned here. It will be felt to be natural in this case, that we should turn our eye principally to countries speaking the German tongue. We shall inevitably have to utter many words with which they who, on one hand, follow chiefly modern authorities, and they who, on the other, cling to the old Protestant ones, will be offended. We, for our part, with all respect for the men whom we revere, would not bind ourselves to any mere human authority, but would illumi- nate all human things with the impartial earnestness of divine truth, so far as it has unfolded itself to us. In itis “ the one rule and guide by which all teaching and teachers must be tried and judged.” 192 THE DIVINE REVELATION. I. THE GREAT INTELLECTUAL CONFLICT IN THE CHRISTIAN WORLD. 1. The Restoration of pure Christianity, and the anti-Christian Opposition. ; The modes of view that are opposed to the belief in a reve- lation are designated Rationalism or Naturalism. We shall make use of the former of these in the following pages, as it is the higher term, and in general language is regarded as the better of the two. Let us, too, say at the outset, that by Rationalism we do not mean merely that German theological thought of the beginning of this century which in a narrower sense is so called, but the entire mode of thought and view of things of which that is but one phase. Properly, these two expressions should go together, as is indicated in the fact that it is usually supra-naturalism, not supra-rationalism, which is opposed to Rationalism. Reason and Nature, (human-) mind and nature, are the two great provinces of the created world. In these two departments, and therefore in the world, Rationalism took its stand. The idea of God was so weakened and dimmed, and that of the world was made so prominent, that a revela- tion from God in the Bible sense appeared an arbitrary inter- ference with the established laws of nature, and that which is above reason and nature, therefore that which is above the creature, seemed irrational and unnatural, and at the same time impossible. The denial of a revelation was hence always closely con- nected with a denial of God Himself. Deism, Pantheism, Atheism, are nothing else than the necessary forms of thought resulting from thus lowering as much as possible the idea of God, and exalting that of the world or nature. The opposition began with Deism, which indeed accepted a personal God as the creator of the world, but put the created world as self- existent and complete in opposition to God, who, as one dwell- THE INTELLECTUAL CONFLICT IN THE CHRISTIAN WORLD. 193 ing remote, could not interfere in the course of things, nor reveal Himself to the world. If it be so that God is thus of no importance for the maintenance of the world, if its existence is maintained by its own power, then all the reality of life is in the world itself; and it is only a natural consequence of such a view to deny altogether the shadowy God, who is thus made to dwell above the stars, and then pantheistically to regard the divine and the world itself as one. It is the world only which has then a real existence, and Atheism is the natural result of this reasoning. The whole question may be accordingly brought back to this: Which is the greater, God (and His kingdom), or the world? Creator or creature? Thomas Witzenmann, the able disciple of Oetinger, and friend of Fr. H. Jacobi, saw very deeply into the need of the time, when he in 1780 announced the principle, God is God, and creature is creature; and declared that he wished to refer all “ that was revealed in nature and in the word of God” to this principle. We can say yet more definitely with Ehrenfeuchter: “ Everywhere the question is: Is the originating principle the cosmic or the divine-human? Upon the settlement of this question rest the ultimate views of science, and the ultimate practical consequences of history. The whole question with man re- garding his existence is, Whether to be a world-man or a God- man ?”? How deeply this cosmical characteristic pervades the whole of our modern time, may be gathered from the fact that the most important of those systems that are now leading again up from the abyss of negation, are not yet fully free from it. It is owing to this that Schleiermacher, failing to see the divine law in the conscience, and hence narrowing very considerably the distinction between good and evil, makes morality merely the action of the reason upon nature; and even Rothe places the human personality first in relation to nature, and then, in 1 See Note 8 2. Pa ais: 194 THE DIVINE REVELATION. the second place, to God; so that in his Zthics, though theo- logical, the religious always comes second to the moral, instead of being ground and root of it. Here, too, the world-ideas, reason (personality) and nature, stand much too one-sidedly in the foreground; and these defects in the Zthics are connected with defects of a dogmatic kind in these systems. The principle of Rationalism forms the perfect antithesis to that of the Reformation. As Rationalism proceeded from the exclusive study of the world, the Reformation came from the knowledge and thought of God. What made Luther a reformer was, that he comprehended the relation of man to God in its central significance. He perceived that the grand question of human life is peace with God. For this prime need, nothing merely of the world was sufficient ; neither its own righteousness, nor human mediation, such as Catholicism had placed between God and man. He felt deeply, and acknowledged, the true state of man before God: he saw that man could not approach God to offer works, but only to receive favour; that the sinner lives only by the grace of God; that the righteousness which avails with Him is a free gift from Himself, so that all the honour belongs to Him alone. Luther stood with his whole soul before God, and felt the terrors of His majesty and holiness, but also the overflowing consolations of His reconciling and forgiy- ing love, in such fulness that his experience has been retained as a type and witness for all evangelical piety. It was thus upon the deepest reverence for God that the Reformation rested. It was essentially religious; faith, this root-word of the Refor- mation, 1s nothing but the expression of the Bible and the church for religion. In Luther himself, the religious, and more definitely the Christian life, was found in such strength as has hardly ever been seen since the days of the apostles. In him, Christianity as it was announced to the nations, especially by Paul and his evangel, was brought to light again in its original purity and vigour. The centre-point of all divine revelations— the redemption of the world through the God-man, and its THE INTELLECTUAL CONFLICT IN THE CHRISTIAN WORLD. 195 appropriation by faith—was set forth and acknowledged as the central truth. ~ Rationalism knew and understood nothing of this funda- mental evangelical experience; in fact, it started from the most opposite principles: it disputed even the truths upon which the evangelical experience rested. While Protestantism is through- out religious, Rationalism is in principle irreligious; for 1t cuts away man from God, and places him on the basis of his own nature, so that morality (moral actions, works) comes in the place of religion. Humanity and the world are so self-satisfy- ing and so complete in themselves, that they not only no longer speak of a reconciliation of the world to God, of a redemption by acts of divine love and compassion; but they reject every revelation of God to the world, and at last deny the very exist- ence of a personal living God. In all this we have the dia- metrical opposite to the foundation truths of the gospel. We must not conceal from ourselves, that here at last the two great historical principles stand opposed to one another, the Christian and the anti-Christian. Christianity itself gives us the key to a thorough under- standing of this state of things; in its documents it is always pointing to the fact that the truth must meet with opposition in the world. The New Testament gives us historical facts and fundamental laws, when it says that all men have not faith ; the cross of Christ is to the Jews a stumblingblock, and to the Greeks foolishness; Christ brings not peace, but a sword; He is come into the world for judgment and for separation; He is set for a sign which is spoken against. On this account, Chris- tian truth has always had to struggle with error; and the purer it has been, the more fully has the error developed itself. The ereater freedom Protestantism allowed to thought, has also per- mitted error to unfold itself more fully against the mighty revelation of the kingdom of God. In the Reformation, the spirit of the world gathered up all its forces; and in the course of the succeeding centuries, the opposition of the 196 THE DIVINE REVELATION. natural mind, both Jewish and heathen, to the gospel, was exhibited with a power such as had never been seen in the church before, and with an array of intellectual weapons of the highest order. To understand the historical importance of this phenomenon, we must cast our eye back to the earlier history of the church. 2. The Development of the opposing Principles in the History of the Church. Even in the apostolic age, error had risen in opposition to the gospel, partly in Judaic, legal-ascetic, and partly in heathen- gnostic forms, which impugned the majesty of Christ by the worship of angels, and by the doctrine of certain mediary spiritual beings. The apostles with one mind oppose these deceiving spirits, and so earnestly, as to furnish an example for all times of what true soldiers of Christ owe to the truth and the honour of their Lord; see the expressions of the loving dis- ciple, 1 John u. 18-26, iv. 1-6. They fought, however, with the perfect consciousness that they would not fully overcome the error, but that, as Paul says shortly before his death (1 Tim. iv. 1, etc., 2 Tim. 11. 17, ui. 1, etc.), in future times, and espe- cially in the last days, the lying spirit would still more widely spread. Both Paganizing and Judaizing errors, of different sorts, - sought to creep into the church of the first centuries. The deification of the creature found expression finally in Arianism, of self-righteousness in Pelagianism. The church overcame these errors by the instrumentality of Athanasius, in whom the spirit of John seemed to live, and by Augustine, who seemed fired with the spirit of Paul. But the enemies pressed into the sanctuary of the church from another side, and Catho- licism is nothing but a mixture of Christianity with Jewish and heathen elements. The Jewish-Pelagian element appeared in the whole institution of the priesthood and the doctrine of ss i THE INTELLECTUAL CONFLICT IN THE CHRISTIAN WORLD. 197 meritorious works; and the Heathen-Arian deification of the creature in the worship of Mary and the saints, and in the magical virtues ascribed to the sacraments. : Even before the Reformation, however, the opposite elements, the Christian and unchristian, bound up so closely together, were striving to effect a separation. Since Catholicism had reached its highest point in the twelfth century, there had been a twofold opposition. Belief as well as unbelief stood opposed to superstition; the one in the many so-called fore- runners of the Reformation, the other in the heretical tendencies of different kinds. In the sixteenth century both of these currents attained their greatest fulness, the one in the Refor- mation, the other in the Humanism, which had indeed many elements of true culture in it, but in literature was very weak, and indeed, by its undue zeal for the classics, more or less consciously approached to Paganism. The Reformation was a grand upheaval of true religion. It was so full of power, and had so profound an influence, that it not only conquered a large region from Catholicism, but even kept down the power of Humanism, taking up its better elements into itself for more than a century. But in the second half of the seventeenth century and in the eighteenth, the one-sided Humanism, whose opposing elements Socinianism had meanwhile fostered and spread, sprang up again in Rationalism. When it was now opposed by a purified evangelical Christianity, it came out with greater energy than before, as in the Deism of England, and threatened the deepest foundations of the faith by direct assault on divine revelation in general. Rationalism has been described, both by Catholics and Rationalists themselves, as only a natural development of the Reformation. The principle of free subjectivity began its course there, and ends it here: first of all, the mind was delivered from the authority of the church, then from that of the Bible. This assertion touches only the form, not the essence of the matter. The greater prominence of subjectivity, 198 THE DIVINE REVELATION. the contest with existing authorities, the element of protest, are indeed common to the Reformation and to Rationalism, just as they were afterwards common to Rationalism and Pietism, and indeed as they are common to it and Christianity itself. Every ereat religious awakening appears in connection with great characters, and rests on the deepest, most inward experiences of the individual soul, in which there lives the power to sap a rigid objectivity that has become but a dead form, but by that very thing is able to save the substance and kernel of the . matter, and to bring it out to the light in higher, fuller life. So was—not to meution the highest name, which however has an aspect in which it essentially bears on this point—the first martyr stoned as a rebel against the law and the temple, and the greatest apostle was cast into prison on the same ground. Christianity, Protestantism, Pietism, are all protests, sustained by the Holy Spirit, against the traditions of the elders, against the doctrines of men, and theological systems, which have gathered round the original word of God, and more or less have come to take its place. In the case of the first, the question was the continuance, in the case of the other two, the re- storation, of the revelation of God in its true power and purity. Of these three instances, the Reformation is most favourably placed as to our question, for in it there were actual errors to be set aside; while in the first and third, it was not so much the removal of the false as the quickening of the dead (see Matt. xxiii. 3, Acts xxvi. 6, 7). Rationalism, on the contrary, is not a protest of the spiritual nature against merely human principles, in favour and in the name of the word of God; but it is a protest of the natural mind against the divine word, in the name and in favour of human reason. It is thus essentially the very opposite of Protestantism. It is but a ghost-like unitation of it,—a negative Protestantism alongside of the positive and evangelical Protestantism. As to its substance, Rationalism has more affinity to Catholicism, as is clear from the foregoing: it touches it in its Pelagianism and in its undue THE INTELLECTUAL CONFLICT IN THE CHRISTIAN WORLD. 199 exaltation of the creature, but it is specially allied to Humanism, which we regard as its real forerunner. | SARTORIUS was, so far as we know, the first to point out its relation to the former; HUNDESHAGEN especially to the latter. SARTORIUS remarks, speaking against WEGSCHEIDER and his rationalistic doctrines: “When once men have departed from the sure canon of the written divine word, they must pass into the region of fancy and imagination; and it is then quite an accidental difference, if one places the supreme infallible power of the Papacy, and the other an all-sufficient reason, over the word of God: for it is but human authority in either case, and human imagination, which govern; and the only difference is, that in Catholicism these powers lead with strength and steadi- ness, In Rationalism with weakness and with frequent change. In Catholicism human tradition, in Rationalism human specu- lation, dominate over the Holy Scriptures. On the contrary, Protestantism is based exclusively on the true divine or super- natural revelation contained in the sacred Scriptures, which cannot be corrupted, and which is sufficient for all ages: it desires no other foundation to the end of the world; for ‘ other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Hence Protestantism and Rationalism are just as irreconcilable as Supernaturalism and Rationalism; and Weeg- scheider himself confesses this last is impossible.” HUNDESHAGEN says: “If it is a question of having first realized absolute freedom from authority, it had a history in Italy, the land of humanistic hegemony, before it even appeared among us. It came up there in many different forms before the Reformation; indeed, it was the Papal, and not the Saxon Court, which first spoke jestingly of the fabula de Christo. The freedom of Wittenberg, measured by such a standard, cannot be compared at all with the freedom of Rome; indeed, the work of LUTHER must have seemed to be a backward movement, com- pared with that which had already taken a firm hold in the minds of educated Italians. History gives us four periods, following 200 THE DIVINE REVELATION. one after the other, in which a decided infidelity, an undis- sembled hostility to Christianity, went the round of the principal nations of Europe, beginning in the higher ranks of society, passing down to the middle classes, and in both fostered and admired as the very highest point of civilisation, and honoured with a sort of worship. Italy made the beginning in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; in the seventeenth and eighteenth, England and France followed ; and in the nineteenth, Germany finished the series.” * If we look over the whole history of the church, we shall not be able to avoid observing the historical progress in error. The Arianism and Pelagianism of the fourth and fifth centuries are only important misconceptions of Christian truths, in which their force is weakened, but they are not by any means anti- Christian. The Humanism of the fifteenth and sixteenth century is much more decidedly anti-Christian, though it stil represented partly elements of true culture,and its anti-Christian character was limited to the circle of the more learned. Even the Rationalism of the eighteenth and nineteenth century has many elements in it, which are not so much at feud with Christianity, as dim and feeble reflections of it. There are, too, as we shall see more clearly by and by, in the tendency of our times, which is not toward Christianity, some important elements of science and culture represented. On the whole, however, it is not to be denied that the un-Christian and anti- Christian spirit of the two last centuries has gone far beyond all similar phenomena of earlier times, as in the extent to which they have spread among the people, so too in their force, and the boldness with which they press on to the consequences. It is not the ancient heretics, but the heathen opponents of Christianity, a Celsus and Porphyry, who have risen up again in the church, in the deistic, pantheistic, and atheistic rejection of the divine revelation. The rationalistic movement itself has naturally its own 1 See Note T 2. THE INTELLECTUAL CONFLICT IN THE CHRISTIAN WORLD. 201 history and its progress. The fathers of both the modern systems of philosophy, with their autonomic reason, are not less opposed to the principles of Christian and evangelical religion, than are the representatives of the bare cosmos theory in their poetry and natural science. But the same DESCARTES who with his cogito ergo sum declared the intrinsic glory of the mind of man, with its power of thought, has established afresh the ontological argument for the existence of God. He says the idea of God is a necessity of thought. The same Kant who declared the intrinsic worth of the practical and moral nature of man, in his categoric imperative, brings forward the moral argument for the existence of God and for immortality, and so has come back to God by the path of the argument from moral being; he says the idea of a judge and rewarder is an ethical necessity. GOETHE and A. voN HumBoLpT, however, looking at nature, and describing it as artists, regarded it as the highest thing both in life and science; and therefore they are more decidedly at variance with the kingdom of God. If they did not declare themselves enemies of Christianity ; if, in truth, their mental wealth furnishes much which has not only a high human Value, but may be of use for the knowledge of divine things, yet they were “ decidedly not-Christian,” and contributed, and still contribute, not a little by furnishing false surrogates for religion, to unchristianize our people. With Kant, if there is not a gospel, there is at any rate some Moses-like zeal for law; in them, on the contrary, we are sunk into perfect Hellenism. On the whole, we may say, that in the modern Autonism, the Jewish legalism with its human self-righteousness, and in modern Pantheism and Atheism the heathen deification of the world, are carried out to their legitimate consequences. In these the very essence of sin, as already expounded, is com- pleted in full apostasy from God, and surrender to the service of the creature in its two sides, mind and nature, the Ego and the world. Such is the profound gravity of this signature of the time. It is not, however, as if there was to be seen on the side of 202 THE DIVINE REVELATION. the Reformation and its sons nothing but light, and on the side of Rationalism nothing but darkness: in the intellectual powers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the whole truth; and in those of the eighteenth and nineteenth, nothing but error and falsehood. So long as history is in process of forma- tion only, the truth has usually an element of error mixed up with it, and so has the error an element of truth. For in history, the history of the church and the history of the world, they both appear with the impress of the human mind. The truth is not seen in divine purity, nor is error in absolutely diabolic darkness. We have found it needful, therefore, to state and define clearly the fundamental differences between the views of the two parties, and we must now as carefully dis- tinguish them in their historical course. There is an absolute innate majesty in the truth, and no encroachment on it must be allowed through the relativity of a historical inquiry. But those who represent the primary aspects of truth often overlook its secondary ones, and these then are taken up by those with whom error 1s primary. So the matter stands between the elder Protestantism and Rationalism. The omissions of the former are not indeed the cause, but they are the occasion of the rationalistic opposition. Rationalism, it is true, did not assail merely the theology of the time, but the Bible and Chris- tianity itself. However, many an occasion of attack would have been taken out of the way, if Christianity had found a practical and theoretical exhibition of itself, more in harmony with its true nature. Historical justice is not less one of our duties to the truth, than sincerity in profession. Il, THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 1. The Elder Protestantism. Protestantism, in both of its principles—the material one of justification by faith, and the formal one of the exclusive THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 203 authority of the Scriptures in matters of faith—laid down great fundamental truths of the church. The central idea of the Reformation, as already said, was this: Salvation is a matter in which each has to do immediately with God. God must bestow it of His own free grace: I can neither merit it by my own works; nor can other men, even if they be priests, merit it for me: I can only accept it in faith. Salvation, however, is the redemption of sinners, which God has accomplished through His Son. This salvation God declares and offers in His word, which is contained in the Scriptures. In it alone is the original and uncorrupted testimony, which faith discerns and receives. The church, with its tradition and hierarchy, has placed itself between us and the original Christianity of the Bible, and dimmed our views of it as much as with her meritorious works and her priestly mediation. She comes between God and the penitent. These false mediations, which are rather like dividing veils, must be taken away; man must have to do with God Himself, and His own revelation of the truth. These are the great and true fundamental thoughts of Protestantism. We see here, also, how the two principles of Protestantism are connected, and how they mutually require and correspond with one another. Justifying faith does not throw man upon himself, but binds him in the inmost centre of his being to the living God: it is the appropriation of the salvation given by God in Christ. Therefore Protestantism is not devoid of authority, and it has not the authority of the mind alone; but, in its deepest essence, stands in relation to history, to the his- tory of redemption, the history of revelation. The God of faith is the God who, through historical acts of saving love, has accomplished the redemption of the world. History, however, comes before us in its documents, sacred history in sacred docu- ments ; and so the sacred Scriptures are the God-given testimony of the Spirit to the divine acts of redemption. With the sub- jective element of justifying faith is hence given necessarily, at 204 THE DIVINE REVELATION. the same time, this objective element, the sole authority of Scripture in matters of religion. On the other hand, however, it follows from this very view, that the Scriptures are not an authority in the legal sense,—an error from which the Waldensians and the Bohemian Brethren were not quite free, and a trace of which may be found even among the reformed churches; but it is an authority in the evangelical sense. For through justifying faith, the salvation which the Scriptures declare, becomes the free and living pos- session of man. The same Holy Spirit who has given the Scriptures, dwells also in the believer as a power of inward testimony and appropriation. Protestantism does not set up the external authority of the old letter; but the Holy Spirit is the living personal bond between the Scriptures and the believing subject. In Him are united inwardly, in the only way agree- able to the nature of God and of man, divine authority and human freedom, history with its past indisputable facts, and the present with its ever-renewing life. This is the deep signification of the two connected doctrines of old Protestantism,—the doctrine of inspiration of the Serip- tures, and the doctrine of the witness of the Spirit. The first declares that the Scriptures are not of human origin, nor mere dead letter, but the word of the Divine Spirit, which manifests itself inwardly to the Christian, as such, in its divineness and truth. These two doctrines are thus closely connected together as objective and subjective, in the same way with the two prin- » ciples of Protestantism; indeed, these two principles find in those doctrines only their continuation and more special expres- sion. It is therefore with right, that the doctrine of the witness of the Spirit has recently been strongly insisted upon. Nitzsch says: “ Without doubt, the ultimate ground toward which Pro- testantism in the controversy on all hands is drawing, is in the opinion that the word of God proves itself to be so to those who are mentally and morally able to receive it, just in the degree that they have been raised by it to a higher stage of . THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 205 life.” And Rothe, though his opposition to the old Protestant view of the doctrine of inspiration leads him almost to give up inspiration altogether, yet testifies: “It is as our elder theo- logians taught: we become certain of the divine origin and character of the holy Scriptures, from the fact that they demon- strate their divinity by the Divine Spirit, which speaks to us out of them directly and indirectly, with its attestation of their divine character.”* . But these two fundamental ideas were not fully developed, or were treated in a one-sided and exaggerated way, by the Pro- testantism of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. a. The Material Principle. (1.) Grace. Sin and grace, the two great central doctrines of Christianity, formed also the central points of Protestantism; but in justi- fying faith they were regarded only in their relation to the individual. Essential as this was as a foundation for the inner religious life and productivity of Protestantism, it.was a defect : it kept too close to the mere individual experience, and almost regarded Christianity as only an arrangement for salvation—a religion; and not as at the same time a historical, cosmical power. Christianity is not merely the principle of the justifi- cation of the sinner; but it is also the principle of the new birth of each individual, and of the world: it is the kingdom of God. Christ is not simply the Saviour of souls, but He is the High Priest and King, the Origin and Heir, of the universe. Catholicism had taken up the priestly kinghood of Christ in magnificent form, and had sought to manifest the kingdom of God externally in the mighty world-ruling structure of the hierarchy. But it had gradually become more and more a mere external representation of it: the kingdom of God had sunk more or less into a kingdom of the world—the priest-king to a 1 See Note U 2. 206 THE DIVINE REVELATION. new lawgiver for the nations—the gospel to the weak and beggarly elements against which the apostle warns us. In opposition to Catholicism, the Reformation, entering into the mind of Paul and the spirit of the new covenant, brought to light again the inward character and spirituality of Christianity, as well as the personal and individual experience of the believer. That is, and must continue to be, the essential life of the church, as it is the daily bread by which the individual is nourished. But while the right foundation was thus laid again, the whole structure was not built up with equal completeness, either in the practical or theoretical province; for not to one person, nor even to one age, is everything given. As far as the first of these is concerned, which we have to do with only by the way, it is, without doubt, closely connected with the subjective and interior character of Protestantism, that, in spite of the deep insight of the reformers into the divinely ordained distinction between spiritual and worldly things, they almost nowhere established an independent church, but built the episcopate into the government of the country, and the church into the state. This was possible, because in the pentecostal days of Protestantism a deeply religious spirit breathed through the life of the people, and especially through the higher classes. Religious princes were themselves theologians, and had theolo- gians as their chief counsellors, so that the state seemed rather to be dependent on the church than vice versa. It lay, however, in the nature of this arrangement, that when afterwards the religious spirit became weaker, the spiritual necessarily seemed, as compared with the secular world, the subordinate and passing one. The church, in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, sank almost to a mere member of the body politic; and the state, the concentration of the secular life, became all in all. In theology, things went just as they did in the church. The structure of doctrine was not reconstructed out of the principle of faith: they never got beyond the doctrine of a THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 207 subjective appropriation of salvation, nor the doctrines of orace, election of grace, the arrangements of grace, and the means of grace. The loci of Melancthon, which arose out of his Lectures on the Romans, and which treated theology in this point of view, and which Luther, it is well known, declared to be a book worthy of a place in the canon, are the most characteristic expression of original Protestantism; though indeed Melanc- thon himself, in later editions, and Calvin, in his Jnstitutio, advanced to a more comprehensive systematic theology. The ereat matter was, first of all to maintain and fix, according to the confessions, these fundamental doctrines, and ‘secure them against hostile attacks; and when to the struggle with Catho- licism was added the controversies among themselves, their strength was spent in formulating in the most exact scholastic fashion the disputed doctrines. Hence the evangelical prin- ciple never embraced the whole system of things, and never reached the form of a satisfactory doctrine of the world and of God, though the example of Paul, with all his wealth of thought, might have led them to it. Those doctrines, which are not immediately connected with the acceptance of salvation-—the so-called objective or speculative dogmas of God and creation, Trinity, Christology, etc., upon which mainly rests the recon- ciliation of Christianity with the mind of man and the world generally—were carried over substantially unchanged from the ancient church. Hence, for Protestants, they stood in the second rank only. Even in Christology they proceeded from the Lord’s Supper as the point of view. Closely connected with this was the defective view of eschatology, of which we shall have more to say further on. They stood in the middle of things, at the doctrines of redemption in the narrower sense: the doctrines concerning the first days of the world and the last were kept in the background. This whole prevailingly subjective view of Christianity appeared in the reformers, especially in LUTHER, with such strength, that the inner fulness of it prevented the want of 208 THE DIVINE REVELATION. further development of thought in other directions from being felt. Hence arose afterwards the danger of running into one- sided Pietism or Herrnhutism, in which Christ is regarded almost exclusively as the bridegroom of the soul; and of the great treasures of Christian doctrine hardly anything but the feeling of sin and enjoyment of reconciliation is retained,—a - freer and more comprehensive development of Christian doc- trine being looked on with indifference, and even not without suspicion. When the fulness of the religious life had still further subsided, the views of SCHLEIERMACHER came up as_ another stage onward in the same direction. According’ to these, the objective facts and doctrines, past and future, were declared to be unessential, or were rejected altogether, and Christianity made a matter of inward feeling. It was also held that the world has an independent existence and progress, apart from the assurance of its real and also external renewal by Christianity. - The result of all this is, that when unbelief has become strong, the present world seems the only real world; and while religious feeling and life seem to be merely subjective, and to be belief in the sense of thinking and imagining, the objective truth is thought to be the region of doubtful presenti- ments, which begins when certain knowledge and understand- ing, prudent and useful action end, if indeed it is not mere fanaticism and illusion. As in political life the church was swallowed up in the state, so in the public mind and. thought the spiritual vanished in the secular. The doctrinal defect of the older Protestantism may be described from another side. The resurrection of Christ was not made sufficiently prominent, as compared with His sacri- ficial death, while in the apostolic preaching the Crucified and the Risen held equal place. This error was natural; for justi- fying faith is built on the sacrifice of Christ, in which forgive- ness and redemption have been won for us. But on this very account Christianity was not seen to be the principle of the new life equally for the individual and for the whole mass. Theology, THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 209 if the expression may be allowed, kept back the medicinal as compared with the juridical aspect of Christianity. Salvation was not looked on, so much as healing of the sick or quickening of the dead, as a justification and acquittal of the accused by the judge. The New Testament unites the two—reconciliation and redemption, forgiveness of sin and renewal, adoption and regeneration. With the ideal element of imputation is asso- ciated the real element of the communication of the Spirit as immediate result (Gal. iv. 6; comp. Rom. vii. 14-16), just as the resurrection of Christ is connected with His death. It is not, indeed, as if these two elements which have to be appropriated by us corresponded exactly with those two in the work of Christ which are the foundation: for the resurrection, taken in its con- nection with the death of Christ as the sealing of His offering, is also a ground of justification ; and His*death in its connection with the resurrection, as the death of the old nature, is also a ground of renewal (Rom. iv. 25,vi. 2). The elder Protestantism looked too exclusively at the first aspect, so that the resurrection of Christ appeared as if merely a confirmatory appendix to His death: they did not sufficiently consider the other, in which the death is seen to be the path to the glory of the resurrection. And yet it is this very Lord who has entered into the eternal, incorruptible, and undecaying life of the Spirit, through the death of the flesh, who is the foundation and Creator of the new spiritual world. We must deeply ponder the risen and glorified One, if we would understand Christianity in its universal sig- nificance, as the power by which not only peace with God comes to all believers, but by which a new ethico-metaphysical principle is introduced, the principle of a spiritual life per- fected in God,—a principle which can come from no other source, and can be replaced by nothing else, and which is proving itself to be the realization of the true ideal of humanity. We see in this thought the deep meaning and the indispensable need of Christianity ; we see how it embraces all spheres, and is the power which carries them forward to perfection (1 Cor. xv.), O 210 THE DIVINE REVELATION. There was a point, starting from which, in the sixteenth century, this doctrine of the renewal of the world began to be understood. That point was the sacraments. The eye turned naturally from the question concerning the Lord’s Supper to the Christ in glory. One would have thought, that the more realistic Lutheran doctrine would view the taking of the body and blood of Christ as the principle of the renewal of the nature of man, including the resurrection ; and it is easy to connect this point of view with the Lutheran doctrine. The books of doc- trine, however, do not enter further into the subject: they do not teach that the Lord’s Supper is the bread of life eternal. The principal passage on the subject is given in the words of Luther, in the Larger Catechism, where, speaking of the use of the Lord’s Supper, he says: “Itis clear from the words, ‘ This is my body and blood, given and shed for you for the remission of sins, that we go to the sacrament because we receive such a great treasure, through and in which we get the forgiveness of sins. Wherefore ? Because the words stand there, and assure us of such blessing ; for they say to me, Eat and drink, and serve me as a pledge and sign, yea rather, are the very defence provided to shield me from my sins, from death and all evil. It is therefore called a feast of souls, which nourishes and. strengthens the new man. For we are first born anew by baptism, but yet the old flesh and blood continue with man: there is so much hindrance and opposition from the devil and the world, that we often become tired and weary, and sometimes even stumble and fall. This ordinance is therefore given for daily refreshment and food, by which faith may be restored and strengthened, we may be pre- vented from falling away, and may become ever stronger and stronger. For the new life must be so cared for, that it may always grow and advance.” The formularies of the church touch only by the way, in a single passage, upon the meaning of partaking of the body and blood of Christ, when they say : “The true, essential body and blood of Christ, are received and partaken of by believers, as a certain pledge and asswrance that THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 211 their sins are truly forgiven, and that Christ dwells in them with power.” In these passages beautiful and fruitful points of view are indicated the new life, and its increase in strength, the indwelling of Christ with power; in another passage, the union of Christians with Christ their head, and among them- selves, is mentioned. But the taking of the body and blood of Christ is not regarded as the active cause of these blessings, but only as the pledge, just as in the first place it is the sign and pledge of the pardon of sin. The doctrine of the forgive- ness of sin, or justification, is to such an extent the predomi- nating principle, everything else is so determined by it, that the doctrine of the sacraments has been formulated wholly from this point of view. They are called, in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, “ Signs of atonement and the pardon of sins ; for they offer the forgiveness of sins to us.” If this is their peculiar and essential meaning, then the body and blood of Christ have no further function than to be the pledge and assurance of that blessing: the communication of new and eternal life then of necessity fell into the background. This arose very much from the Lutheran mode of exegesis, and is founded chiefly, as is clear from the above passage of Luther’s, upon the words employed in instituting the Lord’s Supper. It was not seen that the body and blood of Christ are not spoken of there as a pledge, but as the cause of the forgiveness of sin, as they were given and shed in the death on the cross. Asa negative consideration, it is to be added, that the Lutherans, because of their doctrine, that the unbelieving also receive the body and blood of the Lord, could not refer to the Lord’s Supper the passage in the sixth chapter of John, where the taking of the blood and flesh of Christ is represented to be the bread of eternal life and of the resurrection.’ Among the Reformed Church party, the doctrine of justifi- cation by faith, which was all in all with Luruer, had not this high and all-regulative position. Of this party Calvin did 1 See Note X 2. y ee THE DIVINE REVELATION. : most to unite substantially the ideas of new-birth and justi- fication. Hence, in the Reformed doctrine, justification 1s not so much the principle from which all is derived, as the door through which we arrive at a spiritual understanding, and a proper mode of considering biblical truth. Hence the Re- formed books of doctrine are drawn up more after the common arrangement of systematic theology than the Lutheran books. With respect to the sacraments, and especially the Lord’s Supper, it is well known that with the Reformers also the idea of sign and pledge is most prominent. Zwinglius seems to have a very defective view of it. But his idea, that the sacra- ment is a sign or attestation of the grace before received (facte gratic signum), was refuted by Carvin. Even the first Hel- vetic Confession (of 1536) says, in its twentieth article: “The sacraments are not mere empty signs, but they are both signs and substantial things. For in baptism the water is the sign : the substantial and spiritual, however, is the new-birth and reception into the church of God. In the communion, the bread and wine are signs, but the substantial and spiritual is the communion of the body and blood of Christ, the salvation which is accomplished on the cross, and the remission of sins; which substantial, invisible, and spiritual things are received inwardly in faith, just as the signs are received bodily. And in these spiritual and substantial things the whole power, effect, and fruit of the sacraments consist.” Then the second Helvetic Confession (article 19) declares, that God represents externally in the sacraments what He bestows inwardly (que&e intervus preestat, exterius representat). The sign and pledge, therefore, do not lie in the invisible blessing of the body and blood of Christ, but in the bread and wine. In these there are two things which are outwardly seen: they are first broken (on this, therefore, the Reformers lay great emphasis) and poured out, then eaten and drunken. Corresponding with these is the twofold participation in the body and blood of Christ, in so far as they are broken and shed for us on the cross for the forgiveness THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 216 of sins, and in so far as they are now given to us as the meat and drink of resurrection and of eternal life. The first of these rests on the words used at the institution of the ordinance, the second on John (ch. vi.), which passage also was referred by the Reformed party to the Lord’s Supper. While, therefore, on the part of the Lutherans, as Luther’s mystical mind had some glimpse of the mystery of the real union with Christ, which is taught by the Scriptures and the church, more stress is laid on the fact of taking the body and blood of the Lord, and while it is secured, by being placed on a deeper christological foundation, against the danger to which it is open in the Reformed party of being understood too metaphorically and in too subtle a sense; yet, surprising as it may seem to many, the Reformed confessions show a profounder estimate of the signification of this ordinance than the Lutheran. In them, the body and blood of Christ are not reduced to mere sensible signs, and therefore are uot regarded simply as a pledge of the inward gift, but they are the very inward heavenly gift itself, the active power and cause of eternal life. Thus, in the BASLE Confession of 1534, we read: “In the Lord’s Supper, where, in the bread and cup of the Lord, together with the words of the ordinance, the true body and blood of Christ are set forth and presented to us by the servant of the church, true bread and wine remain. But we believe most surely that Christ Himself is the food of souls unto eternal life, and that our souls are fed and watered with the body and blood of Christ through a true faith in the crucified Christ; that we thus, as members of His body as our one head, live in Him, and He in us, that through Him and in Him we may rise at the last day to everlasting joy and blessedness. Therefore we con- fess and declare that Christ is present in His ordinance with all those who sincerely believe.” In both evangelical churches, however, this fundamental idea of the glorified life of Christ, and the communication of it to the believer, was brought out only in the doctrine of the 214 . THE DIVINE REVELATION. Last Supper (and also in that of the wnzo mystica), and was not viewed in all its width. If the sacrament had been regarded in the light of the glorified Christ, instead of the glorified Christ in the ight of the sacrament, then the question of the sacrament would have been more simply and more fundamen- tally handled, and happy results would have followed in con- nection with other doctrines. Greater unity in their conception of the Spirit would have been attained. The emphasis laid by the Reformed church on the words, “ He hath ascended up far above all heavens,” and the prominence the Lutherans give to the other words, “ That He might fulfil all things” (Eph. iv. 10), would then be explained: they would have discerned in Christianity the hfe, the transfiguring and renewing power that emanates unceasingly, in orderly development, from the glorified Christ. But their vision was not powerful enough to com- prehend all the glory of the ascended and reigning Christ; and this defect is most clearly seen in the eschatology of the elder Protestantism, which is now generally admitted to be imperfect. This eschatology is limited in the main to the idea of a state of blessedness or misery after death: the justified, who have received the grace of God, go to God in heaven; others go to hell. Even in this it hardly goes beyond the individual standpoint. At the end of time stands the last day, to decide once more the everlasting fate of all men; though one does not see why this is necessary, as a definite judgment is passed upon all immediately after death. A new condition of the world, in which the creature in its diverse spheres attains to the existence for which it is destined, was so little thought of, that the actual destruction of the world was taught by the old theo- logians. “Fulfilment,” says QUENSTEDT, “does not consist in simple change or renewal of qualities, but in total destruction and annihilation of the very substance of the world itself” In this way, not only is more made of the dualism of the blessed and the lost than Scripture warrants ; for the Scriptures teach that THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. Zo the whole universe, heaven and earth, is to be renewed, and that a gloomy abode of death exists only “without” this glorious and only world of life; but one entire half of the world, viz. nature, has been overlooked, and Christ is not perceived to be, as He is—the restorer of all things. And as their view of the end of all things is thus defective, so is their view of the de- velopment of things. In fact, proper reference to this is not to be found either in the eschatology or in the history (universal and individual) of redemption. In the doctrines concerning the final end, the defectiveness is shown in the fact, that the two middle members—which, according to the Scripture, lie between the present state and final perfect one—are thrown out: the region of death (Hades, Sheol) as distinct from hell (Gehenna) ; and the future reign of Christ and His people over all king- doms and lands of this world, as distinct from the final end and fulfilment of all things. The one doctrine was sacrificed to oppose the Catholic doctrine of purgatory ; the other, that of the Anabaptist Chiliasm. They had not ethical and metaphysical breadth or freedom for the first; for the second, they had not historical completeness of view. The subjective standpoint has hindered a fuller development of the Protestant Church; but it has hindered still more a knowledge of the kingdom of God: as the king was little thought of, compared with the high priest, - so naturally was the kingdom. Hope and love were neglected, as compared with faith; and so was the future appearing of Christ, compared with the past, and the idea of the kingdom, compared with personal salvation. Protestantism, like Christ Himself, preached in all sincerity, “Repent, and believe the gospel;” but that other part of the preaching of Christ, “The kingdom of God is come nigh,” it kept back; just as, from the same causes, it kept back the apostolic view of the resurrection of Christ, and gave too exclusive heed to His death. This neglect of these doctrines of the new creation, and everything miraculous that is involved in them, revenged itself at a later period. The supernatural character of divine 216 THE DIVINE REVELATION. revelation was not considered sufficiently, or rather, the super- natural in it was not studied fully and on all sides: the great universal miracles of the end, as of the beginning, were neglected (Gen. i-xi.). Hence the miracles of the middle period, which the Old and New Testament record, seemed like arbitrary inter- ruptions of the stedfast course of things. If the scriptural idea of a grand development of the world, through the human acts of the fall and the divine acts of the restoration, had been vividly realized, then the miracles of the Old and New Testa- ment would have fallen naturally into their place as parts of one whole, and would not have seemed like unwarranted exceptions. The idea of God, too, to come from the end to the beginning, would have been considerably affected by a deeper and worthier view of the glory of Christ, and the new creation of the world accomplished in Him. Since sin and grace are the starting-points of Protestantism, it might have been expected that the fulness of grace would be better comprehended, and the abundance of God’s life, which is the source of all salvation and life, would be fully demonstrated and set forth. That would have been the scientific and metaphysical consequence of the Protestant doctrine of God’s all-powerful, all-sufficient grace. The Scrip- tures speak of the fulness of the Godhead, of the riches of the glory of God. They call Him the Father of glory, and apply to Him other similar names. Into this very glory Jesus has entered; this fulness of God dwells bodily in Him. From the glory of the exalted Christ, we may therefore infer the glory of God. The biblical realism, much talked of recently, has its roots here. It is a question of a realistic conception of spirit, instead of the idealistic and spiritualistic one which prevails in philosophy and theology. Spirit in the (biblical) full sense of the word is not simple being—not even mere perceptive or thinking being; it is personality, which is self-moved, and which in the fulness of power manifests its life and assumes form: so that spirit and a higher bodily or a glorified nature do not exclude, THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. pay: but include one another (comp..1 Cor. xv. 44; 2 Pet. 1. 4). This conception of spirit is true, above all, of God (John iv. 24), whose self-revelation, in the fulness of His powers, the Scriptures describe mainly by the word glory. In this heht, the whole spiritual, invisible world of heaven, or rather of the heavens, has a much richer and fuller meaning than otherwise. The heavens are not merely a “blessed state” figuratively described; but they are the higher, the essential, archetypal world, of which this world is an image or reflection, and from which all real powers and lfe flow down, as light flows from the sun to the earth. It is a fact, on which the whole revelation rests, that there is above this visible world another world, a kingdom of God which was in existence even at creation, a perfect spiritual world, ze. a world of life, light, and love. This is the ideal world, which is indeed rather the true and real world (Luke xvi.11; Heb. vi. 2, ix. 24): there reigns in it a purity, holiness, and harmony of life, com- pared with which our life in the flesh is darkness and death. There is therefore a fulness, power, glory, and blessedness of life, compared with which our present life on earth is poverty and weakness; and such a life is in its nature eternal; such a kingdom is one that stands firm, immoveable, indestructible, glorious in undecaying bloom and beauty. This biblical realistic view of the divine and the heavenly, would have been of the greatest importance in respect to the ever - growing cosmical principle: here lies the one adequate counterpoise to Pantheism and Tellurism—to the entire earthly spirit of modern systems. The history and true signification of revelation also are more clearly seen in this light. To the natural man, the distinction between heaven and earth is inexplicable; indeed, unbelief, with all its thinking and striving, is bound by the limits of this lower world. Therefore the one object of revelation is to awaken in humanity the consciousness of that perfect and spiritual world, and to raise it up to its holiness, power, and 218 THE DIVINE REVELATION. joy. The old covenant paved the way for communion with the heavenly world, exhibiting its substantial blessings in pictures and types, as children are taught by the eye. But Christ, He who came from heaven, brought down the spiritual life of the upper world to the earth, and set up the kingdom of heaven among men. He Himself having gone back to heaven, He bestows upon His followers heavenly blessings, and brings them, through fellowship in His death and resurrection, into the heavenly life. Through Him, personal entrance into heaven is opened to the believer after he puts off the body of the flesh; and one day this distinction of earth and heaven will altogether disappear, when the glory of heaven shall have descended to the new earth. The Father has placed the ful- 1 ness of His spiritual glory in the Son, and the Son gives it to His creatures, in order to raise them thereby in their order to the same state of glory and perfection, till God is all in all. The future is connected in this way with the invisible; and therefore it is essential to biblical realism, which appeals first of all to metaphysics, to be at once eschatological, and in accord with the history of revelation. But, as we saw with regard to the historical-eschatological side of Christianity, which rests on the idea of the new creation, this metaphysical view of it was also neglected by the earlier Protestantism. God was thought of chiefly as the justifying God, the God of grace and righteousness; and this is indeed the first and greatest matter. But, scientifically con- sidered, these are only expressions for attributes of God; they do not give any view of His essential being. Protestantism did not drive its roots down to the very idea of God itself, nor to the deepest questions in metaphysics. The abstract, scholastic metaphysics were not replaced by another and better system. They were first set aside, and then afterwards resumed un- changed. Melancthon had at first removed the doctrine of God out of his /ocz altogether, and contented himself with a description of God by His attributes: “God is a spiritual being, THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 219 intelligent, eternal, true, good, pure, righteous, compassionate, perfectly free, of infinite power and wisdom: the eternal Father, who hath begotten the Son as His image from eternity ; and the equally eternal Son, the image of the Father; and the Holy Ghost, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.” The more scholastic Protestantism itself became, the more naturally it returned to these ideas of the middle-age scholasticism ; which, however, are quite foreien to the fulness of biblical realism. Even Johann Gerhard calls God, as Thomas Aquinas does, the pure and simplest essence, the substantial, absolutely undefined Being, in whom being, and thinking, and willing are the same. Deus est mera et simplicissima essentia; ipsum esse subsistens, omnibus modis indeterminatum; im Deo rdem est esse et intelligere et velle.. It is the old error: wishing to deny all limitation in God, they denied also all defined existence; to raise the glory of God far above everything finite, they believed it necessary to exclude all concrete life from His nature, and conceive of it ‘as absolutely simple. So long as piety was strong and healthy, the life was better than the system, and even the system itself was better: the full heart filled up the void in the idea, and the abstract definitions were supplemented and corrected by those that were more concrete in other “ Zoci.” When, however, faith became weak, it was only a scientific result to pass from such a conception of God, on one side to Deism, and on another to Pantheism. The former occurred in the seventeenth century, especially in England, the latter in Holland through Spinoza. That spiri- tualistic conception of God is extra-biblical in its origin. It is derived from the philosophy of the ancients, and therefore leads right back to heathenism. It places God before the world in such abstract spirituality, that He is no longer of any im- portance in it. The first consequence was the denial of revela- tion; for the infinite God, who is raised high above all concrete being, cannot come down to the finite. On the other side, the 1 See Note Y 2. 220 THE DIVINE REVELATION. words of Gerhard quoted above remind one very much of Spi- noza’s conception of God, and his principle, that all determina- tion is negation. From the substantial, purely undefined Being of the church dogmatists, to the world-substance of Spinoza, which, though it was originally uncosmical, yet first attains actual existence through the attributes of thinking and ex- tension, there was, as may be understood, only a step. In this abstract idea of God, all concrete life, all riches of existence, fell away from God, and rested in the world itself: the idea of God had no longer living power or inward reality enough to maintain itself against the rich cosmos, and so it fell into Pantheism. The first Protestantism, we have seen, understood Chris- tianity rightly, but not fully. It understood it correctly in its deepest ground as a religion, but it fully recognised neither its historical nor its metaphysical (and physical) side. It is only giving another expression for this defect, when we recall to mind how the elder Protestantism expressed itself scientifically in a new scholasticism. Scholasticism arises when faith, the substance of the universal consciousness, and the dogma of the church, is acknowledged as truth. Then science seeks to work out formally what is given to it in these: then the ereat aim is the logical accuracy of single points in their relation to the acknowledged doctrine, drawing right conclu- sions, avoiding inner contradictions, etc. A scholastic system is thus an artistically and ingeniously constructed edifice of reli- gious doctrine ; and we are assuredly not behind any in respect for the greatness of these systems, in which, as SCHNECKEN- BURGER says, our forefathers for centuries placed their highest thoughts, and which are the result of the prolonged toil and study of many great minds. Throughout, however, it is only the formal question that is considered. It is not the real truth of the doctrines. In fact, this is presupposed. Religion is not distinguished with sufficient care from the other powers of life; and these are not exhibited in their full and indepen- THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 221 dent completeness. Religion and theology are the all-domi- nating powers, else men would never come down to a mere scholasticism. And a thorough recognition of the ethico-his- torical and the physico-metaphysical side of Christianity is never reached, just because history and nature are not fully recognised. The whole of life is here more or less religion, religion becomes immediately theology, theology is essentially dogmatism. This state of things is natural and bearable so long as ear- nest faith pervades the general thought, and rules public opinion. Then the religious consciousness and the scientific consciousness fall in with one another. When, however, the religious spirit gives way, then the dogma in the ecclesiastical sense makes its appearance. We have then publicly authorized doctrine as dogma in the sense of the ancients, z.e. as fixed statute, as mere form without spirit and life, as external restraining rule without power of inward conviction. Then, too, law stirs up anger, and excites antagonism against itself. Rationalistic criticism follows scholastic dogmatism, as it did the Catholic scholas- ticism in the fifteenth century, and still more the Protestant scholasticism in the eighteenth. (2.) Sin. The foregoing section referred to the subject of grace; we now pass to that of sin, and shall perceive similar defici- encies here. To regard the relation of man*to God almost solely from the two points of sin and grace, is not ex- haustive; the more general relation of Creator and creature is neglected. ‘The first article of faith was pushed behind the second and third. Be it far from us to impeach in any way the earnestness and truth of the Reformers’ opinions of sin: it is one of the two burning centres of all the ight of the Refor- mation. But that the whole of the natural life of man should yyy THE DIVINE REVELATION. be looked at almost exclusively from this point—sin—was neither in harmony with Scripture nor experience. The Reformers were universally gifted and educated men. The popular and German national element was best represented by Luther. Zwinglius, too, was a man who loved his people and fatherland with warm affection; indeed, the patriotic ele- ment occupied only too important a position in his action as a Reformer. Melancthon, the Humanist, and preceptor Germanie, was not only at home in the classics as few are, but he had thought deeply on rhetoric and dialectics, physics and ethics, psychology and history. Even in these respects considerable influence proceeded from the Reformers; but the Protestant system of doctrine as such was hardly touched by any of them. They did not arrive at an ethical or historical settlement of the relation between classical and Christian thought, between humanism and the gospel; indeed, ethics were comparatively subordinate, compared with systematic theology. Only in the directly practical questions of the relation of the church to the secular authorities and the laws of marriage (especially of the priests), was a more thorough exposition of the relation between the religious spiritual life and the natural life given; and in the correct and profound views of the Reformers upon these questions, as well as in the connected doctrine of the three states, ecclesias- tical, political, and domestic (status ecclesiasticus, politicus, @cono- micus), fruitful germs of a system of ethics are to be found. The natural arrangements of the family and state were acknowledged as divine institutions, independent of the church. But they regarded, at the same time, the difference between civil and spiritual righteousness almost only negatively, and did not pro- perly estimate the preparatory stages of that perfect righteous- ness which the New Testament shows to have existed even in the pre-Christian world (e.g. John iii. 21, xviii. 87; Acts x. 35; Rom. i 7, etc., xiv. etc., xxvi. etc.). Against Flacianism it was expressly taught that evil was not the substance of man’s nature ; and from that one admission all that we desiderate in ee THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 223 these systems might have been deduced, or at least connected with them. But while this care in guarding against an extreme doctrine of sin gives a strong testimony to the ability of Protestantism to reach anew the line of truth in such fundamental questions, the circumstance that one of the leading champions of Lutheranism fell into that error, is a proof that the right view had not so completely taken possession of men’s minds as could have been wished. Many old Protestant terms, too, used in describing the ruin of sin, unquestionably go beyond Scripture. The Reformed party, having a less cen- tral view of the truth, but seeing it better in its various sides, had worthier views of our natural life in its propeedeutic signi- ficance than the Lutherans. Their theologians not only formed a theologia naturalis of their own; but some of their confessions —as, for instance, the Gallic and Belgic—begin with a descrip- tion of God, and then notice independently His revelation in the creation and government of the world, before the clearer revela- tion of the word (after which follow the usual details concern- ing Scripture; then the material doctrines of the confession as derived from Scripture, such as the Trinity, etc. etc.). Still, on the other hand, the doctrine of predestination stood in the way of further progress in these respects. Neither party considered sutficiently the nature of man, as it was created, either in the individual or the mass, the points at which the gospel could touch men, such as the conscience, and their unsatisfied restlessness. However much they were in- debted to the authors of heathendom, they formed their opinions of them almost exclusively from their darker side; unlike Paul, who brings forward their good points strongly, while certain expressions of Zwinglius go much too far in a contrary direction. They consigned all heathen, in spite of the second chapter of Romans, to damnation, and could not give its full weight and right place to the distinction which the moral sense compels us to make between a SocRATES and a NERo. A better understanding of the revelations of God in nature, history, and 924 THE DIVINE REVELATION. conscience was necessary, in order to perceive that belief or unbelief was possible in reference to these revelations too, and that even the heathen might be called comparatively righteous or unrighteous, according as they received and obeyed. these divine testimonies or not. In John’s Gospel itself, we read of the children of God and Christ’s sheep in this sense (John xi. 52, x. 16). He who is the Saviour is also the Logos, by whom all things were made, and by whom they consist, and who, as the “ true light, lightens every man that cometh into the world.” But this was not remembered as it ought to have been in their theology ; in fact, their doctrine of the Trinity was simply transferred from the middle ages. Else would they have taken more comprehensive views of the connection between the creation and redemption—between the whole divine plan of the world, and the plan of salvation; and this would have been more agreeable to Protestant principles. They would have been preserved, at the same time, from those errors of a doctrine of absolute predestination with which all reformers were infected, which marred equally all their ideas of God and man, and which are not yet quite expunged from the formularies them- selves. As it is, there are a number of points in this circle of doctrine on which we have just touched, with which not only rational thought, but also the moral sense, may be offended, and which help to explain the moralistic and intellectualistic opposition of Rationalism. The opposition had begun indeed in Arminianism and Socinianism. The Scriptures represent to us the entire world-drama, as the great transaction between God and the creature, which begins with the creation of heaven and earth, and concludes with the new creation of both. Nature and history are both included, and have a profound and rich significance, as on one side existing in the Logos, on the other lying in wickedness: they form the foundation and preliminary stages of the revelation of the gospel on the one hand; they form “the world” on the other. Creation and the fall; blessing THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 235 and curse; powers of God, and power of the enemy, even in nature ; traces of the divine image in the conscience and in the personality of man, with its rich and manifold gifts, which are ever set in motion and developed by the eternal power and Godhead manifest in the things that are made, though not freed by them from the original curse of dark- ness; restrainines of the evil, preparatory schools of the law and the gospel, or, according to Nirzscu’s beautiful expres- sion, “ preliminary redemptions” in the divine institutions of the state and family; remains of the primeval creation, and the oldest revelation in the heathen world, and organic con- tinuation of them in the revelation of both Testaments, and with these the prince of the world as a co-efficient in history ; the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent ; Israel and the nations in a state of nature; the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world in their development with and by each other, up to the final struggle and eternal victory, as it is all wonderfully given so early as Gen. in. 15, as Thema of the history of the world ;—in such outlines as these would Scrip- ture, if placed again in the right light, have furnished the first elementary outlines of a philosophy of nature and history, which, without trenching upon the foundation-truth of the Reformation doctrine concerning sin, would have brought grace in all its stages—erace preparatory (as gratia preveniens in the large, universal sense) and grace perfecting, and not merely the grace peculiar to the gospel—into full view. These last observations have brought us to the second great principle of Protestantism—the formal one. Be it granted us, however, to add to the present section some closing remarks. It may be said, that in the foregoing observations we have applied the measure of a more advanced period and stage of knowledge to the earlier one, and that this is neither just nor historical. But to show in this way the defects of the older Protestantism is necessary, if we are to arrive at a right under- standing and just estimate of Rationalism, with which we are P 226 THE DIVINE REVELATION. here concerned. For the strength and importance of Rationalism he in the fact, that it brought out in their value and power the elements of truth neglected by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, though it does so in a most one-sided and extravagant way. ‘The opponents of the truth have, through all history, the merit of causing its friends to seek a deeper and wider view of it. Even a number of the most important books of the New Testament, the Epistles to the Galatians, Colossians, etc., owe their origin to false doctrines. Rationalism has also led to a more comprehensive knowledge of Christianity and the Bible ; and from this very view we have taken, will result a truly his- torical understanding and judgment of the older Protestantism as well as of Rationalism. The important and decisive matter, however, 1s, that the measure we have used is the biblical one. There were, indeed, by no means entirely wanting in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, men of profound theosophic insight. We remember Puitipp Nicol, the author of the hymns, “ Wie schon leucht ’t uns der Morgenstern,” and “ Wachet auf, ruft uns dre Stimme” (ob. 1608); JOHANN ARNDT, the author of the work, Zrue Christianity (0b. 1621); JacoB B@HME (ob. 1624). But their hour was not yet come. Of NICOLAI, THOMASIUS says: “It does one infinite good to come from the scholasticism of the long (Christological) controversy into the blooming and verdant garden of his, in the best sense of the word, Christian mysticism.” But with his high, comprehensive ideas, he was alone. ARNDT and BC@HME were treated as heretics. The prevailing orthodox tendency regarded living Christian faith and knowledge only as deviations in doctrine. Beume’s fate, in particular, proves how little there was of apostolical and truly evangelical freedom in the church of that time, how little of that spirit of freedom which could bear in patience and love with different gifts on the ground of a common faith, and could lead and wisely use a real power, even if it were not a common one. How differently the Con- sistorial Rath, CARL HEINRIcH RiecER, of Stuttgart, at a some- THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 227 what later period, treated the visionary theosophistic peasant, Jou. Mico. Haun! It was a genuine feeling for the hurts of the church of that day, sorrow for the theological, and espe- cially crypto-Calvinistic controversies, and for the way in which they were carried on, which moved the young, gentle, childlike BG@HME to set out in search of truth, and to pray for the light of the Spirit. The remarkable visions which he afterwards had, he used with great humility and self-discipline. Yet he did not escape the hostility of the chief ecclesiastical dignitary at Gorlitz, GREGORY RICHTER, whose successor refused to preach the funeral discourse over B&HME, though he had died after making a purely evangelical confession of his faith, and received the last supper with the words: “O great Lord of Sabaoth, save me according to Thy holy will! O Thou crucified Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, and receive me into Thy kingdom! Now I am going into Paradise!” By order of the city council, one of the deacons was obliged to undertake the discourse ; he began by saying that he would rather have gone twenty miles to please another, than preach this sermon, and chose for his text, “It is appointed unto all men once to die, and after death the judgment” (Heb. ix. 27). Theolo- gians of higher character did doubtless judge B@HME more leniently ; and, for example, JoHN GERHARD, ARNDT’S spiritual son, said he would not take the whole world and help to con- demn that man. But no theologian till SpENER had the courage to take his part earnestly, or even to make an im- partial investigation of his works. Even OETINGER says, when justifying his interest in Ba@HME, and study of his works: “Theologians who shrink from studying this man, will pardon me for thinking that they are chargeable with timidity, fear of man, or undue desire to please man. For assuredly B@HME’s doctrines must be looked at with SPENER’S eyes, and not with learned pedantry, or with a hateful disposition to discover heresy.” * ‘ . 1 See Note Z 2. 228 THE DIVINE REVELATION. What we complain of in the elder Protestantism, is not a too much, but a too little in knowledge (it is a different thing with creeds, which should be as simple as possible) of Chris- tian truth. In saying thus much, we have admitted that we can most heartily approve of going back to the substance of the confession of the Reformed party. But it is also implied that it could only be for the substance of religious truth, and not as an attempt sharply to define theological doctrines. Each period expresses these in its own language, and in the sixteenth century it is scholasticism which rises and speaks again. That now lies far behind us. This principle is not rejected even by the most decided adherents of the Lutheran Confession. They, too, distinguish between the “ substance of the creed” and the “leading of proof for a certain theology which cannot be binding on all times.” They also wish for a progressive and continued formation of symbolical doctrines.’ It is, at the same time, not to be forgotten, that such continuous forming of doctrines can never be simply the addition of something new to the old. The truth is an organic whole, which must be brought by each successive period afresh into the currents of science. It is not a question of solitary improvements, but the raising of a new structure out of the whole of the former material; and in the new edifice, that which has been previously established naturally finds its necessary place, but may stand in a different relative position from that it held in the older and more limited system. b. The Formal Principle. One of the greatest things done by the Reformation was to bring the Scriptures into the light of day, and make them accessible to the people by translating them into the common tongue. By this means every Christian man was put in a position to use the Scriptures in all their fulness every day ; 1 See Note A 3. THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 229 and the streams of blessing which have flown from this source into innumerable souls and churches during the last few centuries, eternity alone will reveal. The theologians of the church have confirmed this gain, which cannot be too highly valued, exceedingly well, by their teaching concerning the Scriptures and their characteristics, especially concerning their sufficiency and perspicuity. We have already referred also to the profound truth and importance of the old Protestant doc- trine of inspiration, and the witness of the Holy Ghost. At the same time, there are considerable defects in the older Pro- testant way of using and of looking at Scripture; and these defects in the carrying out of the formal principle are naturally intimately connected with those which we have found in the carrying out of the material principle, to which we have already had to make repeated reference. (1.) The Use of Scripture. If Christianity itself was regarded only on its religious side, and not on the historical and metaphysical, the same error will be perceived in the way its documents are viewed. The Bible was regarded as a book of religion, z.¢. as a book of religious doctrine and improvement, a book of instruction and devotion. Its object and aim were considered to be, as they are very commonly still, to teach us what it is necessary to believe and to do to’ procure salvation; that point of view in which the Scripture itself teaches us to regard it—namely, that it is the historical record of the establishment and onward progress of the kingdom of God in the world, and of the divine revelations in word and deed—was kept in the background. The independent investiga- tion of Scripture did not keep equal pace with its application to theoretic and practical uses.’ Law and gospel were the points of view, excellent in themselves, under which the divine word was placed. But these were regarded almost exclusively in their relation to the salvation of the individual, in as far as the 230 THE DIVINE REVELATION. law leads to the knowledge of sin, and the gospel promises pardon. That these principles of the individual salvation are at the same time those of the entire history of redemption in the world, was not fully recognised or thought out. This fundamental view—necessary for the understanding and right estimate of Scripture as a connected whole, as the historic record of the revelations and kingdom of God—was therefore more or less wanting. “Luther held the signs and wonders to be mere outworks, —apples and nuts, as he expresses it, wherewith one attracts children, and makes them willing to listen and learn. He blames, for example, the Evangelist Luke for making mention only in brief of the sermon of Christ, and then giving a detailed account of the draught of fishes ; and speaking generally, he puts the synoptical Gospels far below the Gospel of John, because those contain chiefly the deeds, this, on the contrary, the dis- courses of Christ. And just because he did not perceive the inner indissoluble connection between the word of God and His work among men, neither had he the power to take in fully the entire contents of Scripture, in so far as they form a perfect, harmonious, historical, and prophetic whole, advancing in deeds and wonders of God through all ages, and developing gradually up to the most glorious revelation of -all at the last day. It may be safely asserted that we have been too long bound to the limits of Luther’s circle of doctrine, and that of his excellent colleagues in the work of reformation, who all more or less started from the same principles. We have accustomed our- selves to think of the Bible, and to treat it, more as a book of instruction in dogma than as a historic document in the highest sense of the word; and have forgotten that the history of the work and kingdom of God is an essential part of evangelical doctrine. It was by Bengel and his followers that this history came to be again recognised and considered in the church.” + Luther’s words, at the end of his preface to the New Testament, 1 See Note B 3. ° THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 231 run thus: “ From all this canst thou now form a right judgment concerning the various books, and decide which are the best. For the Gospel of John and the Epistles of St. Paul, especially that to the Romans, and the first Epistle of St. Peter, contain the true kernel and marrow of all the other books. For thou dost not find in these many of the works and miracles of Christ ; but thou findest drawn out with a master’s hand, how faith in Christ overcomes sin, death, and hell, and gives life, righteous- ness, and happiness. If I should have to do without one of these, the works or word of Christ, I should rather want the works than the word; for the works give me no help, while the words give life, as Christ Himself says. Because John writes little: concerning the works of Christ, but very much of His word, and the three other evangelists relate His works at great length, but only few of His words, the Gospel of John is the one precious, true, and chief Gospel, and is to be preferred before the others, and raised high above them. So also St. Paul’s and Peter’s Epistles go far beyond the three Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. To sum up, the Gospel of John and his first Epistle, the Epistles of Paul, especially those to the Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians, and the first Epistle of St. Peter— these are the books which show thee Christ, and teach all that it is needful and well for thee to know, even if thou shouldest never see or hear any other book or have other teaching. The Epistle of James is very dry and useless compared with them, for there is nothing of an evangelical kind in it.” The very spirit of the Reformation led them to study chiefly the doctrinal parts of the Bible, more especially the Epistles of Paul; and of these, the Epistles to the Galatians and Romans, which treat of justification and predestination, in particular. But even in the last named epistle itself, the eighth and eleventh chapters were neither understood nor applied so well as the others; and it was just the same in every other part of Scrip- ture, much as exegetical study on the whole was invigorated by the Reformation, and excellently as it was conducted espe- 232 THE DIVINE REVELATION. cially by Calvin, who manifests the greatest and most unbiassed historical feeling and insight of them all. It was natural that only those chambers in the great temple of holy Scripture could be opened which the existing key fitted; but many must have remained altogether closed. Still more than this. Calvin’s absolute doctrine of predestination is a proof how severely the neglect of the historic studies avenged itself. Because the ninth chapter of the Romans was not understood in its connec- tion with the two following chapters, that which the apostle said of the history of the kingdom of God on earth was trans- ferred to eternal religious relationships; and thus that anti- scriptural error was, if not originated, at least strengthened. And this way of treating Scripture exegesis was not only erro- neous, but it wrested the meaning of Scripture. Because many expressions did not seem to agree with the adopted views, which yet could not be overlooked, they had either to ques- tion their authority, as LuTHer did with the Epistle of J ames, » or, by doing violence to them, reduce them to harmony with their creed. This was how it fared in Calvin’s hands with the passages which declare the universality of grace, and the ex- pressions in regard to the eating and drinking of the blood of Christ (John vi, etc.); and so with the whole of the Reformation and old Protestant theology, for example, in the prophetic parts of the Bible. The purely religious standpoint, and the related dogmatical one, had thus most influence on them in expounding Scripture; and they therefore never reached an impartial historical mode of inquiry, nor a perfectly unselfish discipleship. Hence the whole blessed wealth and value of Scripture were far from being known or enjoyed. The circumstance, that the Reformation was developed amid constant struggles, first between Catholics and Protestants, then between Lutherans and the Reformed party, materially contri- buted to produce this state of things. A peaceful, still, and profound study of Scripture was indeed not possible. The employment of Scripture for the purposes of controversial THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 233 theology came always into the foreground. The Bible came to be used mainly as an armoury of proof passages. Out of the polemic theology arose the scholastic, to the nature of which it belongs not to start from a fresh biblical intuition of revelation, but only to work out that which the church has already obtained and sanctioned, by means of the logic of the schools. The Scriptures were therefore used and described in the old Protestant age, much more as a rule than as the source of Christian knowledge. As an example of this, the beginning of the Statement of Doctrines is characteristic. The use of Scripture for edification was, as a rule, similarly atomistic with its dogmatic use. Single passages were chosen, to be applied, often without regard to their original connection, to the needs of the present,—in one place to doctrine, in another to life. The daily texts of the United Brethren are the happiest example of such use of Scripture for edification, but at the same time the most dangerous to a correct understanding of Scripture. Passages become isolated from the context, and so are misin- terpreted. If Scripture is used in the one case as an armoury out of which single expressions are taken as proofs of certain dogmas, in the other it is like an apothecaries’ hall, in which God has placed particular single remedies for diseased men in general, and for special cases in particular. In both, it is not so much the word as the revelation of God and the history of it which is the foundation, but the mere letter of the word by itself. The word is therefore not considered as an organic whole, but as an ageregate of single expressions, from which those are,selected which may be serviceable for each particular occasion ; the remainder being left unconsidered, or reduced by undue pressure into harmony with particular views. (2.) The Doctrine of Inspiration. The views concerning Scripture itself, expressed in the old Protestant doctrine of inspiration, correspond with the mode of 234 THE DIVINE REVELATION. using it to which we have referred. Scripture was thought of as an oracle, which as a tribunal decided the questions of doc- trine, and as a spiritual counsellor decided questions of practical life, directly by single expressions. First of all, in the contro- versy with Catholicism, a present authority was needed; so the Protestants met the church, and its Pope and councils, by the counter authority of Scripture, of whose divine truth they were most deeply convinced. They were looked on as the word of God to the present time, and for the present; and the historical circumstances of their successive origin were disregarded. The whole aim was to establish them as a divine authority for the church, as the canon and only guide of truth, in opposition to all human and ecclesiastical authorities. The part man had in the origin of the Bible was ignored, as its historical develop- ment had been. At lencth the great point came ta be, to establish only the authority of the book, the actual existing written word, to which appeal was always made; they neglected, therefore, what is closely connected with this—the relation of the written word to the living words and deeds in which it was revealed. The origin of the Scriptures was considered by itself alone; it was God’s work of revelation, by which the church lived, and alongside of which the history of the revelation was therefore held subordinate. The book almost took the place of the thing which it was intended to declare. The substance of the old Protestant doctrine of inspiration may be expressed in these words: the Holy Spirit dictated the Bible verbally (singula verba a NSpiritu Sancto in calamam dictata, says HOoLLatz), and the human composers are not authors, but only the writers—indeed, only the hands, or the pens (notari swe tabelliones Spiritus Sancti, manus Christi, calami Det auctoris). | This is the doctrine of the orthodox theologians, which must be known in order to avoid an unfair judgment of Rationalism and its biblical criticism. These theories are not found among the Reformers, or in the books of doctrine. On the contrary, we THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 239 find that, for example, LuTHER expressed himself very freely about some parts of the Bible. The Lutheran symbolical books do not go deeply into the subject of inspiration at all; those of the Reformed Church contain many beautiful expres- sions on the subject, which even now might serve as models. “We believe,” says, for example, the Belgian Confession (ch. 11), “that the holy men of God, moved by the Holy Ghost, spoke the word of God; God Himself afterwards commanded the prophets and apostles to commit these revelations to writing; He Him- self, indeed, wrote the two tables of the law with His own fingers: this is the reason why we call such writings the holy Scriptures.” Here there is still a living connection between the writing and the word, between history and composition ; here the persons of prophets and apostles are taken into account, as possessing the Holy Ghost. | But in that other view, the Holy Spirit stands outside of and above man, simply dictating to him; and for the composi- tion of the Bible, the only thing needful was the art of writing. There was therefore no need of apostles and prophets. The difference between the inspiration of the historical and didactic books, between the prophetic and apostolic, between Old and New Testament inspiration and the like, was never touched upon at all. For the historians of the Bible there would have been no necessity for any connection with the history at all, if the Holy Spirit dictated it to their pen, word for word. The successive origination of the books of the Bible becomes doubt- ful; and, in fact, the difference between the Old and New Testament almost disappears in the views of the elder Protes- tantism. The Bible may be regarded as a whole, or in its parts: we may look into it where we will—say Luke 1. 1-4, John xix. 35, 1 John i. 1, etc., or into the Epistles of Paul, with their fulness of personal and historical life, which is the most impressive and convincing thing about them ;—nowhere does this view of inspiration correspond to the picture which the Bible itself gives us of its nature and origin: it 1s mani- 236 THE DIVINE REVELATION. festly too lifeless and insufficient to embrace the wealth and variety of the Bible. We have already shown and acknowledged the essential truth that lies in the thought underlying this doctrine. All the more may and must we point out its scientific defects. It is a theory, invented in the interest of the dogmatic theologians, that they might have an infallible authority of a kind similar to the infallibility of the Catholic Church. In doing this, Protestantism came down from its own original elevation, and transferred the Catholic conception of authority to its own authority, the Bible. In this doctrine of inspiration especially, our scholasticism shows its derivation from a polemic source. Certainly it would be in all respects most agreeable to have the divine authority to which we bow in direct and external form before us, without the necessity of any corresponding inward action; but then this would correspond neither to the nature of Protestantism and the new covenant, nor to the nature of man in its relation to God. Had God purposed to make the Scrip- tures a canon in this sense, they must have been given by Him in the same way with the tables of the law at Sinai; and, indeed, the theories of inspiration held by the early dogmatists, with their one-sided and exclusive emphasis upon the divine origin of the Bible, really amount to that. It is no longer in- spiration, the giving of the Spirit, but the giving of the letter of the Scripture; the character of spirituality, of which it is said, “ Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,” is quite: lost. The same care would have been necessary then for the preservation of the Scriptures as for the tables of the law: the difference of manuscripts, readings, etce., cannot properly be spoken of in connection with such a kind of infallibility. Further, to adduce’ one example of the character of the Scrip- tures, the life of Jesus could hardly then have been represented in four different ways; but, being simply dictated by the Holy Spirit, one must have been the absolutely sufficient account. The picture of the life of the Redeemer, however, was to be + THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. Dat presented from different sides, in its relation especially to the principal elements of universal history and the history of God’s kingdom, to Israel, to the heathen world, to God and man gene- rally. This is not less, but more: it is richer and fuller of instruction than if we had received only one representation. But, at the same time, it is clear that a representation of the life of Jesus which is directly exhaustive, and by itself com- plete, is not given us in this way. But as the Holy Spirit, in the first production of the Gospels, made use of the agency of different men, each fitted for the respective views (Jewish, Christian, Pauline, etc.) they were to present, so there is still need for human co-operation in heart and mind, still need for a scientific activity, guided and sanctified by the Spirit, to realize a complete picture of the life and doctrine of Jesus. The use of single parts for instruction and edification of course continues undisturbed by this view: the wonderful good effected by many separate expressions and narratives, as John i. 16, cannot be told; but the church and theology, as a whole, can and will live only by means of the whole. And the supreme authority is by no means immediately and palpably before us, and, as it were, externally comprehensible ; but God moves us to labour and to prayer, if we would arrive at a full knowledge of His Son. This is true in respect to systematic theology as to historical. The church and theology, so long as they live in the flesh, must eat their bread in the sweat of their brow; and this is not only not a judgement, but for our present state a great blessing. If the highest were, indeed, so easy and simple, then the flesh would soon become indolent and satisfied. God gives us the truth in His word, but He takes care that we must all win it for ourselves ever afresh. He has therefore, with great wisdom, arranged the Bible as it is. And on this account, too, the Bible, wherever men have given themselves to the study of it, has spread science and civilisation, for it sets in motion the highest intellectual activities of man. The spiritual excites and animates at the same time the intellectual, and 238 THE DIVINE REVELATION. is therefore the truly sound and healthful word for all human activities. There is still more, however, in this difference of human authors, as the example of the evangelists will again best illus- trate. It is worthy of remark, that precisely in this the “most holy place” of the. Bible, which by its inward truth and glory always makes the deepest and first impression upon the conscience of men, there are the greatest number of things at which men may be offended. In an earlier part of this work we pointed out that those doctrines and miracles which are most offensive to the common consciousness of men all occur in the Gospels, and at special length. It is the same also with the critical difficulties as with these dogmatic ones. No one of the four evangelists knew everything which happened in the days of our Lord’s life in the flesh. Luke himself tells us that he gave himself much trouble and made careful inquiry to get together his materials (i. 1-4). What Paul says of knowledge and prophecy, even the apostolic, that they were “in part,’ may of course be applied not less to the composition of the biblical books, the historical as well as the others. As we have seen already that each evangelist was limited according to the point of view from which he wrote his account, so he was limited, too, in respect to his knowledge of the materials. From both of these causes inaccuracies might flow into the narrative; for his object the writer might not intend or contemplate a more exact account, or perhaps he was not able to give it with the knowledge he had. Of this class are the differences between the accounts of the synoptical Gospels and that of John, the narratives of the child- hood in Matthew and in Luke, and the like. If we had only Matthew, we could not have imagined that a considerable space elapses between Matt. iv. 11 and 12, of which the first chapters of John give us the account. Luke can have known nothing of Matt. 11, else he could not have written ii. 39; for between the presentation in the temple and the return to Nazareth, the visit of the wise men from the east and the flight to Egypt THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 239 must have occurred. Compare many little deviations in the accounts of the facts as well as of the discourses of our Lord ; eg. Matt. vi. 5, etc., with Luke vii. 3, etc.; Matt. xxvu. 44, Mark xv. 32, with Luke xxi. 39-43; Matt. xxvi. 34 with Mark xiv. 30; Matt. xx. 29, etc., with Mark x. 46; Luke xviu. 35, Matt. x. 10, with Mark vi. 8, 9, and others. Here we can make up and supplement the one account by the other, as in the books of Kings and Chronicles, where also there are important deviations, in the numbers especially. We can of course no longer deny that, where such control is impossible, inaccuracies in outward things may be found. For him who has spiritual discernment, or who can exercise an intelligent judgment, these things will matter very little: they are the natural and unavoidable phenomena in historical and literary matters, if violence is not to be done to the human authors by the Holy Spirit—if the supernatural is not to become the unnatural. An example from recent times may serve to make this clear. When SCHLEIERMACHER and STEFFENS were professors at Halle, they took a run out to the Petersberg with two students, of whom one was CARL VON RAUMER. We have descriptions of this excursion from all the three named,’ which are different from each other in some important circumstances. SCHLEIERMACHER mentions two companions; STEFFENS, who wrote later, only one. We have thus, in the accounts of a matter which come not only from eye-witnesses, but from those who were actually engaged in it, similar differences to those which are found in the Gospels and other books of the Bible. The same phenomena meet the historical inquirer everywhere, in com- paring synoptical records. It is more important to observe, that the holy Scriptures give us significant intimations how they themselves regard such differences, and how they would have them regarded. This is the case where, in one and the same book, one author relates the same event differently. One of the most familiar examples 1 See Note C 3. 240 THE DIVINE REVELATION, of this is the account of the conversion and call of St. Paul, which is given three times in the Acts,—in the ninth, twenty- second, and twenty-sixth chapters. In the first passage (ch. ix.) the Lord tells Ananias that Paul is destined to be an apostle, and it does not appear that Ananias informs Paul of the fact ; according to the second (ch. xxii.), Ananias did make the com- munication to Paul at once; in the third (ch. xxvi.), the call to the apostolate is attributed to the Lord Himself. This is only one of the points of difference between the three reports: there are others besides. The explanation is furnished by the middle passage. Of course these differences in the accounts were as well known to the writer of the Acts as to the attentive reader ; but, with divine indifference, he allows the apparent contradic- tions to stand, and trusts the religious understanding of THEO- PHILUS and his successors to find the meaning and solution of them. The Spirit acts in the same way when the accounts are from different authors. He would teach us, that in Scripture generally we should lay stress on the spirit and essence of the matter, and not on single passages and outward things, as such; He would raise us from the pharisaic devotion to the letter, to the freedom of that Spirit who moves in the history. If we look at the details from within, we shall generally perceive how, in harmony with the particular aim in each case, here this, there that, side of the matter is brought out: here it is sum- marily, there more exactly recorded ; so that upon a deeper view of the subject, the differences are often more than justified. The Bible itself makes this rule—namely, to look at the spirit and essence of the matter, and not to stand upon details and external characters as such—very clear in a second instance, which belongs not to the region of history, but of doctrine, where scripture is compared with scripture, and one passage is measured by the other. We mean the quotations from the Old Testament in the New. These have been used indeed recently by RorHe, in support of an argument against the inspiration of the Bible, as they seem to him for the most part to rest upon THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 241 wrong interpretation,'—not justly, however. The more recent organic historical view of both Testaments (which indeed many of our older theologians seem no longer to sympathize with: they seem simply to hold themselves aloof, on account of certain existing difficulties) leads to quite other results. The New Testament writers, in quoting from the Old, use the greatest. freedom in regard to single words and sentences; but they show the deepest and truest insight into the spirit and essence of the Old Testament and its utterances. Inspiration gives the power not only to write, but also to read, holy Scripture. The apostles do not indeed develop the reason of their quotations scientifically ; they see and testify: our science has often to insert the connecting links, in order to reach the height of the apostolic thought. But they have reached the height of true spiritual intelligence: our grammatical and historical exegesis, which still dwells in the low grounds, and cleaves too closely to the earth, must regard that spiritual insight into the Old Testa- ment which is furnished in the New by Jesus and the apostles, as the end toward which it is to strive, the height to which it is to rise (1 Cor. 11. 11, etc.). The great type of all New Testament quotations in this respect is the word of Jesus (Matt. xxu. 29-32). Who could have drawn from the words, “ I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” a proof of the resurrection ? And yet the whole matter, as Jesus says, lies in knowing the Scripture and the power of God (which is avouched in these words). Then indeed some confidence is placed in the word of Scripture, even that of the Old Testament, because it is seen that God’s Spirit breathes in it, and the will of God is revealed. To bow to the authority of the word of God, is not to adopt a literal and rabbinical exegesis, such as the Rabbinism of which Paul is accused; nor is it the slavery to the letter with which they reproach us: it is the understanding of the word, in which is the unity of the spirit and the letter, so that the letter must be understood by the spirit. Those are much more the literalists 1 See Note D 3. Q 942 THE DIVINE REVELATION. who go no further than the mere outward meaning of the word, —who do not know how, with Jesus and the apostles, to catch the mind of the Spirit in it, but dismiss it as something that cannot be attained. But if; in defending the Scriptures, we take up this position of spiritual freedom (2 Cor. 11. 15-17), then we are bound also to leave behind all legal anxiety and pedantic literalness in regard to them. The first glance, for example, at the passages in the Gospels we have quoted, shows that we do not possess a canon that is absolutely free from mistake; nor, indeed, do we require it. What we require is a record of revelation absolutely true, and that we possess in the Scriptures. Our Lord Himself, during His earthly life, was so deeply veiled in the lowliness of the flesh, that He had to say, “ Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me.” He says, also, of His teaching by parables, that He concealed the truth purposely from those that were without, so that they should see with their eyes, and not perceive, and hear with their ears, and not understand. Only those hungering for the truth—the true disciples—should break through the shell to the kernel, and know the mystery of the kingdom of God (Matt. xi. 6; Mark iv. 11, 12). So it is still. The divine will must in this world have its veil—its offence. Whosoever will be offended therewith, may and will be offended. Faith, as it involves an intellectual, involves also a moral work and attainment; it is a work wrought in God (John vi. 27-29). The mind that seeks the truth, breaks through the veil easily and simply. A man of great ability once said, he would prove the divine perfection of the Serip- tures from their human imperfections. It is precisely the most exact investigation and criticism which evermore shows that, even considered in a human light, there does not exist a more credible book than the Bible on the earth. The divine truth of it is so convincing to the conscience and understand- ing, when once they are awakened, that we are not only spiritually, but even intellectually, convinced of it. We may THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 243 here remind the reader of what was said in the first part of this work. If we thus, on several grounds, cannot approve of the ex- pression borrowed from the Catholic authorities—infallibility, or entire freedom from error in the Bible—we would, in con- clusion, apply to it what LANGE says of the so-called sufficiency of the holy Scriptures, when he observes: “The Bible is not only a sufficient witness of the truth of salvation, but one that is rich and abundant beyond measure.” It is clear, likewise, that this negative expression says a little too much in respect to details; but in regard to the whole, much too little. “We give up, says Stier,’ “the claim of perfect freedom from error for the Bible, but only in such things as are really indifferent to salvation and the doctrines of the gospel, the domain and limit of which, whatever may be said to the contrary, can be very well distinguished from the essential.” We do not admit any- thing like a falli or fallere, any erring, or leading astray, in connection with the Scriptures as a whole. They are, on the contrary, the only true light in the midst of the twilight or darkness of human thoughts, the full and clear witness of the truth, by which, directly or indirectly, all must be brought back from their errors, who would come into possession of the highest, the eternal truth. This is the Scripture, because it is the true witness of the ways which God has adopted universally with humanity, to save it from its wandering and error. It is therefore their full, concrete contents, including history and doctrine, upon which their importance rests; it is the record of God’s striving with men, up to the victory of Christ, and the gift and effectual operation of the Holy Spirit. Hence the ereat matter is to take the place of a disciple before the Scrip- tures as a whole. It is not simply to listen to an authority, which utters single dogmatic or edifying words, as it were direct from heaven. But heaven has come ever nearer and more fully to the earth; the Spirit of God has sunk into the minds 1 See Note E 3. 244 THE DIVINE REVELATION. of men with increasing power and fulness. The successive ori- gination of the Scriptures falls into this historical process: their authors are persons taking part in the drama of the history of revelation; they are moved by the deepest spirit of it; and so they are able, as men influenced and inspired by God, to give the net result of each period in inspired writings. The Scriptures are therefore not less the word of God according to our view, than according to the old; but the Holy Ghost makes use of holy men of God, not as mere machines for writing, but as living men, so that here it may be said: dciw révra, xed cvOpdaswe gevra (all things are divine, and all are human). The Scrip- tures are not less holy scriptures; the honour paid to them, even as a book of doctrine and edification, is not less; but it is honour with more life and truth. It is, too, only an apparent injury that is done to the reverence we owe to Christ, when His human nature, striving, struggling, and overcoming, is brought forward definitely and clearly: He becomes the more truly ours, and we follow Him with the more intelligence and confidence ; and so, with more faith, we also understand His example and life, as the evangelists represent them, more truly: they become more instinct with life. It is so with the Scriptures, either in whole or in their parts. Then everything is full of life—every- thing has a message; then its full stores are properly disclosed and possessed. Then we perceive it more and more to be the true light, which alone truly illuminates the ways of man and the world. We do not lose, we gain immensely; and there is truth in our joy in the Scriptures: we do not need to carry on our defence of them by means of artful and ingenious devices. The exaggerated doctrine of inspiration was necessarily made prominent in the course of time, by the reaction of the sense of truth in the minds of men. In this lay the power which biblical criticism exercised. Its task was to liberate from the fetters, not of the Scripture, but of an arbitrary, dog- matical view of it. We gladly quote the words of a Swiss co-worker, on the THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 245. points of which we have just spoken:! “ As the operation of the Holy Ghost in the church has become feebler and dimmer, men have clung with the more tenacity to the theory of the inspiration of every word of Scripture. In times of the church’s vigour, on the contrary, when the Spirit of God has been per- ceptible in godly men, His living agents, a freer judgment has been exercised in respect to the contents of the Bible: it has been acknowledged to be the word of God, but in human forms, and beneath a human veil; and so it has been held that the Holy Ghost was as needful for a right use of the Scriptures, as for the original preparation of them. The Reformers honoured the Scriptures, and were very jealous for their divine authority ; and vet they made undisguised use of very free expressions concern- ing their defects, obscurities, and difficulties : they acknowledged there were instances here and there of contradictions and inac- curacies, and never forgot that, with the divine working, there was human co-operation in the composition of the Scriptures. So LurHer, Canvin, MELANCTHON, and Bzza.. It was in the century which followed the Reformation, that there arose an exaggerated solicitude that the Bible should be acknowledged perfectly free from fault and omission, even on the human side of it. It was not taken as God had given it. A system was set above it, which was not in harmony with the real conditions on which it is given. They were obstinately blind to the im- perfections which God had allowed to remain in His word. This extreme, which takes the Bible not as it is, but as men would fain have had it, I do not intend to defend; it 1s con- nected with a one-sided system: I charge it, indeed, with a part of the guilt of those who think themselves justified, as its opponents, in representing and condemning strict faith in the Bible, as scientific dishonesty or blind narrowness of mind. The word of Scripture allows and demands a free judgment and treat- ment: eye and heart should be open to the human form and side in the Scripture, just as much as to the part God has had in it. 1 See Note F 3. 246 THE DIVINE REVELATION. | “We may learn this free treatment of Scripture from Scrip- ture itself; for just as the Old Testament is treated in the New, so may we with good conscience handle both. The Old Testament is seldom quoted word for word by our Lord or the apostles, but often inaccurately, or from the Greek translation of the LX X., which is by no means exact. The passages from the prophets are not given so much in their verbal order, as in their deep significance; but in each case, without too much anxiety about the words, and with a free interpretation of their meaning, which the Spirit Himself must teach us. The same thing is true of the quotation of the words of Christ by the evangelists. Christ spoke in Aramaic; but with the two excep- tions (Hephatah, Talitha koumi, and Lli lamma sabachtant), we nowhere have His discourses in their original form, we have only a free translation into the Greek; and even this is not very carefully exact: His words are rendered freely, and the sense is given in different forms of expression. No one can say with diplomatic accuracy what words the Saviour made use of, when He delivered this or that discourse, spoke this or that parable; yet we possess the words and discourses of our Lord in all their essential meaning, reported freely by such evangelists as were led by the Holy Ghost. Truth and freedom are joined together in a holy covenant; truth in essentials, freedom in form and things subordinate. “ What, then, are we to do with the little inaccuracies and contradictions in the Gospels, and how shall we decide upon them from the standpoint of faith? My answer is simply this: we must acknowledge the difficulties, and let them stand, without suffering ourselves to be in any measure led away from belief in the Bible. They are permitted by God, not to disturb our faith, but to exercise it, and to remind us that the Scriptures can only be rightly understood by an honest heart,—that they need, as corrective of their trifling inequalities and human traits, the unction from the Holy Spirit in the souls of their readers. God will not lead and instruct men by the Scriptures alone; He em- THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 247 ploys also His Spirit and the church: therefore He has given His word in a form which can be sufficient to lead into all truth only in connection with the other guides. The Scriptures alone, without the Spirit, would not be a sufficient guide ; but, again, the Spirit and His inward illumination, without the Scriptures, would be insufficient to preserve from error. The traces of human co-operation in the composing of the New Testament, injure the souls of believers in no way: they only compel them to inquiry, and to compare scripture with scripture. These human characteristics, on the contrary, may be to the frivolous, and those who seek for doubts, both a judgment and a snare, in which their unbelieving heart shall be held bound, and they shall be blind to the many traces and seals of the divine truth in the word of God. This existence of human elements is a convenient excuse behind which the heart may hide its hostility to the word and will of God. The traces of human weakness belong, however, as a useful and necessary characteristic of Scripture, to its ex- cellences and perfections ; for by these apparent imperfections God accomplishes important and useful objects with friend and foe-——with those who in the simplicity of faith honour the Scriptures, and with those who despise and reject the Bible, who have not been withheld by regard for the truth from a free decision against the light. The mode in which we possess the divine revelation is a test of men’s dispositions. Be they good or bad, they are matured and manifested thereby.” Before passing to the consideration of Rationalism, I shall mention only one matter more. The deficiencies in the state- ment both of the material and formal principle are common to both Protestant confessions. What the one may have more than the other, is less than that which is lacking in both. It was this, in which both were defective, that tended to the production of Rationalism, which arose in the one church as well as the other. We must therefore keep in mind that the defects which we seek to remove, as also the advantages which we seek to preserve on the right hand and the left, are not 248 THE DIVINE REVELATION. merely Lutheran or Reformed, but essentially and generally Protestant. 9. Rationalism. We shall now attempt to describe Rationalism in the same points of view under which we have considered the earlier Pro- testantism. We shall consider it in its material principle— Reason and Nature ; and then its treatment of Scripture, which is the result of this principle, and which may be described as the critical treatment. While, on the one side, the reasons for the unfavourable verdict we have already expressed concerning Rationalism will be more fully exhibited, we shall, on the other, endeavour to show in what its real significance, and the element of truth it represents, consist, and thus pave the way for under- standing the whole question, both historically and in itself. We | shall distinguish therefore, in the two sections into which this part falls, the development itself, and its result. a. Reason and Nature. (1.) The Rationalistic-Humamistic Development in the different Departments. The first movements of the rationalistic spirit, in the age of the Reformation itself, as they appeared in Arminianism and Socinianism, were connected with the exaggerations of the doctrines of sin and grace, which found their expression espe- cially in the dogma of predestination. While it is true that these movements, especially the Socinian one, proceeded from not understanding religion in general, which was the chief streneth of Protestantism, yet we must confess they are also a reaction of the moral sense, and, as that was neglected by the Reformers, are relatively justified. Then began, however, that tendency which, inverting the true order, places morality in the THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 249 foreground and religion in the second rank; whereas morality can only be the fruit and outcome of religion, good works can only come from faith. In Socinianism this tendency of thought strove to show that it was in agreement with the Bible and Christianity. In Eng- land, on the contrary, where the folly of the State church, the excesses of dissenters, and the sins of party spirit and strife stirred up opposition to positive Christianity, Deism arose in the seventeenth century. This at first, professing to teach a purer Christianity, and so to serve religion, soon began to make direct and violent assaults upon the divine revelation and its docu- ments, ostensibly in the interests of morals. The foundation idea from which they started was the so-called natural religion, in which Christianity was thinned away to a general belief, taught by the reason, in a personal but almost inanimate God, who had no real contact or fellowship with man and the world. If we admit that the claims of natural religion, in the good sense of the words, were maintained against the theology which in Protestantism was growing more arrogant, and the claims of practical Christianity in the midst of dead orthodoxy, and the controversies about dogmas in the different parties; yet this opposition, which was so far justifiable, went far beyond the proper limit. Then practical Christianity became a mere natural morality, which indeed still retained the name of religion, but which in reality completely negatived religion, and even history, in the higher sense of the word. Christianity, 7.e. mere natural religion, was, they said, as old as the world: the positive and historical in religion only attached themselves incessantly as new delusions, as priestcraft, etc., to the natural or rational, which is always essentially the same. The creature in both its parts, the intellectual as well as the natural, was made separate and independent of God; therefore there could be neither religion nor miracles—there could be no redemptive revelation. A position was thus reached which was diametrically opposed to that of the Reformation. With the theologians of the Re- 250 THE DIVINE REVELATION. formation, God was everything, and the creature as nothing; with the Deists, the creature was everything, and God as nothing. We find the better sort of representatives of this school in the German Rationalism (this word here in its narrower sense), with its sincere but spiritless moralizing of Christianity. The more virulent and dangerous we find in France, where the free-thinkers had a Jesuitical Catholicism before them, in the antichristian literature of which the moral standpoint was very often turned into the immoral. If these movements were, on the whole, restricted to the religious and theological province, philosophy had, on the other hand, in the first half of the seventeenth century, entered upon a new course through the works of DESCARTES and BACON. BAcoN was at one with the Reformers in the importance he attached to experience; but while they had made the super- sensible experience of faith one of their principles, he insisted chiefly upon sensible experience and the knowledge of nature, and so contributed his part to lead the eye away from things above sense. The outward world of sense, placed in the back- ground in the religious upheaval of the Reformation, was again by Bacon restored to its place. DESCARTES, on the other hand, pierced down to the inward depths of the human spirit, in order, by doubting everything, to find the touchstone and source of the truth. Subjectivity, which set the Reformation in motion, but which also restricted it as faith in the word of God, in the person of this Catholic, educated by the Jesuits, rose in op- position to all objectivity, not excepting even the divine, though it wore still with him a dreamlike character. DESCARTES himself did not know what a mighty principle he enunciated in his Cogito ergo sum. It was the exaltation of human thought which, in the Hegelian system, at length imagined it might be regarded as being itself, as the divine fountain and fulness of all existence. There came thus to the side of the one-sided moralism already spoken of, an intellectualism which THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 251 in its principles and results was not less irreligious. Whither it would lead, might have been gathered from SprnozA—to a Pantheism which, as it caused the finite to disappear in the infinite world-substance, retains at last nothing more than the two great departments of finite being, thought and ex- tension, nature and spirit. For thought could not so easily get rid of nature as of an invisible God. It is self-evident, that from such a position as this the world of biblical revela- tion and miracles could not*but be disputed: this had been done already in the TYractatus theologico-politicus of SPINOZA himself. From that time, therefore, they went on in the main with these two ideas, nature and spirit. After the system of the great LEIBNITZ, whose German mind sought to measure and embrace all powers of being from an idealistic position, had degenerated into a pretentious popular philosophy, the not less eifted KANT, with his follower FicuTe, confined themselves to the human mind, reason, the I, in order to establish anew, and on a deeper basis, Moralism, or moralistic Rationalism. Despite all praiseworthy earnestness, these philosophers so little understood the religious nature and history of man, that they made the attempt to restrict religion to the limits of the pure reason, and from that view to undertake a “criticism of all revelation.” It was but the self-glorification and self-sufficiency of the created mind, the direct antithesis of the principle of the Reformation, which celebrated their triumph in the great ideas of the categoric inspiration and freedom. It was quite natural, therefore, that FICHTE should allow the truths concerning God and immortality, which Kant had said were postulates of the practical reason, to drop, and should set up the Ego as existing alone without a God, and certainly without a world. But this position was untenable and intolerable. SCHELLING won nature back again for mind, inasmuch as he looked upon it as being in itself intellectual, as a mind in a state of growth, and at different stages of its growth becoming, as it were, fixed. 252 THE DIVINE REVELATION. HEGEL, pursuing these ideas still further, completed a compre- hensive philosophy of nature and mind, which was imposing from its wealth of ideas and energy of thought, though it sought also to place the state, art, religion, and historic development in all these departments, and especially in that of philosophy itself, under the categories of his logical Pantheism. The mind, being logical, was the “Prius” of all; logic was theology, and the true doctrine of the world, and metaphysics altogether. In this identity of logic and metaphysics, of thinking and being, the Cartesian Cogito ergo sum arrived at its last consequences. And yet not quite the last. SCHELLING and HeGEL had con- ceived of nature intellectually ; it remained, then, to conceive of mind naturally. And that was a necessity. For mind had lost its Inner ground in God, the true support of its independent existence distinct from nature. HEGEL maintained that the divine mind had a concrete existence only in the human mind; but he connected the latter with nature, in so far as he made its personal existence to cease with the body. Nature was there- fore the ruling power over-mind. Man was a mere “exemplar” of species. As theology had become anthropomorphic, anthro- pology of necessity sank down to zoology. Idealism fell into materialism. This whole development, indeed, thus passed sentence upon itself: the later systems criticised the earlier; and the ultimate logical result, which lies before us in the Pantheism of STRAUSS and the Atheism of FEUERBACH, condemns the principle itself. But, on the other side, we would not be blind to the elements of truth which have been brought to light even here, or to the earnestness of these thinkers’ efforts. It is especially worthy of notice, that of the four pairs of thinkers, DESCARTES and SPINOZA, LerpnitTz and WoLF, KANT and FIcHTE, SCHELLING and HEGEL, the first, those who struck out the new path, were always the richer in positive truths; while those standing in the second line fell more into the one-sided intellectualistic, subjective, pantheistic character of the times. So they came to oppose the THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 253 divine revelation, even when they originally, ike WoLr and HEGEL, wished to serve and support it. In general, however, nature and mind are admitted to be great realities; and we have observed that this is not denied by the earlier Protestant- ism: it was only not taken into account sufficiently. That which the Reformation did lay stress on in man, his relation to God as affected by sin and grace, lies indeed in a higher order of things,—in the very highest, to which modern philosophy has not yet succeeded in rising. Sin presupposes freedom and self- consciousness. If, now, the earlier Protestantism did not suffi- ciently develop those ideas which are implied in the chapter recording the creation, who shall hinder free inquiry from looking at the wonders of the “Ego” of knowledge, of freedom, and of the moral law by themselves? In the intellectual sphere there obtains an ever-widening division of labour. And we see from such a historical glance as this, how limited is the horizon even of the greatest minds. As, however, the mind of fallen man is prone to take its little part for the whole, will philosophy | be in danger of taking these threshold ideas for the central truth itself, and forgetting what is higher and deeper. The recent philosophy has fallen into this error. It thought to make itself master of the higher from its low position; indeed, to absorb it into itself altogether. Not the divine revelation, however, but the philosophy itself, has perished. Nature and the mind of man, were not understood in their true nature, or they could never have seemed to oppose the true ideas of God and His revelations. The most recent wisdom of the world has thus materially contributed to the development of the modern worldly spirit, which, in its exclusive joy in this world, is in its deepest ground unspiritual and antichristian. On the other side, however, it has given manifold impulses to Christian science, and imposed new and important duties, which we may here just indicate by summing them up in one word: it has to expand our systematic theology to theosophy, and so meet the assaults of philosophy. 254 THE DIVINE REVELATION. The systems of philosophy and natural science were de- veloped, in the way we have shown, in the spirit of worldl- ness. The wisdom of the world was reinforced by its culture in literature, art, history, etc. As our religious poets had sung: Mach mir wir zuckerstiss den Himmel und gallen-bitter diese Welt (only make heaven sweet to me, and this world bitter as gall); and as Pietism in particular had secluded itself from all natural life, we can understand the reaction from this extreme in our recent national literature. The world itself is created by God: delight in it has its truth and beauty, even when it is not directly religious. The spring, love, the fatherland, move all hearts. The heaving of the inward world of feeling—the mighty striving of the spirit with itself and with the mysteries of being—the marvellous enchantment of nature and the tragic earnestness of history—life with its thousand-fold changing colours, with its sorrow and joy,—our poets have placed before our eyes in the fairest and most varied forms. In their best productions, they have drawn the ideal of noble beautiful humanity,—an ideal which in the main is right, but one only to be reached by a divine way. And this, alas! the true royal path, they have not taken. Our literature, in its coryphet,is for the most part estranged from what is highest and most Christian. Culture has taken the place of the new birth as the end of life. It is thought that a perfect humanity may be reached, not by renewal and transformation from above, but by careful education of man’s nature and its — oifts. The relation of the modern classic writers to the old also helped in a special degree to bring about this state of things. Being taken as models of form, they too often became models also in their substance. Classical antiquity, previously regarded only as a help to biblical philology, now opened up to their astonished eyes its real artistic treasures. But they idealized the life of antiquity, and confounded art with reality. The Christian became second to the classical; and in the place of Sei THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM., 255 Israel, which had never been rightly known, came in the Hellenes with their bright happy life, and unhistorically enough, these became the representatives of a humanity such as was first introduced into the world by the gospel. The misery of heathenism was never thought of. HEGEL could put the Old Testament religion below the Grecian and Roman; GoETHE could write the Bride of Corinth, even SCHILLER the Gods of Greece. The heathen history alone was regarded as real history ; the laws of all historical life and events appeared to lie in it. In comparison with the rest of men in the ancient world, the people of God were never thought of; nor was the church, com- pared with the wide-spread merely secular life of modern times. The dark middle age was ignored altogether. It actually seemed as if the Old and New Testament churches, with their claim to a higher supernatural origin, were an unwarranted exception in the world, which it was a duty to set aside. While to some this world of miracle was an arbitrary interference with all the laws of nature and history,—a province in revolt against the reason which reigned everywhere besides,—others saw in the cross of Christ and the angry severity of Jehovah, a gloomy religion causing the head to hang down in the midst of this joyful world. To the ght of our modern enlightened times, to the cheerfulness of life as well as the clearness of knowledge, the divine revelation was darkness and obscurantism. In the face of the certainty and clearness of the present world, all beyond appears to modern heathendom cloudy, uncertain, con- fused, fanatical, and narrow. Christianity itself was and is called Mysticism and Pietism. Others, who wish to give Christianity a higher place, say (and this is language frequently heard now) that we must make our idea of it so wide, that a LEssinc, Gorruz, HUMBOLDT, etc., may have a place in it. Many go so far as to say, that they would not care for a heaven where these men were amissing. Such language witnesses not only to an entire loss of the spiritual discernment of Christianity, but also to a great obscu- 256 THE DIVINE REVELATION. ration of the natural judgment concerning art and science. It is evident that these two departments are relatively very distinct from the characters of those who occupy them. A man may be a ereat artist, or distinguished man of science, and yet stand very low asa man. The work here does not necessarily always praise the master. A GOETHE or HUMBOLDT would, as their known character indicates, be very pleased with the homage of such admirers for a little while; but they would soon find them far too insignificant and wearisome to think them worthy of a longer or an everlasting fellowship. The self-denying, sacri- ficing love, which constitutes the soul of Christianity, is not. exactly what we find in these intellectual heroes. If our Lord had acted upon the principle of HumBo.Lprt, that we owe truth only to those whom we deeply respect, where would have been the preaching of the gospel and the redemption of the sinful world? These modern apostles hold quite a different principle from that of Jesus, as they themselves indeed confess. Let us not try to make them what they themselves have no desire to be. On the whole, however, this language is nothing else than a new way of dragging Christianity down to the level of the culture and humanity of our day. Our task, in respect to these views, will be to exhibit and unfold the divinity of the old Christianity, as the one true strength of humanity. The Son of God is also the Son of man, the perfect man. A pure and genuine human life can bloom, and has actually sprung, from a divine root, but not before the impure humanity is consigned to death. Natural science has often been used in recent times as one of the principal weapons against Christianity. As early as the time of the Reformation, the knowledge of the earth and the heavens was extending with rapid strides. The concurrence of the discovery of America and the Copernican system, with the revival of the church, is one of the greatest events in the history of divine providence. The very fathers of the modern ~ THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 257 view of the universe, COPERNICUS, KEPLER, NEWTON, were indeed devout evangelical Christians; but when the secular spirit began to prevail in the eighteenth century, the Coperni- can system seemed, to superficial thinkers, inconsistent with the Christian one; and even earnest men found a difficulty in the thought that a small planet, of a small solar system, should be the scene of the incarnation of God. In the course of the later centuries, physics and chemistry, anatomy and physiology, and in general everything known as exact natural science, made amazing progress. The more men came upon the track of law, in the particular phenomena of nature, the more they became accustomed to regard all nature as a machine acting according to law; and they took such a view of it, that they left no room for miracle. It will be shown further on, that this view of nature is an untrue one, and that miracle is no interruption of its laws; but the conclusion was adopted in wide circles, that faith in miracles and exact science were incompatible. We have now, therefore, principally to consider the practical worth and force of the results of modern science. The discovery of America and the passage to India had given an impetus to trade and commerce such as they never had before; and this, in the eourse of the centuries, had been ever increasing. It introduced great changes in town life, and in the manners and opinions of the civilised world. This development was incredibly strengthened by modern scientific discovery, and by the inventions connected with it: machines of all sorts, steam-ships, railways, and electric telegraphs, began to spread over the earth; industry allied itself to trade, as a power of ever-growing importance. The idea of a dominion over nature was thus entertained by natural science. This seemed to be the true wonder-worker, the benefactress of the world. The inventive mind of man won ever new glory and praise. The homage, amounting to idolatry, paid in all parts of the world to ALEXANDER VON HuMBoLDT, and his magnificent R v@ 258 THE DIVINE REVELATION. work, embracing all natural science, which bears the exceedingly characteristic inscription Cosmos on its brow, is the expression of this side of the modern secular spirit. SCHILLER’s idea of progress—an idea which prevails in the minds of most of our contemporaries—is specially connected with this development : they say the age of happiness and prosperity for all is dawn- ing, in which both culture and freedom will be fully enjoyed ;_ it is, however, rather a cotton than a golden age. Still there are, in these improvements of the outward life, many elements which are in themselves good. But our contemporaries are so blinded by them, that the sense of the divine foundation of life is lost; and it is not considered that outward progress, with moral and religious declension, brings with it far more dangers and losses than true gain. Our present generation needs that word: “What shall it profit a man, though he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” It is most evident, and indeed it is generally confessed, that we are sinking ever deeper into the service and restraints of the visible, and becoming more entangled in the net of material interests. Many frightful examples show how, through the service of mammon in high and low, not only religious feeling, but even the moral sense and its influence, is lost. The modern scientific materialism is but the natural outcome of this whole mode of thought and life. It prevails now, not always consciously, but really in millions of minds. These phenomena have had the good effect of making men see, at least theoretically, that science was over- stepping its limits when it ventured to touch the higher and highest life of the mind. Here too, however, there are great scientific and practical tasks remaining for the church. She must strive after the gifts of the Spirit from above; for this Spirit alone is able to overcome, with His light and power, the reign of nature in science and life: the spirit of man cannot do it. Lastly, we must glance at our political and social life for a moment. Even before the Reformation the states and national- ities had begun to emancipate themselves from the church. This THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 259 tendency was one of the secondary factors working along with others to bring about the Reformation. On the other hand, it “was considerably strengthened by the latter, as the Evangelical Church not only acknowledged the secular power to be an independent, divine ordinance, but itself became incorporated with the state. The Catholic States, too, had more freedom after the power of the Pope was so diminished. In Protestant countries the church had at first, so long as religion was a sub- stantial power in the hfe of the people, a very extensive infiu- ence. But when, in the course of the seventeenth century, and especially since the Thirty Years’ War, the secular interests of power, trade, etc., became so prominent, the independence of the state was more and more developed. In fact, it became almost supreme. It found its historical expression in absolute monarchy. There are, however, two forms of this—the French- Catholic and German-Protestant, to say nothing of the Russo- Grecian, Peter the Great. The German form, as determined by FREDERICK, THE GREAT, consisted in an enlightened care for the welfare and progress of the people. In France, on the contrary, the Vetat cest mot was held by the kings in a purely egotistic sense; and if Egoism appeared in LOovIS xIv. with some dignity and splendour, under Louis xv. it sank to a shameless and dis- solute pursuit of pleasure by the court. Then came the con- sequences. If Germany followed mainly the ideal of culture, and England that of prosperity, France followed that of liberty. The modern idea of the autonomy of the mind of man was there understood politically, and out of it was developed the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, in which the people took from the mouth of the king his Vetat cest moi; out of this doctrine sprung the Revolution, which, in the following years, strengthened by sins in high and low, made and is making the round of Europe. Carried over from the state to social life, and united to the industrial spirit before referred to, these views, according to which men look on themselves as creators of a new order of things, produced the theories of communism and 260 THE DIVINE REVELATION. socialism. This politico-social autonomism, which has become in our time so prevalent, though not always in its extremest forms, and often in an indistinct and half unconscious way, has for its foundation the negation of revelation—that of the past, for it rests on man’s own strength, and casts away the divine bonds,—and also that of the future, for it professes to bring in by an arm of flesh a condition of human well- being and national glory, which we believe shall first appear when the Lord shall come again, and the kingdoms of this world shall bow beneath His peaceful sceptre. The self- sufficient creature can indeed destroy, but not create. The world has no real support in itself. If the national life is once cut off from the true fountain of its sustenance in God, then it cannot but be that its development should go on in perpetual changes, and in ever greater storm and shock, which must at. last cause the dissolution of the whole, unless it is followed by an inward renewal. (2.) Results. If we look over the last two centuries, so far as they now concern us, a gigantic movement of mind, worthy of all admi- ration, presents itself to us in all departments. A host of old, rigid, useless forms of lfe and knowledge are broken up, and everywhere that which is agreeable to nature and reason takes their place. What men had ever possessed of art and science is taken up anew, and almost entirely and independently de- veloped. New sciences rise in great numbers. History is in- vestigated with a thoroughness and breadth never seen before. The study of nature surpasses in compass and practical import- ance that of all previous centuries. The ideal toils and efforts of philosophy and poesy flourish. The nature of man in its intellectual and esthetic, im its moral and political aspects, is set In motion as well as studied. But the highest good of man is neglected. Religion, which in the sixteenth and seventeenth THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 261 centuries had been the ruling principle, often seems in the eighteenth and nineteenth to have disappeared from the earth. And if it is thought, on one side, that some cheering traces of a coming spring may be seen; we are, on the other, always again reminded of Hegel’s words, ‘The owls of Minerva begin to fly at eventide.’ In Greece and Rome the ripest bloom of poetry and philosophy, science and art, was concurrent with the approach of twilight, with the destruction of the power and substance of the people, and the departure of their old strength, simplicity, and piety. The Alexandrian age and the time of the emperors fol- lowed ; and how many things in our days remind us of these periods ! It is an affluent world this modern one. And as Egypt once had to serve the departing Israel with its treasures ; so must these modern treasures, also, of knowledge and capacity, render manifold services to the kingdom of God. The advances in out- ward civilised life help the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth; and the invention of new means of intercourse comes along with the general awaking of missionary zeal, in a similarly providential way with the imvention of printing at the Refor- mation. The progress of the sciences is also a great advantage, in many ways, in promoting the knowledge of the Bible and its documents, It furnishes not only an abundance of lnguistic, archeological, and such-like aids; but also, which is more import- ant for a right understanding of Scripture, the historic, peetie, and philosophic spirit has been awakened, and liberated from the fetters of a restricted dogmatism. Besides this, nature and history are themselves also scenes of divine revelation, and serve, the more exactly they are studied, to further the know- ledge of God. But the modern world of ideas is a world with- out God. In all departments in theology and philosophy, in literature and education, in pure and applied science, in poli- tical and social life, the autonomic and cosmic principle, the self-clory of the human mind and an ungodly worldliness, has set itself in opposition to the principles of evangelical religion. 262 THE DIVINE REVELATION. The opposing principles have been openly and distinctly stated; for religion is the union of man to God, and is opposed, on one hand, to the idea of human self-righteousness and sufficiency, and on the other, to worldliness and exclusive regard to the seen (Rom. iii. ete.; Heb. xi). Herein lies the contribution which Rationalism has furnished to the development of the antichristian spirit. It is necessary, therefore, carefully to distinguish what is warranted and what is not, in the intellectual work and effort of our time. We have in this respect a similar task in regard to Rationalism, with that the Reformation had in regard to Human- ism. The accomplishment of it demands severe and prolonged mental toil, of which beginnings are now being made in all departments. In that which we occupy—the theological, the modern principle is reason versus revelation, knowledge versus faith. Even here we must distinguish between the true and the false. For in that which is usually opposed to revelation as reason, two very different elements are joined together m a way that is unjustifiable and causes confusion,—these are the rational and the rationalistic. On one hand, by reason is meant the human mind in its nature, its intellectual and moral equipment ; on the other, it is conceived of as a self-sufficient divine essence, so that it excludes everything superhuman, and becomes the representative of that view of things which, during the last two centuries, has rejected supernaturalism of every sort. The appearance of truth, and the scientific character with which the modern opposition to Christianity has surrounded itself, rest upon the fact that the second idea has been thrust into the first, so that this particular doctrine, though essentially false, has been given forth as if implied in the nature of man itself. Because man is a rational being, it is assumed that he must be a rationalist. This illusion is now being gradually dispelled. Revelation has to come to an understanding, not with one but with two elements—with human nature and with the modern antichristian views. The THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 263 last of these are to be refuted. As far as the nature of man is concerned, we have the given facts before us, to which revelation must not be in opposition, if it is to be the truth, namely, the facts of our intellectual, moral, and religious being, the facts of reason and conscience,—in short, the entire intellec- tual endowment of man as a created being, on one side sinful, on the other personal, and still bearing traces of the image of God. These facts Christianity must have for itself; these are its points of contact with man: it must be shown that the nature of man needs, demands, and predicts the divine revela- tion; that by itself, without Christianity, it cannot attain to its own ideal and destiny; and that the Christian is the true man. It must be shown that the human need and the divine gift of life cover and correspond to one another; that they are for one another in the same way as the earth and the sun, the womanly nature and the manly; indeed, the Scriptures often compare the revelation of God to His people, of Christ to His church, with marriage. Revelation would thus be exhibited in its reasonableness; and reason would be restored to its right position as the receptive and perceptive, not as the creative, self-sufficient faculty; as a human, not a divine principle. The service of Rationalism consists in havmeg compelled Christian science to seek out the points of contact Christianity has in man’s nature, and so to acquire a more vivid and scrip- tural conception of the relation between the divine and human. The earlier Protestantism, as we have seen, gave exclusive attention to the ideas of sin and grace, and kept back those of the Creator and creature, and therefore thought of man as simply passive before God, not as receptive—a being who is free to accept. In opposition to the passivity of the “block and stone,” as the fallen man was called, there arose the perverted activity of the human autonomy. The truth in the case is, free receptivity. The old Protestant leading idea of man was that of sin, the Rationalistic is that of reason: in our time, the idea of conscience is becoming ever of more importance; and 264 THE DIVINE REVELATION. conscience is, on one side, a witness to the sinfulness of man, and, on the other, to his original relation to God. The clearer views of the relation between God and man, the stress now laid on the human, and in connection with it on the historical, and on development, have already become the common possession of the most diverse parties among the believing theologians of our time. Whether those who labour in the theological field at the present day start from an ecclesi- astical, or biblical, or speculative standpoint, there is in the whole mode of looking at, thinking of, and exhibiting the subject, something common to all, which distinguishes us just as decidedly from the earlier Protestantism, especially in respect to form, as, in a material point of view, it separates us from Rationalism. Indeed, in regard to scientific method we stand, consciously or unconsciously, nearer the latter than the former; though we are at one with the former in the confession of evangelical truth. Modern authors have, as the ancient classic writers, poets, philosophers, historians, etc., had, a great influence on the church in matters of form. With a new form, however, a new and deeper compre- hension of the matter and substance is always connected. This new spirit may be perceived in all directions and in all branches of theology. The Old Testament is opened up in all the course and progress of its revelations with a vividness never before seen in the church; the person of the Redeemer stands before us ever more effulgent in all the moral and human truth of his life, rising sublimely from its divine foundation; in the views of the work of reconciliation, the legalistic rigidity of earlier times has been touched with new life; the character of the apostles and the historical features of the primitive church come out with growing distinctness; and the place and importance of the church in relation to the great development of the kingdom of God, both past and future, are being more and more recognised. All these are indeed but beginnings, which, by faithful labour, by mutual friction THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 265 and correction, must be yet further developed. But they are beginnings of a work in which it is a pleasure and joy to have any share. We shall, further on, go more at length into their history. On the other side, the deep essential falsehood and corrup- tion of the autonomic, cosmic tendency has already been made manifest by its consequences in the history of the world. The practical consequence of it is Revolution, with its not less fright- ful companion, Despotism ; the theoretic consequence is Mate- rialism, which at last annihilates not only Christianity, or what is called blind faith, but even science and art, as well as all moral and political life, and drags all humanity down to besti- ality. Since these consequences have become apparent in the middle of the nineteenth century, a panic has seized the minds of men in many circles. They shrink back from the abysses which yawn before their eyes, and fly back as far as they can go, some centuries at least, and arrive at last at Catholicism. Not only have some of the extremest standard-bearers of modern intellect become Catholic, such as DAUMER and the Countess vVoN HAnuN-HAHN; not only has the Romish Church gained con- siderably in outward power during the last few years through the reaction, but in the midst of evangelical belhevers them- selves, a catholicizing tendency of no inconsiderable strength has become manifest, which would load the minds of men with the apparatus of external authority, and which sees salvation chiefly in the maintenance of Christian institutions. True Protestantism, therefore, stands to-day between foes on the right and the left, as the Reformers did between the Pope and the ecclesiastical and political destructives. Only the struggle is now much hotter and more fundamental; and alas! the powers which we have so far at our disposal are not greater in the same degree, but the contrary. We are perplexed, but not in despair. Neither by concessions to unbelief, nor by making the gospel into law and making flesh our arm, will we serve the cause of God. In opposition to every form of human tradition 266 THE DIVINE REVELATION. we continue Protestant, free in our faith, as in opposition to every sort of false freedom we continue Evangelical, standing firm by the word of God. The weapons of our warfare are spiritual—faith, and the word; a free and joyful conviction which comes in as a personal witness for the Saviour, of whom we have living experience; and the divine revelation to which the Scriptures testify, which is demonstrated to be the very: highest thing in the world—to be the history of history. We shall not allow the second weapon, the word of Scripture, to be wrested from us, not even under the most plausible pretence. They must leave the word of God standing ever. If we thus conduct an honourable controversy, we shall not perhaps gain any very briliant victory, but we shall do our duty, and shall have joy in the day of His future. And it will become true in a different sense from what many think: the kingdom must continue unto us. b. The Criticism of the Bible. If the word inspiration in reference to the Scriptures was characteristic of the early Protestant orthodoxy, the word criticism is characteristic of the Rationalistic age, whose watch- word was, “ Everything to the test of reason!” At present, and in the immediate future, perhaps the idea of the history of revela- tion, in deed, word, or doctrine, and Scriptures will acquire a similar significance. Even SCHLEIERMACHER remarked that the word criticism is very hard to understand as an actual unity. In order to avoid the confusion which has arisen from the un- certainty of the use of words, and to see clearly the limits within which criticism is a right and duty, we must keep the different sides of the idea distinct and separate. We must distinguish between textual, literary, historical, and dogmatic criticism. The Scriptures are a collection of ancient documents, and the very first duty for the right use of them is the restoration THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 267 of the original text. It is well known what has been done in this respect by WETSTEIN, BENGEL, and GRIESBACH, and down to LACHMAN and TISCHENDORF, by a comparison of the manu- scripts and other ancient authorities. The fruit of this first exercise of criticism is the various editions of the Old and New Testaments with their critical apparatus. Upon the ground of the textual there then arose the literary criticism, which has been, as the higher criticism, made to follow after the lower, the textual, inasmuch as the investigations into the authenticity of the biblical books were allotted to it, and those into the integrity of them to text-criticism. Literary criticism investigates the single books in their internal pecu- liarities, and estimates them historically; it thus has to go into the question concerning their origin, the time and place, occasion and object of their composition, their place and value in the entire body of biblical revelation. Literary criticism falls again into two parts, the external and internal, of which the first deals with the so-called external testimonies, ¢.g. in the New Testament, the opinions of the fathers upon the rise of the different books, the old citations from them, and such lke; while the second looks at the books themselves, and seeks to draw from their contents as a whole and as parts the relations out of which they originated. External criticism is the field in which the literary connects with the text criticism: both have to draw their conclusions partly from the same ancient sources. An inference as to the time when a whole book or certain parts of it were composed, may be drawn from the character of some words or sentences in it. Even in these lower provinces, but especially in internal criticism, the subjective judgement of the eritic has considerable scope. This is the case particularly in the Old Testament. Here there is almost no external testimony ; and even the language or its development does not offer many secure points we can lay hold of. This field has accordingly ‘been in an especial degree the theatre of war between different hypotheses, on which for centuries the most opposite opinions 268 THE DIVINE REVELATION. have emerged often simultaneously, or in quick succession, on many points. The investigation has not come to any definite close. This is the case with respect to the Pentateuch, the writings of John in their mutual relations, etc.; and it is not likely that a final decision will soon be reached. ‘The result of all these inquiries is embraced by that science, which is now usually called “ Introduction” to the Old and New Testaments, and which has lately been understood and treated more and more scientifically as the history of biblical literature, in con- nection with the history of the entire revelation. When such a historical view of the Scriptures as a whole, and in its parts, has been reached, then it may be employed scientifically to ascertain and set forth the history of divine revelation in word and deed. As the Scriptures furnish a variety of sources for such a history, e.g. in the different Gospels, a mode of treatment is required here too, which aims at a com- parison and reconciliation of the different sources with one another, in order to obtain as faithful and complete a represen- tation as possible of the divine doings and sayings. ‘This har- monistic process may also be called critical, in so far as it seeks to discover the real state of the facts from an investigation and estimate of the different accounts. And it is this which we have described as historic criticism. The result of the historic element thus introduced is biblical history (in the higher scien- tific sense of the word, the histories of the old and new cove- nant), and biblical theology (history of doctrine). Lastly, we have spoken also of dogmatic criticism, certainly not as. acknowledging that it is really so, but only to use the right expression for that in modern criticism which is to be rejected. There is not merely an orthodox, but also a rational- istic dogmatism. It denies the possibility of a true revelation, of miracle and prophecy more or less fundamentally, even before coming to the Scriptures at all, and begins critical action upon the foundation of this preconceived opinion. In the introduc- tion to this work, some characteristic expressions of leading THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 269 representatives of modern criticism have been already quoted. They clearly and openly profess this to be their method, and eall it the true historic one. EWaALp, Baur, and others con- stantly claim to be the representatives of genuine historical criticism. That would be correct if the error we have disputed in the first part of our work were truth, namely, that true historical study of Scripture is to bring down the sacred history to the level of profane, if it were indeed part of the idea of history that it should be without miracles. So long, however, as the highest law in the writing of history is to get at the actual facts from the various original sources; so long as we have to measure theories by facts, and not facts by theories,— such criticism as this must be called a dogmatic or dogmatistic, an unhistorical or antihistorical criticism. If we have been ~ compelled to describe the old Protestant doctrine of inspiration as dogmatistic, the rationalistic biblical criticism is obnoxious to a similar objection. It is therefore to be avoided and re- jected by true science, as well as by true faith, which last has always acknowledged the Scriptures to be worthy of belief, on the ground of the ward witness of the Holy Spirit, and the concurrent testimony of the church in all ages. Only in one sense is dogmatic biblical criticism just, that is, in the sense in which the apostle’s words may be applied to the books of the Bible: “He that is spiritual judgeth all things” (1 Cor. 1. 15). Such a criticism, however, is not possible from a rationalistic standpoint, which is alien from the spirit of the sacred Scriptures, nor from mere philological and historical points of view; it is only possible when one, by the operation of the Spirit, has been brought into inward unison with the mind and essence of the word of revelation—with the mind of Christ (ver. 16). From such a position the single books of Scripture are estimated, and a different value ascribed to them according as they are occupied with Christ, that is, as they stand in closer or remoter connection with the central point of the gospel. Thus the Old Testament is less central 270 THE DIVINE REVELATION. than the New, the Book of Esther than Genesis, Ecclesiastes than Isaiah, the Epistle of James than that to the Romans, though to all of these is given their essential place and signifi- cation in the entire Bible. It is quite common for the devout mind, in the practical use of the Scriptures, for edification, to make such distinctions, though it is often done unconsciously and involuntarily ; and no one has been bolder in this respect than he to whom we are accustomed to look up as one of the most spiritual men since the days of the apostles, Luther. His well-known opinions concerning the Epistle of James and other biblical books are not indeed to be followed, and they admonish us to care and humility in this matter. But if Scripture is now so often and rightly called an organism, it must also have its more and less honourable members. If the mechanical theory \ of inspiration is wrong; if the individuality of the human author and the historical development of revelation is not only acknowledged, but is regarded as essential and significant,—then a principal point of view is furnished for the unbiassed historical study of the Bible; and this point of view by no means tends to lower the word of God, but rather serves to open up and enhance its manifold wealth, and to reveal the wisdom of God in educating men by providing for their most varied wants and for the different stages of their progress. The clearest example of this is the Gospels, rising wp in an ascending line from Mark to John. This kind of dogmatic criticism, however, the spiritual, is wide as the heavens distinct from the unspiritual criticism of a rationalistic dogmatism. (1.) Zhe Criticism of Rationalistic Dogmatism in us different Phases. In point of fact, the biblical criticism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has proceeded mainly from the rational- istic dogmatism. It is only a part of that entire system which makes the lower the measure of the higher, the cosmical the THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 271 measure of the divine, the present the measure of earlier, greater times, and even of the primeval creative periods. The ultimate consequence of this method is the derivation of the life of mind from matter. A similar method is seen also in the study of nature and history. Geogonic views, which, notwithstanding all geological discovery, are regulated by the standard of that which is now taking place in the earth, and hence set millions of years for less important processes In its preparation, arise from the same limited vision which, while baffled by the very least, ventures to approach the very greatest. Of this kind is a mode of writing history, which, rejecting tradition with an uncritical criticism, and having no true sympathy with the spirit of these days of old, interprets antiquity, eg. ancient Rome, with an utterly modern mind, and according to modern categories. Such procedure may for a while exercise influence, and be thought bold and piquant; it may be learned, acute, and ingenious; but the anointing of true science will soon be missed in it. “The thoughts and circumstances of the nineteenth cen- tury,’ says a jurist and historian, “are utterly inadequate as a standard for the ancient world. The modern yard-measure is too short to measure the power and greatness of those men and things. With shame, not with presumption, should our pigmy generation look up to the strength and loftiness of mind that distinguished the ancient world and its peoples. The gulf which divides them from us, is deeper than that which sepa- rates the royal structures of Egypt from Trianon or Sans Souci. The modern opinions concerning the great characters of anti- quity, remind us of the conduct of those painters of the last century who introduced Greeks and Romans into their pictures in the costume of the courtiers of Louis the Fourteenth. What the self-complacent nineteenth century, and some of those trained in the culture of the day, who are penetrated by modern ideas, think of Rome and Greece, cannot compensate or take 1 See Note G 3. | 272 THE DIVINE REVELATION. the place of the actual history which has been handed down. From their words we learn what they themselves are, not what the ancients were. It is from this alone they have now any importance. Future generations may learn from them to what a stage of temerity and perversity a certain mode of thought attained, which preferred the shifting sand of changing per- sonal opinion to the solid ground of fact. We may say of such treatment of these subjects with SIMONIDES, ‘It has not recog- nised the lion from the claw, but has constructed heaven and earth anew by wick and lamp.’ Scribendo res antiquas antiquior mihi fit animus. That is the sign and reward of true history. Livy could thus boast concerning himself. Our modern authors, however, prefer to dispose of the records, and to come before the people of ancient times, not for the purpose of raising their minds, so that they might understand them, by continued and profound study, but to bring them down to their own level, and to reduce their greatness to the narrow proportions of their own brain. Their works, therefore, lead the reader ever further and further away from the true spirit of antiquity. We are at last left quite in the dark in the midst of the confused dialectics of the day. No bond of inward sympathy connects these authors with the subject which they have selected for treatment. Who- ever lacks such sympathy must not presume to take the pen of the historian in his hand. He should select other departments of the science of antiquity, copy epitaphs, reckon cycles of the world, and explain the grammar of déad languages. Heroic nations must be studied with a freer and higher spirit. To demand proof of historical reports is absurd; to set up the de- fect of perfect agreement in little details, or chronological un- certainty, or great space of time between the authors and the events they relate, in order to show that they are not correct, is a foolish misunderstanding of the nature of all national traditions. There is no criticism but that which lies in the very matter itself. Everything carries the law by which it is to be deter- mined only in itself. To explain all difficulties will never be THE ELDER PROTESTANTISM AND RATIONALISM. 273 possible. Just as little is it possible to comprehend everything. If everything wonderful is to disappear, then we must first of all strike out and deny Rome itself, the greatest of all miracles. The supposed solution of an enigma in history produces a hun- dred new ones. Like cloud-structures, arbitrary and transitory as they, the new combinations then follow on one another. What a variety of them has passed before us since NIEBUHR’S days! The absurdities of a summer night’s dream could hardly press one another in more motley succession. And all of them lay claim to that unconditional faith which is denied to the accounts of the ancients themselves. These were thrown over- board with ever-growing contempt. The ancient authors seemed to exist only for the purpose of giving, by parts arbitrarily ex- tracted, the appearance of strict inquiry to airy fancies, which indeed seldom had even the semblance of probability. Rome might boast of having become the sort of common land on which, in passing, every crude imagining might be thrown with impunity. That which peculiarly distinguishes this negative tendency, is the enmity to prominent characters. One after the other they are made to pass away into cloud and dust. To such a dizzy height had criticism risen, that, looking from its seat in the clouds, all things on earth seemed like an indis- tinguishable heap. It seemed to have exalted the monotony of the North German heathen to be the prototype of the life of ancient nations. Rome had to submit patiently while the work of emasculation was completed upon it. History makes itself. A natural organism, like a plant, a nation rises, grows, and falls, without any room being made for the action of great men, in forming and leading the destinies of their age. However, a man, and even a learned man, must acknowledge something higher than himself. If he has satisfied his critical needs, in opposing the ancients, he feels a double call to bend the head abjectly before modern authorities. He comes back to that respect for personal greatness, whose higher significance in the develop- ment of earlier times he would not admit at all. How puzzling s 274 THE DIVINE REVELATION. and full of contradictions is the mind of man! How much more he feels at home in the society of his equals! To all ereater than himself he still cries, ‘Depart out of our coasts.’ Who could hear and rightly judge of that in other nations, of which one’s own nation has no share, and which is rejected by one’s own time? What has the old state constitution to do with religion? How far Rome would sink in our estimation, if it should actually appear that its whole state rights, its whole life, the very greatness of its best times, rest upon a religious foundation, and everything should appear in the lght of a religious act!